Dog whistling and denialism as the entertainment for the day ...

(Above: not that we've got anything against dogs, it's more the dog owners and their whistles).


Then She said, Mother, forgive them, for they know not what they write.

Scientology flack Vicki Dunstan scribbling furiously in mUmBRELLA under the header Stop vilifying Scientology, complaining about the cult being picked on and explaining all the good work that it does:

Scientologists donate hours of their time educating young people of the dangers of illicit drugs, standing on street corners in the rain; attending music festivals in blistering heat, handing out booklets that warn of the perils of drugs like cocaine, marijuana and ecstasy.

Attending music festivals in blistering heat?! Oh the suffering, oh the humanity, oh the horror.

Worse still, Jews and Christians are bigoted, while the ever so 'umble Scientologists, inspired by their fearless founder L. Ron, exude peace and forgiveness and love and light, except when bitching about everybody in mUmBRELLA, which if it doesn't stop this sort of thing, won't be seen as the definitive place for people interested in advertising, but as a kind of kooksville for crazed religious copy.

Never mind, the good news is that there are Jewish Scientologists.

Well that's the entertainment out of the way, now it's time to move on to the entertainment, and who better to provide it than Cardinal Pell.

Showing all the style and grace of a rugger bugger boofhead, Pell sank the slipper into the pope emeritus, such that the ABC's Roman correspondent, one Robert Mickens, compared his departure and the sense of failure and cowardice surrounding it to the resignation of Richard Nixon.

Tricky Dick!

Here's hoping Pell gets elevated, because if the departing pope lacked administrative skill, then the incoming Pellists would surely be berated for a lack of diplomacy (Pell critical of Pope as he bids farewell - forced video at end of link).

And is there any day of the week when the vile Scott Morrison won't descend into the gutter to vilify asylum seekers?

It was too much for Victorian Russell Broadbent and good on him for speaking up, as reported in 'Behaviour' rules vilify asylum seekers - Lib.

Morrison has jibber jabbered about the need for "behaviour protocols" for those released into the community:

Mr Morrison also said there should be mandatory notification of asylum seekers to local police and residents in the areas where they are housed.

But is this a sufficient solution?

After all, how will it be done? People going from door to door? A flier dropped in the letter box?

But what's the use of a written notification, even if a photograph is attached?

What if the pond were to stumble across an alien, walking as boldy as brass in the neighbourhood? The cheeky insolent sods, the filthy evil swine, no doubt casing the joint as they pretend to take their daily exercise.

There is of course an eminently sound solution, one no doubt that Morrison will reach in due course. Let the pond help him bring it forward quickly.

It's simple. Get the aliens to wear something on their person that will immediately identify them. Something like this, though with a slightly different text of course, perhaps "alien" or "intruding foreign swine":

Or perhaps this, tasteful and discreet, with tattooing of the number on the forearm - purely as a helpful identifying device - an optional extra:

That'd sort out the problem, and ensure we could identify those we need to fear and distrust and revile and loath.

The pond also wouldn't mind if politicians of the Scott Morrison kind were forced to wear some identifying badge. Something like this:

Because when a professional dog whistler lands in the neighbourhood, all sorts of dogs are likely to roam the streets. And you know what they say about Scott Morrison dogs. Lie down with them, and you'll end up thick with fleas.

What's that you say? There's a fine payable to the Godwin's Law swear jar?

Surely not, surely there's an exception when we're simply carrying Scott Morrison's logic to a sensible, responsible conclusion.

The pond has already picked out some fancy clothing and a couple of snappy hounds, and once we've been forewarned and an alien moves into the area, we'll be ready to go, to preserve law and order and truth and justice and the Scott Morrison way:

Okay that's the entertainment for the day - unless you happen to be a human bean demonised as an evil alien - so let's move on to the entertainment.

Well for starters, Paul Sheehan writes an entire column about the dangers of concussion, without once discussing the concussion the pond has suffered reading Paul Sheehan columns.

And not once has Fairfax deemed it necessary to put a health warning at the start of his rants in favour of Lord Monckton. (Concussion a concern from elite to schools)

Oh where are you now, Lord Monckton?

