Paul Colgan, and why there's a need for better comedy stylings in the punch drunk out-house of the House of Murdoch ...

How to get a slow Sunday off to an even more turgid start?

Why not start with Tony Abbott's It's time for a positive opposition?

In it, in his usual Dr. No way, Abbott delivers up this as an analysis of the NBN:

No responsible government would spend $43 billion on a nationalised broadband network without a cost-benefit analysis. Because the government is buying and switching off Telstra's existing network, Australians who want fixed-line access will have to use the new system regardless of whether they want it, need it or can afford it.

Mourning the passing of copper? Dear sweet absent lord ... What next?

A scribble mourning the passing of the eight track, the VHS machine, analogue television, and the LP? Never mind, they each have their devotees. Perhaps someone could arrange to keep a copper connection to Abbott's house, on the off chance he wants it, needs it and can afford it ... And I still have a stack of LPs, including rare exotic Frank Zappa albums, should he want to get sentimental about the music he listened to while training for the priesthood.

Speaking of cost benefit analysis, now seems as good a time as any to link to this tidy scribble by Possum Comitatus on Cost Benefit delusions of the NBN. The next time you read a commentariat commentator rabbiting on about a cost analysis - you can do it on an almost daily basis in The Australian as they do their NoBroNo routine - it might be worth diving back into the Possum's words, as a reminder that there are other ways to look at the world than allowed in the House of Murdoch.

At least being Dr. No pays dividends in one area. Come on down Stephen Conroy and your most peculiar and unsavoury addiction to Orwellian filter crimes against humanity ...

Meanwhile, in the eternal quest for comedy amongst commentariat commentators, the golden shining path took me to Paul Colgan's punch drunk conversation A real paradigm shift: comics become political leaders.

Colgan seems vaguely disturbed, even troubled by the way that Colbert has organised a 'maintain the fear' march, to coincide with Jon Stewart's 'regain some sanity' routine. After getting mildly anxious about the Tea party madness gripping America, Colgan strikes a red raw poker into the heart of the posturing comedians:

But on the other side of the ledger it should be equally thought-provoking for America’s small-l liberals and progressives that a couple of comedians are now at the vanguard of a fightback movement against the continuing political purchase of the Tea Party.

Thought-provoking? Why it was years ago that the Reader's Digest established that laughter is the best medicine.

Then in his own bid for comedy gold, Colgan delivers up this profound insight:

If you’ve been paying even cursory attention to what’s been going on in the US lately this might not all come a huge surprise, but take a step back and think about how this situation would be replicated here. The Australian equivalent would be, say, broadcaster Alan Jones leading a march to Parliament House, and then Hamish & Andy staging a sit-in in response.

Cursory attention? Here's a rough cursory response. Hamish and Andy are a couple of gits, of a tragically unfunny kind unless you happen to be a fey young hipster accountant, and Alan Jones is about as serious as you can expect from anyone who has trouble working out what's a comment for cash ... or how much of an affinity said anyone might have working out what they might have in common with the late, much lamented Joe Orton.

By way of contrast, Colbert manages to consistently maintain an uber right wing persona with grand comic skills, and Jon Stewart provides the most comprehensive 'Media Watch' available on any kind of television. And does it with more skill, insight - and a dash of liberal skew - than the local Media Watch could manage in fifteen years of 15 minute programming.

But the most amazing moment in Colgan's temporary lapse into drivel - or insanity - as he attempts to deal with the rally to restore sanity, or maintain fear and insanity?

This is in response to last month’s rally led by conservative commentator Glenn Beck calling for a restoration of “traditional values” to American life.

That's right, he thinks Glenn Beck is a conservative commentator calling for a return to traditional values. As opposed to a rodeo clown armed with a blackboard and chalk, ever ready to sell gold and fear, and hysteria, and a chief and major disgrace in the House of Murdoch, where shame knows no bounds.

Even Beck understands he's a clown, and understands that up against Stewart he's just a fair average clown:

"I think he's funny. Quite honestly I think he should write me a check. I don't think there's anybody on radio or television that makes more jokes about themselves than me. I've tried to get Frank Caliendo -- who does a great me, I mean really, really well -- I've tried to get him on the show to do the chalkboard and mock me himself. There's a lot of stuff to make fun of." (here).

Damn right, there's a lot to make fun of.

If you took it seriously, you'd be slumping into a fixation with a modern day Father Couglin figure. If monomania was the pond style, we'd have more than enough to scribble about on a daily basis courtesy of one of Beck's monstrous rants and weird, out there, psychedelic performances. Sometimes he makes the old time acid rant seem positively staid ...

But hey in America, that's what passes for entertainment in America:

With a deadpan, Beck insists that he is not political: "I could give a flying crap about the political process." Making money, on the other hand, is to be taken very seriously, and controversy is its own coinage. "We're an entertainment company," Beck says. (Glen Beck Inc)

And yes he's a very rich entertainer, as you'll discover if you click through to that Forbes piece, as well as a member of a cult.

Well, here at the pond, we like to think that anyone who drinks the Joseph Smith Jr. kool aid is a member of a cult.

But enough already. More than enough attention has been paid to Glenn Beck, to help make him and Fox News and Rupert Murdoch that much richer.

What's most funny, in a funny peculiar way, is how Colgan has drunk the House of Murdoch kool aid, and thinks juxtaposing a clown like Beck up against Stewart's clowning somehow equals serious conservative commentator up against comedian.

Pure comedy gold for Australia. Then Colgan throws in this bit of condescension:

That rally, held on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, was well-attended by members of the Tea Party movement, a loose anti-taxation, anti-establishment grassroots movement which has just managed to get some of its members installed as Republican candidates for the US Senate.

D'uh. Or is that d'oh. Or is it sheesh? Is the punch drunk conversation at The Punch pitching itself to ten year old parochials completely unaware of what's happening in the United States these days?

Thank the lord for the intertubes, which offers up Stewart and Colbert for free, and if you have a cast iron gut, the rodeo clown and class comedian Glenn Beck as well (tune into his radio show stream, and you too can become a first class gibbering paranoid idiot within a week, or your money back).

Thank the absent lord for the intertubes which allows alternative insights into the world, and provides a convenient way around the world view of the House of Murdoch.

Now if only Abbott can be persuaded to fix broadband in this country in a sensible way, instead of more cost benefit pieties and Dr. No'isms, and Conroy persuaded to abandon his filter.

As for Paul Colgan? Well we appreciate that he's heavily into the House of Murdoch kool aid, and we treasure his attempt to maintain the Glenn Beck insanity, but could he please just stand aside, or stand down, or hit the late night comedy clubs with his routine ...

Meanwhile, pass me some more of those comedy routines by Stewart and Colbert, as good as any political insights going around these days, exponents of real truthiness, and way better than Colgan's comedy stylings ...

(Below: if only we had a blackboard and some chalk).