Yes, it is strange news, Graham. Trading global human misery like offshore options. All in a days work for the leaders of The Free World.

“Tell ya what Ah’ll do, John Boy. You take these Mayans and ‘Spics off mah radar; Ah’ll take those Slopes and Ragheads off yours, election cummin’ up ‘n’ all. Whaddya say, mite?”

“Sure, George, anything you do is ok by me. We’re in this war against terrorism together, Mister President.”

If j-p-z does happen to hop on The Dog and pop over for the weekend say “hello” from all of us here. Anyone with his irony and wit, his strange taste in music and who comes from Brooklyn can’t be all that bad ….. so hope you do get a chance to meet and chat sometime.

…..

Strange news just in from Australia 18 days after April Fool’s Day: Howard has made a deal with Bush for Australia to detain Cuban and Haitian illegal immigrants in exchange for the US detaining SriLankan and Burmese illegal immigrants currently held by Australian authorities. I kid you not!!!! And no! Borat had nothing to do with it. I’m sure neither Pres. Pelosi nor Pres. Schwarznegger would have touched a loony deal like that.

You’re a representative of the LDP and as well as its Treasurer and here you are insulting me over your monomania on my property so let me say this- I want nothing more to do with the LDP and this year’s subscription fee was my last. I want to be cancelled off your membership roll and all my financial details erased. Your stupid party of hoons can go fuck itself.
Your shooters and assorted speedsters can have the party to yourselves – I don’t intend to vote for it and support it or give it anymore publicity. I will dissuade other people from supporting it too as long as it is filled to the brim with gun nuts such as you.

So, I’m a guy who lives in NYC from now on.

Wait, someone else has that MO.

OK. I’m still my great non-alias.

BearCave:
Yeah – agree about “1984″. In similar vein, try Solzhenitsin’s “One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich” and Lu Xun’s novella “The True Story Of Ah Q”. Hope and optimism …. even to the last.

You are right too about Howard’s mistreatment of true Liberals. No way will the gutless claque from the Ministry Of Propaganda dare write or broadcast anything about that.

when and if you plan to be in this very best of places,just tell a couple of weeks in advance.

Think “Rosalita” when you have a good idea of SD & where you’d stay and it’s still true.

Not because such fantasy translates into modern-day reality, but because I believe Orwell’s story can be interpreted as a timeless study of the average person’s concept of hope and satisfaction, their power relationships and the behaviour of people, both individually and collective. It is one of my favourite stories.

Graham writes:

“So it’s back to “normality’[wtf?] for Australia. Gladiatorial brawls, dead-wrong idiots screaming at each other, government by fake opinion polls and all the rest of the dreary bullsh*t.”.

Add to that John Howard’s poor treatment of his “moderate” MPs, something that doesn’t seem to get mentioned much.

To promote Joe Hockey to being Employment Minister, then to deny Hockey his big chance to “recapture the centre” of the IR debate, I believe, demonstrates that Howard is now a poor judge of the moment.

By not being more supportive of Hockey’s fine balancing act of “competition against” and “cooperation with” Kevin Rudd, Howard has sacrificed Hockey’s self-interest in being re-elected in order to drag Hockey into the uncomfortable collective position of launching “a dog’s breakfast critical attack” against Rudd.

Silly, silly stuff, Mr. Howard.

…From Justin

The Ministry of Truth and Information just couldn’t handle the concept overload of having Kevin Rudd and Joe Hockey discussing and debating amicably, assertively and rationally on nation-wide TV.

It might spread …. and the mugs out there would start thinking for themselves. Can’t have that! Next thing you know the mugs will want real democracy too. Joe and Kevin just had to go and that’s that.

So it’s back to “normality’[wtf?] for Australia. Gladiatorial brawls, dead-wrong idiots screaming at each other, government by fake opinion polls and all the rest of the dreary bullsh*t. Pity. For a while there, Joe and Kevin looked like they might have dragged Australian politics into the modern world.

Especially when you consider that despite criticism over the length of my writing, ABC Radioâ??s PM tonight made this Sunrise issue â??the lead storyâ?? and the newspapers will no doubt devote â??extra spaceâ?? to the issue tomorrow morning.

Never said it wasn’t a topical story at the top of the immediate media cycle. Never said you don’t make good points, because you do.

However, in general comments should not be longer than the screen window, or at least that no commentor should have more than one comment per thread that is any longer than that. Other readers will find it dispiriting to have to keep on paging down just to get through a single comment.

If I didnâ??t repost the Joe Hockey article, my views could be wrongly perceived as Labor Party Spin Doctoring.

You have your own blog. Expand the theme there and if anyone calls you a spin-doctor, point to the counterevidence published there. It doesn’t all need to be here.

Further correspondence regarding this via email, please.