Showing posts with label sockpuppet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sockpuppet. Show all posts

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Fink Noise: Connection Confirmed Between Pat Murphy and Snitching on "Rival" Pirate Radio Operator

From Profile Photos


by Graves Anonymous Voices of Greaves-us Dissent


Karma is a funny thing.  And it's one of the Lagomurph's favorite and most often abused words - which the poor addled feller conflates with revenge and vendetta driven by his own delusional paranoia.  Understandable given his genetic Virginny hillbilly predisposition toward fussin' and a' feudin'. Combine those inbred vulnerabilities with a knock on his noggin from falling off his two-wheeler about 10 years ago and, as Hank Hill often lamented of son Bobby, that boy ain't right.

But karma is the closest thing we humans get to hipster cosmic irony.  It's the inevitable but wholly natural restoration of balance through events that seem spookily coincidental and fuck your shit up just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water.

So imagine our surprise to find the existence of - mere hours after a Wednesday WBNY blog blurt purporting to expose the identity and location of yet another pirate op on the bunnyman's extensive enemies list - written confirmation that former broadcast radio personality and FRN administrator Pat Murphy (aka "Commander Bunny", aka "The Lagomurph", aka a dozen aliases and sockpuppets documented here before) had, indeed, snitched out Doc John of Northern Relay Service and Radio Yellowknife to Canadian authorities.

This, via the infamouse "bobsmith6955@yahoo.com" persona documented at tedious length in our very own RP yellow journal last year.  (See: "House of Games: 'Bob Smith' con's-piracy")  Copies of those emails were reproduced here, along with definitive IP links tracing back to the Lagomurph's home turf of Hampton Roads, Virginny, as well as to his replies on a genealogy site (known to be one of Murphy's hobbies) and his "Bouncer" alias on Usenet when he posted arrest records for a DXer several years ago during one of Murphy's many vendettas.

Now, friends, that "Bob Smith ratted out Doc John" rumor had circulated 'round the nether parts of the ether for nigh unto a year plus a blue moon plus a coupla fortnights.  And RP has documented before the pathetically inept attempts by the bunnyman to con Doc John, which the crafty Canuck flipped around into one of the internet's all time most hilarious counter-trolls ever.

"We have learned through the high frequency underground that email evidence is in hand linking Pat Murphy to snitching out a pirate radio station operator."

What we lacked was a copy of the actual email proving "bobsmith6955@yahoo.com" did indeed file a complaint against Northern Relay Service in an attempt to silence a rival pirate radio operator.  Well, dear readers, we have learned through the HF underground that email evidence is in hand which incontrovertibly links Pat Murphy to snitching out a pirate radio station operator, an action generally regarded as an unpardonable sin amongst the community - according to Murphy himself in many online rants under his own name and his various radio aliases and online sockpuppets.

Reliable sources tell us the email will be published soon, with a Wikipedia entry cross-linking the evidence.  When that becomes available we'll reproduce it here.  But we've seen the email and it confirms not only the rumors circulated last year, but is even worse in terms of the Lagomurph's desperation to silence a free radio operator whose only offense was to dare to offer an alternative to the WBNY 8 watt "International Relay Service", and to broadcast a clever parody of the bunnyman's paranoia, the "Paranoia News North".

In retaliation for this unpardonable offense to the Lagomurph's delicate ego and withered huevos, Murphy abused his access to the FRN via numerous sockpuppets, his WBNY programs and WBNY blog (hosted on Ragnar Daneskjold's domain), and Facebook page to publicly slander another free radio operator as a "pedophile".  (Recall that this is not the first time the Lagomurph has resorted to this tactic.  Apparently he sees pedophiles under the straw in his hutch in the same way Jerry Sandusky saw them in the mirror.)

Nevertheless, the former administrator of the FRN (one-time Free Radio Network, later the For Rabbit Nuthuggers only site, now the Forgotten Radio Nothing tumbleweeds and dust bunnies site) remains as an occasional poster - usually logging his own WBNY broadcasts.  He also heads the board of the North American Shortwave Pirate Radio Hall of Fame, where he can exert some spin on whatever remains of the rotting remains of his legacy.

Pat Murphy. Respected broadcast radio professional. Creative free radio programmer.
Lavish gifter of elaborate QSL packages.
Blog blurting bunnyman.
Leader of the Rat Fink Revolution & Host of Fink Noise on WBNY.
Petty, vindictive, paranoid multiple-fursonality myxomatosis-infected snitch.
Everything that makes pirate radio the most fun you can have with your
pants around your ankles and your brain on the floor.


Funniest of all, he continues using his WBNY platform and Commander Bunny persona to hawk his "real" QSL packages.  No doubt, those QSL packages are lavish and enticing pogey bait (you ex-Marines like Murphy will recognize the significance of that term**).  Just keep in mind he uses those QSL packages to harvest personal information about you - your names, addresses - and history shows he will not hesitate to abuse that information in his on-air and cyberbullying vendettas.

And while we once were inclined to give John T. Arthur - operator of the longtime Belfast, NY, mail drop - the benefit of the doubt, JTA's comments in April this year defending Murphy's reprehensible actions show, unfortunately, that it's probably unwise to trust the Belfast mail drop (see: "Analysis of an FCC Visit" from April 14, 2012).  Also, frankly, JTA's comments read like they were scripted by the bunnyman himself - doesn't really sound like anything the normally levelheaded JTA has said before.  We're hoping he was held hostage at carrot-point and forced to write that to offset another of the Lagomurph's bouts of myxomatosis rage.  BE WARNED.  ALL UR DOX R BELONG TO CRAZY OLD COOT.

If you have any doubts about respect for privacy, just peruse his WBNY blog blurts (hosted on the domain owned by pirate radio observer Ragnar Daneskjold, who might oughta reconsider providing safe hutch-haven for the loose-lipped lunatic Lagomurph - why not kick the critter to the curb and tell him to get his own domain rather than stinking up your house?).  Over the past year, hiding behind his bunnyman mask of sooper sekrit invisibility, Murphy has repeatedly slandered and exposed names and locations of at least a dozen different pirate radio operators, listeners and even some innocent bystanders who had absolutely zippo, nada, bupkis, to do with any pirate radio fracas - notably respected radio journalist Gayle Van Horn, to whom Murphy owes a sincere and very public apology.  And we're confident that will happen... as soon as Murphy grows a pair.  And we don't mean Easter eggs.

On the other hand, if you're a veteran of the U.S. shortwave pirate radio scene and friendly with these folks, by all means, take advantage of those extravagant WBNY QSL packages.  Guise Faux tells me he received his this year, courtesy of an intermediary mail relay, and treasures it in the same way he treasures his reliquary that features Hitler's missing testicle, a braid of Blackbeard's chin whiskers tangled with a bit of slow match, Sarah Palin's ventriloquist dummy (curiously nicknamed "Kracker"), the late Jay Smilkstein's homunculus (also curiously named Kracker),  and the desiccated husk of Murphy's integrity.  However, Guise reports he's puzzled by the appearance of a saliva encrusted oxycontin and anti-dementia medication stuck to the WBNY t-shirt.  Presumably the Lagomurph drooled a bit while packaging up the pogey bait.

Related background info for new readers:




**We received a couple of questions about the term "pogey bait". Brown Nose the Pirate chipped in this clarification, courtesy of SSgt M., whom Brownie described as "the sole survivor of an ambush that wiped out his squad. During PT he'd yell 'Pain is beautiful, bud!' He was hard as gravel, twitchy from PTSD and had a big heart. Last time I saw him he was in psych eval after going zombie during night exercises when some blanks and firecrackers were set off to scare the recruits."

     "According to SSgt M., whom I trained with in '75 just after he got back from his final tour in Vietnam, it's not geedunk - sweets or treats used to create goodwill with the locals. It's more than mere geedunk. Back then, pogey bait had an underlying implication of something seamy, unsavory, even sexual in nature. It may be contraband, black market goods, booze or drugs used to curry favor with prostitutes or sex with minors and boys - specifically, pogues. Pogue was one of those words with multiple nuanced meanings. Nowadays it mostly refers to the admin and support guys away from the fighting. The original connotations have been lost. It meant trash fish to fishermen. Pogue was fresh girly-boy meat to older guys cruising for a BJ. It was bait to lure the pogues.
     "And sometimes the pogues were used as pogey bait to lure the Marines. And sometimes the naive young Marines on guard duty fell for the pogey bait, got sloppy, let their guard down... and people got hurt. They got caught in embarrassing situations and coerced into relaxing security or revealing confidential information.
     "So, take my advice," said SSgt M., "be wary of older men pretending to be your friend and trying to soften you up with pogey bait. They're gonna want something in return, and it probably involves a reach around."

Friday, April 6, 2012

Commander Bunny Doesn't See Anything Good This Friday, May Pass Over This Easter

Iconography by Dea Fauxnette


Surveying the wreckage of his once formidable following of sockpuppet disciples, now tattered and scattered by heavy losses over a yearlong series of skirmishes, shortwave slandercaster Commander Bunny of WBNY pawed sadly through his empty drawers, two days before Easter, and moaned "This is not a very Good Friday."

"Eagerly have I desired to eat this Passover with you," he mumbled, munching on cecotropes while dispiritedly kicking the frayed remains of Beans, Mosby, Thumper, Bouncer and a pile of unrecognizable fragments of fabric, stiffened by repeated dousings with what the Bunnyman calls "Holy Water" sprinkled from his "Peter Cottontail".

When last seen the Lagomurph was building a cross made from leftover unclaimed QSL packages, stuck together with bumper stickers.

"My socks! My socks!" he sobbed, "Why have you forsaken me!"




Right click to save this full sized 1532 x 1000 Holy Relic for your desktop wallpaper.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Radio Paranoia's Best & Worst of 2011

"...anybody can do one of these lists. There's no objective standard as to what the 10 best are." --NPR's wimpy way of saying top 10 lists suck.

"Top Ten Lists Suck. A Lot."
--Michael Hodson, Go, See, Write



by Guise Faux
Illustrations by Dea Fauxnette

We already knew we sucked and we're ruining pirate radio. That was our driving force throughout 2011. Just ask Commander Bunny.

But when National Public Radio told us at the end of December, just as we were drafting our Top Ten list for 2011, that our Top Ten list for 2011 already sucked even before we'd published the damned thing, well... it just gave us the excuse we needed to take a few weeks off. After all, if you can't do a thing well, do it late.

Pheme Ossa took an indefinite leave of absence to work the Ron Paul campaign. We suspect she's doing it ironically, especially since she's wearing her Goldwater '64 campaign t-shirt. Last I looked, I spotted at least three of her sockpuppets on the comments sections on the Ron Paul and Alex Jones sites. She claims it's necessary to defend against the NSA and Mosaad sockpuppets. And I thought I was paranoid.

To cover the Consumer Electronics Show, Brown Nose the Pirate requisitioned an El Dorado convertible and a pint of raw ether "for the Caddy's carburetor". On Friday the 13th he Tweeted: "You know what's great about CES? No, seriously, do you? Because I can't remember a thing."

Last we heard from him was a voice message late Saturday night: "Turn it up!" he screamed. "Just as high as the fucker can go! And when it comes to that fantastic bit where the rabbit bites its own head off, I want you to throw that fuckin' radio into the tub with me!"

We hope he has a good attorney. We also hope Vegas hotels all have GFCI's in the bathrooms.

Before we headed off for Umbrage Island for a sanity break, Dea whipped out the "obey" poster for Commander Bunny in the now-classic Shepard Fairey Roddy Piper style. And if you don't grok the original reference (nope, not Obama, although he clearly is a reptilian), then you've never been forced to kick ass because of an unexpected shortage of bubblegum.

Now that we're back and caught up on comments since the December 25th blog, we surmise that you bastards really love gossip, rumors and scandals. And we love our readers for that.

