If I were Tia, I would say in reply to 2: like sex with Labs, it seemed to get off to a promising start, but it ended so quickly that I found myself unsatisfied.
I think the RedState post is clearly a joke, because if you examine the kerning of the justified text you can see that the numbers of points between each letter spell out "Ha Ha" when put into a simple number to letter conversion system (1=A, 2=B, etc.)
Dunno. My reaction to the whole thing seems to confirm that many Dems are too soft to win the fight. The guy's a dick, I'm constantly saying things like "we should be hammering the Reds until they can't get up," but now I just feel sorry for the kid.
What is with the right's obsession with George Soros? They seem to sprinkle his name Tourette's-style throughout sentences whenever they get angry about something.
I mean, do they really think he's bankrolling Daily Kos diarists to use Google?
Joe D, the blog itself is a really dim corner of the WP site-- you go to the drag-down menu, and the blog section is full of options, some on pretty narrow topics. Oh, look, a DC local-politics discussion! They spread the blog love around pretty widely, and adding a social conservative doofus in that context is hard for me to get excited about.
8: It's probably meant in some way as a "tit-for-tat" response to criticisms of people like Scaife. The notion of "balance" seems to dictate to the movementarian mind that if they're caught doing something wrong, the "moonbats" must be doing an opposite and even worse something. (Actual evidence doesn't enter into it, of course.)
The fact that the national media in this country suck mightily is hardly a new realization, nor one that the right-wing invented. The Post and the Times' "reporting" during the run-up to the war was downright shameful. Coverage during presidential elections is almost never about issues or substantive differences, only horse-race nonsense and duelling press releases. This latest fiasco doesn't actually damage the Post's credibility, any more than MSNBC hiring Michael Savage damaged theirs, since there wasn't much of that left to be damaged.
What has been severely damaged (and is continuing to be as their increasingly bizarre defenses get ever more shrill) is Red State. And that has been great fun to watch.
Apo and other wise sages of the internet, enlighten me.
Was Red State once considered a readable blog? I mean, scroll through the day's post titles: we must attack! we must defend! we must continue! It reads like one of the onion's debate columns. And the comment section is just bizarre.
Not that I'm not pleased to see a plagiarist lose a job of some distinction, even if it means that we are now sure to hear far more about him than we ever would have, but I do find the Googlefisk phenomenon way creepy. Frankly, I think that if he had not claimed those bylines on his resume—and had there not been a plagiarism incident following graduation—he might have been able to appeal to youthful indiscretion, sincerely apologize, and keep his job.
Apparently Red State still doesn't get it. You don't have to put every sentence into google. What still amazes me is you can catch plagiarism by putting just one sentence into google. If the piece you're checking was plagiarized, there's only the one result from the search and it's the source of the piece. Most sentences are unique.
I hate plagiarism. And I hate justifications like 'oh, it was just a literary allusion.' Come meet the calabat, dumbass.
(Furthermore, I am plagiarizing the idea of making a joke by copying someone else's complaint's about plagiarism, since Farber and others already did that elsewhere.)
20 -- I seem to recall the ObWi posters used to link approvingly to RedState, but when my memory says "ObWi posters" I'm not sure if it means Hilzoy or Charles. So there you go. I do remember following the links back then and not finding them readable.
Jesus Christ, what a fever swamp it is over there.
Wouldn't stun me if the WaPo was in on this in order to try and smear the right.
But, it would take an incredible effort to find so many "examples" of plagirism.
Such an effort could only be concievably undertaken by Soros employees. I guarantee that if you look into the major players on the left in this, they are all employed by George Soros.
They are starting to make Free Republic look restrained. Also, I know it's an odd word, but I believe that overthe course of two days, I have seen nearly every conceivable misspelling of "plagiarism."
Well, when Red State started it was primarily the domain of Tacitus, whom I could always appreciate. I miss that old-model righty blogger: well versed in the history and tactics of classical warfare. Now it's all hentai, hentai, hentai.
I think the fact that half the lefty blogs linked to it (and so many folks are going over there to laugh at the teeth-gnashing and garment-rending) has brought their server to its knees.
Ezra has a good post up on the "be careful what you do early in your career/in college/on Unfogged because it could come back to bite you in the ass" aspect of it.
40: I think that works in both directions, though, Becks. As blogs proliferate, some impressive people will turn out to be asses on their blogs. It might hurt some people initially, but over time, "we the public" will realize that most people are asses some of the time, and we'll stop holding such moments against them with the same furor. I don't think that many people care if a politician is cheating on his or her spouse anymore, or even if that politician is secretly gay.
And for this reason, I think Jerry Springer is a Great American. I'm halfway serious about this.
