Yep, Christian Kerr is talking about us. Among others. Guess what, we’re smug, ill informed, prone to conspiracy theories, full of hatred for the noble profession of journalism, divorced from the real world, an echo chamber, too academic, etc, etc. But he couldn’t possibly tell his readers which “certain blog” he’s talking about. Lord no. Even though there is a direct quote from a post at LP. People might come here and make up their own mind. So the impression is left that bloggers are bad and as far as Kerr is concerned, that’s all anyone needs to know. Yet he provides “balance and fact”. Obviously. Btw, you can’t comment on his article. And if you disagree with him here, you just go into the “ill informed” pile, I guess. The irony that he’s ostensibly writing about free speech seems to have escaped him.
Anyway, he was baiting for a link. He’s got one. I hope he’s happy now.
Update: [by Kim] More from tigtog at Hoyden.
So let’s see if we can lure his readers over here….
Will key words do the trick?
Christian Kerr
blog
blogging
bloggee
blog-a-lug
smug
too academic
prone to allowing comments
prone to discuss
prone to ventilation
prone after a heavy afternoon on the grog
critics of the noblest profession
Kerr’s cur
ill informed
The ill informed pile
The other piles
Boy, does he know his piles
etc., etc., etc.
It’s interesting that he doesn’t invite comment. Perhaps he realises he’d be exposed as totally vacuous.
Thanks, Ambi, the tags I’ve added to the post and the title should show this post up on Google soon – I’ve done that deliberately so anyone who does decide to follow up Kerr’s article does have the chance to get both sides of the story.
Balance!
What’s the story anyway with journalism ethics? Direct unattributed quote and then going on to trash someone… It’s not a good look.
David: yep!! perhaps he thinks LP bloggers are the sort of low-life who might disagree with his views
Ah, free speech: just grand, ain’t it?
It’s true. We bloggers aren’t brainy enough etc.
Take for example how we actually try to cite our sources rather than vaguely attributing quotes to blogs in general.
That’s just showing you’re one of those dreaded academics, mick!
That’s very charitable of you to give him a link, Mark. Should do wonders for his page view counts.
What…us, smug?
I couldn’t be an academic Mark, I blog here (OK, well it’s been a while…) and
so I guess I never got those degrees and stuff.
Oh. Wait. I get it. Christian is trying to say we aren’t as smart as his friends at the Oracle. Why didn’t I see that before!!! OMG LOLZ etc
Personally, I quite enjoyed my undergrad years anyway!
Oh, and can anyone see Christian’s typo in the sentence that I just quoted?
Intone. He’ll have to ask George Megalogenis to check his work for typos from now on!
Mission accomplished – if you do a google search for “Christian Kerr blogging” you get this as the first link, before you get “Christian Kerr Blog” at the Oz, incidentally:
http://www.google.com.au/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-GB%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=en&q=christian+kerr+blogging&meta=&btnG=Google+Search
As somebody who occasionally comments but doesn’t feel like part of the LP in-crowd, here’s my reaction:
Complaint #1: LP is “intolerant”, provides “little acknowledgement that [the prevailing view” is contestable”, “scornful of any notions contrary to [its] group think”, “echo chamber where assertions are endlessly repeated”.
My thoughts: I have some sympathy with this one. I find that when I offer a view that is contrary to accepted LP wisdom (e.g. when I complained about the lack of regular assessment in public schooling) that LPers can seem dismissive and condescending. They also hunt in large packs. That said, I concede that by and large LPers play the ball, not the man.
Complaint #2: LP is “often incorrect”
My thoughts: I have a particular abhorrence of arguments based on the appeal to wrong or unverifiable data. But I can’t think of any examples at LP, and the US-free speech example quoted by Kerr is clearly a matter of opinion, not fact.
Complaint #3: LP is insufficiently evidence based, lacking in “balance and fact”
My thoughts: LP is an opinion blog, not a news service.
Complaint #4: LP bloggers have a “paucity of real-world, first-hand experience”.
My thoughts: I sometimes find myself thinking the same thing. But that’s OK. Others probably have a paucity of academic experience. And others a paucity of something else. And isn’t that diversity what blogs are all about.
