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INACTIVISTS
We’re into Day 3 of the New Webdiary (unemployment edition) and so far, apart from ridiculous “opening statements” from eleven of its contributors, only one item has been posted. Margo plans to continue this furious workrate:
Once the Club Chaos team work out a structure for the independent Webdiary and move us across to the permanent site I’m gunna take a month off.
A month off from what?
UPDATE. Margo’s former employer isn’t amused:
Fairfax has received a number of complaints from readers about unsolicited emails sent by Margo Kingston or her associates. Fairfax is concerned about this and would like to inform its readers that these emails were not sent by Fairfax, nor authorised by Fairfax. We have taken immediate action to ensure that any personal information of Web Diary readers is properly protected.
While we were not responsible for these emails, Fairfax regrets any inconvenience caused to readers.
How on earth could this have happened? Was it the fault of the transition manager, the comments manager, the official historian, or the achivist? Was there a communications breakdown between Team Beta and Team Gamma?
And how long until the Margo T-shirts are available? Those of us who want to look like Goth puke are becoming impatient.
Top story on the *real* Webdiary:
Fairfax has received a number of complaints from readers about unsolicited emails sent by Margo Kingston or her associates. Fairfax is concerned about this and would like to inform its readers that these emails were not sent by Fairfax, nor authorised by Fairfax. We have taken immediate action to ensure that any personal information of Web Diary readers is properly protected.
While we were not responsible for these emails, Fairfax regrets any inconvenience caused to readers.Hahahahaha.
Get the sense this was written with an immense sigh of relief:
A note to our readers
We have been talking with Margo about her blog for some time. She had some technology issues which we were resolving. But it was increasingly clear to us that Margo aspired to develop her blog totally independently of any major media organisation.
She decided to terminate her contract with us and branch out on her own. We thank her for her work over the years and wish her well.
The smh.com.au site will continue to develop new blogs which will provide opportunities for readers to express their views and communicate with each other, in addition to our strong breaking news coverage.
- Mark Scott, Editor-in-Chief, Metropolitan, Regional and Community NewspapersNow, now, Tim! It may only be day 3 of the Brand Spanking New MargoLand, but you gotta remember, there she sets the rules, not you. It’s her blog. And she sets the standards. So if she writes only 1000 words per month, hey, why can’t the rest of her
idiotcontributors write equally slowly?It’s either that, or her
idiotcontributors can’t bookmark the new URL. They surely can’t be embarrassed by her recent actions….ya think? :-PPosted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 08 24 at 12:57 AM • permalinkShe had some technology issues
And the rest…
—Nora
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2005 08 24 at 01:07 AM • permalinkIt is amusing to read the constant cerebral circle jerking by Margo’s Mutual Admiration society via her ‘WebDiary’.
What a wonderful menagerie of amoebic dynamite.
From the congratulatory and prosaic homilies written so far one, could be forgiven for thinking the drooling proletariat are seeking canonisation for Ms Kingston following her moral stance against the wicked capitalist thugs at Fairfax.
Maybe they can convince the Pontiff to bring forward his Oz Yoof CuddleFest and squeeze her in after Sister Mary McKillop?
Posted by Jay Santos on 2005 08 24 at 01:42 AM • permalinkBecause she makes herself such an easy target, I’ve sometimes wondered if she’s doing it on purpose.
Negative attention IS better than no attention, isn’t it?
There’s only one thing worse than being talked about and that’s not being talked about./Oscar Wilde, who certainly knew
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2005 08 24 at 01:52 AM • permalinkFunny you should mention it Sortelli, look:
Using the Huffington Post as your inspiration would be an act of genius.
Huff ‘n Puff? Genius?
=^0
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2005 08 24 at 02:00 AM • permalinkI’m a bit concerned, though, by the no income bit from this poster.
I made the comment in the last thread. In all seriousness has Margo found her George Soros after all?
They may be vegetarians and all (a guess) but I’m sure wheatgrass still costs something, not to mention the cast of thousands in her management team unless they pay to be a in her inner sanctum.
Hmmm sounds like a cult to me…
—Nora
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2005 08 24 at 02:18 AM • permalink#3 David.
