In which the pond takes a break from the reptiles to enjoy a Flinty Friday ...

(Above: the Terrorists show their class again, as if shit by another name takes away the smell. The Terrorists must really be feeling the pinch in sales. Now stand by for a lecture by the Bolter about the way that the ABC and Fairfax lowers the tone of public discourse ... the relatives of the victims, by the way, preferred "callous").

The pond has developed a taste for Amanda Meade's beastly column, this week's edition here.

Where else is it easy to read about Think-X and pan-ABC, unless you happen to stumble on a website dedicated to catalytic questions and powered-up solutions and platforms for action here ...

Brainstorming is like cholesterol: there’s good Brainstorming and bad Brainstorming. And most of us have experienced only the bad. Bad Brainstorming usually produces only a few ideas — and not very original ones at that. Good Brainstorming lets you get to answers that are full of creativity and promise — answers that really do have to power to produce innovative results.

So it's like a dose of bran! Or oats ...

And Meade provided a link to everyone's favourite Chris Mitchell writes a love letter to himself, inter alia revealing that the former senior reptile turned feather duster is a fan of the "brilliant" Graham Lloyd, along with this ...

Mitchell is not active on Twitter – he admits he Googles users’ names to find their tweets – but he does see it as the most “pernicious” threat to modern journalism. He sagely advises editors to “police the Twitter feeds of their senior political reporters lest silly comments mar the professionalism of their political coverage and their publication”. The Australian’s associate editor Chris Kenny, whose sole occupation appears to be tweeting about the alleged bias of the ABC, apparently escaped Mitchell’s attention.

This is an outrageous slur. It has been almost two days since the dog botherer tweeted about the ABC.
Oh sure, he's a regular contributor to #theirABC, and he writes about the ABC with a pan-ABC fanaticism that reminds the pond of an X-files thinker, but be fair, he does also tweet regularly about the footy ...

You see? Valiantly defending Sam the man and the right of the Chinese to donate to Australian political parties. What could be more Liberal than that?

Meanwhile, Meade produces a reminder that the Order of Lenin hunter is a bold and brave ideological zealot, who sees the world in binary, black and white, a right royal top or bottom of the egg and no exceptions allowed ...

The Oz news pages are “straight down the line” the rightwing warrior says with a straight face. But Fairfax, on the other hand, is always letting its political colours show in its news coverage. The Sydney Morning Herald’s political writers Mark Kenny, James Massola, Latika Bourke and Matthew Knott are so leftwing that their “entire world view is from a Green perspective”, Mitchell says, while Laura Tingle and Phil Coorey on the Australian Financial Review are “far to the left of the AFR” itself.

But enough of the reptiles, because this is Friday and the pond felt the need to drift off, float away on a stream of oneiric waffle, and who better to do that than Flinty ... why it'd be just like catching a ride with Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog or Flinty).

Now the pond pays so little attention that it only recently noticed that Flinty warbles away frequently under the portentous heading Aux Bien Pensants for the colonialists down under, gathering diverse cloudy thoughts on issues under the rubric of poncified French celebrating the right-minded type...

In his last column, for example, Flinty spoke severely on the urgent need to investigate Tony Abbott's allegiance to Britain as revealed in many stories, such as Tony Abbott is almost certainly a British dual citizen ...

The Australian Constitution is clear on this. It expressly disqualifies a senator in allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power. The High Court has indicated that an informal act of obedience could be enough. One senator even lost her seat when she had been too slow in revoking her dual citizenship of a close ally. Australians are therefore entitled to answers. Abbott his benefactor and others, with all relevant documents, should be thoroughly examined on oath before a short and sharp parliamentary or royal commission. Any adverse finding can be dealt with by the Senate or possibly the High Court as the constitutional guardian. The Court could even hear a case brought by a member of the public under obscure legislation, the Common Informers (Parliamentary Disqualifications) Act. There is widespread disquiet across the land that there is more than a whiff of treachery at the heart of the Australian body politic. Only a formal inquiry will get to the truth.

Oh okay, he was rabbiting on about Sam the man, but it's interesting how, with a single word change, Flinty's ranting can serve any number of purposes ...

And so to a sampling, but please, can the pond first ask that the extracts be read in an exceptionally plummy, toffy voice, in a manner which makes the likes of Geoffrey Robertson sound like an east end cockney or a drover out back of the black stump ...

Naturally Malware is a favourite source of rumination on treachery and most foul treason.

Teh gays are also a matter of much concern ... like his strident call for John Howard to seek a mandate before making changes to the Marriage Act ...

Indeed, indeed, and please remember that Flinty elected Flinty to speak on behalf of Flinty, and that's more than enough.

Then there's the country pub test, Flinty being a notorious frequent attender at these dives, plucking the hay from his nostrils and the straw and seeds from his bulging pockets ...

The noble federation is much on Flinty's mind ...

Indeed, indeed, what was wrong with rum, sodomy and the lash? Why do we need these new fangled ideas, when you could strap a man to the yard arm and give him a hundred hearty blows, and he'd be none the worse for the experience?

Thank the long absent lord, no one had the notion of setting the convicts to work in a form of slave labour.

Now the pond knows that some sceptic is likely to remember that Havelock Ellis, the notorious sexologist came out to Australia and lived near Scone, before returning to England to publish works about sexual inversion and such like matters well before federation ...

In Australia, I gained health of body, I attained peace of soul, my life task was revealed to me, I was able to decide on a professional vocation, I became an artist in literature . . . these five points covered the whole activity of my life in the world. Some of them I should doubtless have reached without the aid of the Australian environment, scarcely all, and most of them I could never have achieved so completely if chance had not cast me into the solitude of the Liverpool Range.

The pond knows the feeling well, and there's also probably something in Flinty's background which explains the way he is today, but now it's time to turn back to Flinty for one last mighty example of a man attempting, with some fair degree of success, to imitate Colonel Blimp down under ...

That's the sort of delusionalism the pond can't help but love.

The noble Swiss living the life of the rank and file, and nary a mention of its corrupt banking practices ... and when you look at the SVP and the likes of Albert Rösti and Christoph Blocher it seems there's an urgent need for Flinty to write a new definition of "elites" for the dictionary, one better fitting his especially unique, rolled gold vision of the world ...

Well it fills up a quiet Friday, and there's much more Flinty at source, and so the pond has done its primary duty of calling attention to the heartfelt songs of the loons ...

And with duty done, it's time for a Pope cartoon, and more stern Popery here ... and here's hoping Michaelia enjoyed the hug ...