In which there's bugger all by way of commentary, and SFA by way of knewz ...

Who knewz the reptiles were up to something really big? Who knewz the reptiles were intent on producing a form of illiteracy bigger than the Donald? Good luck with all that, but speaking of the Donald, who knewz he would tweet this?

Social Media is great!

How good is that, as the 'leet reptiles of Surry Hills fainted and abandoned hope. How could they blame Social Media (remember the caps) for all that ails them in the future? Say it ain't so! How others cruelly laughed ...

And how the cartoonists joked …

And why is the pond off overseas, checking out the latest Donald news, and stories that can easily be found at the New Yorker and WaPo for anyone who cares?

Well this was the local reptile commentary line-up for the day …this was the wretched sight that confronted the pond ...

In all of the January holyday season, the pond has never seen the situation so desperate or so dire, with Gra Gra bewildered, the prime beef Angus man's figures fiddler sent to a quiet gig in Canberra, the usual about the Chinese, Julia given space, and simple Simon explaining how we could rort the Poms (the pathetic Poms somehow thought that the free trade agreement would benefit them, and not just by pigging out on wine and sheep, but as simple Simon patiently explains in the government gazette, it's just a good chance to flog them stuff. As for buying stuff from the Poms? Want to talk about quality control in the car industry?).

Of course there was an elephant in the room, and for once it wasn't Republican, but Rowe spotted the thing the reptiles dare not talk about … with more Rowe spotting here …

In desperation, the pond turned to the news at the head of the page, full of EXCLUSIVES …

Well, it's not commentary, or opinion. And while during the week there had been the false dawn of the return of nattering "Ned", here there was no bromancer, no dashing Donners, no dog botherer, no climate science denialism …

Instead the reptiles, as meek and as mild as you please, were peddling good news, and new bold, brave resolve … but it would have to do, piggy, it would have to do ...

What the fuck!? The dog botherer must be reeling, or at least writhing …"key driver", "foot to the floor" and so on and so forth …

Don't these fools realise it's all a UN-inspired fraud, a way to introduce world government by Xmas? Didn't Dame Slap warn them? What on earth is going on? Have the reptiles and these pathetic states lost their tiny minds?

Phew, what a relief, the pond gets it. It's all just a show and tell, a lot of window dressing. Soon enough, the reptiles will be able to get back to their favourite sport, warning how renewables have produced an unstable electricity grid, how wind and solar is a disaster (and probably produces cancer and deafness and kills birds), and how South Australia is an example of the ruination of Australia … with more ruination to come ...

No coal, no nukes, blather about climate resilience??!!

Has it come to this? Has all the dog botherer's work this holyday season come to naught?

This wasn't the reptiles of old, this was a barely recognisable kind of revisionist reptile of the Penbo kind, and the pond wondered if anything would ever be quite the same again ...

But at least amongst the EXCLUSIVES there was a ripping yarn and a shocking deep state conspiracy also at the top of the page, and so, with nothing better to do, the pond plunged in …because, if nothing else, it featured the noble onion muncher, once again done down, and not just by a bunch of state pollies pretending that climate science might be worth noting ...

Indeed, indeed, it might not be by "Ned", but at least it's an outing for the lesser member of the Kelly gang, and of course, it goes without saying, senior bureaucrats are just putty in the paws of that satanic Dreyfus …

As for that foreign influence, everyone knows how handy it is, and how we need lots of raving ratbags to come over and help sort the country out. Look what a splendid result has been achieved elsewhere …

Okay, the pond is sorry, this is about as small beer a conspiracy as the reptiles seem to be able to lather up these days, but it is an EXCLUSIVE, like all the other EXCLUSIVES at the top of the page, and so attention must be paid to the suffering of the IPA … no doubt standing by to reveal its donors, as a surefire way of proving its innocence ...

Oh indeed, indeed, liberty works, there's nothing like working liberty. What we need is more Nigels and Kassams, and hopefully, Donald style politics …

Yes, yes, the pond confesses, and apologises profusely. It only ran this tragic effort so it could run a few cartoons … but now we're at the last gobbet, and the IPA is apparently urgently demanding an independent and public inquiry into its anonymous donors, because that's how selfless, and liberty loving it is ...

