This is the last post by the pond for the year, and the pond offers no excuse, except to say that at least the pond lasted longer into the festive season than the ABC …
The reptiles will have to look after themselves until the new year, and if a few soil the nest or make fools of themselves, well, that's the way it works in the Darwin Awards …
The pond wishes everyone who's dropped in, but especially regular correspondents, who respond to reptile musings with exceptional good cheer and a clarity singularly lacking in the reptile world, a merry Xmas, happy holydays, io Saturnalia!, felix dies nativitatis, or whatever else turns you on, and while doing the Molesworth thing, felix sit novas annus! …
The good thing is that hopefully everything in the new year will look up.
The bad thing is that things never look good to nattering "Ned", and the pond has decided that a dose of portentous pomposity is the only right, fit and proper way to bring this year's reptile proceedings to a close …
Beside, that means the final post will be an endless yammering, and a heartfelt dose of handwringing and sackcloth and ashes, and that will give the pond a sense of seriousness that it tends to lack whenever in reptile company …
It might even help the pond's business model, which is to replicate the reptiles' plan, and send stray readers screaming from the room.
Provided they scream in nattering "Ned"'s patented pontifical, pretentious, grandiose and sententious style …
After all, gravitas is needed in these perilous times, which is perhaps why the Murdochians take their cue from the Donald …
That''s the only way to explain the already remarked upon astonishing news from "Ned" that the main parties take different views on some issues of national importance, up there with "one of the wettest we've ever seen from the standpoint of water."
That''s the only way to explain the already remarked upon astonishing news from "Ned" that the main parties take different views on some issues of national importance, up there with "one of the wettest we've ever seen from the standpoint of water."
If that isn't enough reason to jump off a cliff, the pond can't think of any, and instead it has decided to see out the holiday season in Massachusetts … not the American one, you understand, but the deep south, amongst actual - gasp - Victorians, who tend to be just one step away from vile socialist filth.
There'll be a few days in Melbourne, a sort of Boston, if the pond understands what little Johnny was saying, but then there will be days deep in the heartland, where Malware's NBN still don't shine …
Now let us begin at the beguine, blessed by the hallowed Krygsman, with an image that will never date …
Oh heck, a mere ten in the gulag, and never mind the adults, who cares about them, no doubt a bunch of terrorists, except for all the ones noted as refugees …
And there are fresh reptile crusades to run in the new year, and the pond feels like it's at an office party, ready to kick up the heels and celebrate a year of successful crusading, including efforts by the apple that didn't fall too far from the gum tree …
Why that's a mystery up there with transubstantiation, and the pond thanks Crikey for explaining it, but the lesser Kelly's crusader work is never done …
Speaking of the crusade, there was some excellent news, with the bromancer wildly excited …
As everyone now knows, it's predicated on mealy mouthed verbiage and equivocation about peace in the middle east, and as the speaker in tongues knows, as soon as peace comes to the middle east, the rapture is sure to follow …
Sorry, the pond is getting a little-headed and giddy, what a great year 2019 is going to be, at least if the pond makes it out of Massachusetts alive …
And now duty must be done and it's back to nattering "Ned" and the sobbing and the moaning and the hand-wringing ...
Hmm, speaking of religion and the crusades, the pond was reminded something Guy Rundle wrote in Crikey recently …
Usually, the pond leaves Crikey alone, but where's the harm in a bit of mano-a-mano biff and bash for an end of year party?
By golly, the pond remembers Rundle in his wild-eyed gun-slinger Massachusetts glory days reviewing for The Age, as in this celebrated bashing of John Waters reported in The Sunday Age on 11th June 1995 …
Steady, that's just to whet the appetite. He'll get out the axe handle and indulge in a little "Ned" bashing in a minute, but first, please, let the disastrous, appalling, utterly transcendentally bad nattering "Ned" have the floor ...
Okay Guy, you can come out of your cage now …get him, get him good ...
Well the pond promised an end of year spectacular, and as we're in the territory of own goals, it should be noted this is a nattering "Ned" speciality, hidden only by obfuscation and a capacity for bloated rhetoric that would put a puffer fish to shame …watch out, fugu alert ...
He didn't keep on blathering on about religious freedom did he, father of the apple who fell not far from the potato field?
Oh sure, the last couple of pars were hand-wringing about another matter, but the pond felt the need to let loose the Guy kraken again ...and promises faithfully not to breach the Crikey paywall next year, but hey this is the holyday season, and the pond felt the need to break the glass and bung on a do.
