fallen windmills, quinoa & frozen pike

Comrades,

Crikey! It was a busy weekend for the Miracle of Democracy...

[Photo: Nina Zontina/Sputnik. Voters in Sochi, Russia, 18 March 2018.]


I note that My Mate Vlad has been returned for his fourth stint as President of the Russian Federation.
Wildly popular among the middle class he created, by all reports.
Who knows what the proletariat is thinking?
Backed him in with something like 77% of the popular vote by some accounts, but the powers-that-be in Russia are not generally fond of Electoral Commission's, or nuisances like that, so it's hard for the amateur psephologist to get any handle on the exact numbers that actually count.
It goes without saying that with the genuine Opposition out of the race after boycotting the poll in protest over a fraudulent bribery conviction of their leader, the Communist Party candidate was the only real alternative [and he died in the neck with the voters], and despite eight candidates on the ballot paper, Putes was a lay-down misere in this one, so there wasn't much need for vote rigging, as the election had already been rigged.
There didn't seem to be any argument about that.
There were reported cases of "ballot stuffing" - that's always a good one.
If enough people don't bother to show up, electoral officials just sternly fill out all the blank ballot papers for the authorities and stuff the ballot boxes with them, safe in the knowledge that no-one will be any the wiser.
Winner!
The only reality about the whole exercise was the turnout, but that's a State Secret, as are the number of spoiled ballots, that would have been binned anyway.
There were some legitimate concerns that folk would not roll up, blaming the unseasonably cold spring weather, but Putes had an answer to that...he adopted Abe Lincoln's old tactic of offering free booze at the polling stations, with barrels of Govt. made and authorised vodka being rolled out across the nation so people had the opportunity to raise a glass and toast "tvajó zdaróvye!!" to their Great and Glorious Leader.
And not happy with just grog, it was reported that on Russia’s Pacific coast, local officials delivered fresh eggs, tinned peas, and frozen pike to polling stations, to be sold at a 30% discount on retail.
Brilliant! Go shopping on the cheap while you vote and have a drink.
Who's going to argue with that?
Nikolai Kretsu, who's known around those parts as the Chairman of the Consumer Market Committee, was quoted as saying "we think by doing this we can increase turnout” and "the second objective is to strengthen allegiance towards the authorities.”
Too right mate, and too honest for yr own good.
Never mind being a dab hand with a light touch of nerve agent, if Vlad the Impaler doesn't do a Mr Jinping, and is still term limited in 2024, he already would have been effectively running the show for nigh on a quarter century anyway.
Talk about the quintessential autocrat.

[Photo: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP. Vladimir Putin celebrating the fourth anniversary of Russia's annexation of Crimea, Manezhnaya Square, Moscow, 18 March 2018.]

[Photo: Steven S. Marshall caught looking rather shady at an un-dated press conference in Adelaide.]

Meantime, over in the Free Colonies, you've gotta love the South Australian Liberal Country League Cartel, who think they were born to rule, if anyone was.
Steven S. Marshall - a former furniture salesman and wool broker - ironically represents the good burghers of the electorate of Dunstan [formerly Norwood]...he of the Pink hotpants, Our Don, on course, would be revolving in his poor shallow grave knowing that a Tory is representing the seat he famously nicked off the arch-conservatives, and is now named in his honour.
Mortified, he would be.
There was some of the usual hanky-panky going down with the Pinko's apparently forced to make something like 40,000 robocalls through the reverse phonebook, and send a few thousand texts in the days before the election reminding old folk that not only do they have the right to vote, but that they are obliged to vote, after the Tories spread a scurrilous and fictitious rumour that Senior Citizens were exempt from the ballot.
That hoary old chestnut - spreading postal vote forms in nursing homes has long been a Pinko ploy on the campaign trail - but now it's same, same, only different; just run a 'don't vote' scam on the platform favoured by the elderly, Facebook, and watch it take off.
Uncle Jay looked like the heavy burden of power had been lifted from his shoulders while conceding defeat with an excellent punting analogy "like a four-time Melbourne Cup winner, who the handicapper has finally caught up with - on this occasion".
The handicapper being the Surveyor-General or whoever drew up the "radical redistribution" which effectively made four solid working-class seats very marginal, so the odds were indeed stacked against him, and the L.C.L jumped at their chance.
Lets face it, Labor did preside over closing a car factory or two, a submarine base that according to a former Tory Defence Minister "couldn't build a canoe", and a whole lot of windmills falling over in a 'once in 100 year storm' and frying the electricity grid to buggery.
But what could have been 20 years in power is a long long time, and nobody has a mortgage on the Miracle of Democracy.
The Pinko's just lost the popular vote.
Croweaters' opted for change for change's sake, surely confident that not much will actually change in the Rust Belt, apart from schools and hospitals and the like going down the S-bend us usual.
And it wasn't as if the Lefties were "swept from power" in a landslide or anything, it was more like a "brave, honourable defeat" given the near-impossible task.
Apart from being redistributed out of it - in the end, it was the "incumbency problem", plain and simple.
In a scary unstable world, the punters left their Protest Votes at home, and went with self-interest and stability, as everyone knows what a minority Govt. looks like - just ask Julia Gillard, she'll tell you.
It was most pleasing to see that complete & utter freak of nature, Corey Berandi, go entirely nowhere, while that show-pony Nick the Greek is now also a goner, a spent political force.
There is no way back for Xenophon, as South Australia polarised - scared to death of the unknown - left to the left and right to the right, thanks, leaving no middle ground to contest, and sensibly the wily bastard won't have yet another lash at the Senate as his comrades in the Nat Cap are splintering like Mintaro slate, and there's simply no point beating yr head against a limestone wall, anymore.
He's had his day in the sun, and is now very tanned.
So Nick goes from wannabe power-broker and king-maker to schmuck, and will just have to return to "no win, no fee" lawyering to earn a crust, as even his handsome Parliamentary pension from Canberra is unlikely to keep him in the manner to which he is accustomed.
It's everyone for themselves on that part of the island, I'm afraid.

[Photo: Stanley Hammond 1979 Bronze [detail] of John Batman, co-founder of Melbourne - "a rogue, thief, cheat and liar, a murderer of blacks and the vilest man I have ever known".Formerly located in Collins St, Melbourne, currently in storage.]


It was heartwarming for an Old Red to see the Pinko's and common sense triumph in the Batman by-election, where they were the under-dogs to end all under-dogs...but it was a classic example of a very old adage..."all politics is local".
Global warming be buggered, folk in inner-suburban Melbourne [where there's long been "four seasons in one day"] could not give a blue root about a "stranded asset" that is highly unlikely to ever become some Indian coal mine in outback QLD more than two-and-a-half thousand kilometres away as the crow flies.
Reffo's? Nah, no votes in them.
The Greens did themselves no favours at all by fielding a perennial loser, a very ordinary party hack who has now contested the seat SIX times and lost [although she still has a very long way to go to beat Screaming Lord Sutch of the Monster Raving Loony Party who still holds the world record for the most number of contested elections lost].
The tofu hanging off the Hipster Proof Fence along yr Bell St there did not turn Green with mold, and the tree-huggers' candidate was also dogged by vindictive bickering in her own party and was blatantly and very publicly accused of being a bully and an all-round not nice person.
Now that's not white-anting, that's eating the whole house.
In stark contrast, the Pinko's had the sense to run an actual real worker [a former nurse], with enough political nous to rise to the top of the Australian Nursing Federation and then follow the RJ Hawke route through the ACTU.
She knows a thing or two about organising - don't you worry about that - and reportedly worked very hard at retail politics.
If she personally didn't knock on every door in Batman, one of her envoys did.
The Labor vote actually increased south of the Quinoa Corridor as the Greens were deserted in droves by the Millennials - so there's hope for them yet.
While the Hon. Bob Brown down on his little farm in Tassy is consumed by incandescent rage at the wrecking of his noble intentions party by ignorant fools, the un-reformed Trots are way up shit creek without a paddle, after a disastrous election in the Apple Isle, losing big-time ground in SA, failing to secure a certain win in Batman, and are now being wholly consumed by their own long-running internal backstabbing - ask Lee Rhiannon, she'll tell you.
The way they're going, it's likely to all end in tears and go the same way as the Australian Democrats.
Remember them?
The Greens, of course, just blame shady preference deals and everything else under the sun, so instead of putting it on everyone but himself, the only decent and honourable thing for Dr Dick Di Natale to do is to fall on his sword and go back to pushing pills for a living, or going off-grid to navel gaze in an isolated rustically trendy log cabin on a freezing cold Victorian mountainside, never to be heard of again.
The Tories couldn't even be bothered running a candidate.

Solidarity forever.

the first-rate quality of the South Australian electorate

Comrades.

