In which unhappy parrot lovers are reminded there's always the bromancer and many other reptiles ...

The pond just wanted to reassure all those wailing and gnashing their teeth at their loss, at their deep sense of life losing all meaning and flavour, like the chewing gum accidentally left on the bedpost overnight … 

Relax, the world goes on, difficult as it is in these troubled times, and while the parrot will slowly disappear like the Cheshire cat, we still have the comedy stylings of the bromancer, and all the other lizards of Oz …

But first a tribute from the immortal Rowe, with more Rowe here …

Oh an onion muncher zinger on 24Me but how cruel to cover him with a chaff bag ...

No doubt like the onion muncher himself, the parrot will be missed, though the pond confesses that the only few, very rare times the pond actually heard the parrot on air was in a taxi cab - before asking the driver to turn down the volume or switch stations - or on Media Watch, when the latest outrage was held up for inspection … yet somehow the pond still has the desire to defy the virus and dance in the streets in celebration, or perhaps walk past the elaborate structure in Newtown wherein the parrot once dwelled, handily close to north King, though these days the youff of Newtown have already declared the pandemic over, and mingle wildly, no doubt hoping to exchange precious bodily fluids, while the King street daily traffic crawl has resumed …

But enough of all that, because we still have the bromancer bravely taking on Beijing … as the reptile war on China continues …

Communist humour?

Not a patch on reptile humour …

The reptiles of Australia take on China?

Here's where they, and SloMo, went badly wrong. 

Sure it be nice - didn't they once say neat? - to have WHO, or better, a genuinely independent body, conduct an independent investigation into the source of the virus. 

Sure, while promoting this idea, it would also be wise not to join the United States in mounting conspiracy theories designed mainly to help the desperate Donald in an election ploy. I mean, mounting racist attacks on American judges of Mexican heritage or Chinese American reporters asking a simple question only appeals to the neo-Nazi reptile readership ...

But to do any of this, and to tackle the Chinese dragon, you need to have conducted diplomacy, got assorted ducks in a row with similar views, got assorted European countries on side, built international pressure, managed the process in a way that didn't allow the Chinese to take targeted action …

You know, not rush helter-skelter, mouse at a gate style, in the Peter Sellers fashion …

So what do we get? "… but there is absolutely nothing in all this over which the Morrison government deserves serious criticism".

There's some grand reptile humour right there, because it's hard to imagine a more inept government going about the business of trying to beard the Chinese dragon. 

Why even the Falun Gong cult shows more style, but before we go there, let's just remember it truly is a weird cult …

..."Master Li" purportedly possesses supernatural powers.

Mr. Li claims to know "the top secret of the universe" and says "no religion can save people" but the "almighty Fa," which he exclusively represents. He is therefore essentially the chosen savior of man. The biography in his book "Zhuan Falun" claims that he first recognized his special powers at the age of 8.

Li Hongzhi's teachings also include the spinning "falun," which is a mystical "wheel of law" that he claims to be able to insert into his disciples' abdomens telekinetically…

...In Mr. Li's worldview mixed-race people are part of a plot, contrived by the evil extraterrestrials. "By mixing the races of humans, the aliens make humans cast off gods," he told a gathering in Switzerland in 1998.

"Mixed races" are supposedly excluded from the "truth" and "have lost their roots, as if nobody in the paradise will take care of them. They belong to nowhere, and no places would accept them...the higher levels do not recognize such a human race."

According to Mr. Li, the offspring of mixed race unions are therefore "intellectually incomplete" or "with an incomplete body." In such cases, only he, Master Li, can help and "take care of it" (i.e., resolve the "incomplete" state). However, that can be done only if "such a person wants to practice cultivation."

Li Hongzhi also encourages hatred of homosexuals. He has said, "The disgusting homosexuality shows the dirty abnormal psychology of the gay who has lost his ability of reasoning at the present time," Li Hongzhi wrote in Volume II of "Zhuan Falun," or "Turning the Law Wheel," which was translated into English in 1996.

In his talk in Switzerland, Li Hongzhi also stated that gay people would be "eliminated" by "the gods." Asked in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1998 whether gays could practice Falun Gong, Mr. Li answered, "You can cultivate, but you must give up the bad conduct." (much more here)

Sorry, the pond doesn't know where that came from. 

At a guess, it's because the pond is more interested in exotic cults than it is the cult of the reptiles cultivating the cult of SloMo … and the bromancer doing a mouse that roared routine …

"Neither does any other approach."

And there's a knockdown Humpty Dumpty answer to diplomacy … what a doofus he is. Why, if Falun Gong approached him, he might well sign up, provided the cult acknowledged the infinite wisdom of the speaking in tongues SloMo ...

Moving right along, nervous "Ned" was also out and about today … and at the top of the commentary section, at least when the pond dropped in early in the day...

