Intellectual dishonesty is pure poison – A Crikey weblog

#LOLBolt quarantine zone – 7 February

February 7, 2012 – 10:15 am, by Dave Gaukroger

There’s no doubting the incredible work ethic of the Southbank Jester, Andrew Bolt, which is why we’ve decided to dedicate a thread to him each week where you can discuss his unique contributions to public discussion. Dump your #LOLBolt observations in here so we can keep discussions in the open threads a little more sane, and easily find them for the podcast each week.

Comments (51) | Permalink

51 Comments

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1

John Many Johns

Posted February 7, 2012 at 11:21 am | Permalink

The man has a strange concept of;

Brown skinned alive on Lateline

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/brown_skinned_alive_on_lateline/
2

gtpfb13

Posted February 7, 2012 at 11:40 am | Permalink

Agreed. I think he and his tragics watch different versions of the programs. They always come up with these Bizarro World comments. A couple of times I’ve watched interviews after reading Andy’s post and/ or the comments and found nothing that relates to what they appear to have seen. It’s almost like they don’t even watch it, they just imagine what might have happened. Or comment on Andy’s slanted post without having seen the actual interview.

It’s a strange old world they live in. I far prefer the real one.
3

Sammy Jankis

Posted February 7, 2012 at 12:22 pm | Permalink

“Bob Brown’s Media Meltdown” is a classic example of this. The journos interviewing him come off looking like a pack of whiny sooks – “Stop picking on us! You’re so mean!” , while Bob Brown looked like he was enjoying every second. Meanwhile, Bolt and his barbarians are linking to the Youtube video suggesting that Brown was under the pump and humiliated. Reality, it seems, is just another leftist plot.
4

Rich Uncle Skeleton

Posted February 7, 2012 at 1:12 pm | Permalink

Or comment on Andy’s slanted post without having seen the actual interview.

Bingo. They never click through.
5

fred p

Posted February 7, 2012 at 1:52 pm | Permalink

Brown skinned alive on Lateline

Wow, really? I’m not going to give the Herald Sun the clicks they desire by going and reading Bolt, but I was watching Lateline last night and anyone who thinks Brown was “skinned alive” in that interview is crazy.

Although if he did get skinned alive, I guess the ABC’s left-wing bias is not as strong perhaps as the Southbank Sook has previously led us to believe. Since when have lefty pollies been subjected to tough questioning on the ABC?
6

Holden Back

Posted February 7, 2012 at 1:55 pm | Permalink

How are the Gina Monologues faring, or are they still on hiatus for re-tooling?
7

Chris Tallis

Posted February 7, 2012 at 2:02 pm | Permalink

The answer is as obvious as the finding of yet another study confirming the low intelligence base of conservative supporters.
They watch the same stuff as the rest of us but only get a fraction of the detail.
To communicate with them you must use short words and you also must expect much of what you have attempted to communicate to be misunderstood or ignored or forgotten before you reach your next breath. Andy relies on it.
8

Aliar Jones

Posted February 7, 2012 at 3:50 pm | Permalink

Brown skinned alive on Lateline

I always take it for granted that whatever way Bolt casts something, it is a twisted inversion of the truth..
9

Brown Bob

Posted February 7, 2012 at 4:17 pm | Permalink

Comment 3 : Bravo ! I never thought I would see the words “whiny sook” and “Bob Brown” put in the same paragraph without the former referring to the latter but somehow you managed it !
10

Strife

Posted February 7, 2012 at 6:06 pm | Permalink

Brown Skinned alive on Lateline.

This is less about reporting what happened and more about a pack of racists getting the words “Brown skin” in their headline. He’s probably been holding onto that one since the court case. I’m sure they giggled till they dribbled when they posted it.
11

Aliar Jones

Posted February 7, 2012 at 7:10 pm | Permalink

I never thought

fixed
12

AR

Posted February 7, 2012 at 10:40 pm | Permalink

As I wouldn’t dream of giving the HUN clicks, I puzzled over “Brown skinned alive on LateLine” assuming, as noted by STRIFE that Rusty’s ratbags did, that it was summat to do with his travails in court last year.
Having heard (I was online so didn’t ‘see’) the Greens’ Leader last night, I thought he did exceptionally well in explaining his position. No surprise there – we should be so lucky that a fraction of the other pollies had his cogence & integrity…
13

Matthew of Canberra

Posted February 7, 2012 at 10:41 pm | Permalink

As regulars will know, I’ve successfully ejected andrew bolt’s writings from life, with a mixture of annoyance reaching boil-over threshold and firewall rules. PJ Media, too.

