The Hendo-sphere of Henderson Howlers ...

(Above: the contenders, found here).

It is said there are two types of people: those who like Gerard Henderson and those who have met him - Mark Latham

No doubt there are some that might apply that hoary old joke to Mark Latham as well, but it's a fine way to celebrate Latham's latest Gerard Henderson Watch - that's a giant mistake, tiger.

In turn Latham was trading off and celebrating Malcolm Farr's denunciation of Henderson, which was a beauty, if you take the trouble to read Midwinter Brawl: 'Why I called him a complete fuckwit' (naturally News uses asterisks but here at the pond we believe adults have come across the word, the notion and the activity of fucking).

Farr was indignant about Henderson's report of the media ball, a whining, whinging, spiteful spray that you can read in Henderson's fantasy life as a dog, Gerard Henderson's Media Watch Dog, Issue No. 143.

Farr, one of the more insightful, balanced and engaging of the Murdoch pack (he's often called a socialist by the dense readers the Murdoch rags service), didn't hold back.

Along with pointing out a number of factual errors, Farr dubbed Henderson an A-grade banality merchant ... with the tone of a jealous man straining for vindication (yes, someone else paid for Hendrson's ticket to a charity do).

And he called Henderson's home away from home the Sydney Institute for Greyness.

Of course the main point is that Julian Morrow from the Chasers was the host:

If there's one group which makes Gerard grind his dentures more than the Press Gallery it's the Chaser chaps. Others had a good time but Gerard - noted for the magnitude of his sense of humour - had only complaints about Morrow's jokes.

Gee Mal, tell us what you really think:

There is a simpering dullness about Henderson on most writing occasions, but he is free to question the integrity and thoroughness of all journalists.

Naturally there was some simpering dullness on view in Henderson's follow-up piece in his imaginary life as a dog in journalistic satirical heat, Gerard Henderson's Media Watch Dog - issue no. 144.

Henderson, who has the generosity of a gnat, and the willingness to sustain a feud up there with the Hatfield-McCoys, continued the war by giving vent to childish asides and adolescent swipes.

First up he published a letter from Julian Morrow that was marked "not for publication", showing the ethics of a gutter-trawling rag like the National Enquirer, and then indulged in this kind of witty retort:

For someone who has made a profession out of laughing at others – with a little assistance from applied trespass – I am genuinely surprised at your apparent lack of self-awareness...

I now learn that you regarded this comment as “complimentary”. How about that? Most non-narcissists with a degree of self-awareness would have picked the irony.

"Pompous twit" springs readily to hand, though fuckwit is shorter and equally to the point.

Henderson was a bit more cautious and craven when it came to Farr, the one who had called him a fuckwit (Morrow was much politer, but he's a Chaser boy, without the blessing of a spot in a Murdoch rag).

How's this for cockscomb insolence of a saucy kind?

Pardon the one error in my MWD piece on the Mid-Winter Ball. I was so impressed by the colour photo of you on the program that I cut it out and placed it in my cult-of-personality file. Consequently, because of the subsequent hole in my program, I was not able to check your correct position when I wrote MWD last Friday. That’s how it came to pass that I described you as a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery committee – rather than a member of the Mid-Winter Ball Committee. I will correct this.

That's so pathetic, it's uber-pathetic. Puerile, childish, painful to read. Like Bob Ellis on steroids, and with the same self-serving regard as Ellis. Simpering dullness.

Anyone with a shred of dignity would have simply said sorry, I got it wrong, and moved along, but not Henderson, who never resists an opportunity to show he has absolutely no sense of humour.

Cult-of-personality file? Oh dear sweet absent lord ...

As for the rest, all I can say is that – as a journalist who criticises others – you are remarkably sensitive to light-hearted criticism. All I said about the event was that someone should have said something before 10.20 pm. That’s all.

This from a man who is remarkably sensitive to any form of criticism, light or heavy, and routinely engages in wars with those around him.

One final point. You referred to an unnamed “researcher who provides some of the deep thoughts Henderson parades as his own in columns”.
No such person exists. I do my own research for my Sydney Morning Herald column and for my Media Watch Dog blog.
You seem to have accepted as true a rumour which Mark Latham put around in Crikey.

So now he boasts that it's entirely his own doing that his work is full of errors?

There is of course no evidence that Farr accepted as true a Latham rumour about Henderson having a research assistant.

Sadly Farr knows Henderson too well. Farr might have been making an ironical, light-hearted point, for all Henderson could know. But then - having already got himself into deep water by getting his facts wrong - he keeps on doubling down and compounding his stupidity:

You should know that Mr Latham makes things up and that Crikey does not engage a fact-checker. I would counsel you against running unchecked material which may come across via Google. It’s not good journalism.

Yes, the man who uses a "cult of personality file" as an excuse for an error has the cheek to chide Farr about googling and good journalism. The sheer hide, the unmitigated gall ...

Cue Mark Latham's latest list of Henderson Howlers, but not before Hendo leaves Farr with this:

By the way, I loved the shirt you wore on Insiders last Sunday. Wonderful.

What a pompous prattling prat. Not a clue, and easy pickings for Latham, as he reveals how Henderson seems to get his facts - if any - via Google, which leads to a series of errors, including confusing the 1992 British election and the Sun wot won it headline, with a date in 1979. And this summary of the feud:

The Farr thesis is that Henderson is a shrunken, narrow, miserable sod who received a free ticket to the ball, adding nothing to its charitable fund-raising efforts, but then bagged the event on his blog. This captures the Henderson method perfectly. He is that most despised of Australian characters: a non-stop whinger.

Naturally Henderson attempted to return fire on Latham in both his recent imaginary life as a dog on satirical heat epistles, without seeming to understand how he's actively assisting in the rehabilitation of Latham.

It was funny to see how Mark Latham had sat down to sup with Michael Kroger (and bash Peter Costello), but the minute Henderson tries to make fun of it, the tone turns dreadfully twee and bitter. Henderson routinely rails about salaries - mentioning Mark Scott's pay was one bone of contention with Morrow - so naturally he mentions Latham's fully indexed super pension, the ownership of Sky News and the AFR, and dubs Latham the Lair of Liverpool. Perhaps he's doing it tough at the Sydney Institute and feels underpaid and under-appreciated.

He doesn't seem to understand that the harping makes him seem like the spiteful malicious sourpuss phantom of the Sydney Institute, comically accusing Latham of being a hater when all Henderson's media life as a dog on heat diatribes are full of hate.

Henderson even gets agitated about Latham and Kroger enjoying the chilli crab and crumbed whiting:

How frightfully interesting. Can you bear it?

You silly goose, you've just replicated that bit of dull journalism in your own piece, in an attempt to beat up Latham. How frightfully stupid. No, the pond can't bear it, which is why we never read your life as a media dog on heat.

All this is a natural introduction to Henderson in solemn, serious mode in today's Fairfax rag, Old hatreds resurface in party afraid of a hiding, but inevitably, once you've seen the veneer stripped off, and caught the chipboard of dull petty vendettas beneath, it's impossible to take Henderson seriously.

