Baby Buster, in: I Don’t Want to Read the Paper!

It seems like only a lifetime ago that a handful of enterprising ideologues realized that the Wikipedia license was open-source, and that by borrowing it wholesale, you could gain the kind of awesome credibility you associate with an encyclopedia anyone can edit, while still cramming your site with total bullshit right-wing propaganda.

disband.jpg
Above: accelerando ad libitum

But you know, Conservapedia aren’t the only people who can take someone else’s good idea and hard work and turn it into something you would be reluctant to wipe your butt with if the internet were made of paper. Now there’s Media Mythbusters, whose self-appointed duty is to collect “inaccurate, irresponsible and/or misleading reporting”. A noble effort, I’d say, with horribly inaccurate reporting reaching epidemic levels in our society today. Still, if you’re going to get at the reality behind the lies of mainstream media, you’d better have assembled a group of crackerjack investigators who are as crammed with truth as the author of a series of science-fiction novels based on video games might possibly be crammed with big sammy fixin’s!

Well, as a great man once said before his popularity dropped below acceptable levels and it was discovered that he wasn’t really a conservative after all, Mission Accomplished! Just look at this all-star lineup of internet superstars! Their relationship with the truth is as intimate and open as Rep. Bob Allen’s relationship with his wife. Or Sen. David Vitter’s relationship with his wife. Or Rep. David Almond’s relationship with his secretary. Or Rep. Mark Foley’s relationship with his internet service provider. Or…well, anyway, look at this dazzling array of truthtellers:

• BLACKFIVE! (Recent truth told: Osama bin-Laden is dead.)
• BOOKWORM ROOM! (Recent truth told: There is no reason to believe that Debbie Schlussel is full of crap.)
• CONFEDERATE YANKEE! (Recent truth told: The surge is working so well that we can soon leave Iraq in victory.)
• THE DEMOCRACY PROJECT! (Recent truth told: PBS threw an ugly pallor of politics over the pristine reputation of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth by calling them smear artists.)
• FLOPPING ACES! (Recent truth told: JetBlue is run by commie Nazi Jews.)
• LORIE BYRD! (Recent truth told: Time Magazine is murdering our troops, photographically.)
• THE MUDVILLE GAZETTE! (Recent truth told: Our site is more readable than Atlas Shrugs.)
• NOISY ROOM! (Recent truth told: Muslims are unproven not to be behind steam pipe explosion.)
• POWERLINE! (Recent truth told: Important people listen to us.)
• RIGHT WING NEWS! (Recent truth told: Bill Clinton routinely solicits hookers in Vegas.)
• ROCKET’S BRAIN TRUST! (Recent truth told: Ayatollah Khameini is dead Iran is on the brink of total anarchy.)
• SMALL DEAD ANIMALS! (Recent truth told: Chinese eat cats and sell them as pastrami.)
• DON SURBER! (Recent truth told: We have to stop giving tax breaks and government aid to those greedy, filthy-rich farmers.)
• THE STRATA-SPHERE! (Recent truth told: There wouldn’t be any violence in Iraq if it wasn’t for the Democrats.)
• THREATSWATCH! (Recent truth told: This will be the Summer of Terror, even if there aren’t any terrorist attacks.)
• WIZBANG! (Recent truth told: I am not crass enough to continue discussing my Star Trek smut addiction in front of Uhura.)

Can you handle the truth? I know I can’t. I’m going to drink the rest of this Black Bush and slip into a nice relaxing coma.

 

Comments: 62

 
 
a different brad
 

That’s a line-up so impressive I’ve so much as heard of roughly half of them.
Oh, wait.
Chris Muir is there, too.
He’s going to break the myth that women aren’t joined in the middle of their body by a 2 inch piece of cord.

 
 

Whee!

Confederate YankMe, Flopping Aces AND Chris Muir?

What are they trying to do over there, create the truthiness equivalent of a singularity which no fact can escape no matter how fast it travels?

At least they’re all in one place, which makes them all the easier to avoid.

 
 

BTW, Conservapedia shut down most of our improvements, but WE DO HAVE A WINNER!1!!

[Details soon]

 
 

And they have a blog!!!

Here’s the very first comment on their blog!!

