In which the pond almost takes a break but instead goes searching for honey with a Milne(r) ...

 

 

 

The pond woke up to news of drought, famine, surging inflation and the sociopathic Vlad the impaler, and the level of grumpiness increased exponentially.

Worse, the pond had pottered about yesterday listening to the latest US hearing, before following up with a rare double dose of Morning Joe. 

At one point there were eight talking heads on the screen, and the pond's television set almost collapsed from the weight. Does it take that many people to tell the pond the United States is deeply fucked?

The pond had already been triggered by reading the keen Keane (the other one) carrying on in Crikey with Trump is a confirmed unhinged traitor. And Murdoch is his unindicted co-conspirator. (paywall).

That ended - spoiler alert - this way ...

If Trump ends up in the dock for a variety of crimes committed as president, as he should be, not all his co-conspirators will be there with him. Nixon was famously the “unindicted co-conspirator” in Watergate. The Murdochs and their slew of poisonous Fox News commentators are the unindicted co-conspirators of this continuing crisis.

Of course the local reptiles are a long way from the heart of the evil empire, but to break Godwin's Law for a moment, some distant soldier stationed in France couldn't pretend he had no connection to the heart of Berlin's Nazi regime. 

That was compounded by a correspondent noting that Dame Slap blathering about Trump nuts was beyond the pale ... as if in her day she hadn't been a dinkum nut herself ... as if nuttiness not worth gathering in May was at the heart of all her columns ...

Just a sideways glance from an unindicted co-conspirator was likely enough to set the pond off and then came this in the comments section of the lizard Oz ...

 

 

 

 

Dear sweet long absent lord, petulant Peta blathering on about Xianity, as if it was all a matter of fashion, and somehow we should forget about the pagan, heathen Greek and Roman cultural foundations.

It was simply too much for the pond to bear, what with Niki Savva long gone from sight over at those other Costello rags and the immortal Rowe taking a break and the infallible Pope locked away ...

The pond almost thought of a retreat into a monastic silence, what with the front page determined to set Albo up for a fall ...

 

It's a cunning ploy, the notion that plucky little old Oztralia is going to power and feed the world, and of course, having failed in the mission, the reptiles would then have their chance to do their payback.

The strategy continued at the top of the digital page ...

 

 

As you'd expect from unindicted co-conspirators, there's no mention of the mango Mussolini, or the coup, or the Murdochs and their slew of poisonous Fox News commentators ... just a puff piece about Wong, as if that sort of nonsense could suddenly redeem the unindicted co-conspirators ...

Just as the pond was about to walk away, declare a holiday and return to bed, the pond couldn't help but notice Cameron the Pooh-bear Milner had been elevated to the top of the page, just above a story comically headed "Put renewables on fast track, says AEMO."

Hadn't AEMO been reading the reptiles this past decade? Worse, what were the reptiles doing with that sort of headline? Didn't the reptiles read the reptiles?

And then the pond started to wonder how that toad blow-in, Pooh-bear Milner had become a reptile thing ...

Well it was a dire Thursday, and rather talk Xian with petulant Peta, the pond decided to find out ...

The pond had already done the Colac spaghetti monster thing thanks to a correspondent ...

 

 

 

 

And the pond had supped on the news about Xians ...

 

 

 

 

When the first census was conducted in 1911, 96 per cent of Australians listed a form of Christianity as their religion.
The proportion of Australians identifying as Catholic declined from 23 to 20 per cent over the past five years while self-identified Anglicans dropped from 13 to 10 per cent.
By contrast, the share of Australians identifying as “non-religious” has surged.
Thirty-nine per cent of Australians now identify as non-religious, up from 30 per cent in 2016 and almost double the 22 per cent of Australians who ticked the “no religion” box a decade ago.
In the mid-1960s, less than 1 per cent of people in Australia identified as having no religion.
Based on current trends, non-believers could overtake Christians as the biggest religious bloc in Australia by the time the next census is conducted in 2026. (Costello's rag, here)

So the pond's breaking its vow of census silence so it could identify as non-religious had been worthwhile, and fuck the Xians, the non-believers would be top dog by 2026. 

No more complimentay women for angry Sydney Anglicans, and tykes on retreat, except in the US Supreme Court...

The pond had had its kicks and its laughs ...

 

 

 

 

Okay, the pond is just avoiding the inevitable, but finally it must turn to Pooh-bear Milner, if only to wonder how he became a reptile thing, a toad legend in his own lunch time ...

 

Ah, he's a both siderist, and so can easily slip into the reptile tent, with blather of the "but also with Labor", billy goat butt style ... and when it comes to the peacetime plan, the pond knew at once where we were heading ...

