In which the pond downs tools …

Actually there’s a pretty good case for being a quitter, especially if the comparison’s to a dickhead, dropkick, narcissist, relentlessly egotistical, remarkably negative, id-driven, tone-deaf, sniping, wrecking and undermining loser … who doesn’t know when to leave, and is always the last one at the party braying at something or other in his usual gibbering, righteous way … and so eventually has to be evicted, and tossed out into the street, and yet somehow, unimaginably, still manages to see this as some kind of triumph, and promises to hang around even more …

The pond wished it could be as comprehensively up itself as the onion muncher, but now he will endure at the pond as a reminder of the power of delusion … for sadly, at least for itself, though possibly not others, as noted through the past week, the pond has decided to down tools …before it too drifts completely into onion muncher irrelevance …

The poodle gone, the asbestos woman gone, and now the onion muncher … and many others, including Lord Downer's spawn … and it was time for the pond to go too.

All that said, the main reason is a deep sense of boredom, tedium and ennui …

The pond is so over the reptiles, in much the same way that the country seems completely over any claims of accuracy in relation to the lizard Oz’s Newspoll.

How they can return to reporting that poll with a straight face will take all of the reptiles' insouciant cheek and capacity for stupidity ...

The pond at first tried to cope with the sensory overload of alienation.

First the pond cut out the Terror, and the likes of little Timmie and the Devine and Akker Dakker, and the Bolter, and discovered it didn't miss them at all. So that was what it was like to stop beating your head with a hammer?

Thankfully the pond never had to endure the parrot …

What to make of him turning up looking so gay in his mashed avocado jacket, and rabbiting on about climate science, with everyone else on the panel looking embarrassed, and realising that they’d actually invited the mad uncle down from the attic to spice up the night?

But while cutting back on the reptile diet helped, the lizard Oz itself is just more of the same tabloid Murdochian drivel, though perhaps dressed up with more pomposity and self-regard and sense of self-importance. Could anyone, apart from the onion muncher, be more up themselves than Major Mitchell or nattering "Ned"?

The pond looked forward and could see only more endless repetition, whether it was the reptiles berating comrade Bill or celebrating SloMo.

As it turned out, there’ll be more berating of someone other than comrade Bill - the pond can claim it warned the Labor party of Bill’s lack of appeal, but the pond’s not in the party, and the few party members the pond has encountered have never shown any interest in listening to the pond. (Still, a few scores in the extended family feud have at last been settled).

Now Albo, even if he scores a chance, has likely already missed his chance. He didn't have the ticker when it mattered, and the image of a Marrickville 'Bomber Beazley' haunts the pond.

Once again the party has managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and the pond never underestimates its capacity to keep on with this miraculous strategy.

Of course things will happen in the future that will be of interest. But the pond realised with dread, that whatever the events of the day that precipitated a story, for the next three years, the pond could already predict the response from every reptile, the familiar angles and the rote learning of lines, and the concatenation arising from the murmuration of the whirling, whirring lizards of the Oz.

Dinkum clean coal, climate science as an excuse for world government, the wonders of the Donald, the suffering of Xians, the so and thusness of Brexit, the march of Gramsci through the institutions, the need to watch out for Islamics, the joys of Western Civilisation, the dangers of cultural Marxism and socialised medicine, the importance of private schools, etc., etc., etc., or if you will, yadda yadda to the nattering “Ned” yadda nth degree …

The thought of watching the reptiles channel the likes of Malcolm Roberts produced an eerie sense of déjà vu all over again. The pond will pray to its imaginary friend for the deep north’s climate denialist fantasies to come true, and with a bit of luck, the rest of the reef will be wiped out by the next summer.

But while calling on fire and brimstone to descend on the reptiles is still fun, that’s not enough to stop the pond giving up the game.

The main reason the pond is stopping is a deep sense of existential ennui, boredom and tedium. Oh wait, did the pond just repeat a sentiment already expressed?

