Immeasurable Hurt DeHurted

According to Daily Telegraph associate editor, Tim Blair, the "Graceless & Weird" defamation suit he lodged against Crikey publisher Eric Beecher is now "Case Closed."

Here's the April 2, 2009, apology on the Pure Poison blog at Crikey that was deemed not satisfactory enough :

In a post last night titled “Sockpuppet Worn” it was suggested that enthusiastic Pure Poison critic “WB"....had been making comments from Tim Blair’s private IP adress. The post, now removed from the Crikey site, included speculation on the identity of WB, concluding that it was Blair. Tim denies this flatly, and notes that people in the same house would share an IP. Commenters to the original deleted post had also made that point. We don’t know any more than that WB comments from the same private IP. Our criticisms are reserved for whoever “WB” turns out to be. We unreservedly withdraw any allegation that Tim has been using the “WB” identity, that he had personally used this identity to artificially boost his “hits”, and apologise for any offence caused by the above.

That apology, for an incorrect story that was online for all of a couple of hours, did not soothe the immeasurable hurt caused, apparently, so twelve months later Crikey publishes another apology, this time written (or at least guided) by Blair's lawyers.

The April 12, 2010, apology on the Pure Poison blog at Crikey :

On 1 March 2009, an article entitled “Sockpuppet Worn” was published on this blog about Mr Tim Blair that was incorrect. The article wrongly suggested that Mr Blair publishes comments under a pseudonym on his blog and various other blogs to make them appear as if they were independent reader comments.

It also falsely suggested that Mr Blair is dishonest in that, by publishing comments under a pseudonym on his own blog, he artificially boosts his blog readership and visit numbers, and that Mr Blair is unprofessional in his conduct as a journalist.

Crikey and the authors of this blog acknowledge that each of these suggestions are false and that there is no basis for any of them. We withdraw them unreservedly and acknowledge that Mr Blair has acted properly at all times. We apologise to Mr Blair for the hurt and distress caused.

The assumption is that a cash settlement was part of the ap0logy. But it's hard to know for sure, because tabloid journalists, despite often writing articles that blow up to headlines the most insignificant details of peoples' private lives, don't like to talk or give quotes when they become part of a story. They don't even want others to comment or discuss such stories :



Blair's lawyer friend WB - Wogblogger - cracks the champagne :



(click to enlarge)

And gloats about the settlement on any number of blogs :

....he’s sued a superrich publisher. Epic fail on the hypocrisy argument and no points for trying.

And the ‘glass jaw’ argument......is just historical revisionism at its finest. Blair has taken more abuse than most over the years. I think you’ll find Tim Blair’s reputation is as the guy who cracked Crikey’s deep pockets (that’s Private Media = worth >$6m), which in journalistic circles makes him some sort of a God.

Some sort of a God....

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Tim Blair Vs Crikey : Stupid Blog War Now Wasting NSW Supreme Court's Time

By Darryl Mason

Apparently he decided to only go after those he thinks he might actually get money from, if he wins :

(Daily Telegraph associate editor and blogger) Tim Blair is now suing Eric Beecher's Private Media, publisher of the website crikey.com.au, in the NSW Supreme Court for defamation. He is understood to want tens of thousands of dollars because of the damage to his reputation.

Damage to his reputation? I thought his reputation as a journalist was damaged almost beyond repair years before when he and his gormless commenters spent months attacking the character and motivations of an American mother whose young soldier son died in the Iraq War....

More from Sean Nicholls & Jessica Mahar :

....the Diary understands the trouble began when one of Crikey's bloggers noticed that the IP address - or computer identification number - of one of the people commenting on Blair's blog was identical to Blair's own IP address. In effect, the blogger wrote, Blair was so hard up for comments to his blog that he had resorted to writing his own comments, under another name. It sparked almost a year of demands by Blair, through his lawyers, that Crikey atone for what he says is a false accusation. While the blogger published an apology of sorts early in the piece, Blair was unsatisfied because he thought it repeated the alleged defamation. A couple of weeks ago he took the matter to court.

Here's the (now deleted) early March 2009 apology from Crikey's Pure Poison that failed to repair the immeasurable hurt allegedly caused :

Correction and apology to Tim Blair

In a post last night titled “Sockpuppet Worn” it was suggested that enthusiastic Pure Poison critic “WB"....had been making comments from Tim Blair’s private IP adress. The post, now removed from the Crikey site, included speculation on the identity of WB, concluding that it was Blair. Tim denies this flatly, and notes that people in the same house would share an IP. Commenters to the original deleted post had also made that point. We don’t know any more than that WB comments from the same private IP. Our criticisms are reserved for whoever “WB” turns out to be. We unreservedly withdraw any allegation that Tim has been using the “WB” identity, that he had personally used this identity to artificially boost his “hits”, and apologise for any offence caused by the above.

