It's Wednesday, and time for an update on the culture wars raging like a WA burn off ...

Disturbing news today from the Holt street bunker, the Maginot line of the Murdoch empire, where the valiant cultural warriors entrenched in mental fortifications almost as solid as the concrete block and moat that surrounds the police down the road, go about the daily business of scribbling for The Australian ...

They're giving Janet Albrechtsen away for free - free, I tells ya, no gold bar to block your view - and she's writing about Margaret Thatcher. It's a double bunger of bliss, and yet ... it was also a test. Like a junkie passing by a stall offering a free hit of heroin ... but the shakes have passed, the temptation no longer strong.

Even the wailing and the gnashing of the teeth in a solid phalanx of whining and moaning had little effect:

They give away their premium conservative ratbag, and want to charge for dull plodding Paul Kelly and hapless Mark Day bitching and moaning about Sky being done over? Things are awry in the world, or perhaps they're perfectly right.

Meanwhile, if you want a movie review of a movie about Margaret Thatcher featuring Meryl Streep doing her usual mimicry and calling it acting - two strikes for the pond, and more to do with movie-making than ideology and political posturing of the Albrechtsen kind - you can head off to The Guardian, and cop a review for free, in The Iron Lady: first screening.

Oh wait, you've valiantly refused to do that, seeing as how that piece ran on the 14th November, and you wanted to keep yourself virginal, unsullied and pure, to discover what Janet Albrechtsen thought about it on the 7th December. And you've already seen the xvid?

Never mind, there's plenty more by way of masochistic torture on hand for diligent readers, none more so than Peter "the smirk" Costello blathering on about gay marriage in Labor has to choose between believers and true believers.

One of Costello's most remarkable insights is that gay people simply don't exist in postcodes any further out than ten kilometres from the major cities G.P.O.s (or what's left of them if they haven't become shopping malls).

This explains why gay marriage is exclusively an issue for inner urban elites and Greenies, and why Bob Katter was dead right to advise that there were no gays in North Queensland. After all they'd sent his gay half-brother packing so there was no need for him to walk backwards to Bourke ...

Yes, thanks to Costello, we learn that there are no homosexuals to hand anywhere outside the inner city where dangerous gay activists lurk, upsetting the Australian Christian Lobby, and making things very hard for poor old Julia Gillard:

The mums and dads who live in heterosexual relationships in the outer suburbs that swing between Labor and the Coalition and decide elections have a different view on this issue. So Labor had to choose whether to woo them or hold on to its inner-city base.

So whenever you want a decision made on principle, fairness, inclusiveness and humanity, toddle off to the smirk. He'll set you right. It's got nothing to do with any of that. It's all about marginal votes and cynical calculation. Practise hard enough, and you too can be a politician with a smirk, clapping hands with the cult of Hillsong ...

Alternatively, you could become Tim Blair, who recently decided to get his knickers in a knot about Wendy Bacon, and portentously headed his piece Academia on path of destruction.

Now you cant expect much in the way of deep thinking from Blair and the Blairites, which is why the caption for the accompanying photo of Sydney Harbour captured the mood perfectly: Barnacles beware: Tiny sea level rises in Sydney Harbour.

Having done his basic scientific training at Truth newspaper, Blair is a model of scientific rigour, rectitude and methodology, which is why he's perfectly placed to denounce Bacon and her study, which concluded that the Daily Terror was leader of the Murdoch pack of nattering nabobs of negativity when it came to climate science. (Newspapers lose their balance on climate coverage).

Naturally all that Blair can offer in response is idle sarcasm of the Stalinist kind:

A comprehensive audit is underway to identify exactly who was responsible for those positive articles and to establish the guidelines for a thorough re-education process. In advance of this, our basement-located training facilities have been completely sound-proofed.

Oh tee hee with bells, and never you mind that instead of positive or negative, accurate and insightful might have been better:

In her 70-page report, which is not at all stupid and reflective of a predictably academic hostility towards commerce and progress, Bacon claims that "many Australians did not receive fair, accurate and impartial reporting in the public interest in relation to the carbon policy in 2011".

This is true, but we can't help it if many Australians choose to listen to the ABC. Perhaps Bacon's report will serve to enlighten these people by drawing further attention to The Telegraph's excellent coverage.

Yes, they really do jerk their own chain in Murdoch land on a regular basis, but any suggestion that they're chain jerkers will be met with the usual paranoid hostility, preferably with a reference to the ABC, or quite possibly Fairfax. You knew that was coming didn't you?

So we've got a range of newspapers offering a range of views on the carbon tax, from yay-for-taxation government huggers at Fairfax (particularly Melbourne's Age) to those questioning the government at The Daily Telegraph and elsewhere. Bacon herself notes the striking "differences between publications". This is a clear and encouraging sign of media diversity.

In other news today, the Daily Terror presented clear alternatives to the theory of evolution and the theory of relativity, citing incisive stories about creationism and the tenth dimension as an encouraging and clear sign of media diversity. A report on the intrinsic value of E-meters will lead the weekend editions, along with compelling evidence of the shocking truth of scientific conspiracy discovered by flat earthers ...

Blair then goes on to show his own diversity by trotting out the latest favourite item in the denialist true believer camp, the research of coastal engineer Doug Lord.

Diversity, you see, doesn't actually involve considering diverse possibilities. It involves seizing on Lord as the latest saviour (oh Lord Monckton, where have you gone, why have you forsaken us).

You can of course find alternative interpretations, as in Lies, Damn Lies and Graphs, you just won't find them in Blair or the Daily Terror, not when monomania and jokes about barnacles are the way to go. You'll search long and hard for a reminder in Blair's babblings about Lord that Lord has been reported as accepting the science of climate change.

So in what has become the latest line of bunker-like fortifications amongst the denialist mob, we're now accepting the climate science and just arguing about the extent of the impact?

Take it away Mr Blair, do your very best impression of Alan Jones:

Here's a challenge for Wendy Bacon's journalism students at the University of Technology. If Australia's contribution to the total amount of carbon dioxide generated globally is just 1.4 per cent, how much of that sea level rise is because of us?

I work it out to be 0.0139mm, or 13.9 microns. This is approximately the depth of a fine coat of paint.

Or indeed a fine sheen of silliness.

For bonus marks, please point out how a 1mm sea rise adds up to the destruction of the planet. You might begin with the level of threat this presents to a solitary barnacle.

Yes folks, the sea has risen by 1mm, and now thanks to King Canute and Tim Blair, it has magically stopped and will rise no more, and don't you worry yourself about ocean acidification, or the sense of developing renewable resources, not when you can go on ranting about climate science in such a profoundly silly way.

It would have been a lot simpler for the Terror to admit that it's on a crusade against climate change, rather than rolling out Tim Blair as the chief defence lawyer.

Blair is little more than a dandified doodle bug, an irritant burr, a kind of moronic Macca every day of the week, trolling away at his blog, and setting the tone for the rag, such that you have to suspect John Hartigan might have been right when he talked about the importance of journalism, rather than the limited intellectual value of bloggers, barely discernible from massive ignorance ... all eyeballs and no insight.

