Election has finally been called - for 7 September 2013

The Federal Election has finally been called - for 7 September 2013

My In Box has been filling up with a whole lot of stuff I don't need.

Firstly, let me deal with Stephen Jones MP - the current Member for Throsby.  An ALP member. I have met Stephen several times, and I found him likeable, and I thought, trustworthy,
However, he switched his support to Kevin Rudd and has stuck with the Krudster even through the worst examples of anti-Human Rights diatribes I have seen or heard in my adult lifetime (apart from Pauline Hanson's efforts).

I am appalled at the decision to refuse Asylum Seekers their legitimate rights to seek asylum in Australia. Instead under Rudd, we are dumping them in New Guinea and Nauru.

Today I received an email from my local member, Stephen Jones,

Here are three ways you might be able to help:

1.     Join with me and join Australian Labor
2.     Invite me to a meeting of your friends, at your workplace, or with your community group
3.     Make a donation to my campaign

Here is my reply to him:

• To Stephen Jones for Throsby
• I am sorry, did you not receive my previous message re my total disenchantment with your support for Kevin Rudd, following his abandonment of basic human rights principles, regarding Asylum Seekers? This has blown away any hope of me supporting you, or Labor (generally).
•  I shall be supporting Peter Moran, the Greens candidate for Throsby and Cate Faehrmann in the Senate.
• I know I am not alone in shifting to the Greens.
• Please delete my name from your email lists.
• Denis Wilson

No doubt there will be lots more about other Candidates from other parties, such as Angry Anderson, who is standing for the Nationals. Having watched him on that dreadful "Go back to where you came from" program on ABC a few months ago, there is no way I want to be associated with him, in any way.

And there is a young woman who is standing for the Liberals.
I saw a bunch of blokes in bright blue Tee-shirts with her name plastered on the front, coming out of the Robbo Pub this afternoon. I doubt they would have had much joy campaigning in there, unless they "Shouted the Bar". Glad I was not in there, as I would have been hard pressed to be polite to them.

Royal interloper stands between me and full self-determination

Personally I have nothing against a small cluster of cells which apparently have become fully independent living person, in a Labor ward in an exclusive hospital in London, England. But I am buggered if I am happy to have other people assume (without asking me) that this young person is entitled to be my Monarch.

George Freidrich Handel wrote some beautiful music to celebrate another birth.


I don't even mind the English celebrating the birth of the new Prince of Cambridge. Just leave me out of it, please.

Londoners celebrating the birth of the new Prince.

.I think that my own self-determination is intricately associated with the self-determination of my country. And for the life of me, I cannot see why we, as a nation, defer to the Monarchy.

After the way in which our Main Stream Media have gone bananas over the birth of the new Prince, I despair of my fellow Australians.
Roll on the Republic, I say.
I feel totally disenfranchised and disillusioned by this "Royal event".

Please count me out - the sooner the better.

A three year tantrum befitting a two year old toddler

It is approximately three years since Julia Gillard became our first female Prime Minister (on 24 June 2010). The forces of political darkness in Australia have refused to accept the legitimacy of her Prime Ministership. Even when she went to the voters, and subsequently formed a Minority Government, these same people have variously complained, sworn and abused her, and refused to accept the legitimacy of her Government. This is palpably silly. The more so, because of the "runs on the board" - a history of successful legislation across a range of policy issues.


Today The Age has run an Editorial which takes this silliness to its logical conclusion. The Editorial calls on her to resign "for the Sake of the Nation"





I invite you to go to my friend and Blogging colleague Brigid's "The Network" for a more sensible view of this issue. In particular I draw your attention to the three linked blogs from other early morning comentators who were all equally outraged by The Age's Editorial stance.

• Victoria Rollison in The Australian Independent Media Network

• Kieran Fitzgerald gives it to the Editor of The Age in the same fashion that The Age has given it Julia

• The Conscience Vote - For the sake of the nation, the media should do its job

I especially like this from Virginia Rollison: "It’s not Fairfax’s role to decide who our Prime Minister is. Fairfax should be telling us the news. Not trying to make it. And since they’ve failed at telling us the news for many years now, who the fuck do they think they are calling on the Prime Minister to resign as if it’s up to them decide?"

I sincerely hope that nothing comes of this Fairfax "Two-year-Old's Tantrum" equivalent.
Then, maybe, just maybe, Andrew Horner will have the decency to review his arrogant and deceiptful stance in this Video he has posted where he tries to convince us that the Age is a Left-leaning Newspaper and has supported Julia Gillard's Government.
On both counts this is delusional nonsense.

Pope Emeritus

Pope Benedict  XV! will retire on February 28, 2013. He will be known as Pope Emeritus once he has retired. He will still be entitle to be addressed as "Your Holiness". He will wear a white cassock.

I would have though Dowager Pope would have been a better fit

Read more here:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/-/world/16248998/benedict-to-become-pope-emeritus-vatican/ 

Source: Esquire - Style blog
The Pope's New (bespoke) shoes.

The only question the fashion conscious will want to ask is does he keep the bespoke red Stefanelli leather shoes he wore in Sydney?

"But as he departs the Vatican, officials say Benedict will keep the cassock, but leave the reds behind. Apparently he plans to slip into a pair obtained during a trip to Leon, Mexico. Artisanal, of course."
See more at:
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/mens-fashion/the-pope-new-shoes#sthash.4ZfVebMK.dpuf

But as he departs the Vatican, officials say Benedict wil keep the cassock, but leave the reds behind. Apparently he plans to slip into a pair obtained during a trip to Leon, Mexico. Artisanal, of course. - See more at: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/mens-fashion/the-pope-new-shoes#sthash.4ZfVebMK.dpuf

But as he departs the Vatican, officials say Benedict wil keep the cassock, but leave the reds behind. Apparently he plans to slip into a pair obtained during a trip to Leon, Mexico. Artisanal, of course. - See more at: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/mens-fashion/the-pope-new-shoes#sthash.4ZfVebMK.dpuf

But as he departs the Vatican, officials say Benedict wil keep the cassock, but leave the reds behind. Apparently he plans to slip into a pair obtained during a trip to Leon, Mexico. Artisanal, of course. - See more at: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/mens-fashion/the-pope-new-shoes#sthash.4ZfVebMK.dpufV

 

Blinded by the Polls

Dear me, it has come to this.
The media are so fully inside their own vortex of criticism that they cannot see what they are doing.
It seems to me that, like Manfred Mann, they are "Blinded by the Light"

• Blinded by the light,
  revved up like a deuce,
  another runner in the night

Has nobody yet thought that bad polls do not constitute a democratic process?
The Media are just listening to themselves talking to eachother.
 
The particular SMH article which has prompted my comment states:
"Julia Gillard, it is time for you to make your graceful, dignified, humble, selfless exit from the Prime Ministership.
Stay and it's harder for those who love you to save the furniture and protect your legacy.
Stay and you will hurt more.
Forget Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott. This is about you.
Forget the loss of face. Life's too short."

The Media are just listening to themselves talking to eachother.
In fact, the "talking" has reached frenzy pitch.
They are screaming at eachother.

What will be the outcome?
The Media Scrum would have us believe that Julia will walk away.

Perhaps Manfred Mann has it right:

• She got down but she never got tired
  She's gonna make it through the night

Read more: MANFRED MANN - BLINDED BY THE LIGHT LYRICS

Edit/Update:

The SMH is belatedly trying to redress the "Balance" (is there such a thing, these days?).
They gave Eva Cox a right of reply.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/why-julia-gillard-should-stay-20130220-2eqvz.html 

Pope Benny resignation - "Bag Out Benny" Day

The news is everywhere - Pope Benedict XVI has announced his intention to resign on 28 February 2013.

When I was a Seminarian in Rome, Cardinal Ratzinger was a figure of loathing within the Vatican Heirarchy. A kind of marauding Evil Angel. My memory of him goes back to 1968. That's a long time.
At last he has gone. 
No wonder I am going a bit "Spas" about his resignation!
I have loathed that man, and everything he stood for, for 45 years.  

Me, in Rome, 1968.
A young Seminarian at Propaganda Fidei College.

There is one other Australian, who has the right to be feeling somewhat satisfied tonight.
Father Paul Collins, a former religious broadcaster on ABC Radio,
He resigned from active ministry as a Priest in March 2001. The reason was: "After thirty three years I have decided to resign as an ‘active' priest to  return to being an ordinary Catholic believer. Many people will justifiably  ask: why? The reason is simple: I can no longer conscientiously subscribe to  the policies and theological emphases coming from the Vatican and other official church sources."
He continues: "I have often been critical of the church's  leadership, perhaps too harshly at times, in books, broadcasts, talks and  articles. I have been concerned with ecclesiastical narrowness and the de  facto denial of catholicity. But I also constantly argued that it was only  by ‘staying in' the priesthood that someone like myself could influence  things and bring about change. But it was always an every-day decision to  continue the struggle through the internal structures of the church. And  there can come a moment when you decide that both conscientiously and  strategically ‘staying in' no longer remains a viable or honest option. You  realise that you can no longer collude in what is happening by remaining in  the official priesthood."
He names his nemesis as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - then Cardinal Ratzinger.

That was Pope Benedict's name, while still working his way up through the Bureaucracy of the Vatican.
I wish Paul Collins all the very best tonight.
No doubt for him it will be a bitter-sweet event.


It has been suggested to me by Rosslyn, on Facebook, that we declare a festive Bag Out Benny Day:

Some jokes doing the rounds:

*** He will be known as the Breakfast Pope, Ex-Benedict. (apologies to James Rolfe)
http://proxy.storify.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fpbs.twimg.com%2Fmedia%2FBC2EgSpCUAAkXdI.jpg

*** Why is everybody surprised that Pope Benny pulled out early?
He's a Catholic, after all.

*** This last one is a Divine Punch Line
Lightning struck the Dome of St Peters basilica just hours after the Pope announced his resignation.
I am suspicious of this image having been either saved up from a previous event, or simply Photoshopped, but it is presented by the mainstream media  as genuine.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BC2h8wiCcAEuA05.jpg:large

• RT @AFP: #PHOTO: Lightning strikes St Peter's dome at #Vatican on day the #Pope announced resignation, by Filippo Monteforte http://pic.twitter.com/FehVjFYP

Flushing out the "Loonies"

My colleague Brigid. over at The Network has picked up this gem.

Pastor Danny Nalliah, of Catch the Fire Ministries in Melbourne, is a well known religious zealot. His pal Viscount Christopher Monckton is his secular (political) equivalent.
The two will be working as a double act, in Canberra, at the National Press Club, it seems.
What were the Press Club people thinking?
http://riseupaustraliaparty.com/?p=707

Christopher Walter Monckton,
3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley

I am advised this is a privately booked event, and as such it is not an official National Press Club event, unlike their Lunches, which are regularly televised on the ABC. We can but hope the ABC does not televise this event. But the Media knows the pulling power of Monckton with his eyes reminiscent of the late, great, Marty Feldman.

Late, great Marty Feldman
Famous British comedian