In which Sunday is no time for rest for summer school students involved in their herpetology studies ...

 

It has come to the pond's attention that some slacker students prefer to lobster at the beach instead of diligently pursuing their studies.

The pond concedes that death by skin cancer is preferable to death by reptile, and also concedes that we're dealing with a wretched B team, those with nothing to do and vain enough to keep doing it through the silly season. The pond also admits that it should apologise for its belated summer school publishing schedule, which sees astonishing reptile EXCLUSIVES land far too late in the weekend...

Take this news flash ...

John Howard would not back Donald Trump to be president again

Sadly, in the stripped back summer school edition, students must imagine the accompanying snap of the old dodderer out and about yet again in reptile la la land ...

Former prime minister John Howard would not back Donald Trump for the US presidency in 2024. Picture: Jane Dempster

Then it was on with ancient, venerable Troy speaking to ancient lying rodent ...

EXCLUSIVE
By troy bramston
4:50PM December 29, 2023

Indeed, indeed, who wouldn't have voted for the mango Mussolini in his prime. After all, he built the wall, and made Mexico pay for it ...

John Howard would not vote for Donald Trump if he had a vote in the US presidential election next year because the former president failed to accept the outcome of the 2020 election and fraudulently tried to overturn the result.
The former prime minister (1996-2007) told The Weekend Australian he would have “ever so reluctantly” voted for Mr Trump in 2020 because he identifies more with Republicans than Democrats, but could not do so in 2024.
“Once Trump refused to ­accept the outcome, I wrote him off,” Mr Howard said. “If I had a vote, I couldn’t vote for Trump at the next election. I just think somebody who refuses to accept the verdict of the public and runs around trying to get people to find votes is appalling.
“Nobody likes losing. Remember what he said on the night of the election? ‘Nobody likes losing, particularly me.’ Well, why particularly him? Do you think I liked losing to Rudd? No. Do you think Keating liked losing to me? Certainly not.
“I just thought that was a complete fraud on the American public and the democratic system.”
Asked if he would vote for Joe Biden in 2024, Mr Howard said “it would be very hard” and thought in 2020 he was already showing signs of “losing the necessary cognitive ability to do the job”.
But he did not rule it out, and would wait until the two major party candidates had been chosen before answering that.
Mr Howard spoke to The Weekend Australian to coincide with the release of his government’s 2003 cabinet papers on Monday and discussed meeting several US presidents during his time in public life.
He recalled getting on well with Bill Clinton and especially George W. Bush, who both overlapped with his time as prime minister. He met George HW Bush and Barack Obama, and Mr Biden before he was president. He has not met Mr Trump and said he does not “feel deprived in not having met him”.
Mr Howard previously told The Weekend Australian that Mr Trump’s behaviour was “appalling”, “disgraceful” and “terrible” following the 2020 election, and hoped the Republican Party would select a different candidate to run for president in 2024.
He said Mr Trump was utterly “unfit” to return to the presidency.

Students are reminded of those fresh treasures to come on Monday ... much like all Xmas's coming at once ...

Read Troy Bramston’s interviews with John Howard and Peter Costello about the 2003 cabinet papers in The Australian on Monday.

... but the pond isn't sure it will be up to handling the pace, and perhaps lobstering at the beach is the way to go ...

And so to the real treat for pond students - prattling Polonius's summary of the year. 

Leftist loudmouths take us down year of the rabbit hole

Students will immediately wonder why that wasn't ABC loudmouths, but relax, the snap that followed reminded Polonial devotees that "leftist" and "ABC" are interchangeable ...

ABC presenter Antoinette Lattouf. Picture: Instagram

Not sure if Instagram actually initiated the snap and so owns it in a way that allows it to licence it - as opposed to the reptiles doing a pond and pilfering it - but relax, the mouse running wild and free is for another day, and here the assignment is a simple one ...

By gerard henderson
12:00AM December 30, 2023

Count how many ABC thought crimes * are featured in this Polonial highlights piece ...

On New Year’s Day 2023, morale was high; the Year of the Rabbit forecast a period of peace and wellbeing. Alas, it was not to be. Anger, false prophesy, rudeness, self-indulgence, hyperbole, narcissism, memory lapse and fake news, along with a lack of self-awareness, prevailed in this valley of tears. Month by month in the media.

