I would like to welcome all the visitors who arrived via Peter Robinson’s superb “THE PONTIFF AND THE WAR” post on The Corner today. And thanks, Peter!

The post of mine to which Robinson referred is “‘Pope condemns Bush,’ wish Times, others.”

God bless America!

A once-respected blogger has repeated untrue claims that originated in a mass-e-mail hoax. The hoax is easily debunked by searching for “autorantic” at Snopes.com. (If it doesn’t show up there now, try again in mid-December. I heard they were doing some restructuring or something.)

CLAIM: The workers who assemble the Autorantic Virtual Moonbat are cruelly exploited.

STATUS: Multiple (see below)

EXAMPLE: [Collected on the Internet, 2004]

Please add your name to the petition at the bottom of this e-mail and forward it to everyone you know. I just saw an expose on CBS News about the deplorable sweatshop working conditions of the underage Malaysian women who assemble the “Autorantic Virtual Moonbat.” This seemingly harmless amusement is made by people who don’t even have the luxury of a bathroom break, much less amusement. Every day, hundreds of underage Malaysian women labor for fifteen hours assembling “Autorantic Virtual Moonbats”. This “free” website attraction isn’t free for these exploited laborers.

We must let Gleason Blogamated, the employer of these non-unionized girls, know that we object to this cruel exploitation. When you sign the petition below, and forward it to at least ten people, the sophisticated e-mail trackers at Gleason Blogamated will automatically register it as a major protest, and will send you an apology. One woman in France forwarded it to more than 500 people, and Gleason mailed her a checque for 500 euro.

Origins: The exact origins of this mass e-mail remain unknown. The many variants we’ve seen include differing sources of the “expose” (CBS News, Oprah, and Salon.com are variously cited), differing names and spellings of the employer (the correct name is “Gleeson Bloglomerate”), and divergent accounts of the check’s value, and who received it (”a woman in France,” “a Wiccan in Utah,” and “an insurgent in Ramadi” have all been named as the beneficiary of Gleeson’s largesse).

While the photograph and most of the descriptions of the working conditions at Gleeson Bloglomerate’s AVM-223 plant in Malaysia are largely true, the accompanying judgments (”cruel,” “exploited,” and such) are misleading and false.

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