A bad week for the Pellists ... and the Sydney Anglicans gird their loins for a DADA fight with the new Archbishop of Canterbury ...

(Above: a lolcat or a companion for witches requiring a DADA Defence Against the Dark Arts? The pond merely reports and you decide).

Even by the Pellists' usual bad standards, it's been a bad week for the Pellists.

The Fairfax media, in best tabloid style, have got hold of the St. John's Sydney University college saga by the scruff of its fresher neck, and there's no way they're letting go.

Yesterday the rag was reporting that the fuzz had been called in against the junk (College scandal: police move in), and there were Cracks in the sandstone, and Bazza and Pell were fighting the fire as best they could.

Naturally this being Sun-Herald tabloid day, the paper stayed at the trough with St. John's patron in racial outrage, and a little side-bar Students' social whirl costly, explaining how $18,500 of student money had been spent on cleaning and repair after booze-fuelled events, with the kitty for carousing ending in deficit! And it was exclusive!

Take that Murdoch. Not so exclusive now hey ...

Now it might seem like this is just a jolly hockey sticks story of entitled Sydney lads and their upper-crust, toffy, foolish, insensitive parents, but after all, it's the college that sired - or perhaps spawned - the likes of Tony Abbott and jolly Joe Hockey, and as everyone knows this sort of fragging and fagging and abuse and power-mongering and school bullying (nee traditional family and educational way of life) was all the go way back when.

Do the current misfits reveal anything we can learn about past misfits?

Who knows, but last week Cardinal Pell was scribbling furiously for the Sunday Terror, warning about bad Catholics, and penned these wise words:

What is in the cat comes out in the kitten ...

Indeed, and you'd have to think that what was instilled in the kitten has to come out in the cat. And that pesky church cat has produced more than a few kittens too.

Pell also tried the old trick of shooting the messenger:

... the anti-religious pressures today, especially in the media and entertainment, are formidably strong.

As opposed to the anti-religious practices in the Catholic church? Yep:

In other words, if the parents have little idea about faith and moral principles, then their children will be carried further away by the culture. 

Get your moral principles here, going cheap at colleges and sundry inquiries.

That's moral principles quite different to the ones afflicting genteel souls who recoil from the sight of privileged tossers bullying others, as if giving Billy Bunter a hard time was still all the go.

No wonder Pell was appalled by this tale:

Recently a brother priest recounted a conversation he had with a couple who came along for a Catholic marriage. "Where are you religiously", he asked. "What about your relationship with God?" It is terrific, was the answer. They explained that they never prayed or went to Mass and claimed emphatically that they were not worried by any guilt about sins or wrong doing.

No guilt, no wringing of hands, no suffering, no gloom? Just marriage and enjoying a shared life?

Shocking, flabbergasting, profoundly confused and confusing. Those jokers should learn from Pell, who abased himself exclusively to the readership of The Australian yesterday:

There you go, that's how it's done. Guilt, abasement, deep shame, sinfulness. Confess, and maybe you can go and do a little more sinning, at least if the price and a church peddling indulgences is nearby (For Catholics, a Door to Absolution Is Reopened).

But the tales of vomit and torment and rampant sexuality and defiance and rebellion and Q.C.s at ten paces was only the beginning.

Then there was the whistle-blowing copper who was as mad as hell and wasn't going to take it anymore, and dumped a bucket on the devious ways of the church in relation to pedophilia and its victims, and that sent the NSW government off to arrange an inquiry, trying desperately to limit its impact - never hold an inquiry if you don't know the answer Premier - but which will now allow the affair to keep running and running in N.S.W. (Calls to widen clergy inquiry across state). Comrades Bill Shorten and jolly Joe also sounded nervous about an actual Royal Commission that might turn up all sorts of misdeeds.

You can see why Bazza and Pell are nervous. The old trick of plausible deniability - the notion that Pell only tends to Sydney, others tend their own parishes, and the rest of the rabble report direct to Rome - no longer works, perhaps because Pell has never been short of a word or two when it comes to topics as diverse as climate science and the policies of government. You can't sound like a leader than retreat to the trenches when the going gets tough.

Yesterday Barney Zwartz in The Age - how he loves stories about Catholics - brought the news of the Victorian inquiry up to date in Imported priests pose risk, church abuse inquiry told, and it was a ripper, featuring the thoughts of Dr. Wayne Chamley:

The Australian Catholic Church has not released the number of clerics imported mostly from India, Nigeria and the Philippines to ease the catastrophic decline in parish priests, but a study last year estimated they made up 20 per cent of Australia's total of 1500. 

20%! And the media is agog and inflamed by boat people!

But do go on Dr. Chamley, tell us what you really think:

■ Church lawyers tried to ''king hit'' victims as hard as possible to demoralise them in negotiations for compensation. ''They wring their hands and speak in humble voices, but in the cut and thrust of mediation it's boots and all.''
■ The church's internal system for investigating abuse was a charade that had no legal standing. He said the Melbourne Response's independent commissioner, Peter O'Callaghan, described himself as operating like a royal commission. ''What act of Parliament set that up?'' Dr Chamley said. 
■ Letting the church investigate itself was like ''leaving Dracula in charge of the blood bank''. 

But wait, there's more!

Dr Chamley condemned the submissions to the inquiry by the Salvation Army and Catholic Church. The former, at eight pages, was ''an insult'' to the Parliament and people of Victoria, given the hundreds of child victims of abuse by its officers, and its response to victims was often ''secretive, unco-operative, mean-spirited and legalistic''. 
The Catholic submission was notable for what it left out, including two Australian Senate inquiries that showed ''children who ended up in the 'care' of the Catholic Church were subjected to widespread sexual abuse, procurement for sexual purposes by other adults, severe and unwarranted physical abuse, criminal assault, prolonged solitary confinement, exploitation and unpaid child labour, slavery, starvation, administration of drugs and provision of alcohol'' during most of the past century. 
Dr Chamley compared the life of a paedophile priest who was not exposed despite church payouts with that of his victims. 
The priest would be housed, given medical care, a stipend, and the respect of his family and parishioners, who did not know of his predation. 
Of the victims, 91 per cent had mental health problems. ''They live in public housing, wait in queues at emergency departments in public hospitals for days. Their diets are shocking … and they fear as they get older - and they are now in their 60s - some will develop Alzheimer's and dementia.'' 

Talk about cats and kittens, and a Church rotten to the core.

Well at least the homosexual priest in the pond's family always loathed Pell, and what he'd done in Melbourne, and heaved a sigh of relief when he was sent to Sydney - but hang on, isn't that what they did with other troublesome priests, shipping them about until they could find a refuge?

