It's gold, gold, gold for the Brucers ... along with lots of gossip ...

(Above: watch the hands, watch the hands).

So here's a pleasant note to start the day.

Not only did Peter 'the smirk' Costello set the Reserve Bank free of regulatory oversight, he's as proud as punch of his achievement, as he explains in Key to unearthing facts in Securency case:

In 1996, on behalf of the government, I entered into an agreement with the governor of the Reserve to give it much greater independence.

We keed, we keed. 'The smirk' isn't talking about letting the Reserve and its subsidiary Securency play fast and loose in the matter of international bribery:

From then on the government has taken no role in the setting or announcement of the official cash rate. But such power could not be given to a statutory body without some mechanism to ensure public accountability.

For the rest of the column, there's a lot of harumphing and puffing and blowing hard about the way the smirk knew nothing about corruption within the Reserve's operations:

It is now alleged that some of the contracts that were obtained by the polymer company - Securency International - may have involved the payment of irregular commissions. I have no knowledge of the facts behind such claims. Certainly the Reserve reported no suspicion of wrongdoing to me in the period I was treasurer up to November 2007.

Bring that man a bowl of water, he needs to wash his paws.

Oh hang on a tic, he's already washed his paws:

If there were any doubt about how these laws could render conduct in faraway places to be a crime in Australia, it would have been dispelled by the highly-publicised dealings of the AWB in relation to wheat exports to Iraq. A (then) little-known Labor frontbencher by the name of Kevin Rudd conducted a vigorous campaign to try to implicate the Coalition government in a ''wheat for weapons'' scandal. Eventually the Coalition called a royal commission on the matter. In 2006 it completely exonerated ministers in the government.

Yes, yes, nothing to do with the government.

All this talk of regulation and oversight and the buck stopping in the kitchen where it gets very hot is so tetchy and petty-minded. Never mind that if you cultivate a climate away from regulation and oversight, and let loose the pretties, who knows how far the pretties will fly.

It's one of the greater absurdities, the way that the de-regulators routinely use their deregulatory activities to absolve themselves of any responsibility, when the greatest responsibility of all was not to get themselves into a position of absolving themselves of responsibility.

The buck has to stop somewhere, and in the Westminster system, it should stop with the likes of Costello. The fact that Costello presided over a rort unknowingly - adopting the three wise monkey philosophy - says it all ... and ditto the wheat scandal, where the government of the day and its minions got off lightly, because that's what happens within the gentleman's club of politics ...

In the world of the free market libertarian fantasists, regulation is a bad thing and onerous. In the world of reality, people free of regulation are apt to stretch their wings and do naughty things. If the smirk taught the world one thing, it was the limits of its deregulatory fantasy life.

And another thing.

Followers of pundits will be pleased to see Paul "Chicken Little" Sheehan in best 'the sky is falling', 'there might be aliens' form in Population clock is ticking for O'Farrell.

Put simply and shortly - Colonel Grumpy goes on interminably - there's too many people in Sydney and Melbourne and too many people in Australia.

It's just as well Sheehan doesn't live in Beijing which at 20 million plus is only a few million off the total population of Australia. Maybe Shanghai at 13.5 million would be more to his taste.

Anyhoo, Mr. Little is terribly worried about the NSW government, and its approach to public transport. It seems it can't even produce a north-west rail link. It seems there are too many cars in the city.

It all sounds dangerously Clover Moore, though there were no signs of Sheehan in plus fours on a bicycle.

Not to worry. The pond will be by-passing such minor traffic difficulties by travelling to Canberra by car, to alight at Bazza O'Farrell's visionary siting of the second airport for Sydney ...

And another thing.

Yesterday the pond was flicking through Fairfax online and came across this, under the header For her own sake, PM should explain.

Was it mere opinion?

Yep, that's what it said. Or was it something else?

Oops. It was an opinionated editorial!

Even more sadly, the editorial turns out to be regurgitated re-hashing of ideas coming directly to Fairfax via the Brucers at The Australian.

Today, as is their wont, the Brucers are out in force at The Australian, hunting in unison as a rabid pack, evoking the feeling of what it would be like to be a fox at the other end of a feral gaggle of baying hounds.

The crusade continues!

A special commendation must go to that top Brucer Ean Higgins for a first class bit of Brucing with An old flame faded into black (behind the paywall, but hey you know how to google).

The salivating Brucer Higgins delivered a number of poetic insights, but none top this one:

...what is certain is that while Ms Gillard's political career reached the top, Mr Wilson achieved, at least until now, his self-sacrificing goal of fading out of sight. While Ms Gillard hosts state dinners at The Lodge for Barack Obama, Mr Wilson helps cook the $6.90 "Bingo Buster" pensioner special on bingo nights at the Fingal Bay Sports Club on the NSW mid-north coast.

By golly those investigative Brucers would head off to Hawaii if it thought it would bring them closer to the truth and the birther conspiracy.

But please don't be depressed:

The Australian yesterday caught up with Mr Wilson as he briefly ventured out of his comfortable modern apartment with a superb view out over the sea and mountains around Fingal Bay to collect the morning newspaper.
He declined to speak, but some of his colleagues at the club, all of whom spoke warmly of Mr Wilson, were more forthcoming.

He declined to speak! All that colour and movement, and the central figure in black wouldn't break his silence. Oh it breaks a tabloid's heart:

According to the manager, Mr Wilson is sad and regretful, but not bitter, that the political fortunes of the former couple moved in radically different directions, and he still has high regard for his former flame. "He said: 'That's just the way it is.' "

High regard?

For a lying, cheating, witch who should be ditched? Shame on him. Move along Brucers, you need a better witness than this.

But first class Brucing, Ean Higgins. More colour and movement and bingo and pensioners than you could find in Hawaii, and such sympathy and regard for the man in black, so cruelly spurned and brought low by the wicked witch.

Now back to that Fairfax editorial:

For her own sake, Gillard would be well advised to give her own review of the affair to Parliament, to authorise Slater & Gordon to make available any personal records to any official inquiry, and to encourage her political ally, Paul Howes, to open AWU records as well.

An official inquiry?

Even the Brucers at The Australian aren't going that far. All they want are answers to questions, to questions that need to be answered, to questions that need to be asked, to questions that need to be questioned, an open and honest debate, which is to say, an honest and open debate, which is to say a mortified confession of guilt and abject failure, which will culminate in the resignation of Gillard, because she's a harridan and a witch, as explained righteously in their editorial No minister. Dodging the issue is not good debate.

What's needed is a good solid debate about how Gillard is a harridan, and how there are too many lawyers in politics (watch out Liberal party), and how politicians should be drawn from a wider gene pool, which unfortunately excludes Brucers, because all they know how to do is ask questions and savage unionists, braying and frothing and foaming in a quite unseemly hate-filled way.

Oh yes, as that old brand had it:

Remember Wapping! Once more over the top, top Brucers ...

(No need for intelligence genes if you're just a Brucer listening to your master's voice).

But back to the Fairfax editorialist's proposal for an inquiry. The stupidity is enormous. The editorial first of all exonerates Gillard of legal guilt, while pinning her with a couple of peccadilloes - the failure to open a file, and fucking a cad.

The conclusion? Launch an inquiry.

Death by a thousand cuts as the coals are interminably raked over and over and top Brucers like Ean Higgins once more head up the coast to share a top pensioner meal and a bit of bingo with the man in black.

It would have been a lot more honest of the Fairfax editorialist to simply join with the baying Brucers and demand Gillard's resignation, for failing to open a file and for fucking a cad.

Meanwhile, the pond is demanding another inquiry.

Who let the editorial go out in the first instance as an anonymous opinion piece? Did someone fail to open a file? For that matter, is someone in Fairfax fucking a cad?

Sure, shit happens, but there should be consequences ...

Oh let's just cut to the chase. The editor should step down now, at once. The pond might be only asking questions, but the conclusion is clear. People might plead ineptness or a momentary failure, but heads must roll!

Alternatively, do not ask where Gina Rinehart lurks. She lurks in the shareholding of Fairfax, and already the signs are strong that they've sipped deeply of the Brucer kool-aid in the editorial board room.

Gina will be pleased ...

And finally a special award surely must go to Tony Abbott, top Brucer, for not bothering to listen do or heed what BHP was saying, or indeed even caring to read their statement before shooting off his mouth:

Olympic Dam's minerals are not affected by the mining tax - which is levied on profits from iron ore and coal sales - but the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, who admitted last night he had not read BHP's statement, said the new taxes were a factor in BHP's decision because they had trimmed the total profits the company had available for new projects. (Olympic Dam on hold as boom peaks)

Never mind what BHP or its head actually said. That counts for naught when constructing an alternative universe.

Top Brucing, gold medal Brucing ... every day it's gold, gold, gold for Brucers ... and remember Brucers, never mind the truth of what you're saying, provided it's nattering and negative and neigh, neigh, neigh ...

(Below: the pond always loved the HMV logo, so let's run a couple more versions. But should it have been His Master's Voice is a Her? For that version, Gloria Swanson sets the mood).

In which the theme is common gossip facilitated by fibre to the home ...

(Above: in your dreams. Common gossip is common).


Before we go any further, please let the pond note the descent of Radio National into the garbage dump, courtesy of Jonathan Green, who conducted one of the most inept interviews with Larry Pickering imaginable.

The only excuse that Green can offer is that he was dropped into the show late because of the sickness of the usual host, Waheed Ali, but even so, it's interview 101 skills to be across the material being discussed.

Green was embarrassing, the ABC is embarrassing, and no doubt Pickering is sniggering away at the snow job. It was shoddy, slack and lazy (and if you can stand it, no doubt it will turn up here in due course).

Green next interviewed Andrew Wilkie, who demanded that Gillard make a statement to parliament to answer the questions.

But once you've denied the matter to hand, what further statement could clear the air, or clarify matters?

Is it so that she makes a statement on the record and then can be hung, drawn and quartered for misleading the parliament? Or is a gratuitous repetition of a denial, over and over again, the point here? The pond is of course just asking questions, which is all anyone seems to be doing, just asking rhetorical useless questions ...

The pond almost hoped that the super trawler would fuck over Tasmania, just to teach the impudent dingbat Wilkie a lesson.

The point is that the hounds involved in the witch hunt don't want answers, they don't want denials, they want a confession, they want an admission of guilt, they want Gillard hung, they want her to go in a ritual exorcism, and they'll settle for nothing less. There's no point in conducting a pleasant discourse contemplating the meaning of fanaticism with fanatics.

Naturally the hounds at The Australian are in full rabid intoxicated cry this morning, the mud in hand, fling it, fling it, the smell of blood in the nostrils, like a gang of white pointers, with their dull grey leaden eyes, the full weight of the feral pack wheeling in unison as the rag embarks on yet another crusade:

Yes it's the full panoply of kool aid drinkers.

That pathetic pompous puffed up shadow of his imagined self Paul Kelly, Janet 'Dame Slap' Albrechtsen just asking questions (as she did on the wretched Q&A), and Dennis "the tie" Shanahan also demanding answers to questions.

Questions, always with the questions, and the speculation, and not much else.

Meanwhile genuine scandals such as the one swirling around the Reserve Bank, or Fair Work Australia are shuffled down the chain (just as the Australian Wheat Board scandal disappeared up its fundament once people lost interest in the outcome, and never mind the comfort given to a villain so bad it required a war and thousands of civilian deaths to save the world from him).

Why does any of this matter? Apart from the stupidity and ineptness of Green, which we can take as a given?

Well the pond doesn't have much time for Mark Latham, except when he's doing lunch with poodle Pyne and turns in a tremendous comedy routine, but in Lunar right crusades against Gillard, he gets more than a few things right, as he notes how the Birthers have transmuted in Australia into the Brucers:

Like the Birthers, they are obsessed with ancient history: in this case, a belief that Julia Gillard should resign over a trade union financial dispute 20 years ago involving her then boyfriend, Bruce Wilson. No one has ever been charged with an offence and, despite repeated investigations by her political opponents, there is no evidence of Gillard having broken the law.
The Brucers are an example of the damaging impact of obsessiveness in public life. They fit the first rule of fanaticism: when all is lost, redouble your efforts. These political fringe dwellers specialise in myth-making and the harassment of innocent people – not just Gillard, but media figures who stand up to them and refuse to peddle their conspiratorial theories.
Not surprisingly, the anti-Labor newspaper The Australian has given succour to Smith and Pickering, deploying a so-called investigative reporter to pursue the Prime Minister. So far his efforts have not taken the story any further than when the matter was first raised by the Liberal Party in the Victorian Parliament 17 years ago.

The Brucers! The Australian is full of bloody Brucers!

By golly, if only for that conceit, the pond owes Latham a lunch in the local kebab shop (or perhaps Faheems Fast Foods on Enmore road, a local secret which the pond never reveals to anyone for fear it will be rushed, and so must remain a secret between the pond and any stray reader lost in the inner west of Sydney).

Latham can now add the ABC to the list willing to peddle conspiracy theories by allowing a half-baked interview, that was alternately soft, inept, meandering and useless. No hard questions were asked of the man asking questions.

Green tried to claw it back later in the show by reading some SMSs called Pickering a nutter, and a scaredy cat misogynist and so on, but by then the ass had bolted through the open gate.

It's troubling times for the pond in relation to RN. There's also the problem of the constant nausea induced by listening to Fran Kelly and the incessantly repeated stings in the morning show. The sting, the sting, it sounds in the mind like a tolling bell of doom.

Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the sting,
Of the sting, sting, sting -
To the sobbing of the sting;
Keeping time, time, time,
As it knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the sting
Of the sting, sting, sting -
To the tolling of the sting,
Of the sting, sting, sting, sting ...
(you can catch the rest of Edgar Allan Poe's poem about bells here, in unabused form).

Okay, it's a little OT, but you catch the drift. Bringing Australia together? Bringing the pond into contact with Jonathan Green, Fran Kelly and her sting? They've got to be dreaming.

For the past few weeks the pond had cultivated false hope.

With nothing on television - thanks to Gina Rinehart and the complete collapse of Lara Bingle's dreams - there was a chance to listen to an interviewer on Late Night Live who didn't talk over his guests, didn't interrupt, listened and asked intelligent questions, and was genteel and reluctant to lead with his own opinions, remembering that the reason you have a guest on the program is to find out what they think, rather than having them and the listeners suffer the interminable pompous meandering opinions of the interviewer.

And then Phillip Adams came back.

Adams did have the grace to propose that Norman Swan did it better than him. Damn right and in spades.

But as a result of all this, RN is off the pond's list. It seems simpler just to tap away at the noggin with a baseball bat, and see if brain damage can be induced in a less painful way.

