SPRINGFIELD -- It seems like people are going crazy with angry notes, email messages and blog comments in this high-tech age.

Here are a few examples from a political blog. In one online discussion, Robbie writes that a Missouri congressman is an embarrassment. Purple Leader replies, "Robbie, you are an idiot." Robbie writes back that the other writer is an idiot, and that comment is served with exclamation points.

Writers should be careful where and how you send that type of angry message. Even if you thought it was anonymous, it could get you fired.

Jason Wert is a blogger -- a sometimes controversial blogger.

"I'm not trying to stir trouble up with my blog, as much as I'm trying to have positive changes happen," said Wert.

The posts on Life of Jason can touch on topics from rating councilmembers to his son's autism. Sometimes people attack his opinions by attacking his son.

"Somebody who didn't like my comments on a political issue made a comment on that post (about son's autism)," said Wert. "And, they said, 'Well, your son's a retard because your dad's a retard.'

"It's a situation where a lot of people don't realize how much their words can sting," said Wert.

It's not just Wert here in Springfield. Ellen Degeneres had to call off people hounding an animal shelter with death threats.

In San Antonio, a man sent an email message from his company account to a council member. She got upset and reported him. He got fired and then committed suicide.

"In Wert's case, that nasty email message came from an employee at a large well known company in the Ozarks. The email sender thought he was anonymous but someone with just basic net savvy can easily make a few clicks, do a search on Google, and know the company hosting that anonymous email sender.

If you're found out -- sayyou typed in the hurtful word "retard" in an email message from a company account -- you could be in a whole lot of trouble.

"An employee who uses a workplace computer in violation of a reasonable workplace computer policy could be fired," said attorney Aaron Jones of Springfield.

Iit's hard not to post that (angry e-mail), and post where it came from, and fire back at them. The temptation is really there," said Wert.

Instead, Wert made a different move. He deletes anonymous messages and skips the detective work.

"I don't allow anonymous messages on my blog anymore because the most hateful messages are the ones where people refuse to leave a name or email address," he said.

Your best bet, if a blogger makes you angry, is to slow down, reign in your emotions and think about it. Otherwise, you might hit send and get a person who wants to punch delete on your job.

Email security vendor ProofPoint recently surveyed employers and found one-fourth of them had fired employees in the last year for violating email policies. Another half of companies in the survey reported disciplining employees for inappropriate email use.