8 Comments to “Hello world!”

1. Mr WordPress on 14 Jul 2007 at 4:32 pm

Hi, this is a comment.
To delete a comment, just log in and view the post’s comments. There you will have the option to edit or delete them.

You think I’m kidding… but I’m not.

 
 

I believe it, Ripley!

 
 

Not to change the subject, but this Althouse/Siegel catfight, a Baudrillard Bukkake of false identification and simulacra, is beyond belief.

 
 

Are you suggesting that everyone who doesn’t agree with you is a retard?

Because if you are:

Awesome!

 
 

I wanted to create an account but it seems to be impossible. Darn it all. I’d love to be a part of that impressive line up of truth tellers.

 
 

I’ve long thought that some percentage of the 28 percenters (or whatever the percentage is of Bush lovers) were just misguided souls who were salvageable, but after reading the Johann Hari article in the Independent, I’ve come to realize that they’re intractable John Birchers. They’re clearly insane, and we’ll be lucky to live through Bush’s presidency.

 
 

I clicked on the Media Mythbusters link only to find that they’re still, still flogging two big myths that blew up in their faces: First, the good ol’ “Jamil Hussein is responsible for all Iraq reporting being wrong because he doesn’t exist!” And when you click on that link, they cite Malkin’s “that mosque wasn’t destroyed! Just horribly damaged!” as proof near the bottom of the page.

Then there’s the “fauxtography” thing where a guy got caught photoshopping extra smoke during the whole Israel-Lebanon mini-war. And this “citizen journalism” proved that most of Southern Lebanon is not only undamaged, but shining like El Dorado itself.

I know, I know, why beat the dead horse any further? You’d have better luck convincing a rock that it is a liquid than convincing CY, Powerline, Wizbang, et al that Jamil Hussein actually existed and one photoshopped picture does not mean that collateral damage never happened in Lebanon.

 
 

The main page has a few examples of busted media myths. The first one on the list? That’s right, Jamil Hussein.

For Psycheout and any others who wish to contribute:

There are several ways to join in the Media Mythbusters effort:

1. Post information on the wiki. You will need to email info@mediamythbusters.com and request to be a contributor. If you are accepted, you will get a login username and password which will allow you to post directly.

2. Email a tip to info@mediamythbusters.com. Please provide a link to the information you cite.

3. If you are a blogger who doesn’t have time to post information to the wiki, you can give permission for Media Mythbusters to quote at length from your blog posts (links and full attribution will be given).

4. Contribute toward site maintenance costs by clicking on the Paypal button in the left sidebar.

5. Advertise on the Media Mythbusters blog.

6. Spread the word.

Commenter stan has a jump on everyone, though:

Some fraudulent media themes which you may wish to add in your listings at some point in the future:

– “3 million homeless”
– Southern church burnings
– the environmental litany exposed by Bjorn Lomborg, especially the DDT banning fiasco
– October Surprise
– the use by TV News of gorgeous pictures from other areas of the Alaskan countryside to portray the nasty hellhole proposed for oil drilling in ANWR
– “1 in 5 children go to bed hungry every night”
– “Super Bowl causes increase in violence against women”
– Gitmo fabrications
– “worst economy in 50 years”
– “jobless recovery”
– “Alger Hiss proven innocent”
– Wilson/Plame (the whole sordid mess)
– “Hillary Clinton — one of the smartest lawyers in America”
–Tawana Brawley coverage
– Duke Lacrosse coverage
– genocide in former Yugoslavia

Finally, you might want to start a companion part for stories that the media steadfastly refuses to cover.

He forgot Chappaquiddick!

 
 

The Media Mythbusters logo was created by Chris Muir

Bwahah! I can’t wait to see the illustrations for the anatomy articles.

 
 

You’d have better luck convincing a rock that it is a liquid than convincing CY, Powerline, Wizbang, et al that Jamil Hussein actually existed and one photoshopped picture does not mean that collateral damage never happened in Lebanon.

Has anyone ever told them about the Weisenthal center controversy about Aushwitz? One of them photoshopped smoke coming out of a fence post because the picture didn’t look quite “death-campy” enough for them. Someone I used to talk to who was part of the Holocaust History Project mailed them and asked them what the fuck they were doing, and if they understood how that could backfire. Of course, it did. That doesn’t prove anything other than that the Weisenthal center lacked ethics and faith in the historical record.

