Steve Plever,

You are making two charges against me:

1: That I told Jake a bold-faced lie in an attempt to "present the image" that you are part of a Rags office-directed conspiracy to create conflict on this board.

This is what I wrote to Jake: "This from a guy whose office was encouraging Plever to harass JB on the TG board."

The present-the-image-of-a-conspiracy part is patently, pathologically ludicrous. Jake had just blasted JB for not confining his posts to his own board, and I was pointing out that you were getting encouragement from Jake's office to post on JB's board.

Your point about the encouragement (thanks and chuckles) coming after the fact is demented logic. Encouragement after one fact sets up similar facts in the future. That is the whole point of encouragement. If I cheer Patrick Roy for making a great save, it's because I appreciate what he did and want him to do it again.

You harassed JB for several years. In April of last year, you wrote that you received "thanks" and "chuckles," and that "LATER" (emphasis mine) they told you to stop because it was "futile." Well, it obviously wasn't "futile" at the time they were giving you encouragement through thanks and chuckles, which means something happened in the interim: JB started kicking the hell out of you and your points. To imply otherwise is utterly insane. It is to say to Patrick Roy: "Great save. Don't do it again. It's futile."

And now we get to your second charge:

2: I violated the sanctity of private email by posting your comments about the encouragement you received from Ragozin's office.

You've got a bit of a problem here, Steve. I did NOTHING of the kind. I didn't get your comments from an email. Every single word came from your post of April 6th, 2001: titled: "before it's deleted." It is in the archives.

And you've got another problem, Steve. This is the second time that YOU have violated the sanctity of our private email. The first time was with your "arms length" comment on the other board. I am not going to retaliate by revealing anything that you wrote privately. I will be content to repeat what I wrote to you on the last day we exchanged emails: "I keep my word. Your dishonest, inept display will remain private. And I honestly wish you and your family the best, but, AGAIN, I hate what you're doing here. You could be so much better than this."

I want to end by urging HP not to reply to you. He has no need to defend himself on this, and he has nothing to feel sorry about, though I suspect he has someone to feel sorry for. I know I do.