I just know that someday I will want to re-read this, so I figured why not cut and paste from the Overstock.com message board on Investor Village. You never know when a pertinent message will disappear forever.

Why CEO Patrick Byrne never has a straight answer for anything is beyond me. And I’d be curious to know just how many people really believe anything that comes out of his mouth (or in this case his fingers on the keyboard)???

Re: Who is Hannibal – (In a Randian sense?) Hey Lucky Guy,

Hannibal is, indeed, I. If you ever really wonder, just email me ([email protected]).

I am not going to interpret your question in a Randian sense. If that is the sense in which you intended it, please let me know and I will reply differently. For now, I am just going to assume that you are a newcomer, and that being the case, inform you of matters of which you should be forewarned:

1) I visit sporadically, but most times (50%?) I visit, I do post. Sometimes I do not visit for a month or two at a time. Today, because Roddy Boyd of the New York Post sent me someone’s message for comment, I came to the board from my office at work. I found your message, and am now replying. Other than that, I do not recall ever posting from work.

2) There are numerous hedge fund choagies who have clogged Yahoo!’s board to the point of being meaningless. They tried the same here, but the good authorities of Investestor Village spotted them and put them in a box. The choagies threatened to sue (that whole episode would be an extraordinary story for someone to recreate). Anyway, they faded for awhile, but now they are back at it with a vengeance, because the bad guys are nervous (I believe they understand what is happening).

3) I keep most of them on “Ignore” and so they become invisible, but ask that good people here, when they see anything worth replying to, quote it in one
of their messages.

4) In a similar vein, when something good is posted and they try to clog so it rolls off the screen, I ask that people occasionally repost it to keep it above the fold. I did that the other day with my “Gotterdammerung” essay, which I thought was worth replaying for all. But feel free to do that with mine or any other meaningful posts.

5) When I don’t post, the bad guys suggest that is is proof that they are right. When I do post, they also take it as proof that they must be right. When I don’t post for a long time and then I do post, they take it as evidence of… well, whatever their accusation du jour is.

6) About what do they believe they are right? As far as I am concerned, their arguments are endless picking of nits over trivial details salted with fabrications and half-truths. Off-hand I cannot recall a single substantive argument (but then again, since they are on “Ignore” I don’t see much of them anymore).

7) The really Establishment ones take offense that I am even here at all. No one would object to a CEO going to Wall Street and meeting privately with hedge fund managers behind closed doors, but somehow, being out in the open, and talking to the public on a message board that all investors can read, causes grave offense, and is sure evidence of…. well, again, whatever their accusation du jour is.

8 ) Be aware that there are more bad posters than bad guys: that is, they sock-puppet like mad. There is a site, antisocialmedia.net which documents and exposes how they work. ASM (as it is known) is managed, or at least has as its prime contributor, Judd Bagely, a reporter turned political PR guy turned Web 2.0 blogger, entrepeneur, and investigator. I grew so impressed by Judd that I hired him to create what has become our Car tab, and Omuse (around the time he joined us he, without telling me, created ASM to publish the results of his months spent piecing their network together, so all his months of work would not be lost: of course, the miscreants try to use that as evidence of…. well, at this point you can fill in the blanks).

9) By the way, at the fringes of the system that we are trying to expose there are some who realize that enough is enough, and out of disgust with their own, fear of the future, or simple patriotism, have started to help us. Recently I was contacted by someone who turned over a tremendous treasure trove of documentation and communications among the bad guys, including message board posters, convicted stock cheats, and bent journalists. It has given someone close to me a new hobby, and has been tremendously rewarding, to learn more of matters about which we could previoulsy only surmise. In time, of course, I will make this Rosetta Stone available to the public.

If you want to support me, do me a favor and shop Overstock! Ask your friends to as well. In addition, I would love any readers of this to go into our new Cars and Omuse tab and give me some constructive feedback, here on this board. Really, I would love sensible feedback. remember that they are works in progress.

Patrick