In which our Henry provides reliable fodder, the bouffant one can't make much of nuking the country and cackling Claire turns leftist ...

 

The wag that offered an (urgent) injection of funds in the Crikey story (paywall) about an anti-vaxxer group going bankrupt stole the pond's heart.

Well there was no way that the pond was going to start off with the blithering idiocy of CNN. More than enough has already been said about it, and the pond noted that they tried to troll everybody on YouTube and that was with their own teams denouncing their own stupidity.

Wajahat Ali in the Daily Beast (paywall) discovered a new form of Catholicism and cilice wearing or perhaps it was just straight out BDSM ... without a safe word:

...According to NPR, CNN’s current CEO Chris Licht “told his staff they are re-establishing the channel’s original identity.” After witnessing this embarrassing town hall, one could not be faulted for assuming Licht believes that identity is one of masochism and self-immolation. These are apparently the character traits that are needed to gain ratings, money, and access to GOP power. When CNN anchor and moderator Kaitlin Collins attempted to interject with actual facts, Trump simply doubled down on his bullshit and gave red meat in the form of rage, lies, and conspiracies, which the audience and his MAGA base heartily ate up. An hour into the circus, Trump called Collins a “nasty person”—simply because she stood her ground and asked follow-up questions.

The MAGA audience loved it.

So CNN wanted to become Faux Noise and succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, but at least the pond could start with an immortal Rowe ...

CNN was more than ready to fondle ... and the pond could back that up with a winsome Wilcox ...

And then the usual suspect rolled up this Friday to distract the pond from world news ...

Eek, not the news that chatbots are leftist, how many ways can there be to terrify the lizards of Oz? 

Relax, the reptiles just used it as a new way to bash Lidia, which is why the pond went with this snap ...

As for that "nine minutes ago", that was the time it took for the reptiles to bump it up to the top of the digital page, so that they could cram in as many humiliating shots of Lidia as they could find for their rotating fickle finger of doom ...

As for the political bias and propaganda from Big Murdoch?

Same as it ever was, and there was the good old hole in the bucket man hitting peak black-bashing form, and coming in the nick of time to save the pond's day ...

Uh huh, so now can we have some more of that contempt? At this point the reptiles slipped in a snap of a smirking Blainey, as if tempting the pond to scratch at old scabs, but the pond is a bit wiser these days ...

Instead the lyrics to that old Bran Nue Dae song began to sound in the pond's brain ...

There's nothing I would rather be

than to be an Aborigine

and watch you take my precious land away.

For nothing gives me greater joy

than to watch you fill each girl and boy

with superficial, existential shit.

It was time for some superficial, existential shit, delivered by a master of the craft...

Uh huh, talking of eliding all history's complexities to arrive at a grotesque caricature, our Henry surely knows whereof he scribbles, because he immediately produces a humdinger about the choicest land being available to pesky, difficult, uppity blacks ...

Now at this point the pond realises that our Henry, being interested in history, would immediately launch into a tirade about the infamous Black Line, as an exemplary example of how to treat Aboriginal people ...

Say what? Martial law? But what of all that blithe talk about the pick of the land?

Well, the pond won't be going on to talk about how being sequestered on Palm Island or being made to work for Vesteys was the pick of the land, because the hole in the bucket man was still frothing and foaming in a remarkably fatuous way ...

Indeed, indeed, while the spirit was there, the "Black Line" was a bit of a flop and other ways had to be found ....

Indeed, indeed, what you needed was a benign figure, a bit like our Henry out in the field ... come on down, George Augustus and do your august best..

While the Black Line was considered a logistical failure, in the long term it did have the effect desired by government authorities and settlers.

The scale of the operation, along with ongoing violence and disruption from Europeans, troubled the Tasmanian Aborigines and they began to avoid living in the settled districts. Most were eventually persuaded to surrender to the authorities.

George Augustus Robinson, an Englishman whom Governor Arthur had appointed as conciliator to the Aboriginals in 1829, often negotiated this surrender.

Robinson learned some of the local Aboriginal languages, and attempted to form cordial relationships with people in the settled districts. He frequently travelled with other Aboriginal Tasmanians, like Truganini, using them as intermediaries and representatives who could convince groups to relocate.

The small population of about 200 Tasmanian Aborigines who remained in the settled districts after the line were gradually removed to Wybalenna, a settlement on Flinders Island in Bass Strait run by Robinson.

Confined to poor accommodation, exiled from their homes, suffering emotional trauma, plagued by disease and severely malnourished, most of those at the settlement died within a few years.

By 1847 only 40 people still survived at Wybalenna. Considered the ‘last remaining’ Tasmanian Aborigines, this small group was relocated to the Tasmanian mainland at Oyster Cove. By 1876 all but one of them had passed away.

An inspiration to all ... and perhaps a brief note on Palm island ...

Palm Island was gazetted as an Aboriginal reserve in 1914; Chief Protector J.W. Bleakley designated a specific role to Palm Island as ‘a penitentiary for troublesome cases’. The establishment of Palm Island was part of a wider, national attempt to control the locals by taking control of all aspects of Aboriginal lives at a time now known as the "Protection Era". In every state and territory, laws were passed governing where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people could live.

Representatives from over 40 tribes were displaced and sent to Palm Island for a variety of reasons including it being used a prison camp for troublemakers at other locations and the destruction of the Hull River Mission at Tully. More than forty different language groups were sent to Palm, locating their camps in areas to mirror their positions on the mainland. The enforcement of so many tribes living in one place has generally been cited as a major cause of unrest on Palm over the years.

Palm became exile and punishment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who disobeyed these strict laws, or refused to comply with Government policy. During this time people worked for rations and not wages.

Glorious days, and the pond shed a quiet tear of humble appreciation at the generosity of white folk ...

And our Henry has been generous too, but sadly this is his last gobbet of navel-gazing complacency ... because dem grateful blacks, dem love good old Queen Vic ...

Speaks a zealot in favour of his own brand of patented imperial zealotry and white supremacy and the wonders and joys of the British empire ...

And after that feast, what else?

Well it seems that Captain Spud is intent on nuking the country ... and so this led in both the digital and tree killer editions ...

 

The nuclear option! The pond is always up for a good nuking and so was keen to learn more, and so for once checked in with the bouffant one ...

Ah, he was just intent on nuking the working poor, and doubtless the story would be about those cruel stage three tax cuts celebrated by the infallible Pope this day ... with the mutton Dutton demanding an end to that form of nuking ...

As usual, the pond got it completely wrong, and what followed was remarkable only for its astonishing brevity ...

That's it? That's all he scribbled? That's the best he could dig out to write up? That's the full extent of the nuking?  Where's nattering "Ned" when he's needed?

So exasperated and frustrated, the pond went looking for another bonus ...

Nope, talk about nada and zilch, and bloody cackling Claire had decided to go leftist on the pond, with talk of guns, and the pond could only stand a short gobbet of this wretched leftist thinking... some left-leaning chatbot must have got to her addled brain ...

One incident occurring every week? But the Beeb reported more than 200 mass shootings this year, and by the pond's reckoning, we've clocked up almost 19 weeks so far ...

You do the math, because it seems suddenly leftist cackling chatbot Claire can't ...

And so to end by celebrating the work of the GOP, and the likes of the governors of Florida and Texas and the mango Mussolini ...