So many questions, when all we need is so many loons ...

(Above: more Wilcox here)

The pond is deep, abjectly, mortifyingly sorry and apologetic.

Apparently the last, profoundly frivolous post was covered in a rational, sensible way by Jonathan Holmes, in Spying on Indonesia - Here is the news: a good story gets told, not held.

Strange, isn't he a conspiracist? How much does he get paid? Is he still writing stuff? Just how old is he? Does he wear a cardigan? Does he have elbow patches? Shouldn't he be quiet?

Naturally, the ABC didn't want its payroll details broadcast to the world, and naturally I didn't want my former salary in the national daily. But of course, once the figures were leaked to The Australian's Sarah Martin, the paper ran them on its front page. 
Good luck to it. That's what news organisations do. Unless there's a very good reason not to, they publish what other people want to keep secret. And the embarrassment of the ABC's management and stars is certainly not a good enough reason to bury a cracking yarn.

Ah, a cunning ploy, wishing the reptiles luck. A cracking yarn! Cracking cheese, eh Gromit...

It gets worse. He accuses generally grumpy Miranda the Devine, the Bolter andPaul Sheehan of scribbling addle-pated conspiracist, paranoid nonsense. Well, the pond added a few of those adjectives, but you catch the drift.

And he calls the lot of them painters of utterly ludicrous scenarios.

It's deeply disturbing, verging on the outrageous.

Even worse, Holmes explains just how a genuine journalist would muddle along through thousands of pages of leaked material, and then run with the story.

Why he sounds just like the Warren Commission in a state of complete confusion. Fancy imagining the Murdochians cling to journalism over ideological zealotry.

And then this:

If they had known about the document before or during the election campaign, it would have been an even bigger story, because the prime minister then, Kevin Rudd, had been the prime minister in August 2009 when the phone-tapping allegedly took place. 
Of course, there's a legitimate argument about whether or not the national broadcaster should have co-operated in breaking a story that was bound to be damaging to the Australian-Indonesian relationship. 
But the story was going to break anyway. ''Mark Scott'', wrote Paul Sheehan, ''had a clear choice''. So he did. He could have told his senior editors to turn down the scoop, wait until The Guardian had broken the story, and then follow it up as best they could. Or he could let them take the offered documents and run first. 
To any real journalist, that's no choice at all. If it's legal, and it's verifiable, and it's not endangering lives, and it's not invading privacy or intruding on grief, and it's a huge story, you publish, and let the chips fall where they may. 
Unless you're Bolt, or Devine, or Sheehan. It's for them, not the ABC, that the politics matter more than the story.

Fair dinkum, that's the sort of level-head, rational analysis that ruins the pond's day.

Here we are, romping in the valley of the loons, and along comes spoilsport smarty pants Holmes hosing down a bunch of decent conspiracy theories.

What next? There was no magic bullet?

There ought to be loons, there should be loons, please send in the loons. Is there no curiosity, none at all?

The Guardian's curiously delayed leak about Australian intelligence-gathering in Indonesia - strangely gifted by them to the ABC - has only embarrassed both nations, undermined their relations and co-operation and thereby diminished national security operations on both sides of the Timor Sea. 
 Someone at the ABC who views national and international reportage as more than game-playing will need to contemplate all this and decide what to do the next time they are asked to amplify the damaging reports of another organisation.

Phew, thank the long absent lord, thanks Chris Kenny. Curious! Strange! Game-playing!

Hint, hint, say no more, is your wife a goer, is she, is she, hey hey?

Yep, it's behind the paywall here because you have to pay to get the purest smack of conspiracy theories.

Somebody, it seems is playing for the wrong team, the treacherous, traitorous deviant sons of bitches and bastards:

The Indonesian media is lively and competitive and, strangely enough, always line up on the Indonesian side. They can be relied upon to accentuate Jakarta's line and attack Australia. The Australian media, especially the vast publicly funded entities, is just as predictable. They tend to line up on the Indonesian side too, presumably because it creates a stronger story out of Canberra. 

Take that, you Indonesia lover, Mr. Holmes, for shame. Damn you all, ABC brown rice and lentil eaters. What's the bet you love a gado gado?

Tony Abbott's barracking for Manly and these deviants are donning the Indonesian colours.

Do carry on Mr. Kenny

 Let us be frank. 

Yes, let us be frank, and certainly not Mary or Jonathan!

The leak was embarrassing. But the Australian government's response (belatedly joined by the opposition) has been mature and sensible. 

Yes, it's been mature and sensible, and Tony Abbott has done his very best, despite being martyred by treacherous turncoats, and all this paranoid talk of traitors and treason and an ABC and Fairfax conspiracy has been entirely reasonable.

You see, it's the fault of those bloody northerners:

Indonesia needed to voice its concern but its behaviour has been typically petulant and unreasonable. Sadly its best friend, urging it along this destructive path, has been the Australian media.

Typically petulant and unreasonable!

Because that's all they ever do, whinge and moan and whine, unlike dinkum Aussies, who are just, well let's say it modestly, fan-fucking-tastic salt of the fucking earth, but not too much salt, mind the blood pressure.

Now there, what better way to sort out a situation than to explain in a cogent way just how fucked everybody is, except Chris Kenny, the Bolter and the reptiles at the lizard Oz.

Wash out your mouth with soap Mr. Holmes.

The pond must have its loons, send in the loons.

Why thank you kindly David Rowe, loon spotter nonpareil, more Rowe here, it should almost go without saying.