The jokes for the American readers are in bold.
In America, Hillary Clinton continues to lead the race for the Democratic candidacy. Hillary has impressed many with her intelligence, strength and articulateness. The only concern that has been raised by her critics has been that she seems to lie an awful lot. Which is funny, ‘cause in Australia, that seems to be a pre-requisite for becoming a long-term leader of the country.
The Pope published a new book about his life. Though the first edition failed to sell well, the second edition, which includes a big begatting section fared much better. The book even talks about his younger days as a member of the Hitler Youth, which Mel Gibson said is obviously what gave the Pontiff such great insight into Christianity.
ASIO are investigating leads that Osama Bin Laden is hiding in Queensland and working as a doctor.
The Labor Party used the 40th anniversary of Australia’s referendum on Aboriginal citizenship to announce they want to close the life expectancy gap between mainstream and Aboriginal Australians. They can’t actually think of a way to raise Aboriginal life expectancy, so they’re just going to start killing off white people while they’re young instead.
Bananas in Pyjamas, B1 and B2 have announced they’re leaving the ABC so they can run as candidates for the ALP against Abbott and Costello. The bananas have announed they want to make sure everyone has Sundae off from work. Some have accused them of having a thin skin, after they reacted angrily when it was suggested the bananas had caused a split amongst Labor factions. The Liberal Party have announced their own set of celebrity candidates: Eddie Maguire said he wants to bone Julia Gillard, then become the CEO of the country, Gretel Killen says she wants to silence refugee supporters by putting masking tape over their mouths and Rove McManus, who’s just going to continuosuly interject during Labor’s speeches “What the? What the? What the?”. Meanwhile One Nation have acquired Paris Hilton as a candidate because they wanted to raise the average IQ of its membership.
The Japanese campaigned for a continuation of commercial whaling, but it was only when Italy expressed their agreement with the Japanese that Amanda Vanstone really started to worry.
Kevin Rudd affirmed his promise at the ALP conference to throw out the WorkChoices laws by announcing further details to his industrial relations policies. Rudd says he’ll get rid of AWAs, umm except for the mining industry, but for everyone else it’ll all happen straight away, ummm except for the industries that don’t like that idea for whom it’ll happen by 2013, and he’s promised to bring back unfair dismissal laws, umm unless you haven’t been employed for very long. Jeez I tell you what, if the Libs thought they had it good when they gained control of the Senate, imagine how they must feel now they’ve got control of the ALP too.
After controversy over rising petrol prices, suspicions were raised that petrol companies are not passing on savings to their customers. John Howard said “I want the ACCC to investigate and I will give them whatever powers they need to deal with the crisis, and I’m going to send in the army and the police and they can do an audit and remove the petrol bowsers”.
Malcom Turnbull welcomed reports that global warming is causing an increase in the size of the world’s deserts..it gives him more sand to bury his head in.
John Howard marked the 10th anniversary of the Stolen Generation report by holding a party to celebrate the achievements of the policy and on the 40th anniversary of the 1967 referendum on Aboriginal citizenship, he participated in a march across Sydney Harbour Bridge to protest against the lunacy of granting citizenship to fauna.
In a scintillating case of life imitating art, if that’s what you call Disturbia, Paris Hilton was ordered to serve part of her psiron sentences in her home with an anklet bracelet on. During the few days she was there, she fell in love with her next door neighbour and lured him over with the line “I’ve got a room in the Paris Hilton if you’d like to stay in it tonight”. Paris also accused her other next door neighbour of killing his wife. But OJ Simpson says the allegation is untrue and has since written a book caled “How I would Have Boned Paris Hilton if I had done it”.
Bill Heffernan created controversy when he commented that Julia Gillard was not fit for office because she is deliberately barren and doesn’t understand the unique bond between a mum a dad and a box of nappies. This actually represents a big step forward for the Liberals in terms of their attitude towards women...their policy used to be that a woman’s place was popping out babies in the kitchen, whereas now her place is popping out babies in the Parliament. As long as she doesnt breastfeed there. Presumably the bond Heffernan refers to is that special bond where a baby wakes up. Mum and Dad hear it. and Dad says “It’s your turn isn’t it?”. Because the last time Mrs Heffernan told Bill to change the baby, he headed off to Africa with Angelina Jolie and brought back a new one.
Paul Keating said Kevin Rudd’s advisers were proven losers who didn’t know how to win an election. This coming from the election winning genius who won one election and that was up against a guy whose main policy was “Let’s have a new tax!”. Err Paul’s been shooting his mouth off about a whole ream of things he has no idea about how to do...like keeping interest rates down and humility. Keating said they were frightened of their own shadows. Paul was then seen running from the studio as the looming shadow of Mark Latham stood over him and threatened to crush the old bastard if he didn’t shut up.
In breaking news, after Shane Warne texted absolutely every chick in a nightclub, he was arrested when it turned out one of the women knew someone who knew someone who might be involved in a terrorist plot.
George Pell threatened NSW MPs that if they didn’t vote the way he wants in Parliament, that they would not be welcome at communion anymore. In fact, he’s planning to go one step further and if Australia doesn’t return John Howard at the next election, he’s going to ban anyone from attending Catholic churches and he’ll leave the country. We can only hope.
John Howard announced he would be taking over indigenous communities in the Northern Territory, outlining his view that child sexual abuse in an election year is unacceptable. Mr Howard says action is needed when Aboriginal parents are not feeding their children, not sending them to school, and in some cases, even throwing them overboard. The Government was aware of the problem before from several previous reports, but John Howard was surprised to learn that the previous policy of doing absolutely nothing hadn’t worked. Howard has abolished the land permit system to remove the limits on who comes onto their land. He says the communities need industry, and Carlton United Breweries, British Petroleum and UHU Glue have all announced they think they could set up business in remote communities quite successfully.
In Soccer’s Asia Cup, Iraq defeated Australia 3-1. There was some confusion for Harry Kewell when Brendan Nelson told him to run up and put some oil barrels in the Iraqi goal and defend their goal instead, which was followed by the Iraqis turning around and shooting at each other instead of the goals.
The man with the golden tonsils, John Laws announced that he will be retiring in five months’ time, although there have been rumours that he’ll do a series of shows with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa next year sponsored by Rio underwear.
Gordon Brown took over from Tony Blair as British Prime Minister. Brown announced that in an attempt to bring the Iraq War to a quicker end he’s going to go over to Iraq himself and give speeches to the insurgents until he bores them to death.
Kevin Rudd and John Howard did a backflip and agreed to meet with the Dalai Lama on his visit to Australia. John Howard said he’d always been in favour of meeting the Dalai Lama, he just wanted to make sure he’d been through the proper processing at Nauru before meeting him. Kevin Rudd said he’d always wanted to meet with the Dalai Lama too, but he’d been scared that George Pell would send him to his room without bread and wine if he did.
Melbourne Demons coach Neal Danniher resigned mid-season after a series of losses for the Demons. At the press conference, Danniher said the decision for him to go was reached by mutual consent ... a concept unfamiliar to most footballers.
Like a Version The jobless rate fell to the lowest it’s been since Gough Whitlam was PM, though the full time employment rate fell and the part time employment rate rose. Peter Costello says he’s planning to get unemployment down to zero with a radical new plan that will put all the remaining unemployed people in the country into sharing one job and working ten minutes a week.
After Kevin Rudd said he’s never tried marijuana, Federal Finance Minister Nick Minchin admitted he had tried marijuana, and then criticised Kevin Rudd as being unfit to run the country because he doesn’t understand the unique bond that exists between a man and a bong.
In news just to hand, after John Howard’s intervention in the Northern Territory failed to gained traction in the polls, John Howard has now frantically gone back to his previous strategy of trying find out if Kevin Rudd has any unpaid parking tickets. There is a suggestion John Howard will try to change the election format to give himself a chance this election. One suggestion has been to make this election a “Nerd-off” where people will be asked to base their votes on nerdyness rather than policy. One can’t help but think it’ll be a draw and we’ll end up with both of these clowns for the next 4 years.
A recent study found that eldest children are smarter than their younger siblings. This might explain why Tim Costello is the one who understands that thousands of people dying in poverty means the economy is not being run well. The study measured the intelligence of Norwegian men entering the military and compared them to their siblings. I think more interesting would have been to compare the intelligence of these men before entering the military and after entering the military. John Howard said that the low levels of intelligence among younger siblings is due to a complete lack of action from the State Governments to educate them, and he’s going to intervene if necessary by imposing pay rises for teachers who improve the results of younger siblings.
In China, the Government has banned obese people from adopting children. Kirstie Alley has cancelled her flight. The Chinese Government said fat people would be of more use if they helped parents who have more than one child out by eating their second child instead.
It’s been a year where Kevin Rudd said that John Howard doesn’t believe in a single thing that didn’t appear on black and white television. But in response to Kevin Rudd’s future-focussed nationwide broadband plan, John Howard acknowledged the need for improved technology for the bush and pledged to work with Optus to provide high quality typewriters and new feathers and ink for all Australians.
As 2 Union members were kicked out of the ALP for being caught on camera abusing businesspeople, Kevin Rudd announced to the ALP that there was no place for people who behaved like this in the Party. Membership of the ALP immediately dropped to zero as the members took his advice.
And so we leave you with the good news that David Hicks has been told to serve the rest of his sentence in a Hollywood mansion with an ankle bracelet on.