No, You Should Not Ask Your Guild Leader, Either

Just when you thought the continuing crisis in Washington was being spearheaded by random people named Scott Jennings, things get even weirder:

MacDonald confirmed that she also sent the Delta Smelt document [the Delta smelt fish is an endangered species] to an on-line game friend through his father’s e-mail account. MacDonald said she is acquainted with the on-line friend through internet role-playing games. She said she engages in these games to relieve the stress created by her job; however, she said she has not played while at work. When asked why she would e-mail an internal [Department of Interior] document to a private citizen, MacDonald replied, “I was irritated [with what was happening regarding the subject of the document] and tried to explain my irritation over the phone; however, I sent it to him to read for a better understanding.”

Hint: when someone is too young to have their own email account, you may not want to entrust them with reviewing your secret documents. No matter how kickass a healer they are in groups.

  • http://www.lietcam.com Lietgardis

    From the comments: “I’d bet fifty bucks the video game is Second Life. I say that because conversation isn’t really a big part of any other computer game, and because the Second Life demo is friendly for females over 40. Lots of middle-aged women there.”

  • http://ve3d.ign.com/ Apache

    Zomg. SAVE THE DELTA SMELTS!

  • HitNRun

    From the article: In this episode, MacDonald…demonstrates that she trusts the feedback of her fellow gamer, who’s apparently quite young, and her child over agency scientists.

    If my job, for years running, had been to moderate calls from “agency scientists” to outlaw humanity in areas harboring endangered species- which, as we now know, is almost the entire country- I imagine I would be similiarly contemptuous of their Top Super Secret reports.

  • JHB

    There’s funny and then there’s *bizarro* funny. I believe this falls under the latter category.

    Thanks. This made my day.

  • jnfr

    From the TPMMuckraker thread on this:

    “I wonder if she traded the internal document for a Dwarven Iron Helm of +3 Mana Regeneration.”

    That would probably make her a low level paladin, which sounds about right for this type of hack. Takes forever to get anything done, and at the first sign of real danger, she bubbles and hearths home to the RNC.

  • Erkht

    Heh, I had just come here from Slashdot.. This chick definately suffers from the bimbonic plague..

    http://science.slashdot.org/science/07/03/31/0214208.shtml

  • Mist

    Can anyone link to the Delta Smelt’s loot table?