| Australia's Journal of Political Character Assassination | Melbourne, Australia |
SCUM AT THE TOP | Next Issue: TBA |
| Editor: Harold Hark | Volume 6 No. 7 |
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While I was totalling our losses after the Melbourne Cup, my daughter called out from the office, "Daddy, what's wrong with the puter?" She had been playing The Sims as usual. I sauntered in, a man normally unafraid of computer problems, to find the screen flickering in a World War III sort of way and a little question mark blinking on and off. Accompanying this was a resonant clunkety-clunk coming from the machine's bowels. Stay calm, I said to myself, stay very calm. "Oh, God!" I screamed, shutting it down and restarting. My daughter ran from the room, not because she was frightened, as she later told me, but to hide her piggy bank. For she knew that clunkety-clunk was going to cost dearly. You see the article I had been working on between races all day was in there, as well as the other articles I had prepared earlier. They were saved, of course, but only on the hard disk. I had saved nothing to the zip disk for over a week! Well, it restarted all right, to the clunkety-clunk and the blinking question mark. I knew all was lost. The hard disk had suffered a heart attack. The next day I took the patient to the local computer shop. The prognosis was not good. On behalf of the noise it had emitted they were pessimistic about retrieving any data, but for an extra $50 they would allow me to jump the queue and do their best to resuscitate the data, give it a hard drive transplant, and have it ready by nightfall. During the day, I finished the Tums, moved to Mylanta and finally to my wife's secret stash of Zantac to relieve the acidic anxiety. When I arrived at the designated hour, the look of joy on the technician's face led me to believe he had indeed retrieved that which I longed for: the articles for this issue. Alas, the cause of his joy was revealed when he handed me the bill. I cannot bring myself to tell you how much money this disaster cost. Macintosh dealers consider themselves privileged people. Fortunately, my mother-in-law just sold her house. Anyway, I now have a 30 gig hard disk instead of the old 10 gig, but all data was lost. Lost, I tell you! The pre-election SCATT was to be the crowning glory of its existence. (Yes, weep with me. I need your sympathy. I'm on a whinge here, even though to do so is un-Australian.) I spent the next day in a state of near catatonia, reinstalling and reformatting dozens of applications. Thus, this issue of SCATT is a non-event. I have cobbled together a few words below, along with the first HH SCATT poll and Richard Flanagan's heartbreaking appraisal of Australia. I hope to be back in a week or so with a wrap of the election and the future of SCATT. In the meantime, take this catastrophe to heart: At the end of every day's work on your computer, save everything to a floppy, a zip disk or a cyber disk. I've heard tell of an application that alerts you to every file that has been changed during your current session. I'll report back when I find it. Ch-ch-Cheers, Day of reckoning in a moral vacuum More deaths at sea. More heartless denials of bad policy from the little fascist without balls. Heil Ruddock was on AM this morning defending to the death his interpretation of the people overboard fiasco. The interview was like a re-enactment of the Nuremberg trials. Meanwhile Peter Reith is calling press conferences every ten minutes to update the spin on his deceit, and the ugliest Australian of them all, John Howard, is in the usual underdrive to assure voters that no matter how many times he changes his mind they must not change theirs. The Age is to be commended for coming out against Howard. The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, The Daily Telegraph, and all the rest have shamed themselves by advocating his re-election. As we all know, a vote for Howard would have been a vote for Hitler. What then, are these newspapers condoning? It seems beyond the pale of one's wildest nightmares that John Howard could become a third-term Prime Minister. (On the other hand, a country whose national broadcaster is turned over to Test Cricket two days before an election perhaps deserves little better.) But the nightmare is made even worse by Kim Beazley's failure of principle. When Andrew Fowler asked him on Four Corners: "Where's the compassion in your support of the decision not to allow the fathers of the six drowned girls to return home to Australia, if they go to Indonesia to visit their grieving relatives?" Beazley never batted an eye. He didn't answer the question, either. His steadfast adherence to the repugnant refugee policy of the Illiberal Party has knocked the wind out of every decent person in this country. We still want him to win, but, as Robert Manne said, we do so with a heavy heart. I had intended to offer a special election night issue, one that simply included the word "Whew!" accompanied by the joyous pealing of church bells; or "Argghh!" accompanied by the sound of a funeral bell peeling once every few seconds. But I realised that, even though a Labor victory will save Australia from sinking into utter ignominy, there can be no real cause for the celebration of a Labor victory. If Howard is returned, we are faced with a short-term and long-term solution. The short-term is to put on a black armband every time you step out the front door. The long-term is to get your passport in order and start looking for a new country. If you decide to stay, just remember that all you've really got to lose is your life. Harold Hark sent his alter ego Horrible Horck [see Word Archives] to the local shopping centre to get his poor dog a bone, buy some vitamins and fill a couple of scrips. While there he was asked to take a poll of voter intentions. This is his report: Coalition: 2 Overjoyed with Horck's extensive polling, Hark invited him to present a deeper analysis: "All polled were women behind counters. The undecided came from a woman in a health food shop who took no less than eight swipes to get my keycard to work. "Labor was favoured by the girl in the pet shop. Unfortunately she is too young to vote. "The Liberal ladies both worked at the chemist. I gave the scrips to lady number one, who had that well tanned, expensively maquillaged look of a lady who lunches. As I'd never seen her there before, perhaps she is the wife of the owner, slumming for a day to keep from compulsively applying the emery board to her toenails. In response to my question, and noting the button on my jumper which says, Free the refugees, she merely grunted. A refined grunt, mind you, but a dismissive one nonetheless. I first noticed this tendency of Liberals to grunt when confronted with their larval immorality in the early years of the Kennett Terror. Those who grunted eventually betrayed themselves. All you had to do was be nice to them. "Later, when I returned to pick up the scrips, I was served by another lady. She was more like the rest of us: pasty-faced, kind of downtrodden, not paid enough, etc. Yet, when I popped the question, she replied, "Anyone but Beazley." We had a brief discussion in which I suggested that if she liked Howard she would have loved Hitler. Eventually she waved me off with a grunt." Well, there you have it. The definitive HH SCATT poll on voter intentions with in depth analysis. Looks like a Lib victory. |
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