Rather than a Top Ten list - mostly because we can't think of 10 really significant events from 2011 that are relevant to pirate radio - we're going with a Best & Worst list. In the end, most events were both the best and the worst of 2011.

#1 Best & Worst of allll tiiime!
Was there any doubt? The manic meltdown of WBNY's Commander Bunny dominated the North American shortwave pirate scene throughout 2011. To steal a phrase from the late, lamented Passport to World Band Radio, nothing has provided hour after hour of amusement like the Bunnyman's 2011 antics. Commander Coney & His Lost Planet Sockpuppets earn the Tales of Radio Paranoia top spot for being, simultaneously, the best and worst of 2011.

Rampant sockpuppetry. Forgetting which alias said what to whom, followed by frantic revisions on the FRN. Lying about perceived enemies. Fantasizing about pedophiles under every Canadian woodpile like he'd barely escaped the clutches of some bizarre fantasy cult. Manic blurt-blogging with increasingly frantic incoherence (at one point hitting a record high four paranoid blog posts in a single day). Misogynistic cyber-stalking. Harassing and repeatedly dropping dox on "enemy" ops and listeners alike.

Throughout 2011, it wasn't a question of what the Lagomurph would do next; it was what wouldn't he do next? Whether under his two best known pirate radio pseudonyms or his best known "real" name, he left no stone unturned and no bridge unburned in his desperate pursuit of enemies, real or imagined.

***

Worst of the Worst - Tales of Radio Paranoia
...for noticing #1, and blogging about it.

***

Worst Waste of Tax Dollars - FCC targets HF pirates again
Confirmed knocks and/or written or oral warnings included WEAK and The Crystal Ship. That follows on the heels of at least three warnings in 2010 (one confirmed by the station operator, two unconfirmed).

Actual impact on shortwave pirate radio activity? Hard to estimate. Available data is biased, although not necessarily deliberately. The traditional bastions for North American pirate radio logs - the FRN and Free Radio Weekly e-mail newsletter - tend to be dominated by ops and listeners from a smallish geographic region. If you stick a compass on the southwest corner of Pennsylvania and draw a 500 mile diameter circle, you've probably encompassed 85% of the pirate stations and listener logs reflected in the FRN and FRW. But does that mean 85% of all N. American ops are within that circle? Don't bet on it.

Reference: DIYmedia: Anti-Pirate Enforcement Plummets in 2011

***

Worst Toadying to Media Tyrants - Anti-Pirate Legislation
Nope, not anti-pirate radio. But the misguided, corporate-schlong-sucking SOPA/PIPA legislation (temporarily allayed last week) threatened to be even more menacing than anything the FCC might cook up. Because media megaliths have the lawyers and clout to arm-twist the courts into actually prosecuting and penalizing people for pirated media-ware.

SOPA/PIPA and related efforts may rank even higher than renewed FCC enforcement because it potentially affects not only broadcasters but programmers, bloggers and anyone actively involved in free radio. So far FCC penalties are a pittance compared with the potential fines for pirating intellectual property - music, movies, etc.

Relevant references:
Positions of US Representatives (SOPA) and Senators (PIPA):
Senate: PROTECT IP Act (PIPA)
House: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)

Oh Internet: The Death of Megaupload, The Beginning of Web 3.0
"Frightening is the fact that Megaupload was hosted in Hong Kong- how did the US government manage to black out a site based in the other side of the planet? Perhaps even more frightening is that the take-down was performed without the help of the SOPA or PIPA bills written specifically for this purpose. It seems that the United States government already has the tools to impose its will upon foreign websites."

Salon.com: Two lessons from the Megaupload seizure
"Less than 24 hours after the SOPA victory, the Government seizes one of the world's largest websites with no trial"
Dimnet Tries To Be A Hedge Against DNS Censorship
Slate: Stop SOPA/PIPA
Motherboard: Dear Congress - It's Not OK to Be Stupid About the Internet
Motherboard: Break in Case of Censorship

Also see stories linked to: “Firefox Add-On Bypasses SOPA DNS Blocking”.

***

Best & Worst Cruise on de Nile - The FRN Capsizes, Travels Backward in Time.

And nothing of value was lost.

The Free Radio Network, with online roots dating back to the pre-web BBS era, missed opportunities to relaunch and reinvent itself at critical times during 2011. Numerous outages throughout the year could have been taken advantage of to rebuild the venerable site on a more robust platform and more stable servers. Instead the site followed Pat Murphy's lead in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Opportunities were squandered and longtime participants were alienated as Murphy seldom missed a chance to underscore perceptions that the FRN had become little more than his personal vanity site and a roost for the two dominant cliques.

Those perceptions were reinforced in December 2011 when the FRN faithful relocated to Free Radio North America on Google Groups. A quick peek at the group stats told the tale: early membership was mostly the Bowling League, Pat Murphy and a few veteran listeners who'd managed to remain neutral throughout the previous years of nearly continuous bunny-driven drama.

"They've actually sent the FRN further back in time. I honestly had no idea that was possible," quipped a waggish veteran of the US shortwave pirate scene, on the FRN cabal's abandoning ship for the Uselessnet reefs.


Google Groups, for those who haven't visited, is little more than tarted up usenet, one of the oldest and lamest incarnations of the interbutt. Throughout the previous decade uselessnet degenerated from merely a pile of fresh shit that was usually burning due to continuous flame wars, to fossilized dinosaur scat. No topical subdivisions within a group. No way to attach images, let alone the multi-media goodies available with newer implementation of phpBB like the Free Radio Cafe.


Dr. Who-Me? invites you and your socks to board the Fucktardis
for a journey back in time to the ass end of the interbutt.


Usenet manages to be even less secure than the FRN in terms of member privacy, although the Free Radio North America group does seem to manage to mask member IPs. That, at least, is a small improvement over most radio related uselessnet groups. But member e-mails are easily visible (click on the highlighted ellipses, or three dots in the partially masked e-mail addresses). And if those members are using the same nicks or e-mails they've used elsewhere on uselessnet, chances are their IPs have been recorded in the headers on rec.radio.whatever.

If you subscribe to the theory of Environmental Determinism, you know where this is heading. If it looks like uselessnet, farts like uselessnet and talks like uselessnet, eventually it'll degenerate into just another uselessnet pile of poop. For a peek at the fun times ahead, just Google the hilariously rabid-rabbit frothing from Murphy's various aliases back around 2006 - particularly "Bouncer" (bobsmith6955@yahoo.com) from Newport News, VA.

With a little luck, the FRN might be able to offer a work-release parole deal for Italian cruise ship captain Francesco Schettino. Reportedly he's now negotiating for the role of Quint in a remake of Jaws.

How did the FRN become a salvage case? The short version:
  • Failure to upgrade to a more reliable, contemporary platform.
  • Slowpoke servers.
  • Annual outage as domain registration lapsed.
  • Rampant, abusive sockpuppetry by former admin Pat Murphy.
  • Murphy's repeated misuse of access to personal information to harass perceived enemies.
  • Murphy's censorship of unapproved logs.
Meanwhile the HF Underground has offered a genuine sanctuary for free and generally friendly loggings and exchanges of information and opinion since 2008, on a more contemporary and stable platform with reliable servers. Ironically, the single notable flame war on the HFU, a couple of years ago, turned out to have been instigated by Murphy under one of his many sockpuppets.

And John Poet of The Crystal Ship stepped up the game by launching the Free Radio Cafe in the spring of 2011, offering an even more advanced phpBB platform that accommodates Flash videos and larger file sizes for direct uploads of graphics such as SSTV and QSLs. If there's been any rivalry at all between the HFU and FRC, it's been of only the friendliest sort. And Poet launched with a written commitment to respect member privacy, ops and listeners alike - something Murphy repeatedly demonstrated he would never actually do, regardless of his claims on the FRN.

While Cosmikdebris, on the Free Radio North America Google group's "What is this and should we care?" introductory statement seemed to extend an olive branch, he didn't make a convincing case for any real reconciliation. In fact, an objective, detached reader might be tempted to ask why any reconciliation would even be desirable, let alone necessary?

But we're not detached. Unless a detached brainstem counts.

At the risk of seeming to nitpick his good intentions, statements such as
"It's become increasingly evident to me that there are distinct disadvantages associated with the message board mode of operation for a community like shortwave free radio."
and

"Some people need to have their own board and their own hugbox. I don't have any problem with this. The three message boards have all been to various extents poisoned by the actions of one or more of their members or admins."

indicate there's little common ground. It would require quite a stretch to compare the occasional snarky remarks on the HFU and FRC with the years of abusive tirades and slanders perpetrated by Commander Coney & His Lost Planet Sockpuppets, as well as by the perpetual presidential wannabe's thuggish veep candidate.

So when Cos sez

"...I would love to see some kind of magic software be created that actually linked up the loggings sections of each of these three boards..."

it begs the question "Why?" The web is huge and diverse. For every hobby there are many completely independent and unaffiliated websites and blogs. There are plenty of good networking options for those who want them. But there's usually a very good reason why most participants on hobbyist and niche websites and forums prefer one over another, and may not want to be associated in any way with other sites despite sharing common interests. Murphy demonstrated that by trying to fuck up the HFU with his "RF Burnz" and "lovemyradios" sockmonsters. Same way he alienated virtually the entire European pirate scene.

Fact is, some twains don't need to meet. Rivers run just fine without having to hold hands or cooperate.

***

Worst Diagnosis - Damn You, Xenu!
The DSM eliminated Narcissistic Personality Disorder:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/health/views/30mind.html

Crap. There goes another perfectly useful disorder. Maybe L Ron Hubbard was right about psychiatrists.

***

Best Goodfella News - Ragnar Bounces Back
Downside: In 2011 Ragnar put the popular Pirates Week podcast on hiatus while he recovered from carp 'n' grumble syndrome. I have long personal experience with that malady and sympathize completely.

Upside: In December 2011 Ragnar announced the launch of his new show, spotlighting classic pirate radio. So far I've listened to the first two Hall of Fame Spotlights. While I enjoyed hearing those classic shows, I'd like to hear more of Ragnar's narrative, perhaps some documentary style commentary to put the era into context. If he has time, editing some historical narrative into the existing HOF Spotlight shows would make 'em even better. He has a knack for it, a cheerful, friendly voice and an admirable ability to navigate the treacherous pirate waters and tempestuous personalities. In other words, the antithesis of Tales of Radio Paranoia.

***

Worst Use of Radio
How important is radio? Important enough even the well financed drug cartels use radio.
"Mexico drug cartel Zetas have their own radio system"

Meanwhile, the murders and mutilations of Mexican journalists and bloggers at the hands of drug cartels should serve as a reminder that internet "anonymity" is not as safe as some may believe. This reinforces the concept of compact low power radio as a tool for regional communication in waging news, views and propaganda wars. In other words, true clandestine radio, not the entertainment oriented pirate radio we can afford to indulge ourselves in throughout N. America... at least until the drug war crosses our borders.

Related NY Daily News story on drug cartels using radio.

***

Best Occupation of Free Radio?
Unfortunately I was unable to find any specific documentation or names to quote. But reportedly low power FM was used at some "Occupy" movement locations. Besides supporting non-violent anarchy, occupiers also helped contribute to the reminder that radio remains an essential tool of free speech. Whatever your thoughts about the Occupy movement - especially some of the wannabe hippie goofiness and disjointedness - it was a good thing if only because it provided an excellent example of exercising the First Amendment "right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Update 1/26/12 - found a few references for LPFM at "Occupy" events:
Occupy Fayetteville Facebook page
"Madison community groups find a voice in low-power FM radio"

***

Worst Best Move
WBCQ moved from 7415 to 7490, reportedly to avoid QRMing official comms on 7416. On the downside, WBCQ is barely audible now on 7490. On the upside, some pirates are making noises about reclaiming 7415, which has a legacy as a pirate freq predating WBCQ. I still have some old copies of Passport from that era.

***

Best Worst Prophecy
WYFR and Harold Camping, May 21 and October 21. The world didn't end - OR DID IT? 'nuff said. For reasons I cannot fathom, I just can't bring myself to a proper sense of ire over harmless old Brother Sominex. Besides, his Open Forum provided plenty of fodder for pirate spoofs.

Note: Jennifer Waits of Radio Survivor wrote the most balanced articles on this issue. Read 'em if you're actually interested in the WYFR saga.

Now, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me, thank you for calling and sharing, and shall we take our next call?

***

Worst Ruiner of Pirate Radio
Propagation. Or, rather, lack thereof. Once again, ManBearPig failed to produce sunspots. I'm super serial. And the year was riddled with Coronary Mess Ejaculations or "solar farts" as the phenomenon are known in the scientific community.

***

Best Retrospective on Curmudgeonly Radio Personality
Okay, it's actually a rerun of a Slate article from 2009. But it's damned good reading. Steely Dan co-founder Donald Fagen's excellent retrospective about radio legend Jean Shepherd resonates both humorously and poignantly now in context of a certain US shortwave pirate radio personality.

"Like a lot of fine-tuned performing artists, Shepherd increasingly exhibited the whole range of symptoms common to the aging diva. He became paranoid and resentful of imagined rivals..."
--Donald Fagen, for Slate
***

Best Creative Radio Paranoia
Just barely edging out Commander Bunny's WBNY "Three Ring Blogger Circus" production for 2011, Gabrielle Chana (aka Gail Chord Schuler), wants you to know that radio is being used to harass and destroy her, and the obscure objects of her desire: Brent Spiner, Hugh Jackman, Matthew McConaughy, Gerard Butler, Judge Terrance Jenkins and Vladimir Putin.

Be warned - the Jesuits have already destroyed Michael Jackson, Billy Mays and Princess Diana; possibly Kim Jong Il as well. (Note: Substitute "the gray aliens" or "the Communists" or "trust-fund bitches" for "the Jesuits" and you'll have a summary of her manifesto, as well as Commander Bunny's.)

***

Worst Omission - Who The Hell Do I Have To Piss Off To Make This List?
Finally, we are disappointed that neither Tales of Radio Paranoia nor WBNY's blog made Salon's 2011 hack blogger list. Alas, Katie Roiphe edged us out with a year-end blitz of boorish blarging. She even managed to surpass Commander Bunny in misogyny, if not in self-parody.

***

Okay, your turn. What's your Best/Worst or Top Ten list for 2011?

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

WBNY's Murphy Hopes Stunt Boosts Liarbitron Ratings

"Until this moment... I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness... You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
--Joseph N. Welch, to Senator Joseph McCarthy, June 9, 1954


"Don't overestimate the decency of the human race." --H. L. Mencken









by Pheme Ossa
Illustrations by Dea Fauxnette

Schlock jock Pat Murphy & The Moaning Crude of WBNY - aka Commander Bunny and his sock drawer - upped the ante in his continuing bid for the top spot in the Liarbitron shortwave pirate radio ratings by taking out a full page ad in trade journals confessing to rampant sockpuppetry, misogyny and multiple personality disorder.

Coming on the heels of his Operation Misogyny campaign, launched October 20th to cyber-stalk and harass women in the shortwave radio hobby, Murphy said he hopes the new ad will secure his position as the Worst Fucking Human Being Ever to Key Up a Microphone. Recipients of that coveted lifetime achievement award include Tokyo Rose, Lord Haw-Haw, Axis Sally, Casey Kasem and Guy Fawkes.

"I know the competition is stiff," said Murphy. "I'm up against truly repugnant fellows like Pastor Peter J. Peters and Karol Madera (VE7KFM), who for the past decade has dominated the shortwave radio Liarbitron sweeps as the most loathsome man behind the mic. Those guys on the 14313 USB kHz splinter of the 20 meter band are incredibly prolific, admirably vile in a way I can only dream of, and crank out booming signals that can actually be heard world wide. I'm lucky if the feral cats in the rusted out trucks in my backyard can hear my 10 watt signal."

"But," he continued, "I'm confident in my support hose team of Beans, Mosby, Thumper, Bouncer, Bill O. Rights, Officious Pus Release, RF Burnz, lovemyradios, Winston, '2531', MIB, theguardianus, Bob Smith and a few other sleeper socks waiting to be involuntarily activated the next time my myxomatosis related dementia kicks in."

Murphy admits it will be very difficult to top Madera in terms of sheer hours on the mic and resilience. "Madera takes as well as he gives. He can absorb verbal punishment that makes me cringe," said Murphy. "I'm really a coward. I can't tolerate even the slightest hint of criticism and I'm incapable of discerning the difference between humour and insult. To compensate for being a paranoid pussy, I've developed a large posse of sockpuppets to support me when I'm incapable of mustering a rational argument or playing the dozens without starting to cry."

"I really believe my versatility in creating a complete cast of support hose characters is my strong suit," Murphy asserted, while speaking to sockpuppets on both of his hands. "Yes, yes, it is," agreed Beans.

"You're the greatest," assured Bill O. Rights, who was absently doodling the words "nasty", "bloggers", "ruining" and "fun" on a napkin. "Notes for my next dozen blog posts," he explained.



"Did I use sockpuppets? Yes I did."
--Commander "Stockingstuffer" Bunny, 13 May 2011



"Its one thing to be critical of another's work, but exposing them to an FCC bust is unforgivable. Shameful conduct," said Murphy. "So that's exactly what I'm going to do."

Murphy plans to tout his many pirate radio accomplishments in the upcoming ad campaign.

