the miracle of the pumpkin scone

Comrades,

I noted that Lady Florence Bjelke-Petersen shuffled off yesterday at 97, due to complications of old age....in a Kingaroy nursing home, where she had resided for the past three years.
She was appointed once to the Senate, and then elected twice as a Senator for Queensland, doing a full 12 years in Canberra after the wheels fell off the "Joh for Canberra" bandwagon back in '87, however, I cannot for the life of me recall her ever speaking on the floor of the Chamber.
Undoubtedly, she did her finest work in the Domestic Sciences.
Flo was a well-respected published author, penning three run-away best sellers "Classic Country Baking", "Classic Country Cooking", and "Classic Country Wisdom: Traditional Household Tips", which after her retirement from the Senate was collated into a single-volume lavishly illustrated coffee table tome "Classic Country Collection" [448pp, 1995], which sold more than 70,000+ copies alone...as Sir Joh would have said "don't you worry about that".
So, for old time's sake and in memory of the old bat, I give you...

votes for the demented!

Comrades,

In the after-math of one of the most spiteful and dirtiest short by-election campaigns in recent memory, you have to love the wash up of the vote in Bennelong.
Post poll there was a scoop in one of the Sunday papers that revealed the possibility that the Pinko candidate Kristina Keneally, a former short-lived non-elected NSW Premier, had been handing out how-to-vote cards to folks living with dementia in nursing homes.
Nothing wrong with that, apart from it being a tremendously useless waste of time and resources.
Nothing in the Electoral Act says that the demented can't vote.
If you are a law-abiding Australian citizen, even one with the heavy American accent of a Buckeye Ohioan - nothing disenfranchises you, nothing.
It wasn't as if she was exactly bussing them to the polling stations and letting them loose.
They may have even had formal exemptions from the Electoral Commissioner from their obligation to at least turn up and have their names ticked off the roll.
Who knows?
Whoever was handling the "dark arts" in that campaign didn't do their jobs very well under constant assault.
But, lets face it, Kristina has been connected in the past with former Labor 'powerbroker' Eddie Eddie Eddie Obeid, who's name is mud in New South Wales, due to the fact they had to build a special wing for him down at Long Bay.
Something about "corruption on a scale probably unexceeded since the days of the Rum Corps."
"Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I can assure you that nobody came into the powder room of the Premier's office at any point."
Unused, it was, for 15 months.
However, having the Pinko's at each other's throats is de riguer in this state, and has always been part and parcel of the caper.
Rats in the ranks aint the half of it.
In his victory speech the now un-disqualified returned sitting member John Alexander - a former British subject who lived in America for 12 years - rabbited on and on and on about his without-doubt blemish-free gloriously-patriotic tennis career and how it was cruelly cut short by shocking injury, or some such thing or another, as what he was saying didn't make a lot of sense at the time by all reports; but never one to sponge off the Govt. on account of his fabulous wealth after retiring in back in '83 with $US1,214,079 in prize money, the Tory said he was "too proud" to get an Australian Disability Parking Permit, which of course touched off a hue and cry amongst the handicapped lobby.
I've been on that stick 30 years now...30 years...and I'm not "too proud" about anything much anymore.
I went through the hoops and got the Cripple's Parking Pass.
Gives me free VIP parking all over Sydney 24/7 365.
As it should.
Couldn't live in a big city without it.
Now, I'm not the vindictive kind of person as you well know, but if John is "too proud", and you follow his line of thinking there, which admittedly is tough, then you'd have to sincerely hope, for his own sake, that the former journeyman Davis Cup Star finishes up demented, then he wouldn't need an Australian Disability Parking Permit, and he would be forgiven for voting Labor.
Boom! Boom!
The whole three-ring circus capped off rather nicely what has been something of a tawdry year all around in the Westminster System.

Three Sticks and a Wall

[Men's ablutions facilities, Belushi's Sports Bar, Paris, France.]


Comrades,

Folks have been coming up to me and asking what is going on with DJ Trump! at the minute, as I have been unusually silent on His Donaldness of late.
I can only note that he has gone through the 300 day mark since becoming the POTUS, and hasn't it been a jolly jape?
During that time, the President has had 65 certified confirmed rounds of golf, and spent 814 hours at golf courses over 79 visits to golf clubs various - all of them his [except one in Japan and one in Jersey City] - as he owns quite a few around about the traps and knows them very well, particularly his favourite, Bedminster, NJ, where Trump has instructed that he be interred in his mausoleum when he expires.
So he has spent 26% of his time as Leader of The Free World, with at least part of the day idling in a clubhouse someplace.
Somebody is counting:

http://trumpgolfcount.com/displayoutings#tablecaption

Over the year, it's become patently clear that just one, and only one, thing interests The Trumpster - seeing his brand front and centre on the TV news every day for free - and he has two sports; golf, and screwing his enemies.
The Donald, when you look at it fairly and squarely, has had a few mighty triumphs lately, most notably ramming a tax bill through Congress that shamelessly robs the poor to give to the rich in a bald-faced naked grab for cash that will send the US of A into a nose-down spiral of an out-of-control budget deficit running into the mega-trillions for generations to come.
Nice work there Don.
That'll go down super-well on the millions of Struggle Streets in The States, just as it will on Park Avenue.
Ah, but don't you worry about that, the plebeians will learn to love how amazing it really is, when gold faucets miraculously appear in every bathroom in America, so it will be much more pleasant then to clean the ol' chunder away.
So there will be nothing to see there.
And hasn't his foreign policy been on a whizz-bang revolutionary spin lately?
Wasn't the DJ Trump! Word Tour II spectacular!? Taking Japan, Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines by storm!!
Talk about red carpet a million miles long.
Woot!
By all reports the Chinese "out-Trumped Trump" in terms of dazzlingly gaudy lavishly extravagant enormously expensive entertainments while he was in Peking.
While he continues to bait Fatboy "Bomb Boy" Kim, and North Korea's PR Unit continues to dish the line in strident terms that war with the USA is inevitable, the Trumpotus then goes out on a limb and declares Jerusalem - that "pile of old rocks" - as the Capital of Israel, in "one of the finest days in the history of Zionism", according to the most influential New York Rabbi's and more than a few major-league donors to the Trump election campaign war chest.
No surprise the Palestinians are having burning the Star Spangled Banner riots.
The Donald was just fulfilling an election promise there, nothing more, nothing less.
Nothing to see there.
Still, as one much more learned commentator on the subject than me remarked "why destroy a Middle East peace process, when there was no peace process actually going on?"
Good point.
I remember going down to my local Lebanese bakery one time years ago now, and there was a group of old men smoking, with short blacks and manakish at tables on the footpath out the front arguing with each other in a most vigourous fashion to the point where they could have come to blows at any minute.
I must have had a concerned look on my face, because the bakery owner said to me over the counter "Ppff! Don't worry about them. They're just trying to solve the Middle East peace question".
Nothing to see there.
[BTW, they're still at it, Trumpy].
And now word on the street in DC has it - and this is wild rumour - that the Trumpotus is planning to sack, punt and dismiss Special Counsel, Robert "Three Sticks" Mueller the Turd, before Xmas, on account of Bobby's a crafty old bugger of a hard-bastard detective inspector who behaves like a slithering snake, worming his way into all sorts of filth-filled crevices to flush out the vermin who've been conspiring with them damn no-good Ruskies to subvert and corrupt the Miracle of Democracy.
Of course Don can fire anyone, anytime, for any or no reason, quite within his rights to do so, but Three Sticks is getting far too close to the TRUTH [which is very over-rated anyway] for comfort; he's charged two of Trump's crooked mates with felonies that would see them serving long stretches in the federal penitentiary, and he's got two of The Donald's associates to roll over on their backs and plead guilty to lying to the "worst FBI ever", and man, aren't they singing to save their bacon?
