And so as the sun sinks slowly on the chattering latte swallowing chardonnay sipping elites ...

(Above: Hans Heysen, Droving into the Light).

Today the pond is suffused with nostalgia, with a golden glow from a setting sun casting its rays over grey green gum leaves, turning them into gleaming host of daffodils, as the pond says farewell to various drovers herding the sheep towards the light (or at least a weekly tithe ...)

South Australia without Mike Rann, and soon enough, the pond without all the commentariat class chattering away daily in The Australian ...

Oh stay, oh say it ain't so Joe ...

It goes without saying that the pond, worried at the thought of a stray reader encountering a demand for money, without or without menaces, will cease linking to stories in The Australian as of Monday ...

The thought of a stray, casual link bringing a stray casual reader up against a demand for money on a weekly basis - a tithing to keep commentariat fat cats in luxury - is simply too alarming, too much to bear, simply too much responsibility ...

Why it might also encourage the rampant delusionalism at work at News Ltd, on show in John Hartigan's bold announcement of the package:

Great journalism is what we are all about. All of our research and all the indications are that people will pay for great journalism. (The Oz paywall launch).

No doubt people will pay for great journalism, but that still doesn't explain why they might pay for The Australian, and its ill-sorted collection of ratbags and bile.

So it'll be farewell to the thoughts of head-kicker Graham 'Gra Gra, everyone should have a Swiss bank account' Richardson, even as he explains how the return of former Chairman Rudd (perhaps with Phillip Adams as key sycophant, acolyte, priest and advisor in tow) is perhaps unlikely, in Lie back and think of England, Labor caucus, you're in a perfect storm ...

Gone too will be links to good old Henry "dust is dry, but I prefer to be drier than desiccated coconut" Ergas, as he maintains the rage in Not a model way to sell a carbon tax. With the price of carbon soaring into the hundreds of dollars, and electricity prices into the ether, we'll all be rooned once again, and never you mind any nonsense being peddled by so-called independent economic modelling (Carbon compo fails to cool political argument).

Perhaps even more disturbing will be the way that we can no longer link to the astonishing spectacle of Dennis "the tie" Shanahan discovering the left eyeball he apparently misplaced decades ago, as he discovers Abbott cooks up a climate pickle.

Shanahan has at long last taken the time to think through the space Abbott might occupy should he win a general election, but fail to win control of the Senate:

After obstructing and frustrating Labor policy in an effort to force an early election, the argument that a Coalition victory would give Labor a moral imperative to support the end of the tax is a bit of a stretch. The argument that it is not the job of the opposition to help implement government policy is as valid for the ALP as it is for the Coalition.

Oh no, you mean all that bleating about a mandate and the Labor party falling into line like abject defeated sheep might not be all the go?

The idea of going to a double-dissolution election after having the rescission refused by a Labor-Greens Senate seems uncertain and with a longer schedule than the few months being mooted by Coalition frontbenchers. Abbott needs to sort these issues or run the risk of facing all the pain and frustration Gillard has suffered. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Put it another way. After acting like an entirely wanton and destructive boofhead vandal, does the gander really expect the likes of Albanese to go softly into the night?

But is this amongst a number of signs that The Australian might be attempting to soften the stridency, balance the blows, and take a more even-handed stance in a bid to retain, or perhaps even attract a paying readership?

After all, our two favourite quotes from the lizard Oz in recent times have come from the anonymous editorialist's pages:

One reason The Australian supports fast broadband in principle is that it will give Australian firms an important competitive edge and boost jobs ... The Australian, editorial, 17th October 2011

Fast, efficient broadband is essential for Australia's economic future. The Australian supports an NBN .... The Australian editorial 12th October 2011

Oh sure, the pond did a bit of cherry picking, but hey isn't that the Cut and Paste way? And look, we didn't have to link ...

Well not to worry, there's only so much balance you need, and no doubt future paying readers will be especially pleased to read Kevin Andrews blathering on about human rights, as in Vague laws let courts dictate public morality.

Is this the very same gander - since today it seems we're speaking of gooses - who refused to apologise, or otherwise indicate error for the treatment of Dr Mohamed Haneef?(Andrews won't say sorry to Haneef).

Yep, it's one and the same, and he spends a wild and woolly time explaining why he's right behind News Ltd and Andrew Bolt, even though the custards didn't have the courage to go on with an appeal. So we come to our cornflakes and milk snorter:

As Sacks cautions, "When political liberalism is combined with moral relativism it reconnects morality and politics, the very thing liberalism was supposed to avoid."

Moral relativism? Did Andrews suddenly discover that term when dealing with Dr. Haneef?

And then this follow up generalist snorter:

Laws that enable groups, rather than individuals, to assert rights should be repealed before we head any further down this dangerous path.

Indeed, and once back in power, no doubt Andrews will spend every waking moment stripping companies of the fatuous notion that they are persons, and that companies - a collection or group of entities - somehow have legal rights.

Repeal this nonsense, before we go any further down this dangerous path, and end up with political campaigns like those endured by hapless punters in the United States ...

Oh okay, we keed, we keed, in much the same way as The Australian was probably keeding by running Andrews blathering on about rights, on the basis that someone who so ignored human rights is perfectly right to blather on about laws that prevent the Bolter from being an outrageous Bolter ...

Not to worry, because the penultimate courageous act of farewell will actually be saying adieu to the anonymous editorialist at The Australian, in fine form in Disengaging from meaning.

In that smart arsed childish way we've come to expect from the anon edit, the scribbler chucks a fit about Rachel Siewert using the word 'meaningful' when it comes linking welfare payments to school attendance.

Oh it's all very sophisticated and satirical and clever and plain-speaking in the Orwellian way - the kind of nonsense you might expect of a latte sipper or the pond itself - and it would be even cleverer if it could be shown that linking welfare payments to school attendance actually gets children to attend school, and if the measures weren't directed at indigenous people rather than all Australians ... and if the likely result wasn't punishing children, along with their parents, and casting them even further into the outer, and even more into the grip of an over-bearing, paternalistic, oppressive system.

If The Australian's anon edit wanted some meaningful insights into the issue - why would he, how could she, when ideology makes a much finer set of blinkers? - they could rush off to The linking of welfare payments to school attendance in Indigenous communities (in pdf form), or Suspending welfare payments to promote school attendance: Strange logic, unlikely outcomes and a better way (in pdf form), and read the conclusions.

But that would mean attending to meaningful matters, rather than having a few moments of meaningless humour along with meaningless blather about welfare dependency ...

It's always the punitive approach, and the kicking and the punishing and the blaming ...

Well enough already, and enough with the linking. Tomorrow the pond will indulge in a celebratory indulgence roughly equivalent to eating Serendipity's vanilla bean ice cream.

What on earth could match the creamy richness of vanilla bean you ask? Why it's ultimate farewell, as the pond cuts its links to the succulent Christopher Pearson, who looks like he understands the joys of ice cream.

Yep, tomorrow will be the pond's very last linkage to his ramblings ... assuming Pearson delivers his usual humbug copy, as he's done for years without fail ...

And then the shutters come down, and it's off to Fairfax, or god help us and Tiny Tim, The Punch, where even Mark Kenny seems to be in the process of recanting, in Take-no-prisoners approach could bite Abbott on the ... (the pond thinks he means bum)

Take-no-prisoners politics has obvious attractions for oppositions and feeds a latent resentment in some quarters but even some Liberals now admit they are worried about the precedent created by Mr Abbott’s approach.

“It could come back to bite us,” admitted one.

Put it another way:

Take-no-prisoners journalism has obvious attractions for News Ltd and feeds a latent resentment in some quarters but even some minions of Murdoch now admit they are worried about the precedent created by The Australian's approach.

“It could come back to bite us,” admitted one.

On the bum, we think he means ... and so we raise our glasses in the first farewell, with a cheerful pig's bum to that ...

(Below: we've run it before, and now for one last celebratory time, we run it again).