In which the pond struggles to avoid the inevitable, but inevitability stumbles across Dame Slap ...

 

 

A couple of house-keeping matters before getting on with reptiles 101 for the day.

First the pond would like to draw attention again to a most excellent link provided by Anon on the matter of the Ghost Train saga here  … as fine example of lizard Oz herpetological studies as the pond has seen …

Yes, the tweeter has an axe to grind, but who doesn't carry a spare axe when approaching reptiles?

Secondly the pond would to note the most excellent doxxing of the former furniture salesman and just in case Bernard Keane's splendid effort should modestly hide behind the Crikey paywall, here it is in full …

 

In the usual way of things, the pond would be appalled by doxxing, but was so peeved by being spammed and not having any recourse, that the pond suddenly snapped and joined in the doxxing …

Thirdly, in the spirit of the said doxxing, the pond would like to pay tribute to Alex Ellinghausen, because this photo is attributed to him on Reddit here …

 

 

 

 

What a treasure this national treasure snapper is …always finding rich comedy in moments of deepest personal regret and sadness...

Fourthly, as "how to fuck the gold standard" Gladys goes into her "we'll all be home by Xmas" routine, the pond must ask something for a friend. 

The pond was assured by the friend that the interval for doses of AZ have been cut from 12 to 6 weeks or even to 4 weeks, or so her doctor told her.

Meanwhile …

A study published in The Lancet found vaccine efficacy reached 81.3% after a second dose in those with a dosing interval of 12 weeks or more, and dropped to 55.1% among those given two doses less than six weeks apart.

That's a drop off of almost 30% in efficacy simply so SloMo can boost the numbers and Gladys can invite everyone home for Xmas.

The Poms settled on eight weeks as a compromise interval, but such is the completely fucked nature of the roll-out here, we're down to 6 or 4 weeks, just to keep the numbers up and hopefully keep people out of hospital, but not necessarily out of harm's way.

Any idea when booster shots might become available to help out with such a wretched diminution of efficacy? asked the friend of the doctor. 

Ah, said the doctor, the guidelines keep changing all the time … we don't know. They'll tell us sometime, no doubt …

Does anyone have the first clue how we might get out of here in some semblance of order?  Just asking for that friend.

"Relax, " said the night man,
"We are programmed to receive.
You can check-out any time you like,
But you can never leave! "

Finally, a cheerful note ... that ABC story that so agitated the reptiles has made it to leftist circles in the United States, as here.  No wonder the world empire is irritated by the attention.

And so to the reptile studies for the day, and it will immediately become clear why the pond embarked on that elaborate detour.

Look at the top of the digital page ...

 

 

Cry freedumb yet again over state borders, and shed crocodile tears over Afghans being at the mercy of Islamists. 

Tell that to the bleach-recommending, hdyroxy loving orange one who did the deal, and the Fox News pundits who celebrated his work ... and look, over on the far right, there's the bouffant one pumping up the SloMo volume yet again. 

Such a faithful and servile servant ... no joy for the pond there, because "something touched me deep inside the day the music died" once again ...

And now look at the commentary below the fold ...what wretched, slim pickings ...

 

 

 

 

They don't even bother to hide it any more. 

There's the pastie creationist sourced Hastie blathering on about ANZUS, and right below is the little Sir Echo lizard Oz editorialist joining in the celebration, while Jennings the butler is in a state of servile panic, and wants even more strident kowtowing, even as we see Afghanistan left in the lurch, and know that isolationism runs deep in the United States ...

No joy for the pond there, but also no joy for the pond elsewhere, and hence the elaborate filibuster, the song and dance - oh let there be music and dancing before the inevitable happens, and the pond bumps into the Murdochian equivalent of the Taliban ... 

The pond is so tired of the reptiles' war with the ABC, so sick of it, so bored by it, and yet, here we are, with yet another serve of Talibanish rage ... because banning is what the Taliban and Dame Slap would love to do ...

 

 

 

 

 

Eek, an ABC lesbian ... and even worse, she's smiling, which in reptile la la land, can only mean gloating ...

 

Now that might strike some as a deeply weird response, but trust the pond, this day Dame Slap reveals herself to be deeply weird.

 

Her scribbling should be taken as some kind of Rorschach test, or alternatively the work of a spider who strolled through an inkwell in an attempt to help Molesworth complete an assignment (alas and alack, references completely lost on vulgar youff) ...

