It’s been a real challenge trying to write regular content for Pure Poison, having fairly well defined subject matter is a double edged sword. What is gratifying is building a rapport with so many commenters on the blog, especially when something I’ve written completely surprises them. It’s nice to be unpredictable.

The down side to contributing to Pure Poison is that this little blog has become a quiet place. Hopefully I’ll get the balance a bit better soon.

I’d run through a few ideas for posts over the past couple of days, but I’d let all of them go because I had been unable to publish them. I figured that I’d avoid being too confrontational as I eased my way into the team, but as fate would have it at almost the exact same time that I got posting rights a post popped up in my RSS reader from News Limited Blogger Tim Blair that I simply couldn’t let pass without comment. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Mr Blair, he’s been a feature of the Australian blogosphere for quite a few years now and has previously crossed swords with some of the other authors at Pure Poison. Because of that history I have to admit that I wasn’t planning on raising my head above the parapet to soon, but I set timidity aside and made a contribution that I hoped would be appropriate.

It turns out that was the easy part.

Unlike Dave from Albury’s Weblog, with a modest audience and a collegial group of commenters, Pure Poison is read widely and comes under much more scrutiny. As such, rather than having a free flow of comments and ad hoc intervention, each and every comment needs to pass through a moderation queue. Making the judgement call about which comments are or are not OK to publish really isn’t something I’d given a great deal of thought to, but it’s an important part of the process. Thankfully my cohorts were available to give me direction, giving me a bit more confidence to wade into the moderation process, and at the end of day one I think I’ve managed OK.

The challenge now, as always, is what to write next.

I’m actually quite humbled to have been invited to help pay their Crikey blogging fees join the guys in this venture. When I began this blog in 2007 it was because I felt that commenting on other blogs just didn’t give me the scope I wanted and that quite often authors had missed an angle that I felt was significant, so to now be asked to bring an additional perspective to a blog written by three people whose work I admire is a thrill. The opportunity to be exposed to a more diverse audience via the Crikey web-site is also something that I’m looking forward to, for better or worse.

I’d also like to thank those of you who have continued to read and comment here over the past few years, without the validation that your participation provided I may have given away these blasts into the ether a long time ago.

I’ll add a link to my Pure Poison posts on the sidebar (once I have some) and I hope that you’ll come along with me on this next step through the blogosphere.

For those of you who haven’t been paying attention to developments in the USA, the latest right-wing talking point is that if a government department is allowed to run health care it will lead to forced euthanasia of the sick and elderly as a cost saving measure. This is completely fabricated, of course, but it has evolved out of the argument that the government would have to ration health care because of cost constraints. What this argument completely ignores is that health insurance companies in the USA ration care every single day, purely in the name of corporate profit and shareholder value. The whole argument is little more than “government is bad and scary”, but it is the argument of choice at the moment anyway.

I personally believe that decent health care is a human right, and I can recall no shortage of appeals for Catholic aid organisations trying to build hospitals in 3rd world countries while I was at school, so I’m fairly sure that a Christian organisation would have no objection to the suggestion of improving care for millions of people. Apparently I was wrong.

The article on the CTFM site was nothing more than the right-wing ‘deather’ meme, and I was just about to close my browser tab when I decided to instead leave a quick comment. Nothing too argumentative mind you, I just copied and pasted two paragraphs from the article and replaced the term “government bureaucrat” with “Insurance Company worker”. The comment went up and I didn’t give it a second thought until today, when I decided to check back for a response. It had been deleted. So I posted it again. This time instead of the comment appearing straight away, I was informed that it had been placed in the moderation queue.

It seems that CTFM aren’t as interested in comments and discussion as they are in conformity.

Thanks to the team at Pure Poison, my take on Malcolm Colless’ special brand of crazy in today’s Australian can be read over there.

Naturally, the charge of groupthink is one that we vigourously deny. We are quick to point out that we are often in fierce disagreement over exactly what percentage of the beans in our lattes need to come from organic fair trade sources, how many minority groups need to be invited to a dinner party before it can proceed and what cultural icons of the right we should try to defile.

Sadly, however hard we try to divert attention from the truth that we all receive daily instructions from Al Gore coincidental similarities that we share, we cannot hide what everybody knows. Not only do Leftists all think the same, we’re even all starting to look the same.

Leftists? They all look the same to me.

The reality is that we’re really quite different. Scott has an Aluminium 13″ Macbook, I have a white 13″ Macbook. Scott wears white Dunlop Volleys, I wear blue and orange Dunlop Volleys. Scott always carries around a STM laptop satchel, I always carry a Crumpler laptop satchel. Scott writes in black hardcover Moleskine journals, I write in plain softcover Moleskine journals. Scott likes to ride a push bike, I like to ride a motorbike. Scott likes his espresso coffee with milk, I like my espresso coffee with another shot of espresso. You see? We couldn’t be more different.

The final nail in the coffin of this silly groupthink theory, however, is that I’m between seven and thirteen millimetres taller than Scott.

Let’s put aside for a second the fact that any website on the planet can easily stop google from accessing their content, which News has chosen not to do, and compare for a second News’ words and actions.

The most profitable sites, in fact the only ones making serious money are the sites that aggregate news, like Google and Yahoo.

They pay nothing for content produced by newspaper journalists but make money by supplying it in easily searchable forms online. – John Hartigan, National Press Club – July 1, 2009

The Australian - July 4th 2009

Somebody get that man in the expensive suit a facepalm, stat!

Obviously Google is a far superior product.

Which led me to think about the contents of my wardrobe. Basically it’s a collection of T-shirts, with a few random items thrown in for times when t-shirts are apparently inappropriate (weddings, court appearances and funerals I guess) so I thought it’d be fun to play a game with you all over the next week or so.

Starting Wednesday, I’ll upload pictures of three t-shirts each day. What I want you to do is tell me where they’re from and what they’re promoting. Bonus points will be awarded for extra detail, like the name of the album or concert tour being pimped on a band shirt, or the year a particular festvial was held. The only rules are that you can’t use teh google (or any other search engines smart arse) and you can’t ask Mrsdave for help.

Why would you want to take part? Well unlike some websites whose competitions promise much and deliver little, the winner will receive a limited edition Dave from Albury t-shirt, which will be perfect for mowing the lawn, wearing to bed, or polishing your car with.

The first set of photos will go live at 13:00 EST this Wednesday and will continue each day until I run out of shirts.