Blair's Law appears to be true, after all.

No typing cats were harmed, immeasurably or otherwise, in the posting of this story.

Journalists Suing Journalist (Or Bloggers Suing Bloggers) Is "Graceless & Weird"

UPDATE : Sorry, all comments are closed on this blog for the moment. I'm guessing you can understand why.

Blair's Law RIP : 2002-2009

In 2002, pro-Bush, and enthusiastic pro-Bush Wars, blogger Tim Blair founded the term 'Blair's Law'. It caused brief excitement in the American pro-Bush blogstream, and was defined in the Urban Dictionary as :

"...the ongoing process by which the world's multiple idiocies are becoming one giant, useless force."

But in June 2009, the Urban Dictionary listed a new definition, and notes, for Blair's Law :

From The Urban Dictionary :

Blair's Law : As a blog war intensifies, the probability of lawyers being called in to protect the glass jaw of the more cowardly party approaches 1.

– Inspired by the precedent set by the aborted 2009 defamation case of (Australian journalist/blogger) Tim Blair vs Teh Left.

TB: “My girlfriend’s been fighting all my battles for me under a pseudonym, but we got caught out and now my tough-guy reputation is in tatters. How am I going to weasel my way out of this one?”

JB: “Only Blair's law can save you now, my chinless friend.”

However, if you Google 'Blair's Law' and click the Urban Dictionary link, you will find all definitions and even the listing itself has been deleted.

Disappeared.

Instead, you are taken to the Urban Dictionary listing for former British prime minister, Tony Blair.

Online fame can be so fleeting.

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Just Blame A Typing Cat

Hold the presses, associate editor of The Daily Telegraph, and hilarious failed litigant, Tim Blair, finds a spelling mistake on Twitter!

Deep thinking from Antony Loewenstein:

The thought of telling Israel what to do is plesant and necessary

Antony Loewenstein failed to insert the letter 'a' into the word 'pleasant'. Yes, isn't that exciting?

In part due to the very restrictive 140 character limit per post, Twitter is often a correct spelling, good grammar and even basic punctuation free zone. The information, the link, the joke, the snark, the insight, the trivial detail, the content of the brief comment, is all that matters, as all the established rules of the English language can be, and most often are, casually cast aside so as to fit the comment inside that tight character limit. Finding spelling mistakes on Twitter is piss easy. Too easy.  

Almost as easy as finding a spelling mistake on the Daily Telegraph website.

So while Tim Blair was busy stalk-trawling Antony Loewenstein for inconsequential spelling mistakes on Twitter (where Blair doesn't have an active account, at least not one under his own name) this doozy appeared in the first line of the first story on the front page of The Daily Telegraph, where Blair is, of course, an editor :

The Hurt of being "knocked bledding to the ground", you'd have to imagine, would be Immeasurable.

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Law Changed

Blair's Law used to mean :

"the ongoing process by which the world's multiple idiocies are becoming one giant, useless force."

But according to the Urban Dictionary, Blair's Law now means :

As a blog war intensifies, the probability of lawyers being called in to protect the glass jaw of the more cowardly party approaches 1.

– Inspired by the precedent set by the aborted 2009 defamation case of (Australian journalist/blogger) Tim Blair vs Teh Left.

Aborted? Must be why I only got the one letter demanding compensation for causing "immeasurable hurt". I was hoping to collect the whole set.

More from the Urban Dictionary on Blair's Law :

TB: “My girlfriend’s been fighting all my battles for me under a pseudonym, but we got caught out and now my tough-guy reputation is in tatters. How am I going to weasel my way out of this one?”

JB: “Only Blair's law can save you now, my chinless friend.”

WB: “Jeez!”

And that's enough of all that.

RIP Grods : 2004 - 2009

By Darryl Mason

Andrew Bolt on Twitter actually breaks a story of great importance :

The blog that made my friend Tim Blair cry and phone his lawyers (http://www.grods.com/) is gone.

It's true. Grods is gone. "Teh End", as editor in chief Scott Bridges puts it, in this final, poignant, fleshlight-free Grods post.

If you don't know what Grods is, or was, it's too late now. It's over. Gone.

Well, not completely gone. Grods has been archived with the National Library of Australia. Here's the NLA's description of Grods :

Grods Corp is a blog with many contributors from around Australia and the world. It comments on all aspects of Australian and international culture, including political, media, environmental and societal issues.

