In which the pond suffers along with long-suffering men, thanks to the shared suffering of Dame Slap ...

Oh dear, where will it all end.

Not men in suits ...

Oh dear, and Sam's not the halal snack pack of old, more a dim sim a little short of a fried rice ...

All the same, the pond was deeply moved by the dilemmas of the men in suits, choice of tie preferably red or blue, and more generally the suffering of men.

There was the arm-breaker yesterday shedding tears about the fate of angry white men, and Bettina Arndt bobs up on a regular basis anxious about the suffering of men, so the pond was in the mood for even more male suffering ...and who better to get out the twelve string and sing the blues song of male suffering than Dame Slap?

Yes, the poor precious petals are drooping, and what do you know, one day the fat cat banks can do no wrong in Dame Slap's school at the top of the Faraway Tree, and the next day they can do no right ...

Now the pond has to confess that about this far into the fulminating fury, the pond began to drift and nod off like a Hinch in search of a park bench or a handy seat under cover.

Sure there were rich philosophical options. How about "There is such a thing as objective truth" on the basis of genuine belief ...

Why it would be snarky of a quark to quibble about such fine-grained philosophical musings.

And as for Dame Slap, the news she had resigned column-writing for the tender, warm, frustrating yet privileged business of being a hands-on mother, forthwith, and of instant effect, moved the pond to a chorus of huzzahs and a quiet shedding of tears at her nobility.

No matter that the pond would no longer read from her keyboard news of climate science conspiracies emanating from a UN intent on establishing world government ...

Surely the sacrifice wouldn't be in vain. She could instead impart such theories to the children of the world while doing tuck shop duty.

Oh okay, the pond did tootle off to twitter for awhile ...

Well at least there were a few token women to spot, careless wretches who pay no heed to the children ... get back to your warm, tender, frustrating business, puh-lease ... and if you haven't got any, why not? Must the pond revive memories of Bill Heffernan and David Farley?

And so back to Dame Slap railing and flailing away ...

Now around this point the pond came back to the real world a little startled.

What's this about Telstra taking four long years to set up a working Wi-Fi system in your house?

Which ning nong would even think about employing Telstra for the task?

And it was around this point that the pond began to suspect that Dame Slap didn't have much of a clue about anything. Speaking of improving technical competence ...

And then there was the richness of Dame Slap talking about the poisoned hiring and firing well, and it seems the fleeting memories of the Abbott government are now but a dream ... 

That'd be the world where the Abbott government indulged in a culling and an absolute refusal to hire anyone from the other side - anyone at all, even those who had no political affiliations, if they'd worked for the enemy.

It led to complete disarray in the public service and on boards, and much delay to much needed appointments. It was almost as singular as the persecution set in motion by the McCarthy years ...

A few moaned and whinged about it ...

Late last month, prominent businessman Andrew Mohl was reported as saying he was not reappointed to the Export Finance Insurance Corporation because of an Abbott government decision not to renew the terms of any directors appointed under Labor. If true, this shocking allegation is the pits of impropriety and makes a mockery of Cormann's efforts to ensure Commonwealth agencies are as efficient and effective as possible. The government should come clean on this. (here).

They never came clean, of course, they just cleaned out Abbott and decided to proceed with a little more caution, but it provided the pond with a hearty chuckle, all that talk of the telltale sign of gender and diversity politics poisoning the well of merit ...

The Conversation here provided this lovely little cameo of some of the mates ...

Eek, there's one woman. Talk about poisoning the well of merit ... but that's talking about real world appointments, rather than the windy rhetoric of the wind-up doll known as Dame Slap ...

And now, speaking of men in suits, and wi fi and copper, and refusing to mention men who talk like goats to goats, there's more M David cartoons here ...

In which the pond shows some respect for the cynical wretches destined to spend eternity roasting in hellfire ...

Talk about agitation. 

The reptiles can sense that the chance of a decent bout of poofter bashing - all done in a terribly polite way of course, a proper and circumspect and civilised debate - might be slipping away ... so this day the digital edition is full of concerned citizens ...

