In the unreformed church of heavily honoured latter-day fossils ...

(Above: there's nothing like a papal bull to put the pond on high irony alert, and more from the most Divine Papist of them all here).

The pond is winding up for the year and will in a week or so be taking an Xmas break.

The war on Xmas this year has been exhausting, even though the only shot fired to date came from a reader drawing attention to the most excellent Embassy hosts traditional Dutch Sinterklass event in ACT with characters dressed in black face. 

Ah the Dutch, the sensitive Dutch ... no wonder the Bolter deserves a place on the ABC, along with Pauline Hanson ...

And so to the pond's awards for the year, a little premature, but to be expected when dealing with ejaculatory scribbling.

Of course Tony Abbott is already enjoying his title of 'loon pond politician of the year' and those titans, the Bolter and Akker Dakker have been excluded from competition, because ... well it would be just so unfair, and besides having long ago been elevated and exalted with the loon pond perpetual trophy for Murdochian ratbaggery, there's no honour available to mark their continuing excellence.

The pond would have loved to honour Chris Mitchell as editor of the year, for his diligent work in alienating a broad, general readership, thereby maintaining the lizard Oz's status as a failed business.

But reality dictates that he's now a feather duster, and what's the point of decorating a mantelpiece with a dust-gathering award, when clearly the loon pond editor of the year is the triumphant Paul Whittaker, who hopefully will take the lizard Oz even further down into the gutter, where it can sit alongside the tabloid Daily Terror, with lots of photoshop and angry headlines ... especially about teh Islamics ...

The pond thought about a joint honour - let's face it, with the exception of the Bolter, these two newspaper editors host every one of the pond's contenders for the loon of the year award,  a singular achievement, but there can be only one winner, and Chris Mitchell is the loser ... and what a splendid loser he is ...

Now it should come as no surprise that the pond has awarded Greg Sheridan a loon pond perpetual trophy for scribbling total weirdness on a regular basis.

The bromancer is so routinely off the planet that he has totally eclipsed Dame Slap (and Dame Groan and other contenders). Dame Slap needs to pick herself up - there was the fabulous Lord Monckton explaining the fall of Abbott was a UN plot, and nary a word or a squeak from Dame Slap. It's been several years since Dame Slap trotted out the line that climate change could be a gambit by the UN to roll out world government, and she really must try harder if she wishes to be more than a nominee.

For those who feared that Greg Sheridan winning left out Miranda the Devine, worry not, because the Devine easily won 'the loon pond essence of poison' trophy, which has a lovely bitter almonds smell about it ...

The fiercest competition came in the 'loon pond total bore, pontificating pompous angry old man shouting at clouds' category, with Paul Kelly a strong player, and prattling Polonius himself a reliable presence, though his feints and thrusts were marred by the usual errors and sectarian chit chat. A pretence at being balanced is always hard to sustain when the basic mode is barking mad.

The pond has no hesitation in awarding the Caterists the loon pond trophy for relentless dollops of dullard desiderata this year, for a quarry wall of sustained effort ... where would a Tuesday on the pond be without a sustained bout of Caterist silliness?

No doubt some have been worried about where Maurice Newman might end up. With everybody and his dog competing for the honour of the world's greatest climate scientist, the competition has been fierce. The Lomborgians have been scribbling almost on a daily basis from Paris in a sustained attempt to race off with the pond's trophy and the attached rubber cheque for four million dollars of taxpayers' money.

But Moorice isn't just the world's greatest climate scientist, he's an expert on everything, and for his diligence and insight richly deserves the pond's highest honour. Yes, Moorice is loon pond's scribbler of scribblers for the year.

It's rare that such gifted talent is foisted on the world so regularly, and Moorice routinely blitzed the Lomborgians, who must take their denialism more seriously if they want to be worthy contenders, while at the same time indulging in bouts of Abbott worship that left even the bromancer gasping in admiration.

Now there were other minor awards - the Shanahans won the three legged, or one legged if you will, potato, or egg and teaspoon race for married couples (a fierce blow to the Caterists), and every so often a right field candidate would bob up with an excellent contribution, but the pond knows that most award ceremonies drag on for too long, and so we should turn to today's contributions, which just made it into the competition.

It has to be said that this Lomborgian effort counted against him in the competition - too try hard, too much repetition ...

And it was too late for the judges to treat this blow-in as more than a one shot try hard ...

As if we had a choice ...

Is it already time for another cartoon?

Forget these mug fly by night contenders, as usual, it was Moorice that set the pace and showed how it should be done.

What a consummate player he is, no wonder he's the pond's champeen...

Now this is likely to get readers agitated and sighing 'not afuckinggain', but that's the whole point of a master of y'artz of polemics ...it allows for a cartoon for starters ...

And so to Moorice showing how it's done ... note how he slips in climate science, the republic, gay marriage, etc...

Whatever you've got, he's agin it, and then that still leaves room for him to deplore noisy, egotistical, destructive, self-interested, natteringly negative contributors to the debate!

It doesn't get more consummate or ejaculatory than that ...

Now the pond is hoping to do a deal with Moorice at some time to market his own brand of wipes. These are very handy for anyone wanting a clean keyboard after a frothing, foaming and spittle flecked rant has resulted in some incidental damage.

It's true that there are already some brands out in the marketplace, but the politically incorrect will just love to death these lovely loon elfins ...

Okay, that's the advertising out of the way, time for another cartoon ...

And so to the final bit of the master's heartfelt outpouring ...

Now the judges had to mark down a few parts of this entry.

Appealing to the ponderous, pompous, pontificating Paul Kelly as an expert seemed to suggest that Moorice himself was not the highest authority on noisy, egotistical, destructive, self-interested shouting - as if he gave a flying fuck about the common stiff - but who could fail to appreciate that penultimate par's wonderful insight: "It is already clear, Abbott's departure is a game changer."

You'd have to cross to the other side of the street to get another Einsteinian flourish like that.

Now to make it clear why Moorice is streets ahead, the judges felt the need to show exactly why the treacherous leftist oscillating fan deserved such a severe reprimand, and why Moorice deserved his award:

How outrageous: suggesting that Abbott is now a useful idiot on a par with Pauline Hanson, as if Pauline Hanson and the chocolate cake munching wall puncher had anything in common ...

Ms Hanson expressed solidarity with Tony Abbott’s recent comments about Islam, describing it as an “inherently violent religion” and calling for a ban on Muslim immigration. 
“I’ve actually called for a royal commission into Islam. I think we need to have a greater understanding of it, and I’ve always said: Is it really a political ideology, or is it a religious ideology?” she said. 
“We’ve seen the ramifications of Islam and the impact that it’s had on other countries, and we must ensure that we maintain our democracy in Australia and that people don’t want terrorism on the streets.” (google the text if you like to get to reptile heaven).

And so as the chocolate cake man, Moorice and Pauline dribble, froth and foam together, we must wait until April Fools' Day for further news, though thanks to the most excellent reptiles, every day is April Fool's Day at the pond ...

Oh okay, here's a prize for Chris Mitchelll for a year's solid entertainment ...

Hang on, hang on, a wooden spoon is actually quite useful in the kitchen, and Mitchell deserves his prize for being useless and driving the Oz business model into the ground ... please allow the pond a little time to consult further with the judges.

In the meantime, for a little light relief, here's the Rowe of the day, and more Rowe here ...

Which gives the pond a chance to run a few Norman Lindsay cartoons ... much loved in Tamworth long ago, well the pictures at least ...

And one for the licentious reader who made it this far ...