In which it wouldn't be Monday without a succulent slice of an Oreo waffle ...

The pond is frantic. 

Reports of dashing Donners turning up on the ABC and in the HUN; and the Donald in full, magnificent flight - has the world seen such a bird outside North Korea, China and Russia since the 1930s? Will Berlusconi now admit he was a mere novice? Will these glorious days never end?

Soon enough, possibly, and well before the rapture ...

And yet attention must be paid, and not just salesmen, but to the reptiles of Oz and to the valiant Oreo, overshadowed, but still ready to stump up for the lizard Oz ...

Meanwhile, people keep sending the pond jokes about American Carnage ...

It is of course no joke. 

They're determined to kill off public radio and television, along with locking down the country and putting medical treatment out of the reach of your average mug American punter who voted for an early shuffle off to the grave ...

Lluckily the start of the routine is currently outside The New Yorker paywall here ...

But none of that's going to get the washing done, or even a piece of waffle by the Oreo, which, it has to be said, is moronic even by her low standards ...

Oh there's just time for a few more Donald jokes, surely ...

Oh indeed, indeed, he and the Oreo are one ...

And how's that running gag about life in public radio going?

Well that's enough conscious humour, time to get back to the strident Oreo ...

Now look, it's time for a little confession here.

Around the kitchen table, the pond is known as the hanging judge. Anyone who comes into contact with the pond knows that they don't want the pond on the jury ... well unless it was the OJ jury where the prosecution and the LA cops botched a case which should have been a shoo-in. 

He was guilty, guilty as hell, but you have to prove it without relying on racist cops and bungled forensics ...

As usual, justice is a little more complicated - and some of the finest minds in the land are hired to prove it, week in, week out, than is allowed for by these sensational taste treats ...

You see, the pond has a secret vice, a sordid love it has never dared to speak to the world.

Every so often, it likes to sit down and watch 48 Hours ...

Recently it caught up with the latest on the Bernie Tiede the mortician case ... you can watch it on CBS here (maybe you need to spoof it to see it outside the US, maybe not).

The useless Richard Linklater made a movie about it which fudged the killing, and what Bernie did with all the moola ... (don't get the pond started on the gormless Linklater.)

Now you can rely on the pond for empathy for the victim ... being shot in the back four times and stuffed in a freezer is no way to go ... and Bernie could have walked away if he'd wanted to ... and if the pond had had a chance to put in its two cents ...

But then being a victim can swing both ways, as evidenced by a recent pond link to The New Yorker telling what it was like to be one of the Angola 3 ... outside the paywall here ...

Justice is a curious beast and a curious thing. Everyone would no doubt like to take back the decision in relation to the Bourke Street mall matter and the resulting criminal acts of the mass killer, who should now be locked up for a very long time ...

But the minute the pond heard the news, it thought mental issues and possibly ice, and there's a good case that anyone addicted to ice shouldn't be let out but should be locked away for a cure, while people with mental issues should be provided with medical treatment, rather than allowed to wander the streets (where they turn up at the local 7-Eleven wielding an axe or taking out an innocent teacher standing just down the road from the pond waiting for a bus).

But that would require money, and expenditure which the Oreos of the world routinely foreswear, pointing to budget deficits and grave fiscal issues, and never mind that the rich keep making out like bandits.

So instead they offer what the Donald offers, which is to lock people up and throw away the key, or lock the borders and keep them out ... solutions which never work in the simplistic, simpleton way that they're proposed.

No doubt the Oreo thought that was a killer couple of last lines, about delivering justice in the court rooms and leaving therapy to the therapists ...

But here's the thing. If only it were so simple. If only things were black and white, a binary 1 and 0. If only the private prison business didn't make a fortune out of crime ...

But even that business has to face an end game ...

Unless it's proposed that all criminals be locked up for ever behind bars, at some time, they will be let out - even the Bernies of the world, up for parole at age 70 - and at that point, it deeply concerns the pond that they come out with some sense of what it's like to be rehabilitated, and to be able to play some useful role ...

Call it therapy if you like, call it something else, just don't call it stupid like an Oreo ...

Some will never make that cut, but to have a horde of angry, violent people who were profoundly alienated by their jail time sent back out on the streets - while carefree private prisons made out like bandits -bwould likely see the streets here turn into the sort of streets that they have in the United States...

You know, American Carnage ...

How did that joke end up?

Thanks Donald, thanks for American justice and thanks for American Carnage ... and the angry people we've seen these last few days, madder than hell, will likely have many, many unforeseen consequences ...

Did you ever think about therapy for those anger management issues?

Have you ever thought about munching into a couple of soothing brand new Oreo lines?

It won't sort things out baby, but resorting to waffle might quieten things down a bit ... before we score the next big crunch of American Carnage ...