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Image from insidestory.org.au (Photo by Mick Tsikas/AAP) "Facts sometimes are contentious aren’t they? What you might think is right somebody else might think is completely untrue & that’s part of living in a Democratic Country" A neat four years ago Antique Barbie and Trump flunky Kellyanne Conway set the tone for a post-truth Trumpworld when she defended the tangerine tyrant's ludicrous claims of an outsized inauguration crowd by invoking the Orwellian notion of "alternative facts". * Fast forward from Trump's Year Zero to when the seditionists and rioters obeyed the command of the despotic, half-sucked mango seed by attempting to literally torch American democracy, aided and abetted from within by treasonous, mercenary GOP urgers and spivs. All the result of four years of accumulated alternative facts and "fake news" gaslighting. Across the Trump years tens of millions of willing dupes, oiks, the useful idiotista, Qrackpots, slope-shouldered racists and stool samplers wallowed in a steady effluvium of post-truth ordure that megaphoned Trump's self-aggrandising lies and whiney grievance mongering. But, the introductory quote at the start of this rant is not from some Trump vassal pissing out of the tent, it is not an artefact from crazy town nor is it from the toxic bile factory that trades as the Dirty Digger's Fox News. It is Australia's acting Prime Minister Mickey The Dip McCormack speaking mere days after an attempted coup that was fueled by "contentious facts". Apart from its timing the context of the quote is two-fold. Firstly, Mickey has an intellect that would not challenge foliage. He's as thick as a coal miner's sandwich yet he's apparently the best and brightest the National Party has to offer - i.e. the least worst option. Secondly, he was defending the Trumpist effluent of two of the most egregious examples of the far right dross that has infected our own politics - specifically the swivel-eyed, Pete Evans-level Covid quackery from failed furniture salesman Fatty Carbuncle and, by extension, the trumpetings of Gorgeous George the Manila back street trawler and blubbertigibbet. The BMI of these two globular nongs is such that they affect weather patterns, but that is not particularly germaine other than that these self-proclaimed champions of free speech should not have any problem with the deployment of a gratuitous sledge, yeah? The hypocrisy and idiocies of their flatulent gibberings have, following Trump's attempted democrocide, received wide exposure and deserved ridicule but the bigger picture is the refusal of their respective masters to either call them to heel or penalise their Trumpian fanboy distortion of pandemic science and their anti-democratic blatherings and what that says about the mindset of the Tory side of our politics. Trumpism is a dangerous psychosis but both Scooter Morrison and Mickey Mac have now acknowledged by default that it has a home in the L/NP. As the Tories go about their routine tasks of shovelling public money and assets to themselves and their cronies their ideological slide to the loony right has developed a distinctly orange tinge. When Josh Freudenberg and Call Me Dave Sharma, two prominent Jewish Tory MPs, one an ostensible Prime Minister-in-waiting, the other an ex-Ambassador to Israel, jump aboard the anti-Twitter "free speech" ruse that propogates Nazi rhetoric and promotes Proud Boys' fascist merch then something is deeply, deeply awry. Scooter himself, interrupting his holidaying lifestyle to spend a few days attending to photo ops, has pointedly refused to criticise Trump in any way. Perhaps that's down to Trump's bestowal upon him of the Legion of Merit - the Right does so appreciate shiny baubles, ostentatious trophies and grandiose titles. The absurdity of a cowardly draft dodger gifting a militarty honour to a bloke whose first instinct is to flee from a crisis is lost on Scooter of course. Coming from Trump that medal merely symbolises Morrison's membership of the cult of the citrus clunge. From birtherism to The Big Lie ("the election was rigged") Trump has long signalled his character. His betrayal of America is not new despite which Scooter has gone beyond the protocols of relationships between national leaders. His embrace of Trumpism was always enthusiastic, unquestioning and compliant with Trump's groteseque adulteration of accepted norms and institutions. As one example Scooter, champion of the economy-first neo-lib mindset, jeopardised Australia's economic interests on the altar of Trumpism by leading with his chin at the orange one's urging to openly and loudly insult China. Two deluded non-entities shouting at clouds from the backbench should be an amusing sideshow, after all the Tory goat rodeo had Abbott and Joyce in the two top jobs for a time. But Carbuncle and Gorgeous G are symptoms not abberations. With one notable exception**, and Morrison's dissembling weasel words aside, no Tory MP has condemned the radical right insurrection in the US last week. Across the board the self-proclaimed champions of free speech hypocritically loathe any free speech that is not their own. They always have. Scrutiny, questioning, dissent, alternative views, truth...they don't like it. Parliament, journalists, unions, the ABC, judges, scientists, academics, environmentalists, public servants, the arts, whistleblowers, safe schools, you and me...we're all existing or potential targets for their mendacity. RWNJ opinion is now the news. The Tories all watched Trump, they all liked what they saw. All the little lies are useful and The Big Lie almost worked. What most citizens of Oz are not watching is our own Trumpist, post-truth creep to far right shitfuckery and that suits the Tories just fine. *“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” George Orwell. 1984. ** Matt Keane, NSW Minister For The Environment

Thank you Twitter Old fried dough stick (老油条 Lao Youtiao) is an amusingly accurate sobriquet that China state TV aimed at he who the French might label with the similar floury metaphor of douche baguette if they were to care about his existence at all. Roughly translated Lao Youtiao means a lazy manipulator, someone insincere, who's two-faced, hates doing real work but has been around long enough to know all the tricks of how to take credit for others' work and deflect any blame. That definition immediately identifies China TV's target because it so perfectly describes the twice-failed travel agent who is now our shirker in chief. There's an ironic edge to this most excellent sledge given it originated from within the thought control machinery of an increasingly antagonistic, testy Chinese Communist Party. No attempt at stereotypical Oriental inscrutability here - it was a Sichuanese Phuk Yu take-away. Extra chili. In an inversion of Eastern nuance vs Western bluntness the Betoota Advocate coined the more artful, inspired "Scotty From Marketing". It's so essentially Scott Morrison that, like Barnaby The Beetrooter in a rooms-by-the-hour motel, it rooted and propagated, spreading to become his default designation. The issue to hand though is confusion over whether the Tory product is being fronted by Scotty From Marketing as chief spruiker or whether Scotty sees himself as the product. The give-away is his tragic, try-hard self-branding as ScoMo® - as pathetic as it is derisory yet it's signed under Prime Ministerial letterhead, it's a byline on his social media and it's a widely wielded PR brand. The lumpen yob even offered up this facile diminutive to a bewildered Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga when he turned up uninvited in Tokyo for an all-expenses paid photo-op. Scotty From Marketing's motive is clear - he's selling himself. He is the product. At some point in his career trajectory of always failing upwards it must've dawned upon Morrison that at best he's an acquired taste - like tripe & onions or getting used to the smell of cat's piss on the cushions. Some personal brand management was obviously required otherwise gulling the dupes and the complacent into imagining he's the likable bloke from next door is a curious focus for an arrogant egoist with a messiah complex and an over-dose of misplaced self-confidence. Perhaps he possesses a smidgen of self-awareness - a hidden memory from his days as a child actor who people found less distasteful when he pretended