The prince and the pea

Written By: - Date published: 8:45 pm, January 21st, 2015 - 80 comments
Categories: blogs - Tags: , , ,

I have pointed out before that Bomber Bradbury is wee bit unsuited to the two way dialogue of the blogs. A fragile prima donna who doesn’t like to be contradicted by the people he gallantly slags off in his routine piques of bitchy ranting.

Consider this comment by Scoop editor Alastair Thompson complaining about a unpublished comment at The Daily Blog in a post about his organisation.

As the editor of The Daily Blog has so far chosen not to publish Scoop’s response it is included here below.

Martyn,Please consider this comment a right of reply. I expect it to be published.

This is the second time in a couple of months that you have decided to speculate about Scoop’s imminent demise based on gossip in a post framed in innuendo.

To be clear. Scoop is not about to fail. And Scoop is part of the future of news in NZ. Scoop’s “Operation Chrysalis” project is about succession, finding a sustainable path for the business for the next decade. As you know we live in difficult times for the monetisation of independent free and progressive news, but it is clear to anyone with eyes that Scoop shows more promise in this space than anyone else in the NZ online space.

Specifically Scoop has a monthly audience of 500,000 unique visitors (roughly 10 times that of this publication), publishes 1000 items of content a week – including significant quantities of original journalism as well as press releases from unions, political parties, NGOs and progressive activists. We have a database of close to 1 million published and indexed pages and more than 4 million incoming links.

Scoop employs 8 staff and turns over 100s of thousands of dollars in revenue each year.

We are by far the strongest independent online participant in news – and as a result the best opportunity to build a future for independent online news in New Zealand.

Scoop would appreciate it if The Daily Blog, as a fellow traveller in the online news and commentary space, would desist from publishing reports which are intended to damage Scoop’s business, something which it is presumably doing for self-serving reasons.

Alastair Thompson
Scoop.co.nz
Editor & Publisher

Now that looks like a perfectly legitimate dissenting comment to me. The type of comment that if I saw it in the autospam from someone banned, I’d pull it out and publish on one of my posts even if they were slagging me off. Expecting respect for intelligent dissent on the net means that you have to tolerate it yourself. But clearly Bomber has more in common with an aloof aristocracy than he has with the dissenting disagreement that most of us are willing and expect to tolerate.

I’d suggest that if Bomber has such a glass ego that he is incapable of taking such mild criticism that he turns off the comment section. Or better still, that he removes himself from moderating and gives it to someone with less of a problem with dissent. He isn’t very good at recognising the difference between legitimate criticism and trolling.

But hey, this is a net. If someone is acting like a fool, there are many easy solutions. Here is one traditional route used through decades of the net. Stifling dissent in the way that bomber has been doing demands that others on the net publish it – simply to piss him off and educate him about the personal costs of being a prince on a pea.

If you feel that Bomber has moderated out one of your legitimate comments make sure that it is saved and send it to me with the context. I might publish it. I might even add some commentary….

 

Updated: Bomber had to go for broke with his response to this post. A bit silly really. Here is a summary

r0b dug out mickysavage outing himself as Greg Presland back in 2010. Also that contrary to Bomber’s ever knowledgeable assertion that nobody knew about Micky outing himself.

Bradbury on micky

Ouch. Let me remind people that making assertions about facts with the ever polite r0b is not something you should do lightly. It really pays to check your facts first.

I pointed out that that we have never asked guest posters to check on rebuttal or any other types of posts. Authors don’t bother with each others posts.

About then Bomber stopped with the facts ending with this masterpiece.

Bradbury on micky1

Ok, I’d count that as a full blown tantrum from a bit of fatuous bigot. In fact his caricature of a purely critical socialist rather reminds of some other fictional poseur where you scratch the surface to find something that has more bombast than substance and where what appears under the shell is not too pleasant.

And what is this fool talking about? I started using “dickhead” as a surrogate when I got left the army basic training in 1978 with a bad and objectionable habit of saying “motherfucker”. I can’t quite see why bomber thinks this is embarrassing to me? Perhaps he had a precious childhood? Hasn’t he ever worked?

youngones_maybe

 

Yeah ok – I did a bit of ego baiting. I really can’t resist it. At my advanced age, I have to take life’s small pleasures where I can.

I will admit that I wrote this post and my comments at TDB in part in the characteristic  bombastic Bomber style with that characteristic florid over statement. But that was just satirical fun.

But really the whole exercise is just an unpleasant delve into way that Bomber likes to give out, but has too fragile and ego to receive.

Oh well…. Back to real work both here and in getting this government removed. For some reason this actually involves swaying the middle of our society. Both are things that our rather middle class radical ‘friend’ appears to not be too interested in doing.

