When taking the weighty decision to get into shape by investing in a “home gym”, one must stay focused on the primary purpose of the enterprise, which is to get healthy and prolong life, not to kill yourself while attempting to operate the aforementioned home gym. Thus, I heartily recommend to anyone contemplating the purchase of a bargain-priced treadmill to get their head examined, promptly.

Even if anyone gave a flying fuck about the process of buying a treadmill, or if the subject of buying a treadmill was worthy of the opinion page, Schembri doesn’t provide any insight into the subject, instead rolling out the most pathetic cliches and tired jokes imaginable.

You should have heard this chick [salesperson] go. She went on about how much time it would save, about energy-burning co-efficients, about reduced joint stress, the in-built calorie counter, the free pedometer. She even worked in a reference to NASA, which I didn’t quite catch, but it had something to do with anti-gravity technology or exercising in orbit. She made it sound too great, and her enthusiasm was so infectious I felt that leaving the store without this treadmill would be the biggest mistake of my life. So we rang it up and home it came.

Still awake? If so, I bet you’ll never guess what happened next.

Assembling it was a trial, and for a while it looked like I was going to burn more calories putting the thing together than I ever would using it. But once it was in one piece I felt the world open up before me. “This is it,” I thought. “I shall be Adonis, just like the guys in the gym.”

He had trouble assembling it! How original! I bet you’ll never guess what happened next.

Then I got on and gave it a go. Or tried to. I need to stress here that there was nothing wrong with the machine. All the parts moved the way they were supposed to. It merely required ventricle-bursting strain to get the thing going. Sweat showered off me. You know those old movies about ancient Egypt where you see the slaves pushing those big stone blocks up the ramps to build the pyramids? Those guys are my brothers.

He didn’t like using it! How original! I bet you’ll never guess what happened next.

So what was I to do? What else? Leave it right there, in the middle of the living room. Eight months later the treadmill wound up the way 95 per cent of all home-gym equipment winds up: covered in towels, jackets, socks and shirts. I was going to sell the dreaded thing but then thought, no, this is actually garbage, so the next hard-rubbish day it was gone. I even watched through the window as they carted it away.

He didn’t use it and it sat in the corner collecting dust! How original!

Jim Shembri, you are the hackest of hacks. You are a disgrace to the profession of journalism. If anyone needed any further proof that The Age was a paper no longer worth even a tenth of the cover price they need look no further than the presence of this abomination on today’s opinion page.

I clicked on the link so I could give you a synopsis of the video but Fairfax wanted me to watch a 15 second ad for Telstra Bigpond before I could find out if Britney’s dad is turning her into a zombie.

Fuck that.

Genius.

Coming next week: Melbourne’s best laneways. Coming the week after that: ten best coffee shops in Melbourne

Doesn’t The Age care if reporters have strong, declared sympathies that call into question their ability to report even-handedly?

Shameless.

Note: Please do not click play. It is not a video, it’s a picture.

Sadly, these idiots have apparently worked out how to make it to The Age’s website. Today The Age published an article on Indigenous people being concerned that the latest batch of tourism advertising promotes “trampling” of their culture. Fair enough, right? Would you graffiti the Vatican? Or urinate in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher?

Of course not. But for some reason, even though Indigenous culture goes back over 60,000 years (yes, that’s even before Jesus), Aboriginies should take their made-up “culture” and get fucked. Or at least that’s how readers of The Age see it:

“Typical. The aborigines (sic) are never happy. I am sure if they were paid they would say their ancestral spirits were at peace. The biggest problem with aboriginal (sic) ‘culture’ is that it is undocumented. So they make things up as they go. Oh my God, there’s money in it! Look another sacred site!”

“Of course this issue has come up. I smell a con for cash as compensation. “

“I suspect the filmakers (sic) sought and were granted permission. I also suspect that the people complaining did not get any kickbacks from the filming of Australia.”

“Will they ever be happy ??”

I can’t imagine what didn’t get approved. I’ll be updating this post throughout the day with new comments as they come in. As I write this, eight comments have been posted, and all of them are negative towards Indigenous people.

Aren’t Australians just salt of the earth?

