Sally Baxter, Girl Reporter, has consulted her favourite Chinese astrologers to find out what may happen to the movers and shakers in this new Year of the Rooster. As always, Sally, thank you for your permission to republish here.

Kung Hei Fat Choi! Welcome to the Year of the Rooster and Your Girl Reporter’s first post for 2017. In honour of the Lunar New Year I thought we’d kick off with a look at the prospects of some of the leading lights in our political firmament with a little help from the ancient Chinese zodiac. It makes as much sense as anything else that’s going on in this crazy old world.

According to the principles of Chinese astrology, the way to determine your prospects is to see how your sign matches up with the characteristics of the animal in charge of the next 12 lunar months.

How would the two animals interact? And what qualities does the ruling animal possess that you could learn from to improve your chances of a good year?

I think we can all agree that the Year of the Monkey lived up to its reputation for chaos and confusion. The Rooster is so different he’s an astrological backlash, a home bird for all his crowing, happy to be master of his own dunghill.

Where Monkey is more likely to reward agility and risk taking, the Rooster prefers loyalty, hard work and the family values that keep the hens in line and order in the barnyard.

Appearances count. A lot. Nuances and complexities are under-appreciated in the Year of the Rooster who prefers plain speaking and clear intentions. It is not a time for new ideas or the addressing of complex problems. Which sounds bad, I know, but let’s press on.

The Rooster requires hard work and diligence for success, a willingness to play the longer game without the gratification of instant results. The Rooster is related to the harvest and reminds us that we reap what we sow.

Your Girl Reporter’s favourite online astrologer Master Tsai says the Fire Rooster is related to gold and precious gems, suggesting financial events will be uppermost in the year ahead.

According to the folk at the Astrology Club, the Year of the Rooster will be a powerful one, with no middle of the road. Since the times appear to be suiting a certain kind of politician, let’s check out a few horoscopes, starting with the Man of the Hour.

Donald Trump – Year of the Dog

Master Tsai at Chinese Fortune Calendar presciently observes that Dog will happily receive the wealth which Rooster brings with it. He then goes on to say that the generous Dog will also be making donations.

The Dog is the enduring symbol of loyalty and honesty and people born in the Year of the Dog, at their best, are faithful, smart, straightforward and responsible.

Not all of this sounds particularly pertinent to our subject, but Water Dragon at Online Chinese Astrology has a darker view of a certain kind of Dog:

The Overly Pessimistic Dog is always barking up a storm about doom and gloom. The evil Dog sees things in black and white, which kind of makes sense as in real life dogs are actually colour-blind.

This Dog also has fears and anxieties of being not loved or not liked enough. Instead of seeking reassurances, the Overly Pessimistic Dog would rather sulk by itself stewing in its own state of depression.

And, in the case of Top Dog Trump, feverishly tweeting about it.

Master Tsai warns that the Rooster is connected to fog, which can bring confusion to the Dog making it difficult to prioritise and make decisions. The wise Dog will relax and enjoy the comforts of the hearth in a Rooster year, avoiding challenges and risks and certainly not taking on a new job.

Oops! Too late! Good luck, Humanity.

Malcolm Turnbull, Pauline Hanson and George Christensen – Year of the Horse

Back on home shores and Australia has a few politicians seizing their moment in the wake of the Trump presidency. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is being a bit half-hearted about it, as he is about most things, but the commentariat has been in furious agreement that Pauline Hanson’s set for a great year.

Hanson was returned to the Australian Senate in 2016, thanks to Malcolm’s brilliant plan to get rid of some difficult senators in a bold double-dissolution strategy that, to put it mildly, backfired spectacularly. Anyone else hear a Monkey laughing?

So, thanks to Malcolm, Hanson’s openly racist One Nation party holds, at last count (One Nation politicians are slippery), three Senate seats. She’s also picked up a spot in the Queensland State Parliament with a defection of an MP from the opposition Liberal National Party, and is seeking to gain ground in state elections this year in Western Australia and Queensland.

George Christensen, another Horse senator, currently lives on the outer right fringes of Malcolm’s Liberal-National Party coalition government. He’s a National who doesn’t like a lot of the same things Hanson doesn’t like and he’s pretty much declared open war on his prime minister.

If he breaks away, will he join his fellow Horse Hanson? Or will he prefer the company of another Australian right-wing warrior, Rooster Cory Bernardi?

Whatever this disparate mob of brumbies does this year, if they are to achieve their goals in the Year of the Rooster they will need to put in the hard yards.

