Oh Miranda

Miranda Devine, one of Fairfax's resident rightists that they seemingly keep around for balance purposes (which is odd because the only one of the non rightists / centrists you could really say was fully avowedly leftist is David Marr - and he dangerously grounds his writing in logic), is a proud fan of speeding and cars and similar shit.

She also likes Top Gear (confession: so do I, but not so hardcore as to have an anatomically correct blow-up Stig doll).

Anyway, Miranda Devine fully gets off when people go her on the net. She does. She teasingly drops a hotmail account address at the end of her various knee-jerk righty screeds and encourages people to vent at her. Then, ignoring all the sensible emails where people pull her failed arguments apart like travelling side-show fairy floss, she will serve up the more deranged points made and indicate by sleight of hand it is the representative mean of her correspondence.

On Thursday, Devine opined about the recent case of an irate cyclist having a physical altercation with a bus driver - the cyclist claiming misbehaviour on the part of said public transport employee. I don't know the right or wrong of what happened in that incident (sounds like an assault to me), but to Miranda, well, that cyclist is merely the representative mean of cyclists.

Here's some choice snippets.

Roads are for cars, not Lycra louts [This was the header]

This is classic angry cyclist behaviour, as if it's up to the cycling fraternity to forcibly educate the motoring public and instil fear like jackbooted Soviets.

How aggressive do you have to be at 5am, anyway? You never hear of rowers, joggers, swimmers, yoga artists or other dawn fitness devotees attacking people.

It wasn't the first time bus drivers have had to contend with irrational cyclists.

The ideologues who have fostered the road-sharing lie must think a few dead cyclists and pedestrians are a small price to pay for getting cars off the road, because that is their ultimate aim: to make driving so unpleasant, slow, expensive and fraught with hazards that motorists give up.

So far, all they have done is create a dangerous sense of entitlement among other road users. Harold Scruby and his Pedestrian Council are much to blame for the attitude that far from sharing the road, cars are there under sufferance.

Needless to say, her views (which typically do), irked a few people. MD decided to have another crack at the topic, all the while exalting that she'd had an effect.

The intro read thusly: "You always know when you write about the battle for road supremacy between cyclists and motorists that you will touch a nerve. But the avalanche of email and online comments in response to Thursday's column shows an extraordinary new level of sensitivity."

The conclusion she reached was this;

The good news is that sensible cyclists are beginning to accept responsibility for their behaviour ... [snipped examples of cyclists apologizing for their bad behaviour] ... As with everything in life, courtesy goes a long way.

How freaking hilarious that she actually had the hide to say "As with everything in life, courtesy goes a long way" given her screeching missive - that she linked to - of the day before, in addition to pretty everything she's ever written, ever.

Miranda Devine, I suspect - even though you were sired by another Conservative screeder - that perhaps, deep down, you view your role of a righty as some sort of ironic performance art.

In the aftermath of the Victorian Bushfires, Devine at one point hilariously suggested that if anyone should be strung up for causing the fires, it was nasty pasty greenies and their anti-burn off stance.

Yes, indeed. Courtesy goes a long way. Especially when they're still pulling charred bodies out of houses.