In which the reptiles blather on and the pond is forced to take a positivist approach ...

So it's come to this, with the reptiles clinging to the hope that Clive, Pauline and the rabble of the Senate will save the day when it comes to the crunch …

Do they realise this has the stench of defeatism about it?

As if they're replicating yesterday's defeatist Oreo, and ceding the election to comrade Bill, and fomenting a rear-guard action with Pauline and Clive? Because suddenly Clive, the onetime reptile figure of fear and loathing, is now looked on as the reptile saviour ...

Oh it's just too sad to contemplate, that the reptiles see hope in the unrepresentative swill and swine, but it left the pond with a problem.

Where was the cornucopia of yesterday? What chance of a dashing Donners or a Moorice turning up today?

Not likely, with the bromancer distracted by Paul Keating and the other reptiles at the front line, valiantly trying to hold fast, to hold the line, even if the Gatling had jammed, and the square was running red with blood, and only Clive and Pauline might still save the day …

Mmm, Dame Groan seems to have gone off the reservation, but what's that story about GetUp! going all out against Hunt? What's this EXCLUSIVE?

Sheesh, the pond had relaxed, thinking that this ratbag organisation had wasted all its ammo on the onion muncher in Warringah … or so the reptiles had assured the pond only a few days ago …

Oh well, never mind, an election egg, and suddenly the Antarctic walri under threat …

At least the reptiles could rely on one of the world's great climate scientists, with the parrot squawking with authority at the top of the digital page …

But Media Watch had already covered the reptiles here …with the lizard Oz honoured for its diligent climate denialist work ...

 

Well played reptiles, with an honourable mention of the reptile blind reliance on Brian Fisher, and a swag of headlines down there with the parrot ...

Meanwhile, on another planet …

But if the reptile effort had been acknowledged and rewarded, and the parrot just another foot soldier in a noble tradition of hysteria and fear-mongering, what was there for the pond to do?

Sadly, elsewhere it was slim pickings, and the pond was in despair …

The pond thought for a nanosecond of returning to yesterday's defeatist Oreo, or the forelock-tugging hack Caterist - perhaps at last to understand the movement of flood water in quarries -  but the pond had already thrown them out with the stale fish and chips, and that would mean ferreting through the garbage.

There seemed to be only one choice, the Folau matter, which was still lurching on, with the decision due soon, and in the meantime a certain Gra Gra Young in a state of high excitement and indignation …

Yes indeed, little Johnny would have kicked the poofter can down the road, kicked it hard and kicked it long.

What a tragedy that poofter  bashing has fallen into disrepute. What's gone wrong with this country when your average Liberal politician can't indulge in a little poofter bashing, and perhaps incite a few killings on the beat, or the tossing off of people over cliffs?

Talk about going off the rails …and meanwhile a humble working-class lad earning a cool million a year, and likely to keep making a handsome amount whatever the outcome, is being victimised for merely consigning all sorts of folk to hell.

It's just not right …and there's that bloody ScoMo speaking in tongues and standing with the bloody poofters, and giving Folau a dressing down, when he should be standing with mainstream Australia, and reminding them of the country's honourable tradition of poofter bashing ...

A positivist justification? By golly the pond didn't know it was going to cop a philosophy lecture along with a treatise on the importance of bigotry …

Positivism is a philosophical theory stating that certain ("positive") knowledge is based on natural phenomena and their properties and relations. Thus, information derived from sensory experience, interpreted through reason and logic, forms the exclusive source of all certain knowledge.Positivism holds that valid knowledge (certitude or truth) is found only in this a posteriori knowledge. Verified data (positive facts) received from the senses are known as empirical evidence; thus positivism is based on empiricism. Positivism also holds that society, like the physical world, operates according to general laws. Introspective and intuitive knowledge is rejected, as are metaphysics and theology because metaphysical and theological claims cannot be verified by sense experience. Although the positivist approach has been a recurrent theme in the history of western thought, the modern approach was formulated by the philosopher Auguste Comte in the early 19th century. Comte argued that, much as the physical world operates according to gravity and other absolute laws, so does society, and further developed positivism into a Religion of Humanity. (Greg Hunters seeking to avoid GetUp! can go here for links and more).

Phew, who knew we could get so deep so fast, and all thanks to Gra Gra?

As for that dangerous talk of "normalised homosexual relations"?

What, homosexuals are people? Who knew? They might even be normal?

Somehow God in Her infinite wisdom allowed homosexuality into Her game plan, and not just amongst humans, but amongst certain animals? Why there might even be TG types in the natural world?

The pond was deeply traumatised at this shocking development, the pond never having actually left the mindset of Tamworth of the 1950s.

Chemical castration, or perhaps a simple jailing, was no longer an option? What had gone wrong in this crazy, mixed up world?

Politely not wanting to upset gays and lesbians - because apparently lesbians aren't gay?

What's with this talk of politeness? Why conservatives should rage and shout and stomp up and down and go red in the face, and call out in anger, "hey poofters get off my libertarian lawn."

Why it's an outrage, and this politeness is surely a political folly … it's way beyond time to make a stand and revert to the good old days, but Gra Gra stopped short just when he might have got interesting, and carried his thinking to its logical positivist conclusion. 

Luckily some student somewhere once scribbled a paper on natural law theory v. positivism, heavily under the influence of St Thomas Aquinas, here, and knew what to say on Gra Gra's behalf … 

...The same debate that Devlin and Hart were engaged in during the 1960’s concerning morality still continues today; however as the above cases show it is hard to judge where the moral threshold lays, what were once regarded as taboo subjects or those of a delicate disposition are today practically de rigueur and seemingly permeate almost every aspect of British popular culture.

Homosexual culture; once regarded as closet behaviour is now well and truly out of the closet and almost socially obligatory, one only has to look at the obsequious endorsement by institutions like the Anglican Church, parliament, BBC to see that the statement Devlin made about society setting a higher moral standard does not bear any relevance anymore.

We only have to look at the new icons of our age to gauge society, the addition of video and computer generated violence, the proliferation of hardcore internet pornography and the grossly sick torture porn subgenre of the film industry. Even media megastars like Madonna, Amy Winehouse and Lady Gaga the new influences for millions of young people and yet their looks and behaviour is worse than what we would expect from common street prostitutes.

When we look at society today one cannot help but ask has society really benefited from the raising of the moral bar?

Yes, that's more like it, that's the Tamworth of the 1950s, except that rather than Madonna, in those days the pond's granny covered the pond's eyes for fear it might see people rocking and rolling in the town hall, which everyone knew was way worse than stripping nude and having sex in the main street …

Why not use that noble Tamworthian student's paper in your next law assignment? If Gra Gra happened to be your lecturer, you might end up with a HD …though the pond can't vouch if your lecturer happens to live in the current century.

But who is this Gra Gra? Well it seems he's available to discuss genuinely dangerous and disruptive ideas, "the idea that "all men (and women) are born equal", and the consequences that flow from that … (here)

The pond does so like the idea of putting women in brackets, it's so very 'complimentary woman' angry Sydney Anglican, but surely it should have read "all men (and women) are born equal (except gays and lesbians, who aren't gay, but are definitely lesbian)" …

Oh and a million a year is a sure sign of being working class … and what's wrong with tradies having a dinkum coal-burning ute?

So it goes, another day at the lizard Oz, and clearly Rowe was bored as well, because he turned to the Donald for a bit of stock market excitement, with more Rowe here …

And the infallible Pope had decided to go local, with a joke about the doings in Vatican City, with more papal insights here …