Never mind, it made the pond turn to the Sydney Anglicans with a similar sigh of relief, if only to read Michael Jenkins explain that it was completely impossible to change - what with original sin and Adam and Eve and all that - unless you talked to and dedicated your life to an imaginary friend.

Now there's change you can believe in ...

Is it possible to change? he asks, seeing this as some kind of Defence against the dark arts.

Well She seems to have done a bloody poor job with the Catholics and the Sydney Anglicans, and getting them to change their wicked, wicked ways, and it's been at the hard slog already these past two thousand years or more (perhaps starting as long ago as 4004 BC if you accept Ussher's chronology for the very real Adam and Eve, and the way she ruined everything, still the Sydney Anglicans' basic guide to the way men and women should relate to each other).

The Anglicans have been squabbling amongst themselves like a pack of disagreeable children or pimple-laden adolescents these past few years, and the surly response of the Jensenists to the appointment of Justin Welby is just a continuation of the homophobia the Sydney Anglicans share with assorted African churches (Gay marriage to define archbishop's appointment):

''We welcome the appointment of Bishop Welby to the ministry of Archbishop of Canterbury. It remains an important role though obviously the events of the last decade have diminished its significance in the worldwide Anglican Communion. 
 ''Bishop Welby has our prayerful support. We look forward to him speaking with clarity from the word of God about the gospel and its impact on the issues confronting the Church in England and the West."

Prayerful support? Speak with clarity? You have to admire the passive aggressive Sydney Anglican way.

That's code for fall into line with Sydney Anglicans or you can bugger off and we'll stick with the bugger-hating Africans, and the West can go suck.

What a bunch of angry splitters and recidivists they are ...

Still it's good to see Sydney Anglicans embracing Harry Potter's core, crucial Hogwarts class D.A.D.A. (a.k.a. Defence against the dark arts - you can wander off into Potter la la land here) and never mind that Potter and witchcraft and wizardry is as sinful as Halloween.

Yes it's Jensen's DADA against Potter's DADA and may the best DADAist win, though since they both have imaginary friends, deciding a winner might be tricky.

The pond is more concerned about the Dadaists, but that's another story ...

Of teapots and carpetbaggers ...

(Above: the pond acknowledges that it is writing while in the traditional presence of British carpetbaggers and pays respect to the carpetbagger elders past and present who have worked so hard to maintain their heritage, beliefs and relationship to this land. The pond acknowledges the continuing importance of the carpetbaggers in Sydney today).

Phew, thank the lord that's over, these ceremonial duties get more onerous and burdensome by the year.

But it's so exciting to have the royals to hand in the state that exceeds all other states, the premier state, the first state, the state par excellence.

How many other states would go where New South Wales boldly goes, by calling an inquiry into an inquiry? An investigation into an investigation, but sssh, never you mind about what's being investigated.

Oh that Bazza, he could get a job scripting Yes Minister (should we keep the inquiry into pedophilia in the Catholic church narrow? Why, yes minister - Calls to widen clergy inquiry across state, forced video at end of link).

But wait, Bazza's gone one better in the matter of the very fast bus and tricycle connection to Sydney's second airport at Canberra.

What else to do to further the dream, but approve a 1-2,000 home development on the NSW side of the border right in the way of the flight path for all those very fast planes whisking Chinese high rollers to James Packer's pre-approved casino - for the good of god, country, low rollers and state - at Barangaroo.

Naturally the muffins in the NSW government fought back hard, as you can read in ACT airport hub still possible: NSW government.

It was still possible. The dream was alive. Yes Minister.

Naturally Albo took a stand, calling the very notion farcical and completely contradictory, but even jolly Joe Hockey took a view:

The shadow treasurer, Joe Hockey, said it ''does seem odd the state government would approve additional residential housing around Canberra Airport, when it says that should be the second airport for Sydney''. 
 Mr Hockey, who has previously described Mr O'Farrell's position on Sydney Airport as ''absurd'', said yesterday ''the Premier is entitled to his views but we should really be honest and deal with this issue in the Sydney Basin''. 
 ''Canberra Airport was never a viable option as Sydney's second airport and it certainly isn't now.'' (here)

Minister Hazzard (now there's a name for a politician) valiantly kept pushing shit up hill, but the punters weren't helping:

Mr Hazzard said conditions placed on the rezoning approval meant it would not impede the airport's expansion, but the Canberra Airport managing director, Stephen Byron, has said the development ''severely compromises Canberra Airport's ability to serve as an overflow for Sydney … and Barry O'Farrell's only option for a second Sydney airport is about to be lost forever''.

It took five years for dingbat Senator Stephen Conroy to be persuaded by hard-headed realists that his truly awesomely stupid "giant filter that would filter everything and could be by-passed in a nanosecond by a child" was an awesome step towards China, and not much else.

How long will Bazza keep peddling the Canberra dream? So long as there are mugs to imbibe the kool-aid. Yes Minister ...

When mainstream politicians are so loonish, it barely leaves the pond any time at all to acknowledge the work of other valiant members of the commentariat, but we really must reserve a place for Angela Shanahan at the table of ideas.

Indeed, and the next time you see the Shanahan family on the road, or making use of any facility provided by the state, like a national park or a museum, run the beggars off the bloody road.

Happily Shanahan's Stop welfare churn: put the nuclear family back where it belongs is behind the paywall, and if you feel the need to pay for this sort of stuff, the pond can recommend a good psychiatrist (I know, I know, it breaches the four 'p' rule - have nothing to do with police, psychiatrists, priests and prison wardens - but these are desperate times.

There's really nothing to be said about Shanahan's piece, except to ask why The Australian didn't put below it a disclaimer advising that she was the mother of nine children, so of course she'd scribble the special pleading they published for reasons known only to themselves.

Shanahan is indignant about all this talk of middle class welfare, and why money should be shovelled down the throat of families (did we mention mothers), but it's mostly low comedy until the typo gremlins hit the highway and induce a kind of garbled delirium where you wonder if you read what you just read, and why you thought it made any kind of sense:

The nuclear family is the ntsGumber one nteo1 welfare institution?

On and on it goes, reducing blather to hapless babble. A couple of the better ones:

Suddenly everything the family had been entitled to as a deduction ntsGrom their income tax nteeame "welfare"...
...Acknowledging the family in the tax system isn't just a freebie or handout. It is basic justice. Even the Americans do it! Tony Abbott tried to introduce ntsGet ntenome-splitting, more than once. Peter Costello thought it would affect revenue too much. Whether this is true now, with payments for childcare blowing out, is a moot point. If the welfare system were pared back to ntsGor ntetose that really need it, it might still be possible.

And ntsGor ntetose to you, mother of nine.

