Blog-keeping

For those of you expecting a wrap up on last nights debate of HF 3149 I apologize that it has not been posted yet. I spent most of the day dealing with an anonymous commenter. I will not say much about my anonymous "friend" other than to say that he is known to me. He made some rather weak insinuations about Rep. Mark Buesgens and I ended up spending most of the day chasing those leads down, rather than dealing with 3149. For those that care, the allegation was that Rep. Buesgens owed property taxes (on an investment property) in Ramsey County. I called Rep. Buesgens who told me that it was a bank screw up and that he had made payment arrangements with Ramsey County to take care of the situation. My anonymous troll apparently thinks that a one time bank error on a property tax payment ranks up there with at least 4 years worth of non payment of income taxes. The nice thing is that this was easily resolvable by a couple of phone calls...something my anonymous "friend" could have easily done as well however he chose instead for the "anonymous" smear.

Which leads me to a larger dilemma. I want this space to be about advancing dialog - no about throwing out undocumented smears. Because of my anonymous "friend" I am now forced to decide whether or not I should allow anonymous comments going forward. I do understand the desire to sometimes comment anonymously, but we just saw the exact reason why people do not allow anonymous comments unfold before us today.

While I have not yet decided on what I will do, I will let you know that the decision will be made today. If you are used to commenting anonymously and you have not abused the practice, please realize that one bad apple has spoiled it for everyone.