Position made clear

“When governments refuse to act in the name of civilised society to prevent gross abuses of human rights, we as individuals have a duty to act. The campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions deserves the full support of every thinking and caring Australian.”

• Mrs Julia Irwin, Labor member for Fowler, adjournment speech concluding remarks, House Hansard (PDF), pages 90-93.

Ten minutes and two speeches later...

“I want to make it clear that, in making her adjournment speech tonight, the member for Fowler was not speaking on behalf of the Rudd government.”

• Dr Craig Emerson, Minister for Small Business.

“And from Moscow to Washington, Israel stands utterly friendless. Dangerously alone.”

• Dr Easychair, demonstrating the Bolt brand of accuracy and objectivity.

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Andrew Bolt’s lost post

The following is a post Andrew Bolt had apparently “dopped” but which has somehow been leaked to this blog:

In a rare moment of honest reflection, I thought I might take some time out to thank people like Jacob of the AppliedH blog for holding up to scrutiny some of my more deranged output.

For instance, most recently Jacob exposed my shonky claim that Kevin Rudd “gave aid to Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe.”

None of you, my faithful readers, challenged me on this, and I thought I’d gotten clean away with it until, with jaw agape, I read Jacob’s searing critique on his blog (which I secretly, and with trepidation, read daily).

By the way, even if one of you had challenged me on that barefaced lie, a retraction and apology would of course always be out of the question. On my blog you’ll never read anything like: “Thanks to reader Joe Bloggs for pointing out my gaping error.” It just wouldn’t gell with the flow of my obvious genius.

Despite myself, I have to admit that in my frenzies I do tend to tear apart anything to hand that represents restraint, order or the related discipline of reason. I just can’t help myself, so it’s important that people like Jacob are out there, somewhere, calling me to account on this rubbish you all devour so willingly. But fortunately for me, AppliedH is Australia’s least-read blog.

To my legions of readers who’ve helped make my blog “Australia’s most-read political blog,” I’d like to try to tell you how very sorry I am for having sucked you all in with my manic bids for more attention, cash and power.

Here goes. The fact is I’m not very sorry at all. You’ve only yourselves to blame for falling for the heady brew of lies, half-truths and populist cant that I retail here so shamelessly. Truly it’s said that there’s one born every minute, and boy have I struck the mother lode.

I’d like to be able to tell you I will delete my blog and somehow earn myself an honest living, but even I have to acknowledge the bleeding obvious fact that I’m simply not capable of it.

Thanks Andy, I’m genuinely touched.

—READ MORE—

(UPDATE - This title has been re-itemised, and the updated pre-originals drop bottomed to the post.)

A very strange rewriting of the Bolt blog:

UPDATE - This item as [sic] been retitled, and the original pre-updates post dopped [sic] to the bottom.

Bolt also “dopped” a later post featuring a rather fetching image of former PM John Howard toasting our present troubles with Rudd, with (from memory) the caption:

“How’s that change you wanted working out?!”

Thus has Bolt ditched the cardinal rule of ‘blogging’ which requires the preservation of ‘the record.’ Bloggers all may now freely rewrite their histories with a free conscience. Thanks Andy!!

Now’s probably a good time to switch-off your computer.

 
UPDATE  (IF YOU CAN BELIEVE IT)

That Howard toast to the people who have forsaken His Reverence has at last reappeared a mere 6 hours after Andy pulled it.

Never let it be said that the Australian Right would ever delight in the supposed misfortune of ordinary Australians.

 
PRE POSTDATE X

Please refer to the previous two updates which follow.

 
POST PRE UPDATE 2

This is to alert readers that there might have been an important update, but I carelessly dopped it.

 
PRE POST UPDATE 2

Yep, this post is still in the same place I left it. Just checking.

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In Bolt’s dreams, Rudd gives aid and succour to Mugabe

Almost forgot to mention, but in a column yesterday Andrew Bolt claims the Rudd government “gave aid to Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe.”

What’s this about then?

Well, apparently the Australian government’s foreign aid body AusAID has committed $5.5 million for the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, which helps farmers develop sustainable farming practices.

