In which the pond confesses dark deeds, and turns to the Devine for a dash of essence of vitriol ...

Experimental? Maybe new batteries will help?

And now, this being a meditative Sunday, it's time for a confession, not that the pond much likes either of the Colbert segments, featuring the midnight confessional or the big furry hat ...

The pond is long over Catholic confession - down there with transubstantiation - but after encouraging anyone who'd listen, and many who don't, to have nothing to do with News Corp, the pond now has Foxtel in the house.

How did this treachery, this betrayal, come to pass? No matter how it tries to pretend otherwise, the pond feels cheapened, soiled, dirty, worn and used. 

At the same time, the pond has a new landline in the house too, and nobody knows the number and nobody calls it, and the pond has lost its lifeline of being able to have friendly chats with kindly Indian folk who call in to discuss the worrying way gambling has corrupted Indian cricket (well, they also try to help with the computer, but that never goes well).

Here's the deal. For absolutely no cost, a man turned up with a box and hooked the pond up, and thereafter, the pond receives a reduction of thirty bucks a month in the cost of obtaining broadband, it having given The Optus The the flick, though Optus keeps on trying to bill the pond for a service that was supposed to be cancelled. To put it in German, Die Optus Die ...

This thirty bucks is cash in the bank, for a wretched low rent service of some 40 totally useless and dire channels that Foxtel has priced below thirty bucks, and for good reason. The picture quality is appalling, below a good pirate YouTube service, and with absolutely zilch by way of content, as access to the Bolter counts for zilch with the pond.

Now there's a reason for the deal. Pure desperation ...

Foxtel lost around 100,000 subscribers in the six months to December 2016, underlining why News Corp chopped the value of its stake in the pay TV operator of A$300 million (US$227 million) in the quarter. 
News said in this morning’s financial results release that Foxtel had “more than 2.8 million subscribers as at December 2016. That compares with “approximately 2.9 million” reported at the end of the first quarter at September 30 last year and “more than 2.9 million” at the end of June 2016. Foxtel said closing cable and satellite subscribers numbers were flat compared to the prior year period. In the second quarter, cable and satellite churn was 15.6%, “which was comparable to churn in the fiscal first quarter, primarily driven by newer customers under no-contract offers and seasonal sports disconnections.” 
And that subscriber weakness, increased competition in the Australian market, plus weak revenue and earnings growth, or falls, helped drive the big non-cash write down in the final quarter.  
“As a result of Foxtel’s performance in the first half of fiscal 2017, the competitive operating environment in the Australian pay-TV market and management’s revised projections, the Company determined that the fair value of its investment in Foxtel declined below its $US1.4 billion carrying value to $US1.2 billion. The carrying value had previously been written up in connection with the acquisition of Consolidated Media Holdings Ltd. (“CMH”) in November 2012 and at that time a non-cash gain of $0.9 billion (US$900 million) was recognized on the Foxtel investment.” 
Looking at the results for Foxtel, News said revenues for the second quarter increased US$4 million, or 1%, to US$602 million from US$598 million in the prior year period, But in Australian dollars Foxtel revenues fell 3%. But Foxtel’s net income of US$24 million is more than halved from US$52 million in the prior year period, primarily due to a US$17 million loss resulting from the change in the fair value of Foxtel’s investment in Ten Network Holdings and US$5 million in losses associated with the continued operation of Presto. (more here).

That's why the Chairman is paying the pond to keep the facade, the farce, of numbers up.

No doubt the bean counters hope that the pond will upsize - a better HD signal costs more, channels that have actual content cost more. But by the time the pond gave up counting, the pond had well over 10,000 movies in the house, and YouTube delivers any other content it might want - no wonder the chairman hates Google - and if there's any time left over the FTA's are always there, and not via the shoddy, silly, antiquated Foxtel remote control and interface.

The logarithms feed the pond classical music, Air Crash Investigations (what need of Nat Geo?) and CNN, with all the useful American hypochondriac medical and drug ads that have allowed the pond to discover many new ailments, without any of the international editions useless insights into the world. Anyone wanting to discover what a weird insular cultural bubble Americans live in needs to watch the domestic service ...

As soon as a better broadband deal comes along in the street, the pond will be out of there, and it'll be goodbye landline and goodbye Foxtel. Anyone who subscribes, thereby paying for the pleasure of watching advertising they can watch on FTA for free, and any advertiser who thinks they're buying genuine eyeballs as opposed to faux pond eyeballs, should think again. Like the lizard Oz's blather about its readership figures - as they throw away newspapers wherever they can find a perch for the tree killer product - it's a gigantic hoax, a Ponzi scheme of nonsense ...

In the meantime, the pond has clicked Foxtel on once, clicked it off, and said sayonara suckers, as it took the discount and ran, a sordid, shabby exercise in fraudulent bundling. But hey whenever the pond sees a free copy of the lizard Oz, it picks that up too ...