As usual, it's a mix of sophistry and stupidity. According to Henderson, the Labor government is in power thanks to the help of a couple of rural independents in the lower house, thereby ignoring completely the role of the Greens in the upper house. If the lower house had been effectively stymied by a hostile upper house, and completely incapable of getting legislation past an implacable Tony Abbott, how long would it have lasted?

Henderson's view is informed by his fear and loathing of the independents, whom he likes to bag on a regular basis. Being a hater who makes Mark Latham look like a chilli crab lover, he'll distort a comprehensive analysis just to maintain the rage ...

And if you regularly read Henderson because you like to bash yourself with a verbal baseball bat, how many times will you have read and got off by rote this insight?

There is a considerable ideological divide between a century old party which has its base in the old-fashioned working class and an environmentalist movement whose support is based on voters in relatively secure employment in the public sector, or in white-collar industries.

Reading that, you'd expect that Henderson, in relatively secure employment in his own fiefdom at a white-collar Institute for the spreading of FUD, would be a Greenie.

And for the last four pars there's a ritual bashing of a favourite Henderson piñata, Lee Rhiannon. To do it, he has to revert to Lee Rhiannon's silly proposal (with Paul Fitzgerald) to move the main Sydney airport outside the basin (Second Airport No Saviour), scribbled for New Matilda back in May and mentioned by the pond way back when ...

But that's the Henderson way, digging back through the entrails, and managing to end up on the same side as Michael Danby and Paul Howes.

Uh huh. Well if the Greens are the problem, the Labor party has a simple solution. Stop relying on their help and call an election right now ...

Which is of course what Henderson wants, but being a dissembler, doesn't say, preferring to cloak the notion with idle history lessons, replete with factual errors, and generous dollops of fear and loathing and cliched stereotypes.

So let's leave the last word to Latham, noting how the befuddled Henderson got his AM confused with his PM in the matter of the mid-winter ball (yes, that's where we've reached in terms of insightful political analysis):

I know Gerard is used to long-winded Institute functions, with his Jurassic Park audience nodding off after their last sip of Milo, but really, Arrivederci at 2pm? No wonder the press gallery ball started late (as the MWD whinger repeatedly complained). According to Gerard it was a 19 hour function — longer even than the time one needs to read a Henderson letter.

And even longer than the time it takes to plough through a repetitive, predictable, dullard Henderson column. When will Fairfax wake up?

The evidence suggests Henderson has become an embarrassment to Fairfax (The Age certainly thought so). At a time when the SMH is struggling to stay alive, how can it afford to carry a columnist who constantly misleads its readers? Names, dates, titles, times are a blur in the fading faculties of the Hendo-sphere (aged 66). Dr Evatt was much sharper, his memory in much better shape, at a comparable age (circa 1960).

Who'd have thought it? Malcolm Farr and Mark Latham nailing the Hendo-sphere to the wall ...

Simpering error-laden dullness. Nailed it ...

(Below: the pond will drink to that).

And as if to prove the atheists wrong, bow down to the Sherrin, your god of gods ...

(Above: up up and away to madness).


It was entirely by coincidence that the pond landed in Melbourne on the day that turmoil at the Herald Sun was gleefully reported in the Fairfax press, in Readers go and so does the editor.

Physical sales for the HUN are down, and subscriptions to access paywall-limited content had been "disappointing". (There's more at Herald Sun editor Simon Pristel resigns)

But the biggest problem was the news that unique visits during the football season had dropped from 200k to 150k, and that the AFL is intent on building up its own paywall/subscription site, a direct attack on the HUN's core business. (Editorial handball at Herald Sun).

That's the way it goes in these fragmented niche media days, and AFL Media amazingly already carries 105 staff and 22 journalists.

Only in Melbourne, where football is closer to god than Christianity. The indoctrination of the young verges on the North Korean when it comes to the game, and the pond has heard true stories of young, innocent girls choosing not to draw pictures of horses or cats, but of Sherrin footballs.

So young and so lost ...

The other problem as aggregation proceeds is that some of the content now lurking behind the HUN paywall is foreign, which is to say New South Wales originated. The Sunday HUN, for example, featured - amongst very few other opinion pieces - a column by Miranda the Devine (it's amazing what you can pick up in the Qantas lounge, along with an immensity of useless copies of The Weekend Australian, unless you have a need to wrap a year's fish and chips).

But the Devine's bit of nonsense about the Higgs boson particle could also be found online for free at the Sunday Telegraph under the header Miranda Devine: The beauty of the geek, which is just as well because no sensible person would be caught dead paying for the pleasure and the privilege of reading the Devine.

It started out as intent on celebrating the discovery, and imparting information:

This theory of particle physics corresponds with the theory of cosmology that the Big Bang created our universe, 13.7 billion years ago.
In that colossal explosion of energy, all the elementary particles emerged, including, momentarily, Higgs boson particles.

But in the usual Devine way, by superficial journey and column's end, it naturally veered off into the nonsensical:

To atheists, the more we understand the universe, the less there is a reason for God.
But to believers, the more we discover in cosmology the more it points to the existence of God, outside space and time.

Uh huh, and if we keep on talking about the start of the universe being around 13.7 billion years ago the more it points outside all the wisdom of the conventional, traditional bible, and its fables about miracles and burning bushes and Adam and Eve and yadda yadda.

But then Catholics never had much time for the bible, or for the old testament, preferring the mumbo jumbo be delivered in Latin.

These days the mumbo jumbo is even richer as it positions god outside space and time, which can only mean that She's going to turn out to be string theory.

But what was more revealing was the shameless pandering that came at the end of the piece:

And as if to prove the atheists wrong, on Friday night, the geeks from the Melbourne conference put the God particle aside to watch Carlton beat Collingwood - a miracle that ranks right up there with the Higgs boson.

So that's what happens to little girls who draw Sherrin footballs!

They go mad, and end up scribbling nonsense for the HUN and the Sunday Terror, about what can only be called a form of Melbourne mania which allows the conflation of the God particle, Carlton beating Collingwood, the Higgs boson, and a god lurking somewhere in the tenth dimension.

Truly, a visit to Melbourne is an ethnographer's dream.

The Age these days, in its physical form, is a sorry sight, much reduced in bulk and in meaningful content, but it's still large enough to set a hare running, as it did with the Therese Rein story, Australia, we need to talk about Kevin. He's still here to help, says Therese.

Thanks to Miranda the Devine, the pond can provide the punch line for this piece:

And as if to prove the atheists wrong, on Friday night, Therese Rein put talk of the resurrection of Jesus and Kevin Rudd aside to watch Carlton beat Collingwood - a miracle that ranks right up there with the redemption of the Ruddster.

Usually readers of The Age would be blessed with the thoughts of Paul Sheehan, but it seems this Monday morning that he's temporarily disappeared, which suggests there might be a kindly, thoughtful, considerate god after all.

Instead, we're left with fresh news of Tony - I'm reading Fifty Shades of Grey because I like to read what my daughters are reading - Abbott, and the Slipper Affair.

