KMOV is really just finding out about this whole internet thing and as such, are now taking posts to paste in comments from the site. You know how you’re always saying “I wonder what the random, nothing to do, loser who just spouts the same colloquialisms about every perceived obstacle in their life thinks about this news item”? You’re prayers have been answered!

Gas hit $4 a gallon in the area recently, here’s the user content KMOV wanted to highlight (with our responses/translations):

Rodney – Truly wish I could sell my car & never drive again. But they’d just find another way to get my money anyway…

Rodney sounds so defeated by “they”, but who is this “they”? The oil companies or capitalism in general?

Lois – And they think the rescission [sic] is over.

“I made sure to mention the recession in a sarcastic tone so it makes it seems like I’m making an astute economic comment, but hopefully no one stops to read this comment again and view it in the light of the topic of high gas prices because then it would be pretty clear my statement made no sense.”

Therese – It is not right that the government we support, and we pay, could be doing something to help, and they are not. I agree a boycott is in need. If the government can threaten to shut down, why can’t we as the people do something about the fuel/oil prices?

So boycott it then…but no, you won’t be able to do anything about the gas prices. Someone told Therese she could do anything she put her mind to, but they were wrong. Now if they meant that in terms of shutting up and making us a sandwich, then they were dead on right. We like the crusts cut off Therese, and we’d hate to make you drive it over to us but…um…drive it over to us. Boycott after that.

Michael – While I’ll admit I don’t fully understand the economy behind gas prices, I am pretty sure that they don’t NEED to be this high. They weren’t this high, or were just as high, in the sh

ortage in ‘79 and I’m almost positive that we’re not undergoing a gas shortage right now.  Greed is slowly becoming as American as Apple Pie, unfortunately.

“Dear Mr. President, there are too many states these days. Please eliminate three.”

via KMOV

We get a lot of comments, twitter replies, emails and notes stuck to our door with large knives so we thought it was time to answer some of those.

Our first foray into answering to the whims of our adoring public starts from a comment left on a recent post about the Riverfront Time’s photos of the now infamous “Strippermobile”: RFT Gets Photos of Stripper Mobile

Replying to our remark:

So that’s all? That’s not nearly as bad or awesome as we had pictured it in our minds.

SandyShores stated:

I think we need to have an artist’s rendition of the mental images you had.

That, can be arranged!

Above is our drawing of what we thought the Strippermobile was, and now just believe it should be.  Lets walk through it shall we?

First you will notice that Santa Claus is driving.  Secondly you will see the basic construction of our Strippermobile is a large truck with a window on one side and a pole in the middle, not unlike the real Strippermobile, but ours also has a disco ball in the one corner and a TV playing hard-core pornography in the other. On the pole is a hot redhead chick because redheads are hot and also crazy. To the right we see a set of blonde twins making out.  Below the redhead we have a midget with a pink mohawk, whose role, although vital, is yet to be fully defined. In the left we have a shark because sharks are bad ass.  You might be saying: “Wait, how is that shark living outside of water.” Good point. They don’t live long. They will have to change the shark at least twice a day.  Lastly we have Teen Wolf doing a handstand on the top.

Questions? Thoughts? Comments?

If you have your own questions to ask Punching Kitty feel free to leave them in the comments, tweet them our direction (@punchingkitty), email them to tips@punchingkitty.com or, of course, call 314-266-TIPS

You really can’t make this stuff up.  I tried to make up something as crazy as this once but it ended up no one thought it was all that funny, we had to land the plane in Colorado, and I’m pretty sure I’m on the no-fly list now.

If there ever were doubts about whether the public has opinions about the news, the arrival of online reader comments has dispelled them. They do, and they aren’t afraid to post them online, usually anonymously. Sometimes those views are insightful, but sometimes they’re insensitive and occasionally they’re downright offensive.

How should media outlets manage this new forum and where should they draw the line on what’s allowed?

A group of experts will discuss the brave new world that is “story comments”

…and the first panelist is…

Kurt Greenbaum, assistant city editor and online editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where he has worked since 2002. Kurt’s been involved in online journalism since 1996 and has been a reporter and editor at the Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale and dbusiness.com, an online business news start-up.

Greenbaum also recently tripped, face first, in to a giant pile of internet shit when he got a man let go from his job after violating his own site’s privacy policy to track down a commenter that said a naughty word in the comments of a childish post.

And then this happened.  And this.  This too. Oh and don’t forget this.

Frankly if the panel invited because of his recent issues as a “what not to ever do” this would be fantastic, but it appears that’s not that case which means we could have even more people pulling Greenbaums in the future.

Maybe you should stick to just commenting on here.  I promise I won’t get you in to trouble at work.  Trust me, I’ve been there.

Public Dis-service Announcement style…

Well done.

We hear that the Post Dispatch’s Web Director, Will Sullivan is on Twitter looking for tips on commenting systems.

Hmmm, can’t think of why that would be.  Any ideas?

Maybe you saw our post yesterday about Kurt Greenbaum, the Post Dispatch’s Social Media Director and how he got a man fired because he posted a “vulgarity” on the comments of an STLToday article.  If not, check it out, we go in to in detail there.

In that post, I dropped this little pull quote, suitable for twittering and the like:

…and then the internet skull-f*cked him.

I was wrong.  The internet populace hadn’t begun to skull f*ck him at that point.  They are now though.

Midway through yesterday, one of our commenters alerted us that this story had popped up on Reddit, a popular social news site.

That’s kind of where this story took off and turned ugly for Greenbaum.

First, there were comments like this:

…and then this (edited):

That would be his full name, address, every phone number and email address he has and his boss’ contact info.

…and then Twitter took off.  Just do a quick search for people replying back to Greenbaum via Twitter and calling him a “pussy” (thats the word the commenter apparently used).

Oh and of course, you can also now visit: www.KurtGreenbaumIsAPussy.com

We aren’t going to stand here and tell you that all of this is cool, but we also aren’t going to say its all not funny.  [Editor's Note: Address? Not funny. Website?  Totally funny.]

If there is anything you can take away from this, here it is:

1. Don’t mess with privacy policies.

2. If you do, don’t call attention to it.

3. It is amazing how fast people can rally around a story that didn’t really take off until a day or two after it actually happened.  Kurt may disagree with this right now, but that is a pretty awesome thing about the internet.

The good news for Greenbaum, and pretty much the only good news since he is probably getting pizzas sent to his house 24/7, is that internet hatred (or love) is fleeting.  Sadly, though, images can kinda be forever….

Images via Reddit