Mutant Elk caught in the wilds of Britain

Yes, “the wilds of Britain.” See what I did there?

The Guardian captions this "An elk." Time to stop hiring inbred photo interns, no matter how dazzling their connections.

The Guardian captions this “An elk.” Time to stop hiring inbred photo interns, no matter how dazzling their connections.

According to the UK paper of record for Ecologically Sensitive Courtesy Titles, the UK is harbouring a fugitive and desperate band of elk rustlers.

PC Jackie Poole, who is leading the hunt, said: “This is an unusual theft and would have required a vehicle, and probably quite a bit of time, to complete. I would ask people in the area at the time to cast their mind back and see if they remember seeing anything suspicious.

Under “Anything suspicious” we must list the above, a moose impersonating an elk in the Guardian. Could the paper have a vested interest in confusing the issue and preventing innocent Somersettians from recognizing an actual elk when they see one?

Hmmm, one wonders…what are they serving in the executive dining room at the Grauniad this week, eh?

Dear United Kingdom, this is what elks look like:

Real Elks, duh

Real Elks, duh

WikiLeaks: the personal care product line

Julian Assange protect the truth condom line

Julian Assange protect the truth condom line available soon at a store near you!

So, one evening I was hanging on Twitter with hacktivists and freedom fighters from around the world (as one does) when one of them came up with a brilliant plan. Not only will it garner huge media coverage for its salacious possibilities, but it will raise money for WikiLeaks and Assange‘s lawyers at the same time as contributing in a very direct way to making the world a cleaner, more attractive place.

Thanks to @Treisiroon for collating them all, and @SeasangJ, @Pandymonium01 and @AssangeC for playing along. Your cheques are in the mail. As for the rest of you, put your suggestions in the comments section.

And yes, I DO know I’m opening this up for trolls.

Announcing WikiLeaks personal care products!

Contradiction fragrance, a woman’s perogative.

Clean as a Whistleblower soap.

Mendax fragrance, the scent of danger.

Mendax fragrance, nobly untruthful.

Mendax fragrance, From Melbourne to Nairobi, Cambodia to London, The Truth Will Set You Free.

Mendax cologne- because you pwn it.

Mendax cologne… awesome audaciousness.

Mendax cologne, The Scent of Freedom.

Mendax cologne, Get A Whiff of the Truth.

Mendax Gentleman’s overnight bag slash travellers case.

Mendax condom for all night lulz. [hmmm, I foresee difficulty marketing a condom which causes one or one’s partner to collapse in fits of laughter. Or is that just me?] specially treated so no DNA remains ….”Swedish tear test approved DS9001.”

Mendax condoms, because he knows he’ll need it.

Mendax condoms, love the audacity.

Mendax: Dare to Wear it! [unsure whether this refers to condom or cologne, so suggest gift packs containing both, just in time for the holiday season]

Julian, transparent masculinity. [I rather think this is a condom as well. Either that or some kind of macho wrestling body oil]

Redacted deodorant, because not everything should be shared.

Asylum fragrance, too hot to handle.

Silver Fox haircare. [can we get Anderson Cooper as a spokesmodel?]

Oh, the possibilities are endless. Thanks to all who participated in this crowd-sourced effort to diversify WikiLeaks. Remember, united we stand, diversified we profit!

Speaking of the War on Trolls…

trollstrollstrollstrollstrollstrollstrollstrolls

trollstrollstrollstrollstrollstrollstrollstrolls

Sooooo, yesterday I got trolled, and I fell for it, hard. That wouldn’t be so bad, but I published a story on the Daily Dot about it before we found out it was a fake. My bosses are naturally not thrilled. Without minimizing the fact I shouldn’t have swallowed it like I did, that all would be pretty horrible IF (can you keep a sikrit?):

  • news organizations weren’t constantly being trolled and then writing stories about the trolling (“rumors of X happening overnight have petered out and it now appears that X was never, in fact, going to happen” and they DON’T generally say “yeah, and we got it wrong yesterday”)
  • it had been a major news story instead of an insidery item about the sentencing of someone of whom most of our readers have never heard. Accuracy is always important but this way the spread of the original rumour was minimized, if inadvertently.
  • it had resulted in enduring consequences other than personal embarrassment (because god knows I’m long past the concept of human dignity and although my taste does not run to crow I’ve eaten a fair helping or two in my time). Think of the WMD hoax: decade-long, generation-crippling, heart-of-the-nation-sapping war. THAT is a consequence. Hell, Judith Miller went to prison for protecting her source and he turned out to be lying AND hundreds of thousands of people are dead. So yeah, downside.
  • it hadn’t resulted in me getting three exclusive interviews with VERY interesting, VERY prominent (in certain circles) people.
  • and a marriage proposal on Twitter.

So yeah, troll’s well that ends well. And as I said on Twitter, you can hardly complain about being trolled when you pull:

Selah. May the Internet Drama Fairy watch over you all and protect you from doxing.

Exclusive interview with the new World Leader of Anonymous

Anonymous Investigation

Anonymous Investigation

Well, I TOLD you I was connected.

I just maybe didn’t know how connected.

Turns out one of my Twitter pals is the Supreme Great Leader-President Baby Daddy of Anonymous. No. Of the whole interwebz.

FACT.

For proof, just listen to this little drive-by he pulls on a couple of rubes who think they’re safe behind the cover of their own laptops. They’ve been BACKTRACED!

Barrett Brown’s girlfriend speaks out: the transcript

Save Barrett Brown. For what, we're not sure.

Save Barrett Brown. For what, we’re not sure.

You can go to my Daily Dot article for background or just skip this post and go on to the Unicorn Chaser tag if you’re already bored of this particular rabbit hole.

When the FBI raided controversial Anonymous member Barrett Brown’s apartment last week, they weren’t planning on being taped; audio of the raid went out live to participants in a TinyChat Barrett and his girlfriend had going. Now Brown’s girlfriend, @Elvira_ebooks, Evie Paradise, has taken to YouTube to respond to charges the entire thing was a fraud.

Video:

Now, here is the transcript. Slightly off-topic, you would not BELIEVE how long it takes to accurately transcribe a five minute video.

Hi my name is Barrett Brown, father of Project PM and miscellaneous other activities on the internet. Speaking of the internet, I was just having one of my friends say on Facebook, and they were telling me that there are a bunch of pastebins and whatnot and rumors flying around that the events of the past week in my apartment were staged. You fools. Is this…is it a setup?

Is it you, Chen?

Is it you, McCain?

Let’s find out. Because I! Made a chart!

This is the setup of my apartment. Oh my god. This is the setup of my apartment. I’m Barrett Brown. This star right here is my beautiful but very tired right now so she probably doesn’t look attractive and like, feel good, okay, my beautiful girlfriend. Evie. Elvira. Whatever.

This rectangle here is the door to my apartment. This slightly longer rectangle is the hallway. And this…scribbly thing… is A KITCHEN WALL.

There’s a wall there. Are you bored yet? TOO BAD because I’m gonna keep talking.

Here’s the wall. Here’s the Kitchen. Girlfriend. K? Computer. Should we review this one more time? Door to the apartment, hallway, kiiiiitchen wall, kitchen, where I make my shake…my “pizza”…and my girlfriend on the computer.

So if one of you prosec dingleberries is gonna come into my apartment, this is how it’s gonna go down. Okay? And this is how it went down.

People came in here. Like, this is a joke video, but this is actually the setup of the apartment. They came in here hooting and hollering, saying what did they say, they said, hi mister brown, can we take a look at your plants? They came in hooting and hollering. Girlfriend down here thinks its one of my deadbeat friends, deadbeat friends, people deadbeat friends that don’t call after you’ve been raided. They don’t even bother to respond to your girlfriend’s facebook messages.

She thinks it’s one of your geek friends, hooting and hollering in a fake raid bit, or something. You know? It’s not.

They say excuse me mister brown can we come in and he’s okay you’re friends of mine. They come in and a melee ensues, going down the hall like this, down the hall, okay? Girlfriend’s still here, thinking what the heck is, what now, what now is going on in this apartment?

But she finds out, doesn’t she? She finds out really soon when they exit the hallway and they turn around the corner. They turn around the corner. Okay, this circle here represents the corner. Okay? You see now? Do you see now? I mean does anyone have any questions?

And then she thinks to herself this is weird. There’s no right way to react like this, I’m gonna just reflexively shut the laptop, and she does. Sometimes she wishes she hadn’t, if she was gonna know all you all these deadbeats would do this.

I mean, come on. By now, by now, don’t you think…yeah, I don’t have time to talk to you people. I just do’ i just don’t have time. I’m Barrett Brown.

You see this? Okay, and then, you know, there’s this, going on like this. And this. And this.

This isn’t even funny. This is just an idea. Thanks a lot [Shane?]. Thanks for having an idea. I’m gonna ask someone else.

https://twitter.com/ElviraXMontana/status/248916435601080320