No mention of fleshlights.

But to get a heaped dinner plate full-flavoured idea of what Grods was, and what it achieved in its five years online, it's best to turn to these actual testimonials from readers, which were proudly displayed on the now disappeared site :

“Internet elitist.”
- Tim Blair

“Your kind of blog makes my stomach churn. Why am I reading it then? I don’t know…"
- Fimsy

“Orthographic Nazi.”
– Iain Hall

“You’ve been pretty boring for weeks, and I use you as my principal source of leftist-oriented entertainment.”
– Strider

“Mindless, fascist-driven drivel”
– Prodos

“GrodsCrap”
– Prodos

“some internet dump”
– Tim Blair twice!

“Wow. What a post. Most (sic) be a new low… even for this site.”
– Bob

“Grodscum”
– Rebellion

“sad flaccid amoeba”
– Elijah

“Your website is a disgrace, a bunch of ego inflated wannabe’s casting judgement on situations you know nothing about”
– Julie

“Brendan Nelson tragic in denial”
– Club Troppo

“…brought the scribbling on public toilet walls into the computer age”
– Josh

“hyper-intelligent lefties”
– J.F. Beck “

"This blog post is the worst I’ve ever seen. It’s badness creates a vortex.”
– Cormorant

“[GrodsCorp] is 100% abuse and mostly fiction”
– Dr (sic) John “TingTong”

“bastion of immaturity and sex fetishes”
– Private Tom

[Scott is a] modern-day totalitarian socialist vegetarian"
– ;;;;

[GrodsCorp] is 100% abuse and mostly fiction”
– Dr (sic) John “TingTong” Ray

"intellectually baron"
- Albi

“This post, and its comment thread, exemplifies the problem with this whole blog: an inability to move beyond the politics of the playground.”
– daddy dave

“left-wing hate site”
– J.F. Beck

“Why don’t you GrodsCorp or rather GrotsCreeps, FREAKS get a life. You lefty retarded commo zombies belong in a zoo… Do everyone a favour and go jump in an active volcano or stay in the sewers where you belong!”
– Paul Johansenn

“No wonder you guys have no cred, you’re all assholes. You treat people with contempt. Good luck getting your opinions heard, fucktards.”
- Top Country Boy

Grods was all of the above, and more :

Death By Wanking

This is an example, from the BloggingCatGate Scandal of earlier this year, of the usual quality of comments to be found at Grods :


(click to enlarge)

Club Wah pays tribute.

As does The Bastard Son.

The former editor in chief of Grods, Scott Bridges, is now writing for New Matilda and Crikey and has a great writing career ahead of him. The Orstrahyun wishes this socialist, totalitarian vegetarian, and internet elitist, the best of all luck, and safe travels.


I miss Grods already. I'm sure Brendan Nelson feels the same way.

The Australian blogstream just got a whole lot more boring.

I Am Not A SockPuppet, And Neither Is My Cat

UPDATE : Even though I didn't mention the name of Daily Telegraph journalist Tim Blair in the story below, Blair's lawyers seem to think this story is about him, and have sent threatening letters demanding a compensation payment for the "immeasurable hurt" I've supposedly caused by publishing it on this blog.

Much of this "immeasurable hurt" appears to have been inflicted by my merely linking to the posts on the Pure Poison blog that first broke the story that either Tim Blair, or someone in Tim Blair's household, using the alias 'WB', was filling comments at his own blog and other blogs defending him, or trying to steer conversations about Blair away onto other subjects.

At Tim Blair's Daily Telegraph blog, 'WB' posted some 70 comments in just a couple of months.

According to blogger Jeremy Sear, who claimed he spoke to him on the phone, Tim Blair acknowledged that while 'WB' was posting comments at his blog, and other blogs, all through his home internet account, he didn't know anything about it. Or that he did know, but wasn't prepared to disclose who 'WB' was.

The letter from Tim Blair's lawyers I received after first posting the below story, also demanded I stop posting other "defamatory" stories about the Daily Telegraph's associate editor on this blog, though they didn't point out any other stories that are allegedly defamatory.

Letters from Tim Blair's lawyers threatening legal action have also been sent to at least three other bloggers who either wrote about what 'someone' in Tim's house was getting up to online, or linked to the same Pure Poison stories that I linked to below (which are now deleted).

Even though the links in the below story now lead to a blank page at Pure Poison, I've been told by Blair's lawyers these links to nowhere should disappear from this blog.

