Tuesday 17 June 2008

Economical with the Truth, and the Code

Today's battle takes an interesting turn.

Over at Montgomery County, Maryland, as I've blogged about before, there's a "scare campaign" being run through the Maryland Citizens for Responsible Government. Their website is http://www.notmyshower.net.

The html source code of this site has an interesting second line, commented out:
<!---<?php include_once("/var/www/vhosts/saveourkids.net/httpdocs/oneadmin/config.php"); include_once("/var/www/vhosts/saveourkids.net/httpdocs/oneadmin/common/css.php"); include_once("/var/www/vhosts/saveourkids.net/httpdocs/oneadmin/common/session.php"); include("/var/www/vhosts/saveourkids.net/httpdocs/oneadmin/geotraffic/home.track.php"); ?> --->

http://www.saveourkids.net is quite coincidentally the website for another "scare campaign", this time
our campaign to protect innocent children from sexual indoctrination.

It is equally as economical with the truth. From ProudParenting:
An initial response of the civil rights bill screams, "Mom and Dad as well as husband and wife have been banned from California schools under a bill signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who with his signature also ordered public schools to allow boys to use girls restrooms and locker rooms, and vice versa, if they choose."

Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families said, "Arnold Schwarzenegger has delivered young children into the hands of those who will introduce them to alternative sexual lifestyles. This means children as young as five years old will be mentally molested in school classrooms."
...
Read Senate Bill 777 for yourself to see if there's any mention of restrooms or locker rooms.
There isn't of course. Go to the ProudParenting site for the hyperlinks to the legislation. And the use of the phrase "Mom and Dad" continues in California schools. But these campaigns don't even have a passing acquaintance with the truth. The Big Lie is more effective at getting the campaign donations rolling in, and people's memories are short. When the promised Dire Consequences (tm) don't result, they shrug their shoulders and move on. And fall for the same thing next time.

What most offends me is that the ones running this scam are so arrogant, they don't think anyone would notice the connection. They didn't even bother to wipe off the fingerprints. As a Software Engineer, of course I approve of the authorised re-use of working code. But at least they could have gone back to the original source:
/****************************************************
Author: Eric King
Url: http://redrival.com/eak/index.shtml
This script is free to use as long as this info is left in
Featured on Dynamic Drive script library (http://www.dynamicdrive.com)
****************************************************/


If you're going to run a conspiracy of like minds, formal or informal, at least be professional about it. I wonder if they've left a money trail too? It wouldn't surprise me.

More on the subject at TeachTheFacts.org.

2 comments:

Battybattybats said...

One of the failings of much modern journalism is that things like this don't get as much exposure as the nonsense these groups spout.

It allows too many lies to go on unchallenged.

Anonymous said...

I agree it's nonsense, but so is the divide of not sitting down to talk with these people.

Expect it to get worse. Just sayin'.