In which the pond suggests that fact-checking the reptiles could lead to interminable posts and possibly PTSD ...

 

Thanks to a correspondent, the pond is able to begin with a correction. 

First, the pond must confess guilt and admit that each day it reproduces reptiles lying, or offering meretricious stupidities, or arrant ranting, and these days the pond is too lazy to correct the record. No amount of Our Fathers and Hail Marys will save the pond from reptile purgatory ... (it really does exist).

The pond could have saved this tweet to the next serving of the floodwaters in quarries whisperer, but better to run it now ...

The pond ran the correction with a twinge, because the pond is very ambivalent about the Musk-owned Twitter, which these days is veering towards a mango Mussolini style serve of dinner with fascists ...

But it does remain a handy way to offer up actual data, evidence that the quarry whispering Caterist (and so the pond), is too lazy to discover ...

There, that's done, but if the pond were to persist in this noble mission, each day would be full of corrections and real data, and then where would the pond be? Probably off reading other publications and telling the reptiles to fuck off ...or suffering from an extreme case of PTSD.

Of course in its private life, the pond only reads other publications, and its herpetological studies are only a hobby, and of late the hobby has become exceptionally dull or fraught. 

There's no model kit glue here to give the pond a buzz ... instead the pond must spend time ruling out assorted offerings ...

You see? There's Dame Slap blathering on about the voice yet again, and activist judges, and so on, and all the pond could think was Clarence and Ginni ,and just fuck off ...

Day after day it's the same shit, sometimes featuring the same shit cartoonist ...

And there was simplistic Simon - here no conflict of interest - blathering about energy, when the pond might take a straight shot of the lizard Oz editorialist, right into the eyeball ...

How does the pond know that the lizard Oz editorialist is channeling simplistic Simon? Would using the very same notion of "least worst option" as the 'ABC, always be closing' routine, do the trick?

Yep, it's just another murmuration, reptiles gathered around the fire and chanting in unison, and the lizard Oz editorialist was on something of a roll this day ...

Say what? "There is broad agreement that climate change poses an overarching threat to all reef systems" ??

On what known reptile planet is that true? Doesn't the lizard Oz editorialist step outside occasionally to see what the lizard Oz editorialist sees as fit to print?

There was the Riddster recently explaining that climate change might be a jolly good thing, as IPA worshippers of Gina are wont to do ... proudly featured in the lizard Oz ...

And the week before Gina's lackey had been on about the reef, and all the good news ... (the pond only quotes excerpts because it has already run the Riddster in full before) ...

And so on and so forth, because correcting the reptiles or reminding them of their follies could end up with a post that circled the earth ... and yet here we are ...

Ah yes, it's all a conspiracy, and talk of climate science is just an agenda, and meanwhile, the IPA has no agenda, and that at least explains why the reptiles were freaking out at the top of the digital page ...

Scientists say? 

When the pond looked at that report, it turned out that they were quoting a reef tourism operator, AgForce and a nobody purporting to be the opposition environment spokespersonman ... and when it came to the scientists ...

Jodie Rummer, a marine biologist at James Cook University, said coral recovery was positive but could quickly be undone by marine heatwaves, and the ­UNESCO report was the “wakeup call Australia needed”.
“We cannot afford to have another mass bleaching event this season, that would make seven and that’s just reducing the time of recovery between these events,” she said,
“The ecosystem cannot handle it and it cannot recover fast enough to sustain the populations and the health that the ecosystem needs to thrive.”
University of Queensland reef expert Peter Mumby said there were “pluses and minuses” in the report, but agreed with its recommendations.
“My worry is that when something is listed as “in danger”, it can create a sense of ­futility,” he said.
“There is this global myth that the Great Barrier Reef is dead, it is not dead. So this kind of publicity has a global effect on how people perceive the reef which I do not think is fair.”
Professor Mumby said although the report was “a little out of date” given the official visit to monitor the reef happened in March, it was correct and sensible. “There is an awful lot of work that needs to be done to shepherd this reef into a safer ­future and listing it as ‘in danger’ helps, then fair enough,” he said.
“The reef still has the capacity to show recovery, if given some breathing space. However, the real focus on why we need to ­address the climate change problem is that those windows of ­recovery are becoming in­creasingly scarce.”

