Rumors, legends and more, oh my
First, you should know that Snopes.com is an online service that debunks rumors and urban legends. Secondly, you should know that Berry Picker TUBOB has a rapier wit and majors in satire on his blog, The Unbearable Bobness of Being. What do Snopes and TUBOB have in common? Tongue firmly cheeked, TUBOB made up some quotes that he attributed to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on an Aug. 30 blog post. Sample: “God made dinosaurs 4,000 years ago as ultimately flawed creatures, lizards of Satan really, so when they died and became petroleum products we, made in his perfect image, could use them in our pickup trucks, snow machines and fishing boats.” Initially, TUBOB claimed that the quotes were from Palin interviews with the Anchorage Daily News. He didn’t expect them to be cut-and-pasted onto the MSNBC site and circulated by Palin detractors all over the globe. In fact, some guys dubbed their new domain site, “Lizards of Satan.” Which bugs wordsmith TUBOB because he considers “Lizards of Lucifer” more alliterative. Snopes.com, meanwhile, warned readers that Gov. Palin has joined the list of prominent politicians featured as the focus of the humor-mistaken-for-news phenomenon. Said Snopes: “Every election cycle brings the phenomenon of satirical political pieces being stripped of their context and circulated via e-mail as fact.” My blog crowd, of course, applauded TUBOB for making Snopes and cried: “More, more.”
Leapin’ Lizards
Typically, TUBOB is enjoying the stir created by his false quotes (although he added a coupla disclaimers to make sure readers who parachute in to read them understand they’re fictitious. Such as: “She didn’t actually say these things – I made them up. But thanks for all the visits.”) Initially, TUBOB’s blog attracted 3,000 visits per day soon after he posted the fake quotes. Online blurkers were eating stuff like this bogus quote re: Alaskans serving in Iraq: “Well, God bless them, and I mean God and Jesus because without Jesus we’d be Muslims too or Jewish, which would be a little better because of the superior Israeli Air Force.” ANWR: “Todd and I often enjoying caribou hunting and one year we shot up a herd big time, I mean I personally slaughtered around 40 of them with my new, at the time, custom Austrian hunting rifle.” You can read the post that launched the Internet hoax for yourself by visiting The Unbearable Bobness Of Being blog (http://unbearablebobness. typepad.com/).
Huckleberries
In the “National Publicity That Used To Excite Us Before We Were Discovered” Dept., Larry Olmsted, writing for USA Today, ballyhooed Coeur d’Alene as “a quaint village with a large downtown waterfront park” and three of four seasons of weather that are “not only good, they’re great.” To which, Mayor Sandi Bloem added: “We have plenty of sun, but no extremes, no hurricanes, no tornadoes, no bugs, but very clean air and very clean water.” P’haps Sandi shoulda warned the reporter that the winter season lasts at least six months? … Dave Turner, who has traded in his Rathdrum Star clipboard for a taxi, ran into Gov. Butch Otter over the weekend. Figuratively. In response to Dave’s question re: Sarah Palin, Butch said: “I love her. She’s huge” … Also, Butch told Dave that he didn’t play golf despite being invited to the annual Governor’s Cup here. So he planned to entertain with his guitar … Scanner Traffic: A concerned citizen wanted to speak to an officer because he’d been to a local garage sale where liquor was being handed out, and he wanted to know if that was OK. For many, it is.
Parting shot
You might be wondering about those “for sale” signs sprouting on Sheriff Rocky Watson’s property on Cougar Bay, especially after he bought and barged Duane Hagadone’s Casco Bay “cabin” there. But that’s only half the story. Rocky told Huckleberries this week that he also has his 37-acre Rockford Bay property for sale. He figures, if one sells, he and wife Mary’ll move to the other one. He’s prepared to wait out the bad housing market – and pull the for-sale signs to wait until next spring if he has to. Meanwhile, he said, each property has pluses. At Rockford Bay, for example, he has enough space to hot tub naked if he wants to do so. I’ll leave you with that image.