to be someone else? But the real Scott Morrison is not hard to find if you're paying attention (Hawaii December 2019 excepted). Unlike his predecessor Harold Holt the real Scott Morrison regularly bobs to the surface. The real Scott Morrison is the shadowy minister for immigration who questioned the decision to allow the relatives of 48 drowned asylum seekers to attend their funerals and who then immediately sought to race bait by capitalising on concerns about Muslim integration. The real Scott Morrison is the architect of the illegal $1.2 billion guilty-til-proven-innocent Robodebt disaster, the purposeful design of which was to persecute and demonise all those dependent upon the social welfare safety net. The real Scott Morrsion was rubbed in all of our faces when he disappeared on a de-camping holiday to Waikiki as large swathes of Australia was consumed by fires - the spiv who told his office to deny his whereabouts and when called-out staged photo-ops and forced himself on burnt-out victims and exhausted firies. ` Morrison is the shit who hit the fan. The waft from a turd like Morrison is not easily disguised. It takes the efforts of a North Korean-level propaganda machine (24/7 personal photographer inc.) to put lipstick on the dipstick, to develop a Trump-lite cult of personality when the personality has all the appeal of Jeffrey Dahmer's toothbrush, a shiver whose physical manifestation is a wide-hipped, slope-shouldered, man-boobed smirking arsehole. Yet they seem to have managed it. How does this beer chugging, crotch-stained galoot, this shonky grifter and chancer manage to get a 66% approval rating as Prime Minister? The gullibility, short attention spans and short memories of the patsies and marks are manna from Scotty's miraculous heaven. A catalogue of templated, market-tested personas is put through the spin cycle of blokey schmaltz - curries, cubbies, chook pens, exercise bikes, inflatable sharks, trouserless scrolling of his latest Instagram posts, pointer at maps, wearer of high viz, smirking twat in a hard hat - it's a scroll & click cornucopia of pre-fab personalities. Which one do you like madam? It should surprise no-one if this habitual photo-bomber should produce a Christmas picture calendar of his greatest curries, a collector set of ScoMo action figures, a Scotty board game or jigsaw puzzle. The great pretender gets away with this schtick because, unlike with Harold Holt, people don't bother looking too hard.

Are we there yet? Have we reached rock bottom? The L/NP coagulation's purpose is, and always has been, to function as the primary mechanism for their corporate chums to shovel public money into their private hands - supplemented with a shoot-it-or-chop-it-down nod & wink to the squatocracy and the Kickatinalong kulaks to lock in the bumpkin vote. Image from Twitter There was a time when, as conservatives, the Tories believed in compliance with conventions and standards; when their born-to-rule beliefs at least included some sense of noblesse oblige, when rabid right-wing fuckwittery was hidden in the attic of their port and cigars old boy's fraternities. That time was way back when a New Guard proto-fascist Francis De Groot1 got arrested and charged for being a cunt whereas his present day facsimile, Herr Kipfler Spud-Dutton, gets handed the reins to the nation's spooks, goon squads and thought police and who, in a fully functional democracy would be as welcome as a loose stool in a preschool ball pit. This is progress? The 1975 overthrow of Gough Whitlam kicked the legs out from under Australia's progressivism and showed the lengths that Tories are willing to go to when they lose control of the Treasury benches. But in the aftermath of the dark days of Kerr's coup Malcolm Fraser as PM at least showed glimpses of humanity with his sympathy for refugees and his antipathy to apartheid. The fetid stench that settled over the Lying Nasty Party was from the beetle-browed goblin John Howard's shrivelled arse hitting the big, green Parliamentary swivel chair. His operating style was meanness and trickery, divide-and-conquor was his modus operandi and FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) was his tool of trade. He was the architect of Workchoices Macht Frei - the manifesto of his mendacity and duplicity in one nasty, divisive Newspeak package. It could not get any worse. Except it did. Enter the living proof of the invalidity of the Peter Principle. The Peter Principle is an observation that the tendency in most organizational hierarchies, such as that of a corporation, is for every employee to rise in the hierarchy through promotion until they reach a level of respective incompetence. If all of the village idiots in all of the world gathered together in the one village they would elect Tony Abbott as their icon of idiocy. He's an ideas-free zone who through happenstance rose far beyond his level of incompetence. He would be mentally challenged in the role of porn theatre bucket boy, he could capture all of his thoughts on an Etch-A-Sketch and his rudimentary planning capacity had him thinking that tactics are a minty breath freshener. He's a void that could suck the vacuum from empty space. With the face of a carp wrapped in cling film, his tongue flicking like a lizard trying to lick its own eyeballs he'd invade the personal space of visiting dignitaries while the colour drained from their faces. He'd cackle like marbles being dropped down a drain - somewhat undermining his self-image of a macho man. Covering his manhood in too-small red sluggos made him look like a moulting yowie, his bow-legged, shoulder-rolling affectation not so much butch as "chimpanzee-with-ball-rash". What a fucking disaster he was. The L/NP effluvium was briefly masked with Eau de Swarovski-scented inertia in a leather jacket when the mendacious wrecker Abbott was consigned to the ignominy of the backbench by Malcolm Bligh Turnbull who impressed no-one more so than he impressed himself. He was a man of inaction but at least we were saved from the RWFWs; there was no-one who could be worse than Abbott. Turnbull The Useless's legacy is three-fold. We have a national telecommunications infrastructure that would embarrass Lower Moustachistan. We have a neo-fascist tuber as Minsiter for Home Affairs and we inherited a carnival side-show spruiker and Armageddonist as PM, showing that the impossible is possible - Morrison is even worse than Abbott. Howard to Abbott to Morrison, lower and lower and lower. The mendacity has multiplied, incompetence is rewarded, avoidance of scrutiny is embedded in their governance; Parliament is like a performance of Puppetry Of The Penis - we're watching cocks tie themselves in knots. Public service has been crushed by cronyism and profiteering privateers, authoritarianism is rampant and dodgy practice has devolved into brazen ciminality. It's as bad as it gets. We have an end-of-times Prime Minister, an Armageddonist who wont buy long life milk let alone plan for the nation's future. He no doubt secretly welcomes the Carona virus as both a distraction from the blatant theft of hundreds of millions of our dollars to support his re-election, and as a marketing opportunity to salvage his image from the train-wreck that was his behaviour during the bushfire crisis. It's also a handy excuse for not delivering on his boasted budget surplus. As a Pentacostalist nutter Morrison will believe that the virus, the fires and the drought are his god's will and that he and his righteous brethren will safely ascend to the heavens in a golden, chauffeured, stretched Beemer. His god apparently has no misgivings about larceny on a grand scale, brazen lying or the persecution of the unfortunate - as long as there's no lawn mowing on Sundays. In the words of another ad man - but wait, there's more. Despite Australia's governance being in the hands of a graduate of the Jimmy Swaggart School of Ethics and the deputy PM being a bobbleheaded dullard of such monumental dreariness that his pronouncements have been copyrighted as a sleep apnea therapy it can get even worse. Like crows circling roadkill there's the usual chancers impatiently awaiting their opportunity. There's Christian Porter, an Attorney General who'd re-gift a Scrabble set to a school for dyslexics just so he could enjoy the bickering. There's Smarmy Josh Fraudburger, a pitiable PJK-wannabe who'd take bets on which blind