So the reptiles can't even read what's in their own story ... and that's why the pond could waste endless time correcting the reptile record ...

After all that, the pond needed a rest, and what better way to rest than to head off to a grave contemplation with the Sexton, frequently down there with a Dickensian beadle ...

Dear sweet long absent lord, first the bromancer explaining why the HUN and the lizard Oz are full of useless tossers, out of touch with the times, and then the grave Sexton has to join in the fun?

Ah, the old vulgar youff routine, and smart arses attending leet unis, and Gramsci's long march through the institutions, and living off the teat of government funding, and nary a moment of reflection in this navel-gazing and fluff gathering that Slo Mo and his mob might have been fucking clueless, and paid too much time attending to the fawning, simpering sycophants in Murdochian la la land, who can always be relied upon to belief their own reality distortion fields, up there with a meta universe?

What belled this cat is the grave Sexton turning to the culture wars, and the usual suspects, apparently on the basis that the views aren't reflected in the general community, except the general Victorian community thought endless blather in the HUN about steps and bicycles was so much tedious bullshit, and why didn't they just stick to the footy, because even in the off season you can still fill the pages with new talent, transfers, and scandals ...

Well if the grave Sexton constitutes food for thought, the reptiles are serving their Liberal friends a starvation diet ...

And at this point the pond should probably have called it quits, what with its ban on reptile blather about the voice and IR, but keen eyes will have noted that "Ned" was out and about this day, and in a post-ironic way, talking of a rearview mirror view of things, hugely comic for a man who routinely dodders off into the past ...

As the pond is only offering this "Ned" Everest for reptile specialists, the pond feels free to indulge in other fancies ...

Look at the meal served up at the Nine papers ...

Bravely nuking the country, and pipelines!! Oh there's a world of jokes in pipelines ... and pumps ... and Freudian fancies ...

And tomorrow, if the pond is not mistaken, the savvy Savva's tome hits the stalls, and we'll have more SloMo fun ... and yet "Ned" still rambles on interminably, thinking if he shoots off, he might score ...

There it is, the same reptile yearning for the apocalypse, and yet as "Ned" rambles on, there's a Wilcox to hand ...

Such a bunch of cheery souls ... and now, for those specialists up to the task, it's back to the climbing of the "Ned" Everest ...

Did "Ned" mention climate "events" at the start of that gobbet? Is there the possible hint of a suggestion of a proposal that climate change might produce the odd "event"?

And did "Ned" mention that the current model is producing better outcomes? 

Will someone explain that to Qantas staff, while the CEO's package hits a modest $5.5 million or so, despite Covid and the airline being comprehensively fucked? (Graudian here if you must).

There's very little decency left in the system, and a lot of indecency, but at least the pond has reached the end ...

If that's the best the reptiles can do these days in terms of FUD, it's time to put "Ned" out to pasture ... because there's only so much doddering that can be allowed if the mutton Dutton is to take heart ...

And so to an infallible Pope, showing what happens when an autocrat fails to get vaccines right and prefers repression, as autocrats and middle Kingdom emperors are wont to do...

There's a lot of white paper for the emperor's bum ...

And speaking of wannabe autocrats, the lizard Oz editorialist belatedly discovered who his Faux Noise kissing cousins were still hanging around with ...

Um, Trump's disastrous judgment? 

Not a word about Faux Noise's disastrous judgment? And all the other Murdochian fawning acolytes? 

And Piers Morgan? As if we could forget ...The strange twists of Donald Trump and Piers Morgan’s self-serving mutual adoration club

When did it begin, this strange thing, this peculiar relationship between Donald Trump and Piers Morgan?
Was it once a friendship between a man and a boy, or a boy and a man-child?
At times, there was a true affection, it appeared, as Trump played the role of hard-knuckled tycoon in seasons of The Apprentice, and Morgan appeared as a convincingly fawning acolyte in a special episode featuring so-called celebrities.

Then, there was more play-acting aboard Air Force One; Trump this time imitating a US president, and Morgan pretending to be a journalist with tough questions.

And so on, two self-serving narcissists, con and bullshit artists and phoneys using each other to strut the stage ... but the latest twist has got to be worth a few cartoons ...

Trooly rooly, if it weren't for the bromancer and a jolly dreary Groaning, it would be holyday time ...

