Tim Blair, Species Deceases, Sunset Klaus, No to Hydro, and how did Sensis win over News Corp?

(Above: like pigeon droppings in the urban landscape, so are free copies of Mx in Melbourne and Sydney, thanks to News Corp).

Last years news.com.au "From all angles" Green Awards saw Tim Blair cruelly pipped at the post in the "Can Do Better" category by Sensis, the Telstra subsidiary responsible for phone books.

"Despite a concerted online campaign by Daly Telegraph blogger Tim Blair to win this category, it was the sight of hordes of phone books piling up that pushed judges to select this winner."

Phew. For a moment there, it looked like Chairman Rupert might have had to look at the cuckoo in the nest collecting the gong.

But it's on again this year, and this time Blair is doing even better, with 80% of the votes (over 500), up against a pitiful 11% for Peter Garrett and a tragic 7% for Steve Fielding, at least when last I checked.

How can he lose? Well I guess you have to wonder about the whole deal. You vote and news.com.au decides.

After all, for Piers Akerman not to at least collect a nomination is a national disgrace. And leaving Andrew Bolt off the list is an international shame.

And how fair is it for Blair to be able to whip up his frenzied supporters by trolling for votes in his tabloid related blog under the header Vote Vote Vote?

When all Garrett and Fielding have is parliament as a forum for clownishness? Up against so many other media distracting clowns?

But is the fix in again this year?

McDonalds also got a nomination in this year’s Green Awards, after a disgruntled consumer entered the fast food chain for giving him 14 napkins with his burger order.

14 napkins up against daily snide comments and feeding the blathering sceptic chooks which must add up to hundreds and hundreds of grenade assaults on warministas for the year?

No, it seems McDonalds didn't make the cut, and really that's only fair. Because Blair, you suspect, would demand fifty napkins the moment he fronted a McDonalds counter. Just because he could. Because it's his right and his choice. Just as being a ratbag is the right of any loon.

The trouble of course is if Blair wins, it will only feed his giant ego. You have to suspect that if there'd been an award in his school for 'class clown', Blair would have done his damndest to win, just out of sheer cussedness and perversity.

But here's a condumdrum. The finalists - ordinary Australians making an extraordinary difference in the battle against non-existent climate change (well from the insular world of the Blair-ites) - are in the running for a share of $30,000 in prizes provided by Toshiba.

Does Blair get a share of that action if he claims the gong by campaigning for votes through his blog? Or is there a booby prize for being a prize booby? And for sending up pious Chairman Rupert's pious mouthings shitless?

Questions, questions, and with time running out, happily we'll know the results on Monday September 7th.

Meantime if you want to indulge in this farrago of nonsense, and want to vote in the awards, you can go here, and read up on it.

Why not leave a question for Chairman Rupert asking him how the publisher of Mx missed out on a nomination in the 'Can Do Better' category? Killing a bundle of trees on a daily basis to serve up drivel to trapped train commuters makes Sensis look like a member of Greenpeace. at least if you recycle a phone book, there's no effect on national intelligence; read Mx for the week and throw it away in a bin, and the national intelligence veers towards vampire zombie level.

Oh sure, there's a poignant little note up in the banner saying "please recycle", but how do you expect to get a result if you can't even say "please, oh pretty please with bells on it."

And as for those other tree killers, the Daily Terror, the Hun, and the Australian's prestigious gaggle of climate change sceptical loons, not to mention a motley assortment of regional, parochial and suburban rags, isn't it about time for Chairman Rupert to stop publishing hard copy newspapers and take all of his fine contributions to investigative reporting behind an online pay wall? It'd be a win win, with forests saved for other uses, and as the pay wall bites, the daily intelligence level rising like the river in a Maitland flood.

Meanwhile, Blair goes on his merry gab fest way, celebrating the news that his rival Peter Garrett has got with the death panel program by admitting that some species might have to go extinct when funding decisions are made (Garrett concedes: extinction inevitable).

Oh, there's nothing like killing off a species and dancing on the grave to bring out a rash of dodo jokes. Along with Republican talking points about death panels. And endless celebrations of Sarah Palin as a sex object. Phew, suddenly my partner's bizarre fixation on Jennifer Aniston seems vaguely human, even if profoundly neurotic.

But back to Blair in his lair. Throw in joyous news about the German solar industry experiencing hard times, and ecstatic news about how there was an accident at Russia's largest hydroelectric plant, and you have rolled gold loonacy.

"No to hydro" chortles his header. What, there's even something wrong with hydro when we'd all be better off with Chernobyl? Sssh, it passes for satire apparently.

If Blair doesn't win, questions will have to be asked. He's so relentless, he's not a man, he's a remorseless greenie eating machine. Which isn't quite the same as a love of broccoli.

Well I guess that's what happens if you take Mr. Burns, nuclear power plant owner as your aspirational hero:

"Oh, so mother nature needs a favor? Well, maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts and floods and poison monkeys!"

"Since the beginning of time, Man has yearned to destroy the sun."

"A little slurry will cure what ails you!"

"I remember when he bagged his first hippy. That young man didn't think it was too... groovy."

Burns:

Some men hunt for sport,
Others hunt for food,
The only thing I'm hunting for,
Is an outfit that looks good...

See my vest, see my vest,
Made from real gorilla chest,
Feel this sweater, there's no better,
Than authentic Irish setter.

See this hat, 'twas my cat,
My evening wear - vampire bat,
These white slippers are albino
African endangered rhino.

Grizzly bear underwear,
Turtles' necks, I've got my share,
Beret of poodle, on my noodle
It shall rest,

Try my red robin suit,
It comes one breast or two,
See my vest, see my vest,
See my vest.

Like my loafers? Former gophers -
It was that or skin my chauffeurs,
But a greyhound fur tuxedo
Would be best,

So let's prepare these dogs,

Mrs. Potts: Kill two for matching clogs,

Burns: See my vest, see my vest,
Oh please, won't you see my vest.
(music ends)

Burns: I really like the vest!

Smithers: I gathered, sir.

(Below: another grand nuanced Mx promotion).