Michael Crook is an all round idiot who doesn’t have the brain cells God gave to an amoeba. In case you don’t know who he is here’s a brief history:
1. He is the webmaster for: forsakethetroops.info which is now no longer up. On this site he basically argued that military personnel are worthless, idiots, overpaid, and that he is glad when they are killed.
2. He is also the webmaster for http://www.denytheholocaust.com/ where he claims that the Holocaust never happened.
3. He posted fake sex add’s on Craig’s List. Then got the personal details from the people who responded and posted them on his site. Then he actually contacted the co-workers/spouses/CEO’s of those people and basically ruined their lives. Ok, the guys shouldn’t have been cheating on their wives but what gave this idiot the right to post their personal info and contact their boss?
Oh and he said and I quote “I stand firm in my hatred for children, jews, and members of the military.” and he also doesn’t like clubbing probably because unless a girl is completely wasted she would take one look at him and run away screaming…
So how does all the above translate to a lawsuit?
As you have probably realized by now this guy is not the sharpest tool in the shed and a lot of people don’t like him. So this guy (Jeff Diehl) had posted an article about him in September where they made fun of him. To emphasize who they were talking about they used a still from a Fox TV interview (Which BTW falls under the ‘Fair Use’ portion of the copyright law) and made fun of him.
I guess he didn’t like what they were saying so he stooped to underhand tactics and sent the ISP hosting http://www.10zenmonkeys.com a DMCA take-down notice. So Jeff’s ISP shutdown his site (They had to under the “safe harbor†provision otherwise they become liable for it) but this really upset Jeff so he moved the site to another ISP (Laughing Squid) which was run by a friend of his. Now Michael thought that since it was easy to shutdown a site he did it again and sent another notice to Laughing Squid’s upstream provider. This really really pissed off Jeff and Laughing Squid’s owner so they contacted EFF who registered a lawsuit against him which I completely support.
NEways I am too lazy to type the rest of the story so you can get all the details over here, here and here
Now here’s my view of the entire stunt. This guy was probably dropped on his head multiple times as a kid, was rejected by all the girls (And Guys) he met, was thrown out of clubs, rejected from the Army so he decided to decry everyone and say he didn’t want to join anyways (The grapes are sour, and I didn’t want them anyways).
Most of his stuff I can ignore, his misuse of the copyright act got him sued. If he doesn’t believe the holocaust thats his problem. There are people who still believe that the earth is flat. What I found really offensive that he took photos of solders dying and made fun of them. What kind of a person does that? Ok, I don’t really support the war on Iraq but that doesn’t mean that the people fighting it should die. Oh and he also sent death wishes on a card to a solder injured in the line of duty .
He actually said:
“Our underlying problem is this: the military is a lifestyle these morons chose. What idiot risks their life for a country? It’s what they chose. Hopefully, they knew in their hearts this is abusing taxpayers’ money, and they enlisted anyway. So…Forsake our Troops! Let ’em die in combat– we don’t need their ilk in this country!”
There’s a lot more where this came from. I don’t think I am going to post any more. Read his blog/website if you have the stomach for it. I am not posting a link to it here because I don’t want to increase his website ratings, so just search for michael crook on Google.
I come from an Air Force Family. (Not the US but the Indian Air Force.) and A lot of my friends are in the Indian Air Force and the Indian Army, some are also in the US army and Air Force . I know what kind of guts it takes to go out somewhere where you know that the next step you take might be your last one. I have heard enough stories and seen the devastation a fighter pilots family faces when their loved ones don’t come back home (Kargil war, India). What give him the right to make fun of people who are willing to die for their country and something they believe in?
If I ever met this guy in person I would have a hard time restraining myself from beating the crap out of him.
I am not the only one pissed at him, Tucker Max actually invited him for a debate and his writeup is really good. Check it out.
In conclusion, the guy is a moron. He is a waste of oxygen and I wish he would crawl back into the hole he came from.
– Suramya