In which the police state, ably supported by the Murdochians, mounts a war on the intertubes and climate science at the same time, and never mind what Napoleon and Hitler discovered about war on two fronts ...

What the pond loves about the full to overflowing intertubes is the way it can be a learning experience.

Thanks to a pond correspondent, the pond was off to a site here to learn more about Christopher Pyne than the pond ever wanted to need or know, the suppurating sense of self-entitlement flowing from the poodle's paws.

And that site, in good and honourable form, provided a link to a piece in Junkee, here, which provided a link to the 1985 edition of On Dit, here, and then knock the pond down with a feather to discover that there are over a thousand records of On Dit online, here.

At that point, fearing mental seizure, the pond moved on, but there's probably rich rewards for any researcher wanting to trawl through the poodle's student days.

As it is, the pond was already satisfied that the poodle was some sort of changeling, full of devious hypocrisy, saying and promising anything at any time to any particular audience, in the relentless quest for his precioussss .... what a pity the preciousss is to fuck over tertiary education, no doubt as payback for long forgotten wounds Pyne suffered in student wars ... (is there a Freudian in the house?)

The point about Pyne is that when really dumb Murdochians rabbit on about elites, they never speak of the likes of Pyne, yet he's a professional politician of the first water. He started in student politics, and after a few years of work experience, he plunged into professional politics full-time, and has been a full timer ever since. After his free tertiary education, he's never experienced anything outside blinkered legalisms and blinkered Liberalisms ...

It's important to remember this sort of history when confronting the latest assault by the Abbott government on the internet.

Again the pond is too fagged to do original research, but there were plenty of ways to learn how big Mal has taken centre stage in a big government police state operation, which has the potential to intrude on private lives, in much the same way as the digital record of the Poodle Pyne reveals what a hypocritical goose he is ...

Here's one of the tasty bits in Paul Farrell's piece on Metadata retention for The Graudian on the matter of whether government agencies need warrants to access metadata:

No, they do not. One of the key criticisms of this entire regime is that telecommunications companies are being asked to hand over vast swaths of Australians’ phone and web data without a warrant. The current bill does nothing to alter that or heighten the threshold for access to telecommunications data. Australia’s approach to this type of retention has sparked global condemnation from privacy and press freedom organisations.

There's a lot more in Farrell to get the paranoia in the pond going, but it was the hapless Andrew Colvin who belled the cat and sent it jingling down the hallway:

Asked whether metadata could be used to target illegal downloads, Colvin said: “Absolutely. Any interface, any connection somebody has over the internet – we need to be able to identify the parties to that connection – not the content, not what might be passing down the internet. Illegal downloads, piracy, cyber crimes, cyber security – [in] all these matters, our ability to investigate them is absolutely pinned to our ability to retrieve and use metadata.”

Indeed. But where does the pond send its bill for the hour and a half of a totally wasted life watching the Warners/Roadshow effort Into the Storm. Will Graham Burke accept liability for the mental suffering, and the loss of at least ten IQ points?

Big Mal, close bosomed friend of Big Brother, tried to hose down Colvin, but the geeks knew whereof Colvin spoke, as recorded by Josh Taylor at ZDNet in Mandatory data retention to be used to fight piracy.

No ifs, or buts. At some point there will be a show trial arranged for Burkie's benefit, even though he refuses to take the pond's calls or acknowledge the way his films are a conspiracy designed to reduce the capacity of the west to fight the good fight against fundamentalism ...

Now even some buffs of the pond's acquaintance mocked Senator David Leyonhjelm for saying the cheapest cloud storage was in China, but what do you know, he was just echoing Steve Dalby:

iiNet's chief regulatory officer Steve Dalby said on Wednesday that telecommunications companies could look for the cheapest cloud storage option for retaining the data for the two years, as required under the legislation. He indicated that this would mean that the private Australian customer data could be kept in cloud storage services in China. 
Turnbull said that the responsibility of the security of the data would lie with the telecommunications companies, but additional legislation would be brought in over the next 18 months to outline a carrier's responsibilities under the scheme.

Truth to tell, Turnbull has put in process a half-baked, half-arsed proposal, with all sorts of problems in relation to its useful implementation, with storage, and who will pay for the costs of the scheme not sorted, as legislation rushes through parliament ...

Big Mal has been back-pedalling as quickly as he can, at least in the matter of piracy, but there's a smell of the Godwin Greches about this effort.

Of course in the real world there's VPNs, but as you'd expect, the plods have a view on that too, as outlined by Josh Taylor in 'Camouflaged' internet concerns the Australian Federal Police.

You can bet that in due course the plods will be yowling for action about VPNs.

And if you've made a submission to the Federal government, forget it Jake, it's Brandis town, as the prolific Josh explains in Attorney-General's Department censors public view on piracy.

Is there comedy amidst the paranoia? Why yes, thank you Josh, here:

The Australian financial regulatory agency that accidentally blocked 250,000 websites due to a lack of technical knowledge is now pushing to have the power to intercept telecommunications information to investigate financial crime.


The tragedy is, the federal government won't cop any flack from the hacks at the Murdoch press about any of this.

