In which dashing Donners dashes in to win pole position for Xmas ...

Okay, the pond realises it announced that it had shut down for Xmas, done all the obligatory well-wishing and hit the road for Melbourne, and left any stray passer-by with the spectacle of nattering "Ned", and that should have been the end of it all until the New Year, given that the pond is heading to a place where broadband remains but a delusional dream ...

But then along came Kevin scribbling for the Terrorists ...

How could the pond leave dashing Donners out in the cold? 

How could the pond ignore his urgent Xmas message, spreading joy for winners, and excoriating dropkick losers, failures and tossers who should be taken to the dump, along with the rest of the Xmas wrapping paper ...

No point in recycling failures ...this is a scribbler who is all in for winners and winning ...

Indeed, indeed, a most excellent set of points, and lets hope that Donners is deeply satisfied by his hagiographic portrait - such a serious suit. Talk about a solemn-looking winner.

Let us have no room for losers!

Donners' message is vitally important, especially at this time of year when the mug punters are out and about celebrating a refugee loser and delusional dropkick turning up and begging for space at the inn, and sensibly being sent off to the stables where losers and dropkicks should go ...

Xianity is all about winning, and getting filthy rich, and the pond is deeply aware that there was at one point a dangerous tendency towards socialism, with some even asserting that Christ was a socialist and citing this sort of heretical thinking, to be found in Luke:

Outrageous, shocking stuff ...

What about meritocracy and competition? What about the 'leets? Sure the reptiles are always banging on about dangerous 'leets in Canberra or wherever, but we need the 'leets.

Let's face it, without dropkicks, losers and tossers, demeaned and humiliated and destined to a lifetime of loserdom, how would we fill all the jails?

Having a decent supply of losers is an important aspect of this vital industry.

As for the churches, if there wasn't an abundance of losers, dropkicks and failures, why their charities might fall on hard times, and then where would we be? It's important for the Ponzi scheme aspect of church activities that churches be hired by government to tend to all the losers and dropkicks. Losers keep the cash flowing through the church door.

And surely the best way to keep a constant supply of losers and dropkicks is to identify them, preferably in preschool, and thereafter, track them through primary school, and make them aware that they're dropkicks and losers, eternally likely to fail.

Give 'em the mark of Cain early, the pond says, so that crime in the streets might flourish, the jails fill to overflowing and the churches be forced to deal with the homeless crisis like it's rush hour in King street ...

And it goes without saying that the best educational system to take care of this sorting and grading and tossing aside is the private one, with centuries of privilege, exclusiveness and exclusion as a guide ...

Now around this point the pond should confess that dashing Donners' thoughts were illustrated by two Jungian library snaps, rich in their archetypal significance. 

Wishing to convey the whole scintillating Donners experience, this is what Terror readers saw ...

 

Indeed, indeed, girlies and Asians ... can a direr threat to the heroic Anglo-Celtic male be possibly imagined?

But why this talk of Anglo-Celtic? Well as always, it's uppermost in dashing Donners' mind ...

Yes, the Anglo-Celts are dropkicks and losers and might even suffer from anxiety, nerves or depression, and serve them bloody well right ...

Once upon a time, there was the Opium Wars and the British Raj, and all was right in the world, and now these bloody upstart losers are ruining things by winning...

Well it's off to prison for the loser Anglo-Celts, or possibly a meal and a bed in a charitable home, though if the pond had its way, they'd be kicked out of Martin place for being unsightly and sent packing for daring to put up a home under the light rail viaduct in Wentworth Park ...

Think of all this as you tuck in to your Xmas pud ... and remember if a sparrow turns up looking for a hand out, make sure to set the cat on the cheeky bugger ...

Now speaking of losers and dropkicks, here's a last little bit of Xmas cheer, because who knows, any old dropkick and loser could someday become President ...

... or might even run for the Senate ... before joining the loser toys ...

In which the pond signs off for Xmas with a serve of "Ned" ...

First, a merry or a happy Xmas, or if you will, happy holydays, in anticipation of a splendid Chinese new year. Perhaps a war with North Korea, perhaps the big crash? Whatever, something to look forward to ...

What's that you say? Using the 'X' means the pond is back to conducting its annual war on Xmas?

Only if you're one of those foolish Xians purporting to be a believer but completely unaware of your religion (you do realise you eat real flesh and drink real blood at communion in the Catholic church?).

Please, do a Greg Hunt here for the footnotes...

