The High Court, and activist judges outrageously asserting that in a democracy people have the right to vote ...

(Above: activist High Court Judge Chief Justice French. Funny ensuring someone has the right to vote is being activist, but there you go. Damned activist judges. You can find details of all the High Court activist judges here, long may they sit!)

No doubt some time in the near future Janet Albrechtsen will deliver a rant about activist judges.

Well three cheers for activist judges, and three cheers in particular for paracletes and the High Court which delivered this rather breathless shorthand:

The orders of the Court are:

1. Declare that items 20, 24, 28, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45 and 52 of Schedule 1 to the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Act 2006 (Cth) are invalid.
2. The second defendant to pay the plaintiffs’ costs of the further amended application for an order to show cause.

I publish those orders. The Court’s reasons will be delivered at a later date. The Court will now adjourn to Tuesday, 24 August 2010 at 10.15 am in Canberra. (here and you can pick up the other transcripts of proceedings at the bottom of the page here).

It was one of the more deeply offensive acts of the Howard Government that it fiddled with enrolment procedures and the right to vote for purely petty piddling political motives, and at last it's got the comeuppance it deserved. It's also deeply offensive that Steve Fielding prevented the Rudd government from doing anything about it, and that the Labor government wrung its hands, but did little to pursue the matter.

Well Fielding will shortly be gone, and three cheers for that too. And as Bob Brown points out, the country now has the technical means to enrol people right up to election day.

As usual, people - especially conservatives - blather about the splendours of parliamentary democracy, and then in the most cynical way stay silent when a government contrive ways to keep the punters, or at least punters they suspect don't like them, from voting.

Usually this is also wrapped up in deep contempt for the people they purport to treasure, as in Andrew the Dolt's lead for his piece Vacuum hits real policies:

This is the election for morons. For the easily fooled. For people so clueless they wouldn't vote if it wasn't the law.

Put it another way.

This is the column and columnist for morons. For the easily fooled. For people so clueless they wouldn't read a newspaper unless they found the Herald Sun left sitting in a train ...

You see, beneath the conservative chipboard veneer is a genuine chipboard contempt for actual voters, for morons, people easily fooled and clueless. As opposed to the astute contemplations and unerring insights of charlatan tabloid dolts ...

Well good on GetUp! for getting the appeal together, and all the mad as hell activist pro bono hardworking lawyers who persuaded the activist judges to do over the politicians.

Here at the pond we regularly slag off lawyers, so let's acknowledge that's the result of too much reading of childish commentariat commentators like Janet Albrechtsen, who hate their own kind with a passion sometimes greater than that reserved for lefties and watermelons.

The original Howard Government move was breathtakingly cynical in its desire to punish young voters, and alienate them from the system, because of their suspect tendency to vote according to their hearts' desires, which is to say, not Liberal, and it's profoundly irritating to read that the Liberals are still trying to defend their shenanigans:

The opposition’s accountability spokesman Michael Ronaldson defended the 2006 changes as moves to strengthen the integrity of the electoral roll.

It was now open to rort and abuse, he said. (here)

Actually the rorting and abuse of the electoral system was done by the Howard Government, as the High Court has now confirmed.

Why does Ronaldson keep tarnishing his image by trying to defend the indefensible? He even managed to turn up on PM blathering the same sort of blather (here), muttering darkly about all sorts of paranoid conspiracy theories, and integrity, and how hard it all was:

MICHAEL RONALDSON: This is not about overturning the High Court decision. We very much respect that and I said we welcome the additional voters who will come on. But it doesn't detract from the issues that we have in relation to the ability of the AEC to properly check people's bona fides prior to them having the right to vote.

And anything that undermines the integrity and the ability of the AEC to make those decisions and to do those investigations, in our view, undermines the integrity of the roll and if the integrity of the electoral roll is undermined then people lose confidence in the fact that their vote actually means something.

Gherkin.

That's right, keep reminding me of the fault of the Howard government, as you seek my vote.

The Electoral Commission now has the job of adding another 100,000 voters to the rolls, which they can do in a way that avoids rort and abuse, and which happens to be their job. As noted in the PM report, those not on the rolls can turn up with an accepted form of proof, such as a driver's licence, and make a declaration vote. How hard is that?

You know, since we live in a glorious democracy, the aim is to get voters, and people who haven't voted before, to end up on the rolls and vote.

The dear long absent lord knows there's bugger all benefit in being in a democracy, but the right to express an opinion every three or so years, is not just a right but a duty ... even if in exercising that duty some might choose to act like donkeys.

Here's how Chris Mereritt saw it in Decision leaves room for future challenges:

... we will need to wait until the court hands down its reasons -- which could take months. But it is already clear that the court believes the nature of representative democracy is of such importance that politicians cannot be allowed to wind it back -- by restricting the right to vote -- without good reason.

And even then, the court will still strike down those restrictions if it considers they are disproportionate.

And he makes an even more optimistic point:

If the reasons underpinning the decision are broad enough, they could provide an even stronger basis for challenging future restrictions on the right to vote.

Some might question why this challenge to a 2006 law was brought in the middle of an election campaign in 2010.

But until it was possible to show that the law had caused a real problem, the challenge could never have been heard.

Back in March 2010, Antony Green, local Enmore celebrity, was wondering when the Electoral Commission might get off its backside and catch up with technology (here in The Debate on Close of Rolls Returns).

And even further back in the day, in the dark days of 2006, the Howard government move was debated and defended by the likes of Senator Brett Mason with the same kind of nonsense that's being trotted out now:

JOHN FAULKNER: These people aren't crooks. They're not rorters. They're not trying to manipulate the electoral system. They're ordinary Australians, perhaps less obsessed about politics than the people who sit in this chamber, but ordinary Australians who want to vote.

LOUISE YAXLEY: The Liberals' Brett Mason says it will improve the integrity of the roll.

BRETT MASON: A change the Government hopes that will limit the scope for electoral fraud. Measures such as this, which are designed to strengthen and protect the integrity of the roll, are essential for upholding Australia's democratic system.(here)

Gherkin. Thanks Queensland.

Actually it needed a change of government to limit the government's scope for electoral fraud. That and the activist judges on the High Court.

Well even if their costs were covered, you can send a donation the way of GetUp! if you like what they did, though they're painfully honest in their transparency. (And speaking of donations, WikiLeaks offers PayPal as a way to donate, so naturally I did ...)

In the meantime, ain't it grand that the all too clever conniving of the hard men of the Howard government finally get their comeuppance.

How did Voltaire put it?

I disapprove of the way you vote, but I will defend to the death your right to vote that way, even if it's a donkey vote or a vote for dolts ...

Activist judges 1, Albrechtsen nil ...

(And now a couple of activist judges' cartoons, the first an oldie about whistle blowing and wiki leaks and the quaint notion that the law and the truth should fallen silent in times of war inter arma enim silent leges)

Miranda Devine, board games, paranoid ranting, and a one eyed barracking thought free zone for a quiet Saturday ...

(Above: eek, more deadly than a game of pick up sticks or 500. Phew, at last we get to mention Australia's national card game, even if it came all the way from America).