 

Truth to tell, the pond almost declared the holyday season had begun and the pond was off, because Tuesday is the direst reptile day.

It only occurred to the pond belatedly, as the pond surveyed the dismal Tuesday offerings, whatever happened to the Oreo?

Where did she go? Did she fly back to Capistrano? It's a pretty pickle when this load of cobblers reminds the pond of the absent Oreo ...

Look, there's Shanners, blathering about hubris, as if the proud reptiles have none of it, and didn't recently land on a snake in Victoria, and there's simplistic Simon, without a hint of a conflict of interest celebrating the hicks from the sticks doing a standard bout of black bashing, and there's Damien blaming Labor for the Nationals doing what Nationals must do, ever since they poisoned the flour, and there's ancient Troy, apparently unaware that talk of a towering legacy for Gough verges on the deeply heretical and might lead him to be burned at the stake ...

Luckily the bromancer was on hand to sort out the Victorians, so the pond could abandon that tiresome mob for the loftier insights the bromancer always offers ...

That blather about "weird woke" and all the rest, and yet if you wanted the Duke of Plaza-Toro you just had to read the efforts of the reptiles in the HUN, and the lizard Oz, a castrating bunch of inept right wing yowling cats, to which the electorate replied: who cares?, and in the case of a fundamentalist tyke offering bromides, who cares even more?

At this point the pond must thank a correspondent for drawing the pond's attention to a Malware tweet ... (there's another large gobbet the pond left out, there's only so much Malware the pond can take in a day before thinking about the NBN and multi-noodle connectivity).

Oh dear, did Malware just Kroger the Kroger as part of his maltreated malware Messiah complex, and did he dub the bro as part of the angertainment complex ...?

He did, he did, so it's back to the angertainment ...

By golly, the bromancer is really dishing it out, reminding the pond that another correspondent wanted to celebrate by drawing attention to this machine, apparently designed for naughty young reptiles of the HUN and lizard Oz kind ...

The pond is always up for a little SM training, but it's also probably apparent by this point that the pond couldn't give a toss about the bromancer's prescriptions, coming as they do from the right wing angertainment complex, mostly Murdochian* (*Malware approved) ... but please, more tears and idle nonsense, because the pond is being angertained yet again...

Yes, keep on with bashing the blacks, it's the reptile way ... 

It was only by chance that the pond caught a little of the ABC last night and was reminded yet again of that great, iconic, and enduring Nicky Winmar photo ... and all the racial slurs that infested the AFL, and infest Australia to this day ...

Sorry Nicky, there's going to be a lot more abuse dished out by the angertainment machine in the next few months...

Meanwhile, it was perhaps inevitable that the bromancer would turn for advice to a tired old codger, who didn't just manage to lose government, but also achieved the rare distinction of losing his own seat in the process ...

Well there's the Liberal party in Victoria fucked for another day, and you don't need the HUN mob to help when you have the bromancer blathering on, and what better way to celebrate than to turn to the infallible Pope ...

By golly that's a passing fair imitation of the coconut clapper,  who recently featured in the pond's pages ...

The pond can't get enough of that one, but truth to tell, the pond hadn't thought of the eerie similarity until the infallible Pope pointed out the bleeding obvious ... and yet if you head back to the source material, how obvious it now seems ...

And so to Dame Groan, and unhappily, instead of joining in all the black bashing, this day she gives the IR bill another serve.

The pond is so over talk of IR that the pond has been banning reptile attempts to discuss the topic, but it's Dame Groan, and for reasons that are completely mysterious, she has a small cult following, so the pond will for once allow it ... because the angertainment is strong in this one ...

Is there any upside at all? Well Dame Groan is so distracted that she's completely forgotten about her fear of renewables, climate science and all that jazz ... and like any member of boards on a modest stipend and living in reptile style to the manor born, she's deeply worried about small business ... because just look at all the small businesses in her bio ...

Please ignore her wiki, much too short for her small business accomplishments ...

Sloan sat on the boards of several companies, including Mayne Nickless, SGIO Insurance, Santos, Primelife (chair).

Primelife? That was back in 2006, and noted by the AFR ...

One of the most intriguing wrongful dismissal cases in recent times will reach its conclusion this coming week when the Victorian Supreme Court is scheduled to rule on the claim brought by former Primelife chief executive Ted Sent.

Responding to questions from the floor at Primelife's annual general meeting on Friday, new chairwoman Judith Sloan said the $5 million-plus action was expected to be decided on Tuesday. Professor Sloan, who was appointed to the role in July, said she was confident about the outcome of the case, which had been a major distraction for management.

Over the course of several weeks earlier this year the court heard allegations of secret video-taping of the company's board, murky transactions and that Mr Sent was pushed from the company by former chairman and deputy chairman Robert Champion de Crespigny and Ron Walker.

Both Mr Champion de Crespigny and Mr Walker have relinquished their Primelife roles in the past year while Jim Hazel, who replaced Mr Sent as managing director, announced his resignation in September.

New managing director John Martin said the court decision on Mr Sent's claim would help to clear the air as Primelife's list of outstanding litigation was cut from more than 50 matters a few years ago to just two.

He said Primelife was now progressing well towards its targets of developing and selling 300 retirement units each year and before pretax annual earnings of $7000 from each of its aged care beds. But the company was still not in a position to pay dividends, Mr Martin said.

Later there was a name change, but back in 2008, Dame Groan knew what to do ...

Busy board director Professor Judith Sloan has moved to pick up stock in gas leader Santos (STO). Sloan, who is a board director of Westfield and has also enduring an extended tenure of PrimeLife and later Babcock & Brown Communities, acquired 2143 shares worth $38,331 under the non-executive director share plan on October 2. Sloan, who is also a former deputy chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, showed good timing with her latest share purchase. It preceded a surprise bid by British Gas for Queensland Gas announced on Friday October 25, a deal that breathed new life into the gas sector. Santos was 3% stronger today as the wider market suffered another decline.

Okay, okay, the pond is bored, and had to slip in some mention of why satantic windmills are terrible. 

Now back to the angertainment, knowing that Dame Groan knows a lot about bureaucratic ruses ...

Please excuse the pond but it had wanted to pick a bone with the bromancer about his devotion to Modi ... and failed to mention it at the right time, and now the pond is running out of Dame Groan gobbets.

Is it wrong to abandon the angertainment for a moment, and draw attention to a recent Graudian editorial?

India is considered a geopolitical counterweight to China and, in many ways, an indispensable actor on the world stage. But Mr Biden’s team appears to see the position as more contingent, and will be less tolerant than the Trump administration of Mr Modi’s attempts to remould Indian democracy so that Hindus become constitutionally pre-eminent, with minorities reduced to second-class citizens. Last week, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom accused New Delhi of a “crackdown on civil society and dissent”, and “religious freedom violations”. The Indian foreign ministry hit back at “biased and inaccurate observations”. Officials would do better to reflect on where their country is going.

While a rising power, India’s ascent depends on building bridges with others. The Middle East is a key energy supplier and regional trade partner that supports 9 million Indian workers. India’s security depends on Arab states sustaining a hostile environment for terrorism. So when BJP functionaries made derogatory remarks about the prophet Muhammad this summer, Gulf states lodged formal protests with New Delhi. Chastened, the Modi government was spurred into action – suspending one party official and expelling another, as well as saying it accords “the highest respect to all religions”.

Bland assurances may not be enough. The intimidation of India’s 200 million Muslims is hiding in plain sight. State elections in Gujarat begin on Thursday, weeks after BJP ministers approved the premature release of 11 men convicted of rape and murder of Muslim women and children during the riots. On the campaign trail last Friday, India’s home minister claimed troublemakers had been “taught a lesson” in 2002. This sounded like a signal to Hindu mobs that they could do as they pleased.

Worryingly, there are signs that the communal clashes seen in India are being copied elsewhere. In Leicester, many south Asian Muslims – like the city’s Hindus – have Indian roots. Yet when violence erupted between these communities this September, escalating into attacks on mosques and temples, the Indian high commission in London condemned the “violence perpetrated against the Indian community in Leicester and vandalisation of premises and symbols of [the] Hindu religion”. Pointedly, there was no condemnation of Hindus’ violence against Muslims. Once careful to proclaim its secularism, India’s government appears content to export its Hindu chauvinism. That should trouble everyone.

Well it won't be troubling the bromancer, who does have certain chauvinist and autocratic tendencies, and there the pond has done it, and so back to a final burst of guaranteed "free of renewables and climate science", ""get your gas shares here" angertainment ...

 

And so the pond has dished up a serve for the devotees in the cult of Groaning, and meanwhile, as usually happens with the reptiles, thereby ignored almost everything that is happening in the world, and in view of the immortal Rowe taking a break, the pond has turned to a couple of other cartoonists for its daily news briefing ...

In which the pond eventually gets to drink a glass of the finest reptile tears ...

 

A correspondent kindly reminded the pond of this image, long forgotten by the pond after the cartoonist veered off into la la land ...

Somehow it seemed to fit the reptiles this day, and this delicious parade at the HUN ...

Poor Bolter. After all that screeching and yammering, that's the best he can do? Why it's like that mob gathered at the bowling club bar ...

Way beyond the valley of the delusional and the sublimely impotent ...

Now the pond had no dog in the fight, not being Victorian or able to vote in Victoria, but as another correspondent noted, the state election was a reminder that, for all the huffing and puffing of the HUN, and the lizard Oz, they're supremely irrelevant on occasion and can be safely ignored. 

The HUN mainly exists to cater to the form of mass hysteria known as the AFL, and the ranting ratbags of the far right have done little to help or change minds or voting patterns, except perhaps to help the Victorian Liberal party indulge in yet another bout of self-harm ...

Luckily the pond never bothers with the Bolter and the HUNsters, but the lizard Oz reptiles were at it again today, in search of a messiah ... while simplistic Simon felt the need to rope the mutton Dutton into the disaster ...

Oh Fergo, Fergo, that's the best you can do to redeem the disaster? Josh as the new Messiah?

And did simplistic Simon really have to drag the poor mutton Dutton into the mess,  and reduce him to wondering why the Liberal party in Victoria is full of barking mad fundamentalists, many of the Xian kind? 

Trooly, rooly believing all that stuff about dictator Dan and Covid, when the majority of Victorians seemed to realise that you needed to be alive if you wanted to be able to beef about dictatorships, and that maybe beefing about masks and vaccines wasn't the best way to beef ...

The sullen, surly reptiles matched that leering snap of a smirking Dutton with a snap of sinister comrade Dan in the tree killer edition...

There was another bout of Lisa Wilkinson tedium at the top of the page, and the notion that negotiation regarding a bill was "giving ground", as opposed to arriving at an agreement - once considered a political art form - and lo, a snap of comrade Dan glaring out at the reptiles and vowing to serve a full term ...

And all the Bolter could do was urge him to resign.

Yes, it was a day to drink reptile tears, and the pond was almost tempted to indulge in a jug of Fergo ...

Just like Nemo? But was Fergo referring to Captain Nemo or some latter day Pixar imposter? The pond will never know, because instead of drinking Fergo's tears, the pond was made to eat its daily dose of reptile climate science denialist gruel ...

First the pond should note that this column conforms to the pond's strict demand that all climate denialist pieces in the lizard Oz should begin with a snap of satanic windmills. The only refinement the pond can suggest is for the cult master to return and introduce Don Quixote into the picture, so that the notion of tilting at windmills would be perfect.

Next the pond can hear some wondering about James Philips' qualifications as a scientist, let alone a climate scientist.

Well if this is the same James Philips, scribbling "about me", it turns out that he's just a doddering old lawyer farting into the void ...

If indeed that is who he is, how he ended up in the lizard Oz scribbling about science and energy and all that jazz must remain a mystery ...

That is however a new one on the pond ... Bernie Madoff! 

The reptiles have always flung about conspiracies, but Bernie is a step up in hyperbole. Meanwhile, on another planet ... Record heat over Great Barrier Reef raises fears of second summer of coral bleaching.

And so to a short final gobbet, and the big reveal ...

Indeed, indeed, it was a Sydney lawyer, historian, company director and writer casting a learned, informed eye over energy, climate science and the whole damned thing ...

