In which the heat in the kitchen blows back on the feckless, fearful leader ...

Now the pond isn't a grammar Nazi - we save that for soup - but every day it occurs to the pond that it could make a business out of marvelling at what allegedly professional sites get up to ...

And then there's the nonsense to be encountered whenever you break the golden rule and read the comments beneath a viperish Bolter column:

Actually Allan the problem is you're a fuckwitted speller, and as a bonus, a fuckwit with a very loose understanding of the meaning of the word you're mis-spelling. Why don't you do a Greg Hunt?

Indigenous people are those groups especially protected in international or national legislation as having a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory, and their cultural or historical distinctiveness from other populations. (here)

Now the pond, what with the daily errors induced by NZ subs who simply won't listen, isn't in a position to throw stones ...

So perhaps it's also time to admit that the real reason the pond started off this way is to avoid the bleeding obvious.

Come on David Pope, induce a collective groan, a sigh of eternal pain (and more Pope here):

Ah the prescient Pope, the leadership issue ...

Yes, the Bronniechopperentitlementeversosorrygate affair has taken a new and satisfying turn, in which the commentariat now brood about the doings of Dumbo, aka the gutless wonder, aka the fearful, feckless leader.

Naturally the Fairfaxians are at the head of this particular pack. This in the AFR and below that, Kenny having multiple bites in the main masthead:

But it's not just Fairfax.

Even the reptiles have noted the issue:

Bold action? Bold action from Tony Abbott? PM's choice?

The fairy floss candy man is being called on to take bold, decisive action?

Look at the illustration even the reptiles think they can now run:

So what does Abbott do? How does he make his presence felt? Well, just above that urgent plea from the bouffant one comes this, with bonus thuggee impression photo:

Say what?

What a dumbo, what a gherkin, what a useless and yes, a gutless wonder.

Now some News Corp minions are doing their very best to sow confusion:

That third reason? Everybody's doing it, and nothing can be done about it because both sides do it, and waiter, bring a bowl of water, and let me ritually wash my paws, while declaring she should resign but she won't, and that's an end of the matter ...

By golly, it sounded like Simon Benson was lining up for a job in Abbott's office ...

Naturally the comments below took up the refrain, berating Labor and Slipper and Andrew Wilkie because it's all their fault that Bronnie is in such trouble ...

Meanwhile, what's the response of the fearful, feckless leader?

Feed them tripe and B.A. Santamaria.

And help prattling Polonius launch his book.

Okay, the pond will bite:

It's hard to count the number of times that Abbott has endorsed Santamaria supporting the fascist Franco. The bullets fired by the fascists might well have come from Hitler himself - the bombs and the planes certainly did - and Spain had to endure decades of corruption as a result of the outcome of the civil war.

But because Abbott is an addle-brained, simple-minded zealot, of fundamentalist Catholic stock and training and inclination - see the way he started to hang around the Pellists - reciting a few lines like a parrot is what he's good at.

There's more of it, of course ... got to get in that ringing endorsement of Polonius for being a brave cultural warrior who lived the life...

Say what? The reptiles put a gold bar over a speech by Abbott which no doubt in due course will turn up on his website and be available for free?

And even worse, it's just a man plugging a book for a Catholic mate? And coming out with gut-wrenching, jaw-breaking, historically astonishing and inept lines like Santamaria coming to be seen as the Edmund Burke of Australian conservatism?

All the more poignant because of a quote noted in a pond comment:

I hope that our opponents will end their flirtation with the ideas and the fears of the past. (hat-tip UC, here).

Well it's pure comedy gold, arising from the piquancy of delusional optimism, but how does it help the government of the moment?

In no way at all, though it does explain why Abbott really doesn't have a clue about what to say about Adam Goodes.

How to act like a statesman and how to tackle the viper Bolter and the rest of the clamouring racists, demanding of all things, an apology from the victim.

How to nudge the 72 year old Bishop out the door with a hearty thanks and a new broom.

It's not going to go away. Even Clive can suddenly bask in the glory of denouncing the entitlement culture.

And the more Abbott skulks behind closed doors or only steps out to celebrate Edmund Burke down under, the worse it's going to be when parliament resumes.

Sadly, it seems that Abbott has already reached that point in the senility charts known to many ... he's happiest living in the past and the glory days of the great feuds of his student years ... along with Greg Sheridan, prattling Polonius and the rest of the angry old white men who scribble for the lizard Oz ...

