On the Family Assistance Office call, I got my first call from them the other week, and a letter in the mail. Apparently they just want to help me out. I’d never heard of them.

Well don’t miss the opportunity this provides. If you’ve got a lawn that needs mowing or somesuch these seem to be the people for the job.

My daughter turned eight today.

Anyone for a Royal Commission?

Since the last election Mr Howard has spent a record $850million of taxpayers’ money on government advertising, an analysis by The Sun-Herald has shown.

They really are brazen, aren’t they.

sleazy personal commentary… nutty political ideology… low-life bogans… personal odyssey [the legend in Jack’s mind]…lazy political ideology… ideological lunacy…moral degeneracy.

Shorter Jack: My “wet and dry” multiverse has been rooted by sexual innuendo.

I take it - with all your “on the ground” knowledge - you have no comment on the fact that the federal government “health checks” have turned up very very very little evidence of sexual abuse.

How many children have been found to be abused?

Good question. Nanette Rogers went along way toward answering it. ABC reports:

SUZANNE SMITH: Central Australia has the highest murder rate in Australia. It is 10 times the national average. Homicide is the leading cause of premature death for Indigenous women and they are 52 times more likely to be hospitalised for assault-related injuries than white women.

The truth about homicide and child sexual assault are known to very few people in the Northern Territory. Crown Prosecutor for central Australia, Nanette Rogers, is one of those people.

DR NANETTE ROGERS, CROWN PROSECUTOR, CROWN PROSECUTOR FOR CENTRAL AUSTRALIA: The volume is huge. Um, I don’t have any single file in my room that’s not related to violence at the present time.

For her troubles Ms Rogers has been subjected to a semi-official ostracism from the local legal and political community. I know this for fact from folks on the ground in Alice Springs. Its an incestuous little community up there, in more ways than one.

Kim says:

What’s “the war on drugs� got to do with “nationalism�, pray tell?

Two words: border protection. The human body has a built in xenophobic patrol to deal with alien toxicity. It aint the most popular show on the box for nothing.

I dont know if it has been successful in intercepting terrorists. But drug smugglers have never had it worse.

There is an organic connection b/w cultual conservatism and political nationalism. There is not much point in securing the national polity if there is no cultural identity to conserve.

How do you know in advance that Howard’s anti child abuse policy will not work?

How many children have been found to be abused?

Conservative nationalism gets results.

What’s “the war on drugs” got to do with “nationalism”, pray tell?

Please spare us the self-righteous tone.

I dare say that I should be the last person to throw stones, having lived in glass houses for most of my adult life. Let me confess outright that I am no better than the next man in the personal morality stakes. I think that I am not the first Christian to take some comfort from St Augustine’s prayer.

mark says”

I’m glad you made that equation, Jack. Because you’re demonstrating a similar level of moral vacuity as the PM and his camp followers.
To oppose Howard’s “war on drugs� because it’s designed to fit his own political interests and reinforces his own delusions about society and because it’s highly likely to be ineffectual is not to celebrate drug use, just as pointing to the agendas at play in the NT doesn not mean that you condone child abuse.

Yeah and the Left-liberal solution to the subcultural/multicultural mixup - free for all and tribal Alpha males - has been oh so “effectual”.

How do you know in advance that Howard’s anti child abuse policy will not work? Your Left-liberal crystal ball has not exactly been clear as day in the past, else we would not be in theis pretty pass.

YOu are empirically wrong about the “ineffectuality” of the war on drugs. Howard has put the Salvation Army on to the problem and hundreds of lives have been saved. Conservative nationalism gets results.

I dont have a problem with Howard following his own political interests so long as they are in-line with civil society’s interests. Thats the way populist democracy is supposed to work.

Yesterday it was indigenous child abuse, today it is sporting drug abuse. What a charming legacy Left-liberalism is leaving for its children. It is a diagnostic of Left-liberal “delusions about society” that they see their stale, shopworn cliches as a part of the solution, rather than part of the problem.

mark says:

Now, I’ll point out to you once again your discourtesy in ignoring suz’ desire that comments about drugs go on the other thread, and my reminder.

Sheesh, fussing about a little off-topic thread “discourtesy” in the midst of all these bottom-crawlers reminds me of Willard’s reaction to General R. Corman’s verdict: “Charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500.”

