Janet Albrechtsen, and give that woman a red star for being first to invoke Stalin's name ...

(Above: it was a cloudy day in Nundle when Google sent its van past the pub).

In the old days in the bush, it was anything that moved, that connected, which was a fitting subject of worship.

Nothing wrong with Shank's pony (or mare or nag, or what you will), but a real pony was better. And if not a pony, then a bicycle, but settling for a bike made you a loser, and so lo and behold, the ute came to be king.

Back in the colonial British days, the vehicle of choice was a good old Landrover, and if there's any grey in my hair, I owe it all to the bush tracks my uncle once thought offered safe passage, never mind the slipping and sliding towards the bloody great drop into the void.

And there's nothing like the sight of a vehicle bogged, all four wheels deep in mud, up to its axles, the wheels spinning like a whirling dervish and the curses sending the air blue and the children ushered indoors before Satan took them away ...

These days, it's easy to travel in the mind, and a nice safe way is via broadband. It's a pity Tony Abbott really doesn't have a clue about broadband and what it implies for the bush, but wasn't it grand to hear Tony Windsor mention the children of Dungowan and Nundle attending his formal despatch of the luddites. Bet you've never heard of these hamlets before, but hey, you can look them up on the full to overflowing intertubes, along with hundreds of others.

Most people in the bush like to live where they live, but they also like to feel connected. Once upon a time, it was by way of correspondence school (check out the quaint School in the Mailbox from 1946 on the full to overflowing intertubes), or the school of the air, which still operates, but these days more often by satellite (the NSW portal is here).

Whenever I go online, I feel the same sense of amazement I once felt when a Tiger Moth and a Mustang swept low over the ground at the barn door air shows that once toured the bush. That such things could be, and move, and work ...

But these days, I want more than a Tiger Moth. I want speed and capacity and access and a relatively modest stipend, without harsh caps and cheap chiselling of the kind offered by Telstra. (In much the same way as I don't want a broken down Qantas 767, which suddenly makes a Tiger Moth look like a well serviced marvel of travel).

Labor's NBN wasn't enough to get me to vote for them - there was the spectre of Stephen Conroy looming in the mist - but it's good to see that a few rural politicians called out the half baked, half assed alternative offering conjured up by the coalition.

Meanwhile, there's the gnashing of teeth, and the wailing, and of course the abuse already beginning to flow about the new state of things.

How long did it take for the elevated standard of discourse and the pious hopes of a new direction in political debate last?

Why as long as a Janet Albrechtsen column took to be scribbled and land on the subbie's desk, thereafter to be circulated around the world, and yet small and simple minded enough to be searched and found even on dial up.

Bitterness, resentment and bile, like a child with its tuppeny ha'porth ice cream snatched away, as unbridled rhetoric and abuse pours from the lips and Games powerful independents play like slime:

Get it? Windsor admitted he sided with the party that had less support from Australian voters. It's a novel theory of democracy, almost as brazen as Stalin's theory that it's not the people who vote that count. It's the people who count the votes.

Stalin? Does a modifying "almost" get you off the hook for comparing the independents to Stalin, whom the right wing commentariat regularly assure us was a monster? As indeed he was ...

Well I guess it's not Hitler, but there is a corollary to Godwin's Law that firmly establishes comparisons to Stalin require a hearty contribution to the swear jar, as much or maybe more than any ill-use of the word 'mandate'.

The rest of Albrechtsen's column suggests how commentariat columnists intend to frame the debate for the foreseeable future: haystack amigos (borrowed abuse), sham election, own the government, held accountable for their undemocratic decision, consult a dictionary, maladministration, self-interest, told their constituents to take a hike, at odds with their constituents, making sure they remain in the spotlight, media tarts playing kingmakers, enjoying their moment in the sun too much, holier than thou positioning a pretence, tricky language, playing pranks, and worst of all, it turns out that they're elitists:

Politics does not get more elitist than what happened yesterday. The independents use fine rhetoric of grassroots politics, respecting their constituents, supporting their electorates, improving our democracy.

Elites being elitist! Oops, I feel an accent coming on: élitist élites, of a Stalinist kind. There, that feels better, more comfortable if some rural élitist should chance on this text.

Does Albrechtsen ever read Orwell I wonder - okay a dollar in the Orwellian swear jar - and ponder on the meaning of language, and why she feels the need to traduce meaning and sense in her never-ending quest for ideological certitude?

Does she have the first clue that her fevered braying identifies her as an ideological ratbag, filled with the same kind of will to power as ... dare I say it, a conservative communist cadre?

Ouch that hurt, ten bucks in the Godwin's Law Stalinist corollary swear jar ...

It's all so eminently predictable and tawdry and sordid and in the end pathetic.

Well good luck to the independents, and good luck to rural Australia, and I suspect that their returns and benefits can be inversely measured by the extent and nature of Albrechtsen's rage ...

You see, the will to power brigade, the delusional, messianic, maniac, brook no quarter, offer no compromise, get out of my way kind will never be happy, and that lack of happiness bespeaks of a need for therapy.

Put it this way. Between the likes of Tony Windsor and Janet Albrechtsen holding the balance of power, I know which way the pond would jump.

Loons should be kept in their proper position writing therapeutic vents, pieces of hackery for pieces of silver, for the Murdoch press in its relentless crusade against the democratic process, right around the world ...

Which reminds me, since the pond prefers a half full kind of glass, rather than an abusive Stalinist rhetoric kind of glass, here's a couple of pieces worth a read.

There's Jack Shafer's Team Murdoch on Ethics Rupert Murdoch's News of the World lectures the New York Times, which is a hoot, and Christopher Hitchen's Free Exercise of Religion? No, Thanks.:

The taming and domestication of religion is one of the unceasing chores of civilisation.

Both brought to you by the intertubes. Of course the intertubes can also bring you the musings of Tony Blair, and Janet Albrechtsen, but thank the absent lord for choice. A choice exercised by the electorate at the last election, and an interesting result it was, and now on we go ...

Here's hoping the bilious commentariat get over it, and get on with proposing ways to get their own house in order ...

With Wilson Tuckey gone, how long before good old Bronnie, the wretched Kevin Andrews, the eternally irrelevant Philip Ruddock and a few other Howard era hangers-on get tapped on the shoulder, how long before Julie Bishop feels the heavy hand, or the elongated boot, and how long before Jolly Joe gets pushed out of the way by big Mal?

It's going to be fun and games, and here at the pond we hope it's an equal opportunity olympics ...

(Below: speaking of Russia and infrastructure, there's a beguiling set of period photos of Russia in colour from a century ago, here, and that provides links to the Library of Congress source. Ain't the intertubes a wonderful thing, and how sad that conservatism can sometimes mean too much use of the Stalinist rear view mirror).