 

 

Straight in line with the usual reptile blather about teals, nice upper middle class houses with solar rooftops, and yadda yadda ...

 

 

 

 

Nostalgia day! The pond didn't check with the latest census figures, but apparently one in four houses in the land consist of nice upper middle class folk in love with teal for their vintage 1960s Marimekko curtains, and their feature walls...

How did the pond come to that figure? Why it took a deep dive into the days of beefy boofhead Angus himself ...

 

 

 

 

Oh dear, the dear old beefy boofhead has been archived, put out to pasture ... what if you called a press conference, and no one came, and so nobody asked a question ...

And yet there was much fun to be had ...

 The Morrison Government’s plan is working.  

•     The ACCC’s latest report shows electricity costs for households are now at their lowest levels in eight years.  
•     In the past two years alone, the ACCC has found power costs have dropped 8 per cent for households – that's a $128 a year saving for consumers.   
•     For small businesses, the average cost has fallen by 10 per cent over the past two years and for large business customers, costs have fallen by 12 per cent over the same period.
•     On top of this, an Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) report released in November shows household electricity bills across the national electricity market will continue to fall by a further nearly 6 per cent on average over the next few years. This means, depending on where you live, families could be a further $126 better off.

The Morrison Government is focused on delivering affordable, reliable and secure electricity for Australian households and businesses. This is central to our ongoing economic recovery and will support jobs, productivity and economic growth.   

The eleventh of March 2022 ... and the beefy boofhead was sounding just like Pooh-bear Milner ...

 But enough fun, it was time for a final gobbet ... and the pond just knew that Pooh would be dancing with delight at coal and gas ... and railing at green-tinged governments, and anti-fossil fuel zealots, and all the usual reptile lingo, and by the way, go toads ... yes, go, go as far as the getting will get ya ...

 

And that's the very last time the pond will bother with Pooh-bear Milner. The pond attributes it to a sudden lack of reptile gas, or rather, perhaps too much petulant Peta Xian gas producing a short term energy crisis ...

Reptiles, look at what you've made the pond become ... it's time to lift your energy quotient, and not just with some blow-in Pooh-bear toad ...

 

 

 

 

In which the pond wakes in a grumpy mood, and the reptiles don't help ...

 

The pond woke to a harrowing story of a woman having a partial miscarriage in Malta, and having lost her baby, having to deal with the threat to her life, while doctors idly stood by, waiting until she might reach death's door, followed by a reminder that it was the death of a woman in Ireland by way of partial miscarriage that led to the referendum and some sanity on that island ...

That was followed by more news on the deeds of the sociopathic terrorist and war criminal Vlad the impaler, this time in a mall, with the ABC eventually getting around to noting that the mango Mussolini himself wanted to join in the storming of the Capitol, and no doubt would have cheerfully joined in the hanging of Mike Pence, had the opportunity presented, and his security team allowed him ...

It didn't put the pond in the mood for a usual serve of the reptile stew this morning, and worse was to follow. 

Somehow, some bloody loon of a reptile had exhumed the ghost of an ABC warrior and dubbed him an expert in climate science, and a fit figure to lead the discussion with a clanking of chains and a howling ...

Of course, of course, build more dykes, it's the way forward, though the pond couldn't help but think back to the days when Dick was at his best ...

By now it should be clear that the pond has no need to listen to the rantings of an ancient loon, dragged out of the closet to produce a burst of denialism, and it says a lot more about the reptiles than it does about climate science ... as we get another serve of Bjorn-again lite technology blather...

Ah, but apparently Dick - note the splendid restraint the pond has shown by not calling him a dick head - has plenty of time to research complex and confusing issues such as climate change, because that's what old farts do before heading off to  another day's shouting on the full to overflowing intertubes ... how the pond yearned for the days when his job was simply to swing an axe ...

Now we get him in preacher mode, urging doom on the doomsayers ...

It was too much for the pond to bear ... and yet there was a final gobbet of gibberish ... showing that Dick had read all the usual preferred reptile sources ...

What a terrible waste of space, what a shocking way to start a Wednesday, and yet remembering that Malta story, and Dame Slap proudly donning a MAGA cap, worse was to follow ...

No, let's start with a cartoon, before the pond erupts with rage at the MAGA cap wearer blathering about judicial activism and hysteria and the magical thinking that it's all going to somehow be set right  ...

The difficulty for the reptiles is that Southern Baptist thinking and Taliban fundamentalism is a tough sell, even to the rabid loons that constitute the lizard Oz readership, so Dame Slap has to do some mighty fine line dancing on the head of a pin ...

