Lulz Redux

So, it finally happened: nearly two years after the relevant events, the news broke [SMH, BBC] about Jeff Merkey's wikipayola. The only problem is whether this notorious kook and fantasist actually paid any money, or is merely off in his separate reality pretending he did. The wikinerds, who previously banned those who warned them that Merkey's word was not to be trusted, are now to be observed wailing exactly that to a largely indifferent world - whilst maintaining, even now, that Merkey's a good guy [JzG] and the Y!SCOX crowd are trolls [JzG, SirFozzie]. And meanwhile, an anonymous IP keeps whitewashing the Merkey article and discussion: interestingly, a traceroute goes via 166.70.235.16, aka a node named jmerkey.fttp.xmission.com... Sometimes, connecting the dots is just too easy.

In other news, the heroic Patent Troll Tracker is being sued into silence: "Just this morning we were lamenting the fact that the formerly anonymous Patent Troll Tracker had shut down his blog, but now we know why. It appears that two patent attorneys in East Texas have sued him and Cisco for defamation. One of the attorneys happens to also be the son of the judge who helped make Marshall, Texas famous as a favorite for patent holders..."

And in other other news, the redaction to SCO's Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings is just in. They say, get this, that if Novell didn't approve the SCOSource swindle, then Novell isn't entitled to the swag...