Xmas is a common abbreviation of the word Christmas. It is sometimes pronounced /ˈɛksməs/, but Xmas, and variants such as Xtemass, originated as handwriting abbreviations for the typical pronunciation /ˈkrɪsməs/. The "X" comes from the Greek letter Chi, which is the first letter of the Greek word Χριστός, which in English is "Christ". The "-mas" part is from the Latin-derived Old English word for Mass.
There is a common misconception that the word Xmas stems from a secular attempt to remove the religious tradition from Christmas by taking the "Christ" out of "Christmas", but its use dates back to the 16th century.

Not that the pond minds a war on Xmas and pagan Santa Claus and superstitious pine trees and sugar-laden Coca-cola all the rest of it, but who can be bothered?

Oh to travel ... that will resonate a little later on ...

Second, the pond is doing something much more serious, taking a break from the reptiles for the holyday season.

This plunged the pond into an existential crisis. While the unthinking reptiles won't mind - all they care about is the next meal - how will the pond cope?

What if someone turned up over the break, and saw the last post? Would it have the necessary level of fruitiness and nuttiness usually associated with a reptile deep into the Xmas pud and the Xmas cake?

What a lack of faith the pond has in the lizards of Oz. Inspired by the long absent lord, they will provide, and She provided a ripper which can stand tall for the next couple of weeks.

Come on down nattering "Ned" ...

Oh it was a tough call, between Moorice and "Ned", but at the end of the day the pond just had to go with the man who would ensure a very quiet time on the pond.

Imagine landing on the pond on Boxing Day and still seeing "Ned" up in pride of place.

What a way to ensure this transient shouts "fuck it, nothing to see here, I'm fucking out of here forever ..."

It had all the hallmarks of the very best work of a portentous, pompous prat regularly given the job of shouting at the clouds ...

Green shoots?

PM Malware: nattering "Ned" do you agree with Peter, or do you think that we can stimulate growth through temporary incentives? [Long pause] 
Nattering "Ned": As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden. 
PM Malware: In the garden. 
Nattering "Ned": Yes. In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again. 
PM Malware: Spring and summer. 
Nattering "Ned": Yes. 
PM Malware: Then fall and winter. 
Nattering "Ned": Yes. 
Mutton Dutton: I think what our insightful old codger is saying is that we welcome the inevitable seasons of nature, but we're upset by the seasons of our economy. 
Nattering "Ned": Yes! There will be growth in the spring! 
Mutton Dutton: Hmm! 
Nattering "Ned": Hmm! 
PM Malware: Hmm. Well,  nattering "Ned", I must admit that is one of the most refreshing and optimistic statements I've heard in a very, very long time. [the mutton Dutton applauds] ... I admire your good, solid sense. That's precisely what we lack in Canberra. Have you thought of coming down to Canberra to bore the socks off our bureaucrats in an agile and innovative environment?

It has to be said that the pond itself got stuck right at the get go, with "Ned's" opening line about the Donald's tax cuts ...

Of course "Ned" was only warming up ... there's much more to come ...

By now the pond was well and truly nodding off. If this is a business plan for tedium and ennui, the lizards of Oz routinely succeed beyond their wildest dreams.

The pond felt the need of a TT to summarise the year a little more succinctly, with more TT here ...

The shift to the NBN surely sucked, but nattering "Ned" still goes on with the hand-wringing and takes to talking about "values" ...

Values? Suddenly we're worried about the alienation of people clinging to One Nation? Suddenly Hansonite values are something to care about?

What about a working broadband system, ruined by the onion muncher, and Malware, and cheered on by the lizards of Oz?

Never mind,  given that wringing of hands about the Hansonites and the deep north, the pond can't resist adding an oddity featured in this day's reptile rag ...

Actually if the pond might be so bold, white supremacist mindsets thrive on links to the United States, the Donald and the chairman, and you happen to be scribbling for a rag that is part of a deep state connection to that weird mindset ...

But do go on ...

Actually the chairman, Fox News, News Corp and the reptiles follow a fearless leader who will lead us all to a new world ...

Up against these weirdos, Pauline Hanson looks and sounds a bit like a Sarah Palin wandering in from the latest Alaskan domestic ...

Call the pond alarmist, but when an academic writes for a right-wing newspaper with explicit planks against multiculturalism, Muslim religious practices, climate science, JJJ and Australia Day, and regularly stands for bigotry and homophobia and other decent Xian values, and even has a nattering "Ned" endlessly blathering on about "values", code for the joys of luddite thinking of the creationist kind, the pond thinks it's time to start worrying ...

