The pond joins the Brucers at The Australian in abject, grovelling, creepy crawly apology ...

In its previous post the pond provided a link to a story by champion Brucer (and journalist for The Australian) Ean Higgins, which ran under the header An old flame faded into black.

Sadly if you click on the link, all you get these days is a 404:

The pond apologises profusely.

If you link to the gutter, occasionally all that turns up is mud.

Here's a link to a story in Crikey which might last a little longer and which might help explain why it's been a bad day for the Brucers: Gillard secures apology from The Oz over AWU story.

Now let's run into the visual record the apology, attached to the masthead, so that Google may circulate to all the record of the dismal day for the Brucers:

Andrew Crook's story also provides a link to an anti-Semitic rant posted under Larry Pickering's name on his website.

It's amazingly rich and vile stuff. And it's not just the Jews that cop a serve. So do lazy Arabs, racist Japanese, racist Chinese, wretched Aborigines, and so on and so forth.

The pond isn't in the habit of reproducing vile racist rants, but if you read Crook, he gives you more than enough of a serve. Ain't Google cache a handy thing ...

But by golly, do the Brucers at The Australian keep odd company, or what.

And over at Fairfax, finally a little truth surrounding Ralph Blewitt has broken into the mainstream, as you can read in Union official in PM row fled Indonesia.

Ralph Blewitt, the former union official who wants to give evidence about the alleged rorting involving Julia Gillard's former boyfriend, fled Indonesia in 2009 to avoid arrest after allegedly selling Australian expatriates land he did not own.
One couple, Deborah and Paul Storck, told the Herald from Lombok yesterday that Mr Blewitt still owed them $190,000 for land they thought they had purchased on Gili Gede, Lombok.
''He's not a credible fellow,'' Mrs Storck said. ''Be wary of anything he says. He still owes us a lot of money. Who does he think he is to bring up stuff from 17 years ago?''

There's more, though this might be old news for those who love to saunter in the gutter with the Brucers.

Now Gillard has been forced to come out and denounce the smear campaign against her as sexist and defamatory, as you can read in PM defends conduct as lawyer.

Well you'd have to say that the cruel photo selected by Fairfax to illustrate the story is first class evidence of sexism at work.

There's nothing new in what Gillard said in her denial. She's said it before, and she's said it over and over again, and meanwhile the Brucers are off with the likes of Larry Pickering and Ralph Blewitt.

The pond wonders how Kim Williams - sophisticated man about town, cultured member of the elite and lover of classical music - enjoys presiding over a cesspit.

Meanwhile, all the pond can do is congratulate the Brucers for their epic work.

Well played Brucers.

You've reduced the status of journalism another notch or three. Keep going and Fairfax will have more to boost about than carelessly losing a couple of billion, and The Australian carelessly failing to achieve a profit ...