I dreamed that

Pippin was almost caught by orcs, but saved himself to compact disc. We had to take three discs out of Gandalf's boom box before we could play him back; I joked that, if we didn't clear out the tray, he'd come out as Hawkwind.

Boats are clogging up our roads

In case anyone had forgotten that Mr Abbott had already made it clear that the Coalition's anti-refugee policy is an anti-immigrant policy, here's a reminder from "sex appeal" Liberal candidate Fiona Scott:

"JANINE COHEN: That's a pretty hot topic, isn't it, asylum seekers?

FIONA SCOTT: Well yeah, it is a hot topic, but it's a hot topic here because our traffic is overcrowded. I mean you guys have been here a few days now, and I mean how much fun is the M4 in peak hour? It's not fun at all. And you know, you imagine a mum, you know, it's a classic example, ah trying to be back for a six o'clock pick-up from day-care, and every minute you're late you're getting charged. Now you multiply that by a couple of kids, it means that when you think of overcrowding it becomes an issue for people, it really does.

JANINE COHEN: So you mention asylum seekers and overcrowding. I don't quite get the connection.

FIONA SCOTT: Well, my recommendation is go and sit in the Emergency Department of Nepean Hospital or go and sit on the M4 and people see 50,000 people come in by boat; that's more than twice the population of Glenmore Park where we just were."

It's hard to believe that an entire thirty years' worth of refugees are all sitting on Sydney's M4 at peak hour, clogging it up. Perhaps the overcrowding could be solved by taking some of the $3.2 billion earmarked for spending on keeping asylum seekers out, and putting that money into roads and hospitals.

ETA: When I first wrote this posting, I had my figures wrong: with the large number of arrivals by boat in the last two years, the Libs' 50,000 figure is not the total since 1976 but the total since 2007, when Labor first came back into power. It's the perfect figure for scaremongering at press conferences: "Our country has passed a terrible milestone... It's bigger than Gladstone, it's bigger than Coffs Harbor." "...that's a big number. We have all sorts of pressures that are created."

Lock up your pigs and your daughters. But don't worry about the "pressures", because there aren't any. Not from asylum seekers, who are a tiny part of our population growth.