Not a lot of time - my panel begins in 20 minutes... But I wanted to let y'all know that regardless of how you came out on the Falafel Bill thing, well, I took nothing personally, and, in fact, have a mea culpa to make.
I blame it on lack of sleep. Generally I've got pretty thick skin, but the morning of... well, I was startled by the controversy, full of adrenaline from the encounter and working on less than 6 hours of sleep over the previous 72 hours of planning... When I told dissenters to get out of my diary I was wrong and I apologize for that. It's kinda like muting someone's microphone.
A special word to Scout Finch. The diary you wrote could not have come from a more trusted source. I've seen you throughout the community and think your work is great. You're wrong here ;-) but that's obviously debatable to say the least. Just wanted you to know that I disagree with you, but appreciated your viewpoint.
(more)
You know, short of changing my name to "Notorious" Mike (or... Jumped the Stark (thanks to NYBri for that one ;-)), I'm not sure there's a lot I can say to many of you that will do anything to reconcile our worldviews. It may be that nothing will get us to see eye to eye.
My last stab at it would be to point out that for 10 years this guy has been one of the most effective propagandists in history and he has never once had to pay a personal price for his mendacity. Never once. Even after the Mackris thing, he didn't lose a day of work.
So yeah, I'd do it again. It is good for the heart for me to know that one of the most important Bush/Cheney/Rove/War cheerleaders finally paid some small personal price for his disgusting record of amoral deceit.