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

* Blogging
* Kevin Rudd’s first 100 days
* The Liberal Party
* Brendan Nelson
* Interest rates
* Cricket
* The Herald Sun
* David Hicks
* Dick Smith
* Osama Bin Laden
* Prince Harry
* Connex
* Lynne Kosky
* Public transport
* Victorian Labor Party
* Fleshlight
* What is the plural of “penis”?
* Liberal leadership future

** I don’t know why but that bloody “Play now” link is still serving up episode four. I have no solution yet. Something to do with the intertubes broken or something. Just to be safe, use the “Play in popup” link or the “Download” link. **

 

 GrodsThink 6 (4/3/08) [31:13m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 GrodsThink RSS feed

Some bastard has been in my house at bedtime listening into conversations between McBec and I.

I’ve been dagged by Krypto and must give three reasons why I bog.

1) It’s an efficient way to digest news and world affairs.
2) It’s introduced me to a world of glorious feculence.
3) It’s more fun than talking shit.

In accordance with the rules of this meme, and in keeping with the theme of my post, I tag: KG, MK and Dr Tingtong.

Magic Bellybutton has tagged me with a meme of Bruce origin. Three reasons why I blog and then pass it along to three more bloggers.

1) I like having an audience for my writing and other shite. Any blogger who says they don’t is probably telling porkies. I feel satisfaction at having built a half-decent readership of people whose comments make me LOL.

2) I like the discipline of having to write and the challenge of trying to make my writing better.

3) Profit. Since GrodsCorp’s launch nearly four years ago I have made over $-500 when revenue is offset against running costs.

I tag John Surname, Damian, and Krypto.

Every day Andrew Bolt likes to create an open thread for his readers to crap on about whatever they wish in a safe, supervised place. I’ve always thought that open threads are the ultimate in lazy blogging — just like mockumentaries are the laziest form of filmmaking. Bolta usually writes something boring or something that is an attempt at wittery to introduce his open threads. Something like “Have your say here,” or “Give it your best shot here.” But today Bolta has gone into full conspiracy mode with this the-lefties-are-taking-over
-and-restricting-my-right-to-speak-despite-my-bi-weekly-newspaper-column-and-popular-blog
-and-regular-appearances-on-radio-programs-and-television-shows introduction.

Say your say here, while free speech is still kind of possible.

What?

It’s Christmas hols so blogging is reduced to reproducing amusing snippets of Gmail chat conversation. This one’s with the Anonymous Blogger Who Played Billy In Lachlan Connor, Independent (ABWPBILCI).

ABWPBILCI: i was thinking the other day
why didn’t we vodcast lachlan?

The Editor: I don’t even know what that means.

ABWPBILCI: pffft

The Editor: You mean through iTunes or something?

ABWPBILCI: yeah

The Editor: Maybe boost the hits from 35 to 40…

ABWPBILCI: to a million!

The Editor: FUCK!!!!

ABWPBILCI: we could’ve put in ads
made, maybe, as much as $15

The Editor: Sell-out.

ABWPBILCI: i’m all about the selling out
my name is really Maggi

The Editor: Hah!

ABWPBILCI: Maggi Whiskers Jonnie Walker

The Editor: I love Whiskers.

ABWPBILCI: sorry, Whiskas I think it is

The Editor: That too.

ABWPBILCI: on a teachers salary it provides ample nutrients

The Editor: And it comes in a variety of flavours.

ABWPBILCI: and essential snouts

The Editor: Gotta run.
Gonna blog this conversation (it’s xmas — lazy blogging is allowed) and then go to the shops.

ABWPBILCI: who gives a shit what we say?

The Editor: Who gives a shit about anything we write?

ABWPBILCI: :( that’s it, bloggings over

The guvment is considering a “consultation blog” to engage folks in the democratic process. It’s all about e-government, Web2.0 and other funky buzzwords:

Government agencies in Australia have traditionally involved citizens and community in the processes and decisions that affect them. With the advent of e-government and the increasing use of information and communication technologies to enhance government service delivery, opportunities arise for agencies to engage and involve citizens and communities through new channels.

[…]

The rise of new multimedia broadband technologies such as Web 2.0 bring a stream of digital innovations that are transforming the way people use the Internet and the way in which they communicate. Specifically, Web 2.0 provides amongst other things, real time interaction, democratized web spaces, user generated content and citizen journalism. People’s use of these new innovations is driving expectations for new approaches to the way government interact. Governments cannot ignore these changing social dynamics, especially in relation to citizen engagement.

Sounds like a great idea on the face of it. However, perhaps these Web1.0 bureaucrats should spend some time reading political blog comment threads to see how little they resemble reasoned, intelligent debate. Just as only fanatic, partisan people and organisations bother to write submissions for government inquiries, only fanatic, partisan people and organisations will bother to engage with the e-forum. Plus there’s the added Godwin’s factor and the Iain; Hall factor.

And finally, blogs that don’t have pictures of cats can’t be taken seriously.

Hello to all the righties who read this blog. I don’t know how many of you there are, and frankly, I don’t want to know.

But maybe I’m a bit harsh sometimes. I feel that after my “truths of the left” revelation, I should do another post to help you out. You need all the help you can get. Look at you. Are you licking the oil out of a sardine tin as you read this? Yes? Well, then listen up.

Many of you probably read right-wing blogs (like Bolt, Blair, AWH, RWDB, and Landeryou) and ask yourselves “How can I write a blog like that? And just why does this tin keep cutting my tounge?”. Well, I am here to answer one of those questions. The blog one. The tin one you’ll have to answer on your own.

Using examples from some of Australia’s most popular right-wing blogs, I intend to demonstrate how to write a self-serving, dishonest post with lots of blaming, leftie bashing, context changing and quote misuse.

1. Blame the left

For God’s sake, blame everything on the left. Right-wing bloggers blame everything on the left. From the War going badly, to David Hick’s lengthy incarceration, nothing is their fault. The idea that the left might have always been right on these issues is a scary one, so they merely turn to blaming when the heat is on.

2. Dishonesty

When quoting make sure you take it out of context entirely. Very rarely do the readers of Tim Blair actually click on the link and read the entire articles for themselves.
For example:

Fairfax blogger (and pal) Jack Marx:

“I think I’m losing my patience with the stupid … I’ve worked at some of the most allegedly foolish periodicals in the nation - The Truth, Ralph, The Picture - but it’s only at Fairfax that I’ve received such stupid correspondence from readers.”

There Blair ended the post, without even commenting on it, allowing for the false insinuation that Jack Marx thought Fairfax readers were of low intelligence. Had they clicked on the link themselves, they would have found Marx’s follow-on:

“I don’t think one can assume from this that the Fairfax readership is dim, but simply that it has a longer reach than the others.”

Bolt and Blair are especially notorious for this kind of dishonesty. When you are a true right-wing blogger, you will think nothing of twisting comments, quotes and contexts to create your own truths. Both of them are so convinced they are right, that they think nothing of this kind of behaviour as long as their original intention gets through - in Blair’s case, that Fairfax readers are stupid. Right-wing blog readers don’t question this kind of blogging as they want to believe it.

Another good example is a recent post on global warming by Bolt:

More than two dozen demonstrators braved cold, wet weather Saturday in Reno to attend a rally designed to draw attention to global warming.

You’d have to be puffin’ muffins, cuddling cactus and an absolute dingleberry to believe that any downward change in the weather cancels out global warming. Bolt knows this, but still writes dishonest posts like this in the (very likely) chance that people will read this and believe it. Again, he is so convinced he is right that he is more than willing to trick people into his point of view through dishonest methods.

3. Hate The Age

Australia’s best daily, The Age, attracts much scorn from most right wing blogs. Why? Because it’s left-wing, and there is no comparable right-wing paper. The Herald Sun is a joke. The Age has superior news coverage, a fact reflected in the right-wing blogs linkage to their website. In the case of Andrew Landeryou, however, the agenda is slightly murkier.

