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You are here: Home / Science & Technology / Can Someone Explain This?

Can Someone Explain This?

by John Cole|  May 14, 201111:33 am| 94 Comments

This post is in: Science & Technology

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Does anyone have any idea why facebook would hire the idiots at Mark Penn’s company to smear google? What is at stake?

And I guess it is just me, but why would anyone hire those guys after they watched what Penn did to the Clinton 2008 campaign?

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Reader Interactions

94Comments

  1. 1.

    BR

    May 14, 2011 at 11:38 am

    Feels like something out of the Social Network…

  2. 2.

    JGabriel

    May 14, 2011 at 11:41 am

    John Cole @ Top:

    Does anyone have any idea why facebook would hire the idiots at Mark Penn’s company to smear google?

    Two reasons:

    1) Facebook is just sick of being accused of not respecting privacy and wants to shift some of the blame;

    2) Facebook and Google each perceive the other as threatening their respective social and search core businesses.

    That’s pretty much it. It’s basically a pissing match between the two and Facebook wanted to hurt Google’s brand.

    That’s my read on it anyway. YMMV.

    .

  3. 3.

    malraux

    May 14, 2011 at 11:45 am

    @JGabriel: It’s a question so much of why facebook would want to smear Google as it is why they would choose anything relating to Penn as their vessel.

  4. 4.

    stormhit

    May 14, 2011 at 11:48 am

    Not any more is at stake than when Google falsely smeared MS with regards to Bing search results. But at least in that case they had the sense to do their hatchet job themselves rather than outsourcing it.

    The tech media world can be juvenile and petty, so companies try to smear each other constantly for a leg up.

  5. 5.

    Kane

    May 14, 2011 at 11:49 am

    Why would anyone willingly share their personal information at Facebook?

  6. 6.

    maya

    May 14, 2011 at 11:51 am

    From Sam Gustin @ Wired:

    Instead, Mercurio and Goldman, both high-profile former journalists new to Burson, will receive additional ethics training, the company said.

    How Shakespearian can you get? Two Exjounalists From Bursona

    And who teaches ethics at a PR firm?

  7. 7.

    Viva BrisVegas

    May 14, 2011 at 11:52 am

    And I guess it is just me, but why would anyone hire those guys after they watched what Penn did to the Clinton 2008 campaign?

    Maybe because smearing was the only thing he was good at?

  8. 8.

    Gin & Tonic

    May 14, 2011 at 11:53 am

    @maya:

    And who teaches ethics at a PR firm?

    I suspect they have to outsource that.

  9. 9.

    kindness

    May 14, 2011 at 11:53 am

    I would say Facebook insiders must be shorting their stock but that is just the conspiracy theorist in me.

  10. 10.

    Nutella

    May 14, 2011 at 11:55 am

    @maya:

    “Additional ethics training”? Wouldn’t it be better PR to fire them after they publicly embarrassed their employer and their client, that is, they were hired to make FB look good and they made FB look really bad. *

    * This is all about image and PR and unrelated to whether FB actually is good or evil.

  11. 11.

    Ghanima Atreides

    May 14, 2011 at 11:57 am

    Well…since im prolly the only commenter that religiously watches MTV here, I would guess none of you have seen Zuckermans puffpieces on the Glory of Facebook !what a swell place to work! I think there is a campaign to rebrand facebook and the bunglers from Penn are just one part of it.

  12. 12.

    WhyKnot241

    May 14, 2011 at 12:01 pm

    Who gives a thimbleful of s**t. A story about a bunch of supposedly professional wankers getting caught wanking badly.

  13. 13.

    El Tiburon

    May 14, 2011 at 12:02 pm

    What is at stake?

    While most of us would be quite content to be worth several billions of dollars – these type of people will never be satisfied.

    While most of us will gladly pass the plate of yayo around and share – these type of people want the entire 8-ball for themselves. And they will do whatever they have to do, including narking their own mother out, if it means they get the entire bowl of blow and you get NOTHING.

    It is how these people operate. Stepping on and squashing all perceived enemies is a sign of strength and nobility.

    They really are pieces of greedy shit.

  14. 14.

    Ghanima Atreides

    May 14, 2011 at 12:02 pm

    @maya:

    How Shakespearian can you get?

    actually what sprang to my forebrain was Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead.
    one degree of separation.
    ;)

  15. 15.

    Suffern ace

    May 14, 2011 at 12:02 pm

    Well someone must teach ethics at a pr firm. It’s mainly to find out how ethical people behave so they can be conned…but someone has get their hands dirty and learn about the marks.

