In which, after a dalliance with the kool aid drinkers, the pond admires the monkey ... and the organ grinder ...

Of course it's a News Corp rag ...

Why on earth did you ask?

Abusive, sordid, and obsessed with the great sport of professional bum sniffers, as if it matters a hoot in hell which team of bum sniffers a professional sporting person chooses to play with, especially if one tribe of sex offenders offers ten million smackeroos (disclaimer: the pond has nothing against bum sniffing at the right time and place).

Yes, there's definitely something weird in the untimely released water in Queensland, and each day the pond could devote its pages to covering a new toad sensation, and still only scratch the surface. Mention Carmody and the pond is instantly reduced to a giggling fit. Mention Police Ministers and the pond is down, rolling around on the ground, begging for its belly to be scratched. Mention a Campbell Newman scam, as a correspondent did in relation to the funny business surrounding the mega tunnel, and the pond needs a valium to slow down a little.

What about it barking mad George, twittering away here from the outer fringes of the twilight zone?

As a result, the other states have to peddle really hard to catch up, so immense kudos to Victorian Nationals senator Bridge McKenzie for having a royal fit about the RSPCA (Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie ridiculed over attempts to ask Queen to strip RSPCA of royal title).

Now the pond would like to join her in a campaign to strip Chuck of his royalness ... yes the pond's favourite royal is in the news with Black spider memos: Prince Charles' five most unusual concerns.

The pond has often wondered if it would live to see the day the second series of the much more entertaining UK version of House of Cards played out - it features a newly crowned eccentric king - and each day Chuck lives out his dreams gives the pond hope.

And what about Julie Bishop's grand effort on the Monis letter and the dribbling of the humble pie? Well played sandgropers ...

But stay, the pond is supposed to be a reptile watch, rather than a list of eccentrics scribbling Eternity in chalk on the sidewalk of life.

So let's get that out of the way by revealing that for reasons that continue to be obscure and mysterious, the pond watched an actual episode of The Drum last night and so came across one Rebecca Weisser.

You can too, if you have a supply of headache pills handy, or you have the constitution of an ox, and therefore can tolerate the sight of journalists talking to journalists in an anal-retentive way about the amount of fluff they carry in their navels.

Go on, here, but note the pond's disclaimer that you are entirely responsible for the consequences of your foolishness.

Back to Weisser - listed here at Q and A - because the pond was entranced.

The pond rarely stumbles on someone who's imbibed the kool aid so deeply. Oh sure the pond has had conversations with fundamentalist Christians, out there underwearing Mormons, deeply disturbed Sydney Anglicans, and on one memorable occasion, with an animist in a provincial museum in South Africa.

Weisser showed many of the same signs - the glassy eyes, and the mumbling and the chanting, which, roughly translated, amounted 99.9% of the time to "four legged Tony is good, two legged anything else is bad".

The attempts of the others to communicate with this alien who'd stumbled into their midst was sublime, up there with Mars Attacks!, though a nice score from Danny Elfman would have helped make it even more entertaining.

Well that's reptile duty done for the day, and that's enough of The Drum. Is there a more useless program on the face of the earth?

As usual Friday at zombie land is just full of the ho hum usual, Bill Shorten and union bashing, and a generous dose of fear mongering, but what's really got the pond going is the mischievous poodle.

You can always rely on the poodle and though the pond is late to the scene, with rolled newspaper in hand, what joy that the poodle spoke thusly:

"I don't think everything always appears as it seems. Goodness knows who thought that was a good idea, but I don't think you should assume it was any of the names you read out."

This naturally led to speculation that a black op might have been part of an elaborate sting:

While 44 MPs, or about two-thirds of the backbench, have written to the Prime Minister urging him to push ahead with tough laws to tackle terrorists - a letter welcomed by the Prime Minister - some government backbenchers believe Mr Turnbull and Ms Bishop may have been maliciously "set up" to portray them as soft on national security and therefore unsuited to the leadership. 
A government source told Fairfax Media the leak "could have been from someone who backs the Prime Minister and wants to get momentum behind him". (here at Fairfax, with forced video at end of link).

Now this might be far-fetched, but it's already well known that Abbott is a dissembler and a professional liar - his leaking of the hoped-for outcome to the Daily Terror before the cabinet considered and approved his citizenship proposal shows he's willing to lie and cheat and dissemble to his innermost circle of colleagues.

And his use of the terrorist can, which he keeps kicking down the road, is the most spectacular example of a Francis Urquhart, willing to do and say anything to stay in power, and to hell with the consequences.

When you deploy this sort of can, the more extreme you sound, the more you make any opposition sound very girlie man.

You berate Bill Shorten - as hapless and useless a leader to grace the opposition benches in many a year - for failing to support your position, while at the same time failing to provide a briefing and failing to reveal what you propose, which admittedly might be tricky, since those few remaining colleagues of yours with an interest in the rule of law think the proposals might be deeply problematic and offensive.

This is how the GOP ended up where it is today, with extremists pushing each other to reach new levels of extremism and weirdness.

What's doubly amazing in all this is the way the Murdochian press are so supine and so willing to support a man who is a wild card, and who is doing serious damage to the country and assorted minorities. Try being an Islamic on public transport in Sydney, and see what joy you get ... try being a black in search of a lawyer and see what support you get from the man who was going to transform indigenous affairs. Try being a woman and wondering why condoms get preference over tampons while the alleged minister for women snickers on the sidelines ...

And so on  and so forth. Cue Rebecca Weisser chanting four legged Abbott good ...

So why does the Murdoch press enthusiastically support such a flip-flopping failure inclined to Captain's Picks and a Bligh-like capacity for misreading the runes?

Well you only have to look at their fearless leader.

Rupert is himself a master of the expedient back flip, as can be seen in this tweet:

Misunderstanding! As a beer baron once remarked with grace, wit and style, pig's arse ...

There's been all sorts of stories about it, in The Daily Snail here, and the Graudian here and Politico here.

Murdoch might dissemble but his antipathy to Europe was well known and amply recorded, long before his dissembling tweet, as in this story, Just where does Rupert Murdoch's dislike for Europe come from? back in March 2014.

Perhaps most memorably his dislike was recorded by The Independent in a story quoting John Major giving evidence to Leveson, headed Rupert Murdoch did try to dictate government policy on EU:

Rupert Murdoch threatened the Conservatives that unless they changed policy on Europe they would lose the support of his newspapers, Sir John Major revealed yesterday, in the starkest evidence so far of the media tycoon's interference in politics. 
The former Prime Minister told the Leveson Inquiry that the proprietor of The Sun and The Times made the threat over dinner in February 1997. 
"Mr Murdoch said he really didn't like our European policies," he told Lord Justice Leveson. "That was no surprise to me. He wished me to change our European policies. If we couldn't change our European policies his papers could not, would not support our Conservative Government." 
"As I recall he used the word 'we' when referring to his newspapers," added Sir John, who was Prime Minister between 1990 and 1997. "He didn't make the usual nod to editorial independence." The comments flatly contradict Mr Murdoch's evidence to the inquiry on 25 April, when the News Corp chief executive said under oath: "I have never asked a Prime Minister for anything."

So there you go, everything is explained, everything becomes clear.

A liar and a fraud, willing to lie under oath, supports a liar and a fraud, willing to say and do anything, and demonise anyone, to stay in power ...

And the ABC spreads the kool aid through the ether as willingly as the hacks who line up to drink their kool aid each morning ...

Is it any wonder that the pond reaches daily for its dose of papal infallibility, and as always, more Pope here? 

By golly, he does a good portrait of the monkey. Next time he should include the organ grinder ...