Tim Blair

He "edited the final copy **together**"???? And he's an editor [sic]? He wouldn't get a job as a junior editor-in-training with me if he writes that sort of crap.

I've always liked Peter Beattie.

Chris Sheil is a big girly nonce,a wus, a handbag, sorry, it has to be said.

The prick has no compunction about laying into others yet exercise a right of reply and oh! the inhumanity, the injustice, the oppression.

Chris needs a job and a life in the real world.

"Geoff Gallup is probably my favourite of the current premiers, and I quite like Steve Bracks."

He sounds like a teenage girl trying to decide which is her favourite member of Boyzone or N'Sync.

Cuckoo -- you can always tells if a report has been edited by Chris because of all the ponies he's drawn in the margins.

After the 1996 election, when Pauline Hanson won the very safe seat of Oxley from the ALP the Financial Review's editorial on the Monday or maybe Tuesday after was dedicated to an assassination of Hanson - a quite extraordianary decision when the wider ramifications of the change of government were considered.

I responded with a letter in her defence explaining the issues that lead to her overwhelming victory - issues of particular relevance to the people of Oxley at the time.

I received a call from Mark Day who ran an afternoon talk show in Sydney to come on and discuss the letter.

I reiterated the issues that hit so deeply in Oxley and concluded by mentioning that Oxley wasn't the only electorate affected by the issue as the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs at the time, Robert Tickner, was also soundly thumped in the then safe ALP seat of Hughes.

Mark Day then sprung the ambush. On the other line was Robert Tickner who proceeded to tear into me with all the usual smears not once really discussing the issues. In my case there was no "What do you think about that?". The line went dead.

I immediately rang back and asked for a right of reply. I was advised that a condition of Mr Tickner's appearance was that there would be no right of reply.

I asked what special privilege Tichner had over me since he was now "Citizen" Tickner.

Chris Sheil can consider himself privileged to have had an opportunity to respond as some radio hacks have no sense of fair play when the argument is contrary to their world view.

I never believed in karma, but today, I feel a little more inclined to.

I would find it hard to believe anything coming out of a foundation named after Australia's first insane Opposition leader.

I need some help from the blogging community. I was laying in bed unable to sleep tonight, thinking about the election. I was watching Paula Zahn on CNN earlier this evening and she presented her audience with an online question. The question was, “do you think that Bill Clinton’s speech for Kerry made you more likely or less likely to vote for Kerry?” So it seems to me that if you like Clinton you would go with the more likely group and if you don’t you would go with the less likely group. When Paula got her results back it turned out that 90% voted that Clinton’s speech would make them more likely to vote for Kerry. Now this seems like an incredibly high percentage to me. I cannot believe for a second that this many people now like Clinton.

Then I looked back at the debates and the online voting that occurred there. I took part in some of that voting at several of the major network’s web sites. I was very surprised at the results. After the first debate I got feedback that Kerry had won by as much as 80% to 20% on some of the sites. That seemed like a large winning margin, but not out of keeping with the way that the debate went. I went back and voted again on those same web sites after the second and third debates when I knew that Bush had done much better. To my surprise, these web sites showed almost the same huge win for Kerry. Later, when the results came in from people who were polled about the debates by telephone, the spread for those who thought Kerry had won was much, much smaller.

The online web sites will not allow anyone to vote more than once. They obviously have some system of taking a voter ID and retaining it to prevent multiple votes. But I’m beginning to seriously wonder about how foolproof this system is? Does anyone know how such a system can be gamed? I know, for example, that there is such a thing as IP address aliasing. This means that you take the data packets from your computer and change their source address to a different source address. If the on line voting system uses the IP source address of the computer that sent it the vote as the identification for deciding if it will allow another vote, then one would be able to send multiple votes using IP aliasing. It seems conceivable to me that someone could have a program that did automatic IP aliasing along with automatic voting. You would then be able to point your program at the server that was counting the votes, enter the number of votes that you want to submit and tell the program to go. I’m just conjecturing here based upon some limited knowledge. If anyone knows enough about this subject to help, please do so.

It seems to me that by playing this game the democrats could gain a great advantage. The news networks announce the results of their on line polls on the air. People listening to those results then are effected in their own opinion. If their opinion is at odds with the great majority they will doubt themselves. If it is in keeping with the majority they are then more sure that they are correct. When the phone calls come in requesting their opinion, those results may then be effected also. As all of these polls hit the news, the opinion that the public has of their candidate is then also effected. These seems to me to be a perfect way to game the public. And with a program that could submit automatic votes, it would only take a few people with copies of that program to dominate on line political voting of all types. What do you think?

I didn't really digest much of what you are trying to say, but one thing's for certain.

Online polls are worthless.

Tilo, you have committed a blog felony: putting an OFF-TOPIC comment in a thread. One more and I ban you. Capisce?

I would find it hard to believe anything coming out of a foundation named after Australia's first insane Opposition leader.

also, new south wales' first insane chief justice of the supreme court.

these two acheivements notwithstanding, it seems kinda churlish take a man of such varied accomplishments [inter alia, federal opposition leader, youngest ever justice of the high court, attorney-general, president of the UN general assembly] and reduce him to "insane".

Amortiser admitted to being a Pauline Hanson apologist. Ban him too.

Hey, I don't understand a word of this post, sitting here in the US. What's the backstory on this item?
thanks.

Tom

Amortiser was not 'admitting' anything. He was simply discussing the fact that the ALP multiculti policies were on the nose and that the ALP should have listened to the electorate

I was going to respond to Tilo but now I am too scared.

"Chris needs a job and a life in the real world."

I suggest flipping hamburgers in his local McDonalds (or a suitable Australian equivalent).

Pat: Tilo would seem to have a website (he entered the url wrong, but I used to have a Mindspring account and know how their home page urls are set up) so you can respond to him there. Just a heads up: the topic of this post would seem to be Australian politics (Russ in Denver, I suggest you use Tim's handy search button, over on the side menu -- use the names in the post, not "Australian politics") and making fun of Australian academic lefty bloggers, so let's keep to that topic right here.

Nothing from the Evatt crowd would surprise me. 10 years ago I participated in a gov't sponsored discussion in Canberra where their then head (Peter Bottsman) was a featured speaker. Really stupid and really dishonest. My favorite bit (and it is in the published transcript) is where his closing comments added up to a request for more money for the foundation.

Hey tim, that's my headline. Plagiarist! Shame!

(And what's wrong with editing copy together? You get the stuff, and edit it into a whole document - like sewing, metaphorically speaking, if you like.)

these two acheivements notwithstanding, it seems kinda churlish take a man of such varied accomplishments [inter alia, federal opposition leader, youngest ever justice of the high court, attorney-general, president of the UN general assembly] and reduce him to "insane".

Kinda cruel, yeah, but it doesn't hide the fact he went nuts.

cs, there's sewing and then you have tailors and/or seamstresses. The difference is based on training and skil; the final product is the proof.

Anyone can patch a shirt or replace a button; assembling high quality new clothes from scratch, superior to something bought off the rack, is an entirely different matter.

Just thought I might point this out to you. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

Evatt was completely mad by the time he was appointed Chief Justice of the NSW Supreme Court in 1960. He may have 'edited together' some judgements but he sure as hell didn't write any.

At the time of the Split in 1955 Bill Hayden described him as showing symptoms of an 'intellectually corrosive disability'.

Actually, Chris, to be Sheilish about it, it wasn't your headline. Don't you remember your own posts?

Very Sheilish tim. OK, have it your way: "you have taken my words and put them in your headline! Plagiarist! Shame!" How's that?

Also, while I'm complaining and correcting, why do you put down Adelaide? More, why did you delete all the other media references in my post? Was this so you could then bag the only one you chose to leave in with your elitist anti-Adelaide prejudice? Poor practice tim, I must say.

"you have taken my words and put them in your headline! Plagiarist! Shame!" How's that?

It may help to remember that they're not really your words, at least as an individual. They're our words collectively, most of which have in fact been provided by governments, past as well as present.

So what's this "my words" crazy talk, Chris? Surely you don't believe in something so capitalistic as individual intellectual property rights?

"Why do you put down Adelaide?"

So I can stand out from the teeming millions who are always talking it up.

"Why did you delete all the other media references?"

I didn't; the "couple of radio interviews" remained, and I would've left in other references if they weren't simply links.

Now shut up and hand over all your money so I can ... umm ... distribute it among the collective. Yes, that's it. The collective.

First they came for my words, and I spoke out because I was the author, then the came for my money ...

Incidentally, I did use my earlier defence when I was talking to the producer. "I didn't write it", I said, "you don't want to talk to me", I said. "Oh, it'll be OK Chris. Just 5 minutes of very general questions. Please say yes". That's why I was so pissed off!

And tim, this excuse:

I didn't; the "couple of radio interviews" remained, and I would've left in other references if they weren't simply links"

... doesn't wash. The links were to Channel 9, news.com.au etc etc ... which destroys your joke, unless you also regard them like Adelaide radio as 'little media'. What's Big Media to you tim? The Bulletin? Are you being elitist again?

"then the[y] came for my money ... "

I see you feel the pain of the tax payer.

It isn't your money, Chris. It belongs to all of us. ALL of us!

And, yes, I know the other links were to whoever, but they were represented in your post as "here, here, and here" which would've looked stupid unless I bothered to link them as well. Considering they were mostly regional variations on the same AAP piece, why bother?

As for me being elitist ... I link to you, don't I? That proves my lowbrow taste. Any lower and I'd be reading cat food labels.

Wriggle, wriggle tim. No need to be nasty, or to try to steal my money as well as my words. Face it, you blundered, again.

I blundered again? Damn! I promise to do better next time. Good luck with the hallucinations.