  16. 16.

    Hunter Gathers

    May 14, 2011 at 12:03 pm

    They must have figured out that Facebook’s 15 minutes are up and want to take a few shots at Google before they go the way of MySpace.

  17. 17.

    cmorenc

    May 14, 2011 at 12:05 pm

    @John Cole:

    Does anyone have any idea why facebook would hire the idiots at Mark Penn’s company to smear google? What is at stake?

    …because though both outfits are ostensibly in the business of managing and facilitating human relations and networking, nonetheless both are run at the top by amoral sociopaths who recognize that they are a wonderfully compatible, like-minded match for one another’s styles of doing business.

  18. 18.

    Amir_Khalid

    May 14, 2011 at 12:05 pm

    No doubt some very smart people at Facebook came up with this scheme. Maybe they persuaded themselves that the scheme was so brilliant that letting ethical considerations scuttle the scheme would be a waste of the awesome intelligence they showed by cooking it up; and/or that letting ethical concerns thwart their off-the-scale brilliant scheme was timidity unbecoming of the bestest and brilliantest minds in the universe, fuck yeah!

    Or in other words, hubris.

  19. 19.

    Joel

    May 14, 2011 at 12:07 pm

    @WhyKnot241: I find it pretty hilarious, but YMMV.

  20. 20.

    Corner Stone

    May 14, 2011 at 12:12 pm

    @Hunter Gathers:

    They must have figured out that Facebook’s 15 minutes are up and want to take a few shots at Google before they go the way of MySpace.

    People keep making similar comments to this, but I’m not so sure I agree.
    ISTM, from a pure outsider perspective, that FB has an actual plan to branch out and leverage the massive renewable resource they have cultivated.
    I’ve seen comments on Bloomberg News that referenced Zuck wearing a tie to meet Obama. They said this indicated his willingness to acknowledge he needed government as a partner.
    Then more recent stories about FB starting a cloud hosting business.
    IMO, FB has several more iterations left in it, and is going no where for the foreseeable future.

  21. 21.

    maya

    May 14, 2011 at 12:12 pm

    @Suffern ace: Upon further research I have found that Burson’s Professor of Ethics is the same guy who teachs Latin.

  22. 22.

    Ghanima Atreides

    May 14, 2011 at 12:16 pm

    @cmorenc: no….i dont think that is correct. you should watch Zuckerman on MTV. He is a True Believer.
    But like all true believers he is an idealist and and evangelist.
    The rebranding of facebook is push-back against what Zuckerman sees as enemies trying to tarnish his Shiny New Paradigm. Facebook and Google are both New Events…and they are evolving to become the same new event through competing for an market-share in overlapping markets. Google is a search engine that is evolving to be a social networking site on the way doing EVERYTHING, and Facebook is a social networking site evolving to do EVERYTHING. Right now the competition centers on data privacy and security.
    @Amir_Khalid: You are probably correct….all evangelists have a giant dose of hubris.

  23. 23.

    BR

    May 14, 2011 at 12:19 pm

    I’m going to make the prediction that three years from now we’ll look at Facebook as a failure, if not in the technological sense, in the business sense – I’m betting that after their IPO the hype won’t be able to keep their artificially high valuation up.

  24. 24.

    Ghanima Atreides

    May 14, 2011 at 12:20 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    Zuck wearing a tie to meet Obama

    he wears a tie in some parts of his MTV Facebook Puff-umentary too.
    A beige one.

    @BR
    i think….Zuckerman is forging some sort of alliance with Obama actually.
    ima look for a link to the MTV piece. it has a feel of “Let’s Move” and Obama’s education/young people focus.

  25. 25.

    300baud

    May 14, 2011 at 12:24 pm

    @Amir_Khalid:

    Or in other words, hubris.

    That is about the size of it.

    Facebook does have the germ of a reasonable complaint: Google is still pretty much a darling of the tech press. (Of course, so is Facebook, although not quite as much so.) I could see how they’d say, “Gosh, journalists never say anything bad about Google.” And, possibly with the encouragement of paid liars, then think that it was their job to fix that.

  26. 26.

    TooManyJens

    May 14, 2011 at 12:24 pm

    @Amir_Khalid: I sort of think you give them too much credit. Why assume that ethical concerns crossed their minds?

  27. 27.

