If you're a blogger, own a blog, read a blog, or hate blogs you've probably heard the story by now about the no longer anonymous blogger, Rosemary Port who is suing Google for $15 Million for outing her to a model she called a "skank" on her blog, "Skanks in NYC".

If not the story goes something like this: Rosemary Port, now famous and probably getting massive traffic on her little blog as a result of her whining, posted the following on her "Skanks in NYC" Blogger blog.

"I would have to say that the first place award for "Skankiest in NYC" would have to go to Liskula Gentile Cohen. How old is this skank? 40 something? She's a psychotic, lying, whoring, still going to clubs at her age, skank."

"Yeah she may have been hot 10 years ago, but is it really attractive to watch this old hag straddle dudes in a nightclub or lounge? Desperation seeps from her soul, if she even has one. -Anonymous blogger

Cohen, a model for Vogue among other magazines, actually 37-years-old, got pissed and took Google to court for the blogger's name and won. The judge decided that calling someone a skank and a Ho was in fact defamation and Google handed over the info. Cohen didn't file a suit though. She unskankily e-mailed Port and forgave her. Probably with a stern talking to.

Port, is now whining that her right to privacy was violated.

"I not only feel my client was wronged," Port's lawyer, Salvator Strazzullo, said "but I feel now it sets precedent that anyone with money and power can get the identity of anyone that decides to be an anonymous blogger."

With the exception of the money and power, I hope he's right. I hope anyone can call someone out for what they say. You give up your right to privacy when you publicly lie, slander, or spread rumors about someone.

I'm guessing the judge, Joan Madden, is old enough to remember the pre-intertube days. Back then if you wanted to publicly call someone a skank you had to have your own TV, radio show, or a printed column in a newspaper or magazine with your name and face all over it. At the very least, when you made claims about a skank undulating and straddling dudes the claim came with pictures, film footage, or eye witness accounts. You couldn't just blurt out random crap and get away with it.

Regular schmucks like you and me had to write scathing letters to the editor with our real name and address on it and maybe our rant got plastered in the paper for neighbors to see what a moron you really are. But that was back when people checked their spelling, thought about what they were saying, and had something to lose.

Since the beginning of the intertubes any idiot with a keyboard can have a blog and say whatever comes to mind without regard for the truth or for the effect it might have on the target du jour. I know first hand and in the interest of full disclosure I admit to being one of those idiots. I run shitheadery.com and while I make efforts to corroborate and attribute most of what I say to reliable sources I have done it anonymously for a year. While I think people are more likely to follow the Caped Shitheader on Twitter, rather than say Richard Zombeck, the issue of credibility comes into question when people start trusting the rants and random crap that comes from an anonymous source.

I started questioning this when Sarah Palin said that bored, anonymous, pathetic bloggers who lie annoyed her. It's the only time I've considered what she said as possibly valid. I thought of it again when I read comments from drive by commenters on blogs and article. Especially when my wife and I became the target.

A few months ago my wife and I agreed to be interviewed by PRI and Huff Post about our experiences with loan modification scams, Obama's Making Home Affordable plan, and our on going negotiations with our loan servicer Ocwen. We did this with the hope that our experience would inform others and possibly make it easier for them to talk about their own experiences. We were in the process of refinancing the week prior to the collapse and within a few days the bank backed out.

The article in Huff Post received 466 comments over the course of a couple of days and reading them, admittedly a mistake, made us doubt our initial decision.

Let me clarify a few key points about our situation: We are not looking for a government handout, 1300 square feet is not a huge house, houses do cost more than $100,000 in Massachusetts, and we do not own SUVs, giant flat screen televisions, and gold plated toilets. Nor did we borrow against the house to live like movie stars. We got a loan we could afford at the time and we trusted our realtor and broker when they wrote the loan and when they recommended a "trusted" loan modification company when the economy tanked, my wife lost her job at Harvard, and Bush was still in office. We trusted them and their advice in the same way I trusted my surgeon and cardiologist when I had open heart surgery two years ago. The heart thing seems to have worked out.

Despite the articles being well written and for the most part accurate this didn't stop anonymous comments from flooding in from people who had apparently neglected to read the article or simply made stuff up to suit their own anger and agenda.

Here are just a few:

"Why feel sorry for the Zombecks? These people want something for nothing and feel entitled to a house that they have no capital invested in. I am deeply offended by this use of my tax dollars.
They cannot believe that they are not entitled to a free home or one that they can afford? what planet do they live on? Who buys a house with no money down then demands a government cram down what entitles them to a house?" - funkalicious

"Maybe these deadbeats should realize that this measure was ment (sic) to assist homeowners who could pay their bills, but had fallen behind. It wasn't ment to allow you to live in your house indefinitely and not pay a mortgage." - poliguy70130

"People like the Z family remind me of leeches... both in intelligence and attitude. They seem to be living by an 'I want it now, I want it all and I want you to pay for it, and most importantly, I never want to have to think for myself' attitude. Sorry. I feel no compassion whatsoever." - KillTheMessenger

"How can a small house be worth more than $100K to begin with? Something isn't adding up." - JoeBlough

These are just a few of the comments we were subjected to. None of them substantiated. No indication that these people had read the article. And certainly no research or knowledge of what millions of homeowners like us are facing. One went so far as to make fun of our last name. I haven't been called "Zombie" since the fifth grade and I have to admit I got a little nostalgic and verklempt. Another guy in Boston, who had lost his wife to cancer was subjected to similar abuse and gutless insults simply because he was able to save his home..

For a couple of days I obsessively read the comments, researched hari kari web sites, wondered if I had enough strong rope and a tree, and thought of changing my name or moving to Siberia - houses are pretty cheap there.

Then one of the commenters, KillTheMessenger, responded to another comment from someone, like us, who has been unable to refinance despite good credit (like us) and not completely upside down (like us at the time).

"Do you need to refinance? Will it kill you if you don't? If it won't, pay whatever you have to until your principal is low enough so that you can refinance, no matter what. It might suck, but at least you get to keep your home. And it's not like you didn't know what the rate would be when you signed the loan." - KillTheMessenger

Calling someone a loser, a dead beat, or a leech because they're trying to get a bank to lower the existing interest rate is one thing, but questioning a financial strategy that's been fed to us by banks and realtors as viable seemed a little odd. This is the same strategy they suggested when they sold homeowners unreadable, unconscionable, and explodable loans. Not just sub prime, but seemingly normal ones as well.

I started looking into the profiles of some of the people commenting. Among the cruelest and most ridiculous of the commenters, were funkalicious, JoeBlough (yes really), and gjohntheterrible with 1106, 5279, and 6939 total comments on the Huffington Post respectively.

KillTheMessenger came in with a whopping 19,157 comments since April 2008. That's nearly 50 comments a day. And at ten minutes a comment that's a full time job.

So if I were to speculate, which would be unfair because I don't know these folks, I'd hazard a guess that they work for the banks, live with their mom, drink too much, are probably out of shape, have never had any kind of physical contact with the same species, or they sit at work and do this instead of their jobs. Either way, they're hypocrites and to use their own derogatory terms, leeches. But that's just my opinion.

Recently Huffington Post introduced the ability to sign in and comment using Facebook accounts. While I'm fairly sure that this was done as a convenience to people who would rather not fill out yet another form, it's a good start to holding people accountable for their comments.

That being said, the people who made unsubstantiated and ludicrous comments in those articles may be very nice people just trying to get the word out and have their opinion heard, but we'll never know their motives or their personalities, nor will we be able to correct, congratulate, or criticize them. They're anonymous.

This article made the Huff Post.

The wingnuts from far right not only seem to be naive, or better yet selectively ignorant, when it comes to historical fact, but apparently have managed to develop super powers making them impervious to reality.

The tea baggers had their tea parties to protest rising taxes, claiming they were doing it in honor of the original Boston Tea Party, which had very little to do with taxes or any rise in taxes, but that doesn't seem to matter to people like Glenn Beck and Michelle Malkin, who ginned viewers up to go out and make asses of themselves by throwing tea bags and calling themselves teabaggers.

The tea party was American and by gosh the Teabaggers are real Americans and they do what Americans do. Like come out in clusters, sometimes nearing double digits, which Fox News reported as "massive crowds." They carry signs that say "Welcome to France" and "Is Obama French?" as if we were approaching the end of western civilization. These signs were held by people who had never been to France. If they had they would have seen the throngs of topless women walking the beaches, cheese lined streets, and wine fountains on every corner. They also forget that without the French, around the time of the Boston Tea Party, they never would have won the right to carry semi automatic weapons to rallies.

Michelle Malkin appeared on Hannity last week, in part to pimp her new book, yapping about the "regal" democrats, hardball politics, and slam the government for making the same remarks she defended in past administrations.

Hannity, in his Fox Newsy unbiased, innocent, and dejected way asks Malkin, "Is this the first time in our life time we've ever seen the government really attack people like this?”

Malkin, dejected and aghast, responds with, "I think it is."