And that's why we get headlines like this:

Gone to skulking ground. Doggo. In a funk unworthy of Burke. Unable to grasp the nettle or even the Bronnie ... as they used to say in Tamworth, and perhaps still do, a gutless wonder ...

And meanwhile cartoonists have an easy option (and more Fairfax cartoons here):

That's the hand of almost everyone else, except for Tony Abbott ...

In which the delusional reptiles saunter in the sun and celebrate Santa's helpers ...

The pond has of late been entranced as the old cultural warriors come out on the grass, soak up the sun, flaunt themselves and put on a most unseemly display.

And so it continues today:

Yep, they're so written out of history, they end up being the totally ignored PM of the country.

But then delusionalism and triumphalism are a common pairing in this sort of talk.

As an aside, it has to be remembered that Catholics, by definition, are required to believe in transubstantiation.

That's when a humble wafer turns into human flesh and ordinary wine of no real distinction becomes blood. At every communion service at every legit mass ... and the faithful proceed to devour it in a cannibalistic way.

Why anyone should pay attention to people so deluded, so clinically off the planet, is a constant puzzle to the pond.

But it has to be said that the pond loves eccentricity, and there's no one more eccentric than Sheridan.

Everything he writes suppurates with conflicting neuroses and tensions.

So let's get out the brass tacks, and listen to the moaning and the wailing and the keening. And what do you know, it's a hack pumping up the volume for another hack flogging a new volume, and no doubt the said hack will mention his own volume.

Why the pond understands one of the said hacks will even turn up on Phillip Adams to peddle their wares, but enough of that, let's get down with the current peddle:

Yes, and Australian fools supported Richard Nixon in the bombing of Cambodia, and the point is?

Well the point is they routinely support dumb foreign adventures and forays which turn into disasters, and Robert Menzies thought Adolf Hitler was one of the really great men of the century.

There's the trouble isn't it, in a nutshell. Nobody spends much time celebrating the people in the middle, the centrists, the ones who just want to have a cup of tea and a nice slice of cheese, eh Gromit?

And that's because the hard men need other hard men, so the cycle of hard men strutting their macho stuff can be perpetuated for all eternity.

Chamberlain? Just a dodderer.

And so the MOR's, if we may be so bold as to use an AM term, have to endure not just the commies and the fascists, but also the ramblings of crazed transubstantiation-loving Catholics, worshipping at the feet of a fascist like Franco ...

There was this clue amongst the Jesuits at Eureka Street, here:

After the Guernica-bombing atrocity came an antifascist protest meeting at Uni of Melbourne. Newman-College-based blackshirt claque headed by B.A. Santamaria tried to break it up, yelling ¡VIVA EL CRISTO RE! - Falangist slogan. Fascist? You betcha! See also James Duhig and Norman Gilroy.

Well you can ADB  Duhig here, and Gilroy here, but just let it be noted that men who like wearing frocks managed an accommodation with Mussolini, and for a considerable time with Hitler, and throughout have maintained a surly rage against gays and women's rights...

... while the commentariat warriors who consort with the men who wear frocks have been busy condoning all sorts of craziness in the war against communism, such that we replaced Russia in the quagmire of Afghanistan, thus having supported the United States in setting up the fundamentals of jihadism now making mischief around the planet.

But that's the trouble with warriors engaged on one side or the other, because for them it's the fight, and even now, looking back, the aim is to never give an inch, never recant, never apologise or say you're sorry, but to still carry the chip on the shoulder and the sense that you still aren't being given a fair go and a decent break ... as if the DLP was useful for something, as opposed to attempting to make over the country in a way that was just as retrograde as the Catholic church's regressive, repressive agenda ...

Jim Maher?!

Here's Jim Maher with Joe de Bruyn:

And here's Joe standing to applaud Penny Wong:

And there you have as good an explanation of why homophobia is still rampant in the ALP, as rampant in certain quarters as it is in the Liberal party.

And there you might also have explanation as to why Opus Dei is never mentioned, and never discussed in opinion pieces like this, when the blind fanaticism of the commies is rolled out for inspection.

Perhaps it's also because cilices don't suit some newspaper articles.

