in the drink

Comrades,

It was a good thing I was out on Sunday afternoon enjoying myself at the Harvest Moon Festival at Cabramatta, and a very good thing for the people who scattered the www.coalitionformarriage.com.au literature on my front doorstep while I wasn't home, otherwise, if I knew they were coming, I would have opened the front door fully nude and threatened to call them names before head-butting them.
There is precedent for this, yr Honour.
There will be a mention of it, in due course, at the Hobart Magistrate's Court.
I must say the flyer headline urging you to "VOTE NO to protect your freedoms", which otherwise, if you 'vote' yes, will somehow transmute into, "political correctness will be weaponised and used to shut down free speech" quite odd, indeed, very strange insect logic right there, and the "3 WAYS GAY MARRIAGE WILL CHANGE THE CLASSROOM" pamphlet was pretty lewd, suggesting that there will be yet "more radical gay & lesbian sex 'education' in schools" [what? more!], parents will lose their rights [what! again?] and "kids will be taught their gender is fluid" [Oh God, I wish I was shown & told that in school], but it reminded me of what the Senator for South Australia, Penny Wong, said the other day "I never said I expected this not to be close. The "no" advocates know that this is their last chance".
I would not have even given them the time of day to tell them that they were wasting their stinking breath because, like most other sensible people, I have towed the bi-partisan line rock solid here big time and 'voted' YES a couple of weeks ago.
The Chief Pinko and the Prime Minister told me to, so who am I to argue, and in any case, what is it good for?
It's no-where near even close to a plebiscite - however ridiculous that would have been - this is but a "voluntary non-binding postal survey" never before attempted in the 116 year old history of the Commonwealth, coming hard on the heels of the Census Cock-Up.
The Electoral Commission isn't involved.
The Parliament, both Houses, could sit tomorrow and change the Marriage Act on a call for the voices.
Lucky that I wasn't home, because I wouldn't have been drunk and I wouldn't have missed, which may have presented me with a minor legal problem.
Just ask DJ Astro Funknukl Labe, he'll tell you.
Then I saw on a protest placard somewhere on the telly last night that read "men of quality are not afraid of equality", and the Tory stupidity of it all finally sunk in as utterly astounding.

In the meantime...in local news...seen in the mighty Cooks River over the weekend.
Another washed-up would-be cardboard-cut-out politician.
Poor Jennifer; just couldn't get the vote.

Photo: Earlwood Environment League

As a matter of record - hot off the adding-up machine down at the NSW Electoral Commission; the final count saw an undisputed result in the Canterbury-Bankstown Council Local Govt. election of three Councillors from five wards.
Labor 9, Liberal 5, Greens 1.
My neighbours here in Canterbury Ward returned the sole Green.
Gentrification creeps ever closer from the Inner West as the dirt piles up, and the tide goes in and out.

"half a skinful"

Ah, you gotta love the Miracle of Democracy when it tolerates a little known anarchist in Hobart coming up to a former Prime Minister in the form of the Hon. Tony "The Mad Monk" Abbott and head-butting him in the street for no reason at all, and no one is particularly upset about, not even the victim who is reported to have thought that he was affronted by it, but dusted himself off and continued on his merry way.

Unfortunately the anarchist in question DJ Astro Funknukl Labe did nothing for his defence for when he is dragged at some stage before the Hobart Magistrate's Court when he told the press.


"It had nothing to do with gay marriage, I'd had half a skinful, and I just wanted to nut the cunt".

A man after my own heart...

the revolution turns full circle

Comrades,

Took me a while to catch up with this, as news travels slowly from the north, but me ol' mate Mari Alkatiri has been sworn in as the Prime Minister of East Timor at the age of 67, for the next four years.
Having closely followed affairs in the country since Balibo, I was surprised to find myself dining in the same Portuguese restaurant in Dili as the dude back in 2012.
His entourage even then had to be seen to be believed - heavily armed goons in suits, lots of hangers-on, press, attractive women, even a weird westerner groupie who was not admitted - the experience was odd, strange, and a little edgy with more than a few shooters stuffed in socks ready to go...Alkatiri's charisma filled the room, and you certainly got the impression he's a man who's not to be messed with under any circumstances.
It's been 11 years since Alkatiri was last Prime Minister, running the shop right after independence through '02-'06, after making a name for himself as one of the original, best & fiercest freedom fighters there was for FALINTIL, the military wing of FRETILIN, as well as being a first class political cadre, eventually forming an East Timorese Govt. in exile in '76 at the age of 26.
But he's always been looking over his shouklder and has never had a lot of friends - when negotiations fail, he prefers to let his .44 do the talkin'.
He also just happens to be a Muslim, in a country that is 97% Roman Catholic.
Alkatiri had a falling out with Xanana Gusmão over direction and policy, and was effectively banished to the outer provinces, being last appointed as the President of the enclave of Oceussi.
But he was not happy with that, not happy at all; it's a long way from Dili.
Gusmão eventually gave up on domestic politics and took on the leading role in re-negotiating the Timor Gap Treaty that Gareth Evans shamefully signed with Ali Alitas back in '89 [while he's done some fine work at the UN on nuclear disarmament since, Gareth will never live that one down]...it went all the way to the International Court of Farkin' Justice and back and forth over the decades, and was only settled out of court in the last fortnight at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in Copenhagen, on pretty good, although confidential, terms, amid much jubilation among the population of Timor Leste.
So, after almost 30 years, the proceeds of the rivers of fossil fuels in the Timor Sea, that were theirs in the first place, finally flow into the Timor Leste Govt. coffers, as they should, by right and by law.
Even though the arse has now fallen out of the oil and gas markets, they're still worth in the vicinity of $US60 billion.
If he hadn't long before now, Gusmão, at age 71, goes down in Timorese history as their greatest ever hero and now elder statesman.

Photo/Associated Press

The first thing Alkatiri promised to do on assuming office, was to "bring the people out of poverty".
Good luck with that Mari, but at least he now has half a chance with the new cash - and he'll need it.
The Revolutionary Front of Independent East Timor [FRETILIN], against the odds, won the last general election, and formed a minority Govt. with the small Democratic Party - not enough to govern outright - but it keeps Gusmão's splinter group, the National Congress for East Timorese Reconstruction [CNRT] in effective opposition, so the popularly-elected President Francisco "Lu-Olo" Guterres, also of FRETILIN, on being offered with no alternatives other than the Party's long-serving Secretary-General, had no choice but to give Alkatiri the nod, and he was in.
And so it goes, elected unopposed.
The revolution in Timor, it seems, turns full circle.

Timorese President, Francisco Guterres Lu-Olo, signed the decree of appointment journal of Mari Alkatiri as Prime Minister of the VII Constitutional Government/Lusa

Post Inauguration of new PM, Dili, 14 Sept. 2017
Lirio Da Fonseca/Reuters


And the Miracle of Democracy has also been getting a good work-out across 'The Ditch', with Our Cuz in NZ being gripped by "Jacindamania" with the General Election slated for this weekend.
Since her recent ascendancy to the leadership of the Labour Party, Jacinda Arden has taken the Pinko's from being a lost, hopeless cause to a damn good chance of winning, with the latest opinion polls putting her 44%/40% ahead of Bill "Boring as Bat Shit" English on a two-party preferred basis.
That Mad Maori, Winston Peters, was widely expected to hold the balance of power, but his New Zealand First Party's poll numbers are falling like a lead balloon, as the electorate seems to have become more polarised.
Jacinda is the perfect candidate really, a North Island country cop's daughter who worked in a chippie to put herself through University, then landed her first job in Helen Clark's office - she doesn't talk like a politician, espouses populist agrarian socialist views, and, the meeja love her because, let's face it, she is 'photogenic'.
However, the NZ way of doing democratic things is a very curious one, with a set of "reserved seats", mainly for Maori, that are determined by "party lists", and "constituent" seats, that are decided on a first past the post basis on the popular vote in electorates.
Without an Upper House, the "MMP" is over complicated, and there is a significant push for change.
I did note that Arden was ambushed on the campaign trail mid-week while meeting and greeting voters in New Plymouth by a hundred or so folk dressed as pirates.
Long John Silver accosted the Opposition Leader and reportedly presented her with a a "piñata briefcase" and asked "Now you've promised something for everyone, what are you going to give us pirates? The lootin' and pillagin' industry is not what it used to be, you know. Profit margins are really being squeezed out here on the coast in the current climate."

New Plymouth, NZ, 16 Sept 2017.
Craig McCulloch/Radio NZ

And if that is not enough, Icelandic politics has imploded once again, over a paedophile scandal of all things.
Prime Minister Bjarni Benediktsson has resigned and called for a fresh election, only nine months since the last poll, on account of his father had written a character reference for a mate of his, who happened to be a child sex offender who did time and was trying to get his criminal record expunged under a quirk of Icelandic law.
The perceived sins of the father are visited upon the son.
Given that Bjanari is from the Bright Future Party and was ruling in a very shaky coalition, now is the perfect time for Iceland's anarcho-socialist Pirate Party, who already have ten seats in the 63 seat Althing, to campaign for a working majority and make Reykjavik the capital of a Brave New Uptopian World, like they promise they will.
You can only hope.
Stranger things have happened.

