The Kennebec Journal takes a page from the Moritz playbook

Posted on June 29, 2010 by Michael

Andreas Moritz changed a link once it was shown that he is only interested in swindling people. He did this to prevent anyone from seeing the details of his scam, but it didn’t work since he didn’t actually delete said details. And then I copy and pasted everything. Well, the Kennebec Journal, my local paper, may be doing something similar.

The paper isn’t running any major scam like Moritz, but it does seem to be acting just as dishonestly. I made a post about a stupendously bad article it ran that talked about ghost hunters in a central Maine town. It actually made the front page of the paper. Incredible, I know.

I had left a comment on the article saying just how bad it was, so I went back to check it. But wait. It isn’t there. In fact, I can’t seem to find it anywhere. Go ahead. Check the link that once worked. Search the website for “Readfield Historical Society” or “paranormal”. An older article will show up, but not this most recent one.

It’s possible the article is just somewhere really strange on the KJ’s site. If it is, that speaks to what an amateur operation this new ownership is running. But I can’t find it anywhere. It appears the KJ has deleted the article, hopefully out of embarrassment. I would like to think FTSOS was the embarrassing factor, but there’s no way to really know. Maybe a whole slew of comments after mine flooded the article, prompting a number of red faces in the tech and editing room.

One can hope.

Update: Since the creation of this post, the KJ has restored the link. Funny that.

Filed under: Local, Pure bullshit | Tagged: , , | 3 Comments »

Because apparently it’s a slow news day

Posted on May 30, 2010 by Michael

My local paper, the Kennebec Journal, has an article today about ghost hunters.

Florence Drake, the Readfield Historical Society president, will be especially interested in the investigation’s outcome.

She and the historical society’s board heard an initial presentation of paranormal evidence last fall, but Drake said many of the recordings weren’t quite clear enough to discern exactly what was happening.

“Some of the spirits, or whatever they are, I’d like them to speak a little more clearly, more loudly and clearly,” Drake said, “something I could play to our members and say, ‘Here. This is going on.’ “

What a monumental waste of time. Drake didn’t hear anything because it’s all a big scam. Ghosts are as non-existent as God.

Fortunately, there’s a commenter with some good sense.

“There’s voices and stuff moving and unexplainable crap,” she said.” Such phenomena ARE explainable. Steatorrhea, for instance, is often the result of too many fries and too much fried dough with your KFC, especially if you or the kids suffer digestive problems or malabsorption syndromes. Porta-potties at state fairs are an excellent venue for investigating such paranormal occurrences.

What made me most happy about this was that it prevented me from needing to sign-in in order to leave a lengthy comment myself. But that happiness was quickly dashed when I read this:

Divinity (the first commenter), can you prove it’s NOT haunted or that spirits DON’T exist? I didn’t think so.

Oh dear. This old canard. Didn’t the Flying Spaghetti Monster answer this? Didn’t Sagan already do away with this bull? Hasn’t anyone taken a basic science class?

But no need to worry! That same user, Divinity, is to the rescue.

mdenis46 said… “Divinity, can you prove it’s NOT haunted or that spirits DON’T exist? I didn’t think so.” Remember that beautiful summer, Michael, when you had to spend the best days of it in class studying statistics while your mind was on the beach? While you were day-dreaming the instructor was explaining that you never prove the null hypothesis, i.e. similar to “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” Personally, I not only believe in spirits, I like to imbibe them when socializing with kindred ghouls and ghosties. I used to love my visits to Mount Desert following those C.E. tribulations; Caspar was always friendly and could drink like a fish.

Burn.

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