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Congratulations Australia! You cowering clowder of fraidy cats have capitulated in the face of a blatant fear campaign and negative, deceitful sloganeering from Smirker and his coprolytic Luddites and drongos. Frightened? Now you should be; we face three more years of regressive zealotry, incompetence and appalling behaviour because you voters have endorsed it all as being acceptable. Deplorable! We've had six years of a grim regime of cranks, liars, humbugs, religious nutters, bellicose bullies, autocrats and self-interested, dodgy carpet-baggers. Tumult reigned, idiocy prevailed over logic and reason, sabotage and wrecking substituted for policy vision and yet they were returned to wreak further havoc. WTF Australia? Seriously, WTF? "The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous." Goebbels The Lying Nasty Party implemented a scare campaign for the 2019 election given they could not run on their abysmal track record and are bereft of plans, imagination and ideas. Their intention to play their cherished terrorism card was kyboshed by events in Christchurch - you could read the disappointment on ScoMo's face as he pretended to care about the brownish victims. Ersatzgruppenfuhrer Dutton didn't pretend at all - empathy not being characteristic of psycopaths. So, Kill Bill and the Lib mythology of better economic management was overlaid on Chicken Little panic marketing of lies and distortions on tax. And it worked. Ironically the facile spruiking by Morrison the failed marketing man finally succeeded. No-one ever lost an election by underestimating the intelligence of the general public was FauxMo's effective take on the old H L Mencken aphorism. So what are we in for? The conservatives believe they now have a licence from the electorate to ramp up their beligerance and artiface. Self-satisfied, smug arrogance was on full display as Scotty FauxMo Morrison assembled his grinning claque of second-raters slathering and cheering with relief that their FUD campaign has delivered them three more years in control of the hen house. That salty, yellow trickle-down will be the effluent from the affluent as FauxMo & Co pass more of the tax burden across to those least able to afford it. The Slogan Bogan's "a fair go for those who have a go" is an opaque variation of Sloppy Joe Hockey's "lifters and leaners" and his advice to first home hopefuls to "get a good job that pays good money". What they really mean of course is that they'll look after the wealthy and comfortable at the expense of the undeserving "others". The wealthy bankers have already broken out the Krug and Cubans to celebrate the likely resurrection of $billions in tax breaks and rising share values as self-funded retirees jump aboard the now loudly advertised gravy train of franking credits. "The Bill You Can't Afford"? You bet they can't, you bet you can't. The "poverty is a choice, winner takes all, for some to win others have to lose" mindset of the mammon-worshipping neo-liberals was grafted into the Liberal Party's genes by the mean and tricky government of John The Lying Rodent Howard and nurtured by Abbott the egregious eclesiastic and his supercilious sidekick Hockey. A glimmer of hope in a top hat was brutally extinguished with the political assassination of Malcolm Turnbull as the knuckle-draggers returned to BAU via the connivance of Spud-Dutton and his goon squad whose innumeracy played into the hands of the manufactured guilelessness of FauxMo, their default right-wing saviour. Dr Heckle and Mr Edward 'Shouty' Hyde The hectoring Mr Shouty, disguised as Mr Fair Dinkum Geniality during the election campaign, will return. That condescending, trademark smirk will be on full display as his pea-and-thimble responses to scrutiny get a full workout. Scotty will be answerable to no-one other than his personal, negatively geared, Mercedes-driving Jesus. Shouty's many co-religionists (sans the feral friar from Warringah) have been given licence to reopen the throttle on science-denial, bigotry and dogma. Fear and loathing of "the others" will be encouraged, enthusiastically megaphoned by the Murdoch propaganda machine. The nutters will demand their god-given right to discriminate and stigmatise in the cause of freedom of religion and in service to their homophobic, omnipotent invisible friend in the sky. Cartoon used with the permission of Mark David And, when you have a friend in Jesus you don't want evidence, facts and proofs to interfere with your superstitions. Science is just a belief system to be ignored and denigrated. The planet was gifted to these folk by their deity for them to exploit. Climate emergency, mass extinctions? Phhhht! Our secular democracy has endorsed a creationist - a man with a literal belief in hell, Armageddon and the imminent end of times. Our man in charge thinks it's all going to end soon and that he and his prosperity-gospelling freaky friends will ascend to the heavens while the rest of us burn for eternity. Good call Australia. I wonder whether the brethren of Horizon Church sign up for extended warranties on their new Beemer SUVs. Calling in the favours Clive Palmer did not spend $60million on his campaign thinking he'd pick up a swathe of seats for the UAP. The blobulous Clive spent that dough to further his interests in opening up the Galilee Basin for his coal mine aspirations via tax-payer funded rail and infrastructure. He'll be calling in the L/NP IOU that the coal adulators will enthusiastically pay. The deplorable Matt King Coal Canavan and dodgy Well Done Angus Taylor took to the streets almost immediately to trash the ideological foundations of their free enterprise party by insisting we all underwrite the grifters and shonks like Palmer and Adani to further pollute our planet. The scrotum-headed Rupert Murdoch will expect his flagrant anti-Labor propaganda to be paid for through continuing undermining of the ABC because rampaging free-marketeers hate competition. And the Libs hate scrutiny, seeing any questioning of their dogma or behaviour as some sort of lefty-conspiracy. These are the freaks who voted 2:1 to sell off the ABC at the party’s 2018 annual council. Expect three more years of attacks and undermining of our nation's most trusted institution. * * * * * Pandering to venality, looking the other way on dodgy practices, further privatisation of government to squeeze private profits from essential services, accelerated politicisation and evisceration of the public service, uncontested government contracts handed to mates, stripping assets and outsourcing facilities to opaque Cayman Islands entities, avoidance of scrutiny with a toothless integrity commission, conflicts of interest, in-fighting and backstabbing ... all this and more from a cabal of crooks, short-bus passengers, grifters and poltroons. All of it OK'd by an apathetic/ignorant/selfish/scared public who, despite six years warning, decided this rabble was the safest option. I fucking despair, yet every cloud etc. The village idiot Abbott is gone, defrocked in his Liberal stronghold and providing a glimmer of hope when even the rusted-ons show that they are not prepared to tolerate the climate crazies. The puce goose from New England has been stripped of any authority and is likely now to remain in his rightful place, if not a jail cell, then as a backbench laughing stock. An indigenous Australian has been given ministerial responsibility for aboriginal affairs. Science and the marketplace will by-pass the climate-denial idiocy as renewables continue their inexorable rise in energy generation. The Canavans and Taylors in this government will be sidelined by circumstances. “Unfortunately today there is no carbon price. And unfortunately it is free to emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It doesn’t feel right and it shouldn’t be like that. There needs to be a cost to change people’s behaviour.” BP’s global head of carbon management Gardiner Hill, on the sidelines of the APPEA oil and gas conference, defying calls from Resources Minister Matt Canavan for industry to abandon support for a carbon price. And just as the Coalition government ramps up its efforts to push through the Adani coal mine, and potentially new investments in coal generation, BHP has declared that thermal coal is likely to make a quicker exit than most people expect, and it is getting ready for a decarbonised economy. BHP’s landmark strategy briefing, delivered by CEO Peter Beaven to analysts ... highlights the growing gulf between what individual companies see as the future of renewables and electric vehicles, and the self-interested rhetoric of the business lobbies that represent them and the Coalition government that slavishly adheres to conservative nay-sayers. Renew Economy.com.au Frightened? I'm not frightened, just disgusted and deeply disappointed. You've got three years Australia. Wake up! * * * * * This post is also published on the Australian Independent Media Network. Five aspects of Pentecostalism that shed light on Scott Morrison’s politics - The Conversation The ‘prosperity doctrine’ and neoliberal Jesusing, Scott Morrison-style - The Guardian The myth of Coalition economic management - The Drum, ABC The myth that the Liberals are better economic managers - John Menadue Investigation: Barnaby’s gas bonanza and the pervading influence of the gas lobby - Michael West Scott Morrison, the opportunist. Mungo MacCallum Scott Morrison is not an ‘accidental’ Prime Minister. - Peter Hartcher

The historic Japan of temples and shrines, squeezy backstreets of old-school wooden houses and groomed gardens was the primary attraction supplemented by the idiosyncracies of modern Japan and its unique take on Western cultural influences. Two weeks on Honshu from bullet trains to Buddhist temples - notes, anecdotes and photos by clicking here.

