In which the savvy Savva celebrates the fix being in ...

Being deeply conservative, or at least deeply superstitious, the pond has certain rituals it likes to follow.

On a Wednesday night, or on iView a little later, the pond always likes to catch up on the latest comrade Bill zinger, thanks to Micallef ...

Shorten sweet?

There went the odd brain cell, zinged to an early grave. No witty badinage, no wit at all really... though there were also some generous prizes, like the onion muncher's latest award ...

What a winner he is, but following this treat, on a Thursday, the pond's delight is to head off to the savvy Savva as she seeks to excuse the inexcusable, explain the inexplicable and defend the indefensible ...

Now there has been much rumbling already ...

Could the ballooning cost have anything to do with politicians dumping their work on to unsuited government departments?

And how pleasing to see that the Xians are already out and about and on the case.

Of course they're not the only ones ... the best and fairest are also out on the field ...

Team No? Has the nattering onion muncher, devoted to negativity, ever said Yes?

What's interesting is the fatally flawed way that the rule of law has been stepped around ...

Senator Cormann said "the usual laws apply" regarding fraud and mail theft, but acknowledged there would be no legal protections for LGBTI people who fear they will be the victim of a vicious two-month hate campaign. He said questions about inflammatory campaign material were "pre-emptive". "We trust the Australian people," he told ABC's RN Drive. "We certainly call on all Australians [to participate] courteously and respectfully."

Well he hasn't met a fundamentalist Xian in a furious rage in a back laneway, has he? And what about the pond, if, with full courtesy and deep respect, decides to call the cawing Cormann a fuckwit?

Of course much of what happens on the internet stays on the internet ...

But at the same time, there's no doubt that the bigotry and bile freely available in various nooks and fundamentalist crannies will spill out into the mainstream during the campaign. The angry Sydney Anglicans play it hard - how else do you subdue and score your complimentary woman? - and the pond has direct experience of Catholics in a game of hardball, and consequently feels free to reply in kind, as if channeling the spirit of a thugby league boofhead ...

... and there will be no law to stop it ...

Lobbyists on both sides of the marriage equality debate will be free to distribute misleading and deceptive material ahead of the same-sex marriage postal vote, because the usual campaign rules have been discarded. In order to circumvent the Senate, the Turnbull government's optional marriage survey will be conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, meaning the safeguards of the Commonwealth Electoral Act would not apply. Despite that, Fairfax Media understands the government is working with the ABS on a list of regulations that it says will ensure the process is proper, to be released on Monday. However, those would not be underpinned by law. "This is now going to be a matter for the ABS to determine," Acting Special Minister of State Mathias Cormann said on Wednesday night. (here).

But the ABS did so well on the last Census, its actual job ... and who can explain why costs are rising?

And there were other objections. Here's good Prof. George Williams of NSW in Fairfax (the full story is here):

Rush in haste and repent in leisure, the pond's granny used to say between peppermints, so perhaps we should pause for a Rowe cartoon - with more Rowe here - before rushing off to the disingenuous, dissembling Savva, attempting to spin things as best she can ...

And so to the apologetic Savva ...

There's much to admire here - the artful snipe at the consistently inconsistent Malware to prove the breadth of vision and the fairness, and the blaming of Labor for not sorting it out for Malware, and the damned dirty fighting of the shocking gays, surprisingly objecting to being consigned to hellfire for all eternity for their filthy, vile, perverted, sinful ways ...

And then it all ends happily, as we jump ahead to an Xmas/New Year marriage season which will produce a minor economic miracle, at least for those willing to sell cakes to preverts ...

And yet the Savva was only getting going with her premature celebrations ... because the gays need to be out there, fighting on the seas and oceans, fighting on the beaches, on the landing grounds and the fields, in the streets and on the hills ...

... because, well because, it all worked out so well for the republic under General Malware's inspirational leadership, and as for the copper clad NBN, say no more ...

Talk about blithe spirits, but the pond particularly liked the way that the savvy Savva canvassed the field and noted the onion muncher's rubbish arguments and cheered on conservative MPs who have concluded that SSM is now inevitable ...

... except it isn't up to them. 

They tossed the ball over to volunteers who might or might not express a view, and then after these volunteers have done - or haven't done - their duty, come what may, everybody in parliament will be allowed a free vote, with the right to ignore whatever the volunteers might have come up with ...

And there at the end comes the perfect bit of disingenuous, dissembling Savva fixing. She has excused the inexcusable, explained the inexplicable and defended the indefensible ...

It's a far from perfect fix, but a fix all the same, and that worked out terribly well for both the republic and the NBN ...

We've been there before of course ...

But the pond would rather end with a papal insight, with more thoughts from the Pope here ...