Less than 24 hrs. ago when MS said Lat 38 stole stuff off our blog, a couple guys here basically called her an egotistical wingnut. But looky here: yet another case of Lat 38 sniffing around all the cruiser forums & blogs, stealing info, enhancing it to get more attention for Lat 38, putting quotation marks around parts of it to make it look like a voluntary submission from a fan...and then backpedal when they have to admit they never contacted the source in the first place. And then when forums like CSBB run with the fake facts, Spindler comes back to get more readership by dissing the forums. We've been on the receiving end of this before from Lat 38, as some of you know.

We've learned how to spot a fake story in Lat 38 & distinguish it from a legitimate submission. A legitimate submission ends with the names of the submitters, their boat name & where they are. If it's a fake story, Lat 38 just identifies the names of the crew & the boat in the body of the "letter" & fake-quotes the crew. Look again at the Nov. 4 "submission" from us regarding fishing licenses Lat 38 published. We never wrote that.

Sure, Lat 38 isn't Pulitzer material, & maybe some people are flattered to see their names in print -- but Lat 38 is a commercial publication & so should have a little more responsibility to not go around faking "news."

End of rant. We've established that Lat 38 ganks text and photos from cruiser forums - so if you can, at the very least copyright your photographs, no matter where you post them.