Intellectual dishonesty is pure poison – A Crikey weblog

#LOLBolt quarantine zone – 15 February

February 15, 2012 – 8:22 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 (36) | Permalink

36 Comments

  1. 1
    Eponymous
    Posted February 15, 2012 at 9:38 am | Permalink

    “Is the Prime Minister a liar?”

  2. 2
    John Many Johns
    Posted February 15, 2012 at 10:13 am | Permalink

    It’s not that she lied but

    ... she does it so badly.
    ...

    So by extension if she was a more accomplished liar, Bloot would be behind her 100%

  3. 3
    Chris Tallis
    Posted February 15, 2012 at 11:29 am | Permalink

    Oh and I forgot how you can tell the difference.
    One is from the COALition and all the others aren’t.
    Derr.

  4. 4
    gtpfb13
    Posted February 15, 2012 at 12:02 pm | Permalink

    @2

    As he was with Howard.

  5. 5
    Matthew of Canberra
    Posted February 15, 2012 at 12:28 pm | Permalink

    “As he was with Howard.”

    Now HE was accomplished …

  6. 6
    Aliar Jones
    Posted February 15, 2012 at 12:29 pm | Permalink

    Odd, the right lie constantly and yet there is never any shrieking..

    could it be that the PM being a woman makes the difference?

    of course it is

  7. 7
    heavylambs
    Posted February 15, 2012 at 5:32 pm | Permalink

    “Why is this government taking advice from Flannery?”

    It isn’t, it employs him to deliver the scientific consensus through the Climate Commission,whose other five members wonder what they have to do to register in Andy’s ‘consciousness’…

  8. 8
    Brown Bob
    Posted February 15, 2012 at 6:11 pm | Permalink

    LOL Aliar Jones you may be right. In fact all the criticism she cops is only cause she’s a woman and has nothing to do with her being a liar (or incompetent). Her four corners interview was another great example of just how open and honest she is. Hey it’s fun in the twilight zone – why won’t everyone join you ?

    Anyway let’s see – sexism today so tomorrow’s excuse is either racism or homophobia. Take your pick, just trying to help ya !

  9. 9
    Jeremy Sear
    Posted February 15, 2012 at 7:02 pm | Permalink

    her being a liar

    Got any evidence of a single “lie” Gillard has told, Bob?

  10. 10
    Neil Walker
    Posted February 15, 2012 at 7:20 pm | Permalink

    I realise Bolt isn’t a real journalist (you know the type – one who actually investigates stuff and asks people questions before writing articles) but, even by his low standards, this is bemusing.

    More ALP leadership challenge speculation. Andrew has heard something may be happening third-hard. He has no evidence, of course. So would his readership be so kind as to pass any rumours they’ve heard on to him?

    Asstounding.

    http://twitpic.com/8jznip/full

  11. 11
    zoot
    Posted February 15, 2012 at 7:27 pm | Permalink

    her being a liar (or incompetent)

    Better add some examples of her incompetence as well.
    To repeat it one more time – this is a minority government, if Abbott had the skills of Gillard he would be Prime Minister. He doesn’t and he isn’t.

  12. 12
    confessions
    Posted February 15, 2012 at 8:54 pm | Permalink

    Earlier today I went to Bolt’s blog for the first time in two years, possibly more. I am shocked that the number of comments has declined significantly from what I remember. Back in those days, each thread would have at least 50 comments, usually 150+.

    However, today for eg several threads have no comments at all, despite having been posted in the wee hours and therefore open for comment all day. Ditto for a couple of threads yesterday. Only one that I could discern was closed for comments, but the others were all still open.

    What’s going on? Are readers tending to lurk rather than comment, or has the toxic, hate-filled environment created by his fanatical readers finally driven all but the most rusted-on, dedicated cheerleaders away to other blogs? Is Andy’s commentary too predictable, boring and unworthy of reader engagement, or has the moderation finally stepped up to the mark? Are we finally seeing the decline of a once-revered culture warrior for alleged conservatives?

  13. 13
    Brown Bob
    Posted February 15, 2012 at 9:19 pm | Permalink

    OK guys it’s not funny any more. Even the members of her own party aren’t in as much denial as you lot!

  14. 14
    SHV
    Posted February 15, 2012 at 9:20 pm | Permalink

    I remember many years ago, presumably on “Lefty”, JS had an exchange with one of Murdoch’s clowns (I think it was Blair) which ended along the lines of:

    Sear: Well, neither of us is a journalist.

    Clown: I am a journalist!

    Sear: Oh. Really? Sorry, I didn’t know.

    Or something like that. It’s very hard to know unless they have a little card with ‘journalist’ written on it.