But if you search you can find the eccentricities of the cult, which are, it has to be said, up there with the group think of communism, as here:

The supernumeraries are celibate, and talk to the opposite gender as little as possible based on the logic that by doing so they will be less tempted to sin. The male centre is serviced by a female cooking and cleaning staff, who work in sections of the centre that are locked off in rotation so that they are never seen by the male inhabitants. In my time at the centre I never actually saw a single female employee despite them making every one of my meals. 
 I was told that those who undergo gender reassignment are selfish and inconsiderate of their families. Not a single person is openly gay in the entire school network. 
While progressive politics are playing out in the rest of the world, Opus Dei relieves itself of vulnerability to rational arguments. 
There is little opportunity for its doctrine to be challenged, and the all-encompassing environment of the centres is so self-affirming it is difficult to imagine change coming any time soon. 
In many responses, Vella stresses that this life is “the path that [Opus Dei members] have chosen”. In a strict sense, this is true: people choose to attend the schools and work at the centres. They choose to strap spikes to their thigh until it doesn’t bleed.
But I know better.

Will the planet ever be rid of fundamentalists of a religious and a political kind?

Probably not, but dammit, they make it hard to enjoy a decent slice of cheese.

And so, as we recall the perfidy of the pinko perverts, let's remember the profound stupidity of others:

15th July 1939! Stick that up the Hitler-Stalin pact talk.

By golly, the pond could be running this Ming the merciless nonsense every day of the week, or at least every day we head off to the reptiles of Oz to watch the lizards trample, and stomp down on the middle ground, while they bask in the sun, saunter around, and scoff down the wafers and wine ...

A wonderful moment of abject ritual humiliation and grovelling, demeaning abasement ... and all for naught?

By now it's all over the media, the delightful, grovelling, demeaning abasement of the Speaker of the House.

The pond doesn't usually promote 2GB, known as Goebbels' Best and Finest Shock Jocks to followers of Godwin's Law, but it's all here in audio form.

The apology that came weeks too late; the regret at not making the apology when the time was right, and appropriate, weeks ago; the humble tone of supplication; the piety of a desire to work hard to amend errors and improve ways ...

It was an exemplary example of how to create a bloodlust in the hounds, the weakened faun racing through the forest as the baying grows still louder ... nothing can stop them once the smell of blood is in the nostrils, and the display of weakness - the cowering of the cur, so to speak - just incites the mob.

A similar process is at work with a hunter who now finds himself amongst the hunted, newly understanding the role of a cavity in the molar of life.

The problem for Bronnie is that all the defence work, all the fortifications, all her office's explanations, are now revealed as so much humbug and a waste of time. Everything's going to be re-paid; all this talk of mysterious assignations and important business was so much hot air.

Can she make her way back from all this?

She's fatally wounded in the public's mind. She can now be taunted and teased by the opposition and the cross-benches anytime they want a distraction. Any ruling she makes in parliament will be open to defiance.

It's common for a mea culpa to precede a final ritual moment of seppuku and that surely is still the most likely solution to a mess which will never end. It will recede, but like a potent virus it will bob up again and again, unless the boil is lanced and the wound cleansed.

Just how many cliches can a politician's predicament provoke?

Who knows, but any time hereafter that Bronnie attempts to don her headmistress tone and spank the opposition, she will be judged as a fallen sinner and heckled with glee ...

The pond wants her to stay, so much more fun and mayhem might yet follow, but being armed with an ample supply of peanuts, and a good spot in the pits, would be just as happy to see her go.

Please rush off here (with forced video) to make a vote:

It's a scandal that some four per cent have found in her favour, and this must be diluted by all those who want the spectacle to move to an appropriate and dramatic conclusion.

Politics can only work, much like drama, as catharsis. And so we must move to the end of the third act as soon as possible. Whatever that might be. A happy ending where she stays and endures endless tumult and torment ... or a happy ending where she retreats to the back bench ...

In the meantime, the pond is profoundly grateful for the great facilitator who made it all possible.

And so for the umpteenth time, the pond checks out the Bronnie saga and examines the multifaceted levels of reptile hypocrisy ...

Day umpteenth of the Bronnie saga, and lo, while the Fairfaxians are predictable, look down there, in the left hand corner - where subversive leftist thoughts lurk - but still on the front page - the reptiles of the Oz have deigned to acknowledge the saga.

Big Mal has taken the train to Geelong, Julie Bishop has assured everyone Bronnie has a mirror and is looking into it, and finally the reptiles are on the case ...

Just look at their digital illustration ...

And the heavies have been wheeled in to have their say:

Well we all know that Savva woman is a worry, but et tu bouffant one?

Yep, ep tu it is:

Indeed, indeed it is capable - in fact in any other part of the world aside from reptile central it already has - but let's not get too alarmed, because the bouffant one is a blustering buffoon who blows in any breeze, a dunny door that will flap in a zephyr, let alone a gale.

