We're Suspicious About the Other 1,499!

Newsday sports columnist Jim Baumbach argues that Islanders legend Al Arbour doesn't deserve credit for the win that gave him the nice round number of 1,500 career victories.


Some readers disagree, and voice their disagreement with the intelligence for which Newsday's irate readers are known.

This fellow must be commending Baumbach's work ethic, calling him an "I Do It."


In Hillside, New Jersey, "go cut lawns" must be the equivalent of "your mother" in other parts of the country.


On Long Island, however, being accused of Rangers fandom is the biggest insult of all. Unless you're a Rangers fan.

Does "Racist" Count as a Disability?

Newsday readers have sounded off on the case of the former Wal-Mart employee with Down's Syndrome and IBS suing the company (normally praised for its hiring of disabled workers) for discrimination after he was fired.

Our favorite comment was this gem from someone called (ironically) Fix Society:


Not to stereotype or anything.

Third Place: Thomas Barraga's Driveway

Newsday's article on the proposal to keep illegal immigrants from congregating on Farmingville streets by building a designated hiring site (supported by Legis. Thomas Barraga, who was quoted in the story) has generated lots of responses from the paper's readers.

We sifted through all the responses. According to Newsday readers, here's the most popular location for the hiring site:


The second-most popular location:

Read Before You Post

Newsday ran a heartwarming Valentine's Day story about a couple who were married for 77 years, and the comments were positive:




...but for one exception:

A Nation of "Nations"

Yes, we shamelessly promote ourselves in places like the Newsday forums and the Craig's List Rants 'n' Raves section. We expect people to ignore us or tell us to shut up. That's the American Way. But when we dropped a link in the comments section for the first-2007-baby story, we didn't expect this, from "Lisa" of Huntington Station (assuming she really is from Huntington Station, which is another issue entirely):


We're not sure what got Lisa so hot and bothered. Clearly, she didn't read our site, so we think she was just freaked out by the word "nation," which we happen to share with Aryan Nation and National Front.

But we feel sorry for Lisa, because by shunning all things "nation," she's missing these great Nations:

• Liberal rag The Nation
• Overpriced and often smelly theater chain National Amusements
• Shitty movies (with the exception of Animal House) with National Lampoon in the title
• Groundbreaking yet incredibly racist-in-hindsight 1915 film Birth of a Nation
• More-shameless-self-promoter-than-Long-Island-Nation shrill author Liz Wurtzel's Prozac Nation

Hmmm. I guess when you think about it, maybe we should change our name. To something like Long Island Island or something.

Happy New Year! (And Screw You, Illegals!)

Newsday reports on the first Long Island baby of 2007. Some basic facts about the child's parents:

They live in Copiague, and have been together for four years. Both are from El Salvador [they spoke to Newsday through an interpreter], and each has a child living with relatives in that Central American country.

Thanks to the Newsday forums, we're able to read between the lines a bit, as insightful people provide analysis such as:

and


But the REAL issue is, people in Copaigue are allowed to have children?

IP-Tracking Incompetence or Newsday-Generated Conspiracy?

Several people have complained (and we have reported) about Newsday's inability to track their "location" accurately on their boards (perhaps the blame lies with Topix, the company that owns the boards).

It's mostly stuff like some guy in East Meadow having his location listed as Hempstead or whatever. Annoying, but not too big of a deal.

So as we try to shamelessly promote ourselves on the Newsday bulletin boards, we've found something odd:


Take a closer look:


Spring Grove, Illinois? Even if we lived in one of the most western Nassau towns, like Elmont, that'd be nearly 900 miles away.

What gives? Is Newsday trying to paint Long Island Nation as not being from Long Island? Come clean, Newsday, or else we'll drop the corpse of Ed Lowe onto your Melville headquarters.

(What? He's still alive?)

Another Big Idea: Better IP IDs

Another curious aspect of this Newsday Big Idea poll thingy is how the locations of many people (likely tagged by IP address) are misidentified:









One wonders whether their newspapers get delivered to the right place.

Liberal-Bias Accusations Replaced by Projectile-Ignorance Accusations

And the readers are fuming mad at Newsday again, but not because of the paper's alleged lockstep with the liberal hordes. This time, it's because the paper's reporters don't know the difference between a crossbow and a compound bow. Why this should even be an issue on Long Island is beyond us.


Right. Now it is so totally a conspiracy.

A Peek at Newsday User Comments: Power 105.1 DJ Shot

It's fun to see what Newsday online readers are thinking. And it's great to know that what they are thinking, regarding some disc jockey getting shot, is rather ignorant (click to enlarge if you must):


I mean, the guy can't even spell "riddance"!