In which the pond abandons the Major, but ends up with the Caterist, and the swishing Switzer and having a Killer time in the killing fields ...

 

It is incredibly childish, juvenile, infantile, immature, puerile, even infantile, certainly jejune, callow, asinine and unsophisticated, this taste for memes ... and yet... and yet ...

Where's the harm? Surely there has to be time for a little glee and joy, especially in a Sydney awash with rain ...

If you like, you can head to that tweet and select your own frame ... for amusement purposes only, while the pond turns as usual to the reptiles of the lizard Oz for the digital headlines...

Oh dear, poor old simplistic "here no conflict of interest" Simon, and what's that, on the far right, the Major still kicking the trans can?

It contained the usual blather about not wishing trans people ill, but therein came this blatant distortion.

Parker and her supporters campaign for the safety of women. They are not anti-trans.

That sounded like undiluted bullshit, or more to the point, a blatant lie, so the pond took up the Major's challenge and turned to the ABC ...

There has been a lot said about Keen-Minshull (aka Parker) and whether she is a warrior for women's rights or an extremist with views that are harmful to the transgender community. This week I examined many of her interviews recorded for various podcasts to get to the heart of what she is campaigning for and whether there may be some nuance in all of this.
It turns out the rhetoric she uses is much more extreme than I had anticipated. Perhaps her most staggering claim is the suggestion that trans women are sexual predators who pose a safety threat to girls in female bathrooms. She describes being a transgender woman as a "fetish" — a position not supported by health experts who work with people transitioning. 

Indeed, indeed, and so on and so forth and that was the end of the Major for the day for the pond, because the pond refuses to allow its herpetological studies to turn into a replica of reptile bigotry central ... 

The pond had promised its trans friend not to encourage the reptiles in their bigotry, and a promise is a promise ...

On the other hand, if no Major, then what?

If you read other rags, you might find that there was a Mirabella in the mix ...

But the reptiles, and so the pond can't go there, and so is left with this wretched bunch of tossers, dropkicks and losers ...

Oh fucketty fuck, Killer on about vaccines, the swishing Switzer, cackling Claire blathering about "virtue signalling" and the bigoted Caterist ...

Is there no relief?

Okay, okay, there were a lot of screen snaps doing the rounds ...

 

But there's only so many times the pond can relish jokes about Morticia Addams ... time to get on with at least a sampling of the bigots, and so the Caterist it is ...

Oh dear, leading off with that BLM banner was an ominous sign ...

Was this so long ago?

Was the Caterist amongst those imports so viciously and cruelly caricatured in The Bulletin in 1946? Unlikely ... after all he's a stout-hearted yeoman sociologist of good English stock, even if suffering the fate usually reserved for convicts and black sheep in the family (bring back the hulks, the pond says. What's that, they have? Never mind) ...

Meanwhile ...

Oh dear, it's even worse than the pond feared. Was it a reptile way of proposing that trans bashing might be in current vogue, but bashing of uppity, difficult, tricky blacks will remain the preferred reptile sport for years to come?

Oh dear, not Victor Davis Hanson.

The pond was always warned that a little reading was a dangerous thing, especially when feeble minds indulged in it ...

Hanson ...defended George W. Bush and his policies, especially the Iraq War. He vocally supported Bush's Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, describing him as "a rare sort of secretary of the caliber of George Marshall" and a "proud and honest-speaking visionary" whose "hard work and insight are bringing us ever closer to victory".

Hanson is a supporter of Donald Trump, authoring a 2019 book called The Case for Trump. Trump praised the book, in which Hanson defends Trump's insults and incendiary language as "uncouth authenticity", and praises Trump for "an uncanny ability to troll and create hysteria among his media and political critics."

A war monger and a MAGA tin foil hat wearing hate monger? Yep, that suits the Caterist down to the ground ...

That's as opposed to the empowering of the Caterist to a state of permanent victimhood, nurturing historical grievances that can never be resolved, not even with generous cash in the paw federal government grants to the Menzies Research Centre ...

And so it was off to the swishing Switzer, and here the pond caught what it thought was a typo ...

Surely that was a typo? The dear dumb lad couldn't be confusing and conflating the Liberal party with liberalism, given that it currently is heading off into assorted illiberal areas?

Surely a sub had just forgotten to cap the word so that it read "there are dangers in writing Liberalism's obituary?

How foolish of the pond ...

How wrong of the pond to blame the sub. There it was, a confusing and conflating of Liberal with liberalism, and with a cheeky reference to small l-liberals, as if the Switzer had the first clue, not to mention exceptionally tedious blather about Gramsci and the long march, and the cultural left and the implication that the Labor party is Marxist ...

As if ...

Why it's like a dull boy who spent way too much time being taught by dashing Donners. (Now there's a name to conjure with ...)

And so to the next gobbet, and here the pond decided to leave the snap of Ming the Merciless at reptile size, just to show what the pond has to put up with when it's not downsizing snaps.

Someone in la la land thought that Ming the Merciless puffing on a cigar had something to do with liberalism, as opposed to an entitled member of assorted clubs squatting in a leather chair and indulging in a Cinque port ...

