In which the pond wastes its Monday and precious time with the Caterist and the Major ...

 

 

The pond couldn't help but notice Nick Cohen's piece on the weekend, Collaboration thrives on everyday vanity and ambition. Just look at RT's wannabes ...

Alex Rees scored a mention, as did that predictable loon George Galloway, together with that other notable Nigel Farage, but Cohen saved special venom for the likes of Neil Clark and Craig Murray. He ended with a few words that might have resonated with reptile devotees...

You may object that it is unfair to pick on propagandists when the bankers, lawyers and estate agents who laundered News Corp money remain anonymous. But journalists, like actors and athletes, are visible. Scrutiny goes with the job. Accept it or quit. You might say that belatedly, even by the lax standards of a cynical world, News Corp journalists are speaking out against Putin and have called time on their collaboration. For all that, they remain important and quietly frightening figures.
Although some thrilled to Putin’s violence, most of News Corp’s employees served the world’s mightiest crime gang while remaining average people with everyday concerns. Their story is a warning to guard against power worship and subservience: not just in those around us but in ourselves.

Oh okay, the pond tweaked that, but then this is a blog, and so always up for fake news. 

The pond was disappointed that Cohen's focus on RT meant that other reliable loons - the pond uses the term advisedly for the likes of Greenwald, Taibbi, Tuckyo Carlson (and locally Grundle grundling away) - but if you want an overdose of Greenwald, try Ben Mathis-Lilley in Slate for How the Most Russia-Friendly Corners of American Punditry Are Coping With the Ukraine Invasion ...

Sure it's old, but ratbaggery never grows old or stale ...  

Because much of what they perceive as brainless anti-Trump tribalism revolves around overheated “Russian asset” conspiracy theories, Greenwald and others like former Rolling Stone staffer Matt Taibbi have found themselves purportedly carrying out a project of opposition to criminal imperialism by arguing that Russia—the world’s most brazenly criminal imperialist state—isn’t as much of a problem as hysterical anti-Trump liberals claim it is. But now here (in March 2022) is Russia engaging in some transparently criminal imperialism.

You might also try Tim Miller's lighthearted piece for The Bulwark, The Distortions of the Putin Apologists ...

Miller: Time to spin again. And we’ve landed on our good friend Glenn Greenwald. Let watch the clip.
Glenn Greenwald: If China or Russia created a new military alliance and invited Mexico or Canada, we would of course react as if that were a great threat to our national security, which it would be.
Miller: Fascinating, Glenn.
Ron Burgundy: You’re so wise.
Miller: Okay, well, Brazil, who’s on our side of the globe, did join an alliance with China and Russia, and we’re cool. If Canada did the same, I’m sure we’d try to talk ’em out of it and build up our Mountie defenses. But we sure as shit wouldn’t start carpet-bombing Toronto. This is a crazy excuse.
Next spin. Ah, Iraq!
Hasan Piker: Once again, a fucking senseless war. The double standard is so fucking flagrant.
Miller: Whataboutism, classic!
David Mitchell: Are we the baddies?
Miller: Okay, let’s go here. Iraq was a mistake. I agree. Torture was unforgivable, stipulate. But what does that have to do with Ukraine? Ukraine is a free democracy and Russia is trying to take it over. The U.S. has not fought a war for territory like this since the 1800s.
Bernardo (David Alvarez in West Side Story): Puerto Rico, sí.
Miller: These situations are not the same. And regardless, our past mistakes don’t give Russia an invasion Get Out of Jail Free card.
Spin again! And it’s Glenn talking about Russiagate.
Greenwald: Now, let’s look at the tensions that were created by Russiagate. All of this, constant messaging, Russia as this grave threat, these are the fruits we’re now seeing of it.
Miller: Russia did not attack another country because of the Mueller investigation.
Jesus from Family Guy: Are you sure?

Why did the pond go there? Well on the weekend it banned a Greenwald-loving loon, and besides all that's on offer in reptile la la land this Monday is the usual suspects, the Caterist and the Major ...

Hey, that's almost like a movie title, like Thunderstruck and Dumbfoot ...

Oh wait, there was one other loon ...

 

 

 

 

Yes, there was a certain Dimitri Burshtein, talking up a Vlad the impaler's impending victory.

Sorry, Dimitri, the pond will stick to the usual. 

Sure that will mean missing out on the lesser member of the Kelly gang praying for a second miracle, but them's the government cash in the paw breaks ...

 

 

 

 

Oh wait, we've already had the second miracle Joe!

Still, the good thing about the government cash in the paw man is that three quick gobbets and the pond is done and can move on ... perhaps with a little light relief thrown into the mix ...

 

 

 

 

Ah, the interstitial cartoon ... just right for an interstitial Caterist relieved of the burden of working out the movement of flood waters in quarries...

 

 

The more the Caterist squawks in such a desperate style, the more the pond is convinced that the reptiles actually think comrade Albo is in with a chance, and so there can be no limitation, no bottom to the cesspool that must inevitably follow ...

 

 

 

 

 And so as promised a third and final and still sounding desperate gobbet ...

 

 

The national interest comes first? 

The pond hasn't seen such quivering and quavering since it last tucked into a jelly long ago in Tamworth Base Hospital, what with pure sugar being the cure for almost everything ...

And so the pond turns to the Major and isn't pleased, but once again is forced to go there. 

It's hard to ignore, what with simplistic Sharri on the case, and Nick nicking in with his AWOL piece ...

 

 

 

 

Good on ya Nick and a special mention to Robyn for only mentioning the weather. Wouldn't want to spoil things in reptile la la land by mentioning climate science ...

Meanwhile, how could the pond fail to notice that simpleton Sharri turned up in three places this morning in the lizard Oz, sounding fully woke ... because not only was she in the comments section, and in the triptych of reptile terror, but look ma, top of the digital page ...

 

And there was the Major blathering on about 'cancelling' news - and for some reason the reptiles felt the need to use inverted commas in relation to the 'cancelling' ...

Was that because the Major was sounding just like Vlad the impaler?

 

 

 

 

And so on, and more at WaPo, assuming the paywall's not an issue ...

Yes, Major Mitchell and Vlad the impaler, two cancel culture birds of a feather ...

 

Ah that good old standby, Hunter Biden ...

That's how the pond found itself at Vox doing a review of the affair and concluding ...

Hunter’s emails contained a whole lot of embarrassing and arguably newsworthy material about himself, and the shady foreign business interests of the son of the potential next president are certainly a worthy topic of media coverage. But as for the Biden who was actually on the ballot, there was very little from him personally in those messages (other than an exchange where he comforts his despondent, drug-addicted son). The emails didn’t dominate mainstream media because, at least so far, they didn’t have the goods.

What the pond loves about the Major is the way that he can whine about the one-sided nature of reporting, while invariably being one-sided in a way that  evokes memories of weird parrots attacking fauns...

 

 

 

 

By golly Albert had a thing about parrots, but the pond only mentions it because these days the Major is so predictable and quickly induces ennui ... which no doubt explains why the reptiles whipped in a click-bait video featuring blur cam ...

The funny thing for the pond is that there was an eruption inside the pond's extended family this weekend, as those who fellow-traveled in comrade Bill's circle were asked to explain just what the fuck comrade Bill and his acolytes were up to. 

Did they really want to ensure comrade Albo's defeat, so that Phoenix, or perhaps parrot style, comrade Bill might rise from the ashes, and at some point down an indefinable point in time, he might lead a revived Labor party to victory in the style of a Jeremy Corbyn?

Of course being tribal, it being Melbourne, everyone knew what a shady customer Andrew Landeryou was, as noted in Crikey, dead to the pond, except when it comes in handy, as in Bullying? Cabals? Landeryou is the factional kettle calling the party black ...  

Andrew Landeryou is quick to cast judgmennt on Labor, but he is no stranger to the black arts of factional warfare ..., it said, as the pond read on (paywall affected)

 

The pond only runs this again because you won't find it mentioned in the now strangely but fully woke reptiles, suddenly deeply alarmed by the notion of bullying ...

Disclaimer, the pond once cheerfully discussed the black art of blogging with Landeryou ... but before the pond gets back to the bullying Major - because it seems this, for the moment is the best the reptiles have got - the pond must report a most peculiar thing ... 

Remember this at the top of the digital page?

 

 

In the actual story, simple Simon must have scurried off to spend time with Bid, because his byline had disappeared ...

 

 

 

 

What's so richly funny here? The assumption that the hose holder had a good story to tell about Covid management, say in aged care or just about anywhere else ...

Not to worry, back to the Major, because what with that talk of a balanced budget long gone, and the Cornucopian tap of plenty about to be turned up to full blast, it seems that the bullying reptiles blathering about bullying in a fully woke way is about all that's left for the moment ....

Stand by your mates? But we know the hose-holder's form ...

 

 

 

 

But you won't find any of that in the Major's hose-holding. That's in Junkee, while even news.com.au noted another outburst ...

 

 

 

 

The pond only notes all this because Major Mitchell is ennui-inducing this day, and the pond is really forced to wonder if it's going to be this grubby for the entirety of the election campaign ... but then ...

You may object that it is unfair to pick on propagandists when the bankers, lawyers and estate agents who laundered News Corp money remain anonymous. But journalists, like actors and athletes, are visible. Scrutiny goes with the job. Accept it or quit. You might say that News Corp journalists are just doing their job in a cynical world, following their Chairman's line and sticking up for a notorious liar, and using woke bullying bullshit in a way that they berated the woke for doing in the past ... For all that, they remain important and quietly frightening figures.
Some such as the Major are thrilled to hold a hose for notorious liars and political lightweights,  while working for one of the world's mightiest media crime gangs ...Their story is a warning to guard against power worship and subservience: not just in those around us but in ourselves.

And so to a final Major gobbet, albeit in the usual minor Major key ... as the Major has no difficulty shaking off the hypocrisy of suddenly being fully woke about the issue of bullying ...

...It also has an intensely aggressive culture, described to me by close observers as bullying or swaggering or macho. Chris Mitchell is determined that his paper will be talked about, a style that his editor, Clive Mathieson, described vividly in an interview with me as “elbows out.” In no other newspaper is the spirit of the editor so omnipresent, either directly through the editorials – the daily morning missives to the nation which he inspires – or indirectly throughout its pages. Mitchell is frequently interviewed by his own journalists. He uses those he most trusts to fight his battles with his many enemies. In a recent profile of him written by Sally Neighbour for the Monthly, David Marr described his uncanny ability to personalise everything he deals with as his peculiar “genius.” Because of the charismatic authority over his journalists exercised by Mitchell, and because of the costs that are paid by anyone in his paper who defies him, one very senior journalist likened the atmosphere inside the Australian to that of a cult.

Ah so long ago, the cult of the swaggering bully, back in 2011, and yet with us still ...

 

 

And now after having wasted time with the always dumbing down Major and speaking of swaggering bullies, and distant observers, time to end with a Rowe, with more Rowe here ...