"Twiggy" Forrest, Janet Albrechtsen, and sage advice for these troubled times ...

(Above: brave Scott Carey battles the Murdoch press in The Incredible Shrinking Truth Machine).

"Twiggy" Forrest this morning on the ABC unveiled a most excellent policy position in relation to taxes.

He's happy, you see, to pay an increased mining royalty, because that will go to teachers and nurses, but he'll get involved in a High Court challenge to the federal tax because it will be going to help out the NBN, and he doesn't like the NBN.

Indeed. The pond at once put in place plans to withhold any and all taxes for fear that they might be going in support of the current folly in Afghanistan, and dammit, likely enough we'll be withholding our rates and taxes as well, since at the moment all it supports is garbagemen who never fully empty the bins ...

No doubt you have you your own pet peeves, so now's the time for action. Tea partiers, to your tea bags, and refuse to pay any taxes that might go to any cause that displeases you ...

By the way, and this is a mere formality, the pond accepts no legal responsibility for any mayhem that ensues, and politely suggests you send any and all legal bills to Twiggy, by letter. We understand a letter addressed on spec to Twiggy of the Overflow will possibly find him, and who knows you might get an answer in writing unexpected, with the same written by a thumbnail dipped in rich mineralised tar ...

Meanwhile, the pond was shocked and appalled to see a rich old biddy attempt to interfere in the policy directions of this great nation.

No sooner had we put the sight of the preposterous Cate Blanchett, filthy rich harlot of stage and screen, preening and poncing around in an advertisement in support of a carbon price, than now we have to deal with Dame Elisabeth Murdoch signing an open letter calling for a price on carbon to help deal with climate change (Murdoch's mother backs carbon price).

We immediately scoured the Murdoch rags for signs of outrage, shock and horror that a billionaire's mum should be so nakedly partisan, but amazingly, the disgusting sight has thus far passed with barely a murmur.

Sure there were a few acknowledgments of this amazing and appalling sight - often by quoting an AAP story - in the Murdoch press, but you had to turn to the evil Fairfax press for the tittering:

Dame Elisabeth's stand is consistent with the stated position on climate change of her son Rupert, but out of step with coverage in his newspapers, as reflected in the front pages of flagships The Australian and Herald Sun yesterday.

While The Australian splashed with a report saying a carbon tax would force eight coal mines to close and cost thousands of jobs, the Herald Sun ''revealed'' that the carbon tax would push up the prices of Mars Bars and McDonald's. (Climate crusader: Dame Elisabeth Murdoch joins public campaign for a price on carbon).

Thank the lord, the real problem was quickly revealed.

The go-between to get Dame Elisabeth out in public was her grandson, Michael Kantor, an artistic director who used to run the Malthouse Theatre.

Well there you go. Another bloody theatrical!

Surely it's time for a tar and feather campaign from the Murdoch press, revealing the extreme depravity of these well-heeled theatrical types, leading hapless old billionaire mum biddies astray, and in to deep ideological waters, supporting an international conspiracy of mad scientists ...

Instead, wouldn't you know it, we get Janet Albrechtsen, and Dame Slap is in fine form in Shrinking Gillard is out of step.

Showing she's adept at movie metaphors, Dame Slap seeks out a horror film for the fifties as a starting point:

In the 1957 movie The Incredible Shrinking Man, the protagonist, Scott Carey, starts to shrink after he is exposed to insecticide and radiation. The smaller he gets, the less respect he commands from his family and friends.

Now you might think that hoary old flick is actually a devastating indictment of the dangers of insecticides - oh for the days when we used to frolic in granddad's DDT-laden asparagus patch - and the evils of contaminated radiation clouds and nuclear energy in general.

And by golly, if you're a fan, you might still love the metaphysical position of the film in relation to man (and woman) presuming on nature.

Spoiler alert as we contemplate the ending's uplifting narration:

Scott Carey: "I was continuing to shrink, to become...what? The infinitesimal? What was I? Still a human being? Or was I the man of the future? If there were other bursts of radiation, other clouds drifting across seas and continents, would other beings follow me into this vast new world? So close - the infinitesimal and the infinite.

But suddenly, I knew they were really the two ends of the same concept. The unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet - like the closing of a gigantic circle. I looked up, as if somehow I would grasp the heavens. The universe, worlds beyond number, God's silver tapestry spread across the night.

And in that moment, I knew the answer to the riddle of the infinite. I had thought in terms of man's own limited dimension. I had presumed upon nature. That existence begins and ends is man's conception, not nature's. And I felt my body dwindling, melting, becoming nothing. My fears melted away. And in their place came acceptance. All this vast majesty of creation, it had to mean something. And then I meant something, too. Yes, smaller than the smallest, I meant something, too. To God, there is no zero.

