AS a Daily Telegraph columnist, it is crucial I keep in touch with reader attitudes. To that end, I frequently conduct rigorous and highly scientific polls at my Daily Telegraph website. These polls are an invaluable aid to my awareness of community sentiment.
For example, a poll at my site recently asked: “Which bulldozer should be used to clear Leard State Forest?” I was almost certain readers would choose the Komatsu D575A. But no. Overwhelmingly, they selected the Caterpillar D11! I know, right? It just goes to show we in the media aren’t always the experts.
BLOG WITH TIM BLAIR
In another shock result, NSW Labor actually received nearly 2.7 per cent of the vote when readers were asked to choose between the party and Satanism. So there’s at least something for John Robertson to work with ahead of next year’s election.
Last Tuesday readers were polled on another vital question. Noting a surge in perpetually hysterical female commentators online and in the media, I asked this simple question: “Who is Australia’s craziest left-wing frightbat?”
READ TIM’S ORIGINAL COLUMN HERE
Candidates were selected based on their proud histories of irrational and paranoid nonsense. For example, there was Margo Kingston, who once claimed “the fundamentalist Zionist lobby controls politics and the media in the US and Australia”. She also believes climate change denial is a “crime against humanity” and has called on Australians to “overthrow this illegitimate government”.
Guardian columnist Vanessa Badham’s berserk Twitter outbursts guaranteed her place in the line-up: “(ALL CENSORED AS ITS ALL TO RUDE FOR THIS FORUM.. Vanessa Badham’ has a very rude foul mouth it would seem) .” When she ( Vanessa Badham’) isn’t suffering Tourette’s episodes, Vanessa likes to claim “climate change deniers capturing policy agendas COULD KILL US ALL”.
In case there was any doubt over Sydney Morning Herald columnist Elizabeth Farrelly’s inclusion, last Wednesday she demanded the destruction of democracy because of global warming: “We can’t wait for governments to make this call. It’s time to act. A people’s revolution is required. Democracy is failing us.”
Catherine Deveny’s Twitter comments are so unhinged she was sacked by Fairfax, which is something of an achievement.
A current Fairfax writer, Clementine Ford, sells “F ... Tony Abbott” T-shirts.
Academic and — of course — Fairfax columnist Jenna Price calls immigration minister Scott Morrison the “minister for inhumanity” and sends him a tampon in the mail every month in protest. And so on.
This examination of crazy left-wing hysteria instantly generated hysterical left-wing craziness. Twitter exploded with more than the standard level of righteous outrage. And then comments began rolling in to my site:
● “So Tim Blair the rapist who can’t get it up without violence wants to blame the women of Australia for his problems.”
● “Hi Tim. You will be excited to know that this survey has successfully moved you to the top of the list of people I’d like to see floating in a river, wrapped in plastic. We can only wait and hope that people like yourself will be first against the wall when the revolution comes.”
● “Timmy needs to stop being a coward, do the right thing and put a bullet in his temple.”
Sweet! Some of the frightbats attempted to embrace the term, quickly whipping up T-shirt designs. Potential buyers were assured all proceeds would go to a good cause — Emily’s List, the world’s only charity for rich white women.
Sadly, being leftists, this plan immediately led to division. “Personally I’d rather drink vase water than wear ‘Frightbat’, with all that implies, as some reclaimed badge of honour,” hissed frightbat nominee Clem Bastow.
Of course, this isn’t about men and women. It’s about right and left, and the left’s howling hypocrisy when it comes to freedom of expression.
While denouncing their enemies in vicious, violent, dishonest and obscene terms, leftists turn all Presbyterian when even the slightest mockery is returned.
Similar hypocrisy is noted elsewhere. Here’s James Delingpole, following a right-left culture clash last week in the UK: “The aim is to create a climate in which no one feels quite safe to speak their mind any more or say anything at which someone, somewhere might conceivably take offence.
This grievance mob will dress it up as sensitivity towards the feelings of others; or they’ll pretend it’s part of the ‘war on women’; or they’ll claim to have been threatened by the language of violence — not because they actually feel threatened but because it’s a **bleep** good way of getting the police involved and turning a harmless aside into a possible criminal prosecution. But their real problem is that they don’t like free speech.”
Congratulations to poll winner Clementine Ford, who claimed nearly 5000 votes from a total of 24,500. Shine on, you crazy frightbat.
The first line alone from the....is it called an "article"? posted by nerowulf for our enjoyment is a cracker, absolutely hilarious, just those words alone from whoever tim whatshisname is worth a re post....
