In which the pond catches up with the Oreo and Moorice and is grateful at the way the new year can start with an intellectual bang as big and as empty as a Sydney fireworks display ... (eat cheese Melbourne)

The pond craves a little indulgence on its return ... 

While it's true that Tuesdays are Caterist day, and the Caterist has bravely slogged through the holyday break like the Australian taxpayer-subsidised trooper he is, the pond simply had to bump the Caterist ...

The pond fancies itself as a reptile repository of record, and the co-joining of a Moorice and an Oreo on a lizard Oz super-Monday was simply too irresistible. What a way to start the year with a bang.

As the pond gazed on Melbourne's pitiful Yarra fireworks display from a high balcony, it realised the importance of an intellectual big bang.

That said, the pond doesn't feel the need to go overboard, and also attend to the thoughts of the rambling ancient person who did so much to break Queensland politics ... 

Ah, but a seasonal summer Oreo, that's an altogether different, scrumptious matter ...

It helps when the Oreo is full of wild accusations, a generous dollop of bigotry and sweeping generalisations ...

Now what would happen if anyone scribbled a piece headed "Enlightenment of little interest of most Donald Trump supporters or readers of The Australian"?

The reptiles would go into a frenzy, and yet a little simple-minded bigotry from the Oreo sails through ...

Out of all this tosh, the pond would just like to suggest the line "The West is losing the battle for universal enlightenment" is worthy of particular study, invoking as it does a single-minded, homogenised (perhaps also pasteurised) capitalised 'West', which is conducting a "battle for universal enlightenment", whatever "universal enlightenment" might mean, though it sounds a little like some latter-day field warrior for Buddhism ...

Oh you cheeky Buddhists, allowing Xians entry to your exalted enlightened status (with more poorly proofed koans here).

Well the Oreo's not going to stand for that sort of condescension, and instead she's going to ban the lot of you from coming in country ...

Oh and she's also going to be a tad selective in her theocracies... it goes without saying that an Israeli theocracy is entirely acceptable ...

It also goes without saying that we should except the fight against Putinism. 

Vlad is a wonderful chap, and he's a tremendous success and his election is going to be spiffing, even if it will be terribly competitive as he goes a full twelve rounds with the gate post (which lacks a little in mobility, but uses splinters in a deadly way), and he gets on terribly well with the Donald and so all's right in the world ...

Indeed, indeed, let a thousand Donalds bloom as bastions to freedom ...

How lucky the world will be if we all elect Donalds as bastions of freedom ...

And so to the Moorice, sounding unusually alarmed, which is odd, because climate science has been proven to be a complete waste of time, and apparently plans are well in hand to round up all climate scientists and force them to recant, in lieu of time in a gulag ...

China is the new deity?

Well they would be that delusional, wouldn't they, with all that talk of taking up the Donald's slack on climate science, and seeking to introduce world order instead of Donald-inspired mayhem, as if they're some kind of replacement for a Donald-shocked world.

No wonder Moorice goes right off the deep end.

A China cargo cult, as opposed to a Donald cargo cult, has to be shocking and terrifying and alarming, when everyone knows that coal is the only true and just and fair and all-powerful old deity in the Moorice cargo cult ...

Indeed, indeed. Moorice astutely recognises that the decision of GMH to relocate the manufacture of Holdens to Kiribati might have a few business model issues, but such considerations don't stop Moorice from dealing with climate science in a few short keyboard flourishes ...

You see, the argument runs something like this. The Chinese are hot to trot in the Pacific region, and are willing to spend up big to increase their spheres of influence ...

The Australian government has handed over a substantial sum of money to Kiribati to support the delusional ramblings of the Kiribati President, who is always blathering on about climate science, when everyone and Moorice knows that it's complete, utter nonsense.

There's no way that Australia should support this delusional, and if China wants to give him money to support his delusions, let it, because Australia won't be conned.

On the other hand, it's mighty peculiar that China is somehow managing to increase its sphere of influence, while some Pacific islands seem to be a little offended by Moorice's well-thought-out dismissal of their incoherent ramblings ...

Look at how Moorice smites the Pacific loons mightily from his lofty intellectual heights ...

How strange that hearts and minds are being won by the Chinese, when everyone knows that Moorice is right to call that Tong a loon.

Still, at the mention of PNG, the pond had to draw a line. Most times, the pond usually sits at the feet of Moorice and listens to his outpourings with humble, grateful awe, but here the pond must chivvy the intellectual giant for just a moment.

Surely the use of PNG has a dumping ground for Australia's refugee problem has been a tremendous success and done much to cultivate a positive relationship between the two countries? 

Hasn't this demonstrated Australia's enormous regard for human rights, and done so in a way that shows absolutely no corruption, and certainly not a larger power exercising its right to buy favourable treatment in an unscrupulous and immoral way?

Sadly Moorice has no time to look at these valid objections and instead races on with talk of de facto colonialism, typical of China, but completely out of the ball park for decent Australians dumping all their problems in PNG, before playing a masterstroke ... a merger with NZ, or perhaps a hostile takeover if the natives turn reluctant ...

Indeed, indeed, and Barners could resume his NZ citizenship and become deputy PM of the new NZOZ, and there might even be an embassy set up in Tamworth by the banks of the mighty Peel, and there is no time to dither when it comes to these sorts of solutions ... and if the Kiwis don't like it, why we must adopt the Oreo solution of a regional war to protect Ozlandia as a bastion of freedom for generations to come ...

Damn it Kiwis, get enlightened, and get to it quickly.

There is no time to dither, no time at all ... after all a signed defence pact with the US is urgently needed, and trust in the Donald to do the right thing is at an all-time high ... and if you don't like it, well, Moorice is a dab hand at hostile takeovers, and we might just send him across to you so that he can spread the good word about the enlightened ways of the Donald ...