There’s this site I know, you may have heard of it. It starts with an H as in “Hell”. They have a story up right now as their top screaming headline, quoting CBS that President Obama has decided to send 40,000 troops to Afghanistan.
In the meantime, CBS News has posted an update at the top of their article on their site which says:
Editor’s note, 9:57 p.m. EDT: The White House has issued the following response to this story, attributed to White House National Security Advisor James Jones:
“Reports that President Obama has made a decision about Afghanistan are absolutely false. He has not received final options for his consideration, he has not reviewed those options with his national security team, and he has not made any decisions about resources. Any reports to the contrary are completely untrue and come from uninformed sources.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/11/09/world/main5592551.shtml
And is this update, which undermines the shock and awe of the story, displayed at that newsy progressive site which begins with an H as in “Hypothetically-newsy”? Not as of the time of this writing, 3 hours after the update was posted at the CBS site.
So many outrages, so little time. What’s more upsetting?
That Pres. Obama may have given into McChrystal and assured more war, billions of our treasure and lives of our soldiers for a goal that no one has yet defined let alone determined is winnable?
That CBS could have falsely reported this story, that by doing so they could be helping to lobby for a bigger, costlier and more deadly Afghan war?
That Pres. Obama may not be honest with the nation when he says he hasn’t decided yet?
That the site that begins with an H as in “Hate-filled” would call itself a news organization but mislead its readership by only presenting part of a story because the full story might not be as inciting to progressives (read “profitable to the site”)?
You decide!
Funny how this story “Obama narrows Afghan strategy to 4 options” does not make the 160 point red headlines tonight on HystericalPost.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091110/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_afghanistan
Yes, I noticed that too. The miracles of the internet.No retractions — just edit the page and history has been re-written!
Hey, speaking of HP, I saw DailyKOS had some pretty good entries yesterday about their irresponsible headline on the Afghanistan report.
Do you mean DailyKOS had bad headlines too or they were talking about the HP headline?
Oops. They had entries about HP’s headline… They were mad about it, too.
I like DailyKos but not crazy about their format. Markos is genuinely principled and that’s reflected in the site.
Not surprised that criticism of Huff’s yellow journalism is spreading.
We’re at the forefront of that effort and I think it’s only going to grow, the same way the voices against Fox News grew.
Yeah, they need to spruce up the format. Them and Open Left.
E’cat, regarding sickos on Facebook. My daughter friended a local hockey team and I saw on her Facebook page off to the side people were “suggested friends,” and their avatars were photos of little girls who had been murdered in Sacramento and Florida. It turns out whoever this jerk was had also friended the hockey team. It was really, really chilling to see that pop up on my computer.
I wrote Facebook about it and the accounts were quickly eliminated and I shut down my daughter’s account and told her no more Facebook for her. Very frightening. I have no doubt it was some kind of predator. I have a bad feeling there’s a lot of that stuff on Facebook, MySpace, etc.
There are a number of people on the HuffPost forums that I’m convinced are mentally ill and more than once I’ve posted something, then cringed that perhaps I put out too much personal info. Like last night tangling with Gringo, he claimed he knows who I am. What did that mean? Was he just trying to be threatening?
First, I typically advise folks to ignore any claims from trolls that they know who you are. That’s a common tactic by these assholes to harass people.
Second, I am bewildered why anyone, having seen how horrible the trolls are at Huff, would join a Huff Facebook page that these trolls are also joining.
It’s bad enough to see them at the site, who would want them having access to one’s personal life and friends? Insane. And by doing so, one may indeed tip off trolls as to one’s actual identity.
We have a Facebook page for The Planet (under the name “Adlib Planetpov”) because it is important to network to keep the Planet growing. And our community is a pretty nice one to network with. As long as people don’t mention their username, there are enough members so no one will know who anyone else is.
But despite the positives, people have to remember that Facebook is public information, anything you don’t want your worst enemy to know about you, you shouldn’t post at Facebook.
Scuse me, just remembered I need to go to Facebook now to remove a copy of my birth certificate, SS #, the address of my home and the combination to my safe filled with gold, jewels and AIG stock.
Hey, could you hold off on those deletions for a minute….?
Do you want my copy of your NCIC printout? Only kidding! But I once went in to a car dealership in Long Beach, they ran a credit report on me evidently, and the next week I kept getting phone calls at work from investment brokers I’d never heard of. And that was 1989!
Holding one’s information really close is a very good habit. I shred anything with my name on it before disposing of it, and any printouts I have made just in case there’s a dumpster scavenger. I’m not paranoid, I just know better!
