In which the pond tackles the usual "Ned" Everest, and discovers there's something to be said for Polonius ... comparative brevity ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is not the way the pond wanted to start the weekend. 

 

But the pond is just a hapless foil to the whims of the reptiles, and there at the top of the digital page was the bloviator in chief, the most pretentious, pompous and portentous of them all, still plugging his podcast, and claiming voice of authority rebooted status, when booted would be a kinder deed ...

 

The pond knows starting off with nattering "Ned" reveals some kind of death wish, and yet it must be done, and if nothing else, at least it's not the virus, or even climate science ... 

 

 

 

Failures in education?

One thing certainly won't be mentioned in "Ned's" extraordinarily lengthy ramble, and that's the way that News Corp has, collectively through its various outlets, managed to lower the national IQ by a level which the pond can't quantify, but will simply call huuuge ...

As evidence, the pond must turn to Crikey.

A pond correspondent had noted that "Ned" had been given a serve therein, and indeed the pond had thought of running said serve the next time "Ned" stuck his head above the parapets, and what better time than now?

 

 

Now to turn from that analysis to "Ned" in action ... and who does he turn to in his very first gobbet? 

The trudging Tudge, one of the dopiest members of the current SloMo cabinet ...

 

If you want an idea of Tudge, you can head off here for his voting record ... inter alia ...

 

 

 

 

There's a lot more that the Tudge is strongly against, but the pond should be fair to its correspondent, and finish that previous rant about "Ned" ... 

 

The pond should acknowledge at this point that the pond, up against the likes of the keen Keane, is only a fair average student, a rather lackadaisical herpetologist, who lacks drive, and energy, and diligence, and seeks any excuse to distract from its reptile studies ...

As a mediocre student, the pond also rarely bothers to argue at length or in depth, but rather just plods along, presenting the reptiles in their full pompous, pedantic glory.

Distraction? Did anyone mention Kohler? Is there a graph in the house?

How about a chart? A chart is always a good and meaningless way to avoid heading straight into more "Ned" ...

 

 

 

Well it's better than "Ned's" waffle, and what do you know, in the next gobbet, the reptiles will try on another old trick ... a pathetic graphic ... to help "Ned", who so recently pontificated on climate science, and who now chances his hand on the "science of learning" ...

 

Already by this point the pond was starting to avoid the topic and note the usual reptile weirdnesses. Instead of a direct use of the English language, "told me", it becomes "told Inquirer". The pond supposes that "Ned" could have used a Neddism, "told your humble reporter" ... 

Frankly scribbling in the third person, as the pond does, is something the pond only does because it's not really Dorothy Parker, long dead, poor but brave thing. Is this "Ned's" way of saying he's not really "Ned", or perhaps even worse, that he's been mentally dead for many a year?

Never mind, because then, at the end of the next gobbet things got even weirder ...

But, before going there, the pond learned that we need to focus on the practices that deliver the most effective learning clichés, including robust evidence, evidence-based stuff, explicit instruction, cognitive science, and all the rest of the blustering the pond endured while suffering through a Dip. Ed. ...

 

You see? That's what the pond was talking about, the weirdness. The pond only left the space-hogging player in so that it could note what the reptiles were doing.

They'd stuck the player featuring the last "Ned" outing into the latest "Ned" outing, thereby ensuring a double serve of "Ned" and making the whole point of a podcast listening to the man read himself boring the socks off his readership entirely suspect and moot.

Of course the pond immediately degutted it by making it a screen cap, but see the refined levels of torture the reptiles are capable of. Not only could you have "Ned" blathering on about education, you could have "Ned" on the financial wolves, though the keen Keane had already run through that like a knife warmed in a climate change heat dome attacking a buttery "Ned" ...

 

Students anxious to be as keen as Keane, will have already noted that bit of pandering at the start, you know, the stuff about Tudge being unusual when it comes to education.

As anyone who bothers with Tudge's wiki here, they will discover that he's just a usual, typical Minister ...

...In March 2020, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal ordered that an Afghan asylum seeker who had previously been a part of the Afghan National Army be granted a temporary protection visa. Tudge, who was Acting Immigration Minister at the time, instantly appealed the judgement of the AAT to federal court, which failed. However during the 6-day appeal process, the asylum seeker had been kept in the detention centre. Six months later, the Federal Court found that Tudge "engaged in conduct which can only be described as criminal," and that Tudge had deprived the asylum seeker of his liberty, which has prompted calls for his resignation…

…In November 2020, Tudge's former press secretary Rachelle Miller revealed on a broadcast of Four Corners that they had engaged in an affair. Tudge subsequently released a statement on Facebook confirming the affair and that it led to the end of his marriage. In the same broadcast, Miller described Tudge's opposition to same-sex marriage, based on his support for "traditional" marriage, as hypocritical. She later also accused him of bullying and intimidation, saying in a complaint "He would often ask me to go to dinner or drinks at the end of a long day on the road. I often felt like I didn’t have much choice or couldn’t say no because he was my boss"...

