In which the pond tests the cast iron stomachs of stray readers with a serve from the bottom of the punctured bucket ...

 

Really reptiles, really? 

The pond woke up early just for the pleasure of seeing Matt Gaetz cast a vote for the mango Mussolini as speaker of the house and Scott Perry almost missing the chance to diss that contender with a lettuce, Kevin McCarthy, so Perry could do a hit for Faux Noise ... because it's always about the TV and the entertainment and never about the governing ... and all you could do was trot out a small piece down the page "by agencies".

Eight ballots done and dusted at time of writing, the Graudian offering a live tally, and where's the Killer when he's needed? 

A correspondent has noted that the bromancer is still MIA just as the federal government moves to acquire some gigantic Freudian missiles, so what about Killer's insights into the state of the union? You know, even right-leaning Ramirez is getting tired of the comedy act ...

... while others are loving it ...

Speaking of guns, the pond did wonder - after seeing the metal detectors being removed from the entrance to Congress - how long it would be before some crazed loon smuggled in a gun and began a rampage? 

There's no need to whip up a special gun made out of composite materials/ceramics as deployed by John Malkovitch in the Eastwood vehicle In the Line of Fire. 

Perhaps a rep might go rogue, because the US has a long and venerable tradition of violence on the floor ...

On the upside, it wouldn't take long before conspiracy theorists decided it had something to do with the pizzas that were carted into McCarthy's alleged office, or was the work of the deep state, or best of all, never happened, and was just a performative piece of theatre, with dead members dressed up to play act ... oh you could make a fortune selling supplements with that one ...

So where's Killer Creighton when he's badly needed? Where's his expert advice on the current situation? Could he advise the GOP on ways to get out of their Faux Noise inspired, ratbags in the ranks, mess?

Oh sheesh, the pond is sorry it asked. 

He's still stuck back in time with the JFK conspiracy, just as Scott Perry takes time out to talk to Killer's kissing cousins at Fox, and the GOP tears its heart out ...

But never fear, it's a Friday and all is not lost, because the hole in the bucket man is on hand to celebrate that dead pope. 

The pond feared it couldn't stand the ripe apologist stench, but the pond has never been afraid of a serve of Roquefort, Limburger, Epoisses, whatever ...

It was worse than the pond feared, though at least the apologist might have noted that line in the wiki about the Hitler Youth affair ... 

After Joseph Ratzinger was elected pontiff in 2005, following the death of Pope John Paul II, a neighbor from Traunstein, Elizabeth Lohner, then 84 years old, was quoted in the 17 April 2005 edition of The Times ("Papal hopeful is a former Hitler Youth"), asserting, "[I]t was possible to resist, and those people set an example for others. The Ratzingers were young and had made a different choice." 

... echoed by this letter to the Graudian ...

In his obituary of Pope Benedict (31 December), Peter Stanford writes that membership of the Hitler Youth was compulsory for the Ratzinger boys. It was not. My sister, brother and I are very proud that our father, Walter Gomm, born in 1925 in Königsberg, now Kaliningrad, resisted the pressure from his father (afraid for his only child) to become a member. Joseph Ratzinger had a choice. He didn’t take it.

Barbara Schurenberg

Vaison-la-Romaine, France

Never mind, there have always been fellow travellers and lickspittle lackeys and apologists for same, and why would our craven hole in the bucket man be any different ... though his talk of making sense of the world struck the pond as richly ironic this day ...

Enough already, more from that epic apologist, the talented Mr Hole in the Bucket Man...

What an epic pile of half-baked, defensive, pious tosh ... who but our Henry could have scribbled that blather about  "analytical complexity and its implicit reliance on other aspects of his scholarship"?

Luckily there was just one more gobbet of rich tosh to go ...

Uh huh. He made a choice, and so did our Henry, and what a pathetic pair of tossers they make ... but immediately the pond had an anxiety attack, because the pond usually offers a bonus, but as a correspondent noted, the reptiles are really mounting a rags and patches operation during the holyday season, with the lizard Oz editorialist forced to fill in the gaps ...

There were three outings early this morning, and the pond was almost tempted to sing along with Dolly Parton about a coat of many colours, except that the lizard Oz is just a simple reddish defaming of the notion of Australia ...

The dismal and grave sexton offering a suggestion that the US election might be affected by war? 

Sheesh, that's almost as pathetic as talk of big ideas and upskilling and urgent and daunting problems and research firepower and so on and so forth (and who knows, the odd pivot?).

Then the pond had a whiz idea. Any passing reader of the pond has to be a glutton for punishment and also blessed with a cast iron stomach, so why not head back in time for a double serve of the hole in the bucket man?

It was only a week old, and as everyone knows, the more you leave a smelly cheese, the better it tastes ...

Noble stuff, with the pond waking this day to the news that Vlad the impaler had called for a ceasefire to appease the Russian Orthodox desire for Xmas as usual, proving yet again what a useless thing Xianity is ...

But while our Henry is yammering on about Stalin, apparently he forgot to note the quisling right next to him in the commentary section ...

That's right, at the end of his piece, the grave Sexton was doing his quisling thing ...

Yes, give up Crimea, give Vlad a chunk of Ukraine, and all will be well, because we've seen how pandering works so well with the loons in the US Congress ... and now back to the hole in the bucket man, spreading his wings and offering Babylonian insights ...

The US's assertive response? Go tell that to Tuckyo Rose and to the Putin lovers in the GOP, who might be expected to take power whenever they can stop arguing among themselves ...and who knows, the dumpster fire they've produced ...

... might then well produce dumpster fires around the world... courtesy the man who voted for the mango Mussolini ...

Good old uncle Elon, always showing off the finest, though the pond has noted a few outages of late ...

Meanwhile, our Henry is oblivious to the rats in his Murdochian midst ...

The pond doesn't want to strain the friendship while repeating itself, so will avoid noting the other GOP and Murdochian Putin lovers ... 

...and instead celebrate the new breed who are about to take charge, ready to do battle with Vlad the sociopathic terrorist, standing tall and proud in their shoes ...

By golly the pond was having so much fun, it almost forgot that there was still a gobbet of Henry to go ... and no need for the bromancer, because the war with China and the mad mullahs was back on ...

Is there something truly post-modern post-ironic about a man who celebrated a pope dedicated to the oppression of women, gays, yadda yadda, not to mention a Supreme Court inspired by Catholic thinking to snatch away women's rights in the United States?

Fuck it, sometimes the stench emanating from the hypocrisy is nauseating, and yet the comedy, the pond should think of the comedy, because how else would the immortal Rowe find the material to provide daily entertainment ...