“Budd Campbell”
Many more people read this blog than comment on it. Recently the person who calls himself “Budd Campbell” has, once again, started to dominate the discussion.
I am of two minds. On the one hand, he is a useful avatar for the forces of darkness (even if he does claim to dislike the SFPR) and Kevin Falcon and the real Campbell have never, and will never, post here. On the other hand he uses up a lot of time I could spend doing other things.
I have set up a survey. Your answers will be confidential and you may only answer once . After I get a significant number of responses I will publish the total numbers and abide by the will of the majority
Because this is my blog, I get to decide to decide what “a significant number” is and how long this survey runs.
And of course I do realise that Budd can simply log on from multiple computers and vote for himself, but as he has not got the time to write his own blog, I somehow doubt he will bother.
You can also email me (see the “about” page) if you think this process is unacceptable – but I will ignore posts from email addresses I am unable to verify
Stephen Rees's blog 
Stephen,
Rest assured I have never voted for myself in my entire life! I’ll be amused to see the results of your poll. After all, what’s to prevent others from doing what you said I might do!
Budd Campbell
January 21, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Budd
Nothing at all – but it does allow the really committed to influence my choice
Ain’t democracy wonderful? Remember folks, vote early, vote often!
Stephen Rees
January 21, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Oh, so you *do* know Budd Campbell? I don’t, but he just visited my blog (I had a post on the Provincial Transit Plan and the case of Mexico City).
http://hummingbird604.blogspot.com/2008/01/provincial-transit-plan-and-mexico.html
Raul
January 21, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Well you wouldn’t be the first website to ban Budd, if that’s the route you want to follow. And really, the decision is yours to make. I’ve heard him mention that rabble.ca banned him a few years ago. “Budd” comments on a good chunk of the blogs I read, so I’m well acquainted with his opinions and antics.
My biggest beef with Budd is the length of his comments, not necessarily his opinions (which sometimes are interesting). Really, he needs to start his own blog instead of writing long comments on everyone else’s blogs. He clearly has the time and no shortage of opinions to share.
Chris
January 21, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Long time lurker, first time commenter.
I am a bit surprised to discover that disagreeing with your opinions, politely as far as I can tell, can get you banned. If you’d prefer not having to spend time responding to counter-arguments you may have picked the wrong medium, perhaps you could try to get a job with CanWest.
Mark Allerton
January 21, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Mark
I can tolerate all sorts of opinions. BC has been around this way once before and I decided he was a “troll” i.e. someone who is simply interested in getting lots of attention. I think it is analogous to “counting coup”. We corresponded off line, and I introduced moderation, which meant I looked at everything before it was posted. Eventually I relaxed that to the point where only new posters get moderated.
As Chris points out it is the volume of his comments – and the fact that no matter what I say he goes over the same ground many times. But he may have some entertainment value – which is why I decided to try a poll.
On other bits of the internet (usenet news groups for instance) the rule is “do not feed the trolls” but then they tend not to be moderated.
Can West would never hire someone like me.
Stephen Rees
January 21, 2008 at 4:09 pm
maybe i was an enabler for Budd, with some of my comments made about congestion and new urbanism (which were merely a temporary misdirection after reading some panglossian, antiplanning books – sprawl: a compact history and “best laid plans”). Fortunately i’ve resolved much of the issues i had with new urbanism. Kunstler’s home from nowhere and several good journal articles helped me out much. I’ll learn to tread more carefully the dark abyss that is libertarianism.
sustainatarian
January 21, 2008 at 7:23 pm
” … and the fact that no matter what I say he goes over the same ground many times.”
Stephen are you really trying to say there are no repeated themes or ideas in your own comments?
Budd Campbell
January 22, 2008 at 8:36 am
Someone wrote to me
> if he had been talking like
> that in my own living room, I would have asked him to leave
I wish you, Budd, to remember that this is my blog. It is not the equivalent of a public meeting but rather a “salon”. Of course I repeat myself. If I am boring you, you are free to leave at any time. But this is my place not yours. Your behaviour, here and elsewhere, is always very close to the line of being boorish and ill mannered.
As I said, I will abide by the opinion of those in the room. But you must remind yourself before you post here that you have been warned – more than once. I suggest that it would be wise to err on the side of caution if you wish to be able to comment here. As I have said you are quite free to open your own blog – and you may be assured I will not bore you there.
Stephen Rees
January 22, 2008 at 10:27 am
To Stephen and others in this here salon, …
I just thought I would take this moment to lighten the atmosphere a lttle by telling everyone the humble etymology of the nom de plume, “Budd Campbell”, which actually started out as Bud Campbell.
It’s a derivative name coined in the late 1980s, and some may be surprised to know that it owes nothing to Gordon Campbell and was never designed as a take off on the initials B.C. It was taken from two Socred welterweights of the VanderZalm epoch, Kim Campbell, an NPA school trustee who loathed teachers all the way to the Prime Minister’s office, and Bud Smith, the once upon a time rising star Attorney General, whose career imploded after his car phone calls went public, but not before he gave us all the Coquihalla Hwy, cost overuns and all. There was a companion name, Kim Smith, which had the advantage of being somewhat androgynous, but didn’t have the essential beer parlour ring to it. So that’s how Bud Campbell came to be, … but how did he become Budd Campbell?
That has to do with the registration screens of rabble.ca. I accidentally typed in a second “b” and got stuck with it, at least for the several months I was on babble prior to being banned for offending Audra and Michelle’s various sidekicks and sock puppets. Once I got used to the idiosyncratic Budd, I couldn’t part with it. So that’s why the name is Budd Campbell by the email address is budcampbell@hotmail.com.
The Budd Campbell name development process stemmed from an earlier effort. During the days in which Jerry Lampert and Patrick Kinsella were the most powerful political operatives in Premier Bill Bennett’s Socred machine, I used the name Patick Jerry for various political pranks. In this case, there was no usable companion name.
Budd Campbell
January 23, 2008 at 9:57 am
I learned today through twitter of the death of Rodney Smelser. Thomas Mulcair described him as “a great NDP activist from Maple Ridge”. There is a tribute to him at http://blogs.canoe.ca/davidakin/bc-politics/rod-smelser-1950-2013/ from which I learned that he was a retired federal government economist and a year younger than I. In fact the tribute is actually mostly a copy of a tribute to someone else and includes this about political discourse: “We want to know that others are listening to us.That we will not be insulted, demeaned, or hollered at for what we say about politics in this country.”
Rodney Smelser used the on-line persona of Budd Campbell.
At the time of his death he was only one of three people who was unwelcome on this blog, though of course there were interactions on twitter where he used his real name. I ignored them.
There is a long standing convention which is expressed in Latin de mortuis nil nisi bonum so I shall leave it at that.
Stephen Rees
December 18, 2013 at 12:08 pm