Geez, where do I start, or should I just declare complete and utter defeat and save myself a lot of grief? You might think that after all this time, with thousands of news sites running, there would be some factual oversight that would keep us opinionated basement dwellers from so consistently making asses of themselves. Not just yet, I'm afraid. Over the last ten days I have fallen for two, 2, (count 'em tee dubya oh) fake stories spreading around the interimnet. First there was the ham sandwich incident, which actually occurred, but the details got twisted and embellished. A few extra, never-having-happened details got thrown in, the whole thing mashed up and re-envisioned to the point of ensuing hilarity including, but not limited to, my issuance of the latest version of my anti-hate-crime rant. (Basically, when you take an actual crime and add special statutes and conditions that entail further penalties to the perpetrators because of how they feel about their victim, you have in effect infantalized the victim, simultaneously elevating the victim to a protected status that further alienates said victim and his/her special interest group from the rest of society. Laws are for governing behavior, not thought; intent is irrelevant.)

This wasn't too embarrassing, as I believed (and continue to believe) everything that I said, it's just that I over-reacted like a lot of people that I mock on a regular basis. It worked out pretty good that I blathered this froth and foam in a faux-conservative group that I lurk in, so nobody of consequence saw it, just a few Bushies that lately make me think of what a cross between Tweak and Butters might be like, personality-wise. That is, until I summarized it here for you, dear readers, but you see it's just a detail leading towards my impending resignation from the interimnet.

Slightly off-topic for a sec, why do so many of us think it is cute and unique to use euphemisms and dysphemisms for the word 'internet'? I've used 'interwebs', 'spiderwebs', 'info superpipe', et cetera, but my favorite, you may have noticed; is 'interimnet'. My reasoning is pretty straight forward, I see the faulty, overly-complex, user-unfriendly, half-assed constructs that are thrown together by global companies and I think to myself, "Self, this shit has got to be a first draft. Why would a company that is in business here in the twenty oughts still have a website that works as well as the average geocities hellhole? Why would said company have a faq filled with questions that nobody would ask, much less frequently, yet completely refuse to receive email just in case they missed one?" Okay, back on topic.

So, I get over my silly ranting over nothing, and I try to mind my own business. I try, but it's hard, y'know, when you sit here in the glare and some really stupid things go by and you don't say anything, you want to just look at some funny videos or hear some music, whatever; and then it happens. Someone buys a dead goat to display for the release party of their ultra-violent video game, and someone at some little tea and jam cramming British tabloid decides to make it look like an international incident. Not only that, someone in another group tries to tell you that it never happened because the first entry of the Google* search is a news parody site. That cranked me up a notch, first that it was a tabloid reporting it, with a pixelated picture from a magazine that was reportedly pulled from production, and now, 36 hours later the top search result is a user-edited spoof site's article that simply changed the location and dropped a few details. Plagiarizing actual news stories and passing them off as your own parody? Weak.

Unfortunately, I was unable to simply STFU and stay out of it, I had to answer back, somewhat smarmily, that the incident had occurred, it was spreading like cream cheese across the innertubes and had been for at least 30 hours before the 'spoof' site went live with their so-called parody. When I went back to try and track down what had really happened I was distressed to find out that every site that was discussing the story had gotten it from the tabloid. Not that they don't ever print factual articles, but when you have dozens of streams but only one original source it starts to look like the conspiracy theorists are right. And when you have sarcastically called them out it really sucks to go back and say, "Well, um, err, I don't know." But that's what I did, and it was probably a good thing. Granted, I still believe that everyone having a conniption over this event that isn't already a vegan/vegetarian should go on the Oscar Meyer tour before they offer their opinion, but it wasn't really necessary for me to be so outspoken about it. Wait, I think maybe I was totally right on that one, so I might have to take a mulligan, for doubting myself. Maybe I can stick around until we get the bugs worked out of this global pornography ring information superhighway after all.

*The Spoof is no longer the top result since Sony released their apology.

Sudden Valley Ranch Archives

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