Uh oh, it's worse, much worse than that, because the thunderer has thundered, and that surely settles the matter.

Read in awe, puny mortals, see how the reptiles writhe on the spit of discontent:

Not the most egregious act by a serving politician? Names and deeds and acts please, so they may be drummed from service, but how soon now before the dull axe falls on the hapless neck?

Meanwhile, another saga continues on, which allows for some stupendous displays of hypocrisy.

Yes the thunderer also thundered on that matter:

Say what? A call for Andrew Bolt, heart and soul of the unusual and unsettling treatment, to be sacked?

But the hypocrisy didn't end there, because the very epicentre of the viper Bolter, the HUN, tried to pretend they were right onside:

It almost induced a fit of nausea in the pond. Were they backing the Tigers backing Adam?

Were they then finally giving the viper Bolter his marching orders, like an errant Bronnie who'd gone too far?

What said the Bolter?

Was he wearing a green carnation and an indolent air of ennui?

He'd rather talk about paintings ...

But he couldn't help himself ... just like Oscar: 

I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.

Yes apologise uppity black. Let all the uppity blacks apologise for stepping out of their assigned place ...

How dare you get upset at being called an ape. Why it was huge fun in Planet of the Apes ...

Of course the Bolter might show how it's done. By apologising to Adam Goodes for his relentless demonisation of a footballer. It would be brave and hard, but very effective. Making clear he actually wasn't a racist, though he's damned pesky difficult blacks many times for ruining the country ...

Of course the viper Bolter was in something of a funk as it became clear that the tide might be turning, and people might actually think there was a racist element to the booing, and that his endless tirades against Goodes might have had something to do with it.

Of course the Bolter was too discreet and polite to mention that the panel had noted the viperish Bolter as racist central.

How shocking, how outrageous, how wrong. His raging at Adam Goodes has nothing to do with racism. Why doesn't the big ape just apologise and then everyone could go about their business and all this talk about indigenous pride could be put back in the cupboard where it belongs ...

Of course the viper Bolter is irredeemable, but this day he faithfully recycles the bouffant one and Savva.

Why, we can recycle the viper Bolter recycling Savva and save a click or two:

Bill Shorten still has a lot of work to do to convince people he is serious about boat turnbacks and that his renewable energy target is more than a thought bubble or a sop to the Left. However, his recovery and repositioning have benefited mightily from one major factor that has bought him time, and that has been corroding the Tony Abbott’s authority and drowning out all other messages from the government: Bronwyn Bishop.

And the day before the Bolter pronounced Bronnie a problem:

When even a man with a horde of faithful racist followers deems Bronnie an issue, perhaps she should just apologise and begone ...

Well at least she's got something to apologise for ...

And so to the Pope of the day, which removes any need to talk further on another sordid matter ... but which has a strange and eerie echo of all that viperish Bolterish talk of Adam Goodes playing the victim (and more Pope here).

Yes apologise Mr Goodes, you're ruining life for the Bolter, and now he must talk of paintings.

Shame on you, shame on you, and there he was hoping you'd become a line in a Rolf Harris lyric:

At this point the pond became enlightened ...

When Banzan was walking through a market he overheard a conversation between a butcher and his customer. 
"Give me the best piece of meat you have," said the customer. 
"Everything in my shop is the best," replied the butcher. "You cannot find here any piece of meat that is not the best." 
At these words Banzan became enlightened. (and more koans here).

When the pond was flicking through the digital newsprint this day, the pond came across this note:

Every Bronnie joke on the full to overflowing intertubes is the best joke. You cannot find any joke that is not the best.

(here, with forced video)

At this point the pond became enlightened.

In which the pond produces a bumper portmanteau of reptile pleasures ...

Naturally the moment the pond read Bronwyn Bishop's Choppergate scandal spawns 'Bronny Copter' game, (with forced video), the pond had to rush off to check the actual game at Bronny Copter ...

It is, in its own way, the ultimate meme tribute.

Of course the actual affair has now veered from a certain kind of Oscar Wilde cheese and cucumber sandwich on a silver platter farce to a bizarre Bourne conspiracy:

A spokesman for Bishop’s office said that on the weekend in question she had to meet people in the area on an anonymous basis because they did not want to attend public hearings of the inquiry. When asked how many people Bishop met and what date the spokesman said he was not going to go into the details of Bishop’s diary.  (Graudian it here).