It’s sort of tangental, but do they understand the context they are operating in? The sort of moral norms and depravity they are trying to dodge out of using this sort of bullshit?

 
 

Thanks J, but it sounds like too much work. I’ll have to content myself with truthtelling at Blogs 4 Brownback and annoying lieberals at RationalWiki.

 
 

I assume that no mention of the “Al Gore is a fibber” fraudulent media theme was an honest mistake.

This thread needs more sandwhich.

 
Herr Doktor Bimler
 

I am certainly disappointed that David Irving is not included among the contributors. They could at least give him some sort of ‘Truthteller Emeritus’ figurehead position.
These young punks today, got no respect.

 
 

Isn’t it embarrassing the way all the liberals are still protesting that the Duke lacrosse players are guilty?

They never learn, huh?

Of course some people still believe that Al Gore said he invented the Internet, that John Kerry’s Vietnam wounds were self-inflicted, that George W. Bush served honorably in TANG and that Ronald Reagan’s hide should be dug up and passed around by Republican presidential candidates when they debate.

 
 

The Do-Nothing Democrat Congress has a lower approval rating than Nixon, on the day of Nixon’s resignation.

But the Media never reports that.

The Democrat Congress has done nothing so far. They just whine and cry.

 
 

I really liked Wizbang’s web ad for “Lesbian Bathtub Sex” starring Anna Nicole Smith. Now THAT’S the truth, biaches!

 
 

Yeah, they have eight comments on their “web log” since Bastille Day, four of which actually came from the outside world (sort of) three of which are responses, & a “welcome, here’s how it works” from “Mr. Word Press” that they haven’t had the sense to take down. Fug, I get more hits from people clicking “next blog” on the blogger navbar than that. (not many more, but…)
And just what kind of “wiki” is it that you have to pre-register? (And be approved?)

 
 

Meanwhile, in other news, Debbie Schlussel is still looking for a Muslamofascist angle in yesterday’s explosion near Grand Central. “Notice that no one is saying what religion that rainwater was,” she’s quoted as saying.

 
 

Tawana FRICKIN’ BRAWLEY?

THAT’S an example of liberal bias to these clowns? Hey, why not bring up “Dewey Defeats Truman” while you’re at it? Hey, did you know the Democrats here in the South used to be RACISTS? Why, that, um, proves something or other.

I assume the subject “purple heart band-aids” will NOT get any mention on their Conservative Hit Parade, though.

 
DUDACKATTACK!!!
 

You just had to go to the Wizbang blog, didn’t you?
That blog makes Mayberry County look like Geneva.

 
Incontinentia Buttocks
 

Shorter SMALL DEAD AMIMALS:

I CAN B CHEEZBURGER?

 
 

OT – Apparently someone emailed me through the site’s addy yesterday afternoon/evening but it was sent to my spam filter — I noticed the “Sadly, No!” contact form right as I deleted the bulk folder. So whoever it was, I’m sorry.

 
 

Now that’s an amazing exercise in spewing insanity at the delusional choir.

Tawana FRICKIN’ BRAWLEY?

It’s a metaphor, perhaps. The way these righties come off to remotely normal humans, they might as well have smeared dogshit on themselves and been found in a trash bag on the sidewalk.

Funny though that it was that guy’s closest reference to the Root of All Evil, Al Sharpton. He must be deep in the echo chamber to think “Brawley” will have so much resonance, now that almost 20 years have gone by.

 
 

The Media Mythbusters logo was created by Chris Muir

Interesting visual Freudian slip about the Media Mythbusters logo: the part of the logo that is under the magnifying glass is out of focus and blurry, while the rest is not.

That just about says it all, doesn’t it?

 
 

The Media Mythbusters logo was created by Chris Muir

Does it have scoliosis and big boobs?

 
 

Whatddya mean the South used to be racist? I was there in AR talking with family, and while they rabidly hate Republicans, they were arguing which was worse: Hillary or that n* Muslim.
Yeah, they said Obama was Muslim.

 
objectivelypro-
 

Finally, you might want to start a companion part for stories that the media steadfastly refuses to cover.

