In which there's a serve of Polonial prattle, "Ned's" natter, and too much bromancer for any bear to lay bare ...

 

The pond started yesterday by noting the sorrow slide by the reptiles into terminal irrelevance, and if anything, the slippery slope to nowheresville seems even more noticeable in what used to be a Sunday meditation, but now feels like an extended siesta.

The pond would like to be featuring commentary about the great Musk Twitter meltdown. 

For years, the reptiles ranted and railed about the evils and wickedness of social media, but given the chance they've dropped the ball, and so the pond must turn to any of dozens of reports, including but not limited to the Graudian's live blog ...

Little England's politics also remains a matter of sublime interest, but here interested readers are better off heading over to Marina Hyde's saucy takedown of Suella Braverman aboard a Chinook ...

Then there's the war started by the sociopathic Vlad theTerrible, but you'd be better off at the Graudian's live blog, with handy links as Kherson comes into focus ...

Then there's the robodebt saga where the reptiles have gone to ground - Graudian ‘A shameful chapter’: how Australia’s robodebt saga was allowed to unfold; The Conversation - The Robodebt scheme failed tests of lawfulness, impartiality, integrity and trust; The Saturday Paper - Robo-debt: Liberals knew it was illegal before it started (paywall)

And then there's American democracy, which looks likely to crumble in the next few days ... The New Yorker, American Democracy Was Never Designed to Be Democratic; the NY Times, A Crisis Coming’: The Twin Threats to American Democracy ... (paywalls)

And so on and so on. Almost anything interesting in the world can be read about outside the lizard Oz ...

It makes it all the more startling then to see that pompous pedant Polonius, whining, whingeing and moaning about how one of his pet peeves is being ignored ... by the ABC ... as if he should care a whit or a jot about the ABC, as close to Satanism as it gets in Polonius's weird theology ...

The pond can understand the shameless plugging of the Sydney Institute. No one else does it, so naturally Polonius has to stick up for his creation ...

But there's nothing new in the 'back to basics' routine, which has been a staple for the conservative commentariat since what feels like the days of Queen Victoria ...

Was the old jade, the tired roué, now so out of interesting topics that this was the best he could do for a weekend foray? Must we hear for the zillionth time about "cancel culture"? 

Together with a confused Polonial definition of what it means, since denouncers in the US who firmly believe in cancel culture are busy at this very minute getting books banned ... though the pond was shocked at the titles Colbert revealed that had infiltrated US school libraries ...

 

Shocking, but back to Polonius and being cancelled and not having a clue about "modern phrases" with a wealth of alternative meanings... (Insider here) ...

All this ancient history, and yet the pond could sort out the education system with a cartoon ...

And so to the last gobbet ... and here the pond was a little confused by the thrust of Polonius's arguments. Was it a good thing that eduction produced a Kenyan revolutionary socialist with a fake birth certificate, or a notorious terrorist determined to end the uplifting system of apartheid, or even worse, a dangerous revolutionary? Or was traditional education a wonderful source for great talents of the David Cameron, Bojo and Moggie kind?

Recite? Like mindless force-fed chooks?

Recite Invictus like ancient fossilised chooks?

That was old school even way back when, when Tamworth High was old school ...

Out of the night that covers me,
      Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
      For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
      I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
      My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
      Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
      Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
      How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
      I am the captain of my soul.

What a bunch of claptrap, horseshit, balderdash, gibberish, gobbledygook and hogwash right from the Victorian era ... and don't get the pond started on Kipling ...

As usual, it was all the fault of the ABC that we couldn't send kids back to Queen Vic's days.

Meanwhile, there are many vulgar youffs that might think nattering "Ned" unspeakably tedious, and not worth reading or reciting... and yet Polonius would have teachers stand in a classroom and attempt to explain this was wrong...

Examine the evidence if you dare to take the Everest climb ...

The pond only offers the "Ned" Everest challenge because some are silly enough or perverse enough or masochistic enough to accept the challenge.

As previously noted, the pond would rather be elsewhere ... what with American democracy in an interesting situation ...

But "Ned" is what the reptiles offered, and pompous natter it must be...

There are many more interesting sights in the world than "Ned" trying to cope with a Labor government ... and inevitably offering up an "Imminent reality check" in inimitable "Ned" style, because what's the point of a pompous blowhard if you can't blow?

But once you set "Ned" rolling or pissing into the wind, there's no end to it ...

Yes, but think of the fun that a little chaos can produce ...

Yet still "Ned" blathers on ...

It's hard to find a cartoon suitable for the tragedy of Ukraine, but the dead parrot keeps on giving ...

Ah, the old litter box caper and those bloody furries ... where's Don Bolduc when you need him? New Hampshire: Republican contender rebuked by school for litter-tray claim.

You have to make your own entertainment when attempting "Ned's" Everest climb, but at last the top is in sight ... (please, no jokes about being a top, it might send Don right off)

That deserves a final musky moment ...

And so to a bonus. Usually "Ned" would be the bonus, but this weekend, the bromancer was terribly excited about defence, and did both an allegedly "straight" report, and a commentary ...

It's long, and only for the expert herpetologist, but it's the best that the pond can do for a bonus, given the way that our Gracie has yet again left the reservation ...

So it's on with the defence of the realm, first with the allegedly "straight" report ...

One of the ongoing delusions of the Labor party is that they can curry favour with the reptiles and even win them over ... and so Albo appeals to the bromancer's keen military sense of what's needed for the third world war. scheduled at the moment for the new year ...

So far all's well, and the wellness continues apace in the next gobbet ...

But here's where troubles began for pond ...

You see, there's a US election coming on, and the pond noted these tweets in The Bulwark, thanks to Charlie Sykes ...

Right ... and then there was this ...

And that sentiment has been cultivated, groomed and endlessly supported by Faux Noise, Tuckyo Rose, and the like ...

Now there's method in the pond's madness, because the challenge is to see how the bromancer dealt with all this in his commentary piece ...

Be warned, it's even longer and duller than "Ned", but Albo clearly pressed all the right bromancer buttons ...

The bromancer gets wildly excited by all this - at last someone taking his talk of war in the new year seriously, and enough already with the tanks ...

It's as if Albo had read the bromancer for the last year and channelled him into his planning ...

Talk about pandering to the bromancer. The pond almost expects the bromancer to resign from the lizard Oz, and take up the post head of strategic planning in Defence ...

Every word and thought straight from the bromancer playbook ...

Does the world include the GOP and Faux Noise and Tuckyo Rose? Who knows, because the bromancer couldn't hide his excitement ... solidarity, except when watching Faux Noise...

Of course there are a few flies in that ointment ... Russia becomes the No. 1 oil supplier for India in October...

Russia has become India's top oil supplier, edging past the traditionally dominant suppliers Saudi Arabia and Iraq, according to the energy cargo tracker Vortexa.
Russia supplied 946,000 barrels per day of crude to India in October, the highest ever in a month. It accounted for 22% of India's total crude imports, ahead of Iraq's 20.5% and Saudi Arabia's 16%. Compared to September, overall crude import went up 5% in October and that from Russia rose 8%, according to Vortexa, an energy intelligence firm that has offices in Singapore and London and tracks oil and gas tankers across the globe, providing freight and inventories analytics. 
For the first time, India imported more seaborne Russian crude than the European Union - the volumes were 34% higher than the EU's. With imports of 1 million barrels per day in October, China remained the largest buyer of Russian seaborne crude. 
India also imported about 106,000 barrels per day of fuel oil from Russia in October, a new high.
The dramatic rise in Russia's share of the Indian market from less than 1% in 2021 was triggered by the deep discounts that followed the February invasion of Ukraine. 

And that's how you fund Vlad the Terrible's sociopathic war of terror on civilians ... but it would be wrong for the pond to rain on the parade of hearty defence cheer ...

There you go, the bromancer is so sold that he'll even contemplate a socialist fleet of ships ...

And as for working with a re-elected Donald, why stop there, when a new messiah is to hand, though this god-appointed divine messenger seems to have taken to the water when confronted by the old mango Mussolini messiah ...

The pond couldn't bear to show all that tweet, though it could be found here ... it almost made the pond go searching for a fake word such as "maritorious" to match the male word "uxorious" ...

There once was a man most uxorious,
Who was married to a dame quite maritorious, 
This suited them fine as they wined and they dined,
And produced five offspring all rubicund! (here)

Never mind, the pond has done its duty and reached the final gobbet, and those still standing can make of it what they will ...

And after all that, the pond will ignore the Robert Frost reference, doffs its hat and is done ...

Postscript: No worries there, though some might enjoy the law explored by Jonathan V. Last in He's Baaack!

And as for that footnote?

1. It will not matter who the Democratic alternative is. The Dems could nominate the Romney-Ryan ticket and you’ll have to vote for Trump.

Oh yes, good times are a'coming round the bend, though the pond will likely be well around the bend by then ...