A potpourri in lieu of a Sunday meditation ...

The pond always takes the time to check in with Amanda Meade's Weekly Beast at the Graudian - what an agile reptile handler she is - and what a hoot it was to read Who will fact-check the fact-checkers? Not Andrew Bolt …

The pond gave up on the Murdochian tabloids and the Bolter some time ago, and even though there came to pass a way to access them, the pond just felt an ongoing sense of relief - so that's what it's like not to do a Brian de Palma and send a power drill into the cranium on a daily basis …

But the result of the Bolter's adjustment to his original story was so sublime the pond simply couldn't resist mentioning it …

What a Roman holiday doofus, how hasty and stupid the correction, and how richly comic to see that sign "facts matter" …

And that's why the pond continues to develop a taste for honied mead …

Now, as this is a potpourri in lieu of a Sunday meditation, on  to a more depressing matter.

The reptiles are currently wildly excited by comrade Bill's recent trip of the tongue - bring on Albo, the pond says - but they have been strangely quiet, and gone either doggo or troppo on another matter which would usually have excited at least a few passing libertarians …

How often do the reptiles blather on about Orwellian matters, Star Chambers and the like, and yet Malware's mob are currently embarking on one of the most astonishing abuses of the legal system the country has seen at any time in its history, as a way to continue the outrageous cover-up of a dirty deed done cheap in little Johnny and Lord Downer's time.

A friend of the pond felt so strongly about it they decided they needed to breach the Crikey paywall to spread the news a little further …

Star Chamber trials in private on the specious grounds of national security, when everybody and his dog knows the original caper was to steal assets from the East Timorese, and the reptiles lie doggo, and the pond wondered why, and now there's talk of a 'strange omission' …

The stench from the Augean Murdochian stable grows stronger and stronger …

But this is Sunday, and time to catch up on other matters which exercised the reptiles during the week:

Yes, the pond was lured in, and it was only when it clicked through to the story - yes, folks, there is a way to avoid the reptile paywall - that the pond noticed that the reptiles had assigned a "social affairs" reporter to the case of the onion muncher.

Now the pond has nothing against social affairs, having had a few quite sociable affairs, but it struck the pond as passing strange …the pond could only begin to imagine the conversation that went around the newsroom:

The onion muncher's on the radio again, who's going to do it? Not me, not me, okay Rick you scored the short straw. But why Rick, what on earth could have seen him as a suitable fit?

Of course … who better to write about a homeless lost soul, troubled by his lost piety and his wayward hypocrisy, in search of some kind of religious salvation, and yet still addicted to the drugs of fame and relevance and addle-brained treachery …

Listen to the radio and transcribe the thoughts of the onion muncher?

Well it's a living, and it certainly doesn't dig up that messy business involving the East Timorese and the Star Chamber attempt to cover-up one of the most shameful times in Australia's relationships with its near neighbours…

But as the onion muncher raised his head yet again, the pond realised it hadn't quite mopped up all the matters in relation to the Ramsay centre.

First the pond should pause to admire the diligent Urban, still pounding away on her keyboard on Ramsay matters …

The pond was wandering through Sydney University the other day and was pleased to see recent graduates wandering around on the front lawn in proper gowns and mortars having their pictures taken, and with any number of excited parents wandering around.

A remarkable number were of Asian appearance, though the pond makes no guess as to nationality - they might easily have been from Cabramatta, Haymarket, Chatswood or Northbridge - but even so, a delicious frisson surged through the pond at the thought of Sydney University corrupting the youth of Asia with relativism and leftism and post-modernism …

Some think that the sciences, medicine, engineering and such like don't go there, but let's face it, the Theory of Relativity was the beginning of all this relativism nonsense …

As for the arcane attempts to maintain control of the SRC and its handy stipend, Honi Soit provided a wealth of details on the China lobby. (The paper's online here, though it doesn't quite convey the fun of the lift-out spoof of VC Michael Spenc's pad in Better Honi and Gardens).

Oh and the University is busy ruining the way that the old university buildings present to Victoria park - the pond is a bit Prince Chuck about Victorian architecture - with the ground turned on the Chau Chak Wing Museum …oh there's nothing like a museum as home for post-modernist lefty-ism ...

The pond also saw three nuns in full regalia marching through the grounds - a rare sighting these days - and the thought of these innocents corrupted and defiled by vile post modernist leftist thinking sent another delicious surge through the pond …

And in the circular way of things, naturally that encounter with Catholicism brought up the matter of the onion muncher again.

Here the pond has a sacred duty … to cover as much of the Ramsay matter in the lizard Oz as it can, so that it might be treasured as the Ramsay matter of reptile record …

Good old onion muncher. The pond wanted to highlight that gobbet, but it was part of a larger letter that the ANU folk sent to the reptiles, available at the ANU site here … and it ended this way …

And here the pond must do an Alice, because the thing that got the good profs agitated wasn't just all the disagreements they listed in their letter, but the reptile editorialist him, her or itself …

The pond should now run that reptile editorial … which it has to be said, with regard to the facts, is very Bolterish …

Oh that deserves at least a little excerpt as a right of rebuttal in a public forum, a bit more than is being offered by Malware's mob with its Star Chamber routine designed to hide some of the more egregious behaviour of the federal government in many a decade …

And now just to confirm the pond's status as the site for Ramsay centre gobbets, prattling Polonius was also out and about with a word or two on the subject …

Our man Polonius is a bit of a closet Trumpist and has always taken a dire view of the US studies centre - Fairfax the days of Switzer here before he headed off to suck on the teat of the ABC, having lost his chance to suck on the academic teat - but his agitation about Haines made the pond wonder how long the good prof had before he either (a) did a deal, or (b) headed back to Honkers …

It took the pond an inordinate amount of time to track down the Jordan Baker story, which was dated 22nd June 2018 and is online under the header The unenviable task ahead for Ramsay Centre boss Simon Haines …

The pond, of course, doesn't cover the Fairfaxians - the glory days are long gone since the days the magic water man ruled the roost - but here's Haines' thought crime …

Professor Haines won't say what went wrong in the talks, or why they broke down. He won't reveal whether he was surprised. But he does admit to being disappointed. "I am an academic, I have been an ANU academic, I would not have ever tried to introduce a course where I thought academic autonomy would be compromised," he says. Abbott didn't speak on behalf of the board when he wrote the article, says Haines, and was "mistaken" when he said the centre would decide on staff and curriculum. But he agrees Abbott's comments didn't help. "I realise that that article scared people at ANU and elsewhere and I wish that it hadn't." 
While the Ramsay Centre itself was in favour of Western civilisation - its remit was to promote community awareness - "that doesn't mean that the degree is like that", says Haines. "The degree is not meant to create a bunch of students that are triumphalist about how wonderful the West is. It's intended to give them a chance to read these wonderful books."

By golly, talk about a hanging offence, talk about a thought crime. The ANU might say that the onion muncher's comments didn't help, but woe to anyone else with the slightest interest in the real world. Off to the Star Chamber with him …

Naturally Polonius's laser-sharp mind turned to the biggest, most crucial matter in the entire report ...

No tip! 

Why the talk of a Crisis in Western Civilisation is spot-on. 

And how fitting that Polonius should play the role of Marie Antoinette. Yes, the notion of paying restaurant workers decent wages and penalty rates doesn't suit your average smug ponce, the ones that love to show their munificence and magnificence by generously doling out tips to the lumpenproletariat …no doubt our man Polonius is a generous tipper at Rockpool, just to show he's at one with the immigrant workers…

What a portentous, pompous old humbug he is … and now, this being something of a mixed feast, here's the Pope celebrating Malware's Star Chambers mob … with more papal reflections here ...