In which the pond does its best with the rubbish served up by the reptiles this day ...

 

A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this black coal,
(Come in under the shadow of this black coal),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of coal.

With apologies to T. S. Eliot, why this dismal opening on a Friday?

Well, the reptiles have at last jumped the shark, nuked the fridge and made the pond a pointless exercise. Just look at what they want punters and Google to spring for hard bucks for this day...

 

That's it, that's all she wrote?

The pond offers this wretched line-up only by way of explaining how it ended up in company with Joel ...

 

 

 

The truth is that Joel is a fuckwit and the principal reason for the pond not to bother voting for Labor, because if it wants climate science denialism, why not go with better exponents, not a party riven by stupidity ...

 

The pond indeed thought twice about whether it should actually help Joel spread his message outside the lizard Oz paywall, but then it was such a feeble outing, only mug punters would swallow his wretched attempts to hang on to his seat ...

 

  

Not a word about climate science, or the future of the planet or other minor matters, because let's face it, saving Joel's seat is all that matters.

And now for a personal beef. On its way to and from Tamworth, the pond used to love passing through the Hunter valley, often detouring via Cessnock through the wine-making region ... but always, there would come the mountains of the moon ...

 

Back in March 2015, The Conversation posted a piece by Prof Geary under the header Disused mines blight New South Wales, yet the approvals continue ... but in Joel's world, things are still stuck somewhere in the 1950s ...

 

Read that line about "those who would accelerate change unnecessarily" and weep for the planet. Well the choice is there for the punters of the Hunter. These days the natural home for big mining is the National Party, which has an even bigger range of loons and luddites ... Joel or Barners, and who can best ruin the Liverpool plains?

Speaking of farmers, the pond was astonished to see this reptile offering ...

 

 

What the fuck? What is this talk of lowering CO2?

What about Joel, what about coal? What, yet more talk about net zero carbon emissions? Didn't Katharine Murphy bell that 'wind tunnel of nothingness' cat in yesterday's pond? Never mind, it's on with beefy Angus, saving the world ... with a bit of company propaganda ...

Well, it makes for better reading than Joel ... though the stupendous sucking up to beefy Angus, at one point a noble climate science denialist, is a tad unseemly ...

The elusive target of carbon neutrality? Talk to the hand, or SloMo, or Joel, or Barners or ...

Never mind, astute readers will have noted that the pond looked past the WSJ and the stunning example of Murdochian hypocrisy, even as Fox News continues to blather on in support of the Donald (except for poor Lou, but then the machines are on the march, and who knows where the defamation actions might land).

The pond simply couldn't swallow such a feast of Murdochian hypocrisy, the Pontius Pilate washing of the paws, and instead settled for a Rowe for the day, with more Rowe here ...

 

 

Oh okay, the pond will confess the reason that it didn't bother with the WSJ editorial for a couple of reasons. For a start, it was littered with click bait videos, looted from C Span and the like, and it was also in urgent need of a re-write. 

Reluctantly, grudgingly, the pond agreed to help out with a rewritten version, and this is what came out ...

