An apology that this pathetic excuse for a non-apology is offered to readers of the pond as an apology ...

Say what?

They've left the story up?

Yep, with an apology at the start of it ...

And so the whole sorry tale unfolds in much the same way ...

Until the reader comes to this ...

Louise then gave a detailed account of what she described as a violent rape. The Herald has been unable to independently verify the details, or confirm that the rape occurred as described.

Say what?

So for all we know, the whole thing's a pile of nonsense, because the details can't be independently verified and nobody can confirm that the matter occurred as described?

And yet it's still up, and in substance reading much the same ...

You know, here's what happened to Jayson Blair. He resigned ...

Here's what happened to Stephen Glass. He got the boot and they made a bad movie about him, and the pond suffered through it.

There are plenty more examples - just follow the links in those wiki yarns - describing events, stories and journalists found out and moved on by organisations that vaguely remembered what is loosely described as a journalistic code of ethics ...

You can read the MEAA's code in pdf here. The first few provide enough rich comedy and irony ...

1. Report and interpret honestly, striving for accuracy, fairness and disclosure of all essential facts. Do not suppress relevant available facts, or give distorting emphasis. Do your utmost to give a fair opportunity for reply. 
2. Do not place unnecessary emphasis on personal characteristics, including race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, age, sexual orientation, family relationships, religious belief, or physical or intellectual disability. 
3. Aim to attribute information to its source. Where a source seeks anonymity, do not agree without first considering the source’s motives and any alternative attributable source. Where confidences are accepted, respect them in all circumstances. 
4. Do not allow personal interest, or any belief, commitment, payment, gift or benefit, to undermine your accuracy, fairness or independence. 

And so on. In the pond's time, they were taken seriously. In the age of Fairfax and the Murdoch gang, they're not taken at all ...

And then comes this, in the original "corrected" column, still blaming the police, and still trailing the Skaf gang, because nudge nudge, we all know what that means ...

And to rub salt into the wound, this tweeting ...

An apology that isn't an apology ...

If he'd had the slightest sense of honour and decency, he would have resigned.

If his editors or his newspaper had had the slightest sense of honour and decency, he would have been sacked.

That neither has happened this day says all that needs to be known about the decline of Fairfax into click-baiting, trolling oblivion ...

In which the pond goes in search of a lost credibility the Academy and the reptiles and Paul Sheehan never had ...

The pond is always delighted by folly, and the agonising over whether the Academy has lost credibility is a perfect example.

It’s never had any, nada, zilch, zip, from the get go - the number of masterpieces ignored, overlooked and insulted is longer than a month’s writing could cover. The ceremony is just another example of American marketing and hustle, like world series baseball or world championship football or world famous frankfurters.

So there's a couple of precious hours saved.

Meanwhile, Monday would once upon a time have been Paul Sheehan day, though the pond had given up reading Sheehan long ago, after his expert contributions to climate science and Lord Monckton worship.

How foolish of the pond, because thanks to reading Richard Ackland’s ‘We’re all susceptible to swallow our own agendas - but Paul Sheehan has form' Sheehan continues to delight, remains, if you will, a magical font of watery pleasure.

Ackland has many serious comments to make, but it was this one that excited  the pond, especially as it contained very helpful links:

The journalist has had some interesting corporate connections. He was a friend of the late David Coe, of Allco fame, part of the disastrous consortium that unsuccessfully bid to takeover Qantas.

Among Coe’s varied interests was a stake in the heart-stopping fried-fat donut business Krispy Kreme Australia. Administrators were appointed to Krispy Kreme in 2010 and in the process it emerged that Sheehan was a shareholder in the company.

In 2003, Sheehan wrote a column in the Herald lauding the delights of Krispy Kreme: “Part of the appeal is that at the Krispy Kreme factory stores, where donuts are baked on the premises, customers can watch the donuts being made behind large glass walls and everyone gets a free Original Glazed, the most popular of the 15 varieties on sale ($1.50 each, or $10.90 for a dozen).” Sheehan told Guardian Australia that he did not hold shares in the local Krispy Kreme subsidiary at the time he wrote the column.

