In which the bromancer goes on one of his paranoid persecution complex Xian rants, and the pond must turn to the Groaner for groaning relief ...

 

 

Watching John Oliver last night, the pond came to the inescapably logical awareness that the United States was comprehensively fucked. 

His twin themes were the way that Trumpism was now raging around the country, with the tendency to fascism no longer crypto, and the fate of the homeless, which in short suggested it didn’t pay to be poor in America. 

He went on at excruciating length about the wretches caught up in all sorts of binds in the rental market, though there are many other ways that American capitalism manages to grift and screw the last drop from the desperate ...

 

 

 

 

 

It’s never paid to be poor, but it does help explain why a bumbling idiot of the Herschell Walker kind could come to be a viable GOP candidate. When you’re down and out and desperate, any kind of lying klutz and complete doofus offers the promise of the road to Nirvana … 

Before turning to Nirvana in the reptiles this day, the pond should add a footnote about electric vehicles in Victoria. An informed source confirmed to the pond that there wasn't a single EV available to top cardigan wearers at this moment in time, but that a ningnong had devised a topnotch plan to tax them before they'd gone above 2% of the marketplace...

The pond and its source are open to correction, and any government spokesperson proud to report on all the EVs in the Victorian government fleet will find plenty of space for their news ...

Sorry, the pond just had to slip that in before turning to the reptiles ... and what do you know, it's just as well because the bromancer was top of the digital page ma ...

 

No, it's not the reptiles getting agitated about the greenies, nor even the low comedy of it being an "efusal". 

Given the way the pond is littered with typos - thanks autocorrect - who could cast the first tone?

That's all just typical grist for the reptile mill, and instead he pond is sad to report that the bromancer has had one of his freakout days, one of those salad paranoid persecution complex days, and what a ripper it is ...

 

That illustration shows how sad the decline has been in the lizard Oz graphics department. It's the sort of kitsch illustration that wouldn't be out of place for Dominican nuns in Tamworth in the way back when, and it would have sent Susan into a camp Sontagian frenzy ...

 

 

 

 

But back to to the plea to Albo to do something, which is weird, since the reptiles explain as a matter of routine how there's absolutely nothing the Australian government might do that would make the slightest jot of difference regarding climate change and climate science ... yet suddenly they can make a difference when it comes to rival tribes of dog botherers?

Suddenly Albo is supposed to fix the way that assorted god botherers who believe in different gods launch vicious attacks on heretical god botherers of a different stripe, including the loons who want to out-Taliban the Taliban for vicious religious fundamentalism? 

It was all too weird, but deeply paranoid and persecution complex sourced, and the pond didn't expect to hear a word about the Southern Baptists currently fucking the United States with guns and bigotry and the odd sex scandal, and still in league with a very naughty dog owner ...

 

 

 

 

The pond makes no apology. These days it needs a big sip of Jack or perhaps diddly squat to make it through a bromancer rant about religion ...

 

 

Nigeria? He had to mention Nigeria? Well it's possibly a tad better than Uganda, but still the spectre of persecution, helped on by visiting American Xian fundamentalists, has sparked a surge in bigotry ...

As a Nigerian gay man, these myths about homosexuality create a dark cloud over my head. They leave me trying to navigate my way through self-denial, rejection, love and the burden of guilt. While to many people the assertion “homosexuality is un-African” might just be words, to all African LGBT people it puts our lives in imminent danger. It is used in South Africa to rape lesbians. It is used to pass laws and to jail, threaten or kill gay rights activists. It is used to dehumanise LGBT people across Africa and legitimise the hate that we face. It is the reason I receive death threats, which ultimately drove me into exile from my home in Nigeria.

That was Bisi Alimi in the Graudian in 2015, and it hasn't got any better, even as tranny bashing has become a new world sport, and there are too many examples to cite, but the pond doesn't expect it to be mentioned when the bromancer blathers on about Christophobia in preference to homophobia ...