You see, Landeryou’s company IQ (which eventually went broke) was contracted to deliver sports statistics to The Age. They didn’t deliver, and The Age went elsewhere. Subsequently, Landeryou spends his life trying to pick fights with Age writers, claiming it’s a “vile, leftist rag” when in reality, his beef lies with the fact they fired him and his company.

Does he disclose any of this? No.

Gerard Henderson claims that The Age should move to the centre. He’d love that, as it would leave no major left-wing daily in Australia. Like many on the right (AWH, I’m looking at you) he spends his time extolling the virtues of free-speech, meanwhile speaking out against anyone who doesn’t share his view, demanding they should change (MediaWatch, for example).

4. Make false accusations about “The Left”.

Make sure you make those with left wing views sound like a monster that is about to tear down the city, and ruin your life and the lives of everyone you care about. Don’t refer to them as people, refer to them as “The Left”. Example, claim the left are “hateful”.

According to good ol’ Jonny Ray:

Leftists are great haters and to cover up their own hatreds — of America, the rich, WASPS, the bourgeoisie and anyone who is happily doing well for themselves.

Not true, of course, as many lefties live in America, drive BMW’s, are white and hell, some of us even work (unlike a popular right-wing blogger).

Of course, the right only hate people like minorities, atheists, anyone of colour, and lefties which is okay, as evidenced in this regrettable post by one Tiberius on AWH:

“The filth of the treasonous left has been allowed to fester for too long, and it has now become so bad that the wound can no longer simply be drained of pus. The whole limb must be excised.”

Not hateful at all. Now, please notice that all comments on that post have been removed.

Free speech, anyone?

5. Groupthink

Think only the left groupthink? Wrong. Spend your time linking to other right-wing blogs that share your point of view (but don’t actually explain why they have that point of view, like Blair), and all your little anonymous righty friends will post vauge attacks on the left on your blog.

So anyway, I hope this has been a help to any wannabe right-wing bloggers out there. If you have anymore to add, don’t forget to in the comments.

__________

The Editor Updates (17 April): Andrew Landeryou has emailed Lachlan Connor who has, in turn, forwarded the message to me. It reads in part:

Whoever is telling you that Fairfax didn’t want my little company providing footy stats when we pulled the plug on them is pulling your chain.

The simple truth is that we walked away from the contract, forcing them to negotiate with the wolves of News Limited who were their only other source at the time. And from memory, they were rather ruthlessly screwed by them on it. Apparently the Fairfaxistas came back to us several times but by then we’d moved on from the whole very labour intensive and not particularly prospective activity to focus on other ultimately not particularly profitable activities.

In the few years IQ dealt with them, the provision of footy stats being a pretty small part of the business and my contempt for The Age being much the same then as it now is, I never actually met with anyone from Fairfax. So your “explanation” of my dislike of them is in fact utterly bullshit. As is your claim that I hadn’t “disclosed” the fact that IQ had done business with them. It’s no secret, mentioned on my blog and in at least one Age story I can recall.

The email threatened that if a correction wasn’t published then Lachlan “must surely know what happens next.” I don’t know for sure but I suspect it has something to do with photoshopping a photo of Lachlan Connor into a compromising image of a man and a sheep. You know, the standard kind of thing that goes on over at Landeryou’s website. Lachlan tells me he’s suffering in his jocks.

GrodsCorp has always given right of reply to those who are featured in blog posts and Landeryou has now been afforded the same opportunity as everybody else. As Landeryou himself is so fond of saying: “we report, you decide.”

Slipheed at Boredomistan has offered $50 in cold, hard cash to any blogger in the blogosphere who catches him out using the word “blogosphere” from now unto eternity. For some reason he hates the word “blogosphere” but uses the term “yang to my yin” in the same post without blinking.

Get over there and win yerself a fiddy. Oh, and look around the site while you’re there — good for a workday giggle.