Day 4 million

Today's best tweets for last week double points

benbirchall Stop telling people their question is good. It's condescending. They're also not good questions. #rootyq

scrivenersfancy 'The electorate with the two celebrity candidates' - the only way politics can get onto 'ACA'.

This Is Also Real.

Surely not.

This Is Not A Joke. It's Real.

For fuck's sake.

Day 923 Tweeting League Results

Today's battle of the tough guys.

Everyone I speak to is bored of the election.

Well, it's not.

The speeches, policies and personalities are non-existent but there's so much going on in the background. And we don't even need to actually know what's going on, we can just make shit up.

Oh, and there's Mark Latham. He attacked Tony Abbott on the trail today. Asked if Abbott put Pauline Hanson in jail. What the? Completely bizarre.

Today's winners:

mariekehardy Mark Latham is one step away from being one of those crazy men who stands outside supermarkets eating pigeons. http://tinyurl.com/2wogqmw

sophblack live Latham cam on Sky right now is possibly the most excrutiating piece of election footage in the history of ... everything #ausvotes

Cuckoo!

Day 642 of the Campaign

Rooty Hill RSL Club yesterday.

There was some sort of town hall debate thing at the Rooty Hill RSL Club tonight. Both Gillard and Abbott answered bizarre questions from an audience of swinging voters. Put on by Sky News and News Limited and you could watch it online on the News Limited websites as an 19 hour TV show. ABC complained they weren't allowed to show it on their new 24 hour news channel. The cocky ABC bores argued that them being locked out was a bad thing for democracy. No announcements have been made if ABC will let Channel 9 broadcast old episodes of Spicks & Specks for the sake of democracy yet.

Today's winning tweets all from people watching the Rooty Hill debate thingy.

cosmicjester: If Western Sydney isnt threatened by gay marriage then WTF is the problem? #rooty

mtats Don't invest in a monopolistic company run by fucking pricks. How about that for an idea? #rooty

justinf I doubt that we'll ever see #rooty as a trending topic again.

Not if I can help it.

Day 17

Today the opposition released their anti NBN broadband policy. It's a dud of a policy and from the terrible effort by Tony Abbott at 730Reportland, you could suspect that they thought they didn't need to defend it much. Just say get rid of it and let the market decide. The conservative way. Having to defend classic conservative policy is like asking Statler and Waldorf to dance. They can't and they won't.

Anyway onto the tweets.

scottsues Coalition #nbn policy: Stop Playing On That Damn Computer And Go Outside.

mpesce OMFG! TEH COALITION HAS REWRITTEN TEH LAWS OF TEH PHYSICS!!! WIRELESS IS TEH FASTER THAN TEH FIBRES!!!! #nbn #ausvotes


NeilMcMahon I would like to accept Mr Robb's kind offer of a carrier pigeon but my dog goes dipshit mental when there's a bird in the house. #ausvotes

IanMartin Revenge is a dish best served with plenty of fucking tabasco. #wheverbs

Drover's Dog 2010 Election Tweeting League: Day 16

Simple decision today.

Marieke Hardy At least I stand by my tweets Wendy Francis, you vicious, cowardly fuck. http://tinyurl.com/27mbrvm

4 points.

Mark Latham Has Gone Completely Mad

Amazing. Which is not too different to....


Completely mad.

Drover's Dog 2010 Election Tweeting League: Day 15

Laurie Oakes is on fire this election campaign. He seems to be the only one enjoying himself. Watching him is like watching the Abbotsford Anglers' Luke Serong on song, calling boundaries before the ball leaves the hapless bowler's hand.

Today's best all from Oakes while watching Rudd's comeback from gallbladder press conference.

Late cut for four...

KRudd sounds prime ministerial.

Six over cow corner...

Sorry, Julia..but he's making the arguments better than you did this morning.

And a top edge for six...

Mind you, he's also making the arguments better than he did in the final months.

Yes, just like the Abbotsford home ground, the boundaries in Canberra are quite easy to hit over.

Drover's Dog 2010 Election Tweeting League: Day 14

Okay my brain has just melted from doing my tax online. Pity that keeping tax really fucking complex is still a bipartisan policy.

Now onto today's winners.

Two points to:

Howcroft_for_PM Whatever happened to that bloke from Midnight Oil?

And, as lobbied and predicted, the other two points to Exiled for a deft mix of an Abbott gaffe and an Allanah Hill brainfart.