We've seen them on the telly, we've read about the outrages - beligerent, autocratic, intolerant, misogynistic, homophobic, science-denying extremists devoted to a literal interpretation of ancient texts and myths who present an existential threat to our democracy and our environment. They're not hiding in caves on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border, they're not fleeing justice, they're not locked up in Syrian prisons; ladies and gentlemen - the Liberal/National Party and their corporate cronies. I am not drawing a false equivalence here. The Tories don't behead people, they don't throw gays from roof-tops. They're a tad more subtle, but no less despotically inclined and in practice, in a world facing environmental collapse, they are far more dangerous, and the purpose here is to highlight the danger they pose. Historical context Dynasties and empires don't last forever - Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, British, they're all gone. The Arab world's Golden Age lasted 200 - 600 years (depending upon the source) from 825 in Baghdad where scholars from various cultures translated the collected wisdom from their known world into Arabic. That alone saved many classic works of antiquity from being lost. The Golden Age not only collected the knowledge of India, China and ancient Greece but also made significant new contributions to mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, medicine and geography. Fast forward to the contemporary world. Jews, 0.2 percent of the world population, have won a quarter of all Nobel Prizes (180+). Muslims, who are one quarter of the world population have won two in physics and one in chemistry (seven have won the Peace Prize and one for literature). Forty-six Muslim countries combined contribute just 1 percent of the world’s scientific literature. Spain alone translates more books in a single year than the entire Arab world has in the past thousand years. About 65 million adult Arabs are illiterate, two thirds of them women. Investment in research and development in Muslim countries does not exceed 0.5 per cent of gross national product, well below the world average. There is a plethora of additional comparative statistics readily Google-able. There are also many rationales for this turn-around, from the standard facile apologia of "it's all the West's fault" through the Mongol sacking of Baghdad to studies of politics, culture, economics and other factors. "The decline of scientific activity is the rule, not the exception, of civilizations.*" In the late 9th century the anti-rationalist Ash’arite school arose, one of the orthodox schools of theology in Sunni Islam, heralding the decline of Arabic science. “A more medieval mindset emerged, one that de-emphasized curiosity and stressed blind faith. ... Life’s answers were already available in the holy texts; there was no need for further investigation. This outlook hobbled science in the Islamic world for centuries.” Ross Pomeroy, realclearscience.com There's so much material available on this topic it can hurt your brain but the primary riff in this post is the attacks on science in Australia under this L/NP "government" and its possible consequences. I've visited five Muslim countries - Morocco, Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Egypt and marvelled at their antiquities that required enquiring minds for them to be realised; and then wondered at how so little had been achieved since due to the subserviance of free thought to an all-pervasive dogma. Those countries, as fascinating and as hospitable as they are, are not models for us to emulate. Yet, at a time when a man-made object has escaped the heliosphere for the first time, as we explore the universe from distant galaxies to the nature of the sub-atomic particles that it is all composed of we have at our nation's helm a collection of belligerent zealots who not only ignore science but denigrate and sabotage it. They are the jihadis of neo-liberalist dogma de-emphasizing curiosity and stressing blind faith. Their deities are wealth and power and the wealthiest and most powerful are the most deserving and the most pious. Like jihadis they attack, tear down and destroy anything that conflicts with their ideology, pumping out propaganda by NewsCorpse's phone hackers from the dingy basements of Holt St. The c-word This Coalition is a caliphate comprised of crooks. It's a coagulation of corporate cronies, conmen, charlatans, carpetbaggers, crackpots cutpurses and climate criminals. It's also incompetent; a coterie of churls, contrarians, coprolites and cack-handed calamities, cranks and cauponates. And coal is their icon. Inert fossilised carbon that fuelled 18th and 19th century industry, it's a remnant of long-lost verdant forests and a suitable emblem for backwards-looking, clueless environmental vandals. During their current term these jihadis have nobbled scientific enquiry, particularly in regard to climate science, they have criminalised dissent in the public sector and attacked citizen-initiated challengers (GetUp) to their archaic orthodoxy, they have marginalised and divided and kowtowed to its high priests - the masters of corrupted commerce in the banks, media and mining. Australia ranks 50th on international internet performance comparisons - below Thailand (21st), Bulgaria (23rd), Pakistan (36th) and Kenya (43rd). Government expenditure on research and development (GOVERD) decreased from 0.42 per cent of GDP in 1994–95 to 0.21 per cent in 2014– 15. Australia ranks 20th out of 37 OECD+ countries for the relative level of GOVERD (excluding expenditure on R&D tax incentives). This is around the OECD+ average, but well below the average for the top five nations in the OECD+ (0.33 per cent of GDP in 2014–15. Performance Review of the Australian Innovation, Science and Research System 2016 In Maths and Science Australia ranks in the middle of the pack in school results while the Government coddles elite private schools with tax-payer subsidies for orchestra lifts and boat sheds. The OECD Skills Outlook 2017 puts Australia in the bottom 25% of countries in skills in tech, advanced industries and skills to access global value chains. Australia has one of the highest per capita emissions of carbon dioxide in the world. By adding emissions from exported coal to our domestic emissions, Australia's carbon footprint trebles. Opportunities for new industries in renewable energy are foregone while China earns billions from photovoltaic cell technology developed by the UNSW. The UN Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) announces that one million of the planet's eight million species are threatened with extinction by humans, and Morrison responds by pledging to slash "greentape". We are being held hostage to the dig-it-up-and-ship-it-out mentality of a regime with no vision, no ideas. FUD - Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt is their only recourse. They attack innovation while the world passes us by - they celebrate their stupidity by sledging electric vehicles while the world's car manufacturers plan for the phasing out of the internal combustion engine. These utter fuckwits are boosting a model for our country - marooned in stranded technologies, importing fossil fuels at enormous cost because the world demand has ossified; unable to build our own vehicles and unable to import any because no one is making them anymore. This utter nonsense is spruiked by a smirking ad-man with the attention span of a goldfish whose only talent is to talk under wet cement. Replete with flat-earthers, creationists and religious nutters they are just as convinced as any Jihadi that god is on their side - bending a knee each Sunday to robed necromancers swathed in incense or gibbering in tongues at a cash factory trading as a religion they are convinced this planet was gifted to them and their kind to exploit for themselves as their god's annointed ones- pending their gold passes through the pearly gates, and who knows, with awaiting virgins perhaps. Australia in the 21st centry? Visit the Middle East and experience what Australia is in for if these Tory Taliban are not blasted out of the Government benches. "The Coalition will also create a Manufacturing Modernisation Fund that will stimulate at least $160 million worth of business investment in new technologies and processes so manufacturers can grow and employ even more people." Scott Morrison. $180 million. The amount spent by Morrison on a photo stunt at Christmas Island *On the lost Golden Age and the rejection of reason New Atlantis Journal of Technology and Society Arab Human Development Report 2002 - UN Development Programme The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study - Australian Council for Educational Research Why the death of the Liberals’ liberals is bad news for Australia - The New Daily Big Coal's network of influence over the coalition government - Greenpeace 'Missing in action': hunt goes on for Coalition's invisible environment minister - The Guardian Australia

