Charles Johnson: Violater of Blogger Labor Laws?
Come on…go with me there…this is a shameless effort to get lots of Lizard hits, or…could it be BREAKING NEWS?
Over four years ago, in the BR (Before Rathergate) era of Little Green Footballs (hereinafter referred to as “LGF”), I regularly read the Blogging of Charles, and the comments sections. Back then, you could actually read the entire comments section in a single session and not have to take two bathroom breaks and stop to have one meal, and somehow do your work without interrupting your sleep.
Then…CBS and Dan Rather tried to “rather” not have President Bush re-elected. Charles caught them in their own effort to change the will of the people and, as a result, readership (and comments) climbed through the roof of the sitemetering software. Comments ran in to the many hundreds on any particular post, and ones that were part of a dialog between commenters became more difficult to follow, sometime causing readers to exacerbate their repetitive stress injuries with scrolling up and down several screens, just to follow the discussion.
The best part of LGF was reading “news” and not hearing it for 3-4 days in the dinosaur media. It was like a secret window into what was really happening in the world! I often chuckled, even when the conservative talk show hosts discussed such “news” and were “time late.” Charles, I thought, had developed a most excellent pipeline of data to keep us at the forefront of all that was fit to read. Whatever he was doing, he was running ahead of the pack so far they didn’t konw how far ahead hes was.
Then, readers would post interesting links in their comments. I did to. Charles, would sometimes pick them up and create entire posts of them, and the depositor would gain world wide recognition via the “hat tip” (or “h/t” for short) method.
The beauty of this system was those readers who had professional, academic, or significant hands on experience would add to the posts, either with confirmation, clarity, or calling a “line” for what it was. And, guess what? Charles now had a “Lizard Army” as “subject matter experts” at his beck and call. He addicted us….and we were eager to help out, making the cutting edge, the very finest.
It was exciting time, when the LGF site became a hotbed of citizen journalist who almost always skunked “the PROFESSIONALS!” at the labor for which “they” had the pieces of lambskin saying they could change the world, while we common working people, how dare was be audacious in pointing out they had it wrong? We did…byt the hundreds, then thousands of posts. A unique place, this LGF site became, with debunking of steel not melting, photoshopped picutres and the Green Helmet Guy from Pallywood.
But, earlier this year, something changed. Charles figured out (I may be able to recreate the 1967 memo of it, too) that he could get blogger to scour the web and local news sources and then post hundreds of links a day, and all he had to do was sedate us readers with such trivial thinks like rounded corners on the log in input boxes and Ajaxified comments sections. He began to spend less time being the guy who found the breaking news, and subtly he left that task to the “lizards.” We came and multiplier. We hammer the bandwidth with more and more and more links.
The squirrels…Oh, THE HUMANITY! We’re fortunate PETA hasn’t mounted a major full frontal assault on the server farm, for the findings of the legless creatures would certainly tear our hearts apart.  Zombie might even have to go and capture the events to post digitally…
It used to be the routine, for an east coast resident like myself, to anxiously await about 11:30AM each day, to begin lunch early and see what the “new” day brought at LGF, from then until the mid-evening, the pages filled with amazing storied of stupid Democrat ideas, malfeasance of the MSM, how some blogger had trumped the people too pure to mingle with people who might actually have life experience to get the facts straight…but, als, it is not to be any longer.
Charles, surrounded by tomes discusing PHP, SQL, AJAX, can barely managed an “Open Post”post byt 12:30 Eastern now. Sometimes it’s later. It is akin to the mom tossing open the back door and hollaring at all the kids to “get out there and play! The sun is shining and you need fresh air! DON’TYOUDAREKILLEACHOTHEREITHER!” as she settles in to watching the afternoon soaps With her tray of bon bons, she parks for a few hours of aimless “entertainment.”
Lizards now send in links and they maybe get a post, 1 out of every 40-50 or so, maybe a day later than the link input, and not even a freaking “H/T” to be found anymore.
But what are we to do? Charles has seduced us into diligently, without pay, benefits, or the most awesome “H/T: XXXXXX” recognition, submitting links from about the globe, to feed his insatiable desire to rule an empire, the one to overtake the every degrading MSM. He has constructed a tools, unlike any other, that mesmerizes us into a stupified state, but needing more.
I say Charles has stepped over the line! He needs to be brought forward on charges of willfully, and by conspiratorial methods, of violating Blogger Labor Laws!
Say it wth me:Â “I WILL NOT BE BOUGHT BY ICONIC REDESIGN!”
Oh, heck, if you’re read this far, I just had fun with this. In four some years, LGF has become something special. The best part is, it’s unique and he owes the development to no one, so they can’t come along and reclaim their product.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film
Categories: Humor