Master Tsai advises that as long as the Horse maintains its passion and continuously sets higher goals, career success should follow. If the Horse is offered a job change, accept the challenge.

“Horse needs to run and compete. They will see victory,” says Master Tsai.

Of course, victories can be hollow. Ask Malcolm.

Cory Bernardi, Tony Abbott – Year of the Rooster

So many senators in our sights and here’s another. Cory Bernardi has been playing coy about his political plans for some time now. If he really is planning his own political party – and speculation is mounting that he is – what are the prospects?

According to Chinese astrology, the year of your birth animal is not regarded as a time for rejoicing. In the case of the Rooster it’s easy to see why, because cockfighting’s a thing. So Roosters by their nature will be in opposition to the prevailing fortune.

Master Tsai warns Roosters seeking a job change that there is no sign that you’re ahead of the people around you. The Venerable Tsai goes so far as to recommend that if you receive a job offer you should think twice about accepting.

He recommends a humble and polite attitude, good advice for Cory and possibly for that other Rooster, former prime minister Tony Abbott, the Banquo’s Ghost of Australia’s 45th Parliament.

If Cory does strike out on his own, he should expect competition. And indeed that’s exactly the situation he would be pondering if he is indeed harbouring such plans. Pauline Hanson has already helpfully suggested that he might like to join One Nation but Cory strikes me as the kind of guy who dreams of his very own dunghill.

And, while the challenges will be many, Master Tsai reckons the Rooster that can face the competition and work hard for his goal could yet yield a good result.

But is a good result for Cory a good result for Australia? While Cory probably thinks so, judging by his Make Australia Great Again hat, it’s hard to see how a move would do anything other than splinter the vote still further.

Get the popcorn in. It hasn’t got off to a great start, with the steel gates slamming down on America, but nevertheless I wish you all a happy and prosperous Year of the Rooster.

© Sally Baxter 2017

The truly magnificent John Birmingham has decided to adopt the spirit of gonzo with a subscriber-only play-list. He’s also generously letting recipients post choice bits with the appropriate attributions. So, this is one that definitely caught my attention, and here’s the link: https://gumroad.com/l/aliensideboob

You read this hours before the coronation of an unstable, man-sized shard of penis brittle as the rape-clown-in-chief of the free world. Look around you. The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of Red Bull and cannibal meth. This surely was a week to ponder what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Washington to be born.

Perhaps it’ll be just like the final episode of Buffy, Season 3, when the Mayor turned into a giant demon snake and tried to eat all the guests. That would be cool, because our very own Senator Malcolm Roberts will be there to represent Pauline Hanson and the seventy-seven lackwits who drooled directly into the ballot box on his behalf. I would totally get up at three in the morning to watch Senator Roberts eaten by an enormous coil of writhing bowel wearing Donald Trump’s face and a burning haystack in place of a hairpiece. Sadly, just because something should happen doesn’t mean it will.

I tell my doctor that every time he rings to pester me about my overdue prostate exam.

Roberts and Hanson trolled everyone like champions earlier in the week, fanning themselves with their golden tickets to the crowning of Baron Fuckface von Clownstick as King o’ the World. One Nation’s Borg Queen twittered like a schoolgirl about being gifted her invite, while Roberts gave the impression he was grinning like your Uncle Bob with a permawoody from mail-order horse viagra.

“Pauline and I received an invitation, but not the Prime Minister,” tweeted the Lesser Malcolm. “OUCH”.

Cool story, bro.

So much cooler than some desperate fuckdiggler ringing the Aussie embassy again and again begging them to hook him up. Turned out the whole thing was such a fanwank plea-bargain that even the Republican congressman who eventually gave up the tickets felt the need to explainify his role in adding to the number of feral swamp donkeys in the national capitol tomorrow.

“Wait? What? Steve Irwin’s not coming?” he said.

Why do they do this? Why drop your pants, massage your buttocks with premium cold-pressed olive oil and stand glistening in the bright sun waiting for the giant Dildo of Consequences to ramify the outcomes of your poor choices? And ramify them HARD.

It’s a valid question, innit, guv? One the Greater Malcolm might consider as the prime ministerial bottom burns red and ever-so-gently quivers in anticipation of the fearful consequences that must come its way when his debt collectors start going after retirees.