So all those days the pond could have been scribbling about the Krispy Kreme Kid …instead of reading Paul Sheehan: Another Empty Voice In A Cacophony Of Hatred.

Can Sheehan make a comeback?

If he tries a light touch, like magic water, sourdough, Krispy Kremes or a handsome payback junket column about the delights of sponsored trips abroad, he’ll be mocked; if he tries a column on serious themes, he’ll be mocked for the bigotry and the bile, or the feigned attempt to hide same.

Do he and Fairfax hope and expect he can hide under a rock until it blows away?

Who knows and who cares, but the pond suspects that the Fairfaxians are trying to win back the pond by running this story …

Yes, it's front page on the tree killer edition, and online here (with forced video),  but it's too little, too late so far as the pond is concerned.

A long time ago, the wall puncher instructed Malware to destroy the NBN, and he did the job. And suddenly years after the event, a leaked report revealing the long known obvious is front page news? Oi broken Optus HFC and corroded copper vey ...

As we’re speaking of film, why not a metaphor for Malware?

That moment comes in Ivan the Terrible part 2, perhaps the most baroque film ever made, but which did its job by inspiring intense hatred in Stalin (and it can be found at YouTube here , with part 1 here).

It’s an acquired taste, beyond the valley of formalism, but anyone with a taste for the byzantine world of the Murdochians will appreciate it. And if those boyars don’t remind you of Malware’s Liberal team, nothing will ...

But hush, the pond has missed the big reptile story of the day ...

SEND SOLDIERS TO DESTROY TURKS, ARMY TOLDZ

Australian special forces should be sent into the Turkish stronghold of the Dardenelles to sort out a second front, expert authority on silly walks the pond says. 

Let's face it, no one else is up to the job of sorting out the Turks in hand to hand fighting, just like Rambo, thereby ending the first world war, and saving the British empire ... It'll just be a quick romp up the peninsula and then the lads will be marching through Berlin ...and even if things get a bit sticky, we can look back on it and celebrate the day a nation was established ...

Or some such thing.

Yep, it was another day of reptile delusion of the wall puncher kind, only this day it was Peter Leahy holding down the front page ...

This led to a juxtaposition offering the sheerest delight at the top of the digital page ...

Destroy, destroy, destroy.

And berate the tolerant for their intolerance, and for daring to point out the rampaging vile intolerance of the Corys, Georges and Ericas of the world.

The theory is these tolerant folk are intolerant because they're not tolerating the intolerant, so that makes them hideously intolerant, and never mind how intolerable the actual intolerant might become ...

Oh faawwwk, Cory and the reptiles were on yet another Jaffas down the aisle roll ...

Preclusion, the new tolerance!!

Got a nail? You need a hammer, preferably one as thick as Peter Leahy.

Or a reptile in love with bigotry and the mocking of the different. Why damn it, it's their right to show off the same fundamentalist mindset as a fundamentalist Islamic throwing a gay off the roof, and let no one get in their way. To do that would be to persecute innocent, long suffering heterosexuals...

Never mind, the pond always preferred to save its Jaffas rather than waste them on the wooden floor, no matter the jingoistic, usher-irritating, war mongering, bigoted noise they made, so please allow a light sorbet as a final indulgence ... and what better sorbet than the dog botherer?

Sadly the pond has to report that the dog botherer is now in defaming mode.

Well he calls it praise,  but he spends the opening pars of his column defaming a couple of ABC people ...

By approving of them ...

Sorry people, you've been praised by the dog botherer, which is the kiss of death at the pond and brings back fond memories of Groucho ...

Yes, include the pond out of membership of the dog botherer club, and his praise and awards. The moment you get a trophy from the dog botherer, you just have to wonder what you're doing wrong ... though it does remind the pond that the only Academy Award nomination a Marx brothers' film ever received came in the 10th Academy Awards ... for  "Best Fucking Dance  Fucking Direction"... because the first thing anyone thinks about in a Marx brothers movie is the dire song and dance routines ...