Under his many aliases and sockpuppets, the man in the Commander Bunny suit attempted to have authorities shut down a rival Canadian shortwave pirate station in 2011. In 2009, under his support-hose monikers Beans and Official Press Release, the Lagomurph baited another station operator into an argument and then publicly posted the fellow's home city. Murphy has been accused of informing against other pirates, most recently The Crystal Ship.

More recently a blogging blitz by the Virginia Bunnyman has enhanced his reputation as the most deranged broadcaster who isn't on the 75 meter or 20 meter bands.

"Why use a 'blog' to harm others?" wrote Murphy on his WBNY blog earlier this year. "Well... because it's damned fun! For me, at least."

Among his many accomplishments in pirate radio:
  • Murphy garnered coveted firsties by repeatedly posting the actual address for John Poet of The Crystal Ship, even though that specific information was not on the FCC warning letter.
  • Murphy perpetrated a blatant hoax to blame and frame a shortwave listener for the TCS bust, and continued his pitiable laughable insistence on the lie long after his hoax was revealed.
  • He used his multiple sockpuppets to repeatedly slander perceived rivals and enemies as "pedophiles"- thus finally achieving his lifelong goal of becoming indistinguishable from Karol Madera (VE7KFM) and the cannibal hamsters who haunt 14313 USB.
  • Recently the Bunnymurph insulted and harassed women shortwave radio fans who had nothing to do with Murphy's delusional, fabricated paranoid grievances - Gayle Van Horn (respected Monitoring Times magazine and Shortwave Central blog columnist) and Corq, a 133t DXer with mad skillz - characterizing one as "in-bred" and another as a "bitch", "bull dyke" and other colourful pejorative epithets that are sure to win over the next generation of women in radio.
  • Murphy continues to misrepresent a 2008 automobile accident in which a West Virginia DXer was injured. According to law enforcement officials, the radio hobbyist known as Alex explained "I was trying to run over a rabid rabbit and lost control of the vehicle, nearly plunging off a bridge. The officers thanked me for at least wounding the critter." Deputies shot and killed the varmint which turned out to be one of the many deranged Virginia Bunnymen who haunt the hills in that region.

For all these achievements in the black arts of chicanery, generalized misanthropy with a specialty in misogyny, flagrant sockpuppetry with brazen disregard for the sound of facepalming heard 'round the world, unrepentant lying and nut-tucking that would make Scrat and Jame Gumb envious, Tales of Radio Paranoia offers best wishes to Pat Murphy in his continuing quest to secure a spot as The Worst Fucking Human Being Ever to Key Up a Microphone.


Tales of Radio Paranoia got a sneak peek at Murphy's
upcoming Liarbitron ratings blitz ad.


Our intrepid rumours and graphics editor, Dea Fauxnette, is disGuising herself in a city of refuge whilst waiting for the current outbreak of mad-hare myxomatosis-driven cyber-stalking to run its course.

Correction 11/5/11: This article, written by Pheme Ossa, our Senior Women's Issues Correspondent, was originally incorrectly credited to Guise Faux. The attribution has been corrected. Our apologies to Ms. Ossa for the error.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

House of Games: "Bob Smith" con's piracy


"It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
--William Shakespeare, The Scottish Play






The "Bob Smith" versus Doc John incident needs little embellishment to be amongst the most amusing and bemusing episodes in the annals of pirate lore and war. But what would be the fun in telling it straight?

The feud also lends credence to the reports that a prominent FRN figure and veteran shortwave radio pirate, best known as Commander Bunny of WBNY, has at least tried to expose people he considered enemies of his definition of "good pirates" - more than once - and intended to have Doc John silenced by reporting the operator of Radio Yellowknife (later Northern Relay Service) to Canadian radio organizations.

As a sage and fair minded veteran observer* of the shortwave pirate radio scene alluded to on his recent blog musings, this tale approaches Shakespearean levels of tragedy. Or, if your taste runs more towards dark humour, the plot is more a tragicomedy or revenge play comparable to Titus Andronicus.

If you are somehow invested in the notion of the "integrity" of shortwave pirate radio scene (whatever the hell that means), it is a cautionary Tale of Radio Paranoia, epitomizing hubris**, played by vain warriors and secret spies, villains and knaves, rascals and sockpuppets, as recounted by a jester and troll.

And if you don't have a pony in this race or dog in this hare-coursing, it's a lulzy comedy. Unless you're the hare. In which case I reckon the hare gets fucked. Proper fucked.



"It's called a confidence game. Why? Because you give me your confidence? No. Because I give you mine."
--House of Games



Reexamining the timeline of related incidents revealed an orchestrated effort by the man behind the Commander Bunny facade to undermine another pirate radio operator at any cost.

In this Tale of Radio Paranoia we'll summarize the prelude and focus on the "Bob Smith" incident. A follow up Tale will cover more supporting details about the prelude and aftermath, including Commander Bunny's online and on-air slandercasting as His Hareness resorted to playing the NAMBLA card in a last ditch effort to silence a perceived enemy pirate.


Au Revoir, Radio Yellowknife
A couple of weeks ago, mid-July, we heard that in early 2011 someone had attempted to set up Canadian shortwave pirate radio operator Doc John (then of Radio Yellowknife relay service) to be busted. At that time John Poet (of The Crystal Ship) hadn't yet announced his May 2011 social call from the FCC. But the FCC notice would appear on their database only days later, towards the third week of July.

Wars, and rumors of attention whores began to smoulder like a slow match in Blackbeard's chin whiskers. Within hours gossip of snitches in britches sparkled like a fast fuse snaking towards the powder room.

Sure enough, looking back, the Radio Yellowknife relay service offered by Doc John starting in the autumn of 2010 seemed to have vanished by the third week of January 2011. Note this log on the Fabulous Rabbit Nuthugger's personal vanity site:

Radio Yellowknife Vanishes?
Poster: Lima Indigo
"Just tried to email Radio Yellowknife but it bounced with a 'no such address" message. Tried blog url and got 'blog not found'.

"Did someone receive The Knock?"
Posted January 20, 2011 12:00 on the FRN

Rumors emerged that an American posing as a Canadian shortwave listener under the pseudonym "Bob Smith" had attempted to expose Doc John and silence his station earlier this year. We were skeptical. But after reading the e-mail exchanges and intact headers, with IP information indicating the location of "Bob Smith", it clearly seemed to be some sort of attempt at a con game... or worse.



"Oh, you're a bad pony. And I'm not gonna bet on you."
--House of Games




What's up, Doc?
According to Doc John, his Radio Yellowknife station was the subject of a complaint from a "Bob Smith" in late 2010 or early 2011:

"...under the name Bob Smith at bobsmith6955@yahoo (he) got a hold of the Ham radio club in Yellowknife and complained about RF interference in his house and also said he had contacted the DOT as well as CBC about me.

"This prompted a witch hunt in Yellowknife that I heard of second hand when I was doing a web search on Radio Yellowknife and came across an article done in the Club rag. (See: The Ensign, volume 4, issue 1, 2011. --GF)

"When I contacted them under another name they gave me the name Bob Smith and e-mail addy... I also shortly thereafter was contacted by a CBC reporter wanting to do a story on RY."
--Doc John

After that incident, Doc John closed the gmail account for Radio Yellowknife and reemerged shortly thereafter as Northern Relay Service.


"Bob Smith" e-mails Doc John
(The following is a verbatim exchange of e-mails from February 9-10, 2011, between "Bob Smith" and Doc John. A few pertinent lines or phrases will be emphasized to clarify the connection to the legendary shortwave pirate radio operator known as Commander Bunny. --GF)


(Update 7/19/12: "Bob Smith" initiated these faux-friendly emails the day *after* he'd already emailed the Yellowknife Amateur Radio Society complaining about Northern Relay Service.  The Lagomurph's complaint wasn't due to anything that happened in this email exchange with Doc John.  Murphy had already decided to snitch out the "rival" pirate.  This entire email exchange was an attempt to get Northern Relay Service on air to make it easier for YARS or Canadian authorities to DF the station. --GF)


Title: "What's up?"
From: Bob Smith (bobsmith6955@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 4:52 AM
Subject: Whats up?
To: northernrelayservice@gmail.com

Dude when you going to be on the air again? Lethbridge is quiet without your signal filling up my radio. I may have to take a huge bong hit, and go over to the Mormon Temple and zone out!

Are you going to be on this weekend? And if so when and what frequency?

Bob
===

(Being the cautious type, Doc John checks the headers in the e-mail from "Bob Smith". Bob implies he's in Lethbridge, Canada. IP indicates Bob is from Newport News, Virginia in the USA***. According to sources who checked the return addresses for their 2008 ebay purchases of WBNY items, Newport News, VA, is the location of the ebay vendor who sold WBNY memorabilia. --GF)

===

From: Doc John
Subject: Re: Whats up?
To: "Bob Smith" (bobsmith6955@yahoo.com)
Date: Wednesday, February 9, 2011, 9:44 AM

Greetings BOB;

We here at the northern relay service appreciate that the only things that can replace our signal is pot and Jesus ( be careful combining the two). But our signal like the rapture will be announced by a voice from the air ,and if you tune somewhere between 6.930 and 6.940 sometime in the early evening you will have a chance of hearing us. However the north has been under the blanket of solar wind ejected from a coronal hole in the sun this past week and being environmentally conscious we do not even try . It would simply be entertainment to alien culture many light years from now..

But now that you are on our e-mail list we will alert you if we go on . But for now enjoy cruising the pirate bands,but we recommend getting your rabies shots as there is a scare out there about rabid rabbits.

Until then fly, a kite ,and keep your toupee glue handy, you are in Lethbridge!

We will be trying this weekend

Doc John

===

(Note the "rabid rabbits" remark. Will Commander Bunny take the bait? --GF)

===

From: Bob Smith (bobsmith6955@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 7:53 AM
Subject: Re: Whats up?
To: Doc John

Cool!

Don't be too hard on the rabbit, he's been around a long time and given us some pretty good shows. But I anxiously await your relays. You are right, conditions have been awful of late.

Pot and Jesus is a nice mix. Both can be appreciated.

Thanks for not making me have to hang out at the Mormon Temple. That's about the only thing happening here in town. Thanks for putting me on the mailing list. Keep up the good work dude!

Bob

===

(Bob takes the bunny bait. No reply from Doc John between previous and next e-mails from "Bob Smith". --GF)

===

From: Bob Smith (bobsmith6955@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 6:19 PM
Subject: Re: Whats up?
To: Doc John

Doc John:

What got you into Pirate Radio?

My Dad and Grand-dad got me into listening. I've got an Icom-735 but haven't done any transmitting for years. Too many Industry Canada cars running around here.

My Dad used to listen to Pirates on the shortwave when I was a kid. So did my Grand-Dad. In fact, I remember being a kid, maybe 10 or so and listening to Commander Bunny back in the 70's. That pirate has been on for a long time. Also listened to Voice of the Voyager. Didn't really hear any real Canadian Pirates until the late 80's when CSIC came on, and he was out East in Ontario. This guy Poet on the FRN has also been around since the 80's. Listened to him with his Crystal Ship station.

I take it by your posts that you're up in the Yukon or NT. Great place to be to be a Pirate. Way too many people here. And its gotten worse over the years. No offense to the Mormons but that Temple here brings them in by the droves at certain times of the year. Makes poor little Lethbridge a traffic jam!

Well, keep up the good work, can't wait to hear you again this weekend. Can you do the Voice of Next Thursday again? Love that guy. Aussie isn't he?

