Jason Calacanis has made a name for himself by being smart, funny and a vocal supporter of integrity in web publishing. He has also said that affiliates “pollute the Internet,” that “SEO is bullsh!t,” and that photos of affiliates holding up six-figure AdSense checks were “just pathetic.”

Let’s just say that Jason knows how to make friends.

Now, in a strange turn of events for someone so easy-going and self-effacing, Jason has been accused of lying about his supposed involvement in the iPad launch, of slandering well known VC Fred Wilson and of not “getting his facts straight” when accusing ComScore of achieving sales via a “Reign Of Terror.”

As we said, Jason knows how to make friends.

Without getting into the weeds of the ComScore ruckus (we include links to Jason’s original post and to Fred Wilson’s and ComScore’s rebuttals below) we’ll just focus on Jason’s claims about the new iPad which is being announced by Steve Jobs as we write. Jason wrote a series of Tweets in which he claimed to have had an iPad for 10 days and so was able to provide details of “the best gadget ever”:
 

JC claim: Zynga CEO Mark Pincus to be on-stage as part of the iPad launch.

Reality: Didn’t happen.

JC claim: “has thumbpads on each side for mouse gestures, reads fingerprint for security.”

Reality: Not!

JC claim: “there are 2 cameras: one in front and one in back.”

Reality: No two cameras. Not one camera. Absolutely no camera!

JC claim: “The best part [is the] built in HDTV tuner and pvr”.

Reality: Are you high?

And so on. You can see the actual spec’s of the new iPad here (but IMHO it’s a dealbreaker that it can’t multi-task and doesn’t have an SD card slot). It’s pretty clear that JC’s claims about the device were not necessarily…er…grounded entirely in reality.

Dear reader, you can make your own judgement about whether Jason is a transparent fantasist, a fantastic self-promoter, an insightful prognosticator or some combination of all three. But you must admit, the guy is smart. And very entertaining.

More links:
Calacanis calls out ComScore
TechCrunch summarizes the kerfuffle