It gets more Einfeldian and preposterous by the day, and it seems likely now that the first day of the next sitting is going to be very rich comedy ... pray she lasts to make it so because the omens aren't good ...

Oh no, say it ain't so. What would the pond do? How can this be?

But enough of the fun, because it's the pond's duty each day to consider the reptiles and to see what's getting them agitated.

And today the reptiles offered a double dose of agitation:

Naturally the pond was torn. Follow the Lomborgians or go through some routine Islamic demonisation with Dame Slap? What a Janet's choice!

And then it came to the pond, a bit like one of those gigantic bumper comic collections:

Why not do both? Why not pack them both into the portmanteau, or as anyone sensible knows, the good old Tamworth port!

For those who realise a Tamworth port isn't a Portuguese drink, here we go.

First of all the poodle and the Lomborg and the outrage and the shock and the horror and the indignation:

Uh huh. It's a bizarre and disgraceful intervention in Flinders' academic affairs, yet springing for four million to plant a cuckoo in the nest is seemly, proper, right and just ...

No wonder the pond knew it was going to be a ripper ...

Preserve its integrity while hustling coin from the poodle? Like a hooker trolling for a John, or a Christopher ...

Now there's a great punch line ...

But now for the test. Was Dame Slap up to the job? Would she rise to the challenge?

The header was promising. After all, in recent days we've had a stunning stand taken against the government funding and teaching of anti-evolution Christian fundamentalism in Australian schools by many, many reptiles - you know the sort of fundamentalism which saw that great headline Jehovah's Witness abuser quoted scripture while assaulting daughter, royal commission told. 

And there have been stunning examples of reptiles denouncing the notion of the crusade that inspired the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan ...and calling for the indictment of the war criminal crusaders, such as Bush and Howard and Cheney ...

Sorry, the pond stopped taking its medicine for a moment.

You wanted examples? Sorry, none seem to be at hand. Of course we all know that there are fundamentalist cults amongst us ...

Jehovah's Witnesses 'a cruel cult', ran the headline, Slamming the door on Jehovah, and yet, for all that, the cult managed to find itself involved in a government scandal in WA, here. 

Weird stuff, and then somehow the pond found itself In the Belly of Jehovah ...

But the pond's job is to get into the belly of the reptiles and discover the fear and loathing and the hysteria, and as always Dame Slap is up to the challenge, thanks to recycled David Cameron:

A promising start.

Condemning the child-raping, gay-loathing Catholic church certainly isn't enough to prove you're in the business of challenging extremists, but here's where it got real for the pond:

Bracing stuff indeed.

Wild conspiracy theories? Conspiracy theories that feed the extremist narrative?

Inevitably the pond was drawn back to the grand days of Dame Slap herself and her grand enthusiasm for Monckton's wild-eyed extremist conspiracy theories:

 There's more at Deltoid here, which avoids the tedium of the plot linking to itself. Sadly the link to Beware the UN's Copenghagen plot seems to be broken, but never mind, a kindly soul put up the story as a pdf here. And you can find the first part of it here at a denialist site here, with a broken link.

Strange, it's as if someone was embarrassed by a barking mad column.

Because frankly - it has to be said - Dame Slap is inclined to be nutty, and to be a lover of conspiracy theories.

So naturally she has another conspiracy theory ready to hand:

Now astute readers will remember this talk of victimhood is exactly the same sort of talk as has recently been the fashion with Adam Goodes and talk of his sense of victimhood and grievance and so forth and etc.

Naturally it leads to talk of Australian values, though what these are never become clear.

Perhaps the White Australia policy?

Never mind, it builds to a fine flow of rhetorical excess:

Yes, Australian values demand freedom of speech so that Islamics can be demonised even further.

Forget about the Aborigines and the Irish and the Asians and the Italians and the Greeks and the middle Europeans and all the others that have been given the dust-up by feral members of the commentariat and Australian values over the past hundred years or so.

Been there, done that, and now it's the turn of the Islamics ...

Never mind, let's go on asserting our confidence in our own homophobic, flag-waving, feminist baiting, Adam Goodes dissing culture and its heroic fearless leader and its faithful tribe of worshipful members of the commentariats - that'll teach the Islamics how to deal with gays, women and pesky blacks ...

Oh and the UN.

Don't forget the UN.

Its world government agenda will see gays and women running and ruining the planet with jibber jabber about climate science ...

Meanwhile, on another planet ...