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Glenn Beck Reports CIA Plot Between Embassy Killing and Something Awful
An anonymous reader writes "Here's one that even The Onion would reject as too blatantly ridiculous: American right-wing radio and TV clown Glenn Beck believes that Sean Smith aka Vile Rat, the EVE Online diplomat who was killed earlier this month during the attack on the US embassy in Benghazi, was actually a CIA agent, relaying communications to his fellow undercover agents at Something Awful."
I don't believe anything that guy says. He is only after ratings, and by extension, money.
This is why Beck is so against socialized healthcare - because if we had it, he'd be institutionalized for being so completely fucking nuts.
People are talking about Glenn Beck :-P
"Paranoia strikes deep, into your lives it will creep. It starts when you're always afraid. Step out of line, the man comes and takes you away."
Really. The fine line between clear batshit-crazy paranoia and justifiable concern grows thinner and thinner the deeper down the "terrorists!" Rabbit hole we go. The cited song refered to the last boogeyman: "Commies!", but it fits very well, if eerily, 50 years later with "Terrorists!"
People like Glen Beck just drink the koolaid. Rather than point and laugh about his over the top paranoia, take an honest look at how batshit we are acting in regard to "Terrorists!", where we are scared of plastic knives, exploding underwear, and flamable mouthwash to the point where we grope and tickle old women and 2 year old children as a daily occurance at our borders.
In times like these, agencies like the CIA get ever expanding license to do stupid, batshit crazy stuff to "catch them terrorists", and "make us feel safe!" As such, things like the silly stupid of this story might not actually be as silly stupid as they seem.
That is what is truly scary.
He's not a particularly reliable source. Move along, no news here.
Bruce Perens.
Ooh, is someone upset that the GOP and its representatives (official or otherwise) would be taken for being mad?
Beck falls into chasm created by Poe's law.
I see, people see Beck say wild shit and you accuse people here of suffering from Aspergers. Real classy one you are.
Considering the man can't tell a joke for shit and the other wild-ass garbage come out of the Republican Party these days, I'm not surprised at all that people missed it.
IT'S A CONSPIRACY! And Slashdot is in on it too! Careful, you're starting to sound like Beck as well.
Here is the official summary of the episode from Glenn Beck's website:
http://www.glennbeck.com/2012/09/17/is-the-obama-administration-covering-up-scandalous-details-in-libya-attack/
Note particularly this part at the end:
Audio from the relevant portion of the episode is posted on Soundcloud:
http://soundcloud.com/nivdes/glenn-beck-goonswarm-is
"Goonswarm" is the name of the in-game organization affiliated with Something Awful.
TL;DR: It really did happen.
New for Nerds not from Idiots. Stop this shit.
"Considering the inability of the supposed "geniuses" on this site to spot an obvious joke that Mitt Romney made last week"
No, no jokes are funny.
Glenn Beck has been known to use this device known as "sarcasm"
Good point. There's a talk show host named Rush who does the same thing; basically says ridiculous stuff to get people's attention. But the foaming at the mouth crowd takes them both seriously.
when was the last time he was relevant? and with regard to his purported comment: thats his job. his job is to say, or do anything to anyone in order to garner enough attention to sell advertising slots. the formula is to find a hot-button item and exploit it. Whether he believes anything he says is irrellevant. He lost his job on Fox News because his ability to draw advertisers plummeted once americans realized the stalinist dystopia he insisted upon never arrived. Sean Hannity, Bill Oreilly, Glenn Beck, and Limbaugh are all designed and employed to keep people interacting with and talking about their respective shows. None have any expertise in anything of a technical nature, ever.
Good people go to bed earlier.
the right side of politics sure has been "funny" a lot lately
I don't understand the supposed video game tie-in.
EVE Online's players tend to begin to treat it as a lifestyle and many of them develop close friendships and connections to other players and I would not be surprised in the least that someone involved that much in EVE would be chatting with gamer friends practically all the time. And VileRat was associated with GoonSwarm which was a group mainly associated with Something Awful, so its no surprise he'd be chatting with them.
Beck just has absolutely no clue about gamers. None.
Ask Osama about his experience in international affairs.
I'm not sure I get the joke here. The job of the deceased was "foreign service information management officer." I'm trying to imagine how somebody in that position could not work with intelligence services?