Really? She can't think of a single instance when the government accused people of being anti-American? Is her knowledge or account of history that skewed that she can't shed a glimmer of truth on anything? Would it really be too much to ask for a little journalistic integrity? That rather than counting on your viewers being complete and total rubes, you show them a little respect and inform and educate them?

A more accurate statement from Malkin would have been something along the lines of, "Yes John I do remember the government attacking people and I don't have to go to back to the dark ages of McCarthyism. Bush/Cheney did it all throughout the WMD fiasco. During WWII we had internment camps for people who ... well ... people who looked like me John. Michelle Bachman called all liberals anti- American on Hardball, and Palin's done it so many times it's not even worth mentioning. But usually they're attacking commies, tree huggers, and wimps. Not us and it hurts John. It really hurts."

Malkin and her buddies on the right are defending and even inciting people to protest a bill that could help tens of millions of people. American people who drop at a rate of 18,000 every year because they don't have health care. Many of the same people who are protesting the bill could benefit from it.

Malkin's right though, these people aren't un-American. They're uneducated, ignorant, and uninformed and that's completely American.

It turns out that our Fascist, Socialist, Marxist, Nazi government and its white-people-hating leader are stealing personal information from computers. And they're doing it by giving you money for your shit box.

That's right, Glenn Beck was on FAUX News the other day talking to Kim Guilfoyle, who got her Law Degree in that liberal tree hugging home of Nancy Pelosi, about the www.cars.gov website. STOP! Don't go to that site. If you do your computer is going to be taken over by the government and all of your information will be sucked out of it and used for the same kind of sleazy activity agencies like the IRS uses it for.

According to Beck, who out of concern for his own information (and all the porn he's collected) prudently stole a co-workers laptop to go to the site, was warning people about the Cash for Clunkers website as if it were a phishing/hacker site. According to Beck the agreement states that the government will have access to your computer and claims the right to take all of your personal information from your computer and use it however they want, including handing it over to foreign governments. Hell they might even publish your stuff on their Facebook page.

The liberals, who usually come out in droves when the rights of plant life have been violated, must have missed the boat on this because I didn't hear anything about it in the mainstream liberal media. Why aren't they going nuts about this? They sure were pissed when the Bush administration made it OK to wiretap us all. Maybe they're all out getting new cars.

At the beginning of the segment both Beck and Guilfoyle yelp, "Whatever you do don't go to the site," and "Don't try this at home."

They are absolutely right. Why should the valued viewers of FOX take advantage of a program that would save them money, is good for environment, is creating jobs, and stimulating the economy? They don't need it. What they need is $5/gallon gas in a car that gets 7 MPG. An American flag and a couple of rifles in the rear window, and Truck Nuts. Don't forget the truck Nuts.

Since I'd like to think that I'm a reasonably intelligent guy and not easily swayed I decided to use the amazing power of the intertubes to do my own research. Something FAUX News and Glenn Beck don't think their viewers are smart enough to do. Why check for yourself when Glenn Beck is feeding you the facts?

I put on my hazmat suit and Internet condom and with sweat pouring off my brow and hands shaking, headed over to the site to carefully poke around.

Amazingly I'm here to talk about it and the Taliban doesn't know how much porn I have on my computer. Turns out - brace yourselves - that Beck is a bit full of shit.

The agreement he's referring to is for dealerships and it's been on the DOT website since 2001 and it's a standard agreement for anyone logging onto a network. Especially a government network. You probably have a similar - probably scarier - agreement at work if you're using their computer or connecting from home. It protects them against inadvertent access to your files. It doesn't give them permission to pillage your hard drive. It's like me coming over to your house, using the bathroom, and telling you there's a chance I might look in the medicine cabinet. Try reading Microsoft's agreement if you really want a scare. Trust me, you don't own the operating system you bought. The agreement in www.cars.gov isn't a threat or a warning it's an option and you do have a choice ... You don't have to agree. Besides your computer files, phone conversations, and mail has been available to the government since the Patriot Act and to pretty much anyone else who wants it.

In Beck's unmerited defense, he does casually mention that he's logging in as a dealer under his breath amidst the louder more frantic warnings. I'd be interested in knowing how Beck got a car dealer login. Maybe he stole it too.

If you're afraid to go to the site yourself, I'm not the only one who risked it all in the name of truth (and showing you that Glenn Beck is a douche - stay tuned for "Michelle Malkin and Sarah Palin are the bags"). This guy filmed the entire gut wrenching ordeal.

