Beige, and the badness of...bland.

 

Beige Shane

G'day Possums,

              Mrs Wombat and I had a mission to attend to t'other day in Pt Lonsdale. 

Now for you two Americans, three Russians and the solitary Frenchie who read this stuff;  Pt Lonsdale is at the head of Port Phillip Bay and is known for its lighthouse and shipwrecks which like its neighbour Queenscliff, was settled around 1835 and was a Pilot station, fishing village, goods and  transport hub as well a favoured tourist destination in the late C19th.

Many of the larger buildings have heritage listings and there are still many of the old  fishermen's cottages and other small homes which, since the 80's, as both places have regained  their popularity particularly with retirees, have been renovated and then sold or passed on to their children.

It is now very expensive and very middle class.

It was while driving through Pt Lonsdale and on the way to Queenscliff that I noticed how "Beige" both places are. There is, because of Council Building control over colour, material and style, a stylistic blandness which has overtaken what was once (from the 40's -80's) a daggy, quirky and relaxed holiday destination.

It reminded me of suburbs like Balwyn, Malvern, Camberwell and Toorak where there is a female tribal uniform of open-necked blue gingham shirt, red and white hounds-tooth pattern neckerchief, blue pullover (round neck, de rigueur) and probably a box pleated skirt with sensibly heeled court shoes.

Pearls...necklace or ears, are optional extras.

Queenscliff bland

There was a limited colour range in the buildings Grey-blue, Grey, Beige (of  course)  Grey-Green as well as White in all it's Cream and "Off" variations. The ubiquitous Weatherboard Planking was predominantly (and what we later informed  when visiting a couple who are about to embark on building a new home in Queenscliff, "Heritage") a sharp edged profile and not the old style Bull Nose or Rebated bottom edge or even the Architectural Block so popular as a faux stone look in the C19th.

Windows likewise, have to be vertical with a certain proportion and are also apparently called "Heritage."

It is an interesting conundrum: do you allow more adventurous architecture with new buildings, materials and colours and alter the character of a place or do you legislate to "beige " the area into the blandness of middle class submission? Are the developers/builders, turned Councillors to blame or  their building material suppliers?

It's all so safe as to be dead!

But the real deadness, not just the architectural and renovation symptoms of it; the deadness of spirit, of soul, imagination and humanity were best exemplified  by the Ruling Rabble in Canberra this week.

The shocking (to us, in the south) video revelations of how incarcerated children in the Northern Territory are treated caused Truffles Turdball to immediately call a Royal Commission!

 "Ooohh, didn't he move fast and decisively," some say.

Others might query why the explosive program was "Held " for at least six weeks during the election campaign, when Truffles would have been alerted to it by right-wing board members at the ABC?

Pt Lonsdale from Queenscliff pier.

Others too, are wondering why the Chief Minister of the NT who lied about knowing about the child abuse and the tear-gassing, water-boarding and "spit-helmet-ing" of children was able to set the parameters of the enquiry?

Others are also questioning the appointment  of Justice Martin to adjudicate the enquiry as his history of "odd" judgments against indigenous defendants and leniency toward "white" offenders is the stuff of scandal, "up North."  

Everyone is querying the competence of both the Attorney General "Bookshelves" Brandis and the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Nigel Scullion, the latter who had quipped in an interview, ".....the video's didn't pique my interest!" And the former had difficulty explaining ( so why should today be different?) why only two tame "UncleToms" were called, not to advise but ratify the decisions being made over their heads about the 97% of the incarcerated who are indigenous.

The stench of incompetence and corruption grows every day with this poisonous and feral cabal in Canberra.

Oh and by the way, who was Federal Minister for Aborigines prior to 2014? Why, Mr Abbott, Rabid-the-Hun, his incompetent self, of course!

This shameful episode was quickly followed by the sheer farce ( but again shame for the nation) of Truffles kow-towing to the ferals in his cabinet like Vichy Abetz ("....Rudd hasn't the temperament or capacity..") , or Bestiality Bernardi, ( "...Abbott would be a much better Onion than Rudd...") or Horse-Shite Cormann, ("Hij niet leuk ..." English and economics are his second language) by not  endorsing the multi lingual, ex- diplomat, ex- Foreign Minister and ex-Prime minister, Kevin Rudd as being, "not qualified enough" to apply to the United Nation as Secretary General.

Goodness!

What qualified "Eleventy" Hockey to be Ambassador to Washington: that he was widely seen as an abject failure as Federal Treasurer and made Australia's economic situation much worse?

It's so typical of the Liarbrils to tear down anyone who might have done  something useful and of benefit : like saving the country from recession....Rudd, Swann and Co. did that in spite of Eleventy Hockey and the rest of the rabble advising a course which what would have sent the country into a depression... but then Ruling Rabble Mk2 have their chance again....  around 2017 we'd all better duck.

Oo-Roo, Petals

Shane

Winter Follies...

Shane in Snow

G'day Petals,

Winter has really hit as the pics this week attest and with the MSM (in some cases funding)  as well as the ABC giving much time to the racist and stupid "One Notion" leader, the country's attention is becoming frozen into pointless fear-mongering and the uselessness of overt racism.

Ahh... but now we have the ruling rabble Mk2.... happily, not only significantly less in number (16) and less competent in this iteration but more divided, fractious, narrow minded and 16 times more  bereft of policy as before.

With the heavy hitters like KPMG and BCA et al, all singing the same refrain from the "free-market', IPA songbook, am I the only one who senses a whiff of early desperation in that the simmering anger in the electorate over the Rabid-the-Hun/Eleventy Hockey/Do-do Dutton /Slasher Ley/Horseshite Cormann cabal has not diminished but has in fact, expanded since the election? 

You might ask now, "Why Hanson?"

Hissy-Fit Sales  (7:30) continues in her Guthrie appealing ways, giving failed 24 YO LNP proto-fascist, Wyatt Roy a free ride on by introducing him as having narrowly lost his seat to Labor ( "but that 10% of the vote went to One Notion....") and not only avoiding mention of his woeful electorate and campaigning performance but also his asinine "work till you're 70" plans. 

Interruptions: Nil!          When is proselytizing for one side, "balanced," Hissy-Fit?

Truffle's then gets another uninterrupted space to rant on and on and on about the deviousness of Labor and their lying over Liarbril policy and other nasty bits.... and... mummy, mummy, mummy I don't like Labor telling on me with facts and fings....  in such a pathetic synthetic manner, he was almost getting to the point of priceless hysteria.

 I suppose we can now add to his incompetence as a politician, lack of leadership skills and policy integrity, Truffles' complete inability as an actor!

If that misogynist Price wants to see hysterical behaviour perhaps he should have a look at Truffle's high pitched bumbling about Labor's "lies" over Medicare.

Oh, now in case you subscribe to Truffle's view on this, just reflect on the fact that self administered blood testing strips have quietly had their price increased by 600%.

Now, where's that lie again?

The ruling rabble's factions are now fighting over their dismally thought through superannuation policy... with Arfuh Da Spiv Sinodinas saying that they will now change the policy they took to the election... if only he could remember it... poor Arfuh!

Turnbull insists this post-election policy back-flip is "fair" and "long overdue".... and this from a  ruling rabble who would have you believe that they are still the best of economic managers...in control, on top of things prudent, measured and actually ....completely dishonest, clueless and incompetent in balancing the Australian people's needs with the demands of big business.

Truffles digs for some loose change and gives $1,000,000.00  (some are saying 2 mill)  to cash strapped Liarbrils to secure his prime miniature-ship.  An odd concept really, the privatization of a free-market party.

Hmmm.. and he's supposed to be economically prudent?

It seems that each of the electorally ditched conservatives will receive a $100,000.00 "re-adjustment" (?) gift .  Why no-one is asking why is a problem....  and true to form, no-one is telling.

So, "Eleventy", you'll be pleased to know the Age of Entitlement  still only runs one way!

On another pecuniary  note, Damien Mantach (he of very nasty liarbril advertising bent) has just been given five years in the slammer for filching $1,500,000.00 from his fellow free-marketeers. This gets mentioned in the media but he's no Slippery Pete, ($900, life destroyed) or Thommo, ($24,000.00, life destroyed) is he?  It will all quietly disappear.. ....unless of course it is discovered that he was secretly a member of the CFMEU.    Mantach'll be out in 21/2 years. Yet no-one is publicly questioning the Tassie branch of the ruling rabble and their role in this piece of fraud, are they Vichy Abetz? Addenda:  Mantach was charged on 15 counts of fraud and obtaining money by deception and pleaded guilty to all charges.  Each charge carries a sentence of between 10 and 15 years. 
Sentenced to 5 when 145-225 was the go?  Even taking into account his marital problems, his confession and guilty plea; this sentence seems generously short............. hmmm.... who leant on whom, here? 

Bloody hell... the Liarbrils are going to make mince-meat of Hanson in parliament... watching her on QandA she's not even out of her depth ...she hasn't even got into the water yet!

