Forget transubstantiation, is soylent green the best solution?

(Above: a man who knows how to Pyne an argument).

There's a fair argument that at best Craig Thomson is a goose, and likely enough that's just an extremely defamatory and unfair traducing of geese.

Sadly to go any further might involve defamation, at least until a pending report is handed down. (Tax office asked to look at HSU report).

But what does it mean when that preening, fatuous, always yapping poodle Christopher Pyne makes a right royal ass of himself, and manages to generate a vague feeling of sympathy for Thomson?

The enormous stupidity of Pyne is fully on view in Phillip Coorey's Playing doctor sets a dangerous and bizarre precedent, with forced video of the clown at the other end of the link.

This kind of niggling, nagging negativity is just too tiresome, and it confirms that when in the future the likes of Pyne are forced to come up with effective policies, all they'll be able to manage is yet another niggle to the crutch.

It's now got to the point where the nausea the pond felt at the sight of Thomson has now been completely overwhelmed by the sight and sound of Pyne ...

Coorey in his piece rightly excoriated Bob Katter for his contempt of parliament and his hopeless attendance record, but now much the same can be said about Pyne, because effectively he was calling the doctor who signed Thomson's medical certificate a liar and a fraud, while dancing around the point in the usual hypocritical way that politicians muster when they wish to sink beneath contempt. And even more bizarre, somehow they managed to drag Warren Entsch into the business of being a doctor ...

Naturally the opposition gave ground - the argument was unsustainable - but why lead with it in the first place? What was the point of looking and sounding like a foolish fop intent on a hate crime, however minor the key? By golly, it's going to be a good time giving back the hate with spades and a fringe on top ...

Watching Pyne's 'poodle imitates terrier' performance - such terrier-like teeth - was almost as bizarre as watching a NSW copper explain on the 7.30 show how tasers improved everyone's health ...

ALAN CLARKE: Holistically, although the overall total of injuries remain fairly static, the percentage of assault injuries reduce significantly. So they're benefits to police. But the international research indicates that there are also benefits to the offender in terms of reduced injuries to them as well. (here)

Holistically? Benefits to the offender? Reduced injuries?

Not when you're dead... though it's true that being dead does prevent further injuries ...

Of all the times to talk of reduced injuries, when a security tape is in the public domain, and there's a body on the ground ...

Oh we luvs ya, NSW plodders ...

Never mind, it prepares the pond for coping with Gerard Henderson, this time burbling on in Well-off get a free ride on taxpayer for children's education.

How do you know it's a Henderson piece? Well the pedant has become such a caricature of himself, such a ridiculous Dickensian stereotype, that only Henderson could scribble this par:

I made this point some years ago when I received a rare invitation to address a literary festival. The atheist-inclined, sandal-wearing Byron Bay set became most upset when I suggested that in a truly egalitarian society the middle class should make a contribution to the education of their children, perhaps even grandchildren, attending government schools.

Oh what a ragger he is, what a socialist, what an egalitarian. How he smote the sandal wearers with his wit, his words transformed into literary gold in much the same way as bread is transformed into Christ's flesh for a good old Catholic Sunday munch-down.

But why drag in the Catholics?

Well because once again the intrepid Polonius has embarked on cultural, religious, historical and class warfare.

You see, before a tedious trawl through the triumph of Catholics achieving state funding for their indoctrination and perversion of the young and innocent, thanks to assorted kow towing Liberals, Henderson has an anxiety attack:

...why should a person who lives in a $2 million house in North Sydney pay nothing to educate his or her children - while a person of modest means living in a rented flat be required to make a financial contribution to educating their children in the local Catholic primary school or some similar entity?

Indeed. The pond is mortified that scientologists should be forced to make a financial contribution to educating their children, when it's well known that scientologists must send off all their moola to keep themselves clear of Xenu ...

Now it's true that the story of Xenu is about as silly as transubstantiation, but you don't see Henderson shedding crocodile tears about the suffering of scientologists. And he's just as careful to avoid stepping into the mess known as anti-science creationist fundamentalist schools, whether inclined to Christianity or Islam.

Anyhoo, by column's end, it all comes down to a few specious non-sequiturs:

Initially, opposition to state aid came from those opposed to Catholic schools. In more recent times, opponents of state aid have consisted of individuals opposed to non-government schools - sometimes because they oppose religious schools, whether Catholic, Jewish, Muslim or Protestant - and sometimes because they believe government always knows best.

Individuals are opposed to the secular funding of non-government religious schools because they believe government always knows best? And government knows it's best to pork barrel all the faiths, and to hell with the consequences?

Suddenly it seems you have to be a sandal-wearer to have a coherent capacity to mount an argument. Next week? Gerard Henderson wonders why taxpayers are subsidising radical Islamics in state funded schools ...

And then it's time for the class warfare:

What the critics of the non-government sector overlook is the fact that less well-off parents who make a contribution to their children's education reduce the financial burden on the taxpayer. Whereas well-off parents who send their children to comprehensive or selective government schools get a free ride on the taxpayer. Not only on Sydney's lower north shore.

Oh yes, hate the lower north shore, hate the rich and their exploitative ways, and celebrate the gentle socialist sharing ways of the humble Catholic church-goer wearing the burden of a crown of thorns and perhaps riding on a donkey ...

Well it was all great fun to read, and a reminder never to take Henderson seriously, because he only scribbles to tease and shock sandal-wearers, while sucking up to those with imaginary friends.

Naturally he didn't have a single sensible word to say about the Gonski report, agitated as he was about means testing of private schools, and proposing that public schools should also be means tested, as a form of epic distraction.

It is of course just more FUD of the Christopher Pyne kind, and curiously Pyne and Henderson share a kind of fussy, fiddly persona which can sometimes induce near hysterical laughter in the pond.

And what do you know? This very morning Pyne on ABC is still banging on about how Thomson is trying to avoid parliament, and trying to justify his folly. Tell that to Bob Katter ...

Truly laughter is sometimes not just the best, but the only medicine (oh thank you Reader's Digest for the insight) when confronted by the cavortings of the pond's favourites in the commentariat bestiary.

Naturally First Dog had a sensible Soylent Green solution to hand. Click to enlarge, and Crikey, you need to fix your First Dog archive: