I’ve got to admit that I almost feel sorry for Andrew Bolt. Watching Gordon Ramsay on television a few weeks ago he fell in love. There was something about Gordon Ramsay — a man’s man with conservative values and masculine pride — that made Bolta’s heart beat a little faster.

I like particularly the standards Ramsay upholds and which drive him to fury when transgressed.

Ramsay, you see, thinks hard work honours man. Slackers drive him spare: “You might as well just f… off.”

He thinks if a job is to be done, it’s best done well. Sloppiness is an insult to a worker’s dignity. A moral crime.

He thinks if you’re taking a man’s wage, you owe him a day’s labour. Those who bludge on their boss are called “cheats” and the worst, like the manager of Dillons, are out the door.

He thinks reason beats irrational sentiment. If orange paintings of what seems global warming turn off customers, then too bad if the owner loves them to sentimental tears; they must go to save the restaurant.

He thinks some authority is better than none when you want things run well. Three managers in one chaotic restaurant get pared to one, despite the tears, because collectives and group fuzzies just don’t work.

Yet he also believes in loyalty and teams - the little platoons of society that are the bedrock of a community.

But just like a lot of desperate crushes this love was not to be. Imagine Andy’s feeling of rejection when he discovered that Ramsay wasn’t quite the man he believed him to be (with a bit of groupthink thrown in for good measure.)

My faith in Gordon Ramsay’s good sense has been shaken. Tim Blair exposes another eco-hypocrite - a global warming prophet in a Ferrari, and with a disturbing taste for banning other people’s little pleasures.

Having your heart broken is no joke. My thoughts are with you, Andrew.

They can’t win elections, they’re barely functioning, and now comes the news that no-one in the party can even destablise an already shaky leadership properly.

The blog can be read here, and the men behind it can be contacted here.

What’s interesting is that the blog appears to have been leaked to that site from the inside, because the “edit widget” buttons are still there.

Nice work. You can’t even leak properly.

Ever since an illiterate, ranting blogger by the name of Iain Hall stumbled across GrodsCorp in November 2005 he’s been a favourite target of ours. In the two-and-a-half years since that fateful day Iain has discovered the spellcheck function in Microsoft Word (set to US English, of course) and refined his blog design somewhat, but has continued to maliciously stalk anonymous bloggers (Jeremy Sear, Bridgit Gread etc.) and threaten those whose identities are known (by calling their workplaces etc.)

A couple of weeks ago Ant revealed how easily he tricked Hall into outing him as an imaginary person, and today Random Brainwave and GrodsCorp’s John Surname has proven, once and for all, how much of an unethical, stalking scumbag Iain Hall really is.

For the record, we were planning a very special group photo shoot and special edition GrodsDrink podcast episode (emailed directly to Hall) if the scotch arrived, but it was not to be. I tells ya, I could taste that scotch.

It’s worth noting that Hall put the scotch bounty on The Happy Revolutionary’s head in response to Hap allegedly calling him a paedophile; apparently this was justification enough for the stalking and the harassment and the rest. However, here is Iain Hall writing about me at his (now archived) Being Nice blog.

I understand that you are training to be a teacher can you give us some thoughts on that? Do you get close to your students?

The Editor is going away on a teaching placement to an aboriginal settlement called Anangu in deep outback South Australia for three weeks and hopes desperately that things will be back to normal when he gets back on May 23. Please use this time to peruse anything that works on the site and maybe fire off a few nasty emails to “Da Shop” on our behalf. Anyway, touched a 15 year and 10 month old girl’s breasts with her consent, . But now, in the climate of fear over pedophilia this “outstanding teacher”, as described by his principal, staff and students, has lost his job and had his career, and probably life, destroyed.

Hypocrite?

But why is this post entitled “End of an era”? Well, I always intended the scotch reveal to be the last official mention of Hall on GrodsCorp since a man of his calibre ultimately deserves to be completely ignored and, frankly, his presence on GrodsCorp cheapens us even more than Fleshlights (if that’s possible.) So unless the scotch does arrive in the mail this will be the last ever Iain Hall post on GrodsCorp.

Truly the end of an; era.

The Happy Partisan reports the initial action.

