Whale Blubber

I read something on Gotcha the other day that I thought was rather amusing, Cameron Slater’s 13 rules of politics. Number six states; "Don’t mess with The Whale or Cactus Kate." Really! Why is that I wonder? This is the usual drivel we've all come to expect from the blogger known as Whaleoil. I was amused because his arrogance is obviously in excess of his capabilities, and I’m not just talking about his physical and mental limitations here.

Slater’s deductive and researching skills are woefully lacking when it comes to providing factual information, which in my opinion is the basis of a decent blog. Therein lies the divide between good journalism and blogging I guess, with Slater giving us all a bad name with his diatribe of disinformation.

Recently Slater claimed Labour used parliamentary services to run their websites in what he terms “Whaleleaks,” attributing his muckraking to the well known and prestigious organization Wikileaks.

The truth of the matter is that there’s been no inappropriate use of public money to run Labours websites. The problem Slater has developed for himself is one of the boy who cried wolf. This is just as problematic within the animal kingdom as it is within the bloggosphere, where credibility is king.

While having the pretense of a political attack, Slater's main motivation is one of self-promotion. This leads me to question exactly what he's promoting of himself that is worthwhile as a topic that the public might be interested in? The pontifications of a lying fool perhaps? In my opinion, muckraking is not a particularly effective method when it’s based entirely on half truths and disinformation.

Slater claimed that he unearthed credit card details of Labour Party supporters and was going to release them to the public, which would be in breach of New Zealands Privacy laws. However this is a complete fabrication as an entirely different server than the one Slater accessed holds transaction details. He couldn’t hack that server in a million years even if you paid him.

Now we have Slater claiming that Labour has lots of email addresses of people involved in teaching because they've been "harvesting" emails from petitions. Stop the presses... Labour's got some email addresses, it's the crime of the bloody century.

What Slater fails to understand is that Labour has a lot of support from teachers because National has royally fucked up the implementation of National Standards and plans to cut ECE subsidies into dust. Slater's grandiose assertions are trivial, and shows that his claims of being comparable to Wikileaks are seriously unintelligent at best. Now that's some damn fine slating.

While a few people might believe Slater’s claims over and above what Labour has stated, the fact of the matter is that Slater has taken the opportunity that a breach of security has enabled to throw a whole lot of bullshit around, with most of it sticking to the muckraker himself I might add.

The only advantage Slater has is that his credibility couldn't be damaged much anyway, being that it's non existent. Something is definitely a bit stinky within the New Zealand blogosphere, with all evidence pointing towards the dead beached whale AKA Cameron Slater.

It’s a common theme of dirty tactics that Slater is no stranger to. A couple of weeks ago he blogged about the Jackal publishing the 25 Rules of Disinformation, attacking my writing capabilities amongst other ineffectual arguments.

He states within his oozing toxic cesspool that is the Gotcha bog, that I'm associated with the Labour Party, which is entirely untrue. I've never even voted Labour before. Nor do I have anything to do with his pathetic Twitter parody. This gives us a clue as to the extent of "evidence" within his so called Whaleleaks documents. Next he'll be publishing his shopping list and blaming Labour for him forgetting to buy some Antacids.

Slater's pitiable blog post about the Jackal was entirely developed from comments made on The Standard's re-post of the 25 Rules of Disinformation. In my opinion his hypocritical argument is not very effective with Slater often plagiarizing other peoples work. He really should be more concerned about his own blogging etiquette than mine.

Slater's motivation was one of retaliation for the Jackal giving him an Asshole Award back in March. From his recent conduct, he's nominated himself for the Asshole of the Year award as well. Places are filling fast with the winner being chosen in October.

Asshole of the Year Nominee

Now we have Catcus Kate cynically awarding Slater with the Air New Zealand Best Blog Award 2011. Perhaps we should change that to the Best Muckraking Bog Award, which seems far more appropriate. Slater's been slagging off Air New Zealand recently, so I very much doubt they'd give him anything more than a kick up the backside.

Being that there was no nomination process, just one judge (Catcus Kate) and the entire premise of Slater’s slander was based on lies, a belief that he’s instigated any change to the political landscape is premature, especially with five months still to go before the next general election.

The fact that National was digging around in Labour’s servers well before Slater is just as damaging to National’s credibility as Labour leaving their door open. In this respect Slater has scored a social media own goal (SMOG), by showing just how underhanded the rightwing are in their pursuit of power.

Don’t mess with The Whale or Cactus Kate… or what? Slater will undertake yet another campaign of slander and personal attacks based on lies? Don't make me laugh!