Just batsht insane dribble

I think Miranda Devine needs to be tested for Lysteria and other bat-borne diseases. It may go someway to explain her latest stringing together of words in a semi-coherent manner.

Devine starts off by telling the tale of Boris, the ruffle haired blonde slob Etonian mayor of Old London Town coming to the bike-borne rescue of a greenie besieged by armed girls. From there MD claims that anyone who doesn't see in black and white (like her and Boris) would have been paralyzed by indecision and not assisted said Greenie, and from there ... Rudd is like Howard in that he has refugee issues he's dealing with but, because TEH LEFT hated Howard they protested about it, and because Rudd is nominally of TEH LEFT, they don't.

???

It's just nutty.

Here's my fave bit

I would suggest that, when push comes to shove, it is muscular conservatives with the courage of their convictions, of either sex, who are of more use in dark alleys than wishy-washy leftists, or simply people who don't like to get their hands dirty, make a judgment call or risk unpopularity.

If you are worried that someone might think you are a violent, chauvinistic bully if you chase the girl gang, you're no use. If you want to examine the motives of the assailants to establish beyond a shadow of a doubt that they mean Franny Armstrong harm, and aren't just asking her to admire their big iron bar, you're no use. If you are a peacenik who avoids all confrontation, you're no use. If you are a post-modernist who believes there are multiple truths, you will be too confused to be of any use.

In this age of cowardly consensus, feigned reasonableness and radical tolerance, the middle ground has been sanctified, no matter how stark the choice between right and wrong. Few are willing to do the right thing because no one will agree what the right thing might be, because that would imply there is a wrong thing, which is supposedly the view only of right-wing extremists.

A) Muscular conservatives are needed in dark alleys. We need them in those alleys. Because TEH LEFT are no good in alleys.

B) TEH LEFT see armed girl gangs assaulting passers-by as just exhibiting their right to be female and packing heat apparently and TEH LEFT could not possibly step in.

C) Devine, who like the vast bulk of right wing themed writers in Oz, doesn't believe in Climate Change as being dangerously influenced by human activity. She has the fucking gall to whine about 'doing the right thing' when she, like the rest of her lamprey kin, advocate exactly the opposite when it comes to saving the planet.

Seriously Fairfax, why do you keep her on? Okay, the ratings, I get that. Fair-enough. Why is it then the righty types like her are allowed to present badly written illogical copy for print, while everyone else has to present balanced fact laden material? Just the ratings?

Sigh.

PS Miranda Devine is in her study googling herself. She sees the impact her latest screed has. She claps with glee and spins around on her chair. 'People are talking about me! I am validated'. Nice validation Devine. Nice.

Michele Bachmann Overdrive

Michele Bachmann is the latest semi-fertile poster girl from guns'n'ammo on the righty right in the US of late. Recently lauded by George F Will, famed chicken-armed conservative baseball fan and neo-con, Bachmann famously questioned whether Obama and his crew were 'anti-american' during the 2008 election, and when an interviewer asked if is she'd support inquiries into their 'views', she thought it a great idea.

Lately she's become one of the many rusted on rigid right repubs that are shouting down anything the Dems put up on the grounds that if it's a Dem induced idea, ergo it's bad n'kay.

See her Dickipedia entry here.

When the Tea Party protests started up - and boy they didn't think that name through - naturally MB was front and centre. I'm surprised in fact she didn't turn up at the protests in a Davy Crockett coonskin cap with a tea bag tied to the tail, while sporting a flintlock. Despite receiving millions of dollars of free advertising on FOX, the tea party protests didn't amount to much more than a slight blip in bus ticket sales and a massive spike in packets of tea bags (the protesters encouraged to mail them to their congress person by means of indicating their disapproval at ... actually I'm not sure - let's say taxes).

With health-care reform being ludicrously protested against by the same hard nub of righties in the US, many of whom are still convinced Obama was grown in a Marxist test-tube in deepest darkest Africa, MB has too taken on this issue - calling on her com-padres to come to the Capitol and show those elected officials that we don't need no stinkin' government funded health-care.

Check out Dana Milbank's report on the protest for the Wash Post here.

Milbank dryly notes examples of home-made signage, which accuses the Obama white house of pretty much anything and everything (A few steps farther was the guy holding a sign announcing "Obama takes his orders from the Rothchilds" [sic], accusing Obama of being part of a Jewish plot to introduce the antichrist), and hilariously points out that the protest was not in fact a protest - at least officially.