AGRA is based in Kenya — not Zimbabwe, as was wrongly asserted by Steve Lewis, a fellow-traveler of Bolt’s whose falsehoods he now retails. AGRA operates its programs all over Africa, including Zimbabwe.

How appalling appropriate that the Australian government should try to help Zimbabwean farmers mitigate the potentially disastrous consequences of Mugabe’s land ‘reforms’ ! !

In his frenzies, Bolt tears apart anything to hand that represents restraint, order or the related discipline of reason.

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Bolt’s frenzies continue

Yep, as unremarkable as it may seem, Andrew Bolt just ploughs on and on with his reckless cant defending the abuse by Israel of Australian passports:

The question is, if we supply fake passports to the spies of friendly countries, why not supply some to Israel?

Well, why not “supply some” to Dubai as well, for that matter?

To Bolt, it really does seem to be that simple. He’d have the things raining like confetti.

In his frenzies, he tears apart anything to hand that represents restraint, order or the related discipline of reason.

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The back-flipping Bolt politburo

A post at the Andrew Bolt blog today gets off to a rip-snorting start:

When [Kevin Rudd is] not expelling Israeli diplomats to appease Muslim countries...

Gosh, and most of us thought the expulsion was in the way of a slap on the wrist for the officially sanctioned abuse by Israel of official Australian documents. Oh yes, we know everybody does it. But when you get caught doing it in the course of an officially sanctioned murder plot in yet a third country, well then some meaningless, token reprisal is only to be expected.

Yesterday Bolt thought the expulsion was “abother [sic] typical piece of Rudd spin, designed this time to distract attention from his mining tax disaster.”

But today Bolt seems to think it’s all about “Kevin Rudd’s desperate campaign for a temporary seat on the UN Security Council.” Which, needless to say, is all because of the PM’s “vanity”. (Mirror mirror...)

What Bolt may think tomorrow is anyone’s guess, but we can be certain it will all hang on some real or imagined failing of the execrable Rudd.

Back in late April, when Bolt was raging against the British Met Office and sundry civil aviation authorities for the closure of European airspace due to the volcanic ash emergency, one of his readers commented:

Please please please let these idiots get sued and lose!

While most of us gave up praying to the Wish Fairy before we entered adolescence, the evidence to date suggests at any rate that the Wish Fairy was not listening as that plaintive cry rose to the heavens.

Although it’s not clear just whom that reader wanted to “get sued” — whether the Met Office, or civil aviation authorities as a bloc, or all of the above, and perhaps you for good measure — it really didn’t matter, you see, as long as someone gets their arse sued.

The Bolt politburo wishes it so.

—READ MORE—

Bolt in bid for more attention, cash and continence pads

Predictably, another big mining company has threatened to hold its breath until it turns blue.

A well-known rupertblogger, who for reasons best known to himself has thrown in his lot with the mining industry (and the Liberal Party), asks in response:

How long can Kevin Rudd go before backing down on his super tax, too?

That would probably depend on how many people there are like Andrew Bolt who’ll wet their pants every time a mining company pretends it’s not going to shovel money out of the ground.

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Andrew Bolt wants to kill a living national treasure

Not content with wanting to kill your and my Grandma with swine flu, Andrew Bolt now has Phillip Adams in his sights.

Bolt appears to think Adams — described by some (who are evidently more enormously fond of him than is Bolt) as a living national treasure — should be refused treatment and ejected from a Catholic hospital because Adams is a “militant atheist.”

“Was there not an atheistic hospital this militant atheist could have attended instead?” asks Bolt with the certitude of the clinically insane.

Given that, as Bolt almost certainly knows, there are no “atheistic hospitals” anywhere, the inescapable corollary is that Bolt wants Adams to be denied potentially life-saving treatment.

By Bolt’s logic, moreover, people with a philosophical aversion to the public Medicare system should be refused treatment at public hospitals. This would be another death sentence courtesy of Bolt, since there’s rather a paucity of emergency wards at private hospitals in Australia.

The whole thing represents a new low in Bolt’s demented campaign against his perceived adversaries on ‘the left.’ And the fact that Bolt’s post was inspired by one of his readers sets a new low in whoring for one’s readership.

