A single-purpose blog aimed at showing exactly how hateful - and how fundamentally stupid - some Internet people can be.
Later…It’s been almost a week since the sting and while I’ve got some free time I thought I’d record the responses of our two dear Internet friends since they were rumbled. Firstly, ‘niceperson’ Iain Hall initially took it on the chin and was quite graceful. He seems to have changed his tune in the past few days, after rebadging his blog as ‘Being Nice by Iain Hall’ (subsequent to his identification by The Editor) and embarking on a little spin, perhaps at the behest of his ‘boy wonder’, ‘David Tan’. Iain has variously described my little ruse as “deceptive”, “devious” and “malicious”; he continues to attack both Mr Lefty and I on his woeful blog. Still, Iain does have some good sense: he insisted that his hatchet-job on an innocent third-party, strangely hosted by Mangled Thoughts (perhaps he wanted a larger audience than his own site) be pulled, despite Gary Gravett’s trumpeting about how he’d be happy to leave it there, even though it was false and defamatory.
‘David Tan’ has been a different story: he conducts his retaliation with abusive messages, not through a blog. Some of them can be seen in the comments to the initial post here, more than 20 have been deleted, while others are scattered around the blogosphere. ‘Tan’s favourite chants are that I’m a liar, I’m unethical, I’m a ‘Lefty’, I’m broke, I can’t get a man, I need to have children and can’t, that he’s a lawyer and I’m not. This from a man who spelled variations with of the word ‘apology’ with two ‘p’s, twice in the same sentence then, when corrected on it, claimed that they were typos. Tell me folks - would you hand over money to a lawyer to spells like that and behaves as he does? I sure as hell wouldn’t.
Anyway, these two can trumpet about ethics and questionable conduct all they like but they need to remember this: only the flimsiest of clues - an allegation by someone they didn’t know and a blog post with a set of initials - was passed to them. At no stage did I say I was this person nor did I pretend to be her nor did I even mention her name; in fact I took great care to ensure this. It was their unfortunate readiness to accept what was whispered to them that showed them to be foolish. As Samuel Johnson once said:
“Cunning has effect from the credulity of others, rather than from the abilities of those who are cunning.”In other words, blame not the deceiver but the stupidity of those who are deceived. A salient point that is often mentioned over at Boltwatch with regard to the articles that are scrutinised there: some people will believe anything they are told, especially if they want to believe it. Iain Hall and ‘David Tan’, you were humiliated because of your haste, gullibility and desire to do harm to others. It’s true I can’t make you remove the nonsense you’ve posted about Mr Lefty, whether it’s right or wrong, but while this site exists it will show others exactly how reliable your research skills actually are - and who would believe such incompetent researchers? That, I think, has been the true value of this whole sting.
Enjoy the weekend,
Bridgit posted by Bridgit Gread at 7:03 PM 29 comments
In the beginning…Welcome, folks, to the first post in my blog. It’s a single-purpose site – to tell one story only and make it available for your information and amusement. The story itself is rather a long one and involves a lot of dialogue; I’ll trim it down as much as I can but please, dear reader, be patient and forgive me for taking up your time. I also need to quote a few extracts from certain blog posts and comments, because I’m sure they’ll mysteriously disappear once the news is out. They’ll stay on the record here as evidence of the malice and stupidity of those involved.
The background
The story involves a number of people but focuses on the lunacy of two Internet users: ‘niceperson’ and ‘David Tan’. The real-life identities of this pair were, until recently, unknown; it has since been revealed by The Editor at Grodscorp that ‘niceperson’ is actually Iain Hall, a hairy Queenslander with a penchant for motorbikes. ‘David Tan’ has been rather more scrupulous in keeping his identity under wraps because, he claims, he is a lawyer and has a reputation to protect; what’s more, he has also been incredibly nasty and I very much doubt whether he’d like some of his published comments attributed to himself in real-life, lawyer or not.