Technically, Thursday's GOP-sponsored rally at the Capitol was a "press conference" (a Capitol Police spokeswoman explained that the lawmakers didn't have a permit for a demonstration). The speakers took no questions at this news conference, instead calling, at least a dozen times, for the Pelosi bill's death.

Milbank ends his report as follows;

By the time it was over, medics had administered government-run health care to at least five people in the crowd who were stricken as they denounced government-run health care. But Bachmann overlooked this irony as she said farewell to her recruits.

"You," she said, "are the most beautiful sight any of us freedom fighters have seen for a long time."

Oh dear sweet baby Jesus. Also, the fact that the right in the US have adopted the idea they are 'freedom fighters' when the vast bulk of FF's have been socialist in nature for the last 150 odd years is simply wonderful.

Amazing. Protesters protesting for the right to have over-priced unrepresentative health-care.

The Weekly World News Beans Diet

Well ... turns out I have gummed up bowels. The rectal area - you know, the poop chute - is clear. But the upper tract is cemented in with lots and lots and lots of the brown stuff.

It's been building for weeks apparently. Since I had surgery back in 2007 I've eaten less vegies and grains - because they're harder to digest for me. Except, the knock on was less fibre. I took supplements for that - but I was taking them in a dumb way and making matters worse. So I stopped.

The result. Severe constipation. So severe in fact, I have what's known as "spurious diarrhea". That's where the only bits that can get past the blockage is liquidy stuff.

I'm not in serious medical danger from this. Except that it causes acute pain, nausea, and delirium - all of which has been experienced by me during our celebratory week (our birthdays and anniversary all fall within a seven day range).

So, the doc prescribed ... baked beans. Basically I have to chow down on fibrous foods only, and drink lots of fluid (laced with benefiber). If I do so then gradually the blockage will start to shift. Well, that's the theory.

Unfortunately what's coming out is still the spurious kind. I can't risk farting in case of follow through so I am stuck in the house and I have the door to the toilet open to cut down on time to get seated.

It's incredibly painful. Incredibly embarrassing and a reminder that eating properly is a very important part of your health.

All-bran should fuck off their comedic efforts with advertising. All they need to do is show a toilet door accompanied by the muted soft sounds of pain wracked weeping.

Not fun

The other day I was suffering particularly bad gut pain. Towards the end of the night I started feeling feverish. As I tried to sleep I was wracked with delirium. Finally, after 6ish I woke theWife and suggested I might have to go to casualty. I was worried I had a bowel obstruction - aka the Gibb Killer.

TheWife suggested I use a microlax first, in case it was just a result of being bunged up. But post use and wait there was no movement at the station, and no word had passed around, off to casualty we went.

I was shaking from pain spasms I was being tested and, within 15 minutes, I was in a bed. The doc came around and took some blood and I got morphine for the pain. Which was kind of nice.

However, at that point the microlax I had prepared earlier (a microlax is a liquid that you shoot up your date), had its impact. My expected dry fart turned out to be a sopping great liquid filled one and I crapped myself. Highly embarrassing. So off I trotted to the toilet, keeping my arse squeezed together and thus taking chain-gang baby steps. I cleaned myself up best I could and went back to bed.

All I can say is thank god for the morphine. Because A) it took away about three steps of pain - from 'I wish I was unconscious' to 'hmmm, that's not pleasant, and B) it helped ameliorate what happened next.

In the doc's defence she did warn me upon her initial examination that this was going to happen. So I had some preparation. But perhaps it's one of those knowing its going to happen makes it worse things.

She had to stick her finger up inside me to make sure I didn't have trapped fecal matter up there.

I don't have a visually pleasing bum. It's hairy - and it had the added benefit of a thin patina of poo from my recent self-crapping. So needless to say I was apologizing muchly for presenting her a less than attractive target for her fingering.

Up went the finger.

Now, I've had a prostate exam before. Which was not pleasant. This took that prostate exam out and slapped it around like an unwanted stepchild. She had to reach a fair distance up to make sure no giant brown bears were a-lurking upstairs, and this involved a fair amount of internal poking around. I could swear I could feel her fingernail and I screamed out 'FINGERNAIL, FINGERNAIL, FINGERNAIL' - except it wasn't. I think it was the pressure she was applying. Indeed, upon withdrawal she noted that she kept her nails trimmed for just this sort of occasion.

Still, I did manage to crack out a crack while she was up my crack - I blithely stated 'so ... that's where my remote went' - which got a mild laugh from the male nurse who was distracting me from my head direction.

I finally got home about midday, suffered another bout of delirium from pain and no-sleep the night before, and effectively lapsed in and out of wakefulness over the next few hours. Plus I had another couple of pants incidences. I didn't really come back into full compos mentis until about 10 pm.

Feel okay now. I had to take more laxative (oral, thank god), and they landed again this morning with another misfired non dry fart.

Crapping yourself is like buses. Ages and ages pass, then you crap yourself four times in 48 hours.

Stupid arse.

PS Big ups to theWife who kept me hydrated and watched over me to make sure I wasn't going to wander off in a delirious state or anything, and for wrangling theNoo at the hospital - which are very exciting places for the hobbit sized - especially all the interesting activity that appears to be happening on the other side of the privacy curtain...

(Cue Musical Whistle)

The Life of Brian is one of my all time favourite films. It helps to be Christianity-literate to get some of it, and it should be noted that true Christians - you know the ones that practice being Christian - actually get a kick out of it (and it doesn't slag off Jesus in my opinion).

Anyway, the ending song, featuring a merry mass singing of 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life' whilst the singers are in fact crucified, is particularly awesome. And, like the basic message of being Christian - do good, be just - it's pithy and sensible.

I haven't been travelling well of late. Pain wracked much of the time - think having a period 24/7 - means during some period I've been pretty low. Low in spirit, low in energy. It's a real effort sometimes to be happy and act happy. It's a shit to live with ... and it must be a shit to live with someone who's feeling that way.

Recently I had another birthday. Seems like it happens every year. Last year was fcked, for various reasons, this one less so. But I still didn't feel like celebrating this year because it seemed just another year gone. All that's really happened is the earth is passing the same-ish spot it did in space a year before this day.

And ... that's a stupid way to think. Life is not static. It's not the same. Things change - sometimes for the worse, sometimes for the better - and how you adapt to this change influences the quality of your life. Of course it helps having a child. We have the most awesome little cheeky boy. I couldn't imagine life without him. And in the past year, he's gone from crawling baby to running toddler - complete with personality, quirks, habits, naughtiness, and a whole host of other kewl stuff.

Sure, things could have gone better in a bunch of other ways - they didn't, but so what? No skin off my nose. That's the past. It's not my future. It's time to gird the loins, saddle up, and (insert metaphor for preparedness here) and face life with a better attitude.

And, I'm making a Birthday Pledge, I am going to get off my ahnus (there, that's the metaphor I wanted), and actually finish the several projects I have going.



PS Fun fact from Life of Brian. The singers on crosses were seated on bicycle seats that jutted out of the cross's stem (you can't see them in shot). Apparently, between takes, there was a mad call for ladders so actors could get down and go to the toilet.

PPS TheWife got me the new Elton and Pratchett books. Aw, go theWife!

Oh Miranda

Miranda Devine, one of Fairfax's resident rightists that they seemingly keep around for balance purposes (which is odd because the only one of the non rightists / centrists you could really say was fully avowedly leftist is David Marr - and he dangerously grounds his writing in logic), is a proud fan of speeding and cars and similar shit.

She also likes Top Gear (confession: so do I, but not so hardcore as to have an anatomically correct blow-up Stig doll).

Anyway, Miranda Devine fully gets off when people go her on the net. She does. She teasingly drops a hotmail account address at the end of her various knee-jerk righty screeds and encourages people to vent at her. Then, ignoring all the sensible emails where people pull her failed arguments apart like travelling side-show fairy floss, she will serve up the more deranged points made and indicate by sleight of hand it is the representative mean of her correspondence.

On Thursday, Devine opined about the recent case of an irate cyclist having a physical altercation with a bus driver - the cyclist claiming misbehaviour on the part of said public transport employee. I don't know the right or wrong of what happened in that incident (sounds like an assault to me), but to Miranda, well, that cyclist is merely the representative mean of cyclists.

Here's some choice snippets.

Roads are for cars, not Lycra louts [This was the header]

This is classic angry cyclist behaviour, as if it's up to the cycling fraternity to forcibly educate the motoring public and instil fear like jackbooted Soviets.

How aggressive do you have to be at 5am, anyway? You never hear of rowers, joggers, swimmers, yoga artists or other dawn fitness devotees attacking people.

It wasn't the first time bus drivers have had to contend with irrational cyclists.

The ideologues who have fostered the road-sharing lie must think a few dead cyclists and pedestrians are a small price to pay for getting cars off the road, because that is their ultimate aim: to make driving so unpleasant, slow, expensive and fraught with hazards that motorists give up.

So far, all they have done is create a dangerous sense of entitlement among other road users. Harold Scruby and his Pedestrian Council are much to blame for the attitude that far from sharing the road, cars are there under sufferance.

Needless to say, her views (which typically do), irked a few people. MD decided to have another crack at the topic, all the while exalting that she'd had an effect.

The intro read thusly: "You always know when you write about the battle for road supremacy between cyclists and motorists that you will touch a nerve. But the avalanche of email and online comments in response to Thursday's column shows an extraordinary new level of sensitivity."

The conclusion she reached was this;

The good news is that sensible cyclists are beginning to accept responsibility for their behaviour ... [snipped examples of cyclists apologizing for their bad behaviour] ... As with everything in life, courtesy goes a long way.

How freaking hilarious that she actually had the hide to say "As with everything in life, courtesy goes a long way" given her screeching missive - that she linked to - of the day before, in addition to pretty everything she's ever written, ever.

Miranda Devine, I suspect - even though you were sired by another Conservative screeder - that perhaps, deep down, you view your role of a righty as some sort of ironic performance art.

In the aftermath of the Victorian Bushfires, Devine at one point hilariously suggested that if anyone should be strung up for causing the fires, it was nasty pasty greenies and their anti-burn off stance.

Yes, indeed. Courtesy goes a long way. Especially when they're still pulling charred bodies out of houses.

Ah, the cubs ...

When I was a kid, I was a cub. That seems an odd conflation of animalia doesn't it? Like some sort of Goat-Lion like you see in those split flip books where you can make up combinations of animals etc.

No, I mean that when I was younger - a child - I was a cub scout.

It seems an odd move for someone who loves leisure so much and whose idea of embracing a beautiful day is to possibly have the window open as I watch a DVD or play Warlords II.

But pre-puberty, before I swelled up like a someone with an acute allergy to bee-stings with puffy during and post puberty weight, I was a moderately active kid. Oh sure, I didn't like sport that much, but I still ran around, climbed trees, jumped puddles etc. And, I was a cub scout.

Cub scouting was, to put it mildly, a weird thing. There were some surreal moments. Standing around in a circle and chanting rhythmically before doing a squat and doing some more chanting is a little odd. Then there's the shorts, the hat, the woggle and so forth.

So here now are some brief cub memories from Harrangueman.

The kid who was in the circle where we did the "dib dib dib, dob dob dob" recitation who didn't want to let the side down and nick off for a wee, and during the ceremony proceed to wet himself, his shorts, his leg, his cub sock and the wooden boards of the cub hall.

Me lying about some made up person who had to be surgically removed from their dirty socks as part of my one minute speech about hygiene which was needed to get some sort of cleanliness related activity badge.

Me preferring being a seconder (2nd in charge of a gang, I forget the official name, in a cub group) to being a sixer (the boss) because I could order younger kids around but, ultimately, someone above me had to be responsible for actual results.

Having a sheep dung fight under shearing sheds where we were camping and copping a piece of shit to the face.

On the same camp, not using the Hessian sack screened tin an makeshift toilet for four days for number twos and badly turtle-necking during the mini-bus ride back home and barely making the safety of the proper lav when I got to my house before it all came out.

Washing up breakfast dishes on a camp and seeing dead bloated rice-bubbles swimming around the fetid wash-up water, then gagging when a bubble touched my precious smooth skin.

And, finally ... for some reason we all thought this was a good idea. During a period of free time we were walking along the banks of a wooded creek - cubs on each side of the creek. As a joke, someone threw a rock across the water near the other group. We then proceeded to have an all out rock throwing war - not aiming at each other but rather arcing the rocks high in the air so they came down like ballistic missiles - and we'd make various explosion noises and slow mo diving "nooooooo" sound effects etc as they were landing or in-bound. This giddy geology themed fun then ended abruptly when the inevitable rock hit the inevitable head and the wounded cub had to be driven to hospital for emergency stitches.

I'd like to see the badge for that!

I loved being a cub. But, I grew up. I aged. No more was cubs allowed for me. Instead I was upgraded, almost against my will, into the Scouts. A year later, as I recall, I got asked to leave because I was too disruptive. I think that was during the three years of "no sugar for Mikey", my parents putting me on Fructose instead - which, as irony would have it, is some kind of super sugar - so that's a fail for the 80's medical profession.

I like to tell people the reason I got asked to leave the scouts was ... that I wasn't prepared enough.

Dib Dib Dib, Dob, Dob, Dob indeed.