Tim Blair (he’s a Sydney blogger) takes a swing:

Parliament was subdued yesterday following news that nine Australians had been killed in a plane crash on their way to Kokoda. Crikey editor Jonathan Green didn’t share that mood, however:

were all govt MP’s coached on striking a suitably grief struck tone? a fine piece of ensemble work. wonderfully sustained.

As Parliamentary discussion moved on to other subjects, Green – displaying his usual sensitivity – saw another chance for mockery:

an interjection! have these people no heart! don’t they realise Aussie Pilgrims have died this day?

“Aussie Pilgrims”! Ha. Let’s laugh along with Jonathan. And then:

this remains a government in mourning. it’s as if prince albert had just dropped off the twig.

He’s all class, this bloke:

so if we get nine killed in a multi car pile up on the princes highway this evening will all government slump into collective despair?

Well, it’s only nine dead Australians. No big deal. Stand by for another apology.

No apology. I stand by the point. The over reaction to these sad deaths has been absurd and distasteful. It is not sincerely meant. It is opportunist, postured and cynical. The grief of parents and friends in these instances is a genuine visceral impulse. The contrived acts of professional faux empathy in our parliament and the wallowing mawkish meal made of it in the newspapers is offensive. A calculated gush of nothing sincere. They were decent folk who died doing something fun. And I’m sorry that they’re gone. I feel  for their poor folks. But I’m honest enough to admit — and recall my own moments of genuine misery too clearly — that I feel nothing even remotely like their pain. I know I don’t. Neither does Rudd. Or the editor of the Daily Telegraph. What a load of crap.

There’s something almost perfectly absurd about it. And yes, I’m sorry for the laboriously anthropomorphised koala in question, blah blah, but Sam, the koala burned in a deliberately lit fuel reduction operation, then confronted terror struck by one of the firefighters presumably responsible with a water bottle (and what singed koala wouldn’t pine for a quick slug of Mt Franklin from the bottle) and a phone cam who then went on to be some sort of tabloid poster bear for CFA compassion, eventually dies of a sexually transmitted uro-genital infection. Sorry, but this is all too loaded with ironic interplay not to be funny. How are we going to tell the kids that Sam had an STD?

In my dreams right now there is a CFA volunteer approaching a tearful Kyle Sandilands with a bottle of Evian …

… and here, if any were needed, is your proof.

I’m not so fond of train travel. Much prefer the bike, but there are days when peddling just won’t pan out, thus:

We all had a lovely time.

The ride’s soundtrack featured many an old favorite, conspicuously:

and fortuitously:

So there’s Michael Jackson, bald, emaciated, drug riddled and noseless. Looming are 50 dates in London with the accumulated economic impact of a small African republic. And the question must raise itself in the aging performer’s addled mind: can I pull this off.

Which seems as good a scenario as any for self-destruction.