Perhaps he was the Exchange/Sharepoint/SAN administrator? "Foreign service" is pretty much any State Department employee stationed overseas. "Information Management Officer" sounds like he could be anything from the IT Admin to the filing clerk (if they still have paper files, that is).
Battlemaster--Game with friends in medival realms
I don't get why all these posts that belong on Media Matters or Crooks and Liars show up on Slashdot. Glenn Beck's an idiot and everybody's lying about the embassy attack in Libya. Yea, we get it. Take it somewhere else - this isn't "News for nerds" - it's clickbait. Take it somewhere else.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Right, now it's time to grow up. So, remember Iran-contra? And how the democrats blamed Regan for everything. No? Okay. So remember the last 8 years and oh let's go with the housing crisis. That was obviously all Bush's fault right. Despite the fact that in 2002 and 2003, that the republicans tried to change the rules but were blocked by the democrats. Wait, he was the only person in the government. Now that your little temper tantrum is done, you'd better get your head out of the sand.
Under Obama they were not tracked, the documents received showed that. The real problem that comes back on this is that the democrats themselves are stonewalling and it has become a civil case because the DoJ itself is blocking further investigations into the issue. Now, if you're finished lying to yourself perhaps, just perhaps you learned something today.
Om, nomnomnom...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/magazine/job-creation-campaign-promises.html?pagewanted=all
Good zinger, really! I chuckled.
But the Prez can do very little to create jobs, realistically. Obama may have an easier time creating the Unicorn we all seem to want. Add in a obstructionist, insane House, and the Euro wanting to implode the European Union?
Good zinger though, really...
Uh.. as many people on Slashdot point out all the time, *LOTS* of people play online games. So what do you do if you are a spy and want to communicate without raising suspicion... do what *LOTS* of other people do and blend in.
James Bond is not a real spy, Joe Blow, the average guy who you pass on the street without even noticing is what a real spy looks like. If it is expected that a white guy in his 20s - 30s and who is kind of nerdy will play video games, then that is an excellent thing for an operative to do so that he blends in with every expected stereotype.
I'm not saying that this particular guy was doing it, but for you to call it ridiculous is patently silly... especially given the credulity of people on this website to every single conspiracy theory that supports the pet-prejudices that are promoted around here.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
He was one of the IT admins.
He was an enemy in game, and a friend out of game. I miss talking shop with him.
Not a sentence!
http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/18/news/economy/obama-bush-jobs/?source=cnn_bin
And what is Dubya's excuse during his orgy of spending? Where was the outcry then?
Come to think of it, even as an independent, Dubya made me cry a lot...
Wait, your position is that Beck has a radio show that features him saying things in jest, for entertainment, and that he shouldn't be taken seriously, but that it's flamebait to call him a clown?
*LOTS* of people play online games
Lots of people don't play MMORPGs that suck up half their lives. What kind of cover story includes that much time spent on a collective fantasy? Not one that includes actual time spent gathering intelligence.
You mention that James Bond is fiction. That's very true. Real secret agents don't have elaborate schemes for doing ordinary things, like talking to people.
I always wonder about the people who compare Obama to Bush. It's like comparing yourself to a squirrel or a bonobo monkey, if you can't do obviously better then you are in trouble.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
As a former goon, and former goonfleet pilot I can say how tightknit that
/. effect with malice, e.g. hitting the reload button on a site you didn't like until the pipes clogged, at the same time as every other goon. Back in the day, it was very feasible to clog down the low-rent juggalo, furry, pedo, and other stupid sites somethingawful would target. They also asked eachother for advice. traded stories, made confessions, trolled eachother. There was "goon justice", when goons fucked up a pedophile, scammer, spammer, or other internet lowlife. The also did photoshop contests, made memes, and trolled eachother really hard.
1. something awful is
2. goonfleet in particular was.
I am still in shock and disbelief that both get into the news, and vile rat will be deeply missed.
Some back story, before there was 4chan, there was something awful. Goons used to do pranks and raids (far more mild that what 4chan/anonymous eventually became). Goons became named "Goons" because they were Lowtax's "goons" who'd invade forums and crash websites. But there were no LOIC, or any other tools. it was just using the
There were also pranks, such as habo hotel, and the like.