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to imagine our raving national looney getting anything right. For instance, Bolt recently sneered:

Is GetUp! just an unpricipled [sic] Labor front, or will it attack Kevin Rudd as it attacked Tony Abbott for the very same policy [i.e., taking the ETS off the agenda]?

In fact, the supposed “unprincipled Labor front” posted an article and video attacking Rudd for just that, several days before Bolt’s post.

Astonishingly there are still some who believe Bolt to be a “thoughtful moderate.”

But in his frenzies, Bolt tears apart anything to hand that represents restraint, order or the related discipline of reason. Reading Bolt, I sometimes feel much like I imagine a Roman in the fourth century or German in the 1930s did, watching in despair as civilisation slowly crumbles.

—READ MORE—

Andrew Bolt trivialises killer drug

Andrew Bolt’s blog is of course Rudd Hate Central and, as such, part of the rich tapestry of Australian political life, providing a relatively harmless outlet for those who have nothing else with which to fill their days.

Among other threats to civilisation as we know it, Bolt is currently excoriating Rudd for his “lack of courage” in shelving the Emissions Trading Scheme — the evil “tax on everything” Bolt previously excoriated Rudd for wanting to promote.

But it’s not just Rudd’s “cowardice” and “ineffectiveness” with which Bolt takes issue. It’s that Rudd wants to “distract you” from his failings with the announcement of a proposal to only allow tobacco products to be sold in generic packaging.

Rudd has downscaled his gandiose [sic] ambitions from saving the entire planet to saving just a few smokers... Rudd is treating voters with complete contempt. The very next day after his humiliating backdown on his emissions trading scheme he announces a trivial campaign on smoking, banking that it’s enough to change the topic from his deceit and cowardice, and talk instead of hios [sic] being “tough” and “bold”.

Truly, if there’s an anti-Rudd angle to anything, Bolt will nail it and package it for ready consumption by his boltoids. Not that he’s a pioneer in that kind of thing, just as the Rudd Government is no pioneer in “distracting you.” Of course, it’s all just part of the rich tapestry of Australian political life.

But I must take issue with and excoriate Bolt for his careless throwaway line about “a trivial campaign on smoking.” The proposals announced are not about “saving just a few smokers.” Potentially, the measures could save hundreds or even thousands of people (particularly, the young) from ever taking up the deadly addiction.

If Bolt wasn’t so blinded by Rudd Hate, he might see that potential is underscored by the threat of a major legal challenge from the tobacco industry. And if he wasn’t so addicted to attention, cash and power, he’d alert his readers to the merits of the proposal.

—READ MORE—

Andrew Bolt in bid for more attention, cash, power

It seems Andrew Bolt has decided that the shutdown of European aviation, due to “alarmism” over the volcanic ash cloud from Iceland, is intrinsically linked to the global warmalarmist conspiracy.

It’s all somehow connected, don’t you see? Somehow...

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Swine-flu-gate: Andrew Bolt wants to kill your Grandma

The World Health Organisation has “admitted that they may have overreacted” to the threat posed by H1N1 swine flu.

One can only agree that, with the death toll approaching a mere 18 thousand worldwide, the H1N1 swine flu ‘pandemic’ has been a bit of a fizzer.

This will probably be cause for relief or even celebration for most of us, but for people like Andrew Bolt it merely provides more confirmation, if any were needed, that nobody other than Andrew Bolt can be trusted about anything.

According to Bolt,

their “overreaction” wasn’t a mere mistake, but an utterly predictable bid for more attention, cash and power of the kind we expect from UN bodies.

Not being paranoid myself about Werld Guvment, I’m quite prepared to give the WHO the benefit of the doubt. Mistakes will unfortunately happen, but when making a decision that may affect many lives, most of us may prefer to err on the side of caution.

Quite likely, moreover, heightened public awareness of the threat will have contributed to saving many lives. The downside, of course, is that next time people might figure they can afford to be more complacent about such threats.

Especially so when people like Bolt actively undermine public confidence in health authorities for grubby political purposes, or just to garner hits for his miserable website.

One could be forgiven for supposing that, in the final analysis, Andrew Bolt wants to kill your Grandma with swine flu.

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