Rupert Murdoch, and warm and safe in the arms of the commentariat at the Oz ...

(Above: those letters. Click to enlarge, but sorry the resolution's still not the best).

Naturally we rushed off to The Australian to get a detailed insight into the latest pickle Chairman Rupert and son James have landed themselves in.

After all, with the London rioters now in the courts, it's time to check up on the activities of other criminals, and the revelation of that redacted letter by former NOTW royal editor and convicted phone tapper Clive Goodman has rocketed around the intertubes, all the way from The Independent with Phone-Hacking: The Smoking Gun to the Financial Review, which seems to be peeping out from its paywall, and allowing access to Lawyers turn on Murdochs, with handy 'explosive' correspondence attached.

Of course for anybody who's ever sat in on an editorial meeting, the idea that a hot story, perhaps a front page lead, could be trotted out, without anyone telling the editor about the source, the legal position, and the chance the paper might have its socks sued off, is a cuckoo cloud notion.

The first question always asked, Larry Olivier style as he prepared to burrow into Dustin Hoffman's tooth, is "Is it safe?" or perhaps "Can we get away with it?" or perhaps "Just how far can we push it? Make sure the lawyers look it over ..."

Just as the chance that the accounts department would process a claim for hundreds or thousands of dollars (or pounds, as the case may be) - without the powers that be signing off on it - is off in pixie land. Try getting a cab fare approved for a story without having a bloody good reason why you shouldn't have caught the bus (freelancers, catch that bike, sharpen those thighs) ...

It was always a cover-up, and the only question was whether there was a way to unveil the smoking gun, draw back the veil on the "I know nothing" culture, whether by way of hard evidence, or by way of disgruntled individuals who suddenly discovered they'd been cut out of the Murdoch empire's pre-emptive compensatory activities designed to ensure silence.

So the chase resumes, and now it's a matter of seeing how far the investigations can take the story up the food chain. Perhaps it will go all the way to the top, or perhaps the fortifications will hold.

Never mind, the hunt's the thing, and no pity for any stray fox caught in the hound's sharp teeth ...

Meanwhile, for dedicated conspiracy theorists, there's much reading. Try A life unravelled ... whistleblower who incurred wrath of the Murdoch empire for a truly seamy story that's been bubbling along for some time.

Lordy, even the Christian Brothers are on the move, as noted in Pressure mounts on Rupert Murdoch, burbling on about social responsibility and ethical investments, and urging chairman Rupert to be replaced as chairman ...

The best defence to date? It seems that chairman Rupert might be "confused", as explained in Murdoch's evidence 'confused', say lawyers (warning - forced advertisement and video at other end of link. Click on at your five second peril).

Yep, the chairman of a multi-billion dollar empire is "confused" ...

While the London riots provided a little breathing space, you can now look around and see almost every rag providing coverage of David Cameron's "catastrophic" judgement in hiring Andy Coulson, along with extensive discussions of the smoking gun provided by Clive Goodman and others.

The conspiracy is now set for a long life, and sure to provide much pleasant reading about an organisation which likes to be pious about criminals in the streets but hasn't done much except attempt various cover-ups of the criminality within the company ...

So what do we get today in that fearless organ of truth The Australian?

Well they do cover the saga, by letting a short story from The Times escape the paywall, Sacked phone hacker Clive Goodman claims secret deal with News betrayed, and dishing up an AP piece James Murdoch set for recall by Commons over phone-hacking scandal.

But in the opinion pages, it's business as usual. There's the reprehensible Gary Johns rabbiting on in the usual way in Convoy a revolt of working people, which is so predictable I have to confess that I nodded off as Johns stroked the rage, fuelled the anger, pretended he was down wit' the tea partiers, and might by end of week, have decided to get a tattoo or three, and forsaken the razor, in his bid to prove he too was a working class hero.

Yep, it's the usual crap about the dangers of "inner-city elegance" and the carbon tax, though not a peep or a murmur about Tony Abbott's direct Marxist-Leninist policy alternative.

When will twits like Johns - a one time professional politician, now academic and full time 'paid for wanking' columnist who's quite possibly spent a fair amount of his working life in suits - stop pretending that they're down on inner-city elegance, and just a tattoo short of being a member of the inelegant lumpenproletariat? And at one with the rough hewn dinkum workers, like Angry Anderson and Pauline Hanson?

Can I still keep my parliamentary super?

Then there's a standard bit of ABC bashing, courtesy of Judith Sloan in Their ABC is just ungovernable, to which all one can say is amen and thank the lord that the ABC couldn't be governed by the likes of Sloan, or else it would have turned into a carbon copy of the beehive publications produced by the minions for Murdoch.

If you ever travel in the wasteland of the United States and try to find an alternative voice, away from the commercial jungle, pity the fate of PBS and NPR, and remember that this is the world the Sloans and the minions would like to visit on the antipodes.

Oh and then there's Greg Sheridan sucking up to that 'authentic liberal voice on China', Christopher Pyne, in Kowtowing to the Chinese on human rights won't earn their respect.

Sheridan is in a rhapsody over the mincing poodle's speech:

The things to like about it were its intellectual rigour and self-confidence, its balance and boldness, its prudence and realism and its robust sense of liberal political values.

Apparently, reading Pyne is roughly equivalent to sipping from the fountain of youth.

Amongst the many flaws of the deviant Chinese government, it seems that it scuppered an agreement on climate change at Copenhagen.

Say what?

Shouldn't we all be grateful - at least if you read the commentariat in the Oz - that they thereby prevented the UN from embarking on a vast international conspiracy with seat-warming, grant-devouring scientists to take over the world, destroy Australia's independence, and turn us all into slaves of the black helicopter ... and for what? A phantasmic, foolish chimera known as climate science!

Which hapless Tony Abbott intends spending billions to fix, or so he says this week. Cue Gary Johns and an angry convoy of revolting people? In your dreams ...

Yep, it'll be up to Tony Abbott to tame the Chinese dragon and solve the problems posed by climate change, by pouring billions down the big business collective throat..

Well done Christopher Pyne, and a hat tip to Greg Sheridan for getting with the program!

Sorry, sometimes reading the welter of confused messages emanating from the commentariat in The Australian makes head hurt.

Hey ho and on we go, and while there's plenty more, let's just be content with visiting the anonymous editorialist at the lizard Oz, and their So much for greening with gas.

Senator Brown and his colleagues have leapt on the anti-gas wagon under cover of support for farmers and rural communities unhappy about the encroachment of coal-seam gas exploration into settled agricultural areas. There are valid questions to be asked about the balance Australia should strike between food and gas production, but the opportunistic assault on gas by the Greens suggests they are less interested in good national land management than in pursuing their own narrow agendas.

Uh huh. The greens are opportunist, unlike the mining companies and state governments content to let the coal seamers run riot.

Sure there are valid questions to be asked, but The Australian's certainly not going to be the one to ask them in an editorial, not while there's a chance to put the boot into the Greens.

Here's hoping that a mining company discovers a rich source of coal-seam gas below Holt street in Surry Hills and gives the whole area a damned good fracking ...

Frack away me hearties, frack 'em high and frack 'em low ...

Meanwhile, if you've reached this point, perhaps you've forgotten all about chairman Rupert and his troubles, and surely that's the whole idea.

See no evil, report as little evil as possible, speak no commentary on evil, except the London rioters and their riotous ways, turn up the heat on the usual suspects - Greenies, elegant inner urban dwellers, the ABC - and all will be well in the world ...

(Below: a few more additions to our collection of Chairman Rupert memorabilia. We've been assured our collection will grow in value as it ages).