I don’t know how many of you had the misfortune to receive the “webdiary virus” (also known as not knowing how to configure a mailing-list), but this conspiracy-laden response from some Webdiarist landed in my inbox…
“Daemon S” writes:
“I wonder if this may be a liberal party ploy to discredit functional people who are discussing basic democracy issues in a non-threatening environment?In Brisbane prior to the recent state by-elections a lot of people rang and wrote to the thinking persons radio station saying they had received spam phone calls from the liberal wannabes and their National Party chums.
I find it sad that the spinnists from the right believe folks will be electorally swayed when they are treated like cattle who are happy to hear, by a recording, what the bad bits of Labor policy are without having anything resembling a policy to take to the electorate.
Hackers indeed?”
yada, yada, yada….
So Webdiary stuffs up an auto-responder mailing-list, and its incompetence leads to hundreds (or thousands?) of people being spammed. And yet some of the moonbats want to blame it on a ‘right-wing conspiracy’!
Priceless.
“Functional people”. Heh.
Never mind Team Beta and Team Gamma—readers of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World will recognise the handiwork of Team Epsilon.
Posted by Evil Pundit on 2005 08 24 at 03:16 AM • permalink#17 Spiny Norman and Sortelli. Check the URL link to Huffington before you believe everything you read. And look up the synonym for ‘woodscolt’ while you are at it. Heh.
Merch still available at Web Diary World. Get it before the lawyers do. All profits go to a deserving cause.
I love this site! Hours of amusement. The way the Chris Sheil debacle unfolded was sidesplitting, but it’s topped by this pathetic ongoing Webdiary trainwreck! The story just keeps getting better and better with every new half-witted blunder. I love Margo Kingston, I really do. She, her fellow contributors and her commentariat have provided me with an indescribable amount of mirth.
I think it’s time for all those who were spammed to throw a bit of fuel on the flames by hammering the privacy angle. I just wrote an outraged e-mail to Fairfax, demanding action over the apparent breach of the Privacy Act. I encourage others to do the same. Fairfax suing Margok - now that would be a result! She seems to think she has some legal recourse against them, so no doubt she’d countersue. The ensuing dustup would be quite the spectacle.
Posted by James Waterton on 2005 08 24 at 04:20 AM • permalinkWithout the authority and credibility (such as it is) of the SMH behind her I predict Miss Kingston’s blog will fold within two months. She has gone from being a small fish in a big pond to a small fish with no pond.
Posted by walterplinge on 2005 08 24 at 04:40 AM • permalink#24 James,
I love this site! Hours of amusement. The way the Chris Sheil debacle unfolded was sidesplitting, but it’s topped by this pathetic ongoing Webdiary trainwreck! The story just keeps getting better and better with every new half-witted blunder. I love Margo Kingston, I really do. She, her fellow contributors and her commentariat have provided me with an indescribable amount of mirth.
Amen.
If you’ve received the spam from Margeux’s new digs you can complain to her old employer here.
Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2005 08 24 at 05:23 AM • permalinkI set up my own little glog a month ago, only because I wanted to see how it was done, and because I discovered that it only takes five minutes to do - literally five minutes.
What I didn’t realise at the time, nor since then, was how extraordinarily brave I was, how daring, how independent, and gosh, did I mention BRAVE.
Five minutes on the PC is now and brave and radical act….
70,000 new blogs start up every single day of the year (current figures, sure to increase), and Margo is BRAVE for joining the crowd?
What am I missing….
Yes - I sent comment to SMH too, not just on privacy, but on the legality of a contractor walking out the door with an entire database dating back five years. That’s not merely a breach of privacy.
I’ve just been trying to read the noo impwooved Webdairy and I’ve figured it out. I wasn’t the one hit with the Stupid Stick. It was Margo.
How on earth can she call herself a commentator or a journalist? I can’t get over how sloppy her writing is.
My current fave is this one:
But Hicks, his family, and all of us as Australian citizens who believe our country has an obligation to defend us when in distress abroad, are now trapped in a false reality that has been constructed by propagandists around the unfortunate person of David Hicks. The man whom Alexander Downer initially described soon after his rendition to Cuba by the Americans as “a bit of a goose” has been constructed over time into a dangerous and malevolent creature, a bogeyman to scare children with, a sort of Guy Fawkes figure of evil.