It seems Abbott did have an ear to the ground, and was aware of rumblings, a sudden prodding of memory right up there with Christopher 'Poodles' Pyne remembering he'd actually sent an email to James Ashby:

The Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, has, for the first time, said he was aware rumours had circulated in Parliament about the conduct of the Speaker, Peter Slipper, before allegations against him surfaced. (Abbot admits he heard Slipper rumours)

But don't think it's any kind of confession, or admission. It's just a variant form of denialism:

Mr Abbott yesterday said he would not go into all the conversations he had on the matter.
''But I am satisfied none of my federal parliamentary colleagues had any specific knowledge of this until they saw it in the newspaper,'' he said.

Not even Poodles Pyne?

The opposition would have been in a better situation if they'd simply gone after Slipper for his expenses, which at best might be called rubbery, as revealed in a forensic analysis in the AFR (Slipper's unexplained taxi trips, sorry inside the paywall).

As it is, the Slipper affair keeps bubbling away, a right old mess, with legal action against alleged diary-leaking Ashby the next stage in the saga.

Not that the Labor party can have any peace, as Paul Howes and assorted other heavyweights (in the old days they used to be called pieces of two be four) go about the business of giving the Greens a good kicking, as a substitute for policy.

The Greens of course have attracted people willing to wear the silly term "progressive" because all the Labor party offers is a kind of Tony Abbott-lite view of the world.

The Labor party only had to implement a couple of "progressive" polices - like gay marriages, or even a la big Mal, gay civil unions - to convince followers that they still had an actual left side to the party, rather than a gormless jellyfish blob of hard right Abbott cultists ...

As usual, Miranda the Devine strikes the right note:

And as if to prove the progressives wrong and the apparatchiks right, on Friday night, Julia Gillard put talk of progressive policies aside to watch Carlton beat Collingwood - a miracle that ranks right up there with the notion that there's a left wing in the Labor party ...

It's a classic form of delusionalism on the part of the Labor party to imagine that the Greens are the problem, having so publicly sat down with them and signed the deal that delivered them minority government, and keeps them in power.

But then after a couple of days in Melbourne, it's easy to see how madness can grip and subvert a whole community.

Now if you'll excuse the pond, must rush off to the "Real Footy" section of The Age to read about the suffering, the joy and the agony and the ecstasy and the pain and the whole damn thing ...

And remember to do your bit for feminism. If your daughter reveals an interest in the y'arts, at least make sure she paints something interesting, like a Sherrin football.

(Below: bow down and worship, found here).

Phillip Jensen, and the urgent need to give 'scientific' racism and the white Australia policy a fair hearing ...

(Above: nostalgia for angry Sydney Anglicans).

The pond remains trapped in Melbourne but no matter how far you run, you can never hide from the Sydney Anglicans, and so to a Sunday meditation.

With Michael Jensen presumably still suffering from writer's block, it's been left to Phillip Jensen to take up the slack at the generally angry Sydney Anglicans website, and he comes up with a beauty thanks to the completely meaningless juxtaposition of 'libertarianism' and 'censorship' in the header Libertarian Censorship.

Jensen is agitated that all the good kinds of censorship have been removed, and all the bad forms of censorship continue, but it was this little bit of the jeremiad that particularly caught the eye:

Universities are not immune to this problem of censorship. The contributions of Professors H.J.Eysenk in the 1970’s and Andrew Fraser in 2005, may not be to our liking but their arguments were not given a fair hearing in our universities.

Say what? Is this the sort of contribution that Jensen thinks hasn't been given a fair hearing?

Given the relentless and revolutionary assault on their historic national identity, white Australians now face a life-or-death struggle to preserve their homeland. Whether effective resistance to their displacement and dispossession can be mounted is another question. Unlike other racial, ethnic or religious groups well-equipped to practice the politics of identity, white Australians lack a strong, cohesive sense of ethnic solidarity. As a consequence, ordinary Australians favouring a moratorium on non-white immigration cannot count on effective leadership or support from their co-ethnics among political, intellectual and corporate elites. On the contrary, our still predominantly Anglo-Australian rulers are indifferent; some profit from, and others actually take pride in their active collaboration with the Third World colonization of Australia. None of the major parties, indeed, not one member of the Commonwealth Parliament, offers citizens the option of voting to defend and nurture Australia's Anglo-European identity. The problem, in short, is clear: The Australian nation is bereft of a responsible ruling class.

That's Andrew Fraser proposing that Australia return to the White Australia policy, and there's a lot more at his wiki here.

Are Sydney Anglicans having a hard time recruiting from people of colour? How do the Jensenists explain to African people that they can turn to Christ (and bash gays) but buggered if they can turn up in Australia?

As for the tobacco funded Eysenck - smokers, please die so I can continue my research - presumably Jensen is deeply attracted to Eysenck's notion that blacks are genetically dumber than other races (wiki him here).

Amusingly a Jensen also crops up in academic discussions of Eysenck's work:

If the geneticist doctrine were true, that is to say if there really had accumulated a gene pool of low intelligence among black Americans (and perhaps also among the Irish, as Eysenck suggested), then there would be only two methods of dissipating it. The first and most obvious method would be by launching a social campaign to encourage miscegenation. The fact that this solution, logical though it is, has never been advocated by Jensen, Eysenck or any previous adherent to the geneticist doctrine, says a great deal about the elitist and exclusive ideological character of that doctrine.

The only other method of solving the problem would be the method advocated by the Oxford historian, Edward Freeman, during a lecture tour of the United States less than a century ago: 'The best remedy for whatever is amiss in America would be if every Irishman should kill a Negro and be hanged for it' (vide Marshall, 1968, p. 159). (and a lot more in pdf form here in Andrew M. Colman's 'Scientific' Racism and the Evidence on Race and Intelligence).

Miscegenation, hurrah. What do we want, and when do we need it? Miscegenation, miscegenation now!

We keed, we keed, as did Colman, but what sort of fair hearing would Phillip Jensen propose be afforded to 'scientific' racism? Has he advised African friends of angry Sydney Anglicans that they might well be genetically inferior?

The rest of Jensen's piece is the usual bleat about how Christians are being persecuted. They can't set up an anti-abortion club at Sydney University, they can't even say they're Christian!

Sadly, most Christian students learn in first year not to mention their existence let alone their views in class, and Christian ministries often face attempts by the university to restrict or remove them from campus.

Oh sweet absent lord, the persecution of hapless innocent Christians, prevented from going about the business of persecuting sluts, harlots and whores who might turn to abortion when they should instead become single mothers living on welfare.

The Sydney University Evangelical Union cast out into the wilderness - how pesky they were back in the day, and filled with Jensenists - and no SCM, and presumably even worse, no creationism in science classes! Strange days indeed.

Thank the absent lord we've now got funding for that great big controversial 'libertarian secularist' school chaplain program, and soon enough we'll be hearing the howls of disenfranchised Christians forced to attend a weekly class in secular atheist ethics (with a short introduction to paganism, and Greek and Roman gods). In your dreams, secularists ...

There are certain subjects that are taboo in public discussion, and to raise them is to be marginalised and labelled. To question migration policy is to be called a racist.

Yes, bring back the White Australia policy!

To question Islam is to be attacked as ‘Islamophobic’.

Yes, even when the Islamics rabbiting on about pornography on the internet and the role of women in the world and the evils of gays sound awesomely similar to the average angry Sydney Anglican!

To oppose homosexual marriage is to be labelled ‘homophobic’.

Yes, since we all know that gays are evil sinners destined for an eternity in hell, unless they repent and become chaste, or perhaps learn - through Anglican approved shock therapy - how to love women, at least those women willing to submit to men, as they should.

To question abortion ethics is ‘an affront to women’s rights’.

Because dammit, women should submit to men, and enough of this jibber jabber about their right to have a say over their bodies. If a Sydney Anglican tells a woman what to do, then by golly they'd just better do it ...

These are not arguments but vilification, yet liberal secularists are at the forefront of their use.

Liberal secularists? And then it suddenly dawned on the pond why 'libertarian' turned up in the confused header. Jensen seems to think that 'libertarian' and 'liberal' are interchangeable words. The only other time 'lib' gets a run is in this sentence:

Today’s dominant, liberal minded secularists demonstrate their hypocrisy by rejoicing in their free speech while censoring the public square.

Uh huh. You might wonder why - if liberal-minded hypocritical secularists are so successful in censoring the public square - they haven't managed to shut up yabbering, blathering angry Sydney Anglicans, but that would be a failure to recognise the deep persecution complex the paranoid Anglicans have cultivated.

Furthermore to hold a religious view dismisses and discounts you from public discussion.

Yep, Jensen being published on the intertubes to a potential audience of billions isn't a public discussion. It's a private discussion amongst a few chums. And perhaps that's just as well, perhaps he should be discounted, at least until he clearly explains how 'libertarian' and 'liberal' are somehow synonymous.

And then it all gets too silly for words, mere petty and petulant name-calling:

To secularists, democracy is not the rule of the people but the rule of ‘right thinking’ people i.e. non-religious people.

Uh huh, but you could flip that, and sound just as silly:

To angry Sydney Anglicans, Christians, Islamics, Scientologists and other religious fundamentalists, democracy is not the rule of the people but the rule of ‘right thinking’ people i.e. religious people.

Hmm, come to think of it, that's not as silly as it sounds, when you remember the right-thinking Christian right in the United States, and their determination to impose their 'right thinking' on the world (matched only in perniciousness by right-thinking Islamic fundamentalists and right-thinking cultish Scientolgists).

Not to worry, I don't think we've reached the bottom of Jensen's persecution complex:

It matters not whether your opinion is based on reason or whether or not your religion has informed your reasoning on a subject – just by virtue of your religious commitment your opinion is to be ignored.

That's as opposed to ignoring the views of libertarians or perhaps liberal secularists, whose opinions should be ignored ... because they're a bunch of angry atheists destined for hell, goddam 'em all.

The impression is given that only religious people are biased by their beliefs and morality or only religious people try to ‘impose’ their values on others.

Sigh, more of the suffering and the impositions!

Those nattering women with their idle chatter of rights, and gays wanting to get married and pretend they're people, how dare they impose their values on innocent Christians. What happened to a couple of thousand years of witch and homosexual bashing, burning and persecution? Where did it all start to go wrong? Must be the fault of libertarian women and gays.

Now how about a snappy final par ...

When Tony Blair was Prime Minister he was stopped by media advisors from answering questions about God and admits that civil servants prevented him from finishing a speech with: “God bless you.” Now that is powerful censorship – when the most powerful man in a nation cannot say “God bless you”!

Oh dear. What was the speech that was ruined? Was it about ten ways to sex up a dossier, and launch a war in the middle east which would kill thousands? Was it to explain how Britain was only 45 minutes away from WMD disaster? Was it the one where Blair announced "And now fellow crusaders, it's time to fuck over Iraq, God bless 'em, and tiny Tim, and you, and one and all?" (ah remember the good old days and 10 ways to sex up a dossier?)

Naturally it doesn't occur to Jensen that Blair - apart from invoking his god to bless useless wars and deregulate banks - would in a sensible and balanced society attempt to speak for everyone, no matter their god, and not just indulge his own deluded notion that he was some kind of killer crusading Christian.

Must we all end up like fundamentalist flag-waving raving ratbag American Christians?

But of course Jensen wants Blair to mention god, so instead of wasting time on secularism, everybody can get down to a decent argument about the Catholic v. Anglican god, and which bunch are destined to hellfire for all eternity ...

You know, like Michael Jensen did in 20 Theses on why the Reformation is not over.

20. There is still need to maintain a separation between the Church of Rome and the churches of the Reformation.

No reason to go to hell with the heretics!

There is of course much more in the Phillip Jensen jeremiad.

Hideous, degenerate, violent, malicious, sick-minded abuse of women, children and animals in pornography gets a serve, which isn't of course the same as angry Sydney Anglicans giving submissive women and decadent gays a really hard time.

And the media cops a pounding - but if the Anglicans hadn't dropped a bucket load of cash with their greed in the GFC, they could have bought a couple of seats on Fairfax, and each day we'd be treated to the Sydney Fairfaxamentalist Christian Mining Herald ...

But enough already, this is a recommended, guaranteed entertaining read, and if you reel away, wondering whether the white Australia policy and scientific racism is the way forward, clearly you have a lot of work to do before you can join the Sydney Anglicans ...

(Below: but would the average angry Sydney Anglican pass the dictation test - including the capacity to distinguish between liberal and libertarian - and so be allowed to stay in a white Australia?)

Time for a stamp hunt and a short break ...

The pond is off to Melbourne on urgent business.

It's been contracted by the Baillieu Government to locate a stolen rubber stamp.

It seems that the stamp was in regular use by MPs anxious to announce brand new policies:

But with the stamp gone, the government has simply been unable to do anything, with rumours of Ted in poll trouble, talk of toll trouble, and those damned socialists on the Yarra making fun of everything, as you can read in Faith no more?

It reflected a political formula so simple it was almost radical: credibility + competence - spin = re-election. Do what you said you would, do it well, end the cabaret and voters will reward you. So confident was the Baillieu government about its approach it designed a bright red ''policy implemented'' stamp.
You could almost sense the stamp being applied with a thud as press releases flew out the door. But at some point in the past 19 months, reality intervened.
The stamp has since vanished. In its place, Baillieu has been left struggling to explain a growing list of undelivered policies and broken promises. He is facing internal and external tension over what is seen as an inability, or unwillingness, to defend policy decisions such as cuts to TAFE and services.

It seems even the HUN has been tetchy with the Liberal government, and all because of a missing stamp! Vanished! Gone missing! Lost!

Enough, whinging, whining Victorians. The pond and Ted are sick of it.

Time to hand over the stamp ... or else ...

Meanwhile in other Victorian news, the grid is out of control (Gold-plating the power grid), Crown bouncers are out of control (Court slams Crown bouncer violence), and the Met is in a growling grass frog mess (Metro's train system depends on this wilderness).

Dear sweet absent lord, the joint is falling apart, and all for the want of a stamp.

