Well, it's an election year and we have all been made aware of the
possibility of interference in social media - of which I'll include
this group as a rough approximation - by external manipulators.

Since it is a midterm election and there is no clear benefit in
manipulating the election results of each of hundreds of essentially
local elections, it's likely we won't have nearly as much of the type
of activity that occurred last time around. But that does not mean
we should abandon all vigilance.

So along comes fake Fred. In some ways he's not nearly as much
of a nymshifter as Fred is or was, with that continually changing
supposed email address and that penchant for so very frequently
changing the location of origin of those posts.

Plus the fake Fred was mostly taking our Fred to task for his
multiple, and quite prominent, er, idiosyncrasies.

But now we've got the Remote Neural Mongering Fred to deal with.

Folks, it's all hokum. Ignore it.

And remember that while there have not been disclosures of clear
tit for tat meddling by Russians in the prior Presidential election,
it does not mean that our friends to the east aren't returning
to their long term behavior: doing what they can to destabilize
their nemeses in the West.

Various fakes playing games. That's what a lot of Usenet is
today. No need to let it get to you. After all, it's the
idea of flying above the rocks without a safety net that
still draws people to forums such as ours.

George