QUFU: …say, "He who keep making up mystelious clyptic brog headrines of plecisery 150 chalacters, either velly stupid or must be Payton L. Inkretter."

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

'In other news…'

28^th September 2010

Tuesday: 'Yesterday' blurred for me into a typical evening, night, day, and it wasn't till noon that I finally lay down to sleep. And so, come half six in the evening, I was not well rested, when I arose to do my first 'job', and deliver hot vittles to The Dear Leader., fresh from being phlebotomised this morning.

It had been a warm spring day, and Cadbury is certainly in molting mode, with a long winter coat that is of reducing use to her. I must use the Furminator again on her tomorrow in daylight and outside. Anyway, with minimal fur ruffling, she spent over two hours on my lap watching Aunty with me, until her meowing messages convinced me she needed a spell outside, about half ten.

I always enjoy Tony Windsor interviews, and Kerry O'Brien gave us another on The 7.30 Report. What a dream if every politician in Australia, state and federal, had his restraint, composure, and bearing. Both men looked excellent in their dark suits and boldly striped ties.

Pictures coming…

The one point I'd highlight from that interview is Mr Windsor's calm observation that Tony Abbott is "missing an opportunity to be constructive", in his leadership of the Opposition for our 43^rd Parliament.

I could easily be persuaded to call Tony Abbott the incredible shrinking politician, due to just how small minded he is behaving. I'll say more on this in my Lateline observations below.

Lateline: The (Leigh) Sales Graph: Leigh Sales chose a casual look tonight, and looked wonderful, in a double pocketed longsleeved dark blue shirt, her only jewellery a set of gold ring earrings, subtle-effect makeup, and attractively flaring hairstyle. Her eyeshadow strength and shade was ideal.

Picture coming…

Her long interview subject was the first day of our new Parliament, with the finely tuned numbers and their consequences. The sucker from the Opposition who fronted up, on-screen from Canberra, to discuss the day's developments, was Shadow Treasurer, Joe Hockey, whose dark pinstriped suit and white shirt, enhanced with a white tie with medium width black stripes, cut him a handsome figure.

Picture coming…

This interview's mood was sombre. And that was the right tone, for here we had the Shadow Treasurer giving away the sad truth of the state of mind of his side of politics, with regard to the recent election and their failure to form a government. I don't believe that even Mr Hockey believes that the non-cooperative stance his side has adopted, under the leadership of Tony Abbott, is the best thing to do.

It became evident through Ms Sales' thorough and researched questions, that Mr Hockey was the latest harbinger from his mob that this Opposition has not got sufficient goodwill towards the Australian nation, to help make this latest Parliament as productive as possible.

Tony Abbott is demonstrating that he hasn't got the greatness to accept that, according to the rules we've been running on for a century and more, his side did not form government, and he did not become Prime Minister, which sadly, might be as much the point.

I reckon Ms Sales is very aware of the smallness that is oozing out of the Opposition from all angles, and her questioning indicated this. She thus let Mr Hockey indict himself and his colleagues. How spot on Ms Sales was with the spirit in the following question: "Is there a risk that that (the 'wrecker' appellation) will resonate with the public if the Opposition does pick fights over comparatively minor courtesies like pairing?"

His lame comeback included the following non sequitur: "And how ironic it is, Julia Gillard accusing us of breaking a deal, whereas before the election she promised the Australian people there would no carbon tax." Mr Hockey and your cohorts, listen carefully to Tony Windsor and, if necessary, get someone with more intelligence than you are displaying to the public to explain the implications of the following: IT'S A HUNG PARLIAMENT. Thus, many campaign commitments are thrown into doubt automatically. The Coalition would be in an identical situation if it had formed a government under the current balance of numbers; some of its promises would doubtless have to be purged.

How easily most of our politicians are prepared to keep insulting our intelligence with irrelevancies, redundancies, and falsities. Give us more Tony Windsors, Rob Oakeshotts, Bob Katters, Nick Xenophons!

In years to come, I would not be surprised if Mr Hockey looks back to these days, even this interview, and cringes.  He, at the bidding of the small-spirited leader he works under, demonstrated that he can talk and defend smallness also.

However, I am not confident that the Australian people will punish the Coalition for its tactics born of bitterness, formulated through the distortion of their smarting eyes. That remains to be seen. I hope the Coalition is punished electorally for its ongoing puerile and nasty behaviour, only to impress upon our politicians, and aspiring politicians, of every flavour, to behave with a far higher level of maturity towards the honour they are awarded to represent and lead us.

I was impressed with the fact that Ms Sales had a good grasp of the history of the situation 70 years back when we last had a hung parliament. She is a studious researcher, and it shows. I wonder when she sleeps.

Thank you Leigh Sales for an interview which had Joe Hockey exposing as much of what the Opposition doesn't stand for and which it should, by omission, as for the same by commission.

Lateline Business: The Tick(y Fullerton) Check Mark: Ticky Fullerton looked great when she anchored tonight's program. She wore a dark jacket and a simple Carolina blue camisole, with subtle-effect makeup and just tiny earrings for jewellery, her new shorter hairstyle suiting her very well, with its full forehead exposure and convex flaring at the sides.

Picture coming…

I get a chill whenever I think of big foreign businesses buying food production assets in our country, and so I was not the most comfortable I've ever been during the long interview Ms Fullerton had with Sunny Verghese, the Managing Director of Olam International. Mr Verghese looked like a new dollar, billions of them to be precise, but with a dark blue theme to his jacket and tie.

Picture coming…

The topic was about the plans by Olam International to double its business, already a $2.6 billion enterprise. I cannot help but think that this business and most like it are not first and foremost dedicated to feeding people while being profitable, but rather to make profits first and foremost, and all else being secondary. I hope I'm wrong with Olam International.

Ms Fullerton did raise the concerns of the various countries about their farming assets, including water rights, being sold to overseas interests, with Mr Verghese, and while he spoke a lot of words back, they didn't amount to addressing the basic problems of local insecurities, in my opinion. He interestingly gave a reply including this line: "…for us the more important licence that we need to seek and get is the licence from the communities and where we operate."

Well, that prize will depend on the greatness, the character, of Olam International, and will best be evidenced over time and under duress. Specifically I speak of the duress of the locals in the countries his business operates in, when food prices rise above manageable needs for the poor. Just how his company behaves at such times will be the acid to determine the above mentioned licence of which he claims he seeks.

It's a big issue, and a big problem. We've all got to eat. And of course, agricultural business has to be profitable, and – especially – sustainable, ideally continuously improving the health of the ecosystems in which it operates.

A litte more story coming…

+paytontedwithlove+

WASHINGTON: "Unveiling 10Gees in mustard-coloured straps was not about dead presidents," notes (punt intended) P.L.Inkletter, as he pounded a Benjamin

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

'In other news…'

27^th September 2010

Monday: I tried to surface at two, having written till 8 this morning on my short story, 'After the Rain', but I couldn't manage it. And so, less than an hour before sundown I arose. I must say I am glad of the writing time last night; it is too rare these days to devote time to purely fictional prose.

And so, all I managed was a bit of weeding up the back, accompanied by Cadbury, who likes to try to grab the weeds from me as I pull them out. Last job was to squirt Missus Inkletter's legs, by accident (that's my story and I'm sticking with it), when I watered the motherinlaw tongues out the front. She got a fright and called out loud, for the neighbourhood to hear, "What are you doing to me!"

I then spent the whole evening, but for a short break, in front of Aunty, with Cadbury on my lap.

Lateline: The (Leigh) Sales Graph: Ms Sales looked beautifully turned out with an ivory jacket set off nicely with a full ellipse ruffled collar, and black camisole, avoiding any lack of contrast issues with her skin, and crowned with a convex flaring hair style to finish the superb effect. Subtle-effect makeup, especially the eye shadow tint, conspired to support the effective appeal of professionalism and beauty. And the only jewellery was a set of tiny pearl earrings. She is a rather blessed woman.

Picture coming…

Her first interview, on-screen, was with Senator Christine Milne in Canberra, who also looked beautiful in, no, not a green jacket, but a vivid pink one. They discussed the climate change committee that the Labor Government is putting together, and Ms Milne's role in it.

Picture coming…

Ms Sales' long interview (12 minutes) soon had me paying attention. She was speaking in-studio with Grover Norquist, the President of Americans for Tax Reform. Mr Norquist was immaculately attired in a dark grey pinstriped suit and pale blue shirt with a silvery gold dimpled tie.

Picture coming…

Let me start at the finish: Ms Sales ended with "There are many more things I'd like to ask about, but we're out of time." I only wish she could have had him for another hour, to investigate whether he has anything profound and intelligent to say about some of the other interesting causes he's involved in, because he certainly didn't treat us to much along those lines in this interview.

Ms Sales struck me as having the holes in Mr Norquist's arguments, which were largely about the role of and size of government in the U.S.A., all worked out, if not before she met him, certainly on the run with him in the studio.

Now while I think it's a bit strong of people who think Mr Norquist's a conservative nutter, whose output with regard to taxation and governmental activity has a quality bearing an uncanny correspondence to the quality of thought of George W. Bush, that is, low grade, I can understand how they arrived at such a view, if this is how he always presents his arguments. However, Ms Sales valiantly tried to pin Mr Norquist down to delineate specifically what he would have the US Government do to reduce its tax take and its size, and, embarrassingly to himself, without (doubtless) him realising it, his ideas were so simplistic, he sounded like a fundamentalist religionist quoting scripture.

It is dumb to try to to solve the many excruciating problems of the US Government with equally silly, simplistic, and stupid, not to mention dogmatic, 'solutions'. Many of Mr Norquist's prescriptions, as brief as they were, gave away their naiveté. Take this: "We've wasted almost a trillion dollars and nothing has happened." Mr Norquist, any thinking person would admit that the recent stimulus and emergency spending in the US has involved great waste, but don't insult our intelligence and make a fool of yourself by claiming 'nothing' helpful has happened. I again refer to my previous religious fanatic reference.

Ms Sales gently confronted Mr Norquist with the fact that the market "doesn't always operate efficiently", and tried to keep up a focus on the minutiae of his answers to the problems faced by his nation. She properly brought up the little problem to his arguments regarding the superiority of the Republican side of politics concerning smaller spending of the Bush Junior years, and his reply bumbled on and finally landed on the line that it's now a different Republican Party. I would ask, And a different basic philosophy?

Now I wonder if Mr Norquist, and I suspect he might, would have some enlightenment to share with us concerning his laudable interests in building economic bridges between ethnic and religious minorities and the greater market.

I can say that he didn't do his small government cause much justice with the arguments he used tonight. Maybe we caught him on a bad day. He should take a sabbatical, and formulate a credible method for transitioning his nation, any nation, from big wasteful government, to better government, and practice describing it clearly in a few minutes.

I also wonder if he is aware (I doubt it), that many of the things he believes in, with regard to small and non-intrusive government, belong to a far off era when the average citizen is so advanced in character and intelligence that he/she is essentially self governing.

I do hope Ms Sales can get him again and explore his efforts with his other causes, to see if he can redeem himself. Maybe an on-screen interview from his part of the world might be able to be arranged.

I took a walk about half three, and the breeze put a slight chill into the night that otherwise wouldn't have fazed me.

My time at the keyboard was interspersed during the night with three loadings of the dishwasher; I had not kept up with Janny's cooking for a little while.

I picked up The Dear Leader at 8 a.m., and took him for blood tests locally. It took an hour, so I read from Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road' while waiting. I was very tired by the time I returned him to his place then me to ours. Yet back to the keyboard it was for more writing.

+paytontedwithlove+

TÓRSHAVN: "He pointed us towards the light, and not with a grain of salt," PLInkletter remarked. "A boy of good heart, too often the great die young."

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

'In other news…'

24^th September 2010

Friday: Not much sleep had, but what's new? I rushed around, after a late arising, doing too many things but somehow managing to get a good number done, before setting off for Guildford on this warm day for early spring.

Bob was keen to go on the John George Walk Trail along the Swan, and we again met Cheshirian Peter, 78, and his gorgeous endearing corgi Phoebe. Two months ago we first spoke, and two weeks ago Peter had his kidney operation: not the removal he was expecting, rather some kind of scraping of the vital organ for three hours. Phoebe is as fat as butter, nine years old, and her back legs jut up when she sits her sumptuous bottom down.

A dear old lady, Phoebe the corgi, loves her elderly master Peter from Cheshire, and is watching solicitously out for him after his operation, when he goes for his walks

While at Swan Aquatic's pool, Baby Inkletter phoned me to share the joy that her horror teaching prac is over as of today! She has had a supervising teacher from hell, who had treated her abysmally, and told her that she considers each student teacher each year as her ticket for an annual holiday courtesy of the extra hundred bucks a day, and a chance to Facebook and do texting up the back of the class while her lessons are done for her. Also, she had our daughter do about an 80% load from day dot, almost ten weeks ago. And for all her work, she marked her very low.

Well, that's just another experience to use to fortify herself for the remainder of life.

She phoned me again to let me know that she had just heard on Radio National that Kezza the Great is leaving The 7.30 Report at the end of this year. We both have been following Kerry O'Brien for many years, myself of course for some decades longer.

It was well after eight when I got home to Missus Inkletter, who, poor thing, has been unwell all week. Yesterday she vomited badly, and for half the week almost lost her voice (that part I'm thankful for).

Today I finished Albert Camus' 'The Outsider': I will take some time, methinks, to digest it and decide what I think of it. It certainly was a pared use of language, direct, with simple sentences. I wonder did it suffer much in translation from the French?

Lateline: The (Leigh) Sales Graph: Leigh Sales gleamed in a light grey jacket with a champagne ruffled blouse, tiny pearl earrings, and subtle-effect makeup, and crowned with her convex flaring hair style, tonight more often falling assymetrical and fetching enough for it, flaring largely to her left side. Now as for the colour of her blouse, it was saved by its ruffles, for without them the lack of contrast with her décolletage skin would have not worked well.

Leigh Sales had the pleasure of the wit of Michael White, Assistant Editor of The Guardian, on LATELINE

Her long interview guest, Michael White, an old Bodmin Grammar School boy, now Assistant Editor of The Guardian, where he's been working for almost 40 years, to discuss the leadership contest for the British Labour Party. Mr White looked corking with his salt and pepper dark grey suit and darker grey shirt, set off superbly with a green shiny tie.

Michael White made entertaining listening from London on LATELINE, with Leigh Sales

Mr White's wit was a delight, as he answered with generosity Ms Sales' many questions, starting with the prospect of one of the Miliband brothers leading the Labour Party.

It was obvious that Mr White was conversant with Australia's federal politics since our recent election, noting the minority government challenges we both now share.

What a pleasant listening voice Mr White has! Add to this his intelligence and grasp of current affairs, and you have a recipe for a pleasant viewer experience. And we even got a different vantage on Big Ben in the background: not the common view we are usually treated to when the interlocutor is in London.

There were too many witticisms to record here from Mr White's sharp mind, however, I was particularly tickled by his "flabby faced old cowards" remark with reference to the Conservatives.

Ms Sales obviously enjoyed interviewing Mr White, and I certainly enjoyed the experience as a spectator. I hope he comes back often. I reckon interviews like these must be a form of hard earned relaxation for the likes of Ms Sales.

I'm already missing Stephen Long, who's surely not off cutting corners somewhere? He would be more likely adding corners, polishing them, and adding 'see wot's coming' mirrors.

In the wee small hours I watched an interview Jon Stewart did with King Abdullah of Jordan on 23^rd September, and I recommend it for a brief insight into the thinking of a moderate leader in the region, while talking to a well known comedian.

Some refreshing and moderate insight came from King Abdullah of Jordan on the Israeli-Palestine problem, while talking over the issue with comedian Jon Stewart on The Daily Show

I called off my plan to go for a walk in these same wee small hours, hitting the low thread count poly cottons around half four. When I called Cadbury in around three, she was wet, although there was no rain; a look around revealed a thick fog, saturated enough to coat Cadbury's fur heavily with dew. For northern hemisphereans, fog is uncommon in Perth.

+paytontedwithlove+

BROOME: "The original crocodile hunter, alas, hunts no more," sadly notes PLInkletter, "but I'll bet he'll be across the top with the game up yonder."

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

'In other news…'

23^rd September 2010

Thursday: After 15 hours sleep I felt only partly refreshed. Even with the help of three white comforters last night when I crashed at ten with a throbbing head.

And it may as well have been a summer's day, much to Janny and my disappointment. And the forecast for the next week has no rain in it. Gulp! And the new spring water restrictions are the worst they've been for years.

Enough complaining; we set off in the afternoon for a shopping outing, which neither of us particularly enjoy having to do, except that it is time together; just another set of chores. Oh, did I say I'd finished complaining? I wasted my time in a queue at the Post Office only to learn that they don't have a particular form (State Traffic Certificate) which I have to submit regarding my traffic record for my work with Bob, since I drive him places (as well as another, a National Police Certificate, totalling about 75 bucks at my expense: funny thing is, I've been working with Bob for 17 or so years, without either!). The woman who served me spent ages 'out the back' only to inform me, incorrectly as it turned out, that I have to go to such and such a department in Morley or Joondalup to get the form. I checked online this evening to learn that the one is from the Post Office, the other from a Police Station.

Between the three places we shopped, the remainder of the afternoon went west, and back home I got a tiny bit of weeding done out in the backyard plus some watering before dark. Pooh! I had hopes of getting much more done.

Lateline: The (Tony) SilverToes aka Tojo (Jones) Assay: I can not get enough of Tony Windsor, Independent MHR for New England, who was Tony Jones' long interview guest tonight. Mr Jones was decked out in a dark pinstripe suit, close to white shirt, and dark purple richly patterned tie; he looked immaculate as always, but a lighter brighter tie would have really set him on fire.

Tony Jones had the pleasure of interviewing Independent MHR for New England, Tony Windsor, on LATELINE. Mr Windsor diplomatically inferred that Tony Abbott is lower than a snake's belly.

Mr Windsor looked very smart, in his dark suit, white shirt, and red shade tie with white dots, and his endearing weather beaten face and crooked teeth.

Tony Windsor spoke forthrightly throughout his interview with Tony Jones on LATELINE, as is his wont. He related, when pressed by Mr Jones, his disappointment with Tony Abbott's attitude of business as usual for the new Parliament.

He politely and calmly, diplomatically and with grace, told us what a bastard most of us already know Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is. It seems certain now that the next three years, if the Parliament lasts that long, will be characterised by the smallness of the Opposition's last three years. They're led by a small minded bitter man, and sadly this seems to be a reflection of the troops he leads' mindset.

+paytontedwithlove+