Or perhaps to just forget it all, and hop on a plane like gorgeous George and escape to a brighter future ... though it has to be said that both David Rowe and David Pope on an almost daily basis heroically offered the pond the hope that the light at the end of the tunnel wasn't just a plane flying exceptionally low ... (with more infallible papery to be found here) ...

They won't read this, but they truly do deserve a rich Xmas and an elegant New Year, even if the pond fervently hopes they find nothing to amuse them for the entirety of the next year. There's only so much excitement the pond can take ...

In which the pond does its best to console Moorice, the world's greatest climate scientist and stout-hearted representative of the lumpenproletariat...

Oh dear, there was the wicked ABC cardigan wearers talking of extreme weather events again - it seems there was a little hail in Melbourne and now Sydney is about to burn ... and Fairfax were at it too ...

Yet over in reptile land, valiant Lloydie was briefly top of the page, ma ... top of the page ...

Actually a new study suggests that anyone wanting to create dissembling confusion should send their study to Lloydie, provided that the study allows good old studious Lloydie to expand his cloud of doubt, uncertainty and fear about climate science ...

But mention climate science, and there's always relief at hand ... because today by the sheerest good luck at the lizard Oz is Moorice day, long celebrated as one of the world's tippy top climate scientists ...

Good old Morry, always ready to flail away at Canberra ... what a valiant, diligent battler for the workers he is.

Why, when he turned up every so often to pocket a handsome stipend as chair of the ABC, his first thought was always for the lumpenproletariat ... he was certainly no Canberra insider enjoying the fruits of collaborating in quisling style with those fiendish, deplorable politicians he so despises on behalf of suffering punters everywhere ...

Any passing innocent who read all this might imagine that Moorice is down to his last crust, living on struggle street, close kissing cousin to Charlie Chaplin's tramp - though to be fair to Chaplin, his tramp always had a winsome smile and enjoyed a bit of slapstick ...

But then Moorice has always been an outsider, a man who disdained politicians and the political process, a man of unimpeachable integrity who never once used politicians to enhance his own prestige or position or wealth in the world.

It's true some impressionable folk might gain the notion that Moorice's late-breaking bitterness about politics, politicians and Canberrans could derive from sundry controversies in Moorice's past ...

Yes, once upon a time Moorice himself was part of the Canberra 'leet, heading off to help the onion muncher run the country, and liking the job so well he found it very hard to give it up, and was startled to discover he really had been moved along ...

Some thought Moorice's unwillingness to admit he'd been let go was a sign of deep delusion, but the pond merely thought it was yet another manifestation of his deep devotion to the lumpenproletariat, and what a sad day for Canberra and the nation when it transpired he really had been shafted ...

Oh always with the UN world government and black helicopters, as if Moorice's rigorous climate science hadn't led him to discover the truth.

The pond must insist that Moorice was always an outsider, never accepted, unable to score a break, as recorded by Fairfax here ...

Newman fitted right in to Bain, which was then one of the most innovative brokerages in Australia - the first to sell its research to clients, and the first to advertise on TV. Newman spearheaded the firm's push into Asia, and he also began courting Canberra, often taking Jim Bain with him. "We'd call on the PM's department and Treasury, seeing the public servants, getting to know them," Bain says. "That's one reason Maurice got all the jobs later." 
Schmoozing is second nature to Newman. "Every cocktail party, every dinner, every lunch, he's there, handing out his card," says a Liberal power broker. In 1987, he attended a $200-a-head Labor Party fundraiser at the Wentworth Ballroom, where he had himself seated next to the then Treasurer, Paul Keating. Later he would host Keating in Bain's office in Tokyo for a luncheon speech to Japanese investors. With Newman as executive chairman, Bain became a money-making machine, with record profits and $100,000 bonuses. Newspapers took to drawing him with dollar signs in his eyes. 

And so on, leading some to ask Maurice Newman: mad, bad or sad?

But what an excellent position from which to lecture everyone else about hypocrisy ...

Ah, the Donald and draining the swamp and a careerist bemoaning careerists ...

If that isn't a reason for Xmas cheer, the pond can't imagine one ...

And so to a little fuss in the deep north ...

Not rambling spew man?

The pond was immediately intrigued. There's nothing like a theological dispute and accusations of heresy to hook the pond ...

It's an Xmas cleansing ... everything must go ...

While the pond is at it, here's an angle for the NT News ...

But wait, the hunt for heretics isn't quite finished ...

Is there a rich irony in all this?

There's the reptiles always blathering about 18C and freedom of speech and the right to be free and forthright being blocked by wicked secularists or teh gaze, and what do you know, if you sign on to the LNP you're forbidden to say boo to a goose ... or in the case of the rambling spew man, of a goose now unable to say boo for the lizard Oz ...