With criticism-worthy nuggets of gold almost certainly hidden somewhere in the reports, you’d be forgiven for expecting Victoria’s broadsheet to do some — um, how you say? — journalism for us. You know, a bit of reading, analysing, questioning and reporting. But this is The Age, remember. That’s not how Fairfax rolls anymore.

You want journalism? Do it yourself.

The work experience kid was too busy writing tomorrow’s editorial to read all 200 reports

And it doesn’t.

The short version of the story, just in case any Andrew Bolt readers have stumbled by (we all know you imbeciles don’t bother reading links), is that a woman kicked up a fuss over seating at a pub function and was allegedly given a free bowl of poo-smeared ice cream as a “placatory gesture”.

I worked in the hospitality industry for many years and saw some horrendous things (and heard of worse) … but this despicable act would take the chocolates, so to speak.

Anyway, here’s the bit that really impressed me:

Ms Whyte said she realised something was amiss when she brought a spoonful to her lips and “the stench went through my nostrils”.

“I retched and spat it out into the napkin,” she told News Ltd.

Notice the missing sentence between those two? I imagine it went something like this:

“SO I TOOK A BITE ANYWAY…”

Fair. Fucking. Dinkum. What would have to have been on this woman’s ice cream to dissuade her from putting a spoonful into her gob?

And today we can reveal this truly, truly, mindblowingly, fucking awful effort running on The Age’s website.

Surely they’re taking the piss. Surely.

This graphic’s surely going straight to the artist’s portfolio.

And how about this pathetic effort in The Age last week?

There is so much wrong with this one that I don’t know where to start

Apple’s Mac Pro running malicious crippleware

For instance, sometimes commercial flights are delayed for a short time due to unforeseen circumstances. There might be a flight between Sydney and Christchurch that takes off less than two hours late due to a broken down tow truck and incorrectly secured baggage. Then the flight crew might chuck on some television entertainment to keep passengers occupied, and in the lamest of ironies they happen to play an episode of Fawlty Towers which features a character who bungles things.

All of this would be a bit annoying for the passengers, I’m sure, and it’s not exactly the best look for the airline, but is it newsworthy? Let alone headline worthy? Apparently The Age thinks “yes” on both counts.

After a series of blunders that kept one of its aircraft stranded on the tarmac for about two hours this morning, Qantas tried to calm passengers by screening an episode of Fawlty Towers.

“The irony was not lost on us,” said one passenger, Jock, who telephoned the Herald while waiting on the aircraft as it sat idle at Sydney airport this morning.

I hope I never meet “Jock” in real life because he sounds like a wanker. Imagine the kind of dipshit you’d have to be to call the newspaper to express your indignation that your plane has been delayed. Mind you, he’s exactly the class of braindead knob at which The Age seems to be pitching their newspaper (sic) these days.

Fairfax Media must search for a new editor for its main Melbourne newspaper after the abrupt departure of current editor-in-chief, Andrew Jaspan.

The announcement was made to Age staff late this morning by Don Churchill, Fairfax’s chief executive for Victoria. Mr Jaspan’s senior deputy, Paul Ramadge, has been appointed acting editor-in-chief.

There’s absolutely no question that the quality of The Age dropped drastically during Jaspan’s tenure, along with any semblance of balance. At the same time there was a noticeable increase in sensationalist and style-over-substance journalism, as even the main “serious” section of the paper tended towards an over-reliance on content-neutral, parochial and lifestyle-ish filler.

If the new editor steers The Age back on track and shifts the focus to serious, quality journalism I might just start buying it again.

UPDATE (1.00pm): Will points out in comments that the summary of this story on The Age’s website tells a slightly different story.

Whoa! Would you tap (or peg) this?

Carn git me, laydeez!

UPDATE II (1.15pm): Andrew Landeryou’s pathetic new attempt to make some money post-bankruptcy, VEXNEWS, has hilariously claimed to have the Jaspan tapping story as an exclusive.

Check out them gnarly Landeryou Photoshopping skillz

I bet that’s news to all of the people who have also exclusively revealed the news, The Age itself included.

Damn you to the fiery bowels of hell, The Age, The Australian, the Herald Sun or whatever the fuck you were!

Oh, and paperboy — you just made The List.

(From ‘The Age’ Online)

Um, no thanks.

UPDATE: Is that hypercolour t-shirt in the front row being worn by a dude or a chick?

