In which the pond spends time with the savvy Savva for its daily dose of irony ...

Before getting on to lunch time business, the pond would like to honour the Terrorists yet again ... but doesn't that new layout for the online business look clinical and dead and ... well, yes, pathetic for a rag supposedly with a tabloid instinct?

And with duty done, so to the savvy Savva ... because there's nothing like an irony overload to match the iron in a seaweed and carrot juice smoothie ...

Where to begin with the ironies? Is it that Bruce Gordon spends most of his year in Bermuda, enjoying the sunshine?

Is it that Lachlan Murdoch is a US citizen? Well thanks to Malware's merry bunch we know what happens when your dad goes Yankee and how that works ...

Is it that Lachlan happens to be co-chair of an American company which was lining up to buy Ten with the Bermudan?

(Here).

Are we talking about the way a United States citizen controls, as if in a personal fiefdom using assorted classes of poisoned pill shares, an unseemly amount of media around the planet?

So what's the diff between a bunch of Americans at CBS, a bunch of Americans at News Corp, and a Bermuda lover?

Please allow the savvy Savva to explain ...

It seems it's a different story when News Corp Americans want to do the deal, as opposed to CBS Americans ...

Is there not a joyous and rich irony in that line by Nick X about wanting the Murdochians to succeed because they're dinkum?

This is the reason the pond cherishes its quality time with the savvy Savva ... rabbiting on about filthy foreigners while scribbling for a reptile rag controlled by an American ...

As it is, Ten screens much of its foreign product by way of CBS, in an over-priced deal which hasn't helped the bottom line and which sees Colbert go out after midnight, so that the pond simply reverts to YouTube for its Colbert fix ...

But that's another matter.

The point here is that as long as News Corp remains in denial about its true nature, all the nonsense scribbled about foreigners taking over dinkum Aussie businesses will remain that much hot air ...

How could Malware object to CBS if News Corp is the other suitor? Who cares if comrade Bill sings a different song according to the occasion? That's what the onion muncher did in the cause of nattering negativity. That's how the political game is played ...

If foreign ownership is such a pressing matter, why not nationalise News Corp's Australian holdings?

We keed ... we keed ...

The density of that hypocrisy reaches the status of lead in the nativist nationalist ratbaggery of the Daily Terror ...

Never mind, as always, the Pope is on hand to provide the good news of the day, with more papal insights here ...

In which the pond is entranced yet again by Moorice's ancient mariner impression ...

Each time the ancient mariner stoppeth the pond, a particular thrill runs down the spine ...by thy glittering eye, wherefore stopp'st thou me, unhand me grey-beard loon, etc etc ...

In the good old days, the world's leading climate scientist would have rushed into print to explain how record events were just part of the natural order, but these days, the glittering eye frequently turns its baleful glare towards Malware, while shedding a tear for the onion muncher, and the pond shivers and quivers with delight ...

Of course it's necessary first to get over the ancient mariner's strange, abnormal fixation - none dare call it manly love - for the onion muncher ...

The google splash - oh wicked American stealer of reptile glory - gets it a little more right - there's also a goodly fear of Comrade Bill ...

It wasn't just the ancient mariner, of course, out and about this morning. Many other reptiles were eager to explain to the caretaker PM just how rocky was his winter road ...

And the Xians were revolting ...

500! By golly that's 200 more than Cory and his pecs need ...

And once again the cooee for coal had rung out across the land ...

And the calm, reasoned, rational debate Malware said the country was capable of - he understands copper and multi-nodal wisdom, he must know the truth - got off to a jolly good start ...

Oh the omens were right for the return of the Ancient Mariner ...

Now before proceeding on, the pond would like to pause a moment to admire the stunning artwork by Lobbecke ...

The pond doesn't have a clue what it means. Is it some kind of cryptic clue, some mystical connection to winter?

Skid row for Malware? As the pond cruises Central Park in winter humming ...

The harbour's misty in the morning love, oh, how I miss December 
The frangipani opens up to kiss the salty air 
I know you're gettin' ready for the office 
I suppose the onion muncher's still there with you, sharing our morning sun 
Winter in America is cold and I just keep growing older 
I wish I could have known enough of Malware to leave Malware enough alone

Sorry, what does this have to do with the ancient mariner's message?

Not much, but such is the ancient mariner's transfixing gaze that the pond's attention is likely to wander down all sorts of strange alley ways ...

Now everybody will have their favourite Moorice line.

Many will love the plea in the penultimate par's opaque plea to drive down wages, and persecute the poor, while calling it a 'mobile society' - code for 'you too can live in a double wide like they do in America' ...

And herein lies the problem. There is no longer a widely accepted narrative that champions a free, more prosperous and socially mobile society. Rather than self-reliance and wealth creation, conventional wisdom favours wealth redistribution and state dependence. With households running on empty, this message has appeal.

And why are they running on empty? Well Moorice can never accumulate enough, and nor can the rest of them ...

But the pond must set this contender aside, because the pond is in to litanies, to a listing of grievances and complaints, of a wailing, and ashes in the reptile mouth, so who could deny this par a prime place in the moaning, whining sun?

...the Human Rights Commission remains firmly in place and section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act is unchanged. A well-funded ABC continues to act as a dependable propaganda outlet for fashionably left causes. Identity politics flourish and, on occasions, are encouraged. Thought leadership on same-sex marriage has fallen to Labor.

Surely that's not true. Surely Moorice is the thought leader of the ages ... and just as surely, in the comments section, the profound literary references ran wild ...

Exactly!

Farewell, farewell! but this I tell 

To thee, thou Wedding-Guest! 

He prayeth well, who loveth well

The onion-munching beast. 

He prayeth best, who loveth best 

His budgie smuggler smalls; 

For the dear God who loveth us, 

He made and loveth loonish calls. 

The Mariner, whose eye is bright, 

Whose beard with age is hoar, 

Is gone: and now the Wedding-Guest 

Turned to the onion muncher's door. 

He (or she) went like one that hath been stunned, 

And is of sense forlorn: 

A sadder and a wiser man (or woman), 

(S)he suddenly understood the Gaultian norm. (or some such thing here).

And if that isn't enough art, take a squiz at Rowe, celebrating yet another Malware triumph, with more squizzical Rowe here.

In which a late-breaking Devine moment is once again less than divine ...

As part of its bibliographic duties, the pond feels the need to keep track of homophobia as it turns up during the useless and very expensive postal survey commissioned by the clueless Malware ...

There's a particular urgency to this because in the next few days the pond might drop off the intertubes for some considerable time, thanks to Malware, the NBN, Telstra and the whole damn thing ...

Now it goes without saying that the Devine is a fundamentalist homophobic bigot of the first water, and is always particularly and peculiarly waspish in her scribbling ...

The pond should note that the Devine had that poster in question at the top of her column, but the pond refuses to show it, and is all the more pleased it did so because of the egregious error that Ten made (though how wonderful that CBS is trying to, or has snatched, the ailing network from the clutches of the Murdochians).

In any case, the pond is more interested in the kind of fundamentalist institutionalised and very threatening bigotry doing the rounds recently. There were assorted stories ...

That was in the Huff here, but the yarn also turned up in Fairfax here, and at other locations ...

The tykes, and Hart in particular, realised they'd gone a tad too far, and so scurried off to an Akker Dakker at the lizard Oz ...

Out of the mouth of a babe.

There it is in black and white, the Ponzi scheme church admitting that its schools are a place where Catholic propaganda is a prerequisite for teachers ...in much the same way that certain types couldn't get a gig in German schools and universities in the 1930s, or in Russian schools during the time of Stalin ...

As for that "weaken" line, one wag in the comments section wondered why the New Zealand All Blacks hadn't been seriously weakened ... but let's face it, Barners' team is full of manly men who can handle gay marriage (you see, not one sheep joke about Barners!)

The pond immediately reverted to Dr Strangelove and the line about the Commie conspiracy to sap and impurify precious bodily fluids ...