Domenech is also quite young, and the publications in question are listed on his resume. I imagine that were he 40, with a 20-year career behind him, a handful of plagiarized reviews from when he was 19 would barely register. But at 24, without a proven track record of anything but a pattern of plagiarism, it's much more harmful.
Domenech has a front page post up at RedState now, that includes this:
My critics have also accused me of plagiarism in multiple movie reviews for the college paper. I once caught an editor at the paper inserting a line from The New Yorker (which I read) into my copy and protested. When that editor was promoted, I resigned. Before that, insertions had been routinely made in my copy, which I did not question. I did not even at that time read the publications from which I am now alleged to have lifted material. When these insertions were made, I assumed, like most disgruntled writers would, that they were unnecessary but legitimate editorial additions.
But all these specifics are beside the point. Considering that all of this happened almost eight years ago, and that there are no files or notes that I've kept from that brief stint, it is simply my word against the liberal blogosphere on these examples. It becomes a matter of who you believe.
The truth is, a more responsible teenager would've nipped this sort of thing in the bud. A less sloppy writer would have made sure that material copied from other places never made it into a published piece, and never necessitated apologies or explanations that will do nothing to stop the critics. I was wrong not to do so.
See, it was all an unnamed editor who inserted entire paragraphs into his movie reviews. And who are you going to believe: him, or a bunch of foul-mouthed liberals?
I repeat: Should the entire American Left fall over dead tomorrow, I would rejoice, and order pizza to celebrate. They are not my countrymen; they are animals who happen to walk upright and make noises that approximate speech. They are below human. I look forward to seeing each and every one in Hell.
I probably should have put this in the Talents thread, but I can gobble like a turkey convincingly enough that turkeys will stand there and gobble back at me, with knowing looks, for extended exchanges. So I guess he kinda has a point.
Wow, apo, that just boggles the mind. Are you sure that it isn't some kind of RedState in-joke that we just don't get? I thought it was we of The Left who had all the good drugs.
"I'm worried about that second article on the imperative of attack. Something tells me that an army of people equipped with Renaissance Festival cardboard swords and velvet 12-sided dice pouches will be takin' it to the streets this morning."
49: well, he is a bit of a joke and `in' r-s, but I afaict this half-wit is serious. On the bright side, people of that calibre aren't really much of a threat. It's the less obviously frothing at the mouth ones that can convince fairly reasonable people the sky is green.
But if the editor was doing that to such an extent that much of his work comprises editor-insertions of other people's work into his own, then it would seem he doesn't deserve his job anyway.
Should be easy enough to ferret out anyway. Who was editor at the time?
Modesto Kid: "I seem to recall the ObWi posters used to link approvingly to RedState, but when my memory says "ObWi posters" I'm not sure if it means Hilzoy or Charles. So there you go."
Wasn't me. I have almost never found anything there worth reading, and the only reason for the 'almost' is that some of our posters have cross-posted their denunciations of torture at RedState.
Darn, how did that happen? Well then: it wasn't hilzoy.
Clarity, if you're watching, take notes.
(For everyone else: a commenter calling itself clarity threatened to expose my not massively secret identity, and subject all my published work, and that of my relatives, to withering scrutiny. I quake in my boots.)
Link b0rken.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 11:30 AM
The whole thing was fun to watch.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 11:38 AM
Fixed.
If I were Tia, I would say in reply to 2: like sex with Labs, it seemed to get off to a promising start, but it ended so quickly that I found myself unsatisfied.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 11:39 AM
Had the story of his dead credibiility previously been written by someone else?
Posted by SP | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 11:40 AM
But it's not over until he gets fired and the Post issues an apology.
Unfortunately, the plagarism thang obscures the faux-balance bullshit that is the bigger outrage here.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 11:45 AM
He's gone (resigned, fired, whatever.)
I think the RedState post is clearly a joke, because if you examine the kerning of the justified text you can see that the numbers of points between each letter spell out "Ha Ha" when put into a simple number to letter conversion system (1=A, 2=B, etc.)
Posted by SP | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 11:51 AM
Dunno. My reaction to the whole thing seems to confirm that many Dems are too soft to win the fight. The guy's a dick, I'm constantly saying things like "we should be hammering the Reds until they can't get up," but now I just feel sorry for the kid.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 11:51 AM
What is with the right's obsession with George Soros? They seem to sprinkle his name Tourette's-style throughout sentences whenever they get angry about something.
I mean, do they really think he's bankrolling Daily Kos diarists to use Google?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 11:51 AM
Ah. Ok.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 11:52 AM
SCMT, you pussy.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 11:54 AM
Don't otherize me, Joe.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 11:56 AM
Aaaand, he's outta there.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 11:57 AM
Joe D, the blog itself is a really dim corner of the WP site-- you go to the drag-down menu, and the blog section is full of options, some on pretty narrow topics. Oh, look, a DC local-politics discussion! They spread the blog love around pretty widely, and adding a social conservative doofus in that context is hard for me to get excited about.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 11:58 AM
The comments thread is a scream.