And that was in 1938, and only now they reckon the Academy's got a credibility problem?

But wait, you're asking where's the dog botherer's inimitable form of loonacy?

Oh it was there alright, at the bottom of the piece, with the dog botherer's expert form of climate science on parade ...

Ah faaawwwk, as the Pellist said to the crow and the Royal Commission, what about Dog botherer expert in climate science, and Dog botherer sorted out middle east with help of Alexander Downer, so why do we need to send SAS, when it was done and dusted long ago ...

Yes, the pond has on occasion marvelled at the epic stupidity of readers of the lizard Oz, but that doesn't stop it from being a low brow form of humour, and when it comes to the dog botherer, the humour's positively prognathous Neanderthal ...

Select any talk back program and you'll cop the barking mad. Heck, read the lizard Oz and you'll cop the dog botherer confusing science and scepticism ...

Well here's a thought. Day after day, in a way that is verified by empirical research and can be reproduced at any time by reading a dog botherer column, the dog botherer is a verified fuckwit ...

Well it's as scientific as Kenny posing as wise guru of climate science scepticism.

But as we're speaking of the movies this day, perhaps we can wrap things up with this great Rowe ...

More Rowe here, and it remains only to note, via a Greg Hunt search here ...

Kong did not receive any Academy Awards nominations. Selznick wanted to nominate O'Brien and his crew for a special award in visual effects but the Academy declined. Such a category did not exist at the time and would not exist until 1938. Sidney Saunders and Fred Jackman received a special achievement award for the development of the translucent acetate/cellulose rear screen – the only Kong-related award.

And if creature features aren't your thing, how about here at the 14th Academy Awards in 1941?

The ceremony is now considered notable, in retrospect, as the year in which Citizen Kane failed to win Best Picture, which instead was awarded to John Ford's How Green Was My Valley. Ford won his third award for Best Director, becoming the second to accomplish three wins in that category, and the first to win in consecutive years (having won for The Grapes of Wrath the previous year).

And they say the Academy just now has developed credibility problems. It's always been a gormless celebration of the stodgiest and most useless films, handing out gongs to the likes of Stanley Kramer's half-baked pieties ...

That's why it could still be handing out nominations to Godfather III, the most epic pile of tosh in the trilogy ...

But at least that's an excuse for another Rowe, who isn't short of the odd movie reference or two ...

Okay, the unicorn had to die to make that picture work, but so did Bambi's mum ...

Yes, the pond is here to help the hapless reptiles, apparently too scared to speak their minds ...

The pond is, of course, here to help the reptiles with their short and long term-business planning.

First tip. If you claim to be the weekend newspaper of the year, don't leave Saturday's nonsense and silliness hanging around like quickly rotting fish at the top of the digital page on a Sunday.

The notion that George Christensen, Dennis Jenkins, Cory Bernardi and the rest of the hysterical ratbag pack - peace be unto Erica, the poodle and George, honoured be their names - are too scared to speak their minds, is the sort of gabbling from dotage that should be quickly spiked. It's okay to let elderly politicians and other folk out of the closet every so often - though the pond would listen to an exception for Jeff Kennett - but once it's done, they should be quickly wheeled out of sight.

Which is why leaving that Abbott 'coulda, woulda shoulda' piece - from Dennis 'the bouffant one' Shanahan, channeling a failed pug and wall-puncher - should also have had a replacement on standby.

The problem isn't that people are too scared to speak their minds, it's that some people just never shut up, with the Murdochian commentariat to the fore, because they're paid to lead regularly with blather of the mischief-making kind. Of course the pond's entire business plan - celebrating the likes of Akker Dakker, the Devine, and yes, even the Bolter - depends on that continuing ...

Which brings the pond to another business plan issue.

The pond has been campaigning to get the reptiles to remove their blogs. This ancient, mystical art has no place in the modern digital world, and is best left to doodling amateurs amusing themselves on the sidelines of life.

Look today at the Sunday Terrorists.

Now the subject matter is entirely predictable. It's just another bout of essence of Miranda the Devine Pellist Catholicism on parade (try to count the number of Melbourne Catholics who heaved a sigh of relief when Pell left town):

The pond could write the Devine's copy in its sleep, which is no surprise given the Devine's somnambulistic capacity for repetition.

But you don't have to click on to the page that urges you to subscribe. You can head off to the blog to score it in a plain text way:

The text itself is just the usual nonsense of a skewed kind:

Well the pond has heard that litany of excuses before.

So let us turn to the way that the litany is freely available, and even without a gold coin donation in the plate.

What do you get if you go in the front door, and slip the cash in the envelope in a legit way, as used to be the style when the pond attended church and no one wanted to see cash slipping into paws, in much the same way as some might be disturbed by the sight of table legs?

We should pay for a big photo of the Devine?

Or perhaps a snap of the long-suffering Pellist in party frock?

And how much do we have to pay to avoid these burdensome, confronting sights?

Nada, zilch, zip, nothing. You can head off to the blogs and avoid them for free.

So a couple of confrontingly large snaps and a better layout is somehow going to persuade the punters to flock to the digital page and cough up the readies in their digital envelope?

Of course the reptiles could have been more modest, in the manner of the lizard Oz, by defrocking the Pellist and presenting him in basic black ...

Ferguson makes a few points that never troubled the Devine as she waded, yet again, through her hagiographic exercises for the day.

Ferguson does the forelock tugging that's required for any reptile writing on these matters - the complicit Victorian police, and victim David Ridsdale himself being an offender, "a fact the Victorian media conveniently refuses to address", when in fact the reptiles of Oz address it all the time, and use it as some kind of exculpatory device ...

But at the same time, Ferguson himself is not above framing things in a tricky way ...

What, Nobody handed them out? Well if Nobody did that, then Nobody deserves to be severely punished.

The amusing thing is that this information is already known within News Corp. There's a journalist who wrote the story that set the hares loose who knows what informants she relied upon ...

As for quoting those who say there are unknown unknowns, what is Ferguson proving, except that even a barking mad pundit will give themselves an escape hatch.

Ferguson then proceeds to trawl through sundry newspaper reports searching for fragments of evidence against Pell, until he 'fesses up to the bleeding obvious - any sexual assault allegations will not be part of the questioning - and then he gets on to Ballarat and all the murk arising therefrom:

For what it's worth, the pond thinks nothing much will come of Rome, and the Pellists will wriggle away. There's too much at stake for the Catholic church to let a cardinal go down, especially one as skilled at climate science as the Pellist ...

But it's a measure of the nervousness of the commentariat that the likes of the Devine should sit down at the keyboard and recite their rosary, especially that one about Pell doing right by his victims when in reality he was trying to manage the problem and diminish the payout and in the process upset a number of people, and so became a part of the problem and an object for revenge, rather than a solution ... and that's before anything else is considered and mentioned.

The consequences of the unremitting support for Pell - a distant, aloof and patrician man with few personal skills - has had consequences, but you won't find any of that reading the Devine ...

As is the usual way for the reptiles, after exploring all the options and the alternatives, Ferguson has to put the bit to the mouth ...

Beyond belief? Barely a ripple? Limited coverage in the Murdochian rags? While the Devine and the Bolter and others wax lyrical about the righteousness of the Pellists ...

Only a reptile could scribble that, and not see the issue at hand, and only a Devine could prove that beyond belief is entirely possible within a belief structure driven by fundamentalist Catholicism ...

But what else is to be expected of a faith that, beyond belief, proposes that people eat flesh and drink blood ... of the human spirit kind ...

Meanwhile, the pond continues to be remorseful about attending to Tony Abbott at such length yesterday.

Who knows how many fragile minds might have been broken, and driven, demented, into the desert, howling in pain at the moon and the sun?

The only excuse is that it was a necessary preamble to the work of the meme-sters ...

In which Pond Trucking carts truckloads more of the case for the Pellist defence ...

What a delicious array of bon bons the reptiles have delivered this day.

So many temptations, so many treats, though you know what they say about gorging on liquorice all sorts. Soon enough you'll be trotting off the toilet. It might seem cruel to compare the dog botherer to a laxative, but that's the way he works on the pond.

Even so there's something unnerving about that new leering snap the reptiles have fixed him up with in the splash: a hint of the Uncle Ernies, perhaps a suggestion of a mint too many, or is it just an old school smug, complacent smirk?

Whatever, the pond is always willing to get in to the dog botherer mood, so while we're talking about making people face the music, how about we make the war criminals and their lackeys sing a song of repentance?

Sorry, this is how the tune goes when you avoid facing the music:

Iraq really forms the backdrop of my whole time with Alexander really. A few weeks after I started working with him the international debate about Iraq and what needs to be done began. So I’ve seen Alexander where the Iraq issue from its infancy from beginning to talk about what we should do as an international community to combat Saddam Hussein and the threat he posed right through the United Nations process of resolutions and trying to get Iraq to comply with those resolutions to the formation of the Coalition and the start of the, the war. I was with Alexander when he went in only a few weeks after the fall of Saddam Hussein to see the newly liberated Iraq. There was a certain amount of obviously satisfaction at that stage that that had happened and so quickly and of course Alexander’s dealt with all the aftermath. The ongoing violence the great success of the elections and democratic process the fantastic optics of seeing people embrace democracy there and then the horrible reality of that being undermined by violence and I’ve been back into Iraq with him since and so Alexander’s really had a huge focus on Iraq over the past five years. But it’s just been the backdrop its just one issue it’s been very, very hard and at times its been very, very difficult to mount the argument because it’s a difficult argument to mount and you really have to run a complicated debate often with people. It’s difficult for people to understand how crucial this battle this struggle in the middle east for their own security and Australia. That’s one of our great challenges as a government is to explain to people how this affects their security and the security of the entire world and, and that’s, that’s a debate we’re still running today. So Alexander’s been at the forefront of that debate through the success and through the terrible set backs and he’s committed to it today and it still takes up a lot of his time today. But on top of that there’s all the other issues you have to deal with. 
There are there are dark moments in an issue like Iraq because some of the terrible things that have happened but I’ve never had any doubts and I’ve never seen Alexander have any doubts about the fact that this was the right thing to do and needed to be done and needs to be seen through and one now because I suppose he has a context and those in our office we have we have a good understanding of the context of this and we always think about the consequences of not doing anything and that’s what’s often missing from debate. People think that if we don’t have you know if we all ran away from Iraq then it wouldn’t be there. Well the question is what would be there? What would be the issue you’re dealing with there and is that worse than what we’ve got now? Of course there are dark moments terribly dark moments when you hear news of Australians being killed or Iraqi’s being killed, there are huge numbers of Iraqi’s being killed by terrorists and you never become immune to that. You see it as a set back for, for what Iraqi’s want and you see it against the context of being there and meeting people you know. I’ve sat there in meetings Alexander and I have sat there with Iraqi’s showing us the ink on their fingers you know with pride you know they’ve gone out and lined up and voted and risked being attacked by terrorists because they wanted to vote a government in. It’s tremendously uplifting to meet those people and see their pride and you know that’s what they want. We don’t see enough of that we see the terrible consequences of a terrorist attack the next day that’s designed to thwart those people but to the Iraqi people themselves to have the chance to meet them and see the way they’re embracing this you know it gives you heart. But the dark moments are there when there is violence and, and when Douglas Wood was, was a hostage and you’re working day and night with the Department and Alexander’s working day and night with the Department to really to be honest there were many times we thought that it was almost hopeless but to have success there was just wonderful so you have you have moments of high encouragement as well as well as the dark moments the moments of sadness and I think that the trick is to maintain an even path through that. You have those moments you have those thoughts about it but it’s a matter of being clear in your head in what you’re trying to achieve and keep doing the work. (here)

Sweet long absent lord, that was in 2007, and look at the mess in the middle east now, and this self-serving, self-seeking, self-righteous clown has the chutzpah to call for Assange to face the music...

