In which the pond heads back to pre-medieval, pre-Magna Carta days with King Tony when apparently one could buy into the Sydney property market...

(Above: delicious Pope and more papal infallibility available in gallery form here).

You can imagine how startled the pond was to wake up to the repeat of the RN Law Report rabbiting on about Magna Carta and its significance, and in particular the clause:

No free man shall be captured or imprisoned or disseised of his freehold or of his liberties, or of his free customs, or be outlawed or exiled or in any way destroyed, nor will we proceed against him by force or proceed against him by arms, but by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.

The report's available here, with useful links, but warning, it will only lead to tears to anyone listening, as the country writhes under wicked King Tony, and lick spittle henchman, the baron Sir Peter of Mutton, who makes the Sheriff of Nottingham seem like a wild-eyed libertarian. And then there's the serfs in the employ of a robber press baron cheering on wicked King Tony ...

There's no end to this wicked gang's evil-doing and law-breaking. They've even gone into the people smuggling business:

That story is at Fairfax here.

But what's this? Even the IPA thinks King Tony might have gone too far? Even that pompous blowhard and fellow traveller, tiny, nay invisible Tim, seems to have finally decided enough is enough:

You can cop the IPA story at the Graudian here, which has taken to calling its stories "exclusive" - et tu Graudianites?

Why the pond was startled to watch The Drum - no, it's not turning into a habit - and see the "balancing figures" of Chris Berg and Jennifer Hewitt bagging the government and jolly Joe on gay marriage and naughty King Tony and so on. (You can suffer too, here).

And what do you know, there's Chris Berg in print waxing lyrical in Magna Carta: archaic tax document and icon of liberty.

Ah Magna Carta, good enough for medieval folk, but we're talking pre-medieval for the current gang of neo-fascists ...

Oh okay, the pond has been dodging, ducking and weaving, feinting, doing whatever it can to avoid the matter of jolly Joe, but hey this is social media, and chatter we must ...

Everybody's having enormous fun at the expense of the bloated fool. Here's the immortal Rowe joining the immortal Pope (and a gallery of Rowe here):

And Pope, bless his socks, had another go at it:

There must be some sort of fresh angle for the pond.

Is there, for example, anyone in the commentariat as silly and as out of touch as Jolly Joe?

Thank the long absent lord for the Bolter.

Yep, there's the Bolter offering up what passes for a satirical approach in the Bolter's world as a way of suggesting jolly Joe's right on the button, right on the money.

Talk about clunky - but then you've probably never seen a Dutch sitcom. Warning: the pond in no way encourages this sort of activity, which is best left to professional stunt people.

Oh dear, never mind, wiki it here if you must, but there's the Bolter actually defending jolly Joe, confirming that there's nothing like a decent red and the ability to afford opera tickets that gives a proper perspective on the world. Talk about a Dutch sitcom!

Even the Daily Terror couldn't make that sort of mistake. Oh sure they did their best to distract with an "exclusive" about the terror threat being here to stay, but they also had to give jolly Joe his due:

As for that editorial? Oh never mind, let's just go with these splashes:

And here's jolly Joe's real crime. He doesn't seem to understand that, in Sydney at least, everyone is obsessed with real estate, and how the average punter might get a foot in the door and actually get a property somewhere a little closer to the city than Blacktown.

That's what happens when you're a fat cat ponce living in isolation in Hunter's Hill. It was even more gormless than Abbott saying that everyone wanted the price of their houses to go up, as if this was some sort of answer to the reality that Sydney is currently in the grip of a housing bubble. In the pond's area, in the last year average pricing for houses has gone up 30%. 

Now in an Ayn Rand, fuck you Jack and Jill, I'm alright, that's great news. Especially if you're alright, like Abbott and jolly Joe, and it has to be said, with a smug smile, the pond. 

But you don't get far by rubbing people's faces in it ... because you're likely then to get a fuck you King Tony and jolly Joe and smirking pond coming back at you ...

As always, when confronted by this sort of insolence, and out of touch stupidity, the pond turns to the reptiles at the lizard Oz, for the final deciphering of the tea leaves, the interpreting of the runes, the fossicking through the tailings, the dissection of the chicken entrails.

Here's the front digital page for the moment. Can you spot the story amidst the usual rants and the bile?

Yes, there it is, as tone deaf and as insulting as jolly Joe, as completely removed from the real world as anyone living in a Murdochian la la dreamworld drinking deep of the kool aid:

Well played, Samantha Hutchinson, gormless lickspittle fellow traveller of the week. Consider yourself elevated to the status of the right royal golden order of the tone deaf ning nong.

But wait, the pond should also note there's plenty of other good, sound reading on view in today's Oz, and it's got nothing to do with jolly Joe. 

There's space for the barking mad:

And there's plenty of room for the stupid:

What? Embrace the identity of King Tony and his pre-Magna Carta ways? 

In honour of the pond's fading memory of the Queen's birthday that wasn't, arise Sir Peter, recipient of the royal order of the cackling goose ...

Which brings us back to where we started, and the matter of the tone deaf King Tony and his out of touch, tone deaf hench folk. 

You see, even the reptiles of Oz, with all the vast supply of kool aid they have to hand, decided to demure in today's editorial, and in a soft peddling way suggested that maybe King Tony had gone too far in his bid to imitate Joseph McCarthy:

...We need to hear more from the Prime Minister. Given, as we are led to believe, he was in favour of a measure that could have left some current Australian citizens stateless, we now expect he should be able to state unequivocally that this will never be tolerated, regardless of the public consultation process. Mr Abbott has been talking tough. “We think anyone who raises a gun or a knife to an Australian because of who we are has utterly forfeited any right to be considered one of us,” he has said, at times giving the impression that all terrorists might lose their rights. He has not expressly ruled out the measures over which his cabinet objected. Instead he has attempted to turn the heat onto Labor: “I want to know where Labor stands.” Bill Shorten, as you might expect, is waiting to see the legislation. 
There is enough to warrant concern. Decisions by ministerial authority are open to abuse and error, and this potential is exacerbated when they rely on intelligence. Just ask Mohamed Haneef. Recently, known extremists have been able to leave our shores to join Islamic State — even, in one case, after a passport was cancelled. There is an argument to be made that we might want to focus on improving domestic law enforcement, intelligence and border security arrangements before meddling with citizenship. After all, if Australians involve themselves in terrorism then one of our jails might be the best place for them. As we revealed on the weekend, even restricted to dual citizens the laws could affect up to half of the 100 or more Australians fighting in Iraq and Syria and possibly a similar percentage of about 160 people under surveillance on our shores. These are matters not to be rushed before proper consideration of possible repercussions. 
It appears Mr Abbott might be happy to let this particular hare run, contrasting his toughness against what, for now, is reasonable caution from Labor. The Prime Minister should clearly explain his preferred approach so that he can lead the debate. His unofficial leadership rival, Malcolm Turnbull, has made an eloquent case for caution, explaining that our nation is beholden to agreements not to render people stateless, and that we already have laws that automatically disqualify from citizenship those people who take up arms against us. These, he suggests, could be amended to cover non-state actors such as jihadist terrorists. The Australian agrees with Mr Abbott that the insidious threat of Islamic State demands vigilance and fortitude. We also agree with Mr Turnbull and the other cabinet dissidents about the primacy of the rule of law. Among everything else, such trying times and testing issues demand leadership.

Leadership from a pre-medievalist? Well the reptiles of Oz have lain down with King Tony. Let them arise with fleas in their ears ...

Finally, the pond has run this Pope before, but it seems just the right time to run it again: