Free Republic Brings You the News (BARF ALERT!)

There's nothing worse than a long holiday weekend for falling behind on the news. What group of clumsy criminals are we bailing out now? And, gosh, will a zillion dollars be enough? You can lose track. Plus what's happening with Heidi and Spencer?

That's why a website like Free Republic is indispensable. I know most people write it off as the tragic mutterings of a bunch of dandruff-addled, pit-sniffing shut-ins without the social skills to form a lynch mob. But that's an oversimplification.

It's also a news aggregator. With one click not only do I get all the headlines I need, I also find out -- in parenthesis -- how they make me feel.

Right Tilt: Attacks Tilt India to the Right (Barf!)

One Dead Rabbi Not the Issue (Barf Alert)

A President Named Obama Changes the Name Game (BARF Alert)

Aligning Hillary Clinton & Sarah Palin is Insulting (Barf Alert)

It's a Madhouse Outside the Gun Shops, Too (Barf Alert)

Putting a Face on Big Auto (Semi Barf)

Morning In America - Could Barack Obama Become the Next Ronald Reagan? (Mega Barf)

Iowa Cafe Swamped with Orders for "Obama Cookie" (MEGA BARF ALERT!)

Second Stonewall: One Gay Man's Rant on the State of Queer Equality (Hurl-icious!)

Okay, so the part in brackets isn't actually a very useful feature. You can be pretty sure how you're supposed to feel is nauseous.

Almost everything makes Freepers throw up at least a little. If an army marches on its stomach, this one isn't going anywhere.

The trick, if you're not the typical Free Republic reader -- one hand on your gat, the other probing and stroking the crack between the couch cushions, dreamily, then frenziedly, then dreamily again -- is to figure out what it is about each story that makes you sick with rage.

It's not always immediately clear.

Sometimes it's the facts themselves that do it. I think that's what's going on with Obama's cookie and people choosing Obama as a baby name.

Sometimes you're convulsed with inchoate fury because the writer is expressing an opinion that's different than your own. That's what's wrong with the Obama/Reagan piece and Stonewall, I guess.

Sometimes you're wasting perfectly good food because, while you don't doubt the facts of a story, you don't like the reporter's tone. (The gun shop story and Big Auto.)

Sometimes you're queasy from a rare and difficult op-ed double reverse. (The thing about comparing Hillary to Sarah Palin. The author thinks people say they're alike, when really they're not, but Freepers know they are. Aren't. Are. Aren't. Are.)

Sometimes your guess is as good as mine.

One thing's for certain, though: Newsweek, the New York Times, Beliefnet.com, Eleanor Clift, the AP, the Caldwell (New Jersey) Progress and the Newport News Daily Press might think they're getting away with something but they're not.

They've now been added to an illustrious spit list that includes:

The Atlantic (DOUBLE BARF ALERT!!)

Barbara Walters (additional barf bags required)

CNN (Hold your tummy BARF alert)

The Economist (Barf Alert)

The Edmonton Sun (barf)

Helen Thomas (Mega-barf alert)

Jimmy Carter (DEFCON 5 Barf Alert)

The Los Angeles Times (Mega-Barf Alert!)

The Maryville Daily News (BARF ALERT)

Market Watch (BARF ALERT)

The New Orleans Time-Picayune (Barf alert on illegal aliens)

The New Republic: We need to embrace liberalism's proud history (Too funny to Barf
Alert)

The Palm Springs Desert Local News (Barf Alert)

The San Antonio Express-News (Barf Alert)

The San Francisco Chronicle (Barf with Chunks Alert - Heave 2)

Ted Rall (GIGA BARF ALERT)

The Washington Post (Mandatory WaPo Barf Alert)

The Wall Street Journal: Political Perceptions: Is Iran a Winning McCain Issue? (A Barf but Questions to be Faced)

Still, you've got to admire "A Barf but Questions to be Faced." You imagine some Joe the Plumber-type opening the paper and puking his guts out -- I mean, just this sudden explosion of hot upchuck, everywhere. Just racked by it. He's hurling so hard he's crying. The place looks an action painting. And then he stops and goes: "On the other hand, Peggy Noonan makes a good point."

Forget Fox News. That's fair and balanced.

--

There's nothing wrong with an insult like "You make me sick." The impressionist painter Max Liebermann famously said: "Ick kann ja nich so ville fressen, wie ick kotzen mochte." ("I can't even eat as much as I want to throw up.") But it was Berlin, and it was the '30s, and he had a legitimate beef. The problem with the Free Republic is being a hyper-patriot and using "barf" as your reaction to everything.

In America, the most gluttonous country in history, the ultimate insult for an object -- any object -- is that it could stop you from eating.

--

Rush Limbaugh has said:

"I can only read so many paragraphs of a New York Times story before I puke."

And you probably thought the worst thing that could happen when you lent someone the sports section was they took it to the men's room.

Comments

[MajorKong]

Free Republic only exists to make people like Limbaugh and Hannity seem "mainstream" in comparison.

[Dave5000]

What I find most ironic is how Jim Robinson decries socialized medicine. But it seems Jim is always first online at the VA for all his ailments and maladies. Yes, that is true. The VA takes care of good ol' Jim Robinson. In fact his latest use of the VA was for the amputation of his leg. Gee Jim, we thought you hate socialized medicine. Can you live without the VA? Why not go buy private insurance?

[rjmiller]

I prefer abovetopsecret.com for my doses of insanity. At least it is more hilarious than infuriating. Also, the people on there tend to do their research, even if it is on ridiculous subjects.

[Tommy T]

Guys - if the Freeperati and their frothings fascinate you, please wander over to First Draft and check out:

http://www.first-draft.com/2008/11/today-on-tomm-2.html
Guaranteed schadenfreude-y goodness in every bite!

Tommy

[kellygrrrl]

there are not 2 Americas -- there are 2 Universes

[kellygrrrl]

once a week I cruise over to Freep and RedState and read the comment threads. I find it amusing.

[langerlongshot]

i actually read a post there a couple weeks ago where someone was claiming that he had "read somewhere" that "mccain/palin actually won the popular vote but lost the electoral college".

as of a few hours after his post no one had corrected him.

i guess if you spend election night drunk, with your chinese ak-47 clone on your lap, watching UFC, that's an easy mistake to make...

[TrueBlueMajority]

he probably read it on Free Republic!

[Yermammy]

I'm a Liberal, don't drink, own an AK-47 and like UFC. What's the problem? That stereotype doesn't work too well.

[MTGradwell]

Langerlongshot said "chinese ak-47 clone", not "AK-47".

[HalBrown]

Okay, you lured me into their insular world ... but in a way it was worth it because look at what I found. This tell us a lot about how these Freepers think. It's their a front page piece titled "I Will Not Unite Behind Obama!" by Larry Sparks who explains how his "America is vastly different from Mr. Obama's, and I have a higher obligation to my Country and my God to do what is Right! For eight (8) years, the Liberals in our Society, led by numerous entertainers who would have no platform and no real credibility but for their celebrity status, have attacked President Bush, his family, and his spiritual beliefs! They have not moved toward the center in their beliefs and their philosophies, and they never came together nor compromised their personal beliefs for the betterment of our Country! They have portrayed my America as a land where everything is tolerated except being intolerant! "

Talk about BARF ALERTS.

I also has a "dandy" comment:

To: dvan
¸¨°º¤Ã¸ž¸ ¸žÃ¸¤º°¨ žÃ¸¤º°¨
¨°º¤Ã¸ž OBAMA žÃ¸¤º°¨
¸žÃ¸¤º°¨is Marxism!! ``°º¤Ã¸ž¸
ø¤º°¨¸žÃ¸¤º°¨¨°º¤Ã¸ž¸¨°º¤Ã¸

Copy and paste
If you believe Obama
will bring Marxism to America

---------
I don't know if this will render as it did on their comments section. But do these posters even know anything about Karl Marx?

[RealityBaseCamp]

Didn't work here. Maybe paste it into Notepad first, or type it manually? In any case I can see their intent: " . . . OBAMA . . . . is Marxism! . . . " But then they pretty much say things like that all day.

[JerryTheProgrammer]

The reality about uniting behind anything on Free Republic can be shown during the great purge during the primaries. The joke was the eventual nominee, John McCain, was the target of Jim Robinson's poison pen in years past (regarding free speech) and while the reasoned folks were thrown under the bus, the nut squad remained.

The real gems nowadays are the 'Obama is the AntiChrist' threads and such. They don't even seem to care how delusional and paranoid they sound.

[yiskag]

I suggest in the future, when you do something smart like this and want other people's computers to show it correctly, do the following:
In IE7 click Page, then Encoding, then click on Unicode (UTF-8).
In Firefox click View, Character encoding, Unicode (UTF-8).
Write the comment in the browser window.
At least some people (but not all) in the western hemisphere will see it the way you see it.
I tried several encodings, and I did not find one that made sense, but they all looked different!

