Category Archives: The Australian

The light on the hill

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You’ve got to hand it to the PM, she’s bloody determined to destroy the people smugglers’ business model at any cost, presumably on the grounds that the war on drugs has so effectively destroyed the drug smugglers’ business model. Oh, hang on.

Hey, what would I know? I’m not the one running the place and thus charged with the sacred duty of keeping the voters of Lindsay from frothing at the mouth. That can’t be easy.

Anyway, if I were running the place, my first decree would be that any person uttering the words “people smugglers’ business model” would be immediately smacked in the face with a large cold wet fish, though that would be a bit rough on the fish.

Update: due to singular demand, now available as a t-shirt on redbubble.

Things have come to a pretty pass

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The Australian 12 September 2011

The asylum seeker debate seems to have devolved into a slightly depressing episode of Getaway with Jules plumping for the exciting beatings of Malaysia while Tones spruiks the simpler pleasures of a small pile of birdshit in the middle of nowhere. Might be an idea for somebody to change the channel.

It’s Speculation Saturday!

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The Australian 3 September 2011

Everything, as we all know, is somebody else’s fault. In a healthy democracy like ours, this is codified in the principle of the Separation Of Blame. The voters and the media generally blame the government and the government blames the opposition, the media and occasionally the judiciary for a bit of variety, but secretly blames the voters.

The judges tend to keep it to themselves except in a professional capacity, the smug bastards.

Leadership speculation is of course the media’s fault. Some journo gets a bit bored with the incumbent and says he or she looks a bit tired or has a nose-whistle or chews their breakfast cereal in an irritating fashion and everybody hops on board and soon we have a brand new Prime Minister to become increasingly disillusioned with.

Unfortunately in this media-savvy era everyone’s got wise to this and now the media can cause a leadership spill by not speculating about the leadership, as happened in the most recent case. So, rather than perpetuate this baffling postmodern trend, I humbly present my grossly irresponsible official leadership speculation cartoon above and another, generously suggesting a potential solution to the problem, below.

The Hobart Mercury 3 September 2011

The wisdom to know the difference

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The Australian 1 September 2011

I’m not a religious fellow, but if I were Julia Gillard, I’d be looking to a higher being than the High Court this morning, so if I may suggest a short prayer (“god” can be removed or replaced with deity of choice as required)…

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

One humbly (and possibly optimistically) submits that rock bottom has been reached and perhaps it’s time to stop listening to the focus groups.