SlimVirgin's first edit on Wikipedia was a "minor" edit on the Pierre Salinger article, on November 5, 2004:

Old version: After the August 1990 invasion of Kuwait ... "Salinger brought the transcript back to London amid great excitement, ordering an Arab translator and London researcher to sit through the night translating it into passable English."

New version: ... "Salinger brought the transcript back to London amid great excitement, ordering a London-based Arab journalist and an ABC researcher to sit through the night translating it into passable English."

Guess who the ABC researcher was? Linda Mack herself, most likely.

It looks to me like Linda Mack had a problem working with Salinger, as Salinger became less credible among other journalists. I think Salinger was right that the Libyans didn't do it, and he was right that TWA Flight 800 (a 1996 disaster) was the result of a friendly-fire accident. That's my opinion based on books and articles I've read. It's also true, however, that any mainstream journalist pursuing these unpopular theories was working on borrowed time. In addition, Salinger was likely to open his mouth before he had good evidence.

I believe that sometime between 1991 and 1994 Linda Mack left ABC in London. Salinger left ABC in 1993, under strained circumstances, according to his Wikipedia article.

As far as I know, the next time Linda Mack's name appears is on this article:
___________________

> Broker fights to clear name over Iran arms case; William Harper
> The Times (London); Apr 12, 1994; Christopher Elliott and Linda Mack

> A FORMER Lloyd's insurance broker begins a High Court battle this morning to clear
> his name after his conviction in 1988 over an alleged Pounds 18 million fraud
> involving the sale of 5,000 TOW anti-tank missiles to Iran.

> William Harper is seeking leave to appeal against his conviction for issuing
> certificates of insurance, verifying the existence of missiles, that the
> prosecution claimed were bogus.

> He was one of three men convicted. Two others were acquitted in a trial that has
> parallels with the Matrix Churchill case; one of the two, John Taylor, a businessman
> and arms dealer, was an MI5 agent. The judge was told but the information was
> withheld from the jury.

> ...

> The jury was not told that Mr Taylor, now aged 60, an MI6 agent for ten years,
> had been told by his handler to proceed with the deal.
____________________

I am hoping to obtain more information about the sorts of stories Linda Mack was working on during this period. I recently contacted someone who was Linda Mack's boyfriend in 1989, but he said that he lost touch with her and has no idea where she is today. Research is difficult, because there's almost no digital trail to follow. Dusty bound indexes in London libraries are probably what's needed. Where is Christopher Elliott, who shared a by-line with (Linda Mack? I'm pretty sure it's not the American columnist by the same name, but I'm checking it out.

It is possible that Linda Mack is an agent of influence for some intelligence agency. Apparently many within MI6 believe that the Iranians employed a Syrian-based terrorist group as middlemen. Under this theory, the Libyans were at best "bag men" in a much broader plot. It was politically convenient to shift the blame to Libya once Syria supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 1990.

At least one person working on the Lockerbie case, Michael Morris, a former South African BOSS agent, referred to Linda Mack as an "agent." His last address is in East Lansing, Michigan, but the telephone there is out of service.

The LaRouche organization is historically anti-British, and the phrase "British intelligence agent" is their equivalent of a four-letter word. However, they also know how to do power-structure research, which is something that almost no one else is doing these days.

Is it a coincidence that SlimVirgin started the Jeremiah Duggan article on November 13, 2004 just one week after she did her first edit? This article is extremely anti-LaRouche. On November 14 she added this sentence to the stub: "The LaRouche organization is regarded as many as an extremist, anti-Semitic cult... A Scotland Yard report describes the LaRouche Organization as 'a political cult with sinister and dangerous connections.'"

It looks to me like SlimVirgin came into Wikipedia with an agenda. Put it together with her efforts to hide her identity, her name change from Linda Mack to Sarah McEwan, and her move to Canada, and I think she's someone's agent of influence. Maybe she actually did retire from 1994-2004, but got bored and renewed some old spooky acquaintances, who then suggested that editing Wikipedia is one way to be effective from someplace like Alberta, Canada.

She is just too unlike the ordinary Wikipedia editor who is doing it as a hobby. Something else is going on.

Fascinating detective work, Daniel. It may be more than a coincidence that Salinger and LaRouche were on friendly terms -- take a look at this.

Y'know, I've said this sort of thing before, but it bears repeating: Out of a population of over 900 administrators, it's hardly all that surprising that at least one or two of them would be international spies. I mean, isn't that fairly close to the proportion in the general population?

And if one of them happens to be the most disliked admin on the whole website, maybe that's not so surprising either - nobody likes a spy, after all!