Complaint #5: LP bloggers fond of “conspiracy theories”.
My thoughts: I suspect this relates to the ‘cruel’ labelling of the Oz as the GG. Which in my view was pretty fair. The constant pro-Government headlines in 2007 (including even Shanahan spin as headlines) was a bit much. I’d like to think that the election-eve pro-Rudd editorial and maybe even the latitude given to Hedley Thomas to tackle the Haneef matter might have had something to do with Oz sensitivity over the GG tag.
Well, I think Christian Kerr himself is ‘decidedly undergraduate intone’, if not worse. He sounds (both literally and figuratively, as those who have heard him on LNL will know) like every Adelaide private schoolboy it was my pleasure to clobber at the Friday night school debates.
But let’s be fair here. It’s highly unlikely that any of those typos are his. Newspaper content can get horribly mangled online and it’s rarely anything to do with them what wrote it.
You can get them on their grammar, though, usually.
Is this a sign of The Australian’s team ganging up on Possum Comitatus ( http://possumcomitatus.wordpress.com/ )? We all know how good he is at debunking Shannahan, maybe they’ve decided to mount an offensive to discredit the little marsupial.
Oh wait, then they’d have to actually refer to his excellent work…
Mark@3 – Googling “Christian Kerr” resulted in this post coming up at #6. A quick job done well.
Thanks, Jenny, that’s interesting. Incidentally, one thing I did notice about Kerr’s singling out of that post from which he lifted an unattibuted quote is that there’s a lot of expression of a difference of opinion on it. Perhaps by his lights I would be engaging in a conspiracy theory if I pointed out that the meejah are particularly touchy about the possible influence of privacy legislation on their own “free speech”? On the other hand, there are the facts that big media organisations have formed a lobby group – the Right to Know Coalition – to oppose such reforms (and there was a link to it in the original post), and that I think anyone reading all the columns would conclude they’re singing from the same song sheet – as Media Watch did on Monday for instance.
Mark beat me to the punch this morning so for the record this is what I had planned to post.
On the web but not of it
Putting aside the all too obvious linkbait in Christian Kerr’s opinion piece on the high crimes and misdemeanours of the indy blogosphere I was more interested to see that there wasn’t a single link to the offending site that was mined for his comment piece.
Here is what we get from Kerr.
And.
Also.
Which site? Was it Possum or LP?
Despite the endless caricatures propagated by writers like Kerr, blogging does have a kind of formality and continues to develop as a form of media. One of those long held formalities is the act of linking out. Why? Because it allows the reader to understand the full scope and conversation surrounding a topic.
Kerr ends with this comment on the advantages of the MSM.
That may be true, but I’d also like to add one more and that’s lazy online writing. Add the links.
Well said, Phil, except I think you’re being too charitable in the last sentence!
That’s right, there is no balance or facts here. Fact.
If you want real balance it’s clear that you have to _say_ that you have balance. Fact.
Also, it’s a fact that to have facts you need to live in the _real_ world not in some ivory tower elite world which doesn’t make sense to the _average_ person. Fact.
(For those of you that don’t get my “Fact”ing I suggest you spend some time reading the BBC or The Guardian’s webpages. Actually, don’t. It’s like staring at the sun.)
Strange column by Christian Kerr. What purpose does it serve? I’m thinking of The Australian‘s reader’s here. Does it provide them benefit or information – and are those things valid in purpose for such a place? Is it merely opinion? If so, it seems it would pique the reader’s interest in blogs!
As a publishing medium, blogs have a right to challenge (in any way they like, really) the “dreaded” MSM, the latter being the established media, in a world of change. Seems to me that a column meeting that challenge might alter at least some of the concerns opined against. The challenge is complex and wonderful: can be direct, indirect, of blogs’ mere existence, formatting, specific rules of public engagement, monetising, editorial “conspiracy” behind the scenes, accessibility, circulation, tone, stickability, and a bunch more, not to mention any common or developing threats. So much ground exists between the two, MSM and blogs, for quality engagement that these sorts of blanketed belches on either part are just tiresome.
I think this one’s an aberration from the writer, yet it nevertheless shows a disparity in quality (of thinking) with GM’s work, which, by mention, hopefully adds a touch of positivity to end the comment.
Its not actually an online piece though is it? Its a dead-tree article replicated onto a website. Thats one of the annoying things about the primarily dead-tree news media that have websites. They don’t bother adding in links when they transfer the content.
As a matter of courtesy, the above comment by Horseshit Inc was by Robert, though it makes a good fit.
Friday fun day? Hope all are having a good one, including Mr Kerr.
You have to realise that they are sensitive souls at The Australian. Here they are trying to make the world safe for democracy and some ungrateful swine are criticising them. After all, these are people who daily tell Rupert where to stuff his opinions as they fearlessly advance their own enlightened views. And this is the thanks they get! Oh, the ingratitude. LP bloggers you should be ashamed of yourselves.
@Chris, yeah, thats it exactly, print and digital don’t work the same, so lets add lazy editorial work to the list.
But then the writer, understanding the article will appear online, has an obligation to supply the links to editorial so that they can be inserted correctly.
That process is now an accepted part of the modern media workers arsenal. As I said, on the web, not of it. And lazy to boot.
Writing for the web IS different and this is what far too many in the MSM fail to realise and it’s that failure that is at the source of their inability to transition their work into a new way of delivery.
The talk in the new common rooms of the blogs is decidedly undergraduate intone.
I wouldn’t bandy the word “undergraduate” around in a sentence in which I failed to understand the difference between “intone” and “in tone”, Sonny Jim.
Is this the same Christian Kerr who blogged, in all but name, as “Hillary Bray” for years at Crikey.com.au? As those internet-posting peasants say, ROFLMAO! Pot, meet kettle!
“Christian Kerr … sounds (both literally and figuratively, as those who have heard him on LNL will know) like every Adelaide private schoolboy it was my pleasure to clobber at the Friday night school debates.”
Um, you’ve got some issues with Adelaide private boys’ schools and their alumni, by the sounds of it, Ms Cat. This isn’t the first time you’ve dissed some guy for looking or sounding like he might have gone to a private school.
Class war is so 20th century.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3972727.ece
Um, this post is now coming second when you google “Christian Kerr”. It is only bested by Kerr’s Wikipedia entry.
I think there is value in just a pure electronic conversion of print news media, just like there is value in electronic versions of books with out any enhancement. For example I’d prefer to subscribe to say a PDF version of the mainstream papers rather than a dead tree version even if it cost the same amount. Extra points if I can opt to not download all the sports pages. No one seems to do this yet – at least not without requiring specialised windows software rather than using an open format.
Ha ha ha ha ha! He realises, he’s writing for The Australian, right? Sheesh, when are the dumber breed of journalists going to realise this train has already left the station – they can be on it, or off it. Either way, no one cares.
Furthermore, this is incredibly rich coming from Kerr, given his involvement with Crikey – what is practically a blog in itself and makes a practice of regularly hiring the bloggers he so derides.
Secondly, as has already been pointed out, to accuse LP of being shrill, picking on people, etc. etc. is pretty bloody rich when ignoring The Australian’s own glorious history of such behaviour, played out on a much grander scale.
No offence to any one here including myself (I think the level is perfect) – but Christ, if he thinks LP is “too academic”, well…. Too academic, for what? is the question I guess. Not the readership, that’s for sure.
Finally, lack of real world experience etc. I would bet my entire savings account that both the readership and writers of LP display a bloody lot more demographic diversity AND real world experience than Liberal-fellating white old male toffs at The Australian. The fact he would even make that point is wilfully stupid.
It’s been a very good thing that Christian Kerr left Crikey for the O.O. Bernard Keane has been a more than adequate replacement. I can now actually read something about the Greens without visible spittle and foaming at the mouth from the writer.
Beyond that, I really don’t give a rats arse about his uninteresting opinion – he can preach to his little choir all he wants.
The hilarious thing is, he’ll be here, reading this thread, either right now or before too long. I wonder if he’ll post, either pseudonymously or identifiably? Bet he hasn’t got the guts.
