Tuesday, October 18, 2016

If it is on the internet it MUST be true, right? Laura Ahearn tells us to Google her critics and cite the first bad thing that pops up

Ah, the Internet, where anyone can say anything and people can believe it without fact checking. Nowhere does this seem more true than in the victim industry. Victim industry blowhards like Laura Ahearn feel they can say anything they want and no one will bother to fact check. 

Lets look back to the following article from early 2013, when USA Fair issued a challenge to Ahearn and her bogus statistics. Ahearn's response was not to argue facts (because PFML lacks the facts). Instead, Ahearn cited an attack website called "Evil-Unveiled," which is part of the troll website Encyclopedia Dramatica. But hey, if it is on the internet it must be true, right?


Shana Rowan, a USAFair founder, said she wrote to Ahearn in December seeking changes to statistics on the PFML website that she says misrepresent the results of a study on repeat offenders. Ahearn never replied to the letter.

“As executive director of Parents for Megan’s Law, Laura Ahearn has shown herself to be a zealot who has built a career demonizing the very people she is now to be charged with monitoring. She has perpetuated the myth of high sex offender recidivism, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, to enrich her organization,” Rowan said.

Ahearn dismissed Rowan’s criticism, pointing to Rowan’s engagement to a registered offender who she said “raped a six year old child.” Ahearn also said Rowan is “part of NAMBLA,” the North American Man/Boy Love Association. Asked for documentation, Ahearn said, “Just search her name on the Internet.”

Rowan categorically denies that she has ever in any way been associated with NAMBLA. A website called evil-unveiled.com has a page about her with her name in the URL, and it’s the top hit in a Google search of her name. The page says she is a member of “the new NAMBLA” a name the website gives to “activists” seeking reform of registry laws, allegedly so that they can have sex with children.

“I think it’s very telling that she [Ahearn] would resort to personal attacks instead of discussing the issues on the merits,” Rowan said this week.

Rowan said as the recipient of signifcant public funding — Parents for Megan’s Law’s 2011 federal tax return reports the group received more than $946,000 in government grants in 2011, the lion’s share of its total revenue of just under $1.1 million — the group should be held accountable for providing accurat information to the public. “That was really all we were seeking,” Rowan said. “The new deal with Suffolk County is a whole other subject,” she said. 

“Parents for Megan’s Law has no experience in sex offender management – none,” Rowan said, questioning how the county could “sole-source such an important and costly contract without even considering truly qualified parties – such as the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, who are mental health professionals and sex-offender policy researchers. Rowan said the vote by the legislature was “a political attempt to purchase Laura Ahearn’s support for the controversial proposal at great cost to the taxpayer.”

Asked to respond to the criticism of USAFair, Baird-Streeter, the county executive’s spokesperson said, “No comment.”
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Who cites a source like Encyclopedia Dramatica as a valid source of information? (Seriously, if you've never heard of the website, Google it and jyst read the front page. I'm not linking to that foul site.) Laura Ahearn does, that's who. Well, there's a lot on Laura Ahearn here, but I don't cite ED as a source. Each post here is a link to actual information, such as public records or even PFML's own crapsite. Here is a woman who is contracted by the government to handle the duties of law enforcement agents relying on a troll website as a valid source. Who will she cite next? The Onion? Does Laura Ahearn believe in Raptor Jesus and does she hold her breath for 10 seconds while reposting random Facebook chain letters that say share with 10 friends or be haunted by a ghost? Just how gullible is Laura Ahearn, anyways? What an idiot!

Just in case you still think ED is a valid website, THIS is from ED's own website page "About Encyclopedia Dramatica":

Purpose

Done in the spirit of Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary, Encyclopædia Dramatica's purpose is to provide a central catalog for the e-public to view parody and satire of drama, memes, e-pals and other interesting happenings on the internets. The goal is to provide comprehensive, reference-style parody, to poke fun at everyone and everything on the internet, as well as an archive for online communities to document and reference deviant users.

While the articles themselves are mostly satirical jabs at Internet users (both individually and in groups,) sites, and phenomena, bear in mind that the Encyclopædia Dramatica itself is a parody of a much less funny online encyclopedia. As such, ED articles tend to make fun of the supposed objectivity and accuracy, elitism, and stupid edit wars of such sites. In other words, expect blatant, biased lies, and expect boring truths to get deleted quickly.

ED's third purpose is to catalogue Internets phenomena. In this role, it's actually a fairly good reference for dramatic events and things like memes and netspeak, provided you bear in mind the first two purposes and take what you learn with a Girlmecha-sized grain of salt.

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