In which the pond tries to introduce a little variety into the Sunday meditation ...

 

The pond was overwhelmed with reptile offerings this weekend, and had to draw the line somewhere, and it was somewhere between relief and relish that the pond drew the line with the dog botherer ...

The pond made its views about sleepytime Joe some time ago and so didn't need the dog botherer piling on ...

Once again with the bloody 'leets, with the dog botherer apparently preparing for his work as a journalist and Sky News hack by bunking down with the homeless under the viaduct at Wentworth Park, such is his determination not to be a member of the Murdochian 'leet.

The pond doesn't need the dog botherer rabbiting on about Joe ... there are Democrats and cartoonists to hand for that ...

The pond is well and truly over the current US election mania, but before letting it go, the pond had to celebrate the Gaetz transformation ...

It was up there with the female transformations celebrated by a bitchy Joanna Coles in the Beast in Joanna Coles Usha Vance Is About to Transform Into a Trumpian Trad Wife. Just the pictures tell that sorry story ...

Stepford gets closer every day as a desirable town in which to live.

And before letting go, how could the pond let prattling Polonius go? He's been the mainstay of the Sunday pond's meditations ever since the Pellists and the angry Sydney Anglicans left the field ...

Besides, any Polonial rant won't really about the USA, it'll be about the perfidy of the ABC, and so yet again it came to pass ...

"Viewpoint diversity"? 

For a minute there the pond thought that Polonius's fancy wordsmithing would get in the way of monstering the ABC while worshipping that harmless old rogue, his orange Jesus. 

Surely Polonius should know by now that "diversity" is an egregious sin of the first water, perhaps the worst of the unholy DEI thought crimes. 

Luckily he quickly returned to his old mantra about there not being any conservatives - which is to say Polonius - on the ABC ...

One thing that routinely astonishes the pond is how much Polonius hates the ABC - dull, dull, dull and out to lunch, only Tom Gleeson worth a squiz - and yet each week he regales the world with stories of all he's seen. How long can he keep up the hate viewing? Probably until the end of time ...

The problem is clear enough ... the need for balance ...

The raging at the ABC machine continued in the next gobbet, as Polonius unveiled his standard litany of grievances...

The pond has already been there, but of course God saved Trump. 

God's right on board with purging the vermin ... and setting up the new glorious Reich ...

And so to the final high temperature Polonial gobbet ...

Oh yes, a Trump hater with a limited vocabulary. There's been more than a few of those ...

Rupert Murdoch described Donald Trump as "a fucking idiot" over his contradictory views on immigration policy (Graudian).

Publicly, he called the Republican presidential candidate an "idiot" and said he was "reprehensible." Privately, he compared him to Adolf Hitler. (Reuters)

For once the pond agrees with Polonius, what we need is professional and serious reporting on matters of national significance...

Luckily the Bjorn-again one was on hand for the weekend, and so the pond could abandon the Presidential race for a time.

It was a chance to catch up on the Bjorn-again one's new strategy, which is to dismiss climate science and climate change, and focus on almost any other good cause. This week it was matters of the heart ...

Now the pond has had its own adventures with the heart, and hasn't found it neglected. In fact the pond has received all sorts of support from the profs at RPA and from the medical system, and if it hadn't been for them, the pond wouldn't be here grooving to the words of the Bjorn-again one...

The point came in the opening line ...the notion that climate change gets too much attention and funding ... and yet ...

When you get to rating what's likely to kill you, the Bjorn-again one these days finds the easiest way to distract from climate change is to blather on about other matters ... and yet there all sorts of cliffs we might go over ...

The good thing about the Bjorn-again one is that he can keep up this posture for only a short time, leaving only one gobbet to go, and brief enough at that...

Apparently he's just discovered the joys of metoprolol tartrate, which works a treat ...

Actually the pond is perfectly happy with the services provided by the RPA, and would prefer that the Bjorn-again one had a change of heart about that global killer risk called climate change ... coming around the corner with increasing ferocity. Don't take the pond's word for it. There's Extreme heat is the silent assassin of climate change and Climate change caused by fossil fuels made killer heat wave in U.S. and Mexico 2.5 degrees hotter and 35 times more likely, scientists say for starters...

And so to the Angelic one and the Pellists. 

The pond hasn't the slightest interest in the topic, but is fascinated by the way that the Angelic one is still carrying a festering grudge. 

It's the pond's personal observation, having grown up in the tribe, that Catholics are most excellent haters, and can carry a grudge for four hundred years or more (don't get the pond started on Cromwell) ...

Oh sheesh, there the Pellist grievance blows again, and all the worse because the Angelic one dismisses out of hand the fruity attempts at assorted Vatican conspiracy theories mounted in the very rag for which she scribbles in recent months.

Couldn't she at least have mentioned Conclave, due out in November and directed by Edward All Quiet on the Western Front Berger ... per Variety , it seems to be a meditation on the barking mad fundamentalists v. the slightly liberal mob:

Adapted from Robert Harris’s novel, the film is set against the backdrop of the seat of the Catholic Church in the Vatican. Spanning a few days, the story follows the unexpected death of the Pope and the efforts to select a new one.

Fiennes stars as Cardinal Lawrence, tasked with running this centuries-old process. The logline for the film says, “Once the Catholic Church’s most powerful leaders have gathered from around the world and are locked together in the Vatican halls, Lawrence finds himself at the center of a conspiracy and discovers a secret that could shake the very foundation of The Church.”

