The Australian, and if that's fair and balanced, we demand new butchers' scales ...

(Above: another fair and balanced day frolicking amongst the commentariat columnists at The Oz. Screen cap, links below).

It's fun to see that the squawking loons have come to realise that calling a minority government 'illegitimate' might have a little blow back, especially if one way forward might be to get yourself installed as an alternative illegitimate minority government.

I suppose it's the right of all bastards to get a retrospective claim of legitimacy via a shot gun marriage, even if illegitimacy might be a more noble condition.

The illegitimacy debate is all here, in Coalition lets it rip but the spray is too ferocious.

Meanwhile, we're still trying to reconcile the assorted unceasing sprays delivered by The Australian as it seeks in every which way to undermine the new government.

What to make of Henry Ergas explaining how a government dollar delivered to the redneck rubes was a waste of a buck, up against the inner city elites, while in the same breath, The Australian's editorialist urges the government to abandon inner city seats like Melbourne and Grayndler and appeal to the swinging voters of the outer suburbs and the regions. (here).

Might as well listen to the contradictory muttering of schizophrenics.

Never mind, we thought it would be fun to take a look at The Australian's fair and balanced opinion page in action this sunny weekend, seeing as how they say Julia Gillard approves of their coverage.

At the top of the queue is the turgid Paul Kelly explaining that Danger lurks in playing it safe, because, he says, the election may have delivered us a retrograde parliament. That's a fancy word for fucked.

In his usual balancing act routine, Kelly mutters how splendidly the Westminister system has worked, and then goes into his Old Testament Moses persona, to predict doom and gloom:

Tony Abbott would be a fool to demand a premature poll. But the stakes are high for the politicians who signed the documents giving life to this minority government.

If it doesn't work the blame game will be fierce and the pressure to return to the people will be immense.

Uh huh. Could we re-phrase that? The blame game from the baying hounds of the Murdoch press will be fierce, and the pressure to return to the people, and get the vote right, which is to say a Murdoch approved vote, will be immense.

Next up, there's a cheerful Michael Stutchbury, explaining in Reserve will put end to fairness all around, that whatever the independents and the Labor party might want to do, they're fucked because it will clash with hard nosed economic reality.

Unlike a vacuous Gillard, the hard nosed Stutchbury explains that vigorous employment numbers suggest an overheating economy and a squeeze on Labor's new rural cobbers. Anyone up for a verse of Hanrahan, as a bullish economy says we'll all be rooned, just as a bearish economy says we'll all be rooned? And never mind a word about how Labor presided somehow magically, strangely over a bullish economy ...

Of course it wouldn't be a proper weekend if there wasn't a column from Noel Pearson, explaining Right crucial to Aboriginal reforms, and how a bipartisan approach actually requires leadership of Tony Abbott's calibre. But how to reconcile the sundry contradictions this kind of blather involves?

I understand that many indigenous people find it hard to accept that Australian conservatives can play a crucial role in the advancement of indigenous people's interests.

There is a legacy of resentment about the conservatives' previous policies.

Happily, those previous policies have vanished like the drought thanks to Tony Abbott, springing as he does from the loins of the always dialogue ready John Howard:

I said towards the end of Howard's tenure that it would have been possible for indigenous people to have a dialogue with him. Whether or not indigenous people agree with this assessment is no longer important. The important thing is that the old tension between conservatives and indigenous people is now gone.

Tensions gone? Perhaps in Pearson's mind. But ain't it grand to be able to speak for all conservatives and all indigenous people, and never mind the grand standing that might seem to involve.

Here at the pond we're pleased to announce that the old tension between conservatives and Murdoch tabloids and Anthony Mundine is now gone ...

And of course it wouldn't be a proper day in The Australian without a column trashing the NBN up hill and down dale. This day the chore falls to Peter J. Cox, who dutifully scribbles Broadband plan is smoke and mirrors, which turns out to be a handy extract from a version published on his business site. Running down the NBN and getting a link to your site on The Oz makes a handy bonus double.

You have to head over to the cardigan wearing columnists at Fairfax to find someone who will put in a good word for the NBN, as Rod Tucker did in Back on the superhighway. The day you find that kind of counter-heresy in The Australian on a daily basis is the day you can call The Oz fair and balanced.

Of course the Herald wants to be fair and balanced too, so naturally it runs How the internet makes us stupid, and after reading the thoughts of Nicholas Carr, courtesy of the full to overflowing intertubes, I have to conclude he's right. I feel much, much more stupid ...

If ever there was a case for suggesting that the internet has produced scattered, superficial thinking, he's surely a prime candidate. And to think I wouldn't have learned the term FUD to describe his opus if the internet hadn't been around to introduce me to the concept ...

But back to The Australian, and there's the redoubtable Christopher Pearson as fifth cab off the columnist rank. Club Sensible does club right wing gabble.

So what can we look forward to next week?

Well there's always Janet Albrechtsen, and a couple of stories by Dennis Shanahan explaining how Labor is stuffed, and a couple of stories from Glenn Milne conjuring how the federal government is fucked, and a couple of ponderous pontifications from Paul Kelly determining that we're poised on the brink, teetering on the edge, safe pairs of right eyed right handed scribblers the lot of them, but I'm willing to bet that there will also be at least two columns explaining why the NBN is a folly, one explaining how climate change still needs sceptical re-examination, and at a bare minimum, a half dozen by other hands confirming that everything has fallen, is falling, or will fall apart under the influence of the independents, the greens and the Labor party, and how it would be better for all if the Greens were driven to extinction, wiped out, and driven off the electoral map for good (note: this item strictly reserved for thunderous denunciations delivered via the editorial page).

Want a different, fair and balanced, best-est ever conversation, that takes us to the heart of the nation?

Well you could always trot off to The Punch, Murdoch's mX of the intertubes, and read Chris Gardiner blathering on about The new Green paradigm: bugger the majority, which of course is different to that old right wing paradigm: fuck the minorities, and David Penberthy explaining yet again for the nth time in The proactive new world of Australian politics how everything is or will be fucked:

For all the giddy talk about new paradigms and the renewal of democracy, there’s every chance that this Parliament could end up looking more like an episode of The Office than a functional and productive political assembly.

You know Penbo, it's usually polite and seemly to wipe away the spittle and drool while lovingly plunging the country into a sitcom.

And then there's Mark Kenny, who's worked out Headache of government beats not governing at all, before going on to explain in tedious detail how no-one has any idea of what will happen, but surely what will happen is that the country will be fucked.

Fair and balanced? Or crucial evidence Nicholas Carr might be on to something?

Thank god they don't use these kinds of scales at the local butchers ...

(Below: and now a seven year old cartoon in honour of Pastor Terry Jones, and Fox News, and How Fox Betrayed Petraeus).