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 ...