And so this is Christmas and what have our politicians done? More importantly, have they been naughty or nice?
It’s probably more of a northern hemisphere cultural contrivance that those who have been naughty are destined to receive only a lump of coal for their dastardly deeds in the preceding 364 days.
Down in the southern hemisphere a lump of coal is the only thing Scott Morrison wants for Christmas. In fact, he wants more than one and what Santa can’t provide, he’s hoping Adani can. The downside is it might cost the rest of us a billion dollars and counting. Scott needs some coal for props in the parliament and others to use as paperweights in his office. He will continue to do so until the black lung kicks in.
Santas take many forms. Even in Australia, Santas vary from outrageously jolly with luxurious thick beards to those wearing crappy polyester bristles with the elastic showing, a cushion wedged up their guts and smelling vaguely of alcohol.
In Japan, where just 1 per cent of the population is Christian, they love santa-san and they think he flies down from the moon every year to hand out gifts, which probably makes more sense than the North Pole.
A solid argument could be made that our federal MPs already have their own type of Santa who flies down on his sled from Beijing. This Santa comes in the form of generous businessmen bearing party donations. The really good thing is he comes more than once a year. In fact, pretty much whenever he likes.
My favourite of all Santas is the Amish type, Belsnickel. Belsnickel is a bad-tempered version of Santa. Dressed in rags, he turns up at your home uninvited, bangs on the front door and demands to know if children have been “impish or admirable”. Like George Christensen he carries a whip but unlike George Christensen, he is not afraid to use it.
I’ve always thought our Santa was too soft. Sure he can terrify very small kids by his sheer size and through the shocking ghastliness of his lurid outfit, but the rest of us can sidle up, leap into his lap and make demands without fear of rejection. Our Santa has to listen. Belsnickel, who looks like and really is a kind of an angry, old homeless guy, does all the talking.
So Belsnickel it is for our federal parliamentarians and have they been impish or admirable?
I’ve been checking the list and I’ve been checking it more than once.
For reasons of space, not every MP getting a gift is listed here because let’s face it, most of them aren’t that interesting.
Sam Dastyari: A job.
Tony Abbott: A job and some dignity.
Malcolm Turnbull: What do you give the amorphous blob that has everything? An endoskeleton, of course.
Bill Shorten: He’s not sure but he’s put in a call to the CFMEU to see what they’d want him to have.
Julie Bishop: She does not want Malcolm’s job. He’s performing well under great difficulty. No, she is quite satisfied with being deputy and foreign minister. Really. Wait. How many Newspolls was that again?
Bob Katter: How can we celebrate Christmas when every three months a person is torn to pieces by a crocodile in north Queensland?
Pauline Hanson: Just a card, thanks. In fact, lots of cards. Maybe give James Ashby’s printing business a bell?
Kevin Andrews: I hate to be critical of a person’s appearance but let’s be honest about Kevin. The man looks like Fine Cotton on race day. For Christmas he needs a professional colouring job on that bonce of his. Maybe some blonde tips. Maybe the full Milo.
Adam Bandt: A vegan turkey with all the organic trimmings washed down with lashings of decocoanated cocoa.
George Christensen: Malcolm Turnbull’s head on a stake or he’ll resign. He means it this time. He’s not kidding around anymore.
David Feeney: A real estate portfolio, a map and a passport.
Barnaby Joyce: The Deputy PM’s list didn’t pass the High Court. The good news is he makes a perfect Christmas decoration. Just stand him right next to the tree. No batteries required.
Eric Abetz: A 1962 desk calendar for the Tasmanian senator’s desk. It won’t actually be 1962 but he can close his eyes and pretend. Ah, the good old days.
Cory Bernardi: Nothing. The Liberal Party is his gift and it keeps on giving.
Belsnickel is coming, folks, and unlike Santa, he does not mess around.
This article was published in The Australian 15 December 2017
Jean Baptiste – re the earlier conversation about Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart: I don’t think peyote made much of an appearance. Frank was avowedly anti-drugs (he confessed that he smoked weed about ten times and didn’t like it very much). Don was certainly a pretty dedicated acid-eater in his early music years, although he denied it. I think he was sensitive to the idea that people would assume his talents were drug-induced while Frank’s were “natural”. They had a very competitive brotherly relationship that fortunately didn’t stop them reconnecting when Frank was dying.