For the past month this pair has been engaged in a vicious and vindictive web-assault against Mr Lefty. To cut a long story short, both Iain Hall and ‘David Tan’ were banned from Boltwatch, one of Mr Lefty’s blogs, for various breaches of rules that seemed quite clear to reasonable people. This pair appeared to have differing motivations: it seems ‘niceperson’ fancies himself as something of an on-line warrior, doing battle with the ‘evil forces of the Left’, or the ‘darkside’ as he calls it; ‘David Tan’s politics are similar but his views and prejudices appear to stem more from bitterness and hatred than politics (anyone who disagrees with or criticises with his posts usually finds themselves on the wrong end of a verbal backlash from ‘Tan’). Anyway, among their misdemeanours on Boltwatch were abuse (‘David Tan’s aliases, ‘ralph’ aka ‘not-anon’, had a particularly nice line in sexist insults, telling women they were ‘unfuckable’ or that they ‘won’t breed’); general trolling; challenging of rules and comment moderation; and, finally, posting Mr Lefty’s alleged real-life name. Fittingly, he banned them and moved to a new commenting system. That should have been the end of it, but…
Not content with this, Iain set up his own banal little blog, laughably titled ‘Being Nice’ and carrying the preamble: “Well we all want a “nice” life the question is what does it take to make it so????? trying (sic) to have honesty and live life with elegance and grace”. Despite the twee and apparently wholesome terms of reference, this blog was merely a vehicle for further abuse, insult and ridicule of Mr Lefty and other Boltwatch posters. Banned from one blog, they merely set up shop in another, but remained fixated with the posters and content back in Boltwatch. But there was a personal note as well: Mr Lefty’s alleged real-life name, now ‘discovered’ by this pair of miscreants, was plastered all over this blog, as well as repeatedly posted in others. When he insisted that they refrain from doing so, the attacks increased in number and vehemence. Mr Lefty was professionally defamed by this pair (as well as by the insidious blogger Gary Gravett, an occasional visitor to ‘Being Nice’, and Mr Lefty’s picture, cached by Google, even appeared here as an object of ridicule.
The set-up
By the time my holidays started I’d had enough of these two morons so I decided to play them at their own game. Knowing how desperate they were to find my identity (and knowing how impossible this would be) I decided to give them a little rope and see how far they might hang themselves. My flatmate and good friend, Josh, set up a Blogger ID then made a couple of sycophantic posts to ‘Being Nice’, pretending to go along with their poisonous little vendetta in order to win their confidence. After some time (some, but not much, which shows how silly, desperate and indiscrete they were) Josh contacted Iain by e-mail and offered to pass on some information about the real-life identity of ‘bridgit gread’. Below are extracts from some of Iain’s replies (forgive the bad spelling and appalling grammar in these, they are the work of the author):
December 31: I will give her credit though she has been a lot more canny than Jeremy in terms of keeping anything that may give her identity away . She claims to have a blog any clues on that would be apreciated ., she claimed to be married with a child of 11 months yesterday . One pixel at a time the picture will emerge :o) January 2: I look forward to further info on our bridgit :o) try find out if our suspect has a child(11mths) and is married
January 4: Josh we want to be sure we are right ,David has a different suggestion to yours as to who she may be and remember that unlike Jeremy, Bridgit is not under threat of professional repercussions if she lies in public so she requires a different approach. David’s suggestion is Andrea Kincade ex abc jouro and tied up with a volenteer mob and Sane AustraliaJosh and I spent a few minutes each night sitting on our sofa, chuckling to ourselves at how gullible and desperate these cretins were. Looking to see how far we could push this, Josh suggested a name that might be ‘bridgit gread’ via e-mail to Iain; the name he gave was that of a Channel Seven television reporter with the initials JQ (which are, coincidentally, the initials of my own real-life name). I even supplied a specially-written entry from my private blog, carrying my initials, JQ.
It was all rather flimsy and we didn’t know how if these fools would swallow it, but we gave it a try. Now, any sane person would expect that a set of initials does not an identity make. The trouble was that these fools wanted to believe that I was this person; the fact that a fairly weak clue was dropped into their lap by someone they didn’t know seemed to pass them by. Even so, you could not have had a quicker bite if you’d dropped a fat maggot into a pool of starving trout. The reply soon came from ‘niceperson’:
January 5: this really is a smoking gun mate and confirmation that you were indeed right i won’t do any thing rash … I will think for a bit and do a new piece to tease her and suggest that We do actually know . thanks for the good workThe sting – ‘David Tan’
The word was out among the Internet PIs and ‘bridgit gread’s ‘true’ identity soon began to appear in the comment bank of Iain’s sour little blog. While Iain himself was slow to cite the name they thought belonged to ‘bridgit’, his resident Doberman ‘David Tan’ had no such inhibitions:
‘David Tan’: Bridgit Gread is J***** Q****. If I’m wrong please tell me. Err, ‘David’? You’re wrong buddy.
‘David Tan’: You still laughing Gread?Yep, damn hard actually.
‘David Tan’: And where the hell is the 12,000 word thesis on some dead russian guy Bridgit? Your CV: http://seven.com.au/todaytonight/team_*********** Says nothing about that. Not even a degree. Was that a lie too?Not at all. I do indeed have a Masters degree that involved completion of a thesis on the role of Julius Martov in 1917; it would be an amazing coincidence if this other person had too, especially since she doesn’t appear to have any degree at all. That itself would have set a few alarm bells ringing for the intelligent reader – but not for our man ‘Tan’!
‘David Tan’: What do Jeremy and J***** have in common:1. They consider themselves to be more important than they are;2. They both will soon realise that there is nothing they can do about their names becoming connected with their nom de plumes;3. They will soon see their positions of power are really positions of responsibility;4. In the media and law reputation is important, they risk theirs by blogging like they do.Just what action would J***** take? I cant think of anything legal she can do.Does she not realise that there are many people in line for her job and she risks that by blogging? Kerry Stokes would not be amused I’m sure. What does she do though? Dig herself a deeper hole. Not smart at all.Give up J*****.Seems to me that ‘David Tan’ is running a fine line between insults and defamation here, particularly as he has no connection with the person he keeps explicitly naming, and no evidence to support his claims that she has embarked on professionally inappropriate behaviour. You’d think, claiming to be a lawyer and all, that he’d be a little more careful, but…
‘David Tan’: I hope there is a job opening at the (what is 1 hour east of Melbourne? Healesville?) the Healesville Chronicle for her. Thats where she’ll end up if she keeps this up.…no, the chance for cruelty and insult are just too tempting for ‘David Tan’. Some lawyer.
‘David Tan’ Didnt your mate J***** do a hatchet job on some dress maker? Doesnt TT do hatchet jobs all the time? Mr ‘Tan’ can’t get enough of his head through the noose, it seems! But it only got better. On the evening of January 7, while I was out, Josh was toying with ‘David Tan’ and managed to find himself chatting to the great man on MSN! (His address is ralph252525@hotmail.com should you feel inclined yourself…) A bit of sycophancy and a couple of ‘stupid lefty bitch’ comments and it didn’t take long for Josh to get ‘David Tan’, using one of his old monikers ‘ralph’, to spill his guts. They discuss trying to access ‘bridgit gread’s blog:
Ralph says: I would need to pose as some leftard wanker i suppose to get the invite
jOSH says: haha, you seem to have their number so you prob could…their good fortune in finding this information:
Ralph says: Im thinking we have been very lucky toi make the connection (Not lucky, ‘ralph’, just gullible). He also offers J***** some career advice:
Ralph says: she should be towing the Channel 7 line on everything
Ralph says: she is company property and if she doesnt like it they will boot her no problems Ralph says: put her on “special projects” daryl sommers has been ther for 7 years…and compliments Iain, getting his gender wrong:
Ralph says: lol dont fuck with nice she is a ball tearerJosh tries to extract a few personal details from ‘ralph’ but, let’s face it, when you’re as rancorous and nasty as he is you need to be particularly keen to remain anonymous. He doesn’t mind wheeling out the old ‘I’m-a-lawyer’ story though, though as Boltwatch regulars will know ‘ralph’s knowledge of constitutional and statutory law is, well, shaky:
Ralph says: no but im a lawyer. a shit reputation at the bar is fatal
jOSH says: cool, what kind of lawyer
Ralph says: mostly commercial and litigation
jOSH says: how old are you dude
Ralph says: sorry josh i want to keep my things to meOh yes, I bet you do. I don’t believe for one second that this person is a lawyer, for several reasons, but it’s not worth dwelling on because he’s never going to come out of the shadows. So let’s move on to his partner in slime.
The sting – ‘niceperson’
Iain is a fan of Andrew Bolt, apparently because Bolta seems to rail away at academia and Iain himself doesn’t have that lofty diploma; he’s a self-educated man, you see. You can read more of this over at Grodscorp where The Editor has kindly posted some of Iain’s rambling posts to Andrew Bolt’s forum. Seeing himself as some kind of heroic everyman who slays barristers and high-profile journalists online, Iain was quite chuffed when he believed that he’d come across ‘bridgit’s true identity, though he failed to think seriously about how easily this information had fallen into his hands (memo to Iain: a good journalist respects his sources but is also checks them out; they teach you this at university, you know). Among the nonsense published on his blog was this bit of self-love:
‘niceperson’: Forget the mock indignation both you and Bridgit thought you were dealing with a pussy cat from the back blocks of Queensland and you find instead a tiger who has your measure and for some reason I don’t think you like that at all.A tiger? No Iain, tigers don’t take bait so easily; they are by instinct very cautious animals. I think of you more as a carp: lay your hook amongst the sludge and the slime, sooner or later you swallow it, run with it and hook yourself. For some reason Iain felt his discovery of ‘bridgit’s identity warranted a larger audience so he ventured over to Gravett’s sandpit and posted there under the expository and rather pretentious title, “J***** Q****: a secret life on the net”:
“As we sit down and watch Today Tonight on channel seven in Melbourne who would think that the cool calm presenter would have another life ,on the internet as a rather left wing commentator .Using the name “Bridgit Gread “ she has been a guest writer at Jeremy Sear’s “Boltwatch” writing criticism of the work of well known Melbourne columnist Andrew Bolt she was a very keen to make the running…”
“In my piece called “Being Anonymous” I made the point that as we post any thing on the net we leave clues about our life outside the web , and it was through those clues that I, with the help of other like minded people was able to determine the Identity of MR Lefty/ Anonymous Lefty/ Melbourne lefty…”
“When I published my cryptic clue Bridgit Gread posted a threatening post warning me of dire consequences should I go further and expose her as I had done to Jeremy Sear . Strangely she subsequently deleted that post but later made treats again, this time that she would “embarrass” me , whatever that may mean”(I think you know by now, don’t you?)
“I have proof that J***** Q**** has been using the persona’s of Bridgit Gread and Emily P to comment on the net but like all good journalists I wish to protect my source and I will not disclose the details here .”We all know by now how reliable your sources (there was more than one?) turned out to be, Iain. Not content with letting ‘niceperson’ get all the celeb-stabbing to herself, Gary Gravett joined in the party back on Iain’s blog:
‘gary’: It certainly is of public interest how a lawyer who was once on the public perse and media personality conduct them selves. niceperson has posted at http://mangledthoughts.com/?p=2547So J*****/Jeremy you can direct your empty legal threats to me. J***** do you have the courage to comment again with out the ability of being able to delete it.Somehow, Gazza, I think you’re the only one who’s going to be deleting things after this escapade. Still, this wasn’t enough for these buffoons. Having stumbled onto this apparent pot-of-gold, they don’t want only their blog cronies to know it - they want to share it with the world!
‘niceperson’: Gary I have just sent an email to the Herald Sun with the Urls of mangled thoughts and this blog and a very brief summary of eventsBolt and his mates at News Limited are going to laugh their heads off at you, aren’t they? That’s if it gets that far - I suspect their e-mails are going to be filed with the alien-spotters and big-cat-loose-in-Victoria informants.
‘niceperson’, in an e-mail to ‘bridgit’: I shall be contacting them (‘bridgit’s alleged employers, Channel Seven) myself to let them know that you threaten to “embarrass “me and given the nature of your employment it is implicit that you would be using their resources to do so. Some how I do not think that they would be very happy with you running a personal vendetta against me because of activities, so gleefully undertaken, by you under assumed identifies on the internet are exposed. Does anyone note the splendid irony in this? Coupled with more stupidity, of course.