Provided we find the stamp, and return safely from this broken-down, shoddy, weed-filled garden state, pond business will resume in a few days ...

(Below: dammit, and the pond will also find out exactly who's behind these cartoons, found here, and here. Repent, or you will be stamped!)

Speaking of bimbos ...

(Above: Clive Palmer on the ABC's Lateline).

Here's the thing.

The pond's not that big on cyber lockers or torrents, but can anyone explain the difference between recording Being Lara Bingle on a PVR, then sending it off to the computer for downsizing and watching on an iPad, or saving a stage and downloading it off the internet, with the commercials already handily cut out?

Oh sure it's a breach of intellectual property rights, but isn't that assuming there's any kind of intellectual property of any kind whatsoever in Being Lara Bingle? Intellectual? Que? (Don't worry, the pond sometimes thinks it comes from Barcelona).

Apart from the notorious Bingle bump, is there a single reason for the show to exist, except perhaps to show the joy and good taste resulting from Gina Rinehart as chair of entertainment selection on the Ten Network?

Even the creators of the show have refused to take a personal credit - we know who you are John McAvoy - or perhaps the network refused to allow personal credits because they decided the creative team might launch a defamation action ...

What loss is the network or its advertisers suffering? The pond wouldn't use any of their products on a matter of principle, while wasting valuable minutes shaving the ads out via the PVR. It's the pond that's suffering a loss - just five minutes viewing could lead to irreparable brain damage ...

Roll on The Shire, let's have double or nothing when it comes to intellectual property ... and by golly, how Gina Rinehart's presence on the Fairfax board will lift the quality of the entertainment. Talk about a track record, between dolts and bimbos ...

Speaking of dolts and bimbos, it's the pond's duty to draw attention to eccentricity in the media - after all, deep down and sometimes on a slickly superficial surface, we're all loons.

Sure there might be urgent real-life issues to hand. Like the pathetic attempt by Cardinal Pell to avoid a leadership role in the latest pedophile scandal to affect the Catholic church, and instead allow the Bishop of Armidale to attempt to deflect criticism by appointing an "independent expert" to review documentation. (Bishop announces sex abuse investigation). Call in the cops and a Royal Commission and be done with the cover-ups.

Sure the Slipper affair might be back in the news with Peter Slipper subpoenaes LNP head Bruce McIver (behind The Australian paywall, and no the pond didn't pay to read the "exclusive").

One senior Labor source said: "I understand there are thousands of texts. We've always said that we think the LNP was involved and we wonder whether the texts will shed more light on that.
"If they do, this could do major damage to Tony Abbott."
The Opposition Leader and other Coalition figures have denied encouraging Mr Ashby to launch his legal action.
Some Coalition sources are concerned that because Mr Ashby's telephone would have been funded by taxpayers any contacts could be made public.
Mr McIver told The Australian last week that, before Mr Ashby's lawsuit was filed, Mr Brough had contacted him and possibly Mr Palmer about finding a job for a female staffer of Mr Slipper.

Beware what you wish for, and how you play the game.

Sure the performance of one time Barclays' head Bob Diamond in delivering three hours of stonewalling to British MPs was a delight (Bob Diamond defends Barclays over timely response to wrongdoing).

Sure the news that George Entwistle has been appointed BBC director general means clap happy Mark Scott can remain in the antipodes to ensure the ABC remains a refuge for members of the Institute of Public Affairs, free to spread their sponsors' messages to the cardigan brigade and the inner city elites, and Gerard Henderson.

But there was a special delight in one spectacular performance, which excelled all others, namely Clive Palmer on Lateline last night, in which the coy billionaire delivered a most eccentric performance, as he beamed into Australia from Papeete, Tahiti, opening up with an international greeting, Ia orana from Tahiti nui.

It wasn't what Mr. Palmer said in Palmer has 'strong commitment' to Kennedy so much as the way that he said it.

Suddenly vistas of pleasure and acres of delight in a future Abbott government unrolled before the pond's eyes, as Clive delivered jabs, jibes, innuendoes and asides about Tony Abbott

I know that Tony Abbott said some things about door knocking being important and it is. I've door knocked on more than four million doors since 1969. And I know if he needs help, I'm happy to go down to Sydney to help him day-for-day to door knock his electorate. Let's do it for a week or so together so we make sure that seat stays Liberal. I'm happy to go to the bus stops and stand with Tony and give him a hand if he doesn't want to door knock. I'm happy to do that.

Clive is going to help Tony Abbott save his seat?

What a cheeky fellow he is ... and he kept on being cheeky.

I'd like to say a cheerio to Mr Abbott if he's watching and wish him all the best and say he's a great leader and I'm sure we'll get the election next time and I'm happy to be - I just want to be one day part of his team so that I can look up to him, or down, as the case may be and see that he does well.

Look up or down, casu quo, and perhaps quantum meruit, mutatis mutandis, and so on and so forth?

Clive was ever so jolly, and extremely unctuous and 'umble, explaining to Tony Jones how he was a mere humble ordinary member of the Liberal party, standing for Liberal party principles, freedom of conscience in the Liberal way, and those Liberal party policies he agreed with ...

It was smug, and self-serving, and it offered up great hope of a world of future pain for Tony Abbott, forced to wrestle with yet another Queenslander, whether or not Clive manages to displace Bob Katter in Kennedy or get the nod on the Sunshine Coast (has the cane toad toxin infected all of them?)

At the very end Clive advised Tony Jones he was Australia's number one journalist, fitting really, since it was an extraordinary, soft soap interview, more a Tahitian song and dance routine with bonus Tahitian newspaper than a serious interview, revealing that Clive will be a gad fly on the back of Abbott for years to come.

Naturally Australia's number one journalist didn't once raise the matter of Peter Slipper with Clive. Why introduce a bummer note when the show's the thing?

If that's being number one, who's number two?

By the end of it all, the pond felt a deep affection for Lara Bingle ... routinely abused for making a living as a model.

When you take a look at Lateline, you might begin to wonder who are the real dolts and bimbos ...

(Below: possibly the most salacious, disgusting, notorious, vulgar nude image of Lara Bingle to date. No, not her bum, but the shocking revelation she uses a Mac. But we thought we'd throw in the bum as a bonus. The pond always plays fair with gentleman readers, unlike the feeble titillation offered by the show).

Twenty million pounds in a personal bank account, and the pond promises to alleviate poverty and disadvantage ...

(Above: as always, the pond recommends Steve Bell here, and then a dip into The Guardian's coverage of the Barclay scandal for this morning's deregulation comedy routine).

The pond has done its very best to ignore Craig Emerson's musical effort.

Naturally Joe Hockey and Tony Abbott were pompous twits about it, when the man's a legend for taking out of the shower what should stay in the shower.

One theory put to the pond more in ear-battered sorrow than in reality was that he'd switched camps, from Gillard to Rudd, and in a single solo, he'd managed to undermine Gillard and the carbon tax in a way unimaginable by a year of routine white-anting.

The pond's own theory is that Emerson was inspired to prove that he could do an even better routine than Mary Jo Fisher's legendary hokey pokey performance. Mary Jo is no longer with us, at least in a political sense ... but will this contain Emerson's spectacular lungs?

No one minds a light-hearted political moment, but is shattering the tweeters in the pond's active speakers light-hearted?

Never pond, hey ho and on we go, and the pond is anxiously standing by for a flood of opinion pieces by the commentariat explaining and justifying the latest banking scandal (Britain yet again), and how the real problem is welfare cheats, and never mind that the average dolebludger simply doesn't have the skill or techniques for such high class spectacular fraud as banks can manage.

The pond could almost do the columns by rote ... just a few bad apples, just one errant bank, internally correcting, no need for regulation, regulation unhealthy and crippling, a perfect market fixes everything, and by the way twenty million pounds in the personal account should see everything right, and people on their way to a new career.

And for all the talk of perfect markets, never a word about how people are greedy and inclined to corruption, and bankers - rather than being Arthur Lowe in Dad's Army - are these days as greedy and corrupt as any spiv, shyster or crook trying to make a dishonest, filthy rich living.

And as usual there'll be nothing about the doings of the crooks, spivs and shysters who've taken over the banking systems with a shave here and a trim there, and where's the harm, and by the way twenty million pounds in the personal account should see the pond on its way (yes, LIBOR even reaches into Australia, and the pond once had to endure much contractual blather about percentage points above the LIBOR rate).

Which leads to the pond's golden banking tip of the day. If you find your bank has been involved in the gap financing of feature films, be assured that your bank is being run by crooks, spivs and shysters who'll try anything to make a buck or three ...

Instead what's the bet that the world will be blessed by the commentariat with yet more idle chit chat about how everything is the fault of government?

Come on down "Dame Slap" Janet Albrechtsen, getting totally agitated for no particular reason about proportional representation in The proportional pathway to policy paralysis (behind the paywall, thank the absent lord).

Albrechtsen whips herself into a right old lather about a Greens/European inspired voting system she dubs PR, which kept the pond thinking "Public Relations" and "Bill Posters" is innocent ...

It turns out that Albrechtsen is terrified by the notion of participatory democracy, and poor old New Zealand. It seems left wingers, socialists, greenies, pinkos and perverts are responsible for the success of Golden Dawn in Greek politics ... yep, you can always blame the rise of fascists on liberals (didn't you know gays, Jews and commies were responsible for the rise of Hitler with their effete weakness, and refusal to muscle up?)

By a miracle of insight, not once does Dame Slap mention the first past the post British voting system, which has led to an uneasy coalition government, and currently houses the Barclays scandal, a scandal for which all three major British parties can take a share of the credit.

But she does take time out to quote Boris Johnson:

A few years ago, Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, best summed up the mess of PR pointing out that in the "50 years since the war there were 103 elections in Germany, Italy, Japan, Switzerland, Belgium, The Netherlands and Sweden - all countries that favour PR and its endless stream of buggins-turn coalitions. And how often, in those 103 elections, did voters actually succeed in producing a change of government? Six times!" Not one to mince words, Johnson revealed PR as a fraud upon voters "because it will always tend to erode the sovereign right of the people to kick the rascals out."

Shocking. That decadent Europe, and Britain standing tall and proud above the throng.

All that voting, as if democracy meant consulting the people when what's needed is a firm hand, and strong leadership, especially in the face of scandals and rascals.

Hang on a tic, Boris Johnson? Is that the same jolly chap quoted here?

Diamond is out at Barclays, but still he has an ally in the London Mayor Boris Johnson, who - in the face of some controversy appointed him in 2008 to the charitable Mayor's Fund for London.
The body, comprising handpicked members of the capital's great and good, works to alleviate poverty and disadvantage in the capital. This morning, as others deserted the ex Barclay's chief executive, Johnson said: "Bob Diamond has provided enormous time, energy and philanthropic effort to the cause of helping young Londoners through the Mayor's Fund. As far as I'm concerned, that work is set to continue." (here)

Strong leadership? Europe in ethical turmoil? Brave Britain and Boris shows the futility, and gamely throws the spivs, rascals and shysters out?

Oh yes brave Boris and Bob, they're doing their best to alleviate poverty and disadvantage in the capital, though the pond has discovered that this work is best done with twenty million pounds in the personal account ... just to relieve the anxiety and stress involved in dealing with the poor. If only they understood the complex good involved in gaming the LIBOR.

One random thought. Spain might be stuffed, but at least they can play football. Take that, Boris Johnson and Dame Slap ...

Meanwhile, if the elephant-skinned have made it to this point, why not take in the bizarre sight of Peter Costeello getting on board and into bed with Gina Rinehart in Fairfax will surely sell to Rinehart if price is right.

Never mind the ethics, just do a Woody Allen, take the money and run, and besides Gina has done wonders for the share price of the Ten Network (and if you believe that, I have a film in urgent need of gap financing).

Costello somehow believes that Rinehart will reign over a diversity of views designed to bring a wide diversity of readers, which just goes to show what a stupid, pompous ass he's become, as he grandly reveals that he wasn't one of the "eminent people" who signed the recent chain letter in support of the Fairfax charter of independence.

The pond can think of a good reason. These days he's not an eminent person, just a smirking, pandering, simpering, fellow travelling Gina Rinehart lackey ...

There's really only one reason to mention Costello, and that's to note the grand sight of Michael Kroger going off with Mark Latham to lunch, and giving the pompous ass yet another serve.

Sadly it's behind the AFR paywall but truly there are ironies upon ironies to be had in Michael Kroger reveals his hand ... and the grandest was to read Kroger moaning how it was unendurable to go to lunch and listen to Costello moan interminably about himself and his enemies, and how even Latham made for a better dining companion ...

Lastly, it seems the barking hounds are now out on the moors, with Calls for royal commission over alleged cover-up of Catholic abuse.

Will Pell permit the release of the file note which would at least support the notion that he was mislead by the three below him? If not, let a royal commission roll ... and let's look into the heart of darkness.

After all that, at last the pond begins to understand why Emerson burst into song.

But if you want to stop the pond sounding like a strangled cat that's just stepped out of the shower, there's a simple way. Twenty million pounds in a personal account, and the pond will do its level best to alleviate suffering, poverty and disadvantage.

Cross fingers and promise. Who knows, we might even spring for a meal so Mark Latham can take Dame Slap and Peter Costello and George Pell to lunch ...

(Below: and another Steve Bell to go, here. At least the British retain a sense of humour. The absent lord knows that's hard when your reading matter in the morning includes Janet Albrechtsen, Peter Costello and the doings and undoings of George Pell).

Speaking from the pulpit ...

(Above: hang head in shame, the Four Corners catch up program is here for online viewing).

So guess the name of the narcissist member of the commentariat who scribbled:

The fact is there there is no evidence that the Catholic Church allows known pedophiles to speak from its pulpits. (here)

At the time of scribbling it, Gerard Henderson urged Catherine Deveny to name names and go to the police.

No doubt after watching the program on Four Corners, Unholy Silence, Mr. Henderson is right this minute trotting down to the nearest police station, demanding names be named and demanding immediate action.

