David Flint, Tony Abbott, the banns published, and the celebrations begin ...

(Above: the pond is pleased to celebrate the Judaic Christian Roman tradition with a mention of Juvenal this fine day).

Loon pond is pleased to announce the engagement of the honourable David Flint to the even more honourable Tony Abbott.

The banns have been published in The Punch, under the charmingly besotted header The Tony Abbott I know, as David Flint seeks to learn if anyone might raise some canonical or civil impediment. Such ruckus-making muck rakers should be aware that in this case a similarity of sex, vows of celibacy, lack of consent, or prohibited degrees of kinship will not be countenanced as meaningful impediments.

Now please join with us as we learn more of the gleam in Flint's fevered eye.

Open, honest, ready to catch the 389 bus, fireman, lifesaver, an athletic man subject to tedious, inexplicable, un-Australian budgie smuggler jokes. Yes, you bloody un-Australian larrikins with your knockabout sense of humour, bugger off and leave the betrothed alone.

What a gem he is, such an athletic hunk. It seems Flint first met him one enchanted evening, across a crowded room, when dear sweet Tony was executive director of the Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, valiantly fighting for the preservation of the right for the talking tampon to long rule over us, happy and glorious. Amazingly there was an Australian of Chinese origin present on this momentous occasion.

A modest becoming office he had, but such a friendly young man with a firm handshake - not ostentatiously so, in the manner of a crude Latham boor, but politely so and thus, and with rugged good looks, and a solid chin that might melt the heart of any constitutional monarchist addicted to talking tampons.

His ears - ah those ears, so cruelly compared to those of elephants, but really more like a manly pugilistic type, perhaps a Gentleman Jim, like a boxer, in a way just like my father, a boxing champion himself, but please no crude oedipal suggestions on matters of singular import.

The point, and there can be no other point, is that the camera lies, and those ears flap with all the charm of Prince Charles flapping on about the joys of Victorian architecture up against the wretched modernists who have quite ruined the world. You see the camera draws attention to the ears - the formidable pugilistic ears, which can knock a mosquito to hell in a nanosecond with a simple flap more potent than a fly swat - when it should draw attention to his wonderful honey nectar charisma, that sweet soulful charm that lures bees to feast in the delicate flower of his close bosom'd autumnal charm ...

Pardon, I'm so sorry that little bit of drool escaped my lips, but you get the point. A professional friend tells me that the camera loves some faces - models less attractive in real life - when it should be in love with Tony and his formidable charisma. But how to snap that charisma, preserve it in amber, bottle it, pickle it, save it for future generations in a silver bromide bath ... perhaps only Susan Sontag could tell.

I remember as clearly as the day that it happened the day that we dined together, as people rushed up in the street to worship him and bathe his sweet feet, and I must confess I could not fail to notice the walk, the steady forthright striding manly limbs, the angular sharp hewn backside, the casually muscular body ... an obviously athletic body which could only be described as excruciatingly achingly unmistakably masculine.

Indeed, sweet Tony, oh let a thousand angels sing him to his sleep, that noble prince of gentlemanly charisma, must be the most masculine and athletic of Australia's politicians, and not boringly so, but winningly, excitingly, fervently, passionately so. I have often thought that had he been on the left he would have been the media's pin up boy, but thank the absent lord he was spared that ugly fate, and now instead is my pin up boy. I know, I know, a wall of lovingly collected photos suggests compulsive obsessive behaviour or the activities of a serial killer, but that's to ignore the charisma and the manly, did I mention masculine, charm that exudes from every pore of his manly body ...

Of course some ruffians mistake his style for that of a pugilist and a rowdy boofhead, but that was but a fleeting moment long ago when he was chief headkicker for some nonentity now long and happily gone from the nation's political life.

Sure he might have been suspended from the House, but it was a mere vexatious trifle. From the moment I first met him and became infatuated with him, I knew him to be a highly principled intellectual with the common touch. He understood that what boys needed was a firm hand and a good strapping every so often, so that the stripling might grow into a sturdy oak tree in the very best British fashion - mens sana in corpore sano, we used to say in the Scouts and the Carlton Football club, without having the first clue as to what Juvenal might have meant in his satire.

I should add that I have found Tony to be tolerant, in no way sexist or racist or guilty of any other sin, and with strong moral qualities, of loyalty and strong attachment to principles. Along with a hatred of great big new taxes.

Never mind climate change, which as we all know is utter crap. As a result, the dear sweet boy - oh he's so charming and utterly delightful - only resigned from the Turnbull ministry as a matter of principle, and not for any leadership ambitions. That he became leader utterly surprised him, as it surprised us all, and the knifing was done in an utterly principled way ... and without a single shred of coarse crude ambition. He merely has to smile at us mortals in his sweet winning way, and we dance in the street for joy to shelter within his beaming rays of love and hope ...

Here I must confess that at night I still writhe in mortification at the shocking realisation I was once a socialist in my youth. Each night I whip my back until it's red raw, but even if the stain never goes away completely, how joyous to know that Tony's principles are not those of the elites. He is instead committed to the lumpen proletariat notion, in the manner of a Trotsky, oh verily and in truth, to the completely egalitarian notion of a ruling class and a ruling monarch, long may the talking tampon rule over us, happy and glorious.

It's true he's a Catholic, and worships an egalitarian pope and the Pellist heresy, but not in a Catholic cafeteria way. No, whatever profound theological absurdity and nonsense that's been doing the rounds these past few thousand years, he's up for it, and will scoff down both the smoked salmon and the lamington. Bring on transubstantiation, the assumption of the Virgin, and the resurrection, coming some time soon to a church near you, and he's up for it.

Not that this has anything to do with running the country:

It is only in those right to life issues that there can be any crossover, and then most of these issues are matters for the states. On abortion, Tony has never suggested this be criminalised. He says it should be discouraged. This is entirely consistent with the views of most Australians, except perhaps among the tiny number who are confirmed atheists.

Oh you tired tiny cynical small number of atheists, who actively encourage abortion as a lifestyle choice. How could you be so callow and vain? Surely you must realise it would have prevented the talking tampon from walking amongst us, saving us from modern architecture, and destined to rule over us, happy and glorious.

Let's hear a resounding shout of joy for good Christian gentlemen, and drown out the plaintive cries of those filthy atheists and their abortion loving, promoting ways. Heave to it, they say, and with a bit of luck you'll get preggers and so need an abortion and so keep the medical profession gainfully employed, they spitefully contend, as opposed to using some contraceptive device, and of course if you understand the holy trinity, you will also understand how the Roman church profoundly disapproves of contraception, and so discourages abortion by preaching good Christian values and abstinence, since it's better to marry than to burn, but if you must then bloody well burn, and any suggestion that this might be keeping the abortion industry going is utterly vile and ill founded, since the church makes so little from its adoption services. And as we all know:

This firm belief in the values of our Judeo Christian heritage is a virtue and not a vice.

Let me count the ways the virtuous vice-free Abbott should be praised, him and his tremendous flexibility:

Tony is not a straight up and down conservative. Like most politicians today, he would see the views of orthodox federalists as an exercise in academic nostalgia. He would probably not agree that the role of government in modern society should be reduced.

No, no, the role of government should go on consisting of middle class welfarism, but only for the middle class who do the right thing and vote the right way. Fear not big government worshippers and haters of states, big Tony will deliver what you want, while also delivering freedom from taxes. And did we mention that you will be regularly bathed in his winsome smile?

Tony is a fine, committed, principled and loyal Australian. That does not mean Australians should vote for him. Kevin Rudd’s political assassination confirms that unlike the US president our prime ministers do not have tenure.

Unless of course you happen to be a Kennedy.

But their vote should in no way be coloured by any misrepresentation about Tony Abbott’s character and competence.

Which is why, as you can now so clearly see and understand, that I intend to marry sweet loving caring Catholic egalitarian prince royal Tony as soon as he will consent, and with the banns now published, it seems there remains only the minor matter of changing the law to allow for consenting adult males to consummate their love in a way celebrated so long ago by Juvenal in his satirical musings:

Are you even in this day and age preparing both a prenup
and an engagement, and getting a trim from a master
barber, and you have even perchance given the pledge to her finger?
You certainly used to be healthy. Postumus, are you getting married?
Tell me by what Fury and by what vipers you are goaded.
Can you endure any Master-ess when there are so many good strong ropes,
When high, vertiginous windows are wide open,
when the Aemilian bridge offers itself to you – just right next door?
Or if from so many options no mode of death strikes your fancy,
Surely you think it better that a supple boy sleep with you?
A boy, who does not conduct a nocturnal lawsuit at you, who wheedles
no little gifts from you as he lies there, and neither complains because
you are going easy on him, nor because you don’t gasp as much as he demands. (here)

Let it done, make it so, and so forth and etc, and let the trumpets resound, and the celebrations begin ...

What are you waiting for Australia? Surely David Flint's amore now nestles firmly in your bosom, a cherished pugilist intellectual capable of embracing contradiction and infatuation in a way that makes Walt Whitman seem like a rank amateur ...

(Below: and even yet more class, as we jump from Juvenal to Aubrey Beardsley's illustration of Juvenal's VI satire, featuring Juvenal scourging woman. Ah, such a nice Catholic thing to do).

Peter Costello, and another bout of whiffling, leering, snorting, taunting, sniggering, scoffing and derisive gibes ...

(Above: spot the difference).

Thus far by rigorously avoiding television I've managed to avoid at least ninety nine per cent of political advertising, and so achieved some kind of mental stability in an especially difficult time where the squawking on the pond can become unendurable.

The idea that a thirty second attack ad might contain truth - like a koan - is on the outer fringes of delusion, so it's off to see the SSO tonight doing over Beethoven. It'll mean missing the few genuine political comedies to hand, seeing the Gruen Nation cannibalistically feast on its own, and watching the Chaser lads get out the baseball bat in 'No we can't Canberra', but I'm up for the sacrifice.

But what about the commentariat commentators that litter the digital world like kitty litter full of cat droppings? How to avoid them? What compels me to click on them and then reel away nauseous? Is there a psychiatrist in the house?

A dung beetle, for example, does more genuine work and offers more genuine insights than reading that smirking Cheshire cat of politics Peter Costello.

For the sake of the long absent lord, when will his insolent, scornful, offensive smugness disappear from view? How is it that he waves his bony finger, stopping wedding guests in their tracks, so that they spend five minutes of their happy lives - five minutes they'll never get back - reading drivel like Don't blame Latham for highlighting home truths.

Reading Costello reminds us of why we're attracted to the notion of the Earl of Chesterfield scribbling to his son A constant smirk upon the face, and a whifling activity of the body, are strong indications of futility. (here)

Whifling! Now there's a word to conjure with, though the dictionary favours two 'f's':

Whiffle \Whif"fle\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Whiffled; p. pr. & vb.n. Whiffling.] [Freq. of whiff to puff, perhaps influenced by D. weifelen to waver.][1913 Webster]

1. To waver, or shake, as if moved by gusts of wind; to shift, turn, or veer about. --Dampier.
[1913 Webster]

2. To change from one opinion or course to another; to use evasions; to prevaricate; to be fickle.[1913 Webster]

A person of whiffing and unsteady turn of mind can not keep close to a point of controversy. --I. Watts. [1913 Webster] (here)

Oh okay, ya got me, of course I was avoiding scribbling about that wretched pompous smirkative whiffler Costello, much given to fleering:

fleer (flîr)
intr.v. fleered, fleer·ing, fleers
To smirk or laugh in contempt or derision.
n.
A taunting, scoffing, or derisive look or gibe. (Middle English flerien, of Scandinavian origin)

O possum if only you could see me now, pathetically scribbling columns soon to become digital compost, and not even useful enough to wrap fish and chips.

Oh dear, did that sound fleering? Let's get on to the master of fleer:

In a dull campaign, Mark Latham's report on 60 Minutes was one of the more interesting. I know the media canned it. Before it aired, Laurie Oakes told us Latham had "crossed a line". Nothing upsets journalists more than the idea that outsiders can do their job.

Actually, though there's no point in berating a goose for being a goose, what a lot of people objected to was the spectacle of a former politician urging people to abuse the right to vote by leaving their ballot paper blank.

Latham resembles a truculent adolescent in many respects, and scrawling ''f––k youse all'' on a voting paper is exactly the kind of thing you can see an angry 15-year-old doing. (Latham's blank vote blather from mouth of truculent teen)

If only because many people would have voted for Latham, and only now realised they dodged a most peculiar bullet, while others will have voted for Costello, and now realise they shot themselves in the foot (which isn't as bad as the temple but still painful enough).

Of course Costello, resolutely blinkered in his blithering, doesn't go there right away. Instead he takes the path easily travelled and myopically trodden:

Who knows where that could end? The public might realise there is nothing special about the insights of political journalists - a group of people who consider themselves expert on something they have never done.

Every so often a journalist chances their arm in real politics. Maxine McKew is one. Her underwhelming parliamentary career shows how much harder it is to do than it is to pontificate.

Let's re-phrase that:

Who knows where that could end? The public might realise there is nothing special about the insights of humbugging politicians - a group of people who consider themselves expert on buggering up the place and then boasting how they've done it, especially the ones who trained to be lawyers and then think that qualifies them as some kind of expert in economics.

Every so often a politician chances their arm in real newspaper scribbling. Peter Costello is one. His underwhelming journalist career shows how much easier it is to pontificate in the media about buggering up a democracy than it is to pontificate in parliament while actually buggering up a democracy.

But of course this is all a detour before the smirking slipper sinks in the foot:

Latham had no new insight on the two party leaders and it was stretching things to think Pauline Hanson was relevant.

Yes, no new insight and so therefore one of the more interesting contributions to the campaign. QED Costello logic.

Of course what Costello really means to say is that Latham was once the leader of the opposition, before he had a breakdown and the Labor party regretted its lack of funding for mental health:

But Latham was revealing about himself. We could write him off as a madman but let us remember that Labor convinced 5½ million Australians to vote for him to be prime minister two elections ago.

Well they didn't convince me, but thankfully neither did Howard or that smirking Cheshire cat Costello, and every word he now scribbles convinces me he's just as barking mad and spiteful as Latham, in his own preening "never ever ever to be Prime Minister" "epic fail" bitter way.

You can read the rest of the tosser if you like. It's all about how Julia Gillard was in bed with Latham, which only reminded me of how Abbott was in bed with Costello and what a fine comedy duo that made, and if you want an example of Costello's judgement, he believes Abbott would make a good prime minister.

But what about such aberrations as John Hewson, who sounds human on the Gruen Nation, while only the long absent Jesus could imagine Costello doing the same?

Latham is no John Hewson, who joined his party shortly before nominating for preselection.

What on earth does that mean?

He (Latham) was practically born to Labor. When his family needed help, the local Labor branch took up a collection. After university he went to work for Gough Whitlam.

What are we to make of Malcolm Fraser then? Born in Toorak to a family involved in politics and the pastoral industry, after detouring to university, he contested the seat of Wannon in 1954, losing by 17 votes, only to win Wannon the next year, so becoming the youngest member of the House of Representatives at the age of 25. He was practically born to the Liberal party.

Later he (Latham) took over his seat. Until he resigned, one way or another he had been employed by the Labor Party for all his adult life. And how is he voting on Saturday? Informal.

And Fraser is no longer a member of the Liberal party and who knows how he might vote on Saturday. One suspects not for the Liberal party. (and for more on Fraser, here).

What the heck do these scribbles mean? Do they pass as insights? Or are they simply factoid idiocy?

Never mind, Costello seems to think that voting informal is the best way forward for those in a state of despair:

There must be a lot of Labor stalwarts doing the same (voting informal), or voting Green, because Labor's primary vote is at 38 per cent. Last election it was 43.3 per cent. About 700,000 voters have left in three years. If Labor is re-elected, it will be on Green preferences. In fact the election is being fought between two coalitions - the Liberal-National one and the Labor-Green one. The Greens will deliver more votes to their coalition partners than the Nationals will to theirs.

Yes, it seems that the prophet who left the tent is blessed with a peculiar insight, well worth Costello's endorsement:

Latham is a high profile example of a wider disillusion with Labor. He puts it down to stage-managed campaigns and "spin". Another word is insincerity. Gillard has a robotic ability to repeat a phrase, but there is no evidence she cares whether it is accurate. She never deviates from the line - especially not for the facts. Few journalists take her up on detail. They care more about reporting tactics than policy. It is easier for them to go after people who say interesting or unexpected things.

Costello quoting the madman Latham approvingly. Making two madmen together as one ...

Which means our humble smirking scribe can scribble the truth like a seer born to it:

Latham knows Gillard well. He knows she is being manufactured for the campaign. A lot of Labor's heartland thinks the same. Climate change got one mention in the closing seconds of Labor's election launch. That's because Labor no longer thinks the issue is politically useful.

Yep, it's at that point, when no mention is made of Tony "climate change is crap" Abbott that I decided to change channels. You know, before I could get to the usual crap about Gillard as the warrior of the Victorian Socialist Left and what a wonderful economic manager Tony Abbott will make.

Because when all you do is speak out of one side of your mouth, your face ends up with a permanent twisted smirk or leer.

Surprisingly, after leaving Costello's la la land of relentless spite and spleen, as expected from the man who would have been king, but lacked the guts for it, I landed on Peter Van Onselen's Tony Abbott's economic action plan doesn't add up.

To borrow Paul Keating's line, it is a case of voodoo economics. It contains complaints about overstated levels of debt as well as promises the Coalition would rapidly repay debt, but with simultaneous large-scale spending commitments.

Frankly, it reads like the kind of policy script a political party releases when it doesn't think that it will have to implement it. Only at this election there is a real chance Abbott will have to implement his economic action plan -- that is how close the election remains with just a few days to go.

Oops, he'd better watch out, scribbling without spin about the way things are ... how soon before the editor of The Oz knocks on the door, and asks him to step outside the conformist tent?

Not to worry. Thanks to Mark Latham and Peter Costello I'll be voting, and I'll be making a vote that counts. Sure whoever I vote for, a politician will win, but they'll only get my vote if they sign a pledge that once they've left politics, they'll shut the fuck up and disappear from view and have nothing to do with the media.

Instead of cutting woeful figures like Latham and Costello, and what a pretty pair of prejudiced jaundiced ponces they make.

Enough of cheshire cats. Away to the kitty litter with you and soil that instead of the media ...

(Below: surely by now you can see the resemblance?)

Gloria Jeans, Hillsong, and the 43 bean virtuous circle of Christians doing business ...

(Above: that's not coffee, that's either instant American crap or an advertising campaign designed to produce nostalgia, and there's plenty more where that came from).

It almost goes without saying that here on the pond we'd rather drink a heady mix of ripened yak butter and the urine of cats than soil our lips with a coffee from Gloria Jeans.

Partly of course this is pure affectation and snobbery. After all there's not much point in being part of a chattering chardonnay swilling inner western elite if you can't show off simple pure snobbery with which to rile the masses.

Partly it's the genuine incontrovertible scientifically based research that established years ago that Americans don't have the first clue about coffee, and any coffee designed to suit the taste buds of Americans has the pure distilled precious bodily fluid essence of soapy water (using a cheap bulk home brand liquid detergent for the mix).

If anything is proof that domination of the world doesn't result in civilisation, drink a coffee made in the United States, then race quickly across to France or Italy and drink a comparative coffee. Despair then bliss. Caution: do not stop in England - this could be fatal, and also suggest to you why empires should fall.

And partly it has to be said, the fact that Gloria Jeans coffee is tangled up with Hillsong might have something to do with it. If you know nothing of Hillsong, continue on your blissful ignorant way. We won't contaminate the ignorance - no need to send possible disciples the way of either Hillsong or Scientology.

But if you have heard of clap happy Hillsong you'll know why I paused to get a genuine coffee, and then indulged in the sheer blissful pleasure of forty three and five sixths beans in every cup while reading Gloria Jeans owner is insolvent, court told.

Yes, before we knew that 42 beans was the real answer, and 666 beans a sign of trouble, the pure sip of nostalgia, because there's nothing like reading about principled, ethical Christians doing business.

And not just doling out the coffee, but also in the matter of Mercy Ministry:

In December, Mr Irvine and fellow Mercy Ministry directors admitted engaging in false, misleading and deceptive conduct following an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission investigation into the practices of the Hillsong-connected organisation. They were required to pay $1050 and apologise to each person affected by Mercy Ministries' conduct, all young women with mental health and drug and alcohol problems.

Say what?

Well there's no point in going into the details of the current affair, not when you can head off to Western Export Services Inc. v Jireh International Pty Limited (2010) NSWSC 622 for a little light reading in the matter of contracts and the law, as supervised by Justice J Hammerschlag in the NSW Supreme Court, or sundry newspaper reports on the matter.

I did like some of the snippets. Such as this comment by the learned Justice on a conversation:

231 Mr Saleh’s affidavit does refer to an undated alleged conversation (not communicated to WES) between him and Mr Irvine before the Letter Agreement was signed, to the following effect:
IRVINE: I still don’t see why we need to have this agreement and to execute it?
SALEH: Peter, this is not a binding agreement. It is the foundation of a working relationship going forward. I am comfortable with David and Stephen. We can review it afterwards and on an on-going basis.
232 I am not satisfied that this conversation occurred. What was allegedly said is inconsistent with the outward behaviour of both.

And this on the matter of a contract:

243 In my view the parties clearly acted on the basis that there was a contract (until Jireh denied it).

244 There can be little doubt that Jireh received and continues to receive the significant benefit of WES’ contribution and assistance during the formative years of the enterprise. The commercial unconscientiousness of Jireh’s denial of a contract is stark because it only came once the enterprise had become a significant commercial one.

What was that the long absent lord said about camels and needles and rich folk and heaven?

Better shave the percentage, treat a contract as a work in progress and live well while you can hey ...

Meanwhile, you can always amuse yourself by reading Gloria Jeans, Starbucks coffee concoctions packed with sugar, fat:

The two best-known coffee chains are selling drinks with more than 100 per cent of the recommended intake of sugar or saturated fat - and 800 times the kilojoules of a long black - but customers have no idea because both are failing in their policies for providing dietary information.

The revelations come as international research shows daily consumption of any of nearly 100 menu items sold by Gloria Jeans and Starbucks can lead to gaining almost 10kg a year.

Christianity connected with the obesity epidemic?

* A REGULAR-size Gloria Jeans Mocha Chiller Coco Loco packs 95.5g of sugar, which is 106 per cent of an adult's recommended daily intake. A large has 129g of sugar, or 143 per cent of the RDI;

* A LARGE Gloria Jeans iced chocolate with whipped cream has 3260kJ - the same as 815 long blacks. It would take more than three hours of bike-riding to use up this amount of energy.

You can see a virtuous circle at work here. Get troubled young women fat and so even more mentally disturbed about their body image, pack them off to Mercy Ministries for treatment with bible studies and exorcisms (Hillsong Church, Gloria Jeans linked to abuse claims), and then send them along to Hillsong for a clap happy singalong, provided they leave a generous tip on the plate.

Hey you, piker, we said generous!

Waiter, bring me that super size heady mix of ripe yak butter and urine of cats.

I feel a toast coming on as we celebrate yet another great business plan to improve life on earth ...

(Below: and now for an inconsequential series of images on the theme of coffee. Get wired the Christian way with an addictive stimulant more deadly and dangerous than speed).

Gerard Henderson, and crucial decisions to be made as Australia confronts a worrying period of war ...

(Above: Bob Menzies at the Sydney opening of War Savings Week 14th October, 1940, found here).

Today it is the melancholy duty of loon pond to advise officially fellow Australians that Australia is in a state of war, and that the dangers the Greens represent is roughly equivalent to the Japanese swooping south, and incidentally or perhaps coincidentally, beware the vorpal blade of the jubjub bird and the frumious bandersnatch.

Or you could listen to Robert Menzies declaring war here.

But what brought all this on?

Sob, yes, oh galumphing snicker snackers, it's time to catch up on what the inner city urban elite chattering classes are thinking, and as a key representative of the class, who better than Gerard Henderson to show us the way?

Oh dear, it's gloom city, as Hung parliament would be a pain in the neck for everyone.

A hung parliament would be a pain in the neck?

This of course depends on your definition of a hung parliament, since it would be quite possible to argue that the Labor government has been working with a hung parliament these past few years, with every bit of legislation subject to the whim of outright loons of the Steven Fielding kind, independents of the South Australian anti-gambling scattergun on everything else policy wonk kind, the Greens, and a Liberal party determined that opposition means to oppose everything in sight.

But let's forget about that unrepresentative swill dipping their heads into the upper house trough for some pleasant feed, to get down to a little forthright analysis with our resident prattling Polonius:

In his disappointingly flat and unoriginal report on 60 Minutes on Sunday ...

Disappointingly flat and unoriginal? Did I land back in an alternate planet? By all accounts, Latham's performance was a total, dismal, pathetic flop, a disgrace to the Nine Network, 60 Minutes - the ticking clock Skippy of current affairs - and just another outing for a sideshow in the circus freak tent. (Boredom the last original sin for Mark Latham, an old sensation).

Could it be that Henderson needs a vocabulary transplant? How about all bubble, no thought? Nihilist? Get this shit off the air? (Come back Kerry all is forgiven)

Or could it be that Henderson is going to go on and quote Latham approvingly?

Yep, you've guessed it ...

... Mark Latham commented that "in all likelihood Senator Bob Brown and his Green Party will control the next Parliament".

Oh dear, we can see where this is heading. Now of course as a prattling member of the chattering class elite, Henderson likes to take a fair and balanced view, which surprisingly manages to endorse the Liberal party 121% of the time (the 21% is a statistical aberration designed to cope with the repetitive posturing inherent in a Polonius world view). So first we must pause to make sure that while repeating Latham, one is making a principled stand, not given to exaggeration:

This is an exaggeration. The Greens can only exercise a balance of power role in the Senate if they have the support of the opposition of the day (whether Coalition or Labor).

Phew, thank the lord that's cleared up. But now it's possible, just possible, to endorse the Latham world view and announce that the sky might fall in, and very soon:

But it's possible, just possible, the Greens could have a say in determining the circumstances under which Gillard could form a government.

Oh dear, what does this mean? Is he giving up the ghost already, waving the white flag, putting the feather up over the trenches? Or is it beyond the pale to contemplate an alternate scenario?

But it's possible, just possible, the Greens could have a say in determining the circumstances under which Abbott could form a government.

Of course not. Because then Henderson wouldn't be able to fear monger about the Greens and Labor, and a push to the left, which curiously seems to overlook the singular failure of the Greens and Labor to agree on a carbon tax for the entire course of the previous parliament. So let's fear monger away:

In such an eventuality, the Greens would have the capacity to push Labor to the left. Such an outcome would be deleterious to the nation as a whole.

Of course you could write that another way:

In such an eventuality, the Greens would have the capacity to stop Abbott marching off to the ratbag right. Such an outcome would be beneficial to the nation as a whole.

Or how about:

In such an eventuality, the Greens would have the capacity to push Abbott to the left. Such an outcome would be tremendously ironic and wonderfully cheering for the nation as a whole, and might see him spring for a decent filter free NBN.

Settle! Remember that the gloom, the pall of despondency that afflicts the chattering classes and sees them affect suits of a dark hued kind, can be seen in every nook and cranny:

Moreover, it would not be in the long-term interests of the Liberal Party to carry the responsibility for putting Brown and his colleagues at the centre of government - especially since the Liberals do not receive any Greens preferences.

Yes indeed! Let's celebrate the dum and the dee:

The traditional Liberal support base is closer to the modern Labor Party than to Brown and his regulatory disciples.

But to be fair Henderson is just as outraged at the thought of National party renegades, who take a good agrarian socialist stance, holding the balance in the lower house:

The independents are not of the same mind. However, Katter, Oakeshott and Windsor give the impression of favouring greater government intervention in the economy along with special protection of, and assistance to, primary and secondary industries in their electorates.

There's just one problem with this.

Throughout his campaign Abbott has given the impression of favouring greater government intervention in the economy, along with the special protection of, and assistance to, all kinds of boondoggles and middle class welfarism in all electorates, including but not limited to an excessively generous paid parental leave scheme, and a hopelessly naff broadband scheme launched without any business plan or model, except that it's cheaper (but don't go trying to buy a bomb along Parramatta road or the Nepean highway or South road because it's cheaper).

Ah well let's sign off with a flourish of despair:

Both Gillard and Abbott would be able to negotiate with the independents. Yet such negotiation would invariably make the task of further economic reform even more difficult than it currently is. A hung parliament would make for interesting politics, but not good government.

There is of course a rich comic irony in all this as Henderson wrings his hands and worries about the Greens and the agrarian socialists:

It is likely the independents would deal with both the Coalition and Labor. But it is unlikely the Greens would deal with the Coalition. This underlines the magnitude of the mistake the Liberal Party has made in preferencing the Greens ahead of Labor in the seats of Melbourne, Sydney and Grayndler (all of which the Greens could possibly win on Liberal preferences).

It makes no sense for the Liberals to facilitate entry into Parliament of Greens politicians, who are well to the left of Gillard Labor on economic, foreign and social policy.

Yes, what joy if Abbott were to reach for the finish line, and discover that his side has just kicked an own goal (as they say in a huggy kissy game way too green for its good) in the manner of the Labor party helping Fielding to get a leg up and over and into the Senate.

Why it could mean three years of angst for the chattering commentariat.

And at a time when ht country is facing an epic crisis roughly equivalent to the beginning of world war two. Well at least that's what's implied in Henderson's opening tedious attempt to evoke Bob Menzies' plight in the early forties, and drag that unwelcome and inappropriate historical metaphor kicking and screaming across the years, and apply it to current circumstances.

This produces a howler, a canard which would ensure six of the best for Henderson in any decent history class:

There were many reasons for the political failure of the first Menzies government. However, the inability of the Coalition parties to win the seats gained in 1940 by Coles in Melbourne and Wilson in the Wimmera ensured the Menzies government's poor performance.

If Abbott falls just short of an absolute majority, his position will not be dissimilar to that experienced by Menzies in 1940.

Yep, somehow it's all the fault of the independents, never mind the total disarray of the U.A.P. at the time, and the feuding and the fussing going down.

On Lyons's death in April 1939, the U.A.P. elected Menzies to party leadership. Sir Earle Page announced that in consequence the Country Party would no longer work in coalition with the U.A.P., and launched on Menzies an attack described by the Sydney Morning Herald as 'a violation of the decencies of debate without parallel in the annals of Federal Parliament'. Page asserted that, with war threatening, Menzies was incapable of leading the nation, because he had been disloyal to Lyons and because he had failed to serve in World War I. Though the reasons for this animus are not altogether clear, Page was probably stung by the waspish comments Menzies had made about him behind his back. It is, however, extremely doubtful that—despite the failure of the promises made to him—Menzies was disloyal to Lyons, and that his behaviour was a factor in the latter's collapse. Dame Enid Lyons, whose hostility to Menzies simmered over many years, made the allegation covertly and, in the end, explicitly. Page shared her grief at Lyons's death, and believed the unproven story that Menzies was partly responsible for it. (Australian Dictionary of Biography).

Yes, there's a prime example of the damage independents can do, while all was bliss and hugginess amongst the big players.

Happily there are better historical sources on line these days than are dreamed of by the inner urban elite chattering classes, and happily there are thus ways to understand exactly how the ponderous, fatuous musings of Henderson manage to get it wrong in ways that are both big and small.

And now, since it's been awhile since we've had a reading, how about this offering from Robert Herrick, 1592-1674, under the title Passing By:

There is a lady sweet and kind
Was never face so pleased my mind,
I did but see her passing by
And yet I love her till I die!

Her gestures, motions and her smile
Her wit, her voice, my heart beguile;
Beguile my heart, I know not why
And yet I love her till I die!

Cupid is winged, and doth range
Her country; so my heart doth change.
But change the earth, or change the sky
Yet will I love her till I die!

Steady, we're not talking about Julia Gillard, we're talking about the Queen!

(Below: and here's Ming the merciless with that very Queen).

The Australian, The Punch, and punch drunk clouds punching on in Murdoch land ...

(Above: Go for Growth!)

It was a nice bright day with fleecy cotton wool clouds scudding across the blue skyline. So we spent a pleasant hour or two yelling at the clouds, then came inside.

Naturally after floating high o'er vales and hills doing a Wordsworth, harsh reality always intrudes.

And so we came to read The Australian. And lordy what a surprise. Why there's that old dinkum digger and Murdoch lover Mark Day discovering Make no mistake, NBN will truly change the way we live.

One side is planning to try to bolt together an old Commodore with an old Falcon, using bits of a P76. The other is offering a shining new Rolls-Royce. You choose.

Choice made. Anything else to say?

For years Telstra has gone on about being focused on customer service. It's drivel. The company has zero service and zero concern for its customers. That's why we're all deserting it as quickly as possible and why its profits are falling.

And in my view it's another valid reason to support the government's proposed NBN structure. Frankly, I don't really care who builds it or runs it, as long as it's anybody but Telstra.

Sheesh, not a single cloud to yell at. Surely Henry Ergas will find something in More migrants yes, but weigh the risks?

Oh dear. It seems good old Henry, Telstra lover and NBN hater, would love to be a Dick Smith lover, but can't quite bring himself to the point. All that said, immigration can still be highly desirable, he scribbles, before managing a fine flourish of Sheehan foolishness:

Specifically, nothing saps integration more than the welfare state, which can make it optional for migrants to find their way in the local society and labour market. Little wonder the great miracles of migrant absorption occurred in the Australia of the 1950s and 1960s, when income transfers barely existed. And little wonder Europe is now trapped in migrant ghettos and rampant xenophobia.

Income transfers barely existed? Give me some of what the man tokes, it must be excellent.

Because you see, it was the Chifley government that set up the Commonwealth Employment service in 1946, and offered a conditional unemployment benefit for a married couple with three children which amounted to a third of average weekly earnings in '48-49, and the Menzies government maintained the notion with little change through his long reign, though he chanced upon a time with full employment, helped along by the notion that employing women had nothing to do with full employment (here).

Now I'm thinking, after being confronted by this now standard bile about Europe - when between Lubbock Texas and Paris, France, allow me to choose Paris every day of the week - what we need is a little bit of 'on the one hand', up against 'on the other hand'.

Overall, there is a compelling case for immigration.

Yes, a solid point. But on the other hand:

... high, sustained population inflows raise issues more troublesome than boosters of a Big Australia recognise.

Well there's a nice straw man, or straw dog, take your pick, as 'sustainable' somehow morphs into 'sustained' in a nice John Howard 'go for growth' way.

How about a nice rhetorical flourish to prove that the artful nonsense can still be given a good front?

Those issues cannot be wished away, nor papered over with mealy-mouthed insincerities. Until they are properly addressed, our population debate will remain a pitiful sham.

Yes, and a fine mealy-mouthed pitiful sham is Mr. Ergas's each way bet column. On the one hand, I felt like yelling out "Mark Day, Telstra, NBN" at Mr. Ergas.

On the other hand, it felt a bit like a vaguely pitiful mealy mouthed sham excuse for some cloud yelling.

How about the editorial in The Oz, always a sure energised source of cloud yelling power? Oh dear, it's also part of the same sham pitiful mealy mouthed debate:

Three years ago, John Howard's campaign slogan, Go for Growth, sounded like a statement of the screaming obvious.

So screamingly obvious he was voted out and lost his seat.

Never mind, The Australian is rightly appalled at the blubbery Dick Smith worried about where he might be able to park his helicopter, what with all the furriners swamping the country:

Rather than being afraid of the growth offered by our mining boom, activists such as entrepreneur Dick Smith should be embracing the potential. Instead, Mr Smith is spending his time dissing the capitalism that has made him extraordinarily wealthy and talking against the population that has provided such a growing market for his products. Rather than offering a $1 million prize to anyone who can come up with alternatives to "our population and consumption growth-obsessed economy", Mr Smith should consider using those funds to find ways to improve infrastructure. Size is not everything, but Australia's history shows people create wealth.

Ah yes, it's 'go for growth' but along the way, an extraordinary confession:

The issue of migration has nothing to do with the problem of managing boatpeople, yet both political parties have been happy to dogwhistle to their constituencies on this spurious link. Labor may feel it has no choice.

Uh huh, and why might that be the case? Perhaps the Liberals dog whistling incessantly about it?

Phew, no, it's because Kevin Rudd was a failure on border protection, no mention of the nine long years of futile war in Afghanistan, and let's not forget Iraq, which has seen some want to settle in their warrior home country, since the troops do such a good job at promoting paradise, because it seems there's an unwritten contract with the electorate: immigration can remain high so long as our borders are secure.

Yes, with the Liberals caught in the cookie jar, 'go for growth' written all over their fingers, and telling anyone who might overhear that they'll determine who comes to the country, The Australian can manage to slam Dick Smith and the Labor party, and yet somehow the Liberals come up trumps with their population policy, because they've set a specific target however disingenuous. Which just happens to be the figure that was going to happen anyway. And never mind their baiting over the Asian peril swarming down from the north along the way ...

Surely if the circus needs a contortionist for their freak show, they should set Mark Latham aside and call in the editorialist for The Australian.

After being starved of the splendours of the internet, it felt like there was just time to duck over to The Punch, Australia's most unscientific discussion, for a swift round of cloud gazing, and sure enough there was the eternally reliable Paul Colgan, furiously scribbling Bass, where the lesson of history is to ignore it.

Colgan's methodology? Well he strides around Bass, talking to a few people in Launceston, and discovers in the process that Labor might be in trouble. Oh it's hard hitting stuff, and really probing:

His family have always been rusted-on Labor voters but get this: he thinks his mother, who recently started a business, may have changed her mind.

May have changed her mind? The doofus doesn't even know if she has, and and Colgan sets it all down like a goose armed with a quill plucked from his bum?

But he does get one thing right, with a sharp, incisive insight:

Articles about Bass tend to slide into historical tedium about its record of defying or starting trends.

Damn right. Tedium, ennui, and utter simplistic, drivel-driven boredom.

If that’s your thing you can dive into it here, here, or here; but really the only thing Bass’s history teaches is that it is no guide.

And Colgan no guide either.

Political rules of thumb don’t apply here.

Is that why Colgan spends his entire piece sitting on his thumb?

But wait, there's a capper:

If an election was based on counting signs in people’s front yards were votes, Titmus would win in a landslide. On a drive around Launceston suburbs with him he was surprised to see some of them in place. There were signs for Lyons, too, but not as many, and the Labor branding was inconspicuous.

Ah so that's how it's done. You count the street signs, and ineluctably you reach a mysterious conclusion, as reliable as delving into chicken livers.

And then there's Colgan's discovery of push pull polling:

On the town streets there were plenty of voters who were leaning towards voting Labor but were prepared to consider Titmus once you raised his name.

Dear sweet absent lord, that sounds incredibly scientific. So you'd vote for Titmus, would you, if I mention his name? And a fine chap, a grand fellow he is?

Oh wait, this late breaking news:

It’s totally unscientific ...

As my dear sweet grandmother used to say, fuck me dead and bury me in an unmarked grave.

... but it’s an indication that the outcome in Bass could come down to a matter of a few thousand of the good people of Launceston making their minds up when they head to the polling place on Saturday.

Thanks be to the long absent lord, we know now Bass is in the balance. And that just when there seemed like a glimmer of sanity in a few pages in The Australian, the loonacy settled in another part of Murdoch land.

By the punch-drunk time I reached Lyall Mercer's offering Gay marriage row: in defence of Wendy Francis, wherein he defends the woman for whom he once acted as a consultant, the woefully inept Wendy Francis, I was feeling like everything was back to normal on the pond.

Don’t agree with Francis; don’t vote for her. That’s your right. But she – like all of us – deserves to put forward her views. If her comments were extreme, she deserves the chance to acknowledge this and to be offered forgiveness.

By golly, at last I've worked out how the Germans should have responded to Hitler. I say, old chap, that's a tad extreme, you know about gays being around kids constituting a form of child abuse, but why not acknowledge it, and we'll offer you forgiveness and the keys to the Reichstag.

Dammit, that's a dollar in the Godwin's Law swear jar.

And it's all your fault, Lyall Mercer, hot contender for goose of the week, attempting to defend the indefensible in a way that defames all geese.

Let’s not create a public environment so brutal that decent people – like Wendy Francis – will be too scared to put their passions and views on the line. Australia would be worse for it.

Uh huh. Put it another way. Let's create a public environment so brutal decent people can kick the shit out of gays, acknowledge they might be a bit extreme in their views, and then apologise for their extremism, and we'll all have a group hug, and offer forgiveness, and perhaps flop together and roll around on bean bags (sorry, no gays allowed - that would be a form of bean bag abuse).

Ah yes, it'd taken awhile, but I was up for it, and the puffy white clouds were rolling across the sky, and I was ready to spend a few hours yelling at their ceaselessly changing dumb fuck wispy cottony ways ...

Oh look, a camel, 'n elephant, a dope. Oh wait that's just an embittered Ben Power scribbling You know it adds up: Labor are innumerate, ranting about Labor types, and former comrades, and ...

Because Labor types don’t earn or create money, financial waste doesn’t matter as much to them. When Labor sees money they only see numbers to be manipulated. Earners and creators see time, sweat, risk, hard work, commitment.

Is Power suggesting that since Labor types don't earn or create money, they live on free floating cloud juice? Who knows?

All I know is that when someone blathers on about Labor types, they sound like deeply dumb mono types, incapable of getting to the point of being stereo types.

Does Power have the remotest idea of how stupid his kind of rhetoric sounds?

Probably not. That would be like asking a cloud to show a little common sense, instead of doing the Melbourne cloud thing and drenching us, so that we end up sodden, saturated, la la land readers of Murdoch rags ...

(Below: and now release the hounds, or at least the savage chickens).

Paul Sheehan, pork pie eaters, drones, Celts, and those bloody parochial Victorians who never back announce ...

Oh to be in Melbourne in the winter and in the wind and the rain, and then to go to Ballarat in the freezing rain and the howling wind, and all the time listening to 3RRR in the middle of its fund raising and there's that Walker chappie in the skull cave playing music and failing to back announce! and so if you tuned in half way through the song, this is what he was playing, but no doubt if you live in Melbourne and wear black or follow the footie in a leftie, intellectual way you've donated already, because what else is there to do in the freezing rain and the howling pain ....

Phew, and now to a man who should be wearing the underpants outside the pants all the time, as a warning.

Yep, it's Paul Sheehan day, scribbling Gillard's pork pies hard to resist, and such is his privileged position as a well paid ponce - as if society benefits one whit or jot from his views, as opposed to being some kind of pontificating drone - that he feels ready to beguile you into his world view by explaining:

The pie-eaters greatly outnumber the pie-makers.

Personally, I blame the Celts, those devious deviants who are always ready to eat more than their share of the pie, lolling around doing idle bits of Celtic mischief, while hard working Anglo Saxons just expire from their hard work. You know, like tapping on keyboards, complaining about the Celts. It's back breaking, exhausting, tiring, crippling work, being a professional grump and carp, and what thanks does the hive give to its drones for their droning on?

None. And if we don't watch out, we'll end up just like Europe:

In Western Europe, the culture of expectations has become crippling. Australia has been saved from the same process by the Chinese economic revolution, flogging off natural resources, and high immigration, none of which are structural fixes. The danger point comes when the majority vote for big government as a matter of self-interest, not just principle.

As opposed to a vote for Tony Abbott's exorbitant big brother tax on big business middle class welfarism parental leave scheme.

You see, it's all the fault of the pie-eaters. And did we mention the Celts, in a climatic howling into the wind and the rain, as King Lear's eyes leave their sockets?

6. The pie-eaters. Finally, we get to the most structural and disturbing aspect of the election, the growing primacy of the pie-eaters. As the recent British election showed, when sections of a country become addicted to government spending (Scotland and Wales), the electorate will vote out of self-interest and vote for the party of big government. That is, vote Labor, no matter how bad the record.

The difference between Liberal and Labor is so glaring obvious that all but the most simple minded pie eater could spot the difference. Oh and the odd drone blissed out on honeycomb, gazing into the light, and muttering oh Tony, he's so beautiful ...

The good news is that the drone has given up.

All this may vindicate cynicism with politicians but I will be surprised on Saturday if the first woman prime minister does not win the chance to show what she can do away from the shadow of Kevin Bonaparte.

Yep, it's a win win situation. If Labor wins, that's three years of pain and grumpiness for the drone. If Labor loses, then the drone in his droning way joins Malcolm Mackerras as one of those legendary inept psephologists and seers who couldn't pick his nose, let alone an election outcome.

The rest of Sheehan's piece is full of numbing scribbles which purport to be a kind of political analysis, when it's really just the usual dross of an anti-Celtic tosser.

Naturally it's all the fault of the Victorians:

4. Victorian provincialism. Tony Abbott is from Sydney. Gillard is from Melbourne. In Victoria, enough said. The Liberals will lose seats in Victoria, offsetting the anti-Labor mood in NSW.

Ah yes, of course I blame all those RRR subscribers, especially listeners to that Walker chappie in the skull cave, who kept on subscribing even thought he doesn't back announce! Thuggee of the radio.

Surprisingly, it's also all the fault of jolly Joe:

5. Joe Hockey. There is a limit to how much damage a party can sustain before regenerating. Losing three leaders in two years, then the retirements of Peter Costello and Senator Nick Minchin, who were the de facto leaders of the Liberals, cut into the muscle and bone of the party. If Costello and Minchin were still in place the Liberals' economic credibility would be robust and Labor's leadership stunt would be in serious trouble. Hockey's amiable appearance belies a hardened factional warrior who lacks the gravitas one expects of a federal treasurer. Andrew Robb, yes. Malcolm Turnbull, yes. Peter Costello, in spades. Hockey is lead in Abbott's saddlebags.

Indeed. Why mention that perhaps Abbott is lead in Abbott's saddlebags? Why ruin a good party by dumping on Abbott when jolly Joe can cop it all on the chin?

Already arguing about who to blame for the loss? Why he sounds like a bloody parochial Victorian on a rainy Saturday in August as its crunch time for the finals ...

And what about that broadband policy announced without a convincing business model, but rather as a tattered coat of many colours flung together like a a cheap assed Vinnie sourced Dolly Parton song, and but one of a number of big government policies and attempts to piss in pockets by the Liberal party that might not impress pie-eaters?

There are three other big points Sheehan makes in his droning - something to do with marginal pork barrels, and the Greens, and gender - yes, it's all the fault of women as well as pie eaters and parochial Victorians and jolly Joe - but I was pleased to read it all, because it gave me a sense of being home amongst grumpy parochial old men, rather than being lost amidst grumpy parochial Victorians in the grip of the run up to the run up to the finals fever run up to the grand final run up to the victory parade, which is of course just a run up to the off season trading which is a run up to the pre-season, and then ... continue until exhausted, and in a state of drone despair ...

Still, it's nice to read a commentariat commentator up there with the best, reminding us that there's only one poll that batters, or splatters, or matters. For this the Herald pays the grumpy old lad to abuse pie eaters and Victorians and think somehow he's making an honest pie-maker living?

As Hamlet might say, get thee to a bakery Sheehan, and make an honest living making pies, instead of quoting from yourself to fill up space, since dissembling about quoting yourself is just another way to add a few more words to the column, and so add a few more pounds a word to the indecent payment you already receive. Instead of following Dickens and using inflation to up yourself to a pound rather than a penny a word, why not just mince up your baloney and sell baloney pies, and so make an honest living?

Meanwhile, and happily I was ensconced in business class nibbling on salmon and scoffing on a flute of champers - yes that's the life of a pie eater, since Qantas - not the airline it once was - also offered an exotic pie for an evening meal - but the point of this idle boasting is simply to explain how I missed Mark Latham's attempt to show up Paul Sheehan for the drone he is.

By appearing in the hallowed halls of 60 Minutes, that hallowed institution of fine journalism and a fine example of all that the Nine network offers the community.

The former Labor leader Mark Latham used his guest reporting role with 60 Minutes to call on voters to follow his example and leave their ballot papers "totally blank" on Saturday.

Mr Latham, who said he would not support any party in the poll, criticised Labor and the Coalition for "dumbing down politics and turning it into a beauty contest". (here).

At last, an explanation of why Latham lost. And I hear he didn't do so well in the charity queen contest either ....

If only he'd worn his underpants on the outside, we'd have known where he stood ...

Still it's nice to get totally blank advice from a total blank, who makes Zelig seem like an authentic historical figure ...

(Below: and since the Herald used a clunky image of a pork pie to illustrate Sheehan's dronery, we naturally like to follow suit at the pond, it's the only way to win at 500, but with the tang of historical authenticity).

A Little Housekeeping and startled Dick Smith fearful sparrows heading south for winter...

(Above: hey true blue, Dick Smith as a dinkum digger Scout).

Driven mad with fear and loathing at the sight of all the Asians standing in line to enter Australia, and moving in slow motion what's more, as shown in Dick Smith's Population Puzzle, the pond is fleeing south for the weekend.

Of course in this topsy turvy world, to flee south in winter defies Florida logic, and to flee north is to take us even closer to the teeming Asian hordes of Bangladesh, which is what Australia is likely to become, if not this decade, then certainly next, unless the valiant Dick Smith can overcome the odds ...

Sure it'll involve a tear or two, and a humming of tunes about who'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me, except they've changed all the words, and things aren't the same, and great fears about whether we'll have enough room for all of us to store our personal helicopters in our chopper garages, but somehow we'll overcome.

You can download this irrational, emotional, loaded bit of fear mongering - in handy wmv or mp4 form - by going here, and share nostalgia-laden memories of when Australia was suburban, with milkos doing their thing, and cricket in the back yard with dad and mum and John Howard and the nice boys over the road, white, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant, except for those nasty dirty Celtic Irish Catholic types down the road, ruining the neighbourhood, and cheating at cricket.

Stricken and fearful as we are - did we mention Bangladesh and traffic problems and the difficulties of parking helicopters these days? - we're off to Melbourne, which is as close as we dare get to Tasmania, because early in the show there was startling evidence that Tasmania was full to the brim, and devouring the country's resources, services and funding.

Yep, the damn place used to be full of incestuous apple eaters, but now it's full of damn resource hungry furriners. Not that we're into stereotypes in any way.

With a bit of luck, when we land in Melbourne, we'll be able to catch a ride with a nice furriner type taxi driver, so we can bemoan in an egalitarian way how the country's gone to the dogs since all the furriners and boat people moved in, and as a result of them drinking up all the water - don't they know that there's no right to safe potable drinking water - farmers are being forced to burn their orange trees, and as a result none of us drink orange juice any more, hence all the diseases and the pressure on hospitals, and likely there won't be enough to feed us all, or the world in a decade, and how's a politician like Bob Carr going to organise infrastructure for the new mob, let alone organise an Olympics so he can piss a billion dollars of infrastructure money against the wall...

And phew, is there any more fear mongering I can dollop up with chunks of cream made from dinkum digger Aussie cows right now?

Nope, sorry, it's off to Melbourne, and as you all know, Melbourne is so remote and so bereft of intertubes facilities and so useless are their famous carrier pigeons in the compilation of blogs that normal mad cow diseased activities, nee blogging, directly the result of overcrowding by furriners, might resume some time next Monday.

Unless the furriners crowd me out and asphyxiate me with their crushing, overwhelming, stifling, presence before then ...

Oh dear lord, I feel a panic attack coming on.

To be absolutely safe we were hoping to reach Antartica, but it's a relief to know that Melbourne is likely to be as cold or colder.

Yes, yes, there's nothing like a good stereotype to warm the cockles of the heart.

I'm heading home to where they shot On the Beach, and while you might quibble as to whether the quote came from Ava Gardner, or Neil Jillet, (now only in cache form here), On the Beach was a story about the end of the world, and Melbourne sure is the right place to film it. Or to live it ...

(Below: burn baby burn, it's all going up in flames, the end of the world is nigh, we're doomed I tells ya, I tells ya. Flee, flee to Melbourne, I tells ya, so the last few months of your miserable lives can be lived in misery amid family squabbles).

Grahame Lynch, the intertubes, The Australian strikes again, something different with Newt Gingrich, and a dash of barbed wire ...

(Above: here at the pond we once owned three of these machines, right marvels they were, with their little white ribbon to remove the errors, but these days you'd need a bush mechanic to keep one working, and that's why the Liberal party stands full and forthright and ready to help out with a few stockings and sealing wax. Oh and that'll get the intertubes to its full potential too).

Chastened by the understanding that there's no such thing as a free lunch, and certainly no right to have potable water, we plunged once more into bizarro world, aka The Australian, for this splendid opener:

After a $20 billion investment with little or nothing to show for it, the stark reality is the company has to start all over again.

$20 billion? Who might have done that? The Federal Government? That sounds exactly like the profligate waste we've come to expect from the NBN.

Telstra chief executive David Thodey lowers benchmarks after profit fall, scribbles John Durie.

Ah yes, Telstra. These days we use our share certificates as wallpaper in the outdoors dunnie. And fondly remember the days when John Howard sold the biggest dud, the biggest lemon into the marketplace to mum and dad investors, with a style and panache that makes the average Parramatta used car salesman look sheepish, shy and reticent.

Why at $20 billion, the amount to be spent on the NBN is almost a sneeze.

Chief executive David Thodey was right to draw a line in the sand and set new, significantly lower benchmarks for the company. But the near 10 per cent fall in the share price, wiping $3.9bn from the company's value, tells you shareholders have had enough.

That's more than $1bn the company has vowed to spend in product promotion and customer service to put an end to sustained market-share erosion.

Yep, it was under the Howard government's watch that Telstra hired a cowboy, alienated its small customers and the big end of town, and acted very badly in defending its monopoly.

As a seller of the internet, Telstra's performance stinks, with just 6 per cent of sales online against the international peer average of 25 per cent.

Nason will lead a push to dramatically change Telstra's approach to the market, working with customers by helping geeks trawling social networks to help other customers.

Yep indoody, for all its grandiloquent babble of building a faster intertubes in the city, Telstra has singlehandedly held back its development, and now faces a moment of truth:

The fixed-line monopoly is gone, whether NBN comes in or not, because already 12 per cent of homes have chosen to drop fixed-line services. It's just a question of how quickly the margins fall.

As a company, Telstra is arguably indifferent to the fate of the NBN. But with the NBN will come $2.7bn in payments for its empty copper wire ducts, a further $1.3bn for access to its exchanges, a further $4.5bn to migrate customers and a $2bn sweetener courtesy of the government as the price of peace.

Well that sets the scene for Grahame Lynch.

Come on down with NBN is welfare for tech-heads.

There is considerable criticism of the Coalition's minimalist broadband policy.

Minimalist? What, is it some kind of Phillip Glass musical score? Or perhaps the Ross Edwards' violin concerto I saw last night (and good fun it was too)?

Gizmodo Australia described the policy as a "whole heap of nothing". Industry advocate Paul Budde said: "It is like having many parts of a car spread out on the floor, with no plan on how to put it all together." Tasmanian Premier David Bartlett called it a betrayal. But let's get some things in perspective.

Perspective? Well the only perspective Lynch offers is a "Liberal party policy sensible and cost effective" bit of blather, and "NBN unsustainable white elephant" debunking, of the kind usually reserved for Henry Ergas in his once a week bashing of the NBN. The welfare for tech heads sets the tone, and suggests that there's no need to read any further, but of course we read on.

You have to hand it to The Australian for digging up another expert happy to argue that electric typewriters are perfectly acceptable, a great advance on the old manual keyboards and more than enough for antipodean diggers, and careful, no need to use our current mineral wealth to get ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to technology. Let's not lose our heads, let's just keep it cheep, cheep, cheep. At knockdown bargain basement prices, and never mind the vision thing.

But when it comes to elaborate conspiracy theories, Lynch really takes the cake:

For those in the telecoms industry who wonder why the Coalition simply doesn't get it and jump on the fibre bandwagon, I would politely suggest they have themselves to blame.

Yep, it's the fault of the telecom industry that Tony Abbott is a clunky noob, all because they didn't insist on a credible cost benefit analysis, and gasp, uses Seattle as an example of how things might pan out by way of benefits, when we all know Seattle is full of tech heads, nerds, Boeing builders, and sleepless Meg Ryans.

Lynch delivers a lot of blather, about how the coalition is a responsible economic manager, and rounds his piece out thusly:

To defend an NBN policy that, among other things, is the world's most generous telecom industry welfare scheme by reference to a small US city's economic analysis strikes me as a spectacular cultural cringe.

Okay, so how about this? Where's the credible cost-benefit analysis that's been done on the coalition's half assed, half cocked plan?

Just because it's miserly and shrimpish doesn't mean it will prove useful or a sensible way to drop government money.

The likes of Lynch simply assert that it's cheaper, and that's good enough, and we'll muddle through and the market will help out and we always have a few stockings and barbed wire in the back of the ute to help out, and Telstra has shown how incredibly good it is at patching together pieces of crap and calling it a network, and so don't you worry about all that, she'll be right, and never you mind that you can piss a couple of pennies against a wall just as easily as a couple of pounds, and never you mind that Telstra has already pissed $20 billion of mum and dad and Future Fund hard cash against the wall.

Let's re-phrase that last outburst a little shall we:

To defend a half assed half cocked Liberal party policy that, assumes amongst other things, we can just muddle through in a miserly way, without reference to any kind of economic analysis, but just an assumption that we need to do something, and provided the something is cheap enough, she'll be right, strikes me as a spectacular cultural and technological cringe.

Sheesh, there's a lot of rubbish written about policy matters, but why and how has The Australian become such a repository of it? You know, experts accusing other experts behaving improperly, in a way demonstrating that they're quite incapable of rational debate themselves.

It makes me so mad, I feel the need for something completely different.

So now here's something different, with a twist of soap and lemon:

"There's somebody else, isn't there?"

She kind of guessed it, of course. Women usually do. But did she know the woman was in her apartment, eating off her plates, sleeping in her bed?

She called a minister they both trusted. He came over to the house the next day and worked with them the whole weekend, but Gingrich just kept saying she was a Jaguar and all he wanted was a Chevrolet. "'I can't handle a Jaguar right now.' He said that many times. 'All I want is a Chevrolet.'"

He asked her to just tolerate the affair, an offer she refused.

He'd just returned from Erie, Pennsylvania, where he'd given a speech full of high sentiments about compassion and family values.

The next night, they sat talking out on their back patio in Georgia. She said, "How do you give that speech and do what you're doing?"

"It doesn't matter what I do," he answered. "People need to hear what I have to say. There's no one else who can say what I can say. It doesn't matter what I live." (here)

Well we dedicate that thought to all the deluded Christians and politicians out there in la la land.

Let it be inscribed above their heads for all to see: It doesn't matter what I live.

Oh I know, I know, it attributes the words to Newt Gingrich, but they're as remembered by an ex, and they're delivered by way of a strikingly effective hatchet job in Esquire.

Speaking of which, you can read the full Esquire profile of Newt at Newt Gingrich: The Indispensable Republican, but be warned a strong stomach is a prerequisite.

Which is not to say I have a problem with anyone who likes marriage so much they try it a number of times. I've tried it a number of times myself. Nor do I much mind if someone disses their partner or acts in an ill-mannered, personally deceptive way, provided they don't cross the law. Lie down with dogs, expect fleas, and then get the hell out.

No, it's only the cant and the hypocrisy, usually accompanied by a lecture on family values and compassion, that gets my goat. Don't go lecturing the world or setting a moral compass for the world if you're own moral compass is totally fucked, such that you think north by north west is an actual compass point, or that it doesn't matter what you live.

Now don't get me started on Christians or other religions and their moral hectoring or we could be here all day.

Well at least it got my mind off half baked discussions and plans for the full to overflowing intertubes, Telstra, the share certificates I see each time I visit the dunny, and preening experts arguing that she'll be right with a few stockings and a bit of barbed wire fence ....

(Below: not that we've got anything against Bush Mechanics. We love 'em and have known quite a few in our time, and we really enjoyed the TV show. Now if only someone would offer them a job to fix The Australian, and get a few more miles out of its stuffed up neocon free market Maggie 'no right to potable water' Thatcher 12 cylinder engine which chews up the gas and spits out noxious fumes in a shocking way ...)