It's gold, gold, gold for the Brucers ... along with lots of gossip ...

(Above: watch the hands, watch the hands).

So here's a pleasant note to start the day.

Not only did Peter 'the smirk' Costello set the Reserve Bank free of regulatory oversight, he's as proud as punch of his achievement, as he explains in Key to unearthing facts in Securency case:

In 1996, on behalf of the government, I entered into an agreement with the governor of the Reserve to give it much greater independence.

We keed, we keed. 'The smirk' isn't talking about letting the Reserve and its subsidiary Securency play fast and loose in the matter of international bribery:

From then on the government has taken no role in the setting or announcement of the official cash rate. But such power could not be given to a statutory body without some mechanism to ensure public accountability.

For the rest of the column, there's a lot of harumphing and puffing and blowing hard about the way the smirk knew nothing about corruption within the Reserve's operations:

It is now alleged that some of the contracts that were obtained by the polymer company - Securency International - may have involved the payment of irregular commissions. I have no knowledge of the facts behind such claims. Certainly the Reserve reported no suspicion of wrongdoing to me in the period I was treasurer up to November 2007.

Bring that man a bowl of water, he needs to wash his paws.

Oh hang on a tic, he's already washed his paws:

If there were any doubt about how these laws could render conduct in faraway places to be a crime in Australia, it would have been dispelled by the highly-publicised dealings of the AWB in relation to wheat exports to Iraq. A (then) little-known Labor frontbencher by the name of Kevin Rudd conducted a vigorous campaign to try to implicate the Coalition government in a ''wheat for weapons'' scandal. Eventually the Coalition called a royal commission on the matter. In 2006 it completely exonerated ministers in the government.

Yes, yes, nothing to do with the government.

All this talk of regulation and oversight and the buck stopping in the kitchen where it gets very hot is so tetchy and petty-minded. Never mind that if you cultivate a climate away from regulation and oversight, and let loose the pretties, who knows how far the pretties will fly.

It's one of the greater absurdities, the way that the de-regulators routinely use their deregulatory activities to absolve themselves of any responsibility, when the greatest responsibility of all was not to get themselves into a position of absolving themselves of responsibility.

The buck has to stop somewhere, and in the Westminster system, it should stop with the likes of Costello. The fact that Costello presided over a rort unknowingly - adopting the three wise monkey philosophy - says it all ... and ditto the wheat scandal, where the government of the day and its minions got off lightly, because that's what happens within the gentleman's club of politics ...

In the world of the free market libertarian fantasists, regulation is a bad thing and onerous. In the world of reality, people free of regulation are apt to stretch their wings and do naughty things. If the smirk taught the world one thing, it was the limits of its deregulatory fantasy life.

And another thing.

Followers of pundits will be pleased to see Paul "Chicken Little" Sheehan in best 'the sky is falling', 'there might be aliens' form in Population clock is ticking for O'Farrell.

Put simply and shortly - Colonel Grumpy goes on interminably - there's too many people in Sydney and Melbourne and too many people in Australia.

It's just as well Sheehan doesn't live in Beijing which at 20 million plus is only a few million off the total population of Australia. Maybe Shanghai at 13.5 million would be more to his taste.

Anyhoo, Mr. Little is terribly worried about the NSW government, and its approach to public transport. It seems it can't even produce a north-west rail link. It seems there are too many cars in the city.

It all sounds dangerously Clover Moore, though there were no signs of Sheehan in plus fours on a bicycle.

Not to worry. The pond will be by-passing such minor traffic difficulties by travelling to Canberra by car, to alight at Bazza O'Farrell's visionary siting of the second airport for Sydney ...

And another thing.

Yesterday the pond was flicking through Fairfax online and came across this, under the header For her own sake, PM should explain.

Was it mere opinion?

Yep, that's what it said. Or was it something else?

Oops. It was an opinionated editorial!

Even more sadly, the editorial turns out to be regurgitated re-hashing of ideas coming directly to Fairfax via the Brucers at The Australian.

Today, as is their wont, the Brucers are out in force at The Australian, hunting in unison as a rabid pack, evoking the feeling of what it would be like to be a fox at the other end of a feral gaggle of baying hounds.

The crusade continues!

A special commendation must go to that top Brucer Ean Higgins for a first class bit of Brucing with An old flame faded into black (behind the paywall, but hey you know how to google).

The salivating Brucer Higgins delivered a number of poetic insights, but none top this one:

...what is certain is that while Ms Gillard's political career reached the top, Mr Wilson achieved, at least until now, his self-sacrificing goal of fading out of sight. While Ms Gillard hosts state dinners at The Lodge for Barack Obama, Mr Wilson helps cook the $6.90 "Bingo Buster" pensioner special on bingo nights at the Fingal Bay Sports Club on the NSW mid-north coast.

