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Friday, April 15, 2011

Today in Slate: NATO's Last Mission? Plus, The I Ate At El Bulli Piece

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Today: April 15, 2011

Living in the Midwest

Living in the Midwest

Does it make you complacent and likely to wear clogs?

By Susanna Daniel

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Bulli for You

Bulli for You

Food writers can't stop bragging about their meals at the famous Spanish restaurant El Bulli.

By Noreen Malone

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NATO's Last Mission?

NATO's Last Mission?

The military crisis in Libya highlights an existential crisis for NATO.

By Fred Kaplan

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You've Just Offended Jews, Women, African-Americans, and Gays. Who Should You Call To Apologize?

You've Just Offended Jews, Women, African-Americans, and Gays. Who Should You Call To Apologize?

The Conspirator Has No Business Being as Entertaining as It Is

The Conspirator Has No Business Being as Entertaining as It Is

The Galling New Deodorant Ads That Try To Make Us Ashamed of How Our Armpits Look

The Galling New Deodorant Ads That Try To Make Us Ashamed of How Our Armpits Look

The Double Irish, the Dutch Sandwich, and Other Exotic Tax Dodges

The Double Irish, the Dutch Sandwich, and Other Exotic Tax Dodges

Advertisement
Startling, Appalling, Tragic Evidence That Camp Is Dead

Startling, Appalling, Tragic Evidence That Camp Is Dead

How Did the NBA Decide To Fine Kobe Bryant $100,000?

How Did the NBA Decide To Fine Kobe Bryant $100,000?

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Dilbert Creator Pretends to Be His Own Biggest Fan on Message Boards

By Adrian Chen

Dilbert Creator Pretends to Be His Own Biggest Fan on Message Boards

Dilbert Creator Pretends to Be His Own Biggest Fan on Message BoardsScott Adams, creator of the great comic strip Dilbert, is sort of a prick. He is a horrible boss, and recently penned a charming misogynist rant comparing women to children begging for candy. Now we learn he likes to bash critics on message boards under a pseudonym.

For months, Adams has been pretending to be the world's biggest Scott Adams fan under the handle "PlannedChaos." (Planned Chaos is a book by Austrian economist and libertarian hero Ludwig von Mises.) Today, he fessed up to his sockpuppetry.

It started with a thread on link-sharing community MetaFilter about Adams' Wall Street Journal op-ed on how awesome and successful he is even though he didn't get straight-As in school. Some people said mean things about the article, suggesting Scott Adams wrote like someone who has "actually convinced himself… that he's the smartest guy in the room."

That's when "PlannedChaos" weighed in, furiously defending Adams:

As far as Adams' ego goes, maybe you don't understand what a writer does for a living. No one writes unless he believes that what he writes will be interesting to someone. Everyone on this page is talking about him, researching him, and obsessing about him. His job is to be interesting, not loved. As someone mentioned, he has a certified genius I.Q., and that's hard to hide.

And when someone thought Adams was pumping himself up a little too much in the article, "PlannedChaos" wrote:

I assume you don't hate all self-promoters, such as homeless people applying for jobs. Is it Adams' enormous success at self-promotion that makes you jealous and angry?

This wasn't Adams' first time pretending to be his own fan. For months, he's been commenting on threads about himself posted to link-sharing site Reddit under the same handle for months. Sample comment:

If an idiot and a genius disagree, the idiot generally thinks the genius is wrong. He also has lots of idiot reasons to back his idiot belief. That's how the idiot mind is wired.

It's fair to say you disagree with Adams. But you can't rule out the hypothesis that you're too dumb to understand what he's saying.

And he's a certified genius. Just sayin'.

Just sayin'.

Dilbert Creator Pretends to Be His Own Biggest Fan on Message BoardsAfter a number of MetaFilter users called him out today, Adams confessed: "I am Scott Adams." Users are currently engaging in a ritualistic shaming: "This is a wonderful example of how to take a garden-variety fail like a slightly dumb WSJ OpEd and turn it into an epic fail," wrote Lodurr.

Adams also confirmed that he was PlannedChaos to MetaFilter founder Matt Haughey, who has this to say when we contacted him: "Our policy is that identity in the community is really important and we don't like people duping the entire userbase."

Nothing like a supremely self-satisfied dolt making a fool of himself by posting fake stuff on the Internet. There's actually a funny Dilbert strip about this sort of thing.

[Photos of Adams via AP]

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Is The Us Constitution a Living Document?

Is the US Constitution a living document open to reinterpretation in each generation?

The Afternoon Scoop - America's Tax-Cheating Politicians


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The Daily Beast
The Morning Scoop APRIL 15, 2011
Cheet Sheet Latest Articles Entertainment Books
DIRTY POLS
1. America's Tax-Cheating Politicians

More than 3,000 federal tax crimes were referred for prosecution in 2010, and a few of them happened to have an elected official as the defendant. With Tax Day coming up, The Daily Beast scours the records to find whether Democrats or Republicans have the worse tax problem.

Read it at The Daily Beast

LIBYA
2. Gaddafi Forces Bomb Civilian Areas

Col. Gaddafi's forces surrounding Misrata, Libya have been firing into residential neighborhoods with cluster bombs, which have been banned in much of the world, and other heavy weaponry, The New York Times reports. The bombs in use appeared to be 120-millimeter mortar projectiles which burst over the city and scatter high-explosive bomblets below. By nature, they are very imprecise, and place civilians at high risk when fired into populated areas. Gaddafi's forces have also been firing rockets known as GRADs into civilian areas. Each GRAD rocket, designed in the Soviet Union, is meant to shower a battlefield with multiple explosions. In Misrata, one of the GRAD rockets alone killed eight civilians. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that she was not aware of the use of heavy weapons in Misrata, but that she was "not surprised by anything that Colonel Gaddafi and his forces do."

Read it at The New York Times

MANEUVERS
Dems Try to Force Conservative Budget
Republicans end up blocking bill.

MIDEAST
Biggest Demonstrations Yet Rock Syria
Protests spread to key cities of Aleppo and Hama.

WEATHER
Nine Killed in Oklahoma, Arkansas Storms
Tornado leaves at least 25 injured.

ROYAL WEDDING
Kate's Last Night Without Will
Middleton and family will stay at the Goring Hotel.

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