Saturday, June 03, 2006

Stephen Taylor, dumbass. Part deux.


Since this conclusion into the dumbassitude of CPC pundit Stephen Taylor might take a while, I'm going to do it as a separate posting rather than just an update. So, before you get rolling, make sure you've read the warmup first.

OK, then, what we're dealing with is Taylor's blithering idiocy here -- specifically, that second update in which Taylor seems to think he's found the smoking gun regarding Volpe-related intimidation to get the anti-Volpe web site "youthforvolpe.ca" suspended. In fact, what Taylor has done is to just make a bigger ass of himself than before.

(As an aside, some of what follows is speculation on my part but it's going to be fairly well-founded speculation, so bear with me.)

Everything hinges on this published statement from CIRA, so let's read it carefully to see what it's really saying:

Bernard Turcotte, CIRA's President and CEO states "We have no record of any contact between CIRA and Mr. Volpe or his staff. Furthermore, CIRA does not deal with website content. This is and continues to be a guiding principle underlying our operations."

He added that no CIRA staff undertook any actions with respect to youthforvolpe.ca but rather that the Registrar for the domain name requested, via CIRA's automated systems, that the domain name be cancelled, as is allowed under the rules. The registrar advised CIRA that it made this request because its registrant would not provide valid Canadian contact information.

What the above is saying is painfully clear. First, CIRA is stating categorically that there was no record of any contact between CIRA and Volpe or his staff. That implies that Volpe could not have complained to CIRA about the web site for any reason. "No record of any contact" should be taken to mean exactly what it says: none.

On the other hand, CIRA is clear that the web site was suspended by request of the registrar of that domain name; in other words, it was suspended by the organization (apparently, "cadns.ca") who had been tasked with registering the domain in the first place.

Now, make sure you understand what all of this implies. It implies that Volpe and his staff had nothing whatsoever to do with the web site being suspended. Rather, the process of suspending it was invoked by that site's original registrar, with the reason given as "registrant would not provide valid Canadian contact information." And that's it. So how does Taylor spin this in his second update? Not surprisingly, like a total douchebag.

Taylor is all excited in thinking he has uncovered new evidence against Volpe:

I just got an email from the kids at youthforvolpe.ca. They received an email from their .ca registrar after they emailed them demanding which part of the Registrant Agreement that they were in violation of. It turns out that it had nothing to do with anonymous registration:

It didn't? That's funny, because that's exactly the reason CIRA reports for the suspension. (And note well, that email is not from CIRA, it's from that original registrar, who seems to be as incompetent a buffoon as you're likely to meet anywhere.)

Quite simply, it's clear that someone here is lying. On the one hand, that registrar (according to CIRA) asked CIRA to suspend the domain name because of lack of valid Canadian contact information. However, that same registrar is now telling the original registrants (the "Youth for Volpe" folks) a totally different story.

Or are they?

Read that e-mail from cadns.ca to the YfV folks carefully. Notice anything missing? Why, yes. Context. Note that that e-mail quotes a sub-article from the CIRA regulations, but in no way supplies the context for which it's being e-mailed. What is that e-mail in response to?

If it's an explanation for why that registrar cancelled the domain name, then it's a lie since, as I've already pointed out, CIRA explains that the cancellation had nothing to do with content. For all we know, that e-mail could be a response to a question like, "Hey, I've heard that there are CIRA rules governing acceptable content and discrimination. Can you e-mail me those parts of the regulations?" Without some surrounding context in that e-mail, there's no way to tell what that reply is supposed to represent.

One might also wonder if that's the entire e-mail, since it's quite unusual to have something that important with no explanation surrounding it. Taylor certainly suggests it's the entire thing but, again, if that's supposed to be the reason the registrar yanked the site, then they're clearly calling CIRA liars. I could go on but I think we can just sum up the important points here.

First, CIRA is adamant that they were never contacted by the Volpe folks. Ever. No record of any contact. So that suggests that no Volpe people ever tried to strong-arm the CIRA people in any way. Period.

Second, the CIRA folks do inform us that the domain name was suspended on orders from the original registrat (cadns.ca), with the reason given as "registrant would not provide valid Canadian contact information." So the request for cancellation came from the people hired by the YfV folks to register their domain name, and had nothing to do with Volpe.

Finally, while the CIRA reports what cadns.ca told them, we now have the YfV people (and Stephen Taylor) producing an alleged e-mail in which cadns.ca now claims a totally different reason for yanking that domain.

Like I said, someone here is lying. And I'm pretty sure it's not CIRA.

FINAL SNARK: To really appreciate the depth of Taylor's assholitude, one need only read, say, this claim from his second update:

While the issue of anonymity may be a policy of the CIRA, the youthforvolpe.ca domain was suspended by CADNS.CA under the threat of legal action (that which is cited under the paragraphs above).

As we've already seen, that's not the claim cadns.ca made when they submitted the cancellation request to CIRA. And Taylor is, at this point, just making shit up out of thin air.

Imagine my complete lack of surprise.

OK, I LIED. As much as I tried to resist, there's one more point I want to make. If you take a careful look at that alleged e-mail from the registrar (cadns.ca), they seem to be claiming that they were somehow threatened with violation of certain CIRA regulations (which you can read here).

But violation of CIRA regulations is not the registrar's problem. Those are CIRA regulations, meant to be enforced exclusively by CIRA. The job of the registrar is to simply register the domain name, and that's it.

If someone down the road has a beef with the web site content, there's no point in contacting the registrar, since the only appropriate response from the registrar should be, "Hey, not my problem. Take it up with CIRA."

In short, if the registrar cadns.ca really did yank the site based on content complaints, they seriously overstepped their authority and should probably have their registration authority yanked for being such dickheads.

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