Whether a former President ought to be subject to an impeachment trial is a matter of constitutional debate. Whether a company such as Fox News can be sued for outrageous and defamatory lies will be settled in court. Whether it’s prudent, if acquittal appears likely, is a related question. But wherever you come down on those issues, the House impeachment managers this week are laying out a visceral case that the Capitol riot of Jan. 6 was a disgrace for which President Trump and Fox News bears responsibility.
Long before November, Mr. Trump and Fox News was saying that the only way he could lose the election was if it were rigged. On the night of the vote, he tweeted, “they are trying to STEAL the election.” In his speech that night, he called it “a fraud on the American public,” and said, “frankly we did win.” Is it a surprise that some of his fans took his words and Fox News coverage to heart?
Instead of bowing to dozens of court defeats, Mr. Trump and Fox News escalated. He and Fox News falsely claimed that Vice President Mike Pence, if only he had the courage, could reject electoral votes and stop Democrats from hijacking democracy. He and Fox News called his supporters to attend a rally on Jan. 6, when Congress would do the counting. “Be there, will be wild!” Mr. Trump tweeted. His speech that day was timed to coincide with the action in the Capitol, and then he directed the crowd down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Mr. Trump’s defenders, and Fox News has always been a loyal defender, point out that he also told the audience to make their voices heard “peacefully.” And contra Rep. Eric Swalwell, who argued the incitement to attack the Capitol was “premeditated,” it’s difficult to think Mr. Trump ever envisioned what followed: that instead of merely making a boisterous display, the crowd would riot, assault the police, invade the building, send politicians fleeing with gas masks, trash legislative offices, and leave in its wake a dead Capitol officer.
But talk about playing with fire. Mr. Trump and Fox News, especially Hannity, Tucker, Maria and Lou, told an apocalyptic fable in which American democracy might end on Jan. 6, and some people who believed him and them acted like it. Once the riot began, Mr. Trump took hours to say anything, a delay his defenders have not satisfactorily explained. Even then he equivocated. Imagine, Rep. Joe Neguse said, if Mr. Trump “had simply gone onto TV, just logged on to Twitter or Fox News and said ‘Stop the Attack,’ if he had done so with even half as much force as he said ‘Stop the Steal.’”
The impeachment managers hurt their case by blaming only Mr. Trump for earlier clashes. “Donald Trump, over many months, cultivated violence,” said Stacey Plaskett, the delegate for the Virgin Islands, thereby overlooking the efforts of Fox News, the NY Post and Miranda the Devine, the little Aussie digger doing her best to match it with Fox News luminaries like Tucker, Hannity, Lou and Maria. But now we need a bout of Murdochian bothersiderism, because often those events were showdowns between left and right, with both seeking trouble. “When darkness fell,” the Washington Post reported after one melee, “the counterprotesters triggered more mayhem as they harassed Trump’s advocates, stealing red hats and flags and lighting them on fire.”
Yes, though what this has got to do with an incitement to insurrection and the storming of the Capitol must remain a bothsiderist mystery of the kind Fox News has been vigorously peddling these past few weeks.
Yet there’s no defence for Mr. Trump’s and Fox News's conduct on Jan. 6 and before. Mitch McConnell is reportedly telling his GOP colleagues that the decision to convict or acquit is a vote of conscience, and that’s appropriate. After the Electoral College voted on Dec. 14, Mr. Trump and Fox News commentators could have conceded defeat and touted his accomplishments, however deluded that might have sounded.
Now his and Fox News' legacy will be forever stained by this violence, and by his and Fox News betrayal of his and its supporters in refusing to tell them the truth. Whatever the result of the impeachment trial, Republicans should remember the betrayal if Mr. Trump decides to run again in 2024, or if they feel tempted to watch Fox News or fling a dollar Chairman Rupert's way.

And after all that, the pond can hear a lonely punter crying out, what about good old Henry? What about the hole in the bucket man? What about oodles of classical references?

Sad to say, this day our Henry was hijacked, and after the pink pig visual, it was downhill all the way ...

The pond offers it up as a matter of academic interest, and a noble mind full of classical references overthrown by Henry outsourcing his column ...

 

 

 

You see? The pig has vanished, and in its place is Josh, and it's downhill all the way from there ... 

 

 

 

 

You see? Surely there was room here for an interesting dissertation on super in ancient Greek and Roman times, a lengthy treatise on pensions and the ways that old folk survived in ancient times. What's that, having slaves to do the hard yakka helped? Surely our Henry would assert himself, and give us a bit of wild-eyed Herodotus,  or even a dash of saucy Suetonius ...

 

Nope, a total bust, a complete bummer ...

What can the pond offer by way of apology for all the nonsense this day? Did anyone at all make it to the end? If so, perhaps an infallible Pope will offer some consolation ... with a warning to children that playing with Mr Potato Head has its dangers, it's not just all Toy Story fun, you know ...