Take him away Pythons, for crimes against comedy and humanity, so we can get to the agonising choice the pond must make ...

Oh dear, time amongst the warriors for the homophobic Catholic church, or time spent with the warriors celebrating the deeds of the Pellists ...

Well the pond has done time amongst the homophobes this week, and to tell the truth, anything Shanahan might offer up against experts like Cory and the ensen of Christ would be dull, so in the end, it was inevitable that prattling Polonius would win out.

The pond is always in need of a history lesson, and besides Polonius always offers the best of both worlds ...

Fizz and liquorice! A favourite of the pond's departed father ...

Well no point mucking about, time to get on with berating the ABC in a SOP operation, and lordy lordy, do they deserve a berating.

How is Paul Sheehan still a thing? What about that smackdown in The Monthly?

It’s no secret that regular columnists get scant editorial attention. But they are examined much more carefully when their columns are moved to page one. And it was exactly the sensationalist and – let’s be clear – racist nature of its content that had it bumped to the front of the paper. Senior eyes, considered eyes, made that decision. They made it relying on the journalistic integrity of an agenda-soaked writer who believes in magical water, and the word of a woman who would have been cast into extreme doubt by just a Google search or a single phone call. 
“In the story recounted to me by Louise,” wrote Sheehan amid the litter of excuses in the mea culpa he published last night, “she made insulting references to rapes committed by Middle Eastern men. I had wrongly amplified this insult by including her words in the column.” 
Again, that’s not true. Because the whole piece was an insult. It was a bald accusation that dozens of Muslim men were going on rape sprees without detection, and that the police were ignoring it. It was an accusation made on the flimsiest proof, at the maximum volume. By the time this crawling pseudo-correction was made, the column had already been shared 11,000 times. It’s all too little, and much, much too late.

And so on, but the pond digresses. We must revert to Polonius, who in his own humble way has from time to time helped demonise Lebanese and such like folk, and who can be relied upon to preach on behalf of the Pellists:

Splendid stuff. So they were in it together, as thick as thieves! What an excellent case for the defence...

Please, do go on ...

Indeed, indeed, and that swept away any anxiety the pond might have had about Polonius prattling on about the apparent fact that the Victorian police had a vested interest in the Royal Commission. After all, no crimes here, or at least none to speak of, so move on people, move on ...

Speaking of the court of public opinion, the pond should note, before we get onto more of the case for the defence, that Polonius has been a loyal and faithful servant for a long time, even in his Fairfax days and even when the devious secularist David Marr suggested that perhaps Pell had been part of the problem rather than the solution ...

That's easy to find here, but it doesn't really satisfy in the way that today's outing does ...

Let us turn to the last gobbet to see how it's done ...

What an expert:

1. Blather on endlessly about the court of public opinion, while mounting a vigorous defence in the court of public opinion (snidely suggest someone is a fill-in while you're at it, and simply claim there is no evidence, and psst, please don't go looking for evidence, that would be offensive);

2. Do obligatory and necessary handwringing. After all, pedophilia is a grievous crime.

3. Create a little wriggle room. Blame the victims. Let's face it, a lot of them make it up. You simply can't trust them. You're much better off trusting the Church and Cardinal Pell. After all, what harm did the church do? What's wrong with Pell trying to minimise the damage and resorting to legalisms?

Sure the Melbourne Response might have been designed to save a motza, but where's the harm in that?

But wait there's more, because the reptile editorialist also leapt to the Pellist defence this day.