That’s not how you troll-blog. This is how you troll-blog.
(And this is how you troll comment)
Is Christian Kerr the greatest tool for the manufacture of undistributed middles?
“The irony that he’s ostensibly writing about free speech seems to have escaped him.” Jeez, there’s a lot of bullshit floating around about what free speech is, isn’t there? Mark, not having a commenting system is not anti-free-speech. Not letting you have your own blog to ridicule Kerr, now that is anti-free-speech. See the difference? The only irony is, I’m afraid, entirely in your head.
BBB
What a sook!
I thought he made some salient points, missed here amongst the smugness of being ‘alluded to’ by a daily newspaper. Posters here need to be careful with the facts, this site is not exactly a bastion of either diverse or free speech, Mark himself has also been a contributor to the Australian. Maybe there are some home truths being ignored here?
Anymore of this and LP will be a bigger blogging juggernaut than it already is. People here are probably going to hate me for what I am about to reveal: I read Bolt for the same reason I read LP. They are second to none.
Liam, that Troppo blog post was just a complete car crash.
Maugrim, how can a blog possibly be a bastion of diversity? And why? Even so, it’s better than the Australian’s op-ed pages. As for free speech, looks pretty free around here, as long as you’re not racist or sexist. You do realise of course that LP declares its bias right up front, on every page, while the Australian, which is far right wing, declares itself to be the moral centre with far greater certitude than this place ever does.
Wasn’t his article a Fox Ad ?
Don’t worry, all the same criticism has been directed at Crikey where of course he cut his teeth. Quite like Christian but I wouldn’t take the spray personally..
It’s been said before, but it remains a great line:
Christian Kerr: LP’s Sophie Masson.
This has got to be some sort of in-joke between Mark and CK doesn’t it? I mean, it wasn’t such a long time ago that CK used to solicit articles for his former online rag from Mark, for which was paid real money, was it?
Nah, it’s gotta be a game or exercise whereby the art of SEO/ google climbing is demonstrated. An excellent demonstration by the way, now please explain how it works.
Or else it’s serious, in which case,…. to think I bought his book, before it was remaindered. In deference to the “freedom of the press” umbrella this storm in a teacup is occuring under ( terrible pun, i know, I know, it was an accident, I’m not taking it back ), I guess I’ll just have to go burn it, his book I mean. (I suppose I should link to it, as a courtesy, n’est-ce pas? )
Narcissism being what it is, we can, I guess, assume CK will be watching this thread, and having a bit of a giggle… I mean, what started out as a bit of prosaic inky blog bashing, became the mere understory which its electronic referent climbed all over, in search engine, and therefore eyeball share, terms. Brilliant. That’s what was meant to happen, right?
If you, C K, are reading this, give yourself a clap: well done for getting away with it, ostensibly having a go at bloggering, as per your boss’ requirement, yet all the while allowing Mark to showcase the platform’s dainty tricks. Rupert will be impressed. You two are such japesters.
Is it possible that this all some sort of collusion between Mark and Christian in order to bring up the hits on their respective sites. Mark’s readers all visit Christian piece on the Australian website and interested readers of the Australian that are intelligent enough to work out how to use Google can hop onto LP. Very clever you guys.
Oh wait… that’s a conspiracy theory. Dammit, I’m playing into their hands!!
There really are conspiracy theorists around, aren’t there, particularly when Rupe is mentioned?
As anyone who’s heard him speak on the topic knows, Christian Kerr has never thought much of blogs. No idea where this spray is coming from – it seems to ratchet up the intensity of the rhetoric. It may be related to the “right to know” anti-privacy law campaign they’re running, but that doesn’t explain the hyperbole and the affect.
And it’s not the first time that he’s used unattributed quotes from this blog. Some were arguably more egregious – not even quotation marks to signal the citation.
And Christian was never the editor of Crikey. I think I’ve met him once, spoken on the phone twice, and exchanged a few emails. When I was writing for Crikey, my main point of contact was with the managing editors, and less often the editor.
GW, sorry old bean but your syllogism falls down here:
“Mark’s readers all visit Christian['s] piece on the Australian website”
nope, not going to happen.
