It is with regret that I announce my decision to stop updating the Righty Groupthink Tracker. This is due to the drastic increase in clicking required to complete the task since Blair’s blog move to the Terrorgraph’s website. You see, prior to his move all I needed to do to monitor the groupthinking blogs of Blair and Bolt was to subject my eyes to them in my RSS reader, but the RSS feed of Blair’s new blog contains post summaries only. So to read Blair’s posts I now have to click through to the actual site and then click on the “read more” link at the end of each individual post. TOO MUCH CLICKY!

I apologise for my lack of dedication to the important task of pernicious groupthink monitoring but I take comfort from the fact that since October 2006 GrodsCorp has successfully exposed the extent of intellectual (sic) duplication between the two RWDBs.

AB luvs TB 4 eva

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.

The West Australian has responded to the Buswell chair affair with a little get-even dirt-digging. The West Oz’s journos had to delve back to 2004 to find anything of note: a boozy ALP function where Labor premier Alan Carpenter allegedly lifted the top of MP Jaye Radisich and exposed her bra.

‘Commenting‘ on the story, Andrew Bolt just can’t help himself and engages in the kind of base sexism and personal denigration we’ve come to expect from certain low-brow bloggers. He inserts the above pic as ‘ftgg.bmp‘ (as all sub-editors would know filenames for pictures are rarely random; draw your own conclusions what it might mean) and captions it with:

I suspect that [WA Labor MP Jaye] Radisich would certainly have noticed had [WA premier Alan] Carpenter attempted the job of lifting her top.

The Boltmeister then goes on to suggest that Carpenter’s alleged bra-lifting is actually worse than Buswell’s chair-sniffing because it is more “direct”, whereas Buswell was just “alarmingly inventive”. How cute. And all this moralising is predicated on an event that Carpenter denies, Radisich has never mentioned let alone complained about, and staff at the aforementioned function apparently did not witness. Not that either Bolta or the West Oz are likely to let the facts get in the way of a good smear job.

What an age we live in. Today people aren’t content with merely reading the news, they also have a weird urge to crawl up out of the ground and soil the news with idiodic comments. Consider this comment about the 2020 Summit from The Age’s website:

In my view the most pressing issue of our time in terms of Australia’s identity is stopping the downward socialist spiral we are on, and preventing Chairman Rudd’s attempts at making Australia the 34th province of China.

His socialist bent is disturbing at the very least, most recently his universal childcare program that is obviously intended to imprint his socialist doctine (sic) on children straight out of the womb.

All hail Bolt!

I’ve been sitting on a GrodsExclusive for a while now, which I’ve been reluctant to post for reasons that will soon become apparent. However, a recent comment here by Dave From Albury convinced me to break my silence:

[…]
Do you understand how debasing it must be to put your name to the kind of shit that Andrew Bolt has published? The man deserves the Grand High Medal of Rupert for his efforts.

The fact is that Andrew Bolt has been rewarded for his efforts over the past few years, as have several of his News Ltd stable-mates — not by Rupert Murdoch, but by the man who holds the biggest place in his (and their) heart(s): John Winston Howard.

A News Ltd insider emailed me a few weeks ago and revealed, under the condition of anonymity, that shortly after Howard’s ignominious defeat in the 2007 federal election, the former prime minister personally sent a special gift to each of his most sycophantic lickspittles strident supporters in the press; a touching memento of their faithful service over the course of his time in office.

Say what you will about John Howard, but there’s no denying he knows how to look after the people who so vigorously looked after him.

For two years Jeremy Sear has worked hard at BoltWatch to focus a magnifying glass over Andrew Bolt’s writing, but given that Andrew Bolt and Tim Blair so furiously groupthink it seemed only logical that their writing was watched in unison. So today Jeremy, along with GrodsCorp’s The Editor and Ant Rogenous, are pleasured to launch The Blair/Bolt Watch Project which has as its mission: “tackling the multiple idiocies of the Australian blogosphere’s most giant, useless forces.”

Go visit. Comment. Have a cup of tea.

Do we all remember when Andrew Bolt declared the Iraq war over? I was surprised as anybody when he paid for this billboard space recently to advertise the fact:

Just like GrodsCorp has been taking the piss out of Brendan Nelson’s Magical Listening Tour, Andrew Bolt has been taking the piss out of Kevin Rudd’s world tour. Bolta’s main argument has been that Rudd is doing nothing more than chasing photo opportunities with world leaders despite the fact that Rudd’s out there doing very diligently what national leaders are supposed to do. The latest target for Bolta’s derision is Rudd’s meeting with French pres Nicolas Sarkozy.

The great autograph hunt continues:

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has held a 15-minute meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the NATO summit in Bucharest.

Hello. Pose for camera. Goodbye.

But here’s a real journalist’s take on the meeting.

FRENCH President Nicolas Sarkozy has told Prime Minister Kevin Rudd that France will back Australia’s bid to get a seat on the United Nations Security Council.

France’s backing gets Australia’s campaign off to a good start because it is one of the five permanent members of the Security Council.

Mr Rudd, who launched the bid when he met UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the weekend, raised the matter during a 25-minute meeting with Mr Sarkozy before the start of the NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania.

“The President indicated France would be happy to support that bid,” a spokesman for Mr Rudd said.

Mr Sarkozy also indicated he may be travelling to the French territories in the Pacific later this year and if possible he would also like to visit Australia.

The two leaders discussed areas such as Afghanistan, climate change, and stronger economic ties between Australia and Europe.

Security council. Afghanistan war. Possible visit by French president to Australia. How utterly trivial!

I actually find it rather disgusting that Andrew Bolt can dismiss the Prime Minister of this country networking with prominent world leaders at a NATO forum as autograph hunting. Can you imagine John Howard receiving the same treatment from Bolta’s poison pen?

Oh, Andrew Bolt, you kidder you.

Stephen Mayne has been onto this story for a while, and for once he’s close to the truth. Given that I’m told he’s planning to write about this again, probably as soon as this morning, I want to say something here first before he does.

This is it for the blog, at least for now. I can’t pre-empt the announcement that my local member and friend, Peter Costello, is about to make, but it would clearly be a conflict of interest for me to continue to write about politics here if I’ve privately agreed to become a player.

That’s the lamest April Fool’s joke since another joke of a blogger pulled his lame April Fool’s joke last year. I’m onto you. Jeremy is onto you.

Giveaways:

1) The post was published at 12:03am.
2) As if you’d not “pre-empt the announcement that my local member and friend, Peter Costello, is about to make” by doing just that.
3) As if you’d get preselection over Michael Kroger, Julian Sheezal and Prodos.

Nice try, fool.

The Editor, John Surname, Ant Rogenous, Jeremy Sear and Craig discuss:

* Australia 2020 summit
* Wealth distribution
* The War On Drinking
* Beijing Olympics
* Andrew Bolt vs. Robert Manne in the naked GrodsThink cagefight to the death

** Because there’s still a blockage in the (inter)tubes use only the “Play in popup” link or the “Download” link. **

 

 GrodsThink 9 (25/3/08) [27:48m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Subscribe:   

We reported yesterday about Andrew Bolt’s dodgy use of blockquotes, editorialising and selective reporting to make a point about the delegates selected to the Australia 2020 summit and smear The Sunday Age in the process. (By the way, he has today added to his list of delegates, deliberately using the same style of bullets to make a point.) In his post he labelled nutritionist Rosemary Stanton as an “anti GM food campaigner” which is bad, you see. She’s a filthy lefty hippy, or something like that. One of Bolta’s commenters took the bait and wrote the following.

What?????

This is the woman who, and I kid you not, in her book Food for Life, defines nursing as “standing with light activity”

*slams head on desk again*
– Nemesis12

This comment triggered the kind of response you’d expect until Rosemary Stanton herself dropped into Bolt’s blog-of-shame to set the message straight.

Before damning me, you might get your facts straight. I have written many books but none titled Food for Life and none that say that nursing is ‘standing with light activity’.
– Rosemary Stanton

Without having read any of Stanton’s books this seems like a pretty open-and-shut case. It’s unlikely that Stanton would make such a statement unless it were actually true. But Bolt’s response to this clarification is stunning in its arrogance and lack of ethics — even for him.

UPDATE

Rosemary Stanton replies - kind of - in comments below.

Can you imagine Bolta’s response if he were misquoted, defended himself, and then had his defence dismissed as such? You’d hear the screaming at the Southbank HWT building all the way from Brunswick.

UPDATE (6:45pm): Norbett in comments provides further info that seems to weaken Stanton’s denial but still leaves the fact that Bolt supports his commenter’s inference that nurses do no work.

I’m not a huge fan of the government’s planned Australia 2020 summit, but Andrew Bolt’s hatred of the idea makes me look like a fanatical supporter. I think it’s an idea with merit but the way it’s been setup and will be run will ultimately lead to very little useful discussion and no real generation of ideas. But Bolta thinks it’s a pernicious lefty groupthinking love-in, and perniciously twists The Sunday Age’s words to make his point.

Kevin Rudd announces more delegates to his 2020 summit love in. As predicted, the latest confirm that most invitations are going to people who share the Left’s agenda

Here’s a list of summit delegates on The Sunday Age’s website.

And here’s the layout Bolt used in his blog post.

See how he’s placed The Sunday Age’s list in a blockquote, suggesting that it’s a — you know — quote? But he’s also added names to the list that were in the paper’s story text but not in the list. And see how he’s selectively added his own extra notes to delegates’ bios to emphasise the evil leftiness?

The Sunday Age:

Rodney Dillon, former ATSIC commissioner.

Bolta:

Rodney Dillon, former ATSIC commissioner, stolen generations activist and campaigner for the return of Aboriginal remains.

Campaigner for the return of Aboriginial remains? Evil man!

