Is there any way out of here, said the joker to the thief ...

(Above: click to enlarge, Doonesbury having fun with the Texas gene pool, more Doonesbury here).

Thanks to Doonesbury, the pond is currently developing a thesis that seceding from The Australian will dramatically improve Australia's gene pool. Or better still, why not get The Australian to secede from Australia and drift down to the Antarctic?

On the other hand, it's never too late to celebrate an exclusive assault on an exclusively stupid story, in a public place, with a large Al Capone-style baseball bat.

And what a good job Bernard Keane does on this exclusively silly story by professional kool aid drinker Scott Murdoch:

There's no point in linking to that exclusively ridiculous story, but here's a link to Keane's rant, in Crikey, under the splendid header Sisyphus and the boulder of Chinese broadband bullshit (behind the paywall, but hey, would you rather pay for exclusively rampant bullshit?)

Keane begins thus:

I want to say something that will shock you: a story in The Australian about the NBN is rubbish.

And ends up here:

So, China isn’t getting an equivalent to the NBN, the cost comparison is meaningless, the story is a year old and the headline is point blank wrong. Apart from that, the story is bang on.

But the real capper, as Keane notes, is that, in an attempt to put down the NBN, the story celebrates the way that China has embraced FTTH, rather than the Opposition's exclusively silly policy of FTTN, which is a bit - if we might reach back to ancient telegraph days for a suitable metaphor - like installing brand new gee whiz copper wiring for your hot new telegraph, and then using chewing gum for the final connection from street to home.

Belatedly, it seems, The Australian - which has been an epic cheerleader for chewing gum stupidity - seems to get that the Chinese get it. Finish them off with the baseball bat, Mr. Keane, and let there be blood, plenty of blood:

Perhaps the reason why The Oz waited so long to run the story was because they were desperately trying to find a way of avoiding reporting that China had embraced the same reviled broadband strategy as our hated Labor government? 
Onward we roll.

Yes onward we roll, but if you pay for The Australian, have you ever wondered why your gene pool is so exclusively stupid? Thought about secession?

On the upside, the pond has intimate knowledge of a few businesses who now boast of their gigabyte connectivity, and it's like watching digital pigs roll in digital mud.

But will The Australian's embrace of the Chinese embracing FTTH end the madness of its reporting?

Not really, because as Keane noted, we must remember Sisyphus.

The tragedy is that the NBN does deserve to be watched in relationship to cost (the pond has noted the executive cars and the packages and the slowness of the roll-out), but you can't expect sensible reporting if it comes from a fact-free rag intent on hysterical, misleading comparisons, replete with a complete lack of logic and a basic misunderstanding of the technology, which it is dimly aware poses a dire threat to its very existence ...

Life can be a digital box of chocolates, but for The Australian it's liquorice all-sorts, which might or might not help with all the exclusive bullshit.

So where are we today on the "exclusives" front?

(behind the paywall here, so you don't have to fork over your hard earned readies to read more about the NSW Labor party).

Uh huh. It seems that The Australian's favourite go-to Labor man might be in deep water, but he has kindly volunteered his best foot forward to The Australian, exclusively:

He (Costa) came forward yesterday to detail his dealing with Mr Obeid and Australian Water following inquiries from other media outlets that, he felt, implied he had acted improperly. 
Mr Costa, who quit Australian Water at the start of last month, also denied he had received a multi-million-dollar windfall as a result of being handed shares in the company when he joined. "That proposition is ludicrous and could only be advanced by somebody who chose to be ignorant of the financial facts," he said.

Yep, there's Imre Salusinszky faithfully recording, jotting down, and sending out into the ether Michael Costa's pre-emptive attempt at a gazumping denial, and the rag has the cheek to call it an exclusive.

And it turns out that Arthur Sinodinos is involved in the same murky water.

Here's an exclusive tip from the pond, there's legs to this story, and you'll find out more in other rags less willing to type out Costa's self-serving spin.

And speaking of mis-deeds decades old, when will The Australian get to investigating the deeds of Graham "Gra-gra" Richardson, another of its favourite Labor children ...

On we roll, if only so we can experience deja vu, and bright spark Bazza "let's build Sydney's second airport in Canberra and connect it by VFT in the year 2100" O'Farrell's latest brain spasm, which amazingly roused the wrath of Jolly hockey-sticks Joe Hockey:

The shadow federal treasurer, Joe Hockey, says the call by the Premier, Barry O'Farrell, for more flights into Sydney Airport rather than develop a second site is ''seriously wrong''. 
Mr O'Farrell used the launch of the Transport Masterplan on Thursday to outline plans to get more use out of Sydney Airport. (Scorn for O'Farrell call to lift airport flight cap)

If NSW Labor didn't get you going, then bright-eyed Bazza will get you coming.

