Another week, another bouquet of acrimony and amicable fun at Propeller--but folks, this time around, it's different. I'm to sorry announce that this will be my last WIR feature. At the end of June I will be moving over to AOL News. It's been a privilege to know you all, and to do my weekly round-up with color commentary. Perhaps some energetic Propeller member will take up the mantle and post a weekly, informal summary of the best conversations--in fact, maybe several will, and we can witness a regular Battle of the WIRs. ("My comments can beat up your comments!") In any case, I will miss cranking it out every Thursday afternoon. It's been a pleasurable routine.
Under the circumstances, I though we could skip the last week's activity and take a longer view. We've trawled through the database and come up with the most popular stories over a two-year period, ranked by props, comments, and page views. I'm going to concentrate on those today. There are some predictable items, but also some surprises. And needless to say, some of the commentators have since moved on greener (or possibly grimmer) pastures.
LOOSE CHANGE

Which legitimate story had the greatest number of comments? That would be "
Change You Can Believe In! Obama's Approval Index Down 22%," posted on March 2, 2009, with 43 props, 33 drops, and an astounding 7,431 comments. (It's possible that the last 6,000 are ads for Viagra and Acai Berry nostrums--still, that leaves plenty of genuine opinions.)
NoWayMan questioned the very premise of the article, which blamed the new Democratic president for the crumbling stock market: "Anyone who knows anything about the markets knows that there are just too many variables in play, and you can't pin performance on one person's possible future actions." But
injest accused Obama of having "spooked the markets. Ramming through his 'wish list recovery act' didn't impress anyone, and the markets dived again."
Said
wtagg: "I am more than willing to give Obama 38.7% of the blame. Bush owns the rest." To which
dmoney2318 replied: "Bush's policies had us on a sharp incline. It wasn't until the Dems took over and blocked his policies that our economy went down the toilet. Now we're paying for not listening to the Bushes [presumably both father and son], and instead letting people like Bill Clinton and now Obama lead us down a path of total destruction." Responded
djn3nunez3: "Only if you own Haliburton or Raytheon stock. Bush was a disaster in foreign affairs, domestic affairs, and economic affairs." Added
DaneL: "What a trifecta: Obama, Reid and Pelosi. You libs bet on them, now you can reap the rewards."
AbuAmirah shot back: "Dude has to clean up a mess that started with the Contract with America and the deregulation that it wrought. Yeah, and we thought that businesses could police themselves."
SCOOTER PIE

Another all-time hit was "
Bush Spares Libby From Prison," posted on July 2, 2007. The story rang up 320 props and 1,220 comments, including this one from
UnusualSuspect: "The funny thing is, Bush said all along he would not tolerate anyone in his administration leaking (ended up not being Libby, but Armitage), or hindering the investigation. I guess Bush forgot he said that." But
libsRfunny dismissed the whole investigation as a tempest in a Beltway teapot: "They were trying to hang it on Rove, not Armitage. How can you possibly impede an investigation into something that never happened? The guy just didn't recall conversations made three years earlier. You have any idea how many conversations people have in DC?"
Lurch, meanwhile, tried to add some historical context: "This administration and these contemporary cons sure make Clinton look like a mix between Churchill and Alexander the Great. Dubya is Caligula to Clinton's Augustus Caesar." Then
ceolmor took the classical theme and ran with it: "Hmm, [this] brings to mind Plato's comment, 'The rulers of the state are the only ones who should have the privilege of lying'." But
chiefss stuck up for Bush's decision, insisting that his predecessor had given a free pass to many, many more miscreants: "Jesus, I sure didn't hear all you clowns screaming and hollering when Slick Willie pardoned hundreds of convicted felons. Bush just commuted the sentence, didn't pardon. The conviction still stands."
Other stories with impressive comment totals included "
Propeller's Incorrigibles," posted on November 27, 2007, with 259 props and 968 comments. (Said
Spadecaller, who posted the story: "The level of debate at Propeller matters to many of us. I'm sick of personally abusive commentary that targets member's race, age, sex, nationality, ethnic background, or disability. What about you?" Replied
Endoscopy: "One of the major problems that starts this is the abusive political ranting. It starts out bashing the opposition and descends into doing the same to posters on the opposite side.") There was also "
Simpsons hit for not-so-gay crack," posted on November 5, 2008, with 875 comments. And let us not forget "
Texas School Board Rejects Intelligent Design," posted on August 27, 2007, with 228 props and 783 comments. Said
joeblowe: "How about that, there's enough common sense and intelligence in even a ONE STAR state to realize that it's a bad idea to teach idiocy in a science class."
COPY CATS

