What I hate about blog comments

Get over the idea that only children should spend their time in study.  Be a student so long as you still have something to learn, and this will mean all your life.  ~Henry L. Doherty

Whenever I write a blog post, I place links to it on Twitter and Facebook and all the usual suspects. I imagine that all other bloggers do the same. Sometimes, though, placing links on Facebook can be a real exercise in Zen Buddhism (er, I mean, in learning patience).

THE MUSIC MACHINE - TALK TALK

I can often place a short comment about a controversial subject on Facebook with a link to my blog concerning the subject. If it is a dicey subject that many people will have opinions on, then I will get many opinions....


That's great. Unfortunately, the purpose of the link is to get people to go to the article or post and read it before they comment. Many will just comment without reading.


It really dumbfounds me that so many people will make ignorant comments on Facebook concerning some subject without at least having the courtesy of taking a few moments to look over the material! .....


I mean, seriously folks, when a link is provided that gives information then shouldn't a reader at least have the courtesy to the writer (and the other readers on Facebook) to have at least read the material before giving a comment? Isn't that just common courtesy to everyone?

Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.  ~Mark Twain

Shouldn't we all at least deserve to read intelligent opinions when someone writes? Or are we all to tolerate stereotypes and ancient ideas that these people have held since they were kids? I'd hope that, as we get older, we study more and get smarter. It seems too many people don't want to read and think that, without further study, they have all the answers. 

I knew a guy who, at 40, would got really pissy at work to everyone when the Tokyo Giants baseball team would lose. Whenever the Giants lost, he'd come to work in a surly mood. Really. I'm not making this up.


One day, I got irritated at him for such and complained to him about it. He said, "But you don't understand, Mike. I've been a hard core Giants fans since 3rd grade!" 


To which I replied, "Oh? So what you are saying is that at 40-years-old, you still think and act like an 8-year-old?"


That shut him up really quick.


It's a sad day when an adult doesn't take time every once in a while to consider the way they think and act. It's pathetic when an adult decides that s/he already knows all the facets of an issue and that learning or hearing contrary views is no longer necessary.....

People have two ears and one mouth, but they continually strive to use that one mouth twice as much (more?) than their ears.

I am learning all the time.  The tombstone will be my diploma.  ~Eartha Kitt

I've already commented many times about the sorry state of today's society adult population not reading books...


What's the difference between some illiterate native living in the mountains of Afghanistan who cannot read and a westerner who can read, but doesn't? Nothing. Neither of them read.


Or am I just being an old grouch again to expect that people read or to have an educated opinion before they torture the rest of us with their nonsense?

What is a "Flog"?

A Flog is a new term for "Fake Blog." I first heard this term on What Really Happened and thought it needs to be spread out as soon as possible and as far as possible.


The description that What Really Happened uses is quite good. 
It says;


"...The money-addicts working against freedom and democracy are in a panic, and trying to shut down all opposition to their plans. Everyday more and more honest blogs are vanishing, to be replaced with well-funded "Flogs"; fake blogs designed to wrap the same old lies in new high-tech wrappings in the hopes that the people will fall for it."  


You just knew this was going to happen; it has started to creep in with tool's that rate people's influence and claim to show how much of a leader a blogger is in influencing opinion or what consumers will want to buy.


Even the Wall Street Journal Chimes in on this: 


If the word “influence” in all its forms isn’t topping the 


list of marketing jargon, then it will after 2011 is done

with it. In the marketing and PR context, it refers 


to a person’s online reputation, and his or her 


ability to sway consumers.


Hmmm.... This is beginning to reek of money changing hands.... Nothing wrong with that, but that starts to sound like "blogging for money" which sounds like why we hate the Mainstream Mass Media (MSM)...(We hate the MSM because they lie for mney) I thought that is what the Internet wasn't supposed to be.

Several times over the last few months, I have been approached by people asking me to blog about their product in return for payment.


One party told me to send my resume and other documentation, along with samples of my writing, so that they can review them and decide if they wanted to hire me to be a writer for them. I am not so conceited to think that I am above all that, but I thought they had it backwards: I wasn't applying for a job to them; they were asking if I'd blog about their products.


Those products were fashions and designer jeans. People who know me personally would know just how laughable a proposition that one is: Mike Rogers blogging about how cool the new fashion jeans are!? Are you kidding me?