And so with gruel done, it was time to wash it down with reptile tears, and who could provide a tastier glass of tears than that Kirribilli lad moaning about inner city 'leets ... (but having lived in Kirribilli for a time, the pond learned the hard way that Kirribilli was where rough, tough members of the worst of the working class and the lumpenproletariat eked out a miserable hand to mouth existence, forced to make a stew out of the jacaranda flowers on McDougall street, the pond's preferred street, as it fronted the park, and you could amble down to contemplate the harbour, as rough lumpenproletariat types munching on their flower stew are wont to do).

Now on with the Kirribilli lad's talk of inner city utopian fantasies, because you don't get to be an expert floodwaters in quarries whisperer by living in Kellyville ...

Oh it's too sweet, this blather, and yet how the reptiles tried, with Mark Knight doing his best to match the lesser Leake ...

The HUNsters are such wags, but back to the Caterist, being tortured by the 'leets, as only a Kirribilli lad can be ...

Note well the Kirribilli lad's attempt to put "the Andrews factor" to one side, as if the HUNsters and the lizard Oz hadn't waged a relentless war to make dictator comrade Dan the issue of the day ...

The flood waters in quarries whisperer seems to think that it was something to do with wanting to avoid a climate catastrophe, but every Caterist reader knows that it's dinkum, sweet, innocent Oz coal that will save the day ...

The barking mad Family First fundamentalists are the way forward? That's something to contemplate ... especially as they're blathering about the virtue signalling 'leets living in leafy suburbs full of jacarandas ... who could they be thinking of?

The pond thinks the caption on this one was meant to read ... "um we'lll learn from this", but it came out mangled ... still, the visual captures something of the reptile way ...

And so to a bonus, because what's a Monday without a Major outing?

The Major does run on for quite a few gobbets, but that's because the reptiles leavened him with snaps, as you do when confronted with the tricky business of trying to beguile readers through a boring old fart ...

Is a snap of Joe the way to begin?

The pond's mind immediately began to wander, and incidentally the new issue of The New Yorker was devoted to climate change, with Elizabeth Kolbert doing a gimmicky A to Z which seemed to be outside the paywall, but the pond can never tell ...

At least going from A to Z is more interesting than going from A to B with the Major, as his own reading habits reveal just why the tedious old drone is consistently led astray ...

Barking mad Matt Tiabbi and Glenn "off with the pixies" Greenwald, and still carrying on about the Clintons and deep state conspiracies, and still running up the flag for the mango Mussolini?

And sure enough, after the snap of the reptiles' orange Jeebus, there came a snap of that Clinton woman ...

TK News, Hunter's laptop and all that? The pond began to think of the Major as one of those festering old farts that infest the full to overflowing intertubes ...

Shouldn't the Major be trying out new material, perhaps a new song?

No? Okay, serve up another snap of a demonic figure ...

You have to hand it to the Major. That line "none of this is to argue Trump did not make mistakes in office", and then skating past the likes of Faux Noise and the NY Post to propose that "It has been a disaster for journalism's credibility".

It reminds the pond that the Major has lost none of the skills sharpened by his hunt for Manning Clark's Order of Lenin medal ... which in its day was a disaster for his credibility ...

And so to one last snap and one last gobbet ... and the usual enemies lined up, because the Major never tires of reliving the Salem witch trials ... and yes, of course renewables, though strangely no snap of satanic windmills or solar panels inducing nightmares ...

Did the Major just scribble about those people prepared to pay for an unfair and unbalanced faux noise?

But how kind of him to list all those sites that are free ... and remind the mug punters who paid for his guff that they were just a bunch of suckers forking over their readies for the Murdochian combine.

In wrapping up, the pond might note that other publications open up their archives, and as the pond has already mentioned The New Yorker, after swallowing all that Major guff, why not head off for a sorbet ...

It was Andrew Marantz way back on 8th January 2018, who wrote How “Fox & Friends” Rewrites Trump’s Reality...

President Trump woke up on November 3rd, turned on the television, and started tweeting shortly before 7 a.m. “Everybody is asking why the Justice Department (and FBI) isn’t looking into all of the dishonesty going on with Crooked Hillary & the Dems,” he typed. “People are angry.” By “everybody” and “people,” he seemed to mean, as he often does, the three anchors of the top-rated cable morning show, “Fox & Friends,” who happened to be discussing that very topic live on air, deploying their trademark brand of folksy, disingenuous outrage.

Soon afterward, one of the co-hosts said, “And now the President is tweeting about this.”

