Gerard Henderson, a sprinkle of Sarrazin, and shed a tear for the wonderful age of coal ...

(Above: reading from left to right, and wondering about Einstein's genetic makeup).

Mirror mirror on the wall, which is the most irritating television program of all?

Is that some kind of trick question you doofus? With the return of Q&A, Letters and Numbers is swept from the hierarchy like an attention-seeking clown in a small circus, said the irritated, hungover mirror, who'd clearly knocked down a couple of shots just to get through the show.

And with a bizarre guest list involving the likes of Graham "Swiss Bank account" Richardson, and Amanda "I've been to Italy" Vanstone, and David "can I write another sequel and pontificate about women in power" Williamson, and Catherine "I've been sacked by Fairfax for being a loudmouth" Deveny, it was almost a full house.

Then they added Gerard "desiccated coconut" Henderson to the mix, and the joy was complete ... (oh yes the wags assembling the team no doubt remembered Henderson's Disdain from a lofty height in which he reviled the "Brunswick-based" columnist. Filthy contemptible inner city humorist that she is).

Henderson spent the program extolling the joys and wonders of coal, and explaining how without coal the ABC simply couldn't exist. No never mind future alternate technologies, or exciting new ways forward. Instead shed crocodile tears for the common people and celebrate the way the cardigan wearers are kept employed by China and keep on shipping Australia to China until there's nothing left to ship ...

But something was missing. I really think they should get him back on a future program to celebrate the age of steam - without all those trains and boats, it was simply impossible for the ABC to exist - and while he's at it perhaps he could get excited about the iron age and the bronze age and the stone age ...

Seeing as how he's an historian and not a climate scientist, yet seemed to have exceptionally well formed views on climate science ...

Meanwhile, there he is in today's Fairfax rag bravely and boldly confronting another demon in Leaders are right to confront failures of multiculturalism.

Baldly summarised, it's another Muslim bashing outing, but along the way there's much to amuse. Like this bald statement:

Germany continues to seek - and attract - immigrants and remains an accepting society in which no radical right-wing movements have emerged, unlike some other western European nations.

Sssh, whatever you do, don't mention the National Democratic Party, which has been in fine Führer-worshipping fettle these past few years.

Why not take a read of Rise of German Right-Wing Party Evokes Ghosts of Past, from 2005, or perhaps have a read of In Germany, a Disturbing Rise in Right-Wing Violence from 2009, or perhaps Right-Wing Sentiment, Ready to Burst its Dam in the NY Times in September 2010, or contemplate the fine scribbles of banker Thilo Sarrazin:

Into that environment came the book by the banker Thilo Sarrazin, “Germany Does Away With Itself,” which argues that the nation’s generous social benefits have attracted large numbers of Muslim immigrants who have refused to integrate. The book does not address any of the endemic obstacles to integration, like discrimination in employment and mediocre schooling, but instead labels Muslim immigrants as genetically inferior.

Hmm, how to dress Sarrazin up so he doesn't sound too nasty, and conforms to the Henderson thesis?

... Merkel has come to the view that multiculturalism, as practised in Germany, has failed. Thilo Sarrazin, the former governor of the Bundesbank who happens to be a Social Democrat, has reached a similar, if more stridently expressed, opinion.

Happens to be a Social Democrat?

See, with a wave of the magician's wand, no right wingers, just social democrats who sound a little strident. Not that Sarrazin's meant to stay SD, with the party moving to expel him - strange how that happens not to be mentioned - and strangely Henderson also fails to mention how Sarrazin actually jumped the SD shark, as explained in Immigration Provocateur in Germany Crosses the Line:

Over the weekend, Sarrazin went even further. In an interview with Welt am Sonntag, Sarrazin waded into the fraught field of genetics, saying "all Jews share a certain gene, all Basques have certain genes that make them different from other people."

The comment came as he was discussing the identities of different European cultures, but the reference to a Jewish gene has unleashed yet another storm of critique. Such references have been largely taboo in Germany since World War II.

Oh dear. I guess my German blut irrevocably taints me forever.

There's even more Sarrazin here in German's Integration Provocateur Goes English, if you can stand it, on pale and foul smelling civil servants, a dumb rampantly breeding lower class, and scarves, and this:

Kübra asked the author if he was aware of the emotional environment that he has created in Germany. Sarrazin coolly replied: "A Turkish woman who lives in Germany told me some weeks ago, please don't take those aggravations too seriously. Oriental people tend to play with their emotions and love to raise guilt in others. This is a quote from a Turkish woman."

Does he share this assessment, the BBC moderator wanted to know? "This has been my experience over the past five months." Kübra's ultimate question, however, went unanswered: "You have just said a couple of minutes ago that we have to do everything to improve integration," she said. "But how are you going to integrate people if you always alienate them?"

Well indeed, so let's get to work alienating them in Australia, Mr Henderson.

In Australia and the US, multiculturalism has not had such a negative effect.

