Just as we feared. Shaun Carney writes in today's Age:

The 25-basis points rise in interest rates this week might weaken the Howard Government's support, but it might also spook mortgage holders into clinging more tightly to the incumbents, especially if they continue to buy Howard's assertion that much of it is down to higher oil prices, for which he can't be blamed. And when you're highly geared and fearful, you want the house of cards to keep standing; a change of government might make things worse.

Sound fanciful? It's been a long time since voters held Howard responsible for anything that went wrong and with $9 billion in tax cuts having started to flow into their bank accounts, they might continue to be forgiving - for a bit longer.

Unless something drastic happens, and wars on every continent won't be drastic enough, by the time the election is called next year, Australia's whimpering, cowardly voters will probably re-elect the devil they know, having not a whit of courage to reverse the downward spiral into social chaos the devil has opportunistically promoted.

The 1930s depression tended in the main to bring people together. The mood was one of mutual aid, in the belief that "united we stand, divided we fall". How young the world was then! After eleven years of Howard's doctrine of self-absorbed greed, the next depression will see suspicion, distrust and outright hostility between neighbours, towns, states and countries, as they scuffle, well-armed, for food, water and safety.

On present trends, Australia (and the world) will not be ready to resume normal civilised behaviour until 2012.

Speaking of trends, Tracee Hutchison has spotted a recent and most horrifying trend, that of daily photos in our newspapers of clusters of teenagers and other children going ape over the presence of Our Toad-cum-troll whereever he appears.

Resembling the kind of spontaneous gatherings Chairman Mao so loved, Hutchison says,

I'm trying to remember when it was exactly that the entire country became part of Team Johnny. I cannot recall an evening news bulletin of late that hasn't featured a waving PM being hugged, squealed at or serenaded by an adoring mass of happy-with-our-lot Australians.

She goes on to lament the wave of Howard waves to no one. Is he going mad? No, it's just the media in collusion to give the mugs the impression everyone knows who he is.

Finally, there was a time when American comic book readers were alerted to the possibility that the country was being turned into a nation of pinheads, all modelled after Zippy.

Courtesy, Bill Griffith

Far worse for Australia, Little Johnny has turned us into replicas of himself. Here's the latest evidence:

Courtesy, Bill Leak

--Theodore G. Willikers