Janet Albrechtsen, activist judges, activist media moguls and NSW in crisis ...

(Above: hello, the lap poodle all in white is missing).

Amazing scenes in the backyard of the pond.

State Liberal leader Barry O'Farrell and his treasurer Mike Baird have managed to produce a budget with a proposed deficit of $718 million. (Treasurer's balancing act - warning, forced video at other end of link). What's more, the budget proposes to increase mining royalties, to the considerable irritation of the federal government.

Amazingly the sky hasn't fallen in, the mining industry hasn't collapsed, the commentariat are mute, and the extent of actual infrastructure commitment continues to be debated, but surely for pure comedy gold, look no further than the sight of opposition leader moaning about a hundred million investment to rail infrastructure as a waste - when the Labor government pissed hundreds more on a metro that never saw light of day.

Meanwhile, the pond is standing by with smelling salts for tea partiers and their kin who think state and national economies should be run like households, and mere talk of a deficit is akin to theological heresy. How shocking to think the Liberal party houses such heresy ...

It's alright dearies, just take a deep breath.

In further astonishing news, it's been confirmed that Tony Blair is an actual godfather. The pond had always thought of Blair as a kind of middle east baseball-bat wielding thuggee godfather - a bit like when Robert De Niro pulls out a baseball bat at a dinner party in The Untouchables.

But it turns out that Blair is also godfather to Rupert Murdoch's daughter, and it's hard know who to pity more, the daughter, or the separation of media and politics into discrete worlds.

Naturally the British press is agog at the naked cavorting and co-mingling of powerful juices, as you can discover by reading Godfather Tony, Murdoch's top crony, or Henry Porter's Tony Blair is godfather to Murdoch's daughter? Now it all makes sense ...

Throw in David Cameron entrapped in his own silken web, and what a pretty stench arises ...

Murdoch is the single most corrosive individual influence in this country since the war.

No, Porter's not talking about Australia or the United States, but we'll let the judgement stand.

Meanwhile, James Murdoch has insisted he's been telling the truth all along, as unveiled in Murdoch hits back over hack claims. The question now is whether the hacks hung out to dry will continue to hack away at his claims about the hacking scandal ...

Lastly, and sadly most unimportantly, as predicted a full 24 hours ago by the pond, Janet Albrechtsen has indeed written a column about activist judges today, in High Court gets on its high horse, flexing its interventionist muscle.

Somehow we just knew the topic would be irresistible to her.

Now you might think the pond is blessed with the power of future vision, a veritable antipodean Delphic oracle, but how would this explain the routine failure of the lottery ticket business plan designed to secure a farm in France and an apartment in New York? The last prize - a full fifteen bucks - doesn't cut it ...

You might think that the pond is in reality a mole deep within the bowels of the Murdoch minion empire, and had a tip off in advance of the column hitting the digital street, but we're just a blowfly sitting on the heap of detritus produced by the empire on a daily basis.

Sadly, truth to tell, it's just an indication of the complete predictability of the bees under the bonnet buzzing away in Albrechtsen's brain.

Naturally Albrechtsen's buzzing bees want to have it both ways, seeking to blame Labor for appointing activist judges, but then admitting that some Liberal appointees also swung the way of an activist judgement in relation to the matter of the Malaysian solution (is it something in the water or the wine that infects you when you sit down to discuss a measure with an activist judge, and now the whole bench has gone feral activist?)

Of course, last week's case involved judges also appointed by the Howard government and concerned a section of the Migration Act not previously interpreted by the High Court. French and the other majority judges were entitled to find as they did. But their decision is, without a doubt, a more activist one than the decision reached by the dissenting judge, Dyson Heydon.

Yep, they were entitled to find as they did, but you should always remember that a sense of entitlement leads to horrendous activism.

Naturally, writing this kind of column requires a special kind of balance, rather like the leaning tower of Pisa (please be sure to stand so that it looks like the tower is leaning heavily to the right).