 

Let the deep weirdness begin ...

 

 

 

You see? All that talk of the art of seduction, and manning up, (as you might expect from the chairman of the IPA), and so on and so forth ...

How deeply weird and Freudian is all of that? The pond suspects, in the usual way, that this reveals a lot more about the culture at the IPA and the lizard Oz, and Dame Slap's approach to life, than it does about the ABC.

It's so deeply neurotic and weird that the pond felt compelled ... because who else would think that Jonathan Shier was anything but a complete disaster and a total train wreck, such that even John Howard's little mate thought he needed to be moved on ...

 

 

 

Of course at this point the Freudian in the pond must ask Dame Slap, "what exactly made you don your MAGA hat and slip out into the New York night to celebrate the ascension of the Donald?"

Was it because at last there'd be a manly man in the White House, of a kind not seen since JFK generously offered his cock to all sorts of women? Did you fantasize about being a porn star and sharing a wild night in his bed?

Sorry, the pond knows that's all deeply weird, but as soon as Dame Slap begins to talk of manly men and strict discipline, the worst tendencies of the pond come out ... lucky there's only a gobbet to go, or a detailed study of the meaning of von Sacher-Masoch and de Sade for Dame Slap might have filled the pond as full as a Jungian goog...

 

 

 

You know, for all the pond rails at the ABC, it values being able to wake up to news radio (admittedly to hear the BBC), and to know that for just a moment, it will have a safe haven away from the reptiles. And if the pond needs the news during the day, it's always there, unless those bloody politicians get in the way ... but thanks to SloMo, the notion of a functioning democracy has slid into the ether ...

The hatred of the reptiles for a government service and the ABC knows no bounds, and so even though the pond makes little use of the ABC, it's glad to know it's there. Anything as an alternative to the reptiles, and growing up in Tamworth, the ABC provided a connection to sanity and a wider world ... (yes, the pond even heard on repeat Douglas Stewart's The Fire on the Snow, now there's a lost world, including memories of the leftist Peter Finch who joined the army instead of playing Scott, and later was as mad as hell, and celebrated for such by ABC comedy, and so it goes ...)

Never mind, it's all just another serve of the usual IPA stuff - they've been campaigning for the abolition of the ABC for yonks - and all that might be expected of a MAGA-hat donning IPA chairman who wants the Murdochians to have a monopoly on the news, because what other business model would work? Only a Taliban model for the reptiles will do, so that they might become the Pravda down under, as they became for the orange one in the States ...

And so to the Little Sir Echo known as the lizard Oz editorialist.

Luckily there are just two gobbets before the pond rewards itself with a treat ...

 

 

 

 

Is it just the pond, or did the pond detect a lack of heart in that effort by the lizard Oz editorialist? It must be tough being a quisling, learning the lines by rote, scribbling the lines out for the world to see, knowing that the in-house thought police and the Chairman are omnipresent and ever alert for even the slightest deviation, the slightest hint that there might be a straying outside the hive mind ...

But the pond can't afford sympathy. There in plain sight the lizard Oz editorialist boasts of the chief crime Fox News stands accused of ... the abandoning of any notion of journalism, accuracy or truth in the pursuit of commercial success, and profitability. And the lizard Oz editorialist too deplorably dumb to realise the implications of what was scribbled by that mad spider running through the Molesworth inkwell ...

Whatever it takes ... or as they say in the land of freedumb, always be closing, because there's always a mug punter somewhere ready to buy whatever form of crap you're selling ...

It's so deeply Freudian and revealing that the pond knew it would be glad to be rid of the analyst's chair for the day with this final gobbet ...

 

So from the quest for profitability at any cost comes rich farce ... and that talk of the ghost train completed the circle, back to the link at the top of the page ... and this parade of reptile ghosts from long ago ... (well 2017, but in the pond's mind that might as well be Queen Victoria) ...

 

 

 

 

 

Okay, it's more just the notion of knowing it was there, because the text isn't readable, but a few piquant moments were picked out for delectation ...

 

What a waste ... with a lizard Oz editorialist so locked into the hive mind that the rich irony was completely lost ...

And with done and dusted, and more for anyone interested at the Twitter thread, the pond could at last turn to the infallible Pope for its treat for the day ... 

Curiously the pond ended up somewhere back near gold standard Gladys's chirping about Xmas ... talk about the magic circle of life ...