Lance Retracts

In January, Lance of Catprint in the Mash published an analysis of the Cools post and IP address 66.185.84.204. In it, he concluded that Richard Warman probably had written the post in question. This analysis served as the intellectual underpinning of much of the verbal junk that has been hurled in Mr. Warman's path over the last several months. For example, see the link from update 2 here. However, yesterday, after having taken a look at Bucket's work, Lance has retracted his analysis and accepted the results given there:

Buckets proves that the IP address in question was a regional Rogers web caching proxy.

S/He has gone to yeoman's effort and time eating research to back up her/his conclusions and there is no room for dispute. Bucket's finding vastly increases the pool of people who could have made the post in question. If you've the inclination, read the whole series.

Good on Lance for admitting error. In fact, I think its something more of the folks on his side of this issue should be doing, now that the case against Warman has essentially collapsed.

I should begin with Ezra himself, although probably the legal stance he has taken has driven him into a corner that he cannot so easily get out of.

More realistically, I would appeal to the reasonable Conservatives that have engaged themselves in this issue. For example, it would be useful if Deborah Gyapong, whose political views I disagree with but who seems a decent sort, should begin to distance herself from some of false claims she and her fellow travellers have wielded in their ideological battle against Warman and Canadian HRCs. It would also be useful if Jay Currie, who has written extensively (if incorrectly) on some of the technical aspects of the case, should admit the obvious and make a few mea culpas.

Under the mud there may be an argument for modifying certain aspects of Canadian human rights law. But these folks will have to come clean before we can realistically see what, if anything, that argument amounts to.