Now here's a fine choice ... would you like your loathing straight or mixed with self-loathing, and should it be shaken or stirred or frothy and foam-flecked?

(Above: as always, the pond merely reports, and you decide).


As winter clutches at the heart with its cold, clammy paws, a few statistics to cheer and warm the hearth:

The Bolt Report May 12th 2013 Five city 111,000
The Bolt Report May 19th 2013 Five city 132,000
The Bolt Report May 26th 2013 (*)

(* insert the correct figure and win one of thousands of exciting opportunities not to watch the show)

Even more amazing, the incredibly dull Financial Review Sunday on its launch beat The Bolt Report 197,000 v 147,000 on May 5th.

Meanwhile:

Media Watch 21st May 663,000. (as always, thanks to the TVtonight folk for reporting the figures that count, and the figures that don't count).

Oh it's no wonder he wanted the gig. And it's no wonder they didn't even begin to think about a ratings loser.

What, how petty, gloating, mean-spirited you say?

Well yes, but only in the spirit of the Bolter, as mean-spirited and spiteful as anyone in the game... so roll on Sunday and another day in bed with nary a thought of the Bolter. Oh it's a long long time since Video Hits ruled the airwaves ...

And speaking of dropkick losers, when the pond dropped in to its usual Doonesbury fix, it copped this:

Each and every one of you are mentally fucking retarded and you should be euthanized... Only the stupidest of the stupidest people end up on juries. (Oh okay, the pond isn't inclined to asterisks).

Put it another, slightly lengthier way:

I want that jury to know that each and every one of you are mentally fucking retarded and you should be euthanized because, as Darwin said, you have naturally selected yourself. You are the weakest members of the herd. Goodbye!

Hello?

Google it up, and you're led to The Hollywood Reporter, and a story where the header almost says it all, Convicted Girls Gone Wild Mogul Joe Francis Breaks Silence: 'Retarded' Jury 'Should Be Shot Dead'.

What a great town LA is, and by golly that Double Diamond Bomber X cabernet must be a mean drop.

But what was more poignant was the hangover, worse, it's likely, than the third hangover movie:

I deeply regret the remarks attributed to me in the interview with the Hollywood Reporter. They were hurtful and do not reflect my true feelings. While I disagree with the jury's verdict as I am completely innocent of the charges and intend to appeal, I was afforded a fair trial, and if I lose at the appellate level, I will reluctantly but fully accept the jury's verdict. This was a 6 hour interview with The Hollywood Reporter where I detailed to the reporter all of the evidence and why I believed the evidence showed I am 100% innocent. The reporter also interviewed my attorney David Houston for over 3 hours, but failed to include one shred of evidence from the trial that proved beyond a reasonable doubt my innocence. I did NOT commit a crime at all whatsoever. All that was publicized were my most intemperate remarks that were borne out of frustration but with no intent to cause anyone harm. I am not, nor have I ever been a violent person. My comments are appalling, but anyone who has ever been wrongfully convicted of a crime that they did NOT commit would be as frustrated as I am. I want to apologize to all the jurors, the court, the City Attorney and my attorneys for my comments that were manipulated by the media, and please know I am truly ashamed of my conduct. I am truly, truly sorry. I hope everyone will understand I was not being serious and that I fully and deeply apologize for my remarks. (as usual, at Gawker here, sending the apology up silly).

And now is there a warm crawlspace somewhere. No, forget the red, we're all off the red ...

Truly, the intertubes are wonderful, containing as they do news of two shows the pond has never watched, and never will. The Bolter Report delivering dull ratings to Ten, and Girls Gone Wild, though it's a fair bet that Girls Gone Wild is more entertaining and quite possibly more ideologically correct ...

And if that doesn't get you off to a super-charged weekend of pleasure, why you only have to turn to the reptiles at the lizard Oz, for that refined taste of corn-fed squashed geese on toast.

Yes, there's a wonderful abundance of squawking geese out and about today, and the pond regrets that urgent business limits the amount of attention that can be paid. But let's do a roll call anyway:

Yep, there's Angela Shanahan having an anxiety attack about Tony Abbott, in Misguided proponents of marriage equality trying to defy gravity. (behind the paywall for your mental safety)

Amazingly gay marriage now exists in many parts of the world and the sky hasn't fallen. Those skyhooks must be working.

What's more amazing is that the lizard Oz keeps publishing Shanahan as she goes over and over the same old ground, like a neurotic fundamentalist Catholic (oh wait ...). 

This is what she offers as wit to the readership of the lizard Oz:

I am reminded of a remark by a clever African woman I met at the World Congress of Families in Sydney last week: "You can't change gravity!" Precisely.

Yes, because gravity and human sexuality are precisely related.

Shanahan then morphs into a rant about abortion which fixates on Tasmania, and yes fixates is about the only way to describe the rant, which somehow ends up including free speech and then returns to the original theme with this:

Is there a solution? There are two. Either abolish legal marriage, which has declining status and no meaning for the religious and, in the words of Andrew Sullivan, has been "debased" by heterosexuals; or bring on a plebiscite. After all, we had one in 1974 on the national anthem.

Perfect hysteria, with only two solutions allowed. Who'd have thunk Shanahan was a dialectical materialist? And isn't that drumroll, abolish legal marriage ... which has no meaning for the religious sound wonderful.

Indeed. Make it so. Let everyone live in sin then, the pond says, or perhaps in a de facto relationship, or perhaps ... oh for the sake of the long absent lord, why does anyone spend any time at all in the company of an idiot babbling about gravity.

And wouldn't you know it,  then the readership enticed by the rotating digital splash at the top of the page is confronted by Christopher Pearson. 

Which naturally sets the pond wondering yet again. It's easy enough to understand where Shanahan is coming from. It's a form of fear and loathing, and simple enough. But where does Pearson routinely get his self-loathing from?

Pearson has also been startled and spooked by former chairman Rudd, as you can read in Kevin Rudd's day turn denies facts on same-sex families (behind the paywall, but do you really need to care?)

Now as soon as you see a word like "facts" in a Pearson header, you know we'll be talking about lies, distortions, equivocations, and verbal abuse of the concept of facts.

Sure enough, Pearson references one Mark Regnerus for his "facts", and then delivers this breath-taking line:

While the data he obtained could hardly be considered entirely objective ...

Oh we're suddenly a long way from Tipperary and facts me boyos and girlos.

Naturally it only took a few minutes to look up Regnerus and get a bit more perspective than that on offer in Pearson's piece - perhaps most engaging was the one headed Journal's Internal Audit Finds Flawed Gay Parenting Study To be 'Bullshit'.

Well that explains a few things, because it seems Pearson is drawn to bullshit like a blowfly is drawn to a cowpat up Tamworth way.

Now here's the self-loathing bit. It seems children hanging around gays are in dire peril:

More alarmingly, they are no less than 10 times more likely to have been touched sexually by a parent or other care-giver, although this may be in part explained in terms of the abusive behaviour of a parent which precipitated separation or divorce. 
 They are also nearly four times as likely to have been "physically forced" to have sex against their will. They smoke more and use marijuana more often, and more often plead guilty to non-minor offences.

Now let's forget that Pearson is mis-representing and mis-using this data, and instead let's leap to an obvious paranoid Pearson conclusion.

It's time for him to give up home schooling children. The dangers are simply too great ...

And finally the pond was delighted to discover yesterday, thanks to a reader, a delightful addition to the pond stable, one Nicolle Flint, who is full of sound and fury, deep anger, frothing and foaming, and now it seems intended to be a regular part of the Fairfax world.

A splendid offering designed to entice people to sign up ...

Nicolle shows all the signs of being an excellent head of ABC programming:

The ABC may argue its rural programming such as Landline or the Country Hour provide impartiality and diversity of opinion. When Landline is broadcast in prime TV slots and Country Hour on city radio stations, perhaps this will be the case. (ABC loses its balance over animal welfare)

Oh indeed. So the pond waking up to Country Breakfast on RN on a Saturday morning fixes everything ... by golly, we don't even have to suffer through that wretched bloody Macca on a Sunday ...

And truly - and this should go without saying but we'll tell Chris Mitchell anyway - her epic piece celebrating Nick Cater is worthy of the reptiles at the lizard Oz, as you can read in Breaking the sheep's back with political correctness.

Now you might wonder at the level of loathing required for a Ph.D student to spend an entire column berating the intelligentsia and tertiary education and a bunyip alumni, but the pond finds it fascinating and compelling, in much the same way no doubt as watching Yukio Mishima orchestrate a rather bungled ritual seppuku ...

So there you have it, a rich diverse choice of pure Bolter and Shanahan loathing, or generous examples of self-loathing in the Pearson and Flint style.

Let there be dancing in the streets ... oh wait, is that a bit gay? Should we save it up for next year's Mardi Gras?

Oh okay, let there be sombre fear and loathing, broken up only by foam-flecked indignation, frenzied anger, and musings about gravity ...

(Below: speaking of geese, after a dose of the lizard oz, is it any wonder the pond sometimes feels like those anit-suffargett postcards from the early 20th century? And if you can stomach the one below, you'll find a bunch of equally appalling ones here, and then lordy lordy you might be inclined to read what women shouldn't do when riding a bicycle here. The new millennium rule for women? Don't read the reptiles at the lizard Oz).