Unfortunately I'm not reprinting it here because after seeing how little money I earned this past year, I'm in no position to defend a libel case.

Well done, Exiled anyway.

Drover's Dog 2010 Election Tweeting League: Day 13

Everyone got carried away with some story about Andrew Bolt being angry about some fake Andrew Bolt Twitter accounts.

Boring.

Poor effort by everybody today so instead of awarding 4 points I'm going take 4 points away from martyr, bore and used to be funny, Catherine Deveny for these, all made in the past 24 hours.

Wow! Tony Abbott is really starting to give homophobic, xenophobic, misogynist, right-wing Catholic fuckwits a bad name. #ausvotes


Tony Abbott is a man who says it like it is. In 340BC #ausvotes


Tony Abbott makes a rape joke? How is this news? Who's suprised? He's a homophobic, xenophobic, misogynist. #ausvotes


I don't give a shit about the election but I'm suddenly very fucking afraid. #ausvotes

Oh dear.

Drover's Dog 2010 Election Tweeting League: Day 12

In a truly ridiculous day of electioneering when Julia Gillard announced that from now on we'll be seeing "The Real JuliaT™", a point each for these...

@annabelcrabb Hope she doesn't get confused with Raul Julia. Could be messy

@KRuddMP Great to be out of hospital. The staff were all terrific. Many thanks to them all. KRudd
@tonyowright Julia has returned to campaign HQ to tell those who told her to admit she was faking it last week that it was a stupid idea
@puffinpie NO FUCKING JOKE KANYE AT THE TABLE NEXT TO ME HOPE HE TWITTERS ABOUT ME PRONTO
@Antmerker Robert Peston *is* a serious journalist, isn't he? He sounds like a monged theramin.

But really, I should be giving all the points to myself because I WAS ON FIRE TODAY. Here's the funny stuff I, as nightwatchman tweeted...

First a few story leads to the star journalist of the election so far, Laurie Oakes with:

Say "MOVING FORWARD" into a mirror three times and absolutely nothing happens. #OakesTips
In 1994, Kevin's cousin Phil was welcomed back into ACDC after 11 year's of leaking backstage groupie stories to the media. #OakesTips
Christopher Pyne has so many cutesy Korean plastic ornaments on his dashboard, he has to sit on a phone book while driving. #OakesTips

And then to Q and A. They were all having a fight fight fight about having a debate and whether the leaders will appear on the show. So this one was obvious.

I prefer qanda because it's a mass debate. #qanda

Can't imagine why that wasn't printed on the screen. The show was filmed in Queensland. They started to talk bored-band...

With fast broadband Queenslanders only ten years behind the times. #qanda
Queenslander audience angry about net filter because they love porn. #qanda

I crack myself right up.

Drover's Dog 2010 Election Tweeting League: Day 11

Today's double point jackpot goes to The Age's Tony Wright:

tonyowright  What is it about elections and blokes' plumbing? Latham's pancreatitis, Hawkie's prostate 1990. Now Kevin's gallbladder. #ausvotes

Sometimes I think only he and the Fin Review's Laura Tingle are the only people worth reading during this campaign.

Special mention to ABC's Mark Colvin and Channel Ten's Sandra Sully who had a Twitterfight over what constitutes a scoop last night.

It was quite hilarious.

And pointless.

Put a Stick In Him, It's Done

Apparently it's all gone pear shaped for Labor. It's stuffed. Gone. Kaput. Whatever. Look at a poll of 1300 something people, write it up, put a stick in them. They're done.

It's pretty easy to read a poll and write something up. The evidence is behind you, you don't have to look a few moves forward. The story's all there in the numbers. The numbers don't lie.

Then you have a leak. Easy story, a leak. A and B hate each other. A shafts B. Leak shafts A. It's easy to write about because the evidence is behind you, you don't have to look a few moves forward.It's gotta be B. The story's all there in the leak. It's a leak and all leaks are the same.

And so goes the agreed narrative for the next few days or even weeks. Julia Gillard is going down in the polls and it's all Kevin Rudd's fault. Oh, and it's all because Rudd wants some job at the UN.

Ridiculous, really. We deserve better. Swallow all that and we deserve all the cynical pollies we get.

Kevin Rudd wouldn't leak this week's stuff. It's too obvious. Nobody's that stupid. Could the leaker easily predict the agreed narrative that it was unquestionably Rudd? Of course. Oh, but why would the leaker do that at the expense of the party? The party? No way, the party means fuck all. Most important is the pack you run with. To win. Law of the fucking jungle. But the party? Couldn't Gillard lose from all this? Calculated risk, mate. Put a stick in him. Do him. He's finished. Don't let him back up again.

Work through all this haze and whattaya know, nobody needs the inconvenience of thinking and talking about policy.

Drover's Dog 2010 Election Tweeting League: Day 10

Nope. Nobody was good enough to get the points today. Too much carrying on about The Chaser and The Gruen Transfer's election thingy.

So that means today's points jackpot tomorrow.

Get witty.

Drover's Dog 2010 Election Tweeting League: Day 9

Today one point to each of these...

LaurieOakes Stronger,more passionate and PMish Gillard this morning.If leaks have broken the shackles of blandness, it's a good thing.

michellegrattan how does the abbott team tie colour co-ordination work? who's in charge of it?

tonyowright On the Manly ferry, dolphins dancing, mist shrouding Sydney, about to walk with TAbbott. Campaign trail is he'll. #ausvotes

IanMartin The wind may famously have cried Mary, but this morning my digestive system screams Dyspepsia.

Drover's Dog 2010 Election Tweeting League: Day 8

The ALP's public transport policy manual, yesterday.

On a day when most of Melbourne was either stuck at the train station or stuck in traffic, the Election Tweeting League winner was obvious.

4 points to the Greens' Melbourne candidate, AdamBandt

The major parties should stop talking about the boats and start talking about the trains.

Simple stuff really. But even though it's a state issue, public transport is a quiet nag to the ALP. In Sydney, the state government are completely twattified on public transport and in Melbourne, the Libs could have a fair shake at the November election with the Myki ticketing farce and terrible travel days like today.

Strangely, Gillard last week several times linked population growth with gridlock traffic frustration in those mythical Western Sydney seats. I say strangely because the traffic frustration has fuck all to do with population growth. It's more to do with all governments passing the buck and refusing to spend on seriously ambitious infrastructure.

And this election campaign is seriously devoid of any ambition.

Toot toot.

The Greatest Moment During The Election Campaign So Far

Shimmy!

Drover's Dog 2010 Election Tweeting League: Day 7

If I could vote for myself I would today because I had one of my tweets printed on the TV screen during tonight's episode of qanda. My lovely girlie thought my tweet wasn't deserved of it's airing because it was a "suck-up" and "substandard". Well, that might be the case but I'm officially a famous and respected pundit. The ABC says so. So there.

Anyway, today's points.

Two points each for...

@David_Speers Abbott survives #730reportland. This discipline must be driving the alp mad

@Safran_john Malcolm, why don't rich people wear monocles anymore? #qanda

LADDER
ChasLicc 5
KRuddMP 4
Therese_Rein 3
jmdonellan 3
sealfur 3
IanMartin 3
David_Speers 2
Safran_john 2
msstox 2
mariekehardy 2
DT_13 2
MayneReport 1

2010 Election Tweeting League: Debate Day More Points

Okay, big debate night and I've got more points to give out. I'll get straight to it.

4 points to ChasLicc No surprise the worm is loving the “Stop the Boats” talk. Worms love eating shit
3 points to jmdonellan Glad to see that the age of skilled political debate isn't dead, it's just been beaten, maimed and had 'fair dinkum' carved on its face.
Another 3 to sealfur Someone let that person with bicycle move past. Thanks.
And 2 to DT_13 Watching my first episode of master chef, I now understand what all the fuss is about - go the young fella!! Yew

LADDER

ChasLicc         5

KRuddMP       4
Therese_Rein  3
jmdonellan      3

sealfur             3

IanMartin        3
msstox             2

mariekehardy  2
DT_13             2

MayneReport  1

Typing Commentary #2: The Debate

Gillard's opening statement and she's had a little laugh at moving forward and the worm is dippin. I can't believe it. 60 Minutes has two worms, a male and a female. This already makes me feel dumb. How are the other stations covering it? Oh, Channel 7 have three fucking worms! A female, a male and the white one is a ring worm. All Channel 7's worms run together when Abbott speaks. On 9, contrary to popular media relief, the female worm has a full on crush for Tony Abbott, especially when he says he wants schools run by parents or something or rather.

Obviously I'm not listening to a word anyone has to say because neither are saying anything.

Chris Uhlman asks if they have the courage to stand out from the mob. Julia talks up My School and some OH&S policy. Boring subjects but at least she's talking more about her term in office rather than a vapid future. Abbott in a deft move whacks in with his paid parental leave policy. Kills it.

