Still some of the most sensible talk we've heard in years on Australian TV on asylum seekers and immigration. PJ O'Rourke on Q & A :



If only our politicians were willing to speak such obvious truths, in the face of tabloid hate front pages screaming 'Invasion!'

As you may already be aware, The Chaser returns to the ABC tonight for the first of five new episodes covering the Federal Election 2010, a year on from the end of their War On Everything series.

Yes We Canberra! will likely be the most, or only, entertaining thing about the next four weeks of campaigning, leading to the day Tony Abbott is declared the new prime minister of Australia.

In preparation for a Liberal Party-led new government, Chas takes on the next Australian deputy prime minister, Julie Bishop, in a deathstare cagematch :



After the June coup, The Chaser had to dump a ton of sketches and gags they'd been working on, centred around prime minister Kevin Rudd on the campaign trail. Here's one of the Rudd gags that didn't get the chop :

Coming to DVD & download late October :

FireBomb Democracy

Today on Andrew Bolt's blog of fevered hate and intolerance, an open, uncensored call to commit acts of terrorism in Australia from a regular commenter :

"...it's always the darkest before dawn, and the people will have the ultimate voice - molotov cocktails into the Parliament Houses. We WILL regain control of the nation."

Let me guess, it slipped by the moderators, eh?

The Herald Sun's and ABC Insider's Andrew Bolt suggested an act of terrorism could have helped then prime minister John Howard win the 2007 election :

"...something might yet turn up that will make us appreciate anew his vast experience and steadiness under fire...if there were to be another terrorist attack...(we could) admire his firmness in handling it."

Will he suggest the same for Tony Abbott now?

.

Five Stars

Crossing a review-style format with doco-reality TV is the best comedy idea to hit Australian TV screens since Alan Jones decided to squawk for five minutes just before 8am on the Today Show (sadly that piece of daily Gold is no longer). The smartly dressed Myles Barlow is the man responsible for the hilarious, disturbing, challenging, WTF? show Review, returning for its second series on ABC2 tonight at 9.30pm.

So what's under review for Review 2?

"I review Addiction, Fear, Starting a Cult, Being a B-Grade Celebrity, Buck’s Parties, Happiness, Justice, Racism, and Killing Kyle Sandilands, to name just a few."

Sadly, Kyle Sandilands was not willing to add total authenticity to that review.

The trailer :



Featuring one of the most realistic stabbing scenes ever seen outside of Melbourne public transport, Barlow reviewed Murder in series one :






To finish, some good advice from Myles Barlow :

"Don’t listen to advice, would be my advice. And yes, I’m aware that by taking that advice you’d be doing exactly what I’ve told you not to, but therein lies the central paradox of critical analysis. Do you listen to others or do you make up your own mind? A smart pin-stripe blazer doesn’t go astray either, just quietly."

Noted.

Does Tony Abbott Still Believe Bible Classes Should Be Compulsory For All Students?

Opposition leader Tony Abbott, December 19, 2009 :

"I think everyone should have some familiarity with the great texts that are at the core of our civilisation. That includes, most importantly, the Bible.

"I think it would be impossible to have a good general education without at least some serious familiarity with the Bible...."

Most important core text of our civilisation, eh?

"If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity."

"Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib?"

"....they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel..."

"If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered....he must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives."

"There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses."

Unicorns, donkey dicks, raping virgins, stoning women to death and cutting off their hands - the Tony Abbott literature class of 2011.

It's funny, because it's true :



Effective political advertising :

The front page of The Australian online gets downright cognitively dissonant one day into Federal Election 2010 :



"Labor has started the campaign well ahead of the Coalition..."

"Voter support for Labor has slipped since the election was called...."

The Australian should considering changing it's advertising mantra from 'Think. Again.' to 'Wait. What?'

.

Some Sunday rock. The Screaming Jets doing AC/DC's Ain't No Fun (Waitin' 'Round To Be A Millionaire) live on a barge in Sydney's Darling Harbour in late 1991. None of the kids who jumped from the bridge were seriously injured, though one jumper (not caught on video) hit the water about an inch from the dock. An absolutely fucking insane day, hard to believe it was almost two decades ago.

Four of the top six most popular news stories of the week on the ABC News website are psychic octopus-related :



So much for ABC News readers being obsessed with politics.

Standing Up, Moving Forward, Falling Asleep

By Darryl Mason

So here we go. Federal Election 2010 is on. Even though we don't actually vote for the prime minister of Australia, politicians to the media are quite happy to play along and make it a battle of personalities, less so than policies, or even competence.

But it's not even really about coup prime minister Julia Gillard Vs the Mining Industry/Coalition's Tony Abbott. It's about Gillard & Abbott doing everything they can to stop The Greens from gaining the balance of power in the Australian senate, and completely undermining the two party system that has served Australia's richest people so faithfully for so many decades. It's fortunate then that the Labor Party and the Liberals/Nationals coalition can rely on the full support of the Australian Murdoch media doing everything they can to scare people away from voting for The Greens.

As coup prime minister Julia Gillard has made clear, by mentioning the phrase more than 20 times in a 10 minute speech, the Labor Party are for Moving Forward, or Moving Forward Together or Moving Australia Forward :



It's a corny phrase already making people grind their teeth, less than 24 hours after the election date of August 21 was announced.

The Liberal Party meanwhile have settled on 'Stand Up' :



'Stand Up' is, of course, the name of an excellent song by The Angels :



Note these key lyrics :

Promises are easy
You swallow every word
Just be sure of who you serve

And here's the first official Federal Election 2010 ads from the leaders of the Labor and Liberal parties.





Here's Greens' leader Bob Brown outlining his party's policies for the coming election.

I'll go easy on the Federal Election 2010 coverage here, because you're going to be inundated with it everywhere you turn, and I'll be a bit busy elsewhere finishing off my first movie 'Fuck The War', starring Dave Gleeson, for an October release.



.

The Australian, July 14 :

Americans who are attending the annual conference (with Kevin Rudd) are curious.

They wonder how it happened that an Australian leader who appeared so popular and so comfortable on the world stage only 12 months ago could be tossed out so quickly -- even before he had faced an election.

Yes, what an absolute mystery it is.

The Australian, June 26 :




.

The Herald Sun on the culturally vital website Things Bogans Like :

"...the best online port of call for the voice of bogan authority."

Things Bogans Like on The Herald Sun :

There is nothing a bogan loves more than being outraged. In particular, being outraged at people who, for a variety of reasons, it has made minimal effort to understand on ethnic, national, or religious grounds.

With an array of columnists with a hard-wired awareness of the bogan’s panic buttons, the topic du jour on the comments page......invariably revolves around blaming ‘other’ people for bad things.

Thus stimulated, bogans are equipped with sufficient righteous indignation to cover any encounter with a fellow at the water cooler, food court, playgroup or other designated daytime bogan convergence point.

There's a book of Things Bogans Like coming in November. Just in time for the Bogan Family Christmas stocking, which this year will be either Harley Davidson branded leggings, or Ugg socks (Do we have those yet? And if not, when we do, will they be called Oggs?)


.

Kudos Kodos

I keep hearing coup prime minister Julia Gillard using variants of this phrase :

"We must move/go forwards, not backwards."

Such a familiar phrase. Someone else had used it, many years ago, in a gripping campaign speech, powerfully podium pitching their political wares.



It was Kodos :

"Tonight I say, we must move forward, not backward; upward, not forward; and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom!"

I'm not being critical in pointing out that Julia Gillard appears to be sourcing The Simpsons for political rhetoric. I say More Of It.

In fact, let me help out. I submit following stirring political views of Homer Simpson for inclusion in future speeches by our coup prime minister :

Children are our future. Unless we stop them now.

If something goes wrong.....blame the guy who can't speak English.

Volunteering is for suckers. Did you know that volunteers don't even get paid for the stuff they do?

How is education going to make me smarter?

I wish God were alive to see this.

Stupidity got us into this mess, and stupidity will get us out.

Marriage is like a coffin and each kid is like another nail.

I never apologize, I'm sorry but that's the way I am.

It takes two to lie....One to lie and one to listen.

When are people going to learn? Democracy doesn't work.

.

Movie News

By Darryl Mason

It's been a bit quiet around here for the past week or so because I've been finishing off a movie. It's a hostage thriller set during the Sydney Student Protests against the Iraq War in 2003.

The basic plot is this : The prime minister is giving a speech at Sydney's Town Hall. An anti-War On Iraq protest outside turns violent, and during a scuffle the prime minister is separated from his security. One of the protesters manages to kidnap the prime minister. He lashes him to a chair in the cellar of an empty house and interrogates him over the deceptions and lies that led Australia into the War On Iraq.

The movie is called :



The movie stars Dave Gleeson, lead singer with The Screaming Jets. Gleeso ripped into the role like a professional, found plenty of laughs where there would have been none without him, and generally pulled the gold from a way too long script and made it shine.

Some images from Fuck The War, straight off the rough edit :









I'll get some clips from Fuck The War up on YouTube soon.

It'll be out on DVD and digital download in a couple of months.

If it sells 500 copies, Fuck The War will be one of the few Australian movies of 2010 to turn a profit.

If it sells a few thousand copies, we get started on another movie.


.

Election advertising in Australia gets mega-mashed up :

Some Saturday tunes.

Amazing. Redgum's John Schumann performing Cold Chisel's Khe Sahn :



Not the lyric change from "teenage Chinese princess" to "jaded Chinese princess."

Redgum are best known for the spine-chilling ode to youth lost in the Vietnam War, 'I Was Only 19' :



And here's an excellent clip of Redgum doing a now all but forgotten classic. "They went through my bags like McCartney in Japan, didn't have a thin so I didn't give a damn."



The Australian government had to insist on two month limit visas for Australians in Bali back in the 1980s. Tens of thousands of Australians would never have come home again if they could have stayed, thousands didn't anyway.



.

Australia. So great it's even endorsed by The Kinks :



How catchy is that? Why has this song, or parts of it, never been used for Australian tourism ads? What a theme. And such great Ray Davies' lyrics (excerpts) :

Opportunities are available in all walks of life in Australia
So if you're young and if you're healthy
Why not get a boat and come to Australia

Australia, the chance of a lifetime
Australia, you get what you work for
Nobody has to be any better than what they want to be

Everyone walks around with a perpetual smile across their face

Pretty cutting amateur satire :



I've never linked to, or really watched, those Hitler Downfall parody vids. But this one about Kevin Rudd is very well done, covers the history, and was done extremely fast, online within a day of the Australian Coup.


.