Christian (‘The Christian’) Kerr is ace; your heads are full of rubbish because you have read too many books, and:
Our blogs too analytical, intolerant
Christian Kerr
The Australian
June 15, 2009AUSTRALIA has very few anarcho-capitalist [sic] bloggers like Paul Staines of Guido Falkes [sic] fame, reformed raver libertarians with an eye for scandal (and another on the latest market moves).
And we have no political bloggers who break stories. What we have on our political blogs is analysis. And talk. Endless talk.
Some of the analysis is excellent…
Peter Brent’s Mumble… [is good] Scott Steele of pollytics.com [and] Poll Bludger… William Bowe… [are bad].
Club Troppo… [and] Catallaxy [are good] Larvatus Prodeo [is bad].
Some are sharp. Sometimes. Others are the online equivalent of soapbox speakers. Then there is the group that provides the cyberworld’s answer to the sad sacks you see on the street holding intense conversations with no one in particular.
And there is one final type of political blog: the online shit-sheet, the internet equivalent of the anonymous lies, smears and distortions that get peddled in the parties, particularly the ALP and particularly at pre-selection time.
Australia’s most notorious practitioner of this blogging is a Melburnian with impeccable links to the local ruling right, John Brumby’s Unity faction.
Rumour says powerful Labor figures keep him going, but everyone concerned has plausible deniability — for now.
If someone wants to claim the first scalp of the Australian political blogosphere, perhaps they should dig deeper.
Where to begin?
At the start I guess.
1. Paul Staines of Guido Falkes [sic] fame
I’m not surprised Christian The Christian champions Paul Staines. After all, they have a lot in common, having both carved out careers as Tories-for-hire, relied upon their fellow Tories for leaks to ‘break’ stories, and consumed illegal drugs (how naughty!): cocaine/ecstasy in the case of Christian the Christian, XTC/LSD/MDMA in the case of Mister Staines. Both champion self-interest, and appear to base their views on a dull form of ‘libertarianism’ (most familiar to a North American audience), one made famous by its espousal by philosophes such as von Hayek, Friedman, and Cartman.
2. Mumble / pollytics.com / Poll Bludger / Club Troppo / Catallaxy / Larvatus Prodeo
A confession: I’d never heard of Mumble, and have read the other blogs on only a handful of occasions. The first three listed concentrate on examining the entrails of the members of The Johns Party; Club Troppo defines itself as expressing “Politics, economics, law and life from a ‘radical centrist’ perspective, defined by Noel Pearson as “the intense resolution of the tensions between opposing principles” — to which I can only reply ‘What-ever‘ — and its disco on ‘politics’, law and ‘life’ reads very much like such things do when interpreted by a commerce studies graduate (the kind best avoided at parties); Catallaxy is startlingly similar. The dull earnestness of both is… well… dull.
3. one final type of political blog: the online shit-sheet
Which, though Christian The Christian fails to name it, is rather obviously a reference to Andrew Landeryou’s ‘THE OTHER CHEEK’, now known as ‘vexnews’. Famous for his legal battles with businessman Solomon Lew and involvement in the scandal which destroyed the Melbourne University Student Union, Landeryou comes from pedigree Labor stock — Daddy was a Victorian State Government Minister — and uses his blog to attack factional rivals in the ALP. Several years ago (May 23, 2006), he was declared a bankrupt — which, as it happens, appears to have been a fate shared by Paul Staines of Guido Falkes [sic] fame.
Come to think of it, Landeryou’s Blog(s) of Freedom really isn’t that far removed from Paul Staine’s Guido. (Falkes.)
- The Australian has previously given props to Paine. June 8, 2009: EU results a new crisis for Brown | May 4, 2009: Pint goes west and blogging comes of age | April 30, 2009: YouTube boob | April 15, 2009: Gordon Brown regrets smear emails from Damian McBride | April 13, 2009: Sex, lies and sordid photos to promote Labour website / Brown aide in plot to slur Tories. See also : Journalism in Crisis 09: ‘Fifth estate’ models could aid investigative journalism in the UK, says Paul Lashmar (May 19, 2009): “Only 75 – 125 UK journalists ‘scattered around the media’ could be said to be working in investigative journalism at any one time, he said.”
Thank you for drawing this article to my attention. Regardless of one’s view of VEXNEWS, it’s a bit rich for Christian Kerr, who frequently takes our stories and rehashes them without attribution, to claim we don’t break news stories. To quote from famous wordsmith President Bush, he’ll be hearing from us real soon. Perhaps Monday morning.
You’ll be pleased to hear we published long prior to Solomon Lew’s bankruptcy action and we’ll be publishing long after.
Go in grace,
Vexnews is Australia’s greatest news site. A relative of mine used to work for ASIO until a few weeks ago and he told me that Vexnews is the Australian news site of choice, not only for ASIO, but also for the CIA because Vexnews breaks stories before anyone else.
Andrew Landeryou is a genius, and the vile comments about him on certain blogs of filth are not only disgraceful, they are just professional jealousy.
😀