Like the absurd stranglehold that a few ax-grinding, subhuman nutballs have had on our public discourse these past couple of decades?

A proper media would have laughed these imbeciles out of public life years ago.

 
 

Whatddya mean the South used to be racist?

the DEMOCRATS here in the South used to be racists, is what I said.

 
 

I forgot to add that they are Yellow Dog Democrats, my family is full of them, and most of them live in Arkansas.

 
 

LOL! I guess you have a link to where I said the violence in Iraq was due to the Democrats? What I said was the democrats are being played like mindless puppets because they are reacting to every massacre in Iraq with cries of withdrawal. So what does AQ do? More massacres so there will be more cries for withdrawal! Duh.

Looks like your lame attempt at being the purveyor of accuracy just hit the reality of your biased personal lmiitations…

Too funny!

 
 

Sure thing AJ, you got it all figured out…

 
Worst. President. Ever.
 

BTW, AJ, when are you signing up for your tour of duty?

 
 

“Dems Keep Bloodshed Alive”
That’s the title of AJ’s blog. Sounds like the Dem’s fault to me.
“Biased personal limitations.” No bias on AJ’s part, of course. No preconceptions, no blinders or anything, just a clear, dispassionate analysis of the situation.

 
 

Looks like your lame attempt at being the purveyor of accuracy just hit the reality of your biased personal lmiitations…

Sarcasm and satire are wasted on the stupid. It’s a shame, really. Wonder if he watches the Daily Show and is constantly saying, “nuh-uh!”

 
DUDACKATTACK!!!
 

“What I said was the democrats are being played like mindless puppets because they are reacting to every massacre in Iraq with cries of withdrawal.”

Whilst stateside deferred asshats believe that every massacre means that victory in eye-rack is just around the corner.

Too funny!

 
objectivelypro-
 

If we all just put our fingers to our lips and tiptoe around these pesky massacres then the evil-to-the-core AQ will realize the error of its ways and shake hands with their Shiite brethren and blow kisses at the American soldiers who will now get to stay forever and bask in the adoration of Iraqi children who will be riding to their freshly-painted schools on the backs of little ponies.

Or something.

Or perhaps it’s just that the constant clusterfuck of unstoppable mayhem that is George Bush’s Iraq is rather embarrassing to war-fluffing dipwads like AJStrata and he’d really rather we didn’t talk about it?

 
 

AQ doesn’t want us to withdraw from Iraq. Our presence there has been the best thing that’s ever happened to them, in their mind. Osama hangs out in Pakistan (our allies, so they say) while we waste blood and treasure irrelevantly over lies about WMDs. And oh look, it’s the Taliban, those guys we supposedly got rid of years back, What are they doing exisiting?

It’s the right wing that’s been played for fools by terrorists, for years now. It couldn’t work out better for AQ than if Georgie was taking their orders. To cheerlead for such silliness is to be doubly a tool, a tool of tools. And to do it when the conventional wisdom has at long last aligned with reality makes one a deliberate tool of tools.

At least Goldberg, et al are getting the sweet cash money to sound like dolts. That at least puts some logic behind it. So what’s AJ’s excuse?

 
Worst. President. Ever.
 

WHEN (not “if”) Gen Petraeus comes back in September and gives the nation his customary rosy picture of progress in Iraq, AJ and all his fellow wingnuts will immediately start chanting:

“Ha! Now that things are so great, liberals, why should we withdraw?”

So right now we can’t suggest withdrawing because things look bad, and it empowers our enemies… but if things ever “look good”, we also can’t suggest withdrawing

Bottom line with the wingnuts is that there will NEVER be a correct time for us to withdraw, and we should just stay there forever, like we have in Korea and Guantanamo Bay…

Just watch the 28 percenters come September.

 
 

Umm, ok, sure. I do have one little question though. Exactly how SHOULD we react to the massacres in Iraq? ‘Cause if calling for withdrawal after another bloody day in the desert is causing more massacres, then what’s the alternative?

Seems to me if the goal of the massacre is to get people to call for withdrawal, and instead they say nothing and just feed more people into the maw, then wouldn’t the “terrorists” simply decide that the massacre wasn’t horrendous enough and build bigger bombs and blow up even more people in an effort to get us to notice?

