In which the pond turns to the bromancer to discover a crisis, has a couple of letters from America for Joisey siders, and offers the "Ned" Everest for those with nothing better to do ...

 

After the brief break, it didn't take long for the pond to plunge into a deep sense of tedium and ennui, one of those waking dreams where you're wading through a jungle of mush ... and this day the digital edition of the lizard Oz promised no release ...

There was Dame Slap shouting at the dog botherer about the Voice, and the dog botherer shouting at Dame Slap, and the pond just couldn't do it, just couldn't go there. 

And next to Dame Slap was Rachel raging about comrade Dan, while it seems the reptiles remain completely oblivious to the way that comrade Dan has effectively degutted some Victorian oversight bodies, of the privacy commission and ombudsman kind...

Down below the fold, things were no better ...

Sheesh, the Angelic one rabbiting on about boomers, as if irony wasn't killed long ago in the lizard Oz, and garrulous Gemma raging on about diminishing women, ditto. It's not just Spanish soccer, it's the lizard Oz! 

With prattling Polonius reserved for a meditative Sunday, and the pond never bothering with the oscillating fan, that just left "Ned" and the bromancer.

Deep sigh. On the other hand, the bromancer, in the middle of a long and tedious exegesis which continues his bizarre fascination with China, made an astonishing discovery ... so rare for a reptile that the pond almost had a fainting fit worthy of a heroine in a Richardson novel ...

The pond wondered if it should do the bromancer in small gobbets ... just to make the read more palatable ... but if you do the bro in small chunks, that just prolongs the agony ...

Lordy, lordy, and at this point the pond turned to NPR for a comment. Admittedly it was a 2021 comment, but still, things have been tough for China these last few years ...

SICULAR: To bring people out of poverty at a moment in time doesn't mean you can keep them there.

RUWITCH: There are reports of problems with how some of the poor may have been pulled above the poverty line. Researchers say in some cases, people were just handed cash. Others were uprooted and moved, but remain at risk.

SICULAR: A fairly large number of people in China are close to the poverty line and are vulnerable to poverty. So it has to be a sustained, ongoing effort.

RUWITCH: And that gets at questions about what the party was targeting in the first place. China defines extreme poverty as earning less than $2.30 a day at purchasing power parity. The World Bank's figure is a $1.90 a day, but that's generally for low-income countries. In the upper-middle income category, where China sits, the bank suggests a poverty line of $5.50 a day. By that standard, the World Bank's Martin Raiser says...

RAISER: China still has around 13% of its population falling below that line, or close to 200 million people.

RUWITCH: 200 million people - and they're not all in the countryside, where the government's efforts have focused. Raiser says many people in cities don't make $5.50 a day. And he says this fixation on meeting a minimum income threshold should become increasingly irrelevant anyway.

RAISER: As countries get richer, the extreme poverty line that we use for low-income countries may no longer be a relevant concept for understanding whether there are still poor people.

200 million people!

No doubt the bromancer knows what it's like on struggle street as he lashes out on a coffee in Surry Hills, home to the finest baristas in the world ... but the pond realised it had made a fatal mistake, it had started paying attention and making comments. Better get on to that astonishing discovery ... but first we'd better mention the slowdown, which possibly hasn't helped those 200 million ...

At this point the reptiles slipped in a huuge snap of the chief villain ... and truly the pond has no time for dictators ... but why make a big picture hagiographic fuss of them? Why not shrink them down to size?

Then it was on to the bromancer's huge discovery ...

Yes, the bromancer has at last realised there's a climate crisis, and that China is at the heart of the mess, and that mess is compounded by the way that other countries have managed to ship their emissions off to China ...

What a revelation ...

With that revelation in hand, it was time to take deep gulps of pure, undiluted bromancer ...

Indeed, indeed, and never mind that Australia is one of the biggest producers and biggest exporters of coal ... and around this time your average reptile would suggest a solution ...

But the bromancer has bigger fish to fry ...beginning with one of those giant billy goat butts which are a bromancer speciality, though it's dressed in a winsome way as a "none of this implies" ...

And so to the real solution to climate change and the world's problems. War with China by Xmas, but for some reason the pond was still stuck back in the old matter of climate ...

Never mind, apparently even the fush and chups mob are ready to join in the war with China by Xmas ...

Meanwhile, on another planet ... how to cook with a wok ...

And so to a treat. The pond will go with "Ned" in due course and offer that pompous, portentous Everest for the hardy to climb, but in the meantime, in honour of the pond's Joisey visitor, always a delight, the pond would like to offer up Killer's latest letters from America. For some reason the reptiles have taken to hiding them, and so the pond had to dig them out ...

Admittedly offering up Killer's letters is a bit like shipping coals to Joisey, and it's absolutely nothing like Alistair Cooke's Letter from America, but it will allow the pond to indulge in a few cartoons ...

The pond had hoped that the only way it would include that mugshot was by way of an immortal Rowe cartoon ...

Never mind, at least the pond got to run the immortal Rowe, and then it was on with Killer's letter from America ...

Ah Gym Jordan ... that's got to be worth a couple of cartoons ...

When even Ramirez takes a view ... now carry on Killer ... and yes, with a straight face report that the mango Mussolini weighs a humble 97kg, and has the pond got a weighing machine to sell you ...

Indeed, indeed, months and months of entertainment for the world, even if it was briefly eclipsed by Vlad the impaler performing another assassination ... way better than the usual defenestration or poisoning ...

Oh bliss, Prigozhin and DeSanctus mixed together in featherless flight ...

And that brings the pond to the other Killer letter from America ... which if you look at the times came just a brief time before the previous letter, and was full of ominous foreboding

Does anyone need a symbol? The guy's been a crook, a con artist, a spiv, a swindler and a snake oil salesman since back before the days Joisey siders could make jokes about New Yoikers ...

And so to the last Killer gobbet full of grim forebodings, because deep down Killer is a bit of a coup lover ...

Actually that 'novel constitutional theory' is being peddled by deeply conservative legal eagles, what with the Donald attempting a coup in a ham-fisted, half-arsed way you might expect from a cavalcade of clowns, but never mind ...

And so to "Ned", as promised, and here the pond will just do a Sgt Friday and present the gobbets, one after the other, step by step, from base camp to the summit ... and will be amazed if anyone bothers to make it to the top, just so they can shout top of the "Ned", ma ...

You see? It's just more of the "we'll all be rooned" said Nedahan, on and on and on and on and on ... portentous, pompous doomsaying, and yet with such tricky matters as climate science only mentioned so that the only threat will come from the threat of taking action ... (and it being a coal-loving government, much like the governments before it, that threat is pretty minimal) ...

The pond's already read all the pond's comments section comments on the BCA and Westacott, so there's nothing to see there ... and there's nothing to see here, with beefy boofhead Angus given a mention ... the only question is whether Goulburn is worse off with him than Tamworth with Barners ... (the pond's head exploded at the thought of solving that riddle) ...

Sullen prosperity? Projection, it's really sullen, interminable "Ned" ...

Why can't we have that discussion? Why can't we have stupidly rhetorical questions? At that point the reptiles decided they'd introduce a shot of Jimbo scratching his head, while the pond scratched its own, and wondered who was stopping "Ned" from being his usual portentous "discussing, always discussing" self ...

At this point there was nothing for it but just to take down "Ned" in big gulps, in a bid for the summit ... as "Ned" finally gets around to dealing with the climate, and as usual, all he can offer is the hope that it will break the government, and never mind breaking the country and the planet ...

Still two gobbets of uncertainty, fear and doubt to go. Best to get on with it. If it's to be done, better it were done quickly ...

By this point the pond expects many will have fallen by the wayside, but the pond has done its duty, although the duty seems entirely pointless ... and that deep sense of tedium, ennui and wading through slush and mugwump swamps returned with full force...

Is there an upside to sitting through that endless pomposity? All the pond can offer is a few cartoons not used thus far, starting with another mug view of that mugshot  ....