I hate spam. I hate spammers even more. No, wait – hate is too strong a feeling. I do not hate them, any more than I hate cockroaches and such. They bug me, but they’re part of the big picture – they’re here to stay. There’s nothing I can do about that, so I try to ignore them.

And then there’s fools. I have no tolerance for fools. So let me tell you a story.

Let us say there is this peace-loving guy who (hopefully) minds his own business. Let’s call him Basil Venitis. Whether you call him that or Vasilis Venitis, or even Βασίλης Βενίτης, it doesn’t really matter. This fellow is somewhat important to our story – but let’s try to leave him alone, shall we?

This story, like any good story, has a villain too. A villain with many names, and many faces. For all we know, this villain has many lackeys, millions even. But they all speak with one voice so, for the sake of the story, we’ll give the voice a single name. Let’s call it BV.

Now that the main characters are in place, let us begin.

BV loves, worships Basil Venitis. BV’s devotion matches no other – if not perhaps that of the common stalker or zealot. It is not only right and proper but his duty, indeed his very destiny, BV thinks, that he (she?) should do everything in its power to help the world uncover its eyes, shed its blindness, and see the greatness of Basil Venitis.

“Dude, who’s this Basil Venitis?”, I hear you ask. Damn your ignorance!

The Great Basil Venitis is one of the greatest minds in the history of western civilization! Seeing as there are 14 yahoo groups devoted to his ideas (if also to those of lesser scholars such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Adam Smith, Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and Murray Rothbard), with tens of thousands of users each, I find it hard to believe that you have never heard of him.

Indeed, since he is considered “the most influential libertarian of our times” and the “best Athenian orator” by no less authorities than the lpedia.org and the libertarianwiki.org respectively, it is hard to believe you are not a venitist. If you call yourself libertarian, then you must at least adhere to some form of venitism (no, it’s not a disease!)

Certainly, you must have been taught his libertarian poetry at school. Remember this?

My heart belongs to Athens
Fair city of Venitis
Plato and Socrates
The city is so pretty

or this?

Give me Basil as a spice
Full of liberty and might
Real taste in my life
B. Venitis bring me light.

or this?

Nemesis of socialists
Is Basil Venitis
A hero supercapitalist
Athenian hard critic.

… No?

Come on, you must have attended a lecture by Wall Street legend Basil Venitis – he is, after all, next to Bill Gates, and George Soros, one of Tiptopsearch Center’s favorite lecturers. And as he charges €3000,- per speech, that says a lot. (It must be some sort of coincidence that this Center is located at Mr Venitis’s home address. A greater coincidence still that the Center and Mr Venitis have the same telephone number.)

Haven’t you at least read his best-selling book, “Making Big Money”? (Available at fine bookstores nowhere.)
No?

I don’t believe you… Are you a cryptovenitist? There’s no shame in declaring your venitism, brothers and sisters! Come out of the venitocloset!

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Please excuse my impertinence. There is no great philosopher, economist, orator, or wall street legend by the name Basil Venitis. This is all a lie, contrived by BV. The very same BV who has created the yahoo groups, and published all these pages, wiki entries, et cetera (ad nauseam.) The very same BV who twitters as Venitis, who comments at the BBC about antivenitism, and has littered the internet with his many ravings he calls articles.

The very same BV who has been spamming my domain with idiotic, conceited, nonsensical articles about venitism.

Why does he do it? Is this some elaborate scam? I don’t think so. Sadly, I just think this BV is a lunatic, if a very annoying one at that.