In which the Major valiantly keeps on defending the indefensible, the bromancer and the Caterist get it on, and the pond ends up stranded in the shoals of hope ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

The pond has a sneaky respect for the Major. Each Monday he turns up to defend the indefensible, a fool's  errand, requiring both enormous stupidity and a tremendous Herculean dedication to ignoring the stench emanating from the Augean stables ...

It's hard to know which is stronger in this one ... the blind eternal loyalty, or the monstrous nonsense he peddles, as this week the reptiles face the Gladys test.

Not that the pond ever bothers to worry about the loons at Sky News, but it's a marvel to see a loon such as Paul Murray go from calling Gladys the gold standard in January to the fool's gold standard a few days ago ...

... which brings the pond to that bizarre notion in the Major's header. "More nuanced"? 

 

The reptile tabloids don't do nuance, Paul Murray doesn't do nuance, and plays the extremist fool, bouncing around like a stray tennis ball ...

Come to think of it, the Major himself doesn't do nuance, and so it's fascinating to watch him drift away from nuance in his very own, predictable  tree-killing lizard Oz thoughts, attacks on the usual suspects, at the very same time as he claims to be nuanced ...

 

 

Oh fucketty fuck. The best the Major has to offer on the other side is Stephen "let's censor the intertubes" Conroy, Nicholas Who, jolly  Joel and Gra 'Swiss bank account man' Gra?

And the parrot as a 'both sides' bird? 

Does anyone have a chaff bag so the parrot can offer to stuff SloMo in it, and drop him far out to sea?

But that's what's so heroic about the Major, tackling the impossible and defending the indefensible ...

Now let's get on with the usual business, blaming Albo and featuring a snap of that ogre from the south ... 

 

Here's the thing. The Major's both siderism bird has a hard time getting into the air, because Albo's not the government, and Albo isn't in a position to mandate anything. It's the government in charge of aged care, and it's the government that might have done something, but SloMo has developed a habit of going missing in action of late, which leads to easy snipes ...

 

 

 

 

But that's what oppositions do, just as reptiles have to defend the indefensible, and get paranoid about rivals such as the ABC and the Graudian, and mount feeble assaults on the likes of pet peeve Jacinda Ardern, as if that's got anything to do with the price of bread in Australia, or come to think about it, the state of the vaccination roll-out ... you know, bunging on a fear-mongering campaign, when the preferred vaccine for the under 60s is nowhere to be found ...

 

 

It's way past time for the Major to muscle up and be honest, and admit that News Corp is a media plague which is rarely part of the solution to almost any problem, but routinely prefers to be the problematic part of everyone's problems.

You know, with stupid lines about Pfizer being pushed by Trump, as if no one down under is aware that the orange one long ago threw in his lot with the vaccine hesitant, or that classic News Corp Tucker style vaccine undermining.. with the orange one quietly getting his shots in private, and then saying nothing about it in public ... and meanwhile, filtering back to the Sky News loons down under we're reminded that the Chairman will have his minions do and say anything to revive the ratings and keep the bucks rolling in...

 

 

It rarely ends well for the Major, and the pond sometimes wonders why he bothers, but marvels at his almost infinite capacity for inanity ... that search for the lost Order of Lenin medal has served him over the years ... given him a certain credulous capacity to keep banging on, no matter that the cause might be lost ...

 

 

What a relief to leave the Major brooding about the unfairness of it all, and in a deep sulk, all because there's a little unseemly gloating south of the border - and never mind the shit sandwich the reptiles, including the Major, still keep serving up to comrade Dan.

Now let's get on with the Caterist showing News Corp in its proper role ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's no point arguing with the Caterist. As Molesworth might have said, any fule kno that arguing with a fule is fulish ... and footile ... and next thing you know, you might be wondering if the fule kno anything about the movement of flood waters in quarries ...

Meanwhile, of course the fule would start off his column with a fulish comparison to the flu ...

 

 

What's most remarkable about this? Is it the level of complacency, produced by isolating the country and maintaining lockdown regimes, to such a level that the vaccine rollout has been done with the solemn pace of a funeral? Or is it simply pig-headed ignorance, a sublime lack of awareness of what's happening in other countries right now, such as Indonesia, or the Olympics-burdened Japanese, or in red state denialist areas of the United States?

Being fair and balanced, the pond thinks it's usually a mix with the Caterist, though a sullen capacity for stupidity should also be factored in ...

 

 

 

Thar he blows, with the pond hazarding a guess that the Caterist has gone full Brad while apparently unaware that Brad himself had had a sublime flip flop moment, a come to the long absent lord turnaround ...

 

 

 

 

And so on and so forth, and yet the Major keeps on trying to defend the indefensible, while the Caterist keeps on cratering ... 

 

 

Unconscious group bias? What a futtock, go talk unconscious group bias to Japanese or Indonesian folk at the moment ... and here, have a Rowe to go on with ... with more Rowe here ...

 

 

And so to balance the books, a serve of the bromancer ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The pond has no idea why the foreign affairs editor at the lizard Oz keeps scribbling about almost anything under the sun, but when it comes to the virus and the vaccine, he attempts a certain kind of sanity that's completely impossible for the floodwaters in quarries, government cash in the paw man ... 

 

 

 

 

 

You see? The bromancer is sounding almost pondish, and no doubt, in his attempt to defend the indefensible, the Major would point to the bromancer ... even if this requires looking past the bromancer's desire to nuke the country ... now please perhaps a graph as relief from the sight of feuding reptiles...

 

 

 

Don't tell the pond all that, go tell the Caterist ... and now please, it's been fun, but let's wrap it up, perhaps with a Brad moment that will help us forget all that reptile carry-on about comrade Dan and the wickedness of the toads to the north and the secessionist sandgropers...

 

 

 

But there is an alternative. There's the Caterist News Corp alternative, catch the bug, die quickly or at least suffer endlessly...

And so, although it means doing overtime, a little piece on the reef ... always in the hearts and minds of the coal-loving, what about nukes, green energy doesn't cut it, reptiles ...

 

 

 

 

 

The truth? Who is this both siderist half way house loon? Like the reptiles, the pond only gets its reef status reports from the Riddster ... because we can't handle the truth ...

 

 

Uh huh, and what about the planet? How are other parts of the planet going? How's that canary in the jolly Joel beefy Angus coalmine going?

 

 

 

Oh that augurs well, so please, go on with that both siderism stuff ... you know, on the one hand, and on the other ...

 

 

That's it? We're fucked, so we'd better get resilient, or we'll be even more fucked?

Oh, so the planet is fucked, and so are we, and so, come to think of it, is the reef,  unless you count a blather of bureaucratic pieties as the answer to it all.

Any last thoughts?

 

 

The trend is worrying, but we can hope? Give hope a chance? But hope is the last refuge of the scoundrel, and if this is the best that the Major can offer in defending the indefensible, might as well return to reading the Riddster and the Bjorn-again man, or perhaps just wrap up with a Wilcox cartoon ...