By golly those investigative Brucers would head off to Hawaii if it thought it would bring them closer to the truth and the birther conspiracy.

But please don't be depressed:

The Australian yesterday caught up with Mr Wilson as he briefly ventured out of his comfortable modern apartment with a superb view out over the sea and mountains around Fingal Bay to collect the morning newspaper.
He declined to speak, but some of his colleagues at the club, all of whom spoke warmly of Mr Wilson, were more forthcoming.

He declined to speak! All that colour and movement, and the central figure in black wouldn't break his silence. Oh it breaks a tabloid's heart:

According to the manager, Mr Wilson is sad and regretful, but not bitter, that the political fortunes of the former couple moved in radically different directions, and he still has high regard for his former flame. "He said: 'That's just the way it is.' "

High regard?

For a lying, cheating, witch who should be ditched? Shame on him. Move along Brucers, you need a better witness than this.

But first class Brucing, Ean Higgins. More colour and movement and bingo and pensioners than you could find in Hawaii, and such sympathy and regard for the man in black, so cruelly spurned and brought low by the wicked witch.

Now back to that Fairfax editorial:

For her own sake, Gillard would be well advised to give her own review of the affair to Parliament, to authorise Slater & Gordon to make available any personal records to any official inquiry, and to encourage her political ally, Paul Howes, to open AWU records as well.

An official inquiry?

Even the Brucers at The Australian aren't going that far. All they want are answers to questions, to questions that need to be answered, to questions that need to be asked, to questions that need to be questioned, an open and honest debate, which is to say, an honest and open debate, which is to say a mortified confession of guilt and abject failure, which will culminate in the resignation of Gillard, because she's a harridan and a witch, as explained righteously in their editorial No minister. Dodging the issue is not good debate.

What's needed is a good solid debate about how Gillard is a harridan, and how there are too many lawyers in politics (watch out Liberal party), and how politicians should be drawn from a wider gene pool, which unfortunately excludes Brucers, because all they know how to do is ask questions and savage unionists, braying and frothing and foaming in a quite unseemly hate-filled way.

Oh yes, as that old brand had it:

Remember Wapping! Once more over the top, top Brucers ...

(No need for intelligence genes if you're just a Brucer listening to your master's voice).

But back to the Fairfax editorialist's proposal for an inquiry. The stupidity is enormous. The editorial first of all exonerates Gillard of legal guilt, while pinning her with a couple of peccadilloes - the failure to open a file, and fucking a cad.

The conclusion? Launch an inquiry.

Death by a thousand cuts as the coals are interminably raked over and over and top Brucers like Ean Higgins once more head up the coast to share a top pensioner meal and a bit of bingo with the man in black.

It would have been a lot more honest of the Fairfax editorialist to simply join with the baying Brucers and demand Gillard's resignation, for failing to open a file and for fucking a cad.

Meanwhile, the pond is demanding another inquiry.

Who let the editorial go out in the first instance as an anonymous opinion piece? Did someone fail to open a file? For that matter, is someone in Fairfax fucking a cad?

Sure, shit happens, but there should be consequences ...

Oh let's just cut to the chase. The editor should step down now, at once. The pond might be only asking questions, but the conclusion is clear. People might plead ineptness or a momentary failure, but heads must roll!

Alternatively, do not ask where Gina Rinehart lurks. She lurks in the shareholding of Fairfax, and already the signs are strong that they've sipped deeply of the Brucer kool-aid in the editorial board room.

Gina will be pleased ...

And finally a special award surely must go to Tony Abbott, top Brucer, for not bothering to listen do or heed what BHP was saying, or indeed even caring to read their statement before shooting off his mouth:

Olympic Dam's minerals are not affected by the mining tax - which is levied on profits from iron ore and coal sales - but the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, who admitted last night he had not read BHP's statement, said the new taxes were a factor in BHP's decision because they had trimmed the total profits the company had available for new projects. (Olympic Dam on hold as boom peaks)

Never mind what BHP or its head actually said. That counts for naught when constructing an alternative universe.

Top Brucing, gold medal Brucing ... every day it's gold, gold, gold for Brucers ... and remember Brucers, never mind the truth of what you're saying, provided it's nattering and negative and neigh, neigh, neigh ...

(Below: the pond always loved the HMV logo, so let's run a couple more versions. But should it have been His Master's Voice is a Her? For that version, Gloria Swanson sets the mood).