JANUARY. On Sky News, Melbourne deputy lord mayor and Labor Party functionary Nicholas Reece asserts fellow panellist Rita Panahi “forgot to take her tablets”. In short, he disagreed with her. Nine newspaper columnist Nick Bryant writes that a conversation with his mother-in-law five years before brought home to him “the gradual decline of Australia Day”. Left-of-centre creative director Dee Madigan blames the patriarchy for the fact “you can’t claim TV makeup on tax”. Ignoring that many blokes wear makeup on TV.

FEBRUARY. Jane Caro advises readers of Sunday Life that “unless you die young, all of us will get old”. Chris Taylor, one of the Chaser Boys (average age 48½), declares that being a team captain on the program Would I Lie to You? is a bit like having “an enormous amount of power over something that is profoundly silly and inconsequential”. He compares the role with “being the CEO of Sky News”.

MARCH. The Age and Sydney Morning Herald chief political correspondent David Crowe suggests Greens leader Adam Bandt has become the real leader of the opposition. Soon after, ABC RN Breakfast presenter Patricia Karvelas asks Liberal Senate leader Simon Birmingham: “Has Adam Bandt effectively replaced Peter Dutton as opposition leader?” On ABC’s Q+A, Antoinette Lattouf declares “Australia still has networks or programs that look like a neo-Nazi wet dream”. Meanwhile, an ABC trade union operative urges staff at the taxpayer-funded public broadcaster, who are working from home to come to the office so they can go out on strike.

APRIL. On Q+A, lawyer Teela Reid announces: “I don’t usually agree with white men but I agree (with British playwright David Hare) – abolish prisons!” For his part, Hare proclaims: “Not to allow Palestinians to speak in this country is just repellent.” Which suggests he knows as much about freedom of speech in Australia as he does about the need for prisons. The overwhelming majority of journalists condemn Dutton’s decision to advocate a No vote in the referendum to place an Indigenous voice in the Constitution. David Crowe compares Dutton’s decision to that of a pilot accelerating towards the ground. The Guardian’s Josh Taylor characterises the late artiste Barry Humphries as a mere “product of his time”. That’s all, apparently.

MAY. Sun-Herald journalist Peter FitzSimons issues a challenge – locate “anyone who would welcome a big or small (nuclear) reactor nearby”. Apparently, he is unaware of the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor located across Sydney Harbour from his abode. In The Saturday Paper, former Liberal MP Julia Banks refers to “the ignorance of some of the so-called leaders of Dutton and Morrison’s ilk” – implying they are out of touch. This is the same Ms Banks who declared in 2018 she could live on $40 a day.

JUNE. The ABC makes Andrew Probyn, its Canberra-based political editor, redundant. ABC executive Justin Stevens describes Probyn as a “fantastic journalist”. In time, David Speers becomes the ABC’s Canberra-based, wait for it, political lead. He’s also fantastic. Crikey editors Sophie Black and Gina Rushton publish a grovelling apology at having to “unpublish” an article by leftist comedy writer Guy Rundle. Which is quite amusing in itself.

JULY. Laura Tingle tells Insiders viewers she “was left speechless” on learning of the Robodebt royal commission’s findings. Except for the fact she “had to say something”. Novelist Richard Flanagan writes in The Monthly that attacks on the Yes case have been “as precise as a musket shot, as lethal as poisoned flour”. Overlooking the fact the leaders of the No case are Indigenous Australians.

AUGUST. Dark Emu author Bruce Pascoe, who identifies as Indigenous but has yet to name one Indigenous grandparent, has his work depicted in The Dark Emu story and shown on ABC TV. It is criticised by well-regarded anthropologists Peter Sutton and Keryn Walshe, neither of whom are political conservatives. Marcia Langton retorts that Sutton’s argument belongs to the “Bonga, Bonga” school of anthropology. She does not state where this is located. The Daily Telegraph reports retired leftist journalist Mike Carlton has been seen on Whale Beach swimming sans swimmers. He tells the paper to “f..k off”.

SEPTEMBER. Nine columnist Niki Savva states “some Liberals opposing the voice believe the tenor of the campaign will assure Peter Dutton reaps no reward if the referendum fails”. So, he is a loser whether he wins or not. Bruce Wolpe, an outspoken critic of Donald Trump, claims what took place at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 could never have occurred in Australia. He overlooks the violent attacks on Australia’s Parliament House on August 19, 1996 led by groups of trade unionists protesting against the Howard government. Police were injured and the front door smashed. In January this year there was a violent attack on Old Parliament House.

