Let this count as the 358th time ...

The pond confesses to a singular act of will - call it a triumph of the will if you like - not to follow rambling Campbell down his most peculiar hole. How many ways can a politician explain that some dog - other than him - ate his homework and landed him in a mess?

And as for Carr enabling lunatic commies, what sort of silk pyjamas was he wearing at the time?

"Business class. No edible food. No airline pyjamas. I lie in my tailored suit," read one snippet. "Eating plastic – no ceramic – food, passengers lying in cribs, packed in business class, a design that owes a lot to the trans-Atlantic slave trade ..." 
Mind you, even first class did not always prove to be up to scratch for our former foreign minster for one-legged Romanian deadlifts. 
His book included a letter from Singapore Airlines concerning the quality of its in-flight entertainment. 
"Please accept my sincere apology if any part of our First Class in-flight offering fell below your expectations," the official wrote. 
"Specifically, I have taken note of the lack of English subtitles for the Wagner opera Siegfried." (here)

Comrades, your valiant enabler comrade will continue to enable your fight against running lap dog lickspittles who refuse to provide suitable subtitles for opera ...

Enough already, because there is a serious, fraught matter for discussion before the chair today.

It is sometimes asserted that the pond is obsessed with the fate of Tony Abbott, but the pond is only obsessed with those that are obsessed.

Call it a form of reptile fever, one of the dangers of visiting the snake pit on a daily basis ...

But the pond's obsession is nothing compared to the truly besotted ...

Wonderful stuff, but such is the dire state of Crikey that a link would only lead to a 404.

The Fairfaxians are also deeply engaged with the mad monk's fate:

Now that's all very well to dally with lesser reptiles, but the pond boldly considers itself an expert reptile handler, what you might call the reptile handler for reptile handlers, and no pitiful Hartcher offering will satisfy, up against the mighty reptiles of Oz.

Besides in all these shaggy dog stories, there comes a crunch point when all the waffle has to evaporate and the scribbler must get down to an actual point, and when that time comes unnerving banality is the first refuge of the scribbler scoundrel:

...he can be expected to take some time to adjust to the new reality. And that is that he can stay in parliament and become a distraction or destabilisation, or he can leave and find another purpose. Unless and until Australia can find a better institutional solution for putting former prime ministers to good use, Abbott will have to find one for himself.  (here).

Deep. So deep. And how shocking that he should be expected to find something for himself. What about Peta? Can't she do it for him?

But moving on from Hartcher, it turns out the crème de la crème of reptiles also only have a shaggy dog stories to offer, and you have to wait an unnervingly long time for the punch line:

Rudd made an amazing comeback? As opposed to a pitiful and tragic comeback and a smackdown for disgraceful white-anting which has seen him since wander in the wilderness like an ancient mariner? If that's a comeback, better to go quietly.

As for the rest, and the pandering comparisons - who would even put Abbott in the same arena, let alone the same ring as the above named foreign examples - it's all part of the delaying tactic to get to that shaggy dog story punchline.

How long before tricky Dick, Howard and Ming the Merciless get dragged in?

And so that's the punchline to the shaggy dog story ...

... it's highly unlikely ...

... a reveal that all that talk of history and Churchill and Tricky Dick and so on was just a bunch of space-filling historical waffle, stringing out a yarn of astonishing precedents, only to arrive at a  limp climax.

Switzer's time at the ABC seems to have reduced him to a kind of mind-boggling banality ...

In desperation, the pond turned to another reptile agonising about the mad monk this day, and he comes up with a most excellent solution:

What a first class notion. As it's widely alleged that the mad monk has remained a dual British-Australian citizen, why not prevail on the British government to appoint him to the House of Lords?

Or at least a Warden of the Cinque Ports? Other upstanding figures have found it a most satisfying appointment:

What's that you say? The Queen didn't even want to see her champion?

Oh dear, let's read on, in the hope of finding a solution to this most urgent problem ...

Or he could just go and get a job, like thousands of Australians must do when retrenched, dumped, screwed over or otherwise fucked up by the many hurdles put in place by sundry governments.

What is it with this infantilising aspect of Liberals, ?

Why must Abbott be mollycoddled and looked after and given offices and staff, beyond the ones he could afford thanks to membership of a most generous super scheme and a little bit of elbow grease on his own behaf?

Now as a disgruntled, depressed, "ex", he must be bribed to get out and about, because he can't make his own way in the world and work out what to do with himself?

Simply because he might create a little more gutter-sniping and carry-on, being the gutter-sniper that he's always been?

Enough already Mr. Smith. But it seems you managed to find a job scribbling nonsense after you became a former Liberal Party adviser ... so there's hope for Tony Abbott ...

And so to a reptile sub creating confusion and mayhem earlier in the day for the pond:

Of course "same sex marriage opponents" might refer to opponents of same sex marriage, or opponents of opponents of same sex marriage, which is to say proponents of the opponent point of view to opponents of proponents of same sex marriage ...

Or some such verbal mind fuck on the part of click bait trolling reptile subs ...

For the record here's part of what Puplick said ...

Well yes. Here's that sexually warped bunch of deviants sitting in Rome mouthing off:

4. There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God's plan for marriage and family. Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law. Homosexual acts “close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved”.
Sacred Scripture condemns homosexual acts “as a serious depravity... (cf. Rom 1:24-27; 1 Cor 6:10; 1 Tim 1:10). This judgment of Scripture does not of course permit us to conclude that all those who suffer from this anomaly are personally responsible for it, but it does attest to the fact that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered”. This same moral judgment is found in many Christian writers of the first centuries and is unanimously accepted by Catholic Tradition. 
Nonetheless, according to the teaching of the Church, men and women with homosexual tendencies “must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided”. They are called, like other Christians, to live the virtue of chastity. The homosexual inclination is however “objectively disordered” and homosexual practices are “sins gravely contrary to chastity”. (and a lot more jibber jabber here from the deliberately disordered tribe that prefers to mate with god than with man or woman).

Uh huh. Well fuck that crap about respect, compassion and sensitivity. If you call someone objectively and intrinsically disordered and seriously depraved, and so on and so forth, they have a right to a point of view, including but not limited to, the right to call you fucked in the head, and the groin and a number of other places ... and to ask you to stop your bigoted, prejudicial, demeaning, degrading and personally vicious assaults.

In short, fuck the Catholic church, the Islamics and all their bigoted apologists arguing for the right of bigots to maintain the bigotry...

Meanwhile, haven't the meme-sters been quick off the mark?