Grasping At Straws

I ask that you stay with me for a moment because I’m still trying to wrap my head around this one. Carroll Bryant claims to have definitive proof that Amanda Welling is GenX. He claims this apparently because Amanda Welling’s old blog, “Hippies, Beauty, and Books. Oh My!”, was removed, and GenX also makes a comment in a recent post about backing up their blog often.

Carroll Bryant’s comment. To be fair, you may want to read his entire article. As I said, it’s a confusing mess that is grasping at straws at best.

Here is the specific piece of GenX’s article that makes a comment about backing up their blog. Again, I would recommend skimming through the article to decide the context of the comment yourself.

I also found this. Here is “Hippies, Beauty, and Books. Oh My!” It is obviously still online. It has not moved from its domain. In fact, it’s a Blogger blog which implies it can’t be moved so easily. Pay attention to the time stamp on the posts though. That is the latest activity on the blog. Click through the reference link to verify it yourself.

References:

http://www.hippiesbeautyandbooksohmy.blogspot.com/

http://www.genxpose.blogspot.com/2013/02/somnambulation.html

http://thelookingglassofcarrollbryant.blogspot.com/2013/02/amanda-welling-goes-mental.html#comment-form

Personal Opinion:

He also makes a claim because of an email GenX posted on her blog. This email in question contains a receipt for a PayPal donation to a website that is known by STGRB (Stop The GR Bullies). STGRB assisted Carroll Bryant with figuring out whom this email belonged to. Carroll Bryant claims this as proof.

I ask though, why would someone be stupid enough to allow anyone to post an email containing a receipt that can be so easily tracked? It would be down right stupid, wouldn’t it? I have this to propose though. What if the person that made that donation didn’t care if their identity was known? What if the act of making that donation revealed relevant evidence that was needed?

I say this because anyone that has done business through PayPal understands that once a payment is made through PayPal they send an automated receipt. That receipt contains account information about the receiver of the payment. What if that donation was a fishing mechanism to legally gain that information?

I read through the comments at STGRB, who recently released a post about this email, and only one commenter made that connection.  It surprised me. All other commenters and the post’s author seemed to blindly take that email as evidence for identifying GenX. That surprised me.

If I were STGRB, and knowing how so many others felt about me, I would be worried about that PayPal button and the intentions behind that donation. That donation button has some real potential to cause real troubles for STGRB. If Athena Parker is indeed a fake name and they are receiving donations then any person could make a donation and file a PayPal claim and a police report.