BTW: Have a look at the stats of TS and TDB from April 1 2011. So far TDB has been doing well. While they built off the existing left audience that has been built up, they have been steadily forging their own readership heading into the election. That new audience appears to have deserted them post election. Over the last 30 days, they are only marginally better than they were in the same 30 days last year.
I have hidden TDB’s recent fall, but you can play with the controls. The question is what does the site do over the next few years? They should probably learn to how to maintain an audience over the next 2 years. Being a dickhead and attacking other left sites probably isn’t the way to do it.

For the inevitable voices who say that I should suffer someone acting like a fool on the net because of their political opinions. I was involved on the anarchical protonet long long before I became politically active. Doing my bit in keeping the net cleanish is more important.

80 comments on “The prince and the pea ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. tc 1
    21 January 2015 at 9:17 pm

    Maybe he will disappear up his own and do the ‘left’ as the DP spinsters call it a favour.

    I tired of his rants long ago and he seems to have become his own unique caricature. He was fun on stratos till it got nact’d and that seems his natural home being more a satirist.

  2. millsy 2
    21 January 2015 at 9:20 pm

    Scoop sets the standard for online news ib this country. Were I Bomber, I would be looking at some form of collaboration or merger with it, not a war.

    Bomber professes to indentify with youth in this country. Which is good becase he would know what a ‘try hard’ is.

  3. vto 3
    21 January 2015 at 9:22 pm

    I have always enjoyed his rants but yes they need filling out more or presented in a better format.

    He is a left wing battler unafraid to have a go at the powers that be, so don’t frighten him off, encourage him to improve. The left has to use all it has ……

    • Chooky 3.1
      21 January 2015 at 10:30 pm

      +100

    • lprent 3.2
      21 January 2015 at 11:09 pm

      I don’t want him to leave blogging. I do want him to improve.

      But this silent disappearance of comments, particularly comments that directly contradict posts is something that is particularly insidious. That is how you develop a closed group of sycophants with delusions of grandeur.

      Criticism has its uses. Ask any programmer who has had the obvious bugs pointed out in their “perfect” code.

      • McFlock 3.2.1
        22 January 2015 at 12:05 am

        It’s also a bit like theatre, I guess.

        The worst plays I’ve seen have all been ones where the same person is playwright, director, and lead actor. They too easily become self-absorbed tripe.

        The better ones involve the driving force behind the production deliberately relinquishing some of that power – at least one of those functions is taken over by a fellow thespian who has the experience and respect to challenge the visionary’s dictats. It makes the visionary justify decisions and even see things from another’s point of view, which is after all the objective of theatre (otherwise it simply becomes a circle-jerk with make-up and poor reviews in the local paper).

      • Pete George 3.2.2
        22 January 2015 at 5:45 am

        But this silent disappearance of comments, particularly comments that directly contradict posts is something that is particularly insidious. That is how you develop a closed group of sycophants with delusions of grandeur.

        That’s how Whale Oil now operates too, along with a major purge of commenters. It started about the middle of last year, marking the beginning of the decline. A substantial drying up of political sources has also contributed.

        I’ve been a wee bit critical of moderation here at times but I’ve also said a number of times that to your credit at least it does everything in the open.

        Silent censorship as at WO and TDB is dishonest and insidious.

      • Harold Saxon 3.2.3
        22 January 2015 at 3:33 pm

        Oh come on Lprent, don’t be so precious. You’ve banned people and deleted their posts on numerous occasions here on THE STANDARD. That’s your right of course, but let’s not try to put ourselves on a lofty moral highground that no one really deserves to occupy.

        You and Bradbury do the same thing, albeit for your own personal rationale. Of course, so does Slater, and he’s even worse!

        Right, so if you and Martyn can stop your breast-beating long enough, the Tories are over yonder —–> *points to Parliament*

        [lprent: Perhaps you should leave a message telling Bomber that? Let us know if it gets published.

        As for banning = of course we do. We have policies about behaviour and you can see when we do use it like this moderators note.

        However we don’t disappear vaguely reasonable comments. If they have left comments before, we inform them why they were banned and why their comment was objectionable. We even let reasonable comments through on first comment check if they are critical of the post content. Not exactly what people have come to expect when the fragile ego is “moderating” – which is what this post is about.

        Of course if someone creates new handle as “Giant Penis” as someone just did then it doesn’t matter what they wrote – they are treated as being a absolute dickhead. 😈

        Only a complete fool (like you?) would consider that operating comments in a blog should exist without moderation. The question is when moderation is used to stifle deserved criticism of a post, even when the author doesn’t think that the posts didn’t deserve it. ]

        • Harold Saxon 3.2.3.1
          23 January 2015 at 11:52 am

          “Only a complete fool (like you?) would consider that operating comments in a blog should exist without moderation.”

          1. I did not suggest there should be no moderation. That is an argument of your invention.

          2. I’ve Copy & Pasted the same comment to Martyn on TDB.

          3. Whatever disagreement you both have should be resolved in private. This does not serve the left one iota.

          4. You can cool me a “fool” if you like. Bang away. But doesn’t change the points I made.

  4. Pete George 4
    21 January 2015 at 9:32 pm

    Or better still, that he removes himself from moderating and gives it to someone with less of a problem with dissent.

    According to this post Bradbury hasn’t been moderating for nearly three months:

    Commenting on TDB

    We have a new moderator who will focus on all moderation on comments from now on – ‘Scarletmod’ will do our moderation.

    http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/11/05/commenting-on-tdb/

    I don’t know if anything changed in practice with that.

  5. saveNZ 5
    21 January 2015 at 9:33 pm

    We live in a democracy so he can rant as much as he want, as far as I am concerned. Remember we all respect free speech. The more left wing blog sites the better. Unite not fight!

    • Colonial Rawshark 5.1
      21 January 2015 at 9:39 pm

      “The more left wing blog sites the better. ”

      Someone remind him of this please.

    • Te Reo Putake 5.2
      21 January 2015 at 10:15 pm

      “Remember we all respect free speech.”

      Did you not read the post? Bomber doesn’t give a flying one for free speech. His ego far outweighs his talent and he removes any comments that in anyway contradict his high opinion of his own spartist output.

    • lprent 5.3
      21 January 2015 at 10:58 pm

      Remember we all respect free speech.

      Yep, and I’ll publish comments that don’t pass whatever standard is applied that would easily pass mine. That is the freedom of speech we expect from the net.

      I’m afraid that the wisdom of a broadcast isn’t the reason that I read sites, political programming or other. I have sites like the washington post or the economist for that.

      I like to read the comments because they may have a lot of dross, but they also have much of the value. Censoring out intelligent disagreement is a bit daft. How else do you find new ways to think about things?

      • TheContrarian 5.3.1
        21 January 2015 at 11:00 pm

        “Censoring out intelligent disagreement is a bit daft. How else do you find new ways to think about things?”

        ^This

        • lprent 5.3.1.1
          21 January 2015 at 11:04 pm

          Let me guess what you are about to say.

          Sure I do ban on consistent behaviour or direct violations of rules. You can see me do it. But I rarely censor their opinion. If I do then you can see what I censored and why.

          • TheContrarian 5.3.1.1.1
            21 January 2015 at 11:08 pm

            Nope. Was going to say none of that. I was agreeing with the statement:

            “Censoring out intelligent disagreement is a bit daft. How else do you find new ways to think about things?”

            Let me amend my comment with a “^” to augment the “This”. If ya follow me

      • Disraeli Gladstone 5.3.2
        23 January 2015 at 6:43 am

        What is particularly galling is when Bomber goes from “precious flower who can’t be criticised” to losing all sense of any “media principles” or good decency. For example, he would allow me to debate him to a certain point, then block my comments. In a later comment, he then claimed I ran scared and stopped posting, which is just ridiculous.

        For an example of “media principles”.

        http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/12/10/hone-harawira-walks-the-talk-huffington-post-on-keys-memory-loss-over-3000-sign-minto-petition/

        You may notice he has striked out the word “his” there when talking about Harawira’s air fare to Mandela’s funeral. Well, that’s because I mentioned to him (while agreeing that Harawira was completely right to do so) that actually he wasn’t paying to go out of pocket.

        Bomber didn’t feel the need to post that comment. He did however then make the correction, which made it appear he had gone away and researched further and then corrected himself.

        Because god forbid he is ever corrected by someone else.

  6. just saying 6
    21 January 2015 at 10:14 pm

    I’ve fallen foul of that site’s censorship and self-promotion practices twice. Once is shame on you, twice, shame on me, so I voted with my feet.

    I still read bits and pieces from various writers now and then when they are mentioned here and elsewhere, but I would never bother commenting there. It’s a shame because I think Martyn has some important and original perspectives sometimes, but they are lost amongst the dross. I credit him with keeping the creeping police state issues to the forefront (on Tumeke) at a time when it seemed that other blogs didn’t see the importance, or maybe just weren’t that interested.

    He has talent as a thinker and writer, but needs a good editor, and to rein in that ego of his. He seems extremely competitive and has a strong tendency to take things personally. I don’t think he sees how counter-productive his behaviour often is. I don’t expect him to take this on board, and I understand the working class chip-on shoulder thing, which can bring about anger, and sometimes overreactions that I think people from other kinds of background really can’t understand. I’d like to see the talent, energy and drive he has harnessed for maximum effectiveness. Unfortuately, I don’t see this happening as long anytime soon.

