Astroturf movements and blog comments

A comment left by someone on the 12th for my post about the recent Blackwater legal maneuver seemed a bit odd to me. After searching a bit I found the identical comment posted on three different blogs that were commenting on this story. While I can understand the desire to post a comment on a subject that you feel strongly about, the overall tone and attempt to redirect attention away from Blackwater and into “ambulance chaser” hatred didn’t sit right with me. While I only did a quick search for similar comments on blogs, finding 3 identical comments in only a minute from a loose search query makes me wonder if the anonymous poster of the comment (using the name “scar’d” in the other postings) has a dog in this fight, so to speak.

Astroturf movements get started in similar ways as this and viral advertising gets spread in a similar manner as well. Individuals with an agenda to spread an idea with ulterior motives do tend to seek out open comment sites such as message boards and blog comments. While I can’t say with certainty that the poster is an agent tasked with seeding this idea their action fits the mold. Is this comment poster hitting other blogs and message boards with this same message in an attempt to sway attention away from the direction of the Blackwater suit and stir anti-lawyer sentiment as the means of distracting us from the subject?

For your own thoughts here are links to the comment posted here at my blog as well as the other three blogs.

News - Melamine contamination hits the food chain, 3 million strong

This whole melamine story just keeps getting worse the longer it drags out. 3 million chickens that were fed melamine tained feed have already been introduced to the food supply and consumed:

http://www.horsesass.org/?p=2871

In a conference call with media this afternoon, USDA Assistant Administrator
Kenneth Petersen revealed that as many as 3 million chickens, contaminated with melamine from a single Indiana feed mill, have already been slaughtered, distributed and eaten. An additional 100,000 breeder chickens are currently being voluntarily quarantined by farmers.These 3.1 million chickens represent only those that fed on a single batch of feed made from melamine-tainted pet food “salvaged” in February. Petersen told reporters that the “investigation will lead to additional farms.”

So, how many of you have eaten chicken over the past month? Will someone please remind me as to why we pay the salaries of the USDA and FDA managers who are tasked with maintaining our food safety?

Other blogs - Blackwater USA - Who's Private Idaho?

Relatively little media attention has been paid to the emergence of the Blackwater USA paramilitary group, but a recent posting at DailyKos provides an excellent overview to this group, it’s founder and it’s mission.

What is more troubling; the lack of oversight regarding the war profiteering money grab made by Blackwater owner Erik Price, or the fact that a billionaire extremist has his own private army complete with it’s own private air fleet?

News - Get an Rx -- go into the database

One interesting piece of information that came to light as a result of the VaTech massacre is the revelation that the federal government is maintaining a database of prescription drug recipients. ABC news reported this information on their website and it has now been scrubbed. I made a screen capture of this item yesterday and will post the cap tonight in this article after I get home. (EDIT by The CT Blogger: Screen Cap has been added 4/20)

Boing Boing has a blog entry on the drug database which adds some new light on the story and it gives the conspiracy theory researcher yet one more area to look into as part of their greater research.

According to the Boing Boing posting there is a State Prescriptions Monitoring Program that has been in existence since 2003. The FAQ for this program states,

Program officials state that their systems are not used to target possible subjects of an investigation.

And this is apparently another lie since it has already been shown that the feds looked at the database to see if the shooter's name was listed. Once again, the government is caught in a lie, maybe.

I mentioned in the previous post that I thought Total Information Awareness was the source for the information reported by ABC News. This is also a strong possibility since Poindexter's dream for the program was to pump data from any and all existing means of collecting information and lace it together under the TIA blanket. So it is possible that the NASPER database was not the source of the query and instead TIA was the system that was searched. The fact that NASPER states their database will not be used to investigate is irrelevant. If another system is used to perform searches then the NASPER statement still holds true.

Never forget that the government is highly skilled at making statements that can be defined as the truth and a lie at the same time. Few people can argue over semantics the way our government can.

Other Blogs - Mack White comments on the JFK assasination

The JFK assassination has made the news once again as the result of a Rolling Stone article about the deathbed confessions of alleged co-conspirator of the assassination, E. Howard Hunt. Hunt is one of those intelligence players who shows up in many conspiracy theories and in stories about the dark arts plied by intelligence agencies. Mack White has commented on the article and his insights are worth noting. His posting on the subject can be found here:

http://mackwhite.blogspot.com/2007/04/e-howard-hunts-deathbed-disinformation.html

The Rolling Stone article can be found here:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/13893143/the_last_confessions_of_e_howard_hunt


Highlights of White's comments

A few statements of particular interest written by White:

"As a spy and a dirty trickster, his entire career was built on deception, therefore anything said by this professional liar, even on his deathbed, is automatically suspect. "

and,

"But there’s someone missing from the list: Hunt himself. "

In two sentences, White has summed up the most important nugget of the article and has gone to the heart of what any conspiracy theorist must do when studying the web of deceit in CT, never forget the true nature of the beast you are dealing with.

Further into the posting, White once again sums up what I believe is the most important aspect of identification of the cabal behind the conspiracy:

"The “Johnson plot” is a limited hangout that better explains certain things, such as the involvement of the CIA and Mafia, but doesn't mention the more important involvement of the military-industrial complex--and no wonder. The same companies are still doing their dirty business today. " (emphasis mine - The CT Blogger)

Big kudos to Mack White for a fantastic post.

Other Blogs - Federal nominee has Bigfoot links

Cryptozoology researcher and author Loren Coleman has a very interesting article posted today at Cryptomundo.com:

http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/laverty-bf/

It seems that a proposed appointee to the Department of the Interior has a background in Bigfoot research. Since people still joke about Jimmy Carter's UFO sighting report I can imagine what the political junkies will say about this nominee.

Loren always has interesting articles and his site's registered commentators are sharp. The CZ world, much like the CT world, gets a lots of grief over it's subject matter but both fields are fortunate to have many sharp eyed authors who dig deeply before they put their reputation on the line. Cryptomundo is one of the high weirdness sites that I highly recommend. I also believe that his books are required reading for any budding CZ enthusiast or veteran researcher.