beggar in a wheelchair would make it across the Bradfield Expressway at peak hour. Of course there's also the spectral presence of that excremental, sadistic Erstazgruppenfuhrer, the ambitious head of the Gestapotato, Peter Spud-Dutton. Morrison is an outrageous liar and grifter, but imagine a dystopian future with this odious creature as PM. And then there's that other ever-present miasma, Barking Barmy - aka Englebert Humpastaffer. As coherent as a cement mixer with tourettes who shouts at clouds while dressed as a haybale, who has more kids than teeth and who is a Riverview educated ex-Deputy PM raging against "elites" while trousering $600k for sending some text messages. This delusional cretin's lack of self-awareness tests the parameters of the Dunning-Kruger effect as he continues to harbour dark thoughts about shivving his bobbleheaded boss. A Dutton/Joyce government? With Dutton and Joyce the Tories can indeed sink even lower than the fetid depths that they have already plumbed. Let's not forget some of Spud's and Joyce's appalling cheersquads who would be rewarded with further perks, rorts and influence. Matt King Coal Canavan's perpetually pained expression could be constipation - an ongoing struggle to release an immovable chocolate hostage, however it's more likely a symptom of his frustration at his inability to monetise sunshine and wind for familial benefit as he has with coal. 2 The rotund Georgie Porgy Christenson has reportedly been trying to get into shape. Spherical apparently. His running machine has a remote control, he attends a drive-through gym, he puts mayonaisse on his diet pills, he supports his local sugar industry via Krispy Kreme but Georgie has threatened to work up the effort to cross the floor. He's just waiting for Harvey Weinstein's zimmer frame to appear on eBay. Abbott loyalist Otto Abetz is so inflexible and leans so far to the right he could double as a sun-dial's gnomon. The possibility of a suitable position in Spud's Gestapotato (brown jacket included) could rekindle mein onkle-like ambition in Otto's withered loins. Kriminaldirektor Deportations perhaps. With a voice like fingernails down a chalkboard, dunking stool passenger Michaelia Carcrash's palatability is limited and her loyalty is as suspect as a scoutmaster's lollybag - just ask Malcolm Turnbull. Well practiced in the duplicitous arts as she is she's comfortable in her current role as Minister For Employee Exploitation but likely could be tempted by a more rortable portfolio. Carcrash's contribution to the sisterhood is in proving that a woman can be just as contemptible as any man. Her red high heels are not feminist symbols, they are simply to stop her nasty from dragging along the pavement. Cheap shots aside, what's my point? The L/NP has provided easy targets for loathing and derision since Howard's time. Their only innovation is in exploring new ways to exploit most of us for the benefit of the few. They are feudalists, Randesque survival-of-the-richest oligarchs, environmental rapists, autocrats and religious fringe dwellers. They are manifestly incompetent, they are liars and grifters. But as abominable as they are the Tories have proven time and again they can go lower still. They are now indulging in brazen criminality. They should be in prison not in government. Get angry, stay angry. If we let them they will continue to sink lower and lower. 1 Francis De Groot biography 2 Matt Canavan's family coal connections

Cartoon courtesy of Alan Moir. Subscribe at moir.com.au Senator Mathias Pubert Cormann has chucked his car keys into the trifle and announced his pending retirement from politics after 7 continuous years of rogering the country as Grand Fubar of Finance. Pubert's track record includes doubling all debt accumulated by all governments since 1854, while "through the past six years of the global recovery Australia has tumbled from near the top of OECD rankings to among the losers on unemployment, underemployment, wages growth, productivity, income per person, median wealth, retail sales, infrastructure development, interest rates and the value of the Aussie dollar." Michael West Media Apart from innumeracy Cormann's other skill is said to be that of Senate looney-whisperer - surrendering any pretence of ethics by horse-trading with broomstick pilot Pauline Hanson and her strap-on Malcolm The Dwarf Tosser Roberts. Despite, or perhaps because of his appalling record, his shifty deals and his Hayekian world view Pubert is held in high regard by the Tories which says much about the lack of principles and depth of talent in the Liberal Party wading pool. The net result is that Cormann's departure is a plus for the country and it has animated the pundits with speculation on a reshuffle. It has been conjectured that Spud Dutton, Pubert's best bro and his co-conspirator in the shivving of Truffles Turnbull, is to be removed from despot depot at Home Affairs and its beloved ranks of dark-uniformed goons and door-breakers and shunted to Defence. The prospect of Aldo Fitler being handed the keys to the ADF barracks, munitions stores and troop carriers is a nightmare of Trumpian proportions. Yet those in the know suggest that the Defence portfolio is a departure lounge for pollies on the outer, and Spud is not one of Smirko's favourite people. "Scott didn’t trust Dutton at all and regarded him as deficient in all respects – character, intellect and political nous.” Malcolm Turnbull - A Bigger Picture. The sentiments are apparently reciprocated - “Of course, if Mathias had a poor opinion of Scott, Dutton’s dislike of him was even stronger.” Also from Malcolm's book, Spud's the type who'd buy his kids a 15 year old cat for Christmas so he wouldn't have to go to the trouble of abandoning it by Easter, his personality attracts cadaver dogs from afar and he picked up his inter-personal skills at an abbatoir.Agreeing with any of Spud's opinions is a bit like enjoying the same picnic spots as Ivan Milat. However, Spud's dislike of Smirko is rational, if lacking in self-awarness. They both revel in the mistreatment of the 2 Biloela kiddies locked away in the Kinderlager on Christmas Island and the demonsing of minorities. They're both authoritarian bullies and cowards who hate scrutiny and accountability. Their mutual loathing is understandable; it's as if each sees his own reflection in the other and seeks to deny the reality of their own awfulness by projecting it onto the other. The departure of Cormann and possible sidelining of Dutton in a reshuffle would be welcome news should there be any capable, principled alternatives to take their places - keeping in mind that the Reprehensibles rule in the squalid kakocracy of Tory politics. Where in the L/NP effluvium are the curious minds, the talented, the ethical or those who see politics as serving the public interests rather than their own? Where are the idealists rather than the ideologues, the creatives vs the creationists, the thinkers not the cultists, dogmatists and evangelicals? Trust in the government is essential to a healthy democracy, it's not just an option where spin is a suitable substitute for truth. In a crisis it is indispensible yet Morrison sees it as a PR opportunity. Cormann may be going and Dutton may be headed for the wood-chipper but we are stuck with the opportunistic Morrison and his fellow cultists, disaster capitalists, grifters and incompetents. * * * * * Tories and pandemics Tim Smith, Tory member for the Victorian state seat of Kew, a man of bovine intellect and the presence of a lasagne thrown from a speeding car has been desperately trying to raise his profile, in true Tory style, by politicising the pandemic. Smith's great-grandfather founded Ferguson's Cakes in 1901. The family sold their shares in the business but Timmy seems to have retained some familial fondness for confectionary - this once dedicated rower's spreading deportment suggests he may have simply served as skiff ballast. During his tenure as MP Dim Tim has overseen two consecutive 5% swings against the Libs in what was a blue-ribbon Tory enclave. While Premier Dan Andrews slogs his guts out and Bill Shorten volunteers his labour on the front lines Albo-style this douchebaguette tweets his bile and hypocrisy and Smirko, again using "Jen and the girls" as human shields takes time out to go to the footy. We have a crisis and Smirko continues to screw Australia. Daggy style.