    Ghanima Atreides

    May 14, 2011 at 12:30 pm

    Diary of Facebook

    To me, this has a feel of the Obamas’ (both POTUS and FLOTUS) outreach to youth masterplan.
    All your base reps are belong to us.
    ;)

  28. 28.

    dmbeaster

    May 14, 2011 at 12:31 pm

    I’m going with the theory that the arrogant schmucks at Facebook were so attracted to the sleaze factor of Penn that they overlooked the incompetency factor.

  29. 29.

    300baud

    May 14, 2011 at 12:32 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    IMO, FB has several more iterations left in it, and is going no where for the foreseeable future.

    Yes. The analogy with MySpace is false. MySpace was put together by spammers and other idiots with an extreme short-term focus. They flipped it to somebody even dumber, and now they’re off plaguing the web elsewhere. Facebook has been more strategically adroit, and have done a great job of building out from their initial base.

    One key lesson they’ve learned, presumably from Google, is to allow a lot of bottom-up innovation. Keeping power distributed gives them much greater flexibility, and lets them attract talented staff. This is in contrast to, say, Yahoo, which was run as a top-down traditional media organization where the Duke of Mobile and the Earl of Email (or whatever their titles were) both had the power to quash any innovation anything that touched on their dominions. Eventually creative people get frustrated and leave, either for competitors or for startups.

    Facebook will continue to make mistakes, because that’s the price of innovation, but I’m not expecting any fatal ones in the near future.

  30. 30.

    Joey Maloney

    May 14, 2011 at 12:33 pm

    With membership climbing towards a billion I don’t think Facebook is going to be edged out by any competitor on the scene now. No doubt it will evolve over time and in twenty years it or its successor will be a vastly different animal – but I don’t think it’s going to end up a disused backwater.

  31. 31.

    tom

    May 14, 2011 at 12:37 pm

    I’m rather amazed that on Twitter @johngcole could ask @jayrosen_nyu, a guy with over 57,000 followers, about this and Jay responded quickly. John’s got some clout.

    (@jayrosen_nyu is Jay Rosen, a widely-read professor of journalism at New York University).

  32. 32.

    Stillwater

    May 14, 2011 at 12:42 pm

    @Suffern ace: It’s mainly to find out how ethical people behave so they can be conned…but someone has get their hands dirty and learn about the marks.

    lulz. /PR guy: “We need a few volunteers willing to take on a dangerous and unnerving project: study the thoughts and habits of ethical people, mingle with them, learn their weaknesses. We need know how to break them down. Volunteers? Anyone? Bueller?”

  33. 33.

    cmorenc

    May 14, 2011 at 12:45 pm

    @Ghanima Atreides:

    no….i dont think that is correct. you should watch Zuckerman on MTV. He is a True Believer.
    But like all true believers he is an idealist and and evangelist.

    So, why is being a “true believer” and “evangelist” incompatible with also being an “amoral sociopath”? Certainly a great many folk whom the former two descriptions fit will not necessarily be the latter at all, but nonetheless “idealist”, “evangelist”, “amoral” and “sociopath” are not at all mutually exclusive categories.

  34. 34.

    Corner Stone

    May 14, 2011 at 12:49 pm

    @Stillwater: Ha! Unethical people do not need to be taught how marks act in their natural environs. It’s like that movie The Grifters with John Cusack. He knows how normal people respond to stimuli, and he nickel and dime scams all of them off it.
    People like his character are the reason cashiers place the bill on top of the register while they count out your change to you.

  35. 35.

    Corner Stone

    May 14, 2011 at 12:50 pm

    @Ghanima Atreides: I wouldn’t know, just going off a Bloomberg News “Best of the West” piece I found credible. YMMV.

  36. 36.

    Terry Chay

    May 14, 2011 at 12:51 pm

    Facebook as an in house PR firm. Obviously no one there would sign off on this “genius” idea and someone there used the transition of PR leads as an opportunity to hire an outside PR firm for an RF on google.

    Probably someone in engineering. Only an engineer would think “Google is just as bad as us” would fly as a story idea to pitch.

  37. 37.

    Corner Stone

    May 14, 2011 at 12:51 pm

    @cmorenc: David Koresh, anyone?

  38. 38.

    Jazz Superluminar

    May 14, 2011 at 12:54 pm

    “oh God! M_c is a member?! Holy Fuck I did not know that! ”
    “Is it too late to pretend she doesn’t exist?”
    “Sorry, bit she’s WAI!”

  39. 39.

    Jazz Superluminar

    May 14, 2011 at 1:00 pm

    @Ghanima Atreides
    But what is Imram Khan going to be wearing?