    • Chooky 6.1
      21 January 2015 at 10:32 pm

      good points

    • Psycho Milt 6.2
      22 January 2015 at 6:14 am

      He has talent as a thinker and writer…

      What passes for “writing” in his posts is mostly a semi-literate mess. On the occasions I’ve read them, it’s astonished me that someone apparently incapable of writing a correct sentence could have ambitions as a journalist (although it shouldn’t – there’s plenty of evidence that the ability to speak or write English isn’t considered an essential skill for journalists these days).

    • aaron 6.3
      22 January 2015 at 8:23 am

      I agree there is a lot of excellent stuff on the Daily Blog (it’s also how I found The Standard) and I often enjoy Bomber’s writing but since the election he’s become incredibly bitter.

      Most of his articles containing derogatory references to the part of the NZ population that didn’t vote the way he wanted them to. I think perhaps he thought The Daily Blog was going to change the result of the election. In any case he needs to get away from politics for a bit and get some perspective.

      Naturally I’ve made comments to this effect (with quite neutral language) and naturally, they weren’t published.

      Equally though, I would suggest writing an article called the Prince and the Pea and calling him a fragile prima donna will probably serve to further entrench him – which is not to say I disagree with this article itself – just those bits of it.

      • Jonathan 6.3.1
        22 January 2015 at 6:45 pm

        I agree that he has become particularly bitter since the election. Which is painful to see, and definitely understandable, but for the sake of the left, and probably himself, it would be great if that bitterness could be resolved a bit before it appeared online. And I definitely don’t mean by pretending it’s not there. A good first step would be not letting that bitterness spark out at unnecessary targets, and maybe the idea of an editor mentioned further above is a good one in that regard.

        In some ways, maybe a good lesson for the whole left, not just Martyn.

  7. TheContrarian 7
    21 January 2015 at 10:40 pm

    Was Bomber ever paid for working with/for Internet MANA?

    Because I have a screenshot of him complaining they falsely accused him of having been paid by them and receiving an advance copy of Dirty Politics, then him posting a retraction for the advance copy thing but not the being paid by internet Mana. I asked him they apologised for the being paid bit but it never left moderation (also a screen shot).

    • Gosman 7.1
      22 January 2015 at 5:30 am

      It was quite clear he was working closely with them. He posted on the Daily Blog a supposed independent poll from Te Tai Tokerau showing Hone Harawira leading. Later Hone was interviewed on the MSM and it became clear that the poll was commissioned by IMP.

      • tracey 7.1.1
        22 January 2015 at 7:19 am

        however Bomber also claimed that he knew Scoop was going under… so he is a BS artist who is right 20% of the time maybe…

      • aaron 7.1.2
        22 January 2015 at 8:26 am

        C’mon Gosman, you’ve devoted months of your life to trolling the Daily Blog, no surprise to see you jumping in here with an irrelevant piece of information that makes Bomber look bad.

        • Gosman 7.1.2.1
          22 January 2015 at 9:17 am

          How is it irrelevant when it directly addresses a question that was raised in relation to his work with the Internet Mana party ?

          He was snapped out on posting one of their internal polls and passing it off as being independent. The Poll had likely been passed to him by someone within IMP. This was especially ironic considering his voracious attacks on National for working with Cameron Slater doing similar things.

  8. Ad 8
    21 January 2015 at 11:37 pm

    Lyn, what’s TS’s relationship with Scoop like?

    I slightly admire Bomber for his headlong and heroic burnout with Mana/internet (though I can’t stand either him, Mega, or Harawira as people). But Bomber has had plenty of time to evolve, and failed. He’ll always have a constituency of similar ranters – they are welcome to each other.

    He should be a full-time campaigner for more flameout causes – that’s the only employable use for his arm-waving rhetoric these days.

    • lprent 8.1
      22 January 2015 at 8:28 am

      Lyn, what’s TS’s relationship with Scoop like?

      Not that great financially. I don’t rely on them delivering advertising money for running this site any more.

      Instead earlier in the year I undertook a series of technical shifts that dropped the monthly ‘nut’ down from a highly variable $400-$700 to a solid $260. It has room to grow for the next few years. (next up are some theme changes). However at that level it is pretty much within donations range. The last two months were paid for by voluntary and mainly unsolicited donations.

      For the rest we have a generally cordial but not particularly close relationship with them.

      But hey, we are a left blog. That means we do the relatively easy things to help promote other leftish sites. See the side panel.