Hicks is undergoing the sort of extra-legal process that suspected witches in the Dark Ages or suspected heretics in the Spanish Inquisition underwent. Like them, his guilt is assumed in advance: it is just a matter of setting up the right “tests” to “prove” it.
WTF is a “rendition to Cuba”? Or should that be replica of Cuba? That particular turn of phrase just broke me up. It reminded me of a Goon Show episode where acardboard replica was made of England and used as a decoy. I’ve been going through transcripts of the shows, but haven’t found the one I’m after yet.
I did find this gem, including the immortal line:
Flowerdale: Well, Captain, you know what they say. A thing of beauty is a boy forever.
Politically correct? Never!
But back to the topic….
Nah, the Goons are much more fun!Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2005 08 24 at 06:27 AM • permalinkJust read a comment from Marilyn Shepherd on the new Webdiary:
What happened Margo? Not a hint or a trace before late last night that this would happen.
I confess I have been struggling with Fairfax of late - their idea of balance and fairness in reporting has taken a serious credibility hit in my view.
It started when The Age moved reporters from Adelaide and didn’t re-hire Penelope Debelle. It beggars belief to me that someone of her calibre was overlooked except as a contributor.
God. It was a horrendous article by Debelle that made me decide not to buy The Age again.
The Goons ...?
I knew those Margoids reminded me of someone!
Posted by Evil Pundit on 2005 08 24 at 06:55 AM • permalinkThe new site is pure gold. I can’t wait for more future instalments of insanity.
Heres some of my highlights.
The margoyle complaining that the SMH didn’t give her additional support as the demands of the Twilight zone increased…...have I missed something or wasn’t she contracted to run the site and therefore support issues were her responsibility.
Having a month off, this woman should work for the public service, shes done 4/5th’s of fuck all for months and now needs a month off after setting up a weblog…......fuck off Margoyle you’re a bludger pure and simple that wants all your sycophants to run the Twilight zone while you do fuck all…..and collect a cheque.
Tony L getting the punt from the SMH…..it seems even the luvvies at the sheltered workshop can’t warm to that imposter.
Shes considering her legal options and is going to sue Fairfax….......yeah right, what with, monopoly money…....... she can’t manage a website, hows she going to handle a court case what, will she get one of her warm and fuzzy luvvies who didn’t finish second year law at uni to build the case, stop dreaming you fleas!!!!!!!!!
Her constant whinging about getting shafted by the SMH, my read is that they squeezed her out because she was getting nuttier, producing less and quite frankly was a waste of money.
All in all, some of the most self absorbed, naive and downright stupid people you could gather in one place. Its great fun watching the trainwreck…..... the best is yet to come methinks.
Nilknarf- look for TALES of OLD DARTMOOR.
“what fun,jogging along the king’s highway in her majesty’s prison dartmoor.”
“But won’t they notice its missing?”
“Neddy—we’re going to leave a CARDBOARD REPLICA.”
“Oh,yes of COURSE.”
and other sundry sillinesses like encountering to Chateau D’if, after sailing dartmoor to France.Thanks, crash. Makes me want to dig up my old tapes of the Goons and my Wayne and Shuster lp.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2005 08 24 at 09:13 AM • permalinkShe had some technology issues…
Ah, the left… always the last monkey to touch the monolith…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 08 24 at 09:52 AM • permalinkAnd yet some of the moonbats want to blame it on a ‘right-wing conspiracy’!
I find that conspiracy theorists are unimportant people, lacking any sort of influence, working in unsatisfying jobs that produce little in tangible benefits to themselves and society, who have a psychological need for vast, powerful, sinister forces to blame for their impotence and failures. And the bigger the forces against them, the more important they can feel.
The power of the nemesis is inversely proportional to the power of the victim, giving the victim a compensatory sense of aggrandizement Thus, a middle-manager at an insurance agency might feel that “someone in Corporate has it in for me”, while your average Webdiary-type loser is thwarted by multinational cabals of powerful rich white men. And Jews. Let’s not forget the Jews.
From “The Margo”-?
