What's that, they say it's the heart of the nation?

Sanctimonious righteous humbug is the theme for the day.

First up, thanks to a copy of the lizard Oz purloined from an airline lounge - never ever pay for a Murdochian product is the first rule of the pond - it was revealed that the reptiles still claim to be the "heart of the nation".

There it was, as bold as brass:

It's gone missing online and the pond was lulled into a false sense of security.

As Shakespeare sort of said:

Haven’t they proven themselves to be a great villains—slandering, scorning, and dishonouring all that's good and decent in the world? Oh, I wish I were a man! They pretended that they were objective balanced reporters until the moment they were caught publishing sundry prejudicial, biased reports, and then—with public accusation, blatant slander, pure hatred—Oh God, if only I were a man! I would rip their hearts out in public and eat a tasty morsel of each ...

If the reptiles are the heart of the nation, then the long absent lord help the nation.

But let's not use the moment to give the Fairfaxians a free pass. Today, in his usual bout of union bashing - the day that you see Paul "Magic Water" Sheehan rail at corruption in the banking and finance sector might be some time coming - Sheehan drags Julia Gillard through it all more, yet the best he can offer in Julia Gillard back in spotlight over links to unions is guilt by association.

Along with this sort of cant and sanctimonious righteous humbug:

I have never questioned her claim that she was duped by unionists who used her legal services to engage in fraud. I do not question that claim now.

Of course it's humbug. Sheehan wants to throw mud at Gillard. Sheehan wants the mud to stick. Sheehan shows every sign of being one of those humbugs to be found in Bunuel's Belle de Jour:

Oh okay, it's a somewhat tenuous link, but truth to tell, the pond can only start Mondays so often being confronted by Sheehan before thinking of some fun things, and a Bunuel movie is always more amusing than Sheehan (yes, you remember the mud scene, surely you remember the mud)...

Sheehan was doing the same thing on the ABC, and that led to the same sort of cautionary humbug hypocrisy from the Bolter here:

Paul Sheehan makes a prediction on the ABC (watch here) about Julia Gillard, referring to the AWU scandal - a scandal the ABC for years tried to dismiss or ignore: 
(Note: Julia Gillard denies any wrongdoing and says she did not know how her then boyfriend, AWU official Bruce Wilson, used the slush fund she helped to set up through giving legal advice.)

Why the note? Why the cowardly custard knows the laws of defamation still apply.

But the note, the cant, the humbug, is only inserted so the smears and the innuendo can be rolled out.

It's another reason the pond has stopped watching the ABC. You never know when Sheehan or another member of the rabid right might turn up, as the ABC does its best to match Ten on its march to become the Faux Noise downunder.

But Sheehan is terrible television talent. His pallid demeanour and his reedy whining voice are an immediate turn off. Why the pond would rather watch Karl Stefanovic and Lisa Wilkinson. No, scrub that, just bring the gun and we'll end it now ...

What else?

Well the hagiography continues apace as the knob polishers dutifully go about their business:

And there's that bloody 'heart of the nation' sign as the reptiles carry on campaigning for the Bolter's right to be offensive, and as bigoted as he likes ...

(click to enlarge, but you might need a towel to handle all the slavering and the slobbering)

By golly the forelock tugging is a class act.

Julian Clarke: "Lachlan is one of the best strategic thinkers I've known ...."

Because you know the Ten network right now is such a raging success ... why the shares are on the rise right now thanks to the Golden Touch of the Murdochians ...

Which brings us the best dose of sanctimonious righteousness and humbug for the day, and naturally it's the editorial at The Australian.

Now there's a tricky line to walk here, but if you've ever been asked to walk in a straight line by an officer of the law, you'll know how to do it.

First up you have to remember that the March in March was a total flop and a failure and a matter only for satire of the Tim Blair kind.

Why speak of the noodle Blair, he's at his very satirical noodle best this very day in A day in the life of a trainee activist.

Yes the March in March was a noodle or so the MSM assured the world.

And it was studiously ignored, with a righteous level of humbug, as explained by Jacqueline Maley in March in March: Two sides to the story we didn't run.

As Maley explained, the presence of a couple of loons carrying signs was sufficient for the entire march to be given the black out treatment.

The peculiar attitude was explored by Media Watch, which inter alia, made this point here:

Back in 2011, when Tony Abbott was urged to Ditch the Witch at an anti carbon tax rally, was the media quicker to highlight the attacks? 
Well, yes. But one look at this picture from News Corp’s Herald Sun, and you can see the media had little choice 
Because Tony Abbott delivered his speech to that rally standing in front of two now notorious signs: Ditch the Witch and Ju-liar, Bob Brown’s Bitch. 
You could hardly ignore them or black them out, especially on TV news. 
Another big difference is that Mr Abbott and other senior opposition politicians were supporting the protesters. 
Had Bill Shorten spoken up at the March in March the anti Abbott placards would have been a much bigger story. Especially if he had been in front of these signs. But of course he was not.

Cue the lizards, today, with Hypocrisy writ large as Labor targets Speake.

Speake?

Yep, Speake ...

The heart of the nation doesn't give a flying fuck about typos anymore. It's about on a par with the pond, which routinely is shocked and appalled at how much the pond's NZ subs miss as they do their spell-checking. 

But do go on because the pond is a tad short on its daily dose of righteous indignant sanctimonious humbug:

This time a year ago the Labor Party and its eager supporters in the media were focused on the evils of misogyny and the apparent decline in the standard of public debate. On the ABC and in the Fairfax media they insisted loudly, indignantly and repeatedly that any and all criticism of Julia Gillard’s prime ministership had been deliberately amplified because of her gender. And they pointed to a handful of placards at an anti-carbon tax rally — that read “ditch the witch” and slandered Ms Gillard as “Bob Brown’s bitch” — as evidence that public debate had become ugly and brutish because of Tony Abbott’s aggressive leadership of the opposition. While Mr Abbott was unwise to appear in front of these signs, we always said those claims were overblown. The nasty signs and vicious online assaults against Ms Gillard were inexcusable and worthy of condemnation. But, sadly, they were no more and no less than many prime ministers before her had endured. 

Yes, harden the fuck up Julia Gillard. Everyone cops it, and you copped it, but don't go crying in the spilled milk.

Now, we are left wondering whether much of that political outrage, especially from Labor, was confected. Because surely people agitated by words like witch and bitch would be equally appalled at seeing signs demanding people “Kill Abbott” or likening his party to Adolf Hitler’s Nazis or abusing him with T-shirts emblazoned with the three-word slogan “F. .k Tony Abbott”. Yet despite these signs appearing in growing numbers in public, on social media and supported by more protesters than those who held aloft the anti-Gillard signs, they seem to have been greeted by the Left with approving silence. Their condemnation or approbation seems to have been either very discreet or totally absent.

Oh indeed. Shocking. Why what can be said?