Like everything else over there, simple answers are usually stupid. Because once idiot boy and his bloodthirsty sidekick launched the invasion and occupation, all the good options were gone. Staying is bad. Leaving is bad. But somebody has to do SOMETHING to push back against the inertia and change the status quo. ‘Cause right now it’s just groundhog day, people dying every day for no reason other than so people can go out and die some more tomorrow….

mikey

 
objectivelypro-
 

then wouldn’t the “terrorists” simply decide that the massacre wasn’t horrendous enough and build bigger bombs and blow up even more people in an effort to get us to notice?

Wingnut protestations don’t stand even the most cursory application of logic, but there you have it. These people carry the day: in the military, in the media, in congress – paralysis is preferred; nobody has to risk looking unamerican.

I was just a lad but I remember wondering the same thing about Vietnam. Was it ever going to end? And then it was over – finally, sickeningly over.

We were supposed to learn.

 
 

Clicked the coservipedia link and here is what I learned about how the dreaded homersexyal agenda affects our kids.

“You’re planting a seed that can totally mess up the normal development process later, when at 12 or 14, kids enter the age of sexual confusion and discovering the opposite sex. [7]”

So, if no seed was planted the kids wouldn’t be confused and find the opposite sex?????

 
 

Too funny!

Dude, we’ve got nothing on you when it comes to teh funny. Your pre-election prediction that the Dems would gain 5-9 seats was off by 20-24 seats and worth a good chuckle but your follow up post blaming a lack of knowledge on which seats were actually in play made me fucking guffaw. Plus you’re a friend of the Comic Book Guy who offered a similar rationale for his miserable prognosticatory failure so we know you keep good company. You are a pair of geniuses and of course such a track record of visionary integritude makes you important voices in the great debate on this Iraq clusterfuck. For example your most recent post about how the defeatocrats are to blame for our troops being poorly equipped more than 4 years into the occupation of Iraq is shameless dishonesty raised to an art form.

 
 

It couldn’t work out better for AQ than if Georgie was taking their orders.

Bush and Bin Laden want exactly the same thing: An Ultimate SuperAwesome World-Ending Holy War. Their only disagreement is on whose God will judge the dead after that war has taken place. And to the extent that their actions bring that Holy War closer, they are essentially allies. As the saying goes, it’s not a bug, it’s a feature.

 
Principal Blackman
 

I am certainly disappointed that David Irving is not included among the contributors.

And I’m disappointed that Mark Noonan isn’t included. That guy works day in and day out to bring the crazy, and what does he get? A tiny pittance of wingnut welfare? Feh, I say!

Poor AJ doesn’t seem to understand that Bush is basically AQ’s wet dream and gives them everything they want. Well, nobody ever accused AJ of being insightful.

 
 

Ronald Reagan’s hide should be dug up and passed around by Republican presidential candidates when they…
(mastur)bate.

Fixed that for ya.

 
Trilateral Chairman
 

Some of those girls are disturbingly cute.

 
 

From the blog:

There have been numerous requests to sign up for the wiki. Please email info@mediamythbusters.com and Lorie Byrd will review all requests and get back to you. To keep the wiki from being filled with false information, we have to review each person that wishes to post. Thanks and we value the contributions from each and every one of you…

Translation: We don’t understand what a wiki is, or maybe we do, but we’re not interested in an open forum but rather a reserve for our exclusive brand of truthiness. Lorie Byrd will decide who is qualified to critique stories from the media, and any deviation from the “MSM are America-hating, terrorist-loving traitors who want your children to die” theme will not be tolerated.

My favorite entry so far:

Stephen Glass was a reporter for The New Republic. He was fired in 1998 for writing articles based on fake quotes from people who did not exist about events that did not occur. His fraudulent stories were exposed by Adam Penenberg in an article at Forbes.com.

considering this:

The goal of this site is to debunk myths that take hold as a result of inaccurate or irresponsible media reports.

Good work, Media Mythbusters! No one knew that Glass plagiarized until you “debunked” it (9 years after he was fired for it, and 4 years after they made a damn movie about it).

Next for the intrepid media monitors: Debunking the MSM lie that Paul McCartney is dead.

