Now now!

it all gets a bit nasty when we're on the internet and don't have to say things to each others' faces, doesn't it? of course, that is half the charm, but i don't want MAB to file any lawsuits on us without getting the whole picture. So, in the name of being as "fair and balanced" as Fox News, and in a general spirit of electric-lattice lerve, her is my list of things i seriously LOVE about Miranda Airey-Branson:

1. her way with language. okay, yes i read way-hay too much enid blyton / louisa may alcott / jane austen "as a girl" but... there is something about her airey-fairy ways ... it takes true talent to take the piss out of your horse-lovin', pony-tail-flicking, liberal-licking self - why do you think you've captivated so much leftie blogging air-time? there are plenty of right-wing dickheads out there - but we like YOU cos you do it in such a HIGHlarIOUS way, and naively use your real name... comparisons to "sex in the city" however, are misplaced - your writings are funny because they take entertaining prattishness to new highs, because you have put your name to a load of misinformed bigotry which you'll be notorious for in years to come and especially because for all your braying about your clothes and hair-removal techniques, Carrie Bradshaw you are not.

you have a point about the personal abuse re your looks though - i think that should be off-side, but if you can't take it, don't dish it out to others.

2. that she is pro-choice. go you little Lib you! i will happily congratulate all and sundry - including those who are paid up members of the liberal party - who go in to bat for women's right to choose when to have children. and, the more i see her argue with a degree of cogence on the abortion issue, the more i wish she'd think through a few more liberal policies with a bit more of a concern for women's choices. eg getting rid of unfair dismissal laws - as MAB will learn once she graduates, it is hard enough getting equal work and pay in this country, without howard giving a free kick to bosses to let them sack you for being female / pregnant / a parent / a lezzo / not waspy enough blah blah blah. And as much as i dislike the party, the leader, the whole MO of the Libs, they could at least stick to their sales description and show a bit of liberalism when it comes to women having control over their lives and bodies.

3. um... i'm trying to think of another one, to make it a nice round three...

4. hilarious statements like "In Australia, nobody is born into the cream - but it is possible to enter it through hard work or sheer luck." I just *LOVE* it how every over-priviledged private school kid / college kitten thinks that their parents got so rich on hard work / sheer luck and didn't get a nice fat leg-up thanks to family / connections. ha ha ha ha ha! it is the tooth-fairy of social theory in Australia. Look, i've seen the cream, Miranda, and YOU are dripping with it. Which reminds me of some appropriate words from ogden nash:
"I dont' mind their having a lot of money, and I don't care how they employ it,
But I do think that they damn well ought to admit they enjoy it.
But no, they insist on being stealthy
About the pleasures of being wealthy..."

and, just to balance things out a tad, here is what i do NOT love at all about MABs:

1. that she thinks misleading voters and pretending to be a Green volunteer on election day is fair game. No, it is not, and it is illegal to boot. I hope MAB gets done under the electoral act before she finishes con&admin! "Liberal"... "Environmental credentials" ... heeee heeee! that must be why the Australian Conservation Foundation rated the Liberal forest policy as "Disaster for Tassie's Old Growth Forests" ... and why the Liberals just can't wait to start up a new nuclear reactor at lucas heights to produce wastes that will take 250 million years to stop emitting radiation.... and why john howard's response to global warming is to stick his fingers in his ears, sing "la la la la" while slipping millions of public dollars to the coal industry for "geosequestration". If she thinks Liberal environmental policies are so good, why couldn't she hand the HTV out wearing a Liberal t-shirt?

2. that she's obsessed with being thin and hairless and tanned. Honey - if your desired bodily state were a horse, you'd be luggage! now these little obsessions are bad enough when you apply them to yourself - but you seem to want to force them upon the rest of us laydeez... you've made some pretentions to being "liberal and a feminist" - now go off and read the Beauty Myth for starters, followed by lashings of Kaz Cooke and Margaret Cho.

3. she's happy to jump on the Liberal band-wagon of triumphalist dickheads whose main response to concerns about human rights / equality / fairness / peaceful international relations under neo-conservative rule is to go "ha ha ha loooooooosers! suck-ed in-ed! guess what we're the M-A-J-O-R-I-T-Y and we're going to trample all over your sorry asses even more now that the suckers voted us back in". the best response to this is courtesy of Margaret Cho :

on triumphalist dickheads and majoritan rule:

"I am getting lots of email that are like this.
"Whooo-hoo!!! We won!!!!
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Loser!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
It just goes to show how incredibly dumb the Bush voters are. They are not treating this like an election, with many lives at stake with a full blown war being fought by our kids in Iraq; cataclysmic errors in national security causing our civil liberties to be severely crippled; too great a divide between the haves and the have-nots culminating in the worst economic situation in nearly eight decades; the threat to women's rights by insane religious fanatics seeking to ban abortion and therefore do away with equality; the aberration of freedom that is the Federal Marriage Amendment and the dehumanization of gay and lesbian Americans, etc, etc, etc. They are acting like it is some kind of sporting event, like their team won, and they are going to celebrate by doing beer bongs and hanging each other outside hotel windows by their big, stupid, un- evolved webbed feet. They see America like a giant tailgate party, and they are getting ready for the big game with Al-Qaeda.
Unfortunately, this is not an action film, and therefore, having the Terminator on your side is no advantage. Might does not equal right, just as we must awaken to the hard, cold realization that majority should not rule. The majority is responsible for slavery, denying women and minorities the vote, Japanese internment, segregation, lynching and a million other injustices and inhumanities. Fortunately, this majority is one by a very small margin. I encourage everyone who is distressed by the outcome of the election to remember that just because Bush is still in office does not mean that his power will be increased. He is going to have a harder time doing anything, because he knows that everyone is watching and waiting for him to make a mistake, of which there will be countless many. "