In which the pond visits the Catholic Boys Daily and the predictable happens...

(Above: well that's all the illumination the pond needs on certain matters, and more illuminating Rowe here).

Yesterday, it took the pond seven and a half hours to upload data which on a good day could have been uploaded in less than a half hour.

But the good days are gone and the pond is stuck in a lemon, where maintenance is a meaningless word ...

It's impossible to count the ways that the pond loathes the Optus the (please in German), Malware (and News Corp and Stephen "a great big internet filter for everyone" Conroy).

In other agile, innovative news, the pond was tremendously reassured to learn that the federal government is criminalising the de-anonymising and publishing of data.

At first the pond wondered if this meant the entire staff of the ABS might be hauled up on charges, but of course they didn't bother anonymising the data in the first place, in their attempt to destroy privacy and turn some coin out of the data.

But at least the pond was reassured that Russian hackers were now quaking in their boots waiting for the knock on the door from the federal plods, while apparently Chinese hackers have sworn to go on the straight and narrow. Apparently the 400 lb hacker identified by Donald Trump as a serious threat to the cyber has resolved to give up pizza.

Never mind, after a moment's reflection, rocket scientist George Brandis - resting from his day job as brain surgeon - realised that things might get tricky for the white hats so has decided on some exemptions.

The latest sorry sign of terminal technological stupidity in the government is here, and now, there's time for a quick pivot because there's always a need for a laugh...

Now the pond usually has no time for present or past restaurant writers, but for anyone that missed it, please allow the pond to commend Frank Bruni's effort in the NY Times to replicate in a column Donald Trump's performance in debate, Sympathy for the Donald ...

That's better, and now the pond must turn as always to the giant minds of the reptiles, who like the pond live in some Optus-supplied fortress island unconnected to the rest of the world ...

This can lead to unusual, fluff and navel-gazing obsessions, such as the Daily Terrorists beyond the valley of the gutter tabloid obsession with a politician's daughter ...

The pond feels grubby and soiled just noting the sordid and seedy way the grubby, soiling, spoiling way the reptiles go about the business of selling their tree killing rags. 

But the pond wanted something more, something sure to lance the festering boil of anger, and sure enough, right on cue, the Catholic Boys' Daily,  as the lizards of Oz are fondly known (term patented by Justinian, borrowed by the pond at times of an emergency), came to the rescue ...

Yes, that'll do it, there's nothing like a smarmy, righteous Xian blathering on about love and respect, as a way of dressing up bigotry and homophobia, a Catholic church tradition for a few thousand years, to really get the pond going...

With respect, the pond really gets agitated by this sort of demeaning horseshit. The bullshit notion that it's possible to hate the sin but love the sinner is the classic form of Xian passive aggressive behaviour ...

Passive-aggressive behavior is the indirect expression of hostility, such as through procrastination, stubbornness, sullen behavior, or deliberate or repeated failure to accomplish requested tasks for which one is (often explicitly) responsible. 
For research purposes, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) revision IV describes passive-aggressive personality disorder as a "pervasive pattern of negativistic attitudes and passive resistance to demands for adequate performance in social and occupational situations." (Greg Hunt it here, watch out for passing walri).

Porteous is one of those classic Xian gits - yes, over the years the pond has been smarmed over with righteous talk of correcting Xian love helping reform its many sinful ways - who dresses up the hate as a respectful criticism of the beliefs or actions of others ...

You know, like you're off to burn in hellfire for all eternity you damned faggots ...

Never mind the way Christ liked the company of men in a way the church and Cardinal Newman might think is unhealthy, there's more on the hate and the homophobia in that story here, but perforce the pond must return to the domestic brand being peddled in the Catholic Boys' Daily ...

It's hard to imagine a better way for the pond to exorcise its anger than this steaming pile of tosh.

Don't proffer your demeaning faux love, get out of the way so that people might share rights, you carping superstitious transubstantive cannibalistic medievalist ...

Of course Porteous was one of the bishops behind that steaming pile of bigotry and prejudice, the pamphlet "Don't Mess With Marriage" - easily googled for anyone wanting their dose of honey-smooth bile dressed up as love ...