Shocking, outrageous stuff.

Fancy probing prime Angus beef's figure fiddling. Let's hope it didn't involve an anal probe acquired from visiting aliens!

All the pond can say is that the reptiles will have to do much better if they intend to be knewzworthy …if this was the best they could do, the pond felt like it was in a war novel ...

"The pond fell in October 1918, (or 31st January if you will) on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army report confined itself to the single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front and in the lizard Oz newsroom and amongst the pundits. The pond had fallen forward and lay on the earth as though sleeping. Turning her over one saw that the pond could not have suffered long; her face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come."

Well, not entirely the end … there's still a few cartoons …

In which the savvy Savva rescues the pond from adoring reptiles ...

The pond has decided the only way to escape the black hole of the reptile gravitational pull is to start off by discussing other matters, seeing as how the reptiles have trodden very softly regarding the Donald's current predicament.

The pond hadn't thought that much about William Barr in this or other matters, except that he was kind of creepy and weird, until the hard copy of the recent New Yorker profile dropped into the letter box the other day.

It's currently outside the paywall for the moment, so the pond doesn't need to regurgitate it, except to note just a few pars, which helped the scales fall from the pond's eyes …

Three blocks from the White House, on K Street, is a storefront with signs in its windows advertising “solidarity” and “mercy and justice.” The building houses the Catholic Information Center, a bookstore and a chapel where federal workers and tourists can attend morning and evening services. On a recent weekday afternoon, a sign announced an upcoming debate between conservative writers, called “Nationalism: Vice or Virtue?” A skateboard with an image of the Virgin Mary hung not far away, in the hope of attracting a younger crowd.
Led by a member of the archconservative group Opus Dei, the center is a hub for Washington’s influential conservatives. Its rise began in 1998, with the arrival of a charismatic new director, the Reverend C. John McCloskey, a forty-four-year-old banker turned priest. Hard-charging and unabashedly political, McCloskey liked to say, “A liberal Catholic is oxymoronic.” During the nineties, he helped convert a series of prominent conservatives to Catholicism, including the former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is a vocal Trump backer. In 2003, McCloskey quietly left his post, and Opus Dei later paid a settlement of nearly a million dollars to a woman who said that he had sexually harassed her. But the center’s board of directors remains a nexus of politically connected Catholics. Pat Cipollone and Barr have both served on the board, as has Leonard Leo, the executive vice-president of the Federalist Society. Asked about Barr’s role, the center’s chief operating officer, Mitch Boersma, confirmed that he had served as a board member from 2014 to 2017 but said, “We don’t have anything to add.”

So he's one of the Opus "clicice and tawse" Dei mob, though some prefer to flagellate others than indulge in self-flagellation.

Of course your fundamentalist Catholic has long been comfortable with fascism, as in the Franco days or in the concordat with Mussolini, and it explained just why Barr would do his best for an American despot, provided the despot did the right thing for fundamentalist crusading Catholics. Throw in the fundamentalist evangelical Mike Pompeo conducting a culture war of immense ignorance and stupidity (poor NPR), and that's how a craven wife-swapping pussy groper with as much knowledge of the bible as your average Cats storyline still sits crowned on the new throne of the revived American monarchy.

But once again, the pond can't escape the gravitational pull of the local scene for long, because the reptiles remain obsessed with coal, sweet dinkum coal, and so they tilted the coverage of SloMo to reflect these important issues:

Oh wondrous reptile EXCLUSIVE - these days the worst thing to be said about Marxists is that they're selling anti-Morrison T-shirts??!!

And even more amazing, the foul-mouthed emblazoning that agitated the reptiles was actually said to be "F.K. SCOMO"?!

These daring radical deviant Marxists didn't even manage a decent emblazoning, such as "FUCK SCOMO, FUCK HIM LONG AND HARD, FUCK THE USELES MOTHERFUCKER"??!!