And what about stories that inspired the most members to hit the prop button? The undisputed champ was "
World should ban human cloning, except medical: U.N.," posted on November 11, 2007, with 424 props and a relatively reticent 77 comments. "Hooray!" said
1-2-Oscar. Replied
Commodore1: "Yes, I agree. As long as the liberals don't use it to increase the number of votes they get." On a more serious note,
reviewer saw the cloning and genetic manipulation of livestock as a definite Pandora's Box: "I wrote an article on cloning for food, and the main thing that scares me about cloning cattle just to have a larger T-Bone is the loss of genetic diversity in the species. Anyone who raises or breeds animals knows the short- and long-term health consequences." Another member,
tkyrchncs, argued that this particular train had already left the station: "As to food species, it should be possible to maintain much smaller and greatly more diverse herds by cloning the desirable PARTS of an animal. To all intents and purposes modern herds and flocks ARE cloned. How much genetic diversity do you think there is in a modern egg or fryer producing population, as in comparison to an equal number of wild chickens?" But
angelitobcn got in the last, theological word: "Do souls have clones?"
There was also "
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Resigns," posted on August 27, 2007, with 336 props and 754 comments.
Bkumm greeted the news with a kind of victory jig: "Adios, muchacho! NOW, who's gonna protect King George? Rove? Gone. Gonzales? Gone. Rumsfeld? Gone." Said
Neophile: "Now he can spend some quality time forgetting the circumstances of important decisions he makes about his family." Added
searchbeam: "My first computer--a Commodore--had better memory than this bozo! To think that this guy was a Texas Supreme Court Judge makes you wonder about the quality of justice those poor souls in Texas were getting." Did the cashiered Attorney General have any defenders? Well, there was
MajJohn, who accused the Democrats of conducting a bigoted witch hunt: "The Democrats can't stand a minority that's not one of their own."
Another prop-happy post concerned the site itself, right after we shed our identity as Netscape. "
Propeller Lives!" was posted on September 19, 2007, and rang up 302 props and 197 comments.
Searchbeam immediately urged the community to pitch in and give the new site some love: "The more the traffic to your site, the more advertising dollars, and therefore an assured existence! It is a tough world, and for us to exist as a vibrant, productive community, we must be able to pull more traffic to Propeller." Very true.
Silverghost, meanwhile, thought the new site might be a spammy wolf in sheep's clothing: "Maybe I'm too infrequently involved, but I didn't have a clue & thought I was being scammed. Took me awhile to trust this change as valid." But
ind06, after venting over some of the new site's defects (crappy share feature, sink option), at least knew exactly where to assign the blame: "Oh, and these problems are all George Bush's fault."

Other biggies included the cheery "
You are Destroying America. Yes, You," posted on July 18, 2007, with 292 props and 516 comments. And on a slightly more salacious front, there was "
Report: Governor Linked To Prostitution Ring," posted on March 10, 2008, with 261 props and 513 comments. "Politics as usual," said
BronxBomber, alluding to Elliott Spitzer's serial dalliance with precisely the sort of hookers he was supposed to be driving out of business. "Couldn't happen to a nicer guy," added
bobo-in-texas. What followed was a little parry-and-thrust action (sorry), beginning with a comment from
Lincoln85: "Bronx, are you still worried about Bush listening to you and your mother's phone calls?" Replied
BronxBomber: "I'm not worried about Bush, but please tell your wife to stop calling me." To which
cowboygrandpa added: "Yeah, especially trying to call collect like that."
VIEW MASTERS
And what about the stories with the greatest number of page views? The champion here was "
Mystery Surrounds Leavenworth, Kansas Underground City," posted on August 19, 2008, with 38 props, 71 comments, and 359,845 page views. One member,
dirtylitlesamuel, assumed that the Kansans had unearthed a kind of subterranean
Reeperbahn: "When the push came to 'clean up the town,' all the vice moved underground: the drinking, gambling, and prostitution. Leavenworth was a wild cowtown, and people hated the drovers for all the vice they brought. However, they liked the money." Another member,
telernc, speculated that the tunnels were connected to the nearby (and notorious) prison: "I have a friend who grew up in a house near the prison. She has told me stories about these underground paths. In fact her father was a high-ranking military man in charge of running the prison, and she says she had a tunnel under her house to the prison." But Propeller being a hotbed of unexpected expertise, this theory was promptly demolished by
KUBasketballnut: "Your friend is wrong. I worked at the federal penitentiary for twenty-five years, and at the state penitentiary before and after I worked at the federal. Both facilities have tunnels inside for utilities such as electricity and steam, but they are not accessible from the outside, and are definitely not accessible from the inside to the outside."
Perhaps, then, the theory about the underground rumpus room is correct. In any case, many of our stories with the highest number of page views seemed to have a definite theme of mild raunch. (Strange how these things work.) There was "
Sex session at work gets municipal employees suspended," posted on August 13, 2008, with 13 props, 37 comments, and 298,384 page views. One member,
bratto14, argued that the absent-minded exhibitionists had done nothing wrong: "As long as they are single, leave them alone. Try not to be so judgmental of other people--we have ALL made mistakes."
LDN felt otherwise: "Mistakes are forgetting to pay a bill or losing your car keys. This was just plain rude and inconsiderate. As others have said, some things should be done in private."

There was also "
Chicago dive bar scores hit with nude Sarah Palin portrait," posted on October 13, 2008, with 89 props, 156 comments, and 293,638 page views. "As they say," noted
jovial, "a picture is worth a thousand words." Replied
massto: "Just look at where it's coming from. Chicago is not a great place, and the idiots that go into
this bar have to have their heads examined." To which
Teech responded: "I'm heading to the airport right now. Chicago, here I come!" And on a (somewhat) related note, let's not forget "
German Sunbathers Complain About Polish Voyeurs At Nudist Beach," posted on July 29, 2008, with 20 props, 17 comments, and a disproportionate 272,193 page views. One member,
zygoter, had little patience for the
Mitteleuropean whiners: "If the Poles don't like it they shouldn't look, and if the Germans don't like it they should put some clothes on! They should be glad I'm not there, I would use a 600mm lens and post the pictures on the Internet!" In one of my rare comment-thread interventions,
I mused: "A nudist without a voyeur is like--what? A day without sunshine? Macaroni without cheese? There's a word for this: symbiosis." Replied
pderoo1: "Beanies without weenies?" And the conversation, like all conversations, came to an end.