The Continuing Insanity's of the Ruling Rabble Mk2.

Shane and Dangerous Wind Power

G'day Possums,

A severe, "Once-in-50-Year", (according to that Soviet Cell at the Bureau of Meteorology) storm and two small tornadoes swept through South Australia, felled about 23 high power transmission lines and caused the back-up to Victoria's grid to fail, leaving the whole state blacked out. 

Our faux Federal leader forever fearful of his right wing flapping, Truffles Turdball on being informed of something,  played an insane line that the real cause of the blackout was that SA had 40% of its grid powered by wind and solar!

Aided and abetted by a compliant ABC in tabloid propaganda mode, the Famous Five: Truffles, Fiction's Frydenberg, Barnyard Joyce, Exhibitionista Xenephon and Mal-Addled Roberts all decided it was time to nobble this dangerous energy source once and for all. An inquiry into the myth of human produced Carbon as a climate change agent, and cheap reliable, environmentally friendly coal is just the ticket according to Mal-Addled the One Neuron Notion Senator from The Deep North. That world weather patterns are becoming increasingly violent and the fact that we've just passed 400PPM of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere didn't phase this crusading seeker of empirical evidence as he went on to call for,"  ....all to urgently exit all climate change policies that are the direct cause of this huge mess in SA."

Now, isn't all that innovative? No? Well, agile with the facts at least!

“No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately.” Michel de Montaigne.

 

The inherent dangers of solving the problem of climate change without the goodness of Coal.

Burying his head further into the sand, Truffles has decided that the misleading information from the anti-equality agit-prop leaflets disseminated in Sydney by senior members of his Liarbril Party will not affect a "civil" debate prior to the now problematical plebiscite on marriage equality. This group, "Children's Future" ( "...give me a child till he is seven... etc....") apparently has links to the secretive right-wing Catlic club, Opus Dei, an organization founded by Spanish prelate Jose' Maria Escriva in 1928 which flourished after the Civil war under the fascist, General Franco.

It's nice to know that "free-speech" is alive and well and that the Inquisition isn't too far away!

"I agree that everyone has the right to peace and harmony, but the gays and lesbians are now wanting to change my way of thinking, who I am," said the Red Menace from Ipswich.

"I come from a time when there was no discussion about gay marriage. That's my background, that's what I've grown up with." "If you feel so strongly about it, I'm sure you can move to that country and then you can have that marriage," she said."

The Red Menace would probably feel more at home in Pyongyang.

Descending into a theatrical quagmire of irrelevancy and proving Orwell as prophet, Kafka as role model, Ayn Rand as scriptwriter and Dali as producer The Red Menace re-iterates the putridly low level of intelligent discourse the ethically and morally bereft "right" of Australia now  proselytise to a  dumbed-down nation.

Just like Mandy Il Patrone,  Vanstone  (QandA 26-9-16) who extolled the virtues of those waiting patiently for 12-15 years before the skerrick of humanity left in this mongrel rabble kicks in and they deign to allow them entry as refugees. A truly Panglossian sentiment more suited to the C15th than the C21st. To much applause from the rooly noice audience, Il Patrone presented a reassuringly and patronizingly mythical confection of how to control others futures without the guilt. I wonder if Vivian Solon and Cornelia Rau were as accepting and appreciative of Il Patrone's "humanity."

“We should tend our freedom wisely.” M.de M.

Reflections

Finally, Australia’s education department paid Bjørn Lomborg’s climate skeptic Copenhagen Consensus Centre $640,000 to help produce a report that claimed limiting world temperature increases to 2C was a “poor” use of money.

Bjorn has left the country. He richer.... us, none the wiser!

Faux Freedom Fighter and ex Boy Wonder, Wyatt Roy has popped up in Iraq (illegally it seems) allegedly seeking motivation and meaning from the Peshmerga but in reality garnering support for his next tilt at pre-selection for the seat he lost at the last election. In a 10 minute advertisement on ABC's 7.30 hosted by what looked and sounded to me like Leigh Sales in drag, Wyatt's "what-I-did-on-my-holiday" exuded all the boyish charm of a young unemployed Liarbril taking himself too seriously as a wonderful plastic humanitarian.

I think it would be a very good idea if we could crowd-fund his return and give ISIS another crack at him.

“We are all blockheads.”  M. de M.

Guthrie's Gotta Go

There was a deja-vu revelation of sorts in the American presidential debate between a loopy far right-winger and a standard right-winger. The LFRW tried to excite the audience with calls for Jobson Growth, Tax cuts for the wealthy, Laura 'n Order, Innovation, and I think I heard "agility" get a guernsey, too. Only to be told by the SRW that trickle-down economics doesn't really work. Having heard all the former from Truffles as if it was something original a few months ago I can only assume that this is what is meant by Globalisation.

If it is, I have an ominous feeling as to the path we are being lead down by the ruling rabble Mk2's application of the IPA's imported theoretical mumbo-jumbo.

Hoor-roo, petals

Shane

Lessons in Cynicism

Shane incarcerated...

G'day Possums,

a few shots from the town of Clunes illustrate this week's rant....

Christian Porter, channelling his inner Scrooge, has decided that reducing the time unemployed people under 25 have to wait for benefits from a proposed six months to one month is a real winner!  Belying his Christian name, Scrooge Porter also thought that young carers have, beyond their caring role, a "mutual obligation" to attend courses and do "work-for-the-payment" which will, he prophesied, eliminate "inter-generational welfare dependency."

Scrooge didn't elaborate on where the jobs would be found for these who have  "... a great ability, particularly for young people to find jobs quickly.” He also made no mention of the fact that most new jobs are part time and many are now being filled by 457 visa  overseas entry people or that there is currently one position for every 17 unemployed.

In a previous incarnation Scrooge was the State Treasurer and Attorney General of Western Australia, a state which despite it's mining boom, during his tenure, was going broke.

He is also one of the most prolific users of his parliamentary "entitlements" racking up some $229,579.27 since 1-1-15 on top of his $250,000.00 p.a.  (approx) salary.

A fresh idea...

Another Sand Groper (aka, West Australian) making his presence felt unnecessarily is ex SAS officer with  a colourful past,  Handy Andy Hastie.

Handy has stuck his head above the parapet to fire a few blanks about religious freedoms being under attack if the Marriage Equality plebiscite is won by the "yes" vote.

"The government was interested in marriage because it produced children", he said, "....with broken marriages leading to increases in welfare and bureaucracy." " We are not seeking to redefine parliament. We are seeking to redefine marriage."    What any of this has to do with marriage equality and human rights is anyone's guess... but Handy Andy's fundamentalist religious background  means that he feels oppressed if we all don't think like him.

The ABC's "Gruen"  did a superb analysis of the advertising methods that will be utilized, particularly by the likes of Handy Andy and his faithful followers if the plebiscite goes ahead and it really blew this lot out of the water.  Perhaps Handy's hardly credible, confused spoutings  were an attempt at a  pre-emptive strike ?

 

perrenial values...

More of Oz's Xtian values were on display with a poll showing that 49% of Australians think that Muslim migration be stopped!  And that, had The Harriden, Hanson's supporters had more brains in their voting behaviour, One Notion could have had 6 senators elected instead of four.

To add to the ugliness permeating  the country, Truffles told the UN what a role model we are for the rest of the world with our excellently cruel concentration camps for refugees. Truffles explained, "...you don't have the public licence to have a generous humanitarian program and of course you are simply providing a product for people smugglers to sell and we must deprive them of that – as we have done so in Australia." He also cynically indicated that we will take Xtian refugees from South America instead the Muslim ones we're currently torturing on Manus Island because they are probably no longer in a fit state to be anyone's neighbour. ... and that even though, we still have around 9,000 of the 12,000 Syrian (Xtians) to process that Rabid the Hun said we'd take 12 months ago, we are still in his mind a humanitarian and egalitarian beacon of the first order.

 

Clunes

"There are two things that I have always observed to be in singular accord, supercelestial thought and subterranean conduct."    Michel de Montaigne.

Hoo-roo  Petals,

Shane

Raining on Truffles' Parade

Shane and Rain

G'day possums,

It's been raining a lot and although it was nowhere near as bad as the '98 falls' all the fields were flooded and creeks running where they've never usually been before.

Everything being very wet is also a metaphor for the times.

It is Truffles Turnbull's first anniversary as Prime Miniature and he is now further behind in the polls than Rabid-the-Hun was when Truffles knifed him for not being popular and not handling the economy very well.

 It is passing strange then that the economy is worse and it is Rabid's IPA agenda still being implemented.

Peter I-Had-a-Baton Costello has re-joined the comedy circuit again by telling the mining industry it had been shabbily treated!  Notwithstanding the billions of dollars in tax breaks it filches and the environmental damage it leaves for others to clean up and pay for, Petey said, "The Resources Super Profits Tax was the weirdest tax ever conceived by a government in this country. In the end it collected nothing of substance," conveniently ignoring the Norwegian example of how to future proof your country rather than selling everything off to the nearest bidder. He also thought that the real values of the mining industry should be taught in schools.  A sort of Reverse-Ethics study.

Petey is also the Treasurer who wasted the biggest mining boom in the nation's history by failing to develop any significant infrastructure and providing the middle and business classes with tax cuts that now are costing the country very dear.

 

Ballan Rain

The Ruling Rabble are so "good" that they ran out of legislation to debate in the senate which allowed their senators to waffle on about anything they wanted for a few hours.

One, Brigitte McKenzie (National Party) couldn't remember the name or town of a colleague she was droning on about which was probably more entertaining than her interminable dreary conservative platitudes on QandA a night or two later.  Another, Linda Reynolds, decided that the repeal of 18C (Racial Discrimination Act) was her essay topic, flying in the face of Truffles diminishing authority and his assertions that the Ruling Rabble will leave 18C alone.

 

Ballan Rain

Truffles' "Iron Clad" guarantee that the superannuation legislation would not be altered turned into a sort of soft Lead material after Nationals back-bencher, Blubber Christensen said he would spit his dummy if they didn't change it adding further to the actuality that the Ruling Rabble couldn't run a Chook raffle in a pub!

But staying "on-song," their strident repetitive cries of, "...what a successful week..' and "...how well and widely we consult..." it all seemed less of a positive note but more akin to the feeble screeches of drowning rats... and just when you think the Ruling Rabble can't go any lower or get any worse, off flatulates Bookshelves Brandis on how as important to the country Truffles will be compared to the war-mongers Ming Menzies and Little Johnny Howard.

But the one thing that is utterly fascinating about this rancid collective of cronyism. 
They're totally and universally incompetent and divided and everyone is raining on Truffles' parade. An incoherent latter-day, Much Ado About Nothing?

 

Australian Metaphor

It's come to light that the Army's Dress uniforms are being made in China 'cause they're cheaper. The boots certainly are ...they fall apart!

 

Ballan Rain

What future does this sad country have? Not much it seems; perhaps it's a bit like a pimple or a boil reaching its potential and it is then squeezed or lanced and the poison dribbles out and you then get better.

Hoo-Roo petals,

Shane

Art and Corruption with a straight face

Shane with Degas

G'day Possums,

t'other day Wombat Kinder No 2 and I ambled off to the NGV to have a look at the Degas exhibition "A New Vision."

We had all had seen the d'Orsay show in Canberra a few years ago and Mrs Wombat and I viewed many of them again last year at their home in Paris but there were works in this exhibition from other far flung collections that were important pieces to see.

NGV, Degas exhibition

After 130 years for some the idea of "A New Vision" might be a bit difficult to grasp, indeed I overheard one woman exclaim to her companion that, "There are too many portraits!" But what portraits; and what grasp of technique and expression, movement, light and place they convey.

Degas, Portrait of a Woman

It was not that Degas was deliberately or self consciously "New" for the sake of it but that he had to experiment to achieve what he wanted. After all he commented that there was nothing but planning and control in his art, " No art was  ever less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection and study of the great masters."

And the portraits are so revealing, not just of the sitter's visages, many, his extended family but it's their humanity that is expressed and also Degas' humanity.

Degas, Edmondo and Therese Morbilli

His ability to appreciate the "off chance" moment and it's sublime definition of a physical action and his understanding of asymmetrical composition from the influence of Japanese prints are given full play in the quite explosive equestrian works and the ballet studio images which are anything but romantic.

These are not impressions they are reality.

Degas, Woman with Field Glasses

The large (2.00 m wide) oil sketch of the woman drying herself perhaps for me best summed up Degas incredible facility and sureness of vision.

"Drawing is not the form, it's a way of seeing the form."

The exhibition is excellent both in its scope and intention of demonstrating just how new Degas' vision was and still is.

Degas, Woman Drying Herself

..................................................................................................................................................

Silly Sam Halal Dastyari has resigned from the Labor front bench (under pressure from 90% of the press who support the Liarbrils) because of his accepting Chinese money to pay a $1600.00 travel bill.

