California's Controversial Eugenics Program - UPD: A hoax

Hawke · Post by **Hawke** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 10:21 am

I originally had posted here a disturbing article that has proven to be a hoax in very poor taste. I have removed the full text of the article that spawned all this, and am simply leaving the curious a link to the original article so that they may understand the comments of this thread.

koan · Post by **koan** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 11:39 am

You're not kidding when you say controversial. "Four legs better than two" or "Thin genes better than fat". Leave it to California to start this one up. Land of the surgically perfect.

anastrophe · Post by **anastrophe** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 11:50 am

i'm tempted to wonder out loud whether my calendar is incorrect, and april fools day is today, rather than friday.

Jives · Post by **Jives** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 11:57 am

Hmmmm....first you can't have kids if you are fat, then you can't have kids if you are low IQ or retarded, then you can't have kids if your are the wrong color and finally....

Only the blonde, blue-eyed people will have kids!!!! Excellent Mein Furher!!! SEIG HEIL!!

:rolleyes:

anastrophe · Post by **anastrophe** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 12:05 pm

well, this really is weird. while the article referenced does exist at that link, and appears to be legitimate, a google on 'san francisco obesity vasectomy' etc, yields nothing. and frankly, even with SF's notorious reputation as land of the do-gooders, i'd think this would have generated at least a *little* heat and discussion publicly.

weird weird weird.

anastrophe · Post by **anastrophe** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 12:08 pm

furthermore, while the article in question has generous references throughout, annotated at the bottom of the page, there is *no* reference corroborating this alleged program in san francisco.

i'm going to write to them and ask for more info.

Hawke · Post by **Hawke** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 12:22 pm

Personally, I REALLY REALLY hope that this is an April Fool's joke that was released a bit early; it's frightening to think that such a program like this may be in existence.

Hawke · Post by **Hawke** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 12:38 pm

Ok, I did a little research here and have determined that this is indeed a HOAX, likely an April Fool's prank that went off a bit early.

My evidence for this:

The domain is registered to one "KLAF Television", with fake contact information. I couple this with the fact that poking around on KLAF's website revealed the following information:

Disclaimer

Ok, ok, you got us. Yes, this is a FAKE news story website. The stories you read here are untrue. Completely farsical. A flim-flam. Jokes, misnomers, whatever you want to call it. The bottom line - we made this stuff up.

So, why would we do this? Is it because we are immature malcontents with an internet connection and too much time on our hands?

Well, maybe. But more than that, we are just tired.

We are tired of sloppy "Journalists" who are less interested in reporting news than they are in beating everyone else to the punch. The media today have completely lost sight of the standards and practices Edward R. Murrow held in such high esteem. Why? Because it's no longer about getting the news to you, it's about getting the news to you FIRST. It's a ratings game... A race to see who can be the first one to report whatever little tidbit of social misfitery that's creeped up today. The integrity part of Journalistic Integrity has been left completely by the wayside, and reporters / writers / disc jockeys / what-have-you are simply scraping sites like Fark.com and BoingBoing.net without so much as a verification call.

Are we proud of ourselves? No. Not even a little. We're just doing what we can - as little as it may be - to attempt to reintroduce the practice of researching a story before it is reported as news. We do not consider it a victory to have a fake news item reported in legitmiate news sources. We will consider ourselves victorious when we begin seeing our stories (and other fake news stories posted on link propigation sites) bypassed because they failed a simple verification test. We will hold our heads high knowing that we and others like us have finally succeeded in introducing a bit of accountibility in the media. Why is this our job? Well... it's not just our job. It's EVERYONE's job. Everyone should demand accountability and integrity in the news reported to us, the general public.

Joe and Bill

I, for one, find this joke to be in EXTREMELY poor taste and will be removing the full text of the article from my previous post. I'll leave the link for the curious, but I don't want to propagate this horrible hoax.

koan · Post by **koan** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 12:42 pm

I googled eugenics obesity california and found a number of sites but they are mostly discussions on eugenics in general and on principle. A google of obesity and sterilization doesn't bring up anything relevant. I'm interested to see what further information anastrophe will acquire. Very scary if it is actually being put forth as a feasible solution.

anastrophe · Post by **anastrophe** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 2:34 pm

Hawke wrote: Ok, I did a little research here and have determined that this is indeed a HOAX, likely an April Fool's prank that went off a bit early.

My evidence for this:

The domain is registered to one "KLAF Television", with fake contact information. I couple this with the fact that poking around on KLAF's website revealed the following information:

I, for one, find this joke to be in EXTREMELY poor taste and will be removing the full text of the article from my previous post. I'll leave the link for the curious, but I don't want to propagate this horrible hoax.
i hate that kind of 'activism'. they should have just ended their pompous little self-justification message right here: "Is it because we are immature malcontents with an internet connection and too much time on our hands?".

yes. what they're doing does absolutely nothing to make things better. nothing.

BabyRider · Post by **BabyRider** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 2:53 pm

So. This "article" was a statement, directed at the evils of "sloppy journalism"??? What a joke. Did they actually expect this little scam to have any effect on the ethics of reporters? This is insulting, and potentially dangerous. Hey, Joe and Bill: Big "bravo" guys...way to go. You succeeded in pissing a whole lot of people off, and making yourselves look REALLY stupid, instead of what you intended originally. Which was.....what exactly?? :-5 :-5

gmc · Post by **gmc** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 2:53 am

It's less of a joke than you think. It's not just something out of a science fiction novel.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/backg ... 290661.stm

http://www.healthmatters.org.uk/stories/webster31.html

http://www.eugenics-watch.com/roots/chap12.html

http://www.marmoset.com/60minute/Webnav/eugen.html

I will leave you to dig in to the US experience.