In which the pond finds Polonius silent, and sentences our Gracie to exile for crimes against the reptiles ...

 

 

The pond knew that the weekend would be the hardest ... what with this lot at the top of the page, when really it had already been said in a few choice headlines, including this (thanks to a correspondent0 ...

 

 

As for the rest of the reptiles, it was more of the same ...

 

 

There was the chattering dog botherer blathering on about the chattering classes, and there was the oscillating fan doing his best to be a member of the chattering classes. 

The trouble of course when you're such a comprehensive fuckwit as the dog botherer is - earning your pathetic Murdochian dime by chattering way - your innate stupidity prevents you from understanding that you are by definition a member of said chattering classes, chattering into the meaningless void, alongside other chatterers like jolly Joe, failing upwards to the commentary classes. 

Oh for the love of the long absent lord, he's still there, please at least don't let him near the budget ... and, while we're at it,  keep the dog botherer away from the next military triumph in Iraq ...

But what did that mean?  What was left for the pond this day? Well there was the hole in the bucket man, but a correspondent wrapped up Henry this way ... as just a silly old man saying silly old things in a silly old way to a silly old, and shrinking, audience.

So it goes.

So it goes, that in that spirit, the pond decided it should seek out another silly old man saying obsessive things.

The pond has sometimes wondered, in an idle moment, whether in his current life (or previous lives) prattling Polonius had been snatched by aliens and given a rectal probe. There are probably simpler explanations for his anal obsessiveness - too much brussels sprouts as a child, an addiction to Catholicism in later life - but the pond still thinks of aliens whenever Polonius touches down in the lizard Oz ...

 

 

 

Indeed, indeed, the people spoke ...

 

 

 

 

 

... but the reptiles are hard of hearing ...

 

 

Honest question. Why does prattling Polonius think a con artist hustler, consummate fraud and liar of the Donald kind a good thing? Well because he sees everything through his rectally probed anal retentive lens and sees everything as the fault of the ABC. If the Donald thinks climate change is a fraud and a hoax, and the ABC accepts the science, why then Polonius must be at one with the fraudster ...

If the pond might be pardoned a parallel, do a tweak on a Polonial line,  and throw a coin in the Godwin's jar  on the way...

Alberici, like many commentators, does not understand why about half of Germany support Herr Hitler. Believe it or not, they agree with his policies across a range of issues, including economic protectionism, making Germany great again, border security, and a little border expansion, the bloody Bolsheviks, the dastardly Jews, and the like. This is beyond the comprehension of the likes of Alberici.

In the great half-way house of equivocation that is Polonius's hallmark, he routinely disagrees to be disagreeable. He always praises Sky News and the lizard Oz, because being a fawning courtier is his job ... but really in that guise, it's only so he can keep on bashing the ABC, as he's done since time began ... (or at least long before the pond even came into existence as a whirling gaseous mass in the reptile universe) ...

 

 

It's just that many more did, and why bother with such a wretched argument? Well the ABC ... need Polonius say more? But then there's this ... (in the Graudian)...

According to exit poll data, Black voters overwhelmingly backed the Democratic candidate by a margin of 87% to Donald Trump’s 12%. But Seawright had “been saying Black voters will decide the election since 2017”, last predicting South Carolina’s loyal Black moderates would propel Biden to victory in the state’s February Democratic primary.

With ballots still being counted, mail-in or absentee ballots from Democratic-leaning counties, most with large Black populations, are likely to be the deciding factor in who becomes the next US president, amplifying the power of the Black electorate.

Analysts pinpoint a surge in turnout among young people of all races, but especially Black Americans.

Early voting data already showed young people turning out in record numbers, and with four in 10 eligible Black voters being millennials or from generation Z, the push in urban centers like Philadelphia, Atlanta and Detroit was critical for Biden.

“Every major movement in this country has been fueled by young people and Black people on the frontlines defining what change looks like,” Seawright said. “This election is going to be defined as a movement election for the American experiment.”

12%.

Polonius is hanging his ABC bashing hat on 12%? Notwithstanding that they might include some notable eccentrics of the Kanye West kind ...

Well at least the final gobbet of ABC bashing is short ...

 

Who gives a flying fuck what deluded millions of Americans think? Donald Trump is (and maybe very soon was, or maybe not if he can settle Trump university style) a tinpot Third World dictator in a country rapidly more and more looking like a Third World country. Take a look at the roads and bridges if you dare to risk catching the plague ...

But where does this leave Henderson? Well Colbert threw in a bit of Latin for his audience ... not the long form in the wiki here ...

Qui tacet consentire videtur, ubi loqui debuit ac potuit (He who is silent, when he ought to have spoken and was able to, is taken to agree) — Latin proverb

But the short form as with Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons:

The maxim is "Qui tacet consentit": the maxim of the law is "Silence gives consent". If therefore you wish to construe what my silence betokened, you must construe that I consented.

In his bizarre obsession with the ABC, Polonius is happy to consent to the Donald. Sheesh, Hitler would have found him an easy mark, and Franco too, and he would have cheered on the slaughter of all those dreadful republicans and the police state that Spain descended into ... because one of the problems of the media in Australia is that it lacks any moral core whatsoever, and there's no better example of that than Polonius ...

Not so David Rowe ... with more Rowe here ...

 

And now the pond must break its own recent rule, and run a second piece ...

 

 

 

But it's for a good reason and a purpose. The pond has given our Gracie every chance, but she has been banned from the hunger games. She has been exiled from the pond's royal order of reptiles. She is to be shunned, shamed and ostracised. 

 

The pond isn't sure what the usual punishment is, or might be ... perhaps to be locked in a wardrobe in Narnia? ... but the pond never does things without proof, so here it is (as if that shot of comrade Dan wasn't enough already)...

 

 

You see? Killer Creighton in a state of shock, the other reptiles terrified by this dangerous creature somehow in their midst. She once started off as a sensible reptile - though the pond would have to dig far back into its archives to find proof ... oh why not?

 

Remember the good old days, Gracie? You were given cult master status, with your dreams of the Donald.

Why in those days there'd have been no lines such as "if a political leader has only one job, that job is to keep their people safe", nor any blather about muscular conservatism being on the nose, suburban women ascendant, emotional IQ paramount and empathy being essential. As for balancing budgets and avoiding deficits ... well, you weren't to know where talking up the Donald might lead you, a long and merry trek down a winding road, with a crooked man in search of a crooked sixpence ...

Now you shock the pond to the core by leading off your second gobbet with a photo of that dreadful toad woman looking triumphant, or at least as pleased as punch ...

 

Soft skills sets?

Sorry Gracie, the pond doesn't know what happened to change things, but it's off to that wardrobe in Narnia for you, with perhaps a few lessons from the Ice Queen on how to become a reptile again ...

 

We don't need bitter divisions? So unreptile. 

All this talk of keeping us safe and united? So unreptile.

Here's the truth of it, here's why you've been banned from the hunger games until you show some repentance. The entire business model of News Corp depends on nastiness and division, a never ending reality TV show drama with some villain always in the offing ... look, Rowe has pictured the barking hounds in chase of a villain on the moors right now ...