WYSIWYG: What You See Is What You Get. A computer term for editing software that shows on screen what the final output will be. WYSIWYG is not an attribute commonly applied to politicians who rate somewhere below real estate agents and used car salesmen on the authenticity scale. That said there have been some pollies whose personas shone through - Bob Hawke, the silver bodgie who wore his heart on his sleeve; PJ Keating the Bankstown Bovver Boy who'd readily call a spade a fucking shovel; Tony The Wrecker Abbott, wall puncher, uncompromising zero-sum gamer and destroyer whose ideology was a flashing neon-sign pointing back to the 1950s. What about our current accidental PM? Despite his high-profile roles as Immigration Minister thence Treasurer and now PM the polls show that most people don't know him. Which I think suits our twice-sacked ex-ad man - he's shown a propensity for customising an image that suits his agenda at the time, from asylum-denying hardman to self-righteous, hectoring Shoutyman to then applying his self-assigned risible ScoMo nickname (smug smirk included) to the fabricated baseball-capped, beer kneckin', pie gobbin' goofy dad to the public Jesus-praising man of god through to sheep-shearing, tractor-mounting hay tosser. His shape-shifting is more revealing than he knows. He's revealing himself as devious and manipulative. I doubt that Scummo has ever heard of Jean Giraudoux, the French diplomat, dramatist, and novelist but he is most certainly a practitioner of Giraudoux's famous line "the secret of success is sincerity; once you can fake that you've got it made." Avoidance of scrutiny - somewhat ironic given ScumMo's claims to WYSIWYG: "A vote for Labor is a vote for Bill Shorten, a vote for the Liberals is a vote for me" - one of the most disingenuous claims of the campaign seeking to underline an authenticity that is entirely missing - a feint designed to cover the quick change artist that is Scott Morrison. Scotty and the L/NP hate scrutiny and accountability unless it's only applied to the other side - proroguing Parliament, sand-bagging a Royal Commission into the banks, kicking the idea of a federal integrity commission into the long grass, handing out billions without due process or with the taint of corruption (GBRF, HelloWorld, On Water Matters, water buy-backs, refusal to co-operate with the AFP on the AWU's law case, attacks on GetUp, censoring the private opinions of public servants...). A return to power of these secretive schemers will be a green light to further shut down our right to know and encourage further nod-and-wink largesse with their pals because the public has demonstrated a tolerance for it by voting them back. Nobbling of dissent - the creation of a super-Ministry of militarised spooks, enforcers, door-breakers and dark-uniformed goons overseen by a despotic sociopath was a clear indication of the autocratic tendencies of a government that seeks to control rather than to serve its citizens. They see themselves as our born-to-rule masters not our employees. Sheep-shearing goofy dad Scummo can readily transfom back into his real self - a dictatorial, evangelical crusader for his Jesus, the god-favours-the-rich Ayn Rand version. If the Libs are returned we will see further privatisations to dumb-down a non-partisan public service so that they can hand service revenues to fellow-travelling profiteers, thereby by-passing dissent and frightening the remaining decimated public employees into mute, unquestioning obedience. They will continue to load the bureaucracy with partisan hacks who will simply "follow orders" - the traditional frank and fearless advice being entirely dispensible for their purposes. Whistleblowers will be persecuted, ala Witness K, an ex-spy who spilled the beans on ASIS spying on the East Timorese cabinet during negotiations over an oil and gas treaty at the behest of Lord Fishnets Downer. Witness K faces a prosecution where he is not permitted access to the evidence against him, to be be held in secret and where he may not even be able to attend to defend himself. Justice in Australia in the 21st century? This is a government with no reservations about openly sledging school students demonstrating against the refusal to address climate change. They'll happily pick on kids, brown or white, if they dare show defiance to a know-your-place orthodoxy. Returning the L/NP to government endorses their bullying and their deceit and that is exactly how they will read it. * * * * * Avoidance of scrutiny and the quashing of dissent are just two of the issues to be faced in the coming election but they are two that are fundamental to the funtioning of our democracy. Over-egging the omelette you say? Donald Trump i reply. A little over two years ago who would've thought that an orange-tinged, ex-gameshow host, gibbering sex pest and multiple bankrupt could be POTUS and drag the US into hyper-partisan degredation, formalised magnate-toadying and legalised environmental destruction while cosying up to murderous despots, insulting staunch allies and demonising a free press. ScoMo, rightfully derided as Scummo, ProMo, SlowMo but no more aptly than as FauxMo, is the LN/P face of this current campaign. Scummo may be no Trump - but look at his henchmen (very few women) - they more than match the US's GOP in nastiness. Scummo is their representative, figurehead and spokesman. Smirkin' Scotty has been left to do all of the running - fortified by the support of his chosen brand of Jesus, bolstered by hubris, secure in his smug self-regard he's taken up the challenge. But he had little choice regardless. With much of his front-bench exited through the outdoor, two ex-Prime Ministers unsuitable for public display, an intoxicated idiot of an ex-deputy locked in a Tamworth cupboard while his Mogadon-infused replacement is too stupified with inertia and too unchallenged by charisma or imagination to do other than play the role of noddy-in-chief. Kathy Wilcox. SMH But Scotty is a suitable front man and personification of his party. We've had six years of chaos, incompetence, bitter in-fighting, 3 prime ministers, 4 treasurers, a debt double that of the one they so vociferously attacked. Hypocrisy, nastiness, conflict, double standards, devoid of ideas and policies and with a track record lacking any merit they are dependent on slurs and slogans - the party captured in the one person. The real Scotty and the real L/NP will re-appear should they win this election. They will double down, claiming endorsement of all of the nastiness and ramping up the program of shovelling money to mates. The banks will be delighted, the miners will go nuts, the Murdoch propaganda machine's belief in their role as kingmakers will see them calling in further favours - additional defunding of the ABC to be chief amongst them no doubt. The real Scotty tried to deny the families of drowned refugees the opportunity to attend their funerals. The real Scotty tried to formalise the demonising of Muslims as a key Lib strategy. The real Scotty dared not mention the c-word during the campaign but waved a lump of it in parliament. The real Scotty cut the pay of the lowest paid service workers. The real Scotty barracks for the Sharks; and the grifters, carpet baggers, rent-seekers and shonks. The real Scotty turns up to his prosperity-gospelling Horizon church each Sunday secure in the knowledge that his lord favours only those who comply with his own bizarre superstitions. If this bloke is returned at the coming election it will re-inforce his, and the Lib's appalling behaviour, just as Abbott's negativity emboldened the Lib's regressive instincts after 2013. If you vote Liberal at the coming election that means you endorse all of that. WYSIWYG - the camouflage and distractions do not hide Morrison's inherent repugnance nor that of his party. FauxMo - Hypocrite The Twat In A Hat The Worst Band In The World FauxMo Bio

Sculpture Interpretive dance Graphic art Heavy metal Drawing Parkour Ballet Technical drawing Poster art

Are you comfortable with this image? "These grubs are gutless and keyboard warriors in their mother's basement trying to make heroes of themselves." Scott Morrison. Sacked ad man (twice), demoniser of refugees and Muslims, prosperity gospeller (the taxed and the taxed nots, a fair go for those who have a go), and political assassin reinforces his hypocrite credentials - inviting the media into his happy clapper Easter church service and whinging about the subsequent derision across social media. Matthew 6:1 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 6:5.“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” FauxMo bio The Twat In A Hat