Beck also takes the oportunity to snort about the site. "It didn't cost $19 Million dollars," he says. Because if it had he'd be bitching about how much the government spent on a website. God forbid the government should save money and put up a clean, simple, effective site, right?

Beck's only reason for existence is to find flaws with a government that he doesn't agree with. A treasonous act according to past administrations. He dug into the Car.gov site looking for flaws and came up with...uhm nothing. Beck's pissed because his team lost. To hell with what might be good for his viewers or the country. It's not about what's good, what works, what's true, or what's news. It's about finding fault. Even when it's not there. So when he couldn't find a legitimate flaw with the program he didn't responsibly report to his audience that the program might actually be good. You know in an unbiased sort of way. He did what every good reporter with an entire news network of researchers at his disposal would do. He made shit up. And in the spirit of unbiased and honest reporting he manipulated and frightened his audience all in the name of ratings and being pissed off for losing.

Someone that holds or purports to hold the title of reporter has a certain responsibility. To blatantly lie to the public is irresponsible on the part of Beck and of FOX News. They are misinforming the public about something that might benefit them and calling it news.

It's a reporter's (or public personality's) responsibility to research what they're passing off as investigative. Especially if they do it on a news show. It's the station's responsibility to edit and make sure the content is accurate and not simple conjecture, opinion, or in any way misleading . Otherwise it's opinion, humor, or ranting and should be presented that way.

If Glenn Beck were on TV screaming that North Korea just launched a missile that was heading directly for my house and had video of it behind him on the screen I wouldn't leave my house, because Glenn Beck lies and those lies will hurt him, the truck nuts that call themselves a news organization, and the people trusting his rants as news and trustworthy information. They already have.

Because this is something personal I keep close tabs on the news and what congress and the Obama administration are doing and listen intently to Barney Frank who claims to give a shit but when given the opportunity to express his opinion on the matter, like on the Daily Show, really says nothing at all.

Frank's first attempt to fend off impending foreclosures during the snickering Gee-dubya administration was an embarrassing failure. It was supposed to help 400,000 with the $300 billion that Congress approved – it helped one. Yeah, that wasn't a typo. It helped one person.

Matthew Palevsky of The Huffington Post has been covering the fiasco in a section appropriately called Dispatches From the Displaced. They've done an excellent job and I participated in some of the stories in that section.

I usually cruise around that section at some point during the day and check to see what's new in the loan mod area and how badly the administration is mucking things up these days. I like to torture myself.

$75 Billion was allocated to this program and supposed to help 4-6 million people losing their homes. It's helped – depending on who you believe – 50,000 – 100,000 people and they have no idea where the rest of the money went.

So when I came across Adrian Sainz's piece about how to prepare for a loan modification swimming joyfully amongst the rest of the articles on homeowners getting boned up the ass by banks I almost threw up a little in my mouth.

I don't know if Sainz is 12 years old or a reject from for a 1950's Miss Manners - Emily Post – Valium induced haze. The article is not only condescending to readers but makes modifying a loan sound like a tip toe through the cow shit, rather than the massive pain in the nads it actually is.

Here's Adrian's advice for getting a loan mod with my comments sprinkled in ...

Here are some questions and answers about what you should have on hand.

Q: What are some basic documents to gather ahead of a loan modification meeting?
A: First, the servicer will want to quickly find the file in question, so have the monthly mortgage statement in hand.

You'll also want every statement you ever had from the day you bought the house and any fees you may have incurred – including late fees from the bank holding onto your check for a few days and calling it late to keep your credit score down to make it harder for you to refinance.

Next, find the most recent statement for any homeowners' or condominium association fees. Some borrowers have seen association fees increase in light of more home vacancies brought on by foreclosures, stressing monthly budgets – so you'll want evidence of what you've been paying each month.
Also, borrowers who took out home equity lines of credit, and second or third mortgages, should have paperwork for those loans handy.

Handy? Within a month you'll pulling paperwork out of your ass that you never knew existed. And when you think you've reached the last pile the bank will point out one more shred they need and it'll be the one that's lodged directly behind your colon.

All of these documents go a long way in displaying a troubled borrower's financial situation and determining their eligibility for a loan modification. Borrowers should also enter the process with a budget plan that includes how much they can actually afford to pay in monthly housing expenses, including insurance and taxes.

See what I mean about Miss Manners/Emily Post?

Q: How about tax documents?
A: In addition to recent job payroll stubs, borrowers should have their W-2 and their 2008 tax return handy. Property taxes can't be ignored when considering monthly and yearly housing costs, so borrowers should have their property tax bill as well.

