Starting a big Mal meme about the intertubes on the full to overflowing intertubes ...

The pond loves its memes.

From lolcats to tin foil hats, the vast, unknowable, full to overflowing internet is full of memes. (Know your meme, etc, etc, yadda yadda)

Like the one that Al Gore claimed he'd invented the intertubes, which sadly the killjoys at Snopes declared false (make sure you've got your pop up blocker on if you snoop at Snopes):

Despite the derisive references that continue even today, Al Gore did not claim he "invented" the Internet, nor did he say anything that could reasonably be interpreted that way.

What a bunch of spoilsports and dropkicks, and never mind that the closest they could find was Gore claiming some administrative and political kudos in an interview for facilitating the invention of the intertubes.

But the pond has extremely high hopes for Tony Abbott's most recent effort, because there were no caveats or disclaimers when he said:

We have a strong and credible broadband policy because the man who has devised it, the man who will implement it, virtually invented the internet in this country. Thank you so much Malcolm Turnbull.  (Who really invented the internet in Australia, where in a forced video you can see an actual Tony Abbott saying the actual words).

Now many people have rushed to dismiss Abbott's gaffe as a joke, an ironic thrust to get a laugh from his colleagues. And he succeeded ... in getting the laugh.

But it's also the sort of cruel joke that a bantam rooster delivers to remind those in the room of the pecking order of things, and to put Mal in his place, as a weird kind of geek in love with copper and ready to put his geekish skills in service to the true master of the universe, one Tony Abbott, who when not in his cape rounding up villains in a Marvel comic, rounds up the Labor party ...

So his jocular praise of Turnbull could well lead to a great internet meme.

When Turnbull walks into a room, surely someone will now say,  or perhaps whisper and then snigger, "look, here comes the man who virtually invented the internet in Australia".

Now it might never achieve the status of the Al Gore routine, but the pond lives in hope, especially if it the boom tish is "look, here comes the man who thinks aged, ancient Telstra copper in the corroded asbestos-laden pits in the ground is the way forward for the internet in Australia".

Now the professional hacks have already had a go - as you can see at the head of this piece - but the pond expects more.

It's not as if the joke's not already out there. It's gone viral:

And that's just some of the news services that gave it a run.

But where are the photoshoppers and the geeks seeking revenge? I mean surely someone can come up with something decent?

Apart from dog terrified and trembling in awe to be in company with the man who virtually invented the intertubes in Australia ...

Meanwhile, what fun to see Julie Bishop get upset and go feral at current Chairman Rudd's remarks about Indonesia.

Naturally it got the reptiles at the lizard Oz equally agitated:

There, now you can see how it's done, in inimitable lizard Oz style.

Rudd proposes Abbott's policy risks a row with Indonesia?

Naturally there can be only one headline: Rudd risks row with Indonesia.

Oh and a generous serve from that stuffed imitation of a pompous English butler, Paul Kelly,  who naturally knots his knickers into the standard lizard Oz indignation twist.

Truth to tell, Rudd is only matching Abbott at his own game, gilding the lily and embroidering the place mat.

At the same time, it does draw attention to the stupidity and folly of Abbott's proposal to turn back the boats, and make them all Indonesia's problem, since (a) as in previous times, it will be an extremely onerous task for navy people burdened with implementing it; (b) at some point, it is likely to end in disaster, while in the mean time be hugely expensive to implement - how many broken down boats can be fixed and made seaworthy for the return journey?; and (c) at some point others, apart from Indonesia, will draw attention to Australia's international treaty obligations.

Abbott has never had to explain all of this, instead just waving his hands and saying jocularly "Julie will invent the ways we can turn back the boats safely".

Bob Carr has shown the way forward with a much more inventive deployment of Orwellian double speak, by explaining at length how 100% of people on some boats are economic refugees, and never mind that in the past the statistics have suggested that 90% of boat people have been judged genuine refugees.