The first-rate quality of the electorate in South Australia has never ceased to impress me mightily and is beyond reproach.
This specimen, patiently waiting in the queue to cast his ballot, has got the message of the Miracle of Democracy - they all count, it don't matter who you are - one vote, one value.

So help me, God.


Photo: ShitAdelaide/Instagram

the SR-28 Sarmat Super Heavy comin' at ya

Comrades,

The idea of them damned Ruskies bombing the living bejesus out of the US of A has been around for a very long time now.
The above diagram drawn and published in October 1953 shows how sneaky bombers could come out of Nowheresville in the Arctic and drop The Big One, and there would only be seven hours warning that American cities were about to be turned to cinders.
So it didn't really come as any surprise that My Mate Vlad went fully thermonuclear in his State of the Russian Federation address this week past.
Putin's annual speech before the party faithful is usually done in some ornate hall in the Kremlin and takes hours to get through, with all the stats on tractor production and state-sanctioned vodka quotas etc etc et al, but not this time.
Oh no.
He needed a large conference centre with all the latest audio-visual equipment to show off the capabilities of the SR-28 Sarmat Super Heavy, which is code named "Satan" in NATO military intelligence circles.
Now this is one helluva muthfukka - if you believe all the hype and bluffing - as it's apparently able to carry a payload of up to 200 tonnes to any square inch on the face of this earth without being detected by any up-to-date modern defence technology.
So the thing would be on you before you knew it.
Bang!
It might even have Fractional Orbital Bombardment capabilities, in plain and simple terms, the monster could, in theory, get up into a low-earth orbit, then drop out of orbit, and deliver it's payload, and could even come at the Americans from the South Fuckin' Pole.
That of course that would be in contravention of SALT II [Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty, 1979], which explicitly bans ballistic missiles that can go the FOB.
That said, 200 tonnes is astonishing for a single rocket, and of course would translate into many many many megatons of thermonuclear weaponry spread over whatever territory you like.
As foreshadowed on this bloggy-blog-blog a while back, the Yanks have long suspected the Ruskies have been flouting with the 30-year-old Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty [INF] which effectively bans the use or development of any nuclear missile that travels between 500 and 5,500 kilometres.
Suspect no more, complete with a whiz-bang slide-show, the Great and Glorious Russian Leader has come out and positively flaunted his capability of entirely ignoring the treaty, as the Sarmat Heavy can puportedly go anywhere on the planet, and he was also talking up all sorts of new cruise missiles and "underwater drones" [read: torpedo's] in development that are all capable of carrying The Bomb.
Of course the show of force is all about Vlad facing "re-election" for the Presidency in the Russian's own curious version of the Miracle of Democracy, as by all reports - with no real opposition candidates - he's having tons of trouble getting out the vote.
He really needs to whip up some patriotic fervor before the first-round [and very likely only] poll on March 18.
The only way the Russians can express their displeasure at the way the country is being run is by not turning up at the polls, but even then, non-attendance would be most likely noted by the Secret Police, especially if it was known that you had been trash-talking The Pres. over yr own dinner table.
Putin, who of course is an old KGB hand, desperately needs a decent sized turn-out to legitimise his own despotism
If you didn't believe me that a new nuclear arms race is now well and truly on, doubt no more that "a hard rain's gonna fall" when the Nuclear Winter arrives to finish us off.
Of course, DJ Trump! has no idea how to respond this blatant talking up of The Big One, other than some vague promise to build a Bigger and Better and more Beautiful Big Nuclear Button on the Oval Office desk.

In the meantime - blinked and you would have missed it on most western news services - in the wake of the frozen Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, dignitaries and envoys from South Korea have in the past few days nipped across the Korean DMZ and lobbed in Pyongyang for a bit of face-to-face chit-chat with Fatboy Kim himself.
Nothing much has come out about exactly what was discussed - but you can be sure it wasn't just the time of day - apart from Fatboy viewing favourably the possibility of President Moon of the South making an official State Visit to the North at a date to be fixed.
The sticking point, of course, will be the South Korean pre-condition that the North announce a permanent suspension of all nuclear weapons testing, before such a tour could go ahead.
If they pull that off, then they could really get down to tin tacks
If nothing else, it shows that the Fat Boy is at least willing and able to come to the negotiating table, and he's even mouthed some platitudes about going down in the little history books as the man who led the Great Reunification of Korea and achieved lasting peace on peninsular.
In your dreams, says the US State Dept, and I just can't see it happening anytime soon [i.e. in my lifetime].
But you never can tell when international diplomacy comes into play and people at least make a facade of being sensible.
And again, it comes as no surprise that the Trumpotus has no idea how to deal with such rapprochement, while he's busy kicking off a global trade war after slapping tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum.
The Europeans find the move so laughable that they have threatened to go tit-for-tat in the isolationist tariff caper, and make Levi jeans and all kinds of Bourbon & Tennessee Whisky [you know, Mr. Jim Beam and Mr. Jack Daniels] completely unaffordable across the entire European Union.
So there.
If you don't cack yrself, you'd cry.

people hate change

Comrades,

People hate change.
And nobody hates change more than Tasmanians.
Don't get me wrong, I love the place, I've been there many, many times, parts of it are beautiful beyond belief, and there's also sheep and cows and trout and stuff, but it's always struck me as a joint haunted by its past and dogged by endemic poverty [particularly in the north-west] and the fact that by far and away the biggest single employer is the State and Federal Public Service.
To call Tasmania "backward" might be a bit harsh, but it would certainly be among the last places on earth I would consider for a tree-change.
Plenty of trees if you know where to look, but no change.
Willy Hodgman of the Tasmanian Hodgman dynasty said as much while claiming victory in the election, saying "four years ago they [Tasmanians] voted for change, tonight they have voted for no change."

No change there.

He's called Will to distinguish himself from his grand-father Bill Hodgman QC who got himself elected on the conservative side of politics back in Ol' '55, so there's been Hodgman's knocking about on the electoral scene in the Land of The Eleven-Toed for more than six decades.

No change there.
All that really happened is that the Tories and Pinko's managed to pinch seats off the tree-huggers, with the Greens having spent almost all of their political capital and are now likely to be reduced to a single voice in the Parliament.
That's a long way down from being in cahoots in a power-sharing arrangement less than five years ago.
Bob Brown would be aghast.
The Pinko's picked up a couple of extra seats on account of the federal Coalition is on the nose, and the Jacqui Lambie Network really didn't have their hearts in it and went absolutely nowhere.
Jacquie knows she's really the Brian Harradine-type odd-ball in disguise and can only hope for representation in the Senate, on account of Tasmania being the quintessential example of Canberra's Upper House being made up of "unrepresentative swill".
Never mind all the red herrings that were dragged across the campaign trail, like Labor trying to deny people's inalienable right to have a pull on the pokes, Hodgo being in the pocket of the monopoly gambling lobby, and some late fudge about gun control...etc...plenty of folk don't care.

No change there.

At last count, only 324,421 punters decided to turn up, so with the turn out at just 85.1%, which together with an informal vote of 4.4%, a fifth of the electorate in a compulsory election couldn't give a blue root about the Miracle of Democracy.

No change there.
Under the Hare-Clark-McIntyre-Duckworth-Lewis multi-member system of balloting in the Apple Isle with five constituencies drawn on the exact same boundaries as Federal electorates and each returning five members, the numbers-men at the Electoral Commission would have had to get their abacus' and slide-rules out to the determine the quota's for Tassy's tiny 25 seat Parliament, which is more like a large committee than anything else, akin to a town council.
The numbers really matter because each parliamentarian represents fewer than 14 thousand participating voters.
The phenomenon of Jancidamania across the Tasman just did not translate into Rebeccamania in the Deep South, because they have never really been interested in agrarian socialism down there, as through the years most Tasmanians have been gainfully employed by the Govt. in wiping out the Tassy Tiger, building big beautiful dams on great mighty rivers, digging mines, and chopping down common or garden old-growth forest.
Timber, electricity, chocolate and animal hides remain the Island State's biggest exports...oh...and a few bales of hops and barley to keep the Mainland brewing industry going.
That said, sealing and apples fell out of favour a very long time ago.
Labor leader Rebecca "Beck" White at the tender age of 35, and only 12 months in the top job, has many many years ahead of her - if she wants to stay in the game - to hone her political nous.
And she'll need the next four before she can go again to re-build the Labor heartland, wherever that is now, and good luck to her.
Obviously, Tasmania is not quite ready for such a young local Pinko to lead them bravely forward.

No change there.

Nick the Greek on the hustings

Comrades,

As I predicted when Nick the Greek left the Senate of his own accord to return home [no need to go via the High Court], there was an outside chance he could become the Premier of the Great State of New South Wowser.
The glory of riding back into town like some kind of knight mounted upon a white steed with a sandwich board really appeals to him, it seems to me.
I'm sure that is his aim - grab the top provincial job by hook or by crook [otherwise, why would he be in it?] and then Ban the Pokies and Close the Pubs.
Nick would ban bonking too if he were in charge.
He's probably a Methodist also, and doesn't like dancing either.
No problem, just ban it.
It's as if its Old Home Week in Adelaide.
It's so easy to forget that Nick terrorised the upper house of the South Australian Parliament for more than ten years as leader of the No Pokies ticket [How much has been achieved, Nick? SA still has about 12,000 poker machines, doesn't it?], and then did the same for Canberra, but even he in the end couldn't hold his own in a house full of wackjobs & misfits, as more loopy folk than you could poke a stick at started getting elected to the Senate.
There are others in on the scam now; "preference whisperers" are a dime a dozen.
A bloody circus, it is, so he decided to take his ball and go home.
So there's a 20+ year political apprenticeship right there for Nick "No Win No Fee" Xenophon & Co.
He didn't come down in the last shower.
But for mine, you can never trust those shifty lawyer types; too prone to hectoring and getting on their hobby horses [and, Joisus, he's got a few], and in Nick's case, silly stunts.
God, I wonder if he will parade a goat on a rope down the Rundle Mall urging punters not to "kid about" with their vote this time around?
Don't mention the mule/donkey thing, or someone will dob Nick into the RSPCA and try to pin animal cruelty on him.
Still, the SABEST experiment should be a good one, as Xenophon knows that all he needs to do is pinch a few marginal seats off the Liberals, safe in the knowledge that they're full of flip-flopping voters, while all Pinko Uncle Jay has to do is hold the Labor heartland and job's right, job's done.
Just keep beating Tories, Mr Weatherill, and let the others get on with splitting the Conservative vote and throwing away some bargaining chips.
According to Nick there will be "no cosy backroom deals", "no power-sharing arrangements", "no compromises" [unless, of course, you agree to implement his scattergun agenda - but what do you actually stand for, Nick? Apart from the simple pleasures of holding people over a barrel. Have you ever kept a bastard honest?]
Don Dunstan would be revolving in his grave.
According to Don, the Miracle of Democracy works best if it's a straight out knuckle-fight between left & right.
You can run all the side issues you like, but there must be a solid platform
And don't get Nick started on wind power OK?; hates it, reckons wind turbines ruin people's lives - the constant woosh, woosh, woosh of the blades rots yr brain - and he's looking to be Premier of a state that puts a massive wack of renewable energy into the grid?
Now, if you mention this opposition to wind farms on the basis of the mental impairment of the people who live near them, Nick will accuse you having a "brain fart".
Go figure.
Harnessing the breeze?
Shootin' the breeze?
What the?
Whatever, just ban it.

In Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail [1972], Hunter S.Thompson advocates taking the Miracle of Democracy very seriously at the retail level, as he contends that fully 25% of voters have no idea who they are going to vote for until they see a campaign poster that appeals to them, which you must then re-reinforce at the polling stations by plastering as many you can all over the shop on the day of the vote without earning the ire of the Electoral Commissioner's deputy.
And it's always the face that does it when you say "vote for me", so it better be a great shot of your good side; the slogan comes a distant second.
It's excellent that the candidates in the Rust Belt election know this, and have continued to uphold the grand tradition of South Australians outdoing themselves.

Some nice Stobie Pole action.
As always, a quality field there.
And there's still three weeks to go in this one...

[Photo's. Instagram: ShitAdelaide/Betoota Advocate. Twitter: Rod Moffat]

the bloody brilliant Bonking Ban

Comrades and Mad Rooters,

Up until now, I have purposely refrained from making any public comment on the private life of the Hon. Leader of the National Party, Barnaby Thomas Gerard Joyce, MHR.
But I simply can't go past the Bonking Ban as it is absolutely bloody brilliant, isn't it?
What a masterstroke of knee-jerk running-dog Govt.
A unilateral ministerial no-exceptions ban.
For a Minister of the Crown, in and out and all about with anyone in the office is finished.
Male or female, it's done.
It's over.
There will be no more a rootin' and no more a tootin'.
None.
Voila!
That's it.
Problem solved.
Ahhh...what happens if Canberra is actually one gigantic office?
No, no, no.
Shagging each other senseless is out the window...gone...and it will, must, most definitely stop - immediately.
No, no, no more "bits" or "pieces" "on the side".
No more going around setting up sneaky little '"love nests".
Has no one ever heard of the word mistress until now?
Good, because it is never to be heard again, under the new Ministerial Code of Conduct.
Somehow it smacks of locking the gate after the horse has bolted, never mind that ordinary back-benches can continue to get themselves fully involved in the fuck-fest without fear of public sanction.
It's not terribly surprising, of course, that Mr Trundle called Mr Joyce a "low bum" who was more or less involved in "a shocking misjudgement, a world of woe, and general appallingness".
I love that word - 'appalling'
Of course the Prime Minister finds it all "appalling".
It's political poison; Mr Trundle can hear his own death rattle here, because he knows he can never rule without a coalition partner - however "appalling" their leader may be.
And, after being lectured with a public reading of the Riot Act, the Deputy Prime Minister only compounds his "appalling" persona by seeing everyone and everything, except himself, as "inept".
The Country Party rump has been exposed as weak and gutless - no news there, everyone knew that all along anyway - but more importantly, both Malcolm and Barnaby have shown their hands as the hypocritical bastard individuals that they are.
Hoist, by their own petard.
Being the low-grade, scumbag, unscrupulous journalist well known for his morals that I am, I've never been perturbed by the concept of "getting a bit", as long as it's done in the right and proper fashion following all the rules and customs - let alone the complexity of human frailty - but the screaming-naked bald-faced hypocrisy of it all is what shits me to tears.
Who doesn't despise elected officials doing one thing and saying another?
And you don't need me to tell you about the Country Party's misogyny, staunch upholding of 'traditional family values', and their reactionary denial of and outright opposition to gender equality, viz a viz trying to sabotage the gay marriage 'postal survey'.
The list goes on.
In my more than 30 years as a working journo, banging around in commercial radio and TV newsrooms, I had a fair bit to do with the Canberra Press Gallery.
Back in the day when "off-the-record" still meant something there was only very rarely any problem with the NatCap lifestyle.
Pollies of every stripe, journo's, press secretaries, spin doctors, lobbyists, influence peddlars, ordinary staffers, political departmental people, the typing pool, number's men, the honest toilers and public servants, hangers-on, handsomely paid loafers and masters of the dark arts in general all knew there was very little chance of being caught out as long as you conducted yourself according to protocol, because the cone of silence had been well and truly lowered and screwed down tight.
What happens in Canberra stays in Canberra.
"This is not 'Nam! There are rules!" This is politics.
With the Great Unwashed kept in the dark, there was endless hanky-panky going on; it was one of the Canberra radio bureau's who coined the popular, but rather brutal phrase "who's up who, and for what?" while making polite enquiries about people's personal arrangements.
It was the sole concern of a vast Parliamentary gossip machine that had its network of tentacles squirming their way into every festering nook and cranny, but none of it, not a single word, was for publication, even if it was outrageously blatant common knowledge and the worst kept secret in the National Capital.
Of course not.
It was/is one of the best protection rackets going.
Someone was always "getting their broccoli cooked" which was code for two or more people in, around, beside and behind the Press Gallery fucking each other like Duracell rabbits.
In another era, the whole sordid business could have continued on unabated, unreported, even if Joycey hadn't made the fundamental error of "getting the mistress up the duff", [more a case of being very neglectful rather than anything else, I hear the Country Party cry], but now, in a #metoo world, having a "love child" at 50 is more than likely to be fatal for the Govt. with a big swathe of the electorate thinking the hypocrisy is beyond the pale.
Keep up - women have got the vote now too, you know.
All sorts of people have got the vote and they'll make up their own minds.
And now former reporters who've seen it all are telling me that we should be pissed off, because us filthy journo's - who have always been up to our own grotty grubby groins in it ourselves - are now being asked to pass judgement, and decide what gets published and what doesn't.
Talk about shifting the goalposts.
Clearly, that's an untenable position to be in.
Doesn't anyone read the gossip columns anymore?
To mix some metaphors, once Pandora's Box has been opened, and the genie is out of the bottle, where do you draw a line in the sand?
Or do we go along the Fleet Street route and just do away with the sandbox altogether?
I used to have a News Director who all through the long-running Bill "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" Clinton tawdriness, would delight in doing a fabulous impression of the Pope saying in a long, slow Gregorian chant "head...jobs...are...O...K..."
As far as he was concerned, as long as the "tunnel of love" wasn't involved, there was no story. Full stop.
And as he pointed out, it was only a man who happened to be in the Oval Office who "had a mole on his back and an extremely small penis", after all.
It goes without saying that wherever power, influence and money is involved - never mind the rorting and corruption - there will always be sex, drugs and rock'n'roll bubbling along somewhere there just beneath the surface.
In the highly charged constantly changing 24-hour full-on atmosphere of a sitting week, everyone knows that 'after hours' drinking and bonking go hand-in-hand into that good night, raging and rooting is rampant, and everyone, and I mean everyone, is backing the horse called "Self Interest".
But not anymore.
Oh no siree.
It's over.
In the books under "Bonking Ban".
Dead, buried, and cremated by Prime Ministerial edict.
My arse it is.
It was nice knowing you Malcolm, and even nicer knowing that you'll go down in the little Canberra history books as the Great and Glorious Banner of the Bonk.
A drover's dog could lead Labor to easy victory if an election was held this weekend without the Pinko's even having to say or do anything, with the wreckage of the Coalition now in flaming ruins.
And they have no-one to blame except themselves.

a modest selection of scuttle-butt

Comrades,

I offer you this modest selection of scuttle-butt that appeared on yr Social Media in Oct/Nov 2017, without comment, finishing with a snap shot of the Beetrooter's Facebook page, on Father's Day, 2016.
Charming stuff.