My commentariat, my commentariat, why have you forsaken me?

And it seems not just the commentariat. A sharp-eyed Crikey reader noticed this Facebook update. One day friends:

The next day, who?

Et tu Greg?

Oh no, not Greg Hunt, the man completely at a loss to explain how direct action will work over market-based forces, and why socialist government interventions are better than market forces.

Truly it's a strange world.

It's probably time to design a fancy badge for his Lordship to wear on his tour down under so Liberal politicians and the commentariat will treat him in the correct Scott Morrison way ...

And finally, as we're still in the fourteen days of Oscar season, there has to be a winner for the most inventive explanation of why the Labor party should plunge itself into chaos, and the winner - please, pass the envelope and the column - is Greg Sheridan, with Rudd's proven defence best yet. (behind the paywall, the same way they lock mad men in lunatic asylums).

The best chance for reviving the Australian Defence Force may lie in the return of Kevin Rudd to the prime ministership.

Yes, it might lie in the return of Kevin Rudd. Or it might not. Tweedledum and Tweedle diddly dee.

The spin meister weaves a web of magical charm, even if he himself admits it sounds a little strange.

Here's how I reach this perhaps counter-intuitive conclusion.

Indeed. Here's Sheridan today:

Enter Rudd. As prime minister, Rudd was intimately involved in shaping the 2009 defence white paper. It wasn't a particularly well written document, but its strategic assumptions were hard headed and sound, and it provided a highly credible force structure - 100 Joint Strike Fighters, 12 capable, long-range subs, an eight battalion army - and a sensible funding commitment of a 3 per cent real increase a year out towards the end of the decade. Had the government stuck to that commitment it still would have been hard put to realise the white paper's ambitions, but it would have had a chance. Some extra money may have been necessary, some time lines may have been extended, but we would be on the road to a good, though not extravagant, defence capability.

Here's Sheridan in 2009 on the very same hard-headed and sound document:

The defence white paper is an almost incoherent blancmange of oddly unharmonised flavours. 
It reads like a biblical commentary in which 50 Talmudic scholars, each representing an alternative school of thought, have been allowed to write alternative sentences. 
The internal contradictions in the document are so staggering it looks like sentences have been bolted on almost at random, like pieces in a Meccano set manipulated by a two-year-old. (A battle of words).

Yep, that sounds like the inspirational former chairman Rudd.

We've missed that level of obfuscation and befuddlement. It took the pond back down memory acronym lane (that's MAL to you, often known on the intertubes as malware) to Baden Eunson's Rudd needs to stop diplo-babble:

A telling exchange occurred between Kevin Rudd and an ABC journalist, Louise Yaxley, at the NATO summit in Bucharest in April. Yaxley asked Rudd if NATO leaders had changed the rules of engagement that applied to NATO soldiers. Rudd responded, "You mean RoEs." Yaxley replied, in a tone dripping with sarcasm, "Yes, I mean rules of engagement."

Yes, a telling exchange, and how sensible and proper of Sheridan to urge us to return to those days, when satirical copy about the Ruddster flooded the pages of Murdoch rags.

It must be wonderful to be paid to build sandcastles in the press each day, and not worry about the waves or the tides ...

But is there something odd about a Murdoch hack complaining about the attention being paid to Julia Gillard heading out to Rooty Hill (oh go on, admit it, you want to do a Mark Hunter and make a joke and check into the Penrith Panthers instead) ... when it's the Murdoch rags who've spent the past week demonising her for daring to step out into the wilds of the west,  because everyone knows there are dragons everywhere out past Ashfield ...

What on earth will they do next time Tony Abbott heads west? Why celebrate the arrival of the messiah of course ...

By golly, there must be a huge market for dog whistles.

Forget dog owners ... every Murdoch hack and politician needs one ...

(Below: a tad harsh perhaps, surely it should say when Scott Morrison uses a dog whistle, he's not a jihadist, he's a medieval, perhaps thirteenth century, fearless crusader, cruising for a bruising with any nearby Jihadist).