I must begin with a confession. This article is being written while I am "under the influence". Under the influence of that well-known mind-bender, Coca-Cola. Until recently, I could have pleaded ignorance. But, due to the tireless efforts of the man who once described this publication as "a sick monster basking in the guilt of history", I can no longer do so. Allow me to explain ...

Each day, more and more material of value to scholars, researchers and hobbyists is generously made available to computer users all over the world via the internet. Judgments of courts and rulings of tribunals, historic documents and academic analyses, legislation, transcripts of media broadcasts, and much more are available thanks to the many thousands of institutions and individuals with a desire and willingness to increase the accessibility of material which helps us all make informed decisions on a range of issues.

Unfortunately, the internet has also become the favoured means by which confidence tricksters, scaremongers, conspiracy theorists, the intellectually lazy and ethically-challenged, seek to advance their own personal agendas and political campaigns.

The difficulty for many with a modem and a reasonable general knowledge, but are not necessarily expert in the particular subject being discussed, is to know which material is informative, as against well-packaged guff.

In January this year, for example, a campaign was launched by an individual to alert the world to a conspiracy to foist on the unsuspecting a dreadful poison Aspartame, and its vehicle of transmission, "Diet Coke". The internet-based anti-Aspartame campaign resulted in panic and distress to such a degree that the respected electronic newsletter, Nutrition News, responding, "there is not one credible piece of evidence to back up any" of the many charges levelled at the artificial sweetener.

In Australia, the campaign found a comfortable nesting place in the verbiage of an internet "newspaper" bearing the pretentious and misleading title "Australian National News of the Day" ("@notd"), maintained by Pauline Hanson fanatic, aspiring author and One Nation’s Webmaster, Scott Balson. @notd is apparently yet to find a conspiracy theory too unlikely to promote, or a conspiracy theorist too offensive to merit publication.

So while many internet lists which carried the anti-Aspartame story either published the rebuttal or simply dropped the subject (which had at its heart a massive media conspiracy to allow the poisoning of the entire planet to enrich a few drink producers) @notd extended the conspiracy to include Coca Cola itself (with a submission from an anonymous "dentist" whose lack of knowledge of teeth has astounded the health professionals with whom I shared the item) and suggestions to the effect our politicians be forced to drink the perceived poison until we could see the results.

Of course, @notd has in its sights not just soft-drinks, but the evil media barons who will as easily mislead the public on health issues as they will immorally portray Pauline Hanson and One Nation as other than a squadron of winged virtues flying in to save us from the Westminster system, constitutional law and cultural diversity.

One criticism which particularly upsets @notd’s editor and the One Nation Revolutionary Guards who comprise its most regular contributors, is that One Nation is "racist", and in the context of the Australia/Israel Review it is worthwhile recording @notd’s track record in this area.

Balson himself described Australian Jewry as an "elite racist community", whatever that is meant to mean, Israel as "the world’s most racist state", and referred recently to George Soros as "a Jewish parasite". He has referred to Jews as Nazis and claimed Israel survives because of "well placed Jews in the US".

As editor of the daily "newspaper", Balson has directed readers to bizarre antisemitic conspiracy material web-sites which have included direct promotions of The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, and published articles referring to Jewish "tentacles". Openly antisemitic postings have included claims that Jews "have certainly been reading" the anti-Jewish forgery The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, and "acting on" their blueprint for world domination, with another containing an appeal for the English to "rise up against the filthy rotten zionist infested British Establishment".

Perhaps the main charges which @notd’s contributors level at Jews is undue influence over the media, and it is "the media" which Scott Balson targets in his first venture into the world of ink and paper, "Murder by Media: Death of Democracy in Australia".

Drawing mainly on his own imagination, with such reliable sources as convicted US fraudster Lyndon LaRouche, the promoter of Australian Christian Identity (ie. white supremacy) Ray Platt and a bevy of "One Nation supporters", Balson’s book is not the first attempt at bringing internet "wisdom" to the world of the book, but it is most likely one of the intellectually lamest.

Unsurprisingly, the book has a section on the Australia/Israel Review, which is based on the rantings of the political/religious cult, the Citizens’ Electoral Council, supplemented by the Thoughts of Webmaster Balson. Balson’s concerns with the Review are, in summary, that its investigative reporting put attention on One Nation’s financial credibility and on its racism, and that very few serious commentators agreed with Balson’s assessment of the Review as "bastardry".

At the time of writing, Balson’s main foci of animus are the evil conspirators who successfully plotted to delay a Brisbane-Sydney flight to cause him personal inconvenience, the battalions of secret service agents violating his personal property and the mainstream media who haven’t hailed his volume as the greatest contribution to human knowledge since, well, the internet.

Author-as-victim Balson sees a conspiracy in the fact that the mainstream media see no news value in his railings and an iron-hand of censorship behind the fact that, at the very most, one (anonymous) journalist attended the launch of a book exposing the ills of journalism. Perhaps he has been drinking too many artificially-sweetened drinks.