In which the decline and fall of the lizard Oz into sublime irrelevance continues apace ...

 

The pond spent yesterday moaning about what a void the lizard Oz had become - no fall of Boris, no charging of the mango Mussolini - and the temptation is to keep on with the moaning ...

The triptych of terror on Friday was an insight into where the reptile hive mind had landed ...

Now they've got "staff writers" on the case? And indeed they had ...

If you're going to do a hatchet job, send in Anon ...

It will be noted that Polonius was part of the triptych, and amazingly that's when he shot his ABC bolt, doing his furry impression of a dog, because his offering for the pond's Sunday meditation was surprisingly muted ...

There wasn't a mention of the lack of conservatives on the ABC, nor even a note that the ABC had yet to give him a show ... instead ancient ALP history was all the go ...

All that did was remind the pond that "Ned" had gone missing this weekend. Was he off scribbling another tome or had age caught up with the old dotard? There is a substitute down the page, but can anyone truly replace "Ned" brining news of the latest apocalypse ...

The challenge with Polonius of course is to pick out some factual error or misinterpretation, but this week it's a dull game ... in fact, 1976 dull ...

Is it wrong to mention Ming the Merciless in this context? After all, Polonius did mention his ancient idol, and the pond stumbled on this report in the Kalgoorlie Miner, from way back on 12th September 1938 ...

 

"The need for an understanding of Germany". "The Nazi ledger held credit entries, he added"

Kristallnacht happened the next month, but before that, there had already been thousands of miniature Kristallnachts ...

He really was a quisling and a lickspittle fellow traveller, which is a bit different from the Irish not wanting to become trench fodder in the Somme ...

But the pond only threw that in for a lark, and as a bit of spacing before the final gobbet ...

Well, that's more than enough of a head nodding history lesson, and so the pond turned to a little bonus, offered for the sheer pleasure of supping on the craven Craven's tears.

It seems that the Angelic one had run out of Calvary steam, so the reptiles drummed up this offering ...

Some might wonder why the pond bothers. After all, there's Marina Hyde to read about the mango Mussolini, The charges mount, but Trump’s not worried. He’s just the guy to make jail great again.

And then there was the Boris, and yarns like Boris Johnson’s disheartening, shoddy honours list is an apt political epitaph.

But there's salt in the Craven's tears, a healthy dietary supplement if you've been sweating in the coal mine of Catholic ponzi schemes and cash in the paw from governments designed to sustain a business model which has of late fallen on hard times ...

The more he yowls and whines, the greater the pleasure ...

As for the original inhabitants and the acquisition of their land, done under the ancient Land Acquisition Act of "it's mine, not yours, bugger off to a mission"?

Here's a fun tale as to how the churches scored the best bits of land ...

In 1836 Governor Bourke introduced The Church Act. By providing government subsidies for land and church construction the Act promoted the building of churches and chapels across the colony. The Act was strongly opposed by members of the Anglican Church, particularly Bishop Broughton, as it formalised government support for the Catholic and Presbyterian churches and weakened the position of the Anglican church in the colony.

The first fifty years of the nineteenth century saw a major increase in church building across the colony. With a combination of government subsidies and private funds churches from a variety of denominations including Baptist, Congregational, Methodist, Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian established permanent meeting places for their growing congregations....

....The Church Act of 1836 provided Government subsidies for clerical salaries and for new church construction. Church communities that raised a minimum of £300 pounds were subsidised on a 'pound for pound' basis up to a maximum of £1000. Additional land grants were also made available for churches and schools. Originally intended for Anglican, Catholic and Presbyterian denominations Bourke later extended the provisions of the Act to other denominations including the Jewish, Wesleyan and Baptist communities. 

The grifters have always had their claws in to government cash, they've always had their snouts in the government trough, they've always been the best of the pork barrellers... and then they have the temerity to whine about building a hospital where women's rights might be respected?

The pond only slips that in for fun, though the real fun is the howling and the whining...

Oh it's back to the the Atheist's Bible ...

"Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world" - Voltaire 

"Examine the religious principles which have, in fact, prevailed in the world. You will scarcely be persuaded that they are any thing but sick men's dreams" - David Hume

Then send them to a public hospital to see if the sickness can be remedied ...

And so to the bonus, and it had to be the bromancer, though it seems that the bromancer has taken over "Ned's" duties, which has always been to find somebody else and regurgitate their views at great length, and if it happens to be a government hack in a failing government presiding over a declining country, so much the better ....

A warning. Just like "Ned" it's excessively long while also being full of itself, tedious and dull...

The pond hates to add to the length, but this seems as good a point as any to slip in the bromancer's dishonourable mention in Crikey, in Charlie Lewis's Australia's mainstream conservatism is taking a radical turn (sorry, paywall for the full piece).

Well yes, but that means this day's outing is disappointing, because this time the bromancer is just regurgitating the thoughts of a minor Mr Pooter minion from a failing government ...

Not wishing to labour the point, that mention of Crikey might lead some to Tim Dunlop on substack, The Liberal Party - News Corp Axis of Awful.

Dunlop spends some time on the grubbiness surrounding the lizards of Oz and the Lehrmann matter, which the pond refuses to touch, because some sewers are too deep, but inter alia ...

...It should be completely clear at this stage that the right/conservative side of Australian politics has at the very least, lost its moral authority. At worst, they are functionally insane, and it is worth documenting what is happening because few in the mainstream media are likely to do it.

The idea of the Liberal Party as a vehicle for conservative politics in this country, as the political expression of a sort of mainstream reasonableness, is dead in a ditch, and day by day, at state and federal level, the party moves further to the extreme edges of political discourse. Whether it is Dutton’s bleating about what he has disgustingly called the “re-racialisation of Australian politics”, or the willingness of large sections of the Victorian Liberal to support anti-trans activist, Moira Deeming, the party increasingly presents as extreme.

As independents like Kylea Tink (North Sydney) have said, I didn’t leave the Liberal Party, the Liberal Party left me, and it is a view shared by cohorts of voters in formerly blue-ribbon Liberal seats across the country, as results at the last federal election and subsequent state elections decisively show.

It is all part of a trend amongst the right-wing of the Australian political class that likely began with John Howard purging the party of moderates during the 1990s, but now includes a similar sort of purging by News Corp. Yes, the media company’s lunge to the right is driven from the top and by a business decision to pitch themselves almost exclusively to a rightwing demographic—including catering to the more extreme edge of that via Sky After Dark—but they have also seen the (not unrelated) exodus of journalists like George Megalogenis, Patricia Karvelas and Rick Morton that has drained the organisation of moderate ballast.

Well yes, and cue the Charlie quote seen above, but now the pond must return to the dysfunctionally insane ...

Indeed, indeed, the country is in tremendous shape ...

At last a chance to feature the Graudian cartoon service ...

Sorry, sorry, if the pond keeps interrupting, the pond will never get through the bromancer channeling Tugendhat like ectoplasm in a seance ...

"He has a lot to say"?

Hasn't he already had enough to say? The pond's spirits began to wilt, not helped by a picture from 2020 ...

It's distilled essence of "Ned's" style. Let the man rabbit on, then put the gems down on the page, and it was only when AI came into play that the pond felt a prick up its ears or pricked its ears (or whatever, see Joe Orton) ...

At this point the reptiles introduced a truly pathetic stock shot ...

Why couldn't they have found an image showing how to manage the baleful effects of AI?

Well the filibuster has sort of worked and there's only two gobbets to go ...

Migrants? Refugees? See Crikey above for the company the bromancer keeps. Personally the pond would have liked to stay on AI if only because it had a TT to hand ...

Don't worry TT, you'll be saved by the British government that made a tremendous success of Brexit, negotiated huge international trade treaties, fixed the economy and levelled up the country at hyper speed. Why, tackling AI and bringing it to the floor will be a mere doddle for Rish!'s team ...

And that leaves just one gobbet to go ... and the faithful amanuensis has done a sterling job (if only the sterling wasn't on the skids or in the freezer) ...

Like-minded democracies? You mean like this ...

Or perhaps just liars like this ...

Whatever, the bromancer better hurry, or he might miss the party ...