..on a brand new day

G’day Possums,

Shane with sculpture

Well its been a busy week of this and that and little more of that than usual and politics in Oz becoming  ever more surreal than it was before….. but more of that later in Wombat Droppings.

Mrs Wombat’s brother has been building a aeroplane, a Jabiru Ultra-Light. Very nice it is, too.

Jabiru Ulra-Light

We made a visit to the Mill Market in Daylesford … lots and lots of second-hand stuff and met “Chewie” from Chewton….. Chewies servants have a stall the market  and he is a very friendly chap.

 “Chewie” from Chewton

We made another visit to Atelier Paul Stewart to do some interior shots of his new premises Paul has re-located to 125 Auburn Rd Hawthorn and if you’re looking for exquisite bespoke jewellery   this place is really worth a visit.

Atelier Paul Stewart

Ohh, I’ve made another little foray into sculpture again there have been some ideas bubbling to the surface so we’ll see how it goes…it’s been a while …

Wombat Droppings

the chronicle of the demise of egalitarianism and rise of Fascism in Oz.

Prime Miniature, Rabid-the-Hun has had a near-death-experience. Many were disappointed that it wasn't the full death experience but with armed guards to protect the pollies now in Parliament House for the first time in our history it may not be long before the disappointed one’s hopes are perhaps realised.

Rabid has lost much face in having a party vote on whether to “spill” him. 60% of his party would prefer, it seems “nobody” rather than him. And really, Petals, it doesn't take $4.8,000,000.00 to find out what people think of you. The slow rise in the tone of anger throughout Face-Book should be sufficient indication that this ruling rabble is the most hated mob and deemed utterly unfit for the job of leading a nation.

It was obvious in 2012 that Rabid-the-Hun's  foetid rabble were a policy free zone.
It was obvious in the unseemly viciousness of their personalized attacks on anyone deemed an enemy that this Liarbril Party and its aspirational bogan supporters had become a Mongrel Pack.
It was obvious too, that The Coots-With-Queer-Ideas-From-a-Parallel-Universe (IPA) led by “Le Jongleur” Roskam were writing the script, which was being published by their mentor “The Ugly American” Murdoch.  Blame then for the election losses in Victoria and Queensland can be fairly sheeted home to the Ultra-Right “free-market” thought bubbles emanating from “the Coots” and implemented by both these one-term outfits. But as much as these policies are destroying Australia as a Social Democracy they are also slowly destroying the Liarbril Party too.

Federally, the Liarbrils are in a total mess. The National Interest is a bad, third in their line of priorities.

Ist the Liarbrils own survival.

2nd their donors interests.

3rd The nation. ...and that's one of the reasons why "The Ugly American" Murdoch is unhappy. Not only can these incompetents not properly implement his IPA agenda but now they’re not even thinking about it.

National Interest? Pfffft!

On “Insiders,” Savva gave Rabid,  Exteme Unction, Farr the eulogy and Crabbe delivered the jocular but incisive homily. Dead man Walking. The fool has now said that we are in "Day One of Good Government" which has only invited the obvious rejoinder : So is this an admission that the last 500 days were bad? 

Some are saying that this rabble is so ludicrous that it's impossible even to satirise them!
Take Kevin "medieval"Andrews.. including Julia Gillard with Rabid as the best leadership team... ??? And he never tried to correct himself....

It's the "Age of The Aspirational Bogan." Selfishness rules, Greed is a virtue and Compassion a sin.

I’m beginning to wonder whether we, as a nation can pull back from the abyss being presented and re-think our future?

Hoo-roo, Petals,

Shane.

P.S. this is worth a read if you are interested in “Lifters and Leaners”….

http://theaimn.com/age-entitlement-pollies-worth/

Manufacturing a Festive Season

G’day Possums…

Shane Wombat with Santa, not G.S's.

More ballet rehearsal stuff, again; performance is on Thursday and it’s looking good, hope you enjoy.
 

BTA

BTA Olivia G.

BTA Laura G.

BTA Laura and Alex

BTA Emma S.

BTA Olivia G.

BTA Shai and Jack

BTA Karalyn and Shai

BTA Gus U.

BTA Alex, Jack, Gus.

BTA Emma S.

Wombat Droppings or Low Down Politics in Oz

What I’m finding interesting is the genuine tenor of criticism that this woeful Liarbril rabble is getting and of their almost complete lack of vision for this country.

It’s not coming from the Murdoch controlled outlets, as you would expect, but by many of the more sober and thoughtful blogs. It is exposing deep division in this country that does not auger well for the future. I’m not at all happy to say that things I surmised about 12 and 18 months ago have come to pass and were not just silly rants.