"it is not a birthright"

Drinkers for Disarmament,

I've noted the rumours that are rife within military intelligence circles at the minute that them damned Ruskies are working on developing a nuclear torpedo.
What a jolly jape that would be!
You can understand My Mate Vlad's response to DJ Trump!'s promise on the campaign trail that, while he really would prefer a world without nukes, but seeing the USA has got them, he's going to build the Biggest, Best and most Beewdiful thermonuclear weapons there are.
Putin has probably already got the biggest muthafukka, so why not get a sneaky one going too?
If you just want to blow up a random port city or some naval installation, then why not let a Big One go underwater from a submarine, and see what happens.
It'd make a right mess of whatever they were after, but it's likely they're heading down a dead-end street.
The only comparable thing I can think of is the one and only nuclear artillery shot.
That's right, shoot The Bomb out of a gun.
Great idea.
It was Upshot–Knothole Grable [the boffins must've thought that one up over a long pissy lunch].
It happened at the Nevada Test Site back in '53.
They managed to lob the artillery shell - which weighed about a third a tonne - only about ten kilometres away before it went up...bahoompha!
It had an yield of about 15kt, roughly the same as Little Boy at Hiroshima and it was of the same type of atom bomb, but it wasn't very successful.
Far too close to the very heavy artillery to be of any use to an advancing army, and it only knocked over a few jeeps and armoured personnel carriers due an unforeseen shock pressure wave anomaly it created due to it's detonation height and weird physics I don't pretend to understand.
Nah, not worth it, the Yanks concluded, and they never did it again, despite a fairly impressive mushroom cloud.

16mm film courtesy US Dept. of Energy.

But The Donald reckons he's gonna get one up on Putin, who's been accused of violating the 30-year-old Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty [INF - remember that one? The Reagan & Gorbachev rapprochement], which effectively bans the use or development of any nuclear missile that travels between 500 and 5,500 kilometres.
The US and the then Soviet Union dismantled more than two and a half thousand nukes because of it.
The idea originally was to protect Europe from tactical nuclear warfare.
Never mind the nuclear torpedo fantasy, the Pentagon says straight up to anyone who'll listen that the Putinites have also been secretly working on a rapidly deployable cruise missile system for that exact range, which may or may not be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
No, no, no.
So what does the Trumpotus do?
He orders Defence to start work on their own submarine based missile, with a live warhead, to do the exact same thing.
Voila!
After many decades of disarmament from the insanity and stupendous cost of the enormous nuclear stockpiles held during the Cold War - don't you worry about Fat Boy Kim - the real serious nuclear arms race is now back on.
Have no doubt about it.
The level of mistrust between the superpowers is like a smouldering volcano hanging out for an eruption, constantly simmering; it never stops once it really gets going.
That's dangerous.
With The Donald in the White House and the mid-terms this year and Putes struggling to get out the vote in a one-party election while he's still busy being in the meddling caper, it's only going to get worse.
This week's edition of Time magazine has a couple of excellent yarns on The Bomb for the layman, and in there is a grim warning to the generations coming on in a quote from Air Force General Paul Selva, Vice-Chairman, US Joint Chiefs of Staff, indicating that the phenomena of a world without nuclear warfare for 72 years is just plain lucky:
"Strategic stability in the world between our nuclear competitors and our nuclear peers has been assumed. It is not a birthright".
And not only has the President of the United States made it clear he also wants to violate the INF himself in some tit-for-tat, even scarier is the fact that he's apparantly ordered the Nevada Test Site [which has been very effectively mothballed for yonks - they even do monthly visits for nuclear tourists] to be put back on enough of a footing so they can test a nuclear weapon there within six months if required [bugger the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty], according to Time.
Nothing sinister of course, just to make sure the damnable things still work, as he's planning to spend about $US1.2 TRILLION on 'modernising' and maintaining the entire US nuclear stockpile of at least six and a half thousand weapons in various states of repair and readiness, and build more, and he doesn't want to waste that kind of cash.
The sheer scale of the greenbacks required would go a long way to reconstructing America's rotting civil infrastructure and build many, many Big Beautiful Walls, if you want, but not only does Eisenhower's all-powerful military/industrial complex have a friendly ear in the Oval Office, they've got a complicit Commander-in-Chief, and aren't they going for it?
There is a shitload of money to be made in mass destruction, as always.
I know, I know, you've guessed it, I've got a bee in my bonnet about The Bomb...again.
Of course I'm simply farkin' outraged by all of this, but why doesn't any of it surprise?
This is not sabre rattling or even international posturing anymore, it's spoiling for a fight.
Five-star generals and their military strategists who have this fanciful notion that "tactical" nuclear warfare is actually possible are fools to themselves and are a very heavy burden on the planet, because in this caper, it's all or nothing, baby.
The Trumpotus, of course, is enamoured by the concept that you can selectively annihilate your enemies for all time in a "limited" way, at the push of the Big Beautiful Nuclear Button.
Along the lines of the most hated Senator in Washington, Ted Cruz, who openly says he wouldn't mind if he could see if "sand glows in the dark".
Little wonder the "Doomsday Clock" has shifted forward by 30 seconds.
Two minutes to midnight...and counting.
If Armageddon don't get ya, climate change will.
What a wonderful world...

you gotta get the vote

Comrades,

So, the DJ Trump! presidency is a quarter over, and the poor man has been forced to cancel a celebratory golfing weekend in the balmy climes of Florida on account of the administration of Govt. is in the process of shutting down.
It's no surprise really, as that's the way it's been going for the past 12 months; America through the S-bend and out to a filthy polluted sea.
And my, how time flies when yr having fun.
It seems like only yesterday that I wandered into a random bar on the night The Donald was being swept into office by a handful of rednecks at the polls, and seeing scribbled in chalk on a blackboard above the top shelf that read:
"The Edge...there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over - HST".
What the pea-brain rattling inside the over-sized cranium of the Trumpotus has failed to understand is that while you can rig the Electoral College all you like, and a little birdie might be constantly singing 'tweet tweet', when you get to Washington you gotta get the vote, if you need to get yr grubby mits on a single penny of Federal money.
He can't get the 60 he needs in the Senate now, and Republicans will be trounced in the November "mid-terms" and lose their majorities in both Houses, so, if he isn't already, DJ! will become a lame-duck President for his last two years in office, that's if he doesn't drop dead or resign first, or he cops it with both barrels from Bobby "Three Sticks" Mueller for foolin' 'round with them damned Ruskies and ends up in an impossible imbroglio of an impeachable position.
Oh, oh, oh, it's all so predictable...
You get the cheeseburger [hold the pickle] and diet Coke politicians you deserve, baby.