Well that’s like listening to the chattering of the parrots blathering on about snowflakes, political correctness, the inner city 'leets (from Surry Hills of all 'leet places) and most horrendous of all, 'identity politics', as if somehow their identifying with Clint Eastwood rambling around talking to a chair wasn't a form of identity politics …

They'll still be there for years, regurgitating and repeating in unison all the usual climate denialist, Ramsay Centre, white nationalist, fundamentalist Xian, homophobic nonsense that can be read almost every day of the week, over and over and over, to the point where the pond can sense its IQ decreasing by ten points in a single hour of reading, helping to explain why there are people in the country moronic enough to vote for Clive Palmer - didn't that work out well for the reptiles, cash in the paw and Labor defeated - or for Pauline Hanson and her cohort of hot cock, bitch, little tit, fuck a lot better fellow travellers, or gorgeous George, rewarded fro being the member for the Philippines, or the mutton Dutton,  celebrated for his gulags …

Yes, no matter what monstrous stupidities they might have committed, they love being stripped of their workers' entitlements in the deep north …and now dear imaginary lord, it's time to strip them of the reef.

There’s other practical reasons. The pond is tired of getting up early in the morning to observe the reptiles in their herpetarium, happily crapping away on their hot rock, when the pond would like to be having a winter sleep-in before going on with a normal day’s business.

It also has to be said that blogging isn’t what it once was, with the hits down, but who can blame stray readers for avoiding what is, what must be, in the end, an endless repetition of tedium and ennui-inducing, yawn-producing, repetition? Given that the topic is the reptiles, and the pond has always been specific in its content, here's no way to escape that sense of somnambulistic nodding-off ...

Oh wait, the pond has already said all that, and more than once, even if the repetition does conjure up what it’s like reading the reptiles …

… as when they’re having a series of brain farts about climate science without ever having actually stepped away from their computer screens and joined experienced observers noting events in the real world.

Besides, the action has turned to the likes of Twitter, which has the advantage of brevity, and the disadvantage of brevity, resulting in shorthand flashes of wit, and a tedious inability to say anything useful or meaningful because of the brevity. As for Facebook, don’t get the pond started, or it might have to resume blogging for a year to cover the enormity of its crimes.

An anecdote will illustrate the turning tide.

Just before the pond’s version of Don’s party got underway - and it has to be said, with much the same resulting howls of horror - the pond went for a cliff-side walk by the sea.

There was an island in the distance, surrounded by a golden glow of light. It was magic hour, and if there’d been any DOPs nearby, they’d have been rushing with cameras to film the vista.

The sea was magical, the cloud-strewn sky a dusk dream, and on the cliff edge there was a young woman sitting in a Buddha pose, at the edge of the rocks, perfectly positioned to drink in this stunning landscape. It looked, for a moment, as if she'd achieved, or was achieving, enlightenment.

Instead she gazed relentlessly at her phone’s screen, never lifting her head, tapping away, perhaps messaging, perhaps Twittering, in any case, wittering something away …as if what was before her held no charm at all ...

And at that point, the pond knew that young people were a different country, and this was no country for older folk. The pond couldn’t help but remember that Leunig cartoon showing one of his characters pointing to a setting sun on the TV screen, while outside the actual sun was setting …(well an actual cartoon sun, if there’s a pedant reading).

As it was for the telly, so it is for the phone.

And finally, it has been slowly dawning on the pond that all this attention to the reptiles is in some way enabling them, suggesting that they might be of interest, when really, much like the onion muncher they celebrated for years, they’re actually a kind of dinosaur … as irrelevant to that girl on the cliff as the pond is … for who amongst the under-thirties has ever picked up a tree-killing newspaper, when they can instead stare at a small screen?

Well the pond is done and dusted, though, like Sean Connery, it is happy to don a wig, and never say never again. There might be occasions when the antics of the reptiles chanting and carrying on like ratbags might be enchanting enough for an occasional comment, but the pond is unlikely to return to daily blogging … so, if the pond returns, it will only ever be as a momentary indulgence and for personal pleasure.

The pond first posted a blog way back on 20th July 2008, and here we are on 20th May 2019, and that’s way too long to be in the company of reptiles.

The pond is tremendously grateful for the feedback and the comments of diligent readers, many of them much more informed, insightful and intelligent than the pond, but which has turned the pond into a learning experience for its writer for years …

The pond admits that while reading and enjoying, of late it hasn’t been commenting on the comments, but did someone mention an overall feeling of fatigue, as the day’s other business called?

The pond is also extremely grateful, and hopefully hasn’t offended anyone too much for the borrowing of images, most notably the immortal Rowe and the infallible Pope, though there have been many others. It was only ever done as a tribute and a homage, and is one of the main reasons that the pond never sought to monetise the site. It’s one thing to borrow an image and celebrate its genius, it’s quite another to try to make money off it. The pond apologises, but also gives thanks to, these conscripted contributors to the pond.

And now in that spirit, and with best wishes to all, the pond is downing tools, or if you will, the pond will now stop downing clowning tools, fools, reptiles, the deep north, dumb cluck Clive and Pauline voters, and all the other loons that gave the blog its title.

Is there anything else? Well in keeping with the reptile spirit, and just to get in early, and to celebrate pagan rituals dressed up in Xian form, Merry Xmas to all, may the force of angry old white nationalists shouting at clouds, and telling you to get off their lawns be with you, and what good luck that there’s this final Rowe to help say farewell with a vision splendid …

Long may he tweet his splendid visions here …

And thank the long absent lord, he left the pond with one splendid last onion muncher vision, as if knowing that the pond would love it…

You're welcome, have a nice day, and don't you bother coming back now, ya here?

Shewing what kind of Polonial history this is, what it is like, and what it is not like ...

Last night, the pond went out to indulge in a tradition even older than Don's Party. 

Being a non-drinker, the pond is never the life of this sort of get together, but the pond thought it might be able to sup deeply on the tears of the reptiles, or failing that, sip a little water, so that it might have plenty of fluid to shed copious tears for the country and the planet …

So the pond isn't up to speed as to what happened, but innocence is bliss, and when in search of a place holder, there's always good old prattling Polonius.

You see, Polonius was too canny on the Saturday to indulge in second-guessing or predict the result, or nail his colours to the mast, or in any way get down and dirty 

Instead he preferred to indulge in a reliable reptile sport, Muslim-bashing. We've been there many times in many ways before …

But as the reptiles drove Yassmin Abdel-Magied out of the country with a ferocious crusading jihad even a fundamentalist Islamic might admire, there's now only one reliable tall poppy to turn to …

Actually the pond thinks prattling Polonius meant "linking rise of intolerance to Christchurch is a cheap shot", but the pond is always grateful for low reptile comedy …

What's excellent and interesting is the way that our Polonius doubles down on nationalism (hint, if you're white, you can take that as white nationalism) and digs up Waleed Aly to get himself out of indulging in any speculations on the election result.

It was back on 19th March 2019 that Christopher Warren thought that the reptiles had overplayed their hand …

From that moment on Friday when Waleed Aly joined the dots leading from the murders in Christchurch back through white supremacy to business-as-usual Australian political dog-whistling, the outrage machine in media and politics has been scrambling for cover.
Desperate for diversion, leaping from denial to threats and back again, looking for some footing that will somehow lead them back to where they thought the world was a week ago.
No-one has been more wedged than Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Just last week, he was busy looking forward to a greatest hits revival, with a Tampa election redux.
Then, in his blistering statement on Friday night’s episode of The Project, Aly demonstrated the enduring power of white hot anger delivered with ice-cold journalistic steel. His intervention set the parameters of debate for change, and journalists — particularly journalists of colour who are rarely given a voice — are seizing this moment to push reset.
By the weekend, Morrison was denying an eight-year-old SMH story noted by Aly, headed “Morrison sees votes in anti-Muslim strategy.” The PM’s staff were on the phone demanding retractions and threatening defamation. (The story’s author, Lenore Taylor, stands by the story.)
Peter Dutton attempted the standard diversion of  “let’s not politicise tragedy”, with a desperate lunge for moral equivalency between white supremacist Anning and Green senators. It was left to Dutton-voting Matthias Cormann to clean up that particular mess by asserting the unique awfulness of Anning.
News Corp has been no more sure-footed. Just last week, they were all hot and bothered about the great threat to freedom of speech in commercial activist group Sleeping Giants’ targeting of Sky News advertisers. Then, New Matilda re-upped a February report from the One Path Network documenting the repeated anti-Islam stories — many front-paged — in News Corp’s papers. The report broke out close to 3,000 examples over 12 months by masthead, by page and by columnist...
News has blamed social media. But a separate report over the weekend demonstrated how the power of media outrage has been amplified — not diminished — by social media. Social media tracking company News Whip found outrage bastion Fox News is a strong leader in engagement on Facebook, and clear front-runner on pages with the most “angry” reactions from users.
Seven went back to its long-failed strategy of “exposing racism” through an on-air “debate” between Sunrise presenter David Koch and One Nation leader Pauline Hanson. The channel, and Sunrise in particular, have done much to succour One Nation, including through paid appearances by Hanson.
The ABC has picked the weekend’s pivot most successfully — notwithstanding its role over the past year in providing platforms to the white supremacist right with a “what’s wrong with this?” insouciance. Monday night’s episode of The Drum was given over to a panel of Muslim women.
But there’s a long way to go if these baby steps are to be transformed into a new, diverse range of truth-seeking media voices that reflect the sort of tolerant society that everyone has been lauding over the weekend.
The challenge is that there’s money in outrage as a deliberate business model to engage through bias confirmation. But it’s not journalism. It’s a vector for right-wing talking points. It employs a rhetoric that simply uses the semiotics of journalism to create a pretence of truth. Last week Crikey reported on how this works to mainstream climate denialism...

There were a lot of hot links in that piece, but anyone interested will need to see if they can read the original at Crikey here…

Of course Warren was wrong from the get go. Prattling Polonius join a scramble for cover? Hell no, Polonius is of an elephantine nature, and never forgives and never forgets, except when senility hits him for a moment and he gets the odd thing wrong …

And so it was way past time for Waleed Aly to catch another caning. Not, mind you, for The Minefield, done in company with the wretchedly pompous and inflated Scott Stephens, thereby driving any sensible listener away from RN at the speed of light, or even sound waves, but for all the usual thought crimes that irritate nationalists of the old colonial Polonial school …

Note how Polonius quaintly uses the legalism "allegedly" in relation to a massacre conducted by a right-wing Australian extremist in New Zealand, when even blind Freddie knows what happened, and then observe with bizarre fascination how Polonius exudes a wondrous condescension towards Aly and his "brilliant career" … it's almost possible to taste the lemon on the Polonial tongue … 

Uh huh, well of course it's right and proper for Polonius to support Australia maintaining its very own gulag. We might be only a middling power, but how can we claim any status in the world if we don't have a gulag or two?

But the thing that will never cross Polonius's pursed lips is that story … though it's freely available in full here …

That attempt at a dog whistle began to seem a little tattered in time, but Taylor stuck to the story here …

But that's the way it goes with dog whistlers … a couple of steps forward, even if occasionally you have to take a step back, or a step sideways, before returning to the slow advance, and the cultivation of a climate, be it a climate of climate denialism, or a climate of Ramsay Centre crusading for White Anglo-Celtic Western Civilisation, a glory completely beyond the realm of differently coloured folk …

But now it's back to Polonius prattling on the matters of gulags, Islamic terror, and, it has to be said, Waleed Aly's treacherous, traitorous - possibly even unAustralian - willingness to talk on some dreadful TV channel somewhere else - perhaps even foreign - about Australia's dirty laundry export to New Zealand ...

There's nothing more guaranteed to send Polonius into a frothing, foaming frenzy that those wretched New Zealanders - with their hideous abuse of the English language and their blather about fush and chups and their boring the world with Tolkein films - and most especially the bizarre notion that it might actually be a reasonable place to live …

You absolutely won't find Polonius acknowledging that perhaps if Australia's intelligence services monitoring of extreme right-wring groups for decades is so bloody wonderful, how on earth did they allow a prime example roam the world without letting the New Zealanders know that letting him in might prove a little tricky?

Ah. but that's to expect Polonius to be reasonable, and even worse, to be logical, and remember, we're really only trying to avoid talk about the election, and Aly and Kiwis are as handy a distraction as any …

And so to Polonius going up himself and the country, and sweeping from mind history, the White Australia policy, treatment of indigenous people, and assorted other forms of racial tension … the kind the HUN made its recent speciality in its bid to dislodge the Andrews government …

  

And so on and endlessly on … 

And let's not forget the valiant work of little Timmie in Lakemba … and much other crusader work by the Terror ...

Perhaps there might be an excuse. Perhaps Australia might be relatively tolerant, perhaps Pauline Hanson rabbiting on about Asians and Islamics is but a dream, perhaps Clive Palmer cockroaching YouTube with ads full of dire warnings about the Chinese coming south is a passing fad… 

Perhaps all this is nothing, and perhaps the racism, white supremacism, white nationalism, hysterical fear mongering, bigotry and hate are actually mainly to be found in the world of the Murdochians …

Perhaps …

After all, as Crikey noted, the local outrage machine has a fine example in the United States, supporting and celebrating that white nationalist dog whistler in chief, the Donald … 

And as further evidence, Polonius's effort is just one in a long line of News Corp attacks on the alien and the other - even bloody Kiwis - dressed up as a form of condescending tolerance ...

In the end, with that last snipe, what a jealous, doddering old bitch he can be, what an intolerant old humbug, what a hater of the other, and the different, and especially the smarter, and how he resents that when Amanpour goes looking for a comment, she's unlikely to turn to an old fart like Polonius, because that sort of get off my lawn nonsense is a dime a dozen in the United States …

Okay, the distraction is done, and to be fair, whatever Polonius says was unlikely to change the result of yesterday's election …defending Western Civilisation is a much bigger reptile project, and this was but one humble Polonial brick in the wall … who knows, perhaps a war with the Persians might be the next bold and brave step ...

As for the election, the pond will check in to check out the reptile response to that matter in due course … however it went, there will be tears ...

Meanwhile, why not a Wilcox cartoon to finish, with more Wilcox here … one which manages to take in a few more religions than Islam …

Containing curious but not unprecedented matters, as Dame Slap goes into decking and the sporting reptiles give social media a good decking ...

The pond couldn't believe it … okay, the reptiles slutting for Clive while also talking of Bob Hawke's death was entirely predictable, and in accordance with refined reptile tastes … 

But to be actually still slutting for Clive on election day...?

Dear sweet long absent lord, how the reptiles love their Clive cash in the paw. They're about as subtle as a street hooker going about their business on William street back in the day …

Never mind, the pond is determined to avoid the election as much as possible, and so could only spare a  moment's irony …

Uh huh, says the extremely ugly pot to the kettle …

… but enough of the ironies, because there must also be room for one noble warrior, mentioned in despatches today by the reptiles, still holding out an eternal flame of hope …

Abbott defiant? Shouldn't that be Abbott the tone-deaf dickhead? Sadly it has to be said yet again. What a tone deaf boofhead dickhead the onion muncher is. At a time when there was absolutely no need for politics to be played, there he was playing dickhead politics in the matter of a death, and after this unforced error, then  forced to retreat and clarify in the inimitable onion muncher way. 

For comparison's sake, sure, we all laughed at John Hewson’s GST cake, but in contrast he managed to sound human in a way that must have seemed inexplicable and perhaps almost magical to the onion muncher.

If the burghers of Warringah vote this onion munching dropkick back in, may Manly be the first beach disappear beneath the waves (no loss, it's not a very good beach, and the surrounds are full of drop-ins and deadbeats).

Oh here, have a Wilcox, just to warm up and get things going, with more Wilcox here …

And with that out of the way, what have the reptiles managed for this day of days as a distraction from all the cupcakes and sizzling sausages?

Come on down, Dame Slap … brimming with pride for being the very best …

Now, spoiler alert, there's a marvellous twist to this rant which comes right at the very end, in which Dame Slap proves conclusively that gender bias has gone full circle, and it's a racket for a few lucky women, and she's one of them. 

Getting to that point is tedious, but the pay-off is exception, one of Dame Slap's richest comedy routines …

Strangely at the beginning, all the pond could think about was Dame Slap donning that MAGA cap, and now the logical outcome … Alabama.

Luckily Dame Slap could be reached for very predictable comments ...

Oh indeed, indeed, it's all so unfair …

But wait there's a huge twist and an amazing reveal coming … and it's only a few gobbets and a cartoon away ...

Yes, yes, the pond knows all about it, the Dame donning the MAGA cap and the natural conclusion to it all …

But now can we just get to the big reveal? These huge rants seem endless, when all that's needed is the pay-off ...

Uh huh, it's amazing how Dame Slap routinely knocks down other women, but fear not, there's a reason and a pay-off for it all, and so to the capper, to the glorious pay-off ...

So Dame Slap has ascended the throne of the tobacco-loving, coal supporting, rabidly ratbag IPA … surely the right home for her, surely the transcendent outcome of donning the MAGA cap and taking to the streets of New York … and thereby helping the world set off off on the long road to Alabama … pausing only for a few stops along the way to talk of climate science as an excuse for introducing world government …and so gender bias has gone full circle, and it's a racket for a few lucky women, and she's one of them …

But it was that final pose, that she was one of the boys, and that she might take a man out the back at Maguires, and deck him … perhaps even deploy her speciality, the king hit, that really took the cake …or should that be, really revealed the fruitcake that she is …

What a confused, confusing windbag she is …if anyone else were to talk of a decking, or a flattening, or a haymaker, or a coat hanger, or a cheap shot, they'd be some pisspot in a bar confused about his masculinity … but it seems Dame Slap knows what gender she is, and so she knows what must be done …

And so to a further distraction of a fundamentalist kind…

The pond can count on one hand the number of times over the years it's paid any attention to the reptiles' sporting stories, but the Folau matter has been an exception, and exceptionally handy in these troubled times when 'reptile sluts for Clive' seem to dominate the political landscape … so the pond thought it would be just the right time to Folau away at some length ...

There were two reptile wordsmiths called Smith out and about today, with Wayne the first cab off the Smithian rank ...

Um actually the rail line from Central Station is pretty bendy and inflexible, and there's a certain point after Wynard (or heading from the Quay to St James) when it goes on a real angle and the older carriages set up such a screeching and a yowling in the wheels that it sounds worse than chalk on a blackboard … but the pond gets the drift of the metaphor, so do go on ...

Hmm, why would the parrot want that? 

Dame Slap has already firmly spoken on this topic, and it's clear enough, there's no room for women in the corridors of power where men sniff other men's bums, and they must be allowed to ruck and maul together and smell their sweaty body odours without the whiff of women being present … why, with women present, how can there be a metaphorical, or a physical, or even a metaphysical decking?

But do go on ...

Indeed, indeed, deck that republican chappie … some sort of circuit-breaker is needed. 