And so on and so forth, as on we trudge with the interminable "Ned" ...

 

 

A romantic notion of education? The pond has long forgotten the dusty byways of history it was forced to cram, to memorise, so it could regurgitate the details in a paper or an exam ... but then luckily it found it could export all its storage from the 512k inbuilt memory device to the cloud ...

Do go on ...

The pond is sure that a keen Keane would have a field day with notions that educational science is settled, since the one thing that is settled is that things are never settled, but that's what you get when you have a pompous ponderous unqualified loon wandering down another path in search of ways to shore up the coalition government ...

Around this point "Ned" reached peak hagiography, with a snap of the Tudge trudging down the steps in the chamber ... and perforce the pond had to show the snap, but decided to keep it down to appropriate size ...

 

 

Given the level of peak hagiography, the pond reverted to the keen Keane, this time moaning about the sublime incompetence of the current mob ... and what do you know, the trudging Tudge didn't even score a mention, with the pond only able to note a small amount of the rant ...

 

 

The pastie creationist Hastie and Sukkar as the only signs of life?

In June 2017 Tudge, and Liberal Party colleagues Greg Hunt and Michael Sukkar, faced the possibility of being prosecuted for contempt of court after they made public statements criticising the sentencing decisions of two senior judges while the government was awaiting their ruling on a related appeal.They avoided prosecution by, eventually, making an unconditional apology to the Victorian Court of Appeal.Conviction could have resulted in their expulsion from the parliament under Constitution s 44(ii) and, as a result, the government losing its one-seat majority in the House of Representatives.

 

 

By now, the pond had exhausted all possible distractions, and like many a student trapped in class, was screaming oh just end it now, finish it, for the love of humanity enough already ...

 

 

Of course the pond had forgotten that the first rule is that your average simple-minded, simpleton, not wanting any part of the blame, had to play the blame game and find somehow else largely accountable ... and so enter the usual handy suspects ...

Asked whether the pond much cared at this point, the pond said no ...

 

 

That last line passed for what the pond was taught, and so came to understand, was a cheap rhetorical trick ...

But there was one insight. "This has been said before." But be fair, it has never before been said at such meaningless, interminable length ...

But as a reward for anyone to make it this far, how about an infallible Pope, celebrating "Ned" and climate?

 

 

 

With "Ned" done and finally dusted, it beggars belief, but the pond almost turned to prattling Polonius with a sigh of relief.

The pond could proceed knowing the real problem for everything ... the ABC ...

It wasn't universities, or even education, it was the ABC ...

 

Ah yes, the wretched ABC, how they ruin everything ...

 

 

 

 

Why are the reptiles obsessed with the Kiwis? How are the Kiwis and what they do a get out of jail card for the local mob?

 

Of course Polonius is a little behind the News Corp times with his defensive prattle and his homilies and pieties, because readers of the Weekly Beast here will have noted a disturbing trend ...

 

 

 

 

 

How beastly, but back to the defensive Polonius ...

 

 

 

 

Oh dear, is it wrong of the pond to keep sampling the beastly Beast, with the Hazzard sounding like he was more GUR than hazard? 

 

 

 

 

 

There, just a couple of distractions, and the pond's Polonial duties were all done ...

 

 

That's the best he's got after all that? Governing is difficult, while criticism is easy?

But all Polonius ever does is easy criticism of the ABC, and when it comes to the coalition, ducking and weaving, and refusing to say boo to a goose, or even to an Elton John ...

 

 

 

By golly after all that, the pond really should have killed at least one of its babies, and refused entry to our Gracie ...

But the pond has developed quite a taste for our Gracie's sundry heresies, and will even allow her to mention the Olympics, that great boondoggle and swindle ...

Ah yes, it's the Melburnians having their revenge ... with a pond correspondent showing the state of Melbourne early this very morning, as a result of the failures of the NSW government ...

 

 

Talk about Hopper! Maintain the rage and the sniping, Gracie, keep on with the heresies, stick it to our Glad ...

 

Dear sweet long absent lord, not the Victorian liberals turning on the cockroaches? Et tu, O'Brien? Poor old Glad, give her some advice Gracie ...

 

Comrade Dan a game changer? This in the lizard Oz?

After the pond recovered from its fainting fit, it decided to end in the usual way with an immortal Rowe, if only as a reminder that were was always more Rowe here when things got tricky for anyone stuck up the Nile with a Glayds for a paddle ...