The Forums "Goons" had a general dislike for the rest of the internet, and would play internet games with other goons, because they disliked the general population of gamers at the time. Goonfleet stuck out because of how harsh the game was, and how goons when from harrassing people in game, to becoming a serious angry force hell bent on serious stellar conquest. EVE is a game where everyone is a ruthless bastard hell bent on conquest, and people fucked with the goons, they pushed back harder. They kept to themselves and disliked outsiders, and took a dim view on the status quo of the EVE eliete(poopsocking pubbies). Goons made a break for power in 2006 and I am proud to say I was there. Other alliances had players with far more skill points(like level), who where more powerful, but goons had numbers, excellent organization, and teamwork. There was a profound sense of "goon nationalism" in the game that we were out to stake our claim and challenge the status quo. leaders had charisma, and leadership skills, but not as much in game skill points. We bucked the pecking order in favor of our own. We let anyone from Something Awful in, while rejecting the most seasoned non-goon EVE players.
The world hated us, but as goons we reveled in their hatred, and it made us closer, stronger, more determined. We had the numbers and were far far far more ruthless than the worst the game had to offer. EVE is not just played online, its played over instanat message, cell phones, text messages, and even in the real world. When we allied with the Russians, we sent a real life delegation to Russia to visit them in person, and they sent one to NY, to shore up in game ties.
We upset some major long standing alliances who had publicly gone on EVE TV to bash us.(Lokta Voltera, Vertas Imortalis) to bash us and our antics. We went on to terminate them with prejudice.
EVE got serious just about the same time goons were almost at the height of their in game power.
Somewhere around 2005, when the internet started getting really "serious" and pranks and raids started to have legal conotations, site founder, lowtax put a halt to raids and pranks. The sense of community remained. But just a reminder before "Anonymous" was "Leigon", we were "40 thousand screaming goons"
RIP VIle Rat. Here is a speech remedial made on teamspeak before the epic battle of XZH-, of which I was a defender. I recorded this as I listened to.
http://www.favupload.com/audio/6704/
...American right-wing radio and TV clown Glenn Beck...
Now, I'm not commenting on whether he's right or wrong, but this in an accepted summary? Seems a bit much even by Slashdot standards.
"Intelligence has nothing to do with politics!"
-Londo Mollari
Makes sense to me. After all, if you want to send a message to the FBI you use 4chan, therefore it's entirely reasonable that if you want to talk to the CIA, you use Something Awful.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
No, he achieved that all on his own.
"it's so obvious! is there anything obama isn't responsible for?"
Yup.
The film caused all the unrest.
The economy is still Bush's fault. Either one, Doesn't really matter.
The banks are the Republicans' fault, collectively. They started it, and the whole financial industry precipitated all this.
Housing is a Republican problem too. Along with student loans. Same problem, but that's not at issue here. We are not really too involved in reality, just in avoiding holding our President accountable for a damned thing.
Because, after all, it was like that when he got there. It could be worse. Bush could have left it all for Obama to figure out. Oh,wait...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Blah blah blah. No president does anything single-handedly. Lincoln didn't tear through the Confederacy like an action hero. FDR didn't paradrop into Nazi Germany. Obama didn't pull the literal trigger on Osama. But it was his decision to refocus efforts on finding OBL, it was his decision to go with troops on the ground rather than an airstrike, it was his decision to keep the Pakistanis out of the loop. All of those turned out to be the right choices, and Obama deserves credit for that.
All you Republicans claiming the credit should go exclusively to the military, ask yourself this: If the mission had ended with a dozen dead SEALs instead of a dead terrorist, would you be placing the blame solely on the military?
Lincoln didn't tear through the Confederacy like an action hero.
Yea, but to be fair, he did take on all those vampires single-handedly.
Answer yes or no:
Is Reagan responsible for the Iran-Contra scandal?
If "yes", then why are you whining about Democrats blaming him for it?
If "no", then why are blaming Obama for Fast and Furious?
You're complaining about double-standards being applied by liberals while simultaneously using double-standards yourself.
Either the president is responsible for everything that happens in his administration, in which case you had best condemn everyone from Reagan to Roosevelt to Lincoln, or they're not, in which case you have no reason to be condemning Obama.
The second option seems far more sane to me.
In 2003, Republicans controlled the house and the senate, I cannot find evidence for your claim that Democrats blocked regulatory legislation which would have prevented the US housing crash. http://uspolitics.about.com/b/2008/09/18/republican-congress-talked-about-financial-reform-but-did-nothing.htm In fact, given the disdain Republicans have for any form of governmental regulation, I find your claim doubtful
prepare the survey weasels.