In which Polonius advises Xians not to speak out, while the craven Craven bemoans the repression of Xian beliefs ...

Apropos of Dame Slap's visit to the pond yesterday, there was something richly comic about the way that the stars and the headlines later aligned … from "where have all our free thinkers gone?" to the reptile sheep bleating in unison about the wonders of SloMo …

Wherever the free thinkers have gone, they're not in the top paddock with with the reptile sheep.

Such are the ironies of life in reptile la la and …along with a goodly dose of reptile hysteria and hate of the most loathsome kind …

Yes, that was yesterdays bout of transphobia at the top of the page ... a new and deeply disturbing fixation …

Frankly, reptile phobias are a lot easier to take when the bile and animus is directed at a professional politician of the Kristina Keneally kind, though it's as deeply weird, and probably needs a psychotherapist to unravel …

Of course others have noticed …

Kristina Keneally, who was given home affairs by Albanese after blasting her way into the front bench when some of the right faction blokes thought her advancement post-election might be optional, is showing little inclination to cower behind the furniture when Peter Dutton rumbles in like a cement mixer on Ray Hadley, or Paul Murray, or when the invisible hand works its “senior security sources” magic in the Courier Mail or the Australian, trumpeting some imminent boat-related Armageddon.
Keneally is responding to the predictable Dutton complex shtick by smiling amiably, and shoving right back. Her portfolio assertiveness, the leaning in, is only in its infancy, but it has triggered small plumes of outrage in the Australian, which appears intent on styling Keneally as its latest obnoxious progressive femme – possibly Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a Hillary Clinton pants suit – although the precise caricature is still in development.  Out in the real world, this querulous, Colonel Blimp-inspired hiss of shut up girlie and let the grown ups talk wafting from the national broadsheet buglers might be considered hitting a KPI – a sign that you are on the side of the angels – but, as they say in the classics, only time will tell … (more at the Graudian here).

The pond regrets that there's not a journalist in the Graudian's down under version capable of ravaging the assorted dickhead lizard Oz Blimps the way that Marina Hyde ravages Boris, but back to that Keneally fixation. They were all at it during the week…

 

So peculiar. One minute blathering on about religious freedom, the next minute bemoaning preaching … because at the end of the day, you shouldn't let religion stand between a reptile and cruelty and money.

And naturally our prattling Polonius, a devoted member of the herd, followed suit and the reptile tribe this weekend …

The pond just had to slip in that evidence of the mad uncle's obsession with the ABC.

Each Friday Polonius is allowed out of his attic  to spot a leftist lurking behind the aspidistra on the what not stand in the ABC's corridors ...but enough of that, because what fun it is that Xians routinely get upset at the very notion that there should be anything Xian in the way they behave in politics.

Yes, there's piety, and then there's a deep hypocrisy, so deep it's unfathomable, but to get an idea of it, watch Polonius at work with his prattle …

By golly, and they call Rees-Mogg the nanny? Do they have half a clue what a prissy contender for reptile nanny we have in Polonius? Well we've been here many times before ...

Oh it's shocking, shocking, this talk of Xian values and "Xian leadership", such a dangerous concept that it requires inverted commas, almost as bad as the alarming perils that might arise from reading the bible, or considering parables, or such like stuff, and so being led astray by talk of Samaritans or Lukes ...…

Yes, you can just imagine Jesus indulging in prissy nit-picking of the Polonius kind … various, exemptions, codicils, sub-clauses, and what not …

What's interesting in this is that Polonius always avoids mentioning his own views on God. Whatever he thinks of Her, he likes to keep to himself, and a typically Polonial way, instead we get a history lesson. You'd barely begin to wonder why Polonius started off hanging around with the B. A. Santamaria mob of fundamentalist Caholics ...

What the fuck? Every politician introduces religion when it suits them, and then ignores religion when it doesn't (though you'll note that up above Polonius was still fighting the DLP battles of the 1950s in his own peculiar way).

The reptiles themselves love to blather on endlessly about religious freedom, while also indulging in lavish bouts of hypocrisy with their fundie base …

In an American context, it'd look something like this …

In an Australian context, it might look a little like this, here and here …

Oh yes, that's how Xian politics is played … but guess what, suddenly Xianity  now seems a deep, dark secret, that must be kept behind closed church doors ...