Wasn’t it “Larvatus Prodeo: Mark Bahnisch’s The Australian”?
No, wait, that’s not it.
“Larvatus Prodeo: featuring Club Troppo’s Mark Bahnisch”.
No, that’s not it either.
“Fyodor Bazarov: Sophie Masson’s Missy Higgins”.
Hm. Still way off.
“Christian Kerr: Crikey, Troppo”.
“Hillary Bray 08: The Manchurian Australian”.
“Larvatus Prodeo: Robots In Disguise”.
“No Soap, Radio: Larvatus Prodeo”.
Give me a minute here. Have your people talk to my people.
that’s too many words for a Friday haiku, Liam
Oh well, maybe this unbalanced, factually challenged, smug, too academic, ill-informed, divorced from the real world echo chamber will one day reach the dizzying heights of fair, factual and balanced discourse displayed on that outstanding blog hosted by Mr/s Bray’s renowned fellow journo-in-arms Andrew Bolt.
Oh I was of course being facetious.
What on earth is Christian on about regarding his interpretation of “took far too narrowly American and thus falsely universal a view”?
Clearly Kim was referring to persons treating ‘free speech in the US’ too universally. Freedom of speech in Oz/the UK is different to freedom of speech in the US under the First Amendment. Straightforward stuff.
The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights – a resolution (you might want to look up what a resolution is, Christian) – does not alter that very simple fact.
“How do you divorce the US and freespeech [sic]?”
That’s not required or even relevant Christian – sorry mate, you’re off in the la la land of lack of comprehension.
“we’re smug, ill informed, prone to conspiracy theories, full of hatred for the noble profession of journalism, divorced from the real world, an echo chamber, too academic”
Jeez, he makes that sound like a bad thing.
Can Jaques perform page impression/ip address database query magic to measure how many first-time-to-LP virgin eyeballs turn up to a particular post, such as ‘frinstance this one?
IE could the OZ article delivered more new LP readers than the average, in which case CK will have provided a service, and should be most sincerely gratituded for it?
If that was the case, those migratory OZ readers would have to be damned curious and determined types, given, as Mark notes, that no easy explicit reference was given, that anyone coming from there to here would have had to do some work, googling a quote.
Which would make this little dumpling of a blog appear to be very sticky ( that’s a technical term in media consumption studies I think, if not it should be) indeed. Which would be quite interesting to Rosebud types, always looking for more sleds to play with.
Hmmm, that reminds me…. Mark was saying recently somewhere that someone, who shall forever remain unnamed, had made him an offer, which wasn’t considered for a second, for the present company and all who sail in her.
It couldn’t be, could it, that this is all about a spurned offer from ….. nah, that would be just too funny. Now that’s what I call a conspiracy theory.
Yeah that piece is just an advertisement for Foxtel. Somehow he managed to work Sky News, the Sky News Business Channel and Fox Sports into it all owned at least in part by News Corp. Does he appreciate the irony of referring to “these” blogs as an echo chamber? The Australian’s efforts in the lead-up to last year’s Federal Election would be the very definition. Wheeling out poor Shamaham to spin the lastest Newspoll (we own it so there!) results was perhaps more exciting than the Election itself!
All I really know about this Christian Kerr is that he has proven to be inferior to Bernard Keane at Crikey. I guess LP and teh blogs just really aren’t as “fair and balanced” as The Gazette/Organ. *cough*
danny, I was looking at you when I referred to “conspiracy theories”!
Don’t over-analyse – politics and the media are both simpler than you think.
But we’ve had this conversation before!
mainstream ipso facto equals balance and fact? “The sheer fact it’s mainstream, though, means it must offer two crucial elements missing from the world of the blogs. They are balance and fact.”
I thought mainstream just meant the most widely read. And popularity is not correlated to quality. Although for how long will “most widely read” include newspapers – their circulation is shrinking?
What does “widely read” mean in this context though? You can’t assume because x copies of the dead tree paper are sold on Friday 22 August that the number of readers of Christian Kerr’s column would be x.
I dunno Mark, I read it and got a little cross.
If he was like a Rousseau I would say he was paranoid…unfortunately he’s more like a Hobbes arsewipe.
Much like his execrable mate, the superannuated praying-mantis Stephen Mayne.
Good riddance to both
The guy is so breathy on LNL and just knows.
Never says anything other than the predictable MSM pap, though.
Mr Gossip deserves a place on Insiders for more Sunday comedy value.
Thanks to informed comments here and at PollBludger I now rarely read The Australian or News Ltd. On the occasions that I do, the bias antennae are tuned to high sensitivity.
kerr’s notion of ‘balance’ is used as a foil.
we should not expect journalists to write articles with ‘balance’ they should be writing the truth.
the only obligation journalists have to report different opinions or differing representations of fact is when they could be found for defamation.
pursuing ‘balance’ as an ideal reads like the bullshit in the US where ID is set alongside evolution for the sake of ‘balance’.
Goodness me! I go to hospital for two weeks, come out as cured as I’m ever going to be and I come out and log on to LP and discover we’re famous, sort of. Or, putting it another way, find the MSM are sitting up and taking notices of us. What on earth have you lot been up to while I’ve been away?
Whatever it was you must’ve been doing something right.
Oh the OC – wow he’s all class!
Maybe it’s too embarrassing to admit stealing Landeryou’s lines?
Hi Paul – been wondering where you were and missing you round here! Glad to see you back.
Yes, I’ll second that, Kim. Welcome back Paul.
Yes, hi Paul.
Hope you’re feeling okay.
Yes, glad you’re on the mend Paul!
Yeah, but they’re really inside the beltway gossip for a lot of us, Rebekka. Most people don’t care too much about the ins and outs of Victorian Labor factional politics or which Young Liberals got too trashed in a hotel.
Note also that to diss Landeryou doesn’t imply praising Kerr. It’s been mentioned earlier on this thread that he’s been known to lift ideas and lines from blogs without attribution. If he’s lifting whole stories, well…
Update: More from tigtog at Hoyden.
Hi, all. Thanks for your well wishes.Am in better health than I’ve been for several years. The doctors fixed up everything that was fixable. Will have at least one astonishing story about the widespread infection of the Popefest for you in Saturday Salon,tomorrow.Suspect you will be nearly as stunned as I was when it happened to me.
Oh come on, two recent stories he’s broken are the story that got Garrie Hutchinson removed from the Dept of Veterans’ Affairs recently – I’d say that’s more than just gossip. And the scandal of the Liberal bloggers who were running the anti-Ballieu blog that almost toppled the Liberal leadership in Victoria? Slightly more than just the ins-and-outs of Victorian factional politics and which young Libs got trashed where.
Of course there is a lot of gossip going on there too, but he, unlike Kerr, actually breaks stories. Real news stories.
Help! my last comment was eaten by the spam-bot
Well, I’ve got no idea who Garrie Hutchinson is, Rebekka. I’m personally not a fan of “gotcha” journalism whether it’s bloggers or journos doing it.
Yeah, but you have to admit Rebbekah’s point still stands, Kim. Don’t let your personal distaste of Landeryou (which I share, btw) blind you.
Sure, patrickg. I thought I’d agreed with that but perhaps not clearly enough!
Kim #73
Well, it’s mainly just adding some link-juice to Mark’s post here, Kim. The one point I’ll bring from it, which a few others on this thread have alluded to, is WTF is with all the rhetoric in the MSM about “balance”? What happen to the traditional pledges/practises of “objectivity”?
I’d much rather have an objective media than a spuriously “balanced” media. A balanced view of humanity gives the dead average human being one breast, one ovary and one testicle each – but it doesn’t paint an objective picture, does it?
Maybe that’s the claim about “fact”, tigtog?
God bless Pavlov’s Cat!
“I’d much rather have an objective media than a spuriously “balanced” media.”
Too bloody right. Balance is unforgivably boring.
BBB
Paul,
good to see you “on blog” again. Hope that the recovery time from the surgeries flies by. Take care.
He is the true flying squad bozo, post excretance.