GrodsCorp reports the reciprocal action.

Half of me wants to watch the multimedia and the other half doesn’t.

An unfortunate photographic angle over at Bek’s Blog.

Nice, um, handbag.

Congrats to our resident gun-toting loony KG, who today entered the blogging record books for the world’s shortest retirement. Yesterday at 7.33pm the world was a burden on KG’s mighty shoulders as he solemnly announced that Crusader Ratbag would be ‘closing down’:

There are other things to do, other ways to spend my free time. A man’s days are limited and precious and a beloved wife deserves more than the time left over from blogging and cruising the net.

As predicted, the forces of restorative stupidity (ie. MK and his tender touch) went to work, assuaging KG’s petulant temper and/or massaging his bruised ego, and by 8.15am the next day normal transmission had resumed as he declared:

I’ve been talking to MK and to Gecko and the upshot is that I’ll keep going with CR and make more of an effort to stop moaning and get working harder. The knight is not yet unhorsed!

Total downtime: 12 hours and 42 minutes. We’ll all sleep more peacefully tonight, knowing he’s back on watch.

GrodsCommenter Jack Dorf, completely unprovoked, brought the official Fleshlight forum to our attention the other day and fellow commenter Krypto wryly noted that it was time to reset the “days since Fleshlight mention” GrodsClock. So given that I can safely post this now without being accused of breaking the unofficial GrodsCorp Fleshlight ban, here is a gem I found one day at Yahoo Answers during an intertubes walkabout.

But the best bits are in the “other answers” section.

Firstly, this chick is offering her services as a researcher and she can’t even type “fleshlight” into a search engine. Secondly, she’s going to regret asking that question.

“Masturation”? Sounds kinky.

Awwww. This guy’s a SNAG. Always thinking of the laydeez.

The difficulty with being a bullshit artist is that you have to be meticulous about maintaining your facade, lest you become entangled in the intricate web you yourself have spun. And what makes this task doubly difficult is the fact that chronic bullshitters inevitably begin believing their own propaganda, which makes spotting the little chinks in their story all the more tricky.

It takes something of an evil genius to make a successful career of bullshit artistry; dimwits need not apply. Which is where Leon Bertrand came unstuck last week.

Self-styled superlawyer Bertrand, whose chubby little fingerprints were all over the recent “George Athanasi” debacle, thinks himself an exemplar of the Rational Right; by his own account, a “courageous” conservative with nothing to hide:

[…]
See, right-wingers tend to post under their own names because they are not afraid of the rest of the world knowing their views. It’s probably because our views are generally respected, so we don’t feel there’s anything to hide.
Either that or we are more courageous.
[…]

So imagine my delight last week when I discovered, in the “George Athanasi” comment thread on Bankruptus Maximus’ blog of shame, the following:

Evidently, Leon — silly sausage that he is — posted a sockpuppet comment but forgot to remove his URL from the homepage field. And it’s lucky I took a screen grab of the comment, because if you pay the thread a visit now, you’ll notice that Slandy has kindly removed the homepage from his adorable little sidekick’s comment.

One can’t help but wonder what this courageous conservative hypocrite has to hide.

PS: You’ll also notice, in the same comment thread, that Bertrand has now resumed posting under the name Leon — most likely due to an email I sent him yesterday alerting him to his embarrassing blunder. In that email, I asked him to explain what he had to hide. As yet, I’ve received no response.

PPS: Hilariously, Landeryou isn’t buying my denial that my name is George. Neither is Bertrand, who ingeniously asked me to provide proof that I’m not George. It’s a good thing I have my wits about me this morning: the crafty devil almost tricked me into revealing who I really am!

The Australian blogosphere’s most unctuous bottom-feeder, Andrew Landeryou, has proved once and for all the maxim “if you sleep with imbeciles, you’ll get dribbled on”.

Acting on a tip-off from Queensland’s most pernicious™ semi-literate blogger, Iain Hall, Landeryou last week “outed” me as one George Athanasi.

Partners in grime: blogging superheroes Rapunzhall and Bankruptus Maximus

The revelation raises several questions about blogging ethics. Leaving those aside, however, the most important question it raises is this: who is George Athanasi? Because it sure as hell ain’t me.

Several weeks ago I decided to test Iain Hall’s oft-repeated claim that he’s not a malicious net-stalker by setting him up. I sent him an email from my Ant Rogenous Gmail account, but changed my name to another fictitious one: George Athanasi.

The premise of my plan was that any decent, ethical person would ignore the name at the top of the screen and content himself with responding to the body of the email. If Hall did this, it would go some way to demonstrating that he is indeed the unassuming “respected conservative commentator” he has claimed; if, however, he chose to focus primarily on my “identity” and threaten to reveal it, it would provide conclusive proof of what most people already suspected: he is full of shit.

Predictably, Hall couldn’t resist the urge to go after “George”. His response began:

George
Thank you for sending me an email and is that really your name?
[…]

The fish was nibbling at the bait; it was time to set the hook. I changed my name back to Ant Rogenous and replied:

Never mind what my name is, Iain.
[…]

Hall’s response came quickly:

George
That must be your name as you have now very hastily changed the name that appears to recipients of emails from this account.
Would you care to offer an argument that makes a case for my discretion in the matter of who you actually are?
[…]

Hook. Line. Sinker.

Two sets of correspondence ensued in which I played up my indignation, eventually making a ludicrous counter-threat that Hall predictably construed as blackmail (more on this later).

Incredibly, Hall resisted the urge to reveal George’s identity outright, publishing instead a password-protected post at his ScroteWatch blog, where he merely reproduced our correspondence alongside my photograph and fake name. The password, imaginatively enough, is “George”.

Despite Hall’s claim that “compassion stayed his hand” in deciding not to out me, he clearly shared the information of my “identity” with at least two other people: fellow wingnuts Leon Bertrand and Andrew Landeryou. The former turned up in the comment thread of the ScroteWatch post, obviously having been given the password by Hall; the latter, of course, revealed all about George on his own blog, naming “conservative Queensland blog patriot Iain Hall” as his source.

Landeryou’s post is ridiculous, even by his usually embarrassing standards. In addition to beating up the non-existent story and quoting an obviously satirical, pun-laden biographical note about Ant Rogenous from Meet the GrodsTeam, he tracked down two real people by the name of George Athanasi and published their addresses.

He owes both of these men a public apology.

As a part of his beat-up, Landeryou also wrote the following about my “blackmail” attempt on Hall:

Legal insiders tell the OC that the threat made by George Athanasi is almost certainly a breach of s.87 of the Victorian Crimes Act, which sets out the offence of blackmail and prescribes a maximum sentence of fifteen years imprisonment for offenders.

So, what was the threat? Here’s what I wrote (since Landeryou conveniently didn’t quote it, preferring instead to make a vague reference to “software privacy (sic)”):

Hi Iain
I trust that your copy of Photoshop is a registered and legally purchased version, as software piracy is a very serious offence. It’d be a terrible shame if you’d obtained the software illegally and someone from Adobe received a tip-off and began asking you some difficult questions.
The easiest way around this tricky situation you might find yourself in is to delete the “Who is Ant Rogenous” post from Scrotewatch and undertake never to refer to me as George again — publicly or privately.
[…]

It’s clearly a preposterous threat, but “blackmail”? Hardly. The section of the Victorian Crimes Act to which Landeryou links hoses down that shrill claim itself:

… a demand with menaces (”blackmail”) is unwarranted unless the person making it does so in the belief-
(a)  that he has reasonable grounds for making the demand; and
(b)  that the use of the menaces is proper means of reinforcing the demand.

Since Hall was threatening to reveal, without my consent, an identity he’d gleaned from my private correspondence, any claim that my threat constitutes blackmail is laughable.

Landeryou’s “legal insiders” seem to be as daft as his source for the information about “George”. But just who are these legal heavyweights to whom he defers? The GrodsInvestigationUnit has narrowed the suspects down to two:

1. The customer-service professional at Brunswick KFC who once patiently explained why Landeryou could not legally use eight two-for-one Colonel Burger vouchers in a single transaction. It is believed that Landeryou was so impressed, he immediately entrusted this 16-year-old with his legal counsel.
2. Self-proclaimed superlawyer Leon Bertrand (pictured below).

