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"If guilty, Mr Rudd would not have been the first to use the word "childless" as an insult". Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

Amid the bitterness and brutal language of Labor's leadership brawl, one accusation stood out from the rest - one word in particular.

Kevin Rudd, we were told by Labor frontbencher Kate Ellis, had denounced the prime minister as a ''childless, atheist, ex-communist''. He denies it but Ellis is adamant Rudd spoke those words.

If guilty, Mr Rudd would not have been the first to use the word ''childless'' as an insult. Bill Heffernan, George Brandis and Mark Latham spring to mind.

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Childless ... Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Photo: Arsineh Houspian

Do these men really believe this is a legitimate weapon in the rough and tumble of political debate? ''Ex-communist'' at least refers to a political ideology, but a colleague's biology or faith should have no place there.

Both Rudd and Tony Abbott have unashamedly used their families and their faith to political advantage. Particularly in recent weeks, when Rudd carted his wife and children around like accessories and they actively campaigned on his behalf.

Not surprising, then, that when Gillard, as the prime minister who only months earlier had toppled Rudd and then foiled Abbott's prime ministerial ambitions, announced she was going to the royal wedding, Abbott scoffed: ''She may not believe in God, the monarchy or marriage but there will be a royal wedding bounce.''

How ironic that these most personal of barbs emanate from Canberra, which has the country's lowest fertility rate; and that Gillard repeatedly attracts them, while sitting opposite her in the house is Julie Bishop, who has no children either but remains unscathed.

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Gillard cops the mother of all insults

Is word-of-mouth information on the Internet trustworthy or to be taken with a grain of salt?

The operator of a popular website collecting presumably honest consumer commentary about restaurants is endeavoring to gain consumer trust and ensure planted stooges aren't unleveling the playing field.

Kakaku.com Inc., which runs the site Taberogu, said in January it found 39 companies that had been paid by certain restaurants and shops to talk them up and asked that such mercenary practices cease.

Pretending to be a satisfied consumer posting complimentary comments is a classic example of stealth marketing, a practice that has gained greater traction in the online world.

Following are questions and answers regarding stealth marketing:

What defines stealth marketing?

Stealth marketing is an attempt to dupe consumers into believing that what they see posted are honest comments from their peers, not paid propaganda disguised as input from ordinary folks.

Generally, if restaurants, shops and other establishments pay people to write something positive about them on the Internet, that constitutes stealth marketing.

When did stealth marketing in its current form start?

The actual term was coined probably around 2006 in the United States, when Edelman, a large public relations firm, reportedly paid bloggers to travel across the country and write positive commentary about one of its clients, Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

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Caveat emptor: Not all 'word of mouth' blogs unpaid

When we consider speech and writing, its clear which we think of as the lesser art. Talk is cheap, chatter idle; get it in writing, we say. But in his new book from Oxford University Press, Vernacular Eloquence, Peter Elbow (the author of the classic writing books Writing without Teachers and Writing with Power, and professor emeritus of English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst) successfully challenges the assumption that writing is always better than speech. In fact, Elbow argues that the best way to free our pens is to unleash our tongues.

According to Elbow, our spoken language, through much practice (even prodigies start speaking well before they start writing, after all), effortlessly embodies virtues that we struggle to achieve in writing. For most people, unless youre another Dickens or Trollope, the daily ratio of speaking to writing is skewed wildly in the direction of speechso why not bring the strength of our experience in one mode to bear on the other? Our spoken language tends to be more direct, with fewer convoluted constructions and subordinate clauses and yet more naturally varied and interesting sentences. Speech gets to the point faster, and connects better with the audience. The intonation and phrasing of our speech elegantly map the patterns of meaning we want to convey, in ways that we may not be able to achieve on the page.

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The Word - Write it like you’d say it

Graffiti reading Victory to the Taliban, Victory to Hamas and the word Jihad written inside a rocket appeared overnight on sidewalks outside the downtown Washington, D.C. convention center where President Barack Obama spoke to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Sunday.

A trail of graffiti down 7th Street between K and N Streets included the image of a rocket flying through the air with the word Qassam. Named after a militant 20th-century Syrian preacher, a Qassam is a rocket preferred by the military arm of Hamas to hit Israeli targets.

Other graffiti said Victory to Hezballah and Victory to Iran, along with the word AIPAC crossed out. Some of the pictures showed rockets striking the word AIPAC.

Some of the roughly 200 protesters who gathered at the convention center to decry the pro-Israel AIPAC gathering condemned the graffiti. Several of the protesters were self-described members of the group Occupy AIPAC.

I have no idea what this is. I saw these last night. I can assure you none of the people here at Occupy share this sentiment, said protester Alli McCracken.

If anything, this is just someone doing this to make us look bad. Last night, we were walking here and we were like, This is crazy, theyre framing us! Everyone here is pro-peace, not pro-terrorist groups.

Palestinian protesters also denied that the graffiti represent their views and hinted at a conspiracy.

Oh no. We wont say anything related to that, said Palestinian protester Rajai Dias. Thats not something that anyone in our organization wants to do. That wasnt any supporters from here.

Dias noted that none of the messages were written in Arabic.

Clearly, if it was from them, they dont know Arabic. Hamas and Palestinians dont even bomb Israel. They lie so much, Dias said, pointing at the convention center where AIPAC was scheduled to be held.

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Before Obama AIPAC speech, Pro-Hamas graffiti suggests violence