Harley Davidson introduced it's Knucklehead engine in 1936 continuing production until just after the end of World War 2 in 1947. The Knucklehead name is derived from the engine design in line with Harley Davidson's tradition of Flatheads, Ironheads, Shovelheads and Panheads, all being descriptive of the evolving style of the respective engines. The internal combustion engine has progressed significantly since the Knucklehead, the design of which would be considered agricultural these days, it being a relic of a time when steam trains were still in use and computers were the size of a large piano. Image: Pinterest Being of the post-war Boomer generation has been a stroke of good fortune. It's been more than growing up with the best music of all time, it's been witnessing some amazing technological advances in half a human lifespan. We've seen Sputnik blink its way across a night sky and watched Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon only 12 years later. Voyager 1 has left the heliosphere after 41 years and passed into inter-stellar space. Pluto has been tranformed from a fuzzy collection of a dozen pixels into crystal clear images of a heart-shaped glacier that’s bigger than Texas, mountains as high as the NZ alps and red snow. Almost 4,000 exoplanets have been discovered and a blackhole has been photographed for the first time. Near real time multi-media communications to any other inhabitant of the planet who is equipped with a small, cheap handheld device is readily available to most for negligible cost. The iPhone 6 performs instructions 120,000,000 times faster than the best Apollo era, car-sized computers that cost $millions. Scientists have cloned sheep and 3D-printed a rabbit's heart. Anyone can stroll down a street in a foreign country in a virtual world captured from space, for easy access from your lounge chair, courtesy of GoogleEarth. For free. Scientists, engineers and geeks have expanded the human realm into places that were scarcely imaginable in 1947. Then we have this - the representative of a government of a 1st world country in 2019: "Australia is a lucky country run by second-rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people's ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise." Donald Horne 1964 Such an observation could be considered kind in light of the hooligans who now infect the government benches 55 years later. This is a 'government' of such willful ignorance, incompetence, delusion and self-serving perfidy that 'third rate' would be a promotion in their ranking. A clear demonstration of the ethics, hypocrisy, regressive idiocy and sheer bastardry of this coagulation of Luddites and saboteurs has been their hysterical reaction to the momentum behind the introduction of electric vehicles. The histrionics displayed by Smirkin' Scott Morrison, backed up by his helmet-haired harpie Michaelia Carcrash in response to the Labor announcement of a target of 50% for electric vehicles (EVs) in new car sales by 2030 vividly demonstrated the mendacity, hypocrisy and blatant deceit of a political party so desperate to cllng to power that no lie is too outrageous, no deception is too blatant. EVs are coming whether they, or we, like it or not. I cannot imagine me ever buying an electically propelled motorcycle. The sound, the smell and the feel of a petrol-engined bike are indispensible parts of their appeal to me. That does not mean however that I cannot accept that the end of the internal combustion engine as an automotive force is in sight. I accept that it is. In the same way that automobiles and motorcycles displaced the horse and buggy EVs will displace petrol and diesel powered vehicles. Electric motors are far more energy efficient than petrol or diesel engines, far less complex and hence easier and cheaper to maintain. No more gearboxes, differentials, cooling or air intake systems, valves, camshafts, crankshafts. No more oil changes, no more airfilters. Braking systems will be under far less stress - turning the power off to an electric motor provides its own retardant force, generating otherwise lost energy back to the vehicle's batteries. And no more driving around with 10s of litres of heavy and highly combustible liquid just behind little Tarquin sitting in the back seat. Battery technology is improving at exponential rates. Look at your Smartphone then look at the first mobile phones. Recharging points will roll-out just as petrol stations did, but at a much faster rate and at far more locations. No more driving to a servo - top up at home, at parking stations, at the kerbside and many other places not yet thought of. There are significant secondary benefits - environmental, social, security and economic. Australia produces some its own crude oil but around 75 per cent of local production is exported and refined overseas and we spend $14.5 billion per year on imported, refined petroluem. We do not have the internationally mandated 90-day stockpile, but between 19 to 24 days. The ongoing closure of Australia’s refineries means we are on track to be 100% reliant on imported petroleum by 2030. In short what we have is a claque of incompetent, dig it up and ship it out, corrupted charlatans claiming to be the go-to-guys for economic management and national security while at the same time they actively undermine both. Facts and figures, evidence and statistics are anathema to a conclave of grifters and flat-earthers who are infested with religious zealots in thrall to the perveyors of medieval dogma while they scorn and undermine science and scientists. Hand-in-glove with their denigration of EVs and what was their very own policy up until it became politically expedient to bag it has been their treatment of two other technologies that are crititical to Australia's environmental, social, security and economic wellbeing - clean energy and the NBN. EVs, clean energy and a 21st century communications network. What would true leaders, thinkers and innovators do with such opportunities? What would clever people do? How would they exploit such technologies for the betterment of our country? Well, the Lying Nasty Party has done exactly the opposite. Their behaviour has not been driven just by negligence, not solely because of ignorance but primarliy due to their allegience and deference to the magnates of a dying newsprint empire and the fossil fuel industries and to their unhinged belief in their right to rule; their internecine malignance over-riding any notion of cooperation or multilateral development of ideas and innovation. They have run interference, they have sabotaged, they have lied and they have cheated. We have had the innate nastiness of a self-confessed technical illiterate actively seeking to destroy the NBN and clean energy, we have seen the denigration of the CSIRO and the BoM, and now we have witnessed the most inane tirade of twisted, tortured humbug yet, using another game-changing technology simply to try to wedge their opponents. This goes beyond an outrage - it borders on the criminal. They actively seek to hold our country back for their own short-term self-interests. They are antagonistic to facts that challenge their antiquated dogma, they are incompetent and they are corrupt. King Canute was demonstrating that he couldn't hold back the tide. Our god-bothering coprolites will try to stop the technological tide but they will be by-passed by the private enterprises they profess to hold so dear, by the clever and innovative amongst us and, if rationality holds up in the electorate, by a significant majority of our fellow ciitizens come election day. They don't lead, they have to be led. Harley-Davidson's Knucklehead is a relic of the past. These people are not so much knuckleheads as knuckledraggers. We need this dated freak show to be consigned to a museum of dusty, historical curiosities. We need them gone. They need to be told - "on ya bike!" Hypocrisy Writ Large How an ethical, clever politician shreds the two-faced troglodytes: The Knuckledraggers angle:Peta Credlin Admitting The Last Seven Years Of Politics Is Based On Total Crap References The Converation. Australia imports almost all of its oil, and there are pitfalls all over the globe Parliament Of Australia. Australia's energy consumption, production, imports and exports I love this reference. Lying Nasty Party accidental Senator Jim Moylan helps the argument against his own party: The ABC. Fact check: Does Australia have 3 weeks of petrol in reserve?