The pond is too over it to feature it, but it's worth remarking on at least one of its semantic and definitional flaws ...

...marriage is the covenant of a man and a woman to live as husband and wife, exclusively and for life, and open to the procreation of children.

So if you re-marry in your dotage, like Fred Nile, you're not really married at all, unless you're senile enough at 79 to think that somehow your new 55 year old partner is open to the procreation of children ...

Never mind, at least this means Fred is living in sin, and is off to hell in due course to dwell there with the gays ...

And as for exclusively and for life, don't get the pond started on the enormous stupidity of alleged virgins married to Christ who can peddle this sort of twaddle while their church is a festering home for pedophiles ...

Never mind, at least in other countries, the two thousand year reign of bigotry and homophobia has suffered a few dents in recent times, rather like the big tobacco companies that peddle their poison ...

And now, while the pond is lashing out, it's about time to turn to Twitter, because this might be all the energy the pond has this day while battling the intertubes ...

And there's more Moir here ... though perhaps rather than sand, he should have shown Malware being blown away by a blast of wind ...

In which the pond gets out the cabbage and the sealing wax ...

(Above: an old Pope, but a most relevant one, and more Pope here).

With Dame Slap gone missing, and the uploading and the downloading and the yadda yadda an existential agony, the pond thought it was probably okay to cool down over lunch instead of trying to find a reptile to mock ...

But then it came, the surging, seething white heat of anger ... yes, it's the pond in ...

Good old Jimmy ...

It started slowly enough with the headline 'A dark day' for Turnbull as NBN abandons Optus cable network ...

But that's behind the Crikey paywall and the pond wanted to know more about this dark day, this blackest of hellhole days, as the Optus uploading and downloading and yadda yadda seems like a business plan for boosting tranquiliser sales ...

Pausing only for a revitalising restorative Pope cartoon ...

... the pond rushed off to Fairfax to read 'A lemon': NBN backflips, abandons plans to use Optus cables it purchased for $800 million ...

Sure enough, only another movie and a Pope cartoon could conjure up the right level of fury ...

Of course watching each upload take place in real time is like extracting teeth, or perhaps spending too long last year in Marienbad ...

This is the nub of it ...

...on Wednesday NBN announced it would abandon the Optus HFC rollout entirely and instead deploy a new technology, fibre-to-the-distribution-point (FTTdp), to up to 700,000 premises.

Acknowledging the Optus HFC network was not "NBN-ready", the company said FTTdp would provide a better customer experience and value for money than upgrading the old network. The leak of the Optus HFC documents - and subsequent leaks from within NBN - so angered the company that it lodged a referral with the Australian Federal Police last December.

And this was the lie ...

After the Abbott government came to power and pursued a multi-technology mix rollout, NBN renegotiated its deal with Optus so it could use its HFC network to deliver broadband services. "This deal will bring down the overall cost of building the NBN and enable us to complete the rollout much earlier than originally anticipated with less disruption to residents and communities," NBN chief executive Bill Morrow said in December 2014.

So why, in his litany of complaints about Malware this day, didn't the Bolter list the NBN as one of Malware's most epic achievements? If you regard sailing the Titantic into the iceberg as an epic achievement worth matching ...

Well that's because Malware was doing Abbott's bidding, degutting the notion of a wired nation, making horseshit of his mantra of agile, innovative and all the rest of the balderdash ...

The reptiles never wanted it, did their best to delay it, came to it only grudgingly. Tree killing newspapers had to be protected, and so did the Foxtel business model, and to hell with the rest of the world that might want to explore the full to overflowing intertubes, which certain people assured us was a revolutionary thing to do ...

Gizmodo's got more of the brand new, exciting and innovative horseshit 2.0 currently being bundled up here ...

From NBN’s chief network engineering officer Peter Ryan: “We have tested FTTdp over the last year and we’re confident we can now deploy the technology in areas where it makes better sense from a customer experience, deployment efficiency and cost perspective. This includes premises in the FTTN footprint that have too high a cost per premises (CPP) and premises served solely by the legacy Optus HFC footprint that are yet to be made ready for service… nbn has confirmed it will deploy FTTdp in those areas where the use of the Optus HFC network was planned, with the exception of the already launched network in Redcliffe, Queensland. 
 “The move to FTTdp was outlined in the 2017 Corporate Plan where we stated nbn’s overall HFC footprint would be between 2.5 and 3.2 million by 2020, with more premises being served by FTTN, Fibre-to-the-Building and FTTdp. These ranges reflect nbn’s flexible and technology-agnostic approach. HFC remains a highly valued part of our MTM deployment, however in balancing the requirements to convert Optus’s current network architecture and design to be nbn-ready, and the opportunity to introduce FTTdp, makes the new technology compelling in these selected areas.”

With the greatest respect, and in the politest way possible, Mr Ryan, the pond would like to suggest that you're a technology agnostic, flexible wanker of the first water ...

As if 2.0 horseshit offers anything better than horseshit 1.0.

This was of course part of the fuss of the 2015 leaked document ...(here) ... no wonder they wanted to stop the truth emerging, though in the way that some turds will float to the surface, the truth had to eventually emerge ...

Meanwhile, Malware thinks it's good politics to seize on the current situation in South Australia for political purposes - his thoughts on climate science gone the way his thoughts on a wired nation and SSM ... and his new best mate and chum is Chris Uhlmann ...seminarian and candidate for the Osborne Independent Group ...

What a dissembling disaster Malware is, and what a fraud that the reptiles keep on blathering on about 18C when they are perfectly free to talk about some of the real disasters Malware has perpetrated in his servile servicing of the onion muncher ... and all we hear is the sound of crickets and moans about 18C ...

Enough already, you servants of Satan, the pond has just enough strength to upload one final mighty Pope ...

In which the pond is shattered by fickle Dame Slap but finds consolation with the Bolter and the bromancer ...

It's very unsettling, very disturbing, for a conservative blogger to discover the world has been turned upside down ... we all know the feeling ...

Wednesday is Dame Slap day, and that's it ...no argument, no discussion ...and then suddenly it's not.

Now there's no point going back to yesterday and pretending to take an interest in Dame Groan. Sadly Dame Groan is so desiccated you couldn't use her on a lamington, while Dame Slap is fruity. But suddenly she's been disappeared, another of those well-heeled Devine bludgers who think they can just bugger off from the job whenever they feel like it.

So the pond had to turn to alternatives, and what a dismal choice it was ...

There's always the Bolter of course ...

Now the pond understands that the concept of monomania is no longer in technical use, but what a handy term it is when contemplating the Bolter contemplating Malware... a form of partial insanity, a pathological preoccupation, a mental illness whereby the mind is limited in expression to one idea or area of thought ...

The opening of the Bolter piece captured it all in one ... the lost loved one, and the hated new arrival ...

The long absent lord knows how the Bolter defines Liberal - it's likely even Genghis Khan wouldn't make the cut because of his centrist ways ...

But the pond shuddered at the idea of reading the rest of it - the idée fix, the manic compulsion, the obsessive fixation, the fear and loathing were sure to be predictable ... and full of the usual nonsense ...

Incredibly, half of voters have changed their mind and not just because Labor leader Bill Shorten has a golden tongue. No, blame Turnbull for being so half-hearted in arguing for the plebiscite he promised at the election. Part of that is personal. The plebiscite was thought up by his predecessor, Tony Abbott, to allow same-sex marriage to be legalised without splitting the Liberal Party. It would have worked but Turnbull stuffed it.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda, because the onion muncher could stuff a superior turkey, and could have spent his time in a plebiscite campaign standing on principle and opposing SSM. That would have been a grand sight ...that would have worked, and all because the onion muncher wanted to legalise it without splitting the Liberal Party.

Is it any wonder that occasionally the pond feels like grabbing the Bolter and giving him a smack on the chops, saying "listen to what you're scribbling, you stupid, stupid man" ...

