In a sense, Monday is the day of living dangerously ...

The pond woke up to the startling news that short term income relief for farmers wasn't a handout or a form of government subsidy.

Uh huh. It beguiled the pond enough to race off to the Department of Agriculture's Exceptional Circumstances Handbook.

After the first wave of nausea and deep sympathy for farmers forced to wade through the bureaucratese, the pond landed on this:

Income support is provided as the Exceptional Circumstances Relief Payment and is paid at the same rates as the Newstart Allowance. Income support is to assist eligible farm families to meet their day to day living expenses.

The next step was to check a few dictionary definitions:

Next the pond did a Greg Hunt and did a wiki on subsidy. The opening, alarming line?

A subsidy is a form of financial or in kind support extended to an economic sector (or institution, business or individual) generally with the aim of promoting economic and social policy.

Phew, problem solved, it was just a typical bit of dissembling from a craftsman dissembler going about his daily business of redefining language to mean what he wants it to mean. Orwellian or Humpty Dumpty? You can decide, but remember ignorance is strength, war is peace, and freedom is slavery ...

As for the reptiles, they too were busy redefining the language:

There you go, loan relief, and packages, and freeloaders don't deserve help, and not a single mention of short term income relief, subsidies or the whole damn Barnaby Joyce thing ...

Yes, that last bit about freeloaders was the reliable Judith Sloan huffing and puffing away in Freeloaders at rump don't deserve help, (inside the paywall because the world's not ready for freebies, you bludgers) helpfully explaining that giant agribusinesses are the only go, and that small farmers can just get stuffed:

So where does this leave Tony Abbott as he tours around parts of Queensland and NSW that have been suffering a relatively short drought? 
If he is serious when he says that he is not interested in propping up failing farming businesses, he won’t be having a bar of Barnaby Joyce’s special pleadings. 
By all means, assist farmers to be more self-reliant, encourage them to save up for the hard times and provide income support when it is needed. But let us not return to the old days of unproductive and inequitable drought assistance, which was snaffled by a minority of farmers, most of whom will never make a living from the land.

Uh huh. Well that helps explain why Abbott feels the need to distort, dissemble, obfuscate, mislead and lie. Otherwise Dame Sloan will give him a jolly good smacking ...

Actually the pond doesn't have a problem with handouts and subsidies, discreetly and effectively applied, whether to agrarian socialist farmers or to others. What the pond has a problem with is dissembling abuse of the English language.

And then to top it off, the pond learned from the very same source - no names, no pack drill - that wild dogs and kangaroos are a problem, and it's way beyond time to massacre the beasts and never mind faint hearted do gooders, or that "in a sense, the kangaroo is a national symbol". (truly, you can listen here, but only if you have a strong stomach)

In a sense? What on earth could that mean? What possible "sense" could we be talking about?

Oh that sense ...

Carry on ...

Meanwhile, speaking of ambitious dissemblers, the reptiles at the lizard Oz featured Bjorn Lomborg in today's digital issue with Feed the kids and watch nations grow (inside the paywall to isolate the virus).

Uh huh. Yet another tirade about how climate change was a jolly good thing, and the glass was more than half full?

Nope, these days the reptiles have gone into the business of publishing self-promoting puff pieces, all in the good cause of saving the world and promoting the Copenhagen Consensus Centre ...

The Copenhagen Consensus Centre has shown ...

This is why a group of Nobel laureates at the Copenhagen Consensus Centre ...

These are the kinds of solutions the Copenhagen Consensus Centre promotes in our research ...

And a reminder at the end:

Bjorn Lomborg is adjunct professor at Copenhagen Consensus Centre ...

Consensus?

Not really, not since the Danish government cut off funding, and the centre had to reinvent itself as a 501(c)(3) registered in the United States, so that bizarrely Copenhagen is now operating out of Massachusetts ...

"The reason he received funding in the first place was ideological," said Ms Auken, environment spokesman for SF, the junior partner in the incoming coalition. "We believe that it is wrong to give funding to specific ideological researchers." (here)

But he'll always have a home amongst the gum trees and the reptiles at the Oz ...

Meanwhile, the Bolter has found an old and much-loved target for his spleen and his rage.

After all you can only kick blacks up the hill and down the dale eight days out of seven, and so ...

Indeed, indeed. Now while we're whipping up a pogrom and sending the wretches off to the gulag, the pond has a couple of names we'd suggest should be first in line.

(here)

Now there's a dangerous ideologue sucking on the taxpayer's teat if ever the pond saw one ...

We apologise to any child who ran screaming from the room.

And here's another of those so-called clever, fancy pants elitist profs that are ruining the country:

(here)

And then there's this one:

(here)

What's that you say? These dangerous reprehensible profs represent half the opinion page scribblers for the reptiles at the lizard Oz?

Sorry, there needs to be a cull, there has to be a cull.

In a sense, they're the national symbol of all that's wrong with the country ...

And finally, speaking of Peter Van Onselen, as it seems we must, he indirectly led to a brain spasm by Gerard 'prattling Polonius' last week.

Presenter Peter Van Onselen introduced the subject of marriage. That is, marriage as defined by the Marriage Act – being the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of others. This is what Ross Cameron – in sermonising mode – had to say: 
Ross Cameron: I think that we are looking at an institution here – the instinct to couple among humans is ancient. Apparently Neanderthals didn’t couple in quite the same way but the reason, the rationale, the raison d’être – 
Peter Van Onselen: I don’t even think the History Channel will go that far back Ross Cameron: – The reason humans chose this evolutionary path – which was different to everybody else – which involved, one, a very, very long period of gestation of the child in the womb and then, secondly, this extended period of helplessness of the child once born. And so a child left alone up until about the age of five, will die of dehydration.... 
Now what happened therefore...that meant...women and children under the human strategy which has been magnificently successful, okay? – we’ve beaten all other challenges – we are at the top of the food chain. But we’ve got this period of vulnerability – vulnerability in particular for mothers and also for children. So the idea of marriage was to try and wrap a band around this relationship so the blokes just didn’t wander off. And the idea is to protect mothers and children with something stronger.

Even Hendo couldn't resist pointing out the obvious, and for those who came in late, they can remind themselves of what "something stronger" meant to Cameron by reading I've cheated: 'Family man' MP's bombshell.

As for the rest of Hendo's effort, it's leftists, ABC, bias, leftist, ABC, complaints department ABC hopeless, leftist bias, ABC, greenies ABC leftist bias, Guardian on the Yarra leftist bias and so on and interminably on, like a cracked record, broken up with a reference to rich inner-city sandal wearers, seemingly to ensure that the pond will remember for the zillionth time that Hendo has an eerie in the heart of the city and seems to be passingly well off ... all he needs is the sandals ... though the way he drones on, he wears mental sandals all the time.

What's funniest? Could it be the sight of Hendo sending up Morry Swartz for targeting a demographic with standing marketing speak, while Hendo himself nestles in the bosom of the angry old white males that litter The Australian ...

Talk about Ross Cameron sounding like a silly old fart ...

It is of course followed by a bout of correspondence, in which Henderson hectors or admonishes or reprimands, but always ensures that the entire conversation is about Hendo and his mighty works and insights.

Hendo is fond of ending many of his satirical notes "can you bear it?"

Well if you think you can, you'll toddle off, here, but be warned, take protective clothing and a strong stomach, to cope with all the bile and the narcissist preening, which it has to be said, creates a serious challenge to former Chairman Rudd in the overweening self-regard stakes ...

And now, if like the pond, you cannot bear it ...

(Below: more New Yorker bear jokes here)