Caught in the act

There's an old adage that says when you're in a hole, stop digging. This little snippet of wisdom has obviously eluded Paul Staines as he hacks away, revising this less than stellar post about Gordon Brown's campaign site.

Unity has done an excellent job of catching the duplicitous tax-dodger in the act of unmarked revisionism, assisted by Staines' javascripting fanboy, Dizzy.

First Staines spins a non-story into an example of fraud by the Brown camp, but gets some of the details wrong.

Then Dizzy steps up to the plate and, in a related post, points out Staines error.

Staines then revises his original post so as to give the impression that he had all the details correct in the first place.

It just so ironic that in spite of Dizzy being so full of himself as a l33t haxor and Staines' own pompous self-aggrandizement as the UK's leading Matt Drudge wannabe, neither of them is capable of putting together a coherent and consistent story of any consequence, instead taking a New Labour-esque approach to spinning and distortion. Compounding the irony is the fact that Staines' post would have carried more credibility if he had simply tagged the update, but his rampant desire to appear infallible precluded any such action.

A major victory for Guido 2.0! The 'war' is within measurable distance of its end!

Manic has been after Paul de Laire Staines (aka 'Guido Fawkes') to make one minor update to his website since waaaay back in January.

This update - the inclusion of time *and* date in comment timestamps - could have been done in minutes on the old version of Blogger that 'Guido' was on then, or the new version of Blogger that he switched to a few weeks ago.

Yesterday, 'Guido' had the builders in making a bit of a mess of his website. Major changes were made to the design template, but this simple 'switch it on' measure was still not taken... despite Paul Staines making a clear promise to do so in his Pickled Politics interview (see here and here).

So last night, Manic sent Paul an email:

----- Original Message -----
From: Tim Ireland
To: Guy Fawkes
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 8:48 PM
Subject: When you're ready II

You promised 'time and date' timestamps during your recent interview (the one where you mistook 'irony' for hypocrisy').

Where are they?

Tim

PS - They take seconds to turn on and a few minutes to propagate site-wide. It is not a template issue, but a core Blogger feature that is easy to access and enact. What exactly are you afraid of?

A few short hours later, Paul Staines finally made good on his promise and introduced comment timestamps with time *and* date (well, initially he went with the rather more clunky format of date *then* time, but cheeky beggars can't be choosers).

Manic plans to make a similar update to Guido 2.0, as there is little point satirising a state of play that no longer exists. However... with this in mind, Manic does not plan to take this measure until Iain Dale, that other major breeder of sock-puppets and anonymous bullies, makes a similar update to his website.

Manic would also appreciate Iain making a correction to his design template that allows readers to link to individual comments. It is a simple fix, and an important one, as the threads at his website are often almost as long as his record-breaking blogroll.

In fact, Manic sent an email to Iain Dale last night, too... and requested all of the above (a couple of links have been added for the benefit of newcomers):

----- Original Message -----
From: Tim Ireland
To: Iain Dale
Cc: Guy Fawkes
Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2007 12:32 AM
Subject: Re: When you're ready II

Proper timestamps when you're ready, Iain. You jumped pretty quickly on that search function, and that was a much bigger ask than a simple 'turn it on' Blogger feature like this.

Tim

PS - And while you're tinkering, please have your webmonkey fix your comment permalinks. I'd like to be able to point to specific moments when you're a total hypocrite.

PPS - Goodbye! Forever! *gasp* *sigh*

Finally, in the interests of transparency, Manic would also like to publish the email he sent to both parties just before closing up shop for the night. For newcomers, it needs to be pointed out that this entire saga can be summed up as follows:

Manic expressed grave concern about the self-serving hypocrisy of Staines and Dale, and the impact that their reliance on anonymous bullies was having on the wider blogging community. Both responded by unwittingly confirming that they were selfish hypocrites on several fronts... but not before hiding behind their anonymous bullies, thereby pushing said bullies into the foreground for everyone to see... in action, no less!

This helped to prove Manic's point about the underhanded methods these anonymous bullies use to restrict free speech.

Dale and Staines also proved time and again that Manic was the only party central to the affair who could afford to say "Bring it on!" when push came to shove.

This helped to prove Manic's point about the importance of credibility to individual sustainability.

Here's the email:

----- Original Message -----
From: Tim Ireland
To: Iain Dale ; Guy Fawkes
Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2007 1:04 AM
Subject: PS

In case I haven't mentioned it before, it is a mistake to let your opponent know what a coward you are. Both of you have, over the last few months, shown exactly what you are made of.

Your team of bullies have - with minor individual variations - made exactly the same error.

It's not the only mistake you've made, but there's a limit to my generosity, so I shall say no more.

Good luck in the coming months. Oh, and fuck you both.

Cheers

Tim

The shared cowardice Manic refers to is best displayed in the following manner:

Manic had this to say about Paul Staines. Did Staines have courage enough (or consideration enough for his readers) to actually link to it in his partial/misleading response? No, he did not.

Manic had this to say about Iain Dale. Did Dale have courage enough (or consideration enough for his readers) to actually link to it in his partial/misleading response? No, he did not.

Manic had this to say about 'Praguetory'. Did 'Praguetory' have courage enough (or consideration enough for his readers) to actually link to it in his partial/misleading response? No, he did not.

Manic had this to say about 'Dizzy'. Did 'Dizzy' have courage enough (or consideration enough for his readers) to actually link to it in his partial/misleading response? No, he did not.

Slam. Dunk. (x4)

PS - No, it is not good policy to interrupt your opponents when they are making a mistake... but it doesn't hurt to point the mistake out when (a) it proves educational to others (b) it is painfully obvious anyway and (c) the damage is irreversible.

:o)

Manic has spoken. End communication.