Re: A mentor / Advisor ?

["news.comcast.net" <acoutinhobass@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> This fishy fellow sent me an email demanding that I
> also recommend his online store. I told him to get lost.

That is an outright lie.

> At about the same time, he sent me an email asking me
> to evaluate his online store.

That is another lie.  I never asked Mr. Houston to do anything for me,
especially not to evaluate my online store.

> He has gotten more sophisticated over the years. There used to be a lot of
> unsolicited posts to CHA saying warm fuzzy things about him from people
> posting from the same machine he posted from.

That is yet another lie.  Since Google is such a reliable record, I
challenge Houston to back that up.

> He sent me an email asking if he could sell Commander-X
> in his online store.

Another lie.

> His "FAQ" included a lot of material taken from my
> web pages, infringing on my copyright. I called him on it.

Yet another lie.  The only thing from Houston's site on my FAQ was a frame
( I used to use frames extensively) which displayed his website intact with
all attributions.  I had links to several other sites in my FAQ and if one
clicked them the page would display inside the frame.  Houston's
understanding of HTML is so poor that he mistook that for copying, but his
pages were never copied on my server.

> He then deep-linked to _every_ page on my web site and I had to take steps
> to block that.

That is absurd.  There was but one link to your home page.  It was in a
frame with "Target="_self'" and another link to exit frames with
"Target='_top'".

> He frequently bashes me

More lies.  I have occasionally disagreed with Houston and once or twice
poked a little fun at his absurdities a few years ago but almost never
bashed him.

> I keep him (and his tag team partner) in my killfile and seldom see his
> crap
> (unless someone quotes it) because I don't want to be tempted to respond
> and
> further corrupt CHA but now and then his distortions, fabrications, libels
> and slanders are so egregious as to require a response.

What Mr. Houston conveniently forgets is that after several years of his
animosity (over a disgreement or two about some technical issue or other) I
responded to his plea for assistance.  He had a page on his website where he
explained that his health and his finances were in difficulty, making it
hard for him to continue with a pet project.  I saw an opportunity to reach
out to him, turn an enemy into a friend.  I sent him an email offering to
host his project for free on one of my servers.  I asked nothing in return.
Admittedly this would not have been a major expense to me but I thought it
was a nice gesture.

Mr. Houston did not reply immediately.  I figured he was ill (so he said in
his online plea) so I left it at that.  Mind you, this was a private email.
I said nothing about it in USENET so as not to embarass him.  After a while,
instead of politely declining in private, Mr. Houston posted a vicious
attack on me here, claiming that I had tried to snooker him out of his
project.  It was unprovoked and, worst of all, in response to an attempted
act of kindness.

> I am sorry I called him "sub-human slime" but, since there are no words to
> accurately describe how low he is, that will have to do.
>
> When the indigenous people in the interior of Brazil realize those
> "missionaries" are funded by the current administration and directed by
> the
> CIA, they'll make some fish stew. I imagine Lucifer is eagerly awaiting
> him.

Nice job, Mr. Houston.  What was that you said about bashing?