The stupid woman was sitting next to Sam Dastyari  unaware he was a Muslim till he was telling his family story of leaving Iran when she blurted, "....but, are you a Muslim?" He then informed her that he was....this dim,  Deep Northern racist is so 'ahead of the game" that she missed all the media coverage of him and his Iranian background and obviously hadn't done any research on the other QandA  panelists either as she seemed utterly unprepared for the obvious questions both from them and the audience.

She can only respond in an animated fashion to populist raving and any serious questions leave her confused, confounded and tongue-tied.

It's also worth remembering that 20 years ago Hanson once held pre-selection for the LNP in Queensland, until Little Johnnie Howard, (under much pressure) had her candidacy revoked because of her racist utterings toward Indigenous Australians and Asian migration.

Just another telling episode in the evidence of the ruling rabble's sorry management skills in the selection of appropriately qualified candidates for Canberra!

Much video footage has been bandied about of the celebratory "party" room as the diminished ruling rabble meet for the first time since their near-death electoral experience... and didn't it look, "all for the cameras?"

If this was Mark Textor's idea, it was another clunker. This lot only look genuinely happy when tearing at the entrails of some mangled social policy or rorting their parliamentary entitlements.

But Hanson serves her purpose. All the rednecks can get their rocks off spreading fear, fright and confusion throughout the land whilst the ruling rabble wring their hands and quietly say, "It's not us... oohh.. isn't she naughty," ...and get on with the real agenda, the implementation of the IPA's  free-market manifesto for the economic and social destruction of a once civil society.

Hoo-roo Possums,

Shane

What a tangled web....

Hmmm... really?

G'day Petals,

Well "Truffles" now has his ruling rabble Mk2... and the fun is about to begin.

I think he'll be the weakest prime miniature we have ever seen.

Unlikely to be able contain his fractious right-wingers, the bovine Notionals, the rancid influence of the IPA who'll want their scorched earth policy toward civil society re-ignited for their final push or the fractured Senate whose individual agendas are going to be too taxing for a rabble who have shown that bullying, not negotiating is what they do best. The train wreck is being set up.

He's not trusted... for good reason: the paucity of the "JobsonGrowth/ Economic Plan" the lies over medicare, unions and much else have seen half the population nearly send these incompetents to the opposition benches after a single term in office. To expect anything other than a return to the shambles of the past three years would be miraculous, particularly as they have no policy agenda that will not forment genuine demonstrations on a large scale.

Sophie "Pit-Bull has been rejected by the electorate of Indi ....again. Good riddance to bad rubbish.... Liarbrils close office in Indi... The Pit-Bull has finally been kennelled.

Non-Immigration Minister Dodo Dutton has blamed bikies, union thugs, activists and "sneaky" Labor tactics for his plummeting popularity in the Queensland seat of Dickson.

Dodo was ahead by just 1250 votes in a two-candidate contest with Labor's Linda Lavarch. It represents a 5.8 per cent swing against him - far more than that suffered by the Coalition nationwide.

His seat in now marginal.... much like his intelligence.

Of course it had nothing to do with his cruel, bloody incompetence, fascist leanings and "loose-cannon" comments..... did it?

Uncle Otto's boy, Eric "Feldwebel, Vichy"Abetz has also blamed GetUp for eliminating the odious Generalissimo Nikolic from the seat of Bass (seems he made people in Bass wince with his attentiveness to them) and fulminated that they should lose their charity status. Unfortunately it's the IPA who have a charity status, not GetUp: but Feldwebel "Vichy" Abetz is never one to let facts get in the way of a good rant. And "Truffle's" other "good-idea" to change the Senate voting system has seen "Vichy" Abetz' vote diminish to the point where the No:#2  on the ticket is nearly ahead of him.... which suggests that his own side think he's "off", too.

 

Western Hwy near Horsham

 Perhaps "GetUp" might get a "gong' in the next Australia Day awards for assisting in eliminating the noxious  Nikolic..... just like the "gong" that mining type did for his campaign against the Rudd / Gillard mining super profits tax?

Truffles Turdball has denounced Pauline Hansen... what pity he didn't denounce the ones with similar views in his own rabble!

Frydenberg, the Cormann lite of ruling rabble Mk2 is being touted as a new leader of the liarbrils.... Can't answer a question without sliding into cant, obfuscates, makes no sense and sounds increasingly irrelevant. So, this is one of their best "talents"?

Asbestos Julie is the same; platitudes and spin and when faced with a real question trots out another stock phrase and slogan.... one wonders whether if they're even aware of the meaningless of their answers as they're so practiced at it?

 

Adelaide....

Sydney Liarbril Charlie Lyn, said voters were also concerned by Labor's so-called Medicare scare campaign.  Mr Lynn said the party should have moved quickly to counter the campaign. "They didn't react at all, again there was a great disconnect. They should have launched a counterattack straightaway," he said. "It's not as if we don't have ... we've got access to the best advertising agencies in Australia, we've got the pollsters, everybody. If we couldn't think of something to do that within 24 hours, we deserve what we got."

Which is precisely what's wrong.

His comments were revealing as to the complete absence of attention to policy rather than the mechanics of power that fixate the desiccated minds of these born-to-rule irrelevancies.  They care only about power and being office boys to other vested interests... and their entitlements rorting, dodgy electoral fundraising, blatant policy dishonesty as well as the continuous lying that all points to egregious self interest, not national interest.

Now this is a scare campaign? By whom?

So the wrong-headed hubris of ruling rabble#2 is no different, except that many in the electorate see that these bitching "emperors"really have no clothes. All the "bed wetters" are pissing over each other....How Freudian they all are.. very funny really....next they'll be playing with their faeces... oh, hang on... they are!

I think it is interesting that the IPA agenda which is never enunciated but thoroughly implemented (disastrously as it is turning out) by the ruling rabble has come closer to being exposed than ever before.

When the ruling rabble have been proven to be the "outrageous liars" they accuse everyone else of being (like psychopathic narcissists), and when their credibility is probably at an all time low it is time to attack them on this matter. 

Which IPA policy is being implemented next ? Let's see them defend this and not a meaningless three word slogan.

A special thank you must be sent to the failing abilities of Mark Textor with his handling of the Liarbril election debacle. It wasn't quite as bad as his Canadian effort but it has got some of the ruling rabble openly questioning his hitherto "Guru" status as a machine man; except of course for the mincing Chwissie Pyne the Whyne who thinks his ruling rabble Mk2 are an "election winning machine"....what a pity that the national Liarbril vote was only 28%.

 "AMA president Michael Gannon welcomed Malcolm Turnbull's acknowledgement that there was work to do. "What this election has shown to us is that health is at the centre of everyone's thinking when they cast their vote," Dr Gannon told AM. "It is a moral imperative of governments to prioritise the health of its citizens, and I think what we've seen in the last few days is that it's a political imperative as well."
Dr Gannon said throughout the election campaign the AMA had called on the Coalition to review parts of its health policy. "Most notably of those, the freeze on patient rebates for seeing GPs and other specialists; that was number one in the AMA's campaign," he said."

Pyne delivers... Pyne... oh dear...

Head-Space is in a spin with its CEO and 1/2 the board resigning. Seems that stripping its functions to be just an advisory body to "other " (private) health providers is not really privatization!

And for a good read on the strategy of the Labor campaign I can recommend this blog:

https://vinceogrady.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/role-of-volunteers.jpg?w=640

Lastly, Mrs Wombat and I went to Adelaide for the funeral of a close relative of mine.... an event which relates to the title as well as the election outcome also this weeks pics of South Australia.

It was a surreal experience to listen to the "celebrant's" hagiography eliminating all of the deceased persons real family from existence and re-structuring history into a more convenient middle-class narrative. There was a clinically determined excision of fact that seemed to occur some 25-30 years previously and which were probably replaced by a self-help book or three.     We both found many "Cleaver Green" moments during the eulogies when a anguished, Cleaver-ish, "Ooohhh Ffffff******K" could have been loudly emitted and I later thought that it would have been interesting to watch the guests response to standing up Cleaver-like filling in the historical gaps, rehabilitating the family, re-calibrating some "truths" and puncturing the overblown hagiography. But I was tamely polite and didn't.

So the lie will be maintained for those it serves.

Anyway.... we can highly recommend "Pepe Cucina" in Glenside for its food and the relaxed ease and attention of its service.... for dinner we had:

Tagliata :   Chargrilled aged beef, rocket, parmigiano and balsamic

Spinaci Sautéed spinach, garlic and chilli

Taglierini tartufati Marscapone, truffle and parmigiano

Insalata verde

Mediterrane Sangiovese

Coffee

Check them out at   http://www.pepecucina.com.au/   bookings advised.

Hoo-roo, Possums,

Park, Adelaide.

Shane.

Not with a bang but a whimper...

Almost celebrating

Well it's almost all over....

The punters got it wrong, and ALL the MSM editorials were backing the wrong horse.

First Godwin Grech....then a farce of a AFP raid, now a shambles of a Senate, include poorly misfired thin policy and lackadaisical campaign...and  "Truffles" is not only an incompetent NBN manager but a lousy politician to boot.......which is what his right wing will give him soon.

The Night of the Long Knives is upon us.

Michelle Grattan: "Turnbull's post election speech was extraordinarily lacking in self awareness."

David Lipson's (ABC Lateline)  smarmy anti labor asides are possibly going to look a bit hollow too after the mess Truffles has made of this election; 

but  I can just imagine this segue from Alberici,      "Well David, Turnball has made a mess of this hasn't he?  " Well, Emma," replies Lipson, "I think Shorten's attempt to eat a Hot-dog from the middle is a more glaring example of incompetence that has labor numbers men toting up for a spill."

Or some such other rubbish this Liarbril Lite pretty boy will make up.

And just how rude will Leigh sales be now? I suppose we'll only have to glance at a trashy cartoonish headline from the "Scum" to see where she will follow.

Early in the evening during the election broadcast I was looking at the performances of Sales, Uhlmann and Crabb and also noting not only the growing number of seats that were falling to Labor, and with Penny Wong who was being ignored by this self absorbed trio, sensed that "something is up here" but this panel kept blithely brown-nosing Scummo and often interrupting and ignoring Wong until : Bang: 1,2,3, Tassie seats had gone, then suddenly they were all at sea having to deal with a reality that was way out of their comfort zones. They never recovered and their bias' took a battering for the rest of the night.

Truffles is miffed that no-one believed him over his promise not to privatize  Medicare. It was, perhaps, just too soon after "The GST is dead and Buried," There'll be no cuts to Health, Education, no cuts to the ABC,"etc  for anyone to believe Mr Harborside Mansion this time around.

He took particularly virulent umbrage at a phone text which he alleges wrongly claims to be from Medicare so when all else had failed....He called the cops!

Now this is becoming a problem in itself... AFP raid opposition premises at start of the election over "leaked" NBN docs. AFP seem, on the other hand to be dragging their feet over an admission of criminality of Chicken Thighs Brough and similarly over Kathy Jacksons $1.5,000,000.00 "travel bonus" from HSU.

It is looking very much like you don't have to ask if the AFP is corrupt .... but just how corrupt?

Incompetent Attorney General, Georgie Bookshelves Brandis has finished this term of Parliament much as he started it.  Perverting the law of the land. First he gets a release for Bloody Idiot Credlin (Rabid-the-Hun's  dominatrix) from a drink driving charge that would have most of us lose their license for around six months and now he has ordered, quite wrongly, that any legal advise about the hung parliament and related matters must go through him only and not the Solicitor General!

Fascist ...Hmmmm.. looking very close to it.

Liarbril handing out HTV on booth I was on was verbally, roughly handled... the pity was he actually knew nothing of any of the policies he was supposedly supporting, so couldn't  understand the criticisms of them.

He was nonplussed when a pensioner handing out Greens HTV said, "I'll die if they put up the cost of medicines as I wont be able to afford them." And another Green, ' Yes, we've got the new Copper from the node. It even buffers watching a You-tube video and we're three houses from the node. The copper can't cope even with that!"  He then tackled me on supporting Medicare by asking, "When did you take up that stance, a month ago when Shorten announced his "scare" campaign?"  "No," I replied, "40 years ago when Malcolm Fraser was doing the same as Turnbull!

He became much quieter after that.

Well, there ya go Possums, it looks like a hung parliament or possibly a Liarbril wafer thin majority .

 I would actually prefer the latter, just  to see how "agile and innovative" the ruling rabble's "JobsanGrowth" begins to look when around 200,000 hit the unemployment queues in 2017. The mongrels have nothing in place.  No policy, no plan... again, just hollow rhetoric. Then we'll see just how "Shoulder-to-Shoulder" the member for Corangamite is with her constituents.

A special thanks must go the Le Jongleur Roskam and the other clowns at the IPA circus (The-Coots-With-Queer-Ideas-From-a-Parallel-Universe)  for making this Liarbril implosion possible.

 Without the IPA's medieval anti-social agenda so incompetently adopted by both Rabid-the-Hun and Truffles;  the ruling rabble have swallowed the poisoned chalice of unbridled free market theory offered them at the behest of Rinehart ,Murdoch and all the other divisive manipulators who see no value in social democracy.

Well done Roskam; more hate , division, more angst and turmoil. It's what you do best!

Hoo-roo Petals,

Shane