Day 13, and the pond indulges in some fairy tales and fables thanks to Miranda the bizarre Devine ...

It seems re-writing or re-visiting fairy stories is all the go ...

There was Colbert last week, on YouTube here ...

And today we have Miranda the Devine ...

Now the pond has spoken repeatedly to the Terrorist reptiles about several matters, but they wilfully refuse to listen.

First, there's the matter of that distorted image of the Devine, which turns hagiography into baleful stare, and then there's the matter of demanding money for a story which turns up for free on the Devine's blog, with a bonus chance to comment on the Devine's output ...

Oh well we just threw in that one about the wall puncher because it was there, and the pond has, in classic pond manner, got ahead of itself, and we must go back to the original Devine, so that we can understand the crazy fox bat reference.

You see, the Devine has invested a lot in mocking what she has come to call the Del-cons, and their love of the wall puncher, while celebrating the arrival of Malware as the redemption of the Tory class ... the new Messiah ...

Sure, she once mocked the mod-cons and their love of mod-in-the-middle Malware, and hailed the wall puncher as the redemption of the Tory class, but that was then, the old Messiah, and this is now ... and a classic dilemma presented itself to the Devine as a result of last week's cavortings ...

What do do, how to turn the tale in Malware's favour when the lad has a thought bubble, a brain spasm, and lets fly as if he's been channelling former Chairman Rudd's managerial style?

This is how the Devine does it ... by bringing on a fairy story, with sublime disregard for the way that fairy stories perhaps don't provide quite the statesmanlike resonance she's looking for ...

Yes, it's the Br'er Rabbit trick.

Devise a half-baked, half-arsed thought bubble - a 'sketchy proposal' - and let it loose on the universe, and the Devine will hail you as a tactical genius as you get thrown into the briar patch...

No doubt copper is a bit of tactical genius too - you see, you get a half-baked, half-arsed network out there in the world, and then you have to spend a squillion to fix it up and get it to work properly, and that's a work of tactical genius, because the wall puncher wanted the whole thing destroyed ... (because luddite Messiahs must do what luddites must do ...)

Now once she's got the notion of the fairy story fixed in her fairly muddled wombat head, the Devine goes all the way with it ... with Julia Gillard trotted out, yet again for the amusement and delectation of pond readers, as the villainess witch in all this, tending her oven and tempting the wall puncher and Malware into her extravagant ginger-bread house ...

Now the convolutions to this are impeccable, and right up there with the best conspiracy theorists.

Apparently Malware presented his half-baked, half-arsed proposal, gambling that the premiers would reject the proposal. And luckily they did.

Yet their objections to his proposal suggests that they don't have the confidence or capacity to manage their own affairs.

Because they should, apparently, have accepted a half-based, half-arsed thought bubble to show their confidence and capacity to manage their own affairs.

And those idle fools, academics, economists and audit commissioners, who supported the income tax flip have been conned by the master Fox, who never wanted the con to work, because it was all a pavement shell game, and that's the best way to run a federal government ... as a sidewalk hustle ...

Could it get any better? Of course it could, it's eau de essence Devine ...

Usually the pond attempts a snappy retort, but how to get beyond "oh FFS" on this one?

Dissatisfied with that, the pond went back and read it again, the fairy story stuff, and the chattering classes and the specious consensus, and the disappointed lefties and angry Abbott defenders, engaged in a pincer attack of increasing derangement, and could only come up with "oh FFFS...," which loosely translates as 'oh for fucking fuck's sake...'

If only because Boggis, Bunce and Bean won't still be waiting there at the hole ... they'll be heading off to vote in a federal election in very quick, or quickish, time ... and for Malware, given his current form, the quicker the better ...

Now the pond is aware that many have been peddling this angle,  with everyone from Richard Di Natali to Lenore Taylor insisting it was a distraction, clever or klutzy according to type.

But there at the end of it are the issues around health and education and the deficit and Commonwealth-state relationships that still need a policy response.

What do we get from the Devine? A delusional commentary, that mixes childishness, a fairy story paranoia, conspiracy theories and a deeply cynical approach to politics...

She did it for the wall puncher for years and now she's doing it for Malware. If nothing else troubles him, this sort of support should ...

Of course the Devine also offers a sanitised fairy story where the pond much prefers the original grim versions ... forget Goldilocks and all that soft core nonsense. In the original, it was a tale of a little old woman who looked in through the window and peeped in through the keyhole and then entered the tidy bears' house, and went through her familiar routine.

The result when the bears catch her asleep in the little wee bear's bed?

The little old Woman had heard in her sleep the great, rough, gruff voice of the Great, Huge Bear; but she was so fast asleep that it was no more to her than the roaring of wind or the rumbling of thunder. And she had heard the middle voice of the Middle Bear, but it was only as if she had heard someone speaking in a dream. But when she heard the little, small, wee voice of the Little, Small, Wee Bear, it was so sharp, and so shrill, that it awakened her at once. Up she started; and when she saw the Three Bears on one side of the bed, she tumbled herself out at the other, and ran to the window. Now the window was open, because the Bears, like good, tidy Bears as they were, always opened their bed-chamber window when they got up in the morning. Out the little old Woman jumped; and whether she broke her neck in the fall; or ran into the wood and was lost there; or found her way out of the wood, and was taken up by the constable and sent to the House of Correction for a vagrant as she was, I cannot tell. But the Three Bears never saw anything more of her. (here).

The pond's not sure of the moral of the story, but look, Moir's shown someone at the window peeping in ...

(Signed prints here ...)

Meanwhile, the pond notes that things are moving on in the world, and we should never forget the Devine's contribution to Lord Monckton's brand of climate science.

For those that missed it, the NY Times had an editorial here,  which linked to their report on the study, here, and which linked to the Nature report here.

This had a resonance in the pond's own back paddock, as noted with irony by one Andrew Laird ...

Doubtless there's a fairy tale or a fable to cover that situation too ...

That was in the Crikey days. First Dog now lives at the Graudian here.