  15. 15
    Jeremy Sear
    Posted February 15, 2012 at 11:25 pm | Permalink

    OK guys it’s not funny any more. Even the members of her own party aren’t in as much denial as you lot!

    So that’d be a no, then. You don’t have a single piece of evidence of Julia Gillard lying.

  16. 16
    Brown Bob
    Posted February 16, 2012 at 12:40 am | Permalink

    Jeremy I did some of my best work on Google but I couldn’t find anything LOL

  17. 17
    Fran Barlow
    Posted February 16, 2012 at 6:51 am | Permalink

    While there can be little doubt that Gillard has departed from some undertakings, and disappointed some people in the process, there’s no evidence I’m aware of that she has lied in the formal sense of the term.

    As someone with a low opinion of Gillard’s political acumen and ethical/intellectual rigour I don’t say this out of sympathy for her politics.

  18. 18
    Jeremy Sear
    Posted February 16, 2012 at 8:12 am | Permalink

    Jeremy I did some of my best work on Google but I couldn’t find anything LOL

    Not sure why you’re “laughing out loud” at having being caught out saying something not true. In fact, if you’re going around saying that Gillard is a “liar” without any reasonable or honest basis for that belief – and having precisely no examples of her telling “lies” makes calling her a “liar” neither honest nor reasonable – then that would make you a liar. Someone deliberately making a claim that as far as they know is false.

  19. 19
    Cuppa
    Posted February 16, 2012 at 8:16 am | Permalink

    Not sure why you’re “laughing out loud” at having being caught out saying something not true. In fact, if you’re going around saying that Gillard is a “liar” without any reasonable or honest basis for that belief – and having precisely no examples of her telling “lies” makes calling her a “liar” neither honest nor reasonable – then that would make you a liar. Someone deliberately making a claim that as far as they know is false.

    Another instance of the well-documented tendency of right-wingers to Right-Wing Projection – projecting their own behaviour / motivations onto their opponents.

  20. 20
    Spitfire The
    Posted February 16, 2012 at 9:21 am | Permalink

    I know this isn’t straight from the Court of the Jester, but one can wonder if he’ll be commenting on it in future as it’s his favourite topic, “scienticians versuz the warmenists…”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17048991
    Kind of delicious, isn’t it?

  21. 21
    Angra
    Posted February 16, 2012 at 9:24 am | Permalink

    Well Mr Truthful’s readers have bo doubt –

    “All this disgraceful woman ever does is lie. The good thing about that is that she is lying Labor into opposition for a very long time. Nice….
    Paul (Reply)
    Thu 16 Feb 12 (06:05am) ”

    “And I repeat again– yes she is a liar–Thomsongate, slipppergate, Ruddgate, carbon tax lie,medical insurance lie,australiaday riot lies, unionpast- gate, etc etc etc.
    Never ever have I seen a leader in a democracy so disrespected– and it all coems back to trust ( and they way she abuses anyone who dares question her). her viscious abuse of Abbott is now turning against her– about time !!!!!!!
    sandra of Ferny Hills Queensland (Reply)
    Thu 16 Feb 12 (06:19am)”

    “She is/was a communist/socialist.

    Yes
    Gwinbar of Brisbane (Reply)
    Thu 16 Feb 12 (06:21am) “

  22. 22
    gtpfb13
    Posted February 16, 2012 at 10:08 am | Permalink

    @12

    confessions, at least part of it is that it is far more heavily moderated these days supposedly at least partly because of the savage restriction to Andrew and his readers’ freedom of speech since the court case.

    This does not mean that the comments allowed through are more evenly balanced, quite the opposite. If you manage to get an opposing comment posted at all, you will find it is often edited, sometimes changing the context. The attack dogs are then let loose to launch personal insults and abuse. If you try to post a rebuttal, it will often not get posted, making it look like they’ve “beaten” you. It also stifles any genuine discussion (not that there’s much of that over there).

    It appears also that threads that are most likely to elicit the most rabid response from the minions have more responses where others that would be likely to elicit more opposing views have fewer or none.

    While I’m on the “conspiracy” rant, I have noticed (as have others here) recently that many posts stay on zero comments sometimes for hours, then suddenly leap to 100+ comments. That could well be because the mods are choosing carefully which they want to use to steer the discussion in a particular direction, or legal reasons.

    However, I have noticed that sometimes when the big dump (excuse the pun) occurs, there are already replies to some of the comments. How does that work?

    The only way I can see that being done is if those replies are put in by people who have access to the site offline.

    Surely not.

  23. 23
    Sammy Jankis
    Posted February 16, 2012 at 12:06 pm | Permalink

    gtpfb13:

    If you manage to get an opposing comment posted at all, you will find it is often edited, sometimes changing the context. The attack dogs are then let loose to launch personal insults and abuse. If you try to post a rebuttal, it will often not get posted, making it look like they’ve “beaten” you. It also stifles any genuine discussion (not that there’s much of that over there).