It too follows the necessary pro forma:

2. Do obligatory and necessary handwringing. After all, pedophilia is a grievous crime.

But then create some wriggle room. Must look after the Pellists. Must bemoan confected outrage, because after all, what are these victims carrying on about ...

Uh huh, and having been offensive, make sure to trowel on a little hot butter empathy in the final par.

But what about that vexatious, difficult secularist David Marr just yesterday? There's much, much more here, but this'll do, this'll do ...

...Pell became archbishop of Melbourne in July 1996 and set about addressing the scandals of abuse in his archdiocese by establishing a church commission he called the Melbourne Response. .
He and his supporters advance this as proof that Pell was championing the cause of victims. Perhaps, but the then premier of Victoria, Jeff Kennett, had threatened him with a royal commission by if he didn’t put the church’s house in order.
His response offered investigation and counselling but – unlike the response soon implemented by the Catholic church in the rest of Australia – set low, capped limits on payouts to victims. It would save his archdiocese many millions of dollars.
The royal commission has already quizzed Pell about the Melbourne Response. Next week he may be quizzed about other aspects of his conduct as archbishop of Melbourne, particularly his failure to dismiss – or break ties with – a number of questionable priests. There was Searson who took months to fire, and Father Barry Robinson who had fled Boston rather than prove – as he claimed – that the boy he was having sex with was over the age of consent. Pell gave him a Melbourne parish where he served – apparently blamelessly – until the Boston Globe broke his story in 2004.
And then there was Ronald Pickering. Everyone knew Pickering drank and had a vile temper, but he put on a fine mass with lots of bells, smells, Latin and children’s choirs. The choir and the altar were his hunting ground.
Genevieve Grant, a young teacher at St James Primary School, says she tried to warn Pell about Pickering in 1989. He says: “No teacher spoke to me alleging sexual improprieties by Father Pickering on students.”
Four years later Pickering disappeared one night from his parish after, according to the Age, “a senior person in Victoria’s Catholic hierarchy” tipped him off that one of his victims was about to sue.
Pickering hid in England. The Melbourne archdiocese seems never to have investigated allegations that came to light about Pickering. The Catholic Insurance Office could never get hold of him. Every month, Pell paid the fugitive the modest stipend of a retired priest. 
“I was obliged in canon law to do that,” he told the Victorian parliamentary inquiry. “And I did that.” But his successor Archbishop Denis Hart took a different view. He immediately stopped the payments. Pickering died in England in 2009.

This is the reptiles' decisive break from the past?

If only there was genuine hellfire, so that all the apologists for the church and the behaviour of its servants, along with the actual miscreants, and those in authority who managed the cover-up, might see them serve their time in eternity in befitting surroundings.

But it's likely many of them favour the Oscar Wilde solution, which is intrinsically Catholic. Sin away with all your might, and then a final confession will wipe the slate clean.

Which is why the pond insists you don't go away without a frock sighting ...

Vanity, all is vanity under the sun?

Nope, got to keep those payments under control. A good frock doesn't come cheap these days, and as for the dry cleaning, oi vey ...

Please, pack a sandwich, make sure you've refilled the flask, the walking boots are sturdy, there's no leak in the Driza-Bone, because there's an epic hike through blather this day ...

(Tweeting here)

So the rough gruff Brough is no longer slouching towards Bethlehem - look at all those dry eyes in the house - but there's no time to waste on the fallen, because much is happening this day ...

Let us just pause first of all to observe the level of political reporting in Fairfax, two days after the great Paul "magic water man" schmozzle, and silence descending on the house, and people marvelling that Fairfax remains silent on Paul Sheehan's palpably false column ...

How long can Sheehan remain a thing? Whatever he writes next, however marvellous and fact-checked, perhaps for the first time, it will be mocked and ridiculed, because he stands revealed as a fop, a fool and an epic failure ...

Meanwhile, speaking of fops ...

Say what?