Yes, the pond has a rich fantasy life.

Henderson has always shown a tendency, a proclivity, to fellow travel with the powerful, and to hell with anyone who might get caught up in the maw and crushed.

...perhaps the most alarming revelation is the fact that the Church turned a blind eye to the priest's crimes. Four Corners asks why, despite clear evidence of abuse, the Church allowed him to move from parish to parish, apparently without alerting the police. The program reveals that even now the Church will not admit the full extent of what it knew about the priest's activities.

And yes, he said Mass and spoke from the pulpit in assorted places, as have other offenders within the church.

The question is whether Henderson has any sense of shame, a capacity to confess and repent, and to put that repentance into print.

By golly, the pond has a great fantasy life. It should have been obvious that the story ran on the ABC, and ipso facto, by definition and by default, it is in error, most grievous error ...

But the show does set us up for this morning's Henderson homily, under the header WikiLeaks founder does not a different set of rules.

It's not surprising that a narcissist such as Julian Assange has one standard for himself and another for everyone else. However, it is surprising that some of his supporters in Australia and overseas have signed up to his sense of self-indulgence.

I guess it takes a narcissist to know a narcissist, but what exactly are the rules that Henderson is upholding?

Could it be Sweden's connivance in rendition? (Sweden Violated Torture Ban in CIA Rendition). Sweden has subsequently attempted to clean up its act in relation to US behaviour, but its track record and its current right wing government and its history in relation to Julian Assange gives no comfort regarding what it might conspire to do with the US administration.

As usual, Henderson leads with what might be called his 'it's easy to abuse Catholics, why don't you abuse Islamics in the same way' defence:

Imagine if a right-wing male activist was wanted in Sweden for questioning for similar alleged offences against women. He would have no supporters among the left in general or feminists in particular. Why should this be any different for Assange?

In reality of course, justice and a concept thereof shouldn't involve simplistic notions of political allegiance, and feminism in particular. If someone is being done over and set up by the law - even a Catholic priest - then leftists and feminists should urge justice over the findings of a kangaroo court.

But in Henderson's case, the fact that Assange has the likes of Geoffrey Robertson and John Pilger and Phillip Adams in his camp is enough to ensure instant fear and loathing.

As always, we turn to Mark 'stir the possum' Latham for guidance:

In a long diatribe against Geoffrey Robertson, it was reported “that Geoffrey Robertson QC obtained a staggering 86% of on-air time” in an interview with Laura Jayes of Sky News regarding the Julian Assange case. Not 85% or 90%, but precisely 86%.

In his obsessiveness, Henderson has over-dosed on media consumption. His life is an endless series of taped current affairs shows and talking heads, with Gerard hunched over his replay button and calculator working out how much “on-air time” his (perceived) enemies received in their interviews. (here)

It's worth remembering this sort of obsessive compulsive behaviour because it helps explain Henderson's blithe willingness to consign Assange to life in a US prison (Janet Albrechtsen was also recently in the same game, and copped a back hander from Guy Rundle in Albrechtsen confuses her idiots).

Henderson is so compelled that the enemy of his enemies that they become his friend, and so he's ready to swallow the conflations of a Bob Carr:

... as the Foreign Minister, Bob Carr, pointed out on Lateline last month, "there's some legal advice that it would be easier" for the US to extradite Assange from Britain than from Sweden. In any event, it is not clear if the US authorities will seek extradition in this case.

Which is simply not true. The Swedes have a special arrangement with the United States, and Carr can try to talk it away, but it's there.

Along with Carr, Henderson suddenly warms to Gillard:

For the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and her ministers to have acted any way other than they have in this case would have meant Assange had more rights than other Australian citizens in a similar situation.

Uh huh. So the usual right of an Australian citizen is to be pronounced a criminal by the Gillard government, by its fearless leader and by several of its ministers, as was done - indiscreetly bu Gillard and doofus Robert McClelland - back in 2010.

As usual with Henderson it's worth looking elsewhere to see a little outside the box:

The Gillard government’s response has been to insist the US is not doing anything in relation to Assange, a narrow legal point that defies the public reality of a multi-pronged campaign, one that the government insists it can’t see and therefore can do nothing about. “Wilful blindness” is the phrase that comes to mind. However, that strategy briefly lapsed in 2010 when Julia Gillard made the error of declaring WikiLeaks’ activity illegal. That claim, which Gillard has pointedly never retracted and that was clearly contradicted by advice from the AFP, may also prove crucial to demonstrating Assange’s case that the government will not protect him.

The federal Labor government has already mentally assigned Assange to the United States, and hasn't lifted a finger to help - contrast the activity of Bob Carr in relation to recent matters in Libya.

Assange is particularly critical of the Attorney-General, Nicola Roxon. But what is she supposed to do? Australia cannot interfere when one democratic nation (Sweden) is attempting to extradite an Australian citizen from another democratic nation (Britain).

Not even make representations and seek assurances? Not even a chance for Bob Carr to grandstand in a trip to Sweden? As opposed to indicating to all and sundry that Assange was a criminal in charge of an illegal organisation?

This was the situation even before Assange skipped bail in London. In a soft interview on Radio National's Late Night Live with Phillip Adams before he sought asylum, Assange claimed he had "been detained, without charge, for over 530 days now, under house arrest". Not so. The bail requirements merely stated that he spend nights at a designated location.

It's amazing how easy it is to make light of what others must endure.

Mr Assange must also surrender his passport, obey a curfew at an address in Suffolk, wear an electronic tag and report to a local police station every evening. (here)

Uh huh. So it being a curfew, with stringent conditions, makes it so much better than house arrest, as if Assange could roam freely all over the place, rather than sensibly bunker down and endure a term of exclusion from society ... when all that was required, since Swedish authorities have yet to charge him, was to arrange further questioning in the UK.

According to Henderson it's all Assange's fault for hanging around with leftists and feminists:

Assange's problems came about following his decision to address a leftist faction of Sweden's Social Democratic Party and his alleged sexual encounters with two women associated with the organisation. This is no CIA plot - except, of course, to the conspiracy theorists in our midst. Sweden's sexual conduct laws may be tough. But they are the laws of a democratic nation and they apply to everyone who lives in, or visits, Sweden.

Uh huh, but there's more than enough evidence on the record that the behaviour of the Swedish authorities and the women invovlved in the case has been irregular, almost peculiar. Is Henderson so blithe about Australians being hung for drug offences in Asia? Probably. Hang 'em high, hang 'em hard.

And then comes the rub. Henderson spends the next few pars proving that Assange is guilty of showing scant concern for people and the security of the United States, and guilty of endangering the lives of American forces on the battlefields and guilty of the deaths of others.

Guilty. Hang him high, hang him hard.

And as a result of this brazen, shocking guilt, what will happen?

The Assange saga has gone on too long already. He would be well advised to leave the Ecuadorean embassy and go to Sweden for questioning. There may well be no charges of sexual misconduct. Alternatively, if charged and convicted, he may serve a brief term of imprisonment.

Following either eventuality, Assange would be free to return to Australia or reside in any country that would accept him.

Uh huh. Easy peasy.

But before you swallow that particular bit of pie in the sky la la land nonsense, and you imagine Assange romping free and easy in the wild New England ranges, Henderson blithely provides an alternative solution:

If, in time, Feinstein's recommendations are taken up by US authorities, there might be an attempt at extradition. In which case, Assange would be subjected to the law of the nation in which he is residing. He is not entitled to special treatment.

Yep, it's hang him high, hang him hard, his actual crime revealing information - and most notably a shocking video still on view here - that people would prefer be kept hidden. And never mind that the Australian government has consistently lied in relation to the Assange matter, as has the United States government and its representatives, offering assurances one day, and the threat of a long stay in prison the next.

You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to suspect the fix is in, and if you want an alternative version of events, try Guy Rundle's Parliament Square hums with Assange discontent.

Assange might not be a particularly attractive character - on occasions he seems to have been in rehearsal for a guest geek role in The Big Bang Theory - but his treatment has been exactly the same as that handed out to people caught up in the institution known as the Catholic church, grinding people to pulp in its maw.

Assange is still in the grinding process, WikiLeaks has been totally defanged and made irrelevant, and now comes the final act. It was inevitable that institutional stooges like Gerard Henderson and Janet Albrechtsen would join in the chant to crush Assange ...

No more shocking videos. Onwards to Iran ...

The parrots are still squawking, and so is Alan Jones ...

(Above: now there's a sight to see, as reported in More than 1000 heat records broken across the U.S. in a week).

Strange ... almost eerie.

The pond woke up this morning with a sense that the rapture was imminent, that the complete destruction of Australia was about to unfold. The python squeeze was on, the fix was in, and it was all over red rover.

Yet all that could be heard was the traffic, the planes overhead, and the parrots squawking up a storm in their new nearby winter residence, a gangly gum.

There was a sense of palpable relief, and lordy even a hint of sunshine, as if Katrina and the Waves were the patron saints of Sydney.

Of course it might not have been possible to be so sanguine in the United States. Apart from communists taking over the health system, there have been record temperatures and record wild fires and record storms and record destruction (In scorching heat, the US is burning).

Naturally the average denialist can put all this down to the vagaries of the weather, though the wild fires seem to be part of a pattern, as explored in Pondering a Link Between Forest Fires and Climate Change.

Less easy to explain is the change in sea levels on the US northeast coast, as noted in nature's US northeast coast is hot spot for rising sea levels:

Research from the US Geological Survey (USGS) shows that sea levels are rising much faster between North Carolina and Massachusetts than anywhere else in the world. The news comes less than two weeks after North Carolina's Senate passed a bill banning state agencies from reporting predictions of increasing rates of sea-level rise.

Yep, the GOP has taken on the job of King Canute, but with a hear no evil see no evil speak no evil slant.

Here in Australia all we have is the Murdoch press to do the job.

So what's the story?

In absolute figures, sea levels on this stretch of coast have climbed by between 2 and 3.7 millimetres per year since 1980, whereas the global increase over the same period was 0.6–1.0 millimetres per year.

You won't find anything front page in the Murdoch press about this phenomenon.

But you would have found plenty of coverage of alternative views, as shown by Sea-level rises are slowing, tidal gauge records show, featuring the thoughts of Phil Watson and quoting the work of US researchers Robert Dean and James Houston.

Sallenger and his team have been conducting their research since long before the North Carolina legal controversy flared up, but their paper specifically targets Houston and Dean’s research. It says that Huston and Dean's data sets encompass multiple time periods, causing three-quarters of their data to be biased towards masking the acceleration of sea-level rise in the northeast hotspot.
Sallenger would rather focus on his science than make any comment about politics. “We do science at the USGS that is relevant to policy, but we don’t make policy. That’s for the state legislature,” he says. “There are caveats in all of this, but our work suggests it would not be correct to project future rises using a linear interpretation.”

Meanwhile, in la la land, the denialists are busy clapping hands over eyes and ears:

North Carolina is not the only ‘hotspot’ for efforts by conservatives to legislate away the reality of sea-level rise. In 2011, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality removed all references to rising sea levels from a scientific study of Galveston Bay, and two weeks ago, the Virginia General Assembly passed a bill commissioning a study on rising sea levels only once references to sea-level rise and climate change had been removed.

In the land of free thought and free thinking, it's a peculiar interpretation of the relevance and usefulness of government - to scrub the record clean, and erase bad thoughts in a way that would make Orwell proud (oh okay there's a dollar for the Orwellian swear jar).

Luckily in Australia we don't need government to scrub the record clean, not when the Murdoch press is doing such a fine private sector enterprise job.

And the rest of the media isn't far behind.

In all the coverage of the carbon tax today, there's been a lot of 'me, me, me' chatter, and a singular lack of considered thought in relation to the tax. Will it be effective in relation to controlling Australia's insatiable appetite for shovelling carbon into the air? Or is it just window-dressing, its impact over-exaggerated by Dr. No's unseemly lust for power, worse than a Gollum's love of a precious.

Is it true that the Opposition climate plan could cost extra $24b, as proposed in a study by the Department of Climate Change? Has anyone studied the study, and done a piece for the opinion pages, as opposed to a bit of glib coverage?

The ABC's AM program's response was to head off to Penrith to do a vox pop of the good citizens, all talking about how it was going to cost them, and how there might be a change of representation at the next election.

Splendid journalism guys. That's the way it's been done since time immemorial. Cut together a few random citizens confronted on the street, and call it insight, and a guide to the thinking of the common man and common woman, not so much a straw poll, as a feather-weight poll.

A pigeon feather at that.

And the rest of the coverage has been the same. Yadda yadda costs, yadda yadda small businesses, yadda yadda not enough compensation, yadda yadda 'me, me, me', yadda yadda extremely disappointed, yadda yadda impact and suffering and woe woe poor pitiful me, and price rises, and shock horror and consternation.

What's the bet the sun will rise tomorrow?

If you ever wanted clear-cut evidence of navel gazing in the Australian media, then these past few days have provided exceptional examples, and the ABC, supposedly more inclined to in-depth coverage, has led the way in Chicken Little poll-driven, help 'the carbon tax and the cookie monster are upon us' hysteria.

But Fairfax isn't far behind.

Confronted with real stories about climate science, what would you do to highlight what's happening in the world?

That's right, you'd headline Alan Jones, dipstick denialist of the first water, advising that the notion of global warming is a hoax, to a humble collection of 150 people on the steps of the Victorian parliament, peddling his usual nonsense.

The emptiest, silliest parrots make the loudest noise, like a clashing cymbal or a gong, and there's Fairfax providing the amplification, but not much in the way of alternative insights. (well done Ben Cubby with Climate change a hoax, Jones tells tax protestors)

On any given day, the pond oscillates wildly between hope and despair, but today the temptation to run a headline saying "The Australian media is a hoax, this isn't reporting, it's jibber jabber witchcraft, common sense will tell you most of it is rubbish" was mighty strong ...

No need for Gina to worry, the job's in hand ...