On any typical day, Blair can be seen having a go at Stephen Conroy for getting a tad emotional about nuclear leak and not being able to drink milk... which is why we so look forward to Blair ordering up a hearty supply of the baby food recently withdrawn in Japan after it was discovered that it contained traces of cesium. No doubt after a year of hearty munching, he'll be able to stand proud, and show Conroy for the cry-baby pussy he is ...

Yes, you have to talk tough and strut macho in Tim Blair land, and always remember to talk about V-8 grunt (Cesium in baby milk powder shows lingering threat of radiation in Japan).

And on any typical day, Blair can be found making a joke about the weather and Al Gore, often together, since he does so love his double bungers. When a reader noted that global carbon emissions had increased by a record amount, and he wasn't doing much to help, Blair snapped:

I’d be prouder if it was causing some warming. Sydney is currently colder than a parliamentary hallway.

Truly, you'd have to be a gadfly of Blairite proportions to enjoy Blair's luddite trolling, but here's the thing. With Blair running defence for the Terror, while running a blog which is routinely surly, silly, snappy, sarcastic and savage, the blurring of lines between reporting in a sensible way, and ill-tempered ranting is now almost complete at the Terror.

And what you get is all eyeballs and no insight ...

Perhaps it's entertaining to a Blairite, but not much more informative than a hamster doing its thing in its wheel ...

Meanwhile, speaking of percentages:

Second thoughts, make that 0.0139mm, or 13.9 microns of commitment, the approximate depth of a fine coat of paint. That's something Tim Blair can understand, and it's so scientific ...

Gerard Henderson and more nostrums and snake oil for Afghanistan, women's rights and the Arab spring ...

In the course of a wasted life, it once fell to the pond to study in detail the course of the Hundred Years' War ...

It took the best part of the year, and the conclusion? The series of wars must have made little sense to the medieval participants, because reading about them afterwards made even less, though there's a fairly short summary at the wars' wiki here.

The course was conducted by a Scot - highland of course - so it immediately became clear that the English were responsible for everything that was wrong in the fight (in much the same way as my Irish inclined father reminded me that the English ruined everything - and when you look around world at the current hot spots - the middle east and Afghanistan - you can mount a pretty convincing case).

Yep, seven hundred years after the wars began the Scots still maintained the rage, and now it seems, some time around 2014 or 15, they'll score a referendum in relation to independence from Westminster in favour of Holyrood (Scots back independence). The wheels of history grind slowly, but they continue to produce flour and unpredictable consequences ...

It's a bit like the Soviet war in Afghanistan, a nine year wonder that ended in 1989. What was it all about? What did the Soviets hope to accomplish, except provide material for later bad Russian movies about innocent Russians trapped abroad in a pointless, futile war? (The 9th Company for starters).

It was, of course, a war by proxy, with the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom (blame the English) and the Chinese chipping in to help out the mujahideen, and so set the Taliban on their path to power.

The result of the war was entirely problematic for the Soviets and for Afghanistan, and for those who interfered by proxy but then refused to assist at war's end, as warlords and then the Taliban ran wild ...

Meanwhile, for the likes of Gerard Henderson, furiously scribbling away in Iran remains at the heart of Middle Eastern instability, it's important to maintain the rage.

Och aye, the Henderson tribe is a highland clan with connections to the Massacre of Glencoe in 1692, but jokes aside, it seems we haven't done enough in Afghanistan by simply staging a ten year war. It must go on and on:

In the face of the growth of Islamism, any precipitated withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan would be most unwise. Already, President Barack Obama has erred in declaring 2014 as a withdrawal date for US forces, irrespective of the military situation on the ground at the time.

Uh huh. After all, it would only be a thirteen year old war by then. Where's the other eighty seven?

A return of the Taliban would be disastrous for Afghans, especially women. It would also re-establish Afghanistan as a base for Islamist terrorist attacks against the West.

Ah yes, the women, and they've done so well under the corrupt Karzai government, haven't they. It would be nice to fancy Henderson as a proto-feminist, but that would take a power of fancy ...

Naturally Karzai is banging the Taliban drum too (Taliban could return, Karzai warns Bonn conference) but if you read about his efforts in relation to women, the result is almost as depressing as reading about the Taliban (Will Bonn deliver results for women in Afghanistan?)

The Soviet invasion was disastrous for women, and the warlords supported by the United States were disastrous for women, as was the civil war, and as is the current war, especially as the rights of women have proven to be a great cover for a war of revenge - in much the same way as implementing democracy and nation building have been a handy smokescreen for the corrupt Karzai regime and its supporters:

Key to this largely supportive public opinion was how, over the course of a few weeks in 2001, a war of revenge was reframed as a war for human rights in Afghanistan, and in particular the rights of women. It was a narrative to justify war that proved remarkably powerful. A cause that had been dismissed and ignored for years in Washington suddenly moved centre-stage. The video of a woman being executed in Kabul stadium that the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan had offered to the BBC and CNN without success was taken up by the Pentagon and used extensively. The Taliban's brutal treatment of women, the closure of girls schools: all were used to justify military invasion and close down debate. (Can the spread of women's rights ever be accompanied by war?)

Ten years on, Henderson - always a one-trick pony - performs the same routine, mentioning the rights of women, then rolling right on to the geopolitical concerns for which women's rights is mere window-dressing:

Then there is the fact that a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan could be in a position to co-operate with the Pakistan Taliban. Unlike Iran, Pakistan already has nuclear weapons - which potentially threaten India and more besides.

But hang on, why is there a Pakistan Taliban? Could it be that the war in Afghanistan has cultivated and empowered a whole new generation of Taliban within Pakistan's borders, destabilising the country, and spreading the conflict? And now Pakistan has got the sulks, and didn't turn up to the Bonn conference ...

Instead of maintaining the rage, might it not be a handy opportunity to seize the moment, as reported in Pakistani Taliban Splintering Into Factions?

Henderson's own contribution to regional peace and constraint in relation to nuclear matters was to link the bashing of Indian students in the streets of Melbourne to the refusal to sell uranium to India (Student assaults teach some harsh lessons about racism - forced video at end of link).

Meanwhile, the rest of Henderson's piece trots out the usual stuff denigrating any attempt by middle eastern citizens to obtain democratic rights. He manages this in a two for one opening par:

Despite what eco-catastrophists believe, forecasting the medium to long-term weather is an uncertain science. However, the current signs indicate that what many hoped would be the Arab Spring might turn out to be yet another Middle Eastern political winter.

Climate science is weather forecasting?

Despite what the crypto-silly Henderson believes, linking climate science to a political winter in the middle east, in which once more the state of Israel and its current government escapes all blame for the present situation, only leads the pond to think that his understanding of weather v climate is about as dumb as his reliance on Godwin's Law as the way forward in political science.

Henderson manages the feat by trotting out a couple of texts, one - about Nazi Palestine - which comes to a remarkable conclusion:

A German victory in North Africa would have extended the European genocide to the Middle East.

Indeed. The pond has it on certain and reliable information that:

A German victory in England would have extended the European genocide to Scotland and Northern Ireland and Wales and even Cornwall.

The point? Apart from the blithering stupidity of the point?

Well the point is that anti-semitism has existed and continues to exist, and the ghost of the Nazis lurks in the soul of Ahmadinejad, but you won't find anything about the Israeli government and its ongoing campaign of occupation by settlement.

If you want an an alternative view, with a little bit more balance, and less flighty rhetoric, you have to look elsewhere, with the most notable eruption involving the recent spat over a set of Israeli advertisements in the United States.

In response, Roger Cohen in the New York Times wrote an eerily prescient piece Come Home to Israel:

The old Middle East of Israel’s cozy military-to-military relationships with the likes of Turkey and Egypt is gone. A new Middle East where Israel must deal people-to-people is being born. For a democracy this should ultimately be encouraging: People, including Arabs, with control of their lives tend to be focused on improving those lives rather than seeking conflict. The rise of Islamic parties opposed to despotism and adjusting painfully to modernity is cause for caution, yes, but not for manipulative Hendersonian dismissiveness.

Oh wait, I see a typo crept into that last cut and paste.

Cohen does of course refer to Israeli dismissiveness, even if it's also fully in view in Henderson's snide, sneering, dismissive, Nazi-laden piece.

So while we're at it, a few more thoughts from Cohen:

... I know several Israeli expatriates or would-be expatriates and their feelings are consistent. They are troubled by the illiberal drift of Israeli politics, the growth of a harsh nationalism, the increasing influence of the ultrareligious, the endlessness of the “situation,” and the tension inherent in a status quo that will one day threaten either Israel’s Jewishness or its democracy.

And then to a quote from Jonathan Freedland:

Israelis walk on streets full of vile anti-Arab graffiti and shuttered Arab stores daubed with Stars of David. “To see that cherished symbol used to spit in the eye of a population hounded out of their homes is chilling,” Freedland writes.

This is happening behind the wall-barrier-fence. It is the result of an untenable status quo involving the corrosive dominion of one people over another.

It's a strangely different view of the world than the one found in Henderson's piece, with its myopia, its paranoia and its berating of the Islamists, along with a barely concealed desire to keep the feuding going, and to dismiss any signs of hope:

So far, at least, the Arab Spring has witnessed the growth of Islamism, rather than the advent of democracy.

And is there any sign of a corollary? Like:

So far, at least, the Netanyahu administration has witnessed the rampant growth of intolerance, high-handedness and a new form of apartheid, rather than the advent of a two state solution ...

Apartheid? As per Cohen:

Jonathan Freedland, a Guardian columnist, visited Hebron recently and published a piece called “This Is Israel? Not the One I Love” in London’s Jewish Chronicle. He wrote of Hebron:

“A map shows purple roads where no Palestinian cars are permitted, yellow roads where no Palestinian shops are allowed to open and red roads where no Palestinians are even allowed to walk.”

You can catch the rest of the Freedland piece here - This Israel? Not the one I love:

Start with the place I visited a week ago: Hebron. What I saw there would shock even those who think they know all there is to know about Israel and its conflict with the Palestinians. The centre of a city of 175,000 people has been utterly emptied, its streets deserted, its shops vacant, thanks to a policy the Israeli army calls "sterilisation" - ensuring the area is clear and safe for Hebron's 800 Jewish settlers.

Sterilisation. Now there's a handy Godwin's Law word.

You won't find any of this coming from Henderson's pen, but you will find suggestions that the war in Afghanistan should continue as required, and that the middle east is full of anti-semitic Nazi lovers and that that climate science and the Arab spring are perhaps sure signs of a new ice age or at least an Arab winter ...

I do wonder why, and where it all might end.

Must dig out my old Scottish don, and see if he has an answer ... perhaps in six or seven hundred years or so ...

(Below: meanwhile, if you Google Gerard Henderson in images, here are the first two that turn up. The question is, who is who, and which is which, and did she change her name to Gerard to trade off on his famous cures for Afghanistan and the middle east?)

Paul Sheehan, and what happens when a bubble-headed booby babbles about bubbles ...

(Above: uh huh. So now let's head to some faith-based advice).

Excellent news for Melburnians this morning.

If they enter the world of Fairfax via The Age portal, they'll be spared Paul Sheehan.

Well they were being spared at time of writing, and it's enough to make you envy the blighters and never mind the brown mud always on view in Pravda by the Yarra.

Sure while celebrating their loss, Melburnians also have to put up with Chris Berg explaining how everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds for food supply - Phoney food fears ignore nimble market solutions - and how the current famine in Somalia is apparently nothing more than a "glitch" for the poor. Next time you see millions starving just wave your IPA-approved anti-Malthus tract at them, and explain patiently that starvation is just a glitch or perhaps a spike and the problem isn't scarcity but rampant abundance. It'll make it so much easier for them as they expire from starvation ...

But back to Sheehan - strictly for those living by the glittering jewel of the harbour - being utterly fey in Euro debt bondage could breed Tech Wreck:

First of all, let's note the escape clause, or the escape word. Euro debt bondage could breed Tech Wreck. Or might not. Whatever.

The point about this kind of catastrophic writing - to adopt a sanguine, Chris Bergian view of the world for the moment - is that all kinds of things could lead to a wreck, or to a catastrophe, and if you write a scattergun column predicting doom and gloom on a bi-weekly basis, chances are you might hit on one. Then again you might not, but what matter, because the pixels involved have danced off into the Google graveyard, or have been placed in the recycle bin for a pulping.

Sheehan's method is tremendously simple which is always handy when attempting simplistic analysis.

First do an elaborate - did we mention fey - set of metaphors about debt in Europe involving European elites, sado-economics and bondage markets, and talk about decadence and excess, and straitjackets, and the bondage of bond yields - avoiding any mention of Bernie Ecclestone is a sign of the very best taste - and then switch tracks, switch signals, switch metaphors so you can talk of a train wreck.

Now once a train wreck is the go as the metaphor - after all, you can only go so far with handcuffs and bondage gear, at least outside the world of the Hellfire Club and Madame Lash - you can talk of wrecks generally, and then move on to blather about Tech Wreck II, right up there with the dotcom bubble, and then - in best Charlton Heston mode - you can declaim:

If you think Australia, whose banks are strong but heavily exposed to the global wholesale credit market, is going to remain largely immune from the contagion caused by mistakes made in Berlin, Paris and Brussels, think again.

Yes it's armageddon time again, and just as George Miller made one of the great turkeys with Tina Turner in Mad Max III - tedium at the thundergroan, so Tech Wreck III is coming to a Fairfax column near you:

We are already seeing the first hints of a Tech Wreck III, or an abject rout for some once-gloried brands. Research In Motion, which makes the BlackBerry, has seen its market value collapse 75 per cent this year. Just before the global financial freeze in 2007 it traded at $US133.03. On Friday, it closed at $US16.77, a destruction of more than $US60 billion in market value in four years.

Uh huh. The BlackBerry. Thank the absent lord that it's got nothing to do with the spectacular outages of service last month, or the product's inability to compete with Apple and Google's Android, and the company's inability to innovate, as explained recently in Computer World UK:

Jaguar highlighted RIM’s share price collapse from $149.90 in June 2008 to $29.59 on 2 September, 2011, an 80 percent decline, while comparable tech stocks were down around 15 percent over the period.

“RIM’s chronic underperformance and repeated delays in executing its strategy have led Jaguar to the conclusion that fundamental change at RIM is required. Most importantly, RIM’s competitors have seen a significant increase in market share at RIM’s expense, both in the enterprise and consumer markets, and a corresponding increase in share price and overall valuation,” said Jaguar.

It put this share price fall down squarely to lack of innovation. RIM’s “failure to offer products with innovative features, combined with its limited selection of applications, has resulted in RIM losing market share to its competitors,” it added. (here, with bonus pop up).

No, no, you silly people, it's all to do with sado-masochistic Germans, and bondage in the bond market. Paul Sheehan tells me so, and so it must be true.

Sheehan then proceeds to contemplate the share prices of various other tech stocks, such as Nokia, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Electronic Arts, Dell and eBay, without once considering the individual circumstances and prospects of the companies named and shamed as part of the Euro-bondage wreck.

And then he lists all the various IPOs and similar doing the rounds, and charts how their stocks have fallen, including Groupon, LindedIn, Pandora, Angie's List and Netflix.

Netflix? Could that have anything to do with several significant mis-steps, most notably a subscriber revolt over a price increase and a plan to force subscribers into separate streaming and DVD services that led to Netflix subscribers leaving in droves (Netflix Declines Most Since 2004 After Losing 800,000 U.S. Subscribers)?

So long Qwikster, it was good to know you, even if we hardly knew you, a bit like New Coke.

Netflix Inc., which once could do little wrong in the eyes of customers and investors, has lost the goodwill of both.

The Internet video innovator on Monday said it lost more customers than it expected in the third quarter following what it admitted was a botched effort to divorce rentals of DVDs from streaming video services, and predicted that subscriptions for DVD delivery will decline sharply in the current period. (Netflix Adds a New Woe: Red Ink).

No, no, you silly people, it's all due to the handcuffed to the German sado-masochistic bondage stock market surge in whips and paddles.

Now come on down Forbes, and hopefully explain to the bears that all is not lost for the Netties:

Based on our analysis, the current market price for Netflix’s stock implies an effective halt in U.S. subscriber base expansion, no significant pickup in international subscriber additions and a significant rise in content acquisition costs. We don’t believe this bearish scenario will ultimately unfold as the company is investing heavily in its international expansion as well in improving its content library.

Our revised price estimate of $142 implies a premium of about 80% to the market price. (Netflix Priced For Failure, Stock Should be $142 - Forbes)

No no you sillies the collapse in butt plug pricing in the sado-masochistic European markets is part of a huge collapse in everything in the tech market, including Netflix. Quick Qwikster, we're all doomed ...

It would of course be possible to go through all the companies reeled off by Sheehan and examine their upsides and their downsides and their backsides - which possibly deserve a good paddling, a spanking or a whipping, depending on your European elite mood - and their current market situation and prospects, within the always volatile world of innovative technology, where yesterday's mp3 player and mobile phone is today's land fill (unless you follow the art of recycling as you should).

But truly, in terms of speculative fictions in the world of IPOs, Sheehan reaches the very nadir of insights when he talks about the failure of PlayBook in the context of the European markets.

Yep, it was an attempt by RIM, the Blackberry people, to take on Apple in the iPad arena, and lordy did they come off second best (PlayBook sell-off costs RIM half a billion dollars). But that's because the market determined that the tablet sucked ... in comparison to the competition. It was the same fate that awaited poor old hapless HP's TouchPad ...

What has the highly competitive tablet market, and the various failures that have occurred as competitors try to undo the dominance of Apple got to do with the bank wreck in Europe? Only the long absent god and Paul Sheehan might be able to explain it to you ...

As well as explaining the meaning of this non sequitur:

And an American judge threw out Apple's attempt to block Samsung from selling its Galaxy smartphones and tablets in the US, part of litigation spread across 10 countries.

Yes, as clear proof as any we've seen in Sheehan's whole piece that the selling of tablets and their fate in the marketplace is intimately linked to European elite sado-economics and bondage markets, as the world looks on with growing concern.

In the strange world that Sheehan infests, even a well-tempered IPO offering is a portent of doom:

Zynga, seeking to raise $US1 billion in an initial stock offering on December 16 - the biggest tech market launch since Google in 2004 - announced it had scaled back its issue price by 14 per cent.

Uh huh. That wouldn't have anything to do with Zynga's current situation in the marketplace, would it?

... there are signs that growth may be slowing. After hitting an average of 236 million monthly unique users in the first quarter, Zynga has pulled back modestly. Attracting and keeping new users is critical because only a small percentage of Zynga users actually buy virtual goods. (Zynga Sets Offering Price at $8.50 to $10 a Share).

Would any of this have anything to do with investors wary of the quick rise and fall of ventures like Second Life? No, no, silly, it's all due to the price of ball gags in the Euro bondage market. Because, you see:

The numbers, and there are plenty of them, tell the story. Every company, no matter how strong the brand, how innovative the product, how strong the business model, is feeling the gravitational pull from Europe and from debt turning into bondage.

Is that the same gravitational pull that makes me feel like my brain cells are being sucked into a black hole, a vast whirling vortex of stupidity each time I read Paul Sheehan?

Where a conflation of strong brands and innovative products can be blithely confused, in a trice, with hopeless brands and woeful marketing decisions in relation to very specific product and company offerings?

Well here's an idea.

You can play exactly the same game with airlines and their share prices, it being an extremely volatile marketplace, and currently undergoing buffeting from increased oil prices, never mind the ongoing issue of getting operational capital if you aren't owned by an Asian or an oil-rich Middle Eastern government. How about starting with Indian Airlines Struggle with Deep Troubles?

And then you can link all the fluctuations in share price to the current imbroglio in Europe.

Come to think of it, you can play the same game anywhere anytime. Garbage men didn't turn up this morning? Mired in garbage? Feeling civilisation is a stinking smelling wreck? Why it must be fall out from the European elites and their decadent bondage games ...

Simple really. Unnervingly dumb really. But at least there's one useful insight that's been revealed.

If Paul Sheehan ever makes a recommendation in relation to tablets, or phones, or social media, or the full to overflowing intertubes, flee at once to the highest hill, because otherwise you're likely to end up buying PlayBook as an innovative product coming from a strong brand ... and when you compare it to the iPad you've just thrown in the trash can, you might at last begin to understand the gravitational pull of Sheehan's junk bondage rhetoric.

(Below: still all this talk of bondage does allow us to feature Madame Lash with Fred Nile, found here, and surely enough of a sight to get anyone's juices flowing on a Monday).

And now for a Sunday reading as the dominionists assert their right to dominate in the dominions ...

First a cartoon:


Oh heck, let's do another one:


And now, it being Sunday, enough of the frivolity, and on with the solemnity, seasoned with a dash of pious hypocrisy, as we begin our reading for the day:

Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ - to have dominion in the civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness.

But it is dominion that we are after. Not just a voice.

It is dominion we are after. Not just influence.

It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time.

It is dominion we are after.

World conquest. That's what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish. We must win the world with the power of the Gospel. And we must never settle for anything less.

World conquest! A crusade. Hallelujah. But do go on:

If Jesus Christ is indeed Lord, as the Bible says, and if our commission is to bring the land into subjection to His Lordship, as the Bible says, then all our activities, all our witnessing, all our preaching, all our craftsmanship, all our stewardship, and all our political action will aim at nothing short of that sacred purpose.

Thus, Christian politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the land - of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ. It is to reinstitute the authority of God's Word as supreme over all judgments, over all legislation, over all declarations, constitutions, and confederations. (Michele Bachmann's Dominionist Endorsement: Dr. George Grant).

Conquest. And a dash of megalomania.

And so to our local dominionists:

Redefining marriage will have unintended and unwelcome consequences for the meaning of parenthood, our openness to other forms of marriage, sex education and our commitment to religious freedom. (Dr. Peter F Jensen).

Ah yes, the satanists will be out in force, getting hitched to Satan, puppy lovers will be off with the puppies, the age of child brides will drop to six, polyandry, polygamy ... why, the head spins at what might flow from gays getting hitched and swearing devotion and love to each other in a monogamous respectful relationship.

The pond is excited at the prospect of getting married to passionfruts and raspberries. Is there anything more succulent and delicious than a sacred exchange of juices with a raspberry, except perhaps a blackberry? Oh there's no end to the depths of depravity that might flow from the merest hint of a gay marriage.

As for sex education, it's true that there's absolutely no need to go beyond the cabbage patch and cabbage patch dolls to explain what goes on in the world. It was good enough in my day, and it should be good enough now. Hush now, never mention the practical implications of a banana in the mouth ...

And speaking of religious freedom, thanks to a special update by a helpful reader, bringing important news, let's look at the tolerance of the religious to those who refuse to share their faith:

Religious believers distrust atheists more than members of other religious groups, gays and feminists, according to a new study by University of B.C. researchers.

The only group the study's participants distrusted as much as atheists was rapists, said doctoral student Will Gervais, lead author of the study published online in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. (Believers deem atheists as untrustworthy as rapists: study).

Down there with rapists, lower than gays and feminists, and presumably journalists, used car salespeople and politicians!

Curiously:

The antipathy does not seem to run both ways, though. Atheists are indifferent to religious belief when it comes to deciding who is trustworthy.

"Atheists don't necessarily favour other atheists over Christians or anyone else," he said. "They seem to think that religion is not an important signal for who you can trust."

Ah those broad-minded, decent, civil, encompassing and tolerant atheists, a startling contrast to the narrow, bigoted, prejudiced ways of the average Christian, often given to parroting about religious freedom but actually inclined to animosity, antipathy, aversion, discrimination, disgust, enmity, a jaundiced one-sided eye, and full of warped spleen and illiberality.

And now just to confirm that we've turned the corner in the silly season, and are heading down the straight, comes first signs that the war on the war on Xmas still has fresh legs, and could well win in a canter.

Yep, Bill O'Reilly's at it again. As Forrest's mama used to say, stupid is as stupid does, and pinhead is as pinhead does ....

One more thing we can chalk up to the Murdoch agenda of world dominion ...

And now to the Sunday Terror, and its agenda-setting ways ...

You could have knocked the pond down with a feather. Not a big turkey feather. An ordinary sparrow feather would have done the trick.

One of the standard tricks in the land of Murdoch is to decry the agenda-setting ways of the inner urban elites, or the greenies, or the hippies. Only the other day, for the nth time, David Penberthy was banging on about a Greens agenda.

Strike the pond pink or lucky, it turns out that the minions of Murdoch have their own agenda, and daily and weekly go about their agenda-setting ways:

So what's the agenda setting for today?

Well first up of course the Sunday Terror is determined to bring back former Chairman Rudd. This is a top agenda item. The Terror has been banging on about it for months, even when there's been no takers. But the more you bang on relentlessly about something, the more the agenda-setting works:

There, that's a nice splash. There is of course not a shred or whit or jot of evidence within Samantha Maiden's astonishingly empty story, except anonymous Labor MPs bearing their soul to the Murdoch hack in a most unseemly way, but when has an expectation of solid sources ever stopped a Sunday Terror hack in full flight?

Never mind, the yarn does allow worshipful photos of the former chairman deep in meaningful conversation, and - gasp - sitting next to Chris Bowen, helping himself to a lolly, clear evidence that the Ruddster is plotting sweet-toothed revenge.

Since when did silly puns become part of the agenda-setting? Is there a cavity at the heart of News Ltd?

But wait, there's clear incontrovertible evidence the Ruddster is concocting a sweet, glucose-laden sticky coup. Let's remind you once more:

That's how it's done, Terror style. Incessant repetition! And never mind the smiling faces, focus on the sweets, as sinister as the wicked witch plotting away in Snow White.

The pond would love to sit in on editorial in the Terror.

How would the conversation go? Would someone say it's the ALP conference, so get some snaps of the Ruddster, and we'll the kick the leadership coup can down the road a little more for Xmas?

And when they scored the lollies snap, it was like sweet holy popcorn at the bottom of the Xmas stocking hallelujah ...?

So what else is agenda-setting? Well let's not forget the Daily Terror's top award for negative climate change stories:

Well done Terror. As good old Jimmy Cagney once said, "made it ma, top of the world!"

And don't forget the line that Edmond O'Brien followed with:

"Rupert Murdoch, he finally got to the top of the world. And it blew right up in his face."

Uh huh. Right on cue, there's Miranda the Devine, leading the way yet again with - bear with the pond, this is a long header - Other nations, including big greenhouse gas emitters, have no intention of following our kamikaze carbon tax lead.

Of course the good thing about a header like that is you have absolutely no need to read the column, but for the record it's another rant in praise of climate denialism. Make that 90% negative on climate change.

So what else is agenda-setting this day? Well there's good old Akker Dakker of course, with his monotonous cracked record, 78 rpm shellacked shellacking of the Labor party, with another extremely verbose header If Julia Gillard's speech to the party faithful was meant to be a rallying cry, they were in for a disappointment.

That's what happens when you let the subbies go, but the upside is you don't have to read that column either.

For the record however, let's do a sampling of Akker Dakker's words as he discovers long after the event that Gough Whitlam and Paul Keating made conservative voters sit up and listen (and then they kicked the crap out of them, Akker Dakker style).

Here we go: terminal, dwindling, doorstop, clunker, chloroform, unfortunate, Mogadon, tedious, deathly delivery, beyond boring, absolute nonsense, asinine, kindergarten focus group, shrill homosexual protestors, cop-out, the fix is in, not bloody necessary fiasco, cost blow outs, biggest howler, worse than useless, ridiculous number-shuffling, fiscal jiggery-pokery, riding instructions from Bob Brown and jackass turncoat opportunist independents, snouts in the trough, cost blow outs, lunatic agenda, and so on and so forth, until we reach the Godwin's Law demolition darby:

... threateningly, she referred to "silencing the many voices who say it (Labor's lunatic agenda) cannot be done". Silencing voices, a policy the Greens are also enthusiastic about was a huge favourite with Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin and Mao.

Why that's a Godwin's Law quadrella.

You couldn't do any better unless you added in Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun! Or maybe Rupert Murdoch ... speaking of silencing alternative voices, as we are ...

Akker Dakker's adjectival excess is a perfect example of the devious, deviant Murdoch Terror's very explicit agenda, as set out by its most feral and rabid attack dog.

There are of course many other wondrous examples of the Terror's agenda-setting ways, but can we just mention Miranda the Devine in top offensive form as she kicks the Bali can:

With such a lethal side to Bali, along with the threat of terrorist bombs, rabies and jail, it is time Australians started treating the island with more caution. For too long we have treated Third World holiday destinations around us as extensions of our own backyard. (here)

The pond thought we might try the same trick:

With such a lethal side to Australia, along with the threat of Sydney motorists and bus drivers, red back and funnel-web spiders, poisonous snakes, enraged wombats and feral, frenzied foaming and frothing members of the Murdoch Telegraph commentariat loose on the streets, it is time Americans started treating the island continent down under with more caution.

For too long Americans have treated Australia as a holiday destination, a kind of beer and barbecue extension of their own backyards, but with the dollar in decline and people killed while they tried to cross the road, and people driven insane by reading the thoughts of Miranda the Devine and Akker Dakker, perhaps it's time to sit at home in a paranoid funk, wrapped in cotton wool, instead of waking in fright ...

Just another friendly, helpful pond service for Tourism Australia. Only fair when you consider what the Devine does for Tourism Bali.

Now take it away Jimmy, remind us what it's like to be top of the world:

A Saturday tour around the sillier reaches of the pond ...

Phew, tbat's a relief. Once again Gillard asserts herself and the party buckles to her will.

Hang on, hang on, what's this?
The competition for any stray pond reader is to guess which newspaper headlined which bit of news which way ...

What's that you say? A two year old could pick it? One's from Pravda by the Harbour, and the other is from the Holt street Nationale Jungsturm?

That's most unkind, and might remind some of the parable of the six men of Indostan and the elephant in John Godfrey Saxe's tale of walls and spears and snakes, here.

Others might be reminded of a recent report on the minions of Murdoch reporting of climate change, as noted in News Limited papers 'campaigned' against carbon tax:

It found that News Limited papers were far more likely to run articles or opinion pieces against the tax than Fairfax, with 82% of News Limited’s articles deemed negative, compared to Fairfax’s 43%.

The Daily Telegraph was deemed the worst offender, with 58% of negative articles, 35% neutral and 7% positive. When the neutral stories were removed, the negative coverage was a whopping 89%. The Herald Sun was not far behind with its coverage, with 85% of its carbon tax stories deemed negative once the neutral stories were removed.

Yes, as one commenter noted, it's a statement of the bleeding obvious, but the bleeding obvious has its place in the world.

You get a nice set of tables here in Newspaper stables divided on carbon policy coverage, including the juiciest:

Naturally The Australian responded vigorously to this assault, but there's no reason to provide a link because you already know what it says ... along with a personal attack on the initiator of the study, Wendy Bacon.

And you can see why the lizard Oz got so upset, because the result's most disappointing for the rag. Fancy coming fourth behind the Terror, the Hun and the Courier Mail!

Time to lift those metaphorical socks. The rag is falling way behind, and it's been well over a week since Deltoid has been able to update his regular piece on The Australian's War on Science, and the total on the tape stands at a measly 74!

And there the pond was, hoping that the Australian cricket team, and the Australian denialists could score tons with gay abandon before the year is out.

Meanwhile, in a week when Iran and West Papua have added to the turbulence of the world, today The Punch comes up with this:

Talk about scraping the bottom of the barrel? No link - why risk a stray reader's brain cells and mental health?

Here, have a read about what's happening in West Papua instead, in 'President' calls for recognition of West Papua, one of the greater shames of Australian foreign policy, right up there with the good old days of forelock-tugging with Indonesia on East Timor.

What was that they said in The Punch about Kim Kardashian? Yes, they scraped the bottom of that barrel too, but one of the scribblers reacted this way:

In the past week over 400 people have died in floods in Thailand, three Australian soldiers were killed in Afghanistan and the European economy teetered on the verge of collapse. But most devastating of all was the news that Kim Kardashian’s marriage was in disarray after just 72 days.

No silly, the biggest event in the world of The Punch was Kyle Sandilands. Up there at #21.

Climate change? Isn't that where it gets cool overnight and warms up during the day?

Meanwhile, for the highest of comedy readings, look no further than Ross Cameron getting agitated about the recent High Court decision in relation to wives giving evidence concerning their husbands, A decision to send shivers down our better halves.

His last line is most sage:

I don't presume to give my readers legal advice but, when your nearest and dearest next asks, over a glass of red, ''What's on your mind babe?'', it may be prudent to consult a solicitor.

Cameron knows whereof he speaks:

In August 2004, Cameron revealed in an interview in Good Weekend that he had an extramarital affair while his wife was pregnant with twins. Cameron "was a frequent overnight visitor to the house his mistress shared with a reporter". In Truth Overboard, Time Magazine journalist Tom Dusevic wrote that once Cameron's story was in the public domain "...reporters in Canberra immediately ran with further details of Cameron's private life, unleashing stories they'd been sitting on for years" which included accounts of numerous other affairs which he had failed to disclose. "Ross Cameron makes a mockery of Christianity and Christians... (more at Mr. Cameron's wiki here, with links).

Ah the shining wonder of Christian marriage, and never mind a glass of red wine to find out what your partner is doing and saying, and doing but not saying.

But it does bring us to the last highlight of the day, which is the splendid statement by the Pellist heretics and the Jensenist nepotics in relation to the matter of marriage:

''Marriage is the lifelong commitment and faithful union of one man and one woman,'' they wrote.

Lifelong commitment? Divorce? Ross Cameron? You there, stop rolling those Jaffas down the aisle. But do go on:

''As such, marriage is the natural basis of the family because it secures the relationship between biological parents and their children. The preservation of the unique meaning of marriage is not a special or limited interest but serves the common good, particularly the good of children.''

Permission to vary the statement m'lud?

''As such, marriage is the natural basis of the family because it secures the relationship between biological parents and their children, except in the matter of aboriginal marriage":

We may recognise a marriage in a civilized country but we can hardly do the same in the case of the marriages of these Aborigines, who have no laws of which we can take cognisance. We cannot recognise the customs of these Aborigines so as to aid us in the determination as to whether the relationship exists of husband and wife. (oh well said, Chief Justice Martin, cited here)

Sure they might be married in a traditional way, but who's to say that's legal or natural. They're black, you see. May we continue m'lud?

The preservation of the unique meaning of marriage is not a special or limited interest but serves the common good, particularly the good of children.''

Ah yes, that'd be the same unique meaning as attributed in the NSW De Facto Relationships Act of July 1985, and the Social Security Act, and so on:

... although for several years 'married person' has been defined as including a de facto spouse, definitions of 'de facto spouse' and 'married person' in the Social Security Act were replaced in early 1990 by a reference to a 'marriage-like relationship', and guidelines were introduced to determine whether such a relationship exists. (here).

It would seem m'lud that there is a unique meaning, and then a very unique meaning, but when it comes to social security and taxation and the like, many chose to live in a most peculiar married-like way.

Of course back in the day, the progenitors of the Pellists and the Jensenists would have nodded wisely at the wisdom of maintaining the unique meaning of marriage - by keeping Aborigines well away from it:

The Northern Territory Aboriginal Ordinance Act "ensured that Aboriginal people could not drink or possess or supply alcohol or methylated spirits, could not come within two chains of licensed premises, have firearms, marry non-Aboriginal people without permission or have sex across the colour line". (here)

Ah yes the unique, unredactable, unretractable, irreversible, utterly unique meaning of marriage across the centuries, as interpreted by the guardians of Christianity.


So there you go, another unique view on the uniqueness of marriage. Strange fruit indeed.

David Penberthy, and rhetorical support that's worth a plugged nickel ...

I know what you're thinking. You're a punk, and the question is, do you feel lucky? Well do you punk?

I mean, there's sweet Emma Jane, asking really deep and meaningful questions about Santa, and yet there's the dread gold bar on The Australian cutting you off from her existentially sound insights.

Sure the photo looks vaguely traumatised, but that's part of the excitement.

Hang on, hang on, here she is, but with a different header, so much funnier and deeper, and looking so much more ... je ne sais quoi. And the fickle finger of the gold bar is nowhere in sight. Only the opener remains the same:

You'se got to know? Here you go punk, off to the Punch with ye. And consider yourself lucky, seeing as how Emma Jane types some pretty mean columns for The Australian. (Just remember that the pond accepts no liability whatsoever for any brain damage arising from any punch-drunk reading of any punch-drunk link whatsoever).

Does being kicked out from behind the paywall the very same day say something about the price point for the copy?

Not to worry, on we go, before anyone notices that The Punch is a waste of time, money and resources, as well as Emma Jane piracy, and who should turn up - the fickle finger of fate being what it is - but David Penberthy with this exemplary bit of convoluted logic:

It says a lot about changing community standards that a state such as Queensland, which under Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen was every civil libertarian’s nightmare, has this week voted to recognise same-sex unions.

Or does it?

It could show that the Queensland Parliament has responded to majority community sentiment in support of gay marriage. Or it could just show that the Queensland Parliament is now home to a majority of MPs who support gay marriage. (Gay marriage: there's nothing easy about "I do")

Now there's a fine relativist, legalistic, quibbling, mean-spirited response to the range of opinions canvassed and the views expressed in Queensland's civil unions debate blow by blow.

Still, it's a handy way of making a point about anything. How about a vote in favour of recognising de facto marriages in legal proceedings?

It could show that the Federal Parliament has responded to majority community sentiment in support of the legal recognition of de facto marriage. Or it could just show that the Federal Parliament is now home to a Prime Minister who's an atheist in favour of de facto marriage for some, but against actual marriage for others.

Yes, a fine old time could be had explaining that any and every bit of legislation is in fact just the result of a majority of MPs in favour of it, and therefore entirely meaningless, compared to the astonishing insights available to News Ltd journalists and their wondrous, ritual, week-by- week polling of the electorate.

Naturally Penberthy plunges into polling, placing an unseemly amount of trust in a News Ltd. online poll, which is shorthand for saying let's forget about principle, let's get down into the politics. He seems most troubled by the citizens of Penrith and those dwelling in Queensland in the seat of Maranoa in Queensland, never mind that Queensland now has civil unions.

What else to do but wring the hands, and moan and writhe?

These sorts of figures show that there is a huge divide in the community, and one which is probably comparable to issues such as the republic.

And then, wouldn't you know it, here comes the line, the mantra so beloved of News Ltd hacks in full hack flight:

If the prime minister is bludgeoned into accepting the change of the Marriage Act, a whole bunch of Australians in the suburbs will conclude that the party is the captive of the inner cities and has formally embraced a Greens agenda.

A Greens agenda! Because you see gays can't be conservative, or want to indulge in a conservative institution like marriage, or even serve on a conservative institution like the High Court. Because it's all about a Greens agenda ...

Then the routine disclaimer:

... what it is worth, I support it out of the conviction that it’s heartless to deny people happiness.

Actually Penberthy's lukewarm, gutless, jesuitical, poll-laden, fear-mongering, dog-whistling pathetic support is worth three fifths of fuck all.

Could he be trying out for a position in the Right of the Labor party? Or perhaps he'd make a better closet wet Liberal, of the kind happy to play handbag to socialites in the Eastern suburbs.

The only flaw in the piece?

Penberthy failed to mention the need for a bloc vote in favour of a conscience vote to show democracy at its finest. As in Right to vote as a bloc for conscience vote.

Whatever happened to the "k" in voting bloc? Have we all gone cheese eating surrender monkey French en bloc?

Oh and he forgot to mention that poor old New Zealand has been writhing in decadence and decay ever since they instituted civil unions there in 2005. (Poor old New Zealanders. If you want to torture them, JJJ style, try getting them to say "the grizzly bear wants a beer").

Yep, the New Zelunders have been experiencing for years the future suffering of the citizens of Penrith, writhing under the unendurable torture of treating people equally and fairly.

And they wonder why the Labor party membership is declining ... when the answer's very simple.

When you start sounding like David Penberthy in your policies - what with the marginal seats and the polling and the hideous Greens agenda - you're not really a party of social justice and fairness, you're just a branch of News Ltd.

Well for what's it worth. Penberthy can take his half-baked, mealy mouthed support and shove it where his columns should reside ...

And finally on an equally light note, there comes news of the latest outcome in the legal saga surrounding the Coco Roco restaurant matter, as explained in Richard Ackland's When judges judge critics, the results can taste a bit like reflux.

This is the antipodean equivalent of a case in Chancery in Dicken's Bleak House, complicated by deportation threats and financial disaster (Deportation threat: latest chapter in the saga of Coco Roco and the bad review).

Janet Albrechtsen was getting agitated in her best Dame Slap manner about it way back in 2007 in Judicial hubris makes meal of our rights, being most upset about the High Court decision in relation to the matter (Fairfax and Evans v Gacic, Gacic and Ciric in pdf form).

The problem for Fairfax (and Evans) was the way the review referred to Coco Roco as a single entity, even though separate and even though the review explicitly made the point that there were two restaurants:

When applying the ordinary reasonable reader principles to determine the meaning conveyed by the matter complained of, it should be borne in mind that although that reader considers the publication as a whole, this does not mean he or she does, or must, give equal weight to every part of the publication. The emphasis that the publisher supplies by inserting conspicuous headlines, headings and captions is a legitimate matter that readers do and are entitled to take into account.

Ah it's those ordinary reasonable readers again, and those naughty subbie headers.

Well if you're titillated by the legal fuss a single restaurant review can generate, the latest finding - thanks to austlii - can be found here, and thanks to the austlii search function, you can romp for hours through all the other findings here.

By golly, whoever wrote Penberthy's header Gay marriage: there's nothing easy about "I do" should watch out.

As any dinkum Aussie wag will tell you, it is of course incredibly easy to say "I do" - or would be if gays were allowed fair and equal opportunity.

The difficulties come after the "I do" ... quick, off to the courts with them, for once again offending the ordinary reasonable reader.

Oh and as for the reference to a plugged nickel in the pond's header, we have a legal defence prepared m'lud, and it resides here ...

(Below: with the law and Penberthy definitive asses - oh dear should we say that - time for some cornball humour in readiness for the weekend).

Elizabeth Farrelly, and the ancient suburban craft of iWaffle ...

(Above: the sweet village of Parramatta in 1820, found here).

To paraphrase Raymond Chandler, if brains were elastic, Perry wouldn’t have enough to make suspenders for a parakeet.

Thank you Maureen O'Dowd (here).

It's always good to get the day under way with a zinger.

It's certainly better than the art of the waffle, fully on view in Elizabeth Farrelly's piece Grubby hub could yet be urban butterfly. It takes a particular skill with a waffle iron to get from the absurd statement:

It's why Australians have no word besides ''suburb'' for ''the area where I live''.

to this one:

Underpinning all this is the universal rule for a lovable town ...

in relation to the city of Parramatta.

From 'no other word beside suburb' to 'lovable town' in a single leap and a bound.

Writing as we do in the neighbourhood of Camperdown, or should that be the lovable village of Camperdown, it's as if the entire Clover Moore concept of Sydney as a city of villages has been a waste of time these past few years.

I work to celebrate our unique villages and neighbourhoods, building on what we love about our area, while ensuring its special characteristics are preserved. (thank you Clover).

Who can forget Paul Keating brooding about it?

"She thinks it is a city of villages, she is for low-rise, sandal-wearing, muesli-chewing, bike-riding pedestrians without any idea of the metropolitan quality of the city or what Sydney would lose if Barangaroo were to fail." (Angry Paul Keating lashes out at Clover Moore).

And in any case, what does it matter if 'suburb' were the only word to describe an urban conglomerate or conurbation? It's a perfectly useful word, and not as if a cluster of urban dwellings in a vicinity needs the range of words regarding snow and ice as used by the Central Alaskan Yupik.

I know, I know, that's an urban or perhaps a suburban myth too, unless you consider the valiant effort by Anthony C. Woodbury in Counting Eskimo words for snow: A citizen's guide.

Back to Farrelly, lathering up a storm of rhetoric:

Now that downtown is a place to live, we even describe it as a suburb, not as precinct, borough or neighbourhood. What suburb are you in - ''city''?

Poor Clover Moore. Poor Sydney. Not that the pond has ever heard the centre of Sydney described as a suburb.

There might be a rhetorical flourish - I'm heading into town or the centre - or a post-Batman ironic modernist moment - I'm heading into the metropolis, or into Gotham or perhaps Dante's seventh ring of hell - or even I'm catching the train into the Quay, but I think I'll go visit Sydney suburb just doesn't compute.

When you get to this level of idle abuse of the English language - waffle for the sake of waffle - you immediately begin to suspect the thesis and the writer.

Sure enough, as she goes about the business of considering Parramatta as a city, Farrelly starts off with a non-sequitur:

Australians don't really get cities. We may be the world's most highly urbanised country but in some far pasture of our collective mind, we still think the best human is a distant one, a red ute-shaped cloud at the far end of a dirt road. Our national mythology still has corks around its hat.

Only when you read Farrelly, though amazingly cork hats do have their very own wiki:

In modern times the cork hat is virtually never seen and is little more than a novelty item.

A national mythology as a novelty item!

When the pond is making a rhetorical point about the city versus the bush, it favours the line our national mythology still harks back to the days of flypaper:

But where is all this heading, you ask, and it seems Australia, one of the most heavily urbanised countries in the world has entirely misunderstood that cities are attractive places in which to live:

To enjoy the process, and to succeed in it, we must make the city an object of desire.

And it seems the best way to make a city an object of desire is to be able to see each others' nighties, and have direct line of sight to the neighbours indulging in a barbecue orgy, and never ever whinging about the noise coming from the pub next door to your smart city flat (apologies to the loon playing loudly on the horn at the party a few doors down last night, and the intemperate burst of the 1812 Overture in response).

Yes, we must get with the Manhattan agenda:

In Manhattan, from the back of their apartments and brownstones, entire city blocks can watch each other deal coke, write bad novels, play flute, water geraniums and practise downward-facing dog. Yet the sky does not fall. It is possible to live and breathe and be productive with strangers in your cone of vision.

Except perhaps when the junkies actually land inside the premises, as Farrelly explained in Drug War:

Razor wire is your first response. Uzis on the bloody parapets, and let them be bloody, though whether as deterrent or DNA extractor it's hard to say. Let the bleeder bleed. Bugger the carpet. You feel violated in your sense of home.

Then, the marginally subtler options: CCTV, back-to-base alarm, steel grilles, steel spikes, sharpened. Poisoned, possibly. Dobermans, many and various, of the cruelly unfed persuasion. Burglar beware.

I keed, I keed. The piece was a poingant plea to leave off the bars, and allow junkies access as required.

The real point is that New Yorkers do in fact value their privacy, head off to the Hamptons for a break, or live in a diversity of lifestyles, if you count all the boroughs rather than just Manhattan, plenty of it richly suburban.

But where are we heading?

Well around this point the lingering suspicion that Farrelly is delivering waffle for the sake of waffle, as she keeps banging on about New York lifestyles:

Possible at least in New Amsterdam. But here in New Holland, beauty is still nature - flowers, animals and landscape, some mix of Margaret Olley, John Olsen and Dame Edna.

Now that's just pure, confused and confusing pretension. One might as well couple Robin Boyd, Peter Sculthorpe and Prada Clutch. But do go on:

This half-baked pastoralism has thrown our cities to the dogs. Over the past half-century Parramatta has done it all; demolition, road-widening, laneway loss, heritage destruction, mirror glass, windswept plazas, river-culverting, sculpture-strewing, out-of-town black-box retail, rampant mallisation.

Yes, yes, but New York has done it all too, from the Grand Concourse to the Bronx expressway tearing the borough in half and creating fertile ground for riots ... not to mention the malls of Brooklyn:

From the Atlantic Center Mall to Kings Plaza Mall and Bay Ridge's Century 21, Brooklyn is filled with shopping malls to satisfy all of your shopping desires. (here)

And let's not forget Fulton Mall.

But let's not worry about the malls.

Where are we heading, what's in store for Parramatta as it takes on the example of the big apple?

...what if Steve Jobs had turned his design-mind from phones and computers so sexy we want a new one every five minutes to cities? What would make an example of Parramatta as Australia's first iCity?

Uh huh. It's just another example of iWaffle, iGibberish, and trendy iSpeak of iDeas. Actually the Apple Steve Jobs left behind thinks that bringing in the lawyers is the best way to limit competition, restrict alternatives, kill rivals, and otherwise restrain trade, and at last someone has told them it's not on (Samsung tablet ban lifted - warning forced ad at end of link).

And when we've done that and called in the lawyers, what is the urban vision of which we speak?

After that they could de-mall and declutter Church Street to make a proper central square; rediscover the river's transport potential (even if it means dredging), line it with activity from cafes to farmers' markets and incentivise intense, zero-carbon mixed-use in the grid.

Ye ancient loaves and fishes. Remember all that stuff about dealing coke, writing bad novels, playing the flute (out of tune), watering geraniums and doing the downward facing dog?

What's the urban vision become?

Farmers' markets and cafes ...

Will they sell Margaret Olley flowers and a Dame Edna latte?

Sad to say, writing about architecture, urban design and the structuring of the cities in which we live has been in short supply in Australia for decades, and routinely Elizabeth Farrelly does it a disservice, whether dredging up ancient stereotypes, recycling cutting edging stereotypes, or simply delivering vapid ideas in vapid prose with an abundance of vapid metaphors.

By column's end, the one feeling is of relief, and the knowledge that whatever happens to Parramatta or Sydney, most of it is unlikely to involve Farrelly's nostrums.

To paraphrase Maureen O'Dowd paraphrasing Raymond Chandler, if waffle was elastic, Farrelly would have enough to make suspenders for a thousand parakeets.

(Below: sock it to me New York, with your expressionist Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, anti-suburban visions, and never mind Macy's flagship store in Herald Square).