In which the Caterist and the Oreo make the pond feel the new year is the same as the old ...

Steady, settle.

The pond has no intention of paying attention to the Graudian's EXCLUSIVE here … it's just that every so often, especially in a new year, the pond lives a rich fantasy life about an actual reptile - any actual reptile - dropping in on the pond.

What fun to greet them with a visual mind fuck, what fun to feature an EXCLUSIVE from an alternative universe …

The pond knows such alternative universes exist. A kind reader sent in a link to a piece by Bret Stephens in the NY Times, What Have the Elites Ever Done for Fox? With apologies to the People's Front of Judea …

Bret Stephens?! As if …

And yet the pond confesses that it enjoyed the read, with a fine old list of what the 'leets had done for Fox, including but not limited to financing and deregulation …

TUCKER: All right, but apart from capital financing, deregulation, access to global markets, a stable and predictable regulatory and legal environment, I.R.A.s and 401(k)’s, talented immigrants, global cities, good food, universities that are the envy of the world, record-making growth and a world in which there’s almost no chance of my children being conscripted to fight a war, what else have the elites done for us? 
PRODUCER 5: MSNBC’s ratings beat ours the other week for the first time in 18 years. 
TUCKER: My point!

Meanwhile, the slow learners enjoying the baristas of Surry Hills remain slow learners, and are still embedded in assorted culture wars …

Caterist day already?

Well we don't have to ask what the 'leets have done for the Caterists. They did it last year and the year before that, and likely will do it again this year …

Ah, those wicked Canberra 'leets, and now, as the Caterist has been blessed with a cult Lobbecke, looking even more weirdly cellphone than usual, it's on with the read ...

Somehow, that reminded the pond of another bit of Stephens' Python rip …

PRODUCER 3: Tech. 

TUCKER: Well, obviously tech. Goes without saying, doesn’t it? I mean, Sean here wasn’t exactly the comp-sci genius of his high-school class, was he? But apart from financing, deregulation, and technology. … 

PRODUCER 4: Global markets for our products. 

PRODUCER 5: Capital markets for our retirement accounts. 

PRODUCER 6: Stable and predictable legal and regulatory environments.

TUCKER: Yeah, yeah, all right. Fair enough. 

PRODUCER 7: Immigrants. 
TUCKER: Immigrants?! 
PRODUCER 7: William Lewis, the C.E.O. of Dow Jones, is English. Also Gerry Baker, the former editor of The Wall Street Journal. And Peter Rice, the 21st Century Fox president, now going to Disney. Robert Thomson, the C.E.O. of News Corp., is from Australia, along with Col Allan, the former editor of The New York Post. Rupert, too, obviously. 
TUCKER: Yeah, well, it’s not like they’re Hondurans or something. 
Australians aren’t a bunch of criminals. 

Embarrassed silence.

Well, it's not like the Caterist is from Honduras or something, or even China. Isn't he from England? The English surely aren't an imperialistic, colonial-mindset inclined bunch likely to send people to a distant land on prison ships, are they?

The thing the pond dislikes most about the reptiles and their walled garden approach is the way that they refuse to provide links.

It wouldn't have been so hard to provide a link to the people behind the Australian Population Research Institute here, or to their November 2018 report, pdf here, or their follow up report, also as a pdf here ...

Better to read the originals than read the Caterist recycling …

Indeed, indeed, and all western business leaders have shown admirable restraint by boycotting the Chinese economy …

Star's five satellite channels can be seen in 38 nations in Asia and the Middle East -- from Tokyo to Tel Aviv, from Mongolia to Malaysia, and all of China and India -- and can reach, by Star's estimate, 45 million people who have the necessary equipment. Hong Kong-based Star, Mr. Murdoch's most important acquisition since his debt-restructuring crisis in 1990, completes the arc of a Murdoch television empire that also includes Fox Broadcasting in the United States and half-ownership in British Sky Broadcasting, the largest satellite service in Europe. A Vast Asian Market Mr. Murdoch's willingness to risk half a billion dollars for a controlling stake in a two-year-old television service that has not turned a profit, and may not anytime soon, underscores the excitement in broadcasting circles about the possibilities of pan-Asian television. Continue reading the main story Advertisement Continue reading the main story "The potential in Asia is enormous," Mr. Murdoch said in announcing the deal for his News Corporation to buy 63.6 percent of Hutchvision Ltd., the parent company of Star. Hutchvision was founded by Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. and the family of the Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing.

Ah, the glory days, in the NY Times back in August 1993 here. 

Didn't work out, fell on hard times?

Embarrassed silence?

Never mind, it's natural for criminal Australians to consort with awful regimes - after all, they'd give away their citizenship for a few dollars more. And there are others always ready to follow such exemplary examples - here, have a complimentary tie …

 

And so to a final word from the leets, and the revelation of what this was all actually about …

The Ramsay centre!

Yep, the grievance and the suffering run deep and run long and run hard …

Ah poor Ramsay centre. The Chinese are allowed to fuck tertiary education, but not the Poms and their wondrous western civilisation. It's just not fair, this suffering of the 'leets ...

As always, the pond likes to check on sources, and that Chinese proverb sounded wonderful and intriguing. 

Just don't try to google it in the form provided by the Caterists …

As the Pythons say, before you read the 'leets, first think of the source, and then ask what the 'leets have done for you this week …

And so to the Oreo of the day …

Now seasonal folk will probably already have received their Oreo treat for the year …

Yes, back in November 2018, Oreo released a mini record player that would play actual music from a cookie, or so it said here …with copious links to prove the point.

But the pond has no need for such gimmicks, not when the Oreo is out and about in the new year, and singing for her non-feminist supper ...

Speaking of skeletons in individual closets, it was thanks to a reader last year that the pond learned that at one point in the early days, the Oreo ran with feminists …

It's still raw in the pond's mind …

  

The pond only heads back to the old days for the punchline that it provides to the Oreo's piece this day ...

Now it might seem that there were closer targets to home that deserved the Oreo's attention …

 

Funny how the reptiles cultivated the far right and climate science denialism and all the rest of it, and now, when the southern trees bear strange fruit, blood on the leaves and blood at the root, they get their knickers in a knot ...

Never mind, back to the Oreo.

The pond doesn't want to go all Freudian about this, but there seems to be something deeply obsessive about the Oreo's focus on ancient feminists and leftists...

Yes, yes, but now we must get the but, billy goat, butt moment, and the Oreo explaining that everyone did it, so what's the beef, and then the closing line which entranced the pond and made it all seem worthwhile ...

Talk about a killer closer ...

… because 21st-century feminism is no place for equality?!

Well the pond will have to leave it all to the Freudians. 

It looks like a bottomless pit of personal angst, and it's above the pond's pay grade to go there.

It seems something deep and dark went wrong for the Oreo and feminism, and readers of the lizard Oz must keep suffering for it each Monday …and meanwhile, right here, right now, Fraser Anning keeps doing his thing for equality ...

Phew, what a relief that's over.

The pond can't work out whether the new year sounding just like the old year is a good thing, but as the pond began with the Graudian, how about closing with a reminder that there's much fun to be had observing the English all in a tizz, with this cartoon evoking the latest bout of grand comedy …(here). 

Remember there's always treasure to be plucked from disaster ...