Yes. That’s right. Having started the year with a jumbo-sized bowl of piping hot flop sweat, the bunglecunt messiah this week went back for sloppy seconds on the #notmydebt clusterfuckola, describing his government’s aggressive pursuit of billions of dollars it wasn’t owed as “responsible and appropriate.”

Remember that as you reflect on the poor choices made by the Lesser Malcolm, who was at least punching up. Or trying to.

The imperial bellends who actually reign over you did much worse things this week than pathetically bigging up their sixth degree of separation from Baron von Clownstick. They moved to widen the search for people who didn’t owe them any money from the mentally handicapped and unemployed to the nation’s millions of pensioners. Why? Because those greedy old fuckers have been living the honkey rich life on the premium tins of dog food and store brand colostomy bags at Aldi while our poor and hungry fucking trough monsters in Canberra have had to travel business class to each other’s wedding and polo orgies.

Business class!

Do you know how embarrassing that is when Lord Rupert screams past you in his personal jet?

Again, why would anyone who gets elected for a living do this? It can’t just be because kicking over some doddering wrinklies’ walking frames and mugging them for their carefully hoarded stash of dog food money is easier than going after scary-looking welfare moochers with their Celtic tatts and angry twitter feeds.

There has to be something deep at work. Something more primal.

And there is. Stupidity.

But not just old fashioned everyday stupidity. Not just common folly and garden variety derp.

No, this is a sort of amplified neo-stupidity. It’s a shameless stupidity that revels in its own asshat-on-backwards majesty. It’s networked and self-reinforcing. It’s stupidity as an accelerating feedback loop. The kind of stupid that argues for guns in schools to protect against grizzly bear attacks. The kind of stupid that insists, po-faced and pantsless, as Resources Minister Matt Canavan did on Tuesday, that we can reduce our carbon emissions from coal fired power stations by building more coal fired power stations. The kind of stupid that took such a fearful fucking beatdown from the last two weeks of #notmydebtpocalypse that it decides hitting itself in the head with a hammer wasn’t good enough. It should really frappe its own nads and knob cheese in a giant blender too. Because what could possibly go wrong feeding a couple of million pensioners into the trenches of Centrelink’s gigantinormous robot war?

That’s the kinda stupid I’m talkin’ about.

And tomorrow it wears a crown.

I was reading the comments on Jennifer Wilson’s latest (and excellent) post – I’m flying myself to the footy & I’m wearing Hugo Boss suck it up you sexist socialist serfs – when I came across a magnificent gem from someone named Frank.

Definitely worth a star turn in its own right . . . I hope Guest Author Frank will forgive me for having appropriated his witty words.

Fairfax; Louise Kennerley

I actually don’t mind politicians that rort the system as it proves to my mind that they have initiative and the necessary entrepreneurial skill to dream big and kick a few goals for Australia whilst enriching their own pockets! Nation building is thirsty work so who cares if a few bob goes missing as long as they are kicking goals and rebuilding the country Donald Trump style?! It all goes around anyway. Resist the urge to be jealous of other’s success. Learn from them. I did it with my tradesmen when I paid them in brown paper bags to escape the tax man. None of them ever complained. Theft is the natural order for Australians.

The problem is one of management. Greens should stick to their main theme of being frugal managers and stewards of the planet and general useless pricks who should just ride bicycles around to their local communist branch or go ride hot air-balloons into a windmill or brick wall or gallop on the backs of pink unicorns or bugger-up fairies in search of someone to annoy.

Labor are a tad more realistic and should organise a suitable union to roster the rorting on a democratic basis, equally and fairly with a flotilla of social justice warriors, so all can rip off public funds equally and fairly, including a suitable kickback to their head union delegate – providing they can demonstrate some ability to run the country without sending it broke! This is really a quandary or a major hurdle which is richly disputed that they can do just that as their skill in organizing roots in brothels is always questioned by their Liberal overlords so the jury is till out that they can form or perform any useful function as a credible government without stabbings or murdering one another on a regular basis.

Which leaves it to the Liberals to do all the rorting for Australia. Liberals are like silky otters when it comes to performing payment for services rendered. They can navigate rapids and perilous waters on the Gold Coast whilst negotiating the purchase of a block of units or flat for themselves whilst pretending they are off on official affairs of state. Liberals like beavers are the natural builders of Australia’s economy so should be listened to when they have their hand in your back pocket, so in fairness wouldn’t it be best to put your trust in professional rorters rather than amateur rorters? You wouldn’t let a dodgy plumber fix your bathroom, would you?

Grays