Now Laura Tingle pulls Abbott up on how the Libs championed a rise in population policy during their term and killed it today by half. He stands by it and all 5 worms on both networks love him for it. Gillard points out her policies are exactly the same. Worms love her more for it, especially when she points out she stopped the flow of overseas students. Amazingly, in his feeble attempt of attack, throws Gillard a Dorothy Dixer asking about the connection between her policy and immigration. Worms thank him for it.

Laura Tingle points out that governments may need to avoid striving to surplus. Will she? In two minutes of this and that, she doesn't answer it.

Several minutes have gone by. I'm not enjoying this. I've looked at Twitter. Everything Bob Brown tweets gets retweeted hundreds of times. Maybe he should have been asked to attend. But then again Chas Licciardello is getting retweeted a lot too. Maybe he should have been invited too. But seriously, Bob Brown should have been invited to come on. It would have shook things up a bit. Oh, and it would be nice if someone actually answered a journalist's question.

Gillard is rubblish on an ETS and Abbott does alright again.

Laura Tingle asks about troops to Afghanistan. Abbott calls them heroes but doesn't answer the question. Same with Gillard. More troops? Less troops? Exit? No answers from both.

This debate is sucking the life out of me. Nothing I type is entertaining. It's a bumper to bumper low speed car accident, nobody gets hurt, but both cars get wrecked. 

Winner?

Neither Gillard and Abbott.

The female worm was on top all night.

Drover's Dog 2010 Election Tweeting League: Day 4

So the Heraldsun are running a tweet of the day thing and I think it was today they gave their gong to Therese Rein. She certainly can pack some pretty attractive language into her 140 characters.

I've given her 3 points today for this:

Should explain that "Aaarghhh!!!" is written-down semi-strangulated sound. Onomatapaeic. Useful shorthand for expressing frustration.

Read into it what you will.

And 1 point to the always angry, MayneReport for:

Richo signs with Seven for political punditry, that ends a 20 year connection with 9 and reflects Packer sale. No one should pay that bloke.

Ooohhh Sir!

LADDER

KRuddMP       4
Therese_Rein  3
IanMartin        3
msstox             2

mariekehardy  2
ChasLicc         1

MayneReport  1

Arrogance or Bias?

This is Kerry O'Brien's introduction to his interview last night with Joe Hockey.

"After interviewing Julia Gillard on Monday, we were hoping Tony Abbott would be available last night or tonight to balance the scales."

"Mr Abbott couldn't make it tonight. He's on another television program called 'Hey, Hey, It's Saturday' with Daryl Somers on their Red Faces segment, so his Shadow Treasurer, Joe Hockey, is here now to fill the breach."

"I understand you were complaining today about Labor trivialising this election campaign, but before we get to that, are there any Paris Hilton lines you want to share with us tonight?"

While it's no doubt amusing and I mostly agree what he said, the Libs would have a good case for calling Kerry O'Brien out on bias with this. O'Brien has been in terrific form in the past couple of months but (cliche locked and loaded), if he had this time again he'd write the introduction differently.

Or not.

This morning on ABC's AM they played the introduction in full. Real proud of themselves, that ABC bunch lately, see what we did there we made Hockey look like an amateur, we made him look stupid hurumph hurumph.

Hockey can do that pretty well himself without all that.

Drover's Dog 2010 Election Tweeting League: Day 3

Like our cricket team, Australian Twitterers put in a pissweak performance today.

3 points goes to the always brilliant Brit, IanMartin (you MUST visit his website, Martian.fm)who wasn't even talking about our election campaign with:

'We're modernising your ass by dropping some dope traditional Dickensian shit like the Office of Tax Simplification' #LOLthatisSOCoalition

And 1 point to The Chaser's ChasLicc for one of the only good ones I read about Abbott on Hey Hey It's Doomsday.

Poor old Abbott: the things he has to do to avoid being asked about Workchoices. #heyhey

Suppose everyone was in too much shock to type.

LADDER

KRuddMP       4
IanMartin        3
msstox             2

mariekehardy  2
ChasLicc         1

In Case You Missed Tony Abbot Judging Red Faces

There were dancing poodles too.

Drover's Dog 2010 Election Tweeting League: Day 2

Today's a dead heat.

Two points each go to:

mariekehardy  'He was once asked to leave the cricket, not for being drunk but for singing too loudly'.Mr. French, I fancy you. http://tinyurl.com/29chlmf

msstox  Have abandoned #insight. A young single mum who was struggling in education listed her biggest issue as national debt. So she's voting Lib.

Well done, ladies.

LADDER

KRuddMP       4
msstox             2

mariekehardy  2

Hey Julia, Why Be Afraid Of The Past?

Labor's Moving Forward safe tedium spew tactic is an adequate foil against cries of backdowns, waste and buggering of insulation, Budwhadever Eduwhatsits Revolution and the ETS, but it does only that.

It's okay to talk about the good stuff. Yeah, you can even sound like you have vision talking about the good stuff. Pity Gillard's election opening speech didn't shopping-list like this:

"I am also very proud of our government's achievements, such as the apology to the Stolen Generations, repealing Workchoices, increasing aged, disability and carer's pensions, the National Broadband Network, and huge additional investments in health and education."

"More than anything else, though, I'm pleased to have played a role in averting deep recession and soaring unemployment that emerged from the global financial crisis in many other countries."

Doesn't that sound neat? It's straight and clean. No mentions of the bad stuff, nor a bleating of a cliche and there's almost, when you hear it altogether like that, a glimpse at what Labor stands for.

Best of all, this speaker isn't afraid of the past. Neither is he afraid of the stuff that made his party and Leader, until a few months ago, of the most popular in history.

Where does the quote come from?

Lyndsay Tanner's goodbye letter to his Melbourne electorate, that's where.

Drover's Dog 2010 Election Tweeting League: Day 1

Each day of the election I will judge the best election tweet from the people I follow. Best tweet gets 4 points, and if there's a draw between tweets, I'll share them out. You get the general idea.

Winner of the Drover's Dog 2010 Election Tweeting League will be sent a trophy. And before you ask, I don't follow any fakeblahblah tweeters because I find the whole fakeblahblah thing tedious.

Now to announce the Day 1 result. Envelope please. Today's winner gets the whole 4 points and it's.....

KRuddMP!

for this touching little tweet:

Back to being a parent today. I drove Marcus to school. A minor miracle that I still know how to drive. KRudd

The Ladder

KRuddMP    4

Moving Forward, Vuvuzelas And Imbeciles

I'm not going to bother putting too much effort into complaining about the whole Julia Gillard Moving Forward cliche spew attack.

Writing an article about the phrase is as original as writing something about how annoying vuvuzelas sound.

The subject is best left to my clear writing, eloquently ranting, superhero, Don Watson who told the Herald Sun:

"It is the cliche of our times. When she started trotting it out I walked away after five minutes. I couldn't stand it any more."

"I don't know why they think it's a winner. And if it is a winner, then I'm even more dumbstruck. It's hard to imagine what the alternative to 'moving forward' is. I don't know - moving backwards? I suppose that's what she's trying to establish"

"People think the only way you can make a political point or persuade people of an argument is to treat them like imbeciles. It's like training a dog."

"She may as well go and stand on a hill and send up a smoke signal. That would have more meaning."

Enough said.

Typing Commentary #1: Julia Gillard On 60 Minutes

Watching the Julia Gillard Charles Wooley 60 Minutes flirt piece giggling condescension interspew and I'm having second thoughts about writing about this election.

Oh no, Charles has got sombre and Julia has joined him, talking in down voice about Afghanistan. It's only getting worse. Bravery, bravery, bravery, honor and staying the course.

Now Charles is going for asylum seekers and she's staying sombre voice. Charles has mentioned Latham and racism and Julia "can understand why people are concerned and how having those concerns isn't racism." She's getting rid of labels and we ask, what is "political correctness"?

Charles wants to ask about Julia stabbing Kevin. Charles didn't enjoy Kevin's tears. Julia was "concerned for him". But she's the PM. Julia won and she's moving forward.

Charles says Australia sheilas are tough in such a fricken a woo woo woo way. He's speaking to her like she's an idiot. I want to punch him.  He's asked about her partner, Tim because that's his job. It's a flirt piece and this is terrible.

What do we learn?

Nothing.

Just it's gonna be an awful five weeks.

We're Back, 2010 On Again

I'm going to cover the 2010 election.

This election we have a fresh PM with blood from the previous PM's blood still dripping on her hands and a smarmy swine for an opposition leader.

And it looks like the election will be fought on immigration policy.

Yes, I'm going to have a lot to rant about.

Stay tuned.