Clearly Opus Dei has won and we now live in quieter times, where the use of caps as a form of shouting is the really big crime …so much for foul-mouthed Marxists and so much for the reptiles, who once upon a time would have ignored the genteel provocation of a T-shirt to scribble about the thoughts of those still peddling Marxism after all it accomplished in the twentieth century, including a slaughter or three ...

And so on to the good news …good for coal-loving reptiles at least …

In reptile la la land, this is known as hagiographic love dressed up as reporting, and the lizard editorialist was on the same SloMo love fest page …

The pond merely intertwines the two responses - news and editorial - to note how closely the weft and the weave and the warp matched up, and so back to the news section, still sharing the SloMo love ...

Indeed, indeed, and how the lizard Oz editorialist concurred on climate matters…

Note the desperate "this is not climate denialism", as if the reptiles could do a 'men in black' and wipe from the pond all those images of SloMo adoring his beloved …

And then there were a few more lizard editorialist lines about how everything was under control with Dear Leader ...

Well just for completeness, the pond will do the last gobbet of the "news", still worshipping at the feet of SloMo, with a token attempt at glance in a few last lines tucked away, almost out of sight, at the bottom ...

But what's this? It seems at last the holyday season is over for the reptiles, and things are returning to normal, and so once again the pond can look forward to the savvy Savva doing a Malware and ravaging SloMo on a Thursday …

The pond loves it when the savvy Savva talks dirty, and gives SloMo a hard time … gets out the tawse and straps a cilice to his thigh ...

Sheesh, this isn't quite how the pond remembered the worshipful lizard Oz reporting and slavish editorialist only a few gobbets ago …please, play on McSavva ...

Sweet sainted Adelaide aunt on the verandah with the wisteria, could Malware himself lay it on SloMo more thickly with an oversize trowel?

Sheesh, what was the lizard Oz editorialist saying about not panicking? 

With wretched Marxists promoting T-shirts that dare to spell out "F.K" and the savvy Savva on the prowl, what's not to panic about?

And now even the most devoted reader of the reptiles will have had more than enough, which is why the pond insists on inserting this last clunker, as a kind of balance, as it involves Tanya, and helps explain why she was never going to be right for the leadership …

You see, the pond had a couple of reasons. Some migrants think that the migrant experience gives them a license to speak of their deep devotion to Australia, but in the end, we are all migrants, and if you go far enough back, even indigenous Australians migrated, though they do have good arguments arising from being first by some 40-60k years …

But here's the thing. Way back in the pond's day, everyone was for Australia in their own way, but a lot of people thought patriotism didn't involve slavish imitation of Americans, but involved instead the unique culture down under, a culture that didn't need flag waving or pious pledges of patriotism,, a culture inclined to understatement and restraint, a culture that didn't indulge in showboating and false displays of group piety

Sheesh, don't take the pond's words. Even other newcomers of the Tim Soutphommasane kind have noticed, here, back in 2019 before the current fuss …

...Patriotism and politics don’t often make a good mix. When national pride is made compulsory, or when officials dictate what form it must take, it can become too stiff and formal.

An obvious example is America. I’m one of many who finds the American style of patriotism a bit heavy, at least for our sensibilities. Think of flags mounted on front porches, school children pledging their allegiance every morning, and politicians sporting a national flag pin on their lapel.

The other danger with patriotism is it can mutate into aggressive national pride. When it’s not restrained, a love of country can turn jealous and violent. Jingoism is patriotism’s ugly sibling.

As Australians, we haven’t tended to conduct overt displays of patriotism. Our style is more typically laconic and understated. Only during the past two decades have we seen people embrace the national flag in public displays. The cry of “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie” – particularly since the Cronulla riot of 2005 – can now assume a menacing edge.

Well yes, say no more,  but the piece attracted the unique styles of Lobbecke, ensuring it had cult status, and so attention had to be paid ...

Yes, yes, the house moves so indulged, and the pond will not indulge in the gentle waters of nostalgia for its own Irish and German blut, but here's the thing …

Why would an Australian want a US-style pledge of allegiance? What's so great about the United States, especially at the moment, as David Rowe notes here?

Devising even better gulags?

But still there doesn't seem any clear cut answer as to why we must go all-out all-American ...

