Dave "Sherlock" Freer, Super Detective

The entire issue of Dave Freer's apparent obsession with the idea that Camestros Felapton is Toby Meadows (another hint that pseudonyms are practically mandatory when dealing with certain types of people online) has been written about more adroitly elsewhere (by Camestros himself, namely here, here and here, and Jim C. Hines, among others), the one thing that caused this to devolve from a almost comical wild goose chase to something repulsive and ugly is the borderline libelous statement that Freer makes (which is quoted in the Hines post) that Foz and Toby Meadows are involved in a relationship "reminiscent... of the situation between MZB and Breen" (i.e.,convicted pedophile Walter Breen and his wife Marion Zimmer Bradley, who was also accused of sexual abuse by her children and several others after her death). This was nothing but a crude, downright despicable personal attack on Meadows and her husband that was made because Freer is apparently so vewy, vewy angwy that he has no problem coming off as Elmer Fudd incarnate in human flesh in terms of emotional self-control.

This would all seem exceptionally pathetic, except that he accused two people he doesn't know personally of being in a relationship that promotes pedophilia. Without a single bit of proof to back that assertion up, of course. And all because one of them had the audacity to disagree with something he wrote. Apparently, Freer thinks that's so much of a crime that it's worth using the rhetorical equivalent of a tactical nuclear warhead to kill a fly. Foz Meadows has responded to this drivel herself, but here's a point I'd like to make:

If anyone can come off as the perfect combination of a paranoid conspiracy theorist and a sadistic turd with a truly fetid imagination, it's someone who turns to defamatory personal attacks when he has no proof for the former but plenty of proof as to the latter. And this, by the way, is over something as trivial and pointless as who the pseudonymous author of a blog devoted to science fiction really is.

If anyone can come up with an example of something as inane as this they've seen online recently, please post it in the comments. I need a cheap laugh. I'm certainly not getting one writing about this.