Dvir Abramovich, and any fundie friend of Israel is a friend indeed in these troubled Mossad times

(Above: study the maps and charts above carefully. There will be questions asked at the end, and if you fail the exam, a lifetime in hell awaits).

If ever there was a case to be made for strident, militant atheism, the nonsense on parade in Dvir Abramovich's Israel has friends in Christian places is as good as any place to start.

It's a case of with friends like these, who needs enemies, and never mind that Abramovich is able to forget about Mossad capers for a moment by feeling the love from Christian friends.

Never mind the ongoing follies of the Netanyahu circus, the evangelicals love him and he loves the evangelicals, and feel the statistical weight of the love:

In a 2008 poll taken in the US, more than 80 per cent of Christians stated that they had a ‘‘moral and biblical’’ obligation to love, pray and support Israel, while 62 per cent of evangelicals said that Jerusalem should remain Israel’s undivided capital.

Well that settles it. No point talking about a two state solution, the evangelicals have spoken. And there's so much love:

I recall witnessing the waves of love when 400 Christians, representing more than 10 organisations, gathered two years ago in Melbourne for a Stand with Israel evening. The affection for Israel was palpable. Shorn of Christian signs such as the cross, the event featured Israeli dancing and songs, banners, waving of the Israeli flag, a pep-rally eruption of cheers and standing ovations for Israel, and speeches praising and praying for the Jewish people. Particularly striking was an apology offered by an elderly German woman to the Jewish people for the evil perpetrated by the Nazis and one by a pastor for anti-semitism.

Such words of contrition are not often heard.

Thank the lord the Christians were kind enough to take down any signs of offensive Christianity. And it's nice that the repeated apologies of the German government and German people don't match up to an apology by one elderly clap happy German woman.

But who are these Christians, and why do they have such a baffling affection for Israel?

Baffling? Only to those who don’t understand a controversial end-time theology that began in 19th century Britain and which divides history into eras (dispensations). According to this theology, Israel’s creation and the 1967 war were galvanising signs that God’s hand moves in history and the clock of prophecy had started up again. Driven by a literal interpretation that prophesies Israel’s establishment as a prelude to the second coming of Jesus, tens of millions are now convinced they are living in the final days as described in the Book of Revelation. They are often called Christian Zionists.

Where I come from they're called loons, and if that's the best set of friends Israel can muster in these Mossad-inspired times, then Israel, like Huston, has a problem.

The full extent of loonacy of British Israelism, or Anglo-Israelism, or Christian Zionists can only be marvelled at, but you can read about it at the wiki and follow it up as much as your patience or love of loons permits. In the process, you can bring yourself up to speed on the idea that western Europeans are the direct lineal descendants of the ten lost tribes of Israel (see vital map above), and that the British royal family is directly descended from King David.

Well in the way of things, I suppose we all have a few genes from biblical days washing around in the DNA, but we're also kissing cousins to apes and monkeys, and you don't see that bobbing up too much in theological thinking.

Nonetheless, I've provided a few handy charts to bring you up to speed, while Abromovich offers up a couple of compelling works (the added links are mine):

This intense passion was given a boost with the publication of Hal Lindsey’s 1970’s blockbuster book The Late Great Planet and continues today with Tim LaHaye’s prophetic Left Behind Series that has sold 70 million copies.

Yes, yes, this is all very interesting, as is the ethnographic study of loons, but isn't it about time to say that this is all nonsense of the most specious kind? Sorry, Abramovich is in his own kind of intoxicated rapture:

A review of the recently released documentary Waiting for Armageddon explains the four stages:
1) The Rapture, when, in a microsecond, all true believers, living and dead, will be transported into the clouds with Jesus.
2) The Tribulation, during which untold horrendous catastrophes, ecological and man-made, will rain down upon those haplessly left behind;
3) Armageddon, when Christ will return with a sword to judge the sinners and defeat the Antichrist, who will be placed in a bottomless pit for 1000 years.
4) The Millennium, encompassing the 1000-year reign of heaven on earth reserved for Christ and his followers (along with 144,000 converted Jews).

But does it star Arnold Schwarzenegger, and will he defeat Satan?

Sorry, still more to come:

Standing with Israel guarantees evangelicals that they will be on God’s side when the Battle of Armageddon occurs in Megiddo, Israel. This occurs after the Antichrist is released from his imprisonment, recruits the armies of Gog and Magog and attacks the New Jerusalem. In the final battle, it should be noted, most Jews are wiped out and the rest embrace Christ after he defeats the Antichrist and throws him into the Lake of Fire or Gehena. Jews who don’t accept Jesus are condemned to eternal damnation, while Christians ascend to heaven.

Gog and Magog? Aren't they the two clock watchers in the Royal Arcade in Melbourne banging the bell to usher in the rapture of shopping?

Yes, yes, it's going to be a rough time for secularists and atheists and Jews and shoppers trying to buy last minute gifts as rapture going away presents, and this kind of millenarian thinking has been around for centuries, but is it a sequel to End of Days, or is it more of a kind of an Omen piece of fiction?

And do we ever get to the point where it's explained that this is the fevered thinking of fevered brains? Sorry, there's more of a history lesson:

Gershom Goremberg, author of the book The End of Days, is unsure about the evangelicals’ affection. He explains the evangelical attitudes towards Jews as: ''We love you and want you to give up what is most basic to your identity.''

Historical examples of Christian Zionists include William Blackstone, author of Jesus is Coming, who organised a petition for restoring Palestine to the chosen people, Lord Balfour and his 1917 declaration promising a homeland for the Jewish in Palestine and President Harry S. Truman and his support for US recognition of Israel despite the objections of the American State Department.

Indeed, an increasing number emphasise that Christian Zionism is based on the biblical promise that God will bless those who bless the Jews, and curse those who curse the Jews. For many, at a time when Israel faces the threat of nuclear threat from Iran and global anti-semitism is on the rise, biblical motives count for little.

Oh right, never mind the motivation. If you're a raving ratbag of an evangelical fundamentalist kind, and you're on the side of Israel, welcome to the club. Please don't leave looniness at the door, we love loons, especially if they arrive with a handsome amount of cash:

To properly understand the level of evangelical devotion to Israel, one only has to mention the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, which has raised $US250,000,000 ($A277,000,000) for various projects in Israel. The Joshua Fund, an evangelical organisation aims to marshal more than $100 million to fund projects for health, immigrant integration, education and victims of terrorism in Israel.

Oh well there's nothing like a little cash to wipe away the doubts, the fears or the anxieties. Strangely, there seem to be a few that experience doubt about accepting the moola:

Yet, there are those who feel a discomfort with this backing. Televangelist Pat Robertson, a leading Christian Zionist said at the time of Ariel Sharon’s stroke that Sharon was being punished for withdrawing from Gaza and ''dividing God’s land''. Jerry Falwell, regarded as the father of the movement in the US, described the Antichrist as being Jewish. John Hagee, John McCain’s pastor, who organises an annual Night to Honour Israel and heads Christians United for Israel, wrote in his 1996 book that the assassination of Yitzak Rabin ''launched biblical prophecy onto the fast track'' and has made several offensive remarks about Jews.

What, not good old Pat Robertson, the well known mad as a march hare fundie, who hates lots of folk, and who even managed to pen The New World Order, which featured a world wide Jewish conspiracy (New world order, old world anti-Semitism). Or good old Jerry Falwell, who said that Jews can make more money accidentally than you can on purpose, while also noting that the antichrist is alive today, and is likely a male Jew. As for John Hagee, he's the full kit and kaboodle. Try this bit of his wiki:

Despite Hagee's professed "Christian Zionist" beliefs and public support for the state of Israel, Hagee has made statements that some have interpreted as antisemitic, including blaming the Holocaust on Jews, stating that Adolf Hitler carried out a divine plan to lead Jews to form the modern state of Israel, calling liberal Jews "poisoned" and "spiritually blind," and stating that the preemptive nuclear attack on Iran that he favors will lead to the deaths of most Jews in Israel.

