The Concatenate

I’ve known for many years that Joe Hockey might do a nice line of matey bulldust, but he totally lacks the mental armament to play in the big leagues.

I wondered how that was going to play out and the last 24 hours have not disappointed me.

Last night on Lateline we thrilled to the sight of Joe Hockey announcing that despite being shadow treasurer he’s not an economist and doesn’t have answers to actual questions.

Today it got better with Hockey’s announcement that even if we don’t actually go into recession it will “feel like a recession to a lot of people”.

Here’s a news flash for Joe. Even in the best of times a lot of people will be down on their luck. A lot of people will have undergone misfortune, and a lot of ill advised businesses will head for the exit with their investors money.

When the ideas are beyond you and the facts are inscrutable to you all you can go by is feelings.

But Shadow Treasurer is not a job you can succeed in when the smart kids snigger everytime you get up to the blackboard.

The SMH informs us that the maverick Senator Nick Xenophon is lining up with us freedom loving common folk (or perverts if you listen to Stephen Conroy) and will vote against any bill or regulation trying to bring the bastard into being.

Well done that Senator.

Welcome to another QT fashion wrap. Today is brought to you by the colour teal and an unknown but probably charitable cause.

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There’s an interesting post on the official Google blog from Jonathan Rosenberg, SVP, Product Management at that company.

As an early adopter of a lot of their products I certainly appreciate where they’re going and what they’re doing.

On the other hand I’m not so sure he’s going to be able to engineer serendipity. I think that, like total risk mitigation, he might be up against the fabric of existence with that one.

Now here’s something I’ve never seen in a decade looking at these things.

Anthony Albanese’s ministerial website contains a prominent link directing traffic to the Labor Party’s website.

Aside from the traffic a high authority site like a Government department is going to do wonders for boosting the prominence of Labor party web pages in Google searches.

There really should be a law against it and I suspect there already is.

Welcome to another Question Time fashion wrap, again in Reps since the senators are all busy with Estimates this week.

It was a rowdy QT today, with several MPs on both sides kicked out, but fashionwise there wasn’t a whole lot exciting going on (but keep an eye out for Kerry Rea…)

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So the value of the banking sector, less public subsidy, is now effectively negative.

In order to prop of the banks all the world’s government are trying to borrow money like topsy.

On top of that those governments want to engage in stimulus spending not least because any excuse to spend a future, potentially hostile, parliament’s money is much enjoyed by all leaders in the here and now.

Now, applying the sort of much ignored simple thinking which easily predicted the current mess… What’s the next mess?

Breitbart are reporting that Hillary Clinton is already begging the Chinese to keep buying US Treasury bonds.

Effectively that means she’s asking them to loan the US the money to bail out US banks and stimulate the US economy.

The US with its hideous long term government deficits has at least been pumping out bonds for yonks now. They’re seen as being as safe as, oooh let’s say mortgage backed securities were a couple of years ago.

But with the rest of the world trying to indulge in these same stimulus plans simultaneously one really wonders who is going to buy this vast new bond issue?

It’s not as if the banks are in any state to snap them up.

Brace yourselves.

There’s been quite a bit of chatter surrounding Christopher Pyne (to be forever known as a poodle thanks to Julia Gillard’s work yesterday) getting the gig as the manager of opposition business.

Many had thought Tony Abbott would get the gig.

If you’re wondering, the real significance of this position is traditionally its holder briefs the media after the weekly party room meeting.

Those who have previously used the position to rise to party leadership include Mark Latham, Julia Gillard, and Wayne Swan.

On the other hand you have to be likeable to be able to use the one hour a week briefing to impress anyone.

Welcome back to the Question Time fashion wrap.

We are back in the House of Reps today, although it’s a fairly short one since Fran Bailey took up half the time with a condolence speech.

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The Australian edition of the Spectator has hit the news stands and amidst the right-leaning intellectualism is a gem beyond price.

They’ve got Patrick Cook writing for them. For years The Bulletin survived almost completely on the back of his column on the final page.

His opening offering is a scattergun affair, but he manages to hit a lot of targets in just one blast.

Finishing with this, typically brilliant skewering of Kevin Rudd’s stimulus plans:

“Everyone has been promised a paddle, but only after they reach land, and they will be paying off the paperwork alone for decades.

Bob Cringely, the world’s best IT writer, brings the news that Apple’s talismanic leader Steve Jobs is not only off on a health cure, but has, uncharacteristically been offline from his instant messaging.

All lovers of sound technology will hope that it’s just part of a rest cure and not anything more serious.

In the New York Times Thomas Friedman has a bittersweet piece.

It seems Indian authorities in Mumbai have one last piece of trouble left over from the Mumbai massacres.

No Muslim cemeteries in the city will have the bastards. Nine bodies are sitting there in the morgue unloved and unmourned.

Gus Van Sant’s “Milk” is a seriously good film, but it’s not going to be for everyone.

The depiction of homosexuality is not the watered down version we’ve become comfortable with on TV. Milk’s writhing, kissing, mustachioed gay men are a far cry from the witty well dressed slightly flamboyant but eternally chaste men we’ve seen on The West Wing or Will and Grace.

So in depicting the life and death of the first openly gay man to be elected to senior office in the USA it is at least honest with both its audience and subjects.

The movie begins with its ending and then chops backwards and forwards, only really at its best during long chunks of narrative continuity from the mid-point on.

Like all biopics it tends to overplay the significance of the subject, in this case Harvey Milk.

While showing Harvey Milk as the great leader in the struggle against “Proposition 6″ which would have forced the State of California to dismiss all it’s homosexual employees. The movie does graciously note that such bohemian fringe characters as Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter also campaigned against the proposition, but only as a footnote.

But quibbling aside Milk is a movie full of powerful performances, touching moments, and re-affirms the founding principles of the USA to be ones of freedom and equality, no matter how many hateful bigots strut its stages from time to time.

Four stars.

The ashes are cooling and Germaine Greer is making a surprising amount of sense.

With some trepidation I’d like to suggest some thoughts to come out of the tragedy so sever the parliament has abandoned scrutiny and devoted itself to a task best served by an online guestbook:

1. We need to look again at the reliance on volunteer rural firefighting. Should we have larger professional services equipped with more powerful equipment than shovels, wet sacks, and water pistols? Bear in mind it’s a way of life to the existing services. They’re culturally resistant to change.

2. Related to point one, expensive fixed wing water bombing assets need to at least be looked at again. And not just one in each state, but a large fleet held by the Commonwealth. These crises rarely break in more than one area at the same time.

3. One thing in common with all the pictures of the devastation is the forest basically interlaced with houses. Whoever thought this was a good idea?

4. Serious fulltime backburning. There should never be an area that hasn’t been burned in the last five years and we need to get used to the smoke.

Over to you readers.