But why an American style patriotic pledge, instead of the laconic form of Australian celebration, which dislikes over the top nonsense, a flag on every porch or lawn, a flag on every vehicule, a flag on every business, a flag on every nicknack, until a visitor to the United States soon becomes nauseated by the sight of the American flag, as omnipresent as flags on official buildings in China or Russia …

And to what avail in the current climate?

The pond kept reading in hope of finding an explanation why anyone should bother to go with the tone-deaf Tanya … as if an endorsement by the dog botherer should somehow reassure the pond … how lucky it is that the pond only does screen caps and so the dog botherer can't be heard, and all we're left with is a Cheshire cat smirk ...

Well might we find common ground, but does the common ground have to be in the United States, and the way they do things … especially seeing as how they do things at the moment.

And that definition of patriotism being about solidarity is just plain wrong.

Unfortunately patriotism tends to blur into chauvinist exceptionalism, jingoism, nationalism, nativism, and wrapping yourself in flamboyant flag and righteous patriotic verbiage …

Patriotism in Australia luckily devolved into a few laughs about being girt by sea, and with the most popular song one about a little sheep stealing and suicide … instead of the rambling heroics of the holy Roman American empire, and its fundamentalist Catholic and evangelical crusaders …

In this context, please don't mention Vietnam, where we followed the American line, and sent over conscripts to get shot up, and return dead or traumatised, for no particular reason than we'd pledged to follow America ...

Oh for fucks sake, she just made a silly comment about going American, blathered a little more about pledges and patriotism, revealed she's not the sharpest sheep in the top paddock, and got a few negative comments back. 

To quote Mick Dundee, that's not confrontation and fragmentation embittering so many aspects of the national life, this is …

In which nattering "Ned" returns to end the holyday season ...

While on non-reptile matters, the pond would just like to note the sad situation of Gundagai.

The Niagara Cafe, opened 1902, the last remaining continuously owned Greek cafe, a place which staked its claim for offering Ben Chifley a meal, is for sale again, up for auction 14th March 2020 (as can be seen here and here).

The pond used to love to drop in to soak up the atmosphere, which reminded it of a long-gone Tamworth and Gunnedah, where Greek friends had a lock on all the towns' cafes…

The rest of the main drag seems like its up for sale too, and apart from the vandalism of the dog, the dog on the tucker box locale has also fallen on hard times.

Hard times in the bush, which puts into perspective the hard times the pond endures reading the reptiles, and their loonish bouts of insanity, like this outburst by Gra Gra today …

If she allows impeachment proceedings to continue much longer? 

What a goose. Proceedings are now outside Pelosi's control. They're in the Senate, and Moscow Midnight Mitch is the man running the show as best he can to ensure nothing untoward happens …

Meanwhile, the reptile blame again has continued apace. A few days ago it was all Prince Chuck's hypocrisy, yesterday it was the Kiwis with their fush and chups hypocrisy …

Did anyone mention speck, mote, eye and such like?

Meanwhile, the pond has been re-reading Sherlock Holmes and was devastated to discover many "unique" modifiers of the "really unique" kind - at last an explanation for the disease that litters the ABC, especially News 24 - and more potent and shocking than even the absence of the Oxford comma on Boris's cheap celebratory Brexit coin (offered up to the plebs in the grand tradition of panem et coincenses).

Okay, all this has been an elaborate detour to avoid the end of the holyday season. The pond knew that the return of nattering "Ned" would be the sign, and it was thoughtful of the reptiles to make his splash discreet, though no doubt they'll give it a boost during the day …

Look, there it is below SloMo, decisive man of action … or as much as Scotty from marketing can be ...

The pond felt so startled, it immediately called on an infallible Pope for a gong …

Strange, there doesn't seem to be any action behind that third podium …

And so to "Ned", and if there's an unsuspecting newbie in the house, please remember that "Ned" is an interminable bore, incapable of shutting up, scribbling on at tedious length ...

Ah yes, an optimistic path … there's always cause for optimism, and finding treasure amongst the ashes …as the infallible Pope pointed out the other day ...

Okay, the pond has squibbed the return of "Ned". It must do the hard yards, take the ball up the middle, simply endure the text ...

And there in a nutshell is how the lizards of Oz, the Donald, Fox and Friends, Fox News, and the entire Murdochian empire have befuddled and confused, with "Ned" offering the familiar old variant of "unrealistic, irrational and misleading."

Give up prime Angus beef's fiddling with the figures? "unrealistic, irrational and misleading."

Give up a deep love of dinkum clean Oz coal? "unrealistic, irrational and misleading."

Show leadership on the world stage? Suggest the Donald is fucked in the head? "unrealistic, irrational and misleading."

Pretend to be a believer in climate science? "unrealistic, irrational and misleading."

And in a way, "Ned's" right.

Why bother? We know what matters, what will endure ...

And so to more of the pompous bore tediously explaining how it's nothing to do with us, and anything we might do doesn't matter, and don't look here, look over there ...

Yes, there's nothing to see here, more of the same, which is to say less of anything, with a bonus dash of tokenism ...

In short - "Ned" could have said it in a lot fewer words - the planet is fucked, and SloMo and the reptiles don't really give much of a flying fuck …because if they did, it would mean the last decade of coalition policies and reptile scribbles have been a fraud and a sham. And where would it get us, to admit the bleeding obvious?

And that's where "Ned" comes in as he comes back. Dress it up with high-sounding la-di-dah and talk of political imperatives and a lack of policy or political arguments (after all, it's only the bush that is burning), and how simple it all sounds, at least for the simple-minded …

And yet, as the immortal Rowe notes here, hey ho, on we go … with triumph after triumph ...

And so to the bonus of the day, because with nattering "Ned's" return, would it have been right to avoid Dame Slap?

Now there's a typical Dame Slap attempt at purported balance here, but the real game is the punishment of Malware for daring to speak out …

There was plenty more coverage, some of it international, and that deserves payback, and so this is a study in how Dame Slap goes about the business of disciplining naughty students …

While the pond might cry to the heavens for a moment's silence from angry reptiles, relentlessly blathering on, Dame Slap begins a slow descent into her ultimate Malware punch line ...

Julia and George W. as role models? So quickly they forget … even when blessed by a Lobbecke …

What followed in that piece was unendurable, an attempt by Dame Slap at fey whimsy, which is rather like lead doing an impression of a feather, and so we can forget it, and return to Dame Slap's new attempt at a little balance, before we get on with the job of sinking the boot into Malware for daring to mention climate science...

Hmm, that attempt at balance by having a go at the onion muncher reminded the pond of a spanking with a warm lettuce leaf, or Dame Slap mistaking a feather for a cilice … 

Remember, Malware's the game, his scalp the prize (even though he's now long been scalped, and Scotty from marketing might have been copping a Dame Slap dismemberment in his place) … but first a few more tours through politicians behaving badly before we get there ...

Still nothing on reptiles behaving badly, and forgetting what they once wrote? You know, MAGA?

Well speaking of credibility, apparently Dame Slap thinks it gives her credibility to suggest we should all be listening to the likes of Tony Bleagh ...

And so there at the very end, comes the Malware punch line, after a very long and tedious build up.

But, billy goat, butt butt …

The worst former Australian PM in the post-Menzies era? 

Poor old Harold Holt, poor old Billy McMahon … not even mentioned?

Not even the 22 days of Black Jack? The old hatred of Gough forgotten? The downplaying of the knights and dames man, the onion muncher of exceptional futility and pointlessness? The wrecking ball, who's only point was to relentlessly snipe and undermine, and indulge in mindless negativity, even when he himself was in charge of proceedings?

Well the pond has no love of NBN-wrecking Malware, but to what avail this Dame Slap assessment, to what point?

It seems clear enough. Whatever you do, don't step on the ghost of reptile climate science denialism and Scotty from marketing's valiant attempts to maintain the reptile love of coal…

Ah yes, if ever there was a way to become a witch flying on a broomstick to Salem, and a prime subject for Dame Slap's ire  …

And now, in honour of Dame Slap donning the MAGA hat and slipping out into the streets of New York at night - as good a reason as any for hoping for her enduring silence - a few cartoons as another saga plays out ...