Thankfully the typos helped make an unreadable piece - Shanahan is always unreadable - truly unreadable, what with the pious hope that Tony Abbott would put the family, breeding - have one for the Pope, one for the Church and half a dozen for the Catholic school system - and lavish taxpayer funding at the disposal of family types, and expect, zero, zilch, not even three fifths of fuck all an acknowledgement of the state's generosity.

The family doesn't owe the state anything? Not even thanks? Certainly not from the "give it to me, me, me" Shanahan mob ...

Now you can see how all this starts to compound, What with Bazza and Shanahan, the pond has almost no time for Christopher Pearson brooding about the Republicans.

Fortunately there is almost nothing worth reading in GOP candidates' folly that cost (behind the paywall for your peace of mind) except to remind the world that two weeks before Pearson had written with optimism about the Mittster's prospects in Appeal to the base, reach the apex (behind the paywall because the Oz thinks there are mugs who will pay for nothing).

In that piece, Pearson maintained the hard line rage, and the sense, the hope, the dream, the delusion that Obama might be doomed, and by the minorities eager to be crushed by Republican love and care:

The appeal to the base was clearly on display at this week's debate. Romney cited his faith in God as central to his ethos and talked tough on gun policy. Obama raised the controversy over provision of contraception under his healthcare policy and obliquely referred to abortion. From both, this was an unambiguous signal to their base: "I am your guy and he is not." 
 In the absence of a game-changing surprise in the next fortnight, what will determine the outcome is who is most effective in bringing out his base. Romney has not made the mistake of backtracking to his old, more moderate positions. Obama may well win the white working class, where he has struggled before, but face danger from a less expected quarter. 
 Black and Hispanic voters are the hardest hit by ongoing growth in the number of millions seeking work, and are over-represented among those who have dropped out of the labour market. Catholic voters may well disagree with their bishops about contraception, but they nonetheless have a tribal sense of solidarity that has been threatened by the Obama-care controversy and other attacks on religious freedom. Young voters are disillusioned by the lack of hope and change that has actually eventuated, despite the promises. That's why the subtext of the Obama campaign is: "I know you're disappointed, but things would be worse with the other guy." 
 If Obama fails to win a second term, it is most likely that it will be because of the failure of his flank to hold firm: minority voters, social justice-minded Catholics and young people who decide to stay home on election day.

It's worth quoting at length because it shows just how inept Pearson is at reading the signs - pick a sign,  any sign will do, Aries if you like.

In today's piece, he's suddenly experienced a Hannity-like transformation. (Sean Hannity Flips On Immigration Reform, Now Supports Pathway To Citizenship).

Pearson does exactly the same flip in relation to the base. First there needs to be fiscal responsibility and no fantasies about abolishing all taxes, and pro life but not saying women who are raped can will themselves not to get pregnant, and an iron fist in a velvet glove in the Middle East, and never you mind that these are all exactly the sort of talking points that were led by fundamentalist theocratic true believing narrowly conservative Republicans in the expectation that it would get out the base, the very base that Pearson contended would be the game changer, until the game changed and suddenly the gase wasn't so important, and changing demographics were and so there needed to be a new base:

The second big lesson for Republicans is to wake up to the rate of demographic change in the US. The GOP needs to appeal more to women, to minorities and to youth. That doesn't mean abandoning basic principles and mimicking the Democratic Party. The Republicans will never win a majority of African-American voters, but even going from 10 per cent to 20 per cent makes a huge impact in key states. How is it that George W. Bush won 44 per cent of the Hispanic vote in 2004, but Romney could manage only 27 per cent this year? Because the party has allowed itself to be knocked off course, pandering to anti-immigrant sentiment that ignores economic realities.

Hannity and Pearson. Two peas in the same deluded pod.

But he's not the only deluded one who's suddenly found a new brand of kool aid:

Say no more. After months, years of Obama-bashing, there's hope in the wind. Or is that just wind in the Sheridan.

And then there's a sign that The Australian is destined to get even more eccentric.

The pond never referenced George Megalogenis - this is a pond for loons, not for the few relatively sane members of the Murdoch press - and now George is gone, leaving the loons in control in paranoid castle. A wise move perhaps - he's been transparently ambivalent these last few years - but a loss to the paying readership.

The trivialisation of political debate began with Howard and his well-intentioned, but ultimately self-defeating attempt, attempt to reach ordinary Australians through the Alan Jones program. The problem wasn't Jones so much as the idea that politicians should defer to the abuse of his listeners. Hawke and Keating would never have been quite so obliging.
The precedent of excess accessibility, once set, can lead to the unintended consequences of Kevin Rudd. Howard was beaten at his own game by a younger version of himself, who could go to studios where the older man wouldn't dare. Rudd was your pal on morning television, the butt of gentle ribbing on FM radio through the day and fielding questions on who he would turn gay for on evening television.

Amen to that George, all the best in the real world, and amen to your coda about way back when: Journalists didn't have to endorse a party; they explained the policy on release and went back to the field after its delivery to see how it was working.

Tell that to the crusading geriatric demographic of aging white men who run the lizard Oz.

Now to get back to where we started, an eternity ago, it's only left for the pond to note that George is leaving a paper which seems to have turned proudly monarchist, with dutiful reporting of the royal tour, and with updates on backsliding republicans like Tom Keneally.

Poor Tom, he barracks for Manly, what would he know, and now he's been set up for the gloating of David Flint about how wondrous Charlie and his darling are ... and never mind that tampons can't and shouldn't talk.

Regal jotting: the royal couple will leave Sydney at mid-day via its first airport to land in Canberra at Sydney's second airport ... housing development permitting ...

(Below: regal musings at the Oz).

A week of farewells then:

Oh yes you are Christopher Pearson, you're still a teapot ...

Let's talk of frothing stallions over a few beers ...

(Above: go the gee gees).

The pond rarely goes back to the trough for a second sip of the magic water; rarely nibbles on the hay bale as if it's a magic pudding that keeps on giving ... must watch the weight for the maiden outing.

But then a reader urged a second look at Paul Sheehan's piece Why Seven needs this beauty with the beasts.

Well not so much the column as the comments. But there were only 45 comments, before they put the beast out of its misery and locked it off, and most of them a predictable response to the ramblings of a senile old billy goat.

"Bizarre with a hint of creepy" seemed to summarise trends, with a joke or two about how the prepared article celebrating Mitt's win  had to be thrown into the bin, and this brain-dead tosser dross was all that was to hand.

It was almost universally agreed that Sheehan had sunk a few conservative brandies before hitting the keyboard, and much was made of mention of frothing stallions. There was talk of strings of drool causing tongue burn, and payback addressed to Ms. Sheehan and even a reader indignant at the explicit misandry.

