To My Faithful Readers...

I am well aware that the purpose behind the Huffington Post is to give those of us deemed interesting, provocative or famous enough a forum to share our myriad ideas and experiences with the world. That's why I hope you’ll indulge me if my post today departs from its usual reasonable, well-thought-out discussion of whatever issue might have caught my fancy and instead focuses solely on addressing the sociopath (or sociopaths) who found it necessary to vandalize my most recent Huffington Post post. I suspect, but can't yet prove, that it’s the same lovely group of "merry-makers" who found it “funny” to vandalize the Los Angeles Times’ “Wikitorial” over the weekend.

As was the case with the Times, my post was flooded with offensive and inappropriate material and because of the countless thousands of children who undoubtedly visit this site every hour, I quickly concluded that the only appropriate course of action was to pull the post in question. Hey -- so what if the marketplace of ideas suffers? Who cares if my enlightened opinion will now go completely unexpressed? Because thanks to some anyonymous, thuggish funnyman (or funnywoman), my very expensive photo was defaced and we were all treated to the "hilarious" sight of what I would look like if I had big buck teeth and wore a pirate’s eye patch. Oh hardy-har-har.

So whoever you are -- and I know you know who you are -- thanks ever so much for spoiling it for everyone. You’re clearly a very damaged individual (or individuals) who is (or are) less interested in this grand Internet experiment we call “blogging” and clearly more interested in finding “funny” ways of turning my name into an expletive. So kudos to the Wiki-genius who came up with “Bill Dia-poop-mond”. Similar huzzahs go out to the Internet “comedian” who found it necessary to transform my dispassionate, well-reasoned and dare I say resonant musings on the news of the day into an exercise in shallow venality and a shameless display of thoroughly amateurish and quite explicit artwork.

To that end, I would like to take this opportunity to counter the accusations of the untalented bottom-feeder (or bottom-feeders) who sicced themselves on my post and state for the record that: (1) My private parts are not freakishly shaped and would most certainly not be suitable for a circus sideshow; (2) I would never behave toward either a barnyard animal or a pool toy in the manner described; and (3) I would never, under any circumstances, use the Huffington Post to publish a joke with the punchline “Wrecked him? It nearly killed him.” Truth be told, it would be a physical impossibility, given that if you were to ask any of my friends, you'd discover I’ve never known the joke that leads up to that punchline. In addition, to simply offer the punchline without simultaneously providing the joke would be a lame and desperate attempt at humor on my part and not at all worthy of someone deemed interesting, provocative or famous enough to be selected to contribute to the Huffington Post.

In conclusion, I’d like to assure the loyal and for-the-most-part polite readers of the Huffington Post that I have no intention of letting this incident keep me from posting again. I believe deeply in the wisdom, intelligence and fine taste of Huffington Post readers and feel strongly that they should not be punished for the tasteless, pornographic crimes of a few untalented malcontents. I do, however, call on those overseeing this site to put measures in place to prevent this kind of event from ever happening again. Or at the very least make it a little harder for people to draw a big ugly scar, Coke-bottle glasses and a Hitler mustache on my very expensive picture.