“Goo-gah-brrrrrrrr. The prosecution rests”

So, what have the events of the past couple of weeks taught us?

First, Iain Hall is a malicious, unethical net-stalker who, in the absence of an ability to debate intelligently or in good faith, goes after the personal lives of his political opponents, and will swallow the most tenuous bit of bait — which any sane person would recognise immediately for a hoax — if he fancies it’ll give him some leverage. Brigid Gread demonstrated this some time ago with her (admittedly far more complex) sting. Already once bitten, Hall showed that he’s not intelligent enough to be twice shy.

Second, Andrew Landeryou is a miserable, odious peddler of bullshit whose inability to conduct his own research or even rely on that of credible sources gives a good insight into why his business ventures were doomed to abject failure.

In short, we’ve learned nothing we didn’t already know.

People who reside in several safe-houses
to avoid creditors shouldn’t thrown stones

Game off.

PS: Elsewhere, I note that Landeryou is threatening to reveal the identity of another blogger, Chief Bastard (CB) of Bastards Inc. Despite the fact that CB is a malicious, contemptible turd himself, I don’t condone what Landeryou claims he’s about to do. Hopefully “George Athanasi” has taught him to keep it in his pants — or, at the very least, get his facts straight if he’s intent on waving it around.

Stridently heterosexual blogger KG’s long-held fascination with phallic objects continues:

Sigh. I’m too good for some of you. One of you. That’ll be Krypto, who is lamenting the lack of activity on this blog tonight.

But it did get me wondering: what the hell are you all doing tonight? Indeed, how are you all going to spend your long weekend this weekend? Or if you come and look at this blog late on Sunday night, how did you spend your long weekend?

Myself, I’m watching the third season of Blackadder, and it’s very funny. I just love Rowan Atkinson. I’m shocked that I’ve never bothered to watch this show before.

And in about 10 minutes, I’m going to dash to the bottle shop and get another bottle of wine. I’m still sober. Too sober. IT’S A PUBLIC HOLIDAY TOMORROW! Damn. (I’ve just finished watching the episode of the French in England. Damn.)

So, go wild. Say what you like — and say something really offensive so I can delete it.

Oh and Krypto, the name Sam Newman is not allowed on this post, kthxbai.

I suppose that one advantage of being demoted from Foreign Minister to opposition backbencher is that you all of a sudden have a bunch of time on your hands. Some politicians write memoirs, some take up golf, and others start blogs.

From this week onwards I’ll be writing a blog on current issues in Mayo and beyond. You can send me an E Mail and tell me what you think as it’s important for me to get feedback.

As opposed to some other politicians’ “blogs” this one is an actual blog, in that it allows comments (although I’m not sure if they’re moderated.) The few entries so far tend to be long and thoughtful pieces on a range of topics, which is admirable regardless of one’s stance on Downer’s politics. However, as the friend who sent me a link to this blog said in her email “I can’t tell you how much joy this is bringing to my life especially as so many begin with ‘just last week I was talking to [insert former world leader].”

Here are some choice quotes from some of the posts.

Last Wednesday I caught up with an old friend, Chris Patten. He was the last British Governor of Hong Kong…

My putter is Korean. It was given to me by Ban Ki Moon, the Secretary General of the United Nations after I cleaned him up on a splendid course in Seoul.

18 months ago I arrived at the Elysee Palace in Paris and was greeted on the front steps by President Chirac.

Over breakfast with Madeleine Albright…

This week I asked Condi Rice if she was backing a horse in this race.

I look forward to reading more of Alexander Downer’s name-dropping blog-of-showing-off.

Last week, KG — that gun-totin’ gay-hatin’ darling of the rational right — posted a typically well-reasoned response to the Daily Telegraph’s idiotic front-page story about the “gay lobby’s” push to ban teachers using words like “mum”, “dad”, “husband” and “wife” in NSW schools.

