Vote for the pond, or we'll tear your bloody arms off because we love a little bullying ...

(Above: the headline for The Age on 22nd May 1970, click to enlarge)


Okay, the pond just wanted to help you start off the day feeling comfortable and relaxed, by being reminded that history does indeed repeat itself, and nobody pays any attention or learns anything at all and who'd have imagined that in this day and age The Australian and the Murdoch press and Tony Abbott's minions are roughly equivalent to the PMG as they yammer on about bias in the ABC.

And they haven't even got the skill to deliver a telegram.

Same as it ever was, but that's enough of the knockdown irony, a good day before Christopher Pearson can sagely explained one more time how he and the board he's on knock the stuffing out of SBS, and the sooner it's done to the ABC the better.

So it's on to the good news, and as you might expect from the wild north, first up on the agenda is the Courier-Mail taking seriously the notion that compulsory voting should be up for grabs.

Yes, that's what they say in their very own editorial, Mandatory vote up for debate. Yep, that's how to float a balloon ...

Now it might be something of an irony that the pond recently copped a fine for not voting in an election  - we were overseas at the time m'lud, we abjectly throw ourselves on your splendid and righteous mercy - but rather than indignation - it was only for 55 smackeroos - the pond was full of admiration for the Australian Electoral Commission copping the dodgy behaviour.

The pond indeed is full of admiration for the work of the Australian Electoral Commission, and not just because the father of the house routinely trotted off to score a little weekend work whenever an election was called.

Compared to the United States, which is surely the most undemocratic, ill-formed and ill-functioning democracy on earth, the system in Australia is tidy and fair, inexpensive and not burdensome or subject to sectional interests and the need to get out the vote, and the notion that Campbell Newman and his functionaries might contrive a debate which would nudge the country in the direction of the USA is just one more example of the complete uselessness of Queenslanders.

Why on earth don't they just get to the nub of it, and do a Rick Perry and demand secession?

If getting out of bed once a year or so to eat a cake at the school stall - oh the agony if there's no lamingtons and only patti cakes or sponges - and cast a vote is simply too onerous and burdensome, piss off quick to the good old USA, where you can exercise your right to be a libertarian git by refusing to participate in anything at all.

Typically, it's a push from the right, always ready to yammer on about how the diggers went off to war to fight for democracy and the right to vote and this great country, and then when it comes to the crunch, turn around and announce that they don't want to be forced to vote, because really they couldn't give a flying fuck (or perhaps they perceive a political edge and a wedge, which the average digger would have known where they could shove it).

At the head of the push is an alleged Attorney-General, one Jarrod Bleijie, who having floated the idea, promptly advised that it wasn't government policy, only an idea floated in a green paper, though the header suggested Queensland's Newman government may dump compulsory voting at state elections.

(Above: Jarrod Bleijie. Yep, it's barely imaginable or comprehensible).

Bleijie, who is considered one of Campbell Newman's heavy hitters, is a prime example of how helium helps lightweight balloons float to the top.

Yes, the lad is the very same one who helped water down same-sex civil unions, has done his bit to ban singles and same-sexers from surrogacy and is a staunch monarchist, completely in love with the idea of a talking tampon heading the Commonwealth of Nations.

It was wisely noted that he would be one to watch in 2013 as Queenslanders who'd be making headlines in 2013, here. Who'd have imagined he could have done it by the very first Friday?

Well at least the rag decided it would publish Threat to compulsory voting puts our democracy at risk, as penned by one Nick McGowan, a Liberal candidate for the Victorian seat of Jagajag.

Nick, Nick, you can't beat any sense into Campbell Newman or the average Queenslander. They want to blow things up, because it's in their nature, as the scorpion said to the cane toad one time while crossing a river.

So let Bob Katter become the first king of North Queensland, because he can teach those bloody mongrels in Brisbane a lesson or two. (go on Bob, tell the world about secession and about the right of north Queenslanders to elect their own talking tampon here).

But enough already, because we now want you to put on your very best Jack Nicholson drawl, and exclaim "Sheee's baaaaack". (Oh okay you might prefer Arnie saying "I'll be back" or Jack saying "Heeeere's Soooophie")

But first of all, let's pause to admire the truly graphic, explicit and demonic photo that The Punch uses to headline pieces by Sophie Mirabella. Truly, it's barely imaginable or comprehensible.

Yes, Ms Mirabella has been absent from The Punch since early in October, and now she turns up like a bad penny on the first Friday in the new year to sound ... just like a Tea Partier.

You see, in Swanny, the Tea Party caused the deficit? Ha! (give The Punch a hit, in fact feel free to hit the bastards below the belt as much as you like for all the suffering they cause), Mirabella doesn't once address the issue of whether a deficit is a good or a bad thing in the current economic cycle. Instead all she does is abuse the gormless Wayne Swan.

And how does she do it? Why with the same stupidity as any four legs two legs tea partier:

The Treasurer should suck it up and admit that he failed to meet his own economic imperative. The one where failure was not an option.

Actually failure to meet a really dumb option, a misguided economic imperative, is always an option, as we've just witnessed unfold in the United States. The mistake Swan and the Labor party was to be herded, or perhaps goaded into making definitive statements which were likely to be undone by economic circumstances.

But you can't take anything away from the goaders and the herders and the nay sayers and Dr. No and his team of negativity, who helped craft the alleged imperative which Swan had to retreat from (while ignoring the plight of single mothers and others on Newstart along the way).

Enough already, because Sophie Mirabella is perhaps the best argument for abolishing compulsory voting going the rounds.

Imagine the stench, imagine having to hold your nostrils, going into vote in Mirabella's electorate, knowing that your vote was wasted and useless and that the clowns and simpletons around you had determined she was a fit and proper person to be your representative. Why it's an existential crisis and dilemma worse than anything Sartre conjured up.

But enough already, because the pond couldn't help but admire the audacity of that verbal bully Brendan O'Neill, front and centre at The Australian today. And in the usual way, he earns not just one but two splashes:

The good news is that O'Neill's verbal bullying in Bullying in the eye of the beholder is behind the paywall, so you need never be troubled by his bullying - unless you have a masochistic streak and like to pay to be bullied (hey, just call Dorothy and maybe we can arrange a session to take care of your submissive streak with the in-house cilice and other approved Opus Dei items).

You see, those two headers, meant to tease and tempt you, are essentially spoilers, building to the final par of O'Neill's deepest conclusions in relation to bullying:

In 2013, make it your resolution to never, no matter how beleaguered you feel, say, "I'm being bullied!" Those words should never cross the lips of anyone over the age of 10.

Yep, it's the classic notion of the bully, which is to suggest you just shut up and suffer, or perhaps enjoy the bullying, no matter if someone thinks shoving your head down the school toilet is a jolly jape amongst chums.

There's only two responses available.

First there's the response of the EMO Goth, which is to withdraw into yourself, and then kill yourself at the age of 15 after relentlessly being harried in the playground and online for your Goth ways.

And then there's the response of the pond, which is to say "Why don't you just go fuck yourself
Brendan O'Neill, up hill and down dale and wherever you can insert something apart from your finger."

And that's about all the pond can summon to say on the subject of Brendan O'Neill and bullying, as good an argument for the compulsory voting off of the commentariat from newspapers as can be devised ...

(Below: and now for a few voting cartoons, most found here).