Guest post by Toaf
Tim Blair quotes a reader (or someone) who suggests that “Panty-wetting Greentards” are upset about a polar bear eating live fish in a German zoo. Those dumb greenies: they love polar bears so much but they don’t like it when they see them doing what they naturally do.
Anyway, I followed the link provided to see what grounds environmentalists or conservationists could possibly have for objecting to a polar bear eating fish.
The linked article, however, doesn’t mention environmentalists at all. It seems that it was visitors to the zoo who were upset about seeing live fish being eaten. Perhaps Tim didn’t bother to read the article. None of Blair’s commenters have questioned the claim that environmentalists are “having trouble sleeping” over the incident; one of them even draws Greenpeace into the discussion.
Just a normal day at Blairland.
16 Comments
9 April, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Nicely noted.
9 April, 2008 at 10:16 pm
I’m surprised they didn’t manage to shoe horn a reference to environmentalists having their roots in German fascism of the 1930s. It was a German zoo after-all.
They’re letting the whack job righty side down.
9 April, 2008 at 10:31 pm
can somebody please explain to me what the purpose of blair’s blog is. according to you he is someone who should be taken seriously enough that he is deserving of his own watch-type blog. But, when you look at the replies he gets….crap. nada. empty vessel. the man himself posts nothing of worth, only echo-chamber like wolf whistles to the sheep masses.
how is this journalism? more to the point, why bother with blair? the man is clearly outside the mainstream. focus on bolt instead – he at least has a wide-ranging audience.
9 April, 2008 at 10:53 pm
A polar bear in its ‘natural habitat’ feeds almost exclusively on seals.
9 April, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Bolt blogger, I reckon Blair’s worth keeping an eye on because the themes he presents on his blog are a pretty succinct summary of those aired across the rightwing blogosphere. I seldom read either Bolt or Blair to be honest, so you may be right that Bolt is the bigger fish. Why not try a guest post of your own? Tis easy.
Jimmy, it does indeed. One of the issues arising from changing polar bear populations is that seals are wanting for a natural predator – the bears – and so their numbers swell. That in turn means a decline in fish numbers, which the seals eat, or a seal cull. (But I’m no marine biologist. I just heard this somewhere.)
10 April, 2008 at 12:09 am
Mikey, the Nazis have rated a mention now, courtesy of you-know-who.
10 April, 2008 at 1:32 am
Timmeh is a fairly good indicator for what the right is truly ignorant about, i cant seriously believe even in timmehs mind he thinks they were actual lefty treehugging hippie scum, but its easier accessing his audience saying that. Although there are some wingnut treehuggers out there who think all fish everywhere should be kept out of harms way. They can pry my fishing rod FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS! However greenpeace actually hate fish with such a burning passion. It’s frightening the zeal the eyes of my treehugger greenpeace friend when i suggest we go fishing…almost like the look in the eyes of a kid who just found out what a magnifying glass and the sun can do to peoples skin.
10 April, 2008 at 8:30 am
OMFG, about a year ago when I first ran into Bolt’s site, I was astounded by the level of idiocy and pathetic immaturity of many of my fellow Australians, and the fact that such a moronic fool like Bolt, could actually have his own news blog, with quite a number of posters and followers Over time I have become desensitised, realising that I was somewhat naive, and accepting that if enough people spend virtually all their time in a childish, irrational, illogical and almost uniformally group-thinking capsule, a large number can have strange entrenched ways of thinking formulate in their heads, resulting in almost messiah levels of praise for a imbecilic useless hack like Bolt.
Then Blair’s site was revealed to me, and I think it will take a whole new round of desensitisation. Alas I think I almost falling for a massive logical fallacy, in considering praise for Bolt, since the musing of his and his moon-bats aren’t as bad as Blair’s, and sometimes you can actually find someone with a dissenting view from the editor, or at least an intelligent measured argument. Blair’s freaks are beyond saving. To me they represent the true sides to people like Bolt and most of his supporters, who try to present themselves as more refined, polite, mature interested in liberty and anti-persecutionary, The sides they try to hide, but really have the major influence their politics, such as discrimination, lack of empathy, uniformism, conformism, selfishness, dislike/hatred of those that are different, regular racism, immaturity, greediness, strictness and nationalism amongst other things, whereas the Blairites hardly bother.
10 April, 2008 at 9:54 am
Simple:
1. Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story
2. Not many people click through to links to check the facts as they want it served up by their idols
3. A blog isn’t really ‘journalism’ so you know who cares?
4. see point 1.
5. Use partial facts with a bit of spin and start the article with “So and so has it right…”
6. If in doubt cross link to previous blogs or other friendly bloggers to make up and argument.
7. see point 1 again.
10 April, 2008 at 2:12 pm
It seems that it was visitors to the zoo who were upset about seeing live fish being eaten. Perhaps Tim didn’t bother to read the article.
Maybe those visitors who complained warrant the epithet ‘Panty wetting Greentards’. Sounds about right to me. The only reason to complain about the fish is that the bear isn’t getting its quota of seal pups.
If you want ‘idiocy and and pathetic immaturity’, you are in the right place. This is nitpicking central.
I had hoped that there would be serious discussion of the weighty issues that differentiate this blog from its subjects but instead we have the telescopically tunnell-visioned muck-raking over minutiae, the bloggers apparently more fascinated by the pimples on the arse than the great stinking turds withing.
10 April, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Actually,…if we can assume that most hard-core Greens wouldn’t be caught setting foot in a Zoo in the first place, we can safely assume the audience that was ‘horrified’ that Knut the bear “senselessly murdered the carp” were a bunch of German schoolkids and their minders.
So, if the audience of average Zoo-goer’s was really shocked by Knut’s actions, doesn’t that reveal a quite enormous alienation from nature that we endure in modern capitalist society? Living in a major Western European industrial city, perhaps these children have had very little opportunity to experience the natural world. Is it really so surprising that they are shocked when confronted with the realities of ‘life in the wild’ if they spend the majority of their lives in urban institutions with limited access to nature?
10 April, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Damian, polar bear numbers are rising. Therefore your friends views on seal population increasing are wrong.
10 April, 2008 at 2:57 pm
“Why not try a guest post of your own? Tis easy.”
… how? Where do we submit our outpourings of pain? Is there an email address we should use? Comments in a particular thread? How?!?
10 April, 2008 at 3:04 pm
There’s a massive “contact” link in the header.
10 April, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Duh!
Here was I so intently searching for a form, or sidebar link or something, that I missed the bleeding obvious.
I shall now go and poke out my eyes, as they have failed me.
10 April, 2008 at 10:35 pm
SB, you’re right. I thought that what I was doing was “fact-checking” or “Fisking”. You know, a demonstration of the way in which Blair draws long unsubstantiated bows in order to attack his favourite targets. But no, it is just nit-picking, akin to making fun of others’ typos. How low I have stooped! I’ll ensure any future contributions are weightier than this.
Nic, thanks! I should know better than to listen to those old blokes at O’Shea’s!
Comments are closed.