“that governments be prohibited from advertising during election campaigns on the grounds that their wonderful competence MUST have been demonstrated during their reign,”

How can we get that turned into Law? [with mandatory 5 years imprisonment for breaches of that law, of course].

Maybe we could get that law extended to cover unnecessary propaganda and/or onanist campaigns during a term in office too …. think of the revenue savings!

Are you serious Jack, from you, the aficionado pumping out multiple perverse theories of “wet� and “dry� in all affairs human, ad nauseam, ad infinitum?

Relax Jack. Here’s a must read, step 2 after Christine’s advice.

Modesty forbids me from answering CK & PK’s puerile question.

Morality was obviously not much use in preventing them from asking it.

Your sleazy personal commentary makes a nice fit to your nutty political ideology. Didnt your mother teach you that a gentleman does not kiss and tell? You both come accross as a low-life bogans so perhaps I should not be too judgemental.

I always get a good laugh out of the “presumption of cool” that so many Left-liberals are so keen on broadcasting. Obviously havent read much Larkin, let alone lived life out of their comfort zone.

Once upon a time I thought it was clever to put on that act. When I was a teenager, about a generation ago. But a little personal odyssey goes a much longer way than a lazy political ideology.

No wonder post-modern Left-liberalism is now irrevocably associated in the public mind with ideological lunacy and moral degeneracy.

Jack, here’s a tip: Try getting a root

Kemp:

Here’s a must read, step 2 after Christine’s advice.

Step two, eh? Peter, you’re doing it wrong.

If I were you I would not be advertising these personal characteristics.

Are you serious Jack, from you, the aficionado pumping out multiple perverse theories of “wet” and “dry” in all affairs human, ad nauseam, ad infinitum?

(Jack’s blogging keyboard BTW is not “qwerty”, it’s specially made for lightning fast “wetanddry” dichotomies)

Relax Jack. Here’s a must read, step 2 after Christine’s advice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreplay

On a more serious note I cannot see a way that governments can be weaned off using the public till for this sort of advertising. Perhaps only with a minority party holding the balance of power and demanding water-tight legislation against it as their price. It’s just such an irresistible perk of incumbency.

I hate the drug industry, especially the way it exploits and destroys young people and women. I am glad that Howard is fighting it with every available resource.

And I like the way he is countering child abusers as well. I know enough of this scourge through my travels up the Top End to know that I am for anyone who is seriously against it.

I find it revealing that some people on this site line up against Howard on these core moral issues. Such people seem to have lost their moral compass in a desperate effort to be “with-it�.

I’m glad you made that equation, Jack. Because you’re demonstrating a similar level of moral vacuity as the PM and his camp followers. Please spare us the self-righteous tone. To oppose Howard’s “war on drugs” because it’s designed to fit his own political interests and reinforces his own delusions about society and because it’s highly likely to be ineffectual is not to celebrate drug use, just as pointing to the agendas at play in the NT doesn not mean that you condone child abuse.

Now, I’ll point out to you once again your discourtesy in ignoring suz’ desire that comments about drugs go on the other thread, and my reminder.

Peter Kemp on 2 September 2007 at 7:34 am

Fancy letting the whole wide world know about your vulgarity and ignorance. If I were you I would not be advertising these personal characteristics.

I am embarassed for the both of you.

Christine, was trying to conjure a rejoinder about a bloke who is happy to outsource the Prohibited Substances Education of his pending sprogs to “the govt� because “it saves my breath�.

I did not limit my concern to just my “pending sprogs”. I mentioned my actual “god-children”. I guess the distinction between potential and acutal is a little too subtle for you to grasp.

YOur comment implies that it was silly or uncool of me to be pleased that the authorities are taking steps to care for the well-being of children who sometimes come, or might come, under my care. YOu need to do a bit of soul-searching, and world-handling, before you making shallow and amoral comments about things that you know not.

More generally your comment is a diagnostic of the nihilistic depravity of what passes for (post-?) modern liberalism.

I lived for over almost two decades in St Kilda and Kings Cross. I have forgotten far more about that world than you would ever care to know.

I hate the drug industry, especially the way it exploits and destroys young people and women. I am glad that Howard is fighting it with every available resource.

And I like the way he is countering child abusers as well. I know enough of this scourge through my travels up the Top End to know that I am for anyone who is seriously against it.

I find it revealing that some people on this site line up against Howard on these core moral issues. Such people seem to have lost their moral compass in a desperate effort to be “with-it”.

If, in fact, they ever had it to begin with.