This entry was posted on
Friday, September 19th, 2008 at
3:37 pm and is filed
under Old Media, Teh Interwebs, The Political Weblog Movement.

Iain Dale hahahaha frowns on hahahahaha fellow ‘blogger’ hahahahaha selling out hahahahahaha with unscientific poll!

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha…. *breeeeeathe*… ahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Can’t. Type. Or speak at normal. Rate.

[unexpected intermission]

Read more here.

Oh, and make a futile attempt to have Iain recognise his hypocrisy here if you feel like it, but do be prepared to (at least) be accused of being me or maybe some form of flying monkey-servant.

[His APCO-sponsored poll of blogs is just for fun, you see. That’s the difference. And no-one is being deceived about what it’s for. Did I mention that it’s just for fun?]

That’s twice this week (1, 2) that the Independent have fed us crap served as ice cream.

Meanwhile, over the pond, Sarah Palin’s email antics have led to a live internet kid-hackery whodunnit drama, complete with a ticking clock and a (so far) tenuous connection to the Democrats:

Christian Science Monitor – Palin’s hacked email account – what’s next?
The Register – Memo to US Secret Service: Net proxy may pinpoint Palin email hackers
Wired – Palin E-Mail Hacker Says It Was Easy

A free round on me if it turns out that Sarah Palin’s password was ‘1234’.

–

UPDATE (22 Sep, 1pm) – Phil ‘Dizzy’ Hendren charges me with wilful distortion here.

To avoid a lonnnng and complicated post, let’s skip past all examples of Hendren’s wilful distortion bar the most common/glaring one; his claim that I am responsible for “phone call making campaigns” (following email bombardment). I’ve made some rare calls to bloggers/publishers who have offered phone details as a contact option, when it was the only option left to me at the time. The only person in our little community who is guilty of ‘taking it offline’ and actually harassing someone by phone is Phil ‘Dizzy’ Hendren, who also went to the trouble of publishing my ex-directory number on his website in a clear effort to intimidate me. Hendren has sought to reduce his embarrassment over this by splitting hairs down to a subatomic level in some quarters and having others think me guilty of the same (or a similar) offence in others. He does this for the same reason that Iain Dale calls me a liar every chance he gets, and if this game keeps up, sooner or later we can probably expect Paul Staines to express ‘concern’ about the amount of alcohol I drink. How Hendren got his hands on my ex-directory number remains a mystery (the latest story has him calling Someone Who Is Certainly Not Iain Dale out of the blue and – surprise! – immediately chancing upon someone who had my home phone number and didn’t mind sharing this sensitive data), but he appears to be blissfully unaware that any uncertainty about the source of this personal data is a dangerous thing to have floating around when you work on maintaining data for an ISP that controls a great deal of personal data and doesn’t want their customers thinking that it might be used and abused by any old loser.

(ahem)

Now, it is Hendren’s position that I’ve engaged in wilful distortion because – in his view – Iain Dale did not actually ‘slam’ this unscientific poll.

Just for starters, there’s little-to-no question about it being an unscientific poll here, especially when Hendren (an unapologetic user of multiple/false identities) claims in this same post that he was willing and able to diddle it with ease…

“… I took the poll. In fact I took the poll on numerous occasions from numerous locations. I kind of figured that all I had to do was say I was a Labour member to make sure my answers would be included.” (source)

(Alex Hilton assures us that “Non Labour supporters who responded to the survey were stripped from the results”, which is just as reassuring as the ‘Gomer’ character from Good Morning Vietnam saying; “Well, we ask people, ‘Are you the enemy? And whoever says yes, we shoot them.”)

… so, if this is a notable instance of wilful distortion as Hendren claims, the only options left to us are:

– Iain Dale is mildly disapproving of the unscientific poll

– Iain Dale feels ambivalent about the unscientific poll

– Iain Dale does not care about the unscientific poll

– Iain Dale approves of the unscientific poll

With all of the above options, Iain would be blogging this quite deliberately as a feature (rather than a ‘Daley Dozen’ aside) not as a matter of principle, but instead to heighten/further Alex Hilton’s difficulty.

I’m happy to accept as a likely possibility any option that includes Dale being unprincipled, but it should be clear to any idiot not desperate for ammunition that Iain Dale does regard Hilton’s poll to be significantly flawed, and does regard these flaws to be a major aspect of the difficulty Hilton finds himself in (including, I would point out, the key problems that arose from his compromising his integrity/principles in pursuit of monetary gain).

But those with any doubts should take a look at how Iain responds to this anonymous ‘justification’ for the flawed nature of the poll, that he clearly misses as a joking reference to his own:

At September 19, 2008 4:59 PM , Anonymous said…

I think you’re being harsh here, Iain. As far as I can see, the poll was just a bit of fun and never claimed to be accurate.

At September 19, 2008 5:06 PM , Iain Dale said…

It was commissioned by a national newspaper!!

Iain Dale’s objection to this defence is immediate and clear; he obviously regards the poll to be flawed in some way, and – here comes the kicker – he regards the “(it was) just a bit of fun and never claimed to be accurate” defence to be meaningless because the poll was “commissioned by a national newspaper”.

Now, regrettably, we must leave Phil ‘Chick Magnet’ Hendren to his distortions/delusions, and focus on what the above reveals:

If it is seriously Iain Dale’s position that his unscientific poll is “just a bit of fun (that) never claimed to be accurate”, then he either regards this defence to be meaningless or doesn’t think much of APCO Worldwide and his own damn magazine:

“In early September TOTAL POLITICS, in association with APCO WORLDWIDE will publish the 2008-9 Guide to Political Blogging in the UK…” (source)

Oops.

(Psst! Meanwhile, Iain ‘Blinkers’ Dale watched his mate confess to skewing a poll with front-page implications, and saw only evidence of my ‘mendacity’. What a guy. I’d totally trust him to understand what the words ‘politically neutral’ might mean.)