Naturally magic water got an outing, with readers gobsmacked by a pointless piece of twaddle, and there was nattering about fifty shades of Sheehan, and it was all good fun so far as it went, but the pond didn't see anything unusual.

That's when the twitter feed called its siren song. First out of the box in terms of well-known media names was this one (no hot links, these are screen caps):

The pond isn't quite sure what "fevered extrapolation" might be, but it helped start a twitter trend:

Horse shit assertions and kind offers were made to do the job for half the price:

 Indecent proposals were also made:

But the tone remained generally grumpy:

And as of this morning, still more were joining in, and it made the pond realise that the twitterati had scooped the pool. This November racing carnival season, Paul Sheehan had become Sir John Kerr:

Kerr retired as Gee Gee a few weeks after his drunken outing at the 1977 spring carnival, and no doubt there are hopes that Generally Grumpy Sheehan might hang up his keyboard.

But hang on twitterati, Sheehan has the hide of a rhino and the staying power of an elephant and the insight of a gnat. 

He made a gorgeous goose of himself back in 2002 over the matter of magic water (Too good to be true),  and yet here he is, a decade on, still flaunting himself and shocking people and provoking titters. Paying attention isn't the solution, it only encourages him to linger on street corners exposing himself ... in a metaphorical way of course ... It almost goes without saying ...

And look at that. He's wasted another three minutes of the pond's life. That's longer than sex with the average Australian male during spring carnival ...

There's absolutely no time to contemplate David Penberthy's stark, giving declaration of man love for King Charles III in My kind of oddball: Arise, King Charles of Australia (not that there's anything wrong with man love, but must it always be completely indiscriminate and rampant?)

Oh okay Penbo's only doing it to tease, and because there's a certain madness in the air this spring carnival season, and not once does Penbo mention a desire to become a talking tampon, but he does wrap it up this way:

Between the endearingly left-field conduct of Charles, the decency of William, and the top-shelf, wholly commendable ratbaggery of Prince Harry, at least we will end up with a head of state who would make interesting company over a few beers.

Over a few beers? If you want an example of why Penbo doesn't have the first clue, just cite this column.

Why didn't he don some Nazi insignia over his tampon gear, clutch at a naked bunny or two, and down shot after shot, until waking in greenie remorse safe in the arms of his mother figure? That's what he wants to talk about over a few beers? Why he makes Paul Sheehan look like a convivial drunk.

And there's absolutely no time to look at Alan R. M. Jones (is he paranoid about being confused with Alan Jones or what), and his furphy of a piece Not a patch on Reagan's epoch-making re-election, in which he downplays Obama while going misty eyed over Reagan (behind the paywall for your children's safety).

And it's true that Obama's got a long way to go to become the high taxing, big spending, big government, big deficit leader that Reagan was. (Taxes: What people forget about Reagan).

Relax, in the end, it is just another parrot nostalgically squawking about Reagan and in The Australian of course. Where else?

And that's the end of the serious stuff this Friday.

It's time for feisty fillies everywhere to find a frothing stallion and live out the Paul Sheehan dream.

Or perhaps stay at home with a nice cup of tea and a picture of Prince Charles. Such a nice man, and don't take the pond's word for it, take Penbo's ...

(Below: and so to a few Steve Bell cartoons to wrap up the royal parade. More Bell here, helpful to mental health).

A quick tour of the commentariat deep in the darkest swamps of gloom ...

(Above: and the walls closing in on the commentariat).


What happens when you want to live in an alternative universe?

Just ask Andrew Bolt. Who else to turn to when you want an informed insight into American politics? 

Barack Obama should not have been re-elected president.

Yes, naughty Americans, you got it wrong, you need a good hard smacking.

Talk of the Übermensch: 

The turn away from the earth is prompted, he (Nietzsche) says, by a dissatisfaction with life, a dissatisfaction that causes one to create another world in which those who made one unhappy in this life are tormented. The Übermensch is not driven into other worlds away from this one.

Speaking of Nietzsche and the Bolter in the same voice always seems just right and so and thus.

Anyhoo you can get the rest of the Bolter's deepest thoughts here at the Adelaidenow rag, thereby subverting the HUN paywall and the notion that anyone would be stupid enough to actually pay to read the Bolter.

Naturally it's a conspiracy.

 This election confirms the suspicion that the politics of seeming is trumping that of achieving. 
 That what counts most in politicians is how voters "identify" with them, rather than what they do. 
 It also suggests that a culture of entitlement is eating at a culture of achievement. 

Yes, like the many and varied achievements of George W. Bush. And the joys of Romneycare. But sssh, there are dark implications for Australia.

 At this point Opposition Leader Tony Abbott should start to worry, since even here a Prime Minister's vicious speech on alleged misogyny counts for more among many women than the waste of billions of their dollars.

Indeed. Why worry about legitimate rape when billions are being looted?

But for the real Bolt spotter, the more interesting reaction came in an earlier posting, which linked to a story:

With first post-racial president reelected, 'Fuck white people' trends.

The Bolter supplied asterisks, a thoughtful touch because if you follow the link you end in a stew of bigotry and prejudice. It shows the Bolter loves to get down in the gutter, and once there, draw apocalyptic conclusions:

... welcome to the new age of identity politics - a time when seeming trumps doing, identity trumps performance and receiving beats giving. Ominous signs for Tony Abbott. And the West.

Blacks, women and Hispanics. The curse and the ruin of the West. Poor whitey ...

For poor Tim Blair, it was just an unnerving and wretched process, full of unhappiness and suffering:

The biases of Australian reporters are more pronounced when covering foreign elections. Perhaps they feel less constrained. Seven’s US election coverage, for example, has featured Chris Reason asking in astonished tones why Americans don’t adore Obamacare and continued Democrat cheerleading from US correspondent Angela Cox, who at one point sneeringly wondered if any Republicans had ever heard of the singer Rihanna.

Rihanna? What a cruel socialist Marxist thrust. What a jibe. How unbalanced. How wretched. How biased.

But Blair sees a ray of hope, which is that everything will be so totally stuffed by 2016 that a new George Bush will be installed to really fix everything:

By then, the cost of Big Government, entitlements, micro-regulation and Obamacare may be clear even to the government-dependent. (here)

Fancy expecting health care. Let them die in the streets. It'll be time for a couple of new wars perhaps, but what to do if Big Government wages them, when it really should be Big Warring Business ...

Naturally when there's heat in the kitchen Blair takes to parroting Mark Steyn (what else is a parrot to do, except parrot and link, link and parrot?)

It turns out that all Steyn has got to offer is a bit of expunged parroting, copying the wise words of Sir Richard Mottram. Let's remove the asterisks. What is it with conservatives and asterisks?

