In which the pond sets nattering "Ned" up against blathering war monger Niall ...

Before moving on to nattering "Ned" matters, the pond would like to address the question of Australian taxpayers subsidising Murdochian enterprises, specifically the wretched Alien Covenant, one of the greater turkeys of the modern cinema era, which had both Australian and NSW government money tipped into it ...

Forget the Korean rip with hard-coded subs doing the rounds of pirate circles, the pond has a modest proposal: a free screening for any Australian or NSW taxpayer who involuntarily funded this Fox travesty, and - if anyone is brave or foolish enough to take up the challenge and watch a witless re-make of bits cherry picked from the rest of the franchise - after the free screening, there's a free voucher for a mental health care session, or for entry into a genuinely aesthetic experience ... (such is the low level entry bar this would include rides at Luna Park).

If film crew must be given work, instead of pouring money into Foxian foolishness, why not get them to dig and fill holes, so that they, and we, might finally learn how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall ... because now we now that intrepid space explorers are stupid enough to enter an alien environment without pausing to consider for a nanosecond potential biological consequences ...

And so to nattering "Ned" and more pond rage ... because it's all very well for nattering "Ned" to note that Trump talks nonsense and is as easy to gull as a catfish in the Peel river, but who helped get him there?

Fox and friends, that vast conspiracy trading on Australian taxpayer dollars for its film fraud division ... 

Now the Oreo has already branded nattering "Ned" as a quisling clown, but the pond is trudging through his latest Chicken Little outing - where was he when the GOP chickens needed herding way back when? - because there's a holy grail at the end of it all, featuring blathering Niall ...

It was at this point in nattering "Ned's" nadir that the pond was tempted to blink, but one more quick gobbet would see the pond at its ultimate prize ...

Indeed, indeed, but this very same day, who was at the top of the lizard Oz opinion page? None other than nattering "Ned's" international equivalent, nattering Niall ...

It was google that reminded the pond that blathering Niall is a feature of that other Murdochian outpost, the cuckoos of spring Times ...

These days The Times lets little windows of sunshine blink out from behind its paywall, with humble begging for a subscription attached ...

But the pond has a grudge not easily settled, not even by a free screening of the latest Alien insult ... and besides the lizards of Oz pay no heed to the British paywall, anxious as they are to show off Niall's folly to the wider world ...

It takes a blithering idiot blathering on about Thucydides, Sparta and Athens to almost forget that these days there are forces out in the world that make the MAD option perilously real - though it has to be said that back in the day, Athens was totally exhausted and bankrupted by its follies, and Sparta didn't do much better ...

Sparta’s position as the number one city-state in Greece, though, was to be short-lived. Continued Spartan ambitions in central and northern Greece, Asia Minor and Sicily once again dragged the city into another protracted conflict, the Corinthian Wars with Athens, Thebes, Corinth and Persia from 396 to 387 BCE. The result of the conflict was the ‘King’s Peace’ where Sparta ceded her empire to Persian control but Sparta was left to dominate Greece. However, trying to crush Thebes, Sparta lost the crucial battle of Leuctra in 371 BCE against the brilliant Theban general Epaminondas. Perhaps the real winner of the Peloponnesian Wars was actually, then, Persia and in the long term even Macedonia which under Philip II was able to invade and crush with relative ease the weakened and mutually suspicious Greek city-states. (here for the potted history, may the pond never be asked to read Bury in his entirety again).

And now it's back to Niall, seeking to use history as a guide for the use of nuclear weapons ...

Indeed, indeed. Just read that last line and shiver with fear at the thought that the Murdochians are advising the world, while at the same time making monstrous compilations of crap of the Alien Covenant kind.

Damage to Seoul would be limited ... all very well for a futtock sitting in his inanity in Stanford ...

What could possibly go wrong with that prediction, what unintended consequences could anyone imagine ...

... especially by a bear with Niall's enormous brain and insights ...

Indeed, who would miss the odd million or three in South Korea? Though the pond would confess to shedding a tear for LG and Samsung, suppliers of excellent home viewing technology to the pond, which curiously keeps getting broken each time someone screens a bit of Fox crap in the home ...

Oh go on, throw the iron at the TV, and see if Chairman Rupert blinks ...

And so to a final hearty chunk of Niall ...

Donald Trump is the new John F. Kennedy? So we can look forward to a new Vietnam War? Or something even bigger and better ... say the third world war?

Routinely, whenever the pond reads that bit about Ferguson being a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the pond's impression of that venerable institution slides a little deeper into the gutter. If this is what they house at Stanford, the house will not stand ...

But then Hoover (Greg hunt him here with due care for stray southern walri) was something of a clueless fuckwit of a president, blind-sided by the great depression, so it rather suits as a home for Niall ...a man so clueless he should go on colonist trip to the farthest reaches of space, hare off to a stray planet, wander through the ion storms and step out without a thought to the micro-organisms floating in the ether ...

There won't be any unforeseen consequences to that, will there, except for a mounting pile of absurdities, inanities, nonsense, and rampant destruction ...

Perhaps the robot gets it right ... wipe out humanity, and at least in the process Niall, the chairman and really crappy movies get taken out too ...

And so to a couple of TT's, with a new TT likely to arrive here very shortly ...