That’s true, but he did some experimenting , and it only takes one peyote bean! Or so I’ve been told.
I mean really, this aint from this planet, there’s your divine right there!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGQxI0G6mKk
If you believe Frank didn’t take drugs nor his band members I have a rather large over-harbour metal structure to sell, going cheap.
don’t u eat that yellow snow
Guess what I’m trying to say, it’s a popular myth.
Wissendorf Dec 19 4.21pm
In formulating my response, the first thing I’ll say is wow, you impress me with your strategy & work ethic mate, you’re a good man.
Turnbull clearly decided to aid & abet the Japanese goverment in their illegal slaughter of whales in the SO so he is complicit by acting in league with these criminals by staying silent & has never enforced the million dollar fine that was imposed two years ago for their defiance of the Hague ruling which Labor achieved for Australia.
We need a courageous & ethically motivated government to stand up to the government of Japan, who spend an obscene amount of money to commit these crimes, but currently we’ve got anything but.
I’d go on all night re plastics pollution but Paul Watson says it all.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10392903
Have a wonderful Christmas mate. You have surprised me in a good way. 🎄
What did Labor do with The Hague solution?
Labor at least took them to the ICJ and won the case.
The Fiberals tried to stop Sea Shepherd’s 2008 grisly whaling footage from being released because they answer to Japan & didn’t want to damage relations. Cowards.
Sorry forgot http://www.themercury.com.au/news/tasmania/sea-shepherd-releases-2008-footage-of-japanese-whalers-at-work-in-southern-ocean/news-story/d25d7396636d5b5964418f9772afe2a3
Thank you Bella. Nothing heroic about it. The first time I saw a whale slaughtered, I was appalled. It was in an ABC doco in the very early 1960’s and the one-legged hapooner was named Mick Stubbs and was an Aussie working out of Albany WA.
I grew up on a sheep run in the western Darling Downs, and never saw the ocean until I moved to Sydney to do my apprenticeship. I fell in love with it and all things in it. (The ocean that is, not Sydney). I had no idea there was so much water in the world! Worse for me was knowing my seminal ancestor, a Swede, was a whaler back in the 1850’s working off a Norse boat. He saw the error of his ways and jumped ship in Melbourne and rushed to Bendigo, then Ophir in NSW. He did well digging gold, then the fool bought land and began farming sheep. Every family has its clown.
When the Japanese excesses in the SO were revealed I could not think of any other course of direct action I could take against their barbarity. My reasoning was if everyone stopped buying Japanese they would get the message. They didn’t and haven’t but I made my stand. A sign at the workshop door politely but firmly suggested to clients with Japanese cars they should look for alternative mechanics and directed them to a nearby garage that could assist them. A slightly personal choice also, as I found Japanese cars required fingers like chopsticks to work in the very cramped engine bays, and my fingers are like salamis. If I was asked I would explain my position. I know at least two potential clients who made alternative purchases next time they bought a car. A small but happy win.
My stand on plastics came about from encountering a dead turtle on a beach that had choked on a plastic bag. I have found 19 more since then, and many dead dolphins also, that had needlessly died from ingesting plastic bags and longline baits. The Japanese invented longlining. Plastic bags resemble jellyfish in the water, a dietary staple for turtles. I have a bin in my fishing truck that I fill with plastic whenever I’m out fishing. It is a depressingly easy task to fill that bin.
I may have lost a few bucks doing as I did but what the hell, I’ve just retired and I’m pretty comfortable.
Recent news about those rivers. https://www.voanews.com/a/ninety-percent-of-ocean-plastic-pollution-carried-by-10-rivers-/4134909.html
Sorry a bit long Jack.
You may not think you’re heroic but more & more under-the-radar activists like your good self are doing their own thing to bring awareness to Japan’s disgusting cruelty.
Believe me when I say you are appreciated Wiss. 💚
JB?
Be quiet.
Wiss, I admire your stand against plastic. I too try to do my bit and don’t use plastic bags, plastic water bottles, straws etc. Here in Malaysia you have to pay extra for using a plastic bag in the supermarket, a practice which has been in for a long time. But I find the plastic wrapping on things like scissors (you need scissors to cut them out of the wrapping) fruit, sandwiches, you name it, it has those terrible plastic box type things wrapped around them. Still I find it far worse in Australia where you still see people in Woolies and Coles demanding the plastic supermarket bags
Hi Jack,
Given your association with the Australian I am very pissed off the following headline:
Backlash over WA govt plans to shut school
Usually headlines are puffery, or click bait, however this one appears to understate what the headline refers to – it is the potential closure of the School of the Air, which has educated kids in remote areas for many years, but whom are generally in conservative areas.
Who is responsible for headlines? Not many people would click on this as it is, but if it said “Closure of School of the Air”as is the truth I would expect more interest.
This seems to be a very “nuanced” and targeted headline.
Please, an answer would be good.
I don’t know anything about the story. Subs write the heads always. Reporters make suggestions. That’s all I can say.
Labor are about inner city elites Trab. They couldn’t give a rats about people in regional Australia.
Really? the original NBN plan would have been the best thing ever to happen to regional Australia. It would have allowed for many more productive investment opportunities. Oh by the way 95% of h
the people in this country live in Cities. Man you are blind.
Oh I get it, the 5%dont count.
So providing access to services the same as the rest of the country has is not helping the regions? Man you are the typical hard done by, always persecuted cons. Wake up. Your lot never work in the national interest only their own and their benefactors interest. It is very simple, one side of politics helps themselves (that would be your lot) the other side try to help more people get more opportunities.
Just listened to an interview on RN Life Matters with the leader of Backtrack Youthwork in Armidale, NSW.
Sounds like they are doing fantastic work with troubled youths.
I listen to RN every morning on the way to work Bella. I enjoy it. Tried it in the arvo and generally there is a pompous buffoon talking. His voice and presumptuous attitude kills me.
That’s probably Phillip Adams Razor. Irritating, but sometimes has interesting interviewees – who probably find his style irritating too!
random copy pasta ….too much hydro smoke its killing ya….
funny you mention that….its coming.. should
SA levy this?
“What happened next has stunned electricity industry insiders and given food for thought over the near to medium term future of the grid, such was the rapid response of the Tesla big battery to an event that happened nearly 1,000km away.
Even before the Loy Yang A unit had finished tripping, the 100MW/129MWh had responded, injecting 7.3MW into the network to help arrest a slump in frequency that had fallen below 49.80Hertz.”
Will it ever end Mr Insider, how could one be so foolish given Shappelle Corby’s high profile case. Indonesian police have arrested an Australian man on the island of Bali for drugs offences after officers found him carrying methamphetamine and ecstasy. Some must be sick of living.
https://tinyurl.com/ycgmfygl
Meth addiction, HB. Not pretty
They have a train wreck and Donald comes out politically swinging. Then he has a think, or gets told, and comes out to respect the dead.
Merry Christmas America.
It was using two hands to drink a glass of water the other day that made me take note.
Have to wonder what the true state of his health is.
Such tiny hands he has too!
You know what they say about that Wraith! Might have to ask Melania to confirm 🤓
Merry Xmas old mate hope you and yours have a great day and a fantastic 2018. Remember to keep punching away old mate!
therefore……
Wee wee wee too.
BOW/BELLA…yep Frank was a genius but have a look at this kid and he is only 19 and already won 3 grammies!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgturagD0hA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mudDt2v41c
Off to Macedon tomorrow for the family Christmas getogether.
Has anyone watched ABC’s A Moody Christmas series? – very funny. Catch it on iView
Best wishes to all for the festive season and here’s to a happy and healthy 2018 🎄
Have a great Christmas, Boa.
Hope you have a fantastic Xmas Boa!
Thanks Razor – you too! 🎄💥
Merry Christmas Boa and a happy new year.
And to you Tracy.! 😃
Jean Baptiste says:
December 18, 2017 at 9:13 pm
Are you sure you weren’t a scrip writer for “Yes Minister” 🙂
Maybe Sir Humphrey re-incarnated?
Well you see it is difficult to give a precise answer to the question, one can never be sure if one’s memory is or isn’t failing.
At this precise moment I feel certain I was not but the situation may change as further information comes to hand.
Give ’em heaps.
Heaps of what? or can’t you remember🤔
Manure for mushrooms! No really, rational real world reality.