Dead Governors Cyber-Mugged; VDB Vows to Track Down the Low-Life Thief
What would Watergate be like if it happened now, instead of during the Nixon years, and if instead of H.R. Bob Haldeman and McGovern and Woodward and Agnew, it centered around a secretive group of long-deceased Vermont politicos?
In short, it would be freaking weird. But it’s true: someone cyber-mugged the Dead Governors.
The following email came in last night from Edna, over at Politics VT:
“We have a very, very serious problem right now here at the Capitol Bureau. While Isaac was on vacation yesterday in Michigan, his laptop computer was stolen. The problem is very very serious because not only does the computer have all his banking, real estate and computer information but it is also where all (or most) of the information regarding our blog was stored.
“Whoever stole the laptop gained access to the blog because when Isaac went to check on it to see if it had been touched, it had been reverted back to May postings. Previous posts had been removed, our contact information was almost completly gone, we lost our password and username access but luckily were able to use our secret question to get on.
“Whoever stole this did incredible damage to over 2 years of hard work.”
Two things immediately worth noting: 1) The Governors have deleted their blog from the Blogger rolls, and as of this morning it’s unavailable, gone, kaput; and 2) the thing they seem most worried about is how to contact their readers and let them know that Politics VT will rise from the . . . well, the dick in Michigan who stole their computer and their blog architecture. That’s dedication to an audience, my friends.
What VDB finds almost incomprehensible is the idea that a common criminal would steal the laptop, take it home, boot it up, figure out the hows and whys of Politics VT, and then sign on in order to disrupt it. It just seems implausible, given the possibility that logging on to disrupt the blog would provide an electronic trail of sorts, potentially leading back to the thief.
So work with VDB here: maybe it wasn’t a common criminal. Maybe it was what we’ve all feared, all bloggers everywhere, that people in high, covert places are reading our posts and plotting their revenge. And then, maybe, they see you’re going to Michigan for some R&R and they pick up the phone and an ex-CIA guy there rents a late-model Chevy, and that’s all she wrote.
When they come for VDB’s Mac, they’ll have to pry it out of our cold, dead hands. That’s all we can say.
But a memo to the Dead Governors: let us know what we can do to make it right.
When you’ve figured out the new home for the blog, we’ll put the word out. And in the meantime, if you can’t resist commenting on an issue here or there, pass it on in email form, and we’ll work it into the day’s posts.
Think of VDB as an old ratty couch at a friend’s apartment, in other words, one with broken springs and the lingering smell of Chinese food, but a couch that’s always there for you just the same.
on August 16th, 2006 at 9:23 pm
[…] Philip Baruth provides some explanation (along with his usual nod to mysterious dark forces at play) for the odd disappearance of PoliticsVT from the Vermont blogosphere today… […]
on May 29th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
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