No, the pond certainly might not like ... so many things ...

No, look, thanks, we've thought about it, but the odds are really high that the pond might not like that bit of murky opinion, despite the beguiling smirk. Might not like it a lot. Sorry about that ...

Another rabid right wing loon frothing and foaming in a frenzy about the ABC? Why they're a ha'penny a dozen in Murdoch la la land ...

Oh sure in the good old days, Tuesday was prattling Polonius day, and we romped together in a field of Fairfaxian dreams.

But then Polonius, perhaps afraid of the arras,  took refuge amongst the lizards, and became one of just another clone, another clown, another member of the grey army of Murdochian crony commentariat scribblers.

Now the pond is over Polonius, so, so over him, and you know what, not reading him is surprisingly easy.

It's nothing like that searing withdrawal scenario William Burroughs portrayed in Junkie. More like giving up compound chocolate and cleansing the palate and the mind.

Come to think of it, the pond might also not like to read:

Oh sure, it's a big, bold, brassy EXCLUSIVE though what's so EXCLUSIVE about containing costs remains a mystery to the pond.

No, it's more that it's a story about an NBN, which in the old days stood for a National Broadband Network.

These days it stands for a copper network, a HFC network, and a network joined together by many things, most notably cabbage and string and sealing wax...

The pond is more interested in reading this sort of thing:

The Government today announced that it would cut all funding to the national broadband rollout and instead power the network directly with Communication Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s charm. 
A spokesperson for the Government said the new policy was both fiscally responsible and politically prudent. “Malcolm has already managed to convince a majority of Australians that an inferior, underfunded broadband network is actually in their interests, simply by using a clever turn of phrase and a cheeky smile. We thought we should channel all that energy and charisma directly into Australian homes and save around $40 billion in the process.” (more at The Shovel, here).

There you go Ziggy, there's how to keep down costs.

And there you go mendacious Murdochians with your blather about the "Coalition's version of the NBN".

There is no NBN, there's not going to be an NBN, and that's an end of it. You've won lizards, you've helped reduce Australia to a technological wilderness. Stuff that up your woolly  jumper and while you're at it, shove a Pioneer bus up there as well ...

You see, the pond is tired, the holiday season, the Xmas chaos, always produces a sense of being rundown, and end times getting near.

That's why we might not like:

Dear sweet long absent lord, does he never shut up about how he cares about the environment while endlessly extolling the virtues of anything and everything that destroys the environment, all with the bright-eyed, bushy-tailed cockiness and conviction that all is for the best in an always upward moving, problem solving world .... which only suggests to the pond that the sheep long ago fled the top paddock in Scandinavia.

And while we're at it, there are other things the pond might not like, endless things, so many if you laid them end to end, they'd soar past the moon and the Chinese proving that the age of American space is now gone. Like this:

The pond understands why the Fairfaxians ran the piece. It's click bait, and never mind that it doesn't just demean Fairfax for publishing such blatant, naked, mindlessly parochial and dumb click bait, it also demeans Jai.

Oh okay, the pond bit on Badgerys Creek airport will be a white elephant, but in the end, it came down to Jai Martinkovits asserting that Badgerys Creek would be a bummer because there was a single airport in Spain that had been a bummer, and very fast trains would be good because very fast trains are good.

It was, to put it politely, mere idle gibberish, no evidence, no carefully structured arguments arising from facts, just assertions, and full of this sort of rhetoric:

... for those who still choose to travel by air, may I suggest that if the good citizens of Penrith knew that they could jump on a train and be at Sydney Airport in, say, 32 minutes, you can bet your bottom dollar that any support for a second airport at Badgerys Creek would quickly evaporate.

Yes, as soon as you get a goose talking about the "good citizens" of anywhere without a hint of irony or satire, along with that smarmy "may I suggest", you know you're in the land of a prize ponce.

No, you may not suggest, unless the pond may also suggest your piece read like a simpleton trying to construct an NBN out of left over bibs and bobs.

Why not write something sensible instead? Perhaps, in particular, you shouldn't conclude a piece involving national transportation policy - trains and planes and the Sydney hub - with a reference to the good fucking citizens of Penrith ... as if that's some sort of clincher, some sort of knock down rhetorical blow.

As if they're the only bloody jaffas in the bloody box.

The capper of course came with the credit, which the pond only read after the event:

Jai Martinkovits is joint author with David Flint of Give Us Back Our Country.

Uh huh. Give the pond back its five minutes of wasted life, Fairfaxians.

What's even more irritating is that in the very same Fairfaxians in the same breath launched into an impassioned editorial:

And what's worse the rag was still blathering on about Penrith, as if prattling Polonius had never left the joint:

The words ''Penrith'' and ''glamour'' are rarely, if ever, combined in a sentence but for economists, politicians, builders and policy wonks, Penrith sits at the centre of the most glamorous economic territory in the state. 
The physical centre of Sydney now lies west of Parramatta and the city has to grow inland. Creating excessive density in the existing housing stock will lower the quality of life in the city. 
If Mr Abbott does end decades of inertia and give the go-ahead for a second airport, it will create a jobs and growth boom for western Sydney. In a single stroke it could make Mr Abbott the ''infrastructure prime minister'' he wants to be remembered as.

Uh huh. What is it with bloody Penrith? What about Blacktown? What about Wentie?

Even worse, there was no apology from the editorialist. No "sorry we wasted your time readers, with Jai", and not a word of apology for the editorialist's own breath-taking, countervailing bit of stupidity:

The physical centre of Sydney now lies west of Parramatta and the city has to grow inland. Creating excessive density in the existing housing stock will lower the quality of life in the city. 

So now we're building quarter acre blocks all the way to Lithgow? With fucked public infrastructure and tollways carving through the inner suburbs the solution?

It reminded the pond of a story we stumbled across the other day back in the Sydney Morning Herald on the 15th November 1978 (click to enlarge):

Yes people have been brooding about Badgerys Creek for decades.

No, the pond might not like reading any more insights from Jai or the Fairfaxian editor.

Indeed the pond might not like the Bolter blathering on in his usual way, about leftists and lefties, the only pleasing thing in How to con the Canberra gallery the Labor way being that warmists cop a rest.

In his usual, infinitely stupid way, the Bolter thinks that the hacks are easily misled by the twitterverse and by John McTernan and chitchat about Malcolm Turnbull's fraudband.

He simply doesn't seem to understand that anyone with half a clue, or perhaps with direct experience of real broadband, knows what is now being proposed is indeed fraudband, and that it's an abuse of the English language, as well as an abuse of many other things, to call what is now being proposed a National Broadband Network.

As usual, since he has the breadth of vision of a gnat, the Bolter reduces it all to personalities.

But that brings us back to where we started.

NBN Co executive chairman Ziggy Switkowski described the Coalition’s predominantly Fibre to the Node-based NBN model as containing a number of “heroic” assumptions, adding that it would be “tough” to meet the new Government’s 2016 delivery deadline for the NBN. 
As a replacement strategy, NBN Co recommended a drastically reduced rollout schema, which it dubbed an “Optimised Multi-Technology Mix”). In this model, FTTP-style broadband would not be deployed to some 24 percent of Australian premises located in metropolitan areas by the end of 2020, with another 32 percent not to receive FTTN infrastructure, 12 percent not to receive Fibre to the Basement or similar and similar upgrades not planned for another 30 percent, considering that percentage is already covered by the HFC cable networks operated by Telstra and Optus. This rollout in total would cover 93 percent of the population, with the remaining 7 percent to be covered by no satellite or wireless options.

Yes, it's the perfect rollout that isn't a rollout strategy, and you can read the rest at Delimiter here. It's the 'not a bloody network', not bloody now, and never bloody nigh scheme ...

Do we have one more "no, we might not like" left? One we can quickly cash in?

Oh wait, we rather like that, the smirk posturing and posing below a mystery pal at lesbian night ...

It sort of resonates. A natural prat prattling on in his natural tabloid home. 

Of course it would have been better if it had been Cardinal Pell, and who knows what Petey boy's Hillsong friends will think of the company he keeps, but it lightened the pond's day. And golly did it need some lightening.

At least there's always Master Rowe. Oh look there's Big Mal with the wrong sort of cabling on his head. Quick, someone find some string and sealing wax ...

(Below: more David Rowe here)

But then things quickly got gloomy again.

Here you are, reconcile this:

Abbott was the best?

Reconcile that with this, if you will and if you can:

So is this what schizophrenia looks and feels like?

More First Dog here, but hold your nose as you enter Crikey ... if being a boofheaded, head-kicking romper stomper winner is all that's needed to get accolades from Crikey, then the pond might not find First Dog enough reason to subscribe, not even in the name of iconoclasm and eccentricity and perversity for the sake of being independently and proudly perverse ...