In which somehow the onion muncher still manages to catch the Machiavellian eye ...

Oh dear …

Oh dearie dearie …

Oh lordy lordy … Why the Tony Abbott problem isn't going anywhere …

The growing perception that anything Tony Abbott touches turns to manure has been highlighted by the swift and angry voter response to Liberal leadership chaos.

Manure?

Is there a Rowe in the house?

And there's more Rowe here, but the pond must as always turn to the dear sweet reptiles to see what's afoot, or awreckingball, this day …and things are shaping up nicely …

What news for Caesar from the borders?

And now how goes it with dinkum clean Oz coal, oi, oi, oi?

Same as it ever was, same as it ever was, and lo, the cheeky Kohler splashed about in the herpetarium …

… while the rest of the reptile commentariat carried on regardless …

What's that you say?

Not from the reptiles, not if it means giving up dinkum clean Oz coal, oi, oi, oi …

But enough of the headlines, because the pond for the first time in a long time sat down to watch Four Corners and relished the gore and the entrails, and followed it up with a dose of Media Watch, and was almost replete …

Almost, because a few of the reptiles have also been doing some dunking of the doughnuts … with the oscillating fan out and about yesterday with an invitation the pond found irresistible …

The oscillating fan was rabbiting on about the six per cent solution, when everyone knows it's the seven per cent solution …

Elementary, dear oscillating fan, now what is this six per cent solution you talk about?

Well that was a nice entrée but now for a main course of bitterness, and as it was top of the digital page and blessed with the cult status of a Krygsman, how could the pond resist?

You see, the Caterist had been rushed forward to the Monday to assure everybody that everything was hunky dory, and that left room for Troy to worry about amateur hour and throw in a bit of old Nick ...

The pond loves it when the reptiles talk dirty, and Troy is sounding like a real potty mouth. Fancy dragging in Machiavelli, when all the conspirators had as an advisor was this man …

  

So unfair, but do go on ...

Oh dear, could it be because they spent too much time savouring worldly delights and didn't spend enough time in the classroom reading old Nick?

But enough onion munching for the moment, sock it to them Troy ...

Is there news of one of those geniuses in the house?

Why, the pond recollects that it provided a link above to a piece that ended this way …

Yes, you have to be a real dummy to confess to being a dummy, as if somehow admitting you're a dummy is your salvation for being a dummy ...

Now for dessert, is there an infallible Pope in the house? There is? 

Make it a generous serve, and remind people there's more serves here ...

What's that Nick?

Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared.

The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the special envoys he has around him. 

Oh okay, maybe the pond put in that bit about special envoys. Any last thoughts Nick?

Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a special envoy deceiver will never lack victims for his special envoy deceptions. 

Men rise from one special envoy ambition to another: first, they seek to secure themselves against attack, and then they attack others.