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On the humorous side
Mentioning the right war
Tue, 02/21/2012 - 10:00The Australian 21 February 2012
Yesterday, the government finally released the Gonski review into how education gets paid for, no doubt kicking off a long and painful series of advertising campaigns by the various interest groups involved, except for the kids of course who will have to suck it up.
There’s always going to be an enormous stink about who gets what in something as fundamental as education funding, but it’s the big stink we have to have. The review’s been in the bottom drawer for a while now, hopefully the PM will “bring it on”, take a risk and make the resulting barney more interesting than the soap opera about the leadership of the Labor Party.
The Lukewarm War
Sun, 02/19/2012 - 09:37The Sunday Telegraph 19 February 2012
I’ve mentioned before that I really couldn’t see the case for Kev getting the arse back then and I can’t really see it now for Julia. I was of course making the rookie mistake of assuming there has to be a good reason for this stuff.
It seems to me, one of Julia’s main problems was in fact the sheer efficiency of her installation as PM. Most of us mugs never saw it coming and there has been a lingering doubt as to whether it was really quite the done thing. Kevin on the other hand has taken the more traditional approach, with the drawn out non-war, phoney protestations that there’s nothing to see here, judicious leaking to the media and so on etc, though he has taken it to extremes somewhat.
At least this time we’ll hopefully see a proper bloodbath and everyone will be able to get on with their lives afterwards.
The Twitters might appreciate this one…
Sat, 02/18/2012 - 14:14Sightgeist cartoon, Weekend Australian Review 18 February 2012
Do you know what your staffers are doing right now?
Thu, 02/16/2012 - 09:32The Australian 16 February 2012
Getting up to crazy hijinks, that’s what.
Cheeky little buggers.
Here’s something I prepared earlier
Wed, 02/15/2012 - 10:51The Australian 15 February 2012
The morning after Monday’s Four Corners episode, I imagine the clacking of keys in the corridors of power was deafening as every single sitting member of parliament hastily deleted their Prime Ministerial/party leadership acceptance speech from their computer.
Honestly, the idea that Julia was planning to give Kev the nudge at least a couple of weeks in advance is actually a bit more comforting than the thought that it was all somebody else’s idea and she only heard about it at the last minute, especially if that somebody else was Mark Arbib, the sort of chap who, if given management of a chook raffle, would ensure that the chook had died in vain.
The one perhaps alarming part of the mostly non-alarming if slightly depressing Four Corners episode was the bit where Kevin asked Julia for a bit more time to turn things around and our current Prime Minister, numero uno, head cheese etc left to room to ask if that was okay, which does bear thinking about.
Just business
Tue, 02/14/2012 - 10:42The Australian 14 February 2012
(hat tip to Gary Larson for the kicker)
Why I oughta….
Sat, 02/11/2012 - 12:12The Australian 11 February 2012
Q. Why did the bank raise its variable home loan interest rate?
It’s the economy, stupid, with an emphasis on the stupid
Fri, 02/10/2012 - 10:13Tony’s gone all Dirty Harry on the economy, and Julia’s sloganned right back at him. Essentially, it’s going to be a year of politicians shouting stuff about the economy at each other, a small proportion of which may bear some tangential relationship to reality. This however, is not an inditement of politicians, but merely an explanation of how economics works.
Okay, that was mean. Economists are good people doing a difficult job under trying circumstances etc and they have graphs to prove it.
Anyway, it looks like Tony and Joe have unsurprisingly got their numbers wrong right from the start (paywalled link). Personally, I blame their caterers.
Pun warning
Thu, 02/09/2012 - 17:14Sometimes the news can serve you up a lovely opportunity for evil. In this case it was a story of a marina development being stalled by the infamous orange bellied parrot (paywalled link).
The Australian 9 February 2012
Not a sexist cartoon
Wed, 02/08/2012 - 18:41The Hobart Mercury 8 February 2012
“Has some of the criticism of Julia Gillard’s Prime Ministership been sexist?” You may ask, to which I would reply “Is a woman’s place barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen?”
Now that the internet has democratised rabid abuse, the sexist component of the torrent of maniacal rage directed the PM’s way actually seems quite quaint. Nonetheless, people need to understand that the only form of sex-based discrimination that will be officially tolerated in this country is apparently against same-sex couples who wish to get married. Anything else is bang out of order.
Now play nice.
A perk of the job
Tue, 02/07/2012 - 15:35The Australian 7 February 2012
A5 print $44
A4 print $66
A3 print $88
Kevin watch
Sat, 02/04/2012 - 09:32The Hobart Mercury 4 February 2012
While William Goldman’s book Adventures In The Screen Trade is about the movie business, most of it applies equally to politics, especially his central thesis “nobody knows anything” which all politicians, staffers, journos and cartoonists should get their iPhones to repeat to them on the hour.
The sequel Which Lie Did I Tell?: More Adventures In The Screen Trade is also worth a read.
PS “Nobody knows anything” probably doesn’t mean quite what you think it means unless you’ve read the book, and yes, Goldman also wrote The Princess Bride.
Multiculturalism will never work while foreigners smell funny
Tue, 01/10/2012 - 08:37The Australian 10 January 2012
Finally, Opposition spokeswoman Teresa Gambaro has cracked the age-old question of why we all can’t just get along, and the answer turns out to be deodorant. Seriously. You can’t make this stuff up.
One person’s clean energy is another’s gross market distortion
Wed, 01/04/2012 - 20:44The Australian 4 January 2012
The economics is in and our markets are in extreme danger of being distorted which will be very bad. Or something. This is by no stretch of the imagination being at all alarmist by the way.