Photo: Iceland Pirate Party

two turds for Canberra

Younger Comrades,

Sheesh...the Post Office must be busy at the minute.
Never mind having to deliver 15+ million letters from the ABS.
It's come to this.
The horror of being officially classified as "elderly" culminates in the final, ultimate indignity - being asked to send your shit to the Govt., in the post.
First the postie drops my Senior's Card in the letter box which has the phrase boldly printed on the front of it "The holder is a Valued Member of the Community. Please extend every Courtesy and Assistance".
How do they know that I'm a valued member of the community by my age, or that I require assistance with courtesy?
Why not just say "here comes some old bastard looking for an even break"?
Then my Gold Opal Card, clearly marked with a deliberately over-sized SENIOR/PENSIONER stamp on it turns up in the post, which entitles me to unlimited public transport at $2.50 a day.
[Why not free, like the London Underground, if I'm so valued?]
But it don't end there, not by any stretch of the imagination.
Oh, no siree.
Then an eParcel [whatever that is] from Australia Post, addressed to me, marked with the ominous words AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT on the front of it ["Oh God", I think to myself, "it's a about that tax return I forgot to lodge back in '84"] lobs on my front door step, which, upon opening contains a National Bowel Cancer Screening Program Kit in a lovely presentation basket from the Chief Medical Officer, Prof. Brendan Murphy.
Oh, that's nice of him, just making sure, now that you are old, that you could give the game away and drop off the twig at any moment so we don't have to pay you the Old Age Pension.
Just making sure...nothing to worry about, that's all.
But, let me tell you, the instructions on how to do the deed are abhorrent & degrading for a newly-minted elderly gentleman not used to such things...
"first, spread a sheet of the newspaper provided on a clean floor [not carpet], drop the daks, squat, gently extrude a steaming poo emoji, get a paddle pop stick, hold your nose, scrape up a bit of the excrement, put it in the test tube provided, pop it in fridge, repeat two to three days later with the other test tube, and then take it all down to a Post Office forthwith and hand it to the Post Master saying "here's my shit, man, it's for the Govt. Make it quick".
Yep, that's right, you have to perform this appalling, disturbing act not once, but twice.
And there must have been some kind of oversight, as there's nothing in the information package for Seniors with a Plan B; in case you don't have perfectly-formed stools or just happen to have the squirts or the sprays, or, there's some bits of corn or carrot in it, or, god forbid, you are suffering awfully from a constipated log-jam and you just can't do it for love nor money, no matter how hard you try.
Then what?
If all goes well, 'tho, once it gets back to the lab and they put it through its paces, you then get another letter from the Govt. via the Post Office within three weeks that says either "Bad news. Your shit stinks" or "Congratulations. Your faecal matter has the sweet aroma of a Lady Diana rose".
However, there is some delicious irony in it I suppose; that after all those long long years as an honest toiler, a hard-working tax-payer, at 60 years of age, you get to send a couple of stinkin' steamin' turds to Canberra in the mail...but oh, the indignity!
Oh well, I suppose it's better than being boned up the arse with a very long garden hose colonoscopy-style by somebody you don't even know.
Things could be worse.
A lot worse.

sponke the monkey

Comrades,

I didn't mind being held up at the ballot box at the Canterbury South Public School hall by a couple of children who were being told by their mother what she was doing, i.e putting her ballot paper and the ballot paper of her elderly mother in the ballot box.
Young people need be shown and told about the Miracle of Democracy, in all its intricacies.
But, there was no talk as to why she was putting her mother's vote in the box.
The Electoral Commissioner's Supervisor didn't seem to mind
Nothing at all to say about making sure that Mum had voted the right way.
Secret ballot, be buggered.
Working that out comes later, kiddies.
I'd even heard mid-week that people are now offering to sell brand new unused "non-binding voluntary postal survey" forms viz-a-viz a question no-one could give a blue root about on e-Bay, so you can fill them in and send them back to the Strayan Bureau of Stats [ABS], at your leisure marked however you like.
I'd like to know how much you can get for them, as I spot a good business opportunity here as the middle-man; I could buy and then on-sell them as a job lot to whatever pressure group wants them, at the highest price, of course.
No principals involved.
What's to stop me?
Another judgement in the High Court?
But, at least it wasn't that hard to cast a genuine valid vote in the CanBan Local Govt. election - just scratch the number 1 in the box above the line for your preferred ticket out of four tickets with three candidates each, in a "ward" that sends three Councillors to council.