In the meantime, I note that the knitted winter woolen Pussy Hat was dusted off over the weekend for the Women's March II across The States [and the world, for that matter].
The Americans are past masters when it comes to making protest placards, in a democracy where anything goes, and free speech [even Twitter] is Constitutionally protected.
You've gotta love 'em, and after reviewing what seems like hundreds in the crowds, here are just two of my favourites.
Go girls!

and then came this

Comrades,

Things sensible have never been widely reported in the news, what with the Silly Season going well beyond its end date in Washington DC as furious arguments rage over which countries are shitholes, and which aren't.
So it was little wonder that only scant coverage emerged in the western press of South and North Korean excellencies & dignitaries sitting down to formal talks in a bit of old fashioned diplomacy over that timeless political football - sport.
Our course, the IOC has invited the North Korean Olympic Committee, their delegation and their team to the PyeongChang winter games in about three weeks time.
The IOC - which has never been political, oh no - will have anyone, now that they've pretty much lost their ability to elicit bribes.
They'll be in their element, as it's a top spot for snow sports at the mo' with the temps last week typically in the -9°C to +1°C range.
Unmatched top-shelf seven-star facilities, also.
I don't know about you, but I'll be going off-piste for the duration.
South Korea agreed to a North Korean request for their officially sanctioned cheer squads to be allowed to attend the games armed with thousands of little North Korean flags on sticks.
In the trade off, North Korea agreed there would be no hanky-panky or funny business during the games; no shooting rockets off or letting Big One's go, in the name of the mutually accepted idea of peace, even tho' they have never completely come around to it, given the truce is now 64 years old, and let's face it, it's all about face, and not losing it.
People have forgotten that the Korean peninsular remains the most heavily militarised spot on the planet.
Since the armistice, as a nod to peace and reconciliation, both countries have had Ministers for Reunification while maintaining huge standing armies of around 1.6M active personnel North/South combined, ready for battle tomorrow, along with something like nine million army reserves and paramilitaries to call on.
So the gates of the border ceremonially opened as impeccably suited gentlemen from each side arrived to meet to polite applause and handshakes all 'round for some chit-chat in that wild & wacky place known as the Korean DMZ.
PyeongChang is just 80km south of the 38th parallel or thereabouts, so the North's team buses won't have far to go, bringing with them trailer loads of crates of quality seafoods and gallons of top-notch Made in North Korea soju, to get them in the mood.
The South promises they will do all they can to prevent the North Koreans from defecting [there will be Choco Pies, aplenty], but asked in return that the North release some political prisoners.
Talks go on.
Backroom boys in smoke filled dens are still working on the idea of fielding a combined North/South Korean women's ice hockey team, because they know as separate entity's they haven't got a hope in snowflakes of medalling, but together could give the hockey comp a good shake.
Makes sense.
Of course this has very little to do with the Miracle of Democracy in a part of the world rife with rampant corruption and cronyism, but it says a fair bit about rapprochement.
You'll remember it took months of street protests in Seoul to evict from the Blue House the former President, Park Geun-hye, accused of being totally on the take by creaming about $US75M off the top of bribes paid by the chaebol in order to get on with the business of doing business.
Park is in the jailhouse now, and that resulted in the fait accompli election of Moon Jae-in as no-one else really put their hand up for the job.
Enough already has been said about Fat Boy Kim, the very personification of corruption and cronyism.
Then came this.
Have you ever regretted writing a very personal text message or e-mail, and then pushing the 'send' button, instantly knowing you have made a terrible mistake?
Like dropping that letter that you never meant to send in the postbox?
Ever called yr bosses a useless mob of utter wankers, or worse, and then sent them all the txt mssg by mistake?
There is no calling it back or sending it into a black hole, once you send it, it stays sent.
Have you ever got a together a txt mssg that says the Great State of Hawaii is about to go up in one helluvan exploding fireball at any minute and then sent it off to all one million mobile phone users, advising them to panic and run for the hills, or hide in a bomb shelter, or maybe a handy manhole, that you may or may not have, otherwise you are all going to burn in hell?
There is no heaven in this one:

To their credit, the good burghers of Honolulu, at least, didn't panic, they simply went to the beach in small groups with bottles of their finest whiskies and bourbons and sat under the gently swaying palms to watch the horizon for the incoming multi-kiloton Armageddon which sends the Hawaiian archipelago to the bottom as flaming wreckage.
Sort of brings new meaning to the old idea "if the ship is on fire, there is instinct to answer the call 'all hands to the pumps!' but honest desire remains to stay seated and at ease while awaiting your fate".
The Dept. of Deefense, Hawaiian authorities, or somebody or another who wasn't looking at the time, blamed "human error" for the clusterfuck.
Well, if some dumb intern in the Communications Dept. can fire off that one with a press of the green button marked 'send', then it doesn't really matter who's got the bigger Big Beautiful Nuclear Button on their desks, does it?
DJ Trump, early in his Presidency, delegated all matters military to his generals, so he's not the only one with the foreign policy numbers in the briefcase.
Like Trump, Fatboy is not a madman; they aint no nutjobs, they're just cruel and calculating in everything they do to advance and protect their own brands and interests.
Mr Moon has recently re-established the hotline with Pyŏngyang, and installed the big red telephone at the end of it on his desk.
He don't need no button.
North and South want the Trumpotus out of the Korean deal, but at the minute it seems some low ranking lieutenant wackjob in the US Air Force could push the no going back send button "human error"-style on a bunch of ballistic missiles, and it's good night nurse, in a megaton kind of way.
ICAN didn't win the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for nuthin', you know.
Easily fixed.
No nukes.

[Graphic: Hanna Barczyk/NYT]

CRAZY CRAVES TOP 100 OBITUARIES 2017

Survivors,

It's that time of year again!
This is a bit out of the bailiwick of this bloggy-blog-blog thingy, as precious few of these people have anything to do with the Miracle of Democracy, but there is at least one out-and-out statesman, half a dozen or so politicians, a couple of dictators and a master of the 'dark arts' among them.
As a nod to the steady marking of time, for yonks I used to publish Crazy Craves Top 20 Obituaries, but last year I got tired of it with people saying "why'd ya put him in? why'd ya leave her out?" so I set the editor's pen aside and pushed the boat right out with a list of 111 deaduns, arranged in chronological order.
Obviously I went way too far, so this year, for the sake of brevity, I have limited the bell-tolling to a straight 100.
In any case this is a highly subjective and idiosyncratic list - these people [and two non-humans] may or may not in one way or another have had an influence on my life, may or may not have been famous or important folks, may just have led obscure but interesting lives per se, or the date, place, manner and cause of death, may have been somewhat unusual.
Or, all four.
That's the criteria for these simple mentions...so I give you...

CRAZY CRAVES TOP 100 OBITUARIES 2017

*January*

John Berger, 90, January 2, Paris. Long-time French resident British art critic, novelist, screenwriter, essayist, Marxist rabble-rouser, cattle farmer. Booker Prize winner [1972]. Best known for BBC television art documentary Ways of Seeing [1972]. Natural causes.
Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, 82, January 8, Tehran. Machiavellian authoritarian ruler. Former President of Iran [1989-1997]. Close ally of Ayatollah Khomeini who overthrew the last Shah of Iran [1979]. Cardiac Arrest.
Peter Sarstedt, 75, January 8, Sussex, England. British folk singer/songwriter. One hit wonder. Best known for song Where Do You Go To (My Lovely). Complications of supranuclear palsy.
Michael Chamberlain, 72, January 9, Gosford, New South Wales. Central figure in the Azaria Chamberlain mystery. New Zealand born Seventh Day Adventist pastor, author, doctor of philosophy, failed political candidate. Father of missing child Azaria, former husband of Lindy Chamberlain, who was convicted of murder, then pardoned and then exonerated at fourth Coronial inquest. Served suspended sentence after being convicted accessory after the fact of murder. Royal Commission star witness. Leukemia.
Clare Hollingworth, 105, January 10, Hong Kong. British journalist and war correspondent. Reported first-hand the German invasion of Poland [1939], scooped the defection of Kim Philby [1963], ended war correspondents career in Vietnam, then posted to China. Long-time active member and stalwart of the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents' Club. Died at home. Extreme old age.
Antony Armstrong-Jones, The Lord Snowden GCVO RDI, 86, January 13, Kensington, London. Eccentric English fashion designer and Royal photographer, inventor, serial pants-man. Coxed the winning Cambridge Eight in the 1950 Boat Race. Former husband of the Princess Margaret, sister of Queen Elizabeth II [1960-78]. Controversial member of the House of Lords. Twice divorced. Five children by three women. Natural causes.
Zhōu Yǒuguāng, 111, January 14, Beijing. Chinese banker, economist, linguist. Invented the system to Romanise the alphabet of the Chinese Mandarin language known as Pīnyīn. Extreme old age.
Eugene Cernan, 82, January 16, Houston, Texas. American astronaut, US Navy test pilot, electrical engineer. Last man to walk on the moon [1972, Apollo 17]. Covered more than 35km in the Lunar Rover over 22 hours. Flew to space three times, twice to the moon. Chronic illness.
Colo, 60, January 17, Colombus, Ohio. Oldest female Western Lowlands gorilla known to man. First gorilla to be born in captivity [1956]. Three offspring and great-great-grandmother. Old age.
Mary Tyler-Moore, 80, January 25, Greenwich, Connecticut. American television personality, actor and 1970's feminist icon. Star of The Dick Van Dyke Show and the 168 episode eponymous sit-com The Mary Tyler-Moore Show. Multiple show business honours including six Emmy Awards. Chronic illnesses, complications of diabetes.
Sir John Hurt CBE, 77, January 25, Cromer, Norfolk, England. British film character actor and voice-over man. Best known for his distinctive voice and lead role in the film Elephant Man [1980]. Four BAFTA awards. Knighted [2015]. Pancreatic cancer.
Edgar Britt OAM, 103, January 28, Gold Coast, Queensland. Australian journeyman thoroughbred jockey. Rode more than 2000 winners on four continents in 30 year career. Won the 1947 Irish Derby & Irish St. Ledger. Old Age.
Carl Djerassi, 91, January 30, San Francisco, California. Austrian-born American chemical scientist, science-fiction novelist, playwright. Known as "the father of The Pill". Developed norethindrone in Mexico City in 1951, the main active ingredient in the first human female birth control pill. Liver cancer.

*February*

Lou Rowan, 91, February 3, Yangan, Queensland. Controversial Australian cricket umpire, Queensland drug squad detective, author. Known for key involvement in the confrontational 1970-71 Ashes test series and the riot by furious spectators during the 7th test match at the SCG. Turned down every LBW appeal against Australia in '70-'71. Openly accused of bias, staunchly denied. Petitioned for outlaw "chuckers" to be weeded out of the game. Died at home. No suspicious circumstances.
Granddad, age unknown, probably late 90's, February 7, Chicago, Illinois. Permanent US resident male Queensland Lungfish. Oldest known fish in captivity. Captured in Mary or Burnett Rivers, Queensland to be exhibited at the 1933-34 Chicago World's Fair. Spent much of his time imitating a submerged log in the Shedd Aquarium for 84 years. Weight at death 11kg . Euthanised due to organ failure.
Kim Jong-nam, 43, February 14, Kuala Lumpur. Prominent Korean resident of Macau and estranged half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. Assassination by poisoning.

*March*

Tanya Dalton, 45, March 1, Auckland. Word Championship winning New Zealand netballer [2003] and successful businesswoman. Played 12 test matches at GS for the Silver Ferns. Brain aneurysm.
Thomas E. Starzl, 90, March 4, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. American surgeon and chemist. Human transplant pioneer who performed the first successful liver transplant [1967]. Leading researcher into anti-rejection drugs for transplant patients. Natural causes.
Bill Leak, 61, March 10, Gosford, New South Wales. Australian artist, political cartoonist, novelist. Seven-time finalist Archibald Prize, never won. Nine Walkley Awards. Cheated death in balcony fall [2008]. Cardiac arrest.
John Surtees CBE, 83, March 10, London. British motor racer. Only man to have won world championships on two wheels and four. Won 500cc World Motorcycle Championship [1956, 1958-60] on an Agusta. Won F1 World Drivers' Championship in a Ferrari [1964]. Three times winner of the Isle of Man TT. Respiratory failure.
Murray Ball ONZM, 78, March 12, Gisborne, New Zealand. New Zealand artist and cartoonist. Created comic strip Footrot Flats in 1975, which ran in newspapers for 20 years. Alzheimer's disease.
Sir Derek Walcott OBE, 87, March 17, Cap Estat, St. Lucia. West Indian Nobel Laureate, poet, playwright, painter. Author of epic poems and 40 plays in English. Won Nobel Prize for Literature [1992]. Knighted Order of St Lucia [2016]. Chronic illnesses.
Chuck Berry, 90, March 18, St. Louis, Missouri. American singer/songwriter and pioneer of Rock'n'Roll. Musical superstar [1955-61]. Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award [1984]. Original inductee Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame [1986]. No.1 smash hit Johnny B. Goode the only rock'n'roll song to go to space aboard Voyager 1 & 2 [1977]. Did three stints of jail time on trumped up charges. Cardiac arrest.
Robert B. Silvers, 87, March 20, New York City. American literary editor. Founding editor of the New York Review of Books, remaining in the position for 44 years until his death. US National Humanities Medal [2012]. Chevalier Légion de Honour. Brief illness.
David Rockefeller, 101, March 20, Pocantico Hills, New York. American banker, art collector, philanthropist. Long-time chairman of Chase Manhattan banking corporation. Last remaining patriarch of the Rockefeller family. Estimated net worth at time of death $US3.3B. Congestive heart failure.
Martin McGuiness, 66, March 21, Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Irish nationalist. Former leader of the Provisional Irish Republican Army [IRA]. Prominent member of the IRA's political wing Sinn Féin. Reformed terrorist, peace broker widely regarded as chief architect of the Good Friday Agreement ending "The Troubles" [1968-96]. Retired as long-serving Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland two months before death. Amyloidosis.
Chuck Barris, 87, March 21, Palisades, New York. Madcap American television game show host. Most famous as host of The Gong Show [1976-80]. Variously known as "The King of Schlock," "The Baron of Bad Taste" and "The Ayatollah of Trasherola." Natural causes.
Ian Turnbull, 82, March 27, Sydney. Farmer and convicted murderer. Serving 35 years jail at time of death for shooting dead a state environmental officer over a land clearing dispute three years earlier. Unknown terminal illness.
Gilbert Baker, 65, March 30, New York City. Eccentric American designer, graphic artist, drag queen, gay rights activist. Designed "Rainbow Flag" [1978]. Original on display at MoMA. Worked for Paramount Flag Company, San Francisco for 25 years. Years long complications of stroke.

*April*

Sir Doug Myers KNZM CBE, 78, April 8, London. New Zealand businessman, philanthropist and beer baron. Established Lion brewery [1965], and created popular beer Steinlager. Sold out to Japanese brewer Kirin [1998], becoming one of New Zealand's richest men. Retired to London. Knighted [2010]. Bowel cancer.
John Clarke, 68, April 9, near Halls Gap, Victoria. New Zealand-born Australian actor, author, screen-writer, satirist, comedian. Creator of iconic New Zealand comic character Fred Dagg in the mid 1970's. Extensive career as a character actor in Australian film and television. Wrote and starred in acclaimed 26 episode TV series The Games satirising preparations for the 2000 Olympics. Created decade-long running weekly three minute television political satire Clarke & Dawe. Died while hiking with family & friends in the Grampians National Park. Cardiac arrest.
Emma Morano, 117, April 15, Verbania, Italy. World's oldest person to that date. The last known person born in the 19th century. Credited her longevity to eating three eggs a day, two raw. Died in favourite armchair at home. Extreme old age.
Ueli Steck, 40, April 29, near Mt Everest, Nepal. Swiss mountaineer. Known as "the Swiss Machine" for his rapid ascents using the 'fast and light' technique. Once climbed all 82 peaks of The Alps in 62 days. Two time winner Piolet d’Or. Fatal injuries sustained in fall of 3,280 feet.

*May*

Lou Richards MBE, 94, May 8, Melbourne. Australian rules footballer, publican, entertainer, newspaper columnist, author, radio and television personality. Known as "Louie the Lip". Played 250 games for Collingwood as small forward and goalsneak, four years as captain. Won Premiership [1953]. Long running career (1956-2008) as professional buffoon in the media. Former King of Moomba. Owned and ran several Melbourne pubs. Controversially denied "legend" status in the Australian Football Hall of Fame (2009), after being inducted 15 years earlier. Complications of dementia.
Roger Ailes, 77, May 10, Palm Beach, Florida. American media executive and political operative. Devised media strategy for winning US Presidential campaigns of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George Bush Snr. Regarded as the "father" of the right-wing Fox News service, serving as CEO for 20 years. Sacked by owner Rupert Murdoch over a sexual harassment scandal a year before his death. Cranial subdural hematoma after fall.
Mark Colvin, 65, May 11, Sydney. Old school Australian radio journalist. 43 year long career at the ABC, known for his authoritative melodious voice. Contracted nephritic auto-immune disease while on assignment as correspondent in Rwanda [1994] and almost died of kidney failure. Kidney transplant recipient (2012). Complications of Wegener's granulomatosis, melanoma, lung cancer.
Chris Cornell, 52, May 17, Detroit, Michigan. American singer/songwriter. Lead singer of 1980's grunge band Soundgarden. Found dead after performing in concert. Suicide by hanging.
Sir Roger Moore KBE, 89, May 23, Switzerland. British film and television actor. Starred in seven James Bond motion pictures [1973-1985]. Starred in long running television series The Saint [1962-69]. Self described multi-millionaire tax evader. Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF. Knighted 2003 for services to charity. Chevalier L'ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Four times married. Liver and lung cancer.
Manuel Noriega, 83, May 29, Panama City. Former de-facto President of Panama (1983-89). Strong-arm military dictatorship prompted US invasion (1989). Served 17 years in US jail for racketeering, 18 months in French prison for money laundering. Died six years into 20 year term for murder. Brain anuyerism.

*June*

Sotirios "Sam" Panopolous, 83, June 8, London, Ontario, Canada. Greek-born Canadian inventor of the pineapple pizza known as "The Hawaiian" [1962]. Brief illness.
Adam West, 88, June 9, Los Angeles. American film and television actor. The original Batman. Starred in the eponymous television series and the first Batman motion picture [1966]. Active acting career over 70 years, featuring work as a voice over man in animated television comedies until his death. Leukemia.
Helmut Kohl, 87, June 16, Oggersheim, Germany. German statesman and politician. Former German Chancellor [1982-98]. Credited as the mastermind of German re-unification [1990] and the establishment of the Euro zone. Natural causes.
Michael Bond CBE, 91, June 27, London. British author. Creator and writer of children's book series Paddington Bear [first published 1958], selling 35+ million copies. Natural causes.
Dame Simone Veil DBE, 89, June 30, Paris. French politician and activist. Holocaust survivor. Champion of women's rights. Architect of legislation for legal birth control and abortion in France. Appointed as only the sixth female "immortal" of the Academie Francaise [2010]. Awarded Grand Cross Légion d'Honneur and an Honourary Dame of the British Empire. Natural causes.

*July*

Liu Xiaobo, 61, July 13, Shenyang, China. Chinese academic, author, dissident, political activist. Nobel Peace Prize laureate [2010], awarded while serving fourth prison term for anti-Chinese Communist Party activities. First arrested after taking a leading role in student protests which led to the Tiananmen Square massacre [1989]. Lead author of Charter 08 calling for an end to one-party rule in China. Liver cancer.
Maryam Mirzakhani, 40, July 14, Palo Alto, California. Iranian mathematics genius. Professor of Mathematics at Stanford University. Winner Fields Medal [2014] for 400+ page paper on the behaviour of moving spheres, using billiard tables as a Riemann surface, exploring the interplay of dynamics and geometry. Breast cancer.
Jeremy Strode, 53, July 17, Sydney. English-born Australian chef, newspaper columnist, author. Executive chef Bistrode CBD, after 25 years in the Australian restaurant industry. Suicide.
Chester Bennington, 41, July 20, Los Angeles. American singer/songwriter and leader of metal rock band Linkin Park, selling 30+ million records world wide since 2000. Suicide by hanging.
Garrumulul Yunupingu, 46, July 25, Darwin. Australian indigenous musician, singer/songwriter. High-ranking Yolngu man. Founding member of Aboriginal 'cult' rock band Yothu Yindi, followed by acclaimed solo career. Born blind. Complications of liver and kidney diseases.
Hywell Bennet, 73, July 25, Cardiff, Wales. British character actor. Best known as star of eponymous television sit-com Shelley [1979-84]. 42-year career in stage, film and television. Natural causes.
Les Murray AM, 71, July 31. Sydney. Hungarian-born Australian soccer commentator, analyst, author, musician and media legend. Arrived in Australia under Hungarian refugee program [1957]. Bought international soccer to Australian television when the Special Broadcasting Service [SBS] was established [1980], where he commentated on the 'world game', a phrase he coined, for the next 24 years. Complications of chronic illness.

*August*

Sir John Graham KNZM CBE, 82, August 2, Auckland. Former All-Black. New Zealand rugby union player, educator and anti-apartheid activist. 22 test matches for New Zealand [1958-64]. Captain 3 matches. Headmaster, Auckland Grammar School for 21 years. Knighted [2011]. Undisclosed cancer.
Betty Cuthbert, AM, MBE, 79, August 6, Perth, Western Australia. Australian athletics track star universally known as "The Golden Girl". Won four Olympic gold medals [Melbourne 1956 & Tokyo 1964] in 100m, 200m, 4x100m relay and 400m. Life Member, SCG Trust. Wheelchair bound for the last 20 years of her life. Multiple Sclerosis.
Glenn Campbell, 81, August 8, Nashville, Tennessee. American country-pop singer, acclaimed guitarist, session musician, and superstar in the late 1960's-mid 70's selling 35+ million records world wide in 50-year show business career. 18 Grammy Awards. Alzheimer's disease.
Stephen Wooldridge OAM, 39, August 14, Sydney. Australian Olympian team's pursuit cyclist, mechanical engineer. Olympic gold medalist [Athens 2004] and four-times world champion. Suicide.
Gary O’Callaghan, MBE, 83, August 19, Wauchope, New South Wales. Australian radio broadcaster and personality. Legendary 49 year career at Sydney radio station 2UE. Hosted top rating breakfast show with his alter ego "Sammy Sparrow" throughout the 1960's. Australian Commercial Radio Hall of Fame inductee. Natural causes.
Sir Colin Meads, KNZM, MBE, 81, August 20, Tu Kuwiti, New Zealand. Former All-Black. National icon. Widely regarded as New Zealand rugby union's best ever player. 55 test matches for New Zealand [1957-71], Captain 11 matches. Devoted later life to philanthropy. Knighted [2009]. Pancreatic cancer.
Jerry Lewis, 91, August 20, Las Vegas, Nevada. American entertainer. Actor, comedian and singer. Appeared in 16 Hollywood movies as sidekick to Dean Martin [1949-56]. Long running solo comedy star in television. Activist and humanitarian in later life. Complications of peripheral vascular disease and congestive heart failure.
Fiona Richardson, 50, August 23, Melbourne. Australian Labor politician. Women's right's advocate. Victorian MP and the state's first Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence. Metastatic breast cancer.
Drew Morphett OAM, 69, August 25, Pakenham, Victoria. Australian sports commentator. 40 year veteran of broadcasting, hosting Australian Rules television show The Winners on the ABC, before going to the Seven Network for 13 years calling football, then returning to the ABC as a radio football, cricket and Olympic Games broadcaster. Cardiac arrest while watching football on television at home.
Dean Mercer, 47, August 28, Gold Coast, Queensland. Australian Iron Man champion and surf-lifesaver. Cardiac arrest following single car motor crash.
Sumiteru Taniguchi, 88, August 30, Nagasaki, Japan. Japanese nuclear disarmament campaigner and peace advocate. Survivor of nuclear bombing of Nagasaki [1945]. Chairman of the Nagasaki Council of A-Bomb Sufferers until his death. Keloid tumours.

*September*

Mike Cockerill, 56, September 1, Bellingen, New South Wales. Australian sports journalist. Former chief soccer writer for the Sydney Morning Herald and a three-decade multi-media career in soccer reporting. Brief cancer-related illness.
Walter Becker, 67, September 3, Maui, Hawaii. American musician, song writer, record producer. Co-founder of American jazz-soft-rock band Steely Dan [1972-1981]. Chronic illnesses due to long-term drug and alcohol addiction.
John Ashbery, 90, September 3, Hudson, New York. American poet. Pulitzer Prize winner [1975]. US National Humanities Medal [2011]. Self-confessed aim in life “to confuse the hell out of people.” Natural causes.
Peter Luck, 73, September 6, Sydney. Australian television journalist and author. 40 year media career. Pioneer reporter on ABC current affairs programs This Day Tonight and Four Corners. Produced and presented landmark 36-part TV documentary This Fabulous Century for Seven Network [1979]. Author of ten popular history books. Parkinson's Disease.
Kate Millet, 82, September 6, Paris. American radical feminist author, critic, academic. Author of Sexual Politics [1970]. Cardiac arrest during annual visit to Paris.
Sir Peter Hall CBE, 86, September 11, London. British theatre actor and director. Founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company [1960]. Champion of public funding for the arts. Knighted [1977]. Chevalier L'ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Pneumonia.
Harry Dean Stanton, 91, September 15, Los Angeles. American actor. Legendary bit-part player over six decades in American cinema. Appeared in 128 Hollywood movies, but played only two lead roles, in Paris, Texas [1984] and Repo Man [1984]. Never nominated for an Oscar or any other acting award. Never retired. Brief illness.
Robert “Dutchy” Holland OAM, 70, September 17, Newcastle, New South Wales. Australian test cricketer. Played 11 test matches [1984-85], debuting at advanced age of 38 as a leg spinner, taking ten wickets against West Indies at SCG. 95 first class matches; won the Sheffield Shield three times with New South Wales. Dedicated later life to grass roots cricket, administration and coaching. Brain cancer.
Liliane Bettencourt, 94, September 21, Paris. French business tycoon and philanthropist. World's richest woman at time of death, as major shareholder in the L'Oreal cosmetics empire. Estimated net worth at time of death $US44.3 billion. Complications of dementia.
Eman Abdul Atti, 37, September 25, Abhu Dhabi. World's "heaviest woman" at time of death. Estimated maximum weight during final year of life put at 498kg. Complications of extremely rare thyroid disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, gout, congestive heart and lung disease, kidney failure.
Hugh Hefner, 91, September 27, Los Angeles. American magazine publisher, media magnate, philanthropist, serial pants-man. Founded Playboy magazine in 1954, remaining editor-in-chief for 34 years. Sepsis.

