In which the pond once again attends nattering "Ned" acting as medium for a war criminal ...

It's been a Trabant sort of week at the pond - thanks to FrankD for the image link - and while in Berlin and heading off to Checkpoint Charlie, who could resist being tempted by Berlin's infamous Trabi Museum ...

Well as a student in the school of Uncle Ebenezer Balfour of Shaws - by golly the pond loves its parritch - the pond flinched and blinked - the current tariff is five euros - and besides, it was possible to spot for free devotees at the wheel of classic examples still trundling around the streets ...

The pond reckons it could sell one of those Trabants to Nick X.

The pond's got nothing against sluts - a label it was rather proud of in its day - but there's really no excuse for being such a stupid and cheap slut, and if Nick X thinks he's helped fix the media's problems in Australia for a $60 mill fob off, he's even sillier than the pond thought he was ...

Before the dirty and pathetically useless deal, the pond thought he was merely a parochial lawyer out of his depth in the big league.

Now he's a clear step below Pauline Hanson, who at least got what she wanted and scored the chance to sink the slipper into the ABC in a fine way ...

Fair and balanced? Wasn't that Fox News until they decided it was too silly and too obviously wrong, and adopted their new slogan?

As for the strugglers trying to provide a little actual diversity, here's one response ...

That's a link to the New Daily's Outcry as 'dirty deal' ushers in new media laws ...

Meanwhile, the lizards of Oz have covertly become as close to being the paper for "no" as they dare ... see how they strutted their stuff today in both the tree killer and the digital editions ...

Yes, the pond reckons Malware's another sucker for a Trabant deal.

Well he bought copper and the multi-nodal way of life and HFC and clean coal and the postal survey, and he got taken to the cleaners by little Johnny on the republic, and he's cruising for a new bruising ...

The pond never pays much mind to war criminals responsible for the devastation of Iraq and the huge turbulence that resulted in what the Poms quaintly call the middle east, but whenever nattering "Ned" decides on a bloviation, the pond is always standing by for the bloviator-at-large ...

Before even clicking, the pond had a fair idea that "Ned" would most likely channel the war criminal, and sure enough ...

Is there an upside to this mystic channeling, which reminds the pond of a bad medium at an event designed to fool Arthur Conan Doyle about the wicked fairies at the bottom of the garden?

Well if you can get past the photo of the war criminal that follows, showing that Dorian Gray was more than a work of fiction, but also a possible reality, the great bloviator runs out of humbug pretty quickly.

Astonishing really, while over at Fairfax yet another story about homophobia and bigotry came to life ...

Here for the full yarn, and - spoiler alert - here's the punch line:

"We feel this decision is absolutely disgraceful and is a disgrace to you and all the church, especially when we have been loyal and valued members of this congregation for 10 years," they wrote. 
"You were made aware from the beginning of our proceedings that we had gay friends and also that people in our wedding party were gay. How could you assume that we would abandon them or degrade them with regards to same-sex marriage? 
"We understand we did agree with the teachings of the church in our marriage counselling but just because we agree with that for our own lives, doesn't mean that we have to push those beliefs onto others." 
The church's decision had caused "a great deal of stress and upset" to both families, the couple wrote.

Well you won't find any of that in the final nattering "Ned" gobbet, just a little more of the fear-mongering and the assorted phobias, and oh that Dorian Gray photo of the war criminal ...

Eerie ... but surely in the market for a Trabant gulf war and a Trabant Fox News ...

Meanwhile, the Daily Terror decided to run with a different angle ...please allow the pond to pick it up a little into the story ...

Now the pond has some fair sympathy for Sherele Moody.

Judging by her Facebook page, here, and her Twitter account here, and her LinkedIn page here, she's just recently joined News Corp and as a parochial journalist away from the reptiles in their 'leet bunker in Surry Hills ... and she's already feeling a little fragile ...

Now the pond has no problem linking to the Sunshine Coast Daily for her story and even offering another clip ... judge not regional folk by what the reptiles do in their inner city 'leet Sydney bunker  ... come on toads, stand defiant against the mob of reptile 'roaches ...

But here's the problem.

As it has for broadband, climate science, renewable energy and sundry other matters, News Corp has been extremely active in the "no" cause - pace nattering "Ned" and little Johnny and any fundamentalist Xian in the neighbourhood of the lizards of Oz or the Terror or the Currish Snail or the Bolter or the Hun or Sky - and if you're part of the organisation, you're actually in the same tent as a bunch of homophobes ... a bit like working for certain rags way back when ...

 

For anyone interested, here, Magnus Hirschfield had the misfortune to be Jewish and homosexual ...

Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935) was a German physician who focused his career on the study of human sexuality. Jewish and homosexual himself, Hirschfeld's personal background played an important role in his scholarly and political pursuits, as well as his ultimate fate. A part of his scientific inquiry was his political struggle to end the legal and social discrimination of homosexuals. To this end Hirschfeld founded the Wissenschaftlich-humanitäre Komitee (Scientific-Humanitarian Committee) on May 14, 1897. This led to a thirty-year campaign to repeal paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code, which designated male homosexuality as a criminal offence...

More at the link, but the punchline? He was declared un-German, or more precisely non-German, kicked out, and died in 1935 ... on the upside, he avoided death in a concentration camp ...

And now?

History upturned, and Moody didn't have to look around at what's been happening thanks to Malware. 

It's been going on for years, thanks to the likes of the Devine and Bill Leak and the heavies who admire them ... with talk of gay fascists and gay fascism tripping off the tongue on a regular basis ... good luck on trying to change that culture of hate.

Gee thanks Nick X...that's just the sort of diversity we need.

Come to think of it, do you want the pond to go into a half-share in a Trabant with you?

Second thoughts, why not just run a Rowe cartoon, with more excellent Rowe here ...