DJ! appears to be a little upset with Mr. Mueller presently, and doing his mates cold under the law has got the POTUS all "incandescent with rage".
Just get rid of Three Sticks, tho', and that's that, problem solved.
Nothing to see there.
Anymore.
I've been brushing up on the impeachment process lately; oh man, the road is long and they way is hard.
Anyone can move an impeachment motion in the House of Reps, and has, it's on the table, but getting it shuffled along the legislative line could in theory be blocked forever from going to debate, let alone a vote in a chamber controlled by the Grand Old Party.
In the highly unlikely event that the motion gets up by simple majority, the President is then tried in the Senate for his/her constitutional offence[s].
The House, who for the purpose are known as the "managers", appoint their lawyers to try the case and then the President nominates a small army of his own personal lawyers, and it is run like any other trial; the calling of witnesses, the adducement of evidence, cross-examination etc, with the Senators sitting in judgement.
The impeachee is not required to appear unless they want to give evidence, and it is for the House to prove the case.
At the completion of the trial, the Senate then usually retires behind closed doors to debate the verdict in private.
If the Article[s] of Impeachment is resolved in the affirmative, and achieves a two-thirds majority or more in favour, an impeachment takes immediate effect, cannot be appealed, and the impeachee cannot be pardoned by his successor, although can be in the event of an outcome of any subsequent criminal trial.
The Senate can also determine in a second vote, whether the impeachee be banned for life from holding public office again.
Sweet Mother of Joisus...if you have got this far, I am sorry to bore you shitless with the procedural rules in the Miracle of Democracy USA Style, but when it comes down to it, impeachment is really a pure political game, with very high hurdles.
It's much much easier under the Westminster System - an unpopular leader is simply dumped and replaced by his/her own party and put out to pasture without further ado, with no inconvenience to the Parliament or the people.
There is no reference to the words "Prime Minister" in the Australian constitution, as it's all taken care of in-house.
The only reason that impeachment is in the US Constitution in the first place is because, against considerable opposition, one of the Founding Fathers - was it Franklin? - argued that "the usual way of dealing with an 'obnoxious' Chief Executive and Commander-in-Chief is by assassination - surely there must be a better way?"
The word "obnoxious" is his, not mine, I remember that much.
But in the current climate, an impeachment will have to wait until after next year's Mid-Terms anyway, and even if it gets up during the two years following, who do the Home of The Brave and the Land of Free get to run the show in the interim?
Mike Pence, an old establishment hard-right hard-arsed Republican with wacky ideas of his own who's also foolish and stoopid.
Otherwise, why would he have he accepted one of the Top Ten Shit Jobs in The World - Vice President of the United States of America?
It is difficult to believe that the righteous Free Press like the NYT and the DC Post have got themselves all a twitter about this, and are only now gnashing their teeth and wringing their hands saying in editorials "oh, for the love of God, how did we get ourselves into such a catastrophe and become the laughing stock of the world?"
They've probably never heard of the term "gullible".
Not that it matters that much in the Grand Scheme of Things, as the rest of the planet just gets on with getting on.
Many Americans would have absolutely no idea what's going on, or care less, with the latest survey finding that fully one-third of them are unable to name any of the three executive branches of Government.
The only way out for the Yanks that do care is to vote the bastard out, on Tuesday, 3rd November, 2020, if The Trumpotus doesn't lose interest before then, is committed to psychiatric care, or declines into senility.
Apart from everything going down the toilet, that's about all of note that's been happening across the other side of the shimmering Pacific as far as I can tell.
So, obviously...nothing to see there.
Oh, I forgot, I can't enlighten you about what's been shakin' with that "great big beautiful wall" because, by all accounts, there's nothing to see there...