And speaking of the reptiles, what are the Terrorists up to today? You know, the enemies of the Australian people, the enemies of Australia, the enemies of the volk, the enemies of the vaterland ...

Sieg heil and on to the Surry Hills inner city 'leet bunker for the latest sights ...

There's much concern with waste ...

Akker Dakker opened with this flourish ...

Globe-trotting fashionista Foreign Minister Julie Bishop needs to explain why Australian taxpayers are bankrolling Papua New Guinea’s vanity projects when that nation is economically febrile — if it has not already fallen into the pit — and our own economy is ­wallowing.

Well that's enough for anyone wanting to google the text. And anyone expecting a mention of the squillions pissed against the wall on Manus Island and the destructive, debilitating impact that has had on the country will be disappointed. The comments section however featured rich pickings, the usual cries of colonialists and racists, including a few who think Australia should still be in the colonial business ...

Come to think of it, anyone also wanting a mention of the money pissed against the wall on the likes of the Caterists would be left howling at the moon.

That notion returned to the pond again, as it observed that the main Terrorist players were hard at it ...

Ah, good old Islamic bashing, but the Devine also had another angle this day ...

There's something admirable about the chutzpah, the hubris, the sheer cheek of Catholic fundamentalists pretending that they and their dark onion-munching master had nothing to do with the walking away from gay marriage. It's up there with Foxtel pretending that all's well with its fraudulent attempts to pretend that cable-cutting isn't all the go.

The Devine is mistress of this sort of double speak gobbledegook ...

Note the way that Devine speaks for the volk, the public, and possibly the vaterland as well ... 

The pond might just as well say, and with as much evidence, that the world is over the Devine, but the Devine doesn't know it ...

As for Malware - the master of fucked-up broadband - attempting to pin it all on Shorten, it says a lot about the way he's become a shadowy imitation of the onion muncher. It wasn't only Shorten that opposed it, a considerable number of people, within and without the gay community, opposed it, fearing the venomous bile of bigots like the Devine stirring up the hate, fear and loathing ...

If he'd had the guts to tackle the fundamentalists in his ranks ...

Sorry, that's a non sequitur, a bit like saying if Foxtel had the honesty to admit the fraudulence of its bundling practices ...

Now,  bigoted job done, the Devine can relax and crow and preen ...

Well the Devine would like to think it's blown, but that would be typical of a scribbler who has much of the Daesh attitude to homosexuality coursing through her bigoted veins ...

And speaking of bigotry, it would be remiss of the pond not to mention the other Devine outing ...

Ah, it's the old wasteful spending routine again ...

But here's the thing. We're talking less than 12k. When was the last time anyone read the Devine having a go at the government for pissing over $200k a year against the wall on the Caterists, so that they might scribble for the lizard Oz, turn up on the ABC and generally make a nuisance of themselves?

If you're still waiting for that, try counting the days until the NBN runs past your house and you can cable cut the fraudulent connection to Foxtel ...

Well that's more than enough for anyone wanting to google the rest, but that mention of Saudi Arabia made the pond prick up its ears Joe Orton style.

What chance of the reptiles featuring truly terrifying images of craven lickspittles cavorting with the heavyweights of Saudi Arabia?

Sordid, shocking stuff, but if you read News Corp rags, you get this sort of image instead ...

Was it in the interests of Australian taxpayers, those noble volk, to see Chairman Rupert's operations use Saudi Arabian oil money for many years to stay afloat, at least until said investors began to see the downside in the Chairman's operations and pulled out? Perhaps he checked out the actual basis for the current Foxtel subscribers list ...

Meanwhile, the Devine's trolling achieved its required dog whistle impact ...

Most think but aren't allowed to say? What's stopping you fuck-witted Anthony? Who's stopping you? Or is it that you're just too dumb to refine your bigotry in the way of a Devine?

Here's the thing. While there are devious Satanic forces in the world - the pond will do its best to avoid mentioning Chairman Rupert - why have all the reptiles piled on to demonise an Islamic woman trying to make a living in a difficult area, and becoming the new Waleed Aly figure of hate for the Catholic fundamentalists and the reptile bigots?

It's not as if the secular atheist pond has any more time for extreme Daesh Islam or moderate Islam, any more than it has time for extreme Daesh fundamentalist Devine Catholicism or moderate Xians ...

There can be only one convincing explanation, but the pond has done the frog and the scorpion to death. Instead just enjoy another splash of Devine fragrance ...

As for tomorrow?

Will the pond weaken and sneak look at Foxtel?

Not on your nelly, though there'll be more than enough time for more confessions and perhaps a big furry hat and an experimental reality TV show and with any luck a relaxing reptile Oreo ... and after that?