Manufacturing is being gutted and the sycophantic msm are looking sillier by the minute attempting to prop up these incompetent IPA spruikers as the gap between their copy and reality becomes wider.

This recent excoriation of Piers “Toad-Hall” Akerman from Annabel Crabbe,  where  he has joined the chorus line of Let’s-Create-a-Diversion-and-Bash-The-ABC, is a case in point.

“The broader narrative here may well be an ecological tale different from but no less tragic than Nemo's; the politically seasonal loss of food supply for the mature right-wing cheerleader columnist. When Labor is in power, there is red meat aplenty, but when the Coalition rules, these mighty carnivores are obliged to scrape by on a meagre diet of public broadcasters and animated woodland creatures. You've got to make a living, don't you?
And when you think about it, perhaps it's not so silly after all that a writer in the Akerman genre would feel adequately qualified to take on a cartoon pig, whose chief failing - feminism aside - is that she is shouty, argumentative, one-dimensional and just that little bit too loud.”
"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again, but already it was impossible to say which was which." Annabel Crabb

Then there was a Ms Parnell McGuiness opining that there should be an enquiry into Unions although she doesn’t know or had much to do with Unions but I-Was-Told- to –Agree-With-This-So-I-Will. Ms McGuinness allegedly runs a company called “Thought Broker” that gives advice. One hopes that their advice is from a better knowledge base than this one evidenced on “The Drum!”

Well, it is the “Silly-Season!”

Cory “Bestiality” Bernardi obviously doesn't want to sit next to Malcolm “von Ribbentrop” Turnbull in parliament for fear of catching something…. possibly fleas and also feels, as a backbencher and  sacked parliamentary secretary, justified in telling a minister how to act. This is not to be taken as evidence of a dysfunctional government, no, no it’s just the hurley-burley of a vibrant democracy; it’s only dysfunctional when Labor argue with each other.

Labor were never actually dysfunctional; it was a projection of the sociopaths who are now exhibiting their true worth and last week would have lost an election if it had been held. There is a petition to the GG doing the rounds to sack “Rabbott” and his nefarious bludgers

And, well, it is the “Silly-Season!”

More proof of that sociopathic dysfunction came a couple of days ago when “Rabbott” announced his analysis of his first “100 Days.” Mrs Wombat and I were driving at the time and on hearing that “….. we have shown ourselves to be a competent and trustworthy government….” nearly ran off the road with laughter.
The whole thing is beginning to look like a tableau painted by Hieronymus Bosch.

Does “Rabbott” really believe when he says, “We are a competent, trustworthy government?” After the backflips, lies, stuff-ups and diplomatic gaffes that would have the press apoplectic if it was Labor being as incompetent. Or is it just another Neo-Fascist Orwellianism to batter the minds of the public into submission by repeating lies?
"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again, but already it was impossible to say which was which."
More worrying are the Pacific Trade Talks where Andrew “La-La” Robb looks as if he is about to (in secret) let the Americans rip into the PBS and convert Australia’s Health System into the disaster that is America’s and Greg “Ozone-Hole” Hunt thinks that dumping 3,000,000 tonnes of dredging material onto the Barrier Reef will not diminish it; and that letting cattle back into the High Country will stop bushfires. He must have got that last one from Wicki. 
http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2013/12/alarm-bells-clang-over-robb-pbs-sellout/
Joe “Cereal-Killer”Hockey is about to announce “…that we’ll all be rooned” as, “It’s-All Labor’s-Fault” that we gave $10Billion to the Reserve bank and not our $24 Billion parental leave scheme for the “Upper-Middle-Class-Needy” or the extra $1.2 Billion going to the States who wouldn’t sign up for the Gonski that we’re not going to implement is all Labour’s fault, too. As is the $20 Million we’re now not going to buy Indonesian fishing boats with but convert into an ad campaign to advertise things we wont be able to tell you…. and it’s all such a mess we’ll have to wait till next May to tackle this “Economy-in-Crisis.”  Take the batteries out of you Bull-Shit Meters Petals, they just might explode!
When you have a satirist (John Birmingham) calling this the “Golden-Age” of  Satire and saying that he should forward his pay to Scott “The-Drone” Morisson as he is the one really writing his satirical material you have to believe that this lot are as bad as being portrayed. It would be funny if not tragic for the country.

Well, it is the “Silly-Season!”