OCTOBER. In the referendum on October 14, the No case prevails by 60 per cent to 40 per cent. Immediately, the left intelligentsia accuses the toiling masses. ABC presenter Jonathan Green declares: “What the f..k; how can you say no?” The Guardian’s Katharine Murphy bemoans: “Lost in a fog of conflict and misinformation, we failed an empathy test.” Former Nine journalist Mark Kenny confesses: “I feel so disheartened; I feel I don’t know my country; or rather that I suddenly do.” Asked about the author of this missive, 60 per cent of Australians say they don’t know the now ANU professor.

NOVEMBER. News emerges that fine actor and eco-catastrophist Cate Blanchett has demolished a stone cottage on the Cornwall coast to construct a so-called “eco-home” with five bedrooms and a pool. Nine journalist Latika Bourke diminishes Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price by describing her as “the right’s new darling”. Chris Oliver-Taylor, the ABC’s recently appointed content tsar, says the ABC does not have enough staff from a diverse background. The hyphenated-name guy presents as a middle-aged white bloke. By the way, he has shown no interest in political diversity.

DECEMBER. Israel critic Louise Adler obtains a soft interview on 7.30. Adler, director of the taxpayer-funded Adelaide Writers Week, uses the platform provided by the ABC’s leading current affairs program to complain she is “being silenced”. Really. Jenna Price advises Nine newspaper readers “the ABC is constantly harassed by News Corp commentators who for all I know get bonuses every time they demean the public broadcaster”. She provides not a skerrick of evidence.

And so, the year ended with an ANU academic chasing a conspiracy theory down a rabbit hole.

* Teacher study guide: by the pond's count, the ABC was explicitly mentioned some 12 times, which, averaged out, means once a month. 

This is surely an undercount, because throughout the year Polonius maintained an astonishing obsessive-compulsive interest in the ABC ... the pond had readers writing in to complain on the rare week or so that the ABC didn't feature in a Polonial piece (the pond can only remember a couple of occasions, suggesting at least 50 Polonial pieces celebrating the ABC throughout the year).

To be fair, he did summarise his output quite tidily at the get go ...

Anger, false prophesy, rudeness, self-indulgence, hyperbole, narcissism, memory lapse and fake news, along with a lack of self-awareness, prevailed in this Polonial valley of tears. 

So long as Polonius scribbles and especially so long as Polonius keeps imagining he's a dog, bitching and barking and howling at the moon, irony will never be dead ...

And so to a rousing conclusion, because where would we be without ongoing celebrations of the killing fields, with garrulous Gemma standing by ...

Progressives in lock-step with Hamas ideology

At this point students might wonder why the story began with a snap of ...

A mass grave in Nigeria. Picture: AFP

There's a simple answer. It simply wouldn't do for the reptiles to show a mass grave in Gaza  ...

Carry on regardless, garrulous Gemma ...

By gemma tognini

12:00AM December 30, 2023

... because reptile distraction is a fine art ...

Last Saturday and continuing across Christmas Eve and into Christmas Day, about 160 Christians were slaughtered in central Nigeria, in a region known as Plateau State. Plateau is where Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim north collides with the mainly Christian south. Twenty villages were targeted in what has been described as a well-co-ordinated attack that took place when the world, not just the Christian world, celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ.

I found out about this attack while scrolling through social media on Boxing Day night, while grovelling through a spectacular episode of festive gastro. I didn’t read about the attack in the mainstream media until a few days later and, trust me when I say this, it took some finding. In the mainstream media reportage I did find some of the detail, specifically that the victims of this slaughter were Christians, was left out. That came after a little bit more digging and a lot less throwing up.

This isn’t a conversation about Islam versus Christianity, or Judaism. Or being a Hindu versus being a Mormon. Or an atheist or wading one’s way through the valley of indecision. In fact, it’s not a conversation about faith at all. No, this to me is something deeper and significantly more problematic.

We are living in an age of ideology, not conviction. We are being governed by people who favour form, not substance.

There is an obsession with feeling over fact, perception over reality and an absolutely hysterical addiction to victimhood.

Ah yes, an addiction to victimhood, though an addiction that's somewhat hard to sustain when you're dead ...

The pond did wonder if garrulous Gemma might have the first clue what Etan Nechin was scribbling about in Like Tal Mitnick, I refused to serve Israel as a soldier. It’s important to understand why ...