So I actually can’t/won’t read what he’s said about bob brown. That’s ok, though, because I dare say I’ve seen it all before. Brown’s serve at the assembled whingers outside parliament house a few months probably set the template.

But I wonder … can we move past “southbank sook”? Is there enough cause to consider “southbank stooge” instead?
14

Matthew of Canberra

Posted February 7, 2012 at 11:12 pm | Permalink

Just watched the bob brown interview. Whatever one might think of his policies, he really is one of the coolest cucumbers in canberra. Other political leaders have a moan and complain when asked loaded questions … bob brown just answers the question.
15

Matthew of Canberra

Posted February 8, 2012 at 8:11 am | Permalink

“it was summat to do with his travails in court last year.”

Wouldn’t it therefore be “light skinned alive …”?
16

Cuppa

Posted February 8, 2012 at 8:23 am | Permalink

So lolbolt doesn’t like The Global Mail. Anyone surprised? Prolific purveyor of propaganda for the political interests of the wealthy and privileged disparages quality independent journalism.

The Global Mail‘s only agenda is its audience. The phalanx of groupthinking locksteppers in the “mainstream” media left looking shabby and shallow in contrast.

http://www.theglobalmail.org/
17

SonofMogh

Posted February 8, 2012 at 9:52 am | Permalink

Holden,

Insiders am – 162,000
Insiders am 24 – 46,000
Insiders pm – 32,000

Bolt am – 129,000
Bolt pm – 135,000
18

Liz A

Posted February 8, 2012 at 9:53 am | Permalink

For gods sake, its an all-out assault by lolbolt on the weather, climate change and any economic scheme related today.

4 entries no less

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/bureau_predicts_we_wont_remember_its_last_prediction/

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/what_will_it_take_for_the_warmists_to_say_they_were_wrong/

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/tell_us_how_much_we_should_tax_you/

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/what_has_this_green_madness_cost_us/

It’s an avalanche of spurious logic, out of context (and refuted) quotes and plenty of “self-links”.

If I had the time I would refute every one of them, but I am not paid to undertake denialist correction. Even if someone was paid to try and inject sense into this echo chamber of stupidity it would be pointless as the Hun website does not allow more than 2 links per comment, and they are called denialists for a good reason.

The sheer volume of climate half-truths today (and in fact for this year so far) does make me wonder whether this is some kernel of truth in the Monckton video re “developing a business plan with Jo Nova and Andrew Bolt”.

I think I may have to take the same line as MoC and just not look anymore: if only for the sake of my sanity.
19

Liz A

Posted February 8, 2012 at 10:19 am | Permalink

I have posted this on the lolbolt site

https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/attribution/steroids-baseball-climate-change

should be simple enough for even the cretins there to understand? its pretty good actually: short, a cartoon, an easy to understand climate analogy using sport.

Though I will confidently predict that someone will try and take down the UCAR / NCAR credentials… I can almost guarantee that “NCAR and the UCAR Community Programs are managed by UCAR, a nonprofit consortium of research universities, on behalf of the National Science Foundation and the university community” will be viewed by the Bolters as some kind of vast conspiracy of communist brainwashing funded by taxpayer dollars.
20

Skiman

Posted February 8, 2012 at 11:29 am | Permalink

This is a long one so bear with me, but yesterday I experienced a new personal low in relation to the approach taken by the Bolt tribe on his Blog. The whole thing is really a shrine to anti-logic. For a man who criticises groupthink daily, it is hard to find a better example of it than his avid clickers.

Case in point: Yesterday, I pointed out a couple of issues with one poster’s “factual” statements about Bob Brown’s super proposal (which seems pretty reasonable to me, actually).

The Tribe went for the jugular. Personal abuse and ridicule abounded. That’s all fine and standard in enemy territory, but what really irritates me is when people with sub-simian IQs argue “factually” and rely on moderators to prevent an actual debate exposing their own shallowness of thinking.

People threw in any super “facts” they knew to discount my argument despite all of them being ill-informed or off-topic. The original poster said that I’d completely ignored the issue of leverage (despite him not mentioning it), and went on to create some assumptions about market performance which showed exactly why leveraged investments meant that Brown is a moron, and declared himself the “winner” – of course, it doesn’t take many changes to those assumptions to show that leverage can end up with a vastly worse result, which the poster ignored. One person called me a “complete and utter buffoon” for thinking that people actually pay 45 cents in the dollar despite my response being about the fact that there is a 15% effective rate for super contributions.

