A cornucopia of chaos ... so why not sort it out over a meal at a Chinese restaurant?

(Above: every day is a good day for David Pope, so perhaps the Canberra Times should fix his gallery, here. Come on guys, that's no way to treat a star, and if it's not fixed by the time this blog is published, beware the outraged citizenry who'll launch a DOS attack on your site)

Where to start? Where to start?

Oh pick one, pick one, says an excited donkey, any one will do, in a cornucopia of chaos ...

Well there's the derelict and nasty, about which a lot more will be heard, but which is just breaking at the moment and will run and run: PNG police slam Australian report into riots at the Manus Island detention centre.

So now the PNG police, Robert Cornall, and the two governments responsible can argue up hill and down dale about who did what to whom, and yet the over-arching bottom line - that Australia exploited a still developing country, in classic colonialist style,  to dump its perceived problems elsewhere - will result in an ongoing, festering sore, and sweet FA by way of justice.

It gets the pond going, so perhaps we should pick the merely delightful, and sure enough, the Fairfaxians dug up actual footage of that shockingly entitled gent, jolly Joe Hockey, being a student radical, as you can read about and actually see in Hockey video from 1987 shows Treasurer protesting against university fees. (forced video at end of link).

It won't change anything, but it's a cheerful reminder of the hypocritical stench that surrounds jolly Joe, not least his absurd attempt to defend the inexcusable:

"We obviously were concerned about the fact we were paying fees upfront which no student has to do now," he told Channel Ten.

That'd be a $250 fee, as opposed to the $100,000, with interest, thank you very much, or who knows how much for a common and garden fee.

And now the ghouls are seeking to extract the debt from estates if the students haven't done the right HECS thing before they kick the bucket, and die with the debt still outstanding ...

Yes, that was the poodle Pyne: Christopher Pyne suggests collecting HECS debts from dead students as way to help budget (forced video at end of link)

The poodle as tomb raider:

Federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne has floated the idea of collecting student debts from the dead as a way of boosting the budget bottom line. 
Mr Pyne told Fairfax Media on Wednesday he had no "ideological opposition" to collecting debts from the estates of former students who died owing money to the government.
"[If] an elderly person passes away with a HECS debt, they wouldn't be able to say to the bank, we're not paying back our mortgage, yet they are at the moment entitled to not pay back their HECS debt," Mr Pyne said.

The ghouls are in power and they'll pursue you beyond the grave.

Congratulations to the sub at The Age who came up with this header. Oh you might have been a New Zelunder, but you nailed it:

The pond alternates between laughter and contempt at the way student politics has always been a training ground for rabid fundamentalists, so that the likes of jolly Joe can learn in their youth how to argue that black is white, only to turn around in later life and argue that white is black. The late unlamented Christopher Pearson was a classic case - rabid supporter of Communist dictators in youth, rabid Catholic high Tory in later life, and jolly Joe is not far behind in the white is black stakes ...

The best jolly Joe can offer? Why it's to keep repeating how jolly it is to be burdened by a substantial debt:

Mr Hockey said, in response to the unearthed footage: "My involvement in student rallies is well-documented and well-known and there was no HECS scheme at the time. We had to pay upfront without any loan scheme."

Yes, because $250 was a huge burden upfront but repaying a mere $100k or more with interest over decades is just paying back a loan, and it's a doddle ... because you know the average arts graduate is a powerhouse of salary advantage ...

You see, jolly Joe is doing everyone a favour.

The tragedy in all this, is that thanks to the likes of jolly Joe, people routinely confuse and conflate politicians with government.

Government does useful things, especially when administered in a balanced and fair way and without the sort of festering corruption cultivated in NSW by both sides of the aisle.

Politicians exist mainly to fuck good government up, in much the same way that student politicians fucked up student life ... though it helps explain why this current mob, who spent most of their time in student days protesting and whining about this that and the other, are now so intent on persecuting the current crop of hapless young people, who can only dream of the indulged, entitled lifestyle that Tony Abbott and jolly Joe lived ... and still live ... (anyone got a scholarship handy, for the right and chosen people of course?)

And then came George Brandis's discomfiture at the support given to his reforms. Yes Holocaust deniers are right on side with gorgeous George:

Did the bookcase and library man pause for a nanosecond to wonder whether it's nutty George that has attracted a fellow nutcase?