...Opting out of service isn’t straightforward. Refusal is rare partly because the army leaves little room for dissent. The Israeli high court of justice has ruled that while absolute pacifism is a valid reason for exemption, “selective refusal” – rejecting specific duties – is illegal. This stance, especially the refusal to serve in the occupied territories, is seen as a threat to national unity. Those few exempted on grounds of pacifism are also restricted from discussing the occupation or Israel’s politics more widely.

The IDF’s handling of refusers is also not consistent. Some face trials and multiple imprisonments before being discharged by a military psychiatric board. Others, like myself, are sent directly to this board. There, I had to articulate my beliefs to a tribunal of officers, which at 17 were more intuitive than clearly defined. The main method the army uses to release refusers is by declaring them mentally unfit for service, implying that in Israel dissent is equated with insanity.

The experience of getting out is disorienting, like stepping into an alternative reality. In my case, in the post-school wilderness and unskilled, I ended up in construction, a field shared by Palestinians, migrant workers and marginalised groups. Choices are slim for those who made the ethical choice to refuse enlistment, with plenty of personal and social ramifications.

Our refusal to serve wasn’t a gesture for external validation, or even to seek acknowledgment from Palestinians who were segregated from us by language and fences; but about taking a stand against the moral decay within – showing others and ourselves there is another path.

But refusers aren’t heroes. No one who has refused thinks they are. I know I didn’t. I didn’t find valour in my decision – but alienation. The choice to reject something central to my society meant I could never be fully part of it. There are even moments of self-doubt and guilt – have I neglected my duty? This is felt especially keenly when friends confront conflict and loss, however removed we are from their cause.

Refusal isn’t heroic but it expresses a different kind of resolution – the resolution to stand alone, to navigate the complexities of dissent, and to remain true to your beliefs in the face of societal dissonance; to realise that rebellion is required when facing a violent and unsustainable status quo.

Etan Nechin is a writer based in New York and contributor to Haaretz

Say what?

...rebellion is required when facing a violent and unsustainable status quo

What on earth is he scribbling about? Next thing you know there'll be charges of genocide made ...

Not to worry, being an armchair warrior relishing the killing fields is a living, of a kind ...

The slaughter in Israel on October 7 opened the world’s eyes to many things, two of which are relevant here. First, the venomous, inexplicable hatred that still exists towards the Jewish people that is not only excused but perpetuated by the progressive political left; and the undeniable truth that ideology rules moral clarity and at a terrible cost.

Only the ideologically obsessed would be demanding a ceasefire in Gaza without an immediate concurrent surrender by Hamas, and a release of the remaining living hostages. The fact these hostages still are being held and the international community is even talking about a ceasefire is insanity. Israel is the only nation on earth that needs to defend itself for defending itself. If that doesn’t embody the curse of rotten ideology, then nothing does.

But ideology now extends to the realm of fantasy, the kind that decides (out of desperation, I’m sure) that Jesus was a Palestinian and there were no Jews in Israel before 1948. I don’t know who is more intellectually stunted: the Free Palestine mob who dreamt up this cunning plan or the simpletons who’d buy it. I do know one thing for sure: both are drunk on ideology and someone needs to confiscate their car keys.

Ah yes, the pond remembers going there yesterday... some drunk at EB deciding Jesus was a Roman ...

Meanwhile, there was a distracting link designed to distract from garrulous Gemma for a moment...

Media-link

Pro-Palestinian protests at Christmas time is ‘disgraceful’

Indeed, indeed, completely disgraceful ... this is much more like the spirit of Xmas ...

On with the killing fields ...

Closer to home, we find ourselves again in a peculiar and circular conversation about the rights of a person to freedom of speech and expression. Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja was sanctioned by cricket’s governing body after attempting to push his personal views (via writing on his kit) during this week’s Test. Many have supported him, despite the fact the terms of the code and hence his employment prohibit this behaviour. I wonder where all the free-speech zealots were when Israel Folau was cancelled for doing the same thing. Oh, but Folau was spreading hate … Not according to him. Khawaja’s behaviour is divisive and disrespectful to Jews. Not according to him.

Meanwhile, on another planet ...

Meanwhile, it seems that bashing gays and perhaps throwing them off a Sydney cliff is just the sort of free speech we need ...

The bizarre common thread between these two unlikely bedfellows is that ideology has driven the response to both. You can speak your truth as long as you’re not a Christian or a Jew.

