Did anyone seriously thought that virtual Republican attack dogs were responsible for defacing the headquarters of the John Edwards campaign in Second Life? A "hardcore liberal" called Mudkips Acronym, a name used by a longstanding troublemaker in the bizarro virtual world, has claimed responsibility for the sabotage of the Democratic candidate's pseudo-pioneering online presence, according to blog 10 Zen Monkeys. It was always more likely that a "griefer" — a kind of online anarchist — was the culprit. "Griefing is pretty much the only way to make Second Life fun if you aren't a furry or a pedophile or something," says one Second Life observer. Truth is that the only Republicans in Linden Lab's online haven for freaks are probably those corporate execs who have been snowed by smooth-talking futurists into believing that Second Life is the marketing platform of the future. And conservatives, I suspect, express their sexual deviancy, and political malice, in more traditional ways than a world of poorly rendered avatars provides.

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