So Xians shouldn't be Xian? They should just shut up and hide their sleeves, and be allowed to indulge in an indefinite parade of hypocrisy, ignoring Samaritans but hiring chaplains?

Well Polonius has shown that he's hit his KPI, and is a fine Colonel Blimp delivering an nspired hiss of 'shut up girlie and let the grown ups talk', an excellent example of the waffle wafting from the national broadsheet buglers …but why then do we have to listen to blather from the craven Craven, moaning about the way Xian voices are being silenced, and complaining about the notion that Xian teachings must be hidden behind closed doors, without a bill to protect them?

Well the pond only goes there because it's a Sunday, a time for specialists to laze away, and being a day of rest, expert reptile watchers are always keen to track the latest flourish from the Pellists … a hobby that's always rewarding …

Oh Rick, Rick, so long ago, and that link paywall protected for the Chairman's pleasure, and now, where are you now? 

But as usual when the craven Craven turns up, the pond slips a cog, and so should get back to the main task ...

Okay, okay, it's as boring as batshit, and there will be stuff thrown in to distract, conflate and confuse, as if Catholics really give a flying fuck about gay teachers wondering about their jobs, when we all know that churches must have the right to sack gays, atheists, secularists and such like folk destined for hell …

Heck, the reptiles know that, given half a chance, a surge of trans people would surely ruin sport, the fabric of Australian life … why, the entire country ...and might well pave the way for an invasion by the Chinese …

Perhaps the pond should just keep on with the Donald cartoons …

Of course there's not just Donald ironies. It will be remembered the disapproving, tut-tutting and clucking from assorted reptiles above when an upstart woman starts blathering on about Xian views on certain topics … while the righteous Craven suggests it's a simple proposition that everyone is entitled to speak, preach, teach and live their lives according to their religious beliefs (oops, better throw in a peppermint, and mention the godless atheists and secularists, just to keep them happy)...

Ah yes, the old persecuted Xians angle. How the poor innocents have copped it, how they've been given a terrible time, how kind they've been to women and gays and unbelievers and such like, for thousands of years, and what thanks to they get for it? Sure they've consigned a few to an eternity in hellfire, but hey, it's only what they deserved because of their devotion to false idols and pagan gods…

Sorry, the pond doesn't know why those cartoons keep popping up, when really the pond should be celebrating the deeds of hypocrites who don't seem to have been silenced …

Sorry, the pond really must get back to today's text …

Indeed, indeed … the pond is all for religion in politics ...

And even for geese squawking in the public square …

Every citizen should be terrified?

Perhaps if they think of the Craven at the head of the ACU.

On and endlessly and shamelessly on he went … to the reptiles'  delight …

Meanwhile, the pond must return to some tricky matters worthy of consideration ...

Oh please Miss, please miss, please, please pick the pond, we know the answer to that one …

If you're a female Catholic politician, just shut the fuck up and let the reptiles and the religious hypocrites get on with their hypocrisy … it's the right and proper and fair thing …

Never mind, we're at the end today's text, and what do you know, it turns out that the whole thing has just been another exercise, another example of seeking leverage and preferential treatment … another in an endless parade of Xians in the lizard Oz, moaning about the way they've been dudded, because they really did expect, nay they demanded, that they be able to go on exercising the usual level of bigotry, hate, fear and loathing, blessed by the cloak of a supportive bill … (because as anyone would know who has read this far, the Australian legal system is, in a truly terrifying way, rigged against noble Xians …)

It's a funny old world, really, and it's strange that much of the Catholic church considers itself blindsided (or so the Craven says), when really Christian Porter and the rest of the government routinely bask in the praise of the Catholic Boys' Daily, and read it, and are reassured that they are righteous and just …Mark II, with a winning edge, so to speak …

Never mind, surely the government will realise that the right to demonise poofters and trans folk is an important one … these days the reptiles are on the job on a daily basis … and so will help out unhappy Xians, and consider fixing up the ridiculous errors to be found around the land concerning matters of sexuality …

All these anti-discrimiantion regimes, they really do get in the way of a decent bout of old-fashioned discrimination (and remember trans folk are ruining sport, which means the end of Australia as we know it).

As for the pond, having done its reading for the day, it's time to celebrate sex and religion in all its glorious combinations and wonders …