Ralph: and ive emailed tim blair on this
Ralph says: Tim I think will give her a call on Monday
Ralph says: and ask her straight out
jOSH says: is that what tim wrote
Ralph says: yes i wrote him an email detailing some of the info we have obtained
Ralph says: i just sned him info from time to time and it appears on his blog Ralph says: he does not give me credit and neither do i want itNice work ‘ralph’. A shame we can’t be a party to Tim’s phone call to J*****. I’m not sure he’ll be so keen to accept your tips and submissions in the future; a serious journalist like Tim needs good reliable sources.
So, dear reader, there you have it: a tale of how one simple trick revealed the stupidity and gullibility of a pair of Internet clowns, so infatuated with their own power and influence that they couldn’t smell an obvious con job; so desperate for revenge and so full of hatred that they peddled a red herring to whomever might buy it. It would be nice to think that this little ‘outing’ of their escapades would prompt ‘niceperson’ and ‘David Tan’ to retire gracefully from Internet investigation and insult, but that would be asking too much. There’s far too much boredom in their lives for them to fade away; just be assured that this blog will remain online, and should you ever have difficulty with them again, feel free to paste the URL and remind them of their past. As for me, my holidays are almost over – work tomorrow – so after this checkmate I’ll have to pack away the board. Thank you for your patience in staying with me this far.
Bridgit
PS. Naturally I’ve kept copies of all relevant blogs, comments and e-mails. Should things start to disappear over the coming days, I’ll inform you all of when/where it happens. Cheers.
UPDATE I: Although I didn’t think he would, Tim Blair decided to run this saga, albeit as a quizzical news brieflet rather than a serious news item (and rightly so). “Ensnared in a brawl over internet anonymity are a shy lawyer, a television presenter I’ve never previously heard of, and other anonymous entities. Check the comments threads; legal threats abound.” Trouble is, the television presenter has nothing to do with it; Tim just needs better sources. posted by Bridgit Gread at 11:17 PM 73 comments
What?!?!
I’m not one to attack religious beliefs if someone isn’t trying to stuff them down my throat, either at my door on a Sunday morning or by attempts to seize power through the Commonwealth. Still this one, if true, really requires some serious criticism. This is what can happen if you let supernaturalism co-opt your moral decision making.
Having read a great deal of his previous rants about the evils of fundamentalist Christianity I don’t for one minute buy what he is selling in his introduction. The way that he pilloried George Pell for his stance on abortion or his reminding of his parishioners, who happen to be members of parliament about what their faith tells them about morality and how that should be reflected in their votes is not the work of someone as tolerant as he claims here.
“A man in southern India has married a female dog in a traditional Hindu ceremony in a bid to atone for stoning two dogs to death, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.”
(AP, 2007)
Repeat after me. “Whaaaaat?!?!”
Ok fair’s fair, I too find this news item rather shocking and looking at the link I find a rather sad tale of a simple man seeking karmic atonement for his past sins. Sins that he thinks have resulted in his personal misfortunes.
I mean, the marriage to the dog is flat out bizarre, but things often seem bizarre to outsiders. I’m assuming that the marriage won’t be consummated, so I won’t criticise the marriage itself on moral grounds. The marriage itself, based on what has been said, seems like a pet registration with ceremony.
This is a good example of the leftist mindset with regard to marriage in general, to the leftist marriage is nothing special and there should be no restrictions upon who can enter into such contracts. Consent is an essential element of any marriage and lacking any ability to speak no dog is capable of giving consent so this union should be condemned on that basis alone. Everett however seems OK with this and dismisses any moral qualms about the “marriage” none the less.
The guy (P. Selvakumar) stoned two dogs to death and then blames his ailments on his misdeed. Maybe it’s psychosomatic, maybe not.
Stoning the dogs was apparently immoral because the spirits (or whatever supernatural force) deigned fit to cause him personal detriment. What if he didn’t develop health complaints? The apparent motivation for this marriage was his ailment, for which he sort out help from an astrologer.