There's something seriously weird about Catholics - especially if you've seen them up close - and "weaken" is a word that gives the clue ... just watch Schepisi's The Devil's Playground and Arthur Dignam getting wobbly at the knees about the boys in the Melbourne baths to see someone "weaken"...

In all this, the pond almost forgot about the Devine ...

Sinister premise?

Only if you're a Devine paranoid.

A threat to your employment is a damn sight more sinister ... 

And then came the first ad ...

That's the reptile splash making it look heroic ...

To read about the homophobic bigotry, the pond preferred to head off to Fairfax here ...

The Coalition for Marriage's debut TV ad, which aired on commercial networks on Tuesday night, links marriage equality to sex education at schools. 
It claims that in countries which have legalised same-sex marriage, "parents have lost their rights to choose", and features an unidentified woman who says her son was told "he could wear a dress" to school. 
The ad, which has been uploaded to YouTube and was authorised by Sophie York of the Marriage Alliance, does not directly address the question of whether same-sex couples should be able to marry. But it features another unidentified woman who claims: "When same-sex marriage passes as law overseas, this type of [school] program becomes widespread and compulsory."
...The ad also drew criticism from the executive director of the Equality Campaign, Tiernan Brady, who labelled it "disgraceful and dishonest". 
"The people behind this ad know that the Australian people are for allowing all Australians the right to marry, so they have resorted to misleading people, to pretend this is about something else," he told Fairfax Media. "Sadly, over the next few weeks, the Australian people will get used to this daily dose of red-herrings and lies, served up by a bucketful of cash. As the no side seek to divide Australians, we will continue to seek to unite them."

Naturally Comrade Bill also turned up to slag off the ad, but the real crime here is that Malware, through incompetence and the pathetic, weasel way he had to introduce his voluntary, very expensive and useless postal survey, currently has no mechanism in place to address outrageous claims and homophobic slurs in advertising ...or to offer any penalties for same ...

Now the pond could link to the ad, but prefers not to.

Running the Devine is more than enough bigotry ... why just including the illustration for the next gobbet is a fine example of bigotry at work ...

Rainbow McCarthyism? Rainbow authoritarianism? And all the rest of the Devine crap?

And she wonders about the bigotry?

Well the Devine did stop short of talking of the SS and fascism, which is her usual Leakian manner ...

But not by much ...and so once again the pond felt the fragrant splash of the essence of Devine ...

For some strange reason, the pond was reminded of the Devine's climate denialism and the Donald, or is that too obvious a segue to a Pope cartoon, with more actually, really divine papery here?

In which the pond endures a luncheon sandwich of nattering "Ned" ...

Of course the pond was teasing when it ran nattering "Ned's" splash, but didn't run the ruminating one's lengthy discourse ...

Of course the pond would pay heed, in due course and after a light lunch, so that the body might be strengthened and the mind made a little sturdier ... 

No matter that any stray reader passing by might run away, perhaps screaming in fright, or at least as white as a ghost at the thought of the marathon to follow ...it was time for the lunch-time treat ...

The pond isn't a big fan of the word, but sometimes something more than pompous empty windbag is needed ... (Hunt it at the dictionary here)

For once, you see, the pond couldn't say "pompous pedant" about nattering "Ned". 

Suddenly the correct use of the word "discover", as opposed to its terra nullius sense, is "ludicrous".

Sure 'privileged senile old fuddy duddy goat who never gives the uppity blacks an inch' might be usefully deployed, but that's starting to take on the windbag quality of a "Ned" line ...

We all know what he's really saying when he hails Cook. He's noting, in a terra nullius way, how absolutely useless and irrelevant the blacks were when it came to the age of Enlightenment and the European colonialists and imperialist ...

This country's British to  its enlightened boot heels and don't you forget it, uppity blacks ...

In short ...

More First Dog here ... but perhaps it's better just to get on with the next "Ned" gobbet ...

What a dreary drone he is, and how he loves to double down. 

Of course in a personal sense, Cook discovered eastern Australia ... for himself. He didn't actually discover it in a general sense. There were people here before Cook who discovered it before he discovered it for himself. And that's the general sense in which the word popped up on the statue. And in that single act, a world view is unveiled ...