Amazingly Bazza is still a true believer in Canberra:

He said he had written to the federal Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Anthony Albanese, seeking a joint approach to address the city's future airport needs. Mr O'Farrell believes Sydney's second airport should be built in Canberra. 

Poor Bazza can't convince the federal Libs, perhaps because he sounds as silly as The Australian sounds on the NBN.

But at least Warren Truss mentioned the name that no-one in politics dares speak - Badgery's Creek - while silly Anthony Albanese gives Bazza all the rope in the world the rope a dope needs by clinging to Wilton as a solution.

Truly, on days like this, you don't need the commentariat for comedy, you just need politicians going about their daily business of deferral and grovelling at the feet of sectional interests.

But if you want a taste of the commentariat doing the rounds, why not take a dip into Greg Craven's Remember, politicians are people too?

Yes and eating people is wrong, and ostensibly Craven's piece is a plea for a gentler polity on all sides, an even-handed serve of fairness to Gillard and Abbott, but it turns out, in the usual Australian way, to be a sympathetic grovel in the direction of poor, hapless, persecuted, misunderstood Tony Abbott:

Abbott, with a set of new facial lines, has the look of a man who cannot believe what people are saying about him, let alone that they are prepared to believe it more as a matter of convenient faith than conviction. He has been forced into getting a character reference from his wife, an innocent bystander caught up in a political hit-and-run. 
The second is what would happen if we applied the same standards - especially retrospectively - to ourselves? I hope no one would call me a misogynist today, but I remember saying to my future wife when I was 18 that if ever we managed to buy a house, I could decorate the study and she could do the kitchen.

Yep, in the world of Craven's moral equivalence, suddenly standing next to signs saying "Ditch the witch" and "Bob Brown's bitch", and such like, and relishing it until caught out, and hanging around idle talk of chaff bags and drowning at sea, and jokes about dead fathers suddenly gets turned into a desire to decorate the study rather than the kitchen.

Which rather answers the question as to why Craven might well be called a misogynist today ...

Did Craven say to his wife, listen you bitch, you stubborn ignorant witch, I'll decorate my study the way I bloody want, or I'll put you in a chaff bag and drown you at sea, and I swear that threat on the grave of your dead welching father?

What a silly man Craven is, but since he wants a gentler polity, let's see how Tony Abbott goes revealing his true character in the matter of the rough, gruff, Brough, who got himself up to all sorts of sordid carry-ons, which even Rank would have turned down as a late entry in its famous series, even with the catchy title Carry On Rough Broughie ...

Uh huh. It seems Abbott sees nothing wrong at all with the sordid carry-ons outlined in the court's judgement on the Slipper matter, featuring the gruff Brough in a starring role.

Abbott's standing shoulder to shoulder with the rough Brough, in the hope that he slough it all off and emerge from the pig's trough a cleanskin (is there no end to this guff?)

Because it seems Mr. Brough has been "transparent" and "up-front" about his involvement in the matter.

Which is a lie.

Twice now Brough has been revealed as having misled the public over his role in the affair. The first time was in early May when, in the aftermath of Fairfax’s Jessica Wright outing him as having met with Ashby, he arranged a tell-all explanation to The Australian, complete with photo shoot with his wife, to explain he’d met with Ashby three times and had only spoken to a small number of trusted legal advisers about the matter, and not anyone else in the Coalition or LNP. 
That marked a change from his position of just a few days earlier, that claims he was aware of the legal action beforehand were “nonsense”. (here)

Misled? Let's just call it a lie. And a compounding dissembling one at that as more facts emerged ...

Brough denied knowledge of the matter, and then when it became apparent the lie wouldn't work, he was treated to a full page "exclusive" in The Australian, where he clarified everything ... by calling in his wife. Sound familiar?

And it was Tony Abbott who thought the return of the rough Brough, slouching towards a seat in Canberra, was a jolly good idea. As you can read in an AAP report faithfully reprinted by the lizard Oz under the header Tony Abbott works for return to politics of former minister Mal Brough, run back in July 2010.

Brough felt there was something he could contribute, and now courtesy the court case, we've seen exactly the kind of contribution he can make.

Gentler polity anyone? Michael Costa anyone? "Exclusives" anyone?

Go yabber about a gentler polity to the rabid attack dogs in The Australian, Mr. Craven, and their exclusive pandering cheerleading.

And while you're at it, take your hapless wringing of hands and snivelling and sack cloths out of sight of the pond, or we might have a few words to say to your witch bitch of a wife, and her meek acceptance that she should decorate the kitchen.

Yes, that's how easy it is for the pond to join in your gentler polity, and confuse painting the study pink with ongoing virulent sexist abuse, approved, sometimes encouraged, and sometimes personally deployed by Tony Abbott.

Lordy, lordy, guess it's back to working out how to secede.

(Below: and a few more secession jokes, including an earlier Doonesbury)