Then it's on through assorted other matters, the Republic, schools, and as always 18C, and then a last bit of petulant foot-stomping ...

Already he’s had a warning this week from Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi, whose Australian Conservatives movement could be turned into a rival conservative party at the flick of a switch. Bernardi urged Turnbull to pick up some of the more acceptable parts of the agenda of the resurgent Pauline Hanson, particularly on “migration, culture … jobs, manufacturing” — plus a ban on more refugees from Iraq and Syria. Bernardi is right, and Turnbull must offer voters an alternative to the Labor-Green agenda, not just a watered-down version that satisfies nobody. But again, that familiar question: could Turnbull actually sell anything, even if his political life now depended on it?

It left the pond singularly unsatisfied, as most forms of madness are wont to do.

What the pond needed was a dose of fruity, and so reluctantly it had to turn to that old reliable, the bromancer ...

Sure, however you cut it, it's just more of the US election and the debate, and the usual infinite capacity of the bromancer to be tone deaf, but what else to do?

Now if the pond might just interrupt at this point, it seems that we must never mind that most fact checkers after the first debate marked down Trump heavily for the number of porkies that he told, up against the relatively modest number told by Clinton ...

The point here is that old ploy of equivalence. If you say they're both full-on liars growing more alike, resembling each other, why then you might think the Donald is a perfectly acceptable candidate ... so the bromancer getting agitated about trade deals is just a fig leaf on this basic truth ...

Moonshine it might be, though if you look at the budget under Clinton, the country didn't do so badly in terms of deficit/surplus, as can be fact checked here.

Of course it's possible to prefer a degree at Trump University and a business methodology which sees bankruptcy as a routine good solution, and renegotiating national debts with creditor countries will be a wonder to see ...

But how do we know that the bromancer is secretly on with Trump? Well the last gobbet gives a clue ...

That's deeply, deeply weird, all the more so in the face of what motivated, and still motivates, Trump's birtherism.

Does it get any more blithe or carefree for the bromancer to assign the African American population to high crime areas, and expect them to just get on with life as they're assaulted by both cops and criminals?

It's about as sensitive and as insightful as this sort of approach ...

"Our government has totally failed our African American friends, our Hispanic friends and the people of our country. Period," Trump said in Akron, Ohio, straying from the prepared remarks the campaign provided to reporters. "The Democrats have failed completely in the inner cities. For those hurting the most who have been failed and failed by their politician — year after year, failure after failure, worse numbers after worse numbers. Poverty. Rejection. Horrible education. No housing, no homes, no ownership. Crime at levels that nobody has seen. You can go to war zones in countries that we are fighting and it's safer than living in some of our inner cities that are run by the Democrats. And I ask you this, I ask you this — crime, all of the problems — to the African Americans, who I employ so many, so many people, to the Hispanics, tremendous people: What the hell do you have to lose? Give me a chance. I'll straighten it out. I'll straighten it out. What do you have to lose?"

Well maybe dignity and self-respect for starters ...and a capacity to accept that since before the Civil War, the United States hasn't had an inherent racial bias, still clearly visible today in the politics of birtherism, the white supremacists that love teh Donald, David Duke, the KKK and so on and so forth, and the deep south, which remains very deep, though these days in a Republican way after they stole the racists from the dixie Democrats ...

But enough of all that, fortunately the pond has the Pope providing infallible coverage of matters domestic, with fragrant echoes of Cory, George and Bolterism, and more infallible papery here ...

In which the pond enjoys 'Ned' Kelly holding up the progressive stage coach with a bout of ponderous pontifiction ...

The pond weakened.

Why not slip in a late-breaking treat celebrating 'Ned' Kelly's latest outburst?

Where's the harm? The pond's a morning blog, it's now late in the day and no one will notice, and few will pay attention to the ramblings ...

Naturally everything is dire - 'Ned' manages to make Chicken Little seem like a calm, level-headed Tamworthian chook ...

Now it just so happened that Ned was scribbling this at the very same time that Cory was having a chat with the Bolter ...

That story is here, but the pond isn't interested in the real world, the pond is interested in the delusions of Paul Kelly.

