Strange error message?

[Leaper]

I am a Firefox user. When I tried clicking on the second link in this post, I got the following error message:

Server not found

Firefox can’t find the server at secure.boards.straightdope.com.

*   Check the address for typing errors such as
      ww.example.com instead of
      www.example.com

*   If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer's network
      connection.

*   If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure
      that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.

But I can’t find any way a “secure.boards.straightdope.com” URL is involved at all. It seems like a simple, straightforward link to mercurynews.com.

What seems to be the problem?

[MannyL]

@Leaper

I am a Firefox user. When I tried clicking on the second link in this post, I got the following error message:

But I can’t find any way a “secure.boards.straightdope.com” URL is involved at all. It seems like a simple, straightforward link to mercurynews.com.

What seems to be the problem?

[noparse]

McCain comes under fire for untrue attack ads

if you enter that URL itself it redirects to
https://secure.passport.mnginteractive.com/mngi/servletDispatch/ErightsPassportServlet.dyn?url=http://www.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_10450897?nclick_check=1&forced=true
[/noparse]

which seems to point to a page that is session dependent.

[Jragon]

You can get to it by copy+pasting this:
[noparse]http://www.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_1045089[/noparse]

It doesn’t seem to like:

1. Links
2. the part that says ?nclick_check=1