Saturday, March 12, 2005

Bjørn Stærk catches a weasel in the wood pile

Gratuitous Architecture Photo from Norway:
World champion marathon blogger and all-around cool dude, Bjørn Stærk catches an lefty American blog in a lie. "Moon of Alabama" posted a genuine looking news piece (ginned up out of thin air) that an anti-terror campaign in Norway was funded by the U.S. Department of Defense.

Though he got the author to admit to fabrication, the meme is spreading in Norway's left-wing circles. Bjørn:

«Since Pentagon, in Bernhard's view, could have financed this campaign, it's okay to make up evidence that it has. He doesn't fool his own readers, who know that the reference to a source called RBN marks the entry as fake, but he knows that others may stumble across it and be fooled. And he doesn't care.

As commenter CluelessJoe
puts it:
Well, anything that can convince people the current US admin at large is a bunch of traitorous scheming scumbags bent on world domination is fine with me. Doesn't matter if it's true or not, as long as it helps to bring them down by any means necessary.»

Here's their exchange:
Bjørn: «b: The posting is only one quarter fake? ESAG is existing, Yes. But I don't see the relevance. You're making up facts in a way that, to accidental readers with little knowledge of the subject, appear factual. Why? I don't detect an attempt to be humorous here. So why did you make up these facts? Why didn't you mark this entry in a way so that a random intelligent reader searching for, say, ESAG + US government, can tell that it is fake?»

Mr. Agit-prop: «@BS Because it is
1. most likely the US government is paying this campaign and I am not aware of any other organisation that1a. had officially annonced a program of strategic disinformation

1b. could have any interest in spending millions on such a thing
2. Because it is a message from RBN - reality based news and this is a Reality-based blog - (sometimes in the Bush sense).

3. The readership of this blog knows it´s half truth because they did read the last two
RBN messages here too
»

Unglaublich! ESAG exists, so my accusation is 1/4 true? Yes... reality BASED.... but somehow not Reality dwelling in reality! Here's his email Horstmann@aol.com. Have at 'im.

No comments: