No, it wasn’t the extremely self-involved whiny “think pieces” from the factory-like Salon™ writing workshops that they release upon the planet like a plague of bombastic locusts. No, it wasn’t the fact that it’s the Fox News of the Left. The former I can avoid, the latter is a useful check on the Fox News of the right.

It’s the fact that their RSS feed really, really sucks.

Salon insist on posting only titles to over half their newsfeed items. Now I realize they famously have problems staying afloat (I guess after public radio and television, the Fox News of the Left for radio and TV, respectively, the $100K/yr set is used to letting other people pay for their entertainment, and why not? Soak the poor!), but hint to the lefties who never took anything other than Keynesian macroeconomics, focusing exclusively on how government spending is a magical cure-all: in order for me to buy something, you have to give me a reason why I should even look at it, let alone see Yet Another Salon Workshops Ad to view your word-for-word transcript of the AP newswire.

I’m sorry, but your headline writers are not the Frickin’ Geniuses they clearly think they are. They only do what headline writers are supposed to do, get me to click the entry to see if the article is worth reading. However, I’m then presented with another screen that simply restates the title, as if it’s making the Emperor’s New Clothes argument: if I were Truly Enlightened, I wouldn’t need to question the authority of my betters at Salon (they of the most annoyingly-titled feature in the world, the “Xday Must Reads”–making even Rush Limbaugh look humble). I would just Read It. Cover to End of the Web.

I’m also ditching Macslash, for the exact same reason. They just don’t have the smug attitude, hence they get less vitriol, just a simple ‘no thanks’ from me.