A Seinfeldian day about nothing, thanks to Ms Sharri ...

So there was the pond, after a hard day doing the yards, settling down to watch an intelligent, stimulating discussion of the issues of the day.

And lo, thanks be unto The Drum, came the lizard Oz's chief stenographer, referring to a "Mr. Barney".

The pond has captured the exact simpering moment when that came out, above, followed almost immediately by a reminder of who we were watching.

Senior, senior? As in "senior moment"?

Ms Sharri did it again a little later, with another simpering flourish of "Mr Barney", and the pond thought "WTF", has she mistaken someone for Barney the purple dinosaur or perhaps Barney in The Simpsons or Barney of The Flintstones, but it was actually Barney Frank.

Now the gravel-voiced Mr Frank wasn't phased and took it in his stride - after all, Mr Barney has been around the block a thousand times or more in American politics, and no doubt has dealt with all sorts of loons.

And someone else tried to help the stenographer by referring to him as "Barney Frank", but the pond cringed, all the more so when the chief stenographer showed she'd drunk the kool aid and thought that the giant tech companies gave a flying fuck about the privacy of their customers (tell that to Facebook and go bay at the moon).

Now if you want to see for yourself, you can check out the episode here,  but please, the pond accepts no responsibility for brain damage, and if you want some background on the issue of Apple v the FBI, there's no reason to risk brain damage, there are dozens of US accounts available online, from the LA Times here, to Wired here, which suggest almost anyone other than Ms Sharri is a way into a complex issue ...

Never no mind, the pond immediately took its cue and bailed from The Drum to catch up on Colbert interviewing teh Donald on the Trump phone, ring tone Trump Trump; Trump Trump; Trump Trump; and then getting trapped in rainbow bagel land, before Lucinda Williams turned up to sing a song and plug her album, in certified LP format ...

Well it was more entertaining than the chief stenographer, and besides it prepared the pond for the latest Trumpism of the day ...

It reminded the pond that these days it's all entertainment, and the more weird it gets the more we're supposed to be entertained ...

And so in that spirit ...

... the pond promises never to expose vulnerable youngsters to the sight of a greedy man drooling over his Swiss bank account ... some things we should all never see, except they keep putting him on view in the lizard Oz and on Sky.

And it was around this point that the pond realised that a Friday blog should be a Seinfeld, which is to say about nothing ...

That allows in all sorts of follies, like the Bolter maintaining his Pellist rage ...

Indeed, indeed, and it would be absolutely remiss and wrong of the pond to talk of kettles, pot, and black, especially black, and a journalist found guilty of errors of fact, distortions of the truth and destructive, inflammatory and provocative language, because gods in their hubris are never wrong ... (yes, happy days, that judgement is here in pdf form, lest we forget).

Besides, the Bolter brought the pond up to date on a lesser NSW ALP failure, while the Bolter - naturally - also took the chance to have a slug at an indigenous candidate in the process ...

Well let's not repeat the indigenous abuse - why we'd just have to reprint the Bolter's provocative, inflammatory, erroneous, distorting and destructive language on a daily basis - and instead track where Michael Costa has landed ...

Former NSW Labor treasurer and union boss Michael Costa has launched a stinging rebuke of the ALP, declaring its ideology has been “hollowed out” and rubbishing a “political death struggle” with the Greens over inner-city seats. 
Mr Costa used a speech at the Liberal Democrats’ national conference on the weekend to attack his former party and some of its members, saying without the economic reforms of the Hawke-Keating era it had “nothing left but the old social justice agenda”. 
“What are the political incentives that are going on within Labor? It’s clearly the need to secure these inner-city seats and to ensure that the dominant Left leadership of the party, which is now the dominant grouping of the party, remains in power,” he said.
Mr Costa also suggested “wet behind the ears” NSW Right senator Sam Dastyari should join the Greens after reportedly claiming 10 major companies, including Fortescue Metals, BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, were controlling Australia’s democratic and economic process. 
“It’s a conspiracy theory as bad as the Greens,” Mr Costa said. “In fact, I’d suggest that he ought to join the Greens — he’d probably find a welcome home.”

You can google the reptile source if you like, but the pond was delighted to see that Costa had ended up with the barking mad libertarians - you can Greg Hunt them here if you watch out for stray walri - and then join in the campaign to remove all speed restrictions and gun and anti-smoking laws ...

Of course the pond knows the real intent of Costa's activities ... it's to make Mike Baird seem like a sane moderate ... and to remind the world what a disgrace NSW Labor was for years ...

And since we're now talking about nothing, we may as well get on to real nothing ...

Pieces of Bronnie, pieces of Bronnie, awk awk ...

Well if you haven't caught up with the "manly sense of the fitness of things" (with forced video) and talk of Rene Rivkin (please, no mention of London toilets), you have some catching up to do ...

And so to the plastic arts (no, they're not just sculpture).

In these troubled digital times, what a pleasure it is to see photography still being celebrated ...

You can find a gallery of the photos and more information here, and for once the Terrorists had something to boast about ...

The pond loves a good snap, in much the same way that it loves a good band like the SSO ripping into a tune, and we never thought we'd have an excuse to run this favourite photo ...

You can find that tweeted here, with more at the NY Times ...

And so to the cartoonists of the day by the pond's favourite cartoonists of the year, and we're only in February...

The pond suspected that the infallible Pope might find it hard to ignore the Unicorn, but the pond was delighted to see that jolly Joe's Shrek had also made a come-back:

The pond was swept away in an almost unendurable wave of nostalgia ...

Well you can find more Pope here, and as always there's more Rowe here, as he and Tim resonate with the Pellist Bolter ...

As for doing an entire blog about nothing?

Well the reptile intellectual giants of the lizard Oz will be back on deck for the weekend, and in the meantime, all the pond can do is give credit where credit is due ...

Thanks, Ms Sharri ... you took the pond right back to the good old days of Miss Gina and and Miss Jane and Miss Pat ...