What it actually has to do with a fundamentalist bigot rabbiting on about assorted matters escapes the pond, but then that's also the beauty of the rugger bugger sport. The few times the pond has looked, it's entirely mystifying and meaningless …and the rules are utterly inexplicable … why even game of flamingo croquet seems more sensible, and just to prove it's no slouch, the pond at one time almost grasped the rules of Quidditch …

But why go there at all?

Well it turns out that all this monstrous madness is a natural segue to that other Smithian wordsmith, Patrick, rabbiting on about the unhinged doors of sporting sanity … and this is where it gets really fruity and ripe, like a jockstrap left on the heater overnight ...

It seems that the other Smith failed to understand that … gasp … it's not really those dastardly republicans wot done it … it's actually … gasp ... all the fault of social media …

Now there was a once upon a time when the reptiles would have blamed bloggers, but blogging has somewhat lost its topicality, so other forms of social media must feel the wrath of unhinged reptiles ...

So social media is responsible for cricketers cheating? The pond never quite understood why there was such a fuss in the 1930s about the Poms and their fiendish answer to Bradman, bending, if not breaking the laws of cricket by using leg theory … but at last the pond understood, thanks to Patrick. 

Fuck it,  how did the pond miss the blindingly obvious … it was social media that was the ruination of the Don ...

Indeed, indeed, and it's a pity that the pond knows so little of assorted sports, but there was a time when it watched a little tennis, and finally the scales fell from the pond's eyes in that game too. 

It turns out that John McEnroe's superbrat can at last be explained. 

Fuck it, it was all the fault of social media. 

Who knew that Twitter and Instagram were so big in those days, but there you go …

In fact, it's likely that social media was responsible for that underarm bowling incident, the Fine Cotton affair, and Nicky Winmar enduring racial taunts …

Oh okay, the pond had to cheat … like any canny Greg Hunter, it went off to a list of Australian sports controversies, for its references, all of which apparently happened under the dire influence of social media … 

Fuck it, is there no end to the virtue-signalling thought crimes of social media?

But please do finish off the rant, because it has succeeded in helping the pond completely forget that this is election day ...

Oh come on, precious snowflake rabbiting on about social media. 

Surely there's a simple answer to the tyranny of social media.

What we need is a return to the days of a good decking … but don't ask the pond for help with this, turn to Dame Slap. She'll show you how to deck, flatten, KO, do in, knock senseless, coldcock anyone in the vicinity. It's the womanly way.

Apparently, it all started with West Saxon social media, back in the days when people really knew how to do a vicious tweet and a good cnocian …

Old English cnocian (West Saxon cnucian), "to pound, beat; knock (on a door)," likely of imitative origin. Meaning "deprecate, put down" is from 1892. Related: Knocked; knocking. Knock-kneed first attested 1774. Knock-down, drag-out is from 1827. Command knock it off "stop it" is first recorded 1880, perhaps from auctioneer's term for "dispose of quickly".  (here)

But that's enough of ancient social media and the lunacy and ruination it has produced in modern sport, with athletes driven mad by thumb-power. Should they knock it off before Dame Slap decks them?

Not to worry, today there's also a garage sale, a disposal if you will, that has attracted the attention of the infallible Pope … with more papal encyclicals here …

Containing a very tragical account of the implications of climate science ...

The "reptile sluts for Clive" were at it again yesterday, and even today, when farewelling Bob in the digital edition, the reptiles still couldn't resist the siren song of cash-in-the-paw Clive, and never mind workers' entitlements Clive, and so there was more slutting to be done ...

Sure, the reptiles were more graceful in their tree-killer edition, but the pond knows that the reptiles have also been flooding airport lounges across the land with two page splashes by Clive celebrating his bizarre assembly of loser drop-kick candidates … because "reptile slutting for Clive" seems to be the new business model...