There’s to be a Royal Commission into the “Pink Batts” deaths to sling mud at Labor. Not a Royal Commission into The Attorney General “Loose-Lips” Brandis’ use of ASIO to “Nobble” witnesses into Little Johnny Howard’s lot spying on Timor-Leste or the then Foreign Minister, Alex “Fish-Net’s-that-Batter” Downer’s involvement in assisting Woodside Petroleum (whom he now works for) in talks with Timor-Leste ?
Loose-Lips has also turned logic on its head and appointed Coot-With-Queer-Ideas-from-a-Parallel-Universe, Tim "Twat" Wilson from the IPA as a Human Rights Commissioner. The IPA think that the Human Rights Commission should be abolished. Brandis said that "Twat"Wilson will add "balance." Sort of like the balance you have with one person on a see-saw!
  Well, it is the “Silly-Season!”

Police here in the “Tardis” State (Where-All-Goes-Backward) are falling over themselves to assist residents in understanding why they really do need the East-West Link for $8 billion. If the residents query why such understanding has to found in a Rugby tackle they are asked for an $8,000.00 fee! This fee also apply to “The Knitting Nannas” who sit in Toolangi trees knitting, attempting to thwart Vic Forests renovation of the homes of the endangered Leadbeater’s Possum.
Geoff “Fiddles” Shaw has warned Santa about staying too long at Pretend Premier Dennis “Inutilis-Rusticus” Napthine’s place or he’ll have another word with “The Speaker”  and call any journalist who asks him a question, a Vulture. So there! 
                                                                               
Well, it is the “Silly-Season!”  

Cheers Possums,
Shane

Sitedfigures

Gonski Trolls and Talentless Lickspittles

 G'day Possums,

Shane the Socialist Wombat

You'll notice that the "implements" above are a trifle old and rusty so the metaphor should be clear.

We went to  a little party, party and watched the Balloons go up...

 

Labor Floating by...

 and had some good conversations....

Party, Party

 

The Fish and Chippery, Sturt St. Ballarat

 ..and attended what looked like  the Women's Collective at the Fish and Chippery in Sturt St Ballarat, who do a fine job. So if you're going through from Melbourne and feel the need for a Flake, Scallops and chips... look out to your left....just before the city proper.

La Carillon, Paris.

A different sort of party....Canadian Bob Eames on Sax which segue's to...

Tuilleries, Paris

...a pic I'm pleased to say appears on The ABC's website, a feature about the 100 most popular pieces of French Classical Music... Ta.. Daaaaaa.

Wombat Droppings or  lowdown Oz politics

Many of us were postulating more than 18 months before these 100 days that the Policy-Free-Zone the Liarbrils inhabited whilst hurling their putrid invective at all and sundry could not possibly be reversed once in power. 

And so it goes.. or should that be Gone-ski?

Freud could only have seen their actions as “Projections” where the worst of themselves are cast onto others…incoherent, sloppy, shambolic, lying, dis-organised, biased, poor economic managers etc.

Once, I used to think of the Liarbrils as managers only, but they have given over so much to the likes of the business council and the IPA that they've reduced themselves to little more than posturing office boys…. and don’t the Chinese and Indonesians know it! 

Actual leadership, vision and sense of Nation is not in their political lexicon.
..and the proof of the pudding is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJTGX-k7LC4
also check the spelling at top of page  "A message form our ......"

Listening to Eva Cox debating with Ian Hanke and Chris Berg on RN's Sunday Extra's "Outsiders" when travelling back to the burrow; (a ménage-a-trois of two right-wingers and one lefty...) which should keep the Trolls who are constantly complaining of ABC’s “left” bias, happy, the debate being mainly, you guessed it, the “rights” thought-bubble-of-the-moment: the dismemberment of the ABC.

I don't like offal in cooking and Berg’s recipes (one of "The Coots-With-Queer-Ideas-from-a-Parallel-Universe" aka IPA)with the narrow, myopic economic views he concocts were particularly not to my taste. Views which fail miserably to account for that variable in humans that Trolls can't quite equate for: talent and creativity.

Annabel Crabbe’s “Kitchen Cabinet” gives clue and insight to this species social limitations.

Responses are guarded, wary; as if they are way out of their comfort zone and can only feel “at-home” Ya-yaaing and Haw-hawing with their own ilk.  Note too, that apart from painter Bill Leake, comedian Barry Humphries and the cartoonist Larry Pickering, I can’t think of another artist who is avowedly of “the right.” It’s as if most of the conservatives seem to have had a personality short circuit with the creative modality turned off.

Senator Cory “Bestiality” Bernardi who is at the forefront of ABC bashing is a good example….

he wrote an opinion piece in 2010 calling for a ban on wearing the burqa in public and in 2007 published an essay questioning whether global warming was caused by human activities. “Von Ribbentropp” Turnbull removed him from the Shadow Ministry after he reportedly made unsubstantiated claims regarding a fellow Liarbril (allegedly Pyne “The Whyne”) in his blog. Recalling an encounter about 14 years before:  In response to my question of why he joined the Liberal Party, he blithely responded "I live in a Liberal seat so I had to be a member of the Liberal Party to get into Parliament. If I lived in a Labor seat I would have joined the Labor Party". Frankly I was aghast at this response. Where was the conviction, the beliefs, the values that I believe should motivate our political leaders? Several follow up questions disclosed that the only motivation for his own political involvement was for him to become Prime Minister. Pyne “The Whyne”, denied the allegations as "preposterous." 

Although other evidence suggest that “Whyne” and truth seem rarely to correspond.

Bernardi has been associated with Dutch politician Geert Wilders and in 2012 “Bestiality” resigned from his position as parliamentary secretary as a result of  arguing that permitting same-sex marriages will lead to legalised polygamy and bestiality. Bernardi said that the campaign for same-sex marriage was "another tear in the fabric of our social mores." "Time and time again the same characters seek to tear down our institutions that have been built and have sustained our civilization for thousands of years. The time has come to ask: when will it end? "The next step, quite frankly, is having three people or four people that love each other being able to enter into a permanent union endorsed by society or any other type of relationship." And then went on to say accepting gay marriage could lead to accepting bestiality. "There are even some creepy people out there and I say 'creepy' deliberately who are unfortunately afforded a great deal more respect than I believe they deserve," he said. "These creepy people say it is okay to have consensual sexual relations between humans and animals. Will that be a future step? "In the future will we say, 'These two creatures love each other and maybe they should be able to be joined in a union'."

THIS bloke seriously thinks that limiting free speech by selling the ABC is a good thing?

Tardis State (Where-All-Goes-Backward) Fellow Traveller and conceptual equal, Geoff “Fiddles” Shaw has had the 24 charges against him dropped because:                
A/ he’s a good bloke and God loves him?                                                                                                      
or

B/ The Tardis State “Where-All-Goes-Backward” Liarbrils, were “Packin’-their-Daks” over a by-election?

or

C/ To provide upward mobility within the Department of Justice?

Or

D/ Abortion Law needs to be “re-formed”?

Or

E/ It was the Vultures of the press, the magistrate, the privileges committee, the speaker, and his wife who were all guilty?

Also in the “Tardis State”…..It’s been decided that that there’s no need to re-regulate pollies perks….Or that the proposed waste of money on the East-West Link is really a waste of money but, Shhhhhhhh…..and fining Knitting Nana’s for protesting the extinction of a species $8,000.00 is a good thing and that our wonderful privatised transport systems guardians are gentle souls…

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/teenage-girl-bodyslammed-at-flinders-street-station-20131209-2z02r.html

Thanks, “Bully Boy” Kennett for stuffing that up, too.

Cheers, Petals,

Shane.






 Sitedfigures

The Australian Index

..fossils with their pants on fire

 G'day Petals,
some pics from around our fair land before its all sold off to private interests and then some fossils with their pants on fire...so it's all....

Wombat Droppings or the Low-down on Oz Politics

Shane making comparisons

Here in the Tardis State, “Where-all-goes Backward”, John Faine (ABC, 774 Mornings), mischievously announced the appalling news that Tim “Twat” Wilson (Coot-With-Queer-Ideas-from-A-Parallel-Universe, aka the IPA) might get to host a program on the ABC. 

St.Kilda Beach

If he does I’m asking the Corporation for compensation for having to purchase a new Bass Tuner for the radio to modify “Twat’s” high-pitched, pre-pubescent whine.

(A voice characteristic that seems de-rigueur for many of the rancid-right males).

Although it would give him a real job for once; that the Corporation could seriously consider putting this biased, mono-concept, partisan right-winger to air to host anything is beyond comprehension, particularly as he has an IPA policy position of flogging the ABC and SBS to private interests. It would be as bad as inviting another Cuckoo into your nest!

Tasmania, East Coast

We would also have to know who funds the IPA in order to separate the comment from the advertising and with the overload of right-wing drivel we have currently from 99% of the media we really don’t need more amateurs akin to the limited talk-back talent of Amanda “Il Patrone” Vanstone clogging the air-waves with their bilious thought-bubbles. Maybe if ABC programmed them all together at Sunday, 2:00am as “The Macca, Mandy and Timmy Troll Show?”  It would be a sort of nouveau “Goon-Show”.  Sans  humour.

It is a case in point that is only when skilled practitioners go on leave that you realise just how skilled, balanced and talented they are. How well they are able to maintain, over a number of hours audience interest, consistent thought and theme and are able engage with empathy a variety of guests and talk-back callers where, often under provocation, they have to maintain their manners; and none of this is amounts to much if the basics of radio technique, voice, is inappropriate and the enunciation is not in sync with that voice.

Perhaps the talented Annabel Crabbe?  … her replacement of Leigh“Hissy-Fit”Sales as news anchor was a demo on how-to-do-it in an informative, empathetic and more importantly, BALANCED manner!

Sales’ latest interview with The “Lying-Whyning-Perfect-Prefect” Pyne had none of the rude, rapid-fire interruption and value-ridden, assumed-answer questions that Shorten had to contend with a couple of nights earlier. The “Lying-Whyning-Perfect-Prefect” Pyne grinned and smirked his way through a cake-walk that not once indicated that lying about your policy’s before an election was not only contemptuous of the electorate but a bad thing for notions of democracy nor was he probed over his his silly grinning  I-don’t –care-what-you-say, performance.

Not balanced, ABC!  And again, tonight... (2/12) Sales' let this apology for a education minister lie his way around the truth of the now most recent Liarbril double-back-flip on Gonski. The only thing she had to ask him was, "Who wrote the script, Monty Python?"
.....

"the review was the most comprehensive in 30 years. It took 20 months to complete. It spans 300 pages. It attracted an extraordinary 7000 individual written submissions. Five of the six panel members held the Order of Australia. The government even gave the inquiry and the report their own website: www.schoolfunding.gov.au

But they are not there any more. Visits to www.schoolfunding.gov.au are redirected to the departmental website of minister Christopher Pyne, where there's no mention of the word "Gonski" at all, let alone a copy of the report or its 7000 submissions."
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/gonskis-gone-school-funding-review-struck-from-record-20131202-2yljm.html#ixzz2mJ1OYQTs

So now we have an Education Minister who literally "Burns-The-Books!"

One of Crabbe’s recent pearlers: “Joe Hockey: a Cereal Killer!” I’m henceforth going to appropriate it as Hockey’s Nick-Name as it deserves all the spreading that all good shit must!

Joe “Cereal-Killer” Hockey: The man who won’t be pushed around…Ta..Daaaaaaaaa.

Adding to our world standing, it’s been reported that Oz received 4 Fossil of the Day Awards at the Warsaw Climate Change talks and caused a walkout by other delegates frustrated with our obstruction.

We were then awarded the overall, Colossal Fossil.

Ozzie, Ozzie Ozzie, Oi,Oi,Oi!

…most from Kaye Lee. The aimn

And then this :  

 “I was an opposition leader myself for four years; I know that that position has some exhilarations and some frustrations.”  To Aung San Suu Kyi, (visiting Oz for the first time) a patriot who has endured 15 years imprisonment and a life in constant fear of assassination

Perhaps the deplorable crassness of “Rabbott” Abbott’s mind demonstrated once more by this utterance, was a line was provided by Mark “Slagger”Textor?

"Rabbott"

 Was "Rabbott’s" Mein(er) Kampf called “Battlelines” because he's a conflicted Catholic and understands naught but conflict?

But this little ammo replenisher from http://theaimn.com/2013/11/30/political-lies-and-who-tells-them/ might be worth stocking for those run-ins with those you can’t seem to find any more: Liarbril voters.

Lies, about-faces and broken promises are as follows:

(for the American reader, Labor: Red, Liarbril: Blue)

Gough Whitlam: 7
Malcolm Fraser: 52
Bob Hawke: 4
Paul Keating: 3
John Howard: 41
Tony Abbott (as minister): 17
Kevin Rudd: 4
Julia Gillard: 6
Tony Abbott (as Opposition Leader): 15 …and counting. As PM ?

But don’t expect them to accept facts, their visceral hatreds have to be indulged first.

Tasmania

The “Right” are now more comfortable in saying they wish only to support "aspirationals".

The big debate then is really another re-invention of the wheel.

What does this nation want to be?

A social-democracy or a selfish and greedy "Tea-Party" feudal system as espoused by the IPA?

I think the last election pointed in a direction for the worse.

Australians’ have shown reluctance since Whitlam for having any lasting yearning for social justice, equity, or understanding of the issues and ideas of nation building.

Labor has been bereft in this area; the Greens the only “left” remaining are too narrowly focused and the "the bogans" are having a field day. 

Near Coonabaraban

I fear we are becoming a cartoon of a nation and unfortunately having made the story-board from left-over American bits (and it’s getting worse) we only have a “sit-com” character and identity where we wrap a flag around our obese selves, daub its colours on our cheeks and practice plastic patriotism at the cricket.

See ya, Possums,

Shane

sitedfigures