A typical Ad uni undergrad from the eastern suburbs type; worst of all, the vacuous supercilliousness has made him utterly intolerable to this writer for years, apart from a couple of half tolerable articles for the suburban local rag, a while back. No wonder Murdochs hired him, he passes all the criteria.
Truly, I wonder if he edited “On Dit”?
Don’t laugh, you don’t know how many Murdoch clones have taken the same career path trajectory. Start with Penberthy and ( I think) Milne.
A greivous wound upon my sensibilities. His background alone should be sufficient to demonstrate what use he’d be. A hip pocket on a singlet would be functional, by contrast.
But additionally, we have his writing, too…
As for the rest; no doubt about it, The Murdoch press just can’t tolerate even a whiff of dissent, can it?
Thanks,tigtog. Was chronic breathing disorder, years of smoking when I was younger.No surgery.My cancer is in remission and treated with hormones.
Apropos of the MSM. When I was in hospital I was virtually news deprived for a fortnight. For some peculiar reason the only newspaper available was the Daily Telerot, which I hardly ever read. Now, having read it occasionally during the past fortnight, (throwing away the Olympic wraparound without giving it a glance), I now know why. Apparently the SMH is too difficult for sick peoples’ brains to comprehend.
As some-one who watches breakfast TV to work out what the RWDBs are up to, then cfhecks out Google News,the Age, the Guardian, the Independent, the NY Times,the Times, sometimes the Washington Post and the Christian Science Monitor, LP with all its marvellous links, various blogs and GLW regularly as well as ch 10 + 9 News, the ABC, 7.30 Report,Q&A, and if I’m in a good mood, SBS, I’m sure you can all imagine how information starved I was.
btw, didn’t Trioli truly show her fascist colours on Lareline tonight? I actually screamed at the TV. Think its the first time I’ve done it since we got rid of Howard the Unflushable Turd.
Am very sorry to learn you have been ill, Paul Burns. The last thing the world needs is one of the honest ones ailing.
Ah, yes, paul walter, but I served the cause well. I left copies of Green Left Weekly and Solidarity at the Nurses’ station for the workers to read, brought into me in the last two days by some socialist comrades who’ve just got back from Europe. I never like letting a chance to further the revolution pass.My other socialist comrade was laid low by the horrendous cold that put me there in the first place, had 3 sick teenagers on her hands, and wasn’t game to come near me lest she make me ill again.
Thanks for your kind thoughts.
Clicked link to Kerr’s article and fell about laughing.
This is the same man that, when working at Crikey.com.au, regularly used news tips sent to him by – yes, you guessed it- BLOGGERS!
Is Kerr from Adelaide? Shit! I apologize to Australia on behalf of my home town.
(Off topic) David, did I read you saying elsewhere that your gravatar is your own chook? Is she an ISA Brown?
How can you loathe Landeryou when he writes this kind of stuff:
“YUM YUM: Club Fed Remorseless Eating Machines Ready To Chow Down On A Lustrous Pearl-Decorated Seafood Buffet
An email – obtained by the OC Investigations Unit – was sent to federal members of Parliament yesterday alerting them to a September seafood binge including a lavish spread of the Patagonian toothfish, a type of fish some believe to be the world’s most threatened fish species.
Sources indicate that the event is one of the favourite occasions of the Parliamentary season and offers two and a half hours of unlimited seafood dining of the kind that will have the big lads of Parliament, like Dick Adams, Kim Carr and Mitch Fifield, salivating in feasting joy in the event scheduled to run for two and half hours of crustacean munching frenzy.”
BBB
Personally, I find this purple prose quite pleasing.
Some comments have been removed from this thread at a commenter’s own request. I’ve also removed some other comments by another commenter because I think the accusations in them might potentially be defamatory. I’m not expressing a view on the truth of those claims, but I would ask the commenter to understand that we don’t want to accept legal liability for publishing them. We’ve already got one person threatening us with legal action, and we don’t want to be fighting on more than one front.
I apologise for the fact that they weren’t spotted earlier, but I’ve been away from the computer this weekend, and I’m taking action as soon as I became aware of them.
I’m also closing this thread. Further gravatar discussion can take place on the open thread.