Sunday, February 15, 2015

They're behind you, look out, the Sunday Terror's reptile pack, they're behind you ...

(Above: more wicked, destabilising Fairfax cartoonists here).

The pond was kicking back, relaxing and wildly celebrating the other day, all in one go.

Heck, the Sydney Water bill - the parsimonious mob who cheap skated Arthur Sinodinos - Arthur Sinodinos defends $200,000 salary at ICAC - had just landed, and notified the pond of a magnificent $9.93 carbon tax rebate, which it turned out was for the July 2014-June 2015 tax year.

At first the pond thought of a decent bottle of French champagne. Sure the pond's on the wagon, but this sort of munificence, this cornucopia of a tax cut, needed to be celebrated in style. That's when the pond experienced toxic champers bottle pricing shock.

But hey at least the pond slept peacefully, knowing that climate science was an international fraud and conspiracy - absolute crap according to our current, if temporary, fearless leader - and direct action was going to kick in so that taxpayers could forward money directly to wealthy companies, and so sort out the absolute crap. And luckily Australia might meet its targets if the economy kept on going down the gurgler ...

Well who wouldn't want a glass of champers to celebrate the Sir Duke way of governing?

As it is, the pond decided to spend the savings on a couple of cups of coffee, or maybe use the rebate as seed capital for the next big intertubes sensation, when the pond joins the digital economy in the next decade or so, thanks to Mal "copper is good for you" Turnbull ...

What else on the week in review?

Well it turned out that Cardinal Pell might have been a Catholic, but that didn't make him a Christian (the ABC here), as if anyone doubted the notion - easier for a poor person than the filthy rich Sistine Chapel to get through the gate ...

Then there was the fundamentalist Jewish community preferring pedophilia to dobbing (Our community's shame); and there was the matter of a child bride Islamic wedding ceremony came up for sentencing (Muslim child 'bride' was pregnant, court told), and then there was another terrorist attack, this time in Copenhagen, at a freedom of speech conference attended by a Swedish cartoonist, with an attendee ending up dead.

No wonder when god is asked her religion in the census, She always writes "Atheist". Who'd want to take the credit for the behaviour of the various creatures who claim to be in touch with Her ways?

And while we're at it, the pond would just like to mention Mattathias Schwartz's The Whole Haystack, for The New Yorker, on the subject of metadata. It can be found here, currently outside the paywall, and it deals with the matter in depth, in a way the pond can only admire and not emulate, but here's the last sentence or two as a teaser ...

The Paris attacks offered yet another opportunity to argue for the value of Section 215. Senator Bob Corker, of Tennessee, said that his priority was “insuring we don’t overly hamstring the N.S.A.’s ability to collect this kind of information.” Senator Chuck Grassley, of Iowa, said, “If it can happen in Paris, it can happen in New York again, or Washington, D.C.” The Senators focussed on attacks that Section 215 had not stopped and imagined attacks that it could theoretically stop. There was no mention of what it had actually stopped, or of Basaaly Moalin.

Coming soon to Australia, thanks to Tony Abbott and the quislings of the Labor Party.

But enough of this brooding. These days, it's always crows over the wheat fields time:


So what are the crows cawing about?

Of course this can only involve the lesser reptiles, the vulgar ones that congregate at the wretched tabloid Sunday Terror and try to peck out the eyes of any passing lamb.

And what do you know, three of the five slots featured in the fickle finger of rotating digital infamy concerned the 'no recriminations' man.

First up was Samantha Maiden:


The contents needn't delay us long here. It's just another bout of Peta Credlin bashing, and Abbott's fatal loyalty, full of musings about why Ruddock was sacked, and the state of leadership play:

Public chest beating that his cabinet is universally united behind his leadership is utterly hollow. There are 39 votes outside of the ministry for change and now there are a growing number within his executive who are openly disloyal or who have set the deadline of the May budget as “the trigger point’’. Frankly, I can count to the 52 voters required right now, when you include ministers who do not believe he will survive to the next election.
The question of whether the candidate is Malcolm Turnbull or Julie Bishop is not as entirely settled as some would believe. There is still the prospect that Bishop could come through the middle of deep concerns within Liberal ranks over his style of leadership. But while Bishop is more inclusive, it is Turnbull who most believe is the most fully formed candidate. His polling numbers are also much better.


Yes, it just won't go away, this question, and every incident - like the 'no recriminations' sacking - is a fresh excuse to drag out the entrails, and give them another inspection. And always, somewhere in the entrails, there's Peta Credlin looking like an unwanted burst appendix ...