Of course, my response to these criticisms – which was factual in tone and addressed each piece of abuse in turn, went unpublished… The full comment list is below, with my annotations.

It would be nice every now and then if his Boltness actually publicly corrected some of the more insane posters on this Blog. This probably wasn’t the issue to do it on (it’s too technical), but in general terms some interaction is necessary as the collective idiocy on his blog is almost impossible to challenge from the outside. Voices of reason get shut down in the most amazing way.

harry (Reply)
Tue 07 Feb 12 (09:23am)
The stupidity of the Green’s “policy” is that currently super is a long-term investment with horrendous restrictions and the likelihood that some deranged idiotic politician will change the rules sometime along the way (eg. Bob Brown). The upside at the moment is that the tax rate is lower (15%) but you are restricted to a maximum of $25k per year (which means mostly inadequate income from super later in life).
Brown’s idiocy is to tax super contributions at 30% for the “wealthy”. This would mean that the tax rate would be higher than the discounted (held for more than 12months) capital gains tax (22.5%), which has no investment restrictions and you can use any income when you might need it any time along the way rather than decades in the future.
Brown’s policy is more evidence of the shallow thinking that dominates Green policy making and is a result of none of them having a clue about investment or management.
———-

Skiman replied to harry
Tue 07 Feb 12 (10:49am)
You know, what you say about Brown’s “idiocy” is itself idiotic. CGT is charged at 22.5% on investments made with income that has already been taxed. So you pay, let’s say, $45 on every $100 you receive in salary income – which you could reduce to $30 if you put it in super under Brown’s proposal, and $15 under the current rules.
Super is then taxed at 15% in the fund, with a CGT exemption which brings capital gains in the fund down to 10%. This is a lot less than 22.5% and what Brown is proposing wouldn’t change this in the slightest. You are confusing the issue of contributions and earnings.
Is this just “more evidence of the shallow thinking that dominates this blog and your not having a clue about investment or management”? ‘Cause the Greens are winning thus far.
———-

Rooboy replied to harry
Tue 07 Feb 12 (12:30pm)
Skiman you are one to talk about shallow thinking. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. [There was I thinking I'd been the one who actually knew how the super system. Amazingly shallow of me...]
———-

Josh replied to harry
Tue 07 Feb 12 (12:47pm)
i think he is comparing Super Contribution to Investing himself, Skiman if Brown raises the 30% tax on rich people. [Wrong - because as Pargo notes below you can contribute voluntarily at 0% after tax: employer sponsored voluntary super contribution is a tax concession not a tax]
———-

pargo replied to harry
Tue 07 Feb 12 (12:51pm)
The stupidity of it is that voluntary contributions made by employees into super are not taxed at all! Its a zero tax rate. [Yes, because they've already been taxed at the full rate...] Employer and salary sarifice contributions are taxed at 15%, but a low-income earner wouldn’t be salary sacrificing anyway – no income tax benefit. [But there WOULD be if Brown's proposal got up...]
He also neglected to mention that low-income earners currently may be entitled to the government co-contribution into super. [Up to $1,000 - playing for sheep stations this ain't] Something higher earners aren’t entitled to. [Because they make $1,000 back in tax concessions from 15% contribution tax many times over]
Bob’s entire premise is flawed. Absolutely clueless these Greens. Super 101 please Bob.
———-

MattR replied to harry
Tue 07 Feb 12 (01:33pm)
Is this just “more evidence of the shallow thinking that dominates this blog and your not having a clue about investment or management”? ‘Cause the Greens are winning thus far’
Only in the minds of economic illiterates. If you think the greens are ‘winning’ in regards to this you truly need your head examined.
Either way this is just another stupid and worthless tax proposed by the greens.
You even point it out:
which you could reduce to $30 if you put it in super under Brown’s proposal, and $15 under the current rules.
So it’s nothing but yet another tax grab and you think the greens are ‘winning’ the debate?
Pull the other one kid. [According to my life philosophy, this is just wrong. But I accept that the Right approach this issue differently.]