The nasty signs and vicious online assaults against Mr. Abbott were inexcusable and worthy of condemnation. But, sadly, they were no more and no less than many prime ministers before him had endured. Like Julia Gillard. But hey she had to harden the fuck up, while poor Tony is just a softy, a warm, cuddly creature, so vulnerable and open to hurt.

And now let's go cry in our spilled milk and moan about the Fairfaxians and the ABC.

There are two things to note here: the way the lizards keep chewing over old wounds, scratching and clawing at the scars, making them fresh and bloody, weeks, months, years after the slight was endured, and the suffering began; and the naked partisan nature of the editorials, which always manage to exude a most peculiar odour of hypocrisy, dressed up as hand wringing righteousness.

You can either think of the editorialists as angry cows chewing at their cuds, or as being like a fox caught in a trap gnawing at the leg as a way of getting free ...

But what's all this about? Well it's actually a bit of false conflation. You see, back in the day, the reptiles would insist that Julia Gillard had to be judged by the job she was doing, and not invoke talk of misogyny and sexism.

Now that Bronnie has come under attack, it seems it's all because she's a woman, and so we must talk of misogyny and sexism, and not worry at all about judging her by the job she's doing.

Here's how that's done:

And as for misogyny, we have heard constant re-runs of that line of attack since Mr Abbott found room in his cabinet for only one woman. 

Oh the lizards finally noticed:

But do go on:

Yet the woman Mr Abbott moved from his inner circle to preside over the parliament as Speaker, Bronwyn Bishop, has become the focal point of opposition angst. In a system where partisan Speakers and disaffected oppositions are the norm, Labor has attempted to vent its woes upon Ms Bishop. Certainly, she appears to relish her opportunity to lord it over her former political foes. But most Speakers have. In fact, Labor zeroed in on Ms Bishop and declared its mistrust on the day she was appointed, disregarding any need to first see how she fared. The manager of opposition business, Tony Burke, who led last week’s attacks on her, used parliament’s opening day to compare her to a witch. “People have remarked today about this being reminiscent of the Harry Potter novel,” he said, “in which they all returned to Hogwarts and found that Dumbledore was gone and Dolores Umbridge was in charge of the school.” Mr Burke certainly would have taken umbrage at such a slight against Ms Gillard. But now the rules seem to have changed.

Dolores Umbridge?

The pond has absolutely no idea where Tony Burke got that idea from:

As for charges of bias and incompetence - the pond has absolutely no idea where that came from either:

But here's the thing. It wasn't just Labor that noticed the way Bishop was behaving. Peter Van Onselen, a genuine, certified reptile, bona fide heart of the nation, noticed it back in November 2013, here. The pond enjoyed the prophecy so much we made a copy:

And it hasn't got better since, as Van Onselen predicted, and he returned to the theme on 22nd March with Bronwyn Bishop's role as speaker in federal Parliament is becoming a circus:

Bronwyn Bishop’s performance as Speaker is now becoming a distraction for the new government. She should be forced to step aside even if she won’t even pretend to start acting in a less partisan manner. 
Nobody in this country seriously expects our Speaker to act with the impartiality of the British Speaker. In the UK, the opposition — by convention — doesn’t run a candidate against the Speaker in order to ensure they can rise above the partisan contest.
Australia being Australia, if an opposition committed to such a strategy you could imagine party tacticians selecting a marginal seat MP for the Speakership. 
But surely Bishop should at least provide the occasional glimpse of balance? 
I wrote a column in November lamenting her poor performance after just two weeks in the chair. My fear was that she wasn’t likely to improve. In fact, she has gotten worse. 
Bishop throws Labor MPs out of the chamber with gay abandon. She regularly shuts down points of order before even hearing them. She enters the partisan debate, throwing quips and smirks into the equation in a way that should be beneath the Speaker. And she rarely if ever rules against the government on anything. 
Before Bishop took up the position, several Liberal MPs told me that they thought it was a mistake to give it to her because she’d make herself the story. But there was little MPs could do about her appointment: Tony Abbott wanted to dump her from the ministry and offering Bishop the Speakership was the only alternative he’d accept (the pair are close).
Never mind that tradition dictated that MPs, free of a prime ministerial directive, are supposed to choose the Speaker. 
If government MPs want parliament to be taken seriously, not to mention the way the government treats the parliamentary process, they should have a quiet word to Bishop to lift her game. Or perhaps the PM should.

Now if the editorialist at the lizard Oz wanted to lift his or her game, attention would have been paid to Bishop's activities and competence, instead of relying on a Tony Burke joke about Harry Potter as a way of getting out of jail, while indulging at the same time in a little hand-wringing sanctimonious righteous humbug ...

If that rag's the heart of the nation, then the nation is surely fucked ...

Here's the photo used to illustrate Van Onselen's story:

Now what was that Harry Potter joke again?

A light hearted meditation on god's anger management issues, genocide, the Catholic church's ponzi scheme, incomprehensible angry Sydney anglicans, and hog castration ...

(Above: the pond channels Rusty, and genocidal, vengeful gods with anger management issues, thanks to Robert Crumb)

Amongst the many tidbits that have emerged during the inquiry into child abuse, this one caught the eye:

The Sydney Catholic archdiocese controls funds worth more than $1.2 billion and has regularly made multi-million dollar tax-free profits. 
The royal commission into child sex abuse heard the archdiocese banked surpluses of between $7.7 million and $44 million between 2004 and 2007, a period during which the Catholic church was aggressively defending a claim for $100,000 brought against it by former altar boy John Ellis. (Sydney church's $1.2b wealth revealed)

Now this won't be news to anyone with contact with the church - the gay priest in the pond's extended family leads a fine old life, with the occasional international junket, and nothing wrong with that. Well the gay bit ...

What's astonishing is that this ponzi scheme could keep operating on a tax-free basis, while making offers that the most basic consumer protection legislation would find misleading and deceptive.

When the pond last checked, not a single customer had returned to report on what life was actually like in heaven and/or hell, or the Motel 6 of purgatory, or even limbo, before it was abolished ... (and if you got sent to limbo before it got abolished, do you get a refund?)

The entire business model is built on ways to secure an eternity of heaven and avoid an eternity of hell.

Yet the behaviour of the people who run the church seems designed to guarantee them a life in hell, or at the very least, a very long time in purgatory.

How is this Christian?

Sydney Archdiocese business manager Danny Casey told the commission on Tuesday that the church's funds, worth $1.24 billion, included extensive property holdings and cash and were ultimately controlled by the archbishop. 
The commission also heard the church is spending more on victim compensation and less on legal fees than in the past. 
Mr Casey said surpluses recorded by the diocese were exempt from income and capital gains tax and were reinvested to allow the church to do "good works".

Good works? So putting victims through a life of hell on earth is a good work?

Well that's handy good work if you can find it.

As for the rest, the pond doesn't have anything to add to David Marr's thorough coverage in A cup of tea with the cardinal: what George Pell did in the Ellis case.