“We’re all fucked. I’m fucked. You’re fucked. The whole department’s fucked. It’s been the biggest cock-up ever and we’re all completely fucked.”

The apocalyptic conservative mind at work. Some loop that insists that being moderate and just letting the world float by fails to understand the way we're all completely fucked ...

Naturally Piers "Akker Dakker" Akerman was completely distraught, because All Obama offers is more hope.

Obama's first term was such a shocker that it's a mysterious, mystical wonder that he voted to get back in.

The division is basic – it is essentially the divide between socialism and capitalism. 
Obama is the socialist, Romney was arch-capitalist. 

Yes and he was born in Kenya too. And it gets worse:

The issue which most divided voters was not the extravagantly expensive healthcare system but wealth redistribution.

Wealth redistribution. Shocking. Would that be the wealth redistribution that has gathered pace in recent years, more so under Obama, such that income concentration has now returned to the boom years of the 1920s?

As Figure 3 shows, the share of before-tax income that the richest 1 percent of households receive has been rising since the late 1970s, and in the past decade has climbed to levels not seen since the 1920s. The vast majority of the increase is accounted for by the rising share of before-tax income going to the top 0.5 percent of households. (here for the graph and more)

Of course not. The country clubs and golf courses of America are under threat from blacks, women and Hispanics.

All that's left is hope, which is of course Akker Dakker code ... for complete and utter despair.

If Obama offers hope, then Akker Dakker is happy to offer you a chance to slit your wrists now, before it's too late ...

Naturally The Australian knew how to herald the result:

Markets tumble. Head for the hills. Four more years of an atheist Muslim born in Kenya.

And four more years of Donald Trump.

It seems Trump had second thoughts about some of his twitter tirade and deleted some of his remarks, but here's a few as the frenzied thumb hit the button (click to enlarge):

Four more years of Birther conspiracies and paranoia and never mind a second result going Obama's way. But here's the thing. 

The commentariat makes its bread and butter from telling us all how dire things are and how the world is rooned and how we need to march on Washington (or Canberra, in a convoy of clowns). 

They should be celebrating, they should be dancing in the streets. In four years, they'll be able to point to the complete devastation of the west, the utter gutting of the world and everything noble white men have stood for, and turn and point the fickle finger of indignation, and drawl at the empty chair, "See, I told you so".

What's that you say? What about Paul Sheehan? What's he got to say? Well Sheehan is off with the sexist pixies, still reliving the Melbourne Cup in Why Seven needs this beauty with the beasts.

Beauty and the beasts? Yep, for simple-minded reductionist asinine stupidity, you can't go past Sheehan, though he probably thinks he's being feminist:

Melbourne Cup day is not a cerebral day. Even so, this year reaffirmed my belief that women, at their best, are superior to men at their best. 
The trigger was Channel Seven's coverage of Cup Week, anchored by three roughies and a thoroughbred. The thoroughbred was the only women on the anchor panel, an English import, Francesca Cumani, who floated elegantly above the fray, intimately involved and yet apart. 
Cumani may have a dark side, but on camera she betrays no self-absorption or vacuity. At 29, she has left no trail of scandal, controversy, conflict or fodder for the prurient. 
On race day, with so much bogan chic on parade, Cumani opted for simple elegance. Advertisement Beauty is commonplace, but beauty plus intelligence, lucidity, courage and loyalty is a more rarefied combination. It can be found in men, but its highest expression is in women. 

At about this moment, a wave of nausea swept over the pond.

Sheehan brooding on the fillies.

It's too much, and it leads to Sheehan thinking about serving at stud:

Women have greater physical capacity for pleasure than men. This is nature's scheme. Because in nature, procreation is paramount. So women have to take greater risks than men for passion.

Passion? The greatest risk to sanity that women take is when they read Paul Sheehan. But it says one thing. He likes to take the day off on Thursday. He probably filed this column yesterday and couldn't be bothered rounding up anything on Obama.

Does four more years of Obama mean four more years of vacuous Sheehan?

There was only one real upside in the world of the commentariat. The twittering Rupert Murdoch fell silent on 6th November and hasn't tweeted a twittish tweet since:

Everybody searching for any scrap of news about election tomorrow. plenty of straws to grasp for 
Romney, probably not enough.

Presumably the punters were searching for a scrap of believable, credible news, by looking outside Fox News and News Ltd.

But the even bigger joke tweet?

Monolithic media will spend next three days pushing Obama, but final outcome far from certain ...

Monolithic media?

The owner of of one of the United States' largest media conglomerates (it came in at number 6 in 2011, behind Amazon, Comcast, Disney, Apple and GE here) talking about monolithic media?

When he'll be making out like a bandit for the next four years explaining how that atheist Muslim socialist from Kenya is ruining the country? How the country's ruined and everything is fucked ... (without the asterisks please)

What else? Well surely the pond should reserve a special prize for Fran Kelly this morning asking the question that is on everybody's lips.

Hillary Clinton for 2016? Perhaps up against Gov. "Chris" Christie ...

Yep, the champagne bottles haven't been recycled, the digital ink barely dry on the 2012 results, a whole four years to live, and already the chattering classes are chattering about 2016.

There's no simply no end to the madness and the incessant chattering and the swilling and sipping of the chardonnay ... and whether it's Paul Sheehan on proud passionate fillies, or the Bolter on blacks and women, it's an endurance race for all ...

How to lose ten points of IQ in one easy read ...

(Above: Tammany in the good old days found here. These days it's known as Kochamamie)

However the American election season turns out, it's a depressing spectacle and a terrible advertisement for democracy in action.

Billions spent in relentless television, robo call campaign advertising at the whim of an interventionist activist Supreme Court that has proposed companies have feelings, moods, opinions and the right to splash cash, and more billions spent on technologies open to abuse, and frequently abused, and attempts to manipulate the ballot box, right down to bosses now instructing workers how to vote - sure both sides have done it, as in Tammany Hall  but it's now reached the point where both sides will shriek at the result and abuse the referee's call, especially if it ends up in the nakedly biased Supreme Court - and that's not to mention the abuse of voters' right to vote and specious laws about voter fraud when electoral fraud via manipulation of boundaries and private sector operatives is rampant and unchecked - and for what?

The election of a person who will be limited and constrained, not for the benefit of the citizenry and the avoidance of dictatorship, but as a way to take care of special interests and to ensure inertia and stalemate.

No wonder Putin sleeps easy at night.

In the end, it's politics as showbiz or sport, and it's natural that with the Melbourne Cup, the Australian media should line up for the next feast of entertainment, but it can't end soon enough for the pond. The ABC's been all over it like a rash, as if it's Hollywood or Royalty.

It's already gone on for two years, and yet in two short years, whoever gets the gig will be pronounced a lame duck president as the game starts all over again. A two year season!

And yet the more extreme ratbags in the Liberal party look yearningly at the way the fix can be slid into place in same way as it operates in the United States ...

Why it's enough to make the pond turn to Janet Albrechtsen for a little light entertainment.

Oh dear. It seems that bitchy witch Albrechtsen has returned to very old and stale ground.

What's that you say? Calling her a bitchy witch is a groundless attack on a woman that could set a bad example for impressionable young men? Oh take your placard, stuff it in a chaff bag and drown it at sea. And while you're at it, drown Albrechtsen.

Oh sorry. Does that constitute another groundless attack?

What's really tragic however is that Albrechtsen should return to the fray using a story in Marie Claire as an excuse for hand-wringing in The perils of the Prime Minister's feminist fantasies, hidden behind the porous paywall of the lizard Oz for your personal protection and safety:

When will thinking feminists admit that Gillard's anger-laden feminist taunt was a regressive step, undermining the need for men and women to calmly and intelligently sift through the sometimes complex relations men and women?

Oh will someone just shut this silly old Rupert Murdoch bitch witch up, and take her out to sea and drown her. What's the bet she'll pretend to be even-handed?

Just as some men can be sexist, so too can some women. Just as misogyny exists, so does misandry. 

And just as members of the commentariat get tired, so you may be assured that they resort to the worst sort of baleful cliches and statements of the bleeding obvious.

Just as stupidity exists, so does Janet Albrechtsen.

Gee, this non-sexist abuse can be fun, an inspiration to impressionable young men everywhere. So let's cut to the wrap-up:

Having been happily co-opted into a showy PR stunt for a Prime Minister intent on living her Walter Mitty style dream as feminist warrior, perhaps the next issue of Marie Claire may explore the unfortunate consequences of hypocritical feminist stunts.

What? She can't even have a Mrs. Walter Mitty fantasy?

Wouldn't it have been simpler, cleaner and truer for Albrechtsen to say that she doesn't like Gillard, and in the hypocritical name of a feminist denouncing hypocritical feminists, she's produced yet another tired beat up? Way past it's use-by date?

Back to climate change and Lord Monckton and a conspiracy involving world government emanating from the United Nations, and the sooner the better if Albrechtsen is going to keep on attracting readers.

Meanwhile, Miranda the Devine does her very best to make Albrechtsen come across as an intellectual giant.

How? Why by the very simple device of addressing an open letter to Camilla about her use of a parasol.

Ever heard of sunscreen, the moll wants to know (moll is of course non-sexist abuse, as approved by Janet Albrechtsen, and suitable for use by impressionable young men) in Camilla's parasol beyond the pale.

In the old days, this used to be known as a fluff piece, a piece of fluff written by a fluffy-headed wombat for other fluffy readers, but it turns out this description is insulting to fluff everywhere.

You see, while pretending to be as light as 99 luftballons, the Devine can't help but sound weird:

In PNG the white lace parasol looked absurd, bobbing around the countryside. It made you look like a parody of the colonial memsahib, ready to expire from all the bare bosoms and dark flesh. 
Which was a pity, since you were a good sport, perched up there on the royal ute with Prince Charles, sharing conspiratorial grins. When Charles beamed at the sight of perky native breasts, you just smiled sweetly.

Say what? What the fuck? Where did that come from? Perky native breasts from Devine's salivating, spittle-saturated keyboard?

Not to worry, here's what it came from, from deep within, a tortured bubbling up of neuroses worse than the sort of fresher pounding you might endure if you attended a Catholic college at Sydney University:

Charles had the right idea, donning an Akubra. How we would have loved you if you had joined him. That is the thing. Australia is Diana country. Of all the Commonwealth, this was the seat of your predecessor's most ardent fans. 
Diana visited five times, the first just before her wedding to Charles, when we were a haven in the middle of a media storm. We have felt protective ever since. 

Diana country! Sweet weeping absent Jesus! Is that like Marlboro country?

This is your first visit to Australia and the comparisons are inevitable. When you went to the Melbourne Cup we couldn't help but remember the last time Charles brought his wife to Flemington - Diana - 27 years ago. 
No one expects you to compete with the ghost of a winsome 24-year-old. But what endeared Diana to Australia was her natural unpretentious style. Diana would never have hidden behind a parasol. She barely wore a hat. 
Who could forget her, hatless at Uluru in 1983, alongside Charles, in a daggy safari suit, or giggling with lifesavers at Terrigal in 1988. 

Yep, gales of nausea began to sweep through the pond, like that pickled peanut that caused so much damage in Beijing ...

Yes, yes, the pond acknowledges that if you read that passage in a burst, you have lost at least ten IQ points, quite possibly for life.

But the pond carries no insurance, and in any case you acknowledged at the very start that you were entering loon pond, where loons gather and worship at the feet of spectacularly neurotic members of the Royal Family, so barking mad that even the firm didn't know how to cope with her barking madness.

Could it get any worse? Of course it could:

Of course, in Melbourne on Cup day, you would have felt more at home under the customary low grey clouds. So we were pleased to see you left the parasol behind. 
 Anyway, welcome to Australia Camilla. One thing we can say for you is that Charles looks a lot happier than he did the last time he brought a wife here. 
 You might have been the "third person" in his marriage to Diana but no one can doubt the affection you share. One day we might forgive you.

We might forgive you? One day? There'll be a place for us, and peace and quite and open air, and no parasols, and wait for us there, somehere?

The Devine is speaking for the entire nation? Isn't that what barking mad people like Dickens' Uncle Dick did?

Or is she adopting the Royal "we" in her offer of forgiveness?

It can ... be used to demonstrate an absurd degree of self-regard and pomposity if used by someone who isn't royal. (here)

That's the Devine alright. Not Royal.

But we are amused and we forgive her, because truly how bereft and bare the pond would be without the musings of the likes of Janet Albrechtsen on feminism and Miranda the Devine on the royal use of parasols, as mad dogs and Englishwomen go out in the noon day sun.

Before today the matter of parasols had completely escaped the pond. We had paid no heed, but henceforth the pond intends to take up the cause of parasols.

Who'd have thought there would be a shred of sympathy for Camilla down at the deep end, but when you get this sort of pompous prattling condescension from the shallow end, with its idle offer of a Catholic kind of benediction and forgiveness, something's got to give.

Time for the Devine to get back on to the important matter of climate science, and explain Lord Monckton's point of view? What about expounding on the plasticity of the human brain, a la Susan Greenfield?

Would giving her a sound thrashing with a parasol be a sensible use of the thing? Surely impressionable young men would see it as a fine example of thought in action ...

(Below: look at that filthy pervert looking at young black tits and look at that silly parasol and look, you've just lost another ten points of IQ. Send the bill to Miranda the Devine, and failing that, Rupert Murdoch).

Sometimes thinking is too hard so here's a right royal parade of cartoons ...

(Above: naturally the pond is first to welcome Royalty to these shores, and provide a link to Prince Charles' blog here, exclusively previewed in The Guardian where you can also find that dreadful satirical cartoonist Steve Bell).

First things first, and by golly Royalty must come first.

But it seems only the lizard Oz leads with a nod to the Royals.

That wretched tabloid rag, the Daily Terror, leads its digital edition with the Melbourne Cup and Eddie Obeid and a slain Comanchero and the probing of a jockey (disturbing sight that), while the equally wretched Fairfax rag offers the same jockey probe, Sydney's 20 iconic dishes, smutty photos that never die, the private life of former French justice minister Rachida Dati (up to eight alleged lovers!), the woes of Nathan Tinkler and the seven brave lads of St John's - the Untouchables - who might one day follow in the footsteps of Tony Abbott and jolly Joe Hockey. (Fairfax has been on a roll with this one).

What about Regal jottings and notes being top of the page lads?

So much tastier than Vice-Regal. Show 'em how it's done, lizard Oz, with discretion, with style:

Oh jolly good, a rooful pun, and there'll always be an England, so long as we have The Australian, willing to put news of the Royal party behind the fickle reporting finger of the golden bar of fate. The Royals are so important we must be prepared to pay for them.

(A moment's silence please while we all mourn the death of the Royal:

Oh Bob, Bob, we did but see them passing by and yet we love them 'til we die)

And so with the tone set we can turn to that most vice-regal member of the commentariat, Gerard Henderson, for our daily earful of morose meandering unhappiness.

Oh dear sweet absent lord, no, say it ain't so.

Forget the Royals and Britain and gunboats and white shoes and pith helmets and all that jazz.

Apparently Australia has had a long history of engagement with Asia, and in a moment, this long and proud history will be swept away into obscurity by the introduction of a white paper, as you can read in White paper risks obscuring long history of engagement with Asia.

Apparently this means we might forget the Vietnam war, which was, as Henderson will remind anyone sitting in the armchair next to him, a spiffing success.

But first to the good news:

Australia's interaction with Asia goes back at least eight decades.

Yep, by the pond's reckoning, that gets Australia interacting with Asia since 1932! At least!

What's that you say? What about the Chinese who turned up in the goldfields from the 1850s on, producing the odd riot, the odd discriminatory tax, and eventually the White Australia policy? (start here for a look at an ancient Chinese opium box).

Yes, yes, that's all very well, but what Gerard Henderson wants to talk about is how wonderful Joe Lyons was, and especially Percy Spender, and most overwhelming of all, that wonderful Asian man Bob Menzies, who really did but see Asia passing by, but truly loved her till he died (after the Cinque ports, that is).

Note: Mr. Menzies rides a fire-breathing Asian dragon, not as you might have thought a Crusader pony.

Now it will help, for the sake of this discussion, if you develop a deeper strategic insight than the one that usually infests your colonial Anglo-centric mind. Here it is:

Everywhere you look Australia played a valiant part in helping shape Asia by getting up there and sinking in the slipper. There's nothing like Rule .303 to teach those Commie bastards a lesson or two.

And so Mr. Henderson celebrates Australia's potent warrior tradition, with the Korean war eventually turning China into the economic powerhouse it is today, and the Malayan emergency generating a tremendous love of Britain in Singapore and Malaysia today, and the British presence in Hong Kong the sole sign of civilisation in an otherwise barbaric region ruled by various Manchurian candidates.

But what about that most singular success, the Vietnam war? What can we say about that?

Australia's Vietnam commitment in the late 1960s and early 1970s was controversial. Today there is little support for it among academics or journalists. Yet support can be found among the South Vietnamese descendants living in suburban Sydney and Melbourne. Australia's Asian allies in Vietnam included South Korea, the Philippines and Thailand. 

Yes, what would humbug academics or journalists know about the Vietnam war, compared to Gerard Henderson, reaching out from his armchair to the dry cleaners and bakers and restauranteurs of Australia living in suburban Sydney and Melbourne?

Sssh, let's quickly move on, remember not to ask the many many dead Vietnamese how they feel about the interaction, or the live ones still interacting with Agent Orange, because in Hendo's world, the Asian-Australian relationship has long been a triumphant roll call of clever Australian moves forward.

Why even the Labor party gets a mention here and there in Hendo's piece - well Gough did recognise the reign of the tyrant Mao - and before you know it, we're right there at the end, after a long cavalcade of proud Australian politicians reaching out to Asia, able to change their generally inscrutable Asiatic ways and showing them the virtuous path of right thinking. Drum roll please:

Talking up the white paper may have political benefits in Australia. But it would be helpful if world leaders assembled in Laos knew that Australia was deeply involved in the region decades before anyone had spoken of an ''Asian century''. 

Deeply involved!

The most singular achievement in this singular list of ongoing astonishing and amazing Australian successes in Asia, which sometimes a few ungrateful, churlish Asians fail to see as singular successes?

Why surely it must be that the only mention of the White Australia policy in prattling Polonius's column is the way Harold Holt began junking it in 1966, and never mind that it took the Whitlam and the Fraser governments to eradicate that policy in its entirety (yes, the wiki here is a better and surer guide than the thoughts of Gerard Henderson).

Anyhoo, with a leap and a bound, it seems that you can go from this:

To this:

So there's your history lesson for the day, as superficial as you can imagine, and perhaps requiring a white paper to recommend that Australians learn something about their history of interacting with Asia and Asians.

By golly let's hope those Asians are grateful for all that interacting Australia has done with them, though we did learn a few ideas from them, apart from sweet and sour sauce:

And even now you will find certain cartoons quoted fondly in certain Hansonite forums:

Oh and look, just to bring us full circle, there's a special message from the Prince of Wales. By golly, he's still reaching out his hand towards the colonies. Roll on the Asian century.

So it's official. The last of Doug Anderson's thoughts on films have wended their way through the Fairfax TV guide, and now he's left the building, while commentariat member generally grumpy Paul Sheehan remains behind to spray his thoughts all over the place, like an unruly, unsplayed tomcat.

Why should this matter? In the ordinary course of events, it's a small enough change. Journalists come and go, and film reviews don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world, especially if you live outside Sydney and have never thought for a moment about Anderson.

But the pond was fond of him, if only because he was an epic pirate inside an organisation which ostensibly supported intellectual property rights.

For nigh on twenty years, Anderson ran a column in which punters could make a request for a film, and when it turned up, at first on tape, and later on disc, from an obliging soul, he'd send it along to the grateful person who'd made the request.

Usually the business involved rare and exotic films, out of print and hard to find. There were occasional nods in the direction of proper conduct - a note that a film might be available commercially on disc - but most of the time, Anderson would simply run the exchange without a thought for intellectual property rights.

He was a king of the pirates, an example to all, an inspiration.

Even in his last column, he couldn't help himself, mentioning that the TV series The Dark Side of the Sun (BBC, 1983, well within copyright) had landed on his desk, while a reader had kindly forwarded a disc of Ninotchka, which while made in 1939, is officially available in the United States via Warner Home video.

In his farewell note, he addressed his thanks to the likes of Lucky Burner and Billy the Kid and Joe Luddite and Lucky Al and June Holdup (and if that's a real name, apologies to Ms. Holdup).

Yet no one in the industry seemed to care or complain, because it seemed that Anderson was generally servicing a gap in the market, his intentions were good, he was a film and TV reviewer who loved his films, and his readers appreciated his good deeds:

It has been a successful enterprise in some regards - well over 80 per cent of published requests being fruitful, even if a depressingly smaller percentage of letters received has been dealt with. Humble apologies for all those entreaties that remain unfulfilled - never enough time or space. (here)

Anderson noted that he was leaving because of "changes in the Herald's direction going forward", but still not word on the business of breaching intellectual property rights.

That part of Anderson's work has indeed changed direction and shifted to the intertubes, where film buffs can share their love of exotic out of print classics, and the major studios can spend millions and millions trying to stop them, and persecute cyber lockers and carry on like pork chops.

Imagine if you will a similar service dedicated to exotic LPs and CDs; how long would it have lasted before the music industry attempted to jail a teenager for making use of it?

Never mind, it's gone now, and Anderson with it, and the Herald can stand tall, after twenty years, once more allowed back into the closet of intellectual property rights. How soon before the House of Mouse demands that the rights to the Star Wars franchise be extended to a hundred years?

Now compare and contrast.

Anderson provided a useful service to dedicated film buffs, a bit like a recipe exchange of the kind country folk take for granted (ah the pond's recipe for exploding ginger beer is a must have, with endless fun hours picking up shards of glass).

What does Paul Sheehan offer?

Well there's grumpiness and right wing rage, and bugger all else. His column this morning, going under the name No end in sight in race to trample leaders, is particularly shameless.

Remember this is a man who as recently as October 10th 2012 trampled on Julia Gillard in a way so vicious that the editor deleted a reference to Gillard, but left in the rest of the rant:

After sending out two attack dogs, Gutter and Sewer, to do the dirty work, after hiding behind two political zombies, Insufferable and Unspeakable, to stay in power, after using the Minister for Innuendo and the Compromise-General to play the gender card, the mask has finally dropped away to reveal the driver of the politics of hate in Australia. (and so on and so forth here).

And yet he has the gormless cheek to end his current piece thus:

This was duly noted by the government. The improved opinion polls for Gillard may provide relief from speculation over a leadership challenge from Kevin Rudd but the press gallery will now simply switch the equation. The number of stories touting Turnbull's leadership has already started to sprout. The nation may stop for one race for one day but the gallery cannot stop the Blood On the Carpet Leadership Stakes.


The gallery? Sheehan has his snout in the leadership trough on an almost weekly basis, usually along the lines of four legs Tony Good, two legs Juliar Bad.

What's even more shocking and shameless is he spends the first third of his piece simply reprinting and recycling Greg Combet's call of the Liberal leadership stakes in Melbourne cup style.

This might have been okay when it first turned up some three days ago (you can still watch Combet actually doing it here, which is way more to the point than watching Sheehan Cut and Paste it.)

Three days on, it's simply lazy and sloppy, an excuse not to have to think up original thoughts and type them out, a form of reflexive Alan Ramsey indulgence.

Even more shocking and shameless is Sheehan's pretence at being even-handed in his own way:

On the opposition benches, Sophie Mirabella was screeching and being warned. The parliamentary mosquito, Christopher Pyne, was bobbing up and down, making points of order. The government's usual suspects were also on form. The Prime Minister twice referred to the Leader of the Opposition as ''mendacious''. Anthony Albanese was sneering at everything. Wayne Swan was Wayne Swan.

As if politics hasn't ever been thus, as if there's no direct line from Billy Hughes and Lang to Paul Keating.

But even more pompous and pretentious was the pose 'won't someone think of the children':

I find the Speaker kind of appealing when she's in full disapproving school teacher mode but I was aghast to see rows and rows of actual schoolchildren in the gallery, neat in white shirts, quietly watching all the unedifying sub-banter below them, the general braying and bile-spraying in the chamber.

Aghast? Bile-spraying?

Is that like talking of attack dogs Gutter and Sewer and political zombies Insufferable and Unspeakable and so on and so forth, or is that Sheehan simply pretending he's involved in a video game where vampires run the Parliament?

Don't let your children get hold of granny Herald when Sheehan is off in the gutter ...

When it all comes out in the wash, Sheehan is actually running true to form, as the veneer of even-handedness drops away, and he's actually been saving up to end the column with a tidy little bit of bile-spraying.

It turns out that all the leadership issues on the Liberal side are the fault of one man.

Big Mal! Arch-villain:

Turnbull has done his bit to encourage the mischief. 
In September, after months of tacitly undermining Abbott's position against same-sex marriage, he then went on a march through the Canberra press gallery to attack Abbott's own parliamentary secretary, Senator Cory Bernardi. 
He said Bernardi had been ''hysterical'' and ''offensive'' over comments made about same-sex marriage. Turnbull wanted Bernardi sacked and he was sacked.

How shocking. Big Mal should of course have kept his trap shut, and allowed Bernardi to go on spewing his bile, because that form of bile-spraying is much more to the taste of Paul Sheehan.

Suddenly Big Mal's remarks about Bernardi score inverted commas, because it seems Bernardi wasn't being "hysterical" and "offensive".

Is it possible that Sheehan doesn't have the first clue how week in, week out, he sounds like a cranky, crackly old 78 Bernardi enthusiast or a magnetic oxide shedding VHS tape?

Never mind, let's weigh it up. With Doug Anderson, the pirate's friend and inspiration, you might end up with a VHS tape or a disc containing a show you wanted to watch.

With Sheehan you get a typed down version of a Combet speech you can actually watch elsewhere, along with a lot of jibber jabber and a bile-spray about bile-sprayers from a man who relentlessly sprays bile ... a cracked disc from a man with the piratical integrity of Long John Silver. And there'll be no end to Sheehan's trampling on Gillard's leadership.

And Fairfax wonders why it's in trouble.

(Below: compare and contrast. The pond will take the hippie any way of the week).