  9. Gosman 9
    22 January 2015 at 5:46 am

    He also has a habit of alienating some of the regular contributors to the blog. There was Queen of Thorns who decided to stop contributing and I understand Phoebe Fletcher also decided to contribute to other blogs partly as a result of his actions.

  10. Anne 10
    22 January 2015 at 8:29 am

    What’s happened to QoT? I admit I was a bit scared of her……

    • Gosman 10.1
      22 January 2015 at 9:11 am

      I believe she joined another Blog. If my memory is correct she (or another female contributor to The Daily Blog) posted online their reasons for leaving highlighting the old boys club that seemingly exists there between Martyn Bradbury and some of the other contributors like Chris Trotter.

      • Stickler 10.1.1
        22 January 2015 at 11:51 am

        Can you recall which blogs they went to?
        I should like to catch up with their views.
        (A lesson in not choosing a famous character off a TV programme as your nick – search engines will never find you among all the listings for the TV character!)

  11. Gosman 11
    22 January 2015 at 9:20 am

    Looks like he was shamed in to posting the right of reply. Strangely this occured shortly after I linked to this thread in a comment on his Daily blog article on this topic. Needless to state my linking comment didn’t get posted though 🙂

  12. Truth Will Out 12
    22 January 2015 at 9:39 am

    Martyn Bradbury is a disgrace to journalism.

    Weeks after Allan Hubbard’s death, Bradbury published an article describing him as “Mr Magoo” and a “fraudster”, accusing him of running a ponzi scheme.

    I knew Allan Hubbard personally, very well. He was a friend, and we spoke often in person and on the phone many, many times throughout the media trial he endured for the 15 months leading up to his death.

    Many people denied Allan his basic humanity throughout that process, demonizing him because of headlines without giving him any right of reply.

    The reality is that most people Allan had helped over the years abandoned him, and he was frightened and alone for much of his journey, reaching out to anyone who was willing to believe in him, as any of us would under the circumstances he was facing.

    He phoned me 20 minutes after he was charged, and I sat with him on the phone while he choked back tears as he tried to come to terms with his lifes work unravelling around him.

    Martyn Bradbury never contacted him once – ever. Never asked Allan for his side of the story. Never gave him the right of reply. Nothing.

    At least other journalists had the courage to risk defamation action by sticking it to Allan while he was alive, some of them becoming increasingly abusive in their rants about him as they became emboldened by the realisation that he was unlikely to retaliate.

    But not Bomber Bradbury, oh no…….he waited until the man was dead before developing the courage to launch his tirade.

    And last year he was proven 100% wrong, or at least 99.37% wrong, when it was announced that that was the amount of their original investments Allan’s investors were going to get back.

    So much for Bradbury’s ponzi scheme then.

    What angers and sickens me the most about Bradbury is he claims to be a social justice campaigner, and yet Allan Hubbard never had a trial, never set foot in a court room, and was killed four days before his first opportunity to set foot in a court room and fight back.

    In my mind, this renders Bradbury as a poser, a flake, a posturing wanker with highly selective morality.

    Worse than that, he broke a cardinal rule, which is that he spoke (wrote) incredibly disrespectfully of the dead.

    How does that afford him any moral high ground over Cameron Slater, for what Slater wrote about the deceased boy on the West Coast?

    It doesn’t.

    For those of us who knew Allan personally, and who have an in depth knowledge of his side of the story and his case, what Bradbury did was infuriating and indefensible, as well as completely defamatory and 100% factually WRONG.

    Martyn Bradbury is an absolute disgrace and if he ever comes near me I will tell him that straight to his face, I feel nothing but seething contempt for the man.

    • Richard Christie 12.1
      22 January 2015 at 12:11 pm

      And last year he was proven 100% wrong, or at least 99.37% wrong, when it was announced that that was the amount of their original investments Allan’s investors were going to get back.

      Did that include the NZ taxpayer’s bailout investment?

      • Truth Will Out 12.1.1
        22 January 2015 at 1:02 pm

        Allan Hubbard never had a trial, Richard.

        He was denied that opportunity.

        Accusations are not proof, regardless of who makes them.

        Headlines are not evidence either, of anything other than a media trial.

        His side of the story hasn’t even come close to being told.

        Be as mean spirited and spiteful as you like about the man, but you never knew him and you certainly don’t know his side of the story.

        I suspect you aren’t interested either, preferring to believe either what you want to believe, or what his accusers wanted you to believe.

        The truth will come out about the whole story one day, and I can personally guarantee you that it will reveal the real fraud was not committed by Allan Hubbard.

        During his media trial, many people he had helped over the years approached me with information about him, to help me form a more complete picture of the man.

        One of them, for instance, was a businessman who wrote a letter in support of Allan, telling how, twenty years earlier, Allan heard he was talking about committing suicide as his business was failing. Allan drove to his house at 11.30 pm upon hearing this news, and sat with the man until 2.30 am, talking him out of taking his own life. Allan convinced the man to give him his accounts, and left with them. Three days later, Allan returned to the mans house with his accounts, and a budget plan. Five years later, the man was debt free, having turned his business around with Allan’s advice and steady guidance, and today the man owns a number of successful businesses in South Canterbury.

        This is just one example of the endless help Allan gave people.

        Cynics will say that’s why South Canterbury Finance went under, and yet when I quizzed that man about Allan’s generosity, he said Allan never let him off the hook – hitting him with what he described as “eye watering fees” once the man was able to afford to pay him back.

        The fundamental difference between Allan’s approach and yours, is that he refused to reduce people to economic units with only a monetary value, dehumanising them and stripping them of their dignity in the process.

        Be as cynical and spiteful as you like, but it was his defence of human dignity and rights above dollar value that I will defend until my dying breath if need be.

        He was stripped of his dignity and rights for purely economic reasons, and the integrity of our justice system was dramatically undermined in the process.

        Defend that until you are blue in the face if you want to, as long as you understand that you are undermining and stripping your own dignity and rights in the process.

        • Richard Christie 12.1.1.1
          22 January 2015 at 1:37 pm

          And last year he was proven 100% wrong, or at least 99.37% wrong, when it was announced that that was the amount of their original investments Allan’s investors were going to get back.

          Did that include the NZ taxpayer’s bailout investment?

          • Truth Will Out 12.1.1.1.1
            22 January 2015 at 1:57 pm

            @Richard Christie:

            Are you suggesting that Allan Hubbard wasn’t entitled to access to the courts or a fair trial?

            Where, apart from newspaper headlines, is your evidence to prove that he is guilty of the accusations against him?

            Are headlines accusing someone all of the proof you need of their guilt?

            Why do we have rights?

            Why do we have a judicial system?

            Why do we have courts?

            [lprent: Probably pay for you two (and any others who want to join in) to move this discussion over to OpenMike. It is starting to get way off the base topic. Put in a comment to link to the OM thread. ]

            • Richard Christie 12.1.1.1.1.1
              22 January 2015 at 4:34 pm

              Thanks LP, but the two replies to my simple question is sufficient to throw a light on the likelihood of any rationality arising from further discussion.

        • travellerev 12.1.1.2
          22 January 2015 at 2:43 pm

          Truth will out, Good to know you haven’t lost your fighting spirit. Missing you on Facebook!

          • Truth Will Out 12.1.1.2.1
            22 January 2015 at 2:57 pm

            I miss you too Travellerev 🙂

            Iprent: I concur, and apologise for the way this thread went. The way it was dragged into the gutter by Richard was poignant in the context that my original comment was to point out that neither the Daily Blog, nor TS, nor anywhere else in the media, is an appropriate place to put a citizen on trial.

            Especially not after their death.

            I will never apologise to Richard Christie or anyone else for defending what shred of integrity is left in our justice system, no matter how much Herr Key tries to destroy it.

            This is my last word on the matter in this thread.

  13. phillip ure 13
    22 January 2015 at 12:24 pm

    (i left the following comment @ tdb..i’ll let u guess whether it got thru moderation..)

    cd u tell us why you so censor/sanitise comments here..?

    ..and do you realise it makes reading comment-threads here a waste of time..?

    ..as readers are only getting that censored/curated view..

    ..it is what has most puzzled me for a long time..

    ..about yr blog..

    ..isn’t the promotion of free-speech (within reason) one of the reasons u do what u do..?

    ..so why that glaring contradiction to that ideal in yr own back yard..?

  14. Ray 14
    22 January 2015 at 1:06 pm

    Dear old Bomber, you would have to be pretty hard hearted not to have a bit of a soft spot for him despite he many, many failings
    His predictions for the last election lead that rather large pack and then there all the fallings out with various lefties, even one with Russell Brown FGS
    I will admit that this time last year I wrongly picked a Left wine in the election but that was before the Dot Com disaster pushed voters to the “safer” right

    I have wondered about his “working class” credentials ( is there any evidence for them) as he often appears to be a caricature rather than the real thing and some of his work has been so disruptive to the Left

    • TheContrarian 14.1
      22 January 2015 at 2:33 pm

      ” you would have to be pretty hard hearted not to have a bit of a soft spot for him despite he many, many failings”

      No you wouldn’t. You’d have to be pretty blind to his self-aggrandising grandstanding and idiocy to have a soft spot for him

    • phillip ure 14.2
      22 January 2015 at 6:18 pm

      @ ray..factcheck:..