harry replied to harry
Tue 07 Feb 12 (01:36pm)
Skiman have you ever heard of leverage? [Yes, I fancy I know it better than this muppet, but this is the first time Harry raised it...]
You can borrow, use the money you we going to put into super to pay the interest and it become 100% deductible. i.e 0% tax. [Ok so far...]
So now you have a multiplier against the savings you would have put into super (the ratio of principle [that's principAL - the first sign of something going awry] versus interest rate) driving your earnings and you get the capital gain tax at 22.5%. [I think I know what he's trying to say, but I'm being generous],
So let’s say I “invest” $20k in super, I buy $17k of bank shares. I get 7% dividends and it rises 10% in the first year [Guaranteed, too. That's nice. Let's see how bank shares go in 2012. Also, the 10% rise needs to be in addition to the 7% drop in capital you'll experience through dividend payment (let's see if he's up on his finance theory). So the assumption is a 17% year on year financial performance. Don't see this guy for financial advice] This all goes into super, which I can’t touch for decades [and is taxed at 15 or 10%, remember]. After 1 year I have $19890 in super, and I can’t touch it for decades.
Or I invest the same $20k to pay for loan interest on $250k, invest in bank shares. The interest is fully deductible,
I end up with a $25k cap gain [Which implies that a bank will lend to you for you to invest 100% leveraged. Which is a great way to run a portfolio], which gives me a $19375 post tax return and a $17.5k dividend with 30% tax paid.
And I get to use the money in 1 year. No strings.
Perhaps you declared victory rather early. [I really think he could have rammed his point home by assuming that the shares would rise 400% and that he had borrowed $10 trillion. If you run the same sums with a 10% capital loss you notice that you still have a $250k bank loan, you've paid all of the dividends and tax benefits to the bank to pay for interest costs - I'm going to assume that the loan is unsecured as that suits me and therefore takes a high interest rate; he's assumed fully-franked dividends so it only seems fair - and a only $225k worth of assets. So you'd crystalise a 25k loss and have to find another $25k this year, not in decades' time. In a fund, you wouldn't have been able to leverage it so you'd have only invested 20k and only lost about 1.4k post dividend. So super would have performed 15 times better.]

Steve replied to harry
Tue 07 Feb 12 (01:47pm)
@ Skiman…..
If you think wealthy people (in the eyes of Bob Brown, the very rich) pay $45 out of every $100 they earn then you are a complete and utter buffoon….. [I don't think that, as is evidenced by the fact we were talking about the tax concession given to the wealthy allowing them to cut their effective tax rate by 2/3rds. FWIW (which should be not much if we were capable of thinking outside our own back yards) I pay 45c in the dollar. Slightly off topic: that people wilfully confuse "cost of living" with "cost of lifestyle" to justify the type of middle class welfare which the Bolt warriors are defending here really angers me. That mindset is damaging the psyche of this country]
21

Cuppa

Posted February 8, 2012 at 12:12 pm | Permalink

a man who criticises groupthink daily

Amazing! The Right-Wing Projection is so vivid it’s blinding!
22

Skiman

Posted February 8, 2012 at 2:45 pm | Permalink

I forgot to add in my lengthy diatribe that “Harry” forgot to take into account the tax saving of investing in super, and in fact penalised super contributions (i.e., he assumed that he had 20k to invest outside of super versus 17k within super, rather than 11k – at 45c in the dollar – and 17k respectively) – which was the very issue I picked him up on in the first place.

Point being, Bolt readers are poorly informed yet amazingly opinionated. Which shouldn’t surprise me (especially given that their saviour demonstrates the same syndrome) but it really does when people stray into my areas of knowledge bringing gaping voids of understanding, and make out that I don’t know what I’m talking about.
23

gtpfb13

Posted February 8, 2012 at 5:03 pm | Permalink

Skiman@22

Point being, Bolt readers are poorly informed yet amazingly opinionated. Which shouldn’t surprise me (especially given that their saviour demonstrates the same syndrome)

This is the result of the correlation between poor cognitive skills and Right Wing thinking as found in this study in the February edition of Psycological Science:

http://pss.sagepub.com/content/23/2/187.full

This correlation has always been obvious to non Right Wingers, but it’s nice to have studies backing it up.
24

Aliar Jones

Posted February 8, 2012 at 7:22 pm | Permalink

It’s an echo chamber, I honestly don’t know why anyone bothers engaging them…it’s a cult of idiocy and phony victimhood which does nothing but project a false view of the world..

Our resident dingbats have shown they will scrape to any pathetic level (redefining popular meaning of words is a basic right wing trick..) to legitimize their ugly racist instincts..

If there are right wing moderates, they have no voice at the moment.
25

AR

Posted February 8, 2012 at 10:18 pm | Permalink

This point has been made often but it bears repetition -
John Stuart Mill letter to Conservative MP, Sir John Pakington (March 1866)”
I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to
say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so
26

Matthew of Canberra

Posted February 9, 2012 at 8:39 am | Permalink

gtpfb13 @23

I resisted as long as I could. Those sorts of studies usually promise way more than they can deliver. But I gave in and had a look at the first few paragraphs to see what they’re on about.

My immediate criticism is that they’re conflating right-wing and conservative. I have a problem with that. It’s like equating liberal and stalinist. It’s not just a quantitative scale, there actually is a difference.

I don’t doubt that there is some sort of learning/experience deficiency that leads people to #1 clippers and waving their right arm around (I’d add “and thinking an assault rifle is the sort of thing that might be useful”, but I had a quite nice friend at uni who owned one …). But, for the most part, that’s not where conservatism is at. It is possible to be a bit nationalist and a bit leery of brown people (and happy to let somebody shuffle them away where you don’t have to see them as long as you don’t have to do it yourself) without channeling hitler – you (and I mean the rhetorical “you”, not “you personally”) just need to be a bit (intellectually) lazy and a bit selfish and a bit unhappy about change.

It is also possible to a sensible conservative and just be wrong. See the debate about gay marriage. Likewise, lefties were never very happy about some of the more sensible economic reforms (HECS, tariff reductions, labour deregulation). People see their own self-interest in all sorts of places. That’s not evil, it’s just human nature.

I tend to think of a lot of conservative resentment about boat people not as a form of racism (because they actually don’t even SEE the people who arrive – they’re basically faceless, these days), but as a form of NIMBYism – keep the world out there, we don’t want them coming in unless we’re sure they’re like us and we don’t want their problems here either. Incidentally, that sort of thinking is hardly confined to boat people – it’s been applied to just about every wave of immigration for decades. It’s just that boat people give us this really great excuse by turning up “uninvited” and being in the news all the time (the “we’re doing it for their own good” angle is a stroke of political genius)

Within the spectrum of political views we’d consider “normal”, it’s not really all that necessary to psychoanalyse people to understand where they’re coming from. For the most part you just need to ask them, and they’ll tell you.

Now … the people who post on PJ media, and the worst examples in andy’s gang, sure. They’re some pretty wonky thinkers. And a few are apparently insane (more so in the case of PJM, where the occasional post really ought to attract the attention of The Authorities)

And I think it is perfectly reasonable to have a beef with people who disingenuously try to appeal to those unfortunate instincts in order to make money. Doubly so when they dress up some of the more extreme manifestations, and a highly selective presentation of facts, in a veneer of honest respectability so as to attract and appeal the genuinely unpleasant members of society while maintaining plausible deniability. I’m obviously not talking about anybody in particular.
27

savvas jwnhs

Posted February 9, 2012 at 9:22 am | Permalink

Is this the most disgusting thing he has ever posted?

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/three_is_unusual_even_for_the_innocent/
28

Rich Uncle Skeleton

Posted February 9, 2012 at 11:33 am | Permalink

Liz A, you may be interested in this.

But hey, why talk about the positive long term term in world temperature averages caused by Co2 emissions when it’s cold in Winter? Who’da thunkit!

In fact, why don’t we plot a graph to see if Bolt’s decade of cold winters is indicative of anything?

(PS. Hi Andrew!)
29

Rich Uncle Skeleton

Posted February 9, 2012 at 11:34 am | Permalink

*long term trend
30

Liz A

Posted February 9, 2012 at 12:34 pm | Permalink

Hi RUS,

Good old Deltoid. I haven’t been there in a while as the posts are not very current: Tim Lambert must be under the pump.

The wood for trees link is a good one: thanks for the tip!

Interestingly the very cool link I posted here @19 never made it through the Bolt mods. I actually posted the link with something like “Thankyou for pointing out what the scientists have been saying about extreme weather and climate change for some years”.

Now, I wonder what was so inflammatory about my comment that it could not be posted, when crap like this (randomly selected comment) gets through the same mods:

Only fools and lefties. replied to AS
Wed 08 Feb 12 (03:10pm)

A little inconvenient for some, but reality has a habit of winning out in the end. For the past decade the world has not warmed, global warming has ceased. It’s not an opinion or a sceptic’s inaccuracy it’s an observational fact.

Only fools think we have a sufficient understanding of such a complicated system as the Earth’s atmosphere’s interaction with sunlight and that the science of global warming is beyond doubt. So it’s time for you guys to look for another barrow (TAX) to push.

It truly makes me wonder about exactly what the Bolt moderators are moderating for. I can only presume based on the above that it must be to ensure that the Bolt blog remains a balance free zone.
31

heavylambs

Posted February 9, 2012 at 7:03 pm | Permalink

Bolt has now posted another Gore-taunt by citing a rather misleading Guardian article on a new satellite study on global land ice.

