In which the jihad for information turns into a bout of confected outrage ... thanks to Dame Slap and a gerbil of a thing ...

(Above: Pope captures the weird monomaniacal look that comes with zombie eyes, and more Pope here).

The pond is outraged by Peter Dutton's attempt to hijack the political debate with enormous stupidity and talk of jihad.

Oh sure, even the reptiles of Oz show signs of being amused, and Fairfaxians up and down the land have been rolling about in mirth, of the Tony Wright A jihad, Peter Dutton? Hand us the confession and we'll sign (with forced video) kind

But this has obscured matters of great moment - for example, the pond was vastly relieved to learn that it might continue to call Barners an insensitive wanker.

Of course the pond uses the term only in its strictly non-sexual context, as befits all asexual Tamworthians, and even if the pond might consider Barners a gerbil of a thing, a loser, an idiot, an absolute clown and a dropkick, the pond would never want to hurt the tough-skinned - or is it thick-skinned? - man from Tamworth, where sticks and stones will break your bones, but names will never hurt you ... (Barnaby Joyce disappointed).

And then there was this from that master of rhetoric:

Now you might think that meme is entirely possible, that no sensible human being could say such a thing, but you underestimate the power of George.

Let us go to the transcript here:

GEORGE BRANDIS, ATTORNEY-GENERAL: This is a man who has no politics, who is entirely free of politics. ...

Now you don't have to be a Godardian or a Maoist to understand that at one level or another, everything is political. There is no one entirely free of politics, and to say there is gilds the lily to the point of existential absurdity, but there you go, that's our totally silly George at his best.

The man in question is a notoriously conservative judge; he has conservative positions that are deeply political. He is also clearly biased, in his own favour, and in carrying out the work of the federal government. Why deny the bleeding obvious and step off into the valley of absurdity?

But this brings the pond to another important matter and a pond reader trying to build up confected outrage at the use of confected outrage, to whit:

I would like to humbly move that the words "confected outrage" be prohibited on pain of death from any news reporting for the foreseeable future.

Is there a seconder in the house?

So moved and carried, but sadly, dear reader, as a reader, you have now been given the job of terminating the life of Dame Slap, though you have the wriggle room of saying you wanted the words banned from news reporting, but not necessarily from the confected outraged scribbles of confected reptiles.

Come on down, Dame Slap, sock it to us with some confected outrage:

Now really, there's no reason to dwell too long on Dame Slap's actual arguments. She may as well have just tugged her forelock and said "I ever so much totally agree with the entirely wonderful and free of politics learned judge", and the world would have been saved yet another column lathering up a goodly dose of confected outrage about confected outrage.

But as our reader tried on their confected outrage at confected outrage, it behooves the pond to grimly track the thoughts of the Dame, to see whether after that initial flourish, more examples of confected outrage might be found:

Oh that's very disappointing. Contrived is good, and nominal useful, and the notion that a learned judge with a predisposition to conservative thinking would in no way be predisposed to the Liberal party is most excellent legal thinking.

Why it might well be that he finds them too liberal - with a few too many wets talking behind closed doors to Fairfax - and is more inclined to support the Golden Dawn.

But at this point, the pond was in despair. Oh sure, 'not a scintilla' is excellent and worthy of respect, but has confected outrage been lost from the lexicon so soon?

Well there's only one gobbet left for the good Dame to return to the form which has seen her admired around the land for her insight. Who else could have helped us understand that climate science was being used by the United Nations to establish a world government? Apart from the quasi Lord Monckton himself ...

Hurrah!

She came through. And not just with that splendid hysterical outburst about one of the darkest episodes of hysteria-fuelled politics ever seen, or that burst of spleen about the insidious unionists, which shows you what sort of politics the supporters of the judge support, but yes, dear concerned reader, breathe a sigh of relief, because there's the confected outrage in the third par, and more confected outrage in the last par ...

You can always rely on Dame Slap, but here's the thing. Her outrage seems to be genuine, in a way that only the barking mad can manage, which reminds the pond of the way it has always firmly believed in those lines by Yeats:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre 
The falcon cannot hear the falconer; 
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; 
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, 
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere 
The ceremony of innocence is drowned. 
The best lack all conviction, while the worst 
Are full of passionate intensity

The passionate intensity of the rabid right.

Dame Slap is amongst the worst of the worst, but the more furiously she writes, and the more dear George explains that a certain man hasn't a political bone in his body, the deeper the pond's realisation that he has ... every one of the bones, from the stapes in the ear ossicles up, deeply conservative and deeply disposed towards the Liberal party ...

But enough of the comedy, because now we have a Rowe - and more Rowe here - to round out that other marvel ...

But is a dummy spit confected outrage ...?