Tighty righty comedy gold

Australian opposition politics has gone apeshit over a proposed emissions trading scheme that the Labor party is shoehorning through for a vote before the Copenhagen conference. Tony Abbott is the new head of the Liberals, an anti-labor party who are in coalition with the Nationals, who used to advertise themselves as a force for Senatorial honesty, made a few compromises too many, and now advertise themselves as a bunch of morons who will bend over backwards to assure rural Australia that the country's environmental catastrophes have nothing to do with their ridiculously inefficient and consumptive farming practices.

Tony Abbott, a fuckwit anti-choice dried-out lizard carcass who can barely speak, replaces Malcolm Turnbull, who was one of my favorite right-wing politicians: he has principles, after a fashion, and is anti-monarchist (Abbott, on the other hand, compared Australians who wanted their own republic to 'stupid children blowing raspberries'), and did his best to try to kick his party into ratifying the ETS. Also Robert Hughes' nephew-in-law. Too clever by half - you can tell when he speaks. He argues well, but he argues like a lawyer, not like a demagogue, and that simply does not do on the right side of the life, when rallying your support means appealing to a pathological level of paranoia.

And one knows all this because Australia, unlike Canada and the States and the UK, makes their politicians have interviews with Kerry O'Brien instead of letting them have infrequent press conferences. Kerry O'Brien is really great. One of my favorite ways to unwind after a long hard day is to get stoned to the eyeballs and watch him make the leading politicians of his country go "errrrrrr . . .". He just asks the most inconvenient questions one could possibly ask. It's fantastic. The F-word gets a limited pleasure out of it because he points out the moments of clarity are few and far between - that as good an interviewer as Kerry O'Brien is, the person he's interviewing is merely a politician, and therefore still just trying to sell a turd with a birthday candle stuck in it, even if they do get stuck for answers occasionally. But I just find it so fucking gratifying, I can't even tell you.

Something else that helps me unwind after a long hard day is getting stoned to the eyeballs and watching Yes, Minister. It used to be Margaret Thatcher's favourite show, you know. I'm sure she's excellent company. Just like Satan would be, if Satan had a drink in his hand, his feet up on the ottoman and his full quota of ruined souls for the day.