(AAP Image/Dean Lewins)

Farr parked Sure we in the media scramble to label everything as a rort, but in the case of the recently uncovered use of the Urban Congestion Fund what possible evidence can we provide to back that up? I mean, apart from the fact that not a single project that received funding was recommended by the Department of Infrastructure. And that there was no evaluation process. And the fact that it funded projects in marginal seats rather than seats that actually needed it, and where nothing was built anywhere near where it was needed. I mean apart from that.

Well, there is the fact that before the last election the government said car parks were going to to win it the next election. Malcolm Farr, writing in news.com.au and seemingly well-informed, tells us — under the heading “Liberals hanging election hopes on new carparks” — about “the government’s $500 million budget wooing of the park-and-ride crowd, the constituency seen as important by Liberals in vulnerable seats. And particularly those in vulnerable Liberal seats in Victoria, the home state of Frydenberg and Tudge.”

The Don Donald Rumsfeld, former US defence secretary under president George W Bush, an architect of the monstrous forever-wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, has died. Many publications will be forced by convention or decency (or perhaps their coverage of his work while he was doing it) to post neutral obits, noting that he was a “controversial” figure or some such.

Crikey will remember Rumsfeld via a jolting, banal handwritten note he left at the bottom of a memo. Authorising some of the techniques which came to be known by the grotesque euphemism “enhanced interrogation techniques” — interrogations that last 20 hours, the use of phobias and, most notably for our purposes, the use of stress positions for hours — he wrote: “I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?” with the brisk fussiness of a middle manager who wonders if you’ve used a few too many graphs in that report.

Post your Ws Sure you’re the peak body for doctors in the country during the biggest public health event in Australia’s history. And sure this crisis is being needlessly prolonged by relentless miscommunication and mixed messages. But don’t let that stop you posting your wins.

Australian Medical Association president Omar Khorshid certainly won’t, brightly pointing out: “Hidden in the confusion over PM’s vaccine announcement have been some AMA wins” :

Probably more urgent was the clarification that the AMA *doesn’t* have a problem with the lifting of age restrictions around the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine.

Think of the children Vikki Campion used last week’s column in The Daily Telegraph to pull a bit of “so much for the tolerant left” regarding the meme-ification of her sons during the swearing-in of her partner Barnaby Joyce as deputy PM for the second time.

The general thrust of her argument is: oh sure, you’re all “an accused sexual harasser shouldn’t just be given his job back” but you’re happy to score political points by using a picture of him attempting to push an unruly toddler out of frame. The piece features several pictures of Campion’s sons, and we’re sure that none of that has anything to do with humanising Joyce for political gain at all. Anyway, she goes on to allude that someone (a Labor hack? A journo? It’s unclear) filmed her children at parliamentary day care. The press gallery took this seriously and had it investigated. An email from press gallery president David Crowe argues this wasn’t part of any conspiracy:

I’m glad to say the Department of Parliamentary Services looked into things and came back to me with this:
‘DPS reviewed this matter and identified that the parent of a child at the centre was filming on their phone near the facility whilst waiting for a colleague. The individual is a DPS employee and had been filming their own child.’

Lies, damned lies Look, we don’t mind being influential but at least give us credit. Labor Senator Kristina Keneally yesterday launched “The BS Report” cataloguing Scott Morrison’s “relationship with the truth”.

Which … hmmm, what does that remind us of?