To suddenly uproot and take Club Chaos on the road to find a new home would be a mammoth challenge, and while many in the Club Chaos community seemingly embraced a Taking In To The Streets (TITTS) approach to life, whether the crowd would commute with the Pub’s relocation was always going to be risky.
Oh dear gawd-batten down the hatches.
If only I could have a nickle for everytime they use the word globalization-
“I could be King of the World!”
Posted by madawaskan on 2005 08 24 at 12:06 PM • permalinkActually you play quarters-and do a shot everytime they write-“neocon”,energy, and globalization…
You’re drunk by noon!
Posted by madawaskan on 2005 08 24 at 12:08 PM • permalinkWow a thread with the Goons being quoted. Thats why I love the internet. Now to find the goon cassettes liberated from my fathers place.
I’m glad others have brought up why setting up a blog is supposed to be such a huge endeavour. Not being a blogger I was beginning to think I was overlooking the weighty technical and financial issues involved.
reading margo you think they’d stormed the bastille and set up a pirate radio station while storm troopers massed outside.
Once the Club Chaos team work out a structure for the independent Webdiary and move us across to the permanent site I’m gunna take a month off.
I guess even tenacious barkeeps need to take long vacations.
It’s hard to say, but I think that bit by Robertson, whoever he may be, is my favourite part of the site so far. One thousand and eleven words to say ‘Comments open’. (Well, ‘This site will allow for a free exchange of moonbattery’ may be more accurate).
Posted by Crispytoast on 2005 08 24 at 06:23 PM • permalinkWell, I don’t mind saying it. I like Margo. Her ruminations make me laugh and render me happy. Maybe not for the reasons she would wish, but there you are.
Posted by wronwright on 2005 08 24 at 06:49 PM • permalinkIf they take it to the streets on urban property, would that be a TITTS-UP?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 08 24 at 07:48 PM • permalinkNope, I think that would be TITTSOUP. Simmering protest action!
Posted by Crispytoast on 2005 08 24 at 08:22 PM • permalinkActually does Mar-no-go have a typo-
Taking In To The Streets…
Shouldn’t it be-“Taking It To The Streets”-dang it this is what happens when rich girls try to talk gangsta.
Taking In To The Streets Real Ugly & Stupid.
aka TITTS ‘R’ US.
Posted by madawaskan on 2005 08 24 at 08:35 PM • permalinkRE #29:
You asked what is “rendered to Cuba”. It is a perfect sample of utter cluelessness. It apparently refers to the policy of redition, implemented by the Clinton administration.
Under this policy, individuals would be turned over (I guess “rendered onto”) the authorities of other countries (either the ones they were citizens of, or the ones their alleged crimes occurred in). The critics of this policy believe that this was intended as a way for the US to obtain information via torture without having to get the blood or other bodily fluids on our hands.
The reason this reference is clueless, is that it logically indicates that Ms. Kingston believes that Castro runs GTMO.
Next time she attacks the US as running a torture camp there, we can throw her own words back at her as indicating that Castro is the one running it :).Posted by Mike Dubost on 2005 08 24 at 09:43 PM • permalinkThe Last Post disseminated through the mailing list:
Re:
>>I wonder if this may be a liberal party ploy to discredit functional people who are discussing basic democracy issues in a non-threatening environment?No, this is what comes of registering - not posting - at a site built and maintained by members of the Clueless Left.
I should have known better, but when Margo first started, I was one of the first people to post to WebDiary encouraging her to explore the technological boundaries. So I registered at the new site.
Unlike many other RWDB’s, I don’t consider “clueless left” to be a redundant statement. Many leftists, such as the RadFem blogger Hak Mao, the Marxist Prof Norman Geras, and others, don’t like the Mainstream Left’s dangerous flirtation with Anti-Semitism and Fascism.
There’s also the Left’s increasing irrationality, belief in conspiracy theories, the penchant for demonising opponents as Evil Incarnate, and detachment from both the electorate’s viewpoint and objective Reality. As witnessed by the paranoid post I quoted above. But these aren’t dangerous,merely amusing.
Zoe B
Fitting, really.
Many leftists, such as the RadFem blogger Hak Mao, the Marxist Prof Norman Geras, and others, don’t like the Mainstream Left’s dangerous flirtation with Anti-Semitism and Fascism.