* Club bans porky pies
* Eddie chucks pies on sauce
* Collingwood drink drive debacle — out for season

…to the newspapers:

* The Herald Sun
* The Age
* The Australian

Just get a load of those puns. Answers over the fold.

‘Eddie chucks pies on sauce’: The Australian

‘Club bans porky pies’: The Age

‘Collingwood drink drive debacle — out for season’: Herald Sun

Who woulda thunk that the most sensible headline would belong to the Hun, while The Age and The Australian run such turgid turgidity? Wonders never cease.

The sun will beat down. The little bouncy balls will rocket around. And the players — the greatest players — will leap across the hard green of the court with their straining racquets to reach them. As the roar goes up. Then the hush. The tennis hush.

He has written written about Heath Ledger.

The result, though, was a sick and sad and talented boy who stopped breathing.

He has written about designer terror-porn.

What exactly is the purpose of these remarkable, disturbing pictures?

[...]

The setting is unmistakably an airport customs station. Two officers flank her, watching. Voyeurs; and we watch them watching her. One is only identifiable by his hairy arm and wristwatch. She looks at him, stern but impassive. He is dominant, she submissive.

[...]

It’s sexual, and odd, but also quite mundane, quite familiar.

And he has written about Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

The flagship doughnut, the Original Glazed, is sweet but not cloyingly so, and light, very light, almost fluffy, in the middle. The outside is fried crisp and the yeast-raised inside is contrastingly buttery, which is appealing.

But now he has written about his favourite Australian album of all time.

Since I Left You — the Avalanches

It’s common for bedroom producers to scour the history of recorded music to grab bits and pieces and reprocess their findings into something new.

It’s been a central angle in the newest wave of popular music since the electronic uprising of the late ’80s. What they did in 2000 with their first and so far only album was reset those rules once again. Here was a beautiful piece of musical art made entirely from samples;

Since I Left You was a jigsaw of Kid Creole, Madonna, Jimmy Webb, Sergio Mendez, Mandrill, De La Soul and the Osmonds, stolen and then rearranged by a loose-fit, encyclopedic crew of musicians into, between them, everything from turntablism to Hawaiian steel guitars.

Look at me, kids! I’m cool!

Jim yesterday announced that he is taking a “short break” from his “journalism” and blogging duties. Let’s hope he makes it a long break. A really long break.

Jim Schembri wearing his trademark smug, shit-eating grin

The way that this supposedly respectable newspaper shamelessly uses sex to try and attract readers is pathetic. Andrew Jaspan has a lot to answer for.

(Also, I bet that poor woman had no idea that she’d end up being used as soft-core erotica and reader bait for the rest of The Age’s existence.)

UPDATE (12.55pm): Someone at The Age obviously thought the same as me.

Musician Paul Mac has revealed the distress caused by false rumours about Daniel Johns’s sexuality, after the singer’s break-up from Natalie Imbruglia.

Mac, who was incorrectly linked to Johns in magazine reports, said the entire episode was very upsetting for Johns, who was already devastated by his marriage break-up.

So do you reckon that The Age juxtaposing a photo of Paul Mac with a pic of Johns sucking a lollipop is completely coincidental?

News you can use

Of course it’s not.

Seriously, Melburnians should just read MX. At least it’s free.

A Melbourne secondary school teacher had weekly sex with a student in a school darkroom, a Victorian court has been told.

Paul Anthony Segar, 50, of Mt Waverley, appeared in the County Court in Melbourne today charged with two counts of an indecent act with a child under the age of 16, four counts of sexual penetration with a child under 16 and four counts of sexual penetration with a child aged 16 to 17 whilst under his care and supervision.

Alongside the ad is a purple animated advertisement that begins thus:

And continues thus:

Oh dear. Poor old Fairfax-owned RSVP.

Fair to say that I nearly choked on my cornflakes when I read that. “Independent from what?” I thought. Certainly not from corporate editorial control; nor from celebrity news. Perhaps what they mean is independence from significant right-wing balance or from any sense of ethical conflict when advertising dictates the selection and composition of stories.

Don’t get me wrong — I think the Herald Sun is much more worthy of lining my cat’s litter tray than The Age but at least the Hun doesn’t arrogantly tout itself as “independent”.

What else is the Age independent from, GrodsReaders?

