In which the pond completes its war coverage, for those who came in late ...

 

For those who came in late ...

Oh not that you silly, there might be reduced numbers at the lizard Oz, and getting smaller by the day, but the reptiles never work alone. 

The hive mind requires a joint effort, especially for the many wars being fought on many fronts ...

For those who came in late, this morning the pond reported on those many wars from the front line ...

This was the war at the top of the digital edition ...

Done and dusted suh, covered by the pond, and that coverage also took care of the war featured in the tree killer edition ...

Then there were the many wars below the fold ...

Covered as best the pond could manage suh, but there was one war the pond missed out on, which even made it to the front page of the tree killer edition ... the war on Lidia ...

Say what? HAVE YOUR SAY?

Sorry, the pond doesn't like SHOUTING and will pass on the attempt to lather up readership fury, and instead turned to nattering "Ned", because it seems he was having a say about the war on Lidia, the straw that broke the reptiles' back...

Sheesh, the pond had covered so many wars, but still there was the war on Lidia, and defectors and rats in the ranks and traitors and what not, so let the coverage begin ...

For some reason the pond drifted way back in time, long before young 'uns and vulgar youff could imagine, a time when this sort of blather might have been taken as a form of low comedy  ...

Albert Patrick Field was a member of the Senate for a very short period and was on leave for most of it, but he was at the epicentre of historic events that brought down the Labor Government of Gough Whitlam. He is remembered, if only briefly, in virtually all accounts of the dismissal of that Government in 1975, and even to some extent in popular memory, as an example of an insignificant individual who was the tool of the powerful, in a drama he did not understand. He was, according to Whitlam, an ‘individual of the utmost obscurity, from which he rose and to which he sank with equal speed’, and, to a dissident Opposition member, Senator Steele Hall, a means by which an opposition marched ‘on the sleazy road to power … over a dead man’s corpse’. Field was indeed an unsophisticated man but he had strong and clear views, and the events in which he was involved left an enduring mark on the procedures and practices for filling casual vacancies in the Senate.

That tale is told at the parliament's website and it even led to a referendum, and dammit, if wretched rats in the ranks can be whipped into line, there'll be none of this talk of people with strong and clear views following their consciences, they'll follow the party line, just as the lizards of Oz routinely follow their master's voice ...

Enough with the rats in the ranks, we need lickspittle lackeys of the Murdochian kind.

Listen the quivering, quavering rage in "Ned's" natter ...

Note that in this war, "Ned" is doing his level best to write off the Voice, while also doing his best to write off rogues and turncoats ... because "Ned" loves grey in all its shades, and certainly can't stand wild cats, larrikins, yahoos, and other forms of Oz life ...

Let's face it, if you let people carry on, you'll get all kinds of eccentrics in public life ...

"Ned" simply isn't going to allow that type of eccentricity to flourish ... so, not even a Cory ... or a Fraser could cop a guernsey from "Ned" ...

Yes, we need a strict toeing of the line, routine, order, and grey, though "Ned" will allow some shades of grey, perhaps as many as fifty ... 

But why now, you might ask? Why Lidia after that parade of rogues? Well there's a difference you see. All the rest were white, and there's one thing a reptile can't stand, it's an uppity, difficult black. There's simply not enough shades of grey to cope with such folk ...

And so we return, vulgar youff, back to where the pond started, with the deeply corrupt peanut farmer and the furniture polisher ...

Indeed, indeed, it's a modest proposal to ensure that politicians toe the line in a way that even AI can't seem to manage ...

And please note the cunning way that "Ned" has already announced the demise of the voice ... what a prescient man he is ...

And in the future?

Well if "Ned's" modest proposal succeeds, we might soon be supping on infants for supper ...

Sorry, sorry, the pond's brain slipped a gear, that was Dean Swift's modest proposal, here at Project Gutenberg, and what an excellent modest proposal it was ...

It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through this great town, or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabbin-doors crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in stroling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants who, as they grow up, either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country, to fight for the Pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes.

I think it is agreed by all parties, that this prodigious number of children in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present deplorable state of the kingdom, a very great additional grievance; and therefore whoever could find out a fair, cheap and easy method of making these children sound and useful members of the commonwealth, would deserve so well of the publick, as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation.

But my intention is very far from being confined to provide only for the children of professed beggars: it is of a much greater extent, and shall take in the whole number of infants at a certain age, who are born of parents in effect as little able to support them, as those who demand our charity in the streets.

As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years upon this important subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes of our projectors, I have always found them grossly mistaken in their computation. It is true, a child just dropt from its dam, may be supported by her milk, for a solar year, with little other nourishment: at most not above the value of two shillings, which the mother may certainly get, or the value in scraps, by her lawful occupation of begging; and it is exactly at one year old that I propose to provide for them in such a manner, as, instead of being a charge upon their parents, or the parish, or wanting food and raiment for the rest of their lives, they shall, on the contrary, contribute to the feeding, and partly to the clothing of many thousands.

There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it will prevent those voluntary abortions, and that horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children, alas! too frequent among us, sacrificing the poor innocent babes, I doubt, more to avoid the expence than the shame, which would move tears and pity in the most savage and inhuman breast.

It's true it's a modest proposal, but "Ned's" modest proposal would have its own benefits.

Why instead of infants, we could be eating Lidias for supper.

And "Ned's" modest proposal would certainly elevate politics, removing a need for whips and achieving a perfection celebrated by the infallible Pope this day ...

As for the pond? It can say with some satisfaction that this war correspondent has covered all the reptile wars this day, and emerged none the wiser about anything, except perhaps that if you let a fox, a weasel or a "Ned" near the hen house, who knows how it will go for the chooks ...