Stay warm, thanks again
Bob Smith
Lethbridge - actually on the road heading west towards Waterton

===

(Okay, bear with my interpretation of the smoke signals. Bob Smith reinforces his Lethridge, Canada, QTH lie. He also implies he was a pirate and name-drops other famous pirates, presumably to gain Doc John's trust, which he follows through by casually trying to get Doc John to specify his location. Then he mentions Voice of Next Thursday, one of several programmers - including me - who were caught in the middle of Commander Bunny's invented and unnecessary feud and demands for exclusive loyalty to WBNY's relay service. --GF)

===

From: Doc John
Date: Thu, Feb 10, 2011 at 10:06 AM
Subject: Re: Whats up?
To: Bob Smith (bobsmith6955@yahoo.com)

Hey BOB

It is a wonderful aspect of radio to be sure . As far as what got me into radio , I was a broadcast engineer for the Signal corp way back in the day. When I retired from military life I got bored and missed playing with radio. I'm a radio democracy freak at heart. When the idea of pirate radio came up with some friends over coffee we jumped and the rest is history.

Yes the commander has been around for a while ,but lately everyone has been commenting that he is loosing it. Not much on the FRN but on IRC etc, privately. Me thinks the first class stamp trade is good, and commercialism has corrupted his soul.

Unfortunately the commander scared our Good friend Voice of Next Thursday into going exclusive with him and we are looking to fill the vacuum left by Gabriel Symes the genius behind it all. We hope he gets around to changing his mind soon. We will respect his decision.

take care and enjoy the airwaves.

DOC J

===

(This is where Doc John sets the snare and freshens the bait. Commander Bunny bites, hard, and snares himself. --GF)

===

From: Bob Smith (bobsmith6955@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri, Feb 11, 2011 at 3:27 AM
Subject: Re: Whats up?
To: Doc John

Dude, you didn't let me know you were on last night. Just saw the logs! Bummer. Let me know!

I don't get involved in all that inside stuff, just enjoy listening to my Sony 2010 here, got a nice longwire out the back window!

Keep it up. enjoy hearing you Doc.

Bob

===

Thus endeth that particular e-mail exchange between "Bob Smith" and Doc John.




"You see, in my trade, this is called - what you did - you cracked out of turn. Huh? You see? You crumbed the play."
--House of Games





The results of Doc John flipping "Bob Smith's" con game around?

Within hours, ComBun sockpuppet Ballistic Beans takes the bait and runs with it, foaming at the mouth: "IRC the destruction of Pirate Radio - The FRN Grapevines"


ComBun's less acerbic consensus suckerpuppet, Mosby, chimes in with a sucker's 'tell': "Dumb monkey relays - The FRN Grapevines"



Up next... Commander Bunny takes the bait, snares himself, and goes full
retard
suicide bomber. In the process, he reveals the extent of his decade-old sockpuppetry, irreparably splinters the web's oldest shortwave pirate radio site, connects every dot between his various online and real life personas, and, perhaps most damaging, undermines the fragile foundation of trust right at the time when, coincidentally, the FCC has renewed enforcement activity against shortwave pirates.



Moral of the Story Thus Far
Moral? In pirate radio? You're kidding right? And by you, I mean me. But what did we learn today, kids?

Don't hook with a hooker. If your opponent's name is Joe Frazier, he's probably better at it than you are.

Don't try to con a con man. If he's any good at it, he's already sussed you out and planned counter moves.

Don't troll with an e-mail account that reveals your location. And if you've burned through so many aliases and e-mail accounts that you can't keep track of them, maybe - and I'm going out on a limb here with a really extreme suggestion, probably too unrealistic but let's just ponder it a moment, carefully and soberly - maybe, just maybe, it's time to STOP BEING A DICK. You might be surprised how many people actually enjoy your company and creative output without the nonstop dickery.


*That is not sarcasm. I'm sincere in that statement.

**I don't mean hubris in the watered down contemporary sense of someone suffering from excessive pride or arrogance. I'm talking about football sack dance hubris. I mean the kind of hubris shown by Achilles dragging Hector's corpse around the battlefield behind his chariot. The death of Achilles through his only vulnerable spot (at the hands of Paris, who was far from brave or heroic) is the implied judgment of the gods for hubris, which was once considered a crime in Greece. It's closer to the real concept of karma, as opposed to the bunnyman's concept of karma, which he mistakes for revenge and vendettas.

***IP from headers of "Bob Smith" emails (note - the Sunnyvale, CA, IP is just Yahoo's corporate HQ):

Delivered-To: northernrelayservice@gmail.com Received: by 10.147.136.17 with SMTP id o17cs108031yan; Wed, 9 Feb 2011 03:52:32 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.150.197.17 with SMTP id u17mr1598406ybf.25.1297252351376; Wed, 09 Feb 2011 03:52:31 -0800 (PST) Return-Path: Received: from nm12.bullet.mail.sp2.yahoo.com (nm12.bullet.mail.sp2.yahoo.com [98.139.91.82]) by mx.google.com with SMTP id w42si536172ybe.20.2011.02.09.03.52.29; Wed, 09 Feb 2011 03:52:30 -0800 (PST) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of bobsmith6955@yahoo.com designates 98.139.91.82 as permitted sender) client-ip=98.139.91.82; Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of bobsmith6955@yahoo.com designates 98.139.91.82 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=bobsmith6955@yahoo.com; dkim=pass (test mode) header.i=@yahoo.com Received: from [98.139.91.65] by nm12.bullet.mail.sp2.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 09 Feb 2011 11:52:29 -0000 Received: from [98.139.91.57] by tm5.bullet.mail.sp2.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 09 Feb 2011 11:52:29 -0000 Received: from [127.0.0.1] by omp1057.mail.sp2.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 09 Feb 2011 11:52:29 -0000 Received: from [173.71.152.9] by web110002.mail.gq1.yahoo.com via HTTP; Wed, 09 Feb 2011 03:52:28 PST X-Mailer: YahooMailClassic/11.4.20 YahooMailWebService/0.8.108.291010 Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2011 03:52:28 -0800 (PST) From: Bob Smith Subject: Whats up? To: northernrelayservice@gmail.com


Finally, a tip o' the animated top hat to Evil Elvis for the "con's piracy" title idea. Evil Elvis has a genius for portmanteaus, such as "dirtfed" to describe a drifty, distorted signal.