So many distractions, so little time ...

(Above: the pond knows the feeling).

Distractions, constant useless distractions...

Here the pond was, hoping to settle down with Gary Johns as he explained how everything that happens to teh gays is the fault of teh said gays, when along comes incontrovertible evidence that Tony Abbott is a bald-faced liar.

Oh of course that's not news. All politicians are liars, in one way or another, slippery as eels and using weasel words in the hope that they get away with it, but lately Abbott's been setting something of a record for lying, and then being found out in very quick time.

The latest example is there for all the world to see in Officials admit discussing idea that cruise operator could hire foreign crew. Warren Truss is in there too as another proven, very coitus interruptus liar ...

That story's dated yesterday, but the story only gained legs on the 1st September, as you can read at news.com.au here. It turned up in The West Australian on the 2nd. September:

Mr Milby wrote to a parliamentary inquiry into planned shipping laws, saying Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development senior officers twice told him to consider sacking his Australian workers. 
But speaking in Armadale yesterday, the Prime Minister denied such advice had been given. 
“Well, it’s just not true. It’s just not true,” Mr Abbott said.

A bald faced lie, and busted within a week.

Not to worry, let's get back to Gary Johns, who in past times has done an excellent job in exposing two great truths - the relentless, shameless mollycoddling of useless blacks, and the astonishingly luxurious lives blacks lead thanks to the welfare system. Who wouldn't want to be black and cop all the breaks in this great lucky country?

But now the intrepid warrior, valiantly battling for truth, is on hand to expose Jeff Kennett and all the do gooders. Yes, thanks to the reptiles of Oz, it's social issue day at the pond, so let's get right into it:

Now there's some great insights there. Including the news that it's totally wrong for Beyond Blue to talk about gays, yet it's totally right for Gary Johns to do so.

It seems that this is because they're a predominantly government-funded charity, unlike Johns, who merely retired from parliament with a generous taxpayer-funded pension.

Moreover, it seems Johns is an exceptionally dab hand at interpreting gratuitously irrelevant and obfuscatory data of an obscure kind derived from Canada and Denmark.

Why not then move on to a local study with a very small sample, and conflate the results with other data, and reach more stunning conclusions and offer up astonishing insights, based on data that might, actually might, be approaching statistical significance, even if it hasn't got there yet, and even if the authors conceded that there might not be a way to measure perceived levels of societal stigma?

How better to build a house of straw, and fling some mud on it just to make sure it looks really solid?

And then have the enormous cheek to berate others for attempting to draw conclusions unsupported by evidence.

One might conclude the process surely does no dignity to the national debate and is not remotely the work of an ex-politician,  who would surely be better off getting back to his nationally important job of berating and blaming the idle uppity blacks ...

What's that? Another distraction?

In a speech to Parliament on Monday night, Senator Bernardi attacked the Greens and others for citing the image of the boy as reason Australia and the world had to act. 
He said the child and his family were not legitimate refugees because they had fled Syria some years earlier and had been living in Turkey. 
"I find it a bit sanctimonious for [Greens leader Richard] Di Natale to bring in these emotive arguments, and particularly to characterise this as some sort of humanitarian mission by using the terrible image of that young boy who was picked up from the beach after having drowned at sea," Senator Bernardi said. 
"The facts remain that that terrible image was not brought about by recent events in Syria or Iraq. That boy and his family had lived in Turkey for three years. 
"The money for that boy's father to pay the people smugglers was sent from Canada. The father sent them on that boat so the father could get dental treatment. They were in no fear, they were in no persecution and they were in no danger in Turkey." 
Queensland Liberal MP Ewen Jones, who has called for Australia to take as many as 50,000 refugees from the crisis, was openly scornful of his colleague. "Do you really expect anything other than that from someone like Cory?," he said.  
Ms Bishop said conditions in Syria were horrific. "I don't believe he could be referring to people leaving Syria," she said.  
Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese said Senator Bernardi was "an embarrassment to this Parliament" and deserved to be treated with contempt. (More at the AFR outside the paywall).

What's that? Even more distractions about the distracting one being distracted?

Yep, far too many distractions, making it terribly hard to concentrate on all the lies and the confabulations to be derived from the data.

By the way, you can Shovel that joke here. Remember, shovel it good and hard, and you'll be really fit when the time comes to clean out the Augean stables one more time ...