None of this being able to count up to at least 6 nonsense like you had to do at the last Federal Election - and still people elected Freaks to the Senate, but that's another story.
No siree, under the optional preferential Hare-Clark-McIntyre-Duckworth-Lewis system of voting being employed at this multi-member constituency election; the number one, or even a tick, or any mark at all in a box above the line would have to be considered by the scrutineers as a valid formal vote, if "the voter's intention was clear".
Simple.
It was widely expected that the Ward would vote along party lines, and that there would be a bit of a backlash vote against Gladys Berejiklian's rubbish Tory State Govt, as people are a bit antsy around these parts about the WestConnex "road to nowhere" project, as the rat-runners avoiding the new toll will clog our already super-busy local roads to a standstill and we'll pay for it, and, well, the rampant over-development of the joint is unstoppable what with the way land prices are; running dog capitalist speculators ruining it for everyone, once again.
There was some protest vote too, and a yearning for the status quo, given that the good burghers of Canterbury have been without any democratic representation whatsoever for a FULL 16 MONTHS, with the shop was being run by a State Govt. appointed stooge called an "Administrator".
Granted, the crony did put an interim stop-order on any new apartment complex DA's being approved along the Canterbury Rd there, until after the election - but he had no choice really - until they have worked out the Sydenham-Bankstown Development Corridor properly, which they haven't, and there's also been talk in the local butcher's shop [where all the good gossip is] that the ICAC is involved, and has its spies out sniffing around, asking questions and putting in wire-taps on dodgy developer's, former councillor's and former council officer's mobile phones, etc etc et al.
Some people aren't going to like it.
But, really?
16 months since the forced amalgamation of the two councils without a single elected official to complain to?
Absolutely outrageous.
But at least that's now been rectified and we did vote along Party lines, with Canterbury Ward electing Clare "Riffy" Raffan with 8,011 primary votes, with the second seat also likely to go Labor as they have 1.42 of a quota on the first count, and the third to be fought out between the Libs and the Greens on preferences.
Same as it ever was.
And then, the further out you go to the other wards, the more overwhelmingly Pinko it becomes.
It's a dead-set certainty that Labor will have a clear majority on Council.
I have no idea what kind of a voice Clare will bring to Council, but it is excellent to see her being elected, because, with those eyes, she would certainly give Julie Bishop a very good run for her money in any "Death Stare" competition.
You certainly wouldn't want to be sitting on the other side of the Council Chamber from her, because if the death stare didn't quite work, Clare would just pull out her Star Trek ray gun and vapourise you.

But the Informal Vote was the big winner on the day, as punters also displayed the usual amount of 'care factor'.
Folk love to vote in compulsory elections, but when they turn up at the polling place, they traditionally don't like being told what to do.
That's part of the beauty of it.
You are perfectly entitled to write on the ballot paper "I am sorry, but I could not give a flying-fuck about this".
The informal vote across all five wards was as follows:
26.69%, 25.66% , 24.28%, 17.63%, and 15.73%.
On that measure, at least three Informal Councillors should have been elected.
In the meantime, the Good Lady Wife drew my attention with a sniff of contempt to some really crazy weird-shit going on across the Harbour, on the Leafy North Shore, where the former Howard Govt. Minister For Everything, the Rt. Hon. Philip Ruddock, has come out of recent retirement to be elected the Mayor of Hornsby at the age of 74.
He knows he'll look good in chains.
But, WTF?
However, that's of no concern of us; at least we Cantabrians have the sense to leave the election of the Mayor and the handing out of the bling up to the elected Councillors.
We won't have anything to do with that.
Of more importance, the P&C BBQ was doing a politically correct roaring trade on the Sizzle of Democracy, offering a wide election selection including a "gourmet sausage" on a roll, with complimentary fried onions and all the sauces including American Mustard, the "Halal sausage", also yr standard "bacon & egg roll" and even a "felafel roll", hot damn, with a cupcake stall to finish.
Making a killing, they were.

It was pleasing to see that the Pinko vote was not influenced at all by the "bogus, offensive election material", which was described by local Labor MP, Linda Burney MHR, as "homophobic, racist & disgusting", being widely circulated at polling booths in the district, which strongly advised people to DO NOT VOTE LABOR, otherwise their children would start learning how to sponke their monkeys, heaven forbid - never mind that voting Labor would also turn your children into homosexuality.
Good God, can't have any of this monkey sponking business going on, otherwise it will all end in tears as the Yoof of Today suddenly start going blind en-masse.
Everyone knows what happens when the primate is poked at the polls, but hasn't teaching kiddies how to sponke their monkeys been outlawed in Govt. Schools for a long time now?
Ahh...ya gotta love The Miracle of Democracy...even pansexuals can get elected now, you know...

I did like the middle aged-bloke who appeared to be of Greek ancestry [the dominant ethnic origin of the second wave of early settlers of the district], dressed in the full regulation Saturday non-designer grey track suit pants and top, wearing thongs, sucking feverishly on a can of Solo while smoking a bunger, and having a good-natured debate with some brave or foolhardy Liberal Party workers handing out how-to-vote cards.
The only thing I overheard him saying was "look, I just can't trust you Liberal people. All I can do is pray".



Photo: Francie M. Lawson

we got the bomb

Drinkers for Disarmament,

When you aint got no mushroom cloud on the horizon to go on, it's always rather important to determine the nuclear yield when setting off The Bomb.
The latest Big One in North Korea, the fifth they've let go in about 11 years, looks like its just Fat Boy Slim being a bit bolshy.
The destructive power of the thing was generally put at about 10 kiloton's of TNT [although the estimates vary widely, with some putting it as high as anywhere between 11.9 kt and 23.7kt].
It's not easy to measure these things.
"Fat Man" in downtown Nagasaki back in '45 came in at between 20kt and 22kt.
So, Kim O'Fat Boy has let off a tiny damp squib in this day and age - and he wouldn't have any serviceable ones left - so, in the Grand Scheme of Things, it might be capable of making a right mess of a country town, if he could deliver it in a timely manner without any outside interference, but that's about it - and due to its almost complete lack of sophistication it'd be a pretty bloody dirty bomb too.
What's always got me, given that the so-called Hermit Kingdom don't pay no attention to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty [1996], is why The Boy King doesn't go in for an atmospheric test?
Now that'd cast the cat amongst the pigeons
Why the pretence of going underground, when it could look real pretty?
Still, if you want to get genuinely serious about nuclear weapons you've gotta go Thermonuclear and be talking in Megatons, baby.
'Tsar Bomba' back in '61 came in at at least 50mt.
And it could have been exponentially huuuuuger, if only they'd let it really rip.
The Americans and the Ruskies, in the highly unlikely event of either of them getting really furious, could pull a bigger and better one out of the cupboard tomorrow, and that'd be good night nurse.
Sabre-rattling and gun boat diplomacy have been around for centuries, but if yr spoiling for a fight, it's never a good idea to be messing about with nuclear weapons, Fat Boy.
People who play with these things can get their fingers burnt.
He would be well aware of the stupendous cost of building one, let alone the immense difficulty of strapping one on to the end of a rocket with no auto-pilot - miniaturisation drives technicians right out of their brains - but he don't care.
Just as long as Chinese helicopters are still dropping crate loads of South Korean manufactured Choco Pies on the Pyongyang Palace, he's as Happy as Larry.
Nobody-fucks-with-the-Fat Boy, OK?, and he's fine with that.
He knows, in order to achieve true immortality in the dynasty, you have to be dead and have your likeness up there in massive granite blocks.
Just ask his father and grand father.
Doesn't matter if the whole shebang goes up in a ball of flames, if that's what it takes to keep the family in power.
[It's interesting to note that behind closed doors in smoke-filled rooms, right here, right now, Russia and the Yankies are actually reducing their nuclear weapon stockpiles, simply because they are hellishly expensive - into the tens of billions - don't keep well in storage, and have to be on constant rotation - decommissioned and re-built just to make sure the things still work. Slowly, but surely, The Bomb is falling out of favour.]
Putin isn't much interested in Korea, never has been, China wants their cheap coal and seafoods, and lots of it, and The Donald's foreign policy has been handed over holus-bolus to the might of Ike's military/industrial complex, who would never dream of a pre-emptive strike, even tho' they'd love nothing more.
The Trumpotus is entirely disinterested in the foreign policy numbers in that briefcase over there.
The UN protests in the strongest possible terms.
After all, it was only back in July that the UN adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons 2017 [minor problem, none of the nuclear states have signed on, of course].
The '54 Armistice after the Korean War is still in force, and South Korea still has a Minister for Reunification.
Nothing to see here.