In one dangerously experimental moment, we've even listened to Richard Glover play Kenny Rogers' Island in the Stream (with Dolly of course).

Oh yes it's an edgy Sydney experience and the pond knows how to live dangerously, but no doubt listeners in other states to Local Radio can tell of similar hair-raising near-death experiences.

Hey nonny nonny no, on we go, if only so we can note the deliciousness of the Fairfax story Turnbull likes fibre to the home - in France. And before we go any further, kudos to the Fairfax designer who came up with this splash. Oh you do big Mal proud, in an ethereal wired sort of way:

Because Australians tend to be myopic and don't get out and about enough - even though these days you can travel with the click of a mouse - there's a segment of the population who are routinely startled to learn that other countries are doing something about climate change, and take seriously the prospect of a broadband wired economy (the myopia is cultivated by rags like The Australian, always ready to crusade, rarely willing to inform).

So there's a nicely piquant spicy sauce of hypocrisy served up with the news that big Malcolm Turnbull has been caught out investing in France Telecom, which is planning to connect sixty per cent of French households by fibre to the home by 2020.

Big Mal's spokesperson fired back:

"France is utterly unlike Conrovian Australia,'' the spokesman said. ''There is no government monopoly building a near-universal fibre-to-the-premises network.
''Private telcos are building fibre to the premises where they think it is viable and, to date, take-up is not very high.''

So either big Mal is a terrible investor - France Telecom performs a little like Telstra and its take up isn't high and so Mal and his investment doesn't have the first clue about what the public wants.

Or he's resolutely opposed to the notion that rural citizens should be disconnected from the intertubes, because connecting the bush, especially remote locations, isn't particularly viable on a commercial level.

Of course the bush badly needs to be connected, and benefits from the connection, but ain't it grand to see big Mal denouncing the agrarian socialism that runs rife through the Nationals.

The Labor party has catered to this socialist tendency by making the bush a priority for connections. Will the bush care and reward them? Almost certainly not ...

Will big Mal ever acknowledge that fibre to the home is the way to go? Probably ...

But not until the hornswoggling has served its purpose and Tony Abbott wins the election ... and then we'll see whether Dr. No has the first clue about broadband and climate science.

Probably not ... but will big Mal then come out of his shell and admit that fibre to the home is the way the rest of the world is heading ...

Well even a turtle sticks its head out occasionally to see what the world is doing ... except perhaps if you're a turtle working at The Australian.

(Below: and now thanks to old time radio, something for the gentleman reader, found in the ABC archives Flicker account here).

In which the pond breaks consecrated bread with Catholics and smells the stink of Pickering on assorted hands ...

(Above: the pond goes off with the pigs today, so this just sets the tone).

One of the more amusing performances in larrikin John Gorton's career as PM came when he advised the cameras and reporters he couldn't stop for questions, he had to rush home to watch Countdown. (watch it live on YouTube here, a pond link for nostalgia freaks).

What's this got to with anything? Nothing much, except to prove Gorton had a sense of humour, which no doubt came in handy during his extensive wartime adventures as a fighter pilot.

It's also an alternative kind of history, since today the prattling Polonius, aka Gerard Henderson, drones on and on delivering yet another history lesson, and completely without humour, as he pontificates in The lessons of Goulburn resonate in schools 50 years later.

That anybody could think the kind of education offered rural folks in the early nineteen sixties is something to celebrate - damn you Dominican nuns - is bizarrely funny, but let's skip the history lesson, and yet more adoring tales of Ming the Merciless, and cut to the chase.

Here's where prattling Polonius thinks we should be headed:

In the United States, Britain and now Western Australia, governments are establishing ''charter'' or ''free'' schools, which are publicly funded but operate independently from the education bureaucracy. The Coalition, led by Christopher Pyne on this issue, is beginning to embrace this initiative.

The funny thing is that Polonius thinks Gillard light on educational issues, while presenting this kind of superficial piety about charter or free schools, as if proposing that somehow they're free of "education bureaucracy" is enough, and all will be well.

Would it be too bold, too brave, to suggest that Polonius do some reading, not necessarily to do with what happened in Goulburn in 1962, which was in fact a form of strike action (ain't it funny how it's okay to go on strike if you happen to be a tyke - yes that's an intentional rhyme, apologies).

A stiff chaser of Diane Ravitch always comes in handy. Why not start with The Myth of Charter Schools (outside the NYRB paywall), and then why not follow it up with Do Our Public Schools Threaten National Security? And there's also The Miseducation of Mitt Romney. (both also happily outside the paywall)

Over in the UK, following the splendid effort of G4S at the Olympics, they're keen to allow "free" schools to generate a profit. (For-profit schools would be no more virtuous than other private-sector firms).

And recently Doonesbury has been having an inordinate amount of fun with the 'for profit' tertiary sector in the United States, which is now irredeemably corrupt as it chases the buck rather than service students and their education.

(Click to enlarge, more here).

Enough already. We already know the purpose to private education - to turn out cogs in the giant Ponzi wheel of institutions like the Catholic church.

Some students blessed by an education at Jesuit Xavier College in Melbourne even turn out like Gerard Henderson and spend the rest of their lives regurgitating Catholic propaganda and conservative twaddle and perhaps saw attending university as a chance to run the DLP club ...

Say no more. But speaking of fundamentalist Catholics, as we were, the chattering classes are all agog over the clanger dropped by Todd Akin on the matter of "legitimate" rape and the strange way that nature manages to shut down rapist sperm to prevent pregnancy and the need for an abortion.

Naturally a few people started to connect the dots:

"When you look at who Akin's partner was on all the anti-choice legislation, it was Paul Ryan"

Yep, Ryan was just as rabid and hard-line as Akin when it came to providing an abortion to a woman who was raped. Another hard-line conservative Catholic.

Which means it's not just "only in Missouri", it's "only in America".

As the Republican party maintains its hatred, fear and loathing of the right of women to control their bodies, the thing that perplexes the pond is why they ever decided to pick a fight with the Taliban. On the matter of women and their rights, the Republican party and the Taliban are soul buddies. Never forget that your average conservative Catholic shares a lot of attitudes with your average conservative Islamic.

Which is why the pond was grateful to astute readers for pointing out Greg Craven's extensive whinge in The Australian, with Religious reporting really has gone to the dogs (inside the paywall, but easy to google if you want to waste your life).

After giving secularists and unbelievers a hard time for a thousand years - on my parents shifting me from a Catholic to a state school to get a decent education, we were all consigned to hell by the local church leadership - it turns out that Catholics like Greg Craven really can't handle the heat in the kitchen.

The funniest thing? Craven getting agitated about a delusional ceremony involving transubstantiation.

That's a fancy way of describing a ritual in which people are persuaded to imagine that they're cannibals, scoffing real flesh and sipping real blood:

You would anticipate that just as a football writer would know that Buddy Franklin breaking a leg is a bad news story, Zwartz would dimly discern that desecration of the holiest Catholic rite requires a piece of some seriousness.

So there you go. Craven is such a dimwit Victorian, he thinks a football analogy is the only serious way to explain the desecration of the host.

Sheesh, he makes Barney Zwartz sound like a solemn, caring genius. You could have endless fun with this as a party game:

You would anticipate that just as a football writer would know that Collingwood losing on Sunday is a bad news story, Zwartz would dimly discern that the crucifixion of Christ is a piece of some seriousness.

Seriously, is he serious?