Ideology, that’s what this is, clear as day: plain, simple, toxic and exposed for the cheap currency that it is. If you couldn’t defend Folau, you cannot defend Khawaja. It’s free speech for all or for none. And freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences. As an employer, I know this better than most. Every business in Australia will have a social media code of conduct of some sorts, and it’s every employee’s responsibility to understand it and not to violate it.

Don’t get me wrong here; I’m not doubting Khawaja’s intentions or that his belief is heartfelt. What I am pointing out is the ideologically driven double standard.

Never mind garrulous Gemma's ideologically driven double standard, mysterious in its own way.

Instead students might ponder the mystery of how these warring tribes allegedly share the same Abrahamic god ...

... and so pray to the same long absent lord ... though some prayers are malicious and malevolent, and celebrate the mass ethnic cleansing ... with garrulous Gemma calling on her god to do her dirty work ...

Since the start of the war that Hamas started and, God willing, Israel will finish, the ideologically driven mainstream media for the most part has demonstrated in dangerous clarity how ideologically driven it has become. Who can forget the bombing of Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in the Gaza Strip on October 17? Mainstream media, for the most part, breathlessly reported 500 killed and blamed the Israel Defence Forces.

We now know it to have been a tragic own goal, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket fired from within Gaza that fell short of its Israeli target. The death toll, about 100. Mainstream media took days to correct the mistake. Some never did. It’s certain that truth is a casualty of war but to an even greater degree it is one of ideology. Since October 7, the phase has been coined: no Jews, no news. Terribly, awfully true.

Only ideology could cause the Western left and its cronies to fawn over Gaza, chant Free Palestine, when Gazan society is the embodiment of everything they purport to be against. A place where being gay is a death sentence, where marital violence is condoned by law, as is intra-family sexual violence, where religious dogma rules and disagreeing with Hamas (the government) will get you a bullet in the back of the head.

Indeed, indeed ... and speaking of bombs to the head ...

Meanwhile, on another planet, there's Simon Tisdall noting the bleeding obvious about the corrupt criminal given a handy opportunity to stay out of court and out of jail, Amid fears of escalation in the Israel-Gaza conflict, consider this: war without end suits Netanyahu ...

...There’s another reason for believing escalation is now a very real danger: the far-from-fanciful consideration that a desperate, cornered, discredited and unpopular Netanyahu may welcome the prospect of Israel caught in a quasi-permanent state of war against all-comers. All-out conflict, depicted as existential in nature, would help silence his critics, stiffen the will and cohesion of his coalition government and deflect calls for his resignation and early elections.

More than this, a wider war without end, with Israel purposefully taking on Tehran’s proxies, could open a path to the fulfilment of Netanyahu’s oft-stated, oft-threatened ambition: to directly confront the Iranian regime itself and force a final settling of accounts with Israel’s most dangerous foe – a fateful showdown for which he once demanded, and very nearly got, Donald Trump’s help.

War without end could mean, in short, that Netanyahu survives while countless others doubtless would not. If he gets his way, Gaza may be just the beginning.

And so to a final garrulous Gemma Orwellian flourish ...

This war in Gaza isn’t about land or access to anything. It’s about ideology. Specifically, one that has the elimination of the other written into its DNA. You don’t have to go looking for it, it’s there in the Hamas charter. Go read it for yourself. I dare you.

George Orwell was right when he said in a time of deceit, telling the truth becomes hate speech.

But I am one who, perhaps foolishly, lives in hope. Hope that the more this idiocy is laid bare (special thanks to the Free Palestine brigade and the brains trust at Just Stop Oil) the greater and more aggressive the pushback will be. Our future depends on it.

The pond would double dare garrulous Gemma to read the charges of genocide, but what's the point? She just loves the killing fields, and wants more slaughter, possibly extermination if her god can manage it, like he did back in the day with a cleansing genocidal flood ...

As an Orwellian aside, apparently, according to gabbling Gemma, this is deeply Orwellian ...

Foolish cricketer... and so it is, deeply, weirdly Orwellian, but possibly he didn't have the space to finish it off in the style that gibbering Gemma would have liked: All lives are equal, but some lives are more equal than others ...

And as for "just carry on regardless with big oil" ... at least the pond can end on a positive note ... thanks to a taste for Polonial irony ...

... though perhaps for some reading about garrulous Gemma's love for oil might be a punch in the guts ...

That deserves an uplifting, positive cartoon for nerds who've completed this unit in their summer school herpetology studies ...