Say what? But how can we do an antipodean Sarrazin? What a spoilsport ...

But it is reasonable to assume that it might do so one day unless we adopt a muscular approach to the affirmation of democratic rights.

Oh goody goody gumdrops. We must adopt a muscular approach on a 'just in case', 'one day in the future' basis, perhaps crank up the rhetoric that all Muslims share the same gene, and are under productive, under performing, intelligence lowering, dumbing down, over breeding, rampant dole bludgers and rat bags ruining western civilisation as we know it. There, that should produce a muscular move or two ...

Meanwhile, let's blather on about Merkel and Cameron, and talk of a much more active muscular liberalism.

But if we're going to do that, surely the first ratbags we should be tackling are the rampant anti-liberal forces of the nepotic Jensenist heresy, or the strident forces of the Pellist conspiracy ...

Between the 2% of Muslims in Australia, and the dominant anti-women, anti-gay, anti-liberal forces at work in Australia - so threatening those homosexuals - things would be much improved if we just sent all the commentariat commentators to a gulag (perhaps Christmas Island, or at a pinch Antarctica), along with a flock of conservative Christians. Donkey impression: me, me, pick me for the culling ...

When you read Cameron in this context, it's hard not to chortle. According to Henderson:

... he wants Britain to promote "freedom of speech, freedom of worship, democracy, the rule of law, equal rights regardless of race, sex or sexuality".

Does that include the right to gay marriage? Can he have a word with Cardinal Pell? Does that include the right for a woman to decide in relation to abortion? Can he have a word to the fundamentalist Christians? And so on and so forth and etcetera ...

Truth to tell, when you scratch a fundamentalist Islamic and a fundamentalist Christian, they sound awfully and alarmingly alike on many matters, with the only disagreement in their rabid conservative stance tending to revolve around which prophet was the one true messenger ...

And they both believe in pie in the sky by and by, and therefore think it's quite hunky dory to die in the killing fields in honour of some mindless, blood clotted crusade ...

You always get a craven, sideways admission in the kind of tosh scribbled by Henderson - you know "Islam is a magnificent religion" - because the alternative would be to note that Islam is as dumb a religion as Christianity. Which would lead to a pox on both houses, which simply won't do old chum ...

But what's even more irritating is the posturing of the likes of Henderson as standing for intellectual freedom, while leftist utopians refuse to inculcate new settlers with any sense of national pride or patriotism, as if celebrating the killing of Turks at Gallipoli is a sure fire way to integrate Turks into the national traditions ...

How about thanking them for adding dolmas and kababs to the otherwise painful to suffer three vegies and lamb chops? Yum, dolmas ...

Ah but it turns out that the Turks are okay ...

From the late 1960s Australia began taking Turkish migrants on the understanding they would become Australian citizens. The Turks proved to be successful settlers; in Germany, on the other hand, little attempt has been made to integrate Muslim immigrants into German society.

Sssh, don't mention the Lebanese, and never mind that we were friendly with the Lebanese who ran the menswear stores in the north west way back when, or that their cheap friendly food later got me through a university degree ...

You see they were Christian Lebanese ... And we're in the business of demonising and bashing the Islamics ... Sure, it's only a minority of a minority, but these days you can't pick on the blacks any more, there's too many black arm bands around, and sadly the more recent rounds of migrants - including the Vietnamese - have survived the bile and the prejudice, and the Chinese ... Well they're busy buying up Australia ... but who can blame them?

Okay, enough already, here's the thing. It's taken long long years for western secularists to break down the blind or blinkered excesses and prejudices of the conformist conservative followers of Jesus, and each year there threatens to be an outbreak of conformist backward thinking. Along with blind irrational picking on minorities who don't conform to the wonders of the Judaic Christian (read god worshipping Greek and Roman) tradition.

In America it's taken a long painful time to get 18% of Americans secular enough to remember the real implications of the founding fathers, and their separation of state and religion, or even to remember some were atheists ...

And it really sticks in the craw to have Henderson and his ilk rabbit on about freedom of speech, when it seems the freedom is to indulge in rampant nationalism, or the notion of equal rights regardless of race, sex or sexuality, when the cohorts regularly battle against such rights, or even worse, get to rabbit on this way about how a:

... small minority of Islamists reject the West while choosing to live within Western societies, where they enjoy economic, political and religious freedoms along with health and social security benefits.

If you celebrate health and social security benefits in the United States, you're a pervert pinko commie socialist liberal, and you don't have to go too far amongst the commentariat in Australia to find the Medicare underminers, the private hospital, private medicine, private doctoring supporters, and the dole bludger, anti-handout bashers. And they're not a small minority of Islamists. They're a bunch of well paid professional commentariat whingers ...

Well there you go, still February, and Henderson and Q&A have induced their usual frenzy.

If only he'd stick to a muscular approach to the affirmation of the democratic right of coal to pollute the world ... and go live in Shanghai to enjoy the benefits in the foul smelling, lump laden air ...

(Below: an even better approach to mining).