Thanks, Daily Telegraph, for this godawful photoshopping.

I wonder how long they’ve been dying to use that one?

UPDATE:

While perusing the Daily Telegraph online after the Budget to see if there were any other terrible photoshopping jobs, not only did I come across a claim by Doc Nelson that Labor’s first Budget in over a decade is “bringing back a left-wing agenda” (you serious, Doc?) and Julie Bishop’s claim that the Budget is a “war on wealth” (you and your poor rich friends, my condolences), I came across some piss-funny sulking from the wonderful Peter Costello, after his doorstop pre-Budget media interview this morning.

Snippet:

He bristled when Sky News political editor David Speers suggested that he knew the speculation [about Costello’s leadership intentions] was damaging the [Liberal] party.

“Oh, do I? Well you say it is. Why don’t you interview yourselves?” Mr Costello said, putting on a mock deep broadcast voice. “You know, ‘David Speers - it’s damaging.’ ‘Is it?’ ‘I say it is.’ ‘No it’s not.’

“I’ve got to say to you that after dealing with you people for 20 years I just don’t feel that I have to be at your beck and call.”

Other journalists pointed out that he had called the doorstop.

But it was veteran Fairfax journalist Michelle Grattan who drew his ire when she said he appeared sensitive on the topic.

“Oh I’m sensitive am I Michelle? I’m sensitive,” he said to the reporter.

“I’m standing here looking so sensitive aren’t I? Furrowed brow, worried - how sensitive do I look Michelle? You ought to go and get a new prescription.”

Michelle Grattan wears glasses.

UPDATE II:

The Daily Tele goes from bad to worse with their oh-so-funny puns on Wayne Swan’s name.

Blogger and Daily Telegraph opinion editor, Timmeh Blair, has struck a deal with his employer for the right to do officially what most bloggers do on the sly: blog on work time using work bandwidth. Blair this morning announced that he will be moving his extremely popular blogging activities from timblair.net to the Tele’s website.

This raises all sorts of questions about the pros and cons of such a transition from independent blogger with no real parameters for posts and comments to commercial media blogger bound by pesky rules about things like defamation and commercial interests. We’re planning on fully discussing these issues in tomorrow’s GrodsThink. (End shameless plug.)

But the moment I read Tim’s transfer news this morning I knew that the most interesting thing to watch would be the reaction of his winged monkey commenters who are acutely aware that their days of unmoderated freedom are over. Hilariously, they are bitching on the one hand about the moderation system at the new site which will surely prune 75% of their comments…

So we have to go back to a moderation system Tim?
– Ash_

held for moderator approval

Leave it to a dead tree publication with a website to kill the spontaneity of the threads, which are half the fun…
– Bruce Rheinstein

…but bitching on the other hand about losing the moderation provided by the infamous Andrea Harris, Administrator at the old site.

I miss Andrea already. Can’t you take her with you? Doesn’t seem right somehow.
– Mambo Bananapatch

So who will boot the morons and moonbats if not Andrea?
– Steve Skubinna

For the first time ever Blair’s winged monkeys are going to have to deal with — gasp! — alternative viewpoints without the safety net provided by Andrea’s overzealous use of the delete button. No wonder some are declaring Timmeh’s blogging days over.

Oh well - this is the end of an era and the end of free ranging comments and expression. If anyone wants an idea of what Tim’s new site will be like, just have a look at comments section on Andrew Bolt’s blog

No more free ranging fucking comments!

In fact I remember posting a couple of times to Australian newspaper blogs (not sure if it was the Australian or Bolt) but they did not appear. Either my pseudonym or comments (and they were clean) were unacceptable.

So it definitely will be no more fucking comments. And I dare say there will be no room for detective paco’s adventures. Sigh

Farewell Tim Blair’s Blog
– Wand

I feel like my favourite pub has closed.

Need to find a new one. Been looking at an interesting establishment down the road a bit.

