Kits, if you still check this blog, please don't read this as it will spoil the GNW night.
And the good news?
7. USA Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot lawyer Harry Whittington when they went hunting for quail. What do you call 100 lawyers on a hunting expedition with Dick Cheney? A good start. I tell you what, if you’re having Cheney over for dinner, make sure you don‘t serve chicken. Sesame Street have since cancelled an upcoming appearance in which Cheney was going to meet Big Bird and the rest of the gang, brought to you by the letters NRA. The American Lawyers’ Association Annual Ball, which Cheney usually attends has cancelled plans to do the chicken dance this year.
Cheney defended himself, insisting it was a totally justified pre-emptive attack to defend the poor birdlife of the forest from the Whittingtons of Mass Destruction. In unrelated news, prisoners at Gunatanomo Bay have been told they will now be made to wear bird outfits when the vice-President visits next month.
Who’s In The Box?
Former Yugoslav Communist dictator Slobodan Milosevic died of a heart attack. I guess the Australian Labor Party will have to find someone else to replace Kim Beazley after all. Milosevic was accused of war crimes in which he killed thousands of his people. Milosevic had claimed insanity on the basis that he had listened to a lot of commercial radio and just couldn’t take one more James Blunt song without releasing his frustration. Milosevic was given a beautiful send-off, it was just how he would have wanted it. They put him into his grave using a bulldozer along with 560 of his closest friends...
North Korea launched provocative missile tests and was promptly issued a red card after one of the Italian soccer players claimed it hit them in the head.
There has been controversy this year over RU486. Who would have suspected the cute little droid off Star Wars would start killing foetuses? Apparently he’s teamed up with the Darleks and gone rampaging through the country, fixing upon pregnant women and just going “Exterminate, exterminate”. Shane Warne read about RU486 and thought it was a chick texting him to ask his age.
Japan vowed to continue its program of whaling for scientific purposes, although they recently caused controversy when one of the whales they harpooned near Australia looked suspiciously like Mark Viduka.
5. The Howard Government stepped in to stop the ACT from passing laws that would allow gay civil unions in the nation’s capital. Howard hates the idea of gay civil unions and wants them replaced with gay civil individual agreements in which gay people negotiate conditions like higher sequin pay. But Barnaby Joyce is concerned that the new agreements don’t guarantee traditional public holidays like Mardi Gras and Judy Garland’s birthday. Howard says the idea of not allowing people to marry but giving them all the same rights is like saying to someone they didn’t get the right tertiary entrance score but you’re going to let them do the course anyway. Funny, I thought if you had the money, that was Howard’s policy on higher education.
6. The Howard Government have suggested Australia should start using nuclear power to overcome the problems with fossil fuels. It’s all part of Costello’s drive for more productivity. His plan is to have as many babies born near the plant as possible so there’ll be more Australians born with a third arm or gills so they can be more productive in the workplace. The Government has also floated suggestions that Australia should accept the world’s nuclear waste to bury it for profit. Although they insist it’s perfectly safe, the Government agrees the waste will have to be buried nowhere near major cities, which would also be great for remote aboriginal communities who could strengthen their connection with the land by getting jobs as the people who’d be burying the waste directly beneath their own sacred sites, which should add a certain luminous glow to the areas to attract tourists.
The Government announced sweeping changes to industrial relations law, launching a new multi-million dollar advertising campaign to promote WorkChoices. The new laws institute a new mantra that any boss who sacks his employee the day after a major sporting event is now considered a bloody legend. Church groups have criticised the legislation, saying it will cause families to spend less time together…but Howard says that his mother and father hardly ever saw him when he was a child, and he’s still ended up a caring, compassionate, well-rounded individual. Howard denies that abolishing unfair dismissal laws will cause any problems, because he says there’s nothing unfair about sacking someone when you’ve got good reasons like they’re a poofter or black. Howard says he doesn’t know why everyone is saying it will cause lower wages…all his mates down at the BHP Billiton board of directors are on much higher wages since the legislation came in.
John Howard celebrated 10 years in Government, though he says he is sad to see the end of the 1950s but he is already looking forward to the opportunities the 1960s will bring. Howard says he is excited by the prospect of granting equal pay for women, though he is rather concerned about the threat of the rise of communism in Vietnam. Howard celebrated his decade in office with a whirlwind tour of several countries around the globe, though Peter Costello was disappointed to see that neither Iraq or Afghanistan were included in the PM’s itinerary. During the flight over to Canada, John Howard threw his children overboard, refused to say sorry to his wife and blamed the whole thing on a previous generation of refugees. But he promised he’d never ever do it again.
Meanwhile, the nation was shocked to learn that John Howard went back on a promise he made to Costello to hand over the Prime ministership one and half terms in. The nation was equally shocked about a scientific discovery that the day time sky is blue. Thousands were hospitalised today went they were physically and emotionally overwhelmed by the fact the sun had risen YET AGAIN! The four horsemen of the apocalyse are expected soon.
Giving Headline
1. The Howard government announced plans to excise the nation’s borders from the migration zone in an attempt to prevent asylum-seekers from being processed onshore. Aboriginal leaders have said they only wish their forebears had thought of the same thing 200 years ago when those pesky convicts turned up asking for protection from the British. “Sorry guys, we’d love to let you in but it looks like you made a stop in the Cook Islands first so you’ll have to apply for colonisation there”. It sets up a great precedent for Australian residents, many of whom have already announced that their homes are being excised from Australia’s taxation zone. So now that the beaches are no longer part of Australia’s migration zone, presumably the Lebanese who were attacked on Cronulla’s beaches actually have left Australia and gone home. The Government is looking for ways to take the laws further and are looking into ways to make the whole country invisible and they’ve started up an ad campaign in Asia to tell people that if they try to come here by boat, that they’ll fall over the edge of the world when they reach the horizon.
2. Amanda Vanstone admitted the Immigration Department had once again accidentally detained another mentally ill Australian in a refugee detention centre. Senator Vanstone vowed to make sure that in the future all mentally ill women will be correctly detained in the Senate, where they belong. The thing I don’t get is it seems they’re locking up the people they should most want out in the community…after all, mentally ill people and Chinese immigrants are the only people who would be prepared to work for the 10c an hour offered under WorkChoices.
3. South East Queensland has gone on level 3 water restrictions with a severe shortage of rain. John Howard set out an emergency visit to drought affected areas on which he has promised to deal with the issue by wearing twice as many akubras as normal and call twice as many farmers “mate”. Kenmore Hills residents have been hardest hit by the crisis in Brisbane. Residents must now only use Perrier for washing the car and recycled Evian for cleaning the driveway. Many Brisbane workers are so concerned by the crisis, it’s become one of the main water cooler topics at work.
4. Tony Abbott called for a new paternalism in Aboriginal affairs, voicing his concerns that mission authority has simply been replaced by a vacuum… much like in Tony Abbott’s head. Hey Tony shouldn’t we check that they’re our real children first before we do anything? Remember what happen the last time you rushed into a paternalistic role, you almost became friendly with someone that worked for the ABC! Abbott acknowledged that it had been wrong for our forebears to treat Aboriginal people like wayward children, but they’d done such a good job of it that they’d actually become wayward children, so we may as well treat them as such. Abbott also said that places whose governments are so incompetent they can’t govern themselves should have their councils sacked and replaced. Sounds like a good plan for the Australian Federal Government.
Buzzers of Death
Richard Carleton’s heart went tick tick tick one last time as his 60 minutes of fame came to an end. Carleton collapsed while interviewing someone at the Beaconsfield mine. At first it was thought he had collapsed from a lack of caviar, but it was soon discovered he had suffered another heart attack. The guest list at his funeral read like a who’s who of respected Australian journalists with Ray Martin, Richard Wilkins and Jessica Rowe all in attendance. Being the high quality journalist that he is, Carelton rose from the dead so he could interview his own wife with his usual insightful questions like “How do you feel?” and “Was it some comfort to you that he was doing what he loved when he died?”.
And so we leave you with the news that in an attempt to mend relations between Democrats and Republicans, George Bush has started up a competition for all Democrat politicians and supporters in which they can win a weekend hunting retreat with Dick Cheney.