      ..those early optimistic-predictions of the election being good for/to internet-mana were at that time..totally justified..

      ..there is no need to make shit up..eh..?

      ..with yr final paragraph definitely lurching over into that territory..

    • millsy 14.3
      22 January 2015 at 9:46 pm

      The left never had a hope in hell of winning the election. Any chance was gone when Cunliffe said “chair of caucus..”.

      The focus should have been on the ‘screw the lot of them’ vote and getting a radical/left presence in Parliament.

      As I said before, the left was too impatient.

      • Pete George 14.3.1
        22 January 2015 at 9:51 pm

        How many more terms do you think they should wait things out?

        • millsy 14.3.1.1
          22 January 2015 at 9:58 pm

          I really dont know.

          All I know is that the left in NZ has really fucked up badly and may not recover.

          You might be fine with it, but those living in cars in South Auckland might think different.

          • Pete George 14.3.1.1.1
            22 January 2015 at 10:07 pm

            I’m not fine with it. A strong democracy needs strength on both sides.

            I agree they have stuffed up. Pretty much wasted two terms and on top of that went backwards.

            Perhaps Little is finally the one to lead a turnaround (I think and hope that’s a possibility). Perhaps the Labour caucus has had enough reality checks and will make a concerted effort to rebuild.

            And perhaps left wing blogs will stop their bloody mindedness, stop attacking anyone deemed to not fit some narrow ideal, and stop infighting (as per today) and support the recovery instead of scrapping over who gets to dig deeper holes.

            • One Anonymous Bloke 14.3.1.1.1.1
              22 January 2015 at 10:22 pm

              🙄

              The greater good, the greater good, the greater good…

              • weka …
                22 January 2015 at 10:30 pm

                He has a point though. Left wing blogs should make themselves hospitable to everyone. in fact why bother with that left wing stuff at all, when you can be a nice beige middle wing? Three wings, that’ll make the thing fly.

            • lprent 14.3.1.1.1.2
              22 January 2015 at 10:39 pm

              And perhaps left wing blogs will stop their bloody mindedness… and stop infighting (as per today)

              It’d be nice. However there is the usual problem. We could “turn the other cheek” to left blogs, right blogs, blogs that think they are in the ‘centre’, politicians, media or whoever. However experience tends to show that when we do that all it does is simply encourage idiots to attack more.

              They usually go off to create stupid myths that consist largely of people telling each other that they have heard for someone else. It then causes considerable extra work explaining to thick buggers who can’t think (umm a face comes to mind) that regardless what they’d heard, it didn’t happen.

              These days I’ll ignore some of it, do a few warning shots. If people don’t take the warnings then I will go into problem fixing mode. That consists of wading in when the tactical position is suitable, ripping their entails out and spreading them on the ground for the vultures.

              If it happens again, then I will simply escalate how badly I eviscerate. If it gets too irritating repetitive then I figure out a debilitating meme to cover them with to see if I can increase the risk of peritonitis. It isn’t pretty, but it is usually highly effective eventually at preventing people trying to climb somewhere on our sites carcass.

              However the reflex is almost entirely reactive. If people stop attacking stupidly then I will usually stop ripping into them (unless I start thinking that they are a real danger).

              I do find it pretty damn irritating when fools start trying to claim silly crap like blogs screwing them up because they’d prefer to believe it rather than looking at real problems. Like what in the hell are their MSM liasons and politicians doing? Having a single “senior MP” playing silly games is a hundredfold more damaging. Chris Carter for instance.

              Blogs may have a major impact on general public opinion. They sometimes do if they manage to get the MSM interested – because you’re trying to affect millions of people. That was the success of the dirty politics resonance chamber until Hager nobbled it.

              But where blogs have an effect is inside the political parties and chattering classes. The reason for that is obvious. There are only a few 10’s of thousands there. In the case of political parties, when politicians start working at cross-purposes with their party members that starts showing up in the public sphere pretty damn fast these days.

              If a politician can’t convince their own members that a course of action is the way to go, then I suspect that they will fail badly with the public as well. David Shearer being a particularly good case in point. perhaps he should have read the blogs?

              • aaron …
                23 January 2015 at 5:55 pm

                I don’t think you should turn the other cheek either but there was no need to title the post the Prince on the Pea or refer to Bomber as being a fragile prima donna (in the same sentence you accuse him of slagging other people off).

                It’s really destructive behaviour and is clearly going to induce a furious response from the other side. If your aim was to wind him up so that he’d make a dick of himself then congratulations, you’ve achieved your aim. Don’t expect me to respect it though.