In his post’s comment thread, a tongue-in-cheek remark from yours truly (suggesting that another wingnut’s comment had made KG seem almost “moderate”) elicited this astonishing mish-mash of paranoid, bigoted and utterly retarded conspiracy theory from the blogosphere’s most likely serial-killer-to-be:

If I sound moderate, then there’s obviously a failure on my part to communicate properly.
Homosexuality is aberrant behaviour and that behaviour is entirely the business of those affected..until those people attack the traditional family structure and attempt to promote homosexuality as being somehow “normal”.
That they can do so via the schools speaks volumes about the moral standards of teacher’s unions.
That the Left is at the forefront of this disgusting social engineering speaks volumes about the moral poverty
of you lot.
Moderate? No–I’d kill leftists on sight if it were possible to do so and get away with it, as sweet revenge for the damage you’ve caused to society.

Well, he certainly showed me!

Anyway, last night’s Media Watch exposed the Daily Telegraph’s story for the shameful beat-up that it was. It’s a longish tale, but one that’s worth reading if you weren’t aware of the Tele’s appalling approach to research and journalistic ethics; or, as is far more likely, you were aware of it and simply enjoy seeing that pitiful rag cop the kicking it so thoroughly deserves.

And don’t forget to stay tuned to Crusader Rightard for KG’s admission that he got his facts woefully wrong.

If he’s even half the gentleman I think he is, his apology will be up on his blog in no time flat.

Well, well, well. I want to talk about that fantastic Daily Telegraph (online), the Sydney NewsLtd staple rag. You know, the one where Tim Blair is the Opinion Editor (with emphasis on ‘editor’).

Last night in Granville, a western suburb of Sydney, a young man was stabbed and sadly died sometime later. The Daily Telegraph duly reported the crime, with updates as to the identity of the murder victim later in the day.

I read the article and when I got to the final paragraph, which said, in part:

Police are appealing for anyone who may have witnessed the incident or noticed a group of black/African males in the vicinity…

Here we go, I thought. If the calibre of the Telegraph’s target audience is anything to go by, surely the comments will contain some elements of racism and xenophobia. Oh, and maybe Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, NSW State Premier Morris Iemma and the soft-on-crime judges and magistrates and the whole legal system might get a mention as well.

I’m going to show you some of these comments. Editing and bolding mine for length and emphasis respectively, and typos left alone for posterity. Let’s have a look at the first comment, shall we?

Another stabbing takes place, while this Iemma government sits on its backside and absoluutely refuses to ramp up legislation in reviewing the laws involving the use and/or carrying of knives. Tearful Magistrates and Lawyers who would tell the community that the attacker is misunderstood and would be given a menial sentence or another Good Behaviour Bond allow these people to attack again. legislation that takes away the discretion of the judiciary to refuse to impose very very hefty Jail time for these cretins is needed…NOW.
Posted by: Mike Knowles of Sydney

Ah, Mike Knowles of Sydney, alarmist extraordinaire. Expert opinion on how to run everything: schools, unis, prisons, courts, parliament, you name it, he knows how it should be run.

That aside, BINGO. Morris Iemma gets the blame, as do ‘tearful’ magistrates and lawyers. What’s the go with the capital letters for ‘Good Behaviour Bond’, though?

Crime is the biggest concern for this country.
Posted by: Paul of Central Coast

Young gangs –not global warming, not tax evasion, not money laundering and not war on terrorism–will soon create havoc and fear in Australia unless the government and justice system clean up their acts and get tough on these crimes.
Posted by: huskies of Parramatta

Gulp. Seems to me that Paul and huskies are diagnosing the country’s problems in two short paragraphs, with no regard for statistics, evidence, proof, studies, nothing. But they’re right, you know. When I catch the train home from work, I stand on the platform in a semi-orderly fashion with other commuters, allowing passengers to disembark before boarding. When I walk to the shops on Saturday mornings, I am assaulted by the chattering of a diverse group of people enjoying brunch. When I withdraw money from the ATM, people stand a decent distance behind and don’t wrestle me for my cash and shoes.

Oh it’s a big, huge, massive problem blighting the nation, alright. AND I’M A VICTIM!

I wonder if they have heard of the term moral panic, just out of curiousity? Hmm. Ya reckon they have? No? OK, then.

another life taken through crime - when is this going to end. I think the Rudd government should do something about this before it happens again. we have seen enough crime and violence in this country..
Posted by: jr of nsw

Yeah, so get cracking, PM Rudd. Just ignore all that state intervention and constitutional stuff, and crack down on crime, pronto!