 
 

articles based on fake quotes from people who did not exist

Personally, I’m more interested in the reporters who use real quotes from people who do not exist.

 
Great Googlebomb Trick
 

We could make Media Mythbusters link to AlterNet!

Dammit, shrieking harpy only comes up as result #5 when Googling shrieking harpy!

 
Hysterical Woman
 

“Super Bowl causes increase in violence against women”

That one actually is false, but I’m afraid that they’ll take this to mean there is no violence against women, and anyway the bitch deserved it.

genocide in former Yugoslavia

Because genocide could never happen against the Muslims. Plus, they might have to credit Clinton for something.

 
 

mantis: Not that I don’t find this whole thing uproariously funny, but there’s nothing inherent to the concept of a wiki that requires open registration or anonymous contribution. Some wikis are fully public, some are entirely private, and some are somewhere in between.

Note that although ‘openness’ is part of Ward Cunningham’s original design specs for a wiki, it’s just one among many. Considering that many wikis, including Wikipedia, regularly violate many wiki principles (“Organic”, “Mundane”, “Universal”, “Overt”, and “Unified”, to list some), I don’t think you can criticize a wiki based in a specific ideology for requiring adherence to that same ideology to contribute.

 
 

I just read through a few of those “truths” and the easy answer to your question is No. No, I cannot handle the truth. Gahhhhhhhh

 
 

Mr. Pierce, I hope it wasn’t you that put Owls in Popular Culture up for deletion. We need that kind of information.

P.S. SMALL DEAD ANIMALS is half right. I ate cat when I was in China, it was stringy and you wouldn’t be able to make pastrami out of it. You could make a nice terrine or a casserole.

 
 

Dear asshole:

I am the author of the TrekSmut article at Wizbang! you linked to.

I am not a contributor to the Media Mythbusters Wiki.

That status should not be read as anything other than I lacked both the time needed for such an effort, and the skills and mindset required to do it properly.

If you wish to discredit the authors of the Media Mythbusters Wiki, you might want to start by actually identifying them properly.

This could involve some work. For starters, you’d actually have to look at the list of contributors. Then, to do your smear work properly, you’d need to identify their prior work. At Wizbang, it’s a very convoluted and difficult process — it involves looking at the name at the top of the article. If you don’t find something readily, then you might have to click on the author’s name and find their individual archives.

But that sounds too much like work, so I suspect you won’t bother. So I’ll make it simple for you:

The Wizbang staffers who are participating directly in Media Mythbusters are Lorie Byrd and Kim Priestap. Kevin Aylward’s work is also cited in the Hurricane Katrina section.

I made no direct contributions to the Wiki, and I do not believe anything I have written has been included. I base that belief on my professional relationship with my colleagues, who I presume would have asked me beforehand before including any of my material.

And to the best of my knowledge, Lorie and Kim have never discussed TrekSmut on Wizbang, or in private.

Great way to establish your credentials. If you fucked up that attribution, can we presume you’ve been equally careless (or deceptive) on others?

J.

Jay Tea
Main Page Editor
http://www.wizbangblog.com

 
 

Guilt by association Jay Tea. If it can be done to brown people then we can do it to you.

Now fuck off and get back to your wanking over pics of Seven-of-Nine.

 
 

Never cared for her, Twisted. Or anything to do with Voyager.

The DS9 women, though… Terri Farrell and Nana Visitor…

And nice to see that you condemn “guilt by association” when practiced by others, then cheerfully use it when it suits your purpose — instead of admitting that the original article was in error.

Double standards much?

J.

 
 

My double standards won’t incarcerate you for 5 years without charge or without knowing the “evidence” against you. And standards apply to everyone even the jerks I don’t like or agree with.

 
 

I am not a contributor to the Media Mythbusters Wiki.

That status should not be read as anything other than I lacked both the time needed for such an effort, and the skills and mindset required to do it properly.

That might be true. I skimmed the archives over at Wizbang and you’re not as batshit insane as your colleagues but come on now. Don’t sell yourself short. You’re still a war and torture enthusiast so don’t sell yourself short. You can do it!!

 
 

No, I can vouch for Jay Tea. He’s not as bat shit crazy as some of his peers.

 
 

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