1. What's happening at home?

The home front for Australian politics is, for the most part, excruciatingly boring. But last week there was a brief burst of excitement when Kay Patterson introduced a private Member's Bill into the Senate, calling for research using embryonic stem cells to go forward.

Now, I'm not going to wade into the debate about whether or not it's ethically sound to use embryos for research (for the record, though, it's not a pie until it comes out of the oven). I will, instead, focus on the attention the vote received.

The media had a field day – there were some classic quotes embedded in the debate, including a few seething attacks from the less enlightened members of the house who seem to think that, if they're given the green light, Aussie scientists will break the sound barrier on the way to genetically engineering half-man, half-rabbit hybrids. Presumably to train greyhounds. Or deliver Easter eggs in a timely fashion. Or something.

I think the main point of this has been missed by most people. It's not that there was a debate about stem cell research, or embryos, or any of that shit. It's that there was a conscience vote. Now, I know that it was mentioned about a thousand times in passing, but the gravity of that has been all but glossed over by most. A conscience vote. They're like hen's teeth, which is the real news here.

The dedicated party line voting of our elected officials is a fucking disgrace. I know this, because I've been a part of the process. The Labor Party, in particular, offers this sham as democracy on a daily basis... Those in favour of party line voting would have you believe that it is democratic - that the lines are decided in caucus through structured debate, and that the wishes of the people who voted for that particular party are being well serviced by the process itself.

But that's a fallacy. A total and utter lie. Most party line decisions are made by a chosen handful - a tiny cabal that decides which way each party should fall on each issue. That dictum is filtered through the party room, where the ‘debates' are usually little more than positional edicts. "Our party thinks this on this issue - ergo, you will vote this way when the "debate' finishes in parliament."

So - let's all bask in the ineptitude of the mainstream media, who chose to ignore the fact that democracy was actually taking place in the Senate.

Reading over this, I realise that this entire thing is about as stimulating as playing Rock Paper Scissors with Sophie Delezio (Scissors again, huh Sophie? Now you owe me $60). But it's important. To me.

2. Flash mobs... hoo boy

Just when you thought it was safe to leave the house... well, actually, it still is safe to leave the house. There's just a small risk that you'll find yourself out in public, suddenly surrounded by twee little lunatics reviving the 60's concept of a Happening. Except now, it's called Flash Mobbing, and it's attracting a mediocre amount of media at the moment.

Apparently, it's a worldwide phenomenon - hapless citizens emerge from their workplaces for lunch, only to find themselves in the middle of 200 people having a gunfight using bananas, or bidding frantically on a piece of public sculpture, as if it's a live auction.

Now - I'm all for freedom of expression. Hell - I'll even pop a couple of bucks in a busker's upturned trucker cap if they don't make my ears bleed and their fetid stench doesn't keep me more than an easy coin-throw's distance away.

But this? Oh man... it just reeks of hippies and all that feel-good horseshit that seems to be doing the rounds at the moment. (As an aside, if I ever come across that "Free Hugs" guy in the street, I'll knife him. Freakin' pervert...) Frankly, I'd rather get bird flu from fucking a chicken live on TV than subject the rest of the population to a pointless and confusing mass eruption of gross stupidity.

The organisers are, quite simply, Extremely Earnest Types who appear to have a love of organising stuff. Their job is to ensure that everything goes smoothly. Ie - it's a meticulously planned spontaneous event.

I loathe these sorts of hippies, and everything they stand for. And this is yet another extension of their evil, dope-stained tendrils whiskering out into the Real World, getting in the way of industry and annoying the fuck out of lunchtime shoppers. They should go back to protesting violently about globalisation and leave entertainment to the professionals.

3. Newtown Festival Madness

Oh, how I love a festival. And the Newtown Festival is a corker. Rife with bad haircuts, new tattoos and drunken Goths turning lobster red during their only day in the sun all year, the festival was a little different this year. I wasn't drunk.

I had a grand day - I wandered the park, saw some people I knew, talked to them, made a few jokes, drank a beer, ate a gozleme, watched a band, laughed at the dirty hippies dancing with Hula Hoops and then went home.

And so I was sitting on the couch, with a vague feeling of sunburn and that horrible sensation that I get when I've forgotten something really important. I looked at the clock. 3:45pm. For some reason, 4pm is resonating in my mind. Something's on at four. I check through the TV guide. Nope - nothing.

And then it hits me. Writer's Tent. Newtown Festival. Chaser stuff. Oh fuck.

I sped from my home back to the Festival at speeds approaching Warp 6 (very quick, for those not up on the Star Trek lingo) - I was panicking about missing the one, solitary, opportunity I get each year to hitch my wagon to the other side of the Chaser, and shoehorn in on the fame the boys have found with the TV show. If it weren't for this one shining moment in my otherwise tragic year, I would just be yet another faceless internet columnist who spends his days hunkered over a keyboard, wondering why it is that he isn't anywhere near as famous as he so clearly and richly deserves to be...

I made it just in time, sat down at the table at the writer's tent and goggled at the massive crowd. Fucking hell - many, many people. It went, if I say so myself, rather well... the questions were good, the answers marginally better and the crowd reacted well.

My favourite part was when I shouted at some dreadlock-sporting goofball who was wearing his pants about four yards below the plimsoll line. Ick. I saw a bottom. There were kids around. It was ugly.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by the tent to listen. And thanks to Derek from Better Read than Dead (they do good work) for the free bottle of plonk. And special thanks to everyone who managed to remember who I am, and came to say hello. I felt special. Just like I deserve...

4. Fat Folks

I work in a very blokey environment. And we get sent stuff. Not all of it is nice. Here is a classic example.

Channel Nine is running a series called Shock Docs, which is a showcase of revolting documentaries designed to appeal to an ogrish public in search of the kind of macabre stomach-turning imagery previously only ever seen on the SBS news.

One of these docos is about fat women. And they're really fat. "I mean, Orca fat" - ahuh. Really, really, really fat. Three normal people squeezed into a single body, fat. Seriously - not even the Biggest Loser team could help these people - there's just too much to lose.

So what? I hear you ask yourself. What's wrong with that? Nothing, really, is the answer - except that this was a doco about sexuality, and featured footage of extremely fat people being ‘sexy'.

Standing up, they look like elephant seals getting aggressive around mating time. Sitting down, they look like slowly-deflating jumping castles. Getting it on, they resemble poorly-formed sundaes quivering under the strain of strictly-localised seismic activity. It was disturbing. I've watched videos of people being beheaded that didn't effect me as badly as this did...

I guess I shouldn't throw too many stones - after all, they are people, and as such deserve a modicum of respect. But I cannot help but wonder why a skinny, reedy-voiced bloke would find a woman sexy when she's five times his size, losing her hair and dependant on an oxygen mask to stay alive...

This is the kind of mystery that not even Fox Mulder could crack... if anyone has any insight, please feel free to enlighten me. In the meantime, I'll be drinking heavily on the off chance that I'll permanently damage my brain and never remember seeing that footage.

5. G20? Gold.

Like most Aussies, I watched the lead-up to the G20 summit in Melbourne with a keen interest. Despite the best efforts of the police and other relevant authorities, it was always going to go sour. But this round of protesting was different...

The first inkling I had that it was going to outdo all others in the stupidity stakes was while watching the news the day before the summit began. A bunch of no-hopers stormed the offices of some hapless organisation and staged a sit-in. When they finally emerged, the news team on the spot buttonholed some red-headed goon and asked him what happened.

"We negotiated a peaceful outcome," he said, beaming proudly - if gormlessly - at his moment of fame. The translation was obvious, though. What he should have said was "We sat around in the lobby for a bit, scared a secretary and eventually got bored and left. Plus Trevor got a bit sick and then my mum called... it all got a bit hectic."

Watching these protests fills me with a mix of emotions.

First of all, I get angry. I'm angered because there's a not-inconsiderable part of me that looks at these purple-haired malcontents and curses them for their gross stupidity - and that makes me feel like some sort of right-wing reactionary.

Secondly, I get confused. What's the message? All we have when these protests go down are a rag-tag bunch of left-leaning ferals with no clear agenda. Are they there to scream about "no blood for oil", or is it "Embrace micro-lending"? Or perhaps they're there to announce to the world that they're siding with the Palestinians...

Regardless, with no readily identifiable or coherent message, the public (which is, quite clearly, the most likely target for any aims behind the protesting - after all, the guys in suits are very unlikely to see the protesters on the way to the summit and suddenly re-write their country's foreign economic policy on the say-so of a bunch of hippies, are they?) are left to ponder precisely what's going on.

The media's no help, either. We were spoon-fed the images of violence, and only the occasional smattering of non-violent protesting. So what mainstream Australia saw was a bunch of thugs tangling with the cops, and the rest of the protesters dressed in god-awful costumes ‘making a point' against an intangible, faceless enemy.

These anti-globalisation tools are in dire need of a PR boost. Perhaps a demonstration that doesn't end with some hairy yahoo beating the shit out of a police wagon, or several even hairier women squealing with left-wing indignation as they're dragged out from under the feet of the police horses would do the trick.

Or - perhaps - they could dress like normal folk, and make their point in a manner more palatable by the people who really need to hear it. I know it's fun to bounce round like a circus midget on crack (I spent many years doing just that...) but it's not any way to make a valid political point.

Get your act together, people... get haircuts, try bathing occasionally and maybe combining a maximum of two primary colours in the outfit you wear when you're trying to convince the people that matter that you're right. Because, deep down, you are right. It's just that you're preaching to the choir when the only people that are prepared to take you seriously look like they've been dressed in the dark by Puff the Magic Dragon, or are too busy throwing rocks at the police to stop and listen to a point of view other than their own.