In which the pond puts the onion muncher and dear old Donners on parade ...

(and more papal insights here).

The pond knew it! The pond knew deep in its heart that Barners wasn't properly Tamworth, and like a typical dissembling, disingenuous Kiwi, now he refuses to man up in the way that even a western sandgroping greenie might manage.

Whenever the pond came to the big smoke, the only other likely victim of sheep jokes was a passing Kiwi brutally assaulting vowels ...but there can't be any love lost between abused minorities, and now the Kiwi stands convicted of wilful ignorance and woeful stupidity, and if he had a shred of greenie decency, must resign and re-contest his seat. 

Waiter, please serve the poor deluded pond another chunk of mutton ...

Point of order muh lud, it's all very well to carry on about this when the learned lord high executioners in Canberra will make the decision, and besides this is outside the remit of the pond's brief, which is to observe the reptiles at play ...

Suitably chastened, the pond hastens to add an explanation regarding the way it conducts its business.

Just yesterday it was pointed out to the pond that David Marr had written a lengthy rebuttal of nattering "Ned", and the "Ned" exegesis which had recently graced the pond's pages ...

That can be found at the Graudian here, but it was, from the pond's point of view, done in entirely the wrong spirit.

There's absolutely no point in leading with intelligent debating points and scoring any number of wins by way of logic and reasoned argument.

"Ned" is a senile, bigoted old goat, and just like the Donald in his dotage, is incapable of change. Having an argument with him is like having an argument with your parents. 

That's why the pond prefers to present its reptiles in unvarnished form.

Oh sure the pond might argue a little, clip toenails, shorten the hair, smooth down the scales a little, throw a little wax on the apple so it glistens, when talking the reptiles out for a walk, but the point of the exercise - apart from the exercise of a hearty walk - is that people might peer at the reptiles in their strangeness, and prod and poke and marvel at them.

Arguing with them is a bit like arguing with fundamentalist Daesh of the more fuckwitted kind. Besides, the chances of finding an Islamic, fundie or moderate, in the lizard Oz is a bit like finding a column by Polonius berating Barners for making a simple error and admonishing him the same way he sent the greenies packing ...

No, there's no point bunging on a do, and having a decent old barney out the back of Maguires with Barners, not when a reptile gets a bee in the bonnet, and it buzzes around and around the old noggin', with both Daesh and your average fundie Xian inspired by the buzzing of texts written down by camel and goat (and, let it be said, in Tamworth style) old style sheep herders from long ago ...

There are any number of these reptiles on parade on any given day in Murdochian la la land, such as at the Terror this day...

But the pond is a picker and a sticker. Caroline Marcus is such a dimwitted lightbulb that a South Australian battery could keep her running for years. If she wants to vote no, why doesn't she just say it, instead of trying to blame others for her bigotry?

As for the arm-breaker blathering on about publicity and self-promotion and self-aggrandisement trumping public responsibility - while pimping his way through life on a generous parliamentary pension - the mere notion of it is too silly even for the pond to contemplate ...

And so after this lengthy preamble we come to a firm pond favourite ...good old Donners.

Now the pond won't get into an argument with Donners, who seems in some nervous nelly state of high agitation and alarm, with the persecution complex running deep this day ...

Besides, as well as being paranoid and full of said persecution complex, Donners has the virtue of being short:

What to say? What could possibly be said? Talk about getting David Marr excited.

It's true that the likes of Ireland and Spain are in utter ruin, and this is entirely the fault of gay marriage, but at the same time, poor old Donners starts off by channeling the Fisher of men and the onion muncher, and blathering on about Marxist inspirations, when if ever there was an example of Marxism, it would surely be the way that Catholic churches run cap in hand for government cash in the paw, whether for Ponzi education or charity schemes ...

How does it go? Socialise the costs and you can privatise the parishioners ...

But speaking of the onion muncher, why not go straight to the well of blinkered bigotry, for Abbott, a member of parliament, was yet again out and about helping the business model of the reptiles by putting his views behind a paywall ...

Now the pond can hear much deep sighing.

This part of the civil war is a bit like a defiant plantation owner defiantly explaining why he intends to go on owning slaves ... it's in his nature.

It's possible that David Marr might attempt to sit down and argue patiently with the onion muncher, but the pond knows that arguing with a bigot is an exercise in futility, almost as useless as trying to explain Australian law to a Kiwi when there's a sheep in the vicinity ...

Right there, from the get go, with talk of a "popular vote", there's an argument to be had, since it's not in any way a vote, it's a survey of opinions, and it's not popular, it's arbitrary and voluntary and if it manages to get a fifty per cent response, it still won't prove anything ...

