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Pick of the Herd: Michael Crook

Fri, Mar 16, 2007

General

Here at Herdwatching we spend a fair amount of time on political and social commentary centering around the radical feminist fringe and the more misguided portions of the left. We take our share of potshots at the right and of course idiocy of all types is fair game.

That brings us to Michael Crook.

I have known about Michael for a while. He is a sick kind of famous on the Internet (as Photoshop contests on Fark and Tucker Max can attest!) even now that his 15:00 minutes of national fame are long gone. You might want to get a feel for all this by reading the thread where god among men Tucker Max deconstructs Crook down to the component molecules. Then come on back and read on.

The “Forsake the Troops” incident

Michael started a website (one in a long line of them) at ForesakeTheToops.info where he made such insightful and interesting statements as the below. Sadly the original site has been taken down so no direct links are available, but the quotes are easily verified via a search.

NINE MORE MARINES’ CAREERS BLOW UP IN THEIR FACES
Don’t military pukes learn anything? Nine more Marines bite the big one in combat. Stupid is as stupid does!

And the ever popular…

Our underlying problem is this: the military is a lifestyle these morons chose. What idiot risks their life for a country? It’s what they chose. Hopefully, they knew in their hearts this is abusing taxpayers’ money, and they enlisted anyway. So…Forsake our Troops! Let ‘em die in combat– we don’t need their ilk in this country!

The whole Forsake the Troops incident is pretty interesting really for a number of reasons but most amusingly because of what it says about Michael and his motivations. The thing is, Michael desperately wanted to serve in the military and was rejected. When writing on an earlier blog as “Silent Mike” he said the following…

“Whether it be the Army, Marines, Navy, the Air Force, or the Coast Guard, our country wouldn’t be where it is today without the valuable service of the countless men and women who have served.” - Silent Mike, a/k/a Michael Crook

As for motivation? Check this bit of joy…

“At the same time, I feel sadness, because I know I’m not on the training field finishing my basic training as I should be. I feel jealousy fill up within me every time I pass a serviceperson in the mall or elsewhere. In a few cases, I’ve stopped and spoken briefly with them and reminded them how privileged they are to be serving out country.” - Silent Mike, a/k/a Michael Crook

But wait, there’s more! Dear Michael then went on to fake his own death at the hands of military personnel.

On Monday evening, the webmaster of Forsake The Troops was brutally assaulted by two men, thought to be members of the military, in response to their opinions about this website. Mr. Crook had been the target of numerous death threats and trespassers at his residence. All of these threats were saved and have been turned over to the authorities.
UPDATE:
At 6:19pm Eastern time, Michael Crook died of his injuries, after being rushed by ambulance to the leading hospital in the area for head trauma. The two men who allegedly assaulted him are currently in the custody of police. Mr. Crook died with his wife and infant daughter present.
It is therefore the decision of his family, and associates that Forsake The Troops goes offline, to prevent further incidents of violence and threats against his family. Therefore, this domain will permanantly go offline at around 5pm Eastern time, on Tuesday, May 17th, 2005.

That would be funny enough except in typical fashion any attack on the military brought out the idiot fringe from The Democratic Underground who immediately fell for it hook line and sinker. Watch and be amazed as they fall all over themselves to show which of them are the most paranoid.

In the aftermath of all this he made an appearance on Hannity and Colmes, where he got his ass totally handed to him. Click the thumbnail image or right here to see the whole thing on YouTube. This brings us to the next big incident in this saga.

p.s. On March 05, 2007 our boy Michael posted a video to YouTube where he continues to be an idiot and desperately try and stay a viable issue.

Rampant Abuse of the DMCA

When several sites posted links to the Hannity and Colmes video (and / or screenshots) Crook started sending out DMCA “take down” letters in an attempt to disrupt the websites in question. he did this even though he has no legal standing to do so as the copyrights were in the sole possession of Fox News and covered by Fair Use in any case.

There are lots of links to this stuff but we wanted to give a special shout out to Dreamhost and the guys at Laughing Squid. As ISP’s they deal with a lot of shit like this.

Long story short, he got his ass handed to him when the EFF and 10 Zen Monkeys took him up on the challenge and beat him soundly in court. As part of the settlement he was required to make an apology video and comply with certain other restrictions.

The Craigs List Thing

Our final look into Michaels life deals with his rather sad attempt to copy the miserable work of Jason Fortuny. Michael went on Craigs List posing as a female and then re-posted the private information of those who contacted him. Interesting tactic for a man who claims that he feels anyone in a photograph should have final say over how it is used but then again, he’s an idiot. Hell, he didn’t even pull this lame stunt off as well as the execrable Jason who went before him. In the time since this all happened the two spent a while trying to ruin each others lives, which is fucking hilarious.

Links of Wonder

Links related to the Forsake Our Troops site…

Other starting places…

[tags]griefer, michael crook, pick of the herd, idiocy[/tags]

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soulhuntre - who has written 308 posts on Herd Watching.


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