Zero Tolerance is well overdue for NSW. If it worked for New York city, it’ll work here. Considering the utter incompetance of the Carr/Iemma Governments on Policing, I’m surprised the Liberals have not picked up this ball and run with it yet.
Posted by: Pacman of Ryde

Sigh. How little ‘zero tolerance’ is understood. For a start, although crime rates in NYC may have dropped under Giuliani’s ‘zero tolerance’ era, “many criminologists question the precise part played by the police in this process. They point out that the reductions in crime in New York City must be viewed in the context of a general reduction in the major US cities in recent years. A diversity of causes are said to lie behind these developments, including the sustained period of economic growth in the US in the 1990s and the changing nature of the drug market in this period…”

Not only that, but as criminologist Chris Cunneen has argued, implementing a ‘zero tolerance’ policy in Australia would lead to, inter alia, civil liberties violations, court jams, more people in prison (which are already overcrowded, as it is), and there is little evidence to suggest that it would reduce crime and drug use. The get-tough tactics of the New York police look a lot better from a distance. It doesn’t mean that the alleged success of ‘zero tolerance’ in NYC would be just as successful in NSW, or elsewhere. (1)

Anyway, back to the pathetic comments. They get nastier, the comments (admist all the blame Rudd/Iemma/legal system). Like this one:

What nationality (or background) this time? Western Sydney is a Crime Capital - thuggery criminal behaviour that has proven in the past will spread to other innocent suburbs! Be assured, these people are low life scum and do not care who they hurt. Crime is not being managed at a state or federal level….but wait……we had the 20/20 summit and we may get our not wanted republic!
Posted by: hazy of Chatswood

‘What nationality or background this time?’ Did s/he really ask that?! What if the answer came back as Caucasian, white, pure as the driven snow? You know, like the Morans or the Williams, those murderous white boys.

Fuck you, hazy, for even asking.

But there’s worse:

Well, considering where it happened and who the police are looking for, I can’t say I’m terribly surprised… Guess who’s moved in? Any guesses why I’ve moved out?
Posted by: Michelle

Come on, Michelle, say what you really want to say.

Wow, I thought the africans in our country were generally pretty cool and peaceful. Racial gangs have to go. Its not worth it.
Posted by: PW of Surry Hills

An incident in Granville involving a small number of ‘blacks/Africans’ and all of a sudden, all the Africans in ‘our’ country are not cool and peaceful anymore, is that what you’re honestly saying, PW?! And just WHAT THE FUCK are ‘racial gangs’? And when you’ve answered that, they have to go where?

C’mon.

Anyway, as bad as all the above comments are, this one has to take the cake for sheer stupidity:

…Why won’t Dr Brendan Nelson do something to help the crime? He ought to be struck off the register.
Posted by: Wassa

I’m the last person to defend Dr Brendan Nelson (actually, The Editor might be the last in the line), but this comment is just so obviously asinine and ridiculous, I’m sure I don’t have to point out why.

I think I’m going to have to give up reading the Daily Telegraph online, for my sanity.

(1) Cunneen, C. 1999. Zero tolerance policing and the experience of New York City. Current Issues in Criminal Justice 10 (3):229-313.

*Title of this post is a line from the Billie Holiday song, “Strange Fruit” - a song that condemned American racism and lynching.

UPDATE: Yes, I know it’s a long post. There’s a LOT OF SHIT TO GET THROUGH ON THE DAILY TELEGRAPH, OKAY?!

UPDATE II: Almost Always Wrong reckons this post is too scholarly for Grods. Bollocks, I say. One, it’s not scholarly - not if you’re critiquing a tabloid’s online comments. Two, if them RWDB from you-know-where are pissed off by my leftist rant (or in the very slight chance that they rethink their silly ideas on crime and race), then I’ve reached nirvana.

The wise Leon has created a horseshoe chart that shows what he believes is the political spectrum. Kudos on putting Hitler on the right. Most of your cronies would have put him next to Marx.

In keeping with the spirit I have created my own horseshoe chart: