The Humpty Dumpty of blackmail

I’m still on vacation in an undisclosed part of the world that is south of Florida and west of Havana. If you can’t figure it out, it’s too bad. All the clues are there, and you shouldn’t really care where I am. Likewise, you shouldn’t really care who I am. Rational people need only be worried about the accuracy of my writing, the science behind my observations, and the veracity of the accounts that I put forth. All others should get a hobby rather than trying to figure out my real identity.

Yes, they’re at it again. I received an email via Facebook from a person who will be anonymous for the time being. She said she knew I’d publish her email, but I think she did it more out of wanting attention and getting some sort of credit for her efforts. I write that she is a “she” because the name she used on Facebook is 99.9% of the time used by women.

I’m not going to post her message to me. That is exactly what she wants. Instead, I’ll tell you the gist of it. She claims to have figured out who I am in reality and is threatening to go to anti-vaccine people at different anti-vaccine blogs with that information. She gave me until midnight tonight to reveal my identity or “face the consequences.” She said I was an “existential threat” to her non-vaccinating self and her children. So I guess I’m worse than whooping cough. She closed her email by claiming that she would not rest until I was “brought to justice” for my “crimes” against vaccine refusers.

Yawn.

If this scenario seems familiar to you, it’s probably because The Joker did the same thing to Batman in “The Dark Knight”. In that movie, The Joker threatens to kill a person each hour until Batman turns himself in. Not knowing what to do, Bruce Wayne goes to turn himself in at a press conference held by DA Harvey Dent. He does this against the advice of Alfred, his butler. Alfred explains to Bruce that Batman can endure the anger of the people if he doesn’t reveal his true identity and focuses on catching The Joker instead of playing the game. At the press conference, Harvey Dent lies and says that he is Batman and is led away in handcuffs. Long story short, they don’t play The Joker’s game.

I’m not playing this woman’s game. I’m not playing it especially because the details she offered were not close at all to reality. In her unhinged version of reality, I’m a pharmaceutical researcher at Merck in New Jersey, pulling in three million dollars a year and leading a team in developing a new vaccine. I wrote back to her and “pleaded” not to reveal the information and that I would “turn myself in” on this blog before her deadline.

Well, guess what? You weren’t even close, lady. Go ahead and give that information to whomever you feel would do the most damage. (She hinted that it would be The Kid who would listen to her the best.) Had you not provided me more details when I asked for them, I might have believed you. But you showed your hand, and now you’re left with nothing. Never show your hand when you’re trying to blackmail someone and when that someone has a superior intellect to yours.

It didn’t work for Charles Augustus Magnussen, and it won’t work for you.

Now, if I may be so allowed, I’m off to get more tanned. Alfred is making daiquiris.