“I think he’s tweeting right now!” another said. The thin fourth wall between Trump and his TV had been broken once again.

In the Fox News studio, the fresh tweets were displayed in bold type on a thirty-foot-wide screen, Trump’s larger-than-life Twitter avatar peering, Rushmore-like, into the middle distance. (Presumably, the real Trump, in the Presidential bedroom, peered back, an elderly youth gazing into a shallow pool.) A co-host read the tweets aloud, and then, completing the feedback loop, said, “This has been the question that people have had about Hillary Clinton and her campaign.” By “people,” she seemed to mean, as the anchors of “Fox & Friends” often do, Donald Trump.

“Fox & Friends” ended at nine. Moments later, Trump arrived on the South Lawn of the White House, answered a few questions from reporters, and left for a ten-day trip to Asia. A few days into the trip, en route from China to Vietnam, he walked to the rear of Air Force One, where the press corps was sitting, to deliver some off-the-cuff remarks. “I know they like to say—people that don’t know me—they like to say I watch television,” he said. “People with fake sources—you know, fake reporters, fake sources. But I don’t get to watch much television, primarily because of documents. I’m reading documents a lot.”

This was weird, even by Trump’s standards. For one thing, “reading documents a lot” is high on the list of activities it’s nearly impossible to imagine Trump doing, along with foraging, Pilates, and introspection. For another, no one on the plane had said anything about television. It later became clear that the impetus for Trump’s outburst was an e-mail he’d just received from the Times—a list of fifty-one fact-checking questions for an article about him. Of these, he felt compelled to respond, indirectly, to just one, about his “prodigious television watching habits.” When the piece came out, it reported that Trump begins his day by watching TV in bed, where he “tweets while propped on his pillow.” (Trump, on Twitter: “Wrong!”)

Trump has been candid about his TV dependency for years. In a 1997 interview with Howard Stern, he described escaping from his own wedding reception—his second, when he married Marla Maples—as quickly as possible to look at coverage of the wedding. “I ran back and turned on the television,” he said. (A diagnostic test called the Television Addiction Scale asks subjects to agree or disagree with several statements, including “When I am unable to watch television, I miss it so much that you could call it ‘withdrawal.’ ”) During his trip to Asia, he tweeted, “I was forced to watch @CNN, which I have not done in months, and again realized how bad, and FAKE, it is. Loser!” Of course, apart from rare circumstances (jury duty, North Korea, “Get Out”), no one, much less the President of the United States, is ever “forced” to watch TV. One imagines Trump writhing in pain, using his tie as a blindfold, while his staff scrambles to find him more documents to read.

On a recent morning, a chyron on “Fox & Friends” read “study: 90% recent trump coverage is negative.” The study—by the Media Research Center, a right-wing nonprofit whose declared “sole mission is to expose and neutralize the propaganda arm of the Left: the national news media”—came up several times during the broadcast, as did an F.B.I. agent’s anti-Trump text messages, a pair of offensive socks that Colin Kaepernick had worn once in 2016, and the fact that it was very cold outside. Morning TV relies on constant repetition, the assumption being that most viewers, unlike the President, will be too busy to watch for long. (A chart of Trump’s 2017 tweets, created by a University of Chicago graduate student and plotted by time of day, reveals an unmistakably dense band between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m., when “Fox & Friends” is on the air.)

“Wow, more than 90% of Fake News Media coverage of me is negative,” Trump tweeted. He ended the tweet by naming his source, as well as his favorite exception: “@foxandfriends.”

Every morning begins with an artificial L.E.D. sunrise, all teal and goldenrod, like an orange-juice carton come to life. The camera starts on the bottom floor of Fox News’ lavish main studio, then glides upward—past a translucent staircase, past thirty-foot windows overlooking a still dark Sixth Avenue, past innumerable video screens—until it locates the three co-hosts, perched on their signature white “curvy couch.”

There's a lot more, but really the cartoon at the top said it all, a reminder that, when it comes to understanding how deeply weird the Murdochian love of a wannabe autocrat and preening narcissist, the last place you should arrive at in your A to B travels is the Major's tired, aged, out to pasture conspiracy-laden noggin ... shouldn't he just be settled in front of the telly for a dose of alternate reality?