The sub-header says it all:

The royal commission has brought to light the evolution of the Sydney archdiocese's pitiless legal strategy to defeat the victim of a paeodophile priest

Pitiless it was, and what follows is a singularly depressing read.

Pell did his best to befuddle, but it was clear that the matter of Ellis was conducted with the knowledge and consent of the clients instructing their lawyers to be right royal legal bastards ...

What always amazes the pond is that fraudulent schemes like this reside outside the taxation and legal system - hence the church escaping the Ellis matter on a technicality which said it couldn't be sued - and there's no move to tax the profits, and instead other rackets - from Scientology to Hillsong - work the same side of the 'make out like bandits' street.

There's endless media coverage of welfare bludgers, dole cheats, and Aboriginal people living like princes on their lavish government cheques, and no attention at all to the lack of oversight of this long running racket.

Is there a little comedy in the house?

The film’s boldest stroke, though, comes from a logical quibble with the book of Genesis: if God was asking Noah and his family to repopulate the earth, was he not demanding incest? 
Aronofsky adds an adopted daughter, Ila, played by Emma Watson, to give them an out ... (here)

Ah, the Woody Allen defence ...

Meanwhile, England has been reduced to rubble by the first gay marriages. Civilisation has foundered. How much better to follow the path of Islamic fundamentalists and Vlad the impaler and keep on persecuting gay people.

But what's this?

Archbishop of Canterbury signals end of C of E's resistance to gay marriage.

Well that's not going to fly down under.

Thank heavens for the angry Sydney Anglicans, this week featuring Jensenist thinking at its finest in Why Bible teaching is evangelistic:

We must read in the context of the author, not our own context. We may try a Marxist or feminist reading of something in order to free ourselves from our own context and open ourselves to alternative ways of thinking – but unless we are reading a Marxist or feminist writer we will not understand what they are saying. The author’s context is more important than the reader’s context.

So only an angry Sydney Anglican can discern the reality of Adam and Eve.

Now where's that adopted daughter, or we might have a case of incest on our hands? What's that? The sons had wives? What, like Woody Allen?

And there's another Jensenist scribbling away in Service not surveillance.

Actually the pond has no idea what this Jensenist is on about, though it seems to entail some disapproval of governments collecting data and information on individuals.

Now back in the day, the pond learned that, just as god was the first genocidist, god was also the absolute tops at surveillance and data collection.

Not a sparrow's fart would go unnoticed. Not a single sin the pond committed - oh darn, bugger it - would go unpunished, and filthy mouths would be washed out with soap, and filthy thoughts expunged, but not before they got toted up, and added to the great list in the computer in the sky, which would determine whether it could be avoided by confession (or a healthy brown envelope stuffed with the folding stuff) or a last act of contrition, or it was off to toil in hellfire for eternity.

And god made no secret of it. Oh there were guardian angels and spies and snitches, all delivering the news to Ms 1984 herself, as Psalm 121 made clear:

The Lord watches over you— 
 the Lord is your shade at your right hand; 
the sun will not harm you by day, 
 nor the moon by night. 
The Lord will keep you from all harm— 
 he will watch over your life; 
the Lord will watch over your coming and going 
 both now and forevermore.

Which is nonsense of course. On a daily basis god fails to keep all sorts of people from harm, while promising, via his data collection and surveillance activities, to send a lot of recalcitrant wretches to hell.

Somehow out of that, Michael Jensen constructs this:

This is then a model for us of the non-paranoid, non-desperate exercise of power. Power as God exercises it in Jesus Christ is not established in surveillance but in service. The great machines of power-knowledge that surround us today – the data-gatherers, the government agencies, the financial institutions, Google – they do not have the tight grip on us that they claim. Rather, they are, like Augustus, doing the bidding of the God of Israel, even as they seek only their own gain. Like a skilful wrestler using his opponents’ strength and weight against him, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has woven the plans of human powers into his own plans, to overturn them and to chasten them; and by keeping our gaze on him, we can learn to see human power for what it truly is.

Only a Sydney Anglican ...

Enough already, time to turn secular and celebrate the past week, and the bold work of that brave Catholic knight, Sir Wabbott, as celebrated by the Courier-Mail.

Yes, even the Mail couldn't resist a dig:

If only this were a joke?

It's the best joke of the week ...

Well except for those who saw Colbert endorse Joni Ernest, Iowa hog castratrix (if that's a word), with the original ad up on YouTube for the moment:




Sounds to the pond like Washington's full of barking mad people. Squeal, little piggies, squeal.

Another weird day in Murdochian la la land ...

There's always unfinished business, bits and pieces that only float to the surface of the pond after a couple of days.

For example, of all the lame defences of someone doing the very opposite of what they espouse, surely Julia Baird offered the very lamest:

There has been much scratching of heads this week about why an avowed republican would accept the title of Dame. In truth, she had little choice. It would have seemed churlish to refuse in her final hours, especially because it is now built into the position of governor-general: refusing would involve a very loud, awkward change to the Letters Patent. 
Asked if the reintroduced knight and dame title were a “prerequisite for a governor-general designate to accept before they’ll be appointed”, Tony Abbott said: “there is no reason why a Prime Minister could not change the Letters Patent if necessary to accommodate someone who, for whatever reason, was reluctant to be a Knight or Dame in the Order of Australia. But people who love our country, who want to serve our country should they be approached to serve in this particular capacity, I think would normally be happy to accept this honour because, in the end, yes, it is for people who have served our country in an extraordinary and pre-eminent way.” 
In other words, you could say no, if you wanted to be rude and did not love our country. So Dame she is. 

Little choice? She had to do it? It would have been awkward and loud? Why fight? Why struggle?

How many times have women told not to be rude, to be submissive, to fall into line and not to rock the boat? And then even more offensively to swallow without dissent, patriotic bullshit from that scoundrel who routinely seeks refuge in patriotism, Tony Abbott ...

So sellout she is, and Baird a panderer of the very worst kind.

If you want to be a republican, be one. But if you want to be a toadie of the monarchist establishment, be one. Just don't attempt to conflate the two.

And don't get the pond started on Earth Hour - anything that makes the pond share the same view as Bjorn Lomborg is a serious worry.

And now to the day's business.

There have been many stupid and bizarre interpretations attached to the missing MH370. Panhandlers and losers and dropkicks have been having a field day. Remember this one:

Happily Colbert and Stewart are back after a break, and a few days ago Colbert had a field day with these sorts of pundits saying stupid things:

The desperation to fill TV slots reached such an extreme level that CNN even brought on a psychic. That’s right, a psychic.

It's usually hard to link to Colbert because of geopolitical territorial limitations - though determined viewers will know how to spoof Firefox to get there - but it seems that if you're in Firefox private viewing mode, you can see the skit here.

It couldn't get any sillier or more bizarre, right?

Wrong, for today Miranda the Devine pitifully attempts to link the plane to climate change.

Oh sure, MH370: Global warning on our frailties starts off vaguely in the ballpark, by talking of the limitations of current technology:

You know, frailty, fear being where hubris and reality collide, and other zingers, but then this zinger:

So, you have to ask: if we are finding it so hard to find a missing jumbo jet, how can we possibly think we can stop climate change? 

Actually, Miranda the Devine, the pond didn't ask such a stupid question. We didn't have to ask at all.

There are reasons why it's been tricky to find the missing plane, what with all sorts of instruments turned off for unknown reasons, and while we're at it, please, reserve the name 'jumbo jet' for the 747 that earned that nick name when it took to the air back in 1970 ...

But please, as soon as a neo con asks that sort of rhetorical question, there's no doubt plenty more gibberish in store for the world, so do go on:

 Computer models have proven no more useful for forecasting global temperatures than a flight tracker app is for finding MH370. 

Did you pause for even a nano second to consider just how incredibly stupid that sounds?

For the past 15-17 years, temperatures have not budged, despite rising carbon dioxide emissions. This so-called warming hiatus, or pause, makes a mockery of climate models which predicted drastic global warming due to the atmosphere’s supposed allergy to greenhouse gases.

Uh huh. Supposed allergy. Mockery. So called.

Top notch science.

What follows is a classic example of befuddlement of the illogical kind, where the Devine flings everything and anything at the very notion of climate science.

It's bizarre stuff, though in a newspaper where the owner advised the world to head off to the caves of northern Pakistan to find the missing plane, it probably sounds quite sensible.

Please contemplate the Devine in full denialist model. Oh dear, you cluck, is it right to call her a denialist. Well yes, but only because one of her gambits is to talk of alarmists and a climate alarm industry, which can neatly be juxtaposed to the climate denialist industry:

The entire climate alarm industry was built around those unreliable models. The dire warnings issued by the United Nation’s IPCC rely on their temperature forecasts. 
But, year after year, the actual temperatures defy the predictions, and climate scientists have not been able to explain why. 

Which is simply not true. Either a lie or ignorance strutting its stuff. Many climate scientists have explained why, with many citing the oceans - their heating and their ongoing acidification - as matters of keen interest.

Whatever, and dispute their findings as you will, don't adopt a posture of woeful ignorance and say no one has a clue.

So maybe the atmosphere is not as sensitive to CO2 as we were led to believe. 

So 'maybe' is now a scientific paper and a scientific position?

Maybe our contribution to climate change is not as significant as we imagined.

Or maybe the Devine is using 'maybe' as part of her befuddlement methodology. Maybe 'maybe' is jut window dressing for full blown denialism.

The obvious conclusion is that our quest to stop climate change is an arrogant delusion. 

The obvious conclusion? An arrogant delusion?

This from someone who began it all with talk of a plane gone missing ...

The planet will warm or cool at will, regardless of any heroic sacrifices we make. As the eminent American physicist Fred Singer wrote last week: ”All the evidence suggests that Nature rules the climate – not Man.” 
The dawning realization of our powerlessness is driving a new more realistic imperative to adapt to climate change rather than trying to stop it. 

Yes, you know where this is heading.

Last week, the Devine was in full denialist mode talking of shags on a very cold rock (here).

This week it seems it might be happening, but we're powerless and helpless, a bit like Quentin Bryce unable to refuse a gong. It seems there might be climate change, but we should just stick our paws in the air and surrender.

So why is the Devine in such a tizz?

The latest IPCC report on the impacts of climate change is due out tomorrow (Monday) and leaked stories paint the sort of apocalyptic scenarios that have been scaring a generation of children witless since The Day After Tomorrow showed tsunamis drowning everyone on the east coast of America.

Yes, because the go to image for climate scientists around the world is a Hollywood disaster movie.

Just as the best way to discuss the technical details of a missing plane is to reference a Hollywood disaster movie. Go on, pick the plane movie of your choice, here, and let's get down to some solid science.

But there are signs that the church of climate alarm is under siege. 
First came news last week that a lead author on that IPCC report’s chapter on economics has demanded his name be taken off it because he says it was rewritten to exaggerate the impact of climate change.

Which is outrageous when you think of it. Because climate change, global warming, ocean acidification, simply isn't happening.

‘The message in the first draft was that through adaptation and clever development these were manageable risks,” British climate economist, Dr Richard Tol, told reporters. “This has completely disappeared from the draft now, which is all about the impacts of climate change and the four horsemen of the apocalypse.” 

Yes, we all know the stages, and it seems for the moment that the Devine has shifted from her usual 1 to a mix of 3 and 4:

When even IPCC grandees are breaking ranks you know the game is up. 
Another good sign is that the IPCC report will contain a “new emphasis” on adaptation rather than preventing global warming, and is more cautious than before about the overall costs, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

Say what?

In just the previous par, the Devine quoted someone denouncing the report as being about the four horsemen of the apocalypse, and in the very next breath, the Devine quotes someone as saying the new report is more cautious, and the Devine's too dumb to be aware of the contradiction, never mind it's between two consecutive pars?

What sort of fuckwit is she?

As reality sinks in, it’s only a matter of time before the climate charlatans who have misled us for two decades are brought to account. WA MP Dr Dennis Jensen kicked off the process of discovery last week with a bold call in Parliament for a formal audit of the climate data processes of the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO. 

Sorry, we shouldn't have asked. She's a Dennis Jensen-quoting sort of fuckwit.

How does Jensen do his science?

Stupid people in an echo chamber.

Yet if you asked the Devine this Sunday about whether a wafer is the actual body of Christ, she'd swallow it whole ...

Which no doubt explains how she can swallow Jensen.

He claims they have been picking and choosing data to suit an alarmist agenda. He has a PhD in Materials Science and Physics, and has worked for the CSIRO and the Defence Science and Technology Organisation as a research scientist, so is uniquely placed among politicians to question the information which has driven absurd and wasteful government policy on climate change. 

Uh huh. How lucky that the pond has an advanced degree in garbology and so is uniquely placed amongst bloggers to question the drivel that emanates from cola and carbon as a lesson in climate science.

Imagine what we might have achieved if, instead of engaging in a futile bid to change the climate, all those great minds had been focused on curing cancer or bringing potable water to the poorest corners of the planet, or stamping out child sexual abuse. 

But how could we do any of that? We can't even find a fucking plane. We're helpless, we're hopeless, quick form a circle and do the Miranda the Devine Chicken Little dance.

If last night’s Earth Hour and all those meetings in Copenhagen and Kyoto had been for something useful and important, what might we have achieved? 
One thing the mystery of MH370 should teach us is humility.

Actually the one thing that MH370 teaches us is the endless, fathomless stupidity of the media commentariat, and points to a mystery more strange than the Bermuda Triangle - how did so many of them end up in the bottomless pit of News Corp, headed by a man who thinks the plane was to be found hidden in Pakistan ...?

Of course the plane might still be found in a cave in Pakistan, in which case Chairman Rupert will be perceived as a genius.

