Monday, and four more years of everything looms ...

(Above: five Ayn Rand followers on a train. More xkcd here).

You have to think Mitt Romney's campaign to become president of the United States didn't die with his love of stories about a mythical set of golden plates, but with his outrageous show of defiance, as outlined in Mitt Romney On Climate Change: 'The World Is Getting Warmer ... Humans Have Contributed'.

Climate change is real? The world is getting warmer? Humans have contributed?

Wash out your mouth Mitt.

You mean there's no vast international conspiracy by scientists, or alternatively it's not the latest excuse for evil left-wing socialist latte sippers to take control of peoples' lives?

Clearly the man is as mad as a march hare, but luckily he's not as mad as the generally grumpy Paul Sheehan rabbiting on about NSW state politics in Democracy in a state of denial.

Sheehan is outraged that the upper house of the NSW parliament should have indulged in a talk fest, a gab fest, a filibuster, when as everyone knows, in an ideal democracy, everyone shuts up and is silent as the executive runs roughshod over the rights and opinions of the citizenry - an ideal form of democracy practised for years by the state Labor party and now emulated in fine style by the new Liberal government.

The details of this latest prank are as tedious to citizens outside NSW as news of Mike Rann's decline and fall in South Australia, and so we rush quickly to the end where gloomy General Sheehan announces:

.... we'll never hear the end of this. On Saturday, as the guillotine was finally brought down on debate, union members milled outside on Macquarie Street. Most were teachers. Expect four years of class war.

Those damn pesky socialist teachers, always ready to indulge in class war.

The pond takes an even gloomier view:

.... we'll never hear the end of this. On Saturday, as the guillotine was finally brought down on debate, commentariat journalists milled outside on Macquarie Street. Most were well-heeled, well paid members of inner urban city elites always arguing on behalf of the conservative cause. Expect four years of Generalissimo Paul Sheehan rabbiting on about class war.

Moving right along, can we now just pause to honour David Penberthy's stunning and insightful 13 eminent plumbers speak out on the carbon tax.

Next week I understand that Penberthy will be running an equally helpful 13 eminent circus clowns speak out on the carbon tax, followed by the equally remarkable 13 eminent Murdoch journalists speak out on the carbon tax. Eventually I understand the entire series will be worked up into an off-Broadway musical, entitled 13 ways to leave your carbon tax lover. It's probably going to run for four years ...

Never mind. Turning to international parts of the pond, we were pleased to discover that at last some followers of Ayn Rand have discovered that she was a fierce atheist, and that this is in complete contradistinction to the routine blather about Christianity emanating from admirers like Paul Ryan.

Equally problematic, she was pro-choice, and as noted in these pages, she also turned to social security and the then equivalent of Medicare in her old age, using a name which helped disguise the fate of her creed of selfishness and objectivism.

All this is well enough recorded, but the United States is a land where the past is forgotten, or cherry picked to suit the politics of the moment, so it's pleasing to see Paul Ryan cop a little grief, as noted in Paul Ryan's Ayn Rand Problem.

Thus far he's been followed by a young Catholic activist trying to hand him a bible and urging him to pay attention to the Gospel of Luke, and a naughty bunch called the American Values Network have put together a television commercial relating to Ayn Rand and the GOP:

Of course the pond has no problem with atheists, or atheist values, though the defiant messianism of Rand believing she'd created a new morality sits oddly with her trotting off to social security in old age.

But then that's always the way. The young think they will inherit the earth, and wear a shield of invincibility, and then they discover what a tattered, wretched earth they've inherited ... and before you know it, they're off with Ayn Rand, standing the social security queue.

What's truly pleasing is the discomfiture of Republican politicians delivering standard cant about Christian values while worshipping at the feet of an atheist.

Only in America and occasionally in the House of Ming the Merciless, where people fear no contradiction to their righteousness (and so you get Ayn Rand, philosopher and novelist, sounding alarm bells about environmentalism as she's approvingly quoted in Bad Science, Bad Policy).

And now in celebration of Mitt Romney running for president, what better way to start off the week than with a song celebrating Mormon values:

Elder Price:
Ever since I was a child I tried to be the best
So what happened?
My family and friends all said I was blessed
So what happened?
You're supposed to be all so excited to be teaching of Christ cross the sea
I can't allow my faith to be shaken
Oh what's the matter with me?

I've always longed to help the needy,
To do the things I never dared,
This was the time for me to step up
So then why was I so scared?

A warlord who shoots people in the face.
What's so scary about that?
I must trust that my Lord is mightier
And always has my back.
Now I must be completly devout
I can't have even one shred of doubt...

I Believe: that the Lord, God, created the universe
I Believe: that He sent His only Son to die for my sins
And I Believe: that ancient Jews built boats and sailed to America
I am a Mormon
And a Mormon just believes

You cannot just believe part way,
You have to believe in it all.
The problem is doubting the Lord's will
Instead of standing tall

I can't allow myself to have any doubt
It's time to set my worries free
Time to show the world what Elder Price is about!
And share the power inside of me...

I Believe: that God has a plan for all of us
I Believe: that plan involves me getting my own planet
And I Believe: that the current President of The Church, Thomas Modson, speaks directly to God
I am A Mormon
And dang it! a Mormon just believes!

I know that I must go and do
The things my God commands
I realize now why He sent me here

You ask the Lord in faith
He will always answer you
Just believe in Him
And have no fear!

I Believe: that Satan has a hold of you
I Believe: that the Lord, God, has sent me here
And I Believe: that in 1978 God changed his mind about black people!
You can be a Mormon
A Mormon who just believes!

And now I can feel the excitement
This is the moment I was born to do
And I feel so incredible
To be sharing my faith with you

The Scriptures say that if you ask anything
God Himself will know
But you must ask Him without any doubt
And let your spirit grow...

I Believe: that God lives on a planet called Kolob
I Believe: that Jesus has his own planet as well
And I Believe: that the Garden of Eden was in Jackson County, Missouri
You can be a Mormon: you'll feel it
And you'll know it's all true: you just... feel it
You'll be a Mormon
By gosh!
A Mormon just...
Believes!

Between four years of class warfare, four more years of stories of the thoughts of Australian plumbers, four years of Christians who believe implicitly in atheists, and four years of poor old Mitt Romney being clobbered for Kolob and climate change, the wacky zany future of the pond seems set in concrete ...