Have you heard of sock puppets?
I think they are fake people, invented by corporations to comment on blogs.
Can you believe it?
The other day, I was commenting on a telegraph site about a story on climate change and earthquakes.
Well, it wasn't a story, it was an opinion piece that attacked environmentalists.
I knew it was going to be basically a meeting place for people to bitch about people like me and to deny climate change. That was clear and it didn't faze me.
What WAS interesting, though, was a set of responses that laid out an attack of my thoughts on a totally different order of magnitude.
These responses compared me to a sociopath and claimed I wanted climate change to kill people.
The weird thing was, these responses all lacked spaces between the sentences.
A small thing, perhaps. But combined with the fact that they also gleaned many, many "recommendations" almost immediately pointed to sock puppeting.
Another note: my post, which was measured and not inflammatory, was cut down by more than half---AFTER it had already generated some response comments.
Why?
Because this is a war.
It's a war between progressives with ethics and conservatives who want to win at any cost.
Here is what Viking had to say:
"Well done Delingpole.With sickening predictability ,those advocates of human sacrifice ,the Greenies swarm in to scavenge and fill their blood-stained maws ,vulture-like ,on the still warm bodies of the earthquake and Tsunami victims.Their unholy and obscene delight at the death toll ,their shameless, ill-concealed and earnest desire for yet more disasters and more deaths to be heaped upon the suffering Japanese,reveals their deeply sociopathic nature.No other group glories quite so publicly in the loss of human life,or wishes for it with a fierce predatory desire to benefit from and exploit the suffering of the defenceless and the innocent ."
And Viking got 17 immediate recommends!
----
The question is: How does a person like Viking get a paid writing gig like this?
Sounds like an out-of-work, half crazy poet.
March 18, 2011
March 13, 2011
January 22, 2011
Loyalty, the Left and barf bags
--
--
Maslow's Hierarchy.
Progressives are, by their nature, on the pointy end of it.
This is great for individual self-actualization, but not great for being loyal.
But guess what?
Loyalty is required in 2012.
In the U.S. elections.
Progressives who are "disgusted" with Obama's "lost principles" are going to have to take a Gravol and a barf bag down to the voting station and vote for him over their dry heaves.
They're going to have to show loyalty.
I know, I know.
It's such a clunker of a quality -- not genteel, even though old-fashioned, because it seems like an abdication of the real work that professional left-leaning pundits are so busy with: tearing down Obama because he isn't Christ.
But loyalty is exactly what's needed, right now and over the coming two years.
Perhaps if you just sort of squint your eyes at the bigger picture, instead of focusing a microscope on Obama, you will see that actively supporting Democrats in 2012 does indeed serve your stellar principles.
By supporting Democrats -- including Obama -- you will slowing the Tea Party takeover.
That is the most important work of all progressives at this time in history.
--
Maslow's Hierarchy.
Progressives are, by their nature, on the pointy end of it.
This is great for individual self-actualization, but not great for being loyal.
But guess what?
Loyalty is required in 2012.
In the U.S. elections.
Progressives who are "disgusted" with Obama's "lost principles" are going to have to take a Gravol and a barf bag down to the voting station and vote for him over their dry heaves.
They're going to have to show loyalty.
I know, I know.
It's such a clunker of a quality -- not genteel, even though old-fashioned, because it seems like an abdication of the real work that professional left-leaning pundits are so busy with: tearing down Obama because he isn't Christ.
But loyalty is exactly what's needed, right now and over the coming two years.
Perhaps if you just sort of squint your eyes at the bigger picture, instead of focusing a microscope on Obama, you will see that actively supporting Democrats in 2012 does indeed serve your stellar principles.
By supporting Democrats -- including Obama -- you will slowing the Tea Party takeover.
That is the most important work of all progressives at this time in history.
June 17, 2009
Horses of unbroken spirit
Five birds of destiny
flew the path to water
that we were below.
Four birds of harvest
picked the sky from vines
we had left over.
Two birds of lovers
left their work till morning
in clay-sculpted holes.
Horses of unbroken spirit
walk in formal circles of their own.
April 30, 2009
What writers know
We know it's presumptuous to write, as presumptuous as it is to read,
but we'd rather be the hammer AND the nail, and so do both.
We know people read toothpaste tubes—and that
fiction readers read about characters reading toothpaste tubes.
We know that details are fascinating and adjectives describing them aren't.
We know that the true hits harder than the clever.
We know that the clever screws the true into the ear better.
We know that everyone loves a villain and just puts up with a hero.
We know that it's all been said before, but so have
"I love you" "I hate you" "Please" "Thank you" and "Pass the mustard",
phrases that must be said again and again for culture to go on--and so too books
must be written.
We know that to write something good it's helpful to be inspired by something bad.
We know that to write something bad doesn't necessarily mean we won't get published.
We know that our psyches contain insights, predilections, fallacies and truths
that fan from the universal to the obscure, and that there are enough readers
in the world to appreciate every segment.
We know that everyone has something important to share, but not everyone
wants to write it and some are imprisoned by language—unsure
whether to "breach" or "bridge" the gap or whether a semicolon, colon, dash or comma
will work best in this sentence at this moment.
Here is a thing we don't know:
Why even loving our miraculously alive families
can be like ploughing the ocean down to the sea bed where our keyboards and pens lie waiting
for our touch.
M Lucky Gold
but we'd rather be the hammer AND the nail, and so do both.
We know people read toothpaste tubes—and that
fiction readers read about characters reading toothpaste tubes.
We know that details are fascinating and adjectives describing them aren't.
We know that the true hits harder than the clever.
We know that the clever screws the true into the ear better.
We know that everyone loves a villain and just puts up with a hero.
We know that it's all been said before, but so have
"I love you" "I hate you" "Please" "Thank you" and "Pass the mustard",
phrases that must be said again and again for culture to go on--and so too books
must be written.
We know that to write something good it's helpful to be inspired by something bad.
We know that to write something bad doesn't necessarily mean we won't get published.
We know that our psyches contain insights, predilections, fallacies and truths
that fan from the universal to the obscure, and that there are enough readers
in the world to appreciate every segment.
We know that everyone has something important to share, but not everyone
wants to write it and some are imprisoned by language—unsure
whether to "breach" or "bridge" the gap or whether a semicolon, colon, dash or comma
will work best in this sentence at this moment.
Here is a thing we don't know:
Why even loving our miraculously alive families
can be like ploughing the ocean down to the sea bed where our keyboards and pens lie waiting
for our touch.
M Lucky Gold
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