Oh there were others in the chorus …

… but the pond will always go with "Ned", not least because down the page, the reptiles showed a photograph of "Ned, defiantly without a mask, and sitting down for a coffee in King street, surrounded by vulgar youffs sneezing all over him, bravely typing out his column, before wiring it to the lizards of Oz … as an example to other cowardly workers fearful of the virus, worried about cramming together in public transport so that they might cluster together in poorly ventilated, cramped offices or factories …

Of course the pond keeds, we keed, there will be no examples of the reptiles defiantly staring down the virus, just as even the White House has suddenly discovered the call is coming from inside the house …

Let us instead get on with the business of insisting that others take all the risks so that the chairman can save his empire, and who better to do that than a lickspittle supplicant of the nattering "Ned" kind … making sure that dashing Dan is the target of the piece ...

Quickly? Of course it's easy for the reptiles to say, bunkered down as they are …but what about cleverly, cautiously, and with due and wise precautions?

Nope …

Um, didn't someone say "quickly"?

So what's this idle talk of moving away from a virus sprint towards a recovery marathon? Do we do a marathon quickly? 

The last time the pond had a go at a marathon, it seemed to last a very long time, take an eternity, and was extremely difficult to finish …"quickly" it wasn't, here no "quickly", no "quickly" there ...

Yes, as usual, the pond confesses it was only attracted to "Ned's" natter for the chance to insert a few cartoons …

We could be much worse off, because in the United States, the Murdochian reptiles conspired with the Russians to install a twittering, wittering incompetent lunatic to run the show … but back to "Ned" wringing his hands ...

Yes, there's always a cartoon for a "Ned" occasion, and naturally the infallible Pope had one to hand …

… but we must interrupt this infallible papal cartoon to return to the hand-wringing "Ned" ...

Look, "Ned" is right, these are difficult times, and while the pond is still waiting for that photo of him typing out his copy in a King street cafe surrounded by vulgar youffs breathing all over him, there is a solution.

Bung on a trade war with China, that'll help lift us out of the doldrums. Go the bromancer. Go the mouse that roared.

There's nothing like a trade war, and fighting spirits, to lift the economic gloom, but that said, there's also nothing better than reaching for a final gobbet of "Ned" ...

Put it up in lights? 

Why, "Ned" seems very free with electricity, when the pond is careful to switch off lights each time it leaves a room …but what's this?

Thanks, Gary """ Dunnett, but the pond won't go there, because the pond is still celebrating the wonderful NBN that Malware bequeathed to the country.

Can the pond just settle for another immortal Rowe … summarising the situation a little more ably than "Ned" ...

And so to what will be a certain disappointment to Dame Slap fans …

The pond hates to do it.

The pond realises there will be howling and whining and moaning, of the kind that greeted the news of the parrot's departure.

But the pond finally decided it had had enough of running IPA propaganda. The reptiles might want to do it, but why should the pond bother?

Of course this still left a classic dilemma for the pond … because the reptiles had blessed Dame Slap with the cult master …

That ironic juxtaposition of a lawyer clutching at money while above there's a snap of Dame Slap, who fronts the IPA, clutching at Gina's cash, is surely a return to form for the cult master in terms of post-modernist irony and a Hogarthian depiction of hypocrisy and lawyer rakes at play …

Hmm, maybe not, maybe just go here ...

But then came the opening Dame Slap par …

And suddenly the pond couldn't do it, suddenly the pond felt a rant coming on in the Dame Slap style ...

Wednesday must mark the beginning of the end for the predators’ picnics that are routinely allowed by regulators, as assorted industries make out like bandits by peddling unsafe products to consumers, and then trying to dodge responsibility for their actions.

From the Catholic church letting loose pedophile priests and devising elaborate legal avoidance mechanisms to asbestos manufacturers, to manufacturers of tobacco - despite the high-minded support of the IPA - and suppliers of the coal that’s helping destroy the planet, from the makers of killer airbags for cars, or just unsafe or faulty cars in general, from the suppliers of faulty vaginal mesh or tape implants of the Johnson and Johnson kind, or faulty cancer-inducing or medically disastrous breast implants, or the wilful misconduct of banks on a vast scale, or the many other examples of miscreant corporate behaviour foisted on the world ... so on and and on, and so endlessly forth … if all this happens, only then will it be possible to reduce the costs of litigation.

Perhaps the best step of all would be to ban the IPA and its defence of industrial and consumer trickery, thieving, bullying and thuggery, so that the likes of Maurice Blackburn can’t boast about its successes … (here, with a little geo-targeting shamelessly going down)

You see, you can only get a mob like Shine boasting about class actions here … because a lot of corporations have fucked up big time, and almost invariably, attempted to evade responsibility for their fuck-ups, on the basis that it's tough for individuals to stand up to big corporations …

The pond could go on and on. Yes, some lawyers make out like bandits, but as they discovered in The Magnificent Seven, sometimes you need bandits to deal with IPA-inspired bandits …

So fuck Dame Slap, and fuck the IPA, and all the pond can do is offer a humble apology to lovers of the Dame, with a few cartoons offered, not in settlement of the class action the pond intends to take against the reptiles for helping install the Donald and ruining the USA and the planet, but in the hope that the pond can end in a better humour …

… perhaps remembering "Ned" dining out in style, while typing up his column …

…or "Ned" talking about the Australian economy, as if somehow it exists in some socially distanced way, isolated from the rest of the world …

We're all in this together, but alas and perforce, that means we're also in it with the Murdochians, Fox News and the Donald … and that's why the pond will now go off to imitate a dead cat …