The trouble over saying sorry started on Thursday when Howard was asked why, if he was not responsible for the interest rate rise, he was apologising for it. “Well, I said I was sorry they’d occurred. I don’t think I actually used the word ‘apology’. I think there is a difference between the two things.”

Watching the disaster unfold, the Liberal Party’s campaign director Brian Loughnane hit the roof.

Too late to stop the “sorry” saga from dominating the 6pm news bulletins, Howard’s office went into damage control mode and bundled the press pack travelling with the PM onto their chartered jet for Sydney.

With all the experienced hands out of the way, the PM’s office then tipped off the ABC and the Herald Sun newspaper to rush a couple of journalists up to 4 Treasury Place and wait for Howard to appear.

Only one question was allowed at this doorstop “interview” and Howard answered it by accusing the Labor Party of playing word games.

Journalists from The Age (and from other media outlets, I’m sure) have been bitching and moaning endlessly during the campaign about how the media packs travelling with Howard and Kevin Rudd are treated. I mean, how are these fiercely independent and hard-working journalists supposed to file reports from the election frontline if the Liberal and Labor Parties don’t ferry them around and drive them to events in luxury? Especially when dastardly campaign teams manipulate journalists’ movements to maximise their party’s advantage.

Maybe instead of sitting back and allowing themselves to be spoonfed information, those press release-regurgitating cyborgs could go out and do some, you know, journalism. Might require the hire of a car or the booking of a plane ticket without the assistance of the Liberal Party, but it’s just a thought.

The answer is, of course, shit no. I would barely even have heard of FaceBook if it wasn’t for The Age – a quick Google search of their domain reveals 525 hits for “FaceBook”.

Are these Age journalists really that enthralled by a fairly popular social networking site that they deem it news 525 times? It is of no surprise to find that not one of these news stories was even of the slightest importance. No “Osama found in Facebook offices”, no “Facebook spills oil along Alaskan coast”, not even a “Facebook deems itself President For Life”.

So why the interest?

Any theories?

So Peter Garrett writes a silly little blog on Kevin07 about singing songs in the shower in order to time them. Quaint. The Age dutifully runs an entire article on Garrett’s blog post, complete with quotes from his commenters calling them “bloggers”.

Blogger Matt Burke suggested Josh Pyke’s Middle of the Road at 2 minutes 24 seconds, because “Kevin Rudd has repeatedly said that ‘there’s this huge mountain to climb to win this election’.”

But fellow blogger Nico had a better idea for a water-saving music tip: “Load up the stereo with music you can’t stand,” she wrote on the blog.

“Put the stereo beyond arm’s reach in the bathroom and hit play at full volume. Hop in the shower. You’ll be making that shower as short as you can, so you can get out and turn off the damn music!”

GrodsCorp has been continually scathing over time about The Age’s rush to the bottom of the sensationalist and lazy journaliasm pit, but if you are left in any doubt you simply must read Adam 1.0’s review of yesterday’s The Age website frontpage.

Should State Parliament proceedings be available via internet streaming?
Yes: 81%
No: 19%
Total: 21 votes

21 votes. 21! This Print 2.0 thing is really working out for Fairfax, ain’t it?

IF you prefer your suits, like your politics, hard-wearing but none too fancy, then John Howard is your man.

He’s a double-breasted, old-school-tie, every bloke’s bloke, with hardly an eyebrow, suit or spectacle frame altered for years. If, on the other hand, you fancy a bit of slick with your classics, a bit of cute with your conservatism, then it’s Kevin Rudd. His suits are modern, immaculate, probably European, but not in a flashy over-the-top way. Same with his spectacles: snappy oblongs, but not too snappy.

Snappy oblongs, but not too snappy. This is the front page of Melbourne’s (supposedly) quality broadsheet, for feck’s sake!

And although Mr Rudd’s rather endearing hair-do does appear sometimes as if it were combed by his mum, it also has a chameleon ability to change in certain lights, from dignified grey to school prefect blond.

Oh, spew!

Mr Howard’s suits, for example, are decent and serviceable, but suggest a struggle between “I can be a modern guy, too”, and “I’ve got better things to do than fuss about fashion”. He picks from a relatively sparse wardrobe of single and double-breasted suits, even though the latter gives him a hunched, boxy silhouette, out of fashion so long it’s on the way back. White shirts are a flat canvas for his ties, which range from “old collegian” stripes to some paler silks that scrape into modernity with a single-breasted suit, but sit awry, suggesting a lag behind the times, with a double-breasted.