Physician, heal thy censorious self ...

Never mind, it seems that even at Xmas time, the comedy never ends, while the mouse in the house can dine on the crumbs of a failing, flailing empire still spreading fake news to the world ...

In which the pond endures the Caterists and wonders if it will ever score some Xmas cash in the paw ...

The pond had to summon up the last of its seasonal strength to deal with the Caterists this day ...

Is there any more offensive sight than a Caterist, sucking on the taxpayer teat and in full gloat mode ... and blessed with the most dire attempt at humour, with that joke about selling short at the top of the piece ...

Is there anything more problematic than the notion that the reptiles, or more specifically the Caterists, have a sensa huma?

Of course if the pond had wanted to puncture the Caterist hubris, all it had to do was holler for a Bolter ... scribbling furiously a few days ago, and still saturated with a rich, ripe, deep fear and loathing of Malware ...

Before the Bolter got into all that doom and gloom, he did do the obligatory swipes at Comrade Bill, but he ended with that talk of Malware's government being on the wrong end of a swing that threatens to destroy it.

At such moments, Malware has need of a fawning lickspittle sucking on the taxpayer teat while never wondering at the hypocrisy involved in such a feat.

Come on down Caterists ...

Now anybody who has seen the dullard Caterist on television ruining The Drum will appreciate to the full his joke about robotic presentations ....only a drone of the first water could be so unaware of his capacity to produce a hypnotic state within moments of opening his mouth and flapping it like a bottom-feeding catfish scouring the Peel river mud.

And it takes a peculiarly rich imagination to crow about the way that millennials have an attitude problem with the government.

What on earth are the millennials going to do, except inherit the earth and the government, as the angry old demographic in the lizard Oz fade off into the clouds they shouted at for so long?

But sill the Caterists clutch at the over 55s, while blathering about the national interest ... when we all know what he really means by that ... the Caterist interest in cash in the paw ...

What's even more bizarre is that the Caterist, always with a wonky sense of Australian history - of the kind displayed by those not on hand to observe events as they unfold - suddenly desires to seize on Arthur Calwell ...

It should go without saying that Calwell was a racist ...even the Chairman's old rag way back when took a view ...

This isn't surprising. A complacent sense of British superiority ran through Australia, with the only perturbation arising whenever the Poms mocked the colonials ...

This wasn't a party thing, it was just a natural Kipling sense of the way things were ...

Naturally the immortal hang man Henry Bolte took up the Calwell chant, as noted here at Trove (why has Malware ruined Trove's funding?):

He (Bolte) had, however, absolute and Neanderthal views on other subjects. On racism he had this to say: "How about America? The Americans were within an ace of having a black as a President. It was bloody close, a lot closer than the general public know, I can tell you. There were top men making deals all over the place for the black vote. Arthur Calwell put it best when he said: 'Two Wongs don't make a white.' The same goes for two Watusis or two West Indians."

Well yes, but Henry Bolte isn't much mentioned in polite Menzies Research Centre circles these days ... though one can only admire the Caterist capacity of studying things through the wrong end of the telescope ...

Such a stupid man ...

Uh huh ... would they have any connection with a muddle-minded, middle class, petit-bourgeois, status- and grant-seeking Menzies Research Centre?

Clearly, as the Caterists demonstrate so ably, there's nothing wrong with being aspirational middle class and holding out the paws for a little cash ...

When the pond last checked, if the alternative is filling the paws with pick and shovel and doing some hard yakka in the noon-day sun, who wouldn't want to abandon common sense and score a little of the readies by making proper application to the Department of Finance, as a way of clearing the decks and scribbling about 18C, while apparently overlooking the way that the current government has had a chance to do something about it - if it's so offensive - ever since the onion muncher came to power back in September 2013 ...

Over four years, and for all the rabid talk of pernicious legislation, the onion muncher ducked it, and so has Malware's mob ...

And why? Perhaps because no one except the Caterists and the lizards of Oz give a flying fuck up against the need to make a living ... as not so many others can trot off to the government, hold out the paw for a grant, and score ...

And yet that most bourgeois of boring minds, the Caterist in all flight, somehow imagines it shares an affinity with the workers ...

Speaking of tight arsed government behaviour with all but their mates and their Menzies Resource Centre buddies, that brings the pond to another matter, ably illustrated by the Pope of the day ...

For those not up to speed, it might help to read this ABC story about university funding frozen before relishing the full richness of the Pope's jolly jape (and naturally there's more papery here):