I STILL EXIST!

Oh indeed, cosmological mysticism of a secular kind, and wary of presuming upon nature and the majesty of creation, with an ending that should be a downer - bummer dude, you're still shrunk - but ends with what the movies love, an upper - hey dude, I might be shrunk, but in an ecstatic way.

Well you won't find any of that in Dame Slap as she takes down Gillard, but okay we'll admit it, we took that detour because of the mind numbing predictability of Dame Slap's put down.

You know there's something sinister going down when Dame Slap can berate Gillard because she believes in some of the same things that Dame Slap accepts are sound policy positions:

... Gillard's problem is still Gillard. Her public positions lack private convictions. From opposing a big Australia, gay marriage and a republic to supporting the flag and the importance of religion, Gillard so obviously echoes voters for no other reason than political gain.

Indeed, and in the usual way, we thought we might apply the same rigorous logic to Albrechtsen:

... Albrechtsen's problem is still Albrechtsen. Her public position on Gillard shows a complete lack of private convictions. Instead of welcoming Gillard's positions on a big Australia, gay marriage and a republic, and singing along with her in support of the flag and the importance of religion, Albrechtsen so obviously takes a contrarian position for no other reason than being a well-heeled commentariat contrarian.

The problem of course is that Gillard's position on various social issues has weakened her status with some of the Labor party base, still ready to dabble with the Greens, and yet she's given no credit for adopting conservative positions by conservatives.

Despite all the pain, it's alleged she does it, not because she believes in such positions, but because it's politically right. But if the political right reject her, is it politically right?

Well there's an old saying that you're damned if you do do, and damned if you doh don't, and Dame Slap knows how to do a bare-knuckle gotcha with the best of them. But personally I can't imagine any reason for agreeing with Dame Slap's positions, unless it's out of conviction. It can't be out of rationality, fair-mindedness and the application of reason ...

Pause to contemplate how you can have a Productivity Commission report suggest that a market based solution would be a damn sight cheaper and more effective than a lumbering direct action campaign in relation to carbon, and yet there's the entire Liberal party and the commentariat lumbering off to a Leninist-Bolshevik position? Truly, it's the incredible shrinking market based philosophy at work ...

And then we come to that old saw, this time with Dame Slap acting as an echo chamber for Nifty Neville Wran, himself a solicitor and then QC, and seemingly by his own logic, therefore an entirely inappropriate member of the Labor party, let alone a leader of it (and yes, he was a member of the Liberal club in his student days):

... Gillard's biggest problem is that she is out of step with the community. As former NSW Labor premier Neville Wran said recently, not enough Labor MPs share the life experiences of those in the wider community. "On our side, it is university, union, ministerial or MP's office and then stand for an election. If you've been in that cloistered world, how can you expect to know what the real world is like; what issues the real people face and the aims and aspirations of those real people?"

Yep, so here you have a lawyer come well paid commentariat member, married to a banker, quoting a lawyer about the cloistered world of people who've gained that ultimate evil, a tertiary education.

Truth to tell, it seems you can only run the country if you've been a bolshie steam engine driver, or perhaps someone who fled the religious cloisters.

Well you certainly can't be Malcolm Turnbull, and you certainly can't be the bunch of silver tails that currently make up the shadow cabinet (and if you don't believe me, take a look at the current shadow cabinet line up here. Is it just a coincidence that Eric Abetz, Tasmanian lawyer, is the first cab off the rank? And sssh, not a word about the legal eagle status of the mincing poodle or George Brandis).

By the end of the hatchet job, Dame Slap is naturally calling for blood:

Voters are not stupid. Gillard is tanking in the polls because her contortions have caught up with her. No one will make a movie about our Incredible Shrinking PM but someone ought to write a short book as a lesson for leaders in what not to do. In the meantime, as Gillard knows only too well, Labor has a history of brutality that the Liberal Party lacks. The ALP doesn't tend to go down with a sinking, shrinking ship. It does something.

Uh huh. Bring it on, but don't you just love the line that Labor has a history of brutality that the Liberal Party lacks?

Can someone please bring Malcolm Turnbull into the room so he can explain the extreme gentility of the Liberal party? Yes, yes, of course, please remove the few remaining knives from the back. Haven't those damn scars cleared up yet?

Meanwhile, we look forward to a movie about Tony Abbott's incredible expanding federal government's direct action policy, and why the commentariat is so enthusiastic about it, when after all, we know climate change is just a vast conspiracy by scientists on the search for grants and careers.

Just ask Dame Elisabeth Murdoch ...

(Below: eek, it's Malcolm Turnbull's personal story, and science is baffled, perhaps because there's no grants or career path involved).