The Department of Home Affairs is the Australian Government's interior ministry with responsibilities that include emergency management. Emergency management is the organisation and management of the resources and responsibilities for dealing with all humanitarian aspects of emergencies. The Minister for Home Affairs is Peter Dutton. Scotty from Marketing's covert desertion of an incinerating Australia in favour of a sun lounge and mai tais on a Waikiki beach during the bushfire crisis was an inevitable PR disaster, exacerbated by Where's Wally's subsequent behaviour that underlined his couldn't-give-a-fuck attitude and tin-eared incompetence. Other Tory rats abandoning both the burning ship and their responsibilities included Linda Reynolds, yawning donkey impersonator and Minister for Defence, who apparently thought that the beer swilling sousers and yobs found in abundance in Bali would conveniently camouflage her presence. Bloated gourmand and NSW Minister for Emergency Services David Elliot's European holiday le grand repas français was of such monumental imbecility that it's hard to imagine that it was anything other than a calculated distraction from Morrison's own l'storm de merde. John Barilaro, NSW Deputy Premier and member for the now-charcoaled seat of Monaro sought holiday solace in London where a flute of Laurent-Perrier and a poached pear & frangipane tart at Claridges is a snip at £90 per. The good ship Australia was left in the hands of Michael the bobble-headed Whatsisname, a gormless rube of such stupifaction that sheep have been seen falling asleep in his presence; a man who thinks exploding cow pats cause the bush fires that "we've always had" and that any concern is the "ravings of some pure, enlightened and woke capital-city greenies". The 'blame the trees' schtick was taken up by VB sommelier and orthodontics before-shot model Barking Barmy Joyce. The purple pontificator is happy to leave our fate in the hands of the big man in the sky while in the same breath blaming greenies for a lack of hazard reduction. Self-contradiction is a Barking specialty. Various other non-entities, hacks, flying monkeys and gagas have proferred their own obfuscations, distractions and conspiracy theories such as the never-was that is Craig Kelly, a bibulous blob with the physique of a half-deflated dinghy and an intellect that is challenged by crayons and a colouring book. While all this ducking & weaving & finger-pointing was going on there has been one notable absence. Dutton dressed as yam©, the potato-headed Her Kipfler and Minister for Home Affairs never shies away from an opportunity to fear-monger or the possibility of a good progrom or the chance to demonise. There'll be protestors to pepper spray, greenies to arrest, dissent to quash, so, where's Poida? He's supposed to manage emergencies, he should be up the front. Those sounds you hear are the clicking of boot heels, the jubilant clapping of hands and delighted chuckles from a Machiavellian assassin taking pleasure at Scotty From Marketing's travails. You can be certain that Poida From Security has been making a list and checking it twice, he's been honing the cutlery and practising his underarm, he's been sowing discontent amongst the Tory quizzlings and quaverers. The only question is the timing of the great potato strike. (I've got a slab riding on this Poida. Don't let me down.)