Do you serve Aussie reds at your place Andrea?
– Pogria

But spare a thought for poor Andrea Harris, Administrator who now wields exactly zero power and exerts exactly zero influence over Blair and his ragtag bunch of defaming muppets, not to mention over the lefty minions of evil who dare oppose Timmeh’s thoughts. No wonder she’s left with no option but to beg people to visit her blog despite its complete lack of any content worth reading.

Hey guys, I have a website of my own. I even post to it from time to time. However, my posts aren’t all that interesting these days.
– Andrea Harris, Administrator

You don’t say.

My tiny kitchen has more cupboard space — and a pantry! — than the previous kitchen. So I’ve sacrificed some floor space; so what, it makes it that much easier to fill the cat’s water bowl.

The hot water stays hot for ages. In the previous place I was lucky if I’d get fifteen minutes of actual hot water in the shower with the super water-saver shower head I installed myself. Here I use the gusher that came with the apartment and I can stay in the shower as long as I want.

But thinking again about Blair’s decision to move blogs, it’s difficult to see how it could possibly be a good decision given that it will not significantly boost his stats and will likely cost a decent chunk of his current readership.

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.

The Daily Telegraph today broke the story of 43-year-old Jeff Fenech’s ill-advised embarrassing shock boxing comeback, quoting the three-time world champion as saying:

“I’ve got three months to train and I’ll train like never before.”

In a GrodsCorp exclusive, we can reveal that he ain’t joking.

Timmeh Blair uncovers leftist disengagement.

This article was the most-viewed by Age readers on Sorry Day.

The article in question is a hard-hitting investigative piece about a dog show.

Now I’m the first guy to criticise The Age for its lightweight bubblegum stories and over-reliance on celebrity news and lifestyle guff at the expense of proper journalism, but if Timmeh’s going to have a crack at The Age for something like this he should also take a look at the newspapers of News Ltd. — his employer.

Let’s have a look at the most read stories within the News stable yesterday.

Adelaide Advertiser and The Australian (with its three dozen readers): Tick!

Daily Telegraph (Blair’s employer): Nope. Story about shark attacks on the rise.

Perth Now (online paper): Nope. Some person named Ward is shunning limelight.

Herald Sin: Nope. Stories about people blowing themselves up are always winners.

The Courier Mail: But Australia’s hardest-hitting newspaper, The Courier Mail, takes the cake with its top story about a Harry Potter star dating a — wait for it — EX JUNKIE!!!!1!!!!111! Which one? Dunno. Didn’t read it.

That’s twice now that Timmeh Blair, GrodsCorp’s number one fan, has quoted GrodsCorp in a dead tree publication. The first time was when he called us an “internet elitist” in The Bulletin, and today he’s called us “some internet dump” in Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph (in response to this article.)

As for Dave, someone at some internet dump recently mentioned “Tim Blair’s ludicrous claim that the left are ‘fans’ of David Hicks.”

Straight to the pool room.

There’s been a whole lotta hubbub about the Daily Telegraph’s abandoned baby headline yesterday: “How Could She”. Beyond Blue spokesperson Jeff Kennett slammed the tabloid for such sensationalist and uninformed stupidity while The Man Of Steel got in on the action pretty quick to give it his big ol’ Rodent tick of approval, saying: “In defence of the Tele, that’s what most people say. I feel for the mother, I feel for the baby, I feel for the woman’s family, but fair go to the Tele — after all, that is the natural reaction. How could you abandon a little baby?”

I took a look at the Daily Telegraph’s sister newspaper, the Herald Sun, at work this morning and it is curious to note how keen the Hun is to distance itself from its stablemate’s stance. In its front page story the paper doesn’t mention the Tele’s headline at all, simply noting that Kennett and Howard “locked horns” over “criticism of the mother.” Even Howard’s tick-of-approval comment was twice doctored to remove any mention of the Tele:

Above headline
“But, fair go… How could you abandon a little baby?”

In story
“I feel for the mother, I feel for the baby, I feel for the woman’s family, but, fair go . . . that is the natural reaction,” [Howard] said. “How could you abandon a little baby?”

The Herald Sun, fearless as always: won’t agree with the Tele’s views but won’t criticise them either.