Then they’d better fix it, or change the company they keep…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 08 24 at 10:59 PM • permalinkI think that t-shirt is a fitting metaphor for what’s going on inside Margo’s brain. Apart from “Margo” in central pride of place, all the other words are scattered messily everywhere around a bloody great black hole in the middle.
Posted by James Waterton on 2005 08 24 at 11:06 PM • permalinkRichard McEnroe:
Well, the Westboro Baptist Church, David Duke, and various others are just as bad as Monbiot, Fisk, Moore and Pilger. Maybe even worse. We on the right can’t “fix” our paleocon idiotarians, just treat them with scorn, derision and the contempt they deserve.
The difference is, that on the Left the lunatics have taken over the asylum. The sane are an oppressed minority there. They’re trying to fix things, but it’s not easy.
Uh oh, some Webdiarists want Tim arrested....
Angela writes:
“Hi Margo, I hadn’t realised how much I needed Webdiary, to hear the voice of reason in this surreal climate we live in.Searched Google for your new site, and this didn’t come up, but your mate Tim Blair did. Never read it before but after doing so am amazed he isn’t arrested for hate crime, what a bunch of haters there, so sad.”
My first batch of lamingtons to help fund your legal defense are nearly ready!
It’s a long shot, but I wonder if that’s the same Angela who wrote the following in the Mediawatch guestbook?
Thanks for all your hard, lucid and honest work. Mark Steyn needs to go to a school for tolerance, honesty and above all philosophy, that is wisdom, together with Andrew Bolt. I said in a university classroom today that every person who wears a backpack is suspected of being a terrorist - funny how we’ve all been encouraged to buy backpacks as part of the consumerist ideology of economic [ir]rationalismor marketing frenzy that has encouraged us all to buy them. To Phil Gould - economic [ir]rationalism has changed our lives mostly for the worse because now we can legitimately cheat to our heart’s content. Angela
Posted by James Waterton on 2005 08 25 at 01:43 AM • permalink# 46 - jcc7033 - Except that she IS using a common five-minute-wonder-site to supplement her temporary abode - and not a single post or bit of text has had a spell check, edit, or proof read - are we SURE she’s a journalist?
She can’t even type for f**k sake!!!
Even her own profile is full of errors… oh, that’s right, she delegated the site to one of her sycophants; it’s not her fault…. a journalist who delegates all writing and site maintenance to volunteers…. maybe SMH finally worked that out; boy were they slow.
And now that she’s unemployed she is still too busy to write anything for either of her name sake sites ????
I’m with Angela. I’m sick of capitalists pushing unnecessary consumerist luxury items like cutlery, bread and… er, underpants on the unsuspecting sheep-like populace.
However, I would like to keep my backpack. Pretty please. It’s actually kind of useful…
Come to think of it, why is she lecturing Phil Gould on “economic [ir]rationalism” (sic) ? He’s a footy coach, not a politican…
ekb87 -
Dude, The Man will think you’re a terrorist if you don’t get rid of your backpack - that which you bought in the marketing frenzy. Was that the Great Marketing Frenzy of ‘94? Or the Mighty Marketing Frenzy of ‘01? Or possibly the Category 4 Marketing Frenzy that measured 8.9 on the Richter scale? Anyway, go get rid of it, then build a ginormous interfering government to make everything fair.
Phil Gould doesn’t need to be lectured to; he already understands Angela’s truths and is enjoying a great many more adulterous affairs, what with all this economic [ir]rationalism we’ve been having lately.
The sad truth is that I’ve just come from an international relations tutorial. There are plenty of Angelas to be found in Arts faculties across the country.
Posted by James Waterton on 2005 08 25 at 05:46 AM • permalink#44 Crispytoast,
Robertson sets a record for number of misuses of the word “complimentary” in that piece, too. Otherwise, he’s a hell of a writer: “In the post-9/11, reactionary opening years of the third millennium, the strawman fallacy reigns supreme; together we dumb our human aspirations down, relentlessly ramping up the flaws in each other’s bold visions rather than applauding, or at least conceding, their strengths. Hence the mainstream battle of ideas gives us losers and non-losers only; there can be no real winners on a terminally sinking battlefield.”
Poetry!
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