Party hard bay staters of the south, even the potato who fell from the apple tree should feel the wrath of the axe handle …
Why that reminds the pond of a recent piece in the NYRB about new Hindu-inspired curriculums in India, currently outside the paywall here …
So the pond could get soup Nazis and Hitler into the conversationI And again ...
Freedom to celebrate the Nazis, the pond says … religious freedom for all.
And so it's back to "Ned", still nattering away in an endless stream of though designed to make Finnegan's Wake feel like a short read …
And what do you know, the inner city 'leets of Surry Hills, so close to the finest baristas in the southern hemisphere, take a very stern view of 'leets ...
Speaking of 'leets, the pond must mention that it fell to poor old hack Ean Higgins to hack out a piece celebrating some dinky di Australians ...
It makes them feel Australian?
Is that a polite way of saying it makes them feel they're delusional?
They are, after all, damned furriners, and pesky ones at that, with globalist interests all over the place.
They are, after all, at least the key players, American citizens, right behind the Donald in wanting to fuck up and fuck over the planet.
The pond always listens to the reptiles, and Dame Groan was right on the 'leet $357k money when she warned the pond about damned globalists, and the need to look after our own ...
Yet here we have these damned globalist furriners swanning back into the country pretending to be Australian, when the sold off their citizenship for a mess of pottage …aka the Donald ...
The pond was almost sobbing at Ean's fine work, and the sense of home and 'leet entitlement, seemingly designed to send Ned into a frenzy about 'leets and Dame Groan into a meltdown about invading furriners conducting progressive purchases.
The thought of 'progressive purchases' made the pond shudder …whatever happened to 'conservative purchases'?
And so to the wrap up, because at last nattering "Ned" was spluttering to a close ...
An ideological conflict?
So that's what the reptiles call the difference between a half-arsed, half-baked idea plucked from somewhere in SloMo's nether regions, and an attempt to produce an integrity commission with some integrity and actual usefulness …on the basis that if you're going to spend a bunch of moola on a lot of lawyers, a little transparency and signs they're actually doing something wouldn't hurt ...
Well, the pond would like to think the year has been fun, and if this effort by "Ned" is any guide, the next year should be even better
What's even better, the pond thinks that, thanks to a US cartoonist, it's hit on an angle to make the reptiles finally fall out of love with dinkum clean Oz coal, oi, oi, oi … and join with the Donald in a new crusade ...
A simple solution for the reptiles: Malware invented climate change! And then?
Meanwhile, one cartoon always seems to beget another, especially as these reptile dilemmas are still likely to be fun in the new year ...
Meanwhile, one cartoon always seems to beget another, especially as these reptile dilemmas are still likely to be fun in the new year ...
Have a good break DP. The reptiles will still be milling around in circles uttering cries of "religious freedom" when you return.
ReplyDeleteI know it's really a proxy argument about the millions of taxpayer dollars going to church run businesses but I cannot see Mr or Mrs Average giving a shit about the issues as presented. Like the SSM no case, the more exposure they get the sillier they look.
Oh - you might want to contrast this with any offering from a conservative politician or commentator.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFkQSGyeCWg
Have good break and stay safe.
ReplyDeleteWhat a jumped up self righteous opinionated snob this creature Kelly is he believes he is the expert on all things political for Australia and can provide the cure for all ailment in politics as long as it fits to Murdoch's vision.
Ned's getting his corset all atwist again: I don't think 'entering a room' was ever a right covered in any anti-discrimination legislation. 'Provision of goods and services', yeah sure, 'employment', yup, pretty sure. But 'entering a room'?
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your festivities, DP, and don't feel you can't occasionally drop in here if the mood so takes you. Massachusettsians are only tolerable up to a point, and the NBN might be fucked, but I'm sure you can find your way around the barriers.
DeleteOf course if we don't hear from you that will mean one of two things: either you really are stuck in a cyber-black hole, or you're enjoying yourself so much you just can't seem to find the time.
Your faithful readers will remain just that into 2019 and hopefully, beyond.
"This is the last post by the pond for the year"
ReplyDeleteAha, so you are truly into Saturnalia this year (which starts tomorrow !). Congratulations for joining the one true ! And have a great one while you're at it.
""Ned"'s patented pontifical, pretentious, grandiose and sententious style ..."
Surely 'pecksniffian' enters into it too, somewhere, DP.
Crikey: "why isn't Seecy voting Liberal because ScoMo is coming in to save religious freedom ?"
Umm, some people, even some with their face on the right side of the coin, just never seem to grasp the practice of preferential voting, do they.