No doubt there are many more arguments to be had, but in the end it all comes down to the reality that the onion muncher is a fundamentalist Catholic bigot, deeply threatened by gays, and clearly with obvious difficulties in his personal life, with an inability to deal with the intimate realities of his family ...

You see? The bigot always attempts to sound reasonable and rational at the beginning, mixed with a little defensive self-justification, while sowing the seeds for doubt and confusion, because apparently we don't know what it might entail, though there's a private member's bill available, that would allow everyone to show what it would entail ...

But there the pond goes again, quite ruining the sport of the proceedings, which is to put the reptiles on parade and admire their glistening scaly skin and rampant hypocrisy ...

Such a simplistic, simpleton bigot, to blame gays for the weakening of marriage, but there, it's done, and the pond has put this reptile on parade, and without benefit of the gold bar that puts a member of parliament's thoughts behind a Murdochian paywall ...

Yes, he gets paid to represent his electorate and put his views out into the world, and instead he panders to the Murdochians, and the pond is forced to ask, "is that what we really want?", when surely we want our reptiles out and about and proud ... because it's not everyday you can read a north shore MP sounding like a Daesh wannabe ...

As for the rest, the pond must also note another curious thing.

Freedom Boy has been downgraded and reduced to being a correspondent to the letters page of the lizard Oz ...

What a fall from grace, and third on the letters page, below a wretch blathering on like an idiot about puppet-masters...as if anyone needed further evidence that addiction to the reptiles could produce rotting of the brain ...(yes, it's a vice like smoking or drinking, this devotion of the reptiles, and more absurd than a cat show).

At the same time, the letters helped explain just why the reptiles keep working on their base. Rather like the Donald's base, there's clearly a good market for unrelenting prejudice and bigotry ...

Undoubtedly David Marr would want to pick a fight with bigot Barron over his use of that 1.5% figure. After all:

It should be a simple question: how many people are homosexual? But, as Roy Morgan Research has found, getting a straight answer is still problematic—and the number just keeps growing. Between 2006 and 2014 Roy Morgan Research asked almost 180,000 Australians (14+) to agree or disagree to the statement, “I consider myself a homosexual”. In 2006-08, around 1 in 42 people (2.4%) agreed. By 2009-11, this had risen to around 1 in 32 (3.1%). And during the latest triennium 2012-2014, the figure was higher again, at around 1 in 29 (3.4%). The proportion of people who say they are homosexual is increasing across all age groups, but inconsistencies remain: 4.6% of Australian teenagers (14-19) now agree they are homosexual (up from 2.9% in 2006-08), rising to a peak of around 1 in 15 people in their 20s (6.5%, up from 4.4% in 2006-08). From there, the rate declines to 4.2% of those in their 30s (up from 2.5%), to 2.8% in their 40s (up from 2.4%), down to less than 1 in 55 people aged 50+ (1.7%, up from 1.3%).

And ...

Michele Levine – CEO, Roy Morgan Research, says: “With the issue of same-sex marriage once again in the spotlight, trying to determine the ‘real’ number of gay people in Australia is pretty irrelevant, except perhaps for politicians wishing to count up potential votes. Whether it’s 1 in 50 or 1 in 15, there isn’t some minimum threshold for what counts as discrimination. 
“However the rising rate across all age groups shows that people who consider themselves homosexual are becoming more open about it, which reflects increasing acceptance across society. “Finding out the ‘real’ number, therefore, is less about getting a head-count and more a gauge of just how open we are. As the Single Source survey continues over the coming decade, perhaps we’ll see the figure steady and flatten across age groups, with the question answered as readily and casually as any about vegetarianism or coupon-clipping.” (here).

Well yes, but try telling that sort of nuanced thing to bigoted reptiles and their readers about the harm done to older gays by their bigotry ...

But there's simply no point in arguing with bigots or those eager to practise discrimination. 

That too quickly and too easily leads to jokes about Kiwis, and the pond won't hear a bad word said about Barners. Sure he's not ridgy-didge Tamworth, but there are only a few who can claim to belong to this immortal Valhalla of the chosen ones ...(smirk, the pond is one, we couldn't score Irish or German citizenship status, though we tried ever so hard).

Just because Barners missed out, should he be treated like a caged cur? 

Shame on you David Rowe, shame and quick, scurry off here for much more shocking Rowe ...

And now the pond disclaims all responsibility for these scurrilous memes involving Photoshop, sent along by a kindly reader concerned reader always willing to share a sheep joke ...