Yep, Dame Slap will cheer on Clarence and the old-fashioned democratic way, and soon enough SSM will be in the dustbin, together with gay rights, but there is an upside ... Clarence will likely enough leave mixed marriages and slavery and the three fifths clause to one side in his originalism, and women can always leave Malta for Majorca ... if they happen to have generous insurance ...

And there's another upside ... with bible and gun in hand, there's just a gobbet of Dame Slap to go ...

Yep, fifty years later, there's MAGA hat donning Dame Slap pretending she can talk about fulminating Trumpian Republicans, while cheering on the demise of privacy and the right of women to control their bodies, because yah yah, sucks boo to you, judicial activism, yadda yadda, head off to the ballot box and see if you can defeat the bigots, and if you can't, you can just suck on it, it's democratic bigotry at its finest, and if there were witches in Salem, what can you do with judicial activists?

And there you go, another reptile loon done and dusted for the day ... but not before the pond joins with Wilcox in celebrating the MAGA cap donning Dame Slap's children ...

Could it get any worse? Why yes, today of all days, nattering "Ned" decided to stage his come-back ... it had been so peaceful and quiet at the pond without "Ned" nattering away, and suddenly he's baaack, and pretending he cares, while all he really wants to do is dissemble and throw a little dust in eyes ...

At this point, the pond yet again wondered if the reptiles were remotely aware of the changing demographics that made their business model - "Ned" offering hesitancies, uncertainties, wringing his Chicken Little claws and sighing at the sky - a tad out of date ...

Thanks infallible Pope, sorry about the format, and so to the next gobbet, and here the pond must reassure any millennial woman (spelling, infallible Pope) who accidentally strayed into this wasteland that, yes, the pond did read the web version and did open the web version, and yet it kept getting reptile reminders to open the web version, even though the pond was on the web, and never has anything to do with the tree killer edition, and yes, it's all a plot to send the pond scuttling off into the void with an Alston axe-swinging cry that we're all doomed ... because any promise of extra "Ned" content can only be a promise to do more mind-fucking ...

The pond has left in the click bait videos - you know, the 'solution looking for a problem' routine - but will confess to having deleted one in the Dame Slap piece, because dammit, the bromancer is out and about this day as well, and yet the pond has to wade through this idle defeatist blather from Chicken Little "Ned" ...

The pond already knew where this was headed ... do nothing, and everything will be alright, and yet another gesture squashed, and what do you know, it's all terribly complex and fraught, so watch out the sky is falling in the usual "Ned" way ...

Actually it's finishing now, and the pond can break its golden rule and throw in a fourth reptile, because how could the pond waste all its time with "Ned", when it could be wasting time with the bromancer?

At least "Ned" indicated the fear and loathing campaign that the reptiles and the mutton Dutton's mob will be running through any referendum - fear of a race-based institution inserted into the Constitution and sitting adjacent to the House and the Senate ...

Oh it's juicy, and the white nationalist reptile base will lap it up ...

And so to the bromancer, because the bromancer has joined the pond in a fowl mood, with a lot of clucking to be done ...

The big problem of course, is that the bromancer has signalled his availability, his match fitness, his readiness to lead the team.

Only the bromancer has all the qualities, insights and skills needed to plan Australia's defence, and it's a great tragedy that he's been overlooked, and even subjected to snide comments by readers of the pond ...

Please spare a moment so that the bromancer can show how he'd take the ball up the guts. No fancy dancing down the sidelines, or dallying in the back pocket, straight up the guts ... that's why he's the only contender, the only one worthy of the role of Kaiserlicher und königlicher Feldmarschall - or Generalfeldmarschall or Reichsmarschall if you will. 

It’s not just the title, it’s the vision thing …

Yes, they were all good men, but they must be ruthlessly sacked until they find Ulysses S. Sheridan to lick them all into shape, and tackle the war on China by Xmas with grim and relentless determination ...

And with that done and dusted - climate science, women's rights, Aboriginal rights and the defence of the country in just four columns -  perhaps there'll be time for other thoughts, as offered by Wilcox as the pond's closer ...

In which the pond spends time with a fundamentalist tyke, and Bella of the IPA, and then finishes off with a jolly good groaning ...

 

 

 

It should always be remembered that the bromancer is a fundamentalist tyke. 

He might turn up on the ABC, smiling and blathering away, because that's the ABC's cardigan wearing two siderism at work in a woke way, but essentially, it's just a mask, and he's a fundamentalist tyke, and understanding and remembering this is the only way to approach today's offering ...