But terra nullius runs deep in "Ned", and how funny for the blatherer to blather on about adversarial politics as if it's all the fault of the pesky, uppity blacks ... as if Stan Grant making an obvious point was being adversarial ... as if the innocent Murdochians knew nothing of adversarial behaviour ...

Never mind, First Dog is just a way of breaking up nattering "Ned" before the final gobbet of tedium ...

The day that the pond learns to live with nattering "Ned" is going to be the day they wheel the pond into the crematorium ...

What a condescending irritating presumptuous and insulting old fart he is ...

If that's the way he's going to be, why can't he be like James Morrow in the Terror a few days ago?

Presumably this is the same Morrow who thinks it funny to tweet as the prick with a fork ...and as well as passing himself off as a magnificently querulous gastrophile, claims to be the Terrorist opinion editor ...

You see. It's good old KISS, and Jimbo really does keep the stupid simple and short ...

Anybody who thought Donald Trump was about burying political correctness is a fuckwit of the first water, but at least Jimbo kept it short ...

Now speaking of the Donald, Rowe had another cartoon out and about, with more Rowe here ...

A culture of grievance? Grievance politics? Wretches donning sackcloth and ashes and wailing and sighing and moaning and groaning, and grieving, oh so deeply grieving?

Why nattering "Ned" must be talking about the reptiles, furiously scribbling in their Surry Hills bunker, and who better at grievance politics than the grieving Dame Slap?

Yes, the wheels have turned, and if we step carefully past Dame Washalot, we'll arrive at Dame Slap, at the top of the grieving tree ...

Well the alternative would be to spend quality time with the bromancer howling at the moon, petulantly demanding a system that most likely wouldn't work, but would surely cost a motza. 

Perhaps he has in mind the missile defence system deployed yesterday by Japan and the United States in relation to the North Korean missile that travelled over Japanese air space ... by golly, having all the US military doing exercises really taught the North Koreans a lesson. So it's on with the drums of war ...

But back to Dame Slap, because in its own way, it's astonishing news. 

The diabolical unrepresentative pig swill known as the Senate is ostensibly the main concern of Dame Slap, but the real story is the abjuring of that notorious onion-munching drunk ...

Put it how you will - renounce, foreswear, recant, retract - the Dame puts a few elbows into the onion muncher's noggin along the way ... strange days indeed, most peculiar mama ...

It's easy to see why the lizard Oz sub devised the splash that pointed to Dame Slap's piece. 

If the column had been headed "Abbott and his dysfunctional and arrogant office delivered broken promises and poor leadership", it might have created rioting in the Surry Hills bunker.

What would the notorious onion munching drunk have made of that kind of splash? The welcome mat is still out for him at the lizard Oz, and that would be no way to treat a treasured reactionary bigoted guest ...

There's another story in today's lizard Oz which helps understand why Dame Slap has taken a view on the onion muncher ...

Phew, Cory is still determined to unseat the onion muncher and regain his proper place at the top of the pond's page.

Luckily for the notoriously heavy tippling onion muncher, Dame Slap lightens up on the abuse in the second gobbet, and lashes out at a goodly number of other targets for refusing to adopt her simplistic paranoid climate denialist conspiracy theorist view of the world ...

Dear sweet long absent Jesus, it's come to this. 

The notoriously free swilling onion muncher has reduced Dame Slap to quoting Bertolt Brecht ... as she blames the onion muncher for the breach of trust between politicians and the people ...

Bertolt Brecht!?

So many questions indeed. Has Dame Slap turned pinko revolutionary anarchist alienated commie Marxist socialist? Wasn't there an Ayn Rand quote to hand to cover the situation? Well there's more Brecht poems for her here if she wants more inspiration ...including the one that seems to have sent Dame Slap off on her onion muncher tirade ...

Never mind, speaking of great men, the inspired Rowe recently offered this up, with more Rowe here ...

Whenever the pond sees that weird gnarled figure, it thinks of that poem by Shelley ...