Every day, idiots are published

It's not every day you read something published that shouldn't have been. Who am I kidding? It is every day. Every day, the web fills up with more clueless writers getting paid by clueless bosses to add their late, worthless commentary on the digital revolution. I would suggest, if you know sweet fuck all about your subject, don't write about it.

I look out for intriguing articles with foresight and fresh information. My keywords for these articles are generally innovative and "hot" products like "Gmail", "Apple DRM", "Longhorn", "SP2", "Fuck off and die", and "Paris Hilton stolen sideswipe pics"

My search results range from fruitful to downright rotten. Every now and then, you get a real stinker. I'd like to focus on the stinkers today.

Here's a guy called Jeremy D. Zawodny, "contributing writer" for www.webpronews.com (Where you can expert to get web new written by pro's). You see, Jeremy has so much time that he took one sunny afternoon off from contributing writing, and read the Gmail terms of service.

Here's what he had to say -
http://www.webpronews.com/

For those of you without a functioning mouse, here's the crux -

This is a little odd. I was reading the Gmail Program Policies and noticed this in the large list of things that users may not do.

Interfere with other Gmail users' enjoyment of the Service.

If someone sends a message to my Gmail account to tell me I'm fat and it's pissed me off, does that constitute interfering with my enjoyment? Can I have their Gmail account terminated for doing so?

He's serious.

I sent Jeremy a little letter.

I read your article on Gmail’s clause to not interfere with other users’ enjoyment. For one, the word “enjoyment” is popularly defined as
3: (law) the exercise of the legal right to enjoy the benefits of owning property; "we were given the use of his boat"
WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University

A synonym of “enjoy” is “use”.

For two, if your legal knowledge is this limited, why are you reading lengthy program policies?
More importantly, why on earth are you writing about them?

I wrote about you in my blog.
http://exquire.blogspot.com/

Thanks,
Craig Neilson

PS. You’re fat. I hope that pisses you off.

Case closed.

Here's another stinker, written by the prolific Clare Greenway, the only person that publishes stories at www.boostmarketing.com - a site that gets a lot of Google News exposure. Too much.
After a bit of research, I also found this to be a repeat story by the same writer on the same site.

http://www.boostmarketing.com/story.php?id=687

The opening sentence here reads (Verbatim, always);

Okay, so we are guilty too of hyping Apple Computer products, but with the new iPod mini range and price cuts, what's not to love about Apple at the moment?

And the rest reads as you'd expect, with prices and everything. Sorry, but there's no in depth DRM discussion here, we're just reminding everyone that Apple have something called an iPod. In other breaking news, Princess Diana got her shit fucked in a car crash.

Boost allows comments. Fuckin' A. My comments on this story include "There's plenty not to love about Apple at the moment." and "ruining what it means to own music". Oh, and "Maria, I hope your iPod goes with your handbag".

Of course, like any enterprising $2 whore, I link my blog under every damned post. Comments are allowed that luxury.

To my readers, I beg you, when you find crappy online journalism, ruin it. Go to the comment button, to the email button, ridicule the writing for the trash that it is. If possible, do it in the domain they chose to put it - the public one. Practice on me.