Image: The Age, SMH Ain't karma a bitch? Throw in some schadenfreude and last week's politics had me grinning so broadly the top half of my head nearly came off. There is no shortage of spivs, wide boys, porch climbers, till fingerers or doorknob rattlers within the ranks of the proctocracy that forms our current federal government. We could be forgiven for thinking that dodgy behaviour is a precondtion for Tory party candidature given recent experience. Labor is not entirely blameless of course but they at least are now championing a federal integity commission which the "if you've nothing to hide you've nothing to fear" Tories will fight all the way to their "not guilty due to mental incapacity" pleas. There is huge satisfaction to be had as their crime spree starts to unravel and no more so than when one of their heretofore poster boys is staring down the green mile to political oblivion. Black Angus Taylor, windfarm cancer survivor and Minister for Emissions Reduction ("hurr hurr, snerk snerk" - George Orwell. "Well done Angus" - Joseph Goebbels) has modelled the treatment of his portfolio on that of Tony Abbott's NBN template - making sure it achieves the exact opposite of what it's public purpose is purported to be. That badly shaved yowie in red sluggos who was 2 PMs ago set out to maliciously sabotage a technology that underpins national economic well-being and competitiveness. Australia is now ranked at #64 on international comparisons of fixed broadband performance - below countries such as Romania, Thailand, Panama, Moldova, Uruguay and Kosovo whereas for mobile, ignored by the Tory luddites, we rank #4. The better economic managers in action. The clunge of luddites who control the Tory's agenda, led by Fatman and Bobbinhead, that dullard duo of the colossal tossle FauxMo with his rusty sidekick Michael McSomebody, will die in a ditch to replicate the Warringah Wrecker's subversion - ensuring that the environmental and economic advantages of clean energy are not realised and are sacrificed to the loony fringe's steam engine dogma and theistic superstitions. We are in a climate change war and this collection of wilfully ignorant fitwucks are committing treason. And so Black Angus will be protected until the inevitable - plus the Tories want to hang onto their 1 seat majority at any cost. FauxMo has already invoked the Phone A Friend option with a quick nudge, nudge, wink, wink call to Mick Wheeliebins-Fuller the boss copper and FauxMo's ex-neighbour who's ultimately at the pointy end of the Angus probe. No doubt, as has been intimated by the comments of said copper about it being a waste of his resources and having it wound up quickly, there will be more effort expended on weasel words for why there is no case to answer than there will be on any effort to nail the duplicitous prick Taylor (ala the behaviour of those Keystone Cops the AFP, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the L/NP Pty Ltd). But, Black Angus is subject to a further probing over #watergate and #grassgate - the expenditure of $80M of taxpayer money to purchase the rights to non-existant water from big irrigators and the lobbying for the poisoning of endangered native grasslands to benefit Taylor family farming interests. FauxMo will duck and weave, he'll distract and delay, he'll obfuscate and dissemble but the congealed plate scrapings that is Angus Taylor will come to a nasty end. A wonderful irony is that it could be metadata that brings him down. I eagerly await his last words. Also publshied in the Australian Independent Media Network References: Speed Test Global Index - October 2019 Watergate Crew: the regatta of mates behind Australia’s richest water deal - Michaelwest.com.au The green green #grassgate of home: Angus Taylor’s latest scandal explained - thebigsmoke.com.au The Angus Taylor story: from the Liberals' golden boy to a man on the edge The Guardian

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." Hanlon's razor. As we enter year 7 of the biggest fustercluck in our political history the ongoing, mind-numbing incompetence of this "government" may lead some to overlook the malignant mendacity and grift that is archetypical of our Tory kakocracy. Hanlon's razor may be valid in many contexts including the ballot box behaviour of about half of the voting public but it does not apply to the malicious L/NP nightmare itself. The primary, defining characteristic of a Tory is avarice. Many of them even reimage their deity to accommodate their greed and selfishness. The party once shaped by an old-fashioned protestant work ethic is now captive to hypocritical religious nutters, of creationists and exit-through-the-gift-shop Mammonites. Hand in glove with their covetous, bespoke piety is their fear and paranoia. Fear of the unknown, fear that science challenges their ooga-booga superstitions and biases, fear that change will threaten the inherent privileges of the status quo, fear that equality jeoparises their rightful place at the top of the pile. Their paranoia is that for them to win others must lose. Where rational people see opportunity in change and equality they see only danger. They fear anyone with alternative opinions or agendas, they fear those with facts and figures. They fear dissent, they fear Labor, the Greens and greenies, unions, investigative journalism, whistleblowers, GetUp, Extinction Rebellion, knitting nannas, Lock The Gate, school kids, Greta Thunberg, the ABC, the CSIRO, an apolitical public service, the BoM, NASA, social media, moderates, lefties and anyone not like them. They fear you and me. Their fear manifests itself in their attacks on scrutiny, their autocracy, their bullying, their constant lying and misrepresentations, their abuse of trusted institutions and conventions, and in their protection rackets for their fellow-travelling carpet baggers, corporate grifters and thieves. But above all, what they fear is being found out. What they want is "quiet Australians" - the uninterested, unquestioning, complacent sheep who'll keep them in power. Unfortunately for them the signs of a ruined environment and its consequences are becoming too obvious for all but the morons to ignore. This is THE issue that will remove these malicious, corrupt cretins from power. Unfortunately for us, until that happens, irrevokable damage will be caused to the planet and to democracy. It's up to the noisy Australians to make sure the Tory's worst fears are realised and that collectively they all shit their pants one last time. Also published by the Australian Independent Media Network.

Perhaps there's cause for some optimism when a newer generation of Tories is ready to take over the reins. The current crop of self-serving, fossilised inertia occupying the front benches of an exhausted, clueless government can't last forever and some fresh faces and new ideas on the conservative side can't hurt. Can it? Well, imagine a room full of Young Libs - a bunch of Tristans and Felicias discussing their stock portfolios and au pairs over canapes and Moet in the Grand Reception Hall of the Friedrich von Hayek Memorial College For Tiresome Tory Twats. I'd rather have my teeth filed by a cack-handed proctologist than be within a bull's roar of them. The young fogies, hoorah henries, wannabe Gordon Gekkos, rugger buggers, offspring of the squatocracy and vapid socialites in Burberry cardigans, all with the ability to bore for Australia. This is the future of the LNP? The private schools and churches provide a gene pool of stick-up-their-arse born to rule sociopathic elites, parasites and feudalists with a cloistered life experience centred around wealth and privilege, many of whom have attended the IPA masonic lodge of archaic Milton Friedman capitalist dogma. These are the LNP annointed ones - the future "leaders" whose vision is formed through a rearview mirror not a windscreen. The world is burdened with young fogies. Old men with ossified minds are easily dealt with. But men who look young, act young and everlastingly harp on the fact that they are young, but who nevertheless think and act with a degree of caution that would be excessive in their grandfathers, are the curse of the world. Their very conservatism is secondhand, and they don't know what they are conserving. Robertson Davies. Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor The neo-cons have at least challenged that gendered descripton from Davies with a slew of female fogies ready to join Sophie Mirabella, Bronwyn Bishop, Michaelia Cash, Sussan Ley and Melissa Price in the sisterhood's hall of horrors. The prayer circle of L-platers pissing on our biscuits includes some well known and some more obscure personalities: Josh Friedenberg, touted as a future PM, the chubby Joshie is on a mission to prove that he can fuck an economy more comprehensively than his predecessor Sloppy Joe Hockey. Joshie's the type to buy a frame and then look for a picture to fit. Matt Canavan. If Gautam Adani's dick is freshly free of coal dust then you'll know that young Matteo has just paid him a visit. Tim Wilson. Freedom Boy is a fan of deploying watercannons to dispel dissent. When Timbo talks freedom he means his, not yours. Andrew Hastie. Hands up for Hastie - now there's an idea for a bumper sticker. David Littleproud. Evidence that nominative determinism is really a thing. Gladys Liu whose racism offset her gender handicap in the eyes of the Tory pre-selectors. My personal favourites however are these shockers: Amanda Stoker, another fully credentialed del-con crazy having qualified at batshit level on the Personality Defects Honour Roll at the Ayn Rand School For The Irredeemabley Obnoxious. A typically hypocritical look-at-me-I'm-a-Christian this reincarnated Maggie Thatcher is from the LNP religious nut cluster Anglican branch, Old Testament division. Mandy's victims of choice are the poorly paid - poorly paid means paid too much according to Mandy to whom gruel and a stale crust is sufficient recompense for 12 hours spent at the workhouse forges. James Paterson, the face that invites a slap. The Germans have a suitable term for it - backpfeifengesicht. He's Spanky The Tadpole playing adult dress ups. It's very easy to imagine a lederhosened James with an Aryan Youth Of The Year rosette pinned proudly to his pigeon chest selling inflatable Peter Dutton sex dolls from a trestle in front of his mum's house - any money raised to be used for a new night of the long knives putsch to rid the Tories of any remaining bed-wetters. Unfortunatley for little James he's only allowed plastic cutlery and he still needs his own matress protectors but once he's graduated from toast soldiers and water pistols this odious little munt will be touting the economic advantages of slave labour and invading New Zealand. I had expected Georgina Downer's plummy-vowelled daddy, Alexander Curly Downer, to be found trouserless one day hanged by his fishnets beneath a London bridge with a feather duster up his clacker, pasties over his nipples and his tackle taped to his thigh. Tory toffs have a penchant for accessorised auto-erotic asphyxiation and they don't come toffier than Curly, but alas, it did not come to pass. Curly's spawn Georgie bears an unfortunate close resemblance to her pallid, purse-lipped, pinch-faced pater. She is continuing the Downer dynasty (emphasis on the 'nasty') familial disdain for the hoi polloi having a fixed snoot of sour condescention with her nose in the air and a sense of six-fingered entitlement that would embarrass a bishop - none of which will deter this free-marketeer from seeking to get her pampered arse onto the public payroll. She could however improve her prospects by wearing her stockings over her head to disguise her trademark look of a goblin licking piss from a nettle1. Bridget McKenzie is a gun nut and deputy leader of the Frackers and Miners Party who may one day fill the deputy PM shoes once occupied by the Barmy Barny Joyce . Barmy's not proven to be the leafiest shrub in the hot-house, misinterpreting biblical references to "thy rod and thy staff" for instance but he has added colour to politics. Purple. That vivid, puce ponce pops up on our screens on a regular basis as the Purple One pontificates on the issue du jour but his ludicrous delivery lacks cred - this man thinks gravitas is what stops the sheep from floating away. Back to Bridget - like the good and faithful Nat that she is she has consistently voted against any and all action to address climate change. And also in line with her party's practice she's quite adept at spending tax payers' money in her own interests whether it's $500,000 to move offices, $20,000 for a private plane to attend a hockey game or $74,000 for touring the mini-bars in hotel rooms across the country. Bridget has a bright future in the Frackers. * * * * * These are the would-be architects of our future. Impressed by their own self-importance and imagining themselves as Winston Churchills or as jet-setting oligarchs surveying their extensive property portfolios from an RAAF VIP aircraft these stultifying, gormless dullards only get creative when it comes to diverting public monies to themselves, their families and their mates. Continued exploitation of the environment, erosion of rights, secrecy, inequality, rampant authoritarianism, avoidance of scrutiny, shifting public assets to private mates and their peculiar brand of publicly subsidised capitalism - it will all continue as the Tories shift further and further to a fully blown kleptocracy under the Tory Youth Brigade unobstructed by a timid and cowed Labor Party. We are fucked. 1 Adapted from a great sledge by Malcolm Tucker, The Thick Of It, BBC TV. Fun reading for young fogies Cory Bernardi, impresario: fostering the new generation of young fogies - Jason Wilson, The Guardian 17 March 2016 Young Fogies - The Washington Post. Hilarious put-downs of the breed. Australia Shocked By Video Of Young Liberals Carrying On Like Entitled Little Fucks - The Betoota Advocate

Australia likes to think of itself as punching above its weight, particularly in the sporting realm. Hence, the tortured metaphor of this sledge. There's plenty of international competition for the top of the medal count for outstanding achievement in cuntedness so how does our own contingent of awfulness stack up against the might of Team USA led by a ludicrous, tangerine blowhard and Team UK who's grooming a dishevelled, bloated smurf as their Chef de Mission? The cheer squad Firstly, our team's support crew needs to be acknowledged. We wouldn't be as competitive without the toadies, leg-humpers and bag-carriers in the media and on the parliamentary backbenches who have put so much effort into bolstering those hucksters and bag snatchers who have a legit claim to a place on the podium. Paul Kelly. Editor at large and point man for the e.coli orchestra of News Corpse bloviators - Bolt, Devine, Albrechtesen et al without whom the Lying Nasty Party could not have fielded a full team. Alan Gloria Jones. An over-stayer in London public facilities whose impending damnation to lakes of eternal fire has not quietened his flatulent blatherings in support of bigots and homophobes. Alan will be available to assist in the dressing sheds. The prolapsed palindrome Erik Otto Abetz, a Tasmanian Uriah Heep whose descent into irrelevance has not yet taken full effect. Craig Barge Arse Kelly, a resident of the $1Shop discount bin. With speaking notes provided to him in crayon and monosyllables and with free sausage rolls to hand Barge Arse's ruddy-faced, sideline cheering for neo-con dogma will remain enthusiastically incoherent. While boosting a dodgy Indian mining billionaire as a Little Aussie Battler, Matt King Coal Canavan still found time to push his own mother under a bus when his lack of compliance with paperwork came under scrutiny. That level of committed nastiness requires acknowledgement. Gorgeous George Christensen whose study of the demographics of shady Filipino neighbourhoods has contributed to the cultural exchange with our northern neighbour. Gorgeous George's ten pin shaped presence on the back-bench bleachers provides an incentive for the A Team, reminding them of the talent available should they drop their game. The Standbys Mathias Corman. Turned