And what about that hugely comical line about Muslims not suffering persecution in the West?

 

 

 

 

Thanks, just the headlines are enough ... a reminder of the thoughts and deeds of barking mad far right Australian extremist in touch with rampant extremists around the western world is more than enough for the pond ... especially as the far right continues apace in France, and has never been below the surface in other European locales, including Germany, Austria ... and wherever in Scandinavia you want to visit ...

Is it any wonder that the pond turns to cartoons to make it through this sort of bromancer ant when he's in full efusal flight...

 

 

And so back to that persecution complex and of course there's going to be bullshit about crippling intellectual deformities caused by identity politics and woke ideology, which brings out the most subtle intellectual rigour in the pond's arguments in response ... like why don't you just get fucked, or better still take a flying fuck into some gigantic black hole, you gormless fundamentalist Catholic twit...

 

Dear sweet long absent lord, when the bromancer gets into this sort of gear, the clichés come thick and fast, and its impossible to count them, but the pond particularly resents the way that (a) atheism is supposed to be some kind of religion and (b) atheists by definition fellow travel with wannabe dictators for life of the Xi kind ...

What's happened since fundamentalist religion has made a comeback in Russia? The war in Ukraine and a full blessing for the rapacious Vlad the impaler ...

Confusing and conflating religion with crazed fascist authoritarians is like saying that the bromancer fellow travels with Xians of the Q conspiracy kind ...

 

Wait, maybe he does ... but it's come to a pretty pass when the pond can run a Ramirez cartoon with a straight Q face ...

And so to the final indignity ...

 

He's offering thoughts and prayers for persecuted Xians who do their very best to persecute all sorts of people, including women who want the right to control their bodies and people who want to stay out of reach of guns?!

How much longer must the pond and the world endure the thoughts and prayers to imaginary friends, how much longer can it go on? Ah, with an enhanced magazine, it can go on forever ...

 

 

The pond usually likes to keep its atheism under control - if people need an imaginary friend to get through the day, who is the pond to mind? - but fuck it, when the dog botherer carries on like a pork chop, it's bloody hard ...

To help get the blood pressure under control, the pond looked around for a Tuesday bonus ...

 

 

Oh fuck it. some fucking loon fucking carrying on in a fucked up way about fucking virtue signalling ... as if a discussion of banking needs bullshit about virtue signalling ... and Albo, as part of his mission to produce world peace for persecuted religions, must visit Ukraine, as opposed to say sending one of our nuculear subs to help ... (relax, it's an ongong efusal joke) ...

The pond refused to look below the fold, as it did yesterday to dig up the Caterist. There was nothing to do but go with Dame Groan's nostrums.

The pond is aware that the Groaner's groaning has a big following in the pond's admittedly small readership. The pond doesn't get it, but is always happy to help out with a serve ...

 

 

Indeed, indeed, it's a tough time for budget deficit reptiles, and the groaning, the sighing and the wailing got louder as the pond pressed on ...

 

 

The pond read that, and wept because there was no nary a sign of a mea culpa ... just an arcane groaning ...

While this discussion may sound arcane, the message is really quite simple. By running the economy so close to full capacity, including the labour market, the Coalition government (and the Reserve Bank) unleashed a potential world of pain in terms of rising inflation, rising interest rates, falling property and asset prices, and possibly much higher unemployment down the track.

Feel free to copy and paste and use as you will because it'll be a long time before you read its like again ...

 

 

The pond did note that line "bringing in more migrants is now too late ...", which will surely please devotees of the Groaner ...

 

 

She/s won, she's won ... and then the pond's good cheer evaporated. Let's hope we can escape the worst of Dame Groan's nostrums this time ...

But enough of a trip down groaning memory lane, or else we'll end up back in the 1970s ... it's time to end with the Rowe for the day, with more Rowe always here ...

 

 

 

 

For some curious reason, that fuse box routine reminded the pond of that wire-cutting scene in the long-forgotten Juggernaut ... was it the red wire or the blue wire?