And the Devine might well be right, up against the thousands of scientists about to present a report tomorrow on the latest state of climate science, though it's already being reported in detail, as you can read in a report more interested in the science than in befuddlement, confusion and a silly attempt to conflate a missing plane with climate science:

Yes you can read IPCC report: climate change felt 'on all continents and across the oceans', or Governments reject IPCC economist's 'meaningless' climate costs estimate.

Or you can go cave hunting in northern Pakistan looking for missing planes.

Or perhaps just spoof Firefox and watch Colbert.

Oops, did he get in trouble or what? You see, in the Sporrrr Reporrrr segment, Colberrrr went from sending up the pathetic attempts of Washington Redskins' owner Dan Snyder to bribe native Americans - because Redskins isn't offensive if you only use it once in your name ...

... to this.

And conservatives couldn't make the satirical leap.

Where's George Brandis and the Bolter when they're needed?

The pond endures anger management issues thanks to the ALP, racists and Chairman Rupert ...

Okay, the pond is above all else about therapy.

So when the pond received an auto-dial call this morning from the Australian Labor Party - while going peacefully about pond business with nary a hint of anger management issues - the first thought was who to call to complain and tell them in comprehensive, yet in muted, civilised and rational words, that they could get fucked ...

Well being a robo voice on a robo call, there wasn't much joy telling the robot this. Contrary to perceived wisdom, robots remain dumber than Australian Labor Party apparatchiks, no mean feat ...

As to the purpose of the call? Well it was to invite the pond to attend a polling station and participate in the voting for a Labor candidate in the local area.

But the pond already knew about this farce.

Where was the printed material in the letterbox, informing the pond of the candidates, and their life experience, and their views and attitudes on various issues, within the context of the mind-numbing official platform of the ALP? How did they intend to help the local area move forward?

No, none of that.

That would be costly, and instead the pond copped a robo-bot invitation to cast a vote in ignorance ...

Well there really does seem only one logical thing to say when confronted with this sort of invitation.

Fuck the ALP, and fuck the mendacity and stupidity of the apparatchiks who really don't have a clue ...

And while we're at it, speaking of ignorance and folly, another anger management issue came the pond's way today.

The pond was walking along the street this morning, and noted an Asian person - yes it can be said that the Asian person was of Asian appearance - standing innocently at a set of lights, waiting in a law-abiding way for the lights to change - which is more than the jay-walking, crossing against the lights anarchist pond can manage.

Along comes a car full of testosterone-laden drongos, dickheads and dipshits, and one leans out the car and shouts "I like milk from chows", or words to that fuck-witted effect, at the Asian person, who in the usual phlegmatic way - presumably out of long and weary and bitter experience - knows that there's no point in responding to boofheads. The lights change and off he walks, in a law-abiding way (the pond having already crossed against the lights).

In fact, the pond has no idea what actually was said - the thing about inarticulate fuck-witted chortling boofheads is that they test the pond's fading hearing, but the intent of the insult, and the chortling that followed from within the car, made the meaning perfectly clear. At least "chow" seemed clear enough, and you can get an introduction to that word by heading off here.

It is, in fact, one of a number of casual, offensively racist and abusive remarks the pond has noted in the streets of Newtown - ostensibly a haven of hippie elitists - in recent weeks, but then unlike the drongo deadshits at The Australian, the pond uses public transport and moves amongst the poor ...

It seemed to symbolise the new era, the era of bigots, led by the bigots in Canberra.

But what to do? Shout back at the car, sympathise with the person of Asian appearance and explain that not all people, not even everyone in the Liberal party, likes to encourage racism and bigotry? Apologise?

Or just, like the gentleman of Asian appearance, accept that you don't have to go far to find bigotry and racism, and not just in the Liberal party and the Murdoch press, and walk on by ...

(Below: the little boy from Manly? Is that a bloody joke, or are we really back in 1895? Found here, with that annotation)

And then to top it all off, the pond made the fatal mistake of looking at Chairman Rupert's twitter account this day, which now has taken on the same morbid fascination for the pond as a necrophile contemplating a dead body.

Is this where it all ends? In public, humiliating senility?

Left alone, insurers would fix everything?

The world's sick of central bankers and Chairman Rupert is at one with teh crazies?

“It comes a time when a Patriot must move forward to stop a tyrannical government that uses policing agents against the people whom deserve their freedoms to restore this nation pre-constitutionally.[Those whom deserve to be free.] Those same agents willing to protect those whom are against us. The banking cartel is not going to stop with their Agenda, and only we can stop them and their agenda by taking what they love most and using it against them for our own missions.” (Texas right wing nut job arrested)

Chairman Rupert has joined Lyndon H. LaRouche? What next, a diatribe against the Nazi house of Windsor?

Okay, anger management issues temporarily resolved ... keep on smiling and walk on by ...

Forget it Jake, it's Murdoch town, just sue the ABC ...

How cheeky, weird, ironic and post-modernist can it get in Murdochian la la land?

No doubt there's a formula:

But why bother with formulas when you can enjoy the simple pleasure of a man currently embroiled in legal action against the ABC moaning about ideological opposites being muzzled by the judiciary?

Will we ever see a headline like Debate best avenue for ABC's detractors?

You can get around the paywall if you like and read A free and vigorous debate would be the best avenue for Bolt's detractors, but it's such a bizarre and existentially peculiar experience, it should only be done if you're in good physical and mental health.

Almost every line invites a reading with a mantra, a chorus, the sort of simple harmony you could get in the good old days of Motown:

“In a free and energetic society, giving offence is necessary,” wrote David Marr in The Sydney Morning Herald. “It’s called being grown up. Its other name is freedom.” 

Freedom? But what about the legal action against the ABC?

 After a week of debate about the Racial Discrimination Act and proposed amendments to the so-called Andrew Bolt clause, these are refreshingly wise words from a leading left commentator. 

Wise words? But what about the legal action against the ABC?

We need to remember that we live in a land where two of Bolt’s newspaper columns are banned from republication — they are the uncolumns. 

Uncolumns? But what about the unimages at the ABC?

 In an ideal world perhaps all journalists would show solidarity by having their newspapers or websites defiantly republish the columns — a national act of civil disobedience in favour of free speech. There is no such support.

Republish the unimages? But what about the Chris Kenny legal action against the ABC?

Indeed, the journalistic consensus seems antagonistic towards the Abbott government’s moves to claw back the provisions used against Bolt. 

Antagonistic? You mean like the legal action against the ABC?

Those words from Marr were written six years ago, not about the Bolt case but the offence caused by artworks such as Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ . When it came to Bolt’s conviction under the RDA’s section 18C, Marr, like many journalists, exhibited only schadenfreude. “Freedom of speech is not at stake here,” wrote Marr. “Bolt was wrong. Spectacularly wrong.”
And so we come to realise that the “permanent oppositional, moral-political community” is actually quite submissive.

