In which the pond regrets there must be a culling of the herd to arrive at a Sunday meditation ...

Wow, what a hit list. 

In a time of crisis, the reptiles have risen like kero to the top of the tank to keep the mossies of dubious leftism down … but sadly, as a result the pond knew there had to be a winnowing, a culling, of the chaff or the herd, as the case may be …

Not all can survive the winnowing, not all should survive, and first to go was the oscillating fan. But the pond shed a tear for him, because he too had been blessed by the cult master this weekend, and what a ripper it is, with that evocation of the Satanic Chinese claw clutching at the mortarboard …

The oscillating fan was making a simple point. 

With all this cash sloshing around, with all this largesse, what about academics, it isn't fair, they're down at the corner store and they want their share. Some might think being an academic colours this argument, and makes it a tad subjective and personal, but really, with all the squillions that are going to be in hand once SloMo's gang shakes down the tech giants, why not spare a thought for suffering academics, at least the ones with tenure, not the riff raff on short-term contracts, or horrors of horrors, the y'artz mob, whom it would be a kindness to kill off …

Must the largesse just go to News Corp?

What about the valiant academics that scribble for the lizard Oz, turn up on Sky, become part of the Speccie mob, and do their bit for Catallaxy? Must they suffer because of scruffy artyfarty, degenerate, prevert, long haired types? Surely the oscillating fan's cheekiness is wholly admirable.

Next to leave the herd was our Gracie, though the pond thought her idea simply spiffing …

What does the nation most urgently need? 

Surely it's fruit pickers and the like, the ones that do the jobs that lazy Australians refuse to do. So why not bring in rich folk, and then set them to harvesting strawberries in Queensland? It's this sort of right field think that regularly makes the pond think that Who is on first …

And then the saddest, cruellest cut of all, but it had to be, the bromancer had to go, though his idea was equally spiffing …

Why didn't the pond think of it? Chuck a gigantic tantie, refuse to ship coal or other goods to China, and that'll teach 'em a lesson, good and proper. Of course it might be tricky for some …

.. but you can't trust the Chinese. They refused entry to WHO and the Donald and the rest of the world, and it was entirely remiss of the pond to think they were transparent way back when, the Donald told us so …

But no, for the moment, the bromancer had to take the walk of shame to that funny brick wall behind the door, and so did Shanners, assigned hagiographical duties this day …

Sorry Shanners, we've thrown the coal out with the bath water, and have embarked on a gigantic sulk to teach those bloody Chinese a lesson, what with the bromancer whining about access, the pond can't look beyond the way it all accords with little Johnny's fervent wish: "The Chinese will decide who comes to China and the circumstances in which they come." Because if you can't be an Orwellian dictatorship, what's the fucking point?

And so to the winners in this dangerous game, thesehunger games, when only the most useless reptiles will survive. The pond apologises, no doubt almost anyone else would have more appeal, but judges, the envelope please …

Why the dog botherer? Well the man who comprehensively fucked up Utegate is surely in a very unique* (ABC24 license number 2 squillion and one) position to explain why Malware was fucked. And besides, the pond is endlessly fascinated by the way the reptiles want to keep promoting Malware's book, drawing attention to him, and who is the pond to stand in their way?

Ah yes, 2009, who could forget it, a vintage year for fuckwits and morons …

More here, and here's Joe Alston recalling the saga in 2015 in the AFR …

 ...remember back in January when Tony Abbott was being laughed off the national stage for knighting Prince Philip and the conservative commentariat were calling for the blood of the PM's chief of staff Peta Credlin?

Daily Telegraph columnist Miranda Devine, for one, wasn't wasting time with subtleties, openly pushing for Credlin's replacement to be "the person she didn't want to hire as head of communication strategy, despite various entreaties from high-level media and political figures: Chris Kenny".
Kenny, Devine wrote of her News Corp stablemate, is "in touch with the world, has the right ideas [and] shares Abbott's broad world view.

But his greatest attribute is that he's fearless and confident enough to challenge the cosy consensus thinking."

But who comprised Malcolm Turnbull's inner sanctum when the Grech/Utegate misjudgment destroyed his leadership? His chief of staff was Kenny – fearless to a fault! – while Credlin was banished to a broom closet, finishing her law degree.

Is there any dispute as to why the pond is entranced by the dog botherer?

Let's now hope that the reptiles dig up a photo showing the dog botherer engrossed by Malware's 'tome' … must keep thrusting that book in front of reptile readers, make them think of it as enticing forbidden fruit, stop the damn thing ending up in the remaindered heap before next Wednesday ...

Not a mention of the dog botherer's role in lighting the match and setting the fuse. It takes a lot of cheek to rabbit on about this, while at the same time maintaining the dog botherer's eternal refusal to contemplate climate science … because, you know …

Imagine having the dog botherer as an advisor, especially after what he and Lord Downer managed to do to Iraq … but that's another story ...

Actually, it was incendiary to that fringe element of loons, of whom the dog botherer sometimes attempted to be chief loon … the climate denialist types like the member for the Philippines …

Never mind, we're at the last gobbet, and the pond doesn't resile from its choice ...

Meanwhile, the dog botherer's singular contribution to all this is to ensure that the planet goes on being fucked on a daily basis, just like he and Lord Downer fucked Iraq and the dog botherer fucked Utegate.

It's a very unique* (ABC24 license number 2 squillion and two) record …

And now, before moving on to the next treat, what about a cleansing of the palate with a Kudelka sorbet?

The pond makes no apology for its second selection. The pond has always been loyal to prattling Polonius, through thick and thin. We've explored Shakespeare together, especially Polonius's alter ego and his contribution to literature, and ponderous pontificating, and we've delved into history … oh so much history ...

But why did the reptiles send out both the dog botherer and Polonius on the same mission? The pond humbly suggests it's because Malware gets under the reptile skin, and lodges there like a north coast tick, and that alone is worth the price of admission ...

Sublime, from a scribbler who shows an abject lack of awareness about himself every time he scribbles about his affinity with the working class …

Yes, the pond has run it before and will probably run it again, but meanwhile, just how incestuous can it get? The reptiles wouldn't offer a video of the dog botherer talking about Malware in the middle of Polonius prattling on about Malware, would they? Surely not ...

Eek, they did, obsessive compulsive heaped on obsessive compulsive …thank the long absent lord for screen caps, as we return to the one born with the curse of wanting to live in the 1950s forever, or at least in North Sydney, well away from the riff raff and the common herd ...

The pond is hoping everyone is bearing up. These are stressful times … and there's an inclination to leave the plane without a chute …

But relax, it's almost the end, the last gobbet of anal retentive obsession is to hand ...

The mutton Dutton and the onion muncher were the best attack dogs? Well yes, if you understand that they were sniping, undermining and wrecking, but not necessarily comrade Bill, so much as that deviant Malware. And all he'd done was wreck the NBN as ordered by the onion muncher. Where's the fairness in that. Just following orders.

Even so, the pond must concede that Polonius is right … what most excellent attack dogs they were …

And what's funny about it all? A born again speaker in tongues of the most devious kind was the last loon left standing …

Might the pond suggest that Polonius displays a singular inability to understand the Liberal party's internal thuggish appetite for terrorism, of the mutton Dutton kind, which would have seen almost anyone bar comrade Bill Shorten and the drover's dog romp home against this motley bunch …

Long may the follies continue, and with it the dissembling, and the distortions as to who did what to whom ...