 

 

 

 

The pond isn't going to argue with a fundamentalist tyke, nor note the logic, as per Clarence, that the Supreme Court implausibly found in favour of contraception, same sex sex, same sex marriage, and mixed race marriages, so that Clarence might embark on marital life. Go Clarence, get stuck in to those snakes on a plane, or perhaps call on Sam to help ...

 

 

Three fifths of an originalist Supreme Court judge coming to you soon ...

The pond long ago gave up arguing with a fundamentalist tyke pretending that taking away rights is a form of democracy. So instead the pond will slip in a few cartoons ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now back to the fundamentalist tyke bullshit ...

 

 

 

 

It is of course a typical fundamentalist Catholic tyke debating trick ... seize on a single example of someone exercising a choice, while arguing in a way that deprives women of choice ...

 

The pond could dig up personal examples of its own ... like the adopted child who returned to the pond's extended family in search of its long lost natural mother, only for the mother, still a Catholic, still consumed by guilt, to reject any advances from the child.

Oh it's a tough world, and there's going to be much unhappiness, from the needless deaths in backyard abortions, to the victims of rape and incest carrying their assailants babies to term, to a boom in the Catholic adoption system, and never mind past horror stories of disposable bodies buried willy nilly, to children wondering why they were handed off for adoption, and what might have happened to their natural parents ...

None of this matters to your fundamentalist tyke ...

 

 

Uh huh, a fundamentalist tyke keen to crank up the Catholic adoption ponzi scheme system again would say that, wouldn't he, because there's nothing like being the product of rape or incest to induce peace of mind and harmony in an adoption ... and if your mother happens to die while giving birth, what a bonus sense of the rightness of the world ...

And as for dividing the country, where's the harm in a civil war?

 

 

 

 

 

 

The pond thought it would throw in that last cartoon as a reminder that there's going to be new and enhanced ways to kill off the excess of babies ...

And so to a last very short gobbet of fundamentalist tyke bullshit ...

 

 

 

Written by a complacent white Australian male, always available for ABC appearances ...

Luckily the infallible Pope has returned this day to celebrate the state of the union ...

 

What a relief to turn to the squawking of Bella of the IPA ...

 

 

 

Indeed, indeed, the pond is never in the business of distorting history, and certainly isn't interested in facts being taught, which is why it deplores the ungrateful savages and their disgraceful, barbaric treatment of the good Captain ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poor James, oh the filthy savages ... and what a grand painting, showing the valiant warriors trying to harmoniously introduce concepts of civilisation to the disgraceful mob ...

Well the pond has done its bit, and now it's time for Bella of the IPA to do the rest ...

 

Indeed, indeed, the game of woke and all that from Bella of the IPA, and the pond couldn't help be reminded of all those bloody Marxists ruining the country, as turned up in Crikey yesterday ...

 

It's a matter of some pride for the pond - in fact it's the pond's whole business model - that there are some marvelous fruitloops out there on public transport ...

Catch a bus today, or in Melbourne a tram, and watch out for the bloody Marxists all around you, and give thanks to Hollie for the warning ...

And speaking of fruitloops, today is Dame Groan day, and the pond hasn't forgotten the devotion and loyalty the Groaner's groaning inspires in the pond readership, but really today is a very dry as dust edition, and the bromancer and Bella have shown what the very best of the reptiles can really do ...

 

Of course the NSW government was up to its blatant misrepresentations and cooking and long stewing of the books long before the keen Kean turned up to supervise the simmering, but the pond suspects that this is a handy time for the Groaner to have a groan, because she surely must fear and loathe this simpering wet, always banging on about climate science ...

 

Sheesh, this is dry stuff. Of course it's entirely wrong for governments to fix things, it goes right against the grain. Special mental health levies ..."even on companies"!!!

Oh, as Marlon might say, the horror, the horror ...

Is there no end to the horrors the Groaner must confront, while no doubt still pocketing a healthy, if much reduced stipend, from Chairman Rupert ...

But because of the dryness, might the pond just slip in a leftover cartoon ...

What a threesome, and so to the final gobbet of groaning about all that bloody pork barreling, as if the country isn't in urgent need of federal carparks ...

 

 

 

Well it wouldn't be a decent Groan if the Groaner hadn't done a groan involving dear sweet innocent beloved clean Oz coal, and the important role it plays in state budgets and fucking the planet ... and now the pond considers its duties done for this day, and offers some pious advice as a closer, even as the pond knows that the advice will be ignored, such is the state of wilful ignorance, superstition, and stupidity these days in the union devoted to the Talibanisation of hand maidens...