In which the pond keeps tootling, and an infallible Pope starts the tootle ...

 

 

Why not start with an infallible Pope?

 

 

 

No reason at all, really, now that the pond isn't cooking with reptile-approved coal ...

And speaking of the reptiles, that leads to a note on the pond's ongoing war with the reptiles. 

Not a single comment on the bromancer's column, at least at time of writing ... retrieved from behind the paywall, and given a splash in the pond, yet ignored ... and instead a splendid and informative note on the deeply corrupt, profoundly incompetent, perhaps both Met ...

What does that say about an interest in those wretched reptiles and their completely predictable climate science denying, coal-loving ways?

It's been noted a zillion times, and instead there was a PMQs to watch.

Why, the pond stayed up long after bedtime, well after eleven for the pleasure, muted though it was, but spiced up in the obligatory Crace follow up ...

...“I’m in it to serve my country,” the Suspect insisted. Another lie, of course. Though he could have meant serve as in fuck up. But just imagine the terrifying implications were it to be true. That Boris genuinely thought he was doing us all a favour by being prime minister. That what we needed was a narcissist who was a joke on the world stage. Both the Americans and the Russians have been taking the piss out of Johnson for his inability to tell the truth about parties and the Ukrainians were so underwhelmed by his visit that none of its media could be bothered to direct a single question towards him.
The rest of PMQs rather petered out as the Suspect tried to curry favour with Tory backbenchers for whom he had no respect but now happened to need. Chris Loder was told there would be a new railway timetable for West Dorset this month. Which would be nice if there was a train line in West Dorset. Henry Smith was congratulated for his suggestion there should be a minister for telling everyone what the benefits of Brexit were. Very much a part-time job, presumably, as there are next to none. Or maybe we should all just learn to tune in to the rapture.
Big Dog also declared that he was enormously sad his former press secretary Allegra Stratton had resigned. Which was odd. Because before he had been forced to admit that he had been to the parties he had said he was furious with her for joking about the parties. Some might have appreciated the irony that Stratton is the only person to have resigned from No 10 and she didn’t even go to one of the parties. You can’t have that level of decency in Johnson’s Tory party.

While tootling about in the pond's comments section, there also came a kind, generous, if also misguided, offer to provide the pond with a subscription to the lizard Oz ... as if somehow reading Crace on Churchillian - allegedly - Big Dog wasn't entertaining enough ...

That would subvert the entire pond mission, the pond's eternally binding oath ...

 

 

 

You see, the pond swore long ago on the skull of its ancient ancestors that not a single cent or penny or shekel would pass from the pond, or in the pond's name, to the Chairman and his son, whether for tree killer newspaper, digital intertubes killing offshoot, truth killing Sky News channel, irrelevant quaint old delivery system Foxtel, or any of the other hybrid forms the gigantic squid takes as it crawls across many lands ...

Meanwhile, the pond has warned the reptiles that their paywall is broken, the clock is ticking, the countdown has begun, and the pond will see how the reptiles play their hand in the next few days ...

And so to business ... and what better way to start than with this item from the Daily Beast ...

 

Naturally the pond followed instructions and clicked on the link to head to the source at NBC News ...

There was little to add, the Beast had gleaned the best of it, though there was this reminder ...

Soldano’s remarks on abortion were reminiscent of the late Republican Rep. Todd Akin’s comments during his 2012 Senate campaign that “legitimate rape” rarely results in pregnancy. Akin said “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

GOP science at work, though it reminded the pond that it had always suspected that God was a rapist, what with the way She foisted the Holy Spirit on to Mary, and forced her into extramarital sex, albeit of an ethereal ectoplasmic kind that would have pleased Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

All the same if you get pregnant fucking a spirit while cuckolding your hubbie, where does that leave the pond with all that nonsense it was taught in the Catholic catechism about the sanctity of marriage?

No impure thoughts, but getting pregnant after deliberate consent to a fuck with a horny spirit is okay...?

The Soldano proposal that God was at work through a rapist just added to the historical record, and no doubt Soldano and the long absent lord will be mightily pleased when rapists roam about doing their thing, and when told that it's criminal, can cheerfully reply, just doing God's work ma'am, just doing God's work, and with a bit of luck, you may be blessed with child thanks to the mysterious ways of the long absent lord ...

Of course the long absent lord and Soldano won't be around to help raise the child, and in the United States they don't believe in welfare muchly, just the triumph of the individual, so good luck with all of that ...

And with that particularly sick opening out of the way, why not turn back to the oscillating fan for a little light relief?

Yesterday in Crikey came this update, and that grimacing snap that everyone loves and can't get enough of ...

 

Oh and the UK Daily Snail threw in for good measure ...

 

Look at me ma, top of the world, even made it into the UK Daily Snail ...

Some days the pond wonders about heading back into the toxic culture cultivated by the reptiles. 

Could the pond sue the pond for being made to work in a rude and hostile environment?

Of course there were some who suggested it was mild stuff and hearkened back to the good old days of the genuinely barking mad ... (perhaps NSFW) ...

 

 

 

 

What else? Well, it seems Ben Roberts-Smith's defamation action has managed to defame him in more ways than any alleged defamatory remarks could manage ... 

As it's before the court, the pond must leave it there, but the pond can surely call out "well played, keep up the good work" ...

What else? Well for the first time in many a year, the soft paywall at the Herald allowed the pond to read the savvy Savva, and as others in search of complimentary reads (and perhaps in good Sydney Anglican style, complementary women) can do the same here, the pond will only regurgitate a choice set of quotes, set off by the oscillating fan ...