At least this pathetic story is languishing in the entertainment section of The Age’s website.

Wired for sound? You could be wired for death.

Wearing an iPod or other portable device could increase your chance of being struck by lightning.

A Canadian man suffered wishbone-shaped burns across his neck and chest, ruptured eardrums and a broken jaw when lightning travelled through his music player’s wires.

Bam! What an opening sentence. That’s four years of journalism degree right there.

However, the article continues. In order to spice up the wire story and pass it off as fresh journalism The Press sourced some useless statistics from the NZ government:

An ACC spokeswoman said although there had been 34 recorded cases of lightning strike in New Zealand over the past five years, none had involved portable electronic devices.

Whew, that’s a relief. Oops — spoke too soon.

Other types of injuries had been linked to straggling wires.

There were claims for tripping over Nintendo cords, one sibling assault with a games console and one boy had suffered an injury when his brother tripped over a wire, pulling a DVD player onto him.

Jumpin’ Jesus! New Zealand sure is a dangerous place.

But the best part of the hysterical article (page two, remember) is a desperate attempt by The Press to find a local angle by sending a journalist with the world’s most awesome name — Beck Eleven — out to Christchurch mall to rustle up some vox pops.

Melissa Bloxham, 18, listening to the new Nickleback album on her iPod Shuffle, said the prospect of attracting lightning through her device was a bit scary.

“I never thought of it before and I’m not sure it would really happen but if it’s true — oh my God.”

Leo Beckett, 18, said he had not been troubled by lightning but had once caught his headphone wires as he got out of a car, jerking his neck.”

You can’t make this shit up.

The Press shares the same masthead design as The Age, with the Royal Arms and the latin motto Nihil utile quod non honestum. I think there’s something in that for all of us.

Can this newspaper sink any lower?

Oh, and don’t forget the editorial:

It might be tempting to read her story as an only-in-America farce, and there is certainly an element of that, but underneath it is a serious issue: if you break the law — no matter how rich or famous you are — you have to face the consequences. This is a valuable lesson for any young person to learn.

I am utterly sick of blog comments.

Honestly, I’ve had enough.

Enough of the flaming, the trolling, the moderation, the spam, the ‘who’s-got-more’ syndrome, the inanity and the sheer stupidity behind allowing them on sites like theage.com.au.

They devalue our content, insult much of our readership, piss off our advertisers, waste massive amounts of our time and place us at an enormous legal risk.

They’re also perhaps the least web-savvy thing we, as a large media organisation, should be doing. They’re yesterday’s online communication forums, they’re twee.

[...]

And finally, let’s not forget that the media, on the whole, is mostly about money. We’re more-often-than-not businesses, we have families to feed and shareholders to keep happy.

Every blasted comment on theage.com.au is moderated which means that not only do commentators have to wait up to 12 hours (should they deign to post after 5PM) for their comment to be approved (which it may not be, without explanation, nice huh!), but should we aim to have a section, such as CiF, then that would cost us literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in moderation fees to do so.

And if we stuff up, and let through a defamatory comment, then that’s potentially hundreds of thousands in damages or legal costs.

Without, and this is the bit that really cracks me up, any actual revenue (besides a slightly increased number of page views / time on page) coming in from comments.

We’re complete fools.

Lovely stuff. If only The Age spent more money on (gasp!) journalists and less on setting up lame, me-too imitations of real blogs and yet another lifestyle insert produced wholly for advertisers, they might have a chance of keeping my subscription beyond June.

The state of modern journalism in general is appalling. Students of journalism and media, across the country and in many tertiary institutes, are not taught one of the most basic principles of news reporting – separating opinion from fact.

There is room for editorials and opinion pieces. In fact, there is a huge demand by readers to read different opinion pieces. But news is news, and the front pages of newspapers are supposed to be free from editorializing, colorful language, spin, cartoons and imagery.

The Age and SMH are 2 of the worst newspapers in Australia, because they proudly violate this concept on a near daily basis. The left wing hatred and cynicism towards Howard, climate change hysteria, animosity towards liberty and capitalism pervade almost every paragraph.