There's absolutely no point asking him why he didn't head his piece Failing to manage Cory and Geroge and Erica and Kevin and the onion muncher has dire risks ...

Nor does the pond much mind 'Ned's notion that the only way to obtain a grasp of reality is to head off to a pub, and presumably get as pissed as a parrot in the major Mitchell way ... that's what they used to do in the 1950s ...

Indeed, indeed. Some might say that the core problem is the rise of a global extremist Murdochian ideology, seen in different degrees across different nations, and in different media, from Faux Noise, the WSJ and the NY Post to the Terrorists and the lizards of Oz.

The worst folly for our politicians is pretending this bigoted noise machine doesn't exist, because it has already spawned a dire extremism that threatens the very existence of the civilised world ...

But enough of reality, it's time to head back to 'Ned' having a good old bash at the Islamics ...

Might have been channelling Ms Hanson herself ...

Such a flatulent, prattling, ponderous prat, and not a single mention of the epic failure of the war in Iraq ...

But is there any point in discussing this with a fixated 'Ned'? The pond is reminded of Robert Manne in The Monthly trying to make some sense of the meandering 'Ned':

Since then of course the Chairman has swung around to climate denialism, and his empire remains at the heart of it, while the denialism over Iraq is another central feature of reptile commentary.

And so to Twitter for an idea the pond can embrace ...

The pond will keep shopping at Harris at Broadway, but would still prefer more farmers markets to terrorists and the pontifications of the ponderously silly 'Ned' Kelly ...

In which the pond is delighted to hail the arrival of the Tuesday Oreo ...

Judging by the splendid reaction to Moorice yesterday, the reptiles know they're on to a winner.

And that means the pond is on a winner too, with everyone having a jolly good time, and producing a flurry of comments and hits.

Is there nothing Moorice can't do? Is there nothing his special, most unique* form of madness can't achieve? (*usage licensed from News 24).

The reptiles have enormously strengthened the Monday line-up - the major Mitchell and the Moorice are tremendous caged fight crusaders, while the shifting of the Oreo to Tuesday adds weight to the thoroughly mind-numbing 'Ned' Kelly and the rambling Kev determined to sustain the Judeo-Christian tradition (please, no talk of the Abrahamic tradition).

Talk about a surfeit of offerings ... and even the bouffant one chipped in with a "trust a politician, sure can" routine ...all that was missing was the can of paint for the tapping ...

Yes, just like we should believe ...

But the pond is loyal, and while there's a wealth of choices this day, the pond must stay with the delicious, the very snacky Oreo, cunningly seizing on the audacity of nonsense as an ultra-clever rolled gold* angle ... (*usage licensed from Michael Rowland, News 24).

Of course the pond is totally over the plebiscite and the discussion and the talking points.

It's exhausting, and well past its use by date even before it hits the shelf and goes on sale ... the pond has taken to scouring the Aldi specials in the centre aisle as a distraction ...

And the reptiles themselves have begun to show saucy doubts and fears (as well as anxious hand-wringing about private schools. Won't someone stand up for the right of filthy rich schools to go on being filthy rich?)

Oh dear, schools in chaos and voters swinging behind a parliamentary call ...

Quick, where's the Oreo when she's desperately needed, to talk in the most paranoid and besotted way imaginable about the dastardly left and wicked Fairfax, and the awful, dreadful rolled gold ABC... (actual meaning intended, no payment due to Michael Rowland) ...

They lock mad uncles in the attic, but there's a serious case for locking up mad aunties with them ...

Meanwhile, in the real world of informed discussion ...

Yes, that one was back in February this year, and you can read more about it at SBS under the header Pamphlet links same-sex marriage to 'disease, drug abuse' ...

And then came this one ...

Federal Liberal MP Trent Zimmerman told AM those who distributed the pamphlets did so as private citizens and were not acting on behalf of the Liberal Party. 
He said he found the use of Mandela's image concerning. 
"I do think it's disappointing that material, which is quite self-evidently factually incorrect, is being used, and quite bizarre that a great and inclusive leader like Nelson Mandela would be associated with a campaign of this type," Mr Zimmerman said. (ABC here).

Oh Trent, you silly, hopeless pawn of leftists, don't you see what's happening here?

You don't?!

Open your mouth wide, and prepare for a rich, filling slice of Oreo ...

Indeed, indeed. The pond is particularly looking forward to the plebiscite on euthanasia that is expected to follow very shortly after the SSM plebiscite ...

Whatever. Usually the pond would attempt some scan, some attempt at comprehension, some commentary and exposition, some translation of the Oreo, as when requested to get out the Bembrick and make sense of the gobbet of Latin ... you know, as in ...

Cum in Italiam proficisceretur Caesar, Ser. Galbam cum ligione XII et parte equitatus in Nantuates, Veragros Sedunosque misit, qui a finibus Allobrogum et lacu Lemanno et flumine Rhodano ad summas Alpes pertinent. 

Roughly translated this reads ...

When the Oreo was setting out to defeat the dangerous 'leets and leftists, she sent Servius Galba with the twelfth legion and part of the cavalry, against the dangerous barbarians, who extend from the territories of the onion muncher, and the lake of Burley Griffin, and the mighty Murray to the top of the Alps, and who shockingly will do anything to insist that members of parliament act like MPs.

But frankly the pond's grasp of Latin is about as well founded as the Oreo's grasp of reality.

The average Oreo column is so delicious and self-sustaining there's no way that the balloon of self-righteous indignation and festering paranoia could be punctured, at least not without some threat to the safety of innocent civilians standing in the vicinity ...

Instead it's time for the pond just to give hearty thanks for a revitalised reptile Tuesday, and settle back with a cup of its preferred heart starter ...

Stupid people supporting a dangerous man ...

The pond woke up this morning to hear Fran Kelly on RN citing the Drudge Report as an authoritative source on the matter of the presidential debate.

Surprisingly, apparently the Drudgers thought the Trumpster won.

It doesn't get much sillier than that, and it explains why the pond rarely listens to Kelly these days ...

But in the same spirit, the pond must report on the reports of the local Drudges, and is there a bigger dirge of drudge than the Bromancer, dubbing Trump the everyman?

Well it's a duty, and while the pond didn't actually watch the debate, it must perforce report the reptile view ...

Phew, around this point the pond experienced the usual disconnect with reality.

All hail the Donald for winning with outrageous pandering and the lie at the heart of assorted appeals ... and apparently the more powerful and straightforward the lie, the more the candidate is to be applauded ...

So it goes ...

It probably favours the challenger ... now in the world of the pond, there are two contestants and no incumbents, but that's the drudge you get when you read the bromancer ...

Well after that gruesomely compelling column, it's probably the right time for a break and a Pope cartoon, and more Pope here, before the interminable suffering is renewed ...

Meanwhile, there are those who would take a knife to a cat fight, but the pond would always prefer to take a Devine ...

There's always something compelling watching the stupid scribble in support of the stupid, a bit like Cory revealing his inner and outer Hanson ...

And there you have it.

Ugh, it seems, is the most perfect Devine exclamation when wanting to make a point in a debate.

Sucks boo bum potty mouth might also qualify, but hey nonny no, on we go with the riveting performance, as the Devine makes clear her intense dislike of swots (education, who needs that shit?) and red pantsuits ...

Phew around this point, we probably need a cartoon break ... and what better way to do it than with a Rowe, and as always more Rowe here ...

Oops, that's probably a bit cruel, because the Devine's wrap up also features a cartoon ... 

And what an unfortunate cartoon it is, somewhere between mindless hagiography and a Mad magazine caricature ...

Now there's a stupid woman in full flight, facilitating and enabling and endorsing, and then attempting to blame the monster she loves on 'leets and liberals.

Why does she so love a barbarian and his many assorted barbarities?

Why do you ask? 

Soul mates.

And so to a final look at the debate, and then, provided the reptiles release no more columns celebrating barbarism, the pond will talk no more of this debate as it retches its way into history ...