And then we have Ned quoting Morrison: "There is no more fundamental liberty that any human being has than their fundamental right to decide what they believe or not believe."
Ok, so it is the fundamental right of an anti-vaxxer to believe in withholding life-saving vaccinations from their children, and it is the right of Jehovah's Witnesses to believe that withholding life-saving blood transfusions from their children has God's approval.
And it is the right of radical religionists to believe that they have a God (or Allah) approved mission to kill infidels and it is the Morrison asserted right of neo-Nazis to approve of the Holocaust and their right to believe that it should be re-instituted here in Australia.
Oh yeah, freedom of belief is a fundamental right, isn't it.
And now Ned paraphrases Christian Porter: "individuals cannot be turned away from entering a room because of sex, race or disability since this was illegal, but they could be turned away because of their religion."
And I guess most could be "turned away" if their view of sex required public nudity. ha ha.
But I'm personally all in favour of "turning away" those whose religion includes their belief that they are empowered, and indeed commanded, by their deity to kill the infidels. Especially since the class of "infidels" includes me.
So if you want to vote for somebody who wants to open all doors to everybody, even the radicalised, go for it. But don't expect many to agree with you. And while it's on, please ensure that my atheist's right to oppose all manifestations of religion is both protected, and like the religions, tax exempt.
Hi Dorothy,
ReplyDeleteKelly appears to consider corruption in the federal government a ‘third-order problem’ with ‘no evidence of systematic or endemic integrity issues in the federal public sector’.
Strangely this put me in mind of the Utegate (or OzCar) Affair and an annoying loose end that never appeared to raise much interest with either the political class or the media.
Whilst the focus of the press was on the alleged corruption of Wayne Swan and then the later unmasking of Godwin Grech as an email forger and a partisan Liberal agent, the media seemed far less interested in Grech’s email correspondence with Liberal Party bigwigs.
In particular Grech was very cosy with Credit Suisse’s John O’Sullivan (who also happened to be Janet Albrechtsen’s husband at the time). Not only did they discuss ways to improve the fortunes of the Coalition it seemed secret financial deals were also up for grabs;
“John,
FYI for now. Re fees – what I have in mind is that once Rudd and his hacks sign off on Ford Credit – you and I can change the contract to reflect your preferred fee arrangement and push that through quickly next week. I will not be running it past Henry [Secretary to the Treasury] and co.
Godwin 19 March 2009”
Much more here with Arthur Sinodinos putting in an appearance as well;
http://justinian.com.au/archive/love-letters-from-godwin.html
Smells like corruption to me but as Grech was to be declared quite mad and shipped off to an institution the whole matter was conveniently brushed under the carpet.
Enjoy the well deserved break Dorothy and more power to your blog in 2019.
DiddyWrote
"Smells like corruption to me..."
DeleteAh yes but "both sides do it", DW.
"Grech was to be declared quite mad..."
I have to confess that's how it looked to me. The one thing that amused me was that Malware and his mates simply couldn't see that, even right up to the end. But just for historical completeness, I got this from Wikipedia:
"Life after public service
Grech sold his home in Calwell, ACT in 2010. In 2012, Grech made what media described as a "surprise public foray", in which he wrote an opinion piece for The Spectator Australia advocating a Tony Abbott government. He argued in the piece that "Australian governance has deteriorated markedly since the election of the Rudd-Gillard government in November 2007" and commented that chronic leadership instability, spin and incompetence had produced some of the most appalling public policy and administration since Federation in 1901.In 2013, Fairfax Media reported Grech was believed to have won a payout from the federal government for his ill health. Media sought access to case details, but they were deemed confidential and the public was barred from attending court proceedings or accessing court documents."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin_Grech#Life_after_public_service
So there you go, testimony from an expert as to how corrupt the Australian government had become with only The Muncher available to rescue us all.
Eric Partridge wrote, in Usage and abusage, "Gender refers to words; as a synonym for sex it is jocular and archaic."
ReplyDeleteIf he had written "hysterical and archaic", he would be describing the reptiles perfectly. (Yes, I know language changes, but some changes are stupid.)
Have a good one, DP.
Thanks DP, have a lovely break and I look forward to catching you next year. Kelly - I read him, but I must admit these days it's more of an experiment to see how far into his piece I can get while remembering what I've read. Often I get to the end and have absolutely no idea of what I've just read - but we're at Box Hill station and time to get off the train, so time did pass.
ReplyDeleteBe safe, and thanks again.
Yeah, neat point Anony. I find that if I want to comment on Neddy's Nonsense, I have to take notes progressively as I go.
Delete