He Returns To Meta-Troll Like A Dog To Its...

Either you know the line from the Bard of Avon or you can look it up; the "dog" in question is none other than saddle-burr and content thief R-b-rt F------ (or possibly only someone who loves him very, very much) and his latest brain-spew -- the name rhymes with "Choke 'n Chunder" -- is "a whole new, new, new concept in blogging," gun-blog-as-social-media.

As new as 1995 -- or 1985.

You may have encountered this sort of thing when it was more slickly and collaboratively done, over a decade ago, by entities with names like "The High Road" and "The Firing Line," "AR15.com" or even "Democratic Underground." Or when it had names like "dial-up BBS" and blazed to your computer at up to 2400 Baud!

Yeah, like that, only with a pushier moderator and graphics that'll make you long for '85 and ANSI color.

This guy is lookin' for links. Good links, bad links, "Go see what a jerk he is" links, it doesn't make any difference; the links more his new site gets, the sexier it looks to search engines. Post there with a link back to your blog and that also counts. Follow a link there and that's a hit, and that helps, too. He's happy to tick folks off if it gets him links and hits; they're money in the bank.

I'm all in favor of people making money with their blog or whatonlineever. My blog is non-commercial 'cos my real job is for an outfit that's in the business of sellin' eyeballs and I don't care to compete with them in my spare time, but I have no problem renting Tam out my attic and getting paid, partially, in blogdollars.

I do object to bein' used, especially over guns by a guy who doesn't strike me as much of a gunnie; and I disdain content-piracy, using names and images without permission and jerks who try'n skate just inside the law.

If you do, too, you won't link to him or visit his sites. There's nothing of use there -- other than you. I'll bet you've got better uses for yourself than to be link-farmed by slick huckster.

Plenty of others have blogged about this, mentioning specific privacy and piracy concerns, but alas, they linked to the site in question. Don't do that! Kill them links! (Yeah, yeah, the clever have used "nofollow" but doesn't that still let the hit counter tick over?)

Let the site die in the dark.