Hang on, I thought. Surely this dude can’t seriously contend that News Ltd. tabloids don’t regularly and proudly violate these very golden rules he speaks of?

The Herald Sun also editorialize their headlines, but with a different bias – a more patriotic and nationalistic one. Its usually focussed on demonising criminals and social misfits, as “monsters”, and celebrating soldiers, patriots and the winners of awards as valiant heroes.

Patriotism, nationalism and valour. Oh, well, that’s all right then.

The tagline of the Double-Think blog is:

“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them”. – George Orwell.

Obviously our blogging mate is demonstrating this principal in his writing for our ease of understanding.

If you type the words “Indonesia”, “airlines”, “safety” and “crashes” into Google search there are 145,000 results

For a while the craze was to breathlessly report every stupid item up for auction on eBay as if the abuse of such systems would bring western democracy to its knees. Luckily that practice seems to have fallen out of favour but I’ve noticed that the new black when it comes to cookie-cutter “journalism” is the breathless reporting of each new incursion into online game Second Life by a company somewhere in the world. Check out this latest effort from The Age:

Telstra BigPond throws open the doors to its island playground within the 3-D online world of Second Life.

It becomes the first major Australian corporation to create a presence there, following a stampede of international companies who have started to use Second Life as a promotional and commercial tool.

Offering a distinctly Australian flavour, “The Pond” – which consumes 11 Second Life sims or “virtual suburbs” – includes virtual recreations of landmarks such as the Sydney Opera House, the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Uluru.

There are also various activities for visitors – represented in-world by characters called “avatars” – to partake in, such as dancing in the Illusion nightclub, knocking back stubbies at the Outback Billabong Bar, hooning around the race track on a BigPond scooter and snorkelling in a coral reef.

But socialising aside, the primary purpose of the island is to promote the telco’s wares.

BigPond billboards appear at every turn, and content from its main online channels – sport, movies, music and games – has been ported in.

Users can get a taste of BigPond’s content offerings, such as music tracks, from inside the world, before being connected to the BigPond Music store to purchase it if they desire.

Great advertisement for Telstra but not much else.

ps/- By the way, isn’t it funny that Lindsay Tanner got a write up in The Age today about his YouTube exploits after I (via Fang) wrote about it last week. GrodsCorp gets quite a few hits from The Age’s IP addresses every day.

But, hang on, what’s this I see on the ABC News front page this morning?

Oh, for feck’s sake.

IT IS that time of year again. The tennis circus is here. It is all about Kooyong and then the Australian Open. More than half a million spectators will pack these compact, intimate arenas from today. The sun will beat down. The little bouncy balls will rocket around. And the players — the greatest players — will leap across the hard green of the court with their straining racquets to reach them. As the roar goes up. Then the hush. The tennis hush.

This afternoon, after executing a vanity Google search, Chris left a comment at the original post:

thanks you so much for your erudite, analytical, reasoned feedback. it’s obvious you are a media expert and also deeply familiar with the workings of The Age. again – thanks.

Just to clarify, I think that Chris has made a ham-fisted attempt at sarcasm there. You see, when he says thankyou even though he’s deeply offended it’s obviously sarcastic. However, I have no idea why his references to my supposed media expertise and familiarity with the inner workings of The Age have anything to do with anything. As long as he feels cleansed and vindicated by writing it.

Revealing of a deeper problem is Chris’ inability to use capital letters at the start of sentences. This is a man who uses words like erudite and analytical when trying to show off, so such a simple thing (press the freakin’ SHIFT key) shouldn’t be beyond him. I mean, he’s obviously a blog expert and is deeply familiar with the workings of GrodsCorp so he should know that we don’t employ sub-editors to correct his stream-of-consciousness sub-cadet quality typing.

Now, I’m no fan of The Age’s daily poll. I think it’s just another symptom of that paper’s ongoing descent into a dark and smelly pit of lifestyle fluff, celebrity “news”, triumph of advertising bait over genuine content, and sensationalism. You doubt me? Check out some of these hard-hitting questions from recent editions:

“Roman holiday? : Does Amanda Vanstone deserve a plum diplomatic post?”

“Goodbye wave? : Should the Mexican wave be banned at the MCG?”