Pepe, that kind of stuff really scares me. A lot of people are very naive about the level of mental illness in some of these online “personalities.” Of course that’s especially true with kids. I think it’s pretty well known that almost all predators now use the internet as their method of access. No more need to lurk around schoolyards and playgrounds — just get online!
I agree that some of these trolls we fight with are mentally ill. A lot of the rightwing posters are just run of the mill conservatives and don’t mean anyone any harm but it’s pretty easy to distinguish the sickos. There are some on the left too. Do you have a Facebook account? How could Gringo know who you are?
There’s one poster on the left I’m honestly quite concerned about at the moment.
I *do* have a Facebook account, but I didn’t think people could get to it from my HuffPost profile… I’m not that proficient in this stuff, frankly. I do know I’ve never gotten a post on my Facebook wall from anyone from HuffPost, nor has anyone at HuffPost ever commented about my Facebook page. Now, I’m nervous. I’ve made some crazy enemies!
Being “connected” just doesn’t hold that much of an attraction to me. Neither does public disclosure. If I have to get another security clearance in the future, I have no desire to lose the chance of it due to some strange interpretation by some DOD bureaucrat who was researching me and saw some innocuous comment.
I’m not that into Facebook, really. I post on it a couple of times a week. I mostly use it to post photos of my mountain climbs, but I can do that on my blog, too.
I have a feeling I know who you are talking about. Colorful names?
Yes.
It’s genuinely sad.
Agreed.
Oh, before I forget, I just wanted to share this bit of trivia with you.
When I joined Huffy in June 07, the comments were all numbered. It was still a lot of fun then and we would write things like,”Come in # 31, I totally disagree with your comment.” Well I told you it was trivia.
They do the same with BBC’s “Have Your Say” but you can’t directly reply to anyone, have a limit of 500 characters and your comments can stay in moderation for 2 days sometimes during which time I would forget what I had written. 🙂
I really liked the numbered comments. Did that EVER make it easy to string a debate together.
Missing abuse profile button? Has anyone considered that perhaps those people who don’t have this are staff? Just keep an eye out and see who has them and who doesn’t. I don’t know. But I’m just saying…
I think it has something to do with the social profile system. As far as I can recall, those who don’t have the buttons are using the Facebook thingy.
That is another distinct possibility. That social network stuff of theirs is riddled with performance issues. I have a list….
Yeah. I dislike the soc profile thing, for a variety of reasons.
Me too. It’s way too busy with extra crap that you don’t need. Feature-itis. I only switched to that because they put windows up that got in the way, almost forcing the switch. I’m not on Facebook — I have serious privacy issues with that site! Another thing I’ve learned with my victim advocacy work — Facebook is the detective’s number one tool now that young people blab all their intimate secrets and list all their associates on their profiles!
I agree. Facebook is also going to be a problem for the kids when seeking employment in the future. Although my son tells me that he can delete any of his posts. Still, I have my doubts that it is that simple in that who wants to go through all their old stuff and delete it. Not to mention that many of them won’t understand how small things will influence a future employer.
Ugh. IMO, best just to avoid it altogether.
That’s how I see it too. There are a lot of wackos out there — just look at the tone of many commenters on these political blogs. Some seriously sick people. And you are right, all employers look for your online profiles now — and they are very revealing, and not always flattering.
A city in Montana was actually demanding job applicants hand over their Facebook and MySpace and Twitter passwords. The ACLU got involved and filed suit and the city dropped their policy. The state attorney general eventually ruled the whole thing was unconstitutional. They can look for you on Facebook if they want, but they can’t demand your *passwords*.
On what basis were they demanding passwords from people? That’s way off base.
That’s what the ACLU said. It was outrageous.
Hi N. No, plenty of profiles with the Facebook stuff have the Abuse button. It’s there when you first access the profile but disappears if you hit tabs.
Thanks, escriba. I didn’t notice that.
I also notice it isn’t there if you’re not logged on. They want to insure no “anonymous” reports!
As though we weren’t supposedly anonymous anyway.
for real. the stupidity boggles the mind on that site.
Good morning nellie and nicole.
I was just going to call it a night but came one more time. I can only see 2 comments for this post and was wondering where the other 54 comments are hiding. My IPod has the same results, the comments are in the sidebar but when I click on them, they don’t show up.
Is anyone having the same problem?
Kalima! Look down at the “Leave a Reply” box at the bottom of the page. There is now a “see older entries” or something like that click there. adlib has been busy with a new change. It’s a good idea but I noticed a minute ago when I hadn’t clicked it that when I chose Nicole’s new entry it didn’t open up and take me to it since it was in reply to an “older” entry.
Thanks FM, I eventually found it and I believe that AdLib is busy tweaking behind the curtain as we speak.
Cheers AdLib and a goodnight to you and everyone else too. See you in my morning and take care.
Kalima, I’m making a few tweaks to speed up the site. I’m going to post an article shortly to list the updates but FYI, I have reduced the amount of comments per page.
That makes pages load faster. You’ll now find links at the bottom of Article pages, when they have multiple pages of comments, that say “Older Comments” and “Newer Comments”, click on them to browse through all the comments for an article as desired.
The Recent Comments column works just the same, if you click on a comment listed there, you will go right to it, on the comment page it is on.
Sorry about the confusion!
Hi Adlib, It seems MUCH faster now!! Good job.
Thanks! Still tweaking a little!
The site, not me.
Well…maybe me…
LOL.
Felonious, thanks for mentioning that you found that! I’ve now resolved it, you can now successfully click any Recent Comments link from Older Pages and go right to it.
adlib, you know I’m glad to help. As I said, having debugged more than my share of avionics software and displays, it’s sort of second nature to notice oddities of operation. The trick is knowing what is different!
Ok, bad eyes, I see that we have the new feature of older comments now. Flap off, I can sleep peacefully now, sorry.
Good morning everyone and YES!
Glad you mentioned it!
Good evening, Kalima! I think AdLib must be fiddling with the comment system—-difficult to code without working through glitches!
It’s inevitable, and hard to test off line. I (used to) work with software design and always found that things I could supposedly debug in the test rig would always have at least one item sneak through to the first active test.
I already sent a direct comment to adlib about it but originally missed the issue regarding new messages attached to older ones not being found when you click on them. He’ll get it fixed.
How’s it going? I stayed in bed late today. Almost 7 AM.
What bothers me the most as that HP presents itself as a news org, a PROGRESSIVE news org, and it is the antithesis of that.
They have no respect for their readers, the President, the Dem process, or anything that doesn’t feed in to their quest for money and attention.
I had to laugh (to avoid crying) when I saw one of today’s headlines: “Woman Recounts Health Horror: My Vagina Fell Out!”
That says it all right there. These people are self serving idiots.
If we were invaded, Arianna would be a collaborator.
The site already has a serious credibility issue. If this keeps up, it will end up with the same reputation as Fox News.
At this point, HP is really only a discussion site — because the stories they run are so unreliable. I”m glad this happened. I hope it happens more. Soon there will be no more questions for HP at the WH press conferences.
What a squandered opportunity.
I absolutely agree. I’ve noticed that these off the record meals with Obama have not included anyone from HP.
I am truly shocked. SHOCKED!
Ok, not really. The controversy machine rolls along, dragging it’s bloggers along with it. I personally gave up on expecting any kind of REAL news from them months ago. Call me cynical. When you concentrate solely on driving traffic, and not being truthful, well, you see the results. Hypocritical nonsense at its finest. Boo. Bah. BOOOOOOOO!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrFLlV9ugP0
Megadeth – Train Of Consequences
I thought it apt.
A song about a liar.
Are you implying that the daily Jon Gosselin update is not REAL news?
Well I might be the last woman standing so I’ll see you all later or in my morning.
Goodnight. Gute Nacht. Oyasumi nasai.
Good night, Kalima. Sweet dreams..
So, I wonder if HP will bother printing a retraction.
This is the internet. No more need for retractions — you just change the text and pretend it never happened.
She’s stilled pissed off from the contradiction David Plouffe supplied about her silly article on Obama the candidate and Obama the President. He took her down quite a few pegs, she is still smarting from that one, I swear I can still hear her screams once in awhile.
Yup. I believe you nailed it.
Ah, good point. Maybe she’s declared open warfare on Obama now .
Ari is really getting creepier by the day.
No kidding. More manipulative. More biased. More hysterical. And more destructive.
Palin comes to mind. Sorry, but I still hates me some Palin. Ariyawnna can suck it, as Pam Anderson so succinctly put it. Irresponsible, divisive, soul-dead reporting is really starting to piss me off. I’m wiping out my profile at HP. I’ve had enough.
You know, all threads are eventually about Sarah Palin. 😉
Yep. She continues to be the catalyst of hate, secrecy, and everything that is wrong with the Pubes. But I love your posts at the HP, Pepe!! Troll Slayer extraordinaire!
Well done jillsond, I’m taking off my imaginary hat to you.
I’ve said it before, but i mean it this time! It is truly heart-breaking to see good people exposed to this litany. Whatever, people are grown-ups and they can fend for themselves. But when Brittney Spears gets more comments than Obama’s message about abortion, one needs to wake the hell up.
We have all reached that point of no return and I didn’t go back.
Hey SurfinUSSR, who’s been lurking over here. Fuck you.
LOL another lurker, there must be quite a few by now. It’s ok, the door is safely bolted.
He’s been spewing some really vile stuff. Probably taking a break from a KKK site.
Or the asylum has closed down the computer room.
LOL. Maybe that’s what he meant when he was bragging about how he lived in a gated community that kept the rabble out.
Couldn’t be clearer then, that’s exactly what he was bragging about. Must be off his meds for the night or shoved them in the wrong hole.
LOL!!!
Good.
The Internet has such a dark underbelly sometimes…
I know. I love the internet but it does have potential for monumental misuse.
Especially with the sickos they allow to post on you-know-where. If I owned this site which can be read all over the world, I would be ashamed about the image I was sending out to them on a daily basis.
A Persian friend of mine living in London since just before the Islamic Revolution once remarked after sending a HP link in an email to her, “What the f@ck are you doing in a dump like that? Get out of there!!”
Their censorship and banning policies are completely erratic. My latest theory is the people handling it are a bunch of drunks and dopers sitting in a room having a good laugh by scrubbing random posts and messing with people’s heads.
Edit–that’s an interesting reaction from your friend. Did you find out why?
I have a theory that the mods are giving each other Brazilian bikini waxes but with tweezers instead, they always seem to be in such lousy moods.
My friend read a few threads I had included as links and had come to the conclusion that apart from a few posters, the majority there were just too ignorant about world matters to even think about, this was 07 and last year during the primaries too, it was a hell hole there last year.
Putain you, SurfinUSSR!
I’ll add to that. Du bist ein Arschloch SurfinUSSR! How’s that?
Ach! Mein Gott!
I know, it sounds much worse in German.
Ja, mein Gott er spinnt!
I actually understood both of those!
Great! It makes me feel less of a bloody “furriner.” 🙂
I am a German….moved here at age 5, then naturalized with dual citizenship. Unfortunately, I no longer speak German, but I can usually understand the basics.
That is interesting. I moved to England aged 9 and it was back and forth to Germany until I was 13. Encountered a lot of prejudice/xenophobia as a kid, not a pleasant memory.
You might be able to pick it up in no time again if you spoke it as a small child.
Where in Germany, Kalima?
I have considered learning to speak German again. My Mother said that when I moved here, I refused to speak it, learned English within 2 months, and refused to respond when she spoke to me in German.
Young and ignorant, I was.
Everyone in my family speaks it except for me. Ridiculous, I know.
She is exposing her true self like an aging stripper in a sparsely filled club. This plus the lopsided view of David Plouffe’s book not so long ago, the other total misconceptions she has penned for all the world to wonder about, should be an eye opener for anyone still posting there who has an ounce of self respect or integrity left over, they should see the warning lights, I can only hope.
So much for double checking your source before you run with a story. She just can’t wait to pull the President down into her festering pool of mud.
Well, the expected pitchforking session is in full swing over in yonder land. Look how easy it is. Just think of what Hitler could have done with the internet.
No kidding. And that asshole bitter betty is having a fine old time.
If there was one troll to despise, it would be he.
Do you mean surfinUSSR?
I have flagged that one repeatedly and they do not give the option
to report an offensive profile- What happened to that option?
I have been flagging him too. Sometimes that Flag Abusive Profile is there and sometimes it’s not. I can’t get it to display for him.
Use the feedback button at the bottom of the thread he is in to report his profile. Make sure you link to it.
It does work to do it that way, in case you’re wondering……
Yes. He was there when I started posting.
Wadda asshole.
Hosiery aka beejer? Yeah. Absolutely.
No this guy isn’t the hosiery/beejer guy. It’s SurfinUSSR — much older version of beejer but just as mentally ill.
Hi, ‘Cat.
Actually, that is a very, very scary point…
…. did you see me messing with GringoLingo again. 😀
Yes I did. But I think you’re wrong. I think Flossie is much smarter than Gringo. Maybe we need a betting pool or something.
I think I’m wrong, too. I just think it’s hilarious how flustered and defensive he gets about it. I wouldn’t even care except for that. I can’t figure out why they both act so weird about it…
… There is *something* there …
Agreed.
I somehow double posted my comment. Never mind this one.