Not so long ago, Blair would have taken on his critics and his mockers at his blog, and would have made a fair to decent attempt at slaying them mightily. It probably would have been funny, too.

Not now.

The game has changed. This is serious.

You occasionally hear about people taking legal action against Murdoch newspapers or columnists or journalists for something they've written or claims they've made online or on air.

But this is the first time I've heard of any Murdoch journalist trying to sue bloggers for merely linking to a story about them, and demanding other stories and comments discussing the linked story be deleted from a blog, and forever disappeared from the Google cache.

Obviously I won't be taking down the below story. Such an action could be perceived as an admission of guilt. Or cowardice.

Anyway, if I disappear the below story Vex Voyager will be pissed. It's the only thing he's done that I've allowed him to post on this bog. I have no intention of causing him "immeasurable hurt."

And as far as "defamatory" comments on a blog go, here's one that's been up for a couple of years at Tim Blair's old blog, where one of his regular commenters made up the following psychotic slander and posted it under my name :

Killing Howard is laudable. Killing his cabinet got to be OK too. Killing members of the Liberal party - that has to be a plus, surely. And what about the Nationals? We’ll kill them too. They helped keep Howard in power. And Family First, slit their throats. And what about other Christians, they are conservative and probably voted Liberal. Best kill all them along with small businessmen. There is a real hotbed of Liberal sentiment among these fascist businessmen. Don’t forget the Jews, the money grubbing bastards. They have to be next. Then there are those class traitors, the workers who voted Liberal. Kill them all. Purge the public service of suspected Liberal sympathisers too. That teacher over there. He’s wearing a tie so he must be a conservative. String him up. Hey, that guy’s got an American accent. Slaughter him and his baby too. It’s in their genes, you know. It’s a lot of people to be massacred but it will reduce greehouse gases in the long run.
Darryl Mason

Blair knows I didn't write that. But he has no problem with it remaining on his website under my name. He refuses to delete it, or apologise for its publication.

Fortunately, I don't suffer so easily from the "immeasurable hurt" bloggers and commenters and links apparently inflict on Tim Blair, even though the above grim tirade posted under my name has led to some interesting, if very short, job interviews when some Googling was done.

Previously.....

I AM NOT A SOCKPUPPET AND NEITHER IS MY CAT

By Vex Voyager

There's been a bunch of accusations floating around the Australian blogstream in recent weeks, in which it is claimed that a 'journalist' with a major daily Sydney newspaper has been commenting away like a maniac on his own and other blogs under an assumed identity, or assumed identities, or that someone very close to him is doing all this, from his home.

The journalist's excuse when he was called on this alleged sock-puppetry by the rowdy lads at Pure Poison, basically ran something like this (not direct quotes) :

Yes, someone in my household has been commenting on my blog, and other blogs, trying to shield me from criticism, but it's not me. I either don't know who is doing it, from my home, maybe even from my own laptop, or I'm not prepared to say who it is. And by the way, my lawyers have a letter for you. So here's a big bowl of shut the fuck up.

The 'journalist' now accused of what most bloggers call 'sock puppetry', and who has had great fun in the past accusing other bloggers of doing what he now stands accused of, and who has often railed about Evil Pagan Lefties threatening defamation to try and shut up up bloggers like him, has swallowed down a whole bucket of "I'm A Fucking Hypocrite" and has now set his lawyers loose on bloggers who won't shut up about this story.

The Orstrahyun has asked the 'journalist' three times to answer three simple questions about who, if not himself, is writing all those nice things about him online, from his home. Three simple questions. But he refused to answer any of them, instead warning The Orstrahyun to leave the story alone, and go away.

As if that's going to happen.

So, instead, I made up a false identity, Vex Voyager (edit...No you didn't, I'm real - Vex Voyager), to ask myself some hard questions about The Evils Of Sock Puppetry.

VV : You've been accused of sock puppetry, that is writing comments online about your own work under an assumed name, haven't you?

DM : Yes, I have. But I deny everything. It could have been anyone in my house doing it, when I'm away or asleep. You can't prove anything.

VV : Who else in your household could have done it?

DM : Anyone. It could have been the maid, the butler....the sushi chef, he spends a lot of time online, playing games I think, but you never know....

VV : So someone else in your house is going online and writing nice things about you, and going after your critics, when you're asleep or at work, and you don't know who that person might be?

DM : LIke I said, it could be anyone. But It's Not Me. I know that....I'm pretty sure of that. Yep, damn sure. I think.

VV : Hmmm...

DM : Maybe it was the cat....

VV : The cat?