Even atheist secularist like me consider deliberate act of cruelty animals to be something of more consequence than a “misdeed” and those acts are not “apparently immoral” they are immoral, especially from a Hindu point of view which sees all life as being sacred. Minions of the left are so often keen to talk about being culturally sensitive until it ceases to be convenient to do so then the deride other cultural and faith traditions as Everett does here.
You can see how supernaturalism has facilitated a kind of defacto moral egoism in this scenario. Imagine this in the news; “Man drives truck through preschool killing 11 and is given a clean bill of health, so all is well. Later stated that his self-interest has been served well. He was initially worried that he’d have to serve a prison sentence because he is prone to headaches in such instances.”.
I ‘m damned if I can work out what he is saying this for, so no Bruce I can’t see that supernaturalism has facilitated any thing at all at least not from his attempt at a metaphor in the sentence above.
I don’t have a Rolex. I suffer from Rolex-deficiency. Perhaps I’ll ask a Tarot reader to tell me how to arbitrarily appease the spirits for my wrong doing, and my personal fortune will increase! Maybe they will tell me to serenade a teapot.
So Everett wants a flash timepiece but what does that have to do with the poor chap who has married a dog in India? Very little I think I suspect that he is trying to make a point about the futility of trusting astrologers or following their prescriptions to happiness. But you never know when you delve into his prose what he is actually on about.
The arbitrary nature of the penance should worry people as well. Personally, I like my penances to be utilitarian and relevant. Cause X amount of harm? Then you have to alleviate a net amount of harm equal to X. But what happens when the penance doesn’t logically follow the crime?
The problem here is that Everett is trying to judge a situation through a catholic notion of penance when he should be considering it in terms Hindu notions of Karma, an altogether different set of moral principles. So having committed acts of cruelty to two dogs under Hindu notions of morality it is entirely consistent that the atonement should also concern a dog or dogs, remembering of course that unlike the Abrahamic cosmological theology the Hindu sees ALL creatures as sacred and having souls, not as mere things as Everett’s writing would imply.
Why not go to a psychic faire and get a moral reading? “I annexed Poland and was a little unkind to Jews, homosexuals, the disabled and burned art to get back at those art teachers who failed me. What? All I have to do is rent a holiday cottage on the coast with an octopus each winter solstice for the rest of my life? Sweet!”
Talk about labouring a point this is the second go at making the same point, that psychics and soothsayers et all are silly. I actually agree that they are but why does he have use a sledge hammer to break that rather small nut?
Of course, the dubious nature of the egoism in these examples aside, such ambiguity, the absence of a requirement for a reasoned link between transgression X and consequence Y, essentially allows you to hand out any penance for any crime. It’s not only marrying dogs and entering into real estate deals with cephalopods that pass the benchmark when reason doesn’t matter. “Kill member X of outgroup Y” makes it past as well, as does “empty the contents of your savings account into my wallet”.
This is the perfect example of Everett passing judgement on someone motivated by a Hindu sensibility and mindset with an inappropriate reasoning and an inappropriate assumptions of morality, because to a Hindu there is a clear and ethically consistent link between the sin and the penance here (although I think that the notion of marrying the bitch actually does take it too far). The snails and wallets stuff is just window dressing to show Everett’s contempt for all theists
Thank Dog we are only talking about canine marriage. Still, it’s a pity the guy wasn’t properly made to make amends for cruelty to animals. Selvakumar should perhaps spend the rest of his life laboring in a dog shelter for his cruelty. At least until he realises that it’s not about his best interests, it’s about the dog’s suffering.
~ Bruce
In his conclusion Everett repeats his cultural arrogance in suggesting that Selvakumar is not making a suitable atonement for his cruelty because in Karmic terms Selvakumar certainly is, the excesses of calling it a marriage not withstanding.
The long litany of anti Christian pieces at your blog are pretty indicative of how you are prepared to mock any aspect of Christian belief, it is only cowardice on your part that stops you being equally critical of the followers of other faiths to the same extent." - Everett, 2007.