The study finds that,yep,global land ice is on the retreat to the tune of 148+/-30 gigatonnes annually for the eight year period to 12/2010. The high Asian glacial area show no significant change,-an annual loss,but not statistically significant-as some subareas have lost mass and others gained. Areas of ice of less than 100km2 were not included in the study-and these are areas that one can expect loss to be the dominant result.

Unfortunately,The Guardian has translated this into the entire Himalayan/Karakoram/etc. have not lost any ice in a decade. Bolt finds that a very appealing picture,and has satisfied himself that this is as much as he needs to do to acquaint himself with the matter before carrying on like a pork chop.That’s how we know it’s him…
32

Angra

Posted February 9, 2012 at 8:05 pm | Permalink

Well Mr Climate Scientist says -

“Can someone tell Al Gore?
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, February 09, 12 (05:14 pm)”

“Yet another warming scare slowly deflates:”

“The world’s greatest snow-capped peaks, which run in a chain from the Himalayas to Tian Shan on the border of China and Kyrgyzstan, have lost no ice over the last decade, new research shows. ”

Yet the actual article linked to says –

“Our results and those of everyone else show we are losing a huge amount of water into the oceans every year,” said Prof John Wahr of the University of Colorado. “People should be just as worried about the melting of the world’s ice as they were before.”

His team’s study, published in the journal Nature, concludes that between 443-629bn tonnes of meltwater overall are added to the world’s oceans each year. This is raising sea level by about 1.5mm a year, the team reports, in addition to the 2mm a year caused by expansion of the warming ocean.

Here it is –

http://www.bris.ac.uk/geography/research/bgc/

Yet more proof that Mr Science does not read the articles he links to.

Has he no shame?

Obviously Not.

What a dork.
33

heavylambs

Posted February 9, 2012 at 8:59 pm | Permalink

Angra,link goes to wrong destination. This article includes a graphic from the paper
34

Angra

Posted February 9, 2012 at 10:46 pm | Permalink

The case of the giant pink rabbit.

My wife went to the local Salvos shop recently and came home with a giant pink rabbit.

I am not joking – it was a massive stuffed toy five feet long, with ears ten times the size of Tony Abbott’s and a body like Bronwyn and hair like Julia (on her head that is – Oooh, you naughty missus!)

It was amazing.

And it shared our bed – for a couple of days.

Unfortunately it got rather soiled one night (I won’t go into the details) and so we shoved it in the washing machine with a bottle of Comfort and a pack of Omo.

It came out the worse for wear and so we hung it on the clothes line by one ear for two weeks.

Unfortunately our local Magpies took a dislike to it and started attacking it – belly first.

We rescued it at last – a sad, pink, forlorn and damaged old rabbit with major intestional injuries due to the over-enthusiastic Magpies.

It’s now dried-out and clean – maybe even ready for Canberra.

But the Magpies have learnt their lesson.

Never peck a damp pink (r)abbit when there are worms to be had.
35

Liz A

Posted February 10, 2012 at 9:30 am | Permalink

lulz Angra, nice analogy. I am sure that there will be (r)abbit sympathisers rallying around soon, and attempting to call the magpies to task.

Today’s Bolt lulz come from this piece on Gillard’s appearance on 7.30 report last night. (disclaimer: I did not watch). Bolt posted at 8.09pm, so it took him a mere 30 minutes to jump onto his blog with this gem:

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/gillard_on_730_your_take/

Apart from being a general Julia whinge, he poses this question:

...why is Gillard now relentlessly talking about the “new economy”? What is so new about it? Economies always change and become “new”, but what special newness is Gillard trying to cope with?

Well, that would be the thing that he rails against so hard, and have talked about every single day this year: transitioning to a low carbon economy. I don’t think the man even understands why he hates it / is afraid of it… its a structural change to the fundamentals of the Aussie economy, not just a tweak around the edges that someone decides to “brand” as “new”.

*headdesk*

But then there was also this:

(Note: the moderators may not get to many comments tonight, but I shall read them before going on air at MTR 1377 tomorrow to talk about this.)

UPDATE

Of the more than 200 replies, almost universal condemnation. The real split is between those who couldn’t watch and those sorry they did. Not even the usual trolls could summon up the energy to defend what was shown.

Not even the usual trolls huh? Well, I suppose in Bolt world I would be considered something of a troll: from what I can tell a “leftie troll” on his blog is someone who insists on a balanced and accurate statement of facts… but if I am going to discuss an evening TV show in almost real time, why does he think that my first port of call would be his stupid blog? Most of the left-leaning “trolls” I know would have been on twitter.

The lack of refutations against crap on his blog is NOT a sign of a moral victory in his never-ending crusade against progressive politics.

His sense of self importance knows absolutely no bounds.
36

Angra

Posted February 10, 2012 at 10:46 am | Permalink

I should explain, to salvage our rabbits reputation- ‘getting soiled’ meany spilling some
Chicken Tikka Masala and rice with raita and dahl in an unfourtunate place.

Eating a good curry in bed while watching ‘Media Watch’ is the ultimate turn-on.

I’m sure you all know how difficult this is to clean.
37

John Many Johns

Posted February 10, 2012 at 10:59 am | Permalink

Blooter bemoans the Handout mentality of the Federal Government for bailing out the PMV industry;

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/the_great_new_handout_mentality_that_will_drag_us_all_down/

Just imagine his “confected” rage had the Government decided to say; “Well tough luck, you guy’s have been suckling at the public tit for far too long HTFU”
38

Matthew of Canberra

Posted February 10, 2012 at 5:11 pm | Permalink

“The lack of refutations against crap on his blog is NOT a sign of a moral victory”

Well, these days they’re not a sign of anything – it just means they weren’t published.
39

Jeremy Sear

Posted February 11, 2012 at 1:35 am | Permalink

Bolt’s demanding the ABC apologise for suggesting that Abbott’s remarks on Australia day prompted the protest at the Canberra restaurant. No! Of course they didn’t! They had nothing to do with it! It’s not like he said, on the 40th anniversary of the tent embassy’s founding, that they should “move on”.

Oh, wait, yes he did.
40

Jeremy Sear

Posted February 11, 2012 at 1:39 am | Permalink

Oh, and here’s his easy moralising on the teacher who filmed himself having sex with a former student:

Nor is it even simply a moral question. We have here a teacher who has sex with a former student and then posts a video of it on the internet for the world to see. Leave aside what message it sends the students, not least the girls, should he be deemed a fit and proper person to teach and hold authority over them.

“The message it sends the students, not least the girls”? What message? That sex is nothing to be ashamed of? BURN THE TEACHER AT THE STAKE!

Let’s think practical: how does he command the authority over his students that is necessary to maintain discipline and enforce the school’s standards of behaviour?

By being an effective teacher in the classroom?

It’s bizarre to have to argue such things now. It’s like having to explain to an adult why he must wash his hands after wiping his backside, and not spit on the carpet.

So’s trying to get Andrew to understand that climate change theory actually predicts extreme cold weather events. Sometimes the things you think should be obvious aren’t.
41

Liz A

Posted February 11, 2012 at 7:16 am | Permalink

MoC @ 38

Bolt was referring to the total number of replies to the blog post, not just those published.
42

Vesper Lynd

Posted February 11, 2012 at 9:02 am | Permalink

Bloots problem is he is unable to deal with anything that does not fall neatly within HIS neat little categorised world, in which everything has it’s place and everything is in it’s place.

He demonstrates this quiet neatly today with two post one on gender dysphoria
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/i_would_not_trust_parents_with_the_power_to_so_mutilate_their_children/
I’m guessing his answer would be to send the poor unfortunate child off to church and get the congregation to heal it with the power of prayer.

His other display is a snide little comment on an article by Peter Robb, in which he {Robb} confides that he wants to wear an Akira Isogawa dress.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/a_dress_of_sex_for_a_man_impressed/
43

Liz A

Posted February 12, 2012 at 10:47 am | Permalink

Oh for gods sake, the man’s selective memory is astounding.

When are we getting a proper explanation for having had so many scientists feed the great global warming scare? How can it be that every claim I know of that’s proved false has been on the alarmist side?

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/the_great_jellyfish_scare_goes_bung_too/

What? He can’t be reading too many papers or even reading the responses of the “leftist trolls” that respond to his bullshit.

Fortunately there is a record of his lengthy list of bullsh*t denialist arguments that have been well and truly refuted here at Pure Poison, skeptical science, deltoid and others.

Perhaps a comprehensive refutation list is in order?
44

Liz A

Posted February 13, 2012 at 8:55 am | Permalink

OMG there’s PROOF that those grubby-watermelon-communist-HUMAN-HATING-environmentalists have a sinister and dastardly plot to CHANGE LIFE AS WE KNOW IT.

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/column_locking_up_land_the_size_of_germany_shows_the_sinister_green_agenda/

Get this for a (hilarious) leap of faith by Bolt:

The federal Environment Department wants a formal assessment of threats to local and possibly endangered wildlife by the expansion of a marina in the mornington peninsula.

As this is an expansion of an existing development therefore the Developers should be held to a lower standard of care in an ecologically sensitive area.

This could just be bureaucracy…

But this also hints that at the heart of this green movement is a hatred for civilised man and his works.

because:

Thanks to green protests, we’ve already lost - or are losing - logging businesses, a pulp mill, dams, nuclear projects and mines.

Pffft! *logic fail*

Bolt uses this spurious logic to expound upon his real beef: The Greens (as opposed to general public greenies) are against a port development in the Kimberley.

Now, I did a quick search on AB’s blog on the word “Kimberley”, and up until 1 day ago the only interest that AB has ever shown in the Kimberley region is that benefit-receiving, possibly white skinned, aboriginals live there.

The proposed LNG port development in the Kimberley was announced 3 years ago, and in the last 12 months has been the focus of discontent amongst locals & WA greens.
http://www.nationaltimes.com.au/opinion/politics/destroying-the-kimberley-to-mine-gas-benefits-no-one-20110816-1ivzj.html
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110511/full/news.2011.284.html

So WHY does AB all of a sudden write 2 articles about the James Price Point development in 2 days, one of which is a column, when he has never given a toss about North West WA in the past?

Now if I were a conspiracy theorist, I would immediately think of a connection between Bolt, Monckton / Rinehart and ANDEV (Australians for Northern Development and Economic Vision) to justify AB’s sudden interest in a port development near Broome. But I am not, and I refuse to apply Bolt’s form of spurious logic to any such correlation and causation.
45

Liz A

Posted February 13, 2012 at 9:02 am | Permalink

Holy crap, I actually kind-of agree with something that Bolt has written.

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/column_save_the_children_first/

The Productivity Commission has just delivered its massive report on how government services are delivered, and notes that Aboriginal students are, on average, way behind on reading, writing and maths.

We’re talking about 160,000 Aboriginal students. If they don’t learn to read, write and count as well as everyone else, most will stay behind forever.

Nothing we do for Aborigines is as critical as a no-excuses, no-expense-spared, pro-assimilation education drive. All the rest are Band-Aids.

Now, I don’t agree with the militant call to arms tone of his conclusion, but I do agree that we need to focus resources on education for aboriginal youth.

My sky is falling in.
46

Catsidhe

Posted February 13, 2012 at 10:21 am | Permalink

@ Liz A

The money quote is in one word:

pro-assimilation

Take that blatant call to eliminationist arms out, and even I’ll agree. But with it in, he’s not saying that Aboriginal children need more and better help, he’s using that undeniable need as a hobby-horse for the elimination of Aboriginality.

(Not of Aboriginals, I’m not trying to suggest that he’s advocating genocide; I think he, and the Bennelong Society, and all the intertwined mess of conservatives, right-wingers and culture warriors, just want to make aboriginality go away. They don’t mind the people, so long as they’re white middle class taxpayers with dark skin, indistinguishable from any others.)
47

Liz A

Posted February 13, 2012 at 12:06 pm | Permalink

Good points Catsidhe, and indeed the use of the term “pro-assimilation” was the problem for me as well.

The use of the term pro-assimilation is often linked with that of anti-immigration, and sometimes even with “white racism”.

It is (IMHO) a dangerous word to be throwing around.
48

fred p

Posted February 13, 2012 at 1:37 pm | Permalink

savvas:
Is this the most disgusting thing he has ever posted?

Are you kidding? Not even in the top ten.

Try this:
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/but_the_bag_showed_a_conscience/
49

Rich Uncle Skeleton

Posted February 13, 2012 at 1:48 pm | Permalink

How can it be that every claim I know of that’s proved false has been on the alarmist side?

What an odd thing to say!

Bolt’s favourite source John McLean (who previously mislead Bolt into thinking a cooling stratsophere is evidence of a cooling globe when it is, in fact, exactly the opposite) postulated that 2011 would be the coldest year since 1956 or earlier.

I wonder if he will take back his claim?

I know he is reading this but I feel that every reader should email Bolt at bolta@heraldsun.com.au and inform him that he is incorrect.

Of course, he won’t but it’s always amusing watching him squirm.
50

SonofMogh

Posted February 14, 2012 at 3:48 pm | Permalink

If anyone is still interested:

Bolt Report 127,000

Insiders am 161,000
Insiders am N24 33,000
Insiders pm 32,000