i love to have a beer with Joycey

Comrades,

During the campaign in the by-election for the state seat of Canterbury a while back now, the Good Lady Wife and I spotted Barnaby Joyce walking into the Golden Barley Hotel in Marrickville.
You can tell Barnaby by the hat.
He must have a good collection.
But what's with the shirts, and why doesn't he constantly have a twig of wheat [or barley, for that matter] between his teeth like Doug Anthony?
You can also tell it's him by the way he does the silly walks and the fact that he looks like he's been inbred with a tomato.
We wondered why he was in the inner west of Sydney of all places, and why the Barley, given that Marrickville is not in Canterbury and the Nationals wouldn't run a candidate there in a blue fit.
So, it was fairly clear that Barnaby was just going into a pub for a beer.
Doesn't mind a drink in a crisis, does our Joycey.
He is often photographed drinking beer with the good burghers of Armidale, it's a guaranteed vote winner; have a few beers with any group of people and wait until the drink starts talking the bullshit and of course they'll say they'll vote for you.
It begs the question, tho' - which one does he like the best?
Is Barnaby a Toohey's or a Resch's man?
I've certainly never seen him holding an Old.
They would have been the tipples of choice around those parts when he was but a wee bairn, but maybe he developed a thirst for XXXX during his time as a Senator for Queensland?
He would not have bar of any of them Victorian or other foreign beers, you'd expect.
So it came as no surprise to see Barnsey and Malcolm Trundle toasting the Country Party's outlandish win in the by-election for the seat of New England [after Mr Joyce quietly and carefully renounced his New Zealand citizenship], with a round of [poorly poured] foaming frosties.
Rejoice!
By all reports, it may well have come close to the biggest swing to a Govt. candidate in the history of all the by-elections in the Federation, but he was the sitting member [temporarily disqualified], there were 17 candidates on the ballot paper, One Nation very kindly failed to run one, and by-and-large Barnaby's majority increased by about 8%, because some people who had never voted for him before, preferring instead Tony "Two Faced" Windsor, voted for Joycey this time, because Windsor also declined to run on account of he's retired and given the game away, or so he says, but Tony's always precariously balanced sitting on the fence in any case.
It was pleasing to see Meow-Ludo Disco Gamma Meow-Meow going around again, standing as the Science Party candidate as usual - he must have transferred his electoral address to some remote campsite in the Northern Tablelands stocked with wild drugs for the duration of the short by-election campaign.
Did well too, did Meow-Ludo, garnering 1,162 votes.
Predictably, the Pinko candidate David Ewings died at the polls, and had an absolute shocker with a miserable 11% of the primary vote, but he was the only loser in double figures, with Informal being the next best and third placed candidate at 7%.
Thank the Good Lord Jesus we have a proper Deputy Prime Minister again, as the current Prime Minister is not travelling all that well at the present minute, and without a majority in the House, he has to face the fact that Labor will get up to all sorts of mischief in the NatCap this week.
Fun and games guaranteed.

West Tamorth Leagues Club, 2 Dec 2017. Photo/AAP

no banker left behind

Comrades,

It is the most delicious of ironies, is it not?
A merchant banker Prime Minister is forced by his junior coalition partner, the Country Party rump, to call a Royal Commission into the filthy, thieving, cheating banks, who have developed the telling of lies into an art form.
A banker, who now has to appoint someone like a former Chief Judge of the Equity Division of some Supreme Court somewhere or another, to inquire into his own kind.
And he reportedly had to be "dragged, kicking and screaming" into opening up the can or worms.
No kidding.
Never mind that it is among the most memorable, and weakest, political back flips in living memory, or that it is fatal to his spineless Prime Ministership, a mob of country bumpkins who have a grudge against the banks over some drought loans that went awry way back when, push him into a corner to out the bean counters.
That's something that has always eluded me about capitalism - how come the bankers can make billions of dollars a year in net profits just by pushing a hill of beans from one corner of the room to the other?
Never could work out how that works.
Must be something to do with what we were taught in junior high school about "compound interest".
Or maybe it's just the simple matter of "cross-currency interest rate swaps".
I don't know, no clue...except that it produces obscene wealth for a tiny few.
And here we have Mr Trundle as the perfect example with an estimated net worth of some $140M [and that was at the time of his assumption of the Prime Ministership in 2015 - no one has done an accurate assessment since], and of course that does not count the cash in Lucy's name, or the greenbacks stashed in double-blind trusts or squirreled away for a rainy day in sunny places like the Bahamas.
Jeez, his rather nice house in leafy Point Piper is valued at approx $50M, if it were put on the market tomorrow and he moved to Punchbowl.
And he doesn't even need a nice car, because he gets one for free, with a driver, as well as the exclusive use [read: free lease with servants] of Kirribilli House, just across the harbour, whose value is inestimable.
As an alumni of Vaucluse Public School, he knows a thing or two about the value of a delightful water views.
And now the Rich Dude is confined to Pandora's Box.
Back in the day when I was knocking about in radio newsrooms and a bank story surfaced, the news editor would always say to me "Craves! Can you go and get this one, and go hard. Everybody loves bank bashing".
Little wonder, there was never any shortage of material.
Have a look at just a few, and it is just a few, banking scandals that have been doing the traps of the meejah in only the last few years: ANZ financial planner jailed for stealing $1M, Westpac charged by ASIC over market manipulation of bank bill swap rates, ANZ announces $5M refund to disgruntled customers who lost a few coins in the gutters outside their bank branches, conditions imposed the the Millionaire's Factory [Macquarie Bank] licence to operate, ANZ breaches responsible lending laws, NAB adviser banned for forging client signatures, Commonwealth Bank settles class action for $80M, ANZ admits to fleecing customers out of $30M, Westpac fined $1M over breaking credit limit laws, CBA staff implicated in $75M Ponzi Scheme, banks collectively sack 69 very senior financial advisers over five years, two CBA executives charges with bribery, NAB foreign exchange trader jailed for insider trading, NAB settles sub-prime mortgage class action for $112M, sacked ANZ traders claim a blokey culture of top-shelf alcohol, sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll is rife throughout the industry.
That'll make juicy evidence.
And that's a short list of the highlights.
We're not even putting money laundering into the scheme of things here, but even Blind Freddy can see all that, and much more, amounts to a very distinct "pattern of offending behaviour".
Crikey, if the banks were people, they'd all be locked up down at Long Bay for very long stretches.
As a bright-eyed journo I spent days, weeks, months sitting in Royal Commission hearings, and there if there is one thing about them - if you are ever called to give evidence at a Royal Commission, be afraid, very afraid.
They have tremendous powers, and they use them.
If you refuse to answer their questions, it's straight to jail you go for contempt.
If you perjure yourself, its down to the Supreme Court you go, for trial, where you will be done like a dinner.
Apart from that, it's open slather...a Star Chamber...the rules of evidence go by the wayside - there are none - and it's guaranteed the Commission will do deals to get some tidy witnesses to "roll over" for a tummy tickle.
It is going to be the lawyer's picnic to end all lawyer's picnics, no doubt about that, with scores of QC's at 10 paces.
It's not as if the banks aren't cashed up.
The list of legal appearances before the Commission will make up a volume of the report on its own.
There will be thousands of witnesses, it will take years, and the costs will be absolutely stratospheric, and oh, it will be so much enormous fun.
If only - if only - we had taken Ben Chifley's 1947 position to nationalise the banks, we could have saved us all a helluva lot of time, trouble and money.
Bye-bye Mal, we'll keep the pension, you can look after yourself.
Allow me just one verse from the classic Ry Cooder song, No Banker Left Behind:

Well, I hear the whistle blowin', it plays a happy tune.
The conductor's calling "all aboad", we'll be leavin' soon.
With champagne and shrimp cocktails, and that's not all you'll find.
There's a billion dollar bonus and no banker left behind.
No banker, no banker, no banker could I find.
When the train pulled out next mornin', no banker was left behind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxaY_mxYflg