In which the pond goes off with 'teh crazies' and the head flat-earther ...

The thing that the pond most admires about the coverage of George Christensen's latest bout of paranoid hysteria is the way the mainstream media persists in running photographs of him standing alongside Tony Abbott.

Sure,  gorgeous George (so named in honour of the famous wrestler) is only a small beer, parochial, xenophobic Queensland politician, of the worst, shallow, mindless, self-seeking for self-promotion and self-publicity kind, but as they say in the trade, when you step in a cow pat in the meadow, the bloody stuff sticks to the boot.

Here's the happy pair in The Age's report on proceedings:

There, you see, 'teh crazies' together ...

Yes, eccentric, baffling Tony has to wear his colleague's ordure ... here he is with George in the Illawarra Mercury:

Nine News also did the right thing, showing 'teh crazies' together in their coverage:

It wasn't universal - some just went with shots of Freddo frogs or jars of Vegemite - but the pond hails the efforts of the journalists who automatically reached for a reminder that 'teh crazy' was a colleague of 'teh chief crazy'.

The story itself was mendacious, a shameless beat-up, in which Christensen asked a series of rhetorical questions, full of sly innuendo and paranoia.

No doubt he wanted people to troop off to his website to read Terror in the Tuckbox?

See how it's a question?

It's an easy style to mock and imitate?

Is George Christensen a fuckwit?

Does George Christen have half a clue?

Is the real terror in the box gorgeous George?

Never mind, the pond is too cunning and canny to give up a link to a prize ass.

If people want to find the musings of prize asses, they must seek them out by themselves:

Uh huh.

Now how long before gorgeous George - isn't that just a darling caricature at the top of the page - gets stuck into 'teh Jews'?

(click to enlarge, or get your Kosher certification here. Bring money).

Of course Christensen is such a goose and doesn't have a clue in such a gigantic way that it's easy to make fun of him, and so people did.

Craig Harvey provided the go-to tweet for the occasion:

Yes, of course, of course the federal government provides direct funding to Islamics via the school chaplain program - anyone at all in preference to secularists, atheists, humanists, social workers and the rest - and the federal government directly funds Islamic schools (and Scientology schools and fundamentalist Christian schools and creationist-teaching schools and ...)

But this is the pond, and we're never looking for sensible debate or coherent arguments, we're just loon hunting.

The problem with these loons - Christensen is just a light-weight - or if you will heavyweight - version of Cory Bernardi - is that they're predictable in their self-seeking promotional ways ... and that makes them boring.

But their routine association with 'teh chief crazy' Abbott makes them invaluable.

It adds to the notion that Abbott is himself something of a flat earther. And the direct evidence for that continues to accumulate.

You won't see this story running in the Murdoch media, but there it is on the right in The Age:

The story's here, but this captures the flavour in a nutshell:

The attitude of Prime Minister Tony Abbott to the global challenges of climate change is "eccentric", "baffling" and "flat earther", according to a group of senior British Conservatives.

And there's Abbott's current image problem in a nutshell. Surrounded by minor league crazies, but showing all the signs of being a major league crazy himself ...

Now in recent times, Abbott has been attempting an epic back flip to try to separate himself from all 'teh crazies', the parrot, the Bolter, and all the rest of the climate denialists.

It started with Abbott announcing to the bemused French that Paris must succeed (Abbott decides that climate change thing needs a dust after all).

No wonder the Bolter is alert and truly alarmed.

And then came the capper to the pond's day - the answer to that eternal question.

What happens to the world's leading climate scientists when they take an interest in worldly affairs?

Why they end up like screaming Lord Monckton campaigning for "Rise Up" in the Victorian state election.

Lord Monckton stands beside Rise Up Australia.

Like as not, you won't read about that in any of those who once stood alongside the screaming Lord. The list was long and dishonourable ... Paul Sheehan, Andrew Bolt, Miranda the Devine, the parrot, why it was even alleged that Monckton once broke bread with Maurice Newman (here).

So there's Abbott and the rest of the barking mad denialists off with a creationist-supporting rabid fundamentalist loon ...

Truly the result is a golden age for cartoonists.

Not the pathetic kool-aid swilling likes of Bill Leak - a figure moving slowly from the pathetic to the tragic - but the likes of David Rowe, who know how to skewer, and does it on an almost daily basis. Below Rowe's at it again, and as always, more Rowe here.