    Forums moderated in this manner really aren’t worth contributing to. Years ago I attempted to engage in debate with right-wing christian fundamentalist Bill Muehlenberg at his website. It was a complete joke. Comments were frequently edited without acknowledgement. Links to evidence supporting your argument were excised (again, without acknowledgement) from the rest of your comment. Responses to his rhetoric-laden and vapid replies rarely saw the light of day. He’d evenly carefully control any conversations between yourself and his small army of fans, ensuring that they ‘won’ the argument. While all this was going on, he’d openly question the intellectual honesty of his opponents…

    I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a better example of gross intellectual cowardice on the internet. I don’t bother trying to engage with Bolt and his barbarians as it appears the moderation environment isn’t much better.

  24. 24
    Shinsko
    Posted February 16, 2012 at 10:54 pm | Permalink

    gtpfb13,

    at least part of it is that it is far more heavily moderated these days

    True, and…

    One theory is that Bolt himself is the only moderator left. He gets his posts up and moderates a few comments before going to his radio show. So if you miss the first tiny window there won’t be any comments moderated until he’s back from the show.

    Mid late morning there is a rush of comments through, a couple of updates, another post about Tim Flannery and then its off to lunch with Terry….

  25. 25
    confessions
    Posted February 16, 2012 at 11:08 pm | Permalink

    gtpfb13:

    Thanks.

    I guessed it would be moderation, but am shocked nonetheless that threads are ‘allowed’ to go commentless at a News Ltd blog.

    At what point does the boss invoke the relevence clause?

  26. 26
    gtpfb13
    Posted February 18, 2012 at 10:44 am | Permalink

    Read all about Gillard in strife, again and again
    Andrew Bolt – Saturday, February 18, 12 (07:29 am)

    Nothing much more has happened over the past 24 hours, but the only political news in today’s papers that’s of interest to readers is about Julia Gillard in trouble, and Kevin Rudd on the warpath.

    Anything else the Government or Opposition does is of no interest while this war continues.

    Wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that it’s all the political news the media is presenting to the public therefore it’s all the public is made to think is happening in politics therefore it’s all the media publishes.

    This pathological obsession with the leadership simply emphasizes the appalling level of political journalism we have.

    It is driven in no small part by the fact that none of our “journalism by press release” political reporters saw the Rudd challenge coming and missed the story. Now they are trying to make up the story. The Herald Sun’s byline is “Stories start here” for a reason.

    Regardless of what the Righties say about “poor John Howard” and the awful left wing media’s constant and baseless attacks on him, if he had faced such a relentless campaign as that waged against Gillard, he certainly would not have lasted more than a single term and may well have been replaced as leader during his first.

  27. 27
    Liz A
    Posted February 20, 2012 at 10:15 am | Permalink

    Where’s the correction?

    Bolt posted this piece back on the 15th. I distinctly remember it because at the time I thought it was a crock.

    http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/alcoa_shelves_3_billion_project_over_carbon_tax_fears/

    He said of the Alcoa / Alumina Wagerup plant expansion:

    Tony Abbott made a perfectly correct and important point about Alcoa’s warning that it might have to sack 600 workers at its Point Henry aluminium smelter because of the higher dollar.

    {...}

    Abbott’s point is now underlined:

    "MINING giant Alcoa has shelved a $3 billion expansion of its Wagerup alumina refinery in Western Australia for up to five years, in the latest sign of the group’s struggle against the strong Australian dollar and the Gillard government’s carbon tax…

    An Alcoa spokeswoman said yesterday the company would not return to the project until it understood the full impact of the $23-a-tonne carbon tax, which will be introduced on July 1, and had been able to secure energy supplies."

    He had done his usual trick to use the linking highlights on the part of the paragraph he wanted comments on ie “the company would not return to the project until it understood the full impact of the $23-a-tonne carbon tax”. But having worked on the forecasting and analysis of the supply demand balance in the WA electricity system for some years, I was pretty sure it would be the secure energy supplies that were the real issue. (Aluminium is not called solid electricity for nothing, and WA has a very tight supply/demand balance right now, projected to be in deficit within 2 years, before factoring in a massive increase in demand)

    It did not seem worth posting about at the time, but as Lyn of Political Sword pointed out in a post yesterday:

    On Wednesday (in QT), you (Tony Abbott) attributed the delay in the $3 billion upgrade of the Alcoa alumina refinery at Wagerup, WA to the upcoming carbon tax, but the PM read out a statement from Alcoa to the contrary, stating it was due to its inability to obtain a satisfactory supply of natural gas. By omitting those facts you set out to deceive – you lied

    http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2012/02/19/Tony-Abbott-we-are-sick-of-your-lies.aspx

    So I searched for the statement from the company itself, and found it reported by news corporation here:

    http://www.perthnow.com.au/business/local-business/alumina-rejects-wagerup-carbon-tax-claim/story-e6frg2s3-1226272872224

    and in more depth on business spectator here:

    http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Alumina-profit-surges-in-FY-pd20120216-RHU9R?OpenDocument

    turns out it is the availability of energy, the high AUD and high construction costs.

    Mr Bevan (CEO of Alumina) said, it was "not the case" that the carbon tax was the key reason the project was not yet going ahead.

    So really, not only did Tony Abbott lie in parliament, but Bolt {EDIT: We can’t publish that}. While Tony may have the luxury of lax media reporting and parliamentary privilege, Bolt does not.

    So I repeat, where’s the correction?

  28. 28
    Liz A
    Posted February 20, 2012 at 10:18 am | Permalink

    And for that matter, has there been a correction of the same by the Australian? Bolt’s link-through source for the original Wagerup statement?

  29. 29
    Bellistner
    Posted February 20, 2012 at 2:50 pm | Permalink

    So I repeat, where’s the correction?

    Probably in the moderation queue. ;)

  30. 30
    heavylambs
    Posted February 20, 2012 at 2:53 pm | Permalink

    Bolt does not seem to care about we-can’t-publish-thatting at the moment. He has dragged out Flannery for another round of misrepresentation and indignant spluttering,claiming that F bought himself a house on an ‘absolute beachfront’ at the same time he personally claimed that sea-level would rise eight meters.

    Flannery bought an absolute waterfrontage on an estuary,not beachfrontage, well before the comments attributed to him. And in those comments,Flannery was passing on a scenario from Jim Hansen of NASA GISS based on the effect of the melting of Greenlands ice volume…so it was no personal projection,prediction or claim.

  31. 31
    heavylambs
    Posted February 20, 2012 at 9:37 pm | Permalink

    Bolt dog-whistles yet again: wonders why the SMH omitted the fact that the police had put the Middle-Eastern Crime squad onto a mob assault in Lakemba,Sydney when making a public appeal for witnesses. Suggests the SMH cannot bring their multi-cultural loving selves to mention it.

    Andy never considers that a mob of 10 to 20 men involved in assault at an identified place and time would be pretty memorable regardless of alleged ethnicity…and how does ethnicity help in individual ID?

  32. 32
    Angra
    Posted February 21, 2012 at 7:09 pm | Permalink

    How’s this for a pathetic at humour which appears to me to be blatantly r****t? (have to be careful)

    “Stopping global warming by turning Indians into coolies again”

    The story is about UK Aid being spent on promoting green and sustainable development projects in India, Kenya and Indonesia.

    “The waste is one thing. The sheer, pointless and utterly self-evident stupidity is another…One day the book of shame will be written on how such madness was whipped up by scientists, endorsed by politicians and funded by bureaucrats, while thousands of journalists sang hosannas.”

  33. 33
    Angra
    Posted February 21, 2012 at 7:13 pm | Permalink

    AB needs to check a dictionary before he throws around offensive words like “coolie”…

    “Historically, a coolie … was a manual labourer or slave from Asia, particularly China, the Indian subcontinent, and the Philippines during the 19th century and early 20th century. It is also a contemporary racial slur or ethnic nickname for people of Asian descent, including people from South Asia, Central Asia, etc., particularly in South Africa.”

    Charming.

  34. 34
    heavylambs
    Posted February 22, 2012 at 12:59 am | Permalink

    Yes,he is hasty,sneering and in way over his head as ever. He has not looked into the foot-pump story. It is axiomatic to Bolt that the only measure of progress is the burning of fossil fuels,and the more you burn the more ‘progressed’ you are. He forgets–well,he never even bloody knew it to forget it– that fuel is increasingly expensive,diesel pumps are beyond the budget of millions of farmers,groundwater on the decline and the treadle foot-pump in question is a very sweet design,super low cost and efficient.

    Prattling fool.

  35. 35
    John Many Johns
    Posted February 23, 2012 at 3:27 pm | Permalink

    I can’t find it on-line, but the front page of the Herald Scun has the following gem;

    My blueprint for Rudd to win the next election. Andrew Bolt Page 13

    So is Andy sprooking for Kevin because he genuinely believes that he (Kevin) can win the next election or because he believes that Kevin will provide less of an obstacle along the road to a Misty Rabbit lead parliament?

  36. 36
    Duncan
    Posted February 23, 2012 at 4:42 pm | Permalink

    “..or because he believes that Kevin will provide less of an obstacle along the road to a Misty Rabbit lead parliament?”

    Yep.

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