1/ Death Stare Bishop and Horse-Shite Cormann see nothing wrong in having the taxpayer foot $6,000.00 worth of expense to attend a football match.

2/ Death Stare also sees nothing wrong in costing the taxpayer $30,000.00 to fly from Perth to Canberra from a party with her B/F to attend a meeting.

3/ Tony Rabid-the-Hun Abbott, Stuart Smiler Robert and Ian Chainsaw Macfarlane see nothing wrong in being "gifted" $250,000 worth of Rolex watches out of a plastic bag by Chinese instant noodle billionaire Li Ruipeng.

corrupt

4/ Apology for Attorney General, Bookshelves Brandis sees nothing wrong in elevating Theo Tavoularis,  Liarbril Party donor and defence lawyer for his son (whose charges of criminal damage were allegedly, conveniently dropped just before trial) to a $370,000.00 per year job on the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

5/  Chwissie The Whyning Pyne defends his deplorable time as incompetent Education Minister during Ruling Rabble Mk1 (with his usual, it's not our fault, it's theirs), in extending the streamlined visa program from universities to the private sector after a $65,000.00 "donation" to the Liarbril party by this Chinese education group.  Whyning Pyne insists the visa decision was made by the public service not the government, the same public service which advised the previous Labor government not to allow this to happen as there were going to be problems with it.

6/  Liarbril pollies in NSW have been found to have been found to have knowingly illegally solicited a political donation from a property developers: Joe Tripodi, Chris Hartcher, as well as Andrew Cornwell, and Samantha Brookes: former Liberal MP for The Entrance Chris Spence; former Liberal MP for Newcastle Tim Owen; former Liberal MP for Swansea Garry Edwards; former Liberal MP for Port Stephens Craig Baumann; former Liberal MP for Wyong Darren Webber; former Newcastle lord mayor Jeff McCloy; and solicitor Nick Di Girolamo and Former Liberal Londonderry MP Bart Bassett.
7/ And let's not leave the Tardis State (where all goes Backward under the Liabrils ) out... let's not forget their nice little taxpayer funded "donation" scam. Parakeelia!

NGV, Getting in on the act

Now, tell me again how serious the charges are against Sam Dastyari and how corrupt the unions are?  

Please tell me again, with a straight face!

Hoo-roo petals,

Shane

...Spring is Boing

G'day Petals,

Wombat Kinder 2 and I took a trip to the State Library in the city t'other day to see an exhibition of colonial artist William Strutt. 

"Black Thursday" and "Bushrangers on St.Kilda Rd" being amongst the visual descriptions of colonial Melbourne's life, manners and costumes he meticulously recorded.

State Library, Bunyip and St Joan.

Strutt's drawings are delightful and although their anecdotal detail is engaging, one of the Bushrangers being I believe, local lad Capt. Moonlight, the paintings are less memorable because of their histrionic Victorian sentiment.  We followed these with a wander through the building and its display of the history of printing with some very beautiful examples of Audubon and Gould illustrations as well as the more salacious covers of pulp fiction from the early 60's.

State Library Reading Room

Wombat Kinder2 is a keen dressmaker who wanted to peruse some vintage material so we trotted off to the Mitchell Building in Lonsdale St which has a startling Art Deco foyer only to find the material shop closed but after meeting up with Mrs Wombat we tried the Phillips Shirt Factory with more success. One of the last Australian firms to manufacture shirts, Phillips' has a huge amount of material and clothing for sale in a visually interesting but derelict workshop.

Phillips Shirts

I was surprised to see an industrial material cutter that was manufactured in Oz.... and found that they still are... how rare!

Time for a drink ... so we climbed through a very visually busy and quite disorienting series of floors to a rooftop bar in Hardware Lane. It was interesting to note that the "busyness" became more muted and spaced the higher we went so I think it would be correct to assume the artist started on the lower levels.

Things then took a bridal turn.

 

Triple Grooms with Fries

Leaving Hardware Lane I discovered three groomsmen who had temporarily escaped the focus of the photographers and were snacking before the reception at a fast food place.... then the vintage cars with sundry drivers and others of the wedding party all lined up having a smoke and.... Voila... the full frou-frou shebang at the old Post office!

The Princess Carriage, by-the-way is not from this bridal party, it's tourist transport. 

More important frou-frou happened this week with the return of Federal Parliament after a four month break and Truffles-in-a-Muddle's near death election result.

Ex Freedom Boy and IPA clone, Timmy Twat Wilson teared-up during his Maiden speech. Which will probably be the last time he will do anything in that place which seems genuine. Irrelevant but genuine, he avoided calling himself a hypocrite in supporting the wasteful $160,000,000.00 plebiscite and repeal of 18C so that the minority group he's a member of will be vilified and treated unequally for years more to come.

It's no wonder then when "intelligence" like this abounds at The-Coots-With-Queer-Ideas-From-a-Parallel-Universe that one of the IPA's past directors, Roger Neave has tipped a bucket on them and put on record his disgust at how far-right the organisation has become. In an interview for The Saturday Paper, Neave charts the demise of this once liberal group and says at article's end that, "...because of the surge of the right in the demonising of refugees/asylum seekers, of "children overboard" and (that) we imprison them...I want my pride back in being an Australian." 

Hmmm... too late methinks!

 

The Mitchell Building

Bestiality Bernardi has been gathering signatures of other feeble-minded fascists (when not asleep on the job) to repeal 18C and who, excited by their newfound solidarity are ignoring Truffles-in-a-Muddle's exhortations not to fragment what's looking like a terminal adventure for Ruling Rabble Mk2.

Ex IPA mediocrity, Wunderkind Paterson having been in parliament for fully five minutes and who probably wouldn't know truth if he fell over it, is one of the worst offenders in seeming not to realise that destabilising an already rickety rust-bucket like the S.S. Liarbril may have consequences beyond his instant gratification in seeking notoriety.

Phillips Shirts

Bestiality has also been having a fine time railing against the poor judgment of Sammy Halal Dastyari who had a Chinese business type (with links to Chinese Gov) pay for some trips and a couple of bills. In his muddled incoherent tirade, Bestiality really only exposed what a simple minded buffoon he appears to others and even to his some of his own side, to be. An intellectual pygmy would probably have made a better fist of it but at least Bestiality looked happy in his role of chief assailant; his Easter Island faux impassiveness occasionally breaking into smirking as he found pleasure in firing blanks at an embarrassed Dastyari.

Then on Day two Senator Jacquie Lambie rounded on Bestiality with this: "I think it is important to make this point around the debate about Australian political donations to the Chinese communist government. Liberal senator Cory Bernardi lecturing this parliament and displaying mock outrage regarding Labor senator Sam Dastyari and Chinese political donations is like an angry prostitute lecturing us about the benefits of celibacy.

And before I receive unfair criticism from the sex workers, I apologise to them profusely in comparing them to senator Bernardi. I know that is a really terrible low down thing to do because I can tell you prostitutes are far more honest, sincere, humane, compassionate and better bang for buck than senator Bernardi will ever be able to deliver."  

So there!

Silly Sammy Halal's proto-Liarbril  financial blunderings managed to divert attention from the ICAC findings in NSW where two Liarbril shonks will probably be referred to police for charging and Arfuh Da Spiv Sinodinas got a Scottish verdict from "not sufficient evidence," proving that early onset dementia, temporarily, is not necessarily a bad thing.

 

Funky Art in bar  Hardware Lane

Horse-Shite Cormann vibble-vobbled with shonky figures as he and his innumerate treasurer Scummo Morrison attempted to bully Labor into supporting their 2014 budget. It's hard to know whether like Scummo's predecessor they too, think that cruel, anti-social, neo-liberal penny pinching is a sure way of getting to Washington and double dip at entitlements or either that "thinking" was never really part of this fiscal equation.

According to Rabid-the-Hun and Chwissie The Whyning-Perfect-Prat-of-a-Prefect, Pyne their  well regarded whistle-blower and "Lion-of-the-Union-Movement," Kathy Jackson, has finally been referred to court by police on 70 charges of being a very naughty and selfish gel with $1,400,000.00 of her Union's money.

Craig Thompson was not heard to respond and is probably certain not to ask for visiting rights in the future!

 

The Bride to Be, Hardware Lane.

I watched Parliament question-time on the first day back and it was interesting to note the body language and facial expressions on the Ruling Rabble minions behind the front bench. I think they of the Ruling Rabble Mk 2 know they're well and truly f****d!

An address for those interested....

Phillips Shirts 274 Little Lonsdale St, Melbourne VIC 3000.

Hoo-roo, Possums,

Shane