In his book Jerusalem Countdown, Hagee claims that Adolf Hitler was born from a lineage of "accursed, genocidally murderous half-breed Jews." On page 149 in a chapter with the ominous title 'Who Is a Jew?', Hagee writes:

"It was Esau's descendants who produced the half-breed Jews of history who have persecuted and murdered the Jews beyond human comprehension ... Adolf Hitler was a distant descendant of Esau."

Hagee has attributed the persecution of Jews throughout history, implicitly including the Holocaust, to disobedience, thereby attracting accusations of antisemitism:

"It was the disobedience and rebellion of the Jews, God's chosen people, to their covenantal responsibility to serve only the one true God, Jehovah, that gave rise to the opposition and persecution that they experienced beginning in Canaan and continuing to this very day... Their own rebellion had birthed the seed of antisemitism that would arise and bring destruction to them for centuries to come.... it rises from the judgment of God upon his rebellious chosen people." (go to original for footnotes).

Yep, it was the Jews that brought on the holocaust.

Never mind, don't worry about the loonacy, if fundie Christians stretch out the hand of friendship, it would be mean not to give it a hearty shake:

An Israeli journalist noted that this extending of a hand in friendship is offered in good faith and that the ''ancient tribal instinct to slap that hand away'' is an unwise one. Christians United For Israel executive director David Brog, who last year arranged for 34 Christian students to take part in March of the Living in Poland’s Nazi camps, claims that Christian Zionists are the heirs of the righteous gentiles. His book Standing with Israel: Why Christians Support the Jewish State is fascinating read.

Dearie me, what ever happened to the old saw that you're judged by the company you keep, and that if you lie down with loons, you get up with a loony flea or two in your ear?

Of course Abramovich tries a little deflection at the end of his piece ...

Jews as pawns in a Christian prophecy leading the way to the end-of-days battle? Only if you believe it.

... where a little robust denunciation would have been more to the point. Ambivalence isn't a get out of jail card when it comes to loons.

Oops, does that mean eternity in hell for me? Quick, here's a graph, study it well, in it are the seeds of your salvation. Or eternal loonacy.

Miranda Devine, and the bizarre but not unusual sight of a high Tory bashing the low Tories ...

(Above: be very afraid, that's a mute craven liberal moderate under your bed, and monsters don't come any worse than that. Not even leftist utopians).

It's an old saw that you need to be wary about professions that begin with a "p".

Politicians, priests, psychiatrists, plumbers. Say no more.

It means healthy lifestyles - like perverts - and healthy enthusiasms - an interest in perversions - get swept up in the 'p' phobia.

I just had to start that way because 'd' for Devine is back, flailing away with Who's who in the hubris ranking.

And in her usual way, it's never a half measure, as she proclaims that she's head over heels in love with Tony Abbott.

Up to that moment I'd been thinking Abbott had been cruising along fine. Sure he might have found himself lost up a creek without a paddle, but who hasn't been lost in the Australian bush? (Outback experience vital, says 'lost' Abbott). Who hasn't been lost amongst the fossils?

Why here we are lost in a Miranda Devine column.

But when you get the Devine praising you, in language which is unctuous, almost uxorious, it should surely give you pause. Any chance of looking like you're in the middle vanishes into a haze of right wing dolthood:

... his strong moral compass, whether you agree with it or not, and clear-thinking, forthright language, give the Liberals the momentum of a leader who is Howard's natural successor.

But why the sudden reversion to Howard? Well Howard is now suddenly rampant because he's got a gig at the ICC:

With John Howard popping up in his new role as International Cricket Council vice-president, after virtually a 2½ year absence, you wonder if many of those who couldn't wait to see the back of him are questioning themselves. That's not to say Howard hadn't run his course as prime minister - hubris creeps into even the most determinedly humble 11-year government.

Huh? Say what? He's got a gig at the ICC and people who wanted to see the back of him should question themselves?

What a goose. Should people who wanted to see the back of the amiable Kim Beazley as leader of the opposition suddenly think again because he likes to slip on black ice as the new ambassador to the United States? Should those eager to see the back of Gareth Evans think again because he's turned up at the ANU after a recent career attempting to bore people into the path of peace?

Yep, it's the usual nonsense. Talk of a government failing from hubris, then yearning for the return of the master of hubris. Well cricket can have him, and good luck to it as it attempts to turn people back to the utter tedium of a game played over five days (ye gods, five days), compared to the current interest in the 20 20 lollypops. The Indians will have Howard for dinner, so he'd better learn to love curry.

But back to Tony Abbott:

Abbott is more pugnacious, soulful and unpredictable than Howard; he has the added burden of Catholicism; but both are fit, wiry men with enormous tenacity and self-belief, whose opponents underestimate them. Both are unashamed social conservatives who espouse the value of family, faith, flag and defending institutions.

Eek, there's something worse than the letter 'p'.

It's 'f', what with the family, faith and the flag. And as for 'defending institutions', what on earth does that blather mean? A cryptic dog whistle to the monarchists? Or perhaps psychiatric institutions, though I always prefer the term bedlam. Being sometime Catholic.

Dear lord, I used to think it was only the Major in Fawlty Towers who liked to speak in this way:

The Major: Strange creatures, women. I knew one once... striking-looking girl... tall, you know... father was a banker.

Basil: Really?
The Major: Don't remember the name of the bank.
Basil: Nevermind.
The Major: I must have been rather keen on her because I took her to see... India!
Basil: India?
The Major: At the Oval... fine match, marvellous finish... now, Surrey had to get thirty-three in about half an hour... she went off to powder her... powder her hands or something... women... er... never came back.
Basil: What a shame.
The Major: And the strange thing was... throughout the morning she kept referring to the Indians as niggers. "No no no," I said, "the niggers are the West Indians. These people are wogs." "No, no," she said. "All cricketers are niggers."
Basil: They do get awfully confused, don't they? They're not thinkers. I see it with Sybil everyday.
The Major: I do wish I could remember her name. She's still got my wallet.
Basil: As I was saying, no capacity for logical thought.
The Major: Who?
Basil: Women.
The Major: Oh yes, yes... I thought you meant Indians.

(Oh I say Major, let's go do some rat hunting for those craven mute liberal moderates).

Oh dear, I see this site has slipped into offensive imperialist nostalgia mode, what with all the talk of John Howard, cricket, and "institutions". But somehow it reminded me of Howard striding off, Rudyard Kipling style, to tackle the Indians.

Could the slippery sliding slope to offensiveness be the result of reading the Devine's rampant revanchism?

Like Howard, Abbott is subjected to vitriolic character assassination. As they get to know him, voters can see the criticism is untrue, as they did with Howard. In the end, Howard haters became Howard's secret asset. The more vituperative and unhinged they were, the more reasonable he looked. Abbott's critics will probably not be able to help themselves following the same path.

Yep, John Howard looked so reasonable, his government got booted out of office, and he lost his seat. Now there's knock down reasonableness for you. Impenetrable reasonableness I say.

After the unsurprising defeat of Howard, the Liberals flew into a needless panic. There was nothing wrong with Howard conservatism - it just needed a fresh face.

Yep, it's unsurprising he got defeated, so what we need is more of the same with a fresh coat of paint, so it won't be unsurprising if it too gets defeated.

Such is the complex stupidity of Devine's position that she spends more of her column time slamming weak-kneed moderate conservatives than she does musing about the way Howard's battlers might become Abbott's foot soldiers, as she muses on the way Chairman Rudd's apparently unravelled with a speed she finds extraordinary.

Poor old Malcolm Turnbull cops a pounding:

There are those in his party who say Abbott is lucky and the swing away from Rudd would have occurred under Malcolm Turnbull. But that's wishful thinking from people who can't bear to acknowledge that no matter how mute and cowardly are the bulk of Liberal voters, they want a conservative party that is conservative - and the war zone of conservatism these days is not fiscal but social.

Oh you mute cowards in the centre, how silent and craven you are. Listen to the Devine! How's that for egging on your supporters. Calling the bulk of them mute and cowardly. Voting with their hip pockets when they should be fighting the history and the culture and the social wars.

In the old days it would have simply been called an egging:

As visiting British commentator Melanie Phillips put it this week, in a column favourably comparing Abbott to Tory leader David Cameron: ''Why should anyone vote for [conservatives] if they are merely left-wing wannabes? If people want utopia and the repression that inevitably follows its pursuit, the party to vote for is Labour: it does it so much better.''

As opposed to the utopia of the Catholic church and its joyous and sundry repressions?

Never mind, what fun it is to see high Tories bashing low Tories, as a way forward for the Liberal party. With a bit of luck they'll have all the success of the Jensenist heresy in the Anglican community:

... across the country, the self-described ''moderate'' wing of socially progressive conservatives thought it was their time. And climate change and the emissions trading scheme was their chance to prove it. We see now how successful that has been. Conservative leaders from Britain to Tasmania, who should romp into office in coming elections against old broken-down governments, instead deliver lacklustre poll ratings. Their attempts to hide the intractable inconsistency of progressive conservatism with spin and flim-flam have been unsuccessful.

Well David Cameron rides a bicycle. Surely that's the real problem?

In Britain, the progressive David Cameron, whose motto was ''Vote blue, go green'', is faltering against Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his tired government, with recent polls showing the gap is closing. Simon Heffer of The Daily Telegraph in London tells us the conservatives have been doing such a bad job that potential working class supporters, disillusioned with Labour's high-handed big-spending ways, are turning to the racist far-right British National Party. That's what happens when oppositions don't oppose - extremists get a foothold.

What? You mean extremists like Miranda the Devine, who rabbit on about faith and family and and flag and 'institutions'?

Like members of the BNP are sometimes known to do? And think climate change is all tosh?

Why is it that extremists can never see that they're extreme?

Since the Devine's whole piece is about the way the middle road isn't good enough, what we need is good old fashioned Tory conservative extremism. Harumph.

Back to the Devine doing her Major impression:

In Victoria, John Brumby's spin-heavy government, which presided over last year's disastrous bushfires, and with a law and order program dictated by left-wing criminologists, has been internationally shamed by a seeming epidemic of racial bashings of Indian students. Yet the opposition, headed by ''Red Ted'' Baillieu, had struggled to lead in the polls, and only did so after Baillieu started taking a firm stand on policing. In Tasmania, another socially progressive Liberal leader, Will Hodgman, is slipping in the polls. The Greens are rising fast to take the balance of power in this month's election.

A firm stand on policing! Lock 'em up and throw away the key, or else the Greens will come from under the bed, and eat you. That's what happens to naughty children, the monster greens eat you.

Now sit up, shut up and eat your greens. And hear more harrowing, sickening tales of low-key moderates:

In NSW, Barry O'Farrell, a low-key moderate, is at last narrowly leading in the polls, hardly an achievement against a shambolic long-term government. Only in South Australia, where ''mousy'' straight-talking conservative Isobel Redmond is Liberal leader, does the opposition appear to be gaining a healthy lead.

And what has led to this transformation, this way forward?

The collapse of the climate change scare campaign propelled Tony Abbott into office, the decline of Rudd's credibility coinciding with Climategate, the Copenhagen debacle and revelations of flaws in the IPCC science.

Ah, at last the penny tumbles. It's all due to climate change, and Tony Abbott, the true denier, will come to save the planet by pretending to do something, but actually doing nothing. Since climate change has now been conclusively, in a couple of succinct words - one using 'gate', the other 'debacle', the third 'flaws' - has been proven by the Devine to be a crock. QED, which is to say quite extraordinarily dumb.

You know, I can't help but return to the Devine's final par, and its strange logic, the kind of logic that sees her celebrate Susan Greenfield one week, then celebrate the benign influence of television on gen x, y and z's another week (and soon this alphabet lesson will be complete):

In the end, Howard haters became Howard's secret asset. The more vituperative and unhinged they were, the more reasonable he looked.

All the way to an election he lost through unreasonable hubris!

Abbott's critics will probably not be able to help themselves following the same path.

It's true I can't help myself. The more the Devine rabbits on in this way, the more suspicions I suddenly hold about Abbott as he tries to pitch himself as a man of the middle, more moderate than Chairman Rudd, maligned as an extremist but actually a centrist wanting to avoid the ratbaggery indulged in by hardline conservatives. A man who can bring together an army of battlers to plant trees and ride bicycles.

He's already retreated from the Devine's position on climate change, if only to the point of devising a half assed policy. And if he's to gain power he'll need to tread even more in the middle ground, and appeal to swinging voters, and that's never been about social issues, especially the kind of social issues and attitudes espoused by the likes of the Devine, when they suggest Cardinal Pell or Susan Greenfield have got sensible things to say to the masses.

Well the day that Tony Abbott disappoints Miranda the Devine in one of her columns - perhaps one of his lycra-clad bicycle moments - is the day I'll consider voting for him. And he needs swinging voters like me.

By all means, bring on an election based around the social issues espoused by Opus Dei. Let's see how well it runs ...

In the meantime, I'm happy to be reminded that the letter 'f' has many uses beyond flag, family and faith. Like fuckwit.

(Below: here's what you need to fix what ails ya).

EMI, Damian Kumlash Jr and a little viral activity on the pond ...

(Above: YouTube OK Go This Too Shall Pass video clip, but up for who knows how long, before a take down notice is issued and a property of EMI tag is substituted?)

Time for a little light relief, and this Rube Golberg contraption featured in the latest OK Go video clip does the job.

After the rigours of brooding about the Australian US Free Trade Agreement, there's also a point to be made by embedding the link to YouTube:

Record label EMI’s decision to disable embedding on music videos under its control has been a point of frustration for the band, and lead singer Damian Kulash has been incredibly vocal about the frustrations he as an artist feels about the issue of embedding, both in an interview with us last January and a more recent New York Times editorial. But the way that the band has gotten around the embedding problem in this case may have something to do with the fact that the entire video production was underwritten by State Farm Insurance, which gets some semi-prominent on-screen branding. (OK Go's New This Too Shall Pass Video: Branded, Embeddable on YouTube, and Jaw-Dropping).

Well it wasn't an actual New York Times editorial, but rather an Op-Ed contribution by Damian Kulash Jr., but it's still nice to read him ravage EMI on the question of embedding:

The numbers are shocking: When EMI disabled the embedding feature, views of our treadmill video dropped 90 percent, from about 10,000 per day to just over 1,000. Our last royalty statement from the label, which covered six months of streams, shows a whopping $27.77 credit to our account.

Clearly the embedding restriction is bad news for our band, but is it worth it for EMI? The terms of YouTube’s deals with record companies aren’t public, but news reports say that the labels receive $.004 to $.008 per stream, so the most EMI could have grossed for the streams in question is a little over $5,400.

Kulash also has some sensible things to say about major labels as risk aggregators, and their inability to recognise how they might use viral marketing to their advantage:

In these tight times, it’s no surprise that EMI is trying to wring revenue out of everything we make, including our videos. But it needs to recognize the basic mechanics of the Internet. Curbing the viral spread of videos isn’t benefiting the company’s bottom line, or the music it’s there to support. The sooner record companies realize this, the better — though I fear it may already be too late.

Funnily enough, our Malaysian correspondent reports that in that country if you search YouTube for "okgo" and "this too shall pass" you get a message saying "This video contains content from EMI. It is no longer available in your country."

Damn you EMI, damn you to hell.

Roll on Senator Conroy's great big internet filter, for how else can the intertube pirates be disciplined and stopped?

Even if a band actually wants to communicate with its fans ...

(Below: and a couple of cartoons for Rube lovers).

Rodney Tiffen, the good old days of prattling Poloniuses and back to the future with the USA Australia FTA ...

(Above: ah, the good old days. More Nicholson here).

Loon pond is usually dedicated to desperate commentariat columnists intent on shoehorning the world into their world view.

But every so often a truth teller comes along who beguiles with siren song, and we think what the heck, why not be positive about someone else being negative.

Cue Rodney Tiffen, and his eminently sensible Mind the gap: benefits from free trade haven't quit gone the distance.

The sensible Tiffen takes a look at the impact of the United States Australia free trade agreement, by simply looking at its impact on Australian exports to the USA:

Five years on it is clear the free trade agreement between Australia and the United States was a complete dud. Despite the fanfare with which the Howard government introduced it, no tangible benefits have resulted for Australia.

Australia's exports to the US over the five years to last year grew by only 2.5 per cent compared with double-digit growth for exports to all the major Asian trading partners. Since the signing, America slipped from third to fifth among Australian export destinations, overtaken by Korea and most recently India.

Of course back in the day the likes of Tim Blair - well it is called loon pond, so we must mention our loons - had great fun mocking the likes of Toni Collette for decrying the FTA:

"It’s so pro-American. It really doesn’t benefit Australia in any way - certainly not the cultural aspects of it or the arts.

"I just hope Mark Latham has the balls to stand up and be the visionary we all want him to be and say no. But who knows - he’s certainly pinned against the wall."
What’s stopping Toni from saying no to all her US job offers? Be a visionary, woman! Do something that benefits Australia!
Collette said she had to feel optimistic about Latham.

"Because I think I’ll slit my wrists if Howard gets in again."
Now you’re talking. (here)

But then Blair is such a muddle-headed gadfly that it makes mocking actors for being airheads somehow unnervingly like mocking Tim Blair - almost unsporting, like fishing for trout with worms.

And then we only have to turn to that prattling Polonius Gerard Henderson to read a sanguine analysis of Shakespearean proportions, despite the squawking of the sugar trade, in No sugar doesn't mean sweet FTA:

It is easy for critics - in Australia and the US - to pan the proposed FTA. It's just that most nations in the world would like to have an FTA with the US. And the reputation of the US as an advocate of free trade would be substantially diminished if it was not able to negotiate an FTA with an ally like Australia.

Oh it was a vision splendid for the future, never mind the sour sugar-ites:

Assuming the FTA is approved, Australia will have an agreement with the US to form the basis for future deals. In the short term, it will make it possible for Australia to monitor developments with other US FTAs, with NAFTA and with the proposed Free Trade Areas of Americas which would effectively move NAFTA into Latin America.

No developed economy would want to be excluded from such an arrangement. And none would sacrifice such a deal for any particular industry, including sugar.

If you could be bothered, I dare say you could frolic back through time like a young Michael Fox, and find a chorus of loon pond's regular correspondents joining in a croaking in favour of the FTA, such that poor old Robert Manne felt positively beleaguered and besieged in The Monthly in 2005 in Murdoch's War:

In contemporary Australia, a political party disagreeing with News Corporation on certain issues of fundamental ideological or material importance to it – like the invasion of Iraq, or the US–Australia Free Trade Agreement, or the cross-media ownership laws – runs a very real, and perhaps unacceptable, political risk.

Well sic transit gloria to all that and to Mark Vaile's heroic efforts in getting done over by the US trade negotiators, and back to the heretic Tiffen:

The value of Australian exports to the US is now only about a quarter of those to the two leading customers, China and Japan. The four Asian countries together take more than 10 times the value of exports to the US.

Moreover, between 2004 and 2009, the bilateral trade gap in America's favour grew even larger. Australia's imports from America have grown much more quickly than its exports to America. According to US data, the gap in America's favour grew from $US6.4 billion to $US11.6 billion.

Talk about being sold a pup. As if the US negotiators came down in the last shower. Can we send the bill to the commentariat columnists?

Here's Gerard Henderson lashing the left in Latham wises up on our links with US in 2004:

Labor is divided on the (FTA) deal and so far, Latham has said little. In Parliament, on June 24, Beazley presented a compelling case why Labor should pass related legislation in the Senate. But the Labor Left remains opposed.

The essential problem for Labor is that most nations of the Asia Pacific, including New Zealand under Helen Clark, want a free trade agreement with the US. Consequently, a decision by Labor to reject the deal seems unlikely, especially since it has the vocal support of most of the Labor premiers including Bob Carr, Steve Bracks and Peter Beattie.

The evidence suggests that Latham is moving away from, and beginning to regret, the opposition to the US evident immediately before and after he assumed the leadership. At least Armitage should be pleased.

Well Latham's long gone, turned into a commentariat columnist himself, and Beazley is off slipping on black ice in the United States.

So now it's left to the likes of the Tiffen to sweep up the detritus, "a long and sad list of El Dorados, loudly promised by governments, that failed to materialise":

As with some other central episodes of the Howard government - such as children overboard and Iraqi weapons of mass destruction - it raises the question of where self-deception stopped and a deliberate public con job began.

Did John Howard and his cabinet really believe the free trade agreement would help Australia? Even in the narrowly mercantilist frame in which he cast it, he won no benefits for Australia. Nothing, for instance, immediate for Australian agriculture. But perhaps his motive was electoral rather than economic - to highlight the American alliance and hope if Labor opposed it it could be cast as anti-American, and hence a security risk.

Tiffen goes on to make the obvious point that bilateral relationships offer great opportunities for political leaders to scratch each other's backs, but that the promised benefits are sometimes as elusive as an incisive insight from Tim Blair, Andrew Bolt and Gerard Henderson.

Oh, okay he said the promised benefits fade a little more slowly than the TV lights, but I like the notion that the dismal science remains a mystery to commentariat columnists:

Australia is a middle-level power whose prosperity is enhanced in a world where trade is free and governed by universal rules, rules that facilitate a level playing field and make trade between all nations easier.

A world in which bilateral trading agreements play a more central role favours the biggest countries, such as the US and China. Their power affords them superior bargaining leverage to win concessions favouring their domestic constituencies. Australia and most other countries have an interest in more global agreements.

Well I could go on quoting Tiffen all day, and add the note that the FTA has left Australian regulation of its media and Australian content in a mess.

But what the heck, wanting a refund from the incisive stupidity of those who blindly supported the FTA in its hey day is a bit like expecting someone to repair a piece of electronic equipment from China, when the cost of the repair exceeds the cost of sending it off to become landfill.

These days talk of the FTA's with China and Japan aren't so loud as they once were, but if they come to fruition, no doubt Australia's negotiators will get done over the way they were in the agreement with the USA.

It's always interesting to reflect on free market proponents who lack the negotiating skills to knock even a couple of RMB off a trinket in a tourist market, let alone work out what is in Australia's best economic interests ...

But of course way back when Gerard Henderson was, in the style of Tim Blair, lambasting the Australian film industry, and contrasting Australian films with Australian lamb chops in Filmmakers pick a weak plot on trade:

Last Friday it was open slather on the Howard Government, despite the presence of the federal Arts Minister.

Williams was not given the opportunity to briefly state his case - before the television audience. He just had to sit there and cop the criticism.

Then there is the issue of policy. US and Australian negotiators have made it clear that the FTA negotiations in no way threaten the existing rules which ensure local content in Australian television, advertising and pay TV alike.

What is being negotiated turns on the provisions which should apply for new media. That's all. Here the Australian film industry will not even state its bottom-line negotiating position. The likes of Maslin and Smith may not think much of lamb chops - in spite of the fact that rural exports help to sustain Australia's prosperity. But at least the rural industry knows what it wants in international negotiations.

Now of course in such a short time, we live in a world of multi-channeling, and soon enough digital delivery online to standard, then high def quality. And the boom in lamb chops never came.

It turns out that Henderson picked a weak plot on lamb chops, proving as a futurist he's on a par with Dr Lee De Forest's prediction man would never reach the moon, or Lord Haldane's insight that the aeroplane will never fly (and more here).

So it goes for a prattling Polonius ...

Peter Roebuck, Peter Costello, and sundry ghosts still haunting the battlements ...

(Above: oh dear lord).

It becomes clearer and clearer by the day that what's required for reading Australian columnists is a deep amnesia of the kind that afflicted Jason Bourne.

Normally I wouldn't read the scribbles of Peter Roebuck - after all, he's usually on about the remorseless tedium known as cricket - but when it involves the ongoing adventures of John Winston Howard, then what the heck.

Here's Roebuck back in January in ICC arena no place for this inexpert right-arm slow:

Cricket Australia's decision to nominate John Howard as its candidate for the top job at the International Cricket Council is as pitiful as it is disrespectful. Howard's knowledge of cricket is more characterised by enthusiasm than depth or imagination. Plain and simple, he is not qualified for the job. Moreover, the way in which he has been plucked from the sidelines shows CA in the worst possible light.

On and on he ranted:

The notion that an aged and conservative white politician with scant knowledge of the intricacies of the game can act as a counterbalance is far-fetched. Howard does not know enough about cricket or cricket business and, besides, is a divisive figure.

New Zealand is entitled to be upset about Australia's churlish attempt to block its candidate. A mixture of pride and fear of Indian power has unhinged CA. And so Howard's name emerged as the pall of black smoke cleared over Melbourne's Jolimont Street.

Flash forward - in the manner of Jason Bourne suffering a moment of acid flashback - to Roebuck's new scribble on the matter Given the nod, Howard must use his clout. And what a world of difference there is now that Howard has been given the position:

Popes have been more easily elected then the regional candidate for high cricketing office. The boards remained deadlocked for months, even to the last hours, and Sir Rod Eddington, the appointed arbiter, could not find any middle ground. Eventually he made the call. Finally the smoke cleared and Howard emerged, beaming and indestructible as ever. Unless they have gone gaga, long-serving prime ministers are not easily denied.

Although political enemies will disagree, the appointment is hardly a calamity. Only the most churlish will deny Howard his experience and acumen. This was a contest between heavyweights. Howard may be captivated by the bright lights of cricket but he is also familiar with the dark arts of manipulation. Better him than a hundred sweet talkers. Apart from anything else, he has nothing to lose. For the next four years he's going to be immersed in cricketing affairs and after that comes the paddock. He'll have earned it.

Say what? At a moment like that it's tempting to act like a cartoon character doing a double take. Even if it's a tad churlish.

But what have we established? Well clearly 'churlish' is a favourite Roebuckism, and a favourite metaphor for the lad is the appointment of Popes to their position, preferably with a puff of black or white smoke. Or just smoke.

And of course there's no point in arguing with someone who can so splendidly argue with themselves and contradict themselves at every point. The pitiful divisive white man now seems to have not only handicaps but advantages:

... he is sound and well informed on Zimbabwe and will not tolerate the eyewash advanced by the incumbents. And he's been around long enough to appreciate the importance of governance, the greatest issue in the game.

Howard is many things, but not naive. Doubtless he will spend his two years as Sharad Pawar's second in command familiarising himself with the terrain. He will locate the levers of power, find the skeletons in the cupboards, work out the liaisons and so forth. In that regard his years in the Liberal Party were perfect preparation.

Well I guess the wise sailor likes to run with the wind, and Roebuck is indeed a windy sailor of the superior kind.

And his windiness does provide a solid introduction to that other ghost of governments past, Peter Costello, still wandering the battlements, rattling sabres and howling into the wind:

What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous; and we fools of nature
So horridly to shake our disposition
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?

Indeed, why not read Costello's Federal-run health another batty idea.

But if you're up to the task, first it helps that you have deep amnesia, or that you've visited, Arnold Schwarzenegger style, a memory implant facility so that you retain no shred or trace of distant past Liberal party policy. By distant of course we mean a full three years ago, when Tony Abbott was bungling and dithering his way through through the health portfolio.

Costello spends the first half of his piece righteously trumpeting his opposition to the insulation scheme, and how he defeated Malcolm Turnbull, and then leads this as his trump card:

Bear this in mind. The Federal Government could not run a home insulation program. Do you think it can run every hospital and hospital department in the country?

They will say: "We will recruit people who have experience in hospital management. They will run the services properly." Which people? The people now running the health system for state governments. The same people running the same hospitals will report to Canberra rather than the state capitals.

Do you think this will make the hospitals run better? Do you think the federal minister will take responsibility for any failures in the health system? About as much responsibility as Garrett takes for the insulation system. Someone senior and sensible should think about this. And stop it before it begins.

Indeed. And who can remember John Howard, one time PM, now of the ICC, and there to fix up cricket for good, with his Health Minister Tony Abbott by his side, striding into the Mersey hospital in Tasmania, and taking it over in the name of the Commonwealth:

NARDA GILMORE: His announcement of a Commonwealth takeover at Latrobe's Mersey Hospital came before dawn on the Internet site, YouTube, without the knowledge of the State Government or even hospital management.

JOHN HOWARD, PRIME MINISTER: This is not something the Commonwealth has normally done in the past, but action was needed. (here).

It got everyone agitated - well Tasmanians are easily agitated, I'm told - and it caught Chairman Rudd on the hop:

NARDA GILMORE: Labor says it wants to end the blame game, and just yesterday flagged giving the states more control over how they spend federal funds. But John Howard says he is just stepping in where the states have failed because that's what the public wants.

JOHN HOWARD: Their view is, "I don't care what level of government provides the service, as long as the service is provided".

It also got Barnaby Joyce agitated. Back in those days he was imitating a feral bush cat, as opposed to his current position as resident loon within the broad church of liberalism:

NARDA GILMORE: But Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce isn't happy with the emerging pattern.

BARNABY JOYCE, NATIONALS SENATOR: If there's a very good reason as to why we don't need states anymore, then we have a process called a referendum to deal with it.

And so the hare of federal control of the hospital - and by extension health care in general - got out of its hutch and went for an extended run.

And it's still running today. And everybody's right of course, in their own peculiar way.

The federal government could no more manage a health system than the flip flops it's produced on insulation, and indeed on Mersey hospital itself. That hospital became a symbol of policy ineptness (Tasmanian Mersey Hospital's price tag up by $20m a year, Tasmania warns against federal takeover).

The reason why the feds got into the health racket was that state governments - despite what Barners says about their constitutional rights - were inept on a managerial level.

But then what would you expect of the NSW Labor government?

One of my most traumatic experiences at Tamworth base hospital was tasting the food prepared in Newcastle, and shipped up, in the name of efficiency, to be heated up and turned into luke-warm sludge for patients. After one meal, if you didn't want to die or flee the hospital to die in peace elsewhere, you're a better woman than me Gunga Din (an old quote only understood by country folk, imperialists and readers of Rudyard Kipling here).

But the notion that the health system can be turned into a community managed idyllic pastoral retreat - involving incredibly expensive machinery and incredibly expensive practitioners with very specialised skill sets - is also an alternative delusion, one currently being peddled by Tony Abbott. (Abbott's health plan meets mixed response). As if it hadn't already been tried and failed.

And looming large in the memory is the folly of Mersey hospital, as managed by both sides of the political divide. Duck shoving as a finely tuned art form, as opposed to managerial skills tuned to the greater complexity of health care in these aging baby boomer days.

By golly, I know the solution. It's time for me to take another of those amnesia pills. That way I can see each new day as a positive step forward, carefree and without a worry about past frolics and follies.

Why, John Howard will be a boon to cricket, and the federal government can fix hospitals by taking them away from states and handing them over to local communities, and the local communities will never trouble the state or federal governments ever again, and all will be well.

Now following the pill I'll take some of that Chairman Rudd and Tony Abbott pie in the sky, or some hospital food prepared in Newcastle, thank you very much ...

(Below: oh dear lord).

Christopher Pyne, and how to shift from mincing poodle through doofus to dipstick in one easy lesson ...

(Above: crucial information you won't get in a standard Australian education).

By Julia Gillard's definition, Christopher Pyne is a mincing poodle.

Pyne shrugs off 'poodle' taunt is now old news, and in its day I used to think that it was unfair to both poodles and to Pyne.

Once upon a time, I also used to think 'mincing' was okay as a word. Sure it had its derogatory uses, often deployed by men who liked to stick their heads up other men's bums in a scrum, and nothing wrong with that, but what's wrong with elegance in gait, manner or speech, even if slightly affected?

Now I'm not so sure, and still worried about the vexed question of poodle abuse, I'll settle for calling Pyne a mincing doofus. And never mind about the mince meat implications.

Now the status of doofus as a word is confused. It used to mean an incompetent, foolish, or stupid person, perhaps from the Scots 'doof', a fool, and goofus, as in goof and goofy.

Then Seinfeld came along, and then Jerry started talking about Kramer as someone who takes hip to such an extreme that hip is no longer cool:

"He is such a hipster doofus, and has not changed at all since college. Do you think he knows he is a hipster doofus?" (here)

All the same, I'll settle for doofus, because it takes a particular talent to hustle through a curriculum, and announce on the basis of a word count that it manages to take a black armband view of the past.

"To me, it smells of another disaster waiting to happen,'' he (Pyne) said.

"The national curriculum is unbalanced, the national curriculum won't give young Australians confidence about their future because it doesn't teach them the ... balanced truth about their past.

"What the Government has announced I think is an accident waiting to happen.

Mr Pyne said the draft curriculum had 118 references to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture but none of the Westminster parliamentary system or the Magna Carta, on which Australia's laws were based.

"There is absolutely no reason why you can't teach both sides of Australia's history,'' he said.

A coalition government would review the curriculum and "if the review confirms our very serious doubts, then we will scrap the national curriculum and will start again". (here)

You can almost guess the game. Get hold of the curriculum, count the number of references, feel the weight, do a quick search on a couple of key terms to see if they bob up in the search, and when they don't, hey presto, you have Pyne's doofus blather about a curriculum disaster.

Does the curriculum mention Pericles' funeral speech for the Athenian war dead? Who cares, but what a disaster if it doesn't. Quelle catastrophe. Does it cover the causes of the Hundred Years War in the loving depth of Edouard Perroy, whose seminal work surprisingly can now be found for free on the intertubes here at the Internet Archive? When even the participants didn't have a clue as to how they managed to keep the feud going for a hundred years? Never mind, I'm shocked at this startling lack of interest in medieval history.

And so forth and so on and etcetera.

Confronted by this kind of absurdity, it's almost impossible to respond to 'black armband' hysteria. Talk of balance sounds like mealy mouthed piety, as the word search function hypes into over-drive:

“Grade nines will consider the personal stories of Aboriginal people and examine massacres and `indigenous displacement', without any reference to the benefit to our country of our European heritage and the sacrifice of our forebears to build a nation.

“There are 66 references in the document to Asia. There are 10 references to Britain”. (Barry McGaw defends national curriculum against Christopher Pyne).

It's such a stupid quantitative analysis that you have to wonder if there's a qualitative bone in Pyne's brain. And of course by a mere quick glance at the actual curriculum it's easy to pick to pieces.

Lordy, when even the determinedly tabloid David Penberthy can write a more considered response in Taking off the white blindfold and black armband, surely Pyne must be classed as an attention-seeking class clown.

And then Tony Abbott joins in the chase, as noted in Full marks for trying, but could do better:

The Coalition talked for years about a back-to-basics curriculum like the one unveiled by Julia Gillard yesterday. So you would think Abbott would be pleased, right? Wrong.

He said it was ''political correctness run riot''.

As for the emphasis on Sorry Day?

A closer reading shows kindergarten students will be taught about the passage of time through their own families' stories, including ''commemorative events such as birthday parties, religious festivals … and community commemorations (Anzac Day, Sorry Day)''.

Yes, it seems they let blacks into schools these days, and they might regard sorry day as a community commemoration, though Whitlam pouring soil into the hands of traditional owner Vincent Lingiairi resonates more with me.

Now if Pyne had been criticising the rigamarole involved in getting into the ACARA site - here - so you could take a look at the curricula in question, he might have had a point. They even have a cheeky box which suggests you have a choice as to whether you might want to receive communications from ACARA, but if you fail to tick the box, you can't move ahead in the elaborate registration procedure.

When you actually get inside, you see the history curriculum's a pretty fair average attempt to cram a lot of human activity into a very small space, and having studied history for far too many years in secondary and tertiary institutions, and even taught same, I gave a quiet shudder, and headed for the revolving exit door.

But once you do take a look, the 'black armband political correctness run riot' routine is so utterly lame as to be counter-productive, a kind of opportunistic Mark Latham street fighter cynical exercise that suggests Abbott's team is incapable of considered response and reasoned debate.

Which led me to think that perhaps I got it wrong.

Perhaps doofus isn't the go, and dipstick is more appropriate. While the term has a variety of usages - I believe you can even use it in relation to cars - this is the one I prefer:

... one who's brain capacity is less than a long thin piece of metal used to check oil levels. (here)

Sorry, I just had to correct a spelling error in that quote. Young people! They think they can spell like Shakspere on the intertubes, in much the same way as that goose Shackspeare and the Elizabethans didn't have a clue about standardised spellings (The Spelling and Pronunciation of Shakespeare's Name). Why don't they know how to use a spell and grammar checker and word counter like Christopher Pyne and his team?

Now what's the bet that the commentariat columnists will spend ritual time disembowelling the curricula so the history wars can endure for a hundred years, as a way of teaching medievals that the new millennium can harbour grudges for just as long as they did?

Meanwhile, poodles can feel free to mince through the land with their heads held high. Attack dog Pyne has managed to bite himself in the bum, and no self-respecting poodle would be so silly.

(Below: the "I can't believe I'm running a photo of a poodle" moment all bloggers must endure. Can a lolcat looking suspiciously like Christopher Pyne be far behind?)

Gerard Henderson, domestic terrorism, kicking the Lebanese can, and it's all Malcolm Fraser's fault ...

(Above: eek, a Guardian journalist, and he has a man bag. Paddy Considine as Simon Ross at Waterloo station in The Bourne Ultimatum).

It almost goes without saying that Jason Bourne liked to read The Guardian.

That tragically liberal leftie farrago of nonsense always purported an interest in the doings of the CIA, and took an early interest in Bourne's shenanigans. It also goes without saying that any journalist for the rag had to be shown as a quiche-eating, bag-carrying poncy git, inclined to blind panic and getting in to water way too deep from him, and so despatched with clinical, ruthless efficiency by forces too powerful and deviant for him to understand.

You have to wonder whether Mossad operatives like to watch Jason Bourne movies, though the level of skill involved in the bungled Dubai operation suggests that being a movie buff isn't the best qualification for being a skilled assassin. It's more Ocean's 26 than the Bourne trilogy.

On the other hand, the silliest moment in the Bourne trilogy happens when the state organised assassination program is broken up, the head of the CIA and his deputy are arrested, and it looks as if there'll be a sudden cleansing of the world of spooks. Yeah, sure, and Mossad will come under sustained criticism from commentariat columnists.

I got to brooding about the ethics of state-sponsored terrorism because, let's face it, the Bourne trilogy is vastly more entertaining than reading Gerard Henderson, and Henderson today gets into the question of terrorism in Abbott picks wrong target in battle for hearts and minds.

The primly pedantic Henderson takes a swing at Tony Abbott for having a go at Chairman Rudd for having 'sexed up' the recent report on domestic terrorism, and releasing the document during his pink batt hour of need. Not so, says our prattling Polonius:

This is an exaggeration. It turned out that the government received different sets of advice. The intelligence and security organisations, which did the inaugural draft, stressed the rise in Australia of home-grown jihadist terrorism. Apparently this wording was watered down by officials in the Prime Minister and Cabinet and Attorney-General departments. The Rudd government preferred the advice of those officials who deal directly with the terrorist threat.

Oh dear, could the operatives in the PM's department have been wary of a 'sexed up' report producing the Lebanese bashing so splendidly displayed by Miranda the Devine in The warning that we ignored.

Never mind. Gerard Henderson knows how to pick up a tune, hum the melody, and join in the chorus. He too knows it's all Malcolm Fraser's fault, because he relaxed the refugee intake in 1976 in response to the Lebanese civil war:

I have written about this decision, which saw large numbers of Muslim Lebanese enter Australia, in my 2007 pamphlet Islam in Australia. Some of this group have settled well in Australia. Others have not. In Malcolm Fraser: The Political Memoirs, Fraser and his co-author Margaret Simons fudge the problems caused by this decision by equating the Muslim Lebanese and Vietnamese refugee intakes at this time. In fact no Vietnamese Australians are into home-grown terrorism. No community is responsible for individuals within it. But it is disturbing that the response from Muslim spokesmen in the Elomar case has been to deny or play down the matter. Taj el-Din al Hilaly, of the Lakemba Mosque, said that the convicted men had "no connection to acts of terrorism whatsoever". And Keysar Trad, of the Islamic Friendship Association, denied an act of conspiracy to commit a crime.

Actually what's disturbing about this is the way the commentariat repeatedly and in an ongoing way ignore the financial contribution of Saudi Arabia encouraging the spread of Wahhabism.

If we accept the Devine - and now Henderson's evocation of the Lebanese as the issue - and the Devine went further by calling them unskilled and illiterate - where is the cash coming from to fund these illiterate, unskilled foot soldiers, who seem unnervingly capable of terrorising the commentariat and the neighbourhood and Chairman Rudd?

Sssh, not a word about Saudi Arabia, they're our allies, don't you know, and they have a lot of oil. And it's terribly unsporting the way some people keep on harping about how Osama Bin Laden hails from the land of the two holy mosques.

As for the Lakemba Mosque, whose spokesperson so upsets Henderson?

About half of the funds for Sydney's oldest mosque, Lakemba - opened in 1977 - came from the Middle East.

The largest donation, $320,000, was from the Saudi royal family. Other big donors were Libya, which gave $100,000, and Kuwait, which gave $30,000, says Adib Marabani, a founder of the mosque.

Mr Marabani said a further $27,000 was donated to Lakemba by the then Libyan ambassador to Malaysia who, on a visit to Australia, toured the mosque and offered to pay for the carpeting. (here).

If Henderson and the Devine concentrated on the pernicious effects of the spread of Wahhabism, I'd be inclined to take them more seriously. $87 billion spent on its spread in a couple of decades, if you believe the figure flung around the intertubes like confetti. Cut it in half and it's still more than a little loose change amongst chums.

But then bashing up the Lebanese community, courtesy of a couple of individuals, is so much easier than taking a look at what might actually be involved in spreading more militant forms of Islam.

At the same time, it's important not to mention state-sponsored terrorism, or the recent Mossad hi jinks, and Henderson shows exemplary form:

Meanwhile the civil libertarian lawyer Rob Stary told ABC2's News Breakfast program last Wednesday that the only way to stop home-grown terrorism was for Australia to drop its essentially bipartisan policy on the US alliance, Israel and the Afghanistan commitment.

Sssh, it's Israel thick or thin, and never mind Mossad.

Outrageous, these civil libertarians, and the war in Afghanistan, which officially started on October 7th, 2001, and shows no signs of ending, is going so well, and produced such instant exciting results. I still look fondly back on the show trial of that Saudi Arabian wretch Osama Bin Laden and other high ranking Al-Qaeda members as the high point in the Bush administration's eight year reign.

Oops, that sort of loose left wing talk sinks ships, and Henderson will have none of it:

There is little point in Abbott even momentarily being associated with left-wing criticism of national security measures. David Cameron tried this tactic in Britain and it has not benefited the Conservative Party.

Sssh, not a word about national security measures. Leave it to the boffins, they do such a terribly good job, and the high minded Chairman Rudd is right on to all the problems confronting the nation, and takes them terribly seriously. Sure there's a recent example of terrorism at work, but what's a few faked passports compared to the massacres produced by highly skilled illiterate unemployed Lebanese operatives in the western suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne.

I'm still not quite sure how right wing tactics have benefited the people of Afghanistan - can a country be bombed towards democracy? - but it's reassuring that domestic terrorism is all the fault of these home grown Lebanese operatives.

And it's also reassuring to be told now that the Vietnamese are wonderful law abiding citizens. Thank the lord that the moral panic about Vietnamese gangs and triads and Cabramatta as the heroin capital of Sydney, and the alarums of Tim Priest now seem to be have been put away in favour of regular evocations of the dangers of the Telopea boys. Well there's nothing like conflating gangsterism, drugs, gun running, weapons trading, and turf wars with domestic terrorism to produce a jolly good read (Lighting fuse of drug gangs war: Darwiche vs Razzaks).

Personally I'm relieved that the Fenian ghost seems finally to have been put aside - many will remember that it was an Irish Fenian who attempted to assassinate Queen Victoria's son, Prince Alfred, and led Sir Henry Parkes to create the Kiama Ghost by alleging a large-scale Fenian plot (The Kiama Ghost). Well the Catholic v Protestant feud kept ticking over for well over a century, and was still reverberating around the traps when I came into the world.

So it's pleasing to see that Henderson and the Devine and others maintain Parkes' flame and keep banging the drums and maintaining the rage and sounding the alarums, with Islamic warriors as the new Fenians. And Malcolm Fraser as their godfather. But sssh, not a word about Wahhabism.

That this means we now see Henderson criticising Abbott for criticising Rudd for a bit of blatant political opportunism, beating the terrorist drum, just adds a touch of spice to what is surely surreal sight worthy of Alice down the rabbit hole.

As for Mossad, why not revert to The Guardian, and The truth about the Mossad. I'm sure right now it's being read by Jason Bourne, though whether he will return to the screen in 2011 now seems doubtful. A pity, because I've just finished watching the trilogy for a second time in Blu Ray, and I'll say it twice, because it's true, the shows are vastly more entertaining than reading Gerard Henderson.

(Below: and now a map by Ptolemy, for no particular reason, as part of my campaign to blame the world's problems on the imperialism of Alexander the Great).

Michael Lund, more Facebook torture, and rebuilding the humanity, the world and the intertubes from scratch ...

(Above and below: xkcd. And more xkcd here).

Reasons to be cheerful part four:

there is always

something to be thankful
for you would not
think that a cockroach
had much ground
for optimism
but as the fishing season
opens up i grow
more and more
cheerful at the thought
that nobody ever got
the notion of using
cockroaches for bait

Which inevitably brings us to The Punch, Chairman Rupert's gift to the intertubes, and its current righteous campaign against Facebook.

This time it's Michael Lund, who's fast out of the blocks in a bid to descend into absurdity as quickly as possible as he pens What next for Facebook after its nightmare week?

To which any wag might respond, What next for Chairman Rupert's MySpace after its nightmare years?

Lund is determined to prove the Gittins thesis, covered in a previous post on these pages, which is to say that when people get talking about personal responsibility, the only solution is to demand tough action by government. Imagine a nation of 400 million trying to operate with no pro-active policing, preferring self-regulation, he bleats, as if the intertubes is somehow immune from policing.

Lund of course isn't worried about Chairman Rupert and his MySpace cash splash folly, even if he scribbles for The Courier Mail.

He's worried about the whole damn thing, and the answer isn't 42:

It may be time to rethink and rebuild the web from scratch, argues Dr Mark Gregory, an expert in computer engineering at RMIT in Victoria. He says the web was originally built with few security concerns.

“Everything we have been doing since is trying to retrofit security on a thing that doesn’t have security to start with,” he says.

Was it just coincidence that my google quote of the day came from Bertrand Russell?

This is one of those views which are so absolutely absurd that only very learned men could possibly adopt them.

But it did get me thinking. God surely has had humanity in beta format for long enough. Isn't it time for Human 4.0 to land on the scene, with a totally revised operating system, masses of space in the hard drive, and a tremendous set of codecs to imbibe data and programs to make sense of it all?

Surely all the problems of the intertubes would go away if we just re-built humanity from scratch. Not only would all those problems in the virtual world go away, we wouldn't have any problems like organised crime in the real world.

Come to think of it, if we could just get rid of the notion of sex being pleasurable, imagine how much better things would be.

Not content with rebuilding the web from scratch, Lund also hares off down the rabbit hole with Paul Wilson:

Criminologist Paul Wilson, from Bond University, says police should have the same powers to act with abuse on digital networks as they do on any other communication network.

However, he says such powers should be limited only to people who commit a crime.

“If they are notes or something which are unpleasant but not criminal in any way I don’t think you can use the law,’’ he says.

What? You mean I can publish defamatory or offensive material and get away with it? Splendid news. But if I call someone a gherkin in a way which is unpleasant but not criminal, I can't be done over by a plod with a telephone book? Wonders will never cease. Why that almost sounds like the avatars might be influencing real world behaviour.

By golly, they breed deep and insightful commentariat columnists on The Punch.

There's a lot more Lund blather, but very little by way of insight, but rather than just rabbit on in a negative way - though it is tremendous fun if you're facing a manic Monday - I thought it might be worthwhile commending a piece by Charles Petersen In the World of Facebook.

A lot of The New York Review of Books lurks behind its paywall, but this one escapes the cash curtain, and Petersen has a lot of interest to say about Facebook's origins, its ambivalent relationship to its users, and its problems in relation to privacy and the conceit of "friending":

It's true that Facebook can lead to a false sense of connection to faraway friends, since few members post about the true difficulties of their lives. But most of us still know, despite Facebook's abuse of what should be the holiest word in the language, that a News Feed full of constantly updating "friends," like a room full of chattering people, is no substitute for a conversation. Indeed, so much of what has made Facebook worthwhile comes from the site's provisions for both hiding and sharing. It is not hard to draw the conclusion that some things shouldn't be "shared" at all, but rather said, whether through e-mail, instant message, text message, Facebook's own "private message" system, or over the phone, or with a cup of coffee, or beside a pitcher of beer. All of these "technologies," however laconic or verbose, can express an intimacy reserved for one alone.

Okay, that's his last par, but it's offered not so much as a spoiler as a teaser for the rest of the read. You'll find a lot more to chew on than offered up by Lund, who prefers never to rise above the tabloid.

In the meantime, here's a few more archy maxims to mellow out Monday:

if you will drink
hair restorer follow
every dram with some
good standard
depilatory
as a chaser

if you get gloomy just
take an hour off and sit
and think how
much better this world
is than hell
of course it won t cheer
you up much if
you expect to go there

And here's one for all those gherkins who want to fix the Intertubes so it reflects their narrow vision of the world:

just as soon as the
uplifters get
a country reformed it
slips into a nose dive (more archy here).

Ross Gittins, David Burchell, Kevin Andrews, and do gooderism

You can imagine the shock and awe. Monday is Paul Sheehan day, always has been, always will be, always should be.

Except there's no Paul Sheehan. As a result, when we consulted our loon pond thermometer - available on line from specialist suppliers of quality products for genteel guardians of sundry ponds - it recorded a most temperate temperature for the first day of autumn.

Oh that there should be such peace and quiet and bliss and absence of squawking as the world turns into the seasonal sere, the yellow leaf.

As a result, we ended up reading Ross Gittins giving libertarians a sound thrashing in Libertarians silent on insulation bungle.

Gittins flails away at the libertarians and their think tanks, and their stance on global warming, and who can argue about that. Come to that, who can argue with his central thesis that libertarians are always squawking for the government to go away, until in the absence of government, naughty people do naughty things, and then they blame the absent government for not providing sufficient sturdy supervision and regulation.

But when it comes to the insulation batts fracas, Gittins goes a little batty.

The government's critics in the opposition, the media and the industry haven't attacked its decision to offer the subsidy, but rather its failure to implement adequate training, licensing requirements, codes of conduct and inspection of work done. Their implicit and sometimes explicit assumption has been: any fool could have known the private sector isn't to be trusted. So the government has been asked to bear all the responsibility for the shoddy work, fires and deaths.

Blame it all on Nanny, who was asleep on the job.

Well there's libertarians and there's Tony Abbott, and then this very day there's David Burchell, who reminds us that all is well in loon pond with A humble philosophy is worth more than a fair shake of the sauce.

In his usual verbose, florid, portentous way, Burchell spends most of his column berating Chairman Rudd - you know, the human comedy, the peculiar furrow, the splendidly oblivious, the elemental defects in our capacities, the attentive onlooker, the New York minute, the universal comic discrepancy, the unexpected pathetic edge, the pas de deux with the rudiments of official English, the obscure anxiety, the routine vocabulary, the repertoire of ceremonial responses, the frailty of the mortal frame, a flurry of electronic pulses, the worm of doubt in the soul, a growing and disabling discomfiture, the exotic flora of the cleverest minds in the country, bright-eyed commentators, the economic deluge as heavenly opportunity, and the famous Monthly essay. And so on.

But in the end Burchell rambles, ambles, berates, cudgels and strolls towards his key point. If the government does anything much, he's agin it:

Any government can spend money fast with the best of intentions: that, so far as social democratic governance goes, is the idiot's philosophy.

A Labor government that hopes to prosper needs a humbler economic philosophy that generates and recognises limits: one that understands the domain and the limits of the knowledge of government, and the respects in which public expenditure is effective or otherwise.

Hell no, we don't want your pink batts.

And if Chairman Rudd fails to recognise that government action mostly ends up as middle-class welfare, in ways that seem to have escaped Chairman Howard?

This is an intimation of mortality that should, if he ponders it, heighten the present anxieties in Rudd's soul.

Trust Burchell to leave Gittin's thesis looking a little ragged at the edges. When you're a strident stentorian rhetorician with a Shakespearean bent (when not Homeric in aspiration), then all government is barely to be tolerated.

Back to Gittins' thesis:

But all this is the opposite of what libertarians believe. They believe the private sector is always to be trusted; that rational firms always do a good job, that competition will soon drive the odd cowboy out of the industry and that government regulation of industries almost always does more harm than good.

The government says one good thing to emerge from the disaster is that the insulation installation industry is now tightly regulated. It reminds us that deaths occurred in the industry before the subsidy was introduced, that employers had the usual duty of care to their workers and that the industry is covered by state occupational health and safety legislation.

But libertarians have never been enthusiastic about occupational safety laws and have long disapproved of licensing arrangements, which they believe are used by the industry to restrict supply.

And whatever happened to individuals accepting responsibility for their own affairs? What happened to caveat emptor and civil remedies? Isn't any of the blame to be shared by cowboy businessmen?

Surely it's a reasonable thesis, and after Burchell's disappointing predica=tability, surely there's at least one loon on the pond this day who can substantiate it?

Thank the lord there's Kevin Andrews scribbling Putting do-gooder politics ahead of helping people.

In just a couple of short breaths, there he is quoting Peter Sutton, and lashing out at do-goodism, and then for the next half dozen or so pars he's lashing Chairman Rudd's government for wanting to exclude certain indigenous people from income management. And insisting that the world will collapse if there's a single exception to income management for indigenous people within the Northern Territory. Because do gooder income management has done so much good, unlike other kinds of do gooderism.

It's as perfect a demonstration of the incoherence of do-gooder Liberal politicians as Gittins might have wished for in a month of Mondays, absent Paul Sheehan.

Yep, do goodism is bad, except when it applies to a one size fits all territory wide form of income management, and then Andrews produces the cheekiest flourish of all:

This success is placed at risk by Labor’s ideological fixation on a legal crusade rather than practical outcomes for the most vulnerable indigenous Australians.

Yep, the Labor government is inflexible and fixated on a legal crusade, unlike Andrews, who is fixated on an ideological crusade for the legalistic paternalistic notion that a one size fits all income management policy is tremendously successful do gooderism.

Kevin Andrews was one of the most comprehensive failures of the Howard government, and every time he opens his mouth, or scribbles a piece for The Punch for free, he earns a place on the pond.

And surely Gittins must be happy, because never has a paternalistic do gooder so handsomely decried paternalistic do goodism, all in the name of embracing personal responsibility, except in the case of personal responsibility, when universal income management is such a better strategy when it comes to respecting the rights of individuals. Provided you're black.

To paraphrase Gittins, it's always interesting to hear libertarians on the matter of the NT intervention, and why they've said so little on an issue so close to their core beliefs, possibly because they've not wanted to be seen supporting interventionist Liberal and Labor governments, or now an interventionist Liberal opposition when the Labor government tries to loosen a few of the screws binding black citizens.

That's how Kevin Andrews can be shocked to the core at all this idle chit chat about how the Racial Discrimination Act might apply to income management in the Northern Territory. Not when the paternalistic do gooderism is doing such a tremendous blanket job! Teaching personal responsibility by removing it!

Talk about ducking hard cases. It's what keeps the pond alive, and the road to hell paved with do gooderism that just so happens not to be do gooderism in certain particular cases ...