Anyway, what happened? Last time I checked, SlimVirgin was avocating deletion of the Brandt article, along with Phil Sandifer. (That is to say, Sandifer was also advocating its deletion, rather than SlimVirgin advocating the deletion of Sandifer - that being our job, apparently.) I know they both got shouted down - big surprise there! - but has something else happened in the meantime? Or are we assuming that whole effort was somewhat... insincere? Perhaps even... a sham?

...which suggests to me that she is a wannabe, not a pro. A pro would remain unobtrusive. Or maybe she's a very temperamental pro.

I have for some time harbored the suspicion that these fellows were her fantasy role models: clever, devious, and with the sort of unorthodox sexual proclivities that are prized among spooks, because they serve to make them blackmailable and therefore controllable. Add to the mystique of these guys that no one is entirely certain whether they were double or triple agents.

SlimVirgin's most recent edit to this article was two days ago, and her first edit to it was 22 November 2004, during her third week of editing, after she posted her initial salvo of anti-LaRouche stuff and forged her alliance with Adam Carr.

So at the risk of getting us all sued, killed, imprisoned, or all three somehow combined, let's just try to pull this whole thing together a little bit. What's essentially being suggested here is that good ol' Slim used to work with Salinger at ABC News, but had a falling-out with him over his (perhaps gruding) support of Lyndon LaRouche, correct? And that she's harbored resentments against LaRouche ever since (and perhaps Salinger too)? And the whole Flight 800 business was related to this, perhaps because the LaRouche people (among others) wanted to pin the disaster on Middle Eastern terrorists, and probably the British too because they're just into that sort of thing, and she found all this an unconscionable exploitation of a tragedy that (it seems) took the life of at least one of her close personal friends?

I'm not saying it makes any sense, but I've been around long enough to know that plenty of weird things happen to people in this crazy world... It's not completely far-fetched, but at the same time, to suggest that this story implies evil and/or malignant intent on her part is pushing it somewhat. It's far more likely that she's just a highly opinionated, perhaps somewhat embittered individual who has found, in Wikipedia, a way to get back at the people she believes have wronged her, for better or worse.

And you have to admit, she knows how to spell correctly. So really, what actual harm is she doing, other than pissing off everyone who comes in direct contact with her? Especially now that she seems to be taking a much more sensible approach to the whole Brandt situation?

Btw, I wonder if there's a way to "sandbox" wiki admins? That might solve a lot of problems.

She's harming Wikipedia if she deters and turns off good editors.

No, that's not what is being suggested. What is being suggested is that she had a falling out with Salinger over his views on Lockerbie. These views are apparently similar to those of the LaRouche organzation:

A Scottish court, residing in The Hague, had convicted a Libyan intelligence operative for involvement in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. It should be remembered that the original investigative trail in the Lockerbie bombing was leading to the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine/General Command - a split-off from the PFLP and also headquartered in Damascus. This track was buried after it became clear that Syria would have to become part of the 1990-1991 "Gulf War Coalition," led by George Bush Sr. and Maggie Thatcher. According to the above mentioned source, the "Lybian track" was "fiction," which was fabricated largely by the current FBI director Robert Mueller. Now, on Oct. 15, an appeal process was initiated in The Hague, which will "rip apart the Libyan track" and the "Syrian angle" will come out. (1)

The question for LaRouche, and probably Salinger, is not whether to "pin the disaster on Middle Eastern terrorists, and probably the British too because they're just into that sort of thing." The LaRouche organization was suggesting that Libya was being blamed to deflect attention from forces headquartered in Syria -- so it would seem, on the surface, to be merely a question of which Middle Eastern country to blame. But the actual issue is located elsewhere, in how the Lockerbie bombing would be "played" to get desired results in a larger, geopolitical arena. This is always the larger issue when discussing terrorism. I suspect that SlimVirgin has this sort of interest in the matter -- I seriously doubt that it is "personal" with her.

Hey, check this out:

[imgx]http://www.geocities.com/berlet_archive/temp.jpg[/imgx]

Heh heh... I wouldn't say that this proves her real name is "Linda," though. Or even "Mack"...

But it would have been nice if Jayjg had used the phrase "possible attack name" along with a mild apology instead of automatically assuming bad faith. After all, there are probably lots of Lindas and Macks out there, all just itchin' to edit the heck out of all those articles on anti-semitism.

Say, Daniel, I don't recall in which thread you initially unveiled your research on Linda Mack. But has it occurred to you that Sarah McEwan might be her real name, and Linda Mack the nom de plume? I suggest this because this entity clearly has a ferocious need for anonymity, and it probably precedes her involvement with Wikipedia, so she may have used a fake name when working for ABC. Otherwise, "McEwan" would be a plausible choice for a pen name for "Mack." Or, both names could be fake.

Note that there was also a User:Sarah_McEwan who was blocked for vandalism.

No, I think Linda Mack is her original name.

1) She was working on a PhD at Cambridge under the name Linda Mack. You generally don't get into grad school without providing records of previous academic work.

2) Her then-boyfriend mentioned Linda Mack on the acknowledgements page of a book he wrote. This former boyfriend says that he lost touch with her and has no idea where she is currently.

3) The name Sarah McEwan was put up on hivemind in December. User:Sarah_McEwan first registered several weeks later. It was a vandal who picked up the name from the hivemind page. The only edit made by this user was "Learn From The Masters!!!!" with a footnote to unencyclopedia about how to vandalize Wikipedia.

Of course, if anyone has evidence that there was a Sarah McEwan in England who disappeared just about the time Linda Mack started grad school at Cambridge, and has evidence that they are the same person, then I'd suspect that she's working for an intelligence agency. But in that case, why return to the previous name in Canada? Professional incompetence?

Daniel, what do you make of this? There is no doubt that the person who goes by the user name of SlimVirgin is weird, but I don't think it is the kind of weird that edits for 27 hours at stretch. I wonder whether we shouldn't consider the hypothesis that there is a "SlimVirgin committee."

My sense is that this is a red herring, since the Linda Mack angle makes so much sense, but because one never knows I offer the following...

SlimVirgin's first content dispute landed initially at the Village Pump HERE.

Note how she signed the post:

Warning: don't bother Googling "Candi" plus anything else, as you'll get nothing but instances of the word "candi- date".

Anywho, add that to the pile of clues about SV, although my new theory is that she's really a committee full of Samaras...that girl from The Ring who was pure evil and had no need to sleep.

I think we've already explained Candi as deriving from the same oriental mythology as Slimvirgin.

I thought this bit was interesting. (Another person) (AP), whom we do NOT believe is SlimVirgin, is the author of several books about the history of the Jewish diaspora in America, including one or two that focus on Jewish women in Minnesota. One of those is specifically about Hadassah.

Looking at the article on Hadassah, it contains this interesting tidbit of info:


Said tidbit was added by this edit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...v&oldid=9282421

...Which was made by someone using the IP address 68.225.254.171, which, as it turns out, has been used for quite a number of edits over the past year which might be interpreted as "pro-Zionist" or generally favoring the Israeli right wing. Contribs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...=68.225.254.171

Now, this IP address currently geolocates to Laguna Niguel, CA, though of course that tells us very little, if anything - in fact it's a red herring, if we assume that SlimVirgin/AP actually lives in Canada. Still, it does seem like an interesting coinkydink, no? One might easily conclude that Slimmy added that bit of info from that IP address, rather than her regular account, because she feared that someone might put two-and-two together and figure out who she was, or is, based on AP's having written a book on that subject. OTOH, I suppose it's just as likely that the info could have come from anyone, or that Slimmy asked a friend of hers to post it, but still, why even bother? For something as trivial as that? The whole thing just seems a little weird to me, but nearly everything connected with Slimmy seems that way to me, and clearly I'm not the only one!

Like I say, it's probably nothing, but I post it here in case it helps someone else put two and two together. After all, if it can be proven that Slimmy is using AnonIP sock puppet accounts to post POV edits on articles that are of personal interest to her, maybe she can ultimately be "desysopped" after all? That would certainly solve a lot of problems.

And I don't suppose the point would be lost on anyone here that AP, a published author with four books under her belt, currently doesn't have a biographical article on Wikipedia - an article she would have to check practically every hour of every day for the rest of her life, to keep reverting "vandalism" posted by the various Wikipedians Slimmy seems to have pissed off over the past couple of years. I just hope it's really her, because that would be really sad, if it wasn't.

Okay, after having it pointed out to me that Ms. Schloff and Ms. Mack are totally different people, I've edited my post above to make it clear that AP isn't SlimVirgin, and I'm rather sorry I didn't realize...

Still, it just seems like a weird coincidence. If I were a major conspiracy nut instead of just a minor, occasional one, I might even theorize that Slimmy, or someone she knows, inserted that bit about the Minnesota Hadassah chapter's bundt pans just to put people like myself onto the wrong trail and confuse the issue, in the hopes of discrediting any serious effort to identify her. But I'm obviously reaching at this point...

So what is she up to now?

There is a chain of newspapers in Canada formerly owned by Conrad Black. They have all the same sleaze we associate with SV. He sold them to the late Israel Asper, they are now run by son Dave Asper. That would be the first place I'd look for her in Alberta or Sask.

Sask is a pretty small place. Everybody knows everybody. There would be a handfull of rightwing-pro-zionist groups with small membership that she might belong to. That would be the second place I'd look.