Posted by Elizabeth Spiers , Nov 01, 2006 12:34PM

Uh, we're not, da police. (Or should I say "mr. WSF"?) Not surprisingly, we read Forbes independently of that guy, as does everyone who covers finance. That he thinks the only reason we would link to a Forbes article is because he did is either incredibly naive or frighteningly narcissistic--and i don't know which is worse. He accused DealBook of the same thing not too long ago. I responded in his comments section to that ludicrous accusation, but he (you?) hasn't approved the comment. Here's what I wrote:

"For the last time, we're not grabbing your material and your repeated assertions that we are are starting to wear thin. We ALWAYS attribute. It's sort of amazing to me that you think a post about last minute halloween costumes is so original that you're the only person who thought of it. I suggest you pick up any weekly magazine or newspaper the last week of October, and I think you'll find that it's a fairly common motif and a feature most lifestyle publications do EVERY SINGLE YEAR.

We had this problem with you earlier because you apparently thought you were the only person in existence who would think to set up a Google alert. Until you do something that's actually original content (i.e., the interviews we do, instead of just linking and summarizing--when you're not posting entire articles and violating copyright), you should probably assume that those of us covering the same space might possibly be interested in covering the same people and events and might possibly do it the same way. Because that's what happens.

Beyond that, I'm tired of being nice. I've gotten several emails from you like this in the past where you're wrong, paranoid and horribly rude on top of it. Making unfounded, false accusations publicly is the last straw. I won't be responding to any more of them."

But he can rest assured we won't be linking now. Because we won't be reading.