Greg Pavlov says:

I don´t really know. Possibly the unforgiving and semi-permanent nature of
the medium, coupled with a degree of anonymity. Even in real life,
apologising rarely "clears the board", people remember. They may forgive,
but they very rarely forget. If it happens a couple of times, they don´t
even take it seriously anymore.


Perhaps (actually, I'd bet on it...:-) you have that sort of long-
term memory, but ther real reason is because apologizing usually
doesn't have a long-term effect on the apologizer. I've apologized
to people here, most recently Frank Church, and I most definitely
meant it, but sooner or later I'll post something just as obnoxious
again (and I'm not including political rhetoric).

Wow, it's deja vu all over again.