Paul Kelly determined to push ahead with a dullard vote for parliamentarians avoiding what they were elected to do ...

One of the more pointless duties of the pond is to watch the twisting, squirming, writhing contortions on the spit of sundry members of the conservative commentariat, intent on making prattling Polonius sound and look like a rapier wit.

There have been an abundance of headlines in recent times of this kind ...

These absurdities have at long last flushed an elephant from hiding so that the elephant may pontificate on the shape of the camel ...

Well the 'yes' vote will undoubtedly be honoured by some, and undoubtedly dishonoured by others, and the palpable dishonesty of the enterprise is apparent to all but an elephant with a very thick hide and a very ponderous, lumbering, elephantine way with words.

But enough of the pond editorialising. It is simply enough to wonder and marvel at the way Mr Kelly may make Polonius seem the soul of brevity ...

Uh huh, it is helpful of course if the elephant is also blind Freddie, so that it might ignore the news that an entire raft of right wing ratbags understand what it's all about.

And they're agin it. They're agin it, whether $160 million is spent on the plebiscite and a 'yes' obtained. They're agin it when the sun comes up and they're agin it when the sun goes down. They were agin it yesterday, and they will be agin it tomorrow, whatever anyone might say, do or vote.

So what's all this talk of clarification?

Well that's what ponderous elephants must do ... along with blather about transparent exercises and all the rest of the hoopla ...

Ah yes, sweet Erica. Unwise enough to reveal the blinding truth and the bleeding obvious, which is that a device designed by Abbott to delay and hinder and dissemble has now been adopted by Malware as a way that he hopes will get him home scot-free ...

Now it will be remembered - those who have endured Kelly before and survived to tell the tale - that any talk of gay marriage would not be complete without a deep and meaningful pondering of the issue of religious freedom, which is to say the freedom of religions to go on abusing teh gays ...

So there you go. Same-sex marriage isn't about people being able to declare their love and get hitched (join the pond in trying marriage. Heck, if you like it, you can try it a number of times, just like teh pond and teh Donald).

Instead  apparently it's a same sex lobby wanting to use the notion of same-sex marriage as an ideological device to weaken religious freedom, thereby achieving greater social change.

Which is why people just want to get hitched. Not because they can stand each other's company over dinner and in bed, but because, fuck it, bring on the revolution.

Which is, it goes without saying, not quite the same as those in the lobby who think that this ideological device, this noble cause, is assisted by linking it with religious freedom safeguards so that the revolution can proceed, and in so doing, no doubt weaken religious freedom while deviously pretending to strengthen the right of the religious to abuse teh gays...

Or some such meandering nonsensical thing.

And there's your lecture in paranoia for the week. And whatever you do, please don't mention love and having a  domestic time with your partner of choice ...

All that ponderous pontificating - without one hint of actual humanity, love, pain and the whole damn thing - left the pond in urgent need of distraction, and what better distraction than Rowe re-visiting Tenniel's wonderful illustrations, though it has to be said that Alice in Wonderland makes a lot more sense than current federal politics in the United States ... 

Nobody could argue with that, if only the pond could find Nobody so that we might argue with her some more ...

More excellent properly formatted Rowe here, and on to the tea party, and thank the long absent lord Paul Kelly is invited to introduce a level of tepid dullard dullness ...

Of course the nice touch in the Rowe is the way he introduced another character into the tea party:

No wonder Alice is looking a little aged and startled.

And then there were these fine cameos, and who could argue with the fit?

Well Nobody might want to argue about Ted being the Mad Hatter, but the pond has put Nobody in her place ... hmmph, acting as if she was Somebody ...

And let's not forget Bernie, beloved by Colbert ... though it's a pity the rabbit's ears on view in the tea party went missing in this close-up ...

There, at last, all thoughts of Paul Kelly gone ...