Have every pay stub you've ever received since before you could legally work. Also be prepared to submit pay stubs every two weeks. The banks will usually time requests for your most recent pay stubs about four days before your next pay day to delay the process even more. The delay will be your fault.

You won't necessarily need a tax return since the Making Home Affordable plan provides for that with the 4506-T form allowing the bank to request your records directly from the IRS. Of course despite filling out the form the bank will call in a few weeks telling you that your paperwork is incomplete because you didn't submit your tax forms. They did this to me on April 16th. I had submitted the paperwork (including the last two years) in March.

If a borrower is self-employed, he or she should have a profit-and-loss statement to reference.
All this allows the loan servicer to more quickly determine a household's pretax income and a reasonable new monthly mortgage payment, according to Freddie Mac.

Also according to Freddie Mac, if you're self employed you don't qualify for a loan modification because it's impossible to prove future income and that makes you too a high a risk for a lower loan payment and the bank will be more comfortable keeping you at the higher payments since you've been making those payments with no problem. Make sense? IAs an additional bonus they'll point out your low credit score without taking any credit for it themelves.

Q: Are there any documents not specifically related to the home that should be nearby during the meeting with the loan servicer?
A: Sure. Bring along statements showing balances and minimum monthly payments on active credit cards, car loans, student loans and other debts or obligations, Freddie Mac says.
These documents give the servicer a sense of the borrower's monthly expenses outside of home-related expenditures, to come up with a manageable monthly mortgage payment that will be sustainable.

Sure just skip on down to the bank, paperwork in hand, hope in your heart, and a song in your pants.

They can get all of this information from your credit report, and they will. They'll request a report from credit bureaus on a daily basis – a request that indecently lowers your credit score with every request.

They will take these things into consideration and let you know without shame that you're expenses are of no concern them. Except when it comes to pointing out that you're spending too much on silly things like heat, gas for your car, electricity, and food.

We were told by the bank and by Hope Now that if we turned down our heat (wear sweaters), cancel the cable and ISP, get rid of our cell phones, etc, we could more than afford the impending 11% jump in our rate. Oh yeah … and Hope Now, a government agency formed to help homeowners, called our bank to inform them of their findings.

Q: Is that all?
A: Actually, no. Freddie Mac recommends that homeowners write a statement that discusses the financial problems that are or could be leading to foreclosure.
This should be an honest account – the writer should set pride aside and give the servicer a sense of how bad the situation really is.

This is required! Not recommended. This is the most important part of the process and you should mention everything including your grandmother dieing seven years ago and how you're still grieving. Mention every job you've ever lost, divorce you've been through, rehab you've been through and surgery – leave out the boob job.

Loan modification can be a complicated process, involving complex contracts and agreements. Borrowers might want to have a lawyer guide them through the process to work through any technicalities and make sure the lender is taking the correct steps.

Yeah, that's right, how about a loan modification company too. With a lawyer as a front.

Q: What are some dangers to watch for in the loan modification process?
A: A significant problem is mortgage-reduction scams, in which consultants market their services directly to the consumer and ask for an upfront fee, often with a promise to rescue the borrower from foreclosure by negotiating with the lender on the borrower's behalf. These fees can be in the hundreds or thousands of dollars.

Also that the banks have absolutely no incentive to modify your loan and will continue for as long as you can handle it to suck every last penny out of you.
Sometimes, however, the work is never done, and the fee is not returned.

Government agencies have been cracking down. On Wednesday, state and federal prosecutors said they filed 189 lawsuits as part of a nationwide sweep targeting loan modification consultants accused of bilking homeowners.

The federal government has outlined some fraud warning signs: For starters, borrowers should be wary of aggressive marketing tactics, requests for upfront fees and guarantees of foreclosure rescue. Consumers also should not sign any documents without reading them carefully.

Hey wait! That sounds like a bank. And the retarded mortgage they pawned off on people.

Other things to watch out for, according to the Treasury Department: offers to buy the house and then rent it back to the homeowner, instructions to the homeowner not to contact the lender and false claims of government affiliation.

Great advice except that this is the exact plan the administration plans to propose in another outstanding douche move.

It's me again. Normal and unitalicized.

I find it hard to believe that an article this bad would get past an editor of a major news outlet.

The incredible lack of research that went into this article required little more than reading a few of the articles in the surrounding columns to rectify.

I don't know where Sainz got the information to put this steaming pile of crap together, but I'm guessing it was from a bank. That's how all the big reporters did it when they reported on how well Wall Street was doing right?