Important organisations sometimes employ idiots, shock
Wikipedia claims that it has evidence that, among other organisations, the CIA, the Vatican and the Democratic party out of the US have all been tweaking references. The only thing I find worrying about this is that the tweaking is so petty and pointless.
On the profile of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the tool indicates that a worker on the CIA network reportedly added the exclamation "Wahhhhhh!" before a section on the leader's plans for his presidency.
The Democrats are worse. One of their employees couldn't find anything better to do on the whole of the interweb than accuse talk show host Rush Limbaugh of being a "bigot" and branding his audience "legally retarded". (This is the party that couldn't even beat George Bush and which is now in charge of a Congress which has lower poll ratings than the widely despised president. Something about glass houses and whatnot comes to mind here.)
One occasionally reads articles (mainly from pompous, middle aged and successful people) about how the internet is having a pernicious effect on public discourse. These overt displays of childish behaviour make it easier to argue that is the case, but then the internet makes so many things easier: conspiracy theories linking the CIA, the Democrats and the Vatican in some nefarious plot to poison our minds are easier to propagate online. So what?
There is one thing which baffles me, though. Why on earth would someone in the Vatican be so worried about defending Gerry Adams from accusations he was in the IRA? Surely even someone who believes that God never wants them to get laid and that they can turn a wafer into the body of Christ would find the Sinn Fein president's denials in that regard laughably unconvincing. (An aside, the Catholic church in Ireland and in the wider world never supported the IRA, even if some individual priests were heavily involved.) Yet, Wiki claims:
On the profile of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the tool indicates that a worker on the CIA network reportedly added the exclamation "Wahhhhhh!" before a section on the leader's plans for his presidency.
The Democrats are worse. One of their employees couldn't find anything better to do on the whole of the interweb than accuse talk show host Rush Limbaugh of being a "bigot" and branding his audience "legally retarded". (This is the party that couldn't even beat George Bush and which is now in charge of a Congress which has lower poll ratings than the widely despised president. Something about glass houses and whatnot comes to mind here.)
One occasionally reads articles (mainly from pompous, middle aged and successful people) about how the internet is having a pernicious effect on public discourse. These overt displays of childish behaviour make it easier to argue that is the case, but then the internet makes so many things easier: conspiracy theories linking the CIA, the Democrats and the Vatican in some nefarious plot to poison our minds are easier to propagate online. So what?
There is one thing which baffles me, though. Why on earth would someone in the Vatican be so worried about defending Gerry Adams from accusations he was in the IRA? Surely even someone who believes that God never wants them to get laid and that they can turn a wafer into the body of Christ would find the Sinn Fein president's denials in that regard laughably unconvincing. (An aside, the Catholic church in Ireland and in the wider world never supported the IRA, even if some individual priests were heavily involved.) Yet, Wiki claims:
The site also indicates that Vatican computers were used to remove content from a page about the leader of the Irish republican party Sinn Fein, Gerry Adams.
The edit removed links to newspaper stories written in 2006 that alleged that Mr Adams' fingerprints and handprints were found on a car used during a double murder in 1971.
Wikipedia is an online resource noted for inaccurate and misleading claims [citation needed] but which sometimes provides a reasonable factual overview[needs verification].
Labels: stuff
posted by buff and blue at 9:06 pm
2 Comments:
Wikipedia is a good example of get what you pay for (ie it's free).
Gerry Adams made public expressions of support for IRA bombs in the 1980s. Therefore, why would he deny involvement in them? Not for any reasons to do with opposing their activities, which leaves ...
I think Adams is still hoping to get elected as President of Ireland in 2012. Being directly linked to all the bad stuff that happened in the north would be a vote loser, but being able to pose as the great statesman who brought peace to the north would be an asset.
He tried that peacemaker line in the recent general election and it was a dismal failure.
It'll almost certainly flop in a presidental election too. The majority view in the Republic towards Northern Ireland is "You've stopped killing each other. Thank you very much. Now go away and don't bother us".
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