Oh it's just Hartcher channelling Clive "the Titanic" Palmer ... without a sense of irony, humour or shame. Next, Hartcher adopts teh Donald as an angle into fruitful analysis ...

But if things are completely fucked at Fairfax, look at the pond's pet reptiles basking in the sun, as they go about the business of undermining, white-anting, sniping and so forth and etc ...

Yes, they dug up little John, who's just here to help, and so are many, many more ...

So many EXCLUSIVES, it dazzles the pond's eyes ...

Now some cynics might wonder how Hedley Thomas reporting what Alan Jones said is an EXCLUSIVE when Hedders is reporting on documents lodged in a court of law, but you take your EXCLUSIVES where you find them ...

Which is how the pond can EXCLUSIVELY report that the reptiles of Oz are doing their best to bring down Malware and bring back the Messiah ... (thanks be unto Lazurus) ...

Now the Messiah has been very busy of late, travelling in foreign lands and spreading the word ...

Yes, he said what he said he was going to say, and the pond eagerly awaits his return, confirming that he did say what he said, and it's remarkably helpful what he said ...

Why for generations any decent Chinese restaurant has always served Chinese and Australian meals ... (and that ABC report here).

And dammit, make sure there's plenty of sugar and pineapple in the sweet and sour, you heathen furriners ... get with the dinkum Aussie values. Have you thought about some beetroot in the fried rice?

But those two illustrations are a forewarning of the pond's tactics this day. 

You see, thanks be unto the reptiles, the prime minister in waiting has spoken, and at great length, which is why we'll need a serve of dim sims, Melbourne style (what do you mean, you're run out of soy sauce?), a full flask, a stout walking stick, and a capacity for marathon endurance. 

We might stop along the way, but this requires a genuine Cliff Young effort ...

Here we go, here we go ...

The children are restless already? 

Perhaps the pond can suggest a game to them. Let them count the number of times that 'I', 'me', 'we' and 'my' are said, along with the 'Abbott government'. It'll help them with maths and give them a deeper, richer understanding of preening, pathetic self-justification .... and the art of undermining and sniping and whiteanting ...

Oh okay, maybe they need a cartoon too, or maybe they should just go off to Pope here ...

Now wipe that smile off your face, because there's more work to be done.

Oh look kiddies, there in the first line, "the Abbott government" and it's showing its economic mettle.

Laugh and clap hands with glee ...

Hmm, the pond notices that half the trekkers have gone missing already. For those who made it this far, a relevant Fairfax cartoon, and more here ...

Now back on the hike and let's all sing a grand song of the great "Abbott government". Still counting? Good work, good work ...

What, time for another cartoon already, twittering here?

Now children, the pond is about to play a really clever trick. 

See, will you get it? Yes, the Abbott government is only mentioned in the second par.

Please, stay awake, we might almost be there ...

Hah, you didn't really think we'd be there yet, did you? Tedious self-justification at enormous length can't be done in a flash. It takes an unendurable flood of righteous words ...

Here, have a cartoon ... you know where to find the cartoonist and explain he's got the wrong figure chipping away ... or maybe it should be two figures, working together, in a way only the Federal Liberal party can manage ...

Now children, the pond has played another trick. Did you remember you had to count all the 'I' and 'me' and 'my' and 'we' mentions?

Yes, you have to be able to count into the millions in your head ... but that'll prepare you for a career helping News Corp evade tax ...

Ah, did you catch that last reference to the Abbott government? How many are you up to now? The squillionth? Why that's a very impressive number ...

And now because we really are there yet, let's skip the cartoons and just do it, and rush to the finish line ...

Say what? There's a full version ...

Oh faaawwwwkkk, as Graham Kennedy said to the crow, the Pellists and the bartender ...

So much suffering, oh the horror, the horror.

But the pond has done its duty and feels cleansed, almost purged, certainly lashed, and without benefit of cilice ...

And for those who made it this far, feel free to reward yourself with a stiff drink, as we round things out with a couple of tweets ...