Sadly, it's the pond's old mate, Barney Zwartz, in trouble once again with the tykes, and the cheeky Craven doesn't even provide a link to Barners' story, so here it is: Dissidents preach a new breed of Catholicism.

Barners knows how to leap high and take a mark in the sky, so he starts off his story with a dog eating a bit of consecrated bread. And the silly pooch probably didn't even realise he was getting a tasty meat tid bit.

Gays, women, outsiders, pooches all feature in Barner's piece ... so of course Craven's going to get agitated.

What would Jesus do? Probably hang around with the outsiders and avoid pompous prats like Craven.

Which leaves just enough time to note that the scurrilous vile rag The Australian - why are you still buying it, have you no shame - is maintaining the rage in its pursuit of Gillard.

No links, the pond doesn't peddle tobacco or filth, but it does raise a philosophical question.

Can vileness be exclusive? (Lately Crikey's been having a running joke about the war of "exclusives" between The Australian and the AFR).

There's been a little push back to the "exclusive" vileness.

Over at Crikey, Bernard Keane made the point This is what the Right is expert at: smearing. (may be paywall affected, but doesn't the absence of trust in the Australian media make for jim dandy reading here).

And yesterday Michael Pascoe lashed out in fine style at one of the chief sources of the rumours in Larry Pickering - the conman stalking Gillard. The pond usually refuses to mention Pickering, since there are already enough sexist pigs in the trough, but it's worth noting that even now The Australian still carries a gallery of his cartoons.

Anyhoo, after accusing Pickering of being:

an inveterate liar, a bankrupt conman with a seedy history of fleecing the gullible of millions of dollars while not paying his own bills

Pascoe clarifies his attitude a little more:

With various failed business ventures and numerous personal relationships of equal standard, for decades he has plied a grubby trade behind sundry stooges and partners, assisted by the odd sharp lawyer and hapless corporate and consumer regulators. He is not a nice man.

Pascoe concludes by mentioning what he considers a government policy failure in the matter of unions, as opposed to the current Gillard witch hunt:

That was a dire prime ministerial failure, but it's a long bow that stretches from there to feeding the public's more scurrilous instincts with concocted details of an old affair. The stink of Pickering remains on the hands of those passing his material on.

The stink of Pickering. Now that's a lovely phrase. Which makes it all the more piquant this morning to read in Fairfax Phillip Coorey sounding as righteous and dung-filled as a hack in search of a gig at Murdoch land, with Saga of the PM's job at Slater Gordon: how serious is it?

As you can see from the header Coorey is just asking questions, and asking for matters to be cleared up. Coorey's last sentence is a doozy, as he demands that questions asked should be answered:

She has a trust problem with the electorate and even if as she, the law firm and the lawyers who took on Mr Wilson attest, she did nothing wrong, it will continue to fuel the negative perceptions that already exist.

Yes, even if she's done nothing wrong, Phillip Coorey will continue to fuel the negative perceptions of her, by recycling one more time the matter in which nobody is able to produce any evidence she's done anything wrong.

And what was outside in the gutter is now picked up, dusted off and brought inside the house, the stench and the pong filling every room, no matter what air freshener you use, courtesy of Murdoch, and now Fairfax hacks. (Jennifer Hewett did her bit to embrace the stink of Pickering for the AFR with Old ghost is Gillard's recurring nightmare).

And so the war on women in Australian politics continues.

And Phillip Coorey? He has the stink, the stench, the smell of Pickering on his hands ...

Which brings us to a final, ultimate mystery. Why is it that a few Liberal leaders, like John Gorton, could show a little humanity in the job? And why do others only discover themselves after they've left the gig?

There's John Howson whipping up a storm of comments and sounding quite concerned about rights in Australian Government MIA in Assange case (joining Malcolm Fraser in being a stirrer).

Will Tony Abbott, the stench, the stink, the smell of Pickering on his hands, change after he's left the job? Will he discover his Christian principles and start writing solemn opinion pieces for various rags?

That's after he's restored the golden age of John Howard and been unceremoniously dumped like John Howard ...

Who knows, but what an excellent chance to remember the golden era of Howard with an excellent First Dog. You won't find Gerard Henderson remembering the lessons of history in quite the same way ...

(Below: click to enlarge, more First Dog here. It will slip outside the paywall very soon, perhaps today, but yes the pond subscribes, if only to help keep the Dog in business. He can't live on consecrated bread alone you know).

The Australian ... you wouldn't use it to wrap fish and chips for fear the food was infected with deadly toxins ...

(Above: inspired by The Australian? Wouldn't you rather be inspired by a treatment for haemorrhoids?)

And now since journalism and politics has once again descended into the gutter, the pond proposes that readers still attached to purchasing The Australian contemplate the huffing and puffing and pieties in today's editorial Questions about the AWU corruption scandal linger (outside the paywall, but even free it's offensively insulting).

It's the usual routine. The rag is just muck-racking and asking questions because that's in its nature.

It's of genuine public interest. It's so interesting the rag can go right up its fundament in search of pieties and its crusading ambition to tell the truth.

And so long as the mud can be flung, the mud can be made to stick:

As this newspaper has consistently made clear, we accept Ms Gillard's repeated denial of any involvement in, or knowledge of, the scandal.

Yes, yes, yes, we accept it ... it's just that we don't expect it. Hypocrisy moi?

As a political tactic, it may work to sully the reputation of this newspaper and its journalists, including berating Paul Kelly, who on Australian Agenda asked her to respond to the reportage. But it will do nothing to resolve the questions that continue to linger about her involvement and will lead voters to again question her integrity, honesty and judgment.

So we accept it, we just continue to question it. And as we question and slur, that'll led the voters to question and slur.

Well it worked for climate science, so it'll work on a biff and bop bash up of Gillard. QED really.

And what's brought this out of the shadows and into the mainstream? One Ralph Blewitt:

The AWU bagman for the scam, Ralph Blewitt, spoke publicly for the first time about these matters and offered to reveal what he knows, including his wrongdoing, if he is granted immunity from prosecution.

Uh huh. Well while we're down in the gutter, let's take a look at a website that's always reliably juicy and down in the gutter:

Bad to the Boner: PM's accuser is sleazy sex tourist, preying on vulnerable young Thai women.

And while he's at it, perhaps the editor of The Australian might care to answer the claims made in Disgrace: The Australian's false implication of embezzlement at PM shames our great newspaper. (I know, I know, who in their right minds would call The Australian these days a great newspaper).

Don't want to get down in the gutter? Sorry, you're already there.

Of course The Australian will stay toffy nosed and imagine that somehow it's superior to Vexnews.

But it's down in the gutter, and blather about Gillard needing to provide a full and frank response is like its usual blather about how climate scientists need to provide a full and frank response to denialists.

It's offering a thin veneer of respectability to smut-raking, so that Tony Abbott in turn can sound pious as he too rakes over the smut.

Thus far the rag has established that way back when, Gillard fucked a cad. This is not an uncommon experience for Australian women.

Indeed, if you expelled from parliament the assorted cads that currently are on view - or the unhappy women who at one time or another became involved with a cad - you'd be lucky to find a quorum. Or enough people to make a netball team.

Come to think of it, there are no doubt women who've fucked Murdoch journalists, and continue to do so right to this moment. But it's easy to forgive, anyone can make a mistake.