out like a pox doctor's clerk the smarmy but dapper Vibble Vobble would enjoy nothing more than taxing the discount lunch vouchers at a home for orphaned waifs. Barnaby Barnyard Juice Joyce. The slowest tadpole pulled a Bradbury when barmy Barnyard was conceived. With his purple majesty zippered back into his trousers for the time being Barny thinks he's match fit but he lacks the required intellect to go about milking a portfolio for personal profit without being noticed. BJ is likely to remain on the sidelines for a while yet. Black Angus Taylor (the "g" is silent). A rampaging free-marketeer nevertheless with a knack for attracting government grants. Black Angus has a fondness for the public coin underwriting his commercial endeavours2. The Ginger Whinger, so dense that time stands still in her presence, Pauline Hanson's control of her mental faculties is a tad looser than that exercised over her self-interests. The A team Someone has peed in our gene pool. George Pell. Self-righteous, elitist kiddy-fiddler and felon who, deservedly, has a reach-around from Bubba awaiting his assignment of a cell buddy. This most egregious of shoe scrapings is held to be a fine man by two Liberal Party ex-PMs - one their exalted role model, the other their best ever Leader Of The Opposition. Nothing more need be said about the standards and ethos of the Lying Nasties. Israel Falau. Supplementing his millions with donations diverted from sick kids, Falau is a fellow traveller of the prosperity-gospelling hypocrites camouflaging their greed and selfishness with customised godliness. Spud-Dutton. A limited repertoire from Spud, but he's reliable with his set piece of "murderous, raping refugees". His deadpan delivery flatfoots the opposition every time. Mike Pezzulo. Head goon at the Despot Depot, no one can pen a threatening letter to an elected member of parliament in lyrical prose quite like our very own swarthy bard1. Pezzulo is a putsch in search of a beer hall. Rupert Murdoch. Evil incarnate, a hobgoblin with a face like a melted wellie. This risible, two-legged, flange-headed, dead-souled sinkhole of all things decent has the fetid stench of his putrefaction poisoning everything within its waft. It's no coincidence that the two English speaking countries that are outside his malevolent reach, NZ and Canada, are now the only two with a sense of decency in their governments. Rupert Murdoch! Gold! Gold for Australia! He may have American citizenship but the Dirty Digger is one of ours. This is the team you barracked for Australia; you pay the price of admission. I'm going out the back to hide in the shed. 1Pezzulo's prosaic prose to Senator Steele-John. Source: twitter 2 The luck of the Taylors - Ronni Salt on Twitter Angus Taylor is on a mission - AIMN

There's something compelling about well crafted horror movies. Sphincter-puckering, goose-bumping vicarious titillation is to be had in anticipating the grisly misfortune awaiting gormless innocents; where the evil can reach out from the screen and figuratively touch us. But we know, really, that we're safe. We are, aren't we? Demonic deeds, grotesque protagonists, macabre netherworlds of satanic malignancy, the supernatural, spooks and psychopaths, freaks and monsters challenging our complacent sense of normality;it all gives a rush of adrenaline with no physical risk involved. The occasional heart palpitation excepted. Good old-fashioned ghost stories (The Others), occult classics (The Omen, Rosemary's Baby) through to the dark humour of Bad Boy Bubby and the believability of crime/horror fusions such as Wolf Creek and Silence Of The Lambs drag the audience in as passive extras enthralled by the certainty of horrors that are to come. There's a sense of relief as the lights come up and the credits roll, but we tragics can't wait for the next shock and horror production. And so we have LNP III. LNP III Part 3 of the LNP franchise was not expected to make it into production. It was saved by a huge injection of cash from a dodgy investor with the expectation that he'll recoup his money from the merchandising. A promotional campaign copied from the US studio's successful marketing of BLOTUS - Revenge Of The Blobulous Mango ensured LNP III's release. LNP III is a confused melange. Part horror, part farce, part black comedy its absurdist style is somewhat reminiscent of Mel Brookes's Young Frankenstein but with a far more malevolent cast of characters and with a broad-sweeping menace. Missing from the latest in the series are two main villains - Tony Clown-shoes Abbott previously cast as The Wrecker in a bow-legged tribute to Heath Ledger's performance as The Joker in The Dark Knight and Peta Credlin in her thinly-disguised reprise of Cruella DeVil. The suggestion of sexual tension between these two was too much even for the hardest of stomachs and a likely contributory cause to their absence from the current cast. The part of Igor is again filled by the vastly over-rated Barmy Juice, an idiot savant (just without the savant bit) whose stuttering delivery of ad-lib gibberish has seen his role downplayed in the new fillum. Juice's delivery is too cartoonish to be taken seriously even in a horror-comedy as far-fetched as this one. To replace the diminished Igor as a plot device the sterotypical evil scientist is introduced. Doctor LeNumbers is played by Well Done Angus Taylor, windfarm cancer survivor and vexatious litigant whose acting skills have been refined by pretending that up is down and black is white. The lead role is carried over from LNP II - ScumMo The Clown (Scooter Morrison - best known for previous starring efforts in The Knifing Of Michael Towke and Where The Bloody Hell Did He Come From?). The whole plot of LNP III evolves from ScumMo and his morphing from hectoring hardman and torturer of children to daggy dad to practitioner of witchcraft and the occult at the close of LNP II. There were distinct allusions to Rosemary's Baby through miraculous conceptions and appeals to a prosperity-dispensing supernatural force to reward his deference with riches and power - perhaps the most credible and most chilling part of that production and one that is built on for III. Peter Spud-Dutton delivers a masterful rendition of evil incarnate, carrying over his nightmarishly effective role as J Edgar Tuber, fiendish head of a private police force, the Gestapotato, tasked with rounding up dissenters and feeding them to his Gulags. The scene of him laughing maniacally while machine-gunning drowning children was perhaps a bit of over-reach - Spud-Dutton, for all his mastery of evil menace, cannot convincingly carry off laughter. SPOILER ALERT. The plot for LNP III is a rehash of parts I and II. A cartel of evil capitalists rape and pillage the planet, the economy tanks, ScumMo and his cherubic mini-me Joshy Friednburnt are shanked in the ribs by Tuber's minions, Tuber assumes control with closing scenes of black-uniformed goon squads goose-stepping down Canberra's Northborn Avenue to the sound of blaring trumpets and flapping banners. A lone, hairy figure in a red g-string cycles slowly into the sunset through the thick smoke from a burning planet. While the Cohen brothers would love the black comedy in LNP III, and George Miller would appreciate the Mad Maxian dystopia, the audience is being taken for a ride. LNP III is disturbing rubbish and will likely not complete its run. But thank the gods it's fictional. . J Edgar Tuber - from FDoTM, Guardian Australia * * * * * No time for wusses After six years of calamitous Tory incompetence and nastiness and following their campaign of lies and misinformation, there is no way I will accept this current claque as legitimate. Feline Metathesiophobia. Congratulations Australia! You cowering clowder of fraidy cats have capitulated in the face of a blatant fear campaign and negative, deceitful sloganeering. Horror Movie - Skyhooks, 1975 Watched a horror movie, right there on my TV Horror movie, right there on my TV Horror movie, right there on my TV Shockin' me right out of my brain Shockin' me right out of my brain You think it's just a movie on a silver screen And they're all actors and fake old scenes Maybe you don't care who's gonna lose or win Listen to this and I'll tell you somethin' It's a horror movie, right there on my TV Horror movie, right there on my TV Horror movie, and it's blown a fuse Horror movie, it's the six-thirty news Horror movie, it's the six-thirty news The public's waitin' For the killin' and the hatin' Switch on the station, oh yeah They do a lotta sellin' Between the firin' and the yellin' And you believe in what they're tellin', oh yeah It's a horror movie right there on my TV Horror movie right there on my TV Horror movie and it's blown a fuse Horror movie, it's the six-thirty news Horror movie, it's the six-thirty news And it's shockin' me right outta my brain

"I like fighting Tories, that's what I do." Anthony Albanese 2012. In response to the electorate's recent vote to continue drinking from the toilet the Tories have smugly rolled out the clichés - we should respect the umpire's decision, they have a mandate and the people have spoken. Bollocks to that! I will invoke the words of a great man, spoken after he was overthrown by a born-to-rule conspiracy - "maintain your rage." After more than two decades of Tory torpor Gough Whitlam was enthusiastically elected to implement a progressive agenda, the execution of which may have been flawed in some respects but which nevertheless transformed Australia into a far more equitable society - one that was anathema to the Randesque ideologues in the Liberal (sic) Party and their fellow travellers. They thought of Whitlam's government as a short-term anomaly to be righted (pun intended) at the first opportunity. 44 years later and after six years of calamitous Tory incompetence and nastiness and following their campaign of lies and misinformation there is no way I will accept this current claque as legitimate and I will not be nice to those who do. “She already told me that she doesn't have to be nice, so why do I? Because my mother raised me right? That's why wolves always win. Because the rest of us mind our manners and get devoured for our efforts.” ― Sheryl J. Anderson, Killer Cocktail To reflect Ms Anderson's sentiments - fuck you FauxMo; and the donkey you rode in on! Many folk complain about the lack of civility in political discourse from the pollies, the pundits and we keyboard peripheral participants. Such folk should recall Tony Abbott during his stint as Leader of the Opposition. Celebrated by the Tories as the most successful ever LotO he slimed into government through his junkyard dog tactics of deceit, negativity, invective, hypocrisy and lies and set the new standard. Shoutyman Morrison enthusiastically embraced that low road. With nothing else to sell our marketing man took Kill Bill on a solo tour. Civility, mannners, respect? Phffft! In contrast Bill Shorten tried the polite and measured approach during the election campaign, resisting the temptation to remind Australians of how that pineapple suppository got where it is. And look how well that magnanimity served him - straight back to Opposition. Politics has always been a dirty game but the Liberal Party under Abbott drafted new rules of engagement - the gutter is their chosen battleground where decorum and decency are entirely superfluous. Negotiating with despots It's not possible to negotiate with nutters or appease bullies, any concession is seen by the autocrats as a weakness to be exploited. Their zero-sum mindset has one winner - and it aint you or me. Appeasement is surrender. It didn't work for Neville Chamberlain and it sure didn't work for Malcolm Turnbull whose obsequience to the chief despot Il Douche Dutton got him a shiv in the ribs. For bullies and tyrants to rule they must exploit fear; ethics and scrutiny are to be eliminated, and if there is one stand-out personification of the creeping evil of neo-fascism it is the potato-headed autocrat Peter Spud-Dutton. An empathy-free zone with all of the charisma of genital warts Spud is the best illustration of why playing nice has no part in our political discourse circa 2019. Herr Kipfler and the potato wedge Spud is the best worst example for why progressives must not be conciliatory nor impersonal. His tools of trade are hate and fear, his tactics are the dog-whistle and the wedge. He has neither the wit nor the subtlety to carry it off unnoticed yet the Opposition decided that timidity was its best option for avoiding his blatant attempts at wedging. They waved through the draconian legislation that now clearly undermines our democracy and freedoms. Dutton, as a result, got an increase in his electoral margin and has returned to his role as poster boy for the elated right-wing nut jobs now shaping the L/NP agenda. (Once that thin veneer of post-election gloss wears off Scotty you best be careful.) A compliant media gets bitten on the arse For six years the L/NP dodged scrutiny with its "look, it's Labor" dissembling and obfuscation - taking their behaviour as an Opposition into Government. A complacent and compliant media went along for the ride giving a free pass to a declining economy, corporate crime, a degraded environment, social disharmony and creeping totalitarianism. The ABC was cowed into submission by constant attacks, becoming a timorous shadow of the once honourable organisation that held governments to account. And in a truly ironic case of misplaced schadenfreude a journalist from the L/NP propaganda machine Newscorpse was raided by the Australian Federal Police Farce - the Gestapo of Spud's private legion of spooks and door-breakers. The indignation of News' L/NP groupies provided a level of grim farce. The goon squad trading as the AFP has all of the credibility of the Keystone Cops. A bought and paid for apparatus of the Lib surveillance state they somehow managed to lose the paperwork when "investigating" Michaelia Carcrash on the AWU raids tip-off. In raiding the ABC and a News journalist they are complying with standard practice - hounding sources of information that embarrass the conservative Government, intimidating potential whistle-blowers and keeping the L/NP free from oversight. Dutton, ex-copper from Queensland, is resurrecting the Bjelke-Petersen-era police state cheered on by the Nasty Party nutters who've slipped through the crazy filter. Bullies are cowards and this platoon of poltroons is scared of accountability. Their incompetence and failures and their lack of courage is supplemented by their conviction that they have a right to rule and no obligation to serve. A compliant and complicit mainstream media has gotten a loud wake-up call. Will they respond or will they hit the snooze button? Will a complacent public shrug this off? I'm betting they will and I will not be polite in calling out those of that kind of my acquaintance, and in less than courteous terms. This is a government for gormless dullards, the tremulous, the authoritarians, the weak of mind and dull of eye, the indifferent and the stupid. It's not my government. Fuck that! * * * * * This rant is also published in the Australian Independent Media Network. Feline Metathesiophobia - We've had six years of a grim regime of cranks, liars, humbugs, religious nutters, bellicose bullies, autocrats and self-interested, dodgy carpet-baggers. The new jihadis - This Coalition is a caliphate comprised of crooks. It's a coagulation of corporate cronies, conmen, charlatans, carpetbaggers, crackpots cutpurses and climate criminals.

In flipping through my playlist the other day I revisited my So Crap They're Good file - a kitsch list of those songs that could by any reasonable assessment be judged as pretty awful yet still having some measure of merit whether it be a catchy riff, a nostalgic reminder of past times, unintentionally hilarious lyrics or simply an outrageous example of "fuck the consequences let's record this shite!" So Crap They're Good covers all genres - it's not the style it's the delivery. They have to be catchy and like 60s Japanese horror movies or a balding man's comb-over they have to raise a condescending yet amused smile. For the full diatribe go to Perfect Sound Forever online music magazine