  40. 40.

    Suffern ace

    May 14, 2011 at 1:02 pm

    @Terry Chay: someone who hadnt taken into consideration that google would push back hard. “oh they’ll never find out about it and anyway who would look into negative stories about themselves in the media?”

  41. 41.

    JGabriel

    May 14, 2011 at 1:10 pm

    @malraux:

    It’s [not] a question so much of why facebook would want to smear Google as it is why they would choose anything relating to Penn as their vessel.

    Oops, you’re right. I missed the emphasis on Penn.

    .

  42. 42.

    Observer

    May 14, 2011 at 1:10 pm

    @Cole

    And I guess it is just me, but why would anyone hire those guys after they watched what Penn did to the Clinton 2008 campaign?

    From the page you link to…Mark Penn’s company has just been named ad company of the year.

    It was also a good night for Burson-Marsteller, which took home the North American Agency of the Year trophy; Kekst and Company, which was named Specialist Agency of the Year in addition to its Strategic Agency of the Year award

    The take away is opposite of what you think; it’s not that Mark Penn’s a bad political operative who happens to run an ad agency; Mark Penn’s an (apparently) great ad agency that happens to also run political campaigns, badly. But they’ll take the Clinton money anyways.

  43. 43.

    Walker

    May 14, 2011 at 1:15 pm

    @stormhit:

    Not any more is at stake than when Google falsely smeared MS with regards to Bing search results.

    \

    That’s a bit much. It is true that Bing isn’t copying Google’s search engine, but it is piggybacking for free. What is happening is that the IE browser is phoning home everytime someone does a Google (or any other engine) search and Bing indirectly integrates that result into its system. This is not controversial; MS admitted that this is what happens.

  44. 44.

    Brachiator

    May 14, 2011 at 1:20 pm

    And I guess it is just me, but why would anyone hire those guys after they watched what Penn did to the Clinton 2008 campaign?

    Because billions of dollars and control of the Intertubes are at stake.

    Think of this as wars of cyber imperialism, with Facebook, google, and Apple as the major powers. Microsoft is like Great Britain, an old power possibly on its last legs, throwing its weight around (like its bonehead deal for Skype or its futile deal with Nokia) trying to avoid being displaced by upstarts.

    By contrast, national politics and what happened to Bill Clinton doesn’t register on the radar of people who care more that PSN is down than they do about anything happening in the real world.

  45. 45.

    Ghanima Atreides

    May 14, 2011 at 1:23 pm

    @cmorenc: truedat. They are all amoral sociopaths, they just dont realize it.
    But if Zuckerman and Obama dont form an alliance, what will likely happen is that the “innovation of the market” will force a merger, or a buyout, and then the newly partnered monopolist amoral sociopaths will lay off all the redudant positions and proceed to farm the living shit out of the consumer base.

    Zuckerman is still a true believer, and Obama should capture Facebook before Zuckerman’s soft social media cookie heart turns to pure capitalist free market stone.

  46. 46.

    Corner Stone

    May 14, 2011 at 1:28 pm

    @Brachiator:

    like its bonehead deal for Skype

    I didn’t understand that valuation either.

  47. 47.

    Ghanima Atreides

    May 14, 2011 at 1:29 pm

    @Jazz Superluminar: i dunno what Khan is wearing, but EDk is wearing his libertarian suit again. You should go take his libertarian test.
    I think you are posting on the wrong blog.
    ;)
    Its just a matter of time before Cole is forced to move LoOG into the blogs we mock column.
    /taps foot impatiently

  48. 48.

    Corner Stone

    May 14, 2011 at 1:30 pm

    @Ghanima Atreides:

    But if Zuckerman and Obama dont form an alliance, what will likely happen is that the “innovation of the market” will force a merger, or a buyout, and then the newly partnered monopolist amoral sociopaths will lay off all the redudant positions and proceed to farm the living shit out of the consumer base.

    I don’t really know what this means.
    But – they will lay off redundant positions and farm the living shit out of their consumer base no matter what happens moving forward. It’s their majority business model.

  49. 49.

    eemom

    May 14, 2011 at 1:33 pm

    @Ghanima Atreides:

    Zuckerberg, child.

  50. 50.

    Stillwater

    May 14, 2011 at 1:35 pm

    @Corner Stone: Unethical people do not need to be taught how marks act in their natural environs.

    I’ve seen video of ethical people in their natural habitat on the Discovery Channel. Very interesting stuff. The social territory of these unique creatures is very narrow, and they often seem oblivious to external threats. Yet their decency often prevents them from being harmed and in fact increases group cohesion. Professionals stressed that these rare individuals continue to be at risk and they’ve proposed protections for them ranging from government intervention to prevent predation up through what they term a ‘social safety net’ to catch ethical people when unethical practices overrun these few remaining loose bands of gentle creatures.

  51. 51.

    eemom

    May 14, 2011 at 1:37 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    hey, Corned Beef — there’s a new ABL post up that’s just dyyyyyiiiin to meetchoo.

  52. 52.

    Corner Stone

    May 14, 2011 at 1:42 pm

    @eemom: Shouldn’t you be in your cave crunching the bones of murdered Palestinian babies?
    Lore tells us one day that’s where Beowulf will find you.

  53. 53.

    Warren Terra

    May 14, 2011 at 1:44 pm

    No invocation of the name “Mark Penn” is complete without a link to Ezra Klein’s awesome review of his book Microtrends, which begins:

    If you wanted to ruin the political career of Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton’s chief pollster and strategist, here would be one way to do it: First, create some sort of artifact bearing his name that you could use to tank his reputation. A book would do perfectly.
    ….
    Astonishingly, Penn himself has done exactly this. His new book Microtrends is so bad that the question—in a fair world—isn’t whether it will destroy his own reputation, but whether it is so epically awful as to take the entire polling industry down with it.

    and goes on to demonstrate the way that Penn doesn’t understand statistics, doesn’t understand society, and just enjoys leaping to absurd but vivid conclusions that he can sell to the gullible.

  54. 54.

    Ghanima Atreides

    May 14, 2011 at 1:57 pm

    @eemom: oops thanx.
    @Corner Stone: i mean there is a window of opportunity before Zuckerberg’s heart turns to free market stone.
    He believes social networking is the New Paradigm. If you watch The Facebook Diary he starts out with an anti-corporate cubicle model, emphasizing how people can just swivel their chairs to share ideas. He WANTS people to talk to each other because that what humans are built to do! He really doesn’t believe in security and privacy, because his theory is that sec/priv just gets turned into a weapon against connectivity.
    But he got reamed for saying once that he doesn’t care about sec/priv, and for selling client demographics.
    Brachiator is right, this is War.

    @Cole
    the reason Facebook used Mark Penn slimeball retards is that they are clueless n00bs in the PR bidness.

  55. 55.

    eemom

    May 14, 2011 at 1:58 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    and one day, Corned, an MRI of your itty bitty brain will reveal deep ruts worn in the primitive neural pathways that you’ve used to recycle the same TWO insults over and over again across the span of an entire career of blog commenting.

  56. 56.

    Ghanima Atreides

    May 14, 2011 at 2:03 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    bit through the bone joints
    bolted the blood
    and gulped the body piecemeal

    im such a skald

  57. 57.

    Corner Stone

    May 14, 2011 at 2:04 pm

    @eemom: Reminding everyone here how callous and amoral you are WRT people who aren’t you never gets old.

  58. 58.

    Ghanima Atreides

    May 14, 2011 at 2:13 pm

    @Cole

    that they are clueless n00bs in the PR bidness.

    A social network engineer would totally not understand a need to hire propagandists or PR people. In SNT information and opinion achieve salience by the weight and number of connections and hubs that pass it. It is an organic process, almost.

  59. 59.

    THE

    May 14, 2011 at 2:24 pm

    @Ghanima Atreides:

    bit through the bone joints bolted the blood and gulped the body piecemeal

    Freakin’ Beowulf. That is so awesome.
    That almost reminds me of this amazing blog commenter grrl I used to know many, many years ago.

  60. 60.

    Brachiator

    May 14, 2011 at 2:26 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    I didn’t understand that valuation either.

    No one, especially other techies and geeks, understand this deal at all. I don’t know whether it was intentional strategy, but google had shown some interest in Skype, and had been making noises about an offer in the neighborhood of $5 billion, still stupidly excessive. But in the end they held back and let Microsoft make an even more extravagant offer.

    Note also that financial analysts over valued Skype because they just love bubbles and cannot help themselves. And everyone is looking for politicians to buy to help with increasing turf wars over bandwidth, patents and intellectual property.

    It might be useful to think of these innovative companies not as a band of cool geeks doing cool shit, but as the Five Families during the organized crime wars of the 1950s.