DM : Yeah. He's pretty smart. He can knit blankets out of his molting fur to keep himself warm. How environmentally friendly is that? He should get a whole lot of carbon credits for cutting down on...

VV : You must think I'm the Mayor Of Stupidtwon to believe something like that.

DM : I'm not telling you what to believe. Make up your mind. But my cat is whip-crack smart. That I do know.

VV : Can your cat work a keyboard?

DM : He can hit the keys, but the music is mostly shit.

VV : ....no...I meant, does your cat know how to type?

DM : I've seen it sitting there, licking the mouse pad. I don't think if it smells of mouse, but...

VV : But you were saying before that someone else in your house must have been leaving those comments saying nice things about you online, under fake names....

DM : What's a fake name anyway? I mean, what sort of fucking name is Vex Voyager? I once met a guy named Tooty Von HammerFix, and...

VV : That never happened. Now, you claim as your defence against accusation of sockpuppetry that someone else is writing comments on your own blog, from your home, from the same internet IP address, but you don't know who it is. Is that correct?

DM : Maybe someone comes in at night, when I'm asleep and pushes the cat aside and...It could happen.

VV : Someone breaks into your home and steals nothing but while they're there they get on a computer and leave nice comments about you at various blogs, talking up your work? And they do this over and over again? Night after night? And you don't know who it is?

DM : Hey, like I said, before....how do I know it wasn't the cat? I'm sure the cat understands that if, say, I was working at a major Australian daily newspaper, and I was doing a blog that maybe earned money for me based on how many people were recorded visiting and commenting on my site, if that was the situation, well, the more I earn, the better the cat eats, right? I mean, if I earn more because more people are supposedly visiting my site and leaving comments and I could make retarded claims that my blog is The Blog An Entire City Is Talking About, then I could afford those treaty cat biscuits with the soft, creamy fishy centres. Cats love them. They're like fucking crack for cats.

VV : And you also think your cat might be waiting until you go to sleep, then jumping online and reading through blogs looking for valid and often viciously accurate criticisms of you and then your cat is typing responses either defending you or steering the comments off onto another subject so other commenters stop hammering you...

DM : Yes, this could be so.

VV : And your cat is doing all this, while you're asleep...

DM : Or at work.

VV : Or at work....your cat might be doing all this, falsely inflating your blog's comment counts because it knows if you earn more money it will get a better kind of cat food? Do I have that right? Is that the full story?

DM : I didn't say that is what happened, I'm just saying, maybe it could happen that way. Who knows? I don't know. But someone in my house is doing it, and it's not me.

VV : So it could be the maid, the butler or the sushi chef, correct?

DM : Or the cat. I'm not saying it is, but....

VV : You don't have a sushi chef, do you?

DM : No.

VV : And there's no butler. No maid.

DM : ............correct.

VV : Do you think there's a need to exaggerate about such things?

DM : What do you care? You don't even exist.

VV : Yeah, that's right....


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When I Look In The Mirror, I See A Stupid Man Looking Back

If you were a blogger for a daily Murdoch newspaper, and you had recently sent lawyers after an independent news site that dared suggest you, or someone in your household, was commenting hundreds of times, under aliases, at your own blog (and warned other bloggers to stay away from the story), would you be game enough to draw attention to a blog that doesn't get many commenters at all?

This Murdoch blogger is game enough :

The words-to-comment ratio at this talky leftoid site – which reads a little like an unedited and slightly concussed Mike Carlton – is a remarkable 3,104/1.

This is the post from The Michael Duffy Files that grated that Murdoch blogger so much he had to do something really stupid (excerpts) :

What sort of fucked up fantasy life does Tim Blair live?

On his commenters :

What a sick bunch of fuckers. A bit like the kids bullied in the schoolyard fantasizing about payback and blowing the mother fucker bullies away. You know in black trench coats with pistols.

Blair's always been a smarmy, snide, evasive, furtive gadfly, relying on others to do his dirty work. Sometimes he lets down his guard with a stupid comment, and the fully horsehit, fly blown nature of his thinking creeps out into the sunshine.

He sure knows how to dog whistle to his loon mates. It's just a pity he doesn't know how to pick up the dog shit when it gets smeared all over his blog.

And by the way, steroid rage is bad for you, along with ignorance of movies. Take a valium, drop an e, and go into a dark space, to chill out, like mushrooms. Second thoughts, why not eat the mushrooms? Like Alice, you might enter a new time space continuum in your peculiar minds.

When you insult this blogger's commenters, you are not only insulting his readers, you are insulting his friends and/or housemates, and probably a typing cat as well.