Schadenfreude? Is that German for taking an action against the ABC?

Submissive? Is that the same as submitting a legal action against the ABC?

The progressives, or Green Left — so lovingly described in those terms by Robert Manne — have been less than oppositional when it comes to recent attacks on freedom of expression. 

Oppositional? Does that include a legal action against the ABC?

They seem to ration their liberalism depending on the perceived partisan leanings of the proponent or defendant. The acquiescence of the permanent oppositional moral-political community exists even though they count as their own large elements of the Canberra press gallery and journalists elsewhere. They give free speech short shrift. 

Short shrift? Does that include the legal action against the ABC?

When the Gillard government, in a fit of pique and paranoia, called an inquiry into the print media, then drafted legislation for de facto regulation of newspaper content, it won support, incredibly, from many journalists particularly at the ABC. 

The bloody ABC? Can we take a legal action against the ABC?

Even the journalists’ union, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, was mostly absent from the battlefield, supporting the inquiry and standing meekly by to see press freedom whittled away before speaking up when it was clear the package was doomed. 

The battlefield? Is that the courtroom where we can take a stand against the ABC and jumped up bloody comedians?

You can go on playing this game, and singing the same song for the entirety of the column:

To see the importance of what is transpiring we need only consider these events another way around. Think of the Abbott government introducing laws to regulate print media content. And let us pretend laws against religious persecution are used to convict Marr over columns about Tony Abbott and the Catholic Church, so that he is forced to apologise and the offending columns are banned. 

Oh instead of the Catholic church - the Pellists and their handling of child abuse is just too easy to defend - can we just imagine a satirical image of Chris Kenny doing things with a dog?

It is not hard to imagine the justifiable and thunderous outrage from the Right.

Oh sorry, typo alert, where it said Right, it should have veered Left.

After all, many are already screaming like banshees at the very mention of holding the ABC to its existing charter. 

Banshees? Wouldn't it be simpler to scream sue, sue, sue, sue their bloody socks off?

 Left or right, centrist or apathetic, we all have an interest in resisting insidious encroachments on free speech. 

Except of course when it comes to satirical matters on the ABC. Sue, sue, sue their bloody socks off!

It is true Labor’s media regulation has been seen off, for now, and that section 18C has been in place for decades. 

So let's head off to court and teach those bloody wannabe satirical clowns a lesson ...

But gradually the game palls, especially when Kenny does the usual in this matter, which is to turn Bolt apologist, and wheel in others to support the Bolter:

But where the Left and many journalists have been derelict is in not being innervated by the Bolt case. Instead of rushing to trumpet our own tolerance by condemning Bolt’s harshness, those of us interested in the free exchange of ideas should condemn Judge Mordy Bromberg’s decision and/or the laws under which it was given. You don’t have to agree with the confronting columnist to defend his right to share his views. As it happens, Bolt’s columns were appeals against race-based preferment and the temptation to parade one aspect of our ethnic make-up over any other. The columns highlighted an extremely significant issue about whether grants and positions for indigenous Australians are going to those suffering discrimination or disadvantage or whether, at least sometimes, they go to those simply able to demonstrate a connec­tion. Kerryn Pholi, who worked in but then rejected positions reserved for Aborigines, has written at length on this from a personal perspective in Quadrant. “I felt hurt (by the Bolt columns) because the truth hurts,” she says, “and my comforting ration­alisations about myself and my place in the world were already painfully dissolving.” 

Now the pond wouldn't know Kerryn Pholi from a bar of soap or a satirical image on the ABC involving a dog, but it's astonishing to read that Pholi was hurt by the Bolter's truth.

Now there's a seriously disturbed individual, especially as the blather about the truth hurting wilfully ignores the many ways the Bolter actually got his facts wrong. Shouldn't Pholi have written I felt hurt because the untruths hurt?

The way the Bolter got key points wrong was why it was easy to find against him, why the Murdochians didn't appeal, and why many in the legal fraternity thought a defamation action would have succeeded.

It's always worth going back to Eatock v Bolt to remember what was actually decided.

Sad to say, you won't get that from reading Pholi refracted through Kenny ... and Kenny wilfully dumbing down and misinterpreting what Bromberg actually said in his judgment.

But you do get ongoing comedy:

This ill-defined and subjective power in the hands of the judi­ciary is far too broad and can only have a chilling effect on free speech. 

So let's sue the ABC.

That'll chill those bloody comedians who think they're satirists good ...

There are two ways a more free society could have dealt with Bolt’s challenging and provocative columns. First, to the extent they raised important issues and people disagreed, then his views should have been contested in a vigorous and free debate. And to the extent individuals believed their reputations were attacked and damaged, the longstanding protections of defamation law were available. 

So let's sue the ABC.

The 18C amendments are necessary to ensure we see no more columns banned.

But hey, if a few comedians who think they're satirists get banned or bankrupted, where's the harm in that?

Let's see many more dangerous images banned. You know, like the Islamics did with those wretched Scandinavian cartoonists.

Now on a technical point, the pond admits some of the above chorus isn't quite Motown.

Motown tends to keep it simple:

Oh-oh, he's suing (Suing) 
On that legal train to learn the ABC a lesson, 
Yeah (Suing on a midnight train) 
Said he's going back to find, ooh (Going back to find) 
A simpler place and time, ooh, yeah 
(Whenever he takes that ride, guess who's not gonna be right by his side) 
I'm not gonna be with him (don't know who will) 
On that legal train to teach some comedians a lesson 
(Leaving on a legal train to hypocrisy, woo woo) 
I'd rather he lived in his world (Lived in his world) 
Than lived with me in mine 
(His world is his, his and his lawyers alone) 

But speaking of choruses, punters who can't get enough of the bizarre spectacle of the collective kool aid drinking by the reptiles at the lizard Oz will appreciate getting a double bunger:

It's a cunning ploy, because there's a languid photo of Gabriel Sassoon adorning the actual story, so you can see who """ really is:

Here's the nub of Sassoon:

What Andrew Bolt said in his articles was hurtful and wrong. Most of it would have been unlawful under defamation law. 
But if he wishes to make ignorant comments about “fair-skinned” Aborigines, or if some hate group wishes to deny the Holocaust, I disapprove of what they say, but I will defend to the death their right to say it. That is their right in a democratic society.

So set to, holocaust deniers. Why you could start with stripping the capital off the word, since god herself isn't above a holocaust now and then, as Russell Crowe is reminding us in the cinemas right now ...

Is there an irony in this? Well yes, back in the day, it was Philip Ruddock that banned David Irving from visiting Australia, one of a number of bans instituted by both sides of the house (Irving even has a page on his website dedicated to the many rebuffs he's endured, here).

It's shocking, outrageous stuff, this banning of a man who sees the brighter side of Nazism. The pond looks forward to Gabriel Sassoon's vigorous campaign to overturn this shocking ban, in which the party governing for the bigots, by the bigots, seems to have taken a role ...

Now can any drinker of the kool aid top all this?

Glad you asked. Cue serial pest and relentlessly dumb energiser bunny Brendan O'Neill:

Oh dear, and O'Neill not a signatory to the pond's Godwin's Law swear jar convention. We could have made out like bandits ...

How weird does it get? O'Neill defending Bardot having a go at the Islamic ritualised slaughter of animals, and shush, not a word about the way that the slaughter of animals by Islamics (Halal) and Jews (Kashrut) are dead ringers .... except for a few details.

Never mind. Bardot would have been on much safer ground simply decrying animal slaughter. Then the Islamics, the Jews, and the pond - don't feed the pond any guff about it being a meat-free week, feed the pond meat - would all have been guilty as charged.

But okay, let's forget the right of loons to be loons. Where would the pond be without them? How does O'Neill join the chanting band of loons?

... here’s the thing: history shows that, actually, hate speech laws don’t even help to combat hate. 
The Weimar Republic of the 30s had laws against “insulting religious communities”. They were used to prosecute hundreds of Nazi agitators, including Joseph Goebbels. Did it stop them? No. It helped them. The Nazis turned their prosecutions for hate speech to their advantage, presenting themselves as political victims and whipping up public support among aggrieved sections of German society, their future social base. Far from halting Nazism, hate speech legislation assisted it.

The Weimar Republic of the 30s? Say what you will, the Weimar was dead in all but name by March 1930 when President Hindgenburg assumed dictatorial emergency powers, and appointed a number of chancellor lackeys who ruled by presidential decree until he met a chancellor in 1933 who was more than his match.

It's the tendency to simplification that shows a simple, simplistic mind at work.

Has anyone else deployed the Nazi party?

Why yes, James Allan was on the same stump early in March with These elitist hate-speech laws erode democracy.

Note the tidy pike and twist which sees "elitist" get into the header.

Then there is the old canard - always pulled out of the cupboard when the rest of the argument sucks - of ''let's all point to Nazi Germany''. 
Leave aside the fact it is insulting to Australians today to have any argument implicitly rest on the premise that we are somehow like Weimar Germany, and realise that, for more than a decade before Hitler came to power, the Weimar regime did have hate speech laws and did have prosecutions for anti-Semitic speech. Convictions, too. And that sort of ''suppress, suppress, suppress'' mindset worked out how, exactly? 

eek, is that brendan o'neill pretending to be a professor of law in queensland? (let's have a world free of capitals, so much shouting).

Now the one thing that gets the goat of the pond is people misusing and abusing history. Or seeking parallels in the past to explain or propose a course of action in the present, and in the process wilfully abusing what actually happened in the past, or entirely missing the point of what is actually at work in the present.

Peter Wertheim took time out to explain the bleeding obvious:

Contrary to the assertions of Professor James Allan, (‘These elitist hate-speech laws erode democracy’, Sydney Morning Herald, March 3), there was no equivalent of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act in Weimar Germany. 
The only laws against hate speech were criminal offences, not civil remedies. Weimar Germany had nothing equivalent to the framework which currently exists under the Racial Discrimination Act within which complaints of racial vilification have, in the vast majority of cases, been successfully conciliated through the Australian Human Rights Commission or resolved by direct negotiations between the parties. This framework, which has proven to be an inexpensive, just and efficient way of resolving complaints, would be lost if section 18C were repealed as Allan recommends. The anti-hate laws of Europe, past and present, bear no comparison to section 18C. (And more here)

Wertheim makes the bleeding obvious point that the Weimar republic had a few other problems at the time.

It's also stating the obvious that Allan's simple-minded suggestion that the 'suppress mindset' helped pushed the Nazis to power was just an idle provocation.

Which brings the pond to yet another obvious point. There seems to be nothing in 18C that prevents routinely blatant displays of bigotry and stupidity on a daily basis, with the Murdochian press showing and leading the way.

Never mind, the pond's dream of imposing a Godwin's Law swear jar on the minions of Murdoch will never come to pass, and with it the millions to be made in the first week of operation are lost, and Australia's infrastructure set back by decades. No super train? Blame the refusal to implement Godwin's Law national swear jar...

As for the rest, the pond sees no sign of the bigots being halted in their bigoted traducing and abuse of history, and their relentless desire to allow the Bolter to get back to bashing the blacks.

But when the Bolter is allowed to return to his black bashing ways, what then?

Why sue the ABC ...

(Below: speaking of the kool aid, it turns out that David Pope has discovered the chief supplier. Why there he is with a kool aid cocktail and a pussy cat, and a whole keg of IPA draught. How kind of him to share it with the Murdochians. And who can argue with a crossing of Milne and Python? More Pope here. Lucky he doesn't work for the ABC).

Joining the Wabbott on the long march forward ...

(Above: eek, a cane toad. More Moir here).


It seems that these days the chief pleasure at the end of the week is reviewing the disasters that have befallen the Abbott government during the week, or the fortnight.

Quite often these have nothing to do with the endeavours of the feeble Labor party opposition but rather constitute a series of what is quaintly called "own goals". (As a child, the pond could never be quite sure if this wasn't an own gaol).

Cue Mark Kenny getting extremely agitated in Tony Abbott's pre-budget fortnight of blunders and stuff-ups:

...this week, it was the Abbott government which turned its back on mainstream opinion to pander to a couple of mouthy conservative commentators wanting to legalise hate speech, a cloister of protected banks wanting to reintroduce skimming, and a tiny cluster of 19th century monarchists. 
Little wonder the Prime Minister has been ashen-faced in parliament this week.

Why that's enough to lift anyone's spirits on a Friday, especially at the point when Kenny dubs George Brandis as legally correct yet politically insane ...

But Kenny is a Fairfaxian. How are the reptiles at the lizard Oz, fawning bunch of hagiographers that they are, feeling about their monarch?

The Australian has never subscribed to the ill-informed characterisation of Mr Abbott as an Anglophile staunch monarchist wanting to drag Australia back to the Menzies era.

Uh huh. But what to say about the well-informed characterisation of Mr. Abbott as an Anglophile staunch monarchist wanting to drag Australia back to the Menzies era?

This decision, however, will arm his critics — and, rightly, attract new ones for Ms Bryce. Given the government’s challenges, Mr Abbott should be focused on fulfilling election promises — to end waste, cut taxes and stop the boats. There are bigger things for the Prime Minister to do, wedge or no wedge. (the reptile editorial here)

Lordy lordy, la di dah, even John Howard thought it a knight and dame joke too far ...

And the reptiles were remarkably subdued when it came to defending Brandis defending bigotry.

It's probably a little too close to the bone for a newspaper group that harbours bigots much given to hate speech.

The sheer preposterousness of proposing that Brandis wasn't degutting the Racial Discrimination Act produced a very short, mealy mouthed bit of blathering in Community as judge and jury.

It seems in the new world, it's going to be vigilante community action that's the way forward:

...the proposed requirements for determining racial abuse will be a new community standard. The expectations of civil behaviour will be judged by the view of the everyday man or woman on the street. It will be less of a debating opportunity for lawyers. Meanwhile, other laws such as defamation will still apply. 

Yep, if someone says something nasty to you on a bus or a train, punch the shit out of them. No need to involve lawyers or the police. And if the Bolter sounds off, why just burn the HUN down. No need to involve the police or the lawyers or even the firies. Sorry, back to the delusional:

Some Australians experience racism. But we do not believe this is widespread. We are, after all, a nation of immigrants. Almost half of us are born overseas or have a parent who was. Nor do we believe these proposed laws will encourage racism. 
Professor Triggs points to the threat of protected racism on public transport and at the factory canteen. But anyone catching a train or bus, or lunching at a factory canteen, would find very few incidents of racism. If the community is to be the judge of tolerance and freedom of speech, then these changes are a positive step. (yet another lizard Oz editorial here)

Even the Swiss bank account man himself knew this was risible tosh:

Uh huh. So the reptiles don't live in the real Australia, but does Gra Gra understand he's writing for a rag that doesn't live in the real Australia, and so his grasp of the real Australia is also in doubt?

Never mind, the real editorial joy came this very day, after the reptiles had spent a night carousing on the tiles, downing copious buckets of kool aid, possibly as a preparation for relocating editorials to Jonestown.

Yep, the reptiles seized on the appointment of Lachlan Murdoch, not as a prime example of nepotism and folly, but as a powerful vote of confidence in the future of strong Murdochian brands across all platforms.

You know, like past really strong brands like One.Tel, and the Ten network.

And how's Ten doing these days?

Another Australian drama has failed to find an audience on the struggling Ten network, which only managed to attract 538,000 viewers for the debut of series two of Puberty Blues on Wednesday night. On Monday the highly anticipated Australian multi-media murder mystery Secrets and Lies launched to just 403,000 viewers. 
The 18-month delay between series one and series two of Puberty Blues has been blamed by some for the poor performance, although Ten’s inability to promote new shows on air because of its smaller audience share is likely the main reason. (Puberty Blues' modest ratings numbers leave Ten network down in the dumps)


Murdoch fils has helped drive Ten so far into the ground that the ABC looks like it might again see Ten off into fourth place ...

With a performance like this, it's natural that all the editorialist at the Oz can do is spend the last four pars lashing the evil Fairfaxians.

The language is sublimely Maoist. The Fairfaxians are saturated with running dog, lickspittle "defeatism" and "arcane sunset deadlines" and a "poor understanding" which results in ludicrous views:

Sadly, for Fairfax’s print and digital readers, its puerile efforts in comparing Mr Murdoch to Godfather gangster Michael Corleone are indicative of its journalistic infantilism, malign intent and business malaise. 
In contrast to our rival’s decline, the future is bright for News Corp and its winning brands. (Lachlan shows the way forward)

Indeed. As Chairman Mao himself said:

The world is progressing, the future is bright and no one can change this general trend of history. We should carry on constant propaganda among the people on the facts of world progress and the bright future ahead so that they will build their confidence in victory.

Or is this more relevant, with brave Lachlan showing the way forward for nepotism?

Murdochians should set an example in being practical as well as far-sighted. For only by being practical can they fulfil the appointed tasks, and only far-sightedness can prevent them from losing their bearings in the march forward.

Or perhaps everyone should just get a decent North Korean haircut.

As always David Rowe gets it right and is more up to date in his humour (and more Rowe here):

Oh look at all those heads on poles ... so decorative. Is that Kim in the picture window?

But it wouldn't be a Friday if the pond couldn't celebrate the comedy stylings of Piers "Akker Dakker" Akerman.

If you read black knights (yep that's the header), it's clear that even more old Akker Dakker was caught on the hop.

What to do, what to do?

Well being Akker Dakker you have to blame Labor acolytes in the ABC, hypocritical Fairfax media, Mark Dreyfus QC looking like an agitated articled clerk, Gareth Evans QC, Gough Whitlam, Neville Wran, Jeff Shaw, Julian Burnside, all QCs in their day, and Ten's left-leaning Paul Bongiorno for accepting an Italian knighthood, and Marie Bashir, who will become an Officier de la Légion D’honneur ... and:

While Liberal republican Malcolm Turnbull tried to gently mock the notion of restoring such honours by mentioning a number of South American nations which confer knighthoods, the former governor-general Dame Quentin Bryce’s ready acceptance of her new title strikes many as hypocritical. 
Dame Quentin set a new standard for vice-regal clothing and logged record air miles, not least during her $700,000 African safari in search of stray UN votes. 
Not so much Dame Nellie Melba, perhaps, as Dame Edna Everage.

And so the servile knob polisher gets to the end of his piece with only one mention of the author of the folly, His Lordship Tony Abbott, and that in the very first line.

Possibly it's dawned even on the fat owl of the remove that all that nonsense about Tony Abbott being a man of the people, an egalitarian warrior, has been revealed as so much bullshit.

Abbott might, as the reptiles at the Oz noted, be adept at wedges, but at heart he's also a conservative more deeply bizarre and weird than even an Akker Dakker can comprehend.

You see, there's only so far you can get by abusing and blaming the opposition, and the recipient of gifts. 

The pond has already had a go at bubble head Quentin Bryce for being beguiled by the serpent. But why is it that Akker Dakker can go there, but he can't point out the treachery and hypocrisy of the seductive serpent?

It's the kool aid of course, just as 99 penalties to 0 is seen as the only way to referee the game ...

Ah well, at least the cartoonists are having a field day, and it's sure to continue, but the pond thought after looking at this week of folly, that Churchill should also be quoted, and that so far as His Lordship Tony was concerned, this wasn't the end, it might not even be the beginning of the end. But it was certainly the end of the beginning ... (and it being the intertubes, the rest of Churchill's speech here).

Going forward, as Maoists and Murdochians must do, it will be impossible to look at Abbott without a smile, or perhaps a snigger. Suddenly the budgie smugglers and the MAMIL jokes, long past their use by dates, can be replaced by silly ass P. G. Wodehouse jokes and talk of the Bunyip aristocracy.

Now how about a bit of cwoss dressing, and cwossing Dame Edna with Tony Wabbott, and cwossing the Wabbott with a Python joke? 

Yes the Wabbott has cwossed the Wubicon and become a figure of fun for ever hereafter. Take it away David Pope, and more Pope here:

Hubris has come early this year ... but meanwhile, as the stage entertainer struts his stuff, the real work, the looting and the pillaging and the transferring of assets from the poor to the rich, continues apace ... what a fine act of prestidigitation it's been ...

Finally, for the sake of the long absent lord, when will somebody tell all those searchers they're wasting their time in the Indian Ocean?

Look in a cave somewhere in northern Pakistan. Oh sure it'll be a big cave, but they have big caves up that way ...

Oh yes, it's been a long couple of weeks ....