The Australian, and all the way from Pom bashing to a latte led recovery ...

(Above: just some graffiti observed on a walk in Newtown, or the sinister slogan of choice for The Australian's opinion pages?)

As The Australian's relentless war on the NBN continues to maintain the rage, each day there are fresh new astonishing insights and potent questions being asked.

Today it's John Daley's turn, in NBN won't spur on the regions:

Expectations for the National Broadband Network are high. But will it drive a boom in regional employment? Or are better coffee shops more important?

A latte lead recovery! A latte way forward! Take that, you commentariat commentators, with your latte hating fixations about sophisticate inner west elites. What the bush needs to do is turn into Balmain. And learn not to cry ...

But enough with the drivel, right down there with the quality of comment expected in the lizard Oz in any NBN opinion piece, we've got a fish and chip led boom in international nonsense to fry, and so it's over to another Gary Johns for ALP's road to hell paved with phony intentions:

Cameron is a caricature of the whingeing-Pommy shop steward. Born near Glasgow, he makes a good fist of being a graduate of Scottish cracker culture: belligerent and ignorant.

Say what? A Scot is a whingeing Pom? Well, it might be the ignorant view of wiki compilers that Pom evokes the Celts - Irish, Scots and Welsh - along with the English - Alternative names for the British - but not from my time in the ethnic wars, when it was first port of refuge for Scots and the Irish to call out the whingeing Poms in the midst of dinkum denizens of Oz.

But Johns' effort - a fine boofhead kick to the head - takes us back to the day when a simple bout of verbal abuse was enough to slay any enemy:

Australian history is a bigoted one, in which at first the convict hated the free settlers who followed them, and then these early Aussie workmen hated the Pommy bastards who followed, because they feared the newcomers might pinch their jobs, and then everybody hated the Wops, Wogs, Frogs, Huns, Chows and Japs and anyone else they could describe in a one-syllable name. (Donald Horne, here)

And Johns goes on to compound the crime:

Pity his namesake, British Prime Minister David Cameron, who wishes he could be rid of the lot of them (the Conservatives hold just one of 50 seats from Scotland). Indeed, letting Scotland go from the Commons would leave the Conservatives in power on their own. I bet Gillard wishes she could do the same with Doug.

Well there's a fine example of playing the man's ideas rather than the man, and so it leaves us just enough time to note that Johns, imported into England from the Holy Land by the Crusaders of the 12th century, is these days considered as English as any going about.

Which leads to the bizarre sight of a whingeing Pom whingeing about a whingeing Pom whingeing in the antipodes ...

What next? Well perhaps we can assess Jolly Joe Hockey's socialistic approach to the banks on the basis of his father hailing from Bethlehem, with an Armenian and Palestinian background, and a family name that originally sounded like Hokeidonian (here, at his wiki).

Yes, Johns introduces a whole new meaning to the notion of "elevated discourse":

If Labor cannot mount a convincing case to govern in the broad interest, it will slide into hell.

Actually hell is reading a Gary Johns' column, with its blather about penance, and its spooky references to Rudd's daughter's novel.

What else when we go down the rabbit hole of The Australian's opinion pages?

Well, there's a classic editorial Costello must accept the facts, quoting Piers Akerman as an expert while shoving it up Costello and urging him to accept the facts. Dear sweet absent lord, Akker Dakker as a columnist in possession of the facts ...

It seems that John Howard all along had every intention of relinquishing power, as demonstrated conclusively in the way in he eventually relinquished power.

Whenever you read the word "facts" in an editorial in The Australian, it's time to reach for the Glock.

Meanwhile, if hitting yourself over the head with a baseball bat isn't offering its usual joy, you can read in Power-hungry activists push up our power prices how the environmental activists are a real worry, and how Kristina Keneally is their dupe, and how we need a price on carbon, and how John Howard, as always, is the solution:

The conservatives should remember John Howard had a plan for an emissions trading scheme. There is a strong case for a market-based plan to price carbon rather than selective subsidies.

Que? A strong case? How things have changed since the lizard Oz did its gecko routines in an editorial back in 2007, Let the great debate on climate continue:

It will be interesting, decades from now, to look back on the climate change debate. There is every chance we will regard today's headlines with the same bemusement with which we view the apocalyptic predictions of Thomas Malthus or the Club of Rome.

Well there's every chance of the same bemusement from reading The Australian's editorials. And you only need a couple of years - perhaps a couple of weeks - to look back on the editorial headlines with the same bemusement with which you might view the apocalyptic predictions of Christians reading the Bible.

But on we go, with a hey nonny no.

The Oz's surreal prognostication regarding the current battle in Victoria between the Labor party and the Greens?

... there can only be upside for conservatives as Labor becomes increasingly hostage to the Greens and flails about in search of a direction. The more Labor moves to the Left, the more voters in the centre, who traditionally decide elections, will be tempted to move to the Right. (here)

Is that why jolly Joe Hockey has turned into a tea bagger bashing the banks?

Well as a coda to all this, which somehow ties it all together in a handsome bundle of contradictory absurdities, we turn to The Oz story John Howard urged contender to stick with the emissions trading scheme:

Joe Hockey has revealed John Howard urged him to stick by the ETS when he went to the former PM to discuss his tilt at the leadership last year.

"I took advice from him - during the leadership issue, I went to see him about an ETS policy and he said the Liberal Party can't walk away from an ETS," he said.

Uh huh. Why that's right in line with The Australian's astonishing discovery of a strong case for a market-based carbon price. But what happened?

Mr Hockey's revelations about Mr Howard's advice comes after the former Liberal leader criticised the opposition Treasury spokesman's stance on emissions trading during the Liberal leadership crisis.

"Joe Hockey failed to win the leadership, despite strong evidence at one point that he was the favoured candidate, because of his foolish decision to offer Liberal MPs a free vote on the ETS," Mr Howard writes in his memoirs, Lazarus Rising, released on Tuesday.

"It was a mainstream economic issue, thus requiring any leadership aspirant to have a clear attitude, one way or the other."

Oops jolly Joe. Stitched up and sold down the creek. Remember Joe, stick to the facts ... John Howard was, is and will be always right. Now shape up or ship out like Peter Costello, who simply didn't muscle up ...

And remember more latte supplying shops is the way forward for the Australian economy, and whatever you do, don't get tagged as a whingeing wog from overseas ...

Yep, it's another day in the stew they call the opinion pages of The Australian.

Now for a nice hot shower ... for two minutes, thanks to those deviant greens, and their ability to wreck the NSW economy, in a way utterly unmatched by the current NSW Labor government ...

And if you believe them facts, you can go frolic in a mud bath ... or keep reading The Australian.

(Below: and speaking of Brumby versus the Greens, loon pond likes Pike liking Melbourne. If Pike likes public housing, perhaps Pike might like to live in the high rises of Fitzroy or

Windsor).