And all this after Cory's done such hard work clearing the decks so that anyone might be able to insult and offend in style without fear of the law!

Indeed, indeed. Bloody racists ...

Already the angry Sydney Anglicans have been emboldened and stepped out to do a little photo bombing ...

Now the pond is all for a civil and tolerant discussion.

If you're a homosexual and you commit homosexual acts, you're destined to a roasting in hellfire for all eternity for your abominable crimes and that's that.  

Oh sure, you can water it down and step around it how you like and extend forgiveness and understanding, but if you do it, just remember you're damned ...

Now don't go fudging. It's a life of virginal chastity, or hellfire ...

Indeed, indeed. A homo! Oh okay, maybe that's a Calamity Jane joke here, but where there's smoke there's a lot of angry Anglican fire ... so cop this instead from the real David Ould ...

Indeed, indeed, and a lot more here,  and now that's cleared up, it's off to hell with you, yes you, you bloody heretics and splitters and homos and dissident complimentary women ...

And now let's get a good solid angry Anglican contribution to the debate ...

Yes, it's a pretty pass when Keysar Trad and the Sydney Anglicans line up together, and no doubt we can look forward to the angry Sydney Anglicans adopting some of Saudi Arabia's stern but just rules when it comes to dealing with the outrageous behaviour of complimentary women ... how dare the uppity things want to drive, or even worse, speak up in church. Be silent, you provocative hussies ...

But note the cunning tactic. 

It's all tainted, it's all too hard, and worse, we won't be able to point out that they're all due in hell pretty soon, and even worse, some of the reptiles are looking at the thoughts of the photo bomber, which litter the intertubes and show angry Sydney Anglicans at their finest and most forgiving ...

Okay, there must be some way to shut down the debate. 

Hmm, what better way than to wheel in the portentous, insufferably pompous nattering Ned Kelly, a sure-fire guaranteed way to get everyone nodding off to sleep in a nano second ...

By golly, that's a jolly jape, and sssh, not a word how the onion muncher made marriage equality and the plebiscite a tactical weapon. Instead let's have a witty reptile illustration ...

Oh dear, the pond can sense the one remaining reader nodding off, or perhaps tiptoeing away, and that talk of euphoria resulting in the sort of microsleep drivers are warned about all the time ...

Perhaps a Rowe could help eyeballs stay alert ... and more Rowe here ...

Okay, if the pond could just summarise proceedings to this point, for those who came in late to the story. 

Angry Anglicans simply want to point out, in a caring, measured and calm debate, that poofters are wicked sinners off to hell, and assorted deviates are attempting to ruin the fun and end the debate before it's even begun, and before hordes of angry Anglicans can photo bomb politicians, and nattering Ned is taking a firm stand on the matter ... 

Now read on, brave solitary reader ...

Okay, there's an obvious question here. Is this why the reptiles' business plan sees them papering airport lounges around the country? Because there's no way to make money out of Ned's natterings, might as well give him away, to keep up the circulation figures ...

Even worse, it's around this point in pursuit of endless, relentless tedium that the pond usually likes to revert and remind the solitary reader of nattering Ned's previous hysterical contributions, and not so long ago at that ...

There's oodles more of course of alarm and hysteria and pandering to the churches, and strangely, it always comes into the pond's mind whenever Ned begins to muse about strange contradictions ... and so to the final gobbet in today's offering ...

Yes, yes, it's a bad precedent and there are strong and valid arguments against it, but let's face it, how else are angry Sydney Anglicans and fundamentalist Islamics and evangelicals going to be able to get together, and patiently and calmly explain that homosexuals are off to an eternity of hellfire, and also, alarmingly, might well miss out on the 72 virgins ... and even worse Malware might not be able to keep on rolling out his futuristic copper based solution to Australia's urgent broadband needs.

Or some such thing, but right now, the pond urgently needs a Pope cartoon to slake its thirst, and more Popery here, thankfully of a non-Vatican, bigot-free Kandy Man kind ...

In which the pond endures, at great length, the suffering of angry white males and angry female blondes ...

Now the pond could have chosen almost any of these digital offerings this day, and been entranced. 