The Sunday Age:

Waleed Aly, a member of the Islamic Council of Victoria executive and a lecturer in the global terrorism research centre at Monash University who will join the committee dealing with Australia’s future security.

Bolta:

Waleed Aly, Islamic Council of Victoria executive member and a lecturer in the global terrorism research centre at Monash University and “war on terror” critic (to go on group discussing security)

“War on verbs” critic and Muslim? He must be a terrorist who wants to bring down Western civilisation!

The Sunday Age:

Rosemary Stanton, nutritionist.

Bolta:

Rosemary Stanton, nutritionist and anti GM food campaigner.

Anti-GM food? Hippy.

But here’s my favourite. The Sunday Age:

Ana Kikkinos (sic), best known for the TV series The Secret Life of Us and Young Lions and the film Head On

Bolta:

Ana Kokkinos, director of TV series The Secret Life of Us and Young Lions and the gay cult film Head On

Gay? Cult? Gay cult? Aaargh! Sound the moral alarm! Teh gays are in a cult and they’re attacking! They’re going to make our kids join the cult and give them teh gay and make them vote Green!

Bolta also inserted some delegates into the list who weren’t in The Sunday Age’s story.

Andrew Denton, Left-wing TV presenter

Evil, evil lefties!

Fiona Stanley, paediatrician and fierce Bush hater

Evil, evil Bush haterers!

Michael Tate, former Keating justice minister.

Paul Keating? Evil!

Christine Nixon, Victorian chief commissioner who’s project has been to feminise the force and make it “non-authoritarian”

Evil, evil women. Get back in the kitchen.

Sara Haghdoosti, member of the International Women’s Day organising committee and a former women’s officer for the Sydney University Student Representative Council

Women organising? Evil!

But the most telling part is the way that Bolta hasn’t added any information to the following delegates.

Bolta:

Professor Joshua Gans, Melbourne economist.

GrodsCorp:

Professor Joshua Gans, right-wing Melbourne economist.

Bolta:

Lachlan Murdoch, media investor.

GrodsCorp:

Lachlan Murdoch, media investor and son of the owner of the largest and most right-wing media conglomerate in the world. Oh, and also the son of the man who pays Bolta’s wages.

Just another sly and dishonest effort from Australia’s shrillest journalist (sic).

UPDATE (11:50am): Blogger Gummo Trotsky pointed out to Bolta in the comments of his blog his dodgy use of a blockquote and italics…

Nice use of italics to suggest that the list, with descriptions, is quoted verbatim from one of your two sources when in fact the editorialising is all your own work.

…and got a terse response from a clearly rattled Bolta.

There is no intention to mislead, Mr Troll, and a quick click on the links I provided would make clear the facts. But if it makes you feel happier, I’ll take the words out of italics.

That’ll make it much clearer, Mr Journalist (sic).

UPDATE II (12:00pm): My response to the removal of italics.

UPDATE III (2:00pm): An angry commenter threw down a challenge to the above comment…

Oh for heaven’s sake. Grow up and make a comment on the actual content of the post or go away.

…so I replied that I had made comment on the substance of the article and provided a link to this post. Unfortunately it seems at this point that I’ve been SNIPPED.

UPDATE IV (2:40pm): Bolta has responded to my comment about the blockquote and copied bullet points. I believe he has perfected the skill of shriek-typing.

Oh, and my comment with a link to this post is still SNIPPED.

If nothing else, the storm of RWDB indignation over Jeremy Sear’s parking ticket post has exposed the pecking order within the blog chain of righty groupthink.

	At the top of the chain is Timmeh Blair who sparked the groupthinking.
	Next in the chain is Andrew Bolt who, as Blair’s number one groupthinking partner, thunk along as usual with Blair.
	And at the bottom of the chain are various bottom feeding and illiterate bloggers around regional Australia who desperately seek Blair and Bolt’s attention by furiously groupthinking with them.

Sear was just feeding the chooks.

ps/- Despite the order of the groupthink food chain, the results were interesting when Bolt and Blair fought to the death in a naked cage fight.

The Editor, John Surname, Ant Rogenous, Jeremy Sear and Craig discuss:

* Brendan Nelson’s “vision” thing
* Mercy Ministries and Gloria Jeans
* Peter Garrett flip, flop and flapping
* Basil Brush is a racist bastard
* Andrew Bolt vs. Tim Blair in a naked GrodsThink cage fight to the death

** Because there’s still a blockage in the (inter)tubes use only the “Play in popup” link or the “Download” link. **

 

 GrodsThink 8 (18/3/08) [35:27m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Subscribe:   

Ideological bantamweight Tim Blair has ridiculed youth minister Kate Ellis’ performance in Parliament today, and in doing so has linked to a completely unrelated photo of her in air-force kit. Go figure.

Anyway, in keeping with the tone of irrelevance, I have a question: who looks more ridiculous tarted up in battle fatigues — Kate Ellis…

… or Timmeh’s adorable little mate, Right Wing Commander Andrew Bolt?