What's harder to sustain is how any of this should have a bearing on coverage of Australian politics. If there's a problem with Gillard, talk about the policies and the failures (there's enough of them). But keep it above the belt, and out of the region of sly innuendo and furtive suggestions and the embrace of self-confessedly dodgy witnesses ...

Yep, questions about the integrity and journalistic approach of The Australian linger.

What a vile rag it is, and becoming viler by the day. More tabloid than the average tabloid.

And if you buy it, you're equally to blame. You're only encouraging the bastards ...

(By using 'bastard' the pond implies no slur on people born out of wedlock, a very old-fashioned concept when real bastardry has little to do with marital status).

(Below: think again? Why not just start thinking outside the Murdoch rat pack?)

In which the pond determines boldly doing nothing is the best bet for Mars, Sydney's second airport and blowing things up ...

(Above: the pond and others retain a sense of wonder as a laser interrogates some rocks on Mars, found here).

What an unhappy joyless world Chris Berg must inhabit.

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

Let's overlook the sexism, it's the thought that counts.

But not in the world of Chris Berg and the IPA.

According to Berg, the eyes must be focussed on the mud below, not the stars above. Sure there's the right to smoke cigarettes until you kill yourself. That sort of choice, that sort of conspicuous consumption, that sort of billions and billions death machine is fine and dandy, and the bigger the better, the more the merrier.

Drinking as much as you like is also okay - it's sponsor approved.

But once you've pissed your cash against the wall on Brendan O'Neill approved brands, herded like hapless sheep by expensive advertising, there has to be savings.

Naturally doing nothing about climate science is a perfect opportunity to balance the budget. Then there's the chance to stomp on the childish dreams of Star Trek fans ...

And then there's the exquisite Bergian logic that Berg brings to the task:

The economist Robin Hanson, himself a former NASA researcher, has described the space program as ''mostly like the pyramids''. That is, it offers prestige, but it is showy and expensive and pointless.

Uh huh. We get the drift. It's too expensive and it's pointless. It's utterly pointless to show any interest in the world around us, and the world beyond, because ... well who wants to know. Just smoke and die ...

Just because Everest was there, there was no need for expensive mountain-climbing expeditions. And don't get the pond started on ridiculous super yachts or other extravagances of the super rich.

But it certainly is a monument. The moon landing will be forever tied to John F. Kennedy. Both Obama and George W. Bush tried to replicate JFK's legacy by promising to put humans on Mars, and soon. Surely they knew this was fantasy. There's no taste for an exotic and expensive space program in our austere century.

Yep, there's absolutely no point in flashing the cash in this austere century. Hapless Russian, American and Chinese billionaires have suffered enough.

There once was a political reason to be in space. Now there is not. Politicians need political reasons if they're going to pay for things. That's how democracy functions, and that's why NASA is lost.

Okay, okay, we get it, we get it, so we all live like hermits in one room cells. It's all too hard, and we're ruined, ruined I tells ya. No more brand-names, just home labels.

But hang on, what's this prancing over the hills? Why it's the private sector and capitalism come to save us. Good old Dick Smith joined together with Bill Gates and a host of others ...

... robotic missions are much cheaper than manned missions. Putting Curiosity on Mars cost little more than Victoria's myki ticketing system. The global research and philanthropic community should easily be able to raise that sort of money.

Easily? Like they've done in the past? And then comes the parenthetical caveat:

(Sounds far-fetched? Then perhaps our imagination needs to start on the ground before it can dance among the stars.)

Yep, keep looking at that mud, and keep smoking.

They'd probably be able to do it cheaper than the bloated, politicised, and hopelessly confused NASA anyway.

Yep, Berg's piece Mars? A mere Curiosity in days of thrift isn't really a study of the cost benefits of space exploration, and the benefits of a sense of wonder of the universe beyond the earth.

It's just another prime example of the IPA spouting "whatever two legged government does is bad", "just leave it to the wondrous four legged private sector good".

Berg's mind, logic and approach is so hopelessly skewed, it must make for a difficult night's sleep.

If the world were to adopt his Grinchian, 'we're broke, spend no more money on anything, and especially on government' approach, we'd soon enough have the economy in a tail spin.

Now if he'd taken the time to point out the enormous amount of money humanity pisses against the wall on arms manufacturing and war and blowing shit up, he might have made a decent point - especially given the way governments are front and centre in relation to that particular activity.

But I guess it depends on who the IPA's client list is on a given day. There's not much point in offending arms manufacturers when who knows, they might just be saving the world by thinking about the mud below, rather than the stars above.

Berg has grown increasingly strange in his arguments of late, and this outing is the latest rich sampling, whereby NASA shouldn't do anything, and nor should anyone else, except maybe the rich can do it, but why would they because it's pointless, but if they do, unlike government, then it'll be philanthropic and research-driven ... and never mind the contradictions, just keep smoking.

Such is his libertarian passion for free speech that Berg recently banged on at The Drum, denouncing John Howard, and the injustice done to Belal Khazaal for being jailed for publishing a guide to blowing things up and killing people.

After all, as Berg cogently explains in Sent to prison for making an ebook, he didn't actually kill anyone, he just published a guide on how to do it - terrorism for dummies, prepared, it has to be admitted, by a dummy.

This is good news for the pond, because somewhere lurking in the house is a battered copy of The Anarchist Cookbook. (And it's freely available online too, if you know how to google, as Berg points out).

The original publication can still be had from Google, but only after you get past this note from its original author, William Powell, explaining he was young at the time and angry and now repented and no longer believed in violence as an acceptable means to bring about political change:

Unfortunately, the book continues to be in print and with the advent of the Internet several websites dealing with it have emerged. I want to state categorically that I am not in agreement with the contents of The Anarchist Cookbook and I would be very pleased (and relieved) to see its publication discontinued. I consider it to be a misguided and potentially dangerous publication which should be taken out of print.

Berg doesn't have any caveats of this kind.

Volokh concluded that much crime-facilitating speech is "dual-use". Speech which can facilitate crime can also inform non-criminals about risks, about issues of public importance (such as the vulnerability of key Australians to hammers), or even just entertain.

Yep, reading about blowing shit up is hugely entertaining.

A government should not ban speech that has a lawful and valuable use simply because it may also be used by criminals. Volokh argued that to the extent crime-facilitating speech has such value, it should be considered to be within the bounds of free speech.

Uh huh. Run that past Wikileaks again ...

Khazaal's ebook would fall easily within those bounds. Does Islamic theology demand violent jihad, and against whom? Khazaal has published his view. Know your enemy.

Except of course if your enemy has somehow managed to smuggle a dangerous concoction past security. Know your enemy at 35,000 feet doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

And it's hard to say there has been any great, compelling harm caused by his compilation. Words are cheap. The Anarchist Cookbook provides more technical detail than Khazaal offered, and is free to read across the internet.
Belal Khazaal may be a bad guy. He may deserve to be in prison. Australian courts decided he could not be regarded as "a person of good character" at sentencing because of convictions in Lebanon for donating to alleged terrorist organisations.

But if he deserves to be in prison in Australia, he deserves to be there for a greater crime than making an ebook.

Khazaal, apart from his desire to explain a variety of ways to kill Jews and Americans and other unbelievers, happened to be a Qantas baggage handler.

Here's hoping that the next Qantas baggage handler who gets a letch for blowing things up forms a fixation on the IPA.

Let's test the limits of free speech ...

And speaking of Qantas, the pond on a Monday usually pays particular attention to Paul Sheehan, but today he delivers up a shameless puff piece in praise of China Southern Airlines and Guangzhou, in Flying 'roo in danger of becoming roadkill.

The Chinese paid for the junket and lordy did they get their money's worth. Sheehan might not be cheap, but he sure knows how to deliver value.

Innocent bystanders might think they're involved in reading an act of journalism, but of course it's Sheehan on yet another junket - he does so love his junkets - is a sight to see, reporting on banquets attended, and making ludicrous comparisons between a country with a population of 1.2 billion and a country with a population around 23 million:

It (China Southern) is about to embark on constructing Airline City, a 10-year project that will cost well over a billion dollars. The centrepiece will be the airline's own university. Imagine the feeding frenzy of bureaucrats, lawyers and environmentalists if a project like this were proposed in Australia. Which is why nothing like this is envisaged in Australia.

Yes, it's got nothing to do with economic realities or practical business models, it's just the lawyers and the greenies getting in the road.

You couldn't pick a better pimp and spiv to write a puff piece for and about the Chinese, and the glories of their burgeoning aviation industry. Really.

And then there's this capper as Sheehan marvels at the expansion of Guangzhou's new airport:

...Sydney Airport is responding to the growth challenge with one hand tied behind its back, wrapped in red tape.

Uh huh. Offered the chance to respond to the challenge of growth in the sector, what does Sheehan conjure? A chance for Sydney to build a second airport, perhaps even a second city? A grand new solution, a veritable Opera House for planes that will be the marvel of the civilised world?

Nope. Get rid of a little red tape. Stick with what we've got. Roll back the curfew hours. That'll fix it.

If it wasn't such a structural tragedy, it would be comedy gold. No wonder Australia's fucked.

Sheehan as a junketing business reporter? How Fairfax has fallen on hard times.

Never mind, I'm sure Sheehan and Bazza O'Farrell can get together and sort out everything.

At a time when some stories are doing the rounds complaining about London's 'ridiculous' new airport - 80 km from the city, Bazza's grand vision is for Sydney's next airport to be based in Canberra - 236 km by air, and 287 km by road. That's not ridiculous, that's downright hysterical. And all Sheehan's got to offer, up against his visions of China rampant, is blather about red tape.

It's the vision of a gnat.

Maybe it's time for the pond to pack up and head for China ... or Mars ... or at least go boldly where gnats don't hold down newspaper column inches ...

(Below: the muddle-headed wombat dreams of Canberra).

Adam and Eve and the "theory" of evolution and all that jazz ...

(Above: click to enlarge. A dash of Robert Crumb's version of Genesis to set the Sunday mood).

Let's change the pace a little.

Oh sure it's great news that Cardinal George Pell thinks he's a stout-hearted republican, as well as a fiscal conservative ready to teach Italians a thing or two (but sssh, not a word, not a whisper about the Vatican scandal will you find in Italy (Part Two)).

And it's equally exciting to see that Phillip Jensen has come out fighting with his take down of Barry Jones in Even Barry Jones Gets it Wrong.

According to Jensen, the hapless Bazza got the details of the High Court decision regarding the school chaplain program completely wrong, and Jensen isn't having any of it.

As usual, according to Jensen, the democratic majority of Christians are being denied their right to persecute gays and women, and to teach their superstitions in the classroom, while being handsomely funded by the taxpayer to make it so.

Oh those agitated angry Anglicans, once again with their exemplary Christian thought and scholarship marginalised.

It turns out that Jensen is very keen on confrontation:

It requires a great love for other people to confront them about their lives. (The Two-Pronged Strategy of a Master Evangelist).

Or a good deal of insolence.

But while the Sydney Anglican site offers some tasty tidbits, is it enough?

Oh sure Kara Martin offers up a nicely luddite Susan Greenfieldian warning about digital technology, and the harmful threats it contains in Old wisdom for a new world. If that Satanic computer or social media calls to you, repent:

Distractions: try and single task, and be truly present with whom you are with. In a search for constant connection, remember the wisdom of having God as your primary connection through prayer and the Bible.

Yep, there's nothing like a goat herder's textbook to ward off the dangers of bits and bytes:

Information as idol: focus on knowledge and wisdom ahead of data and information, and spend more time thinking about fewer things.
Truth and authority: question truth by consensus or crowdsource, and look at sources of truth, for a better authority.

Indeed. And since we were reading all this on the Sydney Anglican website, it was time to hie away in search of truth from better authorities.

Come on down, Republicans of Kentucky, and sock it to us about the teaching of evolution. Thank you Senator David Givens, Republican, Greensburg:

"I think we are very committed to being able to take Kentucky students and put them on a report card beside students across the nation," Givens said. "We're simply saying to the ACT people we don't want what is a theory to be taught as a fact in such a way it may damage students' ability to do critical thinking."

A perfect exemplar of critical thinking. (And the very thing the Anglican website warned us about).

Fancy an unkempt scientific theory damaging students' ability to do critical thinking! As opposed, to say, reading the Old Testament to learn about the wicked ways of a wrathful god.

Credit here to Linda B. Blackford for her story for the Lexington Herald-Leader, which turned up in the Kansas City Star under the header Kentucky's GOP lawmaker question standards for teaching evolution in schools.

Amongst other juicy quotes, this one from Rep Ben Waide, Republican Madisonville, caught the eye:

"The theory of evolution is a theory, and essentially the theory of evolution is not science — Darwin made it up," Waide said. "My objection is they should ensure whatever scientific material is being put forth as a standard should at least stand up to scientific method. Under the most rudimentary, basic scientific examination, the theory of evolution has never stood up to scientific scrutiny."

The contradiction has always puzzled the pond, and here it's all the more poignant.

The United States has been a powerhouse of science and scientific achievements. That's how they've managed to put Curiosity on Mars, and yet at the same time, they have political representatives who can only be described in Jethro Tull's album title's words as being as thick as a brick.

The pond hasn't gone on about the rover, if only because everyone else has, but it's de rigeur to drop in every now and then at the NASA site to check up on the latest pictures and activities (as you can do here).

Meanwhile hapless educationists in Kentucky are caught up in a political bunfight about the meaning of "theory" as used to describe a scientific theory, as in say, the theory of gravity.

Here's Hart County school superintendent Ricky Line contributing to the confusion:

"When it says evolution as if there is no other option, then over time our students are going to assume that is the only option when there are other options out there," Line said.

Uh huh. Like Adam and Eve and the dinosaurs being cast out of the garden of eden, and the dinosaurs being disallowed a lifeline on Noah's Ark.

It's fun to joke about it, and even after the Scopes trial, the sensible parts of the United States came back to deliver more epic science, so maybe it won't have a lasting impact.

At worst, all it means is that students in Kentucky won't have much to offer the United States science program in the next little while if the politicians have their way ...

Which perversely brings us back to Michael Jensen, as we await with bated breath his final chapter in his epic seven sins of Sydney, and his contribution in Preaching Theological Anthropology:

Michael, do you believe that Adam was a real, historical person?
Michael Jensen 17 October 2011 10:41pm:
In short, yes ...

Oh dear, click your heels Dorothy and you could end up in Kansas.

What on earth could he have meant? Even your average Catholic theologian is these days prepared to accept Genesis as a nice fairytale, a metaphor, a mythology, more elevated than Santa Claus but in the same vein. Even arguing that the real became myth doesn't make any sense, in much the same way as it's impossible to take too seriously the role that Romulus and Remus play in Rome's foundation myth.

Amazingly there's even a website designed to prevent Sydney Anglicans from deviating from a literalist reading of the old testament into, depending on your view, dangerous heresy, or at long last a feeble grasp of reality. (here it is exposing Michael Jensen as a naughty liberal wolf in conservative clothing).

Of course it's important for evangelical Sydney Anglicans to believe in a real Adam, because that's the reason women have to take second place on the great theological stage.

Here's Mark Thompson in Sydney Anglicans 111. Complementarian ministry trotting out Paul writing to Timothy one more time:

Let a women learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbirth—if she continues in faith and love and holiness, with self-control. (1 Tim. 2:11–15)

Good luck Mr. Jones, scribbling away in Stupidity is on the rise in our age of enlightenment.

It turns out that what you said regarding the school chaplain program was almost an aside, just one vexing issue amongst many, but naturally Phillip Jensen, being profoundly tribal, took it as an attack on his turf, and more importantly on maintaining taxpayer funding for religious schools.

Funny, or at least ironic, that you should have mentioned the tribal mind in your diatribe Mr. Jones ...

The pond also must take issue with you, or at least your header. It's a vexing argument as to whether stupidity is on the rise, or is at the same extraordinary level it's always been at since biblical days.

One thing's for sure. It'll be a long time before Sydney makes any decent contribution to the Mars program, at least if the Anglicans have any chance to maintain their rage about a decent, Adam-formed Christian education ...

(Below: the Kentucky creationist v. Darwin story spread a little further afield, turning up at Huffington Post here, where they appended some slides of creationist monkeys pondering life's biggest questions, and in other sites always willing to pay attention to wacky, zany fundamentalists, such as the Daily Kos, here).

Oh dear sweet absent lord, it's Brendan O'Neill on about the nanny state for the squillionth time ... in an organ of the nanny state ...

(Above: do you really need a link? Do you? Wouldn't you rather be hit around the head with a baseball bat? Oh okay, if you must, here he is bashing away at The Drum, thanks to the Australian taxpayer and the Australian government, and don't you worry about that, O'Neill just loves the public teat to suck on and rant about. He probably can't believe his luck, seeing as how there's lots at home that just treat him like a tosser and keep him fenced in at Spiked).

Here's a libertarian thought bubble for you. Brendan O'Neill is now so predictable, reading his rants is a complete waste of time. He churns his quasi-libertarian muck out like a threshing machine on steroids, or a chook laying eggs while trapped in a cage.

That's the sort of thing that leads chooks to attack their neighbours or attempt self-harm. Quick, de-beaking is the only humane thing to do ...

What's even more offensive is the way the ABC puts him near the top of the mast to provoke the troops.

So instead of reading and responding to the wretch - as the cardigan wearers do in squirrel-like droves - why not have fun with him, devising as many variations as you like - perhaps 33, in honour of the number Beethoven managed with Diabelli's theme. Let's start the ball rolling:

The Government's campaign to put seat belts into cars is petty authoritarianism mashed together with an anti-fun driving outlook.

The Government's campaign to take asbestos out of Chinese-manufactured cars is petty authoritarianism mashed together with an an anti-asbestos outlook.

The Government's campaign to make people drive on the left hand side of the ride is petty left-wing authoritarianism mashed together with an anti-American right hand side of the road outlook.

The Government's campaign to make sure seafood doesn't contain too much mercury is petty authoritarianism mashed together with an anti-battery outlook.

The Government's campaign to insist that zebra crossings be obeyed is petty authoritarianism mashed together with an anti-lion outlook.

And so on.

O'Neill must be exceptionally pleased after a hard day's typing, facilitating the supplier of addictive poisons to the masses. Well somebody's got to work out ways to kill off the lumpenproletariat, and what better way than to shill and pimp for the suppliers of tobacco?

It'd be mean to wish that he enjoys an old age replete with lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease, stroke and sundry other diseases that addictive carcinogenic tobacco can induce in people as they troop off to overflowing hospitals, but since that's what he seems to think is a good thing for others, why not for him? Or maybe he can just sit and watch a loved one die a painful death?

Or do an Ayn Rand and go on welfare because those medical bills just keep adding up. All the while muttering about how his right to kill himself has been seriously infringed by plain packaging ...

O'Neill's rhetoric is now so predictable it produces rich comedy, as when he cranks into adjectival over-drive:

This snobbish, disdainful view comes straight from the anti-globalisation movement of the 1990s and 2000s.

Oh yes, it's an international conspiracy, which naturally involves achingly elitist sentiments.

What's more, O'Neill has the cheek to cherry-pick a quote from Karl Marx as a way of proposing that advertising is a civilising moment. Yep, Karl Marx gives a flying fuck about advertising, consumerism, branding, and tobacco companies. He was an addicted chain-smoker and there's a fair chance that cigarettes contributed to his wretched stateless death.

O'Neill's deploying of Marx in support of cigarette brands, Nike and the like is such a stupendous abuse of process that he should be banned from The Drum forthwith, but fat chance of that, not so long as he can soak up Australian taxpayer dollars while moaning about the nanny state.

All right, that's the comedy out of the way, today comes the news that Tsar Putin - a real throwback to Ivan the Terrible and head of a nanny state terrified of hooliganism - has presided over the persecution of Pussy Riot with world-wide coverage and mockery arising therefrom(no doubt aided by the band's irresistible name).

Why doesn't O'Neill spend a little more time having a go at the wayward children of Marx? Suddenly a little demo in a church is worth two years in a Russian slammer?

And then comes the news - well it's hardly news, so much as yet another confirmation - that the United States has indeed been conducting its own Star Chamber into Julian Assange for a year or more, and the quivering, craven Australian government has known about it, and dissembled and fudged about it. (US in pursuit of Assange, cables reveal).

The pond is looking forward to a letter from its local member "Albo" Albanese, requesting help in the approaching federal election.

The pond guarantees to provide as much help as the federal government has provided to Assange - please note lifting the little finger will come at an extra cost. The pond proposes to meet Albo in the lounge of the brand new second Sydney airport to hand over the dosh to help in his campaign ... somewhere around 2050 perhaps.

What else? Well The Australian continues its exclusive efforts to dig up the dirt in relation to Julia Gillard and her then partner and her job at Slater & Gordon. The feral tories really won't give it up until the witch is dead and buried, and they'll leave no vile trick or stone unturned to achieve it.

And wouldn't you know it, the Murdoch press has already begun its series of bleeding heart stories about the suffering of refugees, on the principal that you can attack any policy coming and going.

The first whiff the pond caught of this was the tabloid Terror's shock horror story Manus Island detention centre run-down, termite-infested, and today The Australian continues the hand-wringing by putting at the top of the digital edition New offshore processing regime bars appeal on asylum. (paywall afflicted).

Yep, by the time Tony Abbott ascends to the throne, the press will have guaranteed itself an endless supply of stories about genuine refugees sewing their lips shut, rioting and otherwise drawing attention to their suffering.

As for the virtues of the much touted Pacific solution? Of the total 1637 "unauthorised arrivals" detained in the Nauru and Manus facilities September 2001 - February 2008, some 1,153 (70 per cent) were found to be refugees and ultimately resettled to Australia or other countries (as you can read here in the sedate prose of an aph report in pdf form).

With odds like that, what's the chance you might still decide to flee war-torn Afghanistan, a country fucked over for a decade by Australia, amongst others. That brings to mind an old Tom Tomorrow cartoon:

When Tony Abbott keeps talking about a return to the Howard years, has he any vestigial memory of the diabolical mess arising from the hardliner policies the Howard government pursued?

Not really. All Abbott cares about is power, and the lust for power, as perfect an example of the corruption of mind and soul as has been since that casebook study of Gollum and his precious ring.

Perhaps the most revealing phrase of all in relation to Abbott in recent times is the homophobic tinge to his line:

''You would well remember—and your colleagues should be aware—that the only codicil that you put on that was: 'I will do anything, Tony, to get this job; the only thing I wouldn't do is sell my arse.','' Mr Windsor told the parliament. (here).

Why sell your arse when you can sell your soul?

Not to worry, it's Saturday. Why not settle back with a Karl Marx cigar instead, but don't expect any help from Brendan O'Neill if the smoking leads to a little illness. Why not weigh down the public hospital system instead?

So many geese, so much cackling; so many chooks, and so many tainted eggs ...

(Below: did Karl score any royalties for his very own brand? In his and your dreams ...)

From an Assange to a Grech in a single leap and a paranoid bound ...

(Above: good old Steve Bell strikes again for The Guardian. Find him and other cartoons here).

The chattering classes are having a field day today in the matter of Assange, and the pond feels inclined to join in the chatter.

After all, it's not every day we get reminded of the colonial instincts deeply embedded in the British psyche, and last given a decent outing when the filthy Argies were taught a lesson by Maggie.

Now this neo-colonial outing has treated the world to the sight of the British flourishing a big stick. Well played Britain, keep those presumptuous Latin Americans in check, and what a pity the whole of South America was turned into a playground for Spain and Portugal in the early days. Where's Sir Francis Drake when he's needed ...

And it's not every day we're treated to the strange sight of plucky little Ecuador - with its dodgy track record - accusing Australia of not caring about its citizens or human rights. And dammit, what's even worse is that the Ecuadoreans are right, seeing as we now have Julia Gillard in full blown, party-trick John Howard impersonation.

Was it so long ago that Gillard and Robert "the Goose" McClelland were accusing Assange, without caution or evidence or care, of criminal acts?

And then there's the strange matter of Nick Clegg and the vanishing progessive. The pond has a few Lib Dem friends in the UK, but lordy how they've gone silent. Perhaps it's the teasing by the pond, or perhaps they realise that at the next election the Lib Dems are going to crash and burn in a way that makes the Democrats' obliteration at the ballot box seem like a carefully calculated retreat.

Naturally everybody is worried about the outcome, what with the United States, Sweden and Great Britain all seemingly incapable of making a few guarantees, which would seem extraordinarily easy if the matter was as discussed, a relatively minor matter even in the world of Sweden's strange laws in relation to sex.

And yet the guarantees stick in the craw and people wonder why Assange is paranoid.

Now that it's clear that there's no hope of civilised behaviour and reasonable negotiation, the pond has an easy solution.

It should be simple for the United States to send in a drone and take out the Ecuador embassy. That'd teach those uppity Latin Americans a lesson, and Assange along with them. Oh sure there'd be a little diplomatic fuss, but really Britain wants the building back, and it would be a perfect spot for redevelopment in the heart of London.

And would it be any more of a diplomatic fuss than the full-blown one cultivated by the British foreign office with their intemperate colonial ways?

Yes, the pond had the pleasure of watching the Ecuadorean foreign minister lather himself up last night live on 24, and what fun it was.

Almost as much fun as watching the unctuous doofus Bob Carr drone on while washing his hands of the matter. Much like Australia will wash itself of the Labor government at the next election, and many of its base won't lift a finger to stop it happening ...

As for Britain, when even that top twit Jeremy Clarkson thinks it's a nation of complete and utter bastards, how long before David Cameron is rolled? ('A nation of bastards': Jeremy Clarkson hits out after Twitter abuse over dead dog).

But enough of the idle chatter, because today produces another truly wondrous sight. Yep Godwin Grech has returned from where ever he was, broken his silence, and produced this tremendous column, Abbott PM and G-G Howard will restore the golden days.

The pond had to pinch the cheek for fear that it had lapsed into a midsummer night's dream, or even worse into a Woody Allen variant on the play.

At first it seemed like a cunning ploy to destroy Malcolm Turnbull. Oh wait it is:

Malcolm Turnbull will continue to be the target of faux love from the Left as attempts are made to destabilise the Coalition. The simple truth, however, is that Turnbull's days as leader of the Liberal Party are over. The reasons for his leadership failure are well documented, even if some elements have been deliberately exaggerated to disguise various flaws.

Uh huh. Yes, and whatever we do, let's not mention Utegate.

Even more strange, Grech starts off his outing by berating the Rudd-Gillard government for the way Australian governance since November 2007. This from a one-time public servant who during the infamous days of the Utegate and email affair that brought down Turnbull displayed not the first clue about governance or propriety.

Now it's easy to understand why Fairfax published this opinion piece from Godwin Grech. After all, if you had a communication reviving memories of Watergate from a player in the game of course you'd give it a trot.

And nobody reads The Spectator Australia - well no one who wants to retain their brain cells and a shred of decency - so a little recycling would indeed bring the piece to a wider audience.

It's win-win, especially when you could give your readers a chortler like this closing par:

The truly competent apolitical public service professionals will hang on thanks to ability and reputation. As for the others, irrespective of competence, they could be seen for what they are.

The truly competent apolitical public service professionals!? Sorry, it's the sheer brazen audacity that's wonderful and remarkable, and so bears repetition ...

And then there's this vision of the future:

At a time of profound structural change, a nation which neglects any of its top-line leadership prospects is failing its people. In September 2013, Quentin Bryce's term as governor-general is due to end. By any objective measure, Howard would make a first-class head of state who would be warmly embraced by Buckingham Palace. He would perfectly complement Tony Abbott, providing Australians with a world-class leadership team.

By any objective measure?

Grech somehow has access to an objective measure?

John Howard as G-G? Oh yes, it's yet another sublime example of the way truly competent apolitical public service professionals can have a grand vision, a way forward, for a truly competent apolitical public figurehead.

I know, I know, by the end of it all the pond suspected it was a hoax, a leg pull, a harmless prank that led to a reflexive desire to check the calendar and confirm it wasn't April 1.

But then a deeper suspicion formed in the pond's mind, perhaps inspired by spending too much time thinking in an Assange way about the world.

Was Grech still an undercover agent for Malcolm Turnbull, working to undermine Tony Abbott by floating richly nutty ideas like Howard for G-G that would bring out moderates and republicans in droves.

Was it a triple double agent ploy and play, a kind of Bourne legacy gone wild? Would his column provide comfort to big Mal, attract even more supporters to the man who would be king, lurking patiently in the background waiting his chance for a stumble. Like Abbott appointing John Howard as G-G, following Grech's advice ...

No, no, there was one last legpull which hinted at gravitas:

Godwin Grech spent 20 years serving successive Labor and Coalition governments in both Treasury and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. This is an edited version of an article in The Spectator Australia.

Not a mention of Utegate! Talk about an edited version!

Hosannah, Grech has risen and been washed clean, and is now a respected political commentator after a long stint unselfishly serving Labor and Coalition governments in a tirelessly apolitical professional way.

And the Americans thought only they could manage this sort of trick, as they did with the likes of Oliver North in the Iran-Contra affair.

Fair dibs guys, whatever you can do, we can do down under ...

(Below: ah the good old days, and more Nicholson here).