Come on reptiles, if you're going to send up Ming the Merciless, do it in style ... show the preening ponce at his 'leet port ...

Never mind, the pond understands it's a grieving process, and the swishing Switzer never had much of a clue about anything ... which is why the ABC buries his show on a Saturday at 5 pm and offers repeats on Monday at 5 am and Tuesday at 2 am, as a sure cure for insomnia ...

There's too much to unpack there, particularly with that clap happy posing next to Ming when he should be posing Hillsong style, preferably - gasp! - with a lump of coal in paw as a way to show he's really enjoying fucking the planet, but what is it with this nostalgia for the onion muncher?

There, fixed it ...

And so to end with a bout of standard fear-mongering ...

Condemn those who censor children's books? What, launch an all-out attack on Ron DeSanctus and the GOP?

Blather on about cancelling Twitter mobs and so monster uncle Elon? 

But what about the ruination of the country by the ABC? Ah, there the quisling, treacherous, swishing Switzer has a problem. How he loves his Saturday 5 pm slot, and his appearances in the wee hours ...

What a third rate mind he is, entirely suited to the ABC in its current condition, and speaking of third rate minds, Killer was also on the prowl ...

What's interesting here is how Killer's deeply Freudian fear of masks has seamlessly made its way into anti-vaxxer turf.

Of course he inserts little disclaimers here and there,  but it is a classic indication of a paranoid far right mind at work, full of conspiracy theories ...

Here the pond should post a trigger warning for those sharing Killer's mind set. There's going to be a snap of a man donning a mask, which might be deeply traumatic ...

Of course Killer doesn't want that study to fall apart. Killer wants his anti-vax conspiracy theories to blossom and bear fruit, so that the world can once again enjoy a surge in polio, measles and whatever other disease was once taken out by vaccines ...

Vaccine hesitancy has existed since the introduction of vaccines. In 1796, Edward Jenner developed the first vaccine against a communicable illness (smallpox) effectively preventing infection and the spread of the disease [9]. Shortly after, several organizations including the Anti-Vaccination League protested the dissemination of the vaccine due to safety concerns, and encouraged homeopathic solutions instead [10]. This discourse continued modestly throughout the early 20th century but was reignited in the U.S. as part of the 1970’s “hippie” counter-culture. In 1998, a since retracted publication in a well-respected medical journal suggested a link between the mumps, measles, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism [11–13]. As a result of this publication and the discourse surrounding it, anti-vax beliefs gained considerable traction within liberal, “neo-hippie” communities, which were often found in affluent and mostly White enclaves. These communities endorsed the idea that a natural and organic lifestyle would provide a sufficient immune response to combat infectious diseases, even more so than vaccines [14].

While the anti-vax movement gained ground on the political left in 1998, a sizable far-right political group more recently joined the anti-vax movement, citing mistrust of the government and “Big Pharma” (i.e., the American medical and pharmaceutical establishment) as their main reasons for vaccine avoidance [15]. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, former Republican President Donald Trump aligned himself with the right-wing of the anti-vax movement, which created a mixed political message when the focus of his administration’s pandemic response to COVID-19 was to accelerate vaccine development [16]. Trump also consistently attempted to play down the severity of the health risks associated with COVID-19 via statements that were often partisan in nature. Consequently, it is likely that former President Trump’s messages contributed to the beliefs among conservative Americans that the COVID-19 pandemic is not a serious health concern and vaccination is not an important and effective strategy for preventing the infection and spread of the disease [17, 18]. This can be illustrated by a survey conducted in June 2020 which found that people who intended to vote for Trump in the 2020 presidential election were less willing to receive a COVID-19 vaccine when it became available [19]. Thus, while far-left and far-right groups cite different reasons for vaccine refusal, their behaviors manifest in the same way (i.e., vaccine refusal), contributing to a major global health concern.

But enough of footnoted papers ... Killer is on a roll ...

Yes, right on cue: While the anti-vax movement gained ground on the political left in 1998, a sizable far-right political group more recently joined the anti-vax movement, citing mistrust of the government and “Big Pharma” (i.e., the American medical and pharmaceutical establishment) as their main reasons for vaccine avoidance ...

And could it possibly be a Killer moment without an "Orwellian twist of history"?

 

And there at the end is a classic Killer dodge, a fudge so he won't get lumped in with the anti-vax crowd ...

"It may very well be that the vaccines did overwhelmingly more good than harm ..."

Dear sweet long absent lord, did the completely clueless klutz just forget all his best Killer lines? 

Come on Killer, don't resort to humbug... be a proud Killer in the killing fields ... be a proud anti-vaxxer, be a proud anti-masker, and the next time you see someone with polio, do a little jig for a win, an anti-vax victory ...

Then you can have as your epitaph, it may well be that Killer's scribbling overwhelmingly did more harm than good ...

And so, because it seems to be in the air and in the reptile ether, let's keep swinging as hard and as far to the lunar right as possible, because it's a sure way to ensure electoral victory ...