...On Tuesday Morrison failed to successfully recast his narrative, admit his mistakes without qualification, apologise for them also without qualification, show he is both in control and in touch, or outline an agenda for another term more arresting than “the other bloke will be worse than me”.
That was even before he was sucker-punched by Peter van Onselen’s revelation of a text from Gladys Berejiklian purportedly saying Morrison was a horrible person and a federal cabinet minister, responding he was a fraud and a psycho. Then he didn’t know how much bread, petrol and rapid antigen tests cost.
The leaking of the texts was timed deliberately to inflict maximum damage on Morrison, derail his speech, dial up his paranoia and spook his colleagues even more than they are already. It worked.
Morrison was later said to be very upset over the texts. It could have been any one of a number of ministers but in NSW circles it has been narrowed down to one, still serving.
Morrison has never been wildly or even mildly popular in the Liberal Party. Not even in his home state of NSW. Clearly, as was reported here previously, relations with former premier Berejiklian were terrible.
If anything they are worse under Dominic Perrottet.
Not only because Morrison called Perrottet a f---wit” on a torrid video conference call or because of his refusal to contribute to the latest package to help struggling small businesses cope with the shadow lockout, even
NSW Treasurer Matt Kean put the proposal to his federal counterpart Josh Frydenberg more than two weeks ago, Frydenberg ran it past Morrison and Morrison said no. Kean’s subsequent criticisms of his federal colleagues for failing to step up – which initially had him as prime suspect for the text leak which he denied – were devastating.
Especially as Morrison had spent more than a billion dollars over the weekend in an effort to sandbag Queensland seats, mollify inner urban liberals threatening to vote for independents, change the conversation for a few hours at least from COVID and influence Newspoll which was out in the field conducting its first survey in the election year.
The running sore has been the battle over preselections for key NSW seats with Morrison initially trying to convince more state MPs to go federal, or scouring the landscape for celebrities to run then using the immigration minister Alex Hawke as his proxy to try to railroad the state executive into installing his preferred candidates including a Pentecostal preacher, Jemima Gleeson for the seat of Dobell...

Ah, the good old Pentecostal preacher routine. 

Hmm, how's it going with the kiddy fiddling cover-up at Hillsong?

Speaking of trivia ...

The name Jemima is primarily a female name of Hebrew origin that means Dove. In the Bible, Jemima was the first of Job's daughters. Jemima Potts, a character in the film "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang." Aunt Jemima, pancake syrup brand.

Still, and despite disputes about the spelling, it seems a more politically likely name than the alternatives ... (Job 42):

And he also had seven sons and three daughters. He named his first daughter Jemimah, his second Keziah, and his third Keren-happuch. No women as beautiful as Job’s daughters could be found in all the land, and their father granted them an inheritance among their brothers ...

It's likely voters might get agitated at a Keren-happuch, what with it sounding like one of those attention-seeking Karens ...

The savvy Savva remains as sour on SloMo as when she scribbled for the reptiles ... 

What he still doesn’t get, even after more than 1200 days as Prime Minister, is that every single problem, particularly during a crisis, whether his fault or the fault of others – and too often it has been his fault - eventually lands on his desk. It is his job to fix it, without complaining without blaming others.
Voters will forgive many things, including lying, even whiffs of corruption. They will not forgive incompetence or neglect.

Steady, steady, the reptiles are in the family business of forgiving incompetence, neglect, lying and whiffs of corruption as strong as the smell of the meat that used to spend too long out on the verandah in a dangling meat box, back in the days when the pond's grandparents lacked even an icebox, let alone a fridge ...

And speaking of corruption, the document swallowing and tearing up mango Mussolini has been much in the news of late, so much that he's back as a rival to Boris, and that, as already noted, takes some doing ...

As part of its reading, the pond always recommends The Bulwark, because as apostates and heretics, the lads know where the bodies are buried ...

Come on down, Tim Miller, briefly abandoning his desire to control the bodies of women, and full of gloom and news of a Satanic, ongoing haunting ...

Poor old Lindsey, yet again dubbed a RINO, though no doubt he'll come grovelling back again. It's in his nature and the amount of gravel rash on the belly is awesome to behold ...

 

 

 

Pursue those items, and the snake-bellied gravel rash, as you will, a final word from Tim ...

 

 Oh come on Tim, in its day it was a great movie and something of a date outing for the pond ...

 

 

And so to a final culling, because the pond believes that the United States is now deeply and comprehensively fucked, and would like to tender this piece by Arwa Mahdawi for the Graudian in evidence ...

 

You wouldn't be reading that sort of sample if the pond had stayed stuck behind the paywall with the reptiles. Why the chance for the pond to get banned by a US school board is irresistible ...

David Rowe felt the need to get into the act by re-tweeting this ...

 

 

But then the right has always liked a little cancel culture and burning, a cause espoused by those currently demonstrating in Florida and hurling slurs at Jews ...

 

 

Does anyone need a snow-plow man?

 

 

 

 

Democracy in Amerikah?  It turns out that getting thumped by snow is easier than getting into the Federalist Society to her Neil Gorsuch's remarks ... 

Yes, there's so much to read about in the United States, whether it be Nazis ...

 

 

... or 'leets gathered behind closed doors in sinister seditionist cabals ...

You really only need the headlines when you're deep in the stench of 'gator country ...

Finally a reminder that while visiting Rowe, you can always catch up up on the latest, a perfect supplement for the gut repair required after thinking about SloMo ...

Is it possible to upstage the infallible Pope and the immortal Rowe in the comedy stakes? 

The pond remains loyal, but each day some valiant American tries ... and some wonder why the pond finds there's a whole world of wonder outside the paywall...

Only in Amerikah ... and that's more than enough tootling for the day. 

The pond's clock is ticking, and the reptiles are on notice, and let's see if they can fix their paywall in the coming days ...