“Offshore Blunnies : Will you still buy Blundstones once the company moves its manufacturing offshore?”

“Caffeinated cola : Should the caffeine be removed from Coca-Cola?”

“Etiquette : Do Melburnians display a lack of manners on public transport?”

“Eve fatigue : Is New Year’s Eve overrated?”

“THE GREATEST? : Is Shane Warne the greatest bowler of all time?”

Kill me now. These pathetic attempts to involve the reader are so hot right now. I mean, even SBS has them in its tarted-up 6:30pm supernews (with super ad breaks).

(And speaking of SBS’s supernews, does Stan Grant’s hypercolour fake tan make anybody else’s eyes hurt?)

But back to Bolta and his global lefty groupthink conspiracy theory. You see, according to Bolta The Age and the ABC are the only news organisations on earth that attract a majority of their readers/ viewers from the same sphere of political belief. You’d never see a pathetic reader poll on the pages of the Hun with results leaning heavily towards conservative opinion. And do you know why? They never make sense:

People are pissed.

The Age online is running a story claiming that a day of action is planned on 1 March whereby commuters will not buy or validate train tickets. The impression is given in the first half of the story that the “day of action” is being organised and supported by the Public Transport Users’ Association (PUTA). However, it’s not until the second half of the story that the driver of the “day of action” is revealed as some anonymous nobody on The Age’s lame-arse Your Say page and a throwaway comment is made acknowledging that PUTA does not condone fare evasion.

GrodsCorp sez: Connex are shit and a day of action is the least they deserve.

GrodsCorp sez: The Age should quit sourcing their stories from comments on their pathetic online “blogs” and get on with the important tasks of designing vapid lifestyle magazine inserts and cut-and-pasting celebrity “news” from the wire services.

HIGH Court judge Michael Kirby has been vilified and defamed by fraudsters who have stolen his identity to post offensive material on the popular internet site MySpace.

The identity thieves posed as the Australian judge to put sordid and sexually charged material on a fake Justice Kirby profile page.

So begins another fear-mongering, sensationalist and pathetic beat-up in the Sunday edition of Melbourne’s imploding broadsheet The Age. Like, shock horror, somebody pretended to be somebody else on the internet. And not only is this act “identity theft” but it “underlines the flimsy or fraudulent nature of much of the internet’s so-called ‘citizen journalism’.” Surely that odour I detect isn’t a whiff of fear about the threat to your pathetic dead-tree “journalism” from the blogosphere and non-mainstream media, Age? And who the hell has ever called MySpace citizen journalism? Long bow drawn.

I’m not entirely sure what The Age expects the Internet Police Force (IPF) to do about this terrible case but as “journo” Reid Sexton seems to imply there should definitely be, like, laws against stuff like this. And penalties. Maybe we should just turn the internet off.

Actually, turning off the internet would result in one important outcome: saving us from death by celebrity “news” overload every time one accidentally navigates towards theage.com.au.

There’s a clue in the article about what may have prompted The Sunday Age to feature such a non-story so prominently on page three:

When asked if MySpace could trace those who created the profile [the spokesperson] replied: “Yeah, potentially.”

But she refused a request to hand over details of the author and said any potential legal issues would be dealt with as they arose.

“Why would we give those details to you?” she said.

And damn straight too! Why would she hand over private customer details to an anonymous voice on the end of the phone claiming to be a “journalist” from The Age? But don’t dare suggest to a “journalist” that they aren’t omnipotent because their instinctive reaction to being disrespected is to seek revenge and vindication through lies, misinformation and sensationalism.

A much more sensible tone was adopted by senior law lecturer at Monash University, Dr Melissa de Zwart, in her comments for the news story. She outlined a possible legal course for Justice Kirby but qualified it all by saying, “ultimately people have to learn that what they see on the internet is not always correct.” Dr de Zwart knows that there are whole generations growing up now with a higher level of internet literacy than any Age hack will ever have. And just as there will always be dodgy crap going on in the internet tubes there will always be lies presented as truth in that self-proclaimed bastion of real journalism: newspapers.

Does Reid Sexton think we should ban newspapers too?

UPDATE: Call the IPF! John Howard’s identity has been stolen too! And Julia Gillard’s! And Kevin Rudd’s! And Kim Beazley’s! Oh, the humanity!