*October*

Tom Petty, 66, October 2, Santa Monica, California. American musician, singer/songwriter. Founder of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers [1976], selling 80 million records world wide. Also known for association with Bob Dylan & Co in the 1980's 'supergroup' Travelling Wilberrys. Cardiac arrest.
Danielle Darrieux, 100, October 19, Paris, Legendary French actress. Hollywood film star of the 1930's. Accused of collaboration with the Nazi's in WWII. Still working in movies until age 99, appearing in more than 110 motion pictures. Complications of a fall at home.
George Young, 70, October 23, Portugal. Scottish-born Australian musician, songwriter, producer. Founding member of smash hit band The Easybeats. One half of the Vanda & Young hit-making songwriting team. Produced all five AC/DC early albums. Inaugural inductee ARIA Hall of Fame (1988). Retired in 1992. Recluse in later life. Brother of Malcolm Young. Natural causes.
Fats Domino, 89, October 24, Harvey, Louisiana. American legend, musician, R&B singer selling 120M+ records world wide, surpassed only by Elvis Presley. US National Medal of Arts recipient. Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame inductee [1998]. Natural causes.
Sir Ninian Stephen KG AK GCMG GCVO KBE QC, 98, October 29, Melbourne. Distinguished Australian lawyer, barrister, High Court judge [1972-82], diplomat, ambassador, international peace-broker. Knighted [1972]. Commandeur Légion d'honneur. Governor-General of Australia [1982-89]. Judge of the International Court of Justice and International War Crimes Tribunal [1991-97]. On active service [1944-45]. 68 years at the bar. Old age.


*November*

Antonio Carluccio OMRI OBE, 80, November 8, London. Italian-born British chef, author, restaurateur, television personality, raconteur, mushroom aficionado, pants-man. Complications of a fall.
Chuck Mosely, 57, November 9, Los Angeles. American musician, singer-songwriter, chef. Front man of punk-funk-metal band Faith No More [1985-88] until acrimonious split. Also appeared in metal bands Bad Brains and Cement. Died penniless. Complications of chronic alcoholism.
Gustav Åhr aka Li'l Peep, 21, November 15, Tuscon, Arizona. White American facially-tattooed emo hi-hop rapper. Died three months after first album release and brief career as YouTube star. Flamed out. Suicide by drug overdose.
Salvatore 'Toto' Riina, 87, November 17, Parma, Italy. Mafia mobster, racketeer, terrorist, assassin. Known as "The Beast" and the "Boss of Bosses" of the Cosa Nostra. 23 years on the run, 24 years in prison. Died in jail serving 26 life sentences. Responsible for more than a hundred known murders. Complications of cardiac surgery.
Gillian Rolton OAM, 61, November 18, Adelaide. Australian Olympian. Dual Equestrian gold medalist, team eventing Barcelona [1992], Atlanta [1996]. Legend of the South Australian Sports Hall of Fame. Edometrial cancer.
Malcolm Young, 64, November 18, Sydney. Scottish-born Australian musician and songwriter. Co-founder of hard rock group AC/DC [1973]. Inaugural inductee ARIA Hall of Fame [1988]. Retired in 2014 due to illness. Brother of George Young. Complications of dementia.
Charles Manson, 84, November 19, Bakersfield, California. American cult leader and mass murderer. Ordered the killing of seven people over two nights in Los Angeles [1969], including pregnant Hollywood actress Sharon Tait. Despite numerous applications for parole, spent his last 46 years behind bars. Natural causes.
Jana Novotná, 49, November 19, Omice, Czech Republic. Czech tennis player and Olympian. 1998 Wimbledon ladies singles champion. 12 Grand Slam doubles titles and four mixed doubles titles. Three time Olympic medalist. Inductee International Tennis Hall of Fame [2005]. Undisclosed cancer.
David Cassidy, 67, November 21, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Former American teen heart-throb. Starred in 1970's television musical sit-com The Partridge Family, later becoming a bubblegum pop star. Complications of cirrhosis of the liver, kidney failure, dementia.
Sol Bellear AM, 66, November 30, Sydney. Crusading Australian aboriginal activist and rugby league footballer. High-ranking Bundjalung man. Chairman, Redfern Aboriginal Medical Service. Co-author Uluru Statement [2017],. Co-Chairman, ATSIC [1991-94], Director, South Sydney RLFC [2002-06]. Chronic illnesses.
Jim Nabor, 87, November 30, Honolulu, Hawaii. American actor, comedian, crooner, macadamia farmer. Best known for his role as the goofy character Gomer Pyle in two television series [1962-69]. Released 28 albums of romantic ballads and standards. Sang "Back Home in Indiana" before the start of the Indy 500 motor race for 42 years. Complications of Hepatitis B.

*December*

Christine Keeler, 75, December 5, Farnborough, England. Former English teenage model and cabaret dancer principally known for her role in the murky and notorious spy scandal the Profumo Affair [1963] at the height of the "cold war". Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Hayden Hataina, 72, December 5, Eyre Peninsular, South Australia. New Zealand born Australian race horse trainer principally known for his involvement in the infamous horse-substitution ring-in scandal known as the Fine Cotton Affair [1984]. Did jail time for race fixing and warned off race tracks world wide for life [ban lifted on appeal 2013]. Chronic illness.
Johnny Hallyday, 74, December 6, Marnes-la-Coquette, France. French rock'n'roll musician and singer known as the "French Elvis". Sold 110+ million records world wide in a 57 year career starting in 1961 with the smash-hit French language version of "Let's Twist Again". Retired in 2009. Self-confessed multi-millionaire tax-evader. Five times married. Interred near his winter home on St. Barths, French Caribbean. Lung cancer.
Ray Hughes, 72, December 7, Penrith, New South Wales. Australian art dealer and prominent Sydney gallery owner. Relentless promoter of contemporary Australian art, bon vivant, raconteur, and colourful host of legendary Thursday "long lunch" for more than 30 years. Retired to the Blue Mountains due to ill health [2015]. Pneumonia.
Rory O'Donoghue, 68, December 13, Sydney. Australian musician, composer, actor, author, comedian. Best known as the character 'Thin Arthur' in absurdist television comedy series The Aunty Jack Show [1972-73]. 51 year partnership with Graeme Bond AM. Wrote film, theatre and musical scores, and a long time fixture in the Australian advertising industry. Suicide in hospital while being treated for chronic melancholic depression.
Max Drayton, OAM, 86, Cessnock, New South Wales. December 16. Australian vigneron and vintner. Worked at and then managed W. Drayton and Sons Wines for 70 years. Legend of the Hunter Valley winemaker's association's honour roll. Cheated death in tractor accident [1959]. Lost a son in winery explosion [2008]. Complications of a fall in winery one month prior to death.
Barry Cohen, AM, 82. December 18. Gosford, New South Wales. Australian Labor politician, author, raconteur, pamphleteer, political scientist, social commentator, scholar, gentleman, after-dinner comedian. Minister in the Hawke Government [1984-87]. 21 years in Federal Parliament, but lost in the High Court over being diddled out of a full pension. Alzheimer's sufferers and older people's advocate in later years. Alzheimer's disease.
Kim Jong-hyun aka Jonghyun, 27, December 18, Gangham, Seoul, South Korea. Korean K-pop megastar, singer/songwriter, former radio host. Lead vocalist of superstar boy band Shinee "The Princes of K-Pop". Died three years after also launching hugely successful solo career. Suicide by smoke inhalation.
Cardinal Bernard F. Law, 86, December 20, Rome. Archbishop-emeritus of Boston. America's most senior Catholic prelate. Resigned in 2002 over allegations of decades-long protection of boy buggering priests, but retained the title of Cardinal and lived off various appointments of the Vatican for his last 13 years. Never saw evil. Supernatural causes.
Lady Florence "Flo" Bjelke-Petersen, 97, December 20, Kingaroy, Queensland. Australian conservative agrarian politician, author, domestic scientist, peanut farmer, landscaper, gardener, cook, baker. Chiefly known for legendary pumpkin scone recipe. Two terms as Senator for Queensland [1981-93]. Wrote three best-sellers on traditional "country" cooking, baking and household tips. Widow [2005] of long serving Premier of Queensland, Sir John Bjelke-Petersen. Old age.
Ken Catchpole OAM, 78, December 21, Sydney. Former Australian rugby union captain. Skippered the Wallabies 13 times, debuting in 1961 in a 27 test career. Regarded as one of the greatest union half-backs of all time. Rendered in life-size bronze outside Sydney Football Stadium. Chronic illnesses.