"He is a nutcase, N-U-T-C-A-S-E, nutcase. He has nothing to do with this debate," he said. (here, but with forced video attached)

Now only a nutcase could offer that as a sensible defence, because the entire point of Brandis's work is to allow nutcases to roam wild and free and say whatever they like ... because nutcases, and the Bolter is a classic example, have every right to be even more offensive than Lee Rhiannon, on the basis that everybody can ignore the likes of Murdoch, Brandis and the Bolter and refuse to be infected by their repellent views ... so they can abuse anyone they like in as many offensive ways they can manage, especially in relation to race or ethnicity, and it's all hunky dory ....

The most important thing is that Adolf Hitler should feel free to be able to scribble his support for George Brandis and not experience any sense of shame or legal restriction ...

Or some such thing. Yes, it sounds just the sort of nutty thing you'd expect a N-U-T-C-A-S-E to say ...

The real problem for Brandis, given the pressure he's under from ethnic communities, is how to retreat with some sense of grace and style, away from the howls of the IPA about breaking an election promise (as if that should be a problem for this government - doesn't it just get added to a neverending list?).

Oh yes, it's great fun to watch the pompous George dangle in the breeze and reel and writhe, in IPA urges Tony Abbott and George Brandis to stick with 'flawed' race law changes.

Meanwhile after all the posturing and posing, guess who came to dinner? (And we're not talking about a nice Sidney Poitier):

Uh oh. And never mind the politicisation of the public service, as you can read here.

Just chow down over a Chinese meal and all will be well ...

Meanwhile, The Graudian has remarkably discovered, courtesy of Margaret Simons, that the Daily Terror has lost touch with its readers.

It's a poignant piece, because Simons seems to accept that there's still a business proposition in being a tree killer. You know, if the rag would just get back in touch with its readers.

But this is just a recycled nonsense spouted from the mouth of Ozymandias himself, and that changes according to the weather (sssh, don't mention climate change) and the time of day - back in 2012 it was Rupert Murdoch predicts newspapers could die out in 10 years. 

And yet what's most interesting about the Terror - beyond even the rabid way editor Paul Whittaker tries to outdo Chris Mitchell in erecting a paranoid castle built of gutter offal - is the way it has revised its online persona in a bid to out-fox the Daily Mail.

As a result, the commentariat have been dropped way down the list. You really have to hunt out the rabid hounds to get a decent whiff of fundamentalist grape-shot, so hidden is it by all the click bait and the trolling ...

Online the Daily Terror makes news.com.au look like a respectable attempt at news reporting and intellectual curiosity. Yes, the pond almost fainted at the bizarreness of that notion ... but surely what Simons should have looked at was the equally bizarre transformation of the Terror's online presence. It's not tree killer circulation figures that matter - the Terror is now thrown away in all sorts of places - nor the front pages on the tree killer editions. It's the digital afterlife that matters, and in that arena, the Terror knows it's in deep doodah, and it's attempts to chance course are marvellous to behold ...

Yep, talk about a cornucopia of wonders, and all this before the pond even got near the reptiles scribbling away at the lizard Oz this unseasonably warm late May morning ...

 And by golly that's a whole new cornucopia.

It seems we must prepare for war with China, because a few decent diggers will sort out those bloody uppity Chinese:

Is it time for a new Brisbane line? Surrender the toads, and stand firm at Tenterfield? (Surely we must do it to save Peter Allen, because it might be too hard to save Rolf Harris).

Which reminds the pond that it's been yonks since we linked to How I learned to love Tony Abbott A bromance for the ages.

And it seems Tony Abbott has to sort out Clive Palmer in a showdown:

Wouldn't it be simpler to shout him a meal big Mal style in a Canberra Chinese restaurant, and explain how easy it is to fuck over the NBN in the process?

Yes, big Mal and his acolytes continue to alienate the geeks, and rarely a day goes by that delimiter doesn't discover yet another astonishing bit of befuddlement (Federal MP misleads Parliament with NBN motion).

So there you go.

A cornucopia of delights, or chaos and incompetence if you will ... and with a bonus bunch of Chinese spring rolls, against which we need to mount a powerful independent defence ... unless it happens to be Clive and then devious back room deals and a nice set of assistants might be all the go.

Phew, this is going to take some selling, as that master of understatement Tony Abbott told the miners last night.

Tony: And what if you don't close? 
Jolly Joe: I will close. 
Tony: What if you don't close...?  
Jolly Joe: I will close. 
Tony:  What if you don't? Then I'm fucked. You see...? Then it's my job. That's what I'm telling you. Jolly Joe: I will close. Tone, Tone, it's close or a lifetime on super. I can get hot. You know that... (with apologies to David Mamet, his script for Glengarry here)

Take it away Moir, remind us of how the day began, watching a doofus student politician disappear up his fundament and reappear as Australia's Treasurer ... (and more Moir here)