There's nothing like a bill gaining the support of the Hansonists to help flagging poll numbers, is there?

But it's the pond's business to head off down to the waste treatment works on a daily basis, and it doesn't get any smellier than this ...

Yes, it's the long-suffering white male, and Caroline Marcus daring to go where even the Oreo and Henry 'hole in the bucket' Ergas, amongst others, refused to go yesterday ...

Now the pond has already had a kind word to say about head honcho at Nine, Hugh Marks and his curating of the Nine brand, and really can't think of anything to add...

... so it's on with the treats ...

Now it turns out that the arm-breaker is just indulging in a meme common amongst white nationalists and Trumpists in the good old USA ... look at this line up this day ...

And so on, and even though familiarity breeds contempt, on we go ... with a proper credit to the cesspit that routinely publishes a lot of cess ...

Now the only observation the pond has to make at this point is that the photo used as an illustration looks nothing like the white males the arm-breaker is bleating about ... 

It looks like a persecuted, harassed metro hipster male dragged off the street in Surry Hills and taken deep into the bowels of the bunker to be used by the Terrorists as a model. No wonder the lad looks terrified.

There's the trimmed beard, fresh from the Shaver shop with nifty beard gear, and the short hair and the harried look, as if the poor lad stepped out with the wrong shoulder bag ...

Yes, it's exactly the wrong sort of illustration. 

This is the sort of white male the arm-breaker would, on his usual day, stridently mock for not being a man's man, but rather an inner city 'leet hipster loser and dropkick, unaware that Parramatta is the centre of the world.

Never mind, on we go ...

Yes, the last time the pond looked, this man is a long-suffering resident white stoically enduring the slings and arrows in Airds ...

... oh wait, the pond isn't sure now which man we're talking about, but the pond is certain that at least one of them is a long-suffering white man living a life of poverty in Airds ...

And so to the last burst of bile ...

Well yes, and it's probably very good that society and the Murdochians allow a place for loons to vent, because, let's face it, you wouldn't want a Latham catching a cab while in an angry mood ...

But sadly the pond must leave it there, because this is a day for the sort of notorious double bunger that sees anxious readers, unused to coping with bigotry and stress, dropping like flies ...

And so the pond moves on to that other strange phenomenon, the year of living dangerously with angry female blondes ...

Now the pond has previously gone on at great length explaining why, even if one happens to detest a particular religion - or the dress codes of many religions - that banning rarely works, and instead often produces a sense of grievance and persecution ...

You know this sort of thing featured cheek by jowl this day in the Terror with the angry female blonde ...

Let's see how we can lather up that sense of paranoia and persecution ...

Perhaps this could best be done by associating, conflating and confusing a form of dress with all the worst that fundamentalist Islam can offer ...

Yes, there's an excellent start, and see how the trolling produces such an excellent and astute response,  a loathing not just of the clothing, but as the dear commenter said, finding the religion offensive on many, many levels ...

These blondes really know how to bring on the hate and lather up a frisson of fear ...

Now your average Jesuit might be able to understand and appreciate the subtle difference between a woman wearing a hijab and other forms of clothing symbolising a religion and enslavement, and a burkini, which somehow is the only symbol of the enslavement of women that matters ...

But it has to be said, it's a subtle distinction that escapes the pond ... in much the same way as the pond often mistakes a fully clad nun, frequently mistaken for a penguin, as an enslaved woman, a bride of the slave master Christ ...

Perhaps what the pond needs is a grotesque caricature in classic Terrorist style to help it understand ...

It was around this point that the pond had only one thought lingering in the mind ...

No wonder the Nine brand is fucked ... what a gormless wimp ... 

What a tragedy for the Nine brand and A Current Affair, to have a woman who makes the Devine sound sometimes moderate, out there shouting the hate ...

And so to a final grotesque example of linking the extreme with a form of swimwear that not so long ago wouldn't have caused any fuss at all ... at least until it got linked with the most extreme and outrageous behaviour ...

What a trawl through the sewer of festering hate, fear and loathing.

If that's liberation, perhaps the pond should be counted out. And if it manages to radicalise the pond, the long absent lord alone knows what it manages to do for a moderate Islamic.

So thanks to the Daily Terrorists for peddling an arm breaker and a blonde doing a first class job as a hater. 

And at the same time, much like that screeching parrot that used to live at the Dungowan pub, what a peculiarly Australian form of entertainment, the rough modern equivalent to ranting ratbags in the Domain ...

Well between this ...

... and this ...

The pond knows what wins, and what cranks up the hate, fear, paranoia and persecution ...

Oh wait, how did that make a come-back?

Never mind, for anyone who made it this far, feel free to award yourself an Order of Lenin medal for heroic suffering, and here's a Pope cartoon offering an even better flying experience in the near future, and as always, more excellent Papery - without the need to become a bride of Christ - here ...

In which the pond celebrates Caterist bigotry and loonery ...

And speaking of playing politics and playing god with people's lives, so it begins ...

Oh wait, it began long ago with each reptile column about Safe Schools and the homosexual agenda and so on and so forth a stab in the heart ...

And still the reptiles keep stabbing, happy at the bloodshed ...

Of course sometimes it just gets too silly for words ...

Oh FFS, not another burst of white men can't jump from the taxi-driver arm-breaker.

And does Nine have any idea of the damage done to the brand by having Caroline Marcus out and about trying to outdo the Devine with bigotry and fundamentalism?

Probably not. Hugh Marks perfectly exemplifies the Peter Principle in action ... he is, in the pond's observation, generally not aware when his arse is on fire, so a rabid Marcus probably fits into his notion of the natural order of things ...

But enough of easy, cheap distractions, because today we have the perfect example of bigotry in action, and as might be expected, it comes from a low rent former sociology student, now living high on the hog in the land of generous taxpayer-funded grants ...

Now the pond should be honoured by the Caterist recognition of loons. 

But in the usual way of people incapable of any self-reflection or self-analysis, the Caterist is completely incapable of recognising the Caterist capacity for loonery or for constructing a flimsy intellectual base, or indeed acknowledging the Caterist capacity for insulting weasel words  ...

It only takes a few seconds reading through the Caterist to discover that "loons" is a word being applied, in the way of classic bigots, to anyone who happens to think, live or act differently to the very small weasel mind of the average profoundly bigoted Caterist ...

Now there are a number of ways to respond to this sort of stuff. 

The wretched cartoon by Eric Lobbecke, designed to be offensive. 

The bigotry of the Caterist, designed to both troll and be offensive ... including simplistic, simpleton either/or notions which don't take into account even the natural variations a cursory inspection might have provided for a curious mind. 

What, for example, to make of examples of people born with both sets of genitals? Where do they exist in the Caterist mind? As freak show material, geeks only fit for biting off the necks of chickens?

But the pond thought better of it, and decided there was only one sensible response ...

Yes, get a jolly jumbuck up ya, ya bigoted Caterist loon you, and farewell to Gene Wilder, and now you can continue to rabbit on, in a way designed to offend TG folk and anyone else with any capacity for tolerance that might happen to be within earshot ...

Could there be a better example of what's likely to emerge from the festering pit of bigotry during a plebiscite campaign? 

Who better to show how to abuse the "lunatic fringe" and proudly wear the label of a reactionary, anti-Safe Schools, pro-bullying homophobic transphobe?

Now for a final sinking in of the boot (remember slippers are for woofy types):

Ah yes, there might be a few people in distress, but fuck 'em, I've got my taxpayer grant, so fuck 'em ...

Actually,  now the pond thinks about it, there's a few other things that parliament can't do. 

They might authorise the giving of grants to the Menzies Research Centre, but they can surely can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, or produce a nice human being out of a Caterist bigot and a boor ...

Especially when if said bigot and boor talks of loons while exemplifying why the pond exists ...

And so to a couple of Rowe cartoons to relieve the stress and the sense of just having stumbled through a sewer which shows exactly where the plebiscite will head ... not into the gutter but into a gigantic waste works ... (and more excellent Rowe here) ...