Good luck next time.

BTW, OBAMA, being a leader, could found Obamism (like Marxism, Leninism, Trozkism.) Unfortunately, not being a socialist nor Russian, that would not happen.

[rjmiller]

"eight (8) years"

That made me laugh.

[MaeScott]

Billy Graham himself could verify Obama's birth certificate and they'd call him a liar.
They chew on that conspiracy theory at least five times a day, poor things....the mess they make up is beyond all reality.

[jaundicedview]

"The place looks an action painting. "

I'm Thankful for Chris Kelley this holiday weekend.

[FawkesNews]

infamous FReeper: Chad Castagana (FReeper name: marc costanzo)

Yes, it appears that Chad Conrad Castagana, the man "suspected of mailing more than a dozen threatening letters containing white powder to Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Jon Stewart and other high-profile figures," was a conservative and a commenter on conservative blogs.

He also appears to have been a frequenter of Right Wing sewer, The Free Republic.

UPDATE: Domestic Terrorism expert David Neiwert has responded to the evidence that's pouring in from all corners about Castagana and his love for Conservative commentators. Noting that prominent pushers of hatred are somewhat culpable, he writes:

Mentally unstable types are almost always stirred up and driven to their insane acts by haters of various stripes, the kind whose voices seem each day to be growing louder in our public discourse. These cultural vampires have developed a real knack for inspiring mentally unstable people into horrific acts of violence.

Haters like the people Castagana claims as his heroes -- Coulter, Malkin, Ingraham, just for starters -- are constantly engaging in the worst kind of eliminationist rhetoric directed primarily at liberals. It is simply an inevitability that, when this kind of hate is broadcast to millions of people daily, some of them are eventually going to start acting it out in fashions precisely like this. And worse. - Alternet

and check out this DU thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2701099

[PatRyan]

Great. That takes you to Democratic Underground which is pretty danged barf-worthy in its own right. Look and feel as well as quality of comments is pretty much the mirror image of Free Republic.

One of the central points of the article is the implication that "we" are more aligned with fact based and logically thought out arguments.

There is little evidence of this at DU.

[InnocentBystander]

DU is nothing like FreeRepublic. Sure, there are cranks that post there...just like here. But I've been a poster at DU since 2001 and some of the most intelligent and thoughtful posts I've read on the net were on DU. The DU's Latest Braking News is a pretty unique feature of the site.

[jbuist]

I can't find this "bart alert" stuff on Free Republic.

Anybody got a link?

[FawkesNews]

jbuist, there are degrees of "barf alert"

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/barf/index?tab=articles

It"s time we change the culture of America (Ultra Barf Alert)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2136992/posts

"Projectile Barf Alert"

"Mega-Barf"

"Technicolor Projectile Barf Alert"

....to list just a few

[MaeScott]

At the site- all you have to do is look at the titles in the index on the right (pun not intended)

[mia8485]

Search "barf", "barf alert" or any of the other charming notations. This will lead you to "articles" assigned with these, um, warnings.

Don't forget to read the hysterically funny reader comments.
I wonder if they all get free tin foil hats when they register on that site.

[Maezeppa]

Chris - I'm only telling you this because I know you strive for accuracy but when you write "You can be pretty sure how you're supposed to feel is nauseous", you should use "nauseated". Something nauseous is something that causes nausea.

[bartonfink]

if something causes nausea, wouldn't it then be "nauseating" as in, "all this talk about barf is nauseating?"

[philistine]

Maezeppa is right. If someone's stomach is upset, he's nauseated. If someone or something upsets people's stomachs, he or it is nauseous.

Personally, I'm certain that I've been both at one time or another. ;-)

[1201SLD]

Haven't we learned to ignore, for a few days at least, all reports of anything which is not an emergency? It takes a while to filter through the misinformation, the assumptions, the speculation, the jumping to conclusions. and all the obfuscation they lead to. The media have time and space to fill. Lack of facts does not deter them; they do blather on with the help of scavenged "experts" as uninformed as the anchors and columnists, and that's before bias enters the picture. We must be just as skeptical of the media as of the financial institutions; we must think for ourselves.

[Shaddup]

I knew there was a reason I liked Ted R a l l. Anybody that can make a free per GIGA BARF rules!