It's important to deplore left-wingers politicising the high court, and appointing activist judges and gloating about their success:

When French was announced as the new Chief Justice of the High Court in July 2008, left-wing lawyers were delighted. This was, according to lawyer Greg Barns, the moment when the Rudd government began "the task of wresting the High Court back from the conservatives who have dominated the bench for the past decade". Barns crowed that French would "make the rabid anti-judicial activists seethe with rage".

At the same time, it's important to celebrate impartial appointments which don't in any way involve politicising the high court, provided said appointments are of a suitable right wing hue, and are activist judges in the right direction:

The neat irony is that the only judge who found in the government's favour was the one who would never get appointed by a Labor government. Heydon, appointed by the Howard government, is regarded as the most intellectually gifted and judicially proper of the High Court judges.

Yes, everyone else on the High Court simply can't cut it up against the regard bestowed by that most intellectually gifted and judicially proper columnist Janet Albrechtsen.

And at the same time, it's important to gloat in a seemly way - soul clap hands and dance with joy - at the way the activist judges have skewered the Labor party, sent them into a rage, and likely as not will see them appoint conservative lap dogs in the next few years to make sure the court is completely neutered, and the executive can hold absolute sway to do as it will with the country.

You see, it seems the High Court is completely out of touch with middle Australia, unlike Janet Albrechtsen.

Now you might turn to a recent poll and wonder what she's been taking:

The public's position is in contrast with that of the Labor Party and coalition, who both advocate processing in a third country.

The Herald/Nielsen poll of 1400 people showed 53 per cent of people prefer onshore processing, with 28 per cent saying they felt refugees should be sent to another country.

Of the 53 per cent, 55 per cent said those processed in Australia should be held in detention and 41 per cent said refugees should be able to live in the community while their claims are assessed. (Public backs onshore asylum processing).

Well we all know that activist pollsters have a hidden agenda, and so while routine polling is a way of life for The Australian as it pertains to Julia Gillard's need to leave office by 5 pm this Friday, it should never be taken seriously.

Otherwise you might have trouble keeping your tongue in cheek while scribbling this kind of rhetorical flourish:

... the problems the Gillard government confronted last week will also potentially confront a future Labor government. And that potential is all the more real when you consider that a prime minister must formulate policies that win over middle Australia.

The High Court, on the other hand, has no such democratic constraints and more than once we have seen judges and courts in this country defer to the apparent brilliance of their own progressive minds. Nowhere is the divide between the progressive mind-set and that of middle Australia more evident than when it comes to immigration. Exhibit 1: the glee of Labor's Left faction, refugee lawyers and activists about the High Court decision and its demand, based on misplaced compassion, for an end to offshore processing.

Yep, no need to deal with a mere poll, because after all News Corp columnists have no need of democratic constraints, and are always ready to reveal the apparent brilliance of their conservative minds. Exhibit 1: the glee at the irony of activist High Court judges taking a different view to a Labor government, and somehow pinning all this on a progressive mind set.

Lordy, could 53% of Australians like coffee?

Well we could go on like this all day, but truth to tell, when Janet Albrechtsen begins to write about compassionate outcomes, we almost faint in disbelief. Talk about misplaced compassion.

Instead we quietly thank the lord that Tony Blair is a godfather, NSW rests safely as it plunges into deficit, and mining royalties can be lifted at the stroke of a ministerial pen.

The only thing that keeps us awake at night are those dastardly activist judges who seem to have penned a judgement on the basis of reading Herald/Nielsen polls.

Seems they're not just activists, but populists seeking to conform to middle Australia's opinions.

Where will it all end?

Give them a good whacking Dame Slap, whack them long and hard, and surely the day will come when you get appointed to the highest bench in the land and show us what judicial activism is all about ...

(Below: yes that's the right kind of activist tilt. Please, if you ever see a photo of the tower of Pisa tilting to the left, turn to the activist judge next to you, and blame him or her for the travesty).