Tucci plays the progressive Cardinal Bellini aiming to secure the papacy but he faces stiff competition from John Lithgow’s Cardinal Tremblay. Rossellini plays Sister Agnes whose role in the papal election is vital.

...In the trailer, Cardinal Lawrence admits the grand task of leading the Cardinals is “a duty I never thought I’d have to perform.” The stage is set for as the Cardinals make their case. As Cardinal Lawrence stresses it’s not a war, Bellini sternly reminds him, “It is a war, and you have to commit to a side.”

Cue the drama, ambition and conspiracies being uncovered as Cardinal Lawrence must make a decision.

Sounds deeply fruity, and as a bonus, it doesn't feature Rusty as The Pope's Exorcist, another reason that Netflix is the cockroach of visual entertainment ...

Sorry, in all that conspiratorial excitement, the pond plumb forgot about the Victorian government conspiracy ...

The only amusing thing in that last gobbet was the Angelic one's attempt to pass herself off as an everyday practising type ...

We all know she's all in on fundamentalist religious rights and fellow travels on all the issues that matter to the hierarchy ...

And so on, and the pond will have to leave that alarming caveat to get the final short gobbet from the highly alarmed tyke fundamentalist ... and it goes without saying, pace Polonius, it's all the fault of the ABC ... well known for their ability to override the judicial system ...

At this point, the pond would usually retire from the field, well satisfied by the variety on offer, but garrulous Gemma sent out her siren song, and the pond couldn't resist ...

The SS Australia? The nation at the crossroads. An emboldened activist class runs rampant?

That sort of hysterical, mindlessly moronic metaphorical blather is supposed to be the truth in the cold heart light of day? Why do the reptiles always think in terms of memes, clichés, stereotypes, and banal, hackneyed, tritely alarmist stock phrases?

And just who is that emboldened activist class?

Sorry, the pond had some left over 'toons, and had to include the visual distractions arranged for Gemma by the reptiles in linear order, for reasons which will soon become apparent ...

It came at the end of the next gobbet, after another serve of clichés...

A hanging "B", a bit like a hanging chad. 

What did it mean? It only became clear after the next visual distraction ...

The hanging "B" was actually the start of a billy goat butt ... ut here you are...

The pond has already mentioned the climate cultists, those delusional souls who take climate change and climate science seriously.

Ut the pond was still hung up on how that "B" came to be. 

Was it just an ordinary snafu, or was it the work of AI, what with the reptiles being enthusiastic early adopters ... down there with Microsoft and CrowdStrike ...

Never mind, there were two more video distractions - apparently the reptiles think that garrulous Gemma is a bit of a rhetorical bore, in need of video clips, including one featuring the lying rodent ...

 

On the upside, garrulous Gemma does mention anti-Semitism a number of times, giving the pond a chance to drop in on the ongoing genocide ...

Oh FFS, not the Howard years, as if the lying rodent produced a utopia and was evicted from paradise for no apparent reason. If you believe that, you could swallow your orange Jesus whole ...

Back to the genocide.

Somehow garrulous Gemma's talk of anti-Semitism managed to avoid mentioning Pressure on Israel to end occupation of Palestinian land after ICJ ruling.

Somehow she managed to avoid recent news ...

Perhaps garrulous Gemma might also read the insights of two American surgeons, Mark Perlmutter and Feroze Sidhwa, in Politico, scribbling We Volunteered at a Gaza Hospital. What We Saw Was Unspeakable, American surgeons who witnessed the civilian carnage of the Israel-Hamas war.

There were some hardcore snaps, and much misery, no doubt water off the duck's back to the quacking Gemma...

...leaving Gaza is impossible to do gracefully.

As we handed Israa’s care off to a team of Canadian orthopedic surgeons, she begged her “American doctors” not to abandon her. We sedated her with ketamine to perform one last dressing change, and then snuck away before she fully regained consciousness, knowing we had no explanation for why she must suffer alone — while we were free to return to our lives and families.

We left on a Monday, just after sunrise. We were both consumed with guilt; we felt like we had no right to exit Gaza, that by leaving — and not staying permanently — we were deeply complicit in this mass murder.

To this day both of our consciences refuse to let us forget that we chose to leave.

At the Rafah border we encountered — once again — a gaggle of children. With no school to attend they gathered around us, some of them practicing their English. One of them was a 9-year-old boy, Ahmed. He grew up in this desperately poor and besieged territory his entire life, and had almost certainly never met anyone who had ever been outside of the Gaza Strip. He has no past and no present, and if nothing changes, he will have no future.

We both wondered: If nothing changes, where will Ahmed be on October 7, 2033?

On July 2 the Israel Defense Forces ordered Gaza European Hospital and the surrounding territory to be evacuated. European Hospital is now empty, and has been looted by desperate people trying to survive.

Not to worry, that brought the pond to the final Gemma gobbet ...

Relax, garrulous Gemma, we have a fair idea of what's coming next, not least thanks to Faux Noise and the Murdochians. 

Enjoy it while you can, before the planet is truly, comprehensively stuffed ... it's out with the old, and in with the new ...

Finally, at the very last, and in the very least way possible, the pond did as Crikey suggested (paywall) and cut out this missive from Polonius to said Crikey. 

The story, involving Antoinette Lattouf and Polonial errors is immensely silly, but nowhere near as silly as Polonius's response, which suggests he loves to caricature himself in a way no one else could manage ...

Good dear sweet bemused long absent lord ...