So little did we know.

Here we were thinking that the end of the world was nigh, because, and in no particular order, and not limited to, the movies, comics, Cinemascope, 3D, television, animations, anthropomorphism, pornography, the Internet, computers, video games, whether Atari, Coleco, Playstation or X-Box, screen culture, watermelons, at least the ones that are green on the outside, graphic novels ...

Amazingly we forgot all about mentioning Dungeons and Dragons, playing cards, backgammon, roulette, the I Ching, Tarot, fortune telling, witchcraft ... and didn't even think of board games like Monopoly.

NPR asks the sort of hard hitting questions we ignore on the pond at our peril, in Monopoly: Does The Game Mislead Investors?

Did we all learn bad lessons from years of passing Go and collecting $200?

The sinister answer?

... when you look at it in post recession 2010, the rules of Monopoly seem like a sure way to crash an economy: The bank can never run out of money, mortgages are easy to get and rent always goes up.

"You might learn if you are good at monopoly, to think that real estate is a really good investment," Roberts (Professor of economics at the University of Texas at Ausin) says. He adds that's "a strategic incite that would have served you very badly at least recently."

It hit me like a flash of lightning, a bolt from the blue, the profundity of the insight.

Oh I know it's only NPR being whimsical, in the manner of a dancing elephant, or our very own ABC lifting its cardigan to reveal the dashing cardigan beneath, but for a moment there they had me going, and anyway, what better way to throw to a column by Miranda the Devine, follower of every crazy theory doing the rounds, as a handy explanation for the impending collapse or ruination of western civilisation.

So what board game theory infests her column Democracy weakened by charade today?

The parlous state of Labor this election is a direct reflection of the tin ear of the progressive left. Again and again, smugly, arrogantly, patronisingly, progressives declare themselves to be moderates, claiming to represent a reasonable ideological middle ground, while showering the real moderates, who they dub ''right-wing'', ''conservative'' or ''extremist'', with abuse - subtle and not so subtle.

Oh dear, it sort of sounds like the watermelon theory, but actually is just mindless, meaningless babble and abuse. Tit for tat, and all of that.

Well as surely as night follows day, the Devine has learned this from someone else, perhaps by attending a helpful lecture:

The writer Shelley Gare has delved into the subtle method of abuse in a series of essays and a fine lecture to the Sydney Institute on Tuesday night on totschweigtaktik - the Austro-German word for ''death by silence'' which she describes as ''an astonishingly effective tactic for killing off creative work or fresh ideas or even news stories. You don't criticise or engage with what's being said or produced or expressed; instead you deprive someone and their work or opinion of the oxygen of attention''.

You mean the oxygen of attention that the Devine gets by holding down a plum spot at The Sydney Morning Herald, handsomely paid and lavishly featured to do a little shit stirring, never mind the depth of thinking, just count the enraged hits?

Sure thing, and now having paused for a moment to dress up her abuse with a fine sounding word, it's back to the Bockmist, the Scheiß, the Kuhscheiße, the Quatsch mit Soße, and the dollop of Schwachsinn:

Progressives keep trying to redefine the centre in their own image, instead of adjusting their expectations and accepting the reality of a public far more entrenched in conservatism and commonsense than they can imagine.

Here's what we think is an infallible guide to a meaningless abusive statement. Insert an alternative to the subject of the abuse, so:

Right wing lunatics like Miranda the Devine keep trying to redefine the centre in their own image, instead of adjusting their expectations and accepting the reality of a public far more entrenched in liberal live and let live thinking and secularism and commonsense than they can imagine.

You can keep on applying this technique until you become tired or bored:

Her attitude, based as it is on a fundamental dishonesty, leads her to all sorts of self-delusion, fakery and spin that inflicts insufferable pain - because it's done with fiendish intent - but only temporarily.

It's always helpful to mix in the abuse with a dose of paranoia:

It has infected Labor's election campaign and has led it to the profound mistake of underestimating Tony Abbott, fundamentally misunderstanding who he is, and dismissing him for too long as a right-wing extremist, Neanderthal and religious zealot.

No, no, never. Sure he once was a religious zealot, but now we like to think of him as Action Jackson. And for a real hoot, have a listen to Tony Abbott, Sydney SRC, in 1979 as presented by my old alma mater, the University of New England, here.

But I digress. Back to the abuse. Hmm, but first we need a patsy:

A symptom of the dripping contempt of the progressive left for people who don't think like them is typified by a letter to the editor yesterday from Wayne Duncombe of Glebe, blasting the ''boganocracy'' - ''selfish, narrow-minded, grasping'' voters, unlike his enlightened, sophisticated self. Cough. He obviously wants a Glebocracy where everyone drinks chai, wears tie-dye and rides a bike. What a way to win friends and influence people!

Now let's do the flip, or flip the bird, as we like to say in Tamworth:

A symptom of the dripping contempt of the dinosaur right for people who don't think like them is typified by the column by Miranda the Devine, blasting the ''progressives'' - ''selfish, narrow-minded, grasping'' voters, unlike her enlightened, sophisticated self. Splutter. She obviously wants a punditocracy where everyone drinks chai - that's a fancy word for Billy tea, eats Flo scones, wears loud ties and/or pearls and sets dinner parties aflame with her abusive prejudices, and drives a Toorak tractor, crushing any errant bicyclist in the way. What a way to win friends and influence people!

On and on in the same way:

Miranda the Devine really believe that by willing something into being, by talking it up and writing about it and employing their combined brilliance they can somehow engineer a mass change in social sentiment. It is a core belief. But more and more the arguments run away from them.

They can belittle and shun people who refuse to accept the genius of their world view but they just make their enemies stronger because all the energy they expend on maintaining the charade that they represent the reasonable middle ground means they fail competently to perform their day jobs - say, running a democratic country.

Does this blather, this splenetic outburst, this bilious attack, actually mean anything? Of course not, it's just a stress reducer in the middle of a tight election campaign.

Of course, an election campaign is the moment of unpalatable truth, and the way progressives have dealt with this one has been amusing.

Yes, mix one part condescension with one part arrogance and one part gloating, add in a dash of bile, and perhaps get a little agitated about the arrival of former chairman Rudd on the scene. Time for a little abuse of the Kruddster? Sure thing:

Rudd, by the way, seems none the worse for wear after his gutting and gall bladder removal, other than the fact he now refers to himself in the third person, as "K Rudd" or "KM Rudd" or "myself" as in "the rolling political controversy about myself".

Oh dear, but I think we're missing that special ingredient, one of the eleven secret herbs and spices that make for finger lickin' chickin. Ah, "faceless men", that's what we need. Give me a pinch of it:

But do the new generation of faceless men and women, the Arbibs, Bitars, Shortens and Feeneys, read no Shakespeare?

At this point, we have to stop to announce a world first. That's the first time we recall Miranda the Devine working herself up to reference a play by Shakespeare.

Sure, back in March she referenced a Shakespeare sonnet, but that was finery borrowed from the opposition (Abbott's sledging of Rudd cuts through finer points of debate).

Sure the name Shakespeare bobs up in the guise of John Shakespeare doing illustrations. But then the record begins to get obscure, opaque.

Never mind Macduff, play on, the play's the thing in which we'll surely catch the king, or the progressive, never mind the Devine's previous failure to indicate any literary leanings, or her sudden desire to embrace the spiritual insights of that wretched Glebocracy and its chai drinking karma worshipping ways:

If they had any literary or spiritual leanings they might have known that the overthrow of a first-term prime minister for no clear reason was rife with bad karma. Now, belatedly, they've figured it out by looking at the polls, which are really a lagging moral indicator. What they did was wrong. The electorate knows it and some people care enough to change their vote. It's no good whirling out Banquo now and saying, "He's OK, really. It's only a flesh wound."

Even worse, one imagines if Banquo actually turns up in the flesh, and says to that ponce Phillip Adams, it's okay really, my mum taught me not to be bitter, life is short, it's only a flesh wound, and now cry god and country and after that rascally rapscallion Action Jackson, and though 'tis fearful odds, God's arm strike with us, and we fight valiantly this day, for if we live, the fewer of us, the greater share of honor, because by Jove, we're not covetous for gold, but rather ... Oh delirium has set in, so let's just go to Shakespeare:

This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Oops, forgot that Crispin's day is actually October 25th, but isn't it cheering to know that Crispin is the patron saint of cobblers, tanners, leather workers, and by extension members of the biker and leather subculture who like a little leather, because it sometimes helps get them into a lather ... Mmmm, leather ... Sorry vegans ...

Oops, I digress, it's back to the Devine for more important anal-retentive messages:

Another amusing progressive approach has been to embrace the sniffy complaints from visiting British intellectuals that the quality of Australian political debate is dismal, low-rent, and no better than a ''Strathclyde regional council" meeting. This became a favourite topic of chattering-class dinner parties last week, justification for the fact the promised golden age of progressive politics had been an illusion, and the death warrant for the dreaded neo-conservatism premature.

What? The Devine attends chattering-class dinner parties? Clearly also attended by visiting British intellectuals? Where they talk of karma and Shakespeare. O O O O that Shakespeherian Ragc-- It's so elegant So intelligent ...

How can this be? While we attend the takeaway food joints at the Marrickville Metro?

Oh the pain and the suffering of the poor dear, and doing it all simply to bring us the unvarnished, ungarnished truth:

You do me wrong to take me out o' th' grave.
Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears
Do scald like molten lead.

But stay, what does it all mean?

Unwilling to barrack for a side that's looking tattered and, frankly, boganish, many progressives have retreated to a world-weary "plague o' both your houses" stance.

Yep, and there you have it. For the Devine, politics is just some kind of hearty rugger bugger thing, where you stick your head up other people's bums, nothing homosexual mind you, and nothing wrong with that if it was, and only barrack for one side.

And as a one eyed barracker, she's the perfect example of why there's much sound and fury in any election campaign, much of it signifying nothing. Which leads me to retreat to a world weary "a plague, a pox on her house, and her house alone" stance.

It might well be true that in the kingdom of the blind the one eyed barracker is king, but I take as my text for today:

And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire ...

Now that's as good a reason as any for one eyed barracking.

And now for the real point, the heart of the Devine paranoia, and it is, as we suspected, an anxiety about watermelons that set her off, not Monopoly:

The disastrous consequence is that Australian democracy has been weakened and will be further weakened if the latest polls prove true with their prospect of a hung parliament, or a minority government at the mercy of the so-called ''hayseed'' independents and Greens holding the balance of power in the lower house, while in the Senate, the Greens hold sway. Even the most competent, accomplished, smart, strong, conciliatory, wise and good prime minister could not manage to govern well in such a scenario.

But stay, what of England and its new regime, which mixes Liberal Democrats and Conservatives, and features a conservative leader who prefers bikes to Toorak tractors? How goes it in this brave new land, while here down under we read the Devine, and the conversation is carried on at the level of a paranoid 'Strathclyde regional council' meeting?

Because you see, the Devine has not only upset the people of Glebe. She's upset every rural voter in the country with her sneer at hayseeds. Yes, you rubes, Miranda the Devine is your big city condescending sneering friend, in much the same way as you dopes vote National to prop up Tony Abbott when you could be like Tamworth, standing proud and free (and singing country music ...)

What's that? Oh okay, acting on legal advice, loon pond apologies unreservedly, and withdraws any imputation or insinuation that debates conducted in the sadly missed Strathclyde council were in any way at or below the level of a Miranda the Devine column ...

Sure, he or she would muddle through and make the best of a bad lot. But the compromises would be crippling to our economy, to our social fabric and our future. It is the nightmare of state politics writ large.

It's a joke but it's not at all funny.

Hang on, yes it is a joke, and yes, you are exceptionally funny. As well as being a thought free zone ...

It's the same nightmare that the Labor government has endured these past few years, and muddled through. As has usually been the case with the Senate holding the balance of power. Which is to say that it's not a nightmare, just political life in Australia, in much the same way as in other countries where the balance of power is shared, and compromise rather than Devine extremism is expected ...

But I knew that somehow, ineluctably, in the way of fear mongerers fear mongering, that'd we'd arrive at a crippling nightmare, and the ruination of our economy, our social fabric and our future.

Is that why I wake up in the middle of the night having a genuine nightmare? Like, golly, there might be another ranting Miranda the Devine column in the paper today ...

Yep, suddenly the genuine nightmare becomes clear. Manly wins the rugby league, Carlton the AFL, and Tony Abbott becomes autocratic PM without any reins thrust upon him in the Senate ...

Talk about a crippled future. Why as that venerable old former Liberal Malcolm Fraser said, Abbott not ready to lead country, declares Malcolm Fraser:

"My failure to renew my membership is just not related to Tony Abbott," he said. "The party has moved further and further to the Right over the last 20 years (so that) it is no longer a liberal party.

"Its leadership is . . . conservative. I regret that greatly. Menzies rejected the term 'conservative' quite deliberately because he wanted a Liberal Party that would be innovative and help guide Australia into the future.

"You know, this is one of the things that's missing from this campaign. What sort of country do the Liberals, what sort of country do Labor want Australia to be five, 10, 20 years out?"

Odds bodkins, that sounds out of sorts. What could possibly explain that sort of moving forward thinking?

Eek, it's true. Board games are ruining the country, ruining the world. Quick, rush off and get your copy of Squatter, the game that made Malcolm Fraser what he is today, but remember to drench your sheep for liver fluke, cheap at ten bucks the pen!

But don't worry about your bore drying up. Miranda the Devine will keep on scribbling while full of liver fluke for her mob of sheep unto eternity ....

Loon pond's bumper TGIF grab bag glad bag featuring Lucifer, Jim Wallace, jolly Joe, Glenn Beck and funding for Exclusive Brethren schools ...

(Above: the ACL indulging in prophesy, or perhaps speaking in tongues, as their rotating banner still promotes a showdown between Rudd and Abbott. So it has or might still come to pass).

Here at the pond we're waiting for the brain snap from Jim Wallace and the Australian Christian Lobby at the news that jolly Joe Hockey has announced the Liberals will vote against the internet filter (Coalition to dump flawed internet filter).

Over at the ACL site all is quiet at the moment, with the rotating banner quaintly featuring an On Air Live webcast between Tony Abbott and former chairman Rudd. Was this merely being prophetic, with the return of the former Chairman from his sickbed?

Still the ACL site provides a handy link to all their busy bees going about the business of fiddling about in the election campaign (ACL in the media - a wrap-up of the last week's commentary).

It seems, if you read the transcript of the ABC Lateline spot Influence of Gillard's atheism still unknown, that the ACL has been running around targeting Greens candidates:

JIM WALLACE: We have seen them supporting euthanasia, supporting abortion, against prayers in parliament, against ISP filtering - so on a great range of issues we find ourselves at variance with the Greens.

(Excerpt from Christian Democratic Party video)

FEMALE VOICEOVER: With the balance of power in the Senate any time the Government wants to put through legislation, the Greens will get the final say before it can be passed.

MALE VOICEOVER: For Christians and for anyone believing in Christian values, this should be a cause for grave concern...

(End of excerpt)

PETER LLOYD: The Australian Christian Lobby is not alone in spending money targeting Green party candidates.

Members of Fred Nile's Christian Democratic Party created this video message, placing it on a website called OneVote.com.

RAY MORAN, CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC PARTY: We obviously hope that people will vote for the Christian Democratic party, but that is not what that video is about.

It is about warning people of - particularly Christians - of the ramifications of the Greens having the balance of power with an atheist Prime Minister - then what we are likely to see go in terms of our Christian values and our freedoms.

Happily it seems there's no actual sign that the ACL lobby is effective in the way of votes in the box:

RODNEY SMITH: The Australian Christian Lobby said that it was targeting some specific seats held by what it described as "libertarian Labor members of parliament" and it was targeting those members of parliament and the Greens in those electorates.

If you look at those electorates, the swings in those electorates were no difference. If fact, they were even slightly higher in most cases, to Labor than the state swings in which those electorates fell.

So it is very difficult to look at the 2007 election and take out of it a lesson that a Christian lobby group - or indeed a Christian denomination - can sway sufficient voters to have a big impact on the election outcome.

Even so, we look forward to the ACL and other concerned Christians targeting jolly Joe Hockey in his North Sydney seat. It seems Lucifer takes many forms these days, and somehow has managed to infest jolly Joe's body, thereby threatening Christian freedoms and values. Who'd a thunk it, jolly Joe joining the satanic anti-filter brigade. Is it time for Jim Wallace to make a stand?

Speaking of Lucifer, Glenn Beck long ago jumped the shark, so is it possible to say that he's now jumped the whale by comparing Obama not just to Karl Marx, but to Lucifer?

You can see the actual clip here in Glenn Beck's final swan dive off the deep end: President Obama reminds him of Lucifer.

There is a section of America which is deeply, profoundly, barking mad, and Glenn Beck's crazed demagoguery leads the way. What does Rupert Murdoch do about it, seeing as how his Fox star is even further out there than the likes of that ratbag radio priest Father Charles Edward Coughlin? And by golly that's saying something ...

Why, in his ethical way, he takes the money and runs. It's true he also happily takes the money from hippie blather like Avatar, proving that cash has no conscience. (Put on the 3D glasses for a perspective on the News profits, from Titantic to Avatar). Of course it'd be a cheap shot to compare chairman Rupert to an amoral Lucifer Glenn Beck style ...

Nevertheless, it explains why - if I found a copy of a Murdoch paper on fire in the gutter - I'd find the energy to be most unladylike and go piss on the nearest fire hydrant.

Happily Australia has a way to go before it reaches the bizarre level of senate candidate Sharron Angle, campaigning in Nevada with this kind of nonsense (Sharron Angle: Onward Christian Soldiers):

And these programs that you mentioned -- that Obama has going with Reid and Pelosi pushing them forward -- are all entitlement programs built to make government our God. And that's really what's happening in this country is a violation of the First Commandment. We have become a country entrenched in idolatry, and that idolatry is the dependency upon our government. We're supposed to depend upon God for our protection and our provision and for our daily bread, not for our government.

The government as a kind of idolatry, a bit like Cecil B. De Mille bunging on a depraved orgy in a biblical pic? Shades of barking mad Glenn Beck's Lucifer?

But there is of course an area where religion is rampant in Australia, and that's in the funding of schools. Yes, you see, Catholic and independent schools, in a despicable form of idolatry, rely on government funding for their daily bread, and there are plenty around to celebrate it, and urge it forward. Here's Kevin Donnelly scribbling in The Punch Can Julia Gillard be believed on school funding?

Unlike both the Greens and the ALP government, the Abbott-led opposition has promised, if elected, to endorse the SES model and to ensure that Catholic and independent schools are properly resourced.

He seems to think that's a jolly hockey sticks idea.

Phew, that must be a relief for the Exclusive Brethren, Scientologists and fundamentalist Islamics (not to mention mad Christians of a more mainstream kind) in search of a little idolatry and government money.

You see, in their usual half-baked, gutless way, Labor has folded on the SES model due to expire at the end of 2012, and will extend it for another year, and you have to scratch around to find anyone who actually gives a toss about the public education system, or take the time to write about what's happening in schools.

If you scratch hard enough in the media chook yard, you might land on Maralyn Parker's helpful Only minuses for public schools on the Abbott list:

It is appalling that Tony Abbott, a prospective prime minister of Australia, has only one solution for the majority of Australian families using, as he sees it, problematic public schools - move your child out.

This shows a profound ignorance of what life is like and the choices available for most families in this nation.

Yep, while the gadfly Christians get into a flap, and the media keeps blathering on about the Kevin Rudd roadshow, there are actual issues at stake in this election, and none of them getting the attention they deserve.

I visited a very disadvantaged public school in Sydney’s west on Monday where Labor’s Building The Education Revolution had given the school its only upgrade in fifty years and a new technologically advanced library.

The school also received $90,000 in Labor’s National Partnership money for literacy and numeracy that is helping buy time, resources and support for a whole school numeracy program.

It has been promised another half a million in low SES funding by Gillard in 2010. There is an amazing buzz of quality teaching, leadership and renewal about this school.

Under an Abbott government - forget the extra $500,000 - it will become just one of the thousands of Australian schools the prime minister thinks families should leave as soon as they can.

It's tempting sometimes to do a Jon Stewart, throw the hands in the air, and shout I give up.

Ah but that would be to ignore the splendid news that the Christians are now campaigning against that Lucifer incarnate, jolly Joe Hockey, to strip him of his 666 North Sydney throne ...

I guess it could be worse. I've always wanted to live in America, but when I watch Stewart I sometimes wonder why ... and then I remember it's because here in Australia we simply don't have the likes of him, sending the political class up shitless ... And perhaps Leo Shanahan, who scribbled 10 reasons why this election is anything but boring:

Arguably this election is lacking serious policy debate (and we all kow how that wouldn’t bore anyone), the leaders and their rhetoric can be very frustrating, but boring?

Yep, in an election campaign designed to showcase policies and strategies and plans designed to take Australia forward, or to get us involved in Action Jackson routines, it's yet another funny Punch story about how there's no serious policy debate, and since we're incapable, in Australia's best conversation, to manage a serious policy debate, let's attempt a top ten list Letterman style in a feeble attempt to be funny.

I give up. Here's funny ...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
I Give Up - 9/11 Responders Bill
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Conroy, McClelland, jolly Joe, the EFA, and a mad monkey armed with a black texta ...

(Above: click through to get the full picture).

A friend dropped this in my in tray, and as it's off the beaten track of the election campaign - why, there's not a word about Kevin Rudd or Gillard's hair, or Abbott promising more middle class welfare by the day - I thought I'd give it a plug.

The solutions are a little optimistic but hey what do you expect in two minutes.

I've always been a fan, for example, of the waybackmachine - it's very handy if you know what you're looking for, but it doesn't cover everything, and it's always way behind, and prone to error, and the task of cataloguing the web is sisyphean. In that sense, the clip is misleading, but the other tricks will amuse or console ...

As a little ginger in the election porridge, it stirs the pot nicely - sheesh, mix those metaphors dude - and is the work of Electronic Frontiers Australia.

As usual, we're in a damned if we do and if we don't scenario in relation to the full to overflowing intertubes. While Joe Hockey has announced the coalition will oppose any move to legislate mandatory internet censorship (is that a core or a non-core promise?), at the same time the Liberals are planning to throw broadband back a decade.

If we leave building a national network up to Telstra or the other players, the agrarian socialists better start weeping into their porridge bowls ...

Meanwhile, it's pleasing to see that the Herald's technology pages are keeping the heat on the Government, with Government backs away from web snooping plans.

The story's well worth a read - onya Ben Grubb - not least because it provides a link to a pdf of the secret document obtained under FoI laws, which was prepared in relation to Attorney-General Robert McClelland and the Attorney-General's Department plans regarding mandatory data retention of users' web browsing histories. There's also a link to a pdf of the decision letter explaining why the Department designed to arm a crazed monkey with a black texta and allow it to mark up the secret document to help with the read.

It's probably the most crazed exercise in paranoid censorship I've seen outside China, or war correspondence, and in my time I've seen some doozies. They even black out some of the definitions, designed to clarify any key or ambiguous terms used in the document. Not that the definitions would be of any use in a document where anything remotely hinting at useful information is given the black spot.

So that's what Freedom From Information means.

I'll treasure these documents for years to come.

It was former Chairman Rudd's idea to let Stephen Conroy off the leash, and then McClelland compounded the folly, and now no one in the Labor party seems to know what to do about it all.

The fact that Conroy's conceit is a folly, as explained in the two minute clip above, will make it either funny or sad, depending whether you enjoy manic depression along with your paranoia ...

The Herald provides a sample page, and here's mine.

Click on it if you want to see how in larger format how expertly a paranoid monkey can wield a texta:

Gary Johns, and an antipodean little sir echo with a hatred of cotton wool and a manly hairy chest calling in a bass voice to drill baby drill ...

Swamped as we are by election coverage, still it was a joy to see all three stories lined up in The Punch, Australia's most repetitive and redundant conversation:

There's Tory Maguire with Gillard gets herself tangled up further in the Rudd factor.

Then just below is David Penberthy Looking for Kevin in the State that's ditching Labor.

And then just below that is Leo Shanahan's Campaign countdown: What the hell to do about Kevin?

By golly, where I come from that's the trifecta. I have to confess I didn't bother reading any of them. If I'm already over the media in this election campaign, damn sure I'm over The Punch brooding about Kevin.

No, the connoisseur, the gourmet with a sweet tooth, wants something more exotic, something full of high fructose corn syrup for the mind. Sure it makes you fat and stodgy but oh how yummy it is. And where better to find it than in a Gary Johns' piece for The Australian?

Don't believe the Greens, we'll be running on gas, the header shrieks, and right away the scribbler's hard hitting posture on climate change is established at the get go:

If you thought Kyoto and Copenhagen were nonsense, wait until you see what the Greens have in store next with their global oil depletion protocol.

Oh indeed they must have been nonsense because apparently they were attempts to deal with a nonsense issue, namely climate change.

You see, Johns is one of those old fashioned believers in Genesis, along with hordes of creationists:

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Talk about a mission statement. Thank you dear absent lord for the contractual authority to go out and indulge in a little random looting, raping, ravaging and otherwise disposing of the earth, not to mention all those creepy things that creepeth.

You see, it's - as usual - all the fault of the Greens.

The Greens support the "development and ratification of a global oil depletion protocol".

This is based on a deep peak-oil belief: that oil and gas extraction will peak and decline terminally in the near future.

Trouble is, it seems Armageddon has been delayed yet again.

Yes when you want mind boggingly stupid assertions about an area where there is plenty of science to consider, Johns is your man. Never mind that M. King Hubbert devised his peak theory back in 1956 to accurately predict the decline in US oil production, a theory which has since been applied to other countries.

Never mind that the argument is not so much about whether the world will exhaust its easily accessible oil supplies but when. Never mind that it's not actually about oil running out, so much as the point when it becomes too expensive, or other resources become competitive, or people judge that looting and soiling the environment isn't worth the rewards designed to keep old systems running. Sorry but maybe it's time to move on from your FX Holden running on standard.

Never mind that you could find a helluva lot more information and informed speculation in the wiki Peak oil than in a mountain of Johns' scribblings.

Nope, just mention the greens and apocalyptic thinking, and that's it, case closed. Now how about a little bit of 'fuck you, we're alright Jack' thinking? Sure thing:

Jumping on the tragedy of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 people, a fact almost forgotten in the rush to show pictures of oil-fouled sea birds, the Greens would have us believe the world can do without such mining. Think again.

Oh yes, that fits right in with our regular theme regarding The Australian. Think. again.

But you see that's because Johns is quite happy drill baby drill.

You see there's not just the greens fiendish attempt to preserve marine reserves from oil and gas exploration. Great Barrier Reef? Drill, baby drill. But there's also this attempt to stop people drilling off the coast of Newcastle. Apparently the pussies are worried about oil on the beach. Drill Novocastrians drill. And then of course there's the Arctic, which Johns quotes as holding 22% of the world's reserves. Drill, natch baby, drill.

Thank the lord with global warming accessing that oil and using the new north west passage will get so much easier. Drill Arctic drill. And then there's the Antarctic. Who knows what loot for pillaging we might find down there if we just put our minds to it. Drill Mawson drill. Drill dog sled drill.

Johns takes great comfort in quoting the thoughts of Peter Odell, and in the process conflating oil and gas production. What a pity that Johns didn't bother to take a look at Odell's more nuanced approach, which you can do on this site's old friend Michael Duffy's ABC show Counterpoint, in The Good Oil:

Michael Duffy: So Peter, when do you think the oil will run out?

Peter Odell: Well, my guess is Thanksgiving Day in about 2035, if we can be as precise as each other. I’m not quite sure when Thanksgiving Day is, of course, as we don’t have one.

Eek, not that bit, lordy lordy, next thing you know we'll be quoting Odell warning about the volatility of oil pricing in the future. No, this bit:

Michael Duffy: Do we have any idea of what the natural gas reserves are or when they’ll run out?

Peter Odell: Volumetrically, just in terms of energy content, they’re just about on a par with oil, but of course much less has been used and therefore there remains very much more left to use. In my study of the future for natural gas I’ve come to the conclusion that the use of gas by the end of this century could be more than five times the size of current gas use and it will make it the single, largest, most important source of energy in the world as a whole from about 2050-2060 onwards. One advantage of that over oil is that, of course, it’s much less environmentally polluting and produces less CO2 per unit burned, and so it’s considered advantageous even by the environmentalists.

Yep, oils is oils, and oils ain't gas.

But then really Johns isn't interested in a sensible discussion of the science, or strategies for the future, not when simple minded snake and green whacking can be the order of the day:

While the Greens want to wrap the world in cotton wool and indulge in undergraduate denialist protocols, the rest of the intelligent world is getting on with business and solving problems, not wishing them away.

Put it another way:

While Johns might want to stop the wrapping of the world in cotton wool, because he's a John Wayne man's type man, and has hair on his chest for beating on, and doesn't need no pussy cotton wool and so the world shouldn't either, and meantime indulges himself in undergraduate denialist rhetorics and cheap drill baby drill point scoring, the rest of the intelligent scientific community is getting on with the business of solving issues surrounding peak oil, gas, energy reserves, the growing energy demands and needs of the estimated 9 billion people on the planet by 2050, and climate change, without wishing to irretrievably soil the one nest humanity has with too much shit, and not wishing the issues away with a simple mantra about how we can just keep fucking the place over ... aka drill baby drill.

And thank the lord for that. And thank the lord that Gary Johns is no longer a minister, his one claim to fame being that he was a head kicker in the Keating Labor government, and now between scribbles for The Australian, spends his time hanging around the Institute of Public Affairs, long term apologist for all kinds of businesses happy to offer support for their endeavours, or tyre kicking Public Policy at the Australian Catholic University's Public Policy Institute.

If he's the best in futurists doing the rounds right at the moment, the world is in serious trouble ...

Meanwhile, if you're interested in peak oil, and want to learn things - as opposed to reading a Gary Johns' column - this page here has a series of links. They're no longer being updated, but the ones that do, and the wiki, will get you to more authoritative and informative insights than Johns has to offer ...

Week after week The Oz publishes this kind of drivel instead of articles by people with insight and information relating to the issue to hand. And then has the cheek to blather on about how fair and balanced and informative it is ...

Think. Again.

Miranda Devine, and an hysterical overreach of an angst ridden conflationary kind ...

(Above: cat as angst ridden feminist, mouse played by Miranda the Devine).

There are alternatives to reading the commentariat commentators.

I was thinking this when I chanced on Annabel Crab's Tell it like it is: the fair-dinkum election, for the ABC's The Drum, in which she manages a fairly even handed swipe at both sides in relation to climate, industrial relations, family values, immigration and refugees, tax and fishing (you'll have to read it to see how fishing fits into the gag).

She followed that effort up with an explanation of how both parties are rorting the system to suck on the taxpayers' teats - so much for Tony Abbott being too busy to debate Gillard - in Footing the bills for the campaign trail.

It's all eminently sensible and informative stuff, with a dash of humour and cynicism, and utterly unlike the shock horror snout in trough hysteria of a Janet Albrechtsen.

But that's not our mission.

Our mission statement is to read palpable nonsense, in much the same way as hitting ourselves over the head with a saucepan or a frying pan, and wondering why the world looks askew and there's a ringing sound in our ears.

Day after day in the quest for surreal light entertainment we read drivel in the hope of getting a few cheap laughs. The cheerleaders are always the best fun, since they pretend to be objective, fair and balanced, but they're generally about as balanced as a meat pounder smoothing out a steak.

So okay which meat pounder is up for a workout today?

Happily it's Miranda the Devine, and she offers us expert guidance in a couple of key commentariat skills, especially conflation, misdirection and exaggeration, as shown proudly on parade in Nobody's died, so why is she demanding a king's ransom?

Here's how a skilled operative goes about her wordsmithing. First start with outrage and indignation:

Tony Abbott was right to be angry about the hysterical word-parsing generated by his ''no means no'' comment. ''I'm not going to cop this kind of vicious smear from the Labor Party,'' he said. ''I'm the father of three daughters. No one respects women more than I do.''

There, that's a good start. Hysterical is such a solid, grounded word. Of course the Devine can't take credit for "vicious smear", but can play little Miss Echo. Of course the Labor party denied being part of said "vicious smear", but what the hell, guilty by association.

In any case, it's always handy to add a few more examples, since good words always hunt in packs:

Only it wasn't just Labor on the smear. It was the Greens, the Twitterverse, and every angst-ridden feminist who had been waiting for an opportunity to pounce on the Opposition Leader from Testosterone City.

There you go. Smear, angst-ridden, feminist, pounce and testosterone add to the sense of a hysterical smear. Nothing like smearing all feminists as angst-ridden waiting to pounce like a cat at a mouse. Now crank up a few specific examples.

Kathleen Swinbourne of the Women's Electoral Lobby said Abbott was ''playing on the fact Julia Gillard is a woman and using a women's anti-violence slogan against her . . . He wouldn't say it to a man.''

Yes, as Joe Hockey points out, he says it to his children all the time. So why not say it to Gillard, seeing as how she's a child who happens to be childless.

Karen Willis of the NSW Rape Crisis Centre was outraged: ''This sort of phrase isn't a joke, it's really a very clear statement about people's rights to say no to sexual advances and sexual activity when that's what they choose.''

Oh dear, it's building up. The explosive hysterical pressure. Surely it's time for a capper from the Devine:

So now Abbott is no better than a rapist.

Huh, you say? Criticism of his use of a form of words turns in to an allegation that he's no better than a rapist?

If you don't get it, sorry, clearly you need to learn a lot more about misdirection and exaggeration.

And you should also remember that it's important to remember Humpty Dumpty's advice on words:

'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - - that's all.'

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. They've a temper, some of them -- particularly verbs, they're the proudest -- adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs -- however, I can manage the whole of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!'

'Would you tell me, please,' said Alice 'what that means?`

'Now you talk like a reasonable child,' said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. 'I meant by "impenetrability" that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don't mean to stop here all the rest of your life.'

'That's a great deal to make one word mean,' Alice said in a thoughtful tone.

'When I make a word do a lot of work like that,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'I always pay it extra.'

'Oh!' said Alice. She was too much puzzled to make any other remark.

'Ah, you should see `em come round me of a Saturday night,' Humpty Dumpty went on, wagging his head gravely from side to side: 'for to get their wages, you know.'

So how does the Devine follow Humpty Dumpty's advice? Why she reaches in to her pocket and pays the word 'hysterical' a little over time:

What an insult to a family man who is anything but anti-women. It is just this kind of hysterical overreach that is behind the $37 million sexual harassment lawsuit launched against David Jones by its former publicist, Kristy Fraser-Kirk, 27.

But don't let that hard working word 'hysterical' fool you. The words doing the really heavy lifting here are "It's just this kind of", with "hysterical overreach" just the follow up.

You see, in the art of conflation, where two totally unrelated issues, or casus belli, are thrown together, it's just this kind of wording that's crucial.

'In much the same way' is another happy phrase, especially if the things so co-joined aren't actually in much the same way, and might indeed have bugger all to do with each other.

Roll a phrase like 'in a similar way' around in the tongue, and let it loll there a moment, and see how you can manage this kind of sentence.

Thanks to sugar or artificial sweeteners lemonade in the mouth, the taste is sweet, but in much the same way, thanks to its acid quality, the juice of a lemon can taste sour.

You see, in one swift, epic conflationary move, you've established sweet is sour, and you can just as easily do sour is sweet.

Beware a few cavalier types who no doubt objected to Work Choices will probably brush the redback spiders out of their purse, and fork over a few coins so they can accuse you of "hysterical overreach", but that's a bonus result, since clearly they're the same kind of meanie employer of words as the Devine. Cheap skate and half assed.

Once she's made this epic conflationary move - which links Tony Abbott forever with the matter of sexual harassment at David Jones, though they have not a whit or jot in common, I must say I lost interest in the rest of the Devine's piece. Sure the Devine ensures feminism is given another going over:

By claiming that absurd amount, she has lost credibility. The sympathy and respect she earned from her initial dignified and private handling of the case flew out the window. She is no longer seen as a victim but as another litigious, gold-digging, high umbrage woman egged on by lawyers using feminism to advance a personal cause.

But really thereafter the outing is just a standard rote example of commentariat abuse:

Her press conference on Monday, surrounded by her parents, boyfriend and lurking publicists, would have been heart-rending - if someone had died.

It's actually utterly tedious and predictable, but it does at the end come good with another bonus payment for a wonderful hard working word:

Hysterical legal hyperbole does not help women of any age. Greedy lawsuits only damage women in the workplace by making male colleagues resentful and wary. In the real world, this is a severe handicap for women making their way on their own merits.

There, that's it, a golden trifecta for 'hysterical'. Match it with legal hyperbole and the job is well done. First kill all the hysterical lawyers, as Shakespeare was wont to say ...

What a splendid, solid, honest, 'toiling in the vineyards until sundown' word it is.

Of course you should be careful how you to deploy such lethal words. If I was in the movie game, and preparing a poster, here's how I'd use the words in her column:

Hysterical ... Abbott is no better than a rapist!!!

Miranda Devine

Coming to a theatre near you. And best of all you wouldn't have to pay the words a cent more, because you see it's just another hysterically over-exaggerating conflationay movie poster, indulging in a little non sequitur playfulness.

Of course if you were Sony, you'd pay online reviewers to write reviews so that you could extract the required poster words. Ah those were the days, remembered in Sony's Fake Critic Fallout.

Oh dear, I seem to have done the same damn conflationary thing. Moving from Miranda the Devine's heartfelt defence of Tony Abbott through Humpty Dumpty to Sony being contemptible in a very movie studio way ...

Never mind, conflation is as conflation does, and in much the same way, we're reminded that we all indulge in hysterical overreach.

What's that? That's the fifteenth or so time this page has used the word 'hysterical' in one form or another and the Devine only managed three?

Bugger and damn, and the bloody word's such a hysteria queen, a bolshie pinko socialist cardigan wearing pervert when it's not strutting about shouting that it's the child of hysteria. A damn unionist always on about overtime and triple time ...

The cash flow for the week is ruined, the pond is on the verge of bankruptcy.

What to do? Sorry, as a result of deeply agitated overreach and conflationary pressures, this piece is coming to a close ...

(Below: flag of the Lord Warden of the Cinque ports, an heraldic emblem which displays conflated or con-joined images, as shown in the wiki on conflation. Did you know that Robert Menzies was once the Lord Warden between 1966 and 1978, and he's a Liberal leader, and so is Tony Abbott? Which conclusively proves that Tony Abbott has English leanings and in much the same way that know means know when it comes to canny shopping and wise word purchases at David Jones).

Fake Andrew Bolt pranks the real Andrew Bolt and so spreads a little joy in the world ...

A lot of young 'uns are too young to remember the good old days. I guess that's because they're not old enough to want to be young again.

But everything old is always new again, and so it is with the Yippies. Running a pig for president, calling themselves the Groucho Marxists, tweaking the beards of the establishment and the solemn. You can find their wiki here, and then of course there was Ken Kesey and his merry pranksters, and such other bouts of lunacy.

Well such madness has its ups and downs - Kesey never wrote a decent book after One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - but his cross-country trip made a good short piece for Tom Wolfe in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

What got me drooling about the good old days, apart from a silly James Valentine piece on the radio about "in my day" that I caught while braving Sydney traffic?

Why it's the splendid bit of prankster carry on celebrated in Real Andrew Bolt is wrong, says Fake Andrew Bolt, featured in today's Crikey.

Did someone mention Andrew Bolt?

Talk about solemn. Or more like it a pompous populist preening with self-righteousness and a permanent sense of his self-importance. Never has such a sense of self-esteem so infested a commonplace hack scribbler for a tabloid, with delusions of being an expert scientist, politician and sociologist.

As a result, we might dub this bit of pranking as the sublime in the chase after the ridiculous.

Well we're not going to steal fake Andrew Bolt's thunder or steal clicks from Crikey by slicing and dicing the yarn and running it here. But do give it a read. If we twittered - we're too twittish for that - we'd have fake AB at the top of our tweets ...

Bolt's response to the tweaking of his (metaphysical) beard confirms everything we think about the dolt, and why we can't bear to read his pompous prattles, even in a quest for satire.

As you'll see from the read, the dolt is impossible to satirise:

Tom Lehrer is often quoted as saying satire was dead when Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize. A major commentator threatening a parody because he thinks their views are too closely aligned certainly backs up that theory.

Pranksters 1, dolts nil.

And remember it's only ten more months to the most important national celebratory day in the calendar, beating Xmas and the Easter bunny hands down (and more First Dog here).

Now to prove that I have the bad taste to listen to James Valentine while driving - is this why the traffic is so fraught in Sydney? - here's my offering of 'in my day' to irritate young 'uns. Yes, in my day, people preferred to read Alfred Neuman to Andrew Bolt, and as a bonus, got more insights into humanity while doing it ...

Janet Albrechtsen, a load of deep black coal, and paint that red door black ...

(Above: a gift for you, from Janet Albrechtsen and The Australian).

Here on the pond, there's a fierce strand of secular intellectuals who think that know means know.

You know, know in what context 'know means know' is usually deployed these days, though it's jolly good 'Joe hockey sticks' Hockey knows how to tell his kids know means know.

Meanwhile, it seems we owe Geoff Elliott and The Australian a profound apology. Yesterday we berated Elliott for his surreal suggestion that The Oz was fair and balanced in both its reporting and opinion pages. What sort of crack was he using, we wanted to know, because we'd like to smoke some of it, and thereby put an end to all our worldly woes.

And then lordy were we startled to see Janet Albrechtsen come out all guns blazing this morning, with a savage attack on Tony Abbott, and not just his policies but his personal lifestyle and philosophies ... replete with snide remarks about his children and his religion, and his bourgeois conformity to suburban norms.

You could have knocked us down with a feather, and you wouldn't need a bloody big feather from an archaeopteryx or some other feathered dinosaur.

It was particularly pleasing to see her launch a vicious attack on Abbott's middle class welfarism, as exemplified by his paid parental leave scheme, with its great big tax on big business, against everything a free market dry knows is sound policy.

Sure at one point in the distant past she was agin it, worried that Abbott was outgreening Bob Brown, and being more lavish than other countries with his welfarism, and concerned he didn't understand the need to continue Howard's legacy of prudent economic management, but then she changed her mind, and hailed it as the work of a top bloke, providing a very personal commitment to paternity leave.

What a relief she's changed her mind again, and called it out for the bullshit vote buying bit of middle class welfarism it is.

Hah! April Fool. Got you going eh?

What's that? It's August. Sorry I must have nodded off there for a moment, after spending all yesterday chortling at the cheekiness of Geoff Elliott.

I know, I know the rule. If you call out April Fool and it's past noon on the day, it's bad luck for the perpetrator. But hey, this is August. Show me the rule about that. New rule: any day reading The Australian must be April Fool's day ...

Let's start again. Of course Janet Albrechtsen is to hand, and she's scribbled her usual piece, and what do you know, it's called Fear and loathing inside Labor House of Horrors, and the header is a fair indication of the tone and manner of the piece.

It is of course a thought and policy free zone, but it's splendidly full of bile, viciousness and fear and loathing, quite up there with Hunter Thompson.

Oh sorry Hunter, you showed a sense of humour and a decent love of drugs and grog and a freewheeling lifestyle.

In her usual way, Albrechtsen plays the man, and the man, and the woman, and in the process, spends much of her time demolishing Mark Latham and Kevin Rudd. You can just imagine any birthday party she stages. It'd surely feature a giant piñata. What fun to hand out all the whacking sticks.

And no doubt Albrechtsen's first to hand each time her suburb puts on its annual festive snake-whacking day, in honour of The Simpsons. Snakes are caught, and garbed in gaudy colours and vivacious signs - Labor rat, Labor fink, Labor double dealer, Labor warrior, snakey rat in the rank, and so on - and set free. The first to whack a dozen Labor snakes wins a year's subscription to The Australian, and so entry to her esteemed column ...

Oh wait, it's free on the intertubes. Never mind, it's the spirit of the whacking that counts.

We usually delight in selecting words from good old Akker Dakker, that's Piers Akerman, from another corner of the fair and balanced Murdoch stable, to convey the spiteful quality of the scribbling, but really Albrechtsen makes him look like a total loser, a tosser, a wanker, a try hard, not up to the job ...

Here we go.

Blew up, fizzed out, campaign mess, rip apart the party, bitter spirits, culture of hatred, formidable warriors, circumstances sour, warriors turn into nasty rats in the ranks, ghosts of Labor's past, wreck Gillard's election, deep-seated loathing, betrayed these credentials, old-fashioined class warrior, unreconstructed big government Keynesian, tiresome, brutally dumped, crudity a public extravaganza, foul mouth a private affair, boorish chip on shoulder, juvenile huff in Ingleburn paddock, humiliation, hatred, bitterness and revenge haunt Labor, invective-laden insights, hurt Labor, Left's vacuous claims to social justice, Right's obsession with personal aggrandisement, "scab-lifters", bereft of ideas, feeding off discomfort of governments engaged in economic and social change, silent treatment, real damage, laws of nature, pitter-patter on the roof at night, leaked, minion, dumping, conned voters, complicit in the fraud, second bomb, invective, valuable whistle on a poisonous factional world,"tin-pot" union officials, clique, hating one another, power for power's sake, risk-averse, poll and media-obsessed apparatchiks, factionalism, toxic culture, poll-driven policy, two poltergeists, full of revenge, venom that infects the ALOP culture, internal loathing, Latham debacle, loathing defined their response, empty public utterances, internal destruction, wickedly kind, brutal and perhaps futile execution, cracker of a night.

Surely that entitles me to consideration for a job at Reader's Digest? Oh okay, I understand. A decent Digest subbie would have just shortened it to "Here's why the fear and loathing in Labor inspires me to an inspirational level of fear and loathing scribbling."

Yep, the funny thing is, of course in brooding at such length and in such a nasty vicious way about fear and loathing in Labor ranks and in scribbling furiously about all the rats in the ranks, Albrechtsen shows what a deep festering fear and loathing she has when it comes to rational consideration of politics.

Talk about a feral keyboard. It's the mother of all rants, a rave on steroids, so far over the top and faraway and such a grimly absurd diatribe that the only response can be delighted laughter. If Albrechtsen believes everything is so rampantly fucked, how can she bear to go on living. Imagine the ruination of the country if Gillard squeaks in?

As with all extremists, there's only one angle. Paint it black.

I look inside myself and see my heart is black
I see my red door, I must have it painted black

Maybe then I'll fade away and not have to face the facts
It's not easy facin' up when your whole world is black

I see a red door and I want it painted black
No colors anymore I want them to turn black

I wanna see your face, painted black
Black as night, black as coal

I wanna see the sun blotted out from the sky
I wanna see it painted, painted, painted, painted black
Yeah!

Yes, it's much more fun to quote an old Rolling Stones number, lyrics a little scrambled, than to dwell too long on the dark visions of the Sauron scribbler. So much hostility, so much hatred embedded therein, so much frothing and fuming and foaming that it comes across as quite unbalanced, a tad unhinged, a tad ... dare we say it ... Mark Lathamite.

But at least as a result we've made it through without once quoting Albrechtsen in a lump. Why there's so much dark black coal, you have to plunge into the coal tender yourself to savour it to the full, but be warned, when you emerge you'll have grit and soot and blackness and anger and fear and hatred and loathing and a sense of an impending imploding of the world all over your face ...

There's only one predictable thought arising from this piece.

That thought of an apology to Geoff Elliott. Retracted.

Instead here we are mid-week, and there he is at the head of the field for the goose of the month award ...

That's it, Oz scribes, get back to work. Go hard, grab that red door, paint it black.

And now as we move forward and embrace Action Jackson, let's celebrate the benefits of knowing. As always there's a wiki to help out those who know they know but don't have a clue about unknown unknowns, with a number of splendid examples, though none better than this:

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. These are things we do not know we don’t know. ”
—United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld