No sense of personal responsibility here, here no sense of personal responsibility ...

Remember this?

Akker Dakker back in August 2009, ranting about overhead cables, the dangers of strong winds, the NBN, and all the usual fear-mongering, muck-raking stuff. Inter alia, in Powerful arguments for Rudd to go underground:

Running dangerous overhead lines is the Government’s first option to reduce the cost. It should be the last.

And so on and so forth, and never mind that at last count, the pond had two sets of HFC cables dangling out the front of the house, and power lines and phone and what's another one.

So what's in the news today?

Exclusive? Exclusive bullshit:

The Coalition will consider a Tasmanian Labor government plan to pioneer a faster, cheaper rollout of the National Broadband Network using overhead cables, in a potential model for other states. (here, if you evade the feeble Oz paywall)

And so on and so forth.

Fearing Tasmania's "first mover" status on the super-fast broadband will be lost, Ms Giddings has told Aurora to revise its original plan and has pitched it directly to the Prime Minister and Mr Turnbull recently. They are understood to have agreed to consider a detailed plan and welcomed "belated" interest by state Labor in finding faster, cheaper means of completing the rollout.

Belated? What a belated bloody Akker Dakker joke. Ugly cabling dangling in the sky was one of the many ways the coalition and its ratbag commentariat supporters went about demonising the NBN.

Here's Amos Aikman, doing it for the reptiles at the lizard Oz, as recently as February 2011, in Overhead cables make nonsense of NBN.

At one point everyone was ranting about ugly overhead wiring from Fred Nile in the NSW state upper house to Prof Ross Kelso doing his thing in Fears national broadband network will create overhead eyesore.

Julia Thornton punched on for late and totally unlamented The Punch, hand-wringing and having an anxiety attack in But seriously, where will the NBN cables go? (may now be offline)

In Brisbane, we get severe thunderstorms. Last year we had no power for a day because a north easterly wind blew rain into the transmission box and shorted it out. 
So should they put the NBN cables underground? It would make sense to do this because accidents happen. One reversing truck, one yacht’s mast, one cyclone or bushfire could easily wipe out the broadband for a street or entire local area.

When it was in another form, back in 2009 the pond wrote about the horseshit being spread by the likes of Akker Dakker in Nick Minchin, the NBN, FUD, and look, up in the sky.

Happily, unlike Minchin and Akker Dakker the pond doesn't have quite the short term memory loss of the coalition, the commentariat and the crusading Murdochians.

 It was horseshit then, and it's horseshit now, and what's the chance you'll hear even the slightest cheep from Akker Dakker about ugly cables in the sky, or ugly node boxes on the ground?

If the Coalition shifts to an above-ground rollout in Tasmania it could provide a model for other jurisdictions but would require similar co-operation from power utilities.

Well that sort of talk is enough to ensure the pond got out the wrong side of the bed. Remind us again Akker Dakker of the third world:

Anyone who has seen the webs of wires hanging from poles in Asian and South and Central American slums will be familiar with the answer the Rudd Government has in mind for its broadband rollout. Cheap and nasty comes to mind but ugly, inefficient and ultimately more costly is closer to the mark.

What fucking cheek, what fucking chutzpah ...

Which brings us to Janet "Dame Slap" Albrechtsen.

Even casual readers of the pond might recall we've been ticking off the recalcitrant commentariat, with their deep sense of entitlement, and the naked hideousness of their entitled dining out in Kirribilli. Albrechtsen looked a little ashamed to be snapped as she attended the feast of the entitled. Look, there she is, off with Chris Kenny and Tom Switzer to stick her entitled snout in the conservative entitled trough, as you can read in Tony Abbott's private function an affair for the conservative media faithful:

There were obvious implications, as noted by Richard Ackland in his excellent piece Compliant media fed on leak soup and other titbits.

What that dinner shows us is the extent to which journalism in this country has mutated, and that carries important implications for our democracy. 
All new governments on day one say they will govern for ''all Australians'' and then promptly set about governing for their sponsors and cronies. Selected media voices are now seen to be part of that cronyism, where reporter and politician are locked in a mutually rewarding clinch. Don't expect too many stinking rebukes of the Abbott government from this bunch. To change from booster to critic is not a credible transition.

Yep, entitled, craven cronies ... (and please go read Ackland for more insights)

So what does Dame Slap write about today?

Say what?

What fucking cheek, what fucking entitlement mentality chutzpah.

If Albrechtsen had the slightest sense of personal responsibility, she would have declined the dinner invitation to a secretive, furtive, entirely confidential gathering of right wing commentariat cronies, about as naked and blatant and obvious as payola in the pop music game in the 1950s.

But now she has the complete gall to double down and lecture and hector the world about the need to embrace personal responsibility. She does, she does, right from her opening remarks:

The new Abbott government has spoken at length about ending the age of entitlement. It's a fine sentiment. But without more, it will remain just that: a good idea that comes to naught. 
The only way to end the entitlement mentality is if we, the people, undertake to end it. This is not a top-down policy that well-meaning and courageous politicians can impose on us.

Oh go slurp on an entitled confidential meal in a secretive, furtive way ... and while you're at it, chew on the bone of Tony Abbott's exceedingly generous, and inequitable paid parental leave scheme which will shovel bonus taxpayer dollars down the already well off, and leave the poor enjoying the income inequality gap even more ...

You can, if you want, head off to read the rest of Handout mentality corrupts sense of responsibility, if you evade the porous paywall, and if you don't mind that it wasn't called Handout meals from politicians corrupts commentariat's sense of responsibility.

It doesn't have anything meaningful or useful to say, though it might remind a few that after many years railing against government and entitlements, Ayn Rand herself lined up for social security and Medicare payments (here).

Albrechtsen takes some easy shots at the car industry, which is piquant, since the pond recently caught Mark Latham arguing against subsidies, while his Liberal pairing on the ABC didn't know what to say about the uselessness of subsidising the American car industry (it's here if you're a masochist), in the way the NSW Liberal government is fond of shovelling money down the pants of American film studios to help make quintessential Australian films like The Great Gatsby (what next? That quintessential Australian story, Moby Dick? Oh wait they've already shot that as a miniseries here).

And she takes some easy shots at the "sex on the job" matter, one of those absurdly quirky bits of legal business which offered immense entertainment for the tabloids, and from there it's an easy leap to moaning about the quality of judges and the Comcare system, and never mind that in the end the right conclusion was reached.

No, never mind all that, it was this rousing finale that got to the pond:

Alas, the deep-pocket syndrome that infects our legal system is only part of the entitlement mosaic. And governments can only do so much. It's up to each of us, from politicians, to judges, to union leaders, to corporate bosses, workers, parents and every person capable of doing so, to reject the corrupting nature of the entitlement mentality and embrace the sense of personal responsibility that defined earlier generations. 
Over to us ...

Alas, the sense of entitlement in the legal system is only part of the entitlement mosaic, and governments can only do so much.

It's up to each of us, especially members of the commentariat, to reject the corrupting nature of the entitlement mentality, and embrace the sense of personal responsibility that defined earlier generations, and so not so nakedly and blatantly and offensively stick snout in crony trough for a pay-off meal.

Yes, it's over to you, Janet Albrechtsen. Us didn't have the chance to stick snout in crony trough.

How about an explanation and a justification for such a naked sense of entitlement? Up there with any worker who might hope to score a pay-off from a romp in the hay ...

Over to you ...

(Below: on another matter, please note Murdochians, and especially the Daily Terror, that David Pope has taken to heart your front page sitcom Hogan's Heroes routines. Why not join him? Please give the Canberra Times a hit here so that Popery can live).