The guilty pleasures of an uncool geezer. Image: https://twitter.com/jamesblunt/status/971503953530667008 If you have to put any effort into being cool then by definition you ain't cool. This claim applies to the anonymous, amorphous hordes of music consumers and fans - you and me. The great artists themselves such as the ageless Bob Dylan need no effort whatsoever, or as with Pink Floyd their inherent creativity simply shone through their heavy production values. (Some others , it could be reasonably argued, were just tragic try-hards. Yoohoo U2! ) The full post can be found at Perfect Sounds Forever: Assault with a Blunt object: The guilty pleasures of an uncool geezer. Other posts with a music theme: Shit List. The worst songs ever 21 songs so crap they were good Funky But Forgotten

Image from Lee Lee Chin for Wentworth FB For two years from May 1987 Tony Fitzgerald QC turned a spotlight and then a fire hose on the corrupt Queensland Country Party regime of Joh Bjelke-Peterson, his henchmen and his blue-uniformed partners in crime. Four ministers were jailed, numerous coppers were convicted and the shop-soiled shyster himself was charged with perjury, narrowly escaping a stretch of porridge. While in office the despotic old bumpkin and grifter cultivated an autocratic political climate of rampant corruption. Queensland became a magnet for white-shod carpet baggers, spivs and urgers. He was so emboldened by a lack of accountability, an outrageous gerrymander and his grand delusion of wide popularity that the Joh For PM freak show was assembled on the bizarre notion that the rest of the country would endorse an authoritarian crime boss as our head of the government. That notion was quickly shot down in the court of public opinion and memory of the whole short-lived absurdity has faded - overtaken by the farce of a newer generation of rustic political pick-pockets re-branded as the National Party. Abraham Lincoln observed that you can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. The National Party has traded on its ability to fool most of the yokels all of the time. So brazenly confident were they of their right to country votes that they embraced as their federal leader another cartoonish oik - the "best retail politician in the country", the priapic, purple-headed member from New England, Barmy Barnaby Joyce, a man who has never let his expansive ignorance interfere with his forming of an opinion. To paraphrase Joseph de Maistre, we get the politicians we deserve. Barmy received 73.63% of the two candidate preferred vote and 64% of the primary vote at the 2017 New England by-election. So New England deserves the Beetrooter - but by default the rest of us then inherited this blathering ignoramus as an MP; an opinionated blowhard who no doubt gets his notions at the same Tamworth servo where he gets his petrol, his Playboy magazines and his dentistry. Surely hillbillies, rubes, yokels, hayseeds and banjo strummers do not make up 73.63% of the population of Tamworth, Armidale and their surrounds. What excuses can New Englanders offer for their enthusiastic support of an all too obvious paperhanger in a risible verandah-brimmed Akubra that remains untroubled by the sweat any any actual labour? But Barmy The Beetrooter's shortcomings extend further than the purile gibberings of a provincial gobshite and comical, cardboard cut-out cow cocky. While Bjelke-Peterson's supplementary income was delivered in brown paper bags such discretion is not Barmy's strong point. His favours are sought via such things as a $40,000 inducement in novelty cheque form presented at a glitzy agricultural event; gleefully received but grudgingly returned after monumental outrage. Beetrooter's disregard for proprieties however is blatantly Bjelke-esque. Whether it's complacency on water theft from a distressed river system and indifference to its consequences, outrageous pork barreling, conflicts of interest or bag-carrying for mining magnates our hero is shameless. The flimflam has been supplemented with spectacular hypocrisy - self-pityingly pleading for privacy on prime time television and from the front pages of newspapers while promoting his book; professing family values while boozing, womanising and shagging one of his staffers. How is it that the straw-chewin' tyre-kickin' pastoralists and country town shopkeepers are so easily duped? Barmy is an entitled, in-it-for-himself, double dealing politician of the type the rustics rush to disparage, yet here they are nodding knowingly at Barmy's facile flatulence over a shout in the front bars of country pubs. Are rural folk simply gormless hayseeds - parochial, uninformed, uninterested? Are they so rusted on to the agrarian socialist party that has sold them out in favour of the big bucks from minng interests that they will continue to line up at the polling booths to piss all over decency, accountability and their own interests? The price for standing up to the Nats in the bush used to be social ostracism and boycotts if you ran a rural business**. The good news is that there are signs that the waft from Barmy and his chums is now reaching boondocks nostrils. Bushies are no longer prepared to accept that the countryside is there to be raped and pillaged for profit, they are (belatedly) acknowledging the reality of anthropomorphic climate change and most country electorates supported marriage equality. The Nats meanwhile, in thrall to donations from the mining industry, maintain their climate denialism, pimp for more coal mines and coal-fuelled power stations, look the other way on water theft and support wide-scale clearing of native vegetation, adhering to their old time ethos of "if it moves shoot it, if it doesn't chop it down". “Water is wealth and a dam is a bank. Any essence of wealth is connected to water and water infrastructure. As they say you can make money out of mud, you can’t make it out of dust.” Barmy Joyce 2016. Since falling from the Nat's top spot because his myopic belief in his own sex appeal was challenged by a Rural Woman of the Year via a sexual harrasment allegation Barmy has spent his time in parliament glowering from the backbenches at Michael McSomebody, his marionette-on-Mogadon replacement and plotting a return, claiming with his signature disregard for reality to be the “elected deputy prime minister of Australia” and declaring he would have no guilt in again seeking the Nat leadership. Barmy instead belongs in Gina Rinehart's Home For Discarded Tory Politicians, polishing apples and running errands. Is it too much to hope that come the election in May the voters of New England will push the button and use some of their remaining water to flush this turd? Also posted on the Australian Independent Media Network More on Barmy The Twat In The Hat Egregious Arseholes - The Top Ten References: Nationals face their biggest threat yet after an annus horribilis - Guardian Australia Barnaby Joyce defies the Senate on 'pork barrel' public service move - SMH Waste of money: Opposition calls for the scrapping of our Barnaby bank - Northern Daily Leader Barnaby Joyce accused of tilting Murray-Darling authority towards irrigators - The Guardian Australia Barnaby Joyce sexual harassment allegation - The Guardian Australia Poor white bloke - Inside Story. Weatherboard and Iron: Politics, the Bush and Me - Barnaby Joyce. Book review The Nationals Barnaby Problem - Independent Australia *"...the confession in his autobiography that he was abusing “alcohol” and “carousing” in Canberra bars... **… the Nationals run New England. If they don’t like you, that is the end of your career or business. Worse than the Masons.’ Barnaby Joyce: Peeling back the rumours - Independent Australia *"A male witness we did locate and speak with did not see any initiating activity, but he did, allegedly, see a young girl in obvious distress at a Canberra pub in 2011. Then he saw an older female allegedly confront Joyce about his actions regarding the girl. And then he allegedly saw Joyce brush this woman off with what he was convinced was a pinch on the backside. "After pub closing time, an allegedly inebriated Joyce, according to our witness, stood outside on the footpath in such a way the women felt intimidated and requested an escort to their cab."

