In which the pond ignores the siren song of the sock puppets for quality time with Dame Slap ...

Dedicated students of the reptiles will appreciate that the federal budget is the direst time of the year for reptile watching ...

Instead of the usual feisty display of chameleon colours, there's an unseemly parade of sock puppets. Over at the Terror, the Devine is in Malware worship mode, while the cricket tragic does a lavish display of onion eating ...

At the lizard Oz, petulant Peta is the onion muncher, while the bouffant one does the Malware suck ...

The other opinionistas aren't any help either, with the dog botherer warning of infighting and the choleric Kohler talking of a turn to the left ...

The Oz editorialist also warned of infighting ...

... and helped out by getting the big bash going with corporeal Korporaal and Dame Groan ...

Is it any wonder that the pond thanked the long absent lord for Dame Slap, always willing to be totally irrelevant in the cause of barking mad howling at the moon ...

If there's one thing more tedious than idle chat about the budget, then surely it's idle chat about core values ...

So far, so typical, but now - spoiler alert - the pond would like to draw attention to a curious thing as Dame Slap proceeds on ...

Please count in this gobbet the number of serious examples Dame Slap draws from Australia in her chat about core Australian values, whatever they might be ...

Yep, in her carry on and blather about Triggs and core Australian values, Dame Slap reverts to tales of Vermont - the last time the pond checked this was in the United States, meaning no disrespect to mighty Vermont Eagles in Victoria ...

Now no doubt the Middlebury College fuss is interesting, with fall out continuing - Boston Globe here - as is the Hypatia matter ...

But the last time the pond checked, Hypatia could be contacted at San Francisco State University.

Now there's no doubt this is an interesting controversy to feminists and the TG community - one of many summaries can be found here with links - but with the best will in the world, there's only a loose connection to Gillian Triggs and the HRC. (This attempted defence of the letter here strangely doesn't mention Triggs once).

The pond might just as well get agitated about the truly outrageous decision to send a Christian Governor off to the clink for two years (NY Times here) on the basis of antiquated notions of blasphemy, which provides comfort to Islamic fundamentalists following a delusional religion ...that's no reason to persecute the follower of another delusional religion, especially as it's mingled with resentment of the Chinese.

The pond might wonder why the Irish still have a blasphemy law on the books, and even thought about prosecuting Stephen Fry for stating the bleeding obvious ... (Graudian here):

On the RTÉ television show The Meaning Of Life, Fry was asked what he would say to God when he died and was met by the deity at the Gates of Heaven. Fry replied: “How dare you create a world in which there is such misery? It’s not our fault? It’s not right. It’s utterly, utterly evil.” In solidarity with Fry in the attempt to have him prosecuted, Atheist Ireland then published 25 blasphemous statements on its website as well the actor’s own remarks to Byrne. The campaign group has challenged both the authorities and religious believers to report Atheist Ireland to the Garda Síochána for breaching the country’s blasphemy laws. Atheist Ireland said it is prepared to be prosecuted and tried in court over the publication of the anti-religion statements.

 

Well yes, god doesn't exist, but if She did, what a useless and defamatory and wickedly evil example of the anima she would be ... does that get the pond in enough trouble with the religious and feminists and the silly plods of Ireland?

Speaking of the one-time Irish, closer to home there was actually a genuine recent example of an assault on free speech, when a gay man got up to talk ...

It turns out that the man involved in the assault was a fundamentalist Xian of the violent, aggressive, hate your neighbour kind - if you don't believe copping a pie in the face is a violent assault, try doing it to yourself, or get a loved one to do it to you ...

This is the sort of assault on free speech that too often involves fundamentalist Xians - in much the same way that fundamentalists of all kinds routinely are involved in assaults on noble, innocent secularists who just want to point out that god is silly. 

The pond is a touch sensitive about this, not being keen on time in an Indonesian jail, and wanting the right, if ever invited to a Dublin dinner party, to assert that god and all Her servants are pretty fucked in the head ...

But does Dame Slap mention any of this in her final gobbet? 

Of course not ... but if you are interested in watching one of the most boring documentaries in the known universe, dressed up as a provocation, it's freely available ...

Not that this has much to do with core Australian values. It's an import from a country now deep in civil war, and deeply fucked and profoundly corrupt ...

As for core Australian values, it seems that these somehow have been translated into core Planet Janet values ...

... which is to say, deeply weird, and deeply fucked ...

But fair's fair, at least Dame Slap provided a little distraction from all that budget chatter,  for which she deserves a modicum  of praise, as did the timely David Rowe with a beautifully timely cartoon ...

The pond doesn't just love Rowe for the way he puts his pencil work on display, the pond is a sucker for an arm-breaking taxi joke, with more excellent Rowe here ...