In which there are so many red cards this day that the pond ends up in a good place with the bromancer, and a useless place with pontificating "Ned" ...

 

Two years! Two years to wait to see the Press Council find a warm lettuce leaf and give the lizard Oz a tepid thrashing with it ...

A correspondent first alerted the pond, and there it was in the Graudian, with this near the end ...

...The paper’s editor-in-chief at the time, Christopher Dore, strongly defended it internally but never commented on it publicly.
He lost his job in November after an incident at a Wall Street Journal event in Laguna Beach, California, where Rupert Murdoch’s top executives were present.
Milligan said the process had been “wearying” and took two years. “It was my decision alone to do it,” she said on Twitter/X. “It has demonstrated to me the Press Council needs proper public funding, unshackled from the publications it’s adjudicating.”
The press council is a self-regulatory body that is dominated by News Corp Australia, which has the majority of paying members. Guardian Australia is not a member.
The editorial was still live on the Australian’s website on Tuesday.

What a useless, meaningless thing the Press Council is, and the pond has no idea why it bothered to look up the ruling...

What a waste of space. The pathetic tale was also in Crikey, (paywall) and for some reason the pond was drawn to the comments (much like the pond reads its own comments section for the only signs of sanity on the pond)...

Lano
What happens now? Does The Australian have to publish something as a result of the finding?
Sinking Ship Rat
Yes, to maintain its long-standing traditions, customs and practices, The Australian now has to publish several long articles every day for weeks, covering:

• Why the Press Council is a disgrace that should be abolished
• Personal attacks on all members of the Press Council for being lefty/Commie/woke/deranged/idiotic etc. etc.
• How The Australian was too kind about Milligan in the original editorial, and how Milligan is in fact much worse than than stated, a menace to society, enemy of the people, etc.
• Why anyone who disagrees with The Australian about any of this is un-Australian and should be tarred, feathered and shipped back to where they came from.

And there was this ...

Peter Wotton
Does any Murdoch paper heavily distort the truth?
Thucydides
Can the Pope ride a bike?

Throw in a jolly good Hydeing, The hapless Gillian Keegan had one thing right: this is a nation ruled by arse-sitters and the pond's work was almost done this day. The pond can say with a degree of confidence that it has absolutely no interest in the hapless Gillian, but loves a good Hydeing ...

Meanwhile, the pond supposes it should pay attention to the wearying reprobates, but it turned out that this was a day for red cards ...

Dame Slap blathering about the ACT yet again? Automatic red card! Noel Pearson pictured in front of lizard Oz advertising? Red card! 

Jacinta Price blathering away, but spinelessly ducking and weaving like a gutless wonder? Red card!, though that does allow the pond to reference Jacinta Nampijinpa Price declines to endorse controversial anti-voice campaigner Gary Johns.

Couldn't even call out a racist bigot for his usual display of racist bigotry? What a pathetic lick spittle fellow travelling wimp. Red card with bar!

And lo, with a deep sigh, the pond then spotted nattering "Ned" on the far right of the digital edition, and realised its fate.

Is there any way to stay that fate, at least for a moment?

Well, the pond was still outraged at the bald-faced stupidity of the mutton Dutton, but can at least offer this cartoon as a consolation ... for Pete's sake ...

Was there anything down below to save the pond from a trip to the far right with "Ned"?

Nah, sorry. Once upon a time, the pond couldn't wait to get out of bed to celebrate the meanderings of Moorice, but today ... red card! There's only so bigoted elitists blathering about elites that the pond can take in a day ... and likely "Ned" will play that role.

As for the lesser member of the Kelly gang, it's a bit like Ron DeSanctus and the mango Mussolini. Why go with an inferior substitute when the nauseating real deal is out and about? And as for Linda Burney pandering to the reptile paywall, say no more, and say even less about simplistic Simon doing his "here no conflict of interest" routine.

So the pond was left with the bromancer as a way of temporarily avoiding its fate ... with the bro being surprisingly upbeat, on the basis that another step might be taken to produce his war with China by Xmas ...

The pond must at this point issue its usual dictator Xi disclaimer, and move on ...

Hmm, something about those negotiations reminded the pond of the Press Council. Two years to produce a report is almost up there with a tribe of bromancers going into journalism ...

But that's when the bromancer turned a little strange, and the pond realised it had been worth going with him.

As the topic of sci fi came up in the comments section, it seems only right to remember Jerome Bixby's story It's a Good Life, here in rough form ...

The pond has referred to it before and likely will again, and the feature of the yarn is the way the characters have to insist everything is good, lest they be offed to the cornfield ...

So ...

It's good," said Dad, in the loud, familiar, wanting-to-be-overheard tone of voice. "Such talk is good. It's okay, honey don't you see? It's good for Amy to talk any way she wants. It's good for her to feel bad. Everything's good. Everything has to be good ...

And ...

...Afterward, they watched television. They all went into the front room, and lit just a few candles, and pulled up chairs around the set. It was a small-screen set, and they couldn't all sit close enough to it to see, but that didn't matter. They didn't even turn the set on. It wouldn't have worked anyway, there being no electricity in Peaksville.

They just sat silently, and watched the twisting, writhing shapes on the screen, and listened to the sounds that came out of the speaker, and none of them had any idea of what it was all about. They never did. It was always the same.

"It's real nice," Aunt Amy said once, her pale eyes on meaningless flickers and shadows. "But I liked it a little better when there were cities outside and we could get real--"

Why, Amy!" said Mom. "It's good for you to say such a thing. Very good. But how can you mean it? Why, this television is much better than anything we ever used to get!"

"Yes," chimed in John Sipich. "It's fine. It's the best show we've ever seen!"

He sat on the couch, with two other men, holding Ethel Hollis flat against the cushions, holding her arms and legs and putting their hands over her mouth, so she couldn't start screaming again.

"It's really good!" he said again.

And so to the final bromancer gobbet, and the pond thinks it shows all the signs of being Bixbied ... a steep price to pay for wishing that war with China by Xmas ...

Oh it's good, a very good thing, no doubt about it, because there are worse things ... and please don't take the bromancer's acronym sunshine away ...

Speaking of foreign affairs, the pond couldn't resist catching up with the lizard Oz editorialist, usually given the task of defaming journalists, and then waiting two years for a correction ...

Say what? Is the lizard Oz editorialist defaming Killer Creighton? It was only a few days ago that the pond featured Killer proposing History proves Biden right on Afghanistan ...

You can read the Killer's chunky gobbets of goodness on the pond here ...and this should serve as a memory aid ...

And the very next day the lizard Oz editorialist came up with this? Sure they mentioned Killer, but after pretending to fawn, a slap down followed ...

By golly, it's a pretty thing when the lizard Oz is sounding more feminist than Killer ...

And so to the Everest known as "Ned". The pond doesn't like to do it, but someone has to tackle the climb, but rest assured, there will be cartoons ...

The pond is up for jokes about Qantas as much as the next cartoonist, or even the immortal Rowe, showing a little AFR hubris ...

But even when cracking jokes about Qantas, nattering "Ned" manages to go full Jacinta Price/Gary Johns/mutton Dutton contemptible ... by using Qantas to take potshots at the Voice ...

The pond would have settled for the sight of "Ned" waxing lyrical about Qatar, calling an early end to proceedings and heading off to the cornfield. 

Who knows, soon enough "Ned"  might become manager of Newcastle United FC, or perhaps roll out a new golf circuit ... but it might have been better for him to stick with reliable routines and familiar jokes ...

It turns out that the whole "Ned" piece was just a ruse to stick it to the Voice ...

And so to the sting in the "Ned" tale, tail if you will, with this Wilcox pressed into service to help with the set up ...

And so to the final "Ned" gobbet, and if he starts braying about the 'leets, Moorice style, the pond will run screaming to the cornfield, though with all the pond's spoiler alerts, it's probably no surprise that's where the pond is heading ...

There you go, "the arrogance of elites and their disconnection from the broader community", and apparently the pompous, portentous, pretentious, pontifcating blowhard is so far up himself, he doesn't even realise he's a member of said 'leets - self-satisfied, and pandering to the Chairman - and with about as much connection to the broader community as a mob hiding behind a paywall and slagging off other journalists in a defamatory way.

Before the pond runs screaming to the cornfield, have an infallible Pope which mercifully twists "Ned's" blather into a useful form, dishing it out not just to Qantas and Joyce, but also to the lizard Oz and its merry band of groaners cheering on the loopholes ...

And it's also about the bloody magpies infesting the streets near the pond ...

And now off to the cornfield ...