Off in Murdoch la la land steering the Titanic towards some townhouse sea views ...

(Above: just to get the pond off to a good start, free of cant, superstition and hypocrisy, before plunging deep into it in Murdoch la la land. Sign on a Portland van currently doing the Facebook rounds. Oh Portlandia, Portlandia).

Each day the pond likes to chart the paranoia levels on view in The Australian, ostentatiously paraded in whatever is the headline story on the digital front page.

This Easter, it seems that Julia Gillard, herself, and personally, and with some mystical skill, is steering Australia towards a population of more than forty million.

See, this is what it says:

It is of course meaningless gibberish, proposing a causal connection that simply doesn't exist, hinting at causal solutions which are in reality outside the control of Gillard, Tony Abbott, the Pope, the Sydney Anglicans and the Holy Ghost.

The pond thought they should all get an honourable mention, because it is a good Friday, which is to say a Friday where Optus is still working. The Optus The (go on, you can do the German by now).

There are many more fruitful avenues for The Australian to explore in its ongoing campaign for population controls driven by federal government action.

A nicely topical starting point would be that Gillard finally has acknowledged her Roman connections, and the way she steered Jesus Christ towards crucifixion. 

Now you might think that implausible, but remember, she's an atheist - and each denial, each crowing of the cock, is a miniature crucifixion, steering Christ on to the rocks like a wretched Titanic.

Hmm, the pond could get quite good at writing gibberish in the way Ben Packham routinely does, a hack beyond average hackery. 

Meanwhile, the pond looks forward to the federal government policy solutions Mr. Packham proposes in relation to the population crisis which has arisen from Ms Gillard's wifully wayward steering. 

No doubt the newly arisen Messiah can implement them, along with supporting proposed Labor changes to superannuation, in September.

Armed guards at the airport shooting one in ten temporary entrants? Complete abolition of 457? Free contraceptives provided by government in every bedroom? Compulsory abortions? 

There must be many steps that can be taken ... and bravely The Australian has taken the first one by scribbling an alarmist splash which the pond has taken upon itself not to read or link to, on the principle that it's good Friday and enough, enough you ranting clowns, already.

Surely if you lie down with flea-carrying dogs, you will arise on the third day a flea, or if you splash about in the mud, you will never manage to turn a sow's ear journalist into a purse ...

Or some such thing.

Moving along, the Daily Terror contrives an equally ingenious splash to arouse resentment, fear, anger and loathing this good Friday, and it is a good Friday, because the Murdoch press is always keen to spread hate, and that surely is a Christian thing to do:

Now why, you might ask, are there inverted commas around 'Luxury houses' in that header?

Well it turns out that the luxury houses are in the first par of the actual story townhouses with "magnificent sea views".

Now there's nothing more guaranteed to sort out the cats from the dogs in Sydney-siders  than sea views.

People have been known to kill or maim simply to achieve sea glimpses, let alone sea views, which is why the Daily Terror has so knowingly targeted its demographic, the vast west, yearning for sea glimpses, in such a canny fashion, and why the festering, simmering, resentment, fear and loathing is sure to erupt like an irritated boil at some point.

See how the story builds (click to enlarge):

It is of course completely unacceptable, this sea view lifestyle luring fat cat bureaucrats and public servants to the sinfully indulgent lifestyle of Christmas Island, with its bright lights, bars, casinos, hookers and gambling dens. Sheer luxury, a twenty four hour party, 7/12/365 and leap year.

It goes without saying that the pond is standing by to join the Daily Terror campaign to ensure that all windows in said luxury townhouses are covered in black plastic. Oh sure, it might be an island, which brings you sometimes uncomfortably close to the sea, but there shall be absolutely no sea views.

Pending of course the transition of said AFP coppers, teachers, healthcare workers and such like into army tents. With absolutely no windows, thank you very much.

Now you might think that another angle on the townhouses makes them look more like typical examples of dull, tedious public architecture of the banal Canberra kind:

This would only establish that you're a pretentious poncy middle class or high brow git, perhaps a relative of Don Dunstan living in Adelaide, simply incapable of understanding sea views (which, it has to be noted, are very different from dull, flat, bay views).

Naturally the locals are up in arms and the corridors of power have reverberated with shock and indignation, not at the aesthetics of the design, but at the sea views. There are no sea views in Canberra, only lake and snow-capped freezing hillock views, and the Liberal party is outraged to the core.

The pond understands, having started off life in a nissen hut.

Now this is only an illustration, derived from a UK source, an evocation of the structures that once could be found outside Tamworth in the quaint hamlet of Oxley Vale and it is true that we lived in luxury, with actual verandahs, and views of the Peel river ... oh, the views, the views ...

But still the pond understands why the Terror is outraged and stirring up trouble and getting Xmas islanders agitated.

Surely when the second messiah arrives in September, he will stop the boats, smash the luxury townhouses, reduce Australia to a population of ten million, and all without deploying contraceptives that would see Australians sent to hell in vast droves. There are, the pond is reliably informed, no sea views in hell ...

The pond was feeling lucky, so it kept trawling the Murdoch outlets for more stories about which to be enraged, horrified, shocked and indignant, full of resentment, fear and loathing, but the luck ran out.

The HUN led with the story of a freak city wall collapsing and killing two people, but please, whatever you do, don't imagine this is a plea for regulation of the building industry and its safety standards.

And The Courier-Mail was quite besotted with Scott Driscoll:

Apparently the Member for Redcliffe had been running a taxpayer-funded community association secretly, or so it's asserted in Taxpayer-funded organisation controlled by MP Scott Driscoll declared insolvent, with 20 jobs lost.

Ah, an actual story, as opposed to a sea views beat up. Most un-Murdochian.

Shame, Queenslanders, shame, so what a relief to discover that the curr-ish mail managed to pick up the sea view story, though "the exclusive" was more discreetly tucked away amongst many other exclusives.

That's more like it,  that's more Murdochian ...

Oh the shock, the bloody sea view horror and shame. And oh dear, it seems the pond has failed to link to any manifestation of the story whatsoever ....

Perhaps on the third day ...

Now, now, let's not start talking of the commodification of news, and the use of old brand names to peddle the same sordid stuff from state to state.

An exclusive's an exclusive even if it's only exclusively reprehensible to exclusively reprehensible Murdochians ...

Meanwhile, speaking of Queenslanders, what fun to see Premier Campbell Newman do yet another of his famous backflips, an art form he perfected early in his premiership, along with barrel rolls and Immelmanns and other stall turns.

It's all there in The Premier has changed his mind about ending indigenous welfare trials in North Queensland, and it shows once again that Newman picked the wrong dog in this dog-fight.

Yep, he picked on Noel Pearson, Tony Abbott's pet, and worst of all, the key proponent of Tony Abbott's pet northern Queensland scheme, where the second Messiah is often wont to show up to show he cares, and a throwaway line in the story tells who leaned on who ...

Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, in Brisbane yesterday, said he wanted to see the reforms expanded to communities across the country. 
"I'm happy to work constructively with all levels of government to make sure this happens," he said.

Constructively? Happy?

Indeed, construct that Mr. Newman, surely the silliest, most inept and most politically unaware state premier currently doing the rounds ...

That'll be the last time you believe Murdoch newspaper stories about outrageous government expenditure in North Queensland on schemes with sea views, eh Mr Newman ...

(Below: and now, since the pond is always keen to show off the harbour glimpses you get from Newtown, here's Francis street in 1952, and below that Proclamation Day in the square in 1942. Oh the views, the views, and now it's off to a hot chocolate and a hot cross bun, and a reminder that Christ died so we could all enjoy sea views and Murdoch rags).