Wanker bin Readin

Further to the New York Post's fabulous front page,



Darryl Mason has accused Tim Blair of plagiarism.

When Daily Telegraph journalist Tim Blair isn't too busy thrillingly pointing out basic typos in independent media (with a fraction of the editorial staff of his own newspaper), he apparently borrows headlines from the New York Post, without credit.
...
UPDATE : A few hours after the above was posted, Blair acknowledges this remarkable coincidence : "Not for the first time, me and (NY Post editor) Col Allan are on the same wavelength."

So Blair, according to his own post, checked the reaction of New York Times to the alleged discovery of a Bin Laden hideout 'porn stash' but didn't bother to see what his mate, and fellow Murdoch employee, Col Allan, had come up with on such a dream Osama tabloid story? That sounds realistic.

Yes. I mean, when news like that breaks a senior editor at a newspaper wouldn't have better things to do than trawl the blogs and ring old mates to swap notes on the printed edition.

Plagiarism is a huge call and one I suspect might end very badly for Mason.

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people independently came up with that headline. "Osama bin Chokin' al-Chicken" and "Tissue Bin Laden" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Meanwhile, Antony Loewenstein, a man who has sent subeditors off on stress leave has posted another of his lengthy editorials about this. Wordcount: Zero. Antony bin Writin'!

Elswehere, the sub-literate Loewenstein inadvertently accuses Wikileaks of human rights abuses:

Human rights at stake, says Amnesty, and Wikileaks helped

Amnesty International should write a report on whomever edited Loewenstein's books.

I saw it online. It must be true!

Darryl Mason can't believe that the:

Australian Citizenship Test website uses a photo from the very unAustralian Cronulla Riots of 2005 to illustrate a story about the importance of Australian values.

Except it doesn't.

The photo actually appears on a privately owned website - http://www.australiantest.com which seems to be nothing more than an attempt to make money off would-be immigrants to this country by selling them a 'training kit'.

There should have been a few subtle hints that this wasn't an 'official' website.
1) The presence of a photo featuring a man's t-shirt stating "No Lebs". I mean, sure, the PM's office has done some stupid things online lately, but this?

2) The URL - Australiantest.com and the Wordpress website which follows, don't exactly scream "Australian Government". Certainly not like, say, www.citizenship.gov.au/learn/cit_test/ located with a 2 second Google search for "Australia immigration test".

How could any sensible person reach the conclusion that Mason did?

Mason previously wrote:

Fact-checking, like spell-checking, has never been a priority for Bolt in his rush to get out his latest conspiracy soaked rantings

Right...

This goes beyond gullibility. Are the Left really that stupid?

Update: Yes. Yes they are. Darryl sends the following message:

Nowhere in that blog post did I say it was an 'official' or Gillard gov. website. I don't expect an apology, just a correction.

How about neither?

You don't need to specify "The Official, genuine 100 percent Julia Gillard approved Citizenship test website". The inference was quite clear.

In an update to his own post, Darryl claims:

Where above do I claim that photo was posted on an 'official' site? Nowhere. I called it the Australian Citizenship Test website, which is what it calls itself

So if I set up a website, maybe on Blogger, and called it the Australian Immigration Department, I guess you'd have to refer to it as that. You know, because that's what it calls itself.

Sorry. It was a worthless website and a non-story. The only way you could possibly think otherwise, is if you were... What's that word?