Thanks to the Carr double speak, if you happen to want to get out of Afghanistan - because Australia, in consort with other countries, have done such a splendid job fucking it up, and you happen to a member of the majority ethnic and religious group, ipso facto you should just stay in country and suck it up.

You can read about it in Rudd Carr boat people, and it set the pond to wondering just how low both parties can go in their rhetoric and their promised actions after the election. On the evidence to date, there's no sign they've finished scraping the bottom of the barrel, but every sign that Labor intends to scrape as much of the barrel as Abbott.

Meanwhile it seems to replace the departed Pearson, the reptiles have had to look around, and thus far could only come up with Chris Kenny, delivering this sort of impeccable logic to his digital splash in the revolving carousel of lizard doom at the top of the page:

Now if you can make the slightest shred of sense from that line, you're way cleverer than a Dorothy Parker imitating Gunga Din.

It's about as obscurantist and gobbledegook as anything the late lamented Latin lover could deliver.

But it turns out that if you evade the paywall - surely you don't pay for the lizard Oz, let google be your friend - and actually summon up the energy to read Even under Rudd, Labor won't win the election but it can keep Abbott honest, that the pick of it, and the rest is actually very sub-par and very sub-Pearson.

Kenny gives himself a chance to expand on his sublime koan:

To return a Labor government after all that has transpired, voters effectively would have to say we give governments licence to tell us what they like, break any promise, indulge in bitter and selfish power plays, change leaders at a whim, and tolerate sleazy deals and corruption.

Which of course could just as easily be written:

To return an Abbott government after all that has transpired, voters effectively would have to say we give governments licence to tell us what they like about how invented the internet, or turning back the boats will sort out everything, break any promise, unless they're written down, and even then, maybe they were written down wrongly, indulge in bitter and selfish power plays, like Joe Hockey feuding with Abbott, change leaders at a whim, and with only a vote separating Abbott from the man who virtually invented the internet in Australia, bring back a bunch of time-serving hacks who had passed their use-by date before the end of the Howard era, and tolerate sleazy deals and corruption, like keeping Peter Slipper in the party, and then intriguing to get him replaced by the rough Brough, doing dirty deals and dinner party menus ... and did we once mention getting Pauline Hanson put into jail.?

But sad to say the rest of Kenny's piece fails the Pearson cant and rant test, as he spends a nervous time contemplating the return of the vampire Ruddster.

Next please, lizards of Oz.

Meanwhile, speaking of loons, by golly they've been squawking in a big way out at Parramatta, as you can read in Swap you: Chinese skyscrapers for a motorway. By golly Fairfax gives it a great old splash ... how a grand Sydney vision, a horde of invading Chinese, and a real estate deal still excites granny.

Second airport? Wash out your mouth ...

So that's how Ross Cameron has been filling in his time ... when not turning up like a gadfly on the ABC to irritate former ABC viewers and make sure they turn off the box and go do something healthy with their lives. Well even unhealthy. Just anything to avoid hearing Ross Cameron speak ...

Does anybody at the ABC, or on The Drum, remember the good old days of the Alston crusade?

Parliamentary secretary for Family and Community Services, Ross Cameron, went further, proposing the ABC be floated and sold to the people of Australia, as he said it catered only to the educated and should not be financed by the rest of the population. 
 "The internet is not some sort of a solution to all problems but my own view, which I suspect is a minority view in the Government, is that Australia doesn't really need a national broadcaster," Mr Cameron said. (here)

What's that you say? Why isn't everyone rushing to allow Cameron to tear up a huge chunk of Sydney with his Chinese colleagues? Clearly you weren't a shareholder  in My ATM, but you can read about it in Former MP Ross Cameron a right loser.

As for the pond's opinion, surely there's no harm in allowing Cameron to tear up Sydney. Let the boys play with their toys.

After all, big Mal virtually invented the internet in Australia, using advanced copper wire technology, and thereby made the need for the ABC completely redundant ...

So it goes.

(Below: more Nicholson here).