Even Miranda the Devine was at it, though she had a clever wrinkle at the start, designed to throw the hounds off the scent:


Yes, if you start off with the Devine, you get this, which you'd swear was pointedly directed at fellow reptile Maiden:

Ironically enough, Tony Abbott’s enemies are doing him a favour. All the hyperventilating over “holocaust” and gotcha moments have become so ludicrous that the pendulum of public sympathy will surely swing back in the Prime Minister’s favour. 

So far, so fair, it would seem, as the Devine hovers through the foggy, filthy air.

But what's this? Immediately the Devine piles on, and sounds like one of Abbott's enemies:

But his axing of Philip Ruddock as chief whip on Friday is perplexing. 
What happened to no ­recriminations? 
This wasn’t the personnel change that the PM’s colleagues had been pushing. They wanted the chief of staff gone, and maybe the treasurer. 
Ruddock on the other hand, what has he done wrong? 
One of the reasons emanating from the PM’s office is that he didn’t adequately prepare the PM for the shock of Monday’s spill motion vote. 
But, as I wrote last Sunday, the PM’s office was telling MPs that the renegades advocating for a spill had about 40 votes, which was spot on, given the final vote was 39-61, with one informal vote. So no surprises there. 
The other reason given is that Ruddock failed adequately to warn the Prime Minister of the disquiet on his backbench. What a joke. 
One thing the PM cannot complain about is inadequate warning. Everyone was telling him he was in trouble. Why else the mea culpa press conference at the end of last year? 
Ministers and backbenchers told him in person, editorials appeared in newspapers, his electorate office was flooded with feedback. 
The PM may have chosen to fly blind to voter sentiment by dispensing with the polling services of Mark Textor after the 2013 election, but that was hardly Ruddock’s fault. 
That the government was on the nose with the electorate was not exactly a secret. You’d have to be drinking some ­pretty strong Canberra Kool-Aid not to know.

What's this? A reptile revealing the hidden truth about the kool-aid? Well it seems that the Murdochians now have their own brand which treats all sorts of viruses, but exposes certain bacteria to sunlight:

So neither of those excuses stacks up. We are left with an act of immense disrespect showed to a loyal Liberal Party elder, a cursory press release from the PM’s office issued at 5.40pm on Friday.

A man of 71 who has ­devoted himself to service of his nation does not deserve to be dispatched this way. Ruddock played a crucial part in the government’s most successful policy to date. He helped Scott Morrison develop the suite of measures which stopped the boats. If only Peter Costello and Joe Hockey had collaborated so well on the last budget. What makes the timing of Ruddock’s ousting even more inexplicable is that the government is again under siege from moral poseurs using the office of the Human Rights Commission to wage war against its border protection policies. 

Phew, thank the long absent lord. The Devine is on safer turf, and after a big swig of the kool aid, she's off berating Labor and its fellow pseuds, and moral poseurs - what's the harm in the odd gulag or children in prison? - and heaping praise on Ruddock and scorn on the HRC, and eek, there's a terrorist in the next door garage, roll on metadata, and yet, even after all the standard ritual abuse, came this mournful closer:

The challenge for the Abbott government is hard enough without discarding a stalwart such as Ruddock.

Et tu 'no recriminations' man?

And then there came Akker Dakker, a relentless typing machine, always on hand cawing and sighing at the worst of times:



Uh huh. Akker Dakker is spooked.

The irrational barbarians are at the gates, and the boiling oil and tar supplies are running down, along with the acidic vituperation.

The portly one might pose like a splendid military warrior, but he's got a real attack of the vapours:


Come sir, this is no time for portentous portly posing with arms crossed, we're facing a catastrophic effect on Australia's global standing, which as everyone knows is at an all-time high thanks to the shirtfronting man doing secret deals with Japan and so slotting into the deputy sheriff role for the United States in their war against China ...

It is of course all the fault of Fairfax and the ABC.

At this point, readers are asked not to chortle with glee in an unseemly way:

... the ceaseless denigration of the Coalition by the ABC and the Fairfax media is undoubtedly having an effect.

Yes, it's always best to shoot the messenger, it's the only way to distract from the sight of the stumblebum stumbling down the street.

The pond understands it was a thoughtless Fairfax sub-editor who erased Philip Ruddock when he happened across an ancient bottle of white out ... and it was an ABC hack who typed up the press release and issued it from the PMO.

How can an immortal, even a Tony Abbott, deal with this level of conspiracy?

A narrow win by the Baird government might not be enough to save Abbott, and a hung parliament or a loss would seal his fate. 

Ironically, these grim findings come at the end of week in which Abbott and his team went a long way to restoring their credibility despite the usual savaging from the Leftist ABC and Fairfax media. Abbott did manage to make peace of sorts with his divisively frisky backbenchers but then he sacked long-serving former minister Philip Ruddock from the Chief Whip role late on Friday, causing more questions to be asked about his sense of political timing and judgment.

Damn you Fairfax, damn you ABC, how dare you report Ruddock's departure.

It could only lead to questions about Abbott's sense of political timing and judgement, and that must be left to Akker Dakker, who can balance matters by praising Abbott and savaging the pseuds on the matter of the submarines and the Captain's Call and secret deals with the Japanese:

Reflecting the adolescent attitudes of their Twitter-­addicted editors and commentators, neither the ABC nor Fairfax has taken the national interest into account. 
Abbott owes it to Baird (as he does the nation) to perform at his very best. South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria are mendicant states. Queensland will soon join them, Western Australia is marginal, but NSW is performing best of all. 
The nation simply cannot afford another Labor state.

Mendicants! We'll all be rooned, said Hanrahan and Akker Dakker ...

When you get that sort of hysteria, that ripe hand wringing and keening and moaning and sackcloth and ashes, you realise the crows are doing it really tough in Murdoch wheat fields la la land ...

There's almost nothing for the pond to do. The white anting, the destabilising, the assault on Abbott from reptiles once soothed by the soma power of the kool aid is magnificent to behold ...

Time then for a cartoon which asks a trick question often asked by Twitter addicts:



17 comments:

  1. 2015 has be officially declared the National Year of Karmic Realignment....at least around my house.

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  2. A very salubrious situation arises when one's adolescent offspring demand answers to sometimes tricky questions...I wonder if the Miranda or the Janet and perhaps even the Piers get 'shirt-fronted' by Q's like..; "How come you were all over Tony like a rash a few weeks ago, and now you want him to front a star-chamber of your boss' choosing?"...or : "Who does your decision making for you..yourself or Mr. Murdoch?"...those are the sort of little bug-bears that can haunt one throughout one's working day, and searching the little grey cells for the mot-juste for a convincing ripost by 5.30 that same day can be tiring....But then, perhaps such questions never cross the minds of offspring of such loyal employees...and such searches of conscience never have to cross their own minds.

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  3. The not so divine Miranda says "the pendulum of public sympathy will surely swing back in the Prime Minister’s favour. "

    Tell her she's dreamin'.

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    1. More like a fucking sledgehammer than a pendulum, and it certainly won't be in his favour.

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  4. Poor people through gates, and more easily riding camels through the eyes of needles on Sundays? Were you there, DP? Training in postdiluvian camp drafting knowns, unknowns, and strong probabilities here.

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  5. This is explosive. The Bali 9 executions are part of Indonesia's payback to for a series of insults, blunders and embarrassments. They were handed on a plate to the Indonesian police by the AFP who were tracking them back here before they went to Bali in an effort to win back favour. But the Indonesians don't take kindly to being treated they way Australia has been treating them, so the executions will be a two fingered salute in our direction.

    https://independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/chan-and-sukumaran-executions-indonesias-bali-payback,7375


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    1. Explosive alright, Anon! And just now more "hot off the press" in the, would you believe, Illawarra Mercury rag:

      Bali nine death sentence judges 'asked for bribes' for a lighter sentence: new claim

      ...In an extraordinary statement after visiting the men inside Kerobokan prison, Mr Rifan said he was prepared to "take the heat" and provide the "never revealed evidence" to Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran's current lawyer, Todung Mulya Lubis.

      "It's something that implicates us, it could discredit me. But for them I will take it. I told Myuran it's okay," Mr Rifan said cryptically. "It's one last thing I can do for them."

      Following his dramatic, if imprecise, comments, Mr Rifan left Indonesia to travel to Mecca for a religious pilgrimage...


      Mecca? Holy shit! now he's a goner and knows it...

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    2. https://www.google.com.au/#q=bali+nine+news&tbm=nws

      http://www.bing.com/news/search?q=bali+nine&FORM=HDRSC6

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    3. Bali Nine death penalty judges allegedly asked for bribes: lawyer


      LAWYERS for the two Bali Nine on death row have alleged, in sensational new claims, that the six judges who gave them the death penalty offered a lighter sentence in exchange for a bribe.

      The allegation is contained in a letter which lawyers for Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran have sent to Indonesia’s Judicial Commission, calling for an investigation.

      Mr Rifan said at the time that the two Sydney men were to get a life sentence for their crime but there had been “intervention” and instead they were given a death penalty.

      “Muhammad Rifan said that the judges were pressured from certain parties to give the death sentence, and the `judges had also conveyed to Muhammad Rifan that they were willing to give a lighter sentence than death sentence to his client if they were given some money,” the letter from the men’s lawyers says.

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  6. Looks like Scott Morrison is making his move.
    He is talking about a softer, kinder approach to families and welfare (not extended to boat people of course).
    In the photo accompanying Judith Ireland's SMH article he looks tres relaxed and is beaming, looking unnervingly like one of those animation dogs with human teeth.
    What is all that about?
    I fink I know.
    Miss pp

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  7. Funny twitter account that has been baiting Kenny the dog man for the last few days. And he's being biting!

    twitter.com/antibolt

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  8. A wonderful cornucopia of stupid for brunch on Sunday, DP.

    What's that about "voter sentiment" in relation to Textor? I sure wasn't consulted! One look at that greasy slime ball would be enough to turn anyone off their brunch.

    Good to see the Devine maintaining the "Abbott's enemies" line. It is a war, after all. A shame they didn't identify the enemy before they took up arms though. And Ruddock, Howard's prime hardliner, has been replaced by….. another hardliner. Now I suppose Morrison, who has the 'Abbott's prime hardliner' mantel, will be made to look like the Libs' soft underbelly. It's all relative, after all. The funny thing is that you'd anticipate that mantel now falling to Dutton. Hilarious, I tells ya!

    And it's nice to see Akker in tune with "teh harmonics." He thinks that Baird can save Abbott? As Anon says, tell him he's dreamin'! "neither the ABC nor Fairfax has taken the national interest into account. " Perhaps he should have thought about that meme when he was scribbling all that destabilisation talk during the Gillard years. I don't think Abbott owes Baird anything.

    Something that occurs to me is that, with all this wild swinging from election to election, how is any electorate on a margin of less than (oh let's say?) 16% going to get effective representation at either the state or federal level?

    Oh right, the "national interest."

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  9. The great thing about The Pond is that I can read all the right wing nut jobbery without having to actually read all the right wing nut jobbery.

    And what's with like a true Aussie.that pic of Akker Dakker standing there with his arms folded over his gut?
    Maybe he should change his name to Ocker Docker.

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  10. At least Fairfax have given Triggs a fair go at responding to the ravings of the loons. She is far too polite.

    "Both sides of politics are responsible for their treatment of children in immigration detention since 1992. The focus should remain on the substance of the report. Please do not shoot the messenger. The commission is doing its job."

    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/dont-shoot-the-messenger-says-human-rights-commission-president-gillian-triggs-20150215-13evmp.html

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  11. Some home truths about Akerman written in 1991 which may have been forgotten.

    "Five former employees, three of whom agreed to be named, said they witnessed Mr Akerman sexually harass female members of his staff, namely Corinna Hente, Gabrielle Derrick and Catherine Lambert. Two days after the first birthday party for `The Sunday Herald', held at the Botanical Hotel in South Yarra, a group of women staff met and agreed to protect each other in the office.

    ``We all knew about the Corinna (Hente) episode," said former advertising manager Jane Chisholm. ``We just decided we've got to watch out for him because he was such a creep." Damien Murphy recalled: ``He invades your space. He looks people up and down of any sex and it's a sort of flagrant thing. Guys just don't understand about harassment, they can't relate to it, and if Piers was in full throttle we wouldn't know what to do, partly because we'd be too terrified for our jobs." Added Jo Wiles, currently a drivetime commentator for 3AW: ``One reacts to him (Mr Akerman) on lots of different levels. At first I couldn't understand his appalling reputation. He seemed urbane, articulate, a good newspaperman, and I liked his speed. He was quite dynamic and vigorous, quick at summing up and sort of a man of action.

    ``But I couldn't believe the way he treated women. And it was always the women who were subordinate to him _ sub-editors, cadets. I saw him kiss one woman to the end of her fingertips. She just didn't know how to react. In a social situation once I saw him place his arm under the arm of a sub-editor and on to her breast. "

    http://newsstore.smh.com.au/apps/viewDocument.ac?page=1&sy=smh&kw=akerman&pb=sag&dt=selectRange&dr=entire&so=relevance&sf=text&sf=headline&rc=10&rm=200&sp=nrm&clsPage=1&docID=news911208_0203_8643

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    1. There's a lot more in that article worth reading, including his bullying, abuse, frequent threats to sue and physical violence. One employee said of Akerman "He must be doing something right because Rupert likes him." Says it all really.

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