In which perforce the pond has to let a couple of reptiles have a voice, and it's no joy that the voices belong to nattering "Ned" and the craven Craven ...

 

The pond thinks it stumbled across the silliest - and if it hadn't been a serious matter - the funniest, but at least without doubt, the stupidest headline of the year thus far ...

It is, of course, a mango Mussolini ploy, this kind of projection.

As soon as the orange one accuses someone of racism, or fraud, or lying, you immediately know he's been up to something of a racist, fraudulent, rat fink lying kind, and so it is with Mr Potato demanding an apology. Is potato, as Colbert might say, is spudnik ...

The pond thought it also would retain the splash from simplistic "here no conflict of interest" Simon because the pond was touched by the sort of talk of dominoes - an almost forgotten echo from 'Nam days - and because it shows how the reptiles are full of paranoia. 

Fear-mongering has a price, and it's usually the fear it cultivates in the fear monger...

This is why the reptiles are currently completely up themselves about the voice. It's all they can scribble about, and it's why the pond reluctantly has to allow it as a conversational item at the breakfast table...

There it was at the top of the tree killer edition ...

And there was this in the 'damn it, we'll do it LIVE' section of the digital edition ...

The Price is right? And it's the PM that will divide the nation, says a Yes man? And look at this line up below the fold ...

The pond realises that banning any reptile for using "Orwellian" would mean the pond had to give up the game entirely, but dammit, Dame Slap and "Orwellian" and blather about the voice in the same space means an automatic red card ...

And with the symbolic fracturing of that Mundine snap, the pond took it as a sign he could be ignored. 

But look at the rest ... apart from the lizard Oz editorialist berating the cheese eating surrender monkeys, it was blather about the voice all the way. So much navel gazing and fluff gathering, so little time ...

It was with an exceptionally heavy heart that the pond noted the return of nattering "Ned". The pompous portentous pundit had been on an extended break, but now this ...

Um? An out-of-touch reactionary incapable of any vision for the future? Out of the mouth of babes and luddites ...

Yep, the lad has form on muddy tracks, what with potatoes failing to grasp many things, which makes it very hard for the likes of nattering "Ned" ... 

How to cover for the lad? Why not slip in a snap of a couple of yesterday men?

At this point, the reptiles decided to slip in a snap of Sussan in worshipful pose, and the pond decided to give it the treatment it deserved ...

Honey, the pond shrank the potato. Besides, there's a much better still than that doing the rounds ...

That's better, but it's just a teaser. You have to get to the end to see it in its full glory and context, and now on with "Ned", exuding negativity in his bilious natter ...

Advice? The pond's advice to "Ned" would be to shut the fuck up, and just fuck off, but would he listen? No, he'd just go on blathering in his usual boring, tedious way. So much for the usefulness of advice.

Meanwhile, the pond noted this brief, but wonderful and weird conjunction of minds ...

What a co-joining ... and only in the lizard Oz would the lesser Leeser find himself in such odd company ...

On the upside, that brings the pond to the final "Ned" gobbet ... beginning, in the usual "Ned" way, with a rhetorical question, leading the pond to wonder "why does this pompous, tedious old fart bother?"

The huge gamble is actually the bet taken by the reptiles, which is to hope that US style politics and angertainment can be made to work as a business model ... and that nattering negativity will be all the go for the next year ...

It's a huge gamble, and odds are, punters will be as bored shitless by it as the pond is ...

And so to an apology to the infallible Pope ... because he did a splendid cartoon, and for a moment there, the pond got fixated on a detail ...

The Canberra Times is still using the infallible Pope for some flirty newsletter fishing and why not? How could the pond resist the details?

Shut up and take the pond's data ... the price is right.

What else? Well there was the craven Craven. Usually the pond wouldn't give tuppence for his thoughts, not even a ha'penny, but this day the search for a bonus is tough ...and at least there's a good chance he'll drag religion into it, and so give the pond yet another chance to scar its flesh with a cilice ...

Dear sweet long absent lord, that snap was beyond the valley of the caricature ...

It really is a day for reptile visuals, and there were more snaps in the next craven gobbet ...

Huzzah. The pond knew the craven tyke couldn't resist dragging religion into it ...

Meanwhile, for those who might have already forgotten, here's what a Catholic carry-on looks like ...

Pure undiluted projection of course, in the reptile way ...

We all know who he really means when he talks of misplaced intransigence and egotism ...

The pond could spend all day trawling back through past intransigent, ego-laden craven Craven ramblings, but needs to get on with today's offering, and what do you know, Judaeo-Christian, Edmund Burke, yadda yadda ... couldn't he at least do a Rousseau-inflected wank in the picturesque countryside?

The pond is glad that the craven Craven cleared that one up. It seems being abused up hill and down dale by a pack of howling reptiles these days amounts to naught ...

It seems that a fear-mongering potato head isn't the boogeyman under the bed, no matter how hard he tries to conjure up headlines full of fear ...

That was the news yesterday in another reptile place and the pond thought it should go on the record ...

Meanwhile, a final gobbet on the suffering of the lesser Lesser, who hasn't resigned from the party, didn't move to the cross benches, didn't do more than take to the back bench, and likely will only sit there until the referendum is over before he gets restive, and all this in a party that's out of power and led by a potato ... and somehow this constitutes something wholly admirable?

Meanwhile, on another planet ...

The government has criticised questions over whether the Indigenous voice to parliament will have input into energy policy and Reserve Bank decisions, with Anthony Albanese saying people shouldn’t look for “distractions” in the debate.

The prime minister last week unveiled the wording of the proposed amendment to the constitution, confirming the advisory body could make representations to both parliament and executive government, meaning it could have input into administrative decisions, the development of laws and the work of public servants.

In parliament’s question time on Monday, the shadow attorney general, Julian Leeser, raised questions about how the voice would advise executive government, asking the Indigenous Australians minister, Linda Burney, whether the Reserve Bank would consult the voice before altering interest rates.

Burney responded: “the last time I looked, the Reserve Bank of Australia is independent.”

In a press conference on Monday, Albanese branded a question about whether the voice would have input on climate policy as “very strange”.

“People shouldn’t look for, on the voice, distractions,” he said.

“They can ask all sorts of things about whether it will, you know, give advice on who should play five-eighth for Souths this week, but that is not what it is about.

“The voice is not about defence policy. It’s not about foreign affairs policy.

“The voice is about matters that directly affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.”

And who helped set that hare running? In the very same Graudian report ...

Dutton last week called on the government to release legal advice from the solicitor general on the voice, after concerns from the constitutional expert Greg Craven about potential high court challenges.

And what did others think of the craven Craven's thinking?

Bret Walker SC, a high court barrister, told ABC radio on Monday that he did not foresee a major potential for judicial challenges stemming from the voice.

Walker said he didn’t “think there any real possibility of challenges to executive action” other than in “sporadic, rare” cases.

Meanwhile, the craven Craven continues on with his own patented brand of white-anting, undermining and dissembling ...

The only bet the pond is willing to take is that the craven Craven won't shut up, and will continue in inimitable craven Craven fashion not to be any help at all ...

And so to the immortal Rowe for another burial service ...