  61. 61.

    eemom

    May 14, 2011 at 2:35 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    nor does the absurdist spectacle of an all-hating spewer of venom such as yourself wagging its hooked finger at the supposed “amorality” and “callousness” of others.

    Everyone here sees right the fuck through you, Corned. You don’t even have the clownish self-parodying charm of a Fuckhead to alleviate your ugliness.

    You’re the portrait in the closet.

  62. 62.

    Corner Stone

    May 14, 2011 at 2:40 pm

    @eemom: There’s nothing “supposed” about your amorality. When Cole has called you out for posting some of the “nastiest” things he’s ever read, I don’t think there’s much interpretation left.
    You old goat sack.

  63. 63.

    catclub

    May 14, 2011 at 2:55 pm

    @Corner Stone: Remember Paper Moon. First customer comes in with a twenty they have initialed, gets change from 50cent purchase. Addie Pray comes in and pays with a ten, but complains that it was a twenty, …’and I know cause my Grandmother wrote happy birthday on it’. Often gets both the twenty and the ten.

    made to cover a time when people commented that Babe Ruth made more than the president. And the Babe responded …”I had a better year.”

  64. 64.

    Corner Stone

    May 14, 2011 at 3:04 pm

    @catclub: In years gone past I have actually stood behind a guy trying the old, “well, can you change out my $50?” scam. Not right behind but close enough to see him try it on.
    The poor cashier was befuddled and I stepped in and asked him if he’d like to count it again. He decided he didn’t need the purchase after all, took his $50 and left.

    For those who haven’t seen The Grifters, Cusack flashes a $20 at a bartender and orders a beer, but has palmed (I think) a dollar. He flashes the $20, the bartender makes change for a $20 but Cusack actually pays with a $1.
    It may be a different denomination in the scam but essentially, he shows a large bill and really pays with smaller but gets change from the larger.

  65. 65.

    eemom

    May 14, 2011 at 3:18 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    oooh, looky here — Mr. “John Cole Sucks” is now citing Cole as the ultimate arbiter of Morality!

    I seem to recall your newly anointed role model has had some choice words for you as well…..hmmm……something along the lines of “serves no purpose on this blog except being a total dickish asshole,” perhaps?

    Face it, shithead — you can’t be both a full time hater and a righteous partner with your fellow man. You’re the former and only the former.

    And you’re All By Yooourrseeeeelf.

  66. 66.

    Ghanima Atreides

    May 14, 2011 at 3:28 pm

    @THE: jinnderella…she daid.
    the horror….the horror…..

    haha, what a stupid baby i was. so trusting, so immature, so clueless.

  67. 67.

    THE

    May 14, 2011 at 3:51 pm

    @Ghanima Atreides:

    Jinnderella? Hah. She was nothing.
    Before her there was the even more awesome twist…. No I won’t say it, it is too precious a memory for me.

    There were still earlier manifestations too. But I will not mention them at all. Some losses are just too painful.

  68. 68.

    Ghanima Atreides

    May 14, 2011 at 4:06 pm

    @THE: those were not manifestations, but evolutionary stages.

  69. 69.

    Corner Stone

    May 14, 2011 at 4:10 pm

    @eemom: I’m not sure how this changes the fact that you think people delivering aid to starving Palestinians deserve what they get when Israeli commandos drop in and kill them?

  70. 70.

    THE

    May 14, 2011 at 4:19 pm

    @Ghanima Atreides:
    No, it was the most amazing precocious intellect I had ever encountered. I was in awe. Even now when I search the archives it is still deeply impressive.

    Just think how many readers you had then, even as Jinn.
    Compare it to now.

  71. 71.

    Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal

    May 14, 2011 at 5:41 pm

    @Stillwater:

    of course, this fails the number 1 rule of any con, the cohesive amorality versus the faulty construct of immorality.

    you can not con an honest person.

    any con, relies on the greed of the mark as the hook.

  72. 72.

    zach

    May 14, 2011 at 5:58 pm

    To be fair, this isn’t as bad as conducting a phony poll in a PR campaign aimed at instigating a Venezuelan coup.

  73. 73.

    eemom

    May 14, 2011 at 6:52 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    That is not what I said, dickwad. But thanks for linking, so that anyone who wishes to can easily read what I actually did say and see what a shitty little liar you are.

    In fact it’s the opposite of what I said, which was, among other things, that I didn’t believe those people were truly motivated by the desire to deliver food to starving Palestinians, and if that HAD been their motive they woudn’t have done it the way they did.

    They were no more about delivering aid to starving Palestinians than, for example, YOU are.

    Now go stick your head back up your ass — maybe you’ll find some new Nicks to obsess over.

  74. 74.

    Corner Stone

    May 14, 2011 at 6:58 pm

    @eemom:

    In fact it’s the opposite of what I said, which was, among other things, that I didn’t believe those people were truly motivated by the desire to deliver food to starving Palestinians, and if that HAD been their motive they woudn’t have done it the way they did.

    No, you’re right. They got on a boat knowing full well their lives were at risk. But they didn’t really feel motivated to deliver food.
    Nope, because if they had they would’ve submitted it through the proper Israeli authority chain. Who was, and still is IIRC, denying all kinds of subsistence level food tonnage. Not to mention things like “concrete” and other items which Palestinians could *gasp* use to build their homes. You know, to live in and shit?
    Anyone with a brain, which obviously isn’t you, knows the Israelis are stopping everything from getting to Gaza. Except twinkies. Yeah, they’re letting sugary treats get through.

  75. 75.

    mclaren

    May 14, 2011 at 8:21 pm

    My own suspicion? Facebook knows it’s peaked and this is a clever move to get publicity now that they’re on the downslope of public exposure and heading toward overexposure and becoming passe.

  76. 76.

    eemom

    May 14, 2011 at 8:30 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    brilliant reasoning there, asshole. They did something they knew had ZERO chance of delivering food, but every chance of ending in violence, because they were TOTALLY motivated to deliver food.

    And there’s like, never been an instance of radical Islamicists being motivated by the desire for martyrdom rather than the accomplishment of any humanitarian goal…..and there’s like, no evidence that that was true of the people on that boat……and you KNOW this, because you’ve extensively researched the incident. Have I got that right?

    Get back to me with your humanitarian pretensions when you have some proof of something, dipshit.

    Because I don’t for a minute believe that you sincerely give a shit about those people dying — or about the Palestinians in Gaza. I’ve never seen you utter a single word on this blog that was consistent with an attitude of compassion towards ANYBODY.

  77. 77.

    Corner Stone

    May 14, 2011 at 8:40 pm

    @eemom: Here’s what I know. They had no weapons, and no way to resist a boarding. Yet they went anyway. With a boat loaded with aid, and no weapons or dual use technology.
    Now you can say anything you care to about me. But to pretty much everyone but the amoral, that sounds like a protest run to deliver aid and highlight the plight of Gaza, and the slow starvation the Israeli government is perpetuating there.
    So, my pretensions really don’t matter. A bunch of people lost their lives trying to help others, and you consistently denigrate their lives and their cause. Based on pretty much nothing but your hatred for them.
    You hate them for their actions and their affiliations. And you couldn’t care less that they are dead. It’s clear to anyone reading this.

  78. 78.

    eemom

    May 14, 2011 at 8:51 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    I said, get back to me with some evidence. I’m not interested in what you think you “know.”

    Aside from that, I’ll simply reiterate that you’re lying about what I said then, and just making shit up now, about what I “denigrate,” who I “hate,” and what I “care” about. Because you know exactly jack shit about any of those things.

    I/P is a deeply complicated, tragic situation far beyond the grasp of a simple-minded little termite like you who hates EVERYBODY in general. What’s “clear to anyone reading this” is that you’re exploiting that situation for no other purpose than to advance your hatred of me in particular.

  79. 79.

    Corner Stone

    May 14, 2011 at 8:57 pm

    @eemom: You said then what you’re saying now. “There were no innocents and they got what they deserved.”
    Anybody who reads that passage and disagrees is free to pipe up so we can discuss it further.

  80. 80.

    eemom

    May 14, 2011 at 9:40 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    I did not say that, liar. That is a completely fraudulent quote. You are a liar, pure and simple, and your own link above proves it.

    You need help, fella. Seriously.

  81. 81.

    Ija

    May 14, 2011 at 10:31 pm

    You got it all wrong, Corner Stone. It’s not all about eemom’s hatred of Palestinians and how he/she does not see them as human (although that’s part of it too), it’s about the majesty of THE LAW. The blockade was THE LAW, so anything done against it is obviously wrong, regardless of the motive – feeding starving children or just courting publicity. THE LAW wins every time.

  82. 82.

    eemom

    May 14, 2011 at 10:56 pm

    @Ija:

    oh, look — finally a little friend for Stoned! From the school of “the enemy of the enemy is my friend.”

    I don’t think y’all two have much more in common than that — but have fun figuring that out.

    Anyway, it’s news to me that the blockade is “THE LAW,” i.e., legal. I kind of thought that was a hotly disputed issue. Discuss.

  83. 83.

    Ija

    May 15, 2011 at 12:02 am

    @eemom:

    I don’t think y’all two have much more in common than that—but have fun figuring that out.

    How would you know? I thought I am a boring and inane poster that no one pays any attention to.

    Anyway, it’s news to me that the blockade is “THE LAW,” i.e., legal. I kind of thought that was a hotly disputed issue. Discuss.

    So I guess it is about your hatred, sorry, let’s be more charitable here, indifference to Palestinians. Why else would you so strongly defend an action by the IDF that is not necessarily LEGAL and according to THE LAW? Isn’t THE LAW like the bible to you, the only thing that matters in any and all issues? It’s okay for the Roberts court to screw everybody but the corporations as long as it is according to THE LAW. But I guess your principle can be left out the door when it comes to the evil Palestinians.

  84. 84.

    Corner Stone

    May 15, 2011 at 12:16 am

    @eemom:

    And I do NOT believe those people were innocent. At the very best they were tools. Those ships were sent as an act of provocation—if you think that’s justified, fine, but it was NOT about getting supplies to the Gazans

  85. 85.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    May 15, 2011 at 12:23 am

    @Ija:

    I thought I am a boring and inane poster that no one pays any attention to.

    I pay attention. I thought your comment the other day about finding The Beesemaster more palatable than the constant and sleazy lawyer circle jerk was spot on.

  86. 86.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    May 15, 2011 at 12:24 am

    eemom, you may just wanna stop saying shit until you figure out to stop stepping all over yer own dick.

  87. 87.

    WhyKnot241

    May 15, 2011 at 1:52 am

    @Joel Yeah, I get your point. But I’d get more mileage if bad actors acting badly, and being shown as such, made them – at least – less acceptable in the village circle. But they don’t. So, being an idealist, schadenfreude is cold comfort.

  88. 88.

    eemom

    May 15, 2011 at 2:38 am

    @Ija:

    I thought I am a boring and inane poster that no one pays any attention to.

    guess I stand corrected there. The two biggest assholes on the blog pay attention to you. Congrats.

  89. 89.

    eemom

    May 15, 2011 at 2:39 am

    @Corner Stone:

    yup, that’s what I said. Where’s the part about them DESERVING TO DIE?

  90. 90.

    IrishGirl

    May 15, 2011 at 3:59 am

    John,

    I haven’t read any of the other posts and I don’t care to. Suffice it say, they hired them because their campaign against Clinton worked as much as it had to. Thus they hired them to malign Google.

    That’s all there is to it. Sad but true

  91. 91.

    Corner Stone

    May 15, 2011 at 4:02 am

    @eemom: Hilarious. You really think your lawyer parsing will get you from there to here?
    You didn’t give a shit about those dead people. They weren’t “innocent” as far as you were concerned. Those food and aid delivery people were NOT innocent.

  92. 92.

    thedragonsarehere

    May 15, 2011 at 11:12 am

    The last time I remember something like this, was the CEO of Whole Foods setting up a smear campaign of the biggest competitor, Wild Oats, on Facebook (even posting his own comments under annom de plume) to bring their (Wild Oats’) share prices down. Not long after that succeeded, Whole Foods bought out Wild Oats. You think maybe . . .?

  93. 93.

    eemom

    May 15, 2011 at 1:05 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    1. There is, in fact, a big difference between saying someone is not innocent and saying they deserved to die. You don’t have to be a lawyer to see that. You do, however, have to be a vindictive asshole with nothing better to do to argue the point.

    2. You still have no evidence that they were, in fact, sincerely on a mission to “deliver food and aid.” That’s because:
    (a) There is none; and/or
    (b) The evidence is to the contrary; and/or
    (c) You’re incapable of arguing competently based on facts, rather than spewing spittle at a computer monitor.

    3. Once again: YOU give a shit about NOBODY, dead or alive.

  94. 94.

    Corner Stone

    May 15, 2011 at 11:33 pm

    @eemom:

    You still have no evidence that they were, in fact, sincerely on a mission to “deliver food and aid.”

    Yeah. That fucking boat filled with food and aid supplies doesn’t actually speak for itself.
    Maybe they were really members of the evil organization James Bond is fighting against? The boat filled with food and aid supplies was a cover for smuggling in dolphins with lasers attached to their heads.

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