8: It's probably meant in some way as a "tit-for-tat" response to criticisms of people like Scaife. The notion of "balance" seems to dictate to the movementarian mind that if they're caught doing something wrong, the "moonbats" must be doing an opposite and even worse something. (Actual evidence doesn't enter into it, of course.)
Posted by Doctor Slack | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 12:00 PM
Don't you take my outrage from me, Fontana. What have I if not my outrage?
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 12:01 PM
Besides my pecs, I mean.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 12:01 PM
Holy shit. I . . . I . . . agree.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 12:02 PM
The fact that the national media in this country suck mightily is hardly a new realization, nor one that the right-wing invented. The Post and the Times' "reporting" during the run-up to the war was downright shameful. Coverage during presidential elections is almost never about issues or substantive differences, only horse-race nonsense and duelling press releases. This latest fiasco doesn't actually damage the Post's credibility, any more than MSNBC hiring Michael Savage damaged theirs, since there wasn't much of that left to be damaged.
What has been severely damaged (and is continuing to be as their increasingly bizarre defenses get ever more shrill) is Red State. And that has been great fun to watch.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 12:07 PM
I hate plagiarism. And I hate justifications like 'oh, it was just a literary allusion.' Come meet the calabat, dumbass.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 12:09 PM
Apo and other wise sages of the internet, enlighten me.
Was Red State once considered a readable blog? I mean, scroll through the day's post titles: we must attack! we must defend! we must continue! It reads like one of the onion's debate columns. And the comment section is just bizarre.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 12:11 PM
Not that I'm not pleased to see a plagiarist lose a job of some distinction, even if it means that we are now sure to hear far more about him than we ever would have, but I do find the Googlefisk phenomenon way creepy. Frankly, I think that if he had not claimed those bylines on his resume—and had there not been a plagiarism incident following graduation—he might have been able to appeal to youthful indiscretion, sincerely apologize, and keep his job.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 12:11 PM
17 -- You mean with "his detractors were on a search-and-destroy mission from the get-go"?
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 12:12 PM
Apparently Red State still doesn't get it. You don't have to put every sentence into google. What still amazes me is you can catch plagiarism by putting just one sentence into google. If the piece you're checking was plagiarized, there's only the one result from the search and it's the source of the piece. Most sentences are unique.
Posted by jim | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 12:13 PM
I hate plagiarism. And I hate justifications like 'oh, it was just a literary allusion.' Come meet the calabat, dumbass.
(Furthermore, I am plagiarizing the idea of making a joke by copying someone else's complaint's about plagiarism, since Farber and others already did that elsewhere.)
Posted by SP | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 12:13 PM
Is the calabat made out of calabash?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 12:13 PM
19: Calabash with Calabat?
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 12:13 PM
At least more people in the world know how to spell plagiarist now.
Posted by SP | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 12:14 PM
20 -- I seem to recall the ObWi posters used to link approvingly to RedState, but when my memory says "ObWi posters" I'm not sure if it means Hilzoy or Charles. So there you go. I do remember following the links back then and not finding them readable.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 12:15 PM
Jesus Christ, what a fever swamp it is over there.
They are starting to make Free Republic look restrained. Also, I know it's an odd word, but I believe that overthe course of two days, I have seen nearly every conceivable misspelling of "plagiarism."
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 12:16 PM
This comment in particular is classic:
http://www.redstate.com/comments/2006/3/24/104029/267/29#29
Posted by Glenn Bridgman | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 12:16 PM
Fortunately, I do not acknowledge the existence of Weiner-pwning.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 12:16 PM
It is an ashbat that bashes asses.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 12:18 PM
Malkin's a moonbat? But she's not a calabat!
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 12:20 PM
RedState has crashed? Anyone else getting "Internal server error" when they try to look at it?
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 12:20 PM
Well, when Red State started it was primarily the domain of Tacitus, whom I could always appreciate. I miss that old-model righty blogger: well versed in the history and tactics of classical warfare. Now it's all hentai, hentai, hentai.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 12:20 PM
30- It's so cute when they start to eat their own.
Posted by SP | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 12:20 PM
From which they avert their eyes.
TMK, I encountered an error unless I copied and pasted the link into a browser window.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 12:22 PM
I think the fact that half the lefty blogs linked to it (and so many folks are going over there to laugh at the teeth-gnashing and garment-rending) has brought their server to its knees.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 12:25 PM
Domenech is nicely bouncy, though it's a shame he lost his panties so quickly.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 12:27 PM
Ezra has a good post up on the "be careful what you do early in your career/in college/on Unfogged because it could come back to bite you in the ass" aspect of it.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 12:37 PM
40: I think that works in both directions, though, Becks. As blogs proliferate, some impressive people will turn out to be asses on their blogs. It might hurt some people initially, but over time, "we the public" will realize that most people are asses some of the time, and we'll stop holding such moments against them with the same furor. I don't think that many people care if a politician is cheating on his or her spouse anymore, or even if that politician is secretly gay.
And for this reason, I think Jerry Springer is a Great American. I'm halfway serious about this.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 1:04 PM
Can I just ask, when do I get my Soros check?
Posted by Matthew Harvey | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 1:21 PM
As blogs proliferate, some impressive people will turn out to be asses on their blogs.
Oh, I really doubt that will happen.
Posted by Gregg Easterbrook | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 1:33 PM
Oh come on, sign your Soros check over to Michael Moore just like we agreed at the comintern meeting.
Posted by Mo MacArbie | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 1:35 PM
Domenech is also quite young, and the publications in question are listed on his resume. I imagine that were he 40, with a 20-year career behind him, a handful of plagiarized reviews from when he was 19 would barely register. But at 24, without a proven track record of anything but a pattern of plagiarism, it's much more harmful.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 1:43 PM
Domenech has a front page post up at RedState now, that includes this:
See, it was all an unnamed editor who inserted entire paragraphs into his movie reviews. And who are you going to believe: him, or a bunch of foul-mouthed liberals?
Not ringing true, Augustine.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 1:55 PM
I'm so sad that I can't get into RedState right now.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 2:04 PM
More Red State goodness:
I probably should have put this in the Talents thread, but I can gobble like a turkey convincingly enough that turkeys will stand there and gobble back at me, with knowing looks, for extended exchanges. So I guess he kinda has a point.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 2:09 PM
Wow, apo, that just boggles the mind. Are you sure that it isn't some kind of RedState in-joke that we just don't get? I thought it was we of The Left who had all the good drugs.
Posted by Mo MacArbie | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 2:13 PM
I can't read that site without thinking, these people would really and truly like to kill me.
I wonder when they're going to start trying.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 2:14 PM
I thought it was we of The Left who had all the good drugs.
Thing about good drugs is, they are much less likely to cause paranoid fever dreams than are bad drugs.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 2:14 PM
I repeat: Should the entire American Left fall over dead tomorrow, I would rejoice, and order pizza to celebrate.
The Left responds:
Posted by Paul | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 2:19 PM
49: well, he is a bit of a joke and `in' r-s, but I afaict this half-wit is serious. On the bright side, people of that calibre aren't really much of a threat. It's the less obviously frothing at the mouth ones that can convince fairly reasonable people the sky is green.
Posted by soubzriquet | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 2:22 PM
Apo is just daring me to make a joke about that.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 2:23 PM
Bring it, old man. Turkeys are hott. Also, I was born on Thanksgiving Day.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 2:25 PM
The other great thing about the comment linked in 30 is that just a bit below it is a reference to Mary Rosh.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 2:25 PM
On the bright side, people of that calibre aren't really much of a threat.
How soon we forget.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 2:26 PM
But if the editor was doing that to such an extent that much of his work comprises editor-insertions of other people's work into his own, then it would seem he doesn't deserve his job anyway.
Should be easy enough to ferret out anyway. Who was editor at the time?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 2:38 PM
Who was editor at the time?
Funny you should ask.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 2:46 PM
57: that's quite a different thing, imo.
Posted by soubzriquet | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 2:56 PM
Damn, maybe it's like my best man thing in the other thread. Maybe all these guys are trying to out-bozo the President to make him look good.
Posted by Mo MacArbie | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 3:08 PM
57: W, Our President:
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 3:17 PM
DIAMOND Jim Brady? The smoothest riverboat gambler on the Mississipp'?
Posted by norbizness | Link to this comment | 03-24-06 3:19 PM
Modesto Kid: "I seem to recall the ObWi posters used to link approvingly to RedState, but when my memory says "ObWi posters" I'm not sure if it means Hilzoy or Charles. So there you go."
Wasn't me. I have almost never found anything there worth reading, and the only reason for the 'almost' is that some of our posters have cross-posted their denunciations of torture at RedState.
Posted by hilary Bok | Link to this comment | 03-25-06 11:16 AM
You're not doing very well at guarding your pseudonymity, Ms. Bok!
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 03-25-06 11:50 AM
Darn, how did that happen? Well then: it wasn't hilzoy.
Clarity, if you're watching, take notes.
(For everyone else: a commenter calling itself clarity threatened to expose my not massively secret identity, and subject all my published work, and that of my relatives, to withering scrutiny. I quake in my boots.)
Posted by hilzoy | Link to this comment | 03-25-06 7:23 PM