                And are we really at the point where Bomber needs to be destroyed by you? As far as I can tell he makes a hell of a good contribution to counteracting the imbalance in the MSM. I really, really like Citizen A and heaps of his writing (I’m also a fan of TS), I don’t like some of his behaviour and wish he would sort himself out but I don’t see him as something evil that needs to be destroyed.

                It’s incredibly disheartening to see this happen in public and yes Bomber has behaved like a far bigger dickhead but that make it OK to knowingly inciting him.

                Anyway, as I said on TDB I’ll finance the bottle of whiskey if someone else can get you two into the same room.

                Keep your eyes on the Prize

  15. Morrissey 15
    22 January 2015 at 1:48 pm

    I upbraided Bomber a year or so ago for his persistent habit of using the term “rednecks” when he is talking about racists. I pointed out that to use the word in that derogatory sense is a sniffy term of contempt used by Eastern seaboard elites to put down working men and farmers. I also reminded him that the most bigoted, vile racists in this country are not “rednecks” but the likes of Leighton Smith, Murray Deaker, Tony Veitch, John Ansell, and a whole raft of like-minded reprobates, hardly of them a hard worker of any stripe, leave alone a redneck.

    There ARE a couple of vicious bigots who qualify as “rednecks” in this country: Alan Titford and Garth “The Knife” McVicar. But most of the racist, offensive crap that infests our public discourse comes from people who never do a hard day’s work from one year to the next.

    He never printed my letter.

  16. trendy lefty 16
    22 January 2015 at 8:23 pm

    He refused to publish a comment I made when he had his big hissyfit about Andrew Little being elected, and then also failed to publish the one where I questioned whether he only published comments that agreed with him. Thereby answering me in a lame, roundabout way I guess.

  17. just saying 17
    22 January 2015 at 8:38 pm

    I remember not long after I started coming here, there was an argument with Lynn and a few regulars of the time which spilled over several blog sites. It was over a comment he made about QoT when he introduced a guest post. It was pretty fierce at times. Lynn held no grudge towards me or anyone. There was even a private email over some little thing and he was pleasant and friendly. And this is the site he (and others) set up. Not long after that Lynn introduced QoT as an author here.

    I’ve disagreed with Lynn and every other author here at different times. The left represents the interests of most people, we aren’t some smug little elite, we are very different people with different life experiences. Of course we are going to argue and we need to. We have to have the space to learn, mess-up (how else do you learn?) and hear each other, and we can’t do that if we spend our time jealouly guarding our ignorance and accumulating petty hurts.

    Grudges are ugly things. They cause more harm to the holder than the recipient, and achieve absolutlely nothing. I don’t know what’s going on with you Martyn, but I expect for all your fury and outrage you are feeling pretty hurt and humiliated. You’ve got some important things to say and do. Get on with it.

  18. ropata:rorschach 18
    22 January 2015 at 8:51 pm

    Bomber’s original post, “NZ Blogger Alignment Awards 2014” is funny and worth a look as he skewers everybody, along with lprent.

    But for some reason both chaps lost perspective, allowing the entertainment to continue. Thanks Bomber and Lynn! Is the controversy part of a scheme cooked up to raise readership?

    http://xkcd.com/386/
    http://forlackofabettercomic.com/?id=173

    • lprent 18.1
      22 January 2015 at 9:03 pm

      Nah. I could have taken offense at his “awards”. But that isn’t a structural issue, it is pretty much opinion.

      Going off and silently killing a rebuttal comment as he did with scoop is a structural issue.As you might has noticed with the Blomfield case, watersiders and other issues over the years, I and usually we don’t like bloggers setting themselves up as little tin gods, judges, jury, and lynch mobs. When I see one of those I fix it. Usually by making damn sure that the alternate viewpoint gets fully heard.

      Since Bomber did his juvie impression again reprising his “awards” myth, I went in to tear it apart. Repitition like that causes meme creation. So I usually go in early and tear someone’s precious organs off to remind them that it is a dangerous sport.

      But I have to say that it was very pleasant when he managed to ‘activate’ r0b as well. Anthony likes to simply remove peoples footing with research.

      • ropata:rorschach 18.1.1
        22 January 2015 at 10:21 pm

        Bradbury: the Left’s answer to Whaleoil?

        (BTW Things on the Right ain’t so different, Whale’s antipathy toward DPF is well-known, calling him ‘Arts, lifestyle and travel blogger David “Pinko” Farrar’ … )

  19. newsense 19
    22 January 2015 at 8:52 pm

    Spot who used to make his living getting talk-back teenagers doing orgasm-offs?

    Place your bets!

    Was it Lyn Prentice or Martyn ‘Bomber’ Bradbury?

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