In generality, the tribal policy of the kool aid drinkers is to fear the intertubes, to downgrade it, and to punish users who don't pay full quid to the chairman for his products.

There are very few who stray beyond the party line, let alone any who actually have any sense of how the intertubes currently works, or its potential - except as a source of damage and disruption to their business model.

But at least we have Pope, and more Pope here:

What a foolish fop he is. When contemplating Turnbull, the pond is routinely reminded of that arch facilitator and fellow traveller, Albert Speer, pleased to fool around with infrastructure while around him the world burned ... but that's enough of Godwin's Law for the day ...

Which happily brings the pond to a classic example of the reptiles' logic, and a dose of distilled essence of kool aid.

Anybody within cooee range knows that the federal government's direct action policy in relation to climate change is a dog and a fraud and an ineffective waste of money, a flourish for that other Speer, Greg 'walri' Hunt.

So how do the reptiles start their editorial on the matter?

The wild contortions of Clive Palmer are a curious national spectacle, often employing convenient or hapless props to captivate a fawning media pack from the ABC and Fairfax Media.

Uh huh. Already with the ABC and Fairfax, but it's actually the wild contortions of the reptiles that appealed to the pond.

There's all the usual nonsense about the dangers of the carbon tax - disproven before it was dismantled, yet still being trotted out - and China, along with this sort of specious clap-trap:

The Australian supports a market mechanism as the best, least-cost method of achieving the bipartisan commitment of reducing Australia’s carbon emissions by 5 per cent in 2020, as long as we don’t move ahead of the rest of the world. A cap-and-trade scheme is vastly superior to taxpayer-funded adventures, especially if it is properly designed and policed.

Uh huh. That's what you cop in the editorials.

What you cop in the copy is Maurice Newman and Graham Lloyd and Bjorn Lomborg and the rest of the denialist pack. When Newman's not rabbiting on about international conspiracies at the UN, you get Dame Slap talking up Monckton and explaining how climate science is an excuse for the UN to impose world government ....

Ye ancient cats and dogs of paranoid conspiracists ...

So let's cut to the chase, and let's not take a detour trashing renewable energy, the ABC, Fairfax, or getting ahead of the world, as if Australia has ever been ahead in this matter of action on its emissions, whether domestic (top of the world ma) or exported coal (top of the world ma):

Let’s be clear: Direct Action is not a panacea. Nor is it world’s best practice. Like any major government program, it runs the risk of being wasteful, rorted and mismanaged. Give us the free market over the dead hand of Canberra any day.

Say what? So the ABC and Fairfax are right, and Tony Abbott's direct action policy is comprehensively fucked and misguided?

Sorry, you reckoned without the power of the kool aid:

But if the aim of the policy is to actually achieve some carbon dioxide abatement, in our country, Direct Action is the best hope on offer, any time soon. 

But that's only because the country has a climate denialist as a PM, intent on offering a sop or a fig leaf - take whichever metaphor you prefer, though in the age of budgie smugglers, you might prefer the fig leaf to some bread soaked in red wine.

If that's the best hope on offer, then there's no hope. The planet's fucked. But do go on:

We may even get ancillary benefits such as improved agriculture and reduced soil erosion. The RET is a form of direct action (albeit a costly one). As business groups argue, it’s vital that industry has certainty on climate change policy and that the emissions reduction fund is properly audited and administered. Mr Abbott’s deal with Mr Palmer now provides a way forward.

And there you have it. A rag which started out mocking Palmer as a buffoon and a clown, indulging in a circus with Al Gore, by the end of the piece has turned to celebrating the way the buffoon has offered, with Abbott, a way forward.

Yep, a buffoon denialist doing a deal with a buffoon coal baron provides a way forward ...

Only in Murdochian la la land.

Okay, the pond only repeats the obvious every day - that the Murdoch press is irresponsible, and will say and do anything to support a mendacious government even while it notes the mendacity of the policies being implemented.

In not holding the government of the day to account for costly, useless government policies,  the Murdochians commit many more crimes than the ABC or Fairfax. There will be a reckoning one day, but in the meantime, is there anyone who still rewards them with a subscription?

As usual, the pond reverts to the one good thing about the Fairfax press, and that's the work of David Rowe, which luckily happens to be on topic and which says more than the turgid Oz editorialist in a single image (and more Rowe here):

And finally as a bonus, the pond has been having tremendous fun observing the wild-eyed gyrations and hysteria at the Currish Snail as December looms, and honest citizens plan to protest at the state of the world and the visit of Vlad the Impaler.

It will be recalled that a couple of days ago, the reptiles were talking tough, strutting strong, rutting hard, and ready to take down the ferals:

It only took a couple of days, and the reptiles were reduced to a quivering blob of tremulous jelly, black helicopters overhead, searchlights rivening the sky, and precious, oh precious Brisbane, its bright lights reflected in its beautiful river, under attack from a meteor assault of ferals.

Truly:

And it's not even Halloween, though we'll be at the witching hour soon enough, dancing in pagan black through the streets of Newtown ...

For the absent lord's sake, harden the fuck up Currish Snails ...

Fear not toads, the pond is standing by, ready to assist. There will be no protests against Vlad the impaler, not while we have valiant troops on stand by, waiting to defend Brisbane's honour: