Tony Abbott, the mad monk ascendancy, and get your memorabilia and images while they last ...

Here at loon pond, we like to keep up with the curve, and so we're rushing out a special bonus celebratory line of gear as recognition of Tony Abbott's ascending the throne. Already you can get the Tee's above from Zazzle, and just look at this magnificent, handsome, elegant mug, a creme de la mug for mug users and mug drinkers and mug punters:

But why all the fuss? Well Tony Abbott is our perfect conservative politician, devious, shifty, furtive, cagey, clever and completely incapable of lying straight in bed. Surely that's worth celebrating?

One of our favourite-est moments came when the goodly Abbott was interviewed by Laurie Oakes on the Sunday program:

LO: ...can I remind you that a few days ago you visited a Victorian town of Beaufort. Let me read from the local newspaper. It says "In a wide ranging speech, Mr Abbott talked about climate change, the Liberal political fortunes and Kevin Rudd. Quote - the argument on climate change is absolute crap," he said.’ Is it absolute crap?

TA: But then I went on to say -

LO: Oh yes you went on to say and I'll quote the paper. You said, "However, the politics of this are tough for us. 80% of people believe climate change is a real and present danger." You think its crap but you're doing this to humour the voters?

TA: And what I was trying to do in that discussion, Laurie, was to talk around, if you like, a group of good, decent Liberals to support what I think is a reasonable compromise position. That's to say we will have an ETS but it will be an ETS that does the least possible damage to Australian jobs and Australian industries and the maximum possible protection against the possible risks of climate change.

LO: But we have a situation where Malcolm Turnbull's leading defender in this debate about an ETS thinks the climate change argument is crap?

TA: Don't forget the context here, Laurie. I am confronted by a hostile Liberal audience on this particular issue. I am trying to bring them around to support the position of the leader and the shadow cabinet. And I think I was reasonably successful on the night.

LO: But you haven't denied today that climate change arguments are crap?

TA: Laurie, what I've said to you is that I think that the science is far from settled ...

Magnificent, glorious stuff (and the rest of the interview here).

Over at the Sydney Morning Herald, that prime goose Paul Sheehan led off his piece about the new regent, Abbott laid out his plans for all to see, with this piece of pandering prose:

No-one has ever said Abbott lacked the courage of his convictions. And those convictions were laid out in 200 pages of political manifesto on July 28 this year.

On July 28, a beautiful blonde, Sarah Murdoch, standing in front a beautiful backdrop, Sydney Harbour, gave an eloquent and thoughtful launch of Tony Abbott's manifesto for power, his book Battlelines, while Lachlan Murdoch and Tony Abbott looked on appreciatively.

Well the goose knows how to stir the hornet's nest, so to speak, since courage in one's convictions shouldn't presumably blow to the four compass points in a month, or rush like Melbourne weather through four seasons in one day, and Jofek was the first hornet to respond:

He may not be a climate change denier but he's a disloyal opportunistic fruit-loop who's pandering to the climate change conspiracists. What's the point of your story anyway - you read his book and there were indications he might do this? Well done, certainly ground-breaking stuff!

It didn't get much better further down the comments chart, with tempers seemingly running a little short, but I digress, as this takes us away from our celebratory moment in the sun, wherein the mad monk's ascending to the throne can be praised by a heavenly host of worshipful Pellites, as their champion now prepares to smite the disbelievers constantly threatening the Sydney diocese.

But first a word of warning. Please beware of counterfeit product bearing the name of Abbott. There are false Abbotts to be found everywhere on the intertubes, with dire warnings as the kind of civilization we might get if we read too much Abbott:

But I guess you know that Australia can't be confused with Transylvania, and Nick Minchin in no way resembles Count Dracula, and the Liberal party's lurch to the right doesn't indicate any kind of vampire or zombie infestation (though we do have a plentiful supply of wooden stakes, garlic and silver bullets available for the nervous).

And we were also concerned, alarmed even, to discover when googling for images (bling away you Murdoch loving satanists) that there was a lack of humorous images of the mad monk on the intertubes.

Well here's one of our favourites - Abbott eyeing off the microphone, or John Howard, or whatever, with his tongue. Now you might think it hard to eye off something or somebody with your tongue, but you clearly aren't cut out to be a politician. You don't have the right stuff.

You might even lie straight in bed at night. Well we here at loon pond can develop a policy response which will fix that situation quick stix .... so you can lie as crooked as the rest of us.

And now on with the show ... Childish, adolescent, worse than a teenager on E?

Guilty, but really politics is now going to be such fun for a little while, like the good old days with Mark Latham, and hysteria everywhere, as the head kicker tries to change his spots and sound like a statesman.

Soul clap hands with glee at such a sight to see ...

Oh and that abused quote in the last line? It comes from Yeats' great poem Sailing to Byzantium:

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.