The dark, opaque recesses of Tory politics are infested with trolls, necromancers, leakers, spin doctors, quacks, hacks, lobbyists and dirty tricksters - the shadowy agents of malfeasance nurtured by a culture of guile and deceit. That culture has again been starkly revealed with the release of Kenneth Hayne's report into the criminality of the banks with an implicit condemnation of the protection racket run by their political pals on the right. Kenneth Hayne QC with Tosh Friednburnt and his shit-eating grin. Photo: The Australian The waft of eau-de-colon is particularly strong this time. This dead cat is not one of their planned distractions pulled from their grab bag of dirty tricks. The bought-and-paid-for Libs voted 26 times against the establishment of the Royal Commission ("a populist whinge") and are now damned by their own words. How will they now try to bury this odious moggy? Of the major political parties the practice of the dark arts seems to be most warmly embraced by the Libs (trading as the Liars' Party). Their off-siders, the gormless rubes of the Gnats are perhaps too distracted by rorting and the shagging of staffers, or perhaps they are too yokel for anything more sophisticated than the crudities of pork barrelling and bag-carrying for their mining patrons. Labor is less malignant - their machinations lean more to fratricidal factionalism, lately kept in check, rather than the shameless trickery practised on the public by the Liars. Through repeated application the Lying Nasties' dirty tricks are apparent to all but the wilfully blind, the purposely ignorant and the genetically stupid. Their framework for nastiness was constructed by that beetle-browed, gnomic goblin and Tory icon John The Lying Rodent Howard with the assistance of the master of the dark political arts and turd-for-hire Lynton Crosby. Those two bilkers have departed the immediate scene but their practices live on, embraced by the current slew of spivs. The dog whistle That autocratic automaton Kommandant Klutz, with all the charm and subtlety of a Gestapo interrogation, tried his hand at this favoured technique on his favourite targets - refugees and, fortuitously for him, a push of young dark blokes behaving badly. But Klutzy is not known for possessing any sort of intellect; an idiot savant without the savant bit. His delivery via megaphone and front-end loader lacks the targeted precision of the more experienced practitioner of the dog whistle. Enter FauxMo. Now Scotty's toast ain't buttered all the way to the edge either, his thread doesn't go all the way to the end ... but compared to Klutz he's a master tactician, and no doubt, counselled by more cunning minds he's avoided the temptation to wrap himself in the flag chanting "oi oi oi". His dog whistle to the jingoistic deplorables co-opted our reverence for James Cook with a re-enactment of an historical event that never happened. Nudge nudge wink wink say no more; nice try FauxMo. The wedge A favoured Liar's tactic from the Howard/Crosby arsenal of obfuscation and diversion the wedge has been tried on repeatedly - the futility manifesting itself in confected, bug-eyed outrage from an ever more frustrated Mal Trembles and FauxMo. Labor has not fallen for it - a calm and measured dead bat being played by Bill Shorten, whose po-faced responses as he wiped the Tory spittle form his brow with just the hint of a smile drove the tag team Prime Ministers into increasing levels of red-faced histrionics, hyperbole and hypocrisy. Ironically, a massive self-inflicted wedgie has been applied to the Liars - three volumes of excoriation of the corporate urgers and spivs who make up the natural Tory constituency; the same urgers and spivs that the Liars insisted needed billions of tax-payer dollars whereas a 10 square metre cell and a reach around from Bubba is the appropriate alternative. Fattened pigs This is a charming Crosby concept of constantly feeding the pigs (that's you and me) a particular line of propaganda throughout a term of office. Consistency and focus have not been characteristic of the past six years of dumpster fire governance though. Superior economic management is a Tory myth that they have neglected to trumpet of late - too caught up in internal revenge and treachery; however as they stare into the abyss they have dusted off their favourite lie. Ignoring history, ignoring current circumstances they will cultivate the con. It takes a truly gobsmacking level of chutzpah to receive a forensic, independent damnation of your six years of pandering to the systemic corruption of our financial institutions and then to, not just dodge responsibility, but to blame Labor. A blame-shifting of outrageous arrogance, cowardice, cant, humbug and deceit that is multiplied by their facile, oxymoronic claim to a better command of the economy. These "superior economic managers" substitute superstition for science, they sacrifice facts to their discredited ideological gods, they malignantly sabotage the telecommunicaions and energy infrastructure needed for a 21st century economy, they vandalise our water resources, they ignore the real costs of climate change denial and they engineer a compliant media and public service to avoid scrutiny of their misdeeds and incompetence. They are beyond shame, they are bereft of ideas, they are captive to a tattered Randesque ideology of Fuck You Jack. Yet, unbelievably, they have fooled a lot of the people a lot of the time with the blatant falsehood of their economic talents. Fear mongering and division The betrayal of our national interests is no more starkly illustrated than by the Lying Rodent's embrace of fear mongering and its subsequent enthusiastic deloyment by the swivel-eyed nutters such as Ten Flags Tony, Erstazgruppenfuhrer Spud Dutton, Herr Abetz, FauxMo and his happy-clapping chosen people of Horizon Church et al. Rightwing governments eveywhere love a bogeyman. If there isn't one, they'll invent one. Us vs them, goodies and baddies, lifters and leaners, the taxed and the taxed-nots, the chosen vs the outsiders. "Team Australia - you're either with us or against us". The unemployed and the left behind, unionists (the average unionist is a 45 year old nurse), the indigenous, brownish folk, pinkish folk (gays and their suspicious agendas), greenish folk, progressive types, scientists (scientists for gods' sake!) - anyone not worshipping at the temple of mammon, anyone with community spirit is on their shit list. Nation building is entirely dispensble in the cause of greed and self-interest. If a divided populace and an unfair society serves that cause then it's a price the Lying Nasties are more than willing to pay. Traitors the lot of 'em. * * * * * Dead cat theory is another of the inventions of the devious Lynton Crosby - when found out, throw a dead cat on the table as a distraction. The Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry is a dead cat not of their choosing. They ducked and weaved, they prevaricated, they obfuscated, they tried it all in their futile attempts to head it off. There's ya dead cat Josh - enjoy! Shorten's shadenfreude is ramped up to 11. The LNP Ethics and Integrity Index Egregious arseholes - The Top Ten Independent Australia. Corruption rife within the Liberal Party Canberra Times. Best volume of Hayne report is the one that he didn’t bother to write “A populist whinge.” “I think there is the great risk that if the opposition continues to engage in this recklessness that the only product of that approach could be to undermine confidence in the banking and finance system.” “There is nothing more than crass populism seeking to undermine confidence in the banking and financial system, which is key to jobs and growth in this country” “Politics is doing damage to our banking and financial system, and we are taking control as a government to protect the strength of our banking system through a properly constituted inquiry on these terms of reference, rather than the alternatives present in other commission of inquiry proposals.” "The banking industry royal commission hasn't uncovered bad behaviour that the government didn't know about." "A royal commission “doesn’t do anything other than write a report.” “We have got to stop the banks and our financial services sector being used as a political football.” Scott Morrison, even described the royal commission as “regrettable” – not because of any alleged actions by the banking system but because “politics is doing damage to our banking and financial system” From The Guardian Budget 2014: ASIC's funding cut in move away from financial sector oversight June 2014: APRA boss John Laker tells Joe Hockey don’t undermine bank safety Budget 2018: Funding reduced at corporate regulator ASIC amid banking royal commission revelationsBudget 2018: Funding reduced at corporate regulator ASIC amid banking royal commission revelations May 2018: Former PM Tony Abbott doesn’t regret ASIC funding cut, says regulators appear ‘asleep at the wheel’

Good music never grows old - 10 more fogey favourites. Paul Simon - Graceland Paul Simon and his black South African-inspired Graceland received great acclaim and great opprobrium including accusations of musical colonialism, plagiarism, pandering to apartheid, breaking UN boycotts and earning him top billing on a black radical group's assassination list. Working with black South African musicians during the apartheid era and exposing their talents to a world audience I would think would be a good thing. And cultural appropriation is an invention of the addle-brained, condescending cultural crusaders and SJWs* stepping in uninvited, and being offended on behalf of those they see as needing their help. You have Moroccan-themed bathroom tiles? You're an imperialist exploiter of third-world disadvantage. Musical cultural appropriation is an even more absurd concept. What music stands alone? The Blues influence is evident in many of the greatest music and artists of modern times yet itself sprang from African spirituals, work chants, revivalist hymns, and country dance music. Put me firmly on the side of those who celebrate Graceland - the song and the album. *I exclude anti-apartheid activists from that sledge Rodriguez - I Wonder Apartheid-era South Africa had a different impact on Sixto Rodriguez's music as is captured in the documentary Searching For Sugarman. Ignored in the US, his home country, Rodriguez's two albums Cold Fact (1970) and Coming From Reality (1971) were well received in South Africa, but earlier and enthusiastically in Australia and New Zealand, a cold fact ignored in the otherwise excellent documentary. But that film finally got Rodriguez the wider if belated recognition he deserved. Richard Clapton - I Am An Island Richard Clapton changed his birth name using the last names of two of his heroes Keith Richards and Eric Clapton. His real name is, perhaps, Terry Goh. Clapton is the writer and performer of a string of iconic Aussie hits - Deep Water, Best Years of Our Lives, Goodbye Tiger, Glory Road, Lucky Country, I am An Island, Trust Somebody, Capricorn Dancer and Girls on the Avenue. Girls On The Avenue, likely his most recognisable song, was initially rejected by his record company, later to receive airplay but it became a commercial success through its inclusion on a bargain Explosive Hits compilation. Deep Water was also a money earner via a similar channel - World's Best Ever Beer Drinking Songs which racked up half a million sales. Girls On The Avenue is widely assumed to be about working girls, a myth encouraged by his manager because "sex sells". In reality Clapton penned the song about 3 good sorts who lived nearby on The Avenue in Sydney's Rose Bay. Clapton's got longevity - his most recent release The House Of Orange (2016) is well worth inclusion in your collection. I'll go with I Am An Island as the best of his best. BB King - The Thrill Is Gone In looking to identify a Blues number that is representative of that wide-reaching and most influential of genres I re-listened to my BB King, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and Howlin' Wolf CDs and surfed the Interwebs for so many others. Not an unpleasant task but futile, so I'll just go with this absolute cracker of a rendition of a Blues classic by BB King and Richie Sambora. In memory of B.B. King. Tracey Chapman - Baby Can I Hold You A sublime song of lyrical substance perfectly executed. No more need be said. Boz Scaggs - Harbour Lights Silk Degrees explores the urbane, dapper dimension of coolness. I found a very funny but complimentary review of Silk Degrees here* which serves my purpose of justifying its inclusion. *An extract: "The big moment was "Lowdown", which had the best opening vamp of any Caucasian disco record that year. Much better bass plucking than the Seinfeld theme. It's a very cool, mentholated song, and Scaggs is cooler than Fonzie singing it." Amusing, but Silk Degrees is disco? WTF? JJ Cale - They Call Me The Breeze When J.J. Cale's first album Naturally was released in 1971 it tended to get drowned out on the commercial airwaves by the likes of Rod Stewart, James Taylor, the Stones, Aretha Franklin, Cat Stevens, T.Rex, Daddy Cool and a plethora of new releases filling a void left by The Beatles. But Naturally did get some airplay and it sure got my attention - I went straight out and bought a copy. Cale was not a self-promoter but he gained Eric Clapton as a fan who gave him welcome exposure with his covers of Cale’s best-known songs After Midnight and Cocaine. Naturally's laid-back, bluesy rock stands the test of time. In memory of J.J. Cale Bryan Ferry - Avalon From arty and experimental glam rock ("more complex and not so easy on the ear" - Brian Ferry) to the swansong smooth of Avalon; Brian Eno's pre-Avalon departure from Roxy Music did them no harm, just as Syd Barrett's fade out did PinkFloyd no harm. Eno "a self-described non-musician...advocating a methodology of theory over practice, serendipity over forethought, and texture over craft." Er....riiiight. Eno's and Barrett's genius was their creativity, their benevolence was in buggering off after setting the stage for others' more digestable, polished output. Pink Floyd - Shine on You Crazy Diamond Syd Barrett can inspire music like this but I doubt that he would've been capable of contributing to it. That's a mean-spirited comment but really, does stuff like Barrett's masterpiece/ditty See Emily Play come close to this or any of Pink Floyd's post-Barrett output? Nah. But Barrett's deteriorating mental state, sad as it was, got David Gilmour on board. Cold Chisel - Flame Trees Khe Sanh (released in 1978) was no doubt Cold Chisel's most anthemic hit - reviving memories of the recent Vietnam war with cutting lyrics delivered by Jimmy Barne's trademark gravelly bawl and the song's pulsing beat (OK chill, I've been reading too much Rolling Stone) but it got flogged to death. According to the band’s official website, organist Don Walker’s inspiration for Flame Trees' lyrics was his memories of Grafton where he had lived as a youth. Now I don't want to be pedantic but flame trees, with their bright red flowers, are native to the NSW south coast whereas Grafton is on the north coast and is famous for its purple-flowered jacarandas. Pedantry aside, this is one of Cold Chisel's finest numbers amongst a suite of ballsy ballads. Nifty Fifty Part 1 Shit List. The worst songs ever Kitsch List. 21 songs so crap they were good Old Favourites. Funky but forgotten

There's no need for chicken entrails, tarot cards or cystal balls for domestic political fortunes to be foretold for 2019. The writing is on the wall. That merry band of funsters - the L/NP coagulation of corporate leg humpers and would-be time travellers misrepresenting itself as a government is busily looking for more matches after setting fire to their own hair for 5 long, long years. Retribution is imminent yet they persist with their discredited dogma, dated ideologies and straight-out idiocies. So their behavours as well as their fate are readily predictable. An election is to be held somewhere before May '19. As their desperation becomes even more palpable we will see their tactics become shriller and sillier. Kill Bill will be ramped up to 11 Shouty, spittle-flecked, red-faced invective has been hurled non-stop at Bill Shorten whose un-endearing, wooden persona is a clutching straw for the desperation that has devolved into hysteria from a drowning Tory rabble. The malignancy that was Tony Abbott PM's abbreviated yet destructive term in office had the big guns pointed at Shorten in the cadaverous form of Dyson Heydon QC and his Trade Union Royal Commission. Heydon had prior acquaintence with Abbott and ironically is the author of the opinon that a judge should be"...an independent arbiter..who must possess:… a measure of independence from the wrath of disgruntled governments..." Yet he presided over a Royal Commission established for the blatantly political and maliciously wrathful, disgruntled purposes of an unprincipled junkyard dog in Abbott. Shorten survived unscathed with the hint of a smile but nary a scratch after the Tories, in true conservative style, had spent $80M of other people's money (ours) on a futile vindictive attempt at character assassination. Yet Kill Bill is still all they've got and so they will cling to it. Devoid of imagination, insight or initiative, focused on an entitlement to power and its perks and with only a crude agenda to serve the interests of their avaricious, ammoral banker and miner mates the Libs have lost all credibility. They've been trying and failing to kill BIll for more than five years. Their dirt file is bare, their powder is soggy, their last feather has flown - what could they possibly do further? They'll go full retard on unions generally and the CFMMEU in particular to tar Shorten with the dodgy ex-union boss brush. Expect further union office raids by the AFP, the Lib's private police force and expect anti-union tirades. Perhaps with some assistance from their corporate mates they'll provoke unions into a reaction and then cry foul. Murdoch, SkyNews, Hadley, "Gloria" Jones and that nut Bolt will be swaddled in apoplectic, confected outrage. Avoiding scrutiny, attacking dissent The cowardly wretches have fled challenge by proroguing Parliament; stricken with stupifaction their fear is palpable. They shuttered our democracy - the fetid stench of the gutted chickens wafts from Menzies House. They cannot avoid parliamentary scrutiny entirely with 13 sitting days prior to the budget and subsequent announcement of an election. Hence they will play their gratuitous, dog-eared "it's Labor's fault" card, Morrison will go to full, obnoxious Shouty mode baited by Shorten who will sit back and enjoy the spectacle. They now don't dare bully the independents as is their natural inclination. Those independents (Andrew Wilkie excepted) will be schmoozed and bribed with pork barrels - ones that will never be delivered of course. In those 13 sitting days Labor will look to refer the spud-headed Dutton to the High Court over his eligibility under Section 44. This will be mischevious as they see this incompetent Adolf Kipfler, a chip off the old neo-Nazi block as an asset for their own side; and he'll be shot in the head in the general election anyway. Labor will keep up the heat with the Banks RC fallout and the Lib's protection racket for their filthy rich mates. They will press Morrison's buttons by challenging aspects of his Clayton's Integrity Commission. In the Senate they'll continue to make Michaelia Cash sweat over her deceit and obfuscation on her choreographed union raid. UPDATE: It looks like Car Crash Cash has dodged a bullet - the AFP declining to lay charges. There is little doubt in my mind that an outfit like the AFP is full of rabid right-wingers who'd support the Libs to the point of criminal collaboration. However the AWU is pursuing its legal challenge and Cash is subject to subpoena for that so there's still potential to expose the nasty cow's behaviour. FUD Fear, uncertainty and doubt, a standard political tool but mastered by the conservtives whose speciality is victimisation ("lifters and leaners", "the taxed and the untaxed"). No potential target will be safe from attack - the more marginalised the better. There will be outright attacks on the unemployed, a favourite whipping boy. There will be dog-whistling about refugees and undisguised scare mongering. A staged raid or two, with full media coverage will occur on suspected "terrorists". Any weirdy-beardy who sticks his head up will get the full spotlight. Will they manufacture a terrorist event? It's far-fetched but never under-estimate the level of muck that they'd be prepared descend into. Bogeymen will be invented for retirees' tax-breaks and for house prices - the spectres of Greece and Venezuela will be farcically mentioned ad nauseum as representing our fate should Labor be elected. "But Labor" will become a standard mantra. UPDATE 15/1/19: Mr Potato Head will, as a matter of course, maintain his monotonous mantra about the refugee boats re-starting at the merest hint of a Labor government. This nasty piece of dog puke will now publicise every boat that heads our way, his hectoring will become more demonic as the polls get closer and his fate more real. He'll likely take up Trump's rants about murderers and rapists. A truly evil scumbucket. Abbott lurks about the S-bend Jonathan Swift wrote in 1721: "Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion which by reasoning he never acquired." Australia's most prominent unflushable turd, the shoulder-rolling, bow-legged, quacking, stuttering professional regressive is scheming his nefarious schemes, convinced of his return as leader of inevitable Oppostion and from there a re-run to the PM's big, green swivel chair. Good friend and confidant of the Vatican's most senior sex offender, character referee for a jailed paedophile priest Captain Catholic is quite flexible in his principles. His consistency is his dogged adherence to ratbag rightwing lunacy where facts and evidence are entirely dispensible. Abbott wants the Libs to lose. It's a part of his grand plan to regain the #1 spot. Expect some handgrenades from the deceitful weirdo if his delusional self-regard continues to go unrewarded. Clusterfucks The L/NP "core competency" is clusterfucks. 5 years of amateur circus acts where one could be forgiven for thinking that they fucked things up just to cover up the preceding fuck-ups and now it's just become a habit. When is the next one due? ......Wait, the news has just come on the tellie. There we go - Spud Dutton and his Neil Prakesh citizenship fuck-up. There's 3 - 6 months to the election. That's circa 12 - 24 fuckups that they will initiate. Possible but less likely events Tony Abbott loses his seat. OK, I'm probably dreaming but there's significant discontent bubbling away in the safe Tory enclave of Warringah. More likely he'll retain it but see the margin slashed. I'll dream the dream right up to election night. Shouty Morrison gets rolled before the election. Spud Dutton, aka Dick Tater the Adolf Kipfler of the LNP Gestapotato (too much?) is on a knife's edge in his seat. He believes that PM status can save his egregious arse. Will the innumerate, autocratic, bumbling cloaca have another shot? It is certain that he will play the fear angle at every opportunity, exaggerating threats, even inventing some to pander to the population's baser instincts and to repeat his mantra that Labor is soft on border protection. This stand-in Bond villain and his patently obvious 'potato wedge' politics insults our national intelligence by deluding himself that he is PM material. Jewels Bishop. Jewels hung about post-Turnbull to keep her safe seat out of the clutches of her duplictious neighbours - Cormann the Belgian Waffler and UnChristian Porter. She may hang around post-election but she's used to the high-flying lifestye that Opposition does not provide. She may stay, thinking she'll get a go as Lib leader but she must know the misogonystic troglodites who run the show won't tolerate a female leader. Schism. Utopia. A triumph of hope over likelihood? But, if the LNP is truly devastated at the pending election then the internecine warfare will come out into full view. The RWNJs will blame the moderates and look to form a new far-right party, consigning the conservative forces to Opposition for a generation. It happened to Labor in 1955 and it can happen to the Libs in 2019. Place your bets and get a comfy seat ready to watch the National Tally Room results come in after which Australia can start to repair 5 years of vandalism, incompetence and pandering to the privileged. Is this the Worst Band in the World? The Twat in a hat Abbottageddon What's left of the Right?