I am reminded of the one time the Hip Hop fashion maker, X-Large, asked me if I wanted some sample jeans to wear. You know X-Large, right? They were the company that made those huge baggy jeans for street and Hip Hop people (that some artists wore backwards).


Anyway, I was the disc jockey of a very highly rated FM radio music program at the time and we played all sorts of underground music. The rep from the fashion maker was visiting because we played some Hip Hop too. The conversation went like this:


X-Large: "Yo! Mike, wassup Dawg? We love what you are doing. Would you like us to give you some X-Large fashion jeans to wear?" 


Me: "Er, okay. Word up.... Er, Do you have the X-Large in the small size?"


.....We .......didn't........ talk.......... 


......for..... long........


....after......


that.

Riiiiiight! Can you imagine me, Mike Rogers, 

wearing baggy pants like this?

Ridiculous! What would my mom say?

I don't buy clothes. I haven't bought clothes in years. I hate shopping. My wife buys all my clothes. Before I got married, my mom bought all my clothes. 


When I was a teenager and into punk rock, I would put pins and chains on the fashionable jeans and T-shirts that my mom bought for me at K-Mart. That's the extent of my fashion buying. Imagine someone asking me to blog about designer jeans!


I've always thought that guys who care too much about clothes were a bit too Metro-sexual for me. But to each, their own.


(PS: I'd like to give a shout out right here to my grandma who buys me underwear and socks at Christmas every year! Yo! Grandma! Wassup? You rock!)


Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah... Flogs.


The point of all this is that you, the reader, are going to need to keep a sharp eye out for real alternative news and media and things like Rupert Murdock starting a blog. In fact, just the other day, I got a mail from a nice lady telling me about her companies new product that is a newspaper just for iPads... "How cool!" I thought.... Until I went to check it out and found that this service was a part of that very same Rupert Murdock News that brings you that fine Fox News. (It's part of the Murdock empire so that's why I do not link to it).


So, anyway, as far as this blog is concerned, I want to write about what I want to write about. I already have to sometimes bite my tongue due to personal and political considerations, but I feel that I need to do my duty and report the truth as I see it. 


That's why there are no ads on this blog anymore. I got sick of bashing Groupon on to have the Google algorithm place Groupon ads on my blog.


To reiterate; readers beware! There is a movement afoot by the US government to seize domains and blogs under the guise of "Copyright infringement" but it is really a ruse to silence sites that do not tow the government line.


See Activist Post here:


Apparently the Department of Homeland Security is now authorized to rewrite and enforce copyright infringement laws.  In a stunning precedent, the recent round of domain seizures to shut down websites that allowed illegal streaming of the Super Bowl also included a few other websites that were seized simply for linking to infringing content.


If it were true that they were seized merely for linking then why doesn't the government seize Google or Yahoo? Isn't it obvious? Major mass media in cahoots with the government is trying to take control of the internet so that things like Egypt don't happen in the USA.


This is highly suspicious evidence that something is afoot. 


Will the bad guys succeed? Only time will tell.


Readers! Beware of Flogs! 






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Last Week's Twitter Attack Unintentionally Originated from Japan!?

I have written extensively before on how I question Twitter's long-term viability as a solid business in the west before. See here and here and here. But I have always thought Twitter would do well in Japan because Twitter allows 140 characters - I think it is often too short for English, but, in Japanese using Chinese kanji, one can write a mini novel on Twitter since kanji often represent entire ideas.

But now here comes some news that claims last weeks terrible Twitter hack problems originated from Japan!

From Google News:   

This week's Twitter attack that caused a widespread headache for the micro-blogging service appears to have been triggered by a Japanese computer hacker who says he was only trying to help. The attack, which emerged and was shut down within hours Tuesday morning, involved a "cross-site scripting" flaw that allowed users to run JavaScript programs on other computers. The originator is believed to be someone who uses the name "Masato Kinugawa" in cyberspace and acknowledges creating the Twitter account "RainbowTwtr" that demonstrated the vulnerability. Through his Twitter account and personal blog, Kinugawa regularly tracks down possible computer security loopholes and notifies companies of their existence. There are "Twitter-like" competitors in Asia. The best is Pick. Pick allows you to place a photo right on your tweet (or I guess I should say, Pick") so you don't have to click-through to a different page like "Twit-pick" and, with how conscious of their privacy Asians are, these kinds of trouble for Twitter spell big opportunity for the Asian companies. We'll see how this all plays out.... Either way, more bad publicity for Twitter.     See original article.