Marc-- Fair Warning

[TGJB]

Marc, I\'m going to give you the same chance I gave David a couple of weeks ago. You have now implied twice here that you are in posession of evidence of some kind (\"CREDIBLE allegations about the ethics of higher level Thoro-Graph employees), and have produced it neither time I called you on it. Alan is pretty hot (he invoked Joe McCarthy), and I\'m not too happy myself. I\'m giving you until I come in tomorrow to either put it out there and tell us where you heard whatever the hell it is, or withdraw it and apologize. If you don\'t do either, I\'m going to come after you hard, and talk about EVIDENCE of wrongdoing by the Ragozin operation, and your reaction to it, and then I\'m going to ban you. Not for your ideas, but for your slimy behavior. I actually do not want to do this-- I appreciate what you said about my involvement with Distorted Humor-- but if you think I\'m going to let anyone pull that crap on my board you are nuts.

[Marc At]

I\'m not going to get into an interminable back and forth with you on what I\'ve heard. If you want that exchange, have it with Alydar, as I indicated yesterday. If you\'re that concerned with getting this stuff out in the open, he\'ll be happy to help you.

If you want to ban me for this, hey, ban me. I\'ve never been banned before and would find it to be an interesting novelty.

Related note (though I\'m not sure if it has any cred, given how \"slimy\" I am): I\'ve never heard a bad word uttered about Alan B, and enjoyed shooting the sh*t with him on the porch of the Springwater after the races about 11 and half months ago.

[TGJB]

Marc--

It wasn\'t Alydar who made that slimy insinuation about unethical activities by TG on this board, twice, it was you. You did so saying that what you had was credible, implying you had evidence like that I have put forth several times about the Rag operation\'s activities (and will be doing again if this conversation continues),and you have the rest of the day to back it up. If you were any kind of stand up guy you would withdraw your comments, but that\'s not you.

[Marc At]

\"It wasn\'t Alydar who made that slimy insinuation about unethical activities by TG on this board, twice, it was you.\"

Let me apologize for realizing I din\'t want to get into an incessant dialogue with you about what I\'ve heard. If you want that stuff out in the open, so you can prove it is all bunk, you\'ll have to get it from Alydar, unless there are other volunteers.

I\'ve tried a few times, now I\'ll try one last time-- this is my final post on this topic.

[TGJB]

Okay, Marc. Hopefully this one actually will be the last of any strife related posts for a while.

I could probably find 30 or 40 examples of real dishonesty on your part here and on the Ragozin board over the last two years. See how easy that was? It\'s a smear, and it doesn\'t matter whether I could come up with evidence or not-- who cares?

This is your idea of credible evidence: an unnamed allegation, supported by word of mouth from a guy who has exhibited, hundreds of times, a burning animosity towards me. (And who has refused to stop e-mailing me, so we are not going to do any more of those 124 questions, which is EXTREMELY unfortunate. More on this another time).

This is an example of an unprovable allegation: A few years ago I met with Friedman at Union Square Park, and told him his guys were lying about me, and asked him to do something about it. Keep in mind this was a guy I had been very close friends with for a decade. He told me to my face that he believed it, but had no interest in stopping it. But hey, you only have my word for it, and I\'m biased. This, by the way, was when I started going after that operation heavily on character issues, not just figure related ones.

Here are just a few examples of credible evidence. I\'ve covered this stuff before, so I will be brief:

1-- Ragozin said in his book that he won during his Atlantic City venture. The objective evidence that he was lying is the running account of that venture in your newspaper, and Brad Free\'s review of the book in the same publication, where he points it out. You work there, look it up.

2-- Friedman lied about where Touch Of The Blues was on the turn of the Breeder\'s Cup Mile, after I pointed it out here, and after he reviewed the tape. The proof is available to anyone who watches a tape of the race. Anyone who looks at TOTB\'s Ragozin sheet also sees proof that they didn\'t change the ground or the number, from which you are free to draw some conclusions.

3-- Someone whom YOU know and trust, and whom you know certainly has no bias FOR me, has direct evidence of a lot of crap the Ragozin operatives have pulled in Florida. Ask him.

4-- This one is circumstantial. I have said many times that we had a private investigator tape Ragozin employees, that he caught them lying about us, and we sent a copy of the transcript to Ragozin, along with a letter, which we made public. Don\'t you think that if any of that were not true the Ragozin office would have made a big stink about it? Your buddy in California thought so, and said so publicly at the time.

I\'ll tell you who doesn\'t have credibility around here, Marc-- you. You are barred. It has been suggested that I send copies of your smearing posts to your employer, from whom I buy a fair amount of advertising. I\'m thinking about it. If I don\'t it will be because I am a better person than you.

[mandown]

TGJB and DP,

I\'m going to put my job on the line. That last paragraph was a mistake, JB. It\'s also an oxymoron as rather than making you a better person you\'re both rolling around in the gutter. You\'ve also done a Robes and slammed him but banned him. That may be acceptable in the Communist East (Village) but not in the freedom-loving West.

I think Marc does some dumb things - he seems to like the sound of his own voice and to enjoy having people notice him but, hey, that\'s not uncommon or a mortal sin is it? IMO, however, he\'s not intrinsically a bad guy - cf the Distorted Humor post.

Marc tossed out baseless allegations and has been unable or unwilling to detail them. It\'s name-calling, no more. Sure it\'s annoying but you get over it. I know about these things because I\'ve a three-year-old who\'s at pre-school. Hopefully one of you will listen.

JB, I\'ll send you a bill for what\'s outstanding.

DP, Know anyone in racing or publishing who needs help?

Mandown

[mandown]

David,

I know it probably didn\'t fool you but, yes, you are right, JB told me to put up the previous post in this string so that we could rubbish all those people who say I only posted because of my connections with TG. I can only plead the Nuremberg defence. That\'s the sort of guy I am.

Mind you now I\'ve given the whole game away I could be in real trouble. Or is this all part of the plot, too? You never know, do you?

Bye

mandown

[TGJB]

What these guys don\'t know is Mandown is really ME...

I gave Marc a bunch of chances to either back up his position or withdraw it, and he chose to stick with unnamed ethical violations, unsubstantiated. I have no sympathy, he had every chance. Friedman wouldn\'t have given him the chance to make his case, I did.

Mall, you are right, the \"briar\" patch was a reference to Uncle Remus, and you would know a lot more about Dixie than I would. All I know is that it\'s in the suburbs, south of Staten Island. And now that things have calmed down, this would be a good time to bring up that NTRA committee again. This has a chance to be a really important development.

[mandown]

That\'s either identity theft or I\'m talking to myself again.