Speaking of eccentric attempts to sway the election, the reptiles also know how to pick tall tellers of tales …

Well the pond has already voted, and so has no interest in self-interested millionaires, the thoughts of tykes - is it time to turn Australia into Alabama yet? - or old fogies blathering about Gough Whitlam. 

Why not sound the alarums about Chris Watson or Andrew Fisher, or that's too early, why not a general warning about Billy Hughes or Joseph Lyons, inverted commas man? Yes, Lyons began as a Labor man, and look how that turned out …

No, the pond wanted something simple for a TGIF before the big day, and what better way than a piece by the dullest knife in the drawer, the man who can routinely be relied on to turn up a sausage short for the barbecue …

The pond understands that there are a few pond readers who can boast of achieving the Herculean feat of getting through the bromancer's recent sickly Everest profile of Anderson … but today's outing is a much easier climb, involving as it does the simplistic Andersonian form of climate denialism …

Um, could we stop right there?

The pond realises it's early in the piece, and Anderson has barely warmed to the task, but really, he's such a dumb fuck, and it seems reasonable to run Finkel's previous remarks on this sort of reptile game, available here …

"The fact remains that Australia's emissions per person are some of the highest in the world …"

The pond is sorry for the interruption, no doubt some readers might have expected Anderson to acknowledge Finkel's clarification, but when you're the dullest wide blade in the shearing shed, you can only expect a little blood and lavish applications of mindless tar …

In what delusionary world does anyone imagine that Australia can solve its, or the world's, climate problems by acting alone? 

This is known in the trade as a straw dog, as are all the other half-baked disingenuous  observations and fatuous comments about post-truth to be found in this deeply post-truth outing …

As for that reptile link to the bromancer's piece about Anderson's second coming, he's not a messiah, he's just a naughty boy, and the bromancer was deep in heresy country claiming he was some sort of Messiah, but for those up to the game, instead of clicking on that screen cap of the link, foolhardy souls can find the full bromancer profile at the bottom of this post…

Now there's an Everest of evangelical stupidity to climb, but the pond was more enchanted by the infallible Pope of the day, with more papal bulls here …

The pond particularly loved that Malware tin hat on the tail. Each day the pond notes a new power-consuming, expensive to maintain green node box turning up in the neighbourhood, with the usual gouging of the pavement, and shitty repairs done in tar, and mouths a silent curse for the onion muncher and Malware …

But as the talk is of dinosaurs, we must return to the evangelical … because everyone knows that Christ and the dinosaurs were as one …

   

 

Oh it's a great meme, and the pond apologises for not directly addressing Anderson's arguments, but truth to tell, from the moment he led with that Finkel, the pond claimed the Fink amendment …

Did someone mention evolving? Not in the world of Anderson, always a sheep short in the back paddock ...

And there you have it, that sycophantic celebration of the reptiles, and their climate denialism, and their other assorted luddite, dinosaur-laden approaches to life - is it time for Australia to go full Alabama yet?

Is it any wonder that the pond looks elsewhere for distraction, like the news that the famous Tamworth railway bridge has been used and abused? 

For those who came in late, this is what the noble structure looked like … apparently railway buses now cross it daily … because what better way to run railways than with buses?

And this was the wretched sign it was recently forced to carry …

Fear not, the sheep will return Barners to the fold, because rural folk are used to stench, and even think that John Anderson is something of an intellectual. 

After all, he devotedly reads the lizard Oz on climate science, so he must be, and wouldn't it be something to use the fuel he devised in an actual rocket…

Oh just fuck off with your "post-truth" bullshit, and your own attempts at post-truth, and fade away,  or at least indulge in a personal rapture, and so leave a little room for the pond to celebrate the approaching feast with a Rowe cartoon, with more celebratory Rowe here …

By golly, you can always rely on Rowe … isn't that ring girl something to see? What a top model! Why the pond is thinking of a personal management gig, and is now awaiting interest from the UFC …