In which there's a quadrant of reptile rants, without ever needing to leave the lizard Oz quadrangle ...

 

This weekend the reptiles got very ranty and shouty - even more than their bog standard rantiness, shoutiness, general rattiness and inclination to nastiness - and so the pond decided to forget about this being a meditative Sunday.

This was going to be a pond Bumper Book of Reptile Ranting day, with rants filling the air and the ether and possibly the ectoplasm.

Given a choice, the pond would prefer to be celebrating Vlad the Sociopath's bloodied nose ... but when the reptiles go on a rant bender, they get to choose the drinks.

And if ranting's the go, who better to start off than "fair and balanced" Dame Slap? (That's not a rhetorical question, reptile JAQ style, that's just another way of stating a triusm) ...

The reptiles obviously thought Dame Slap's rant needed plenty of distractions, because they started early with the interruptions, and then pumped out a number high even by reptile standards, here shrunk and neutered according to cannibal traditions ...

Dame Slap isn't easily deterred or interrupted when on a ranting roll, and she quickly began to flail and thrash about in fine style ...

Dame Slap has, of course, a fine history of ranting at climate science and fiendish UN plots. 

For those who don't have a monocle or a hand-held magnifying glass, the original has been saved to the WM ... Beware the UN's Cophenhagen plot indeed ...

Way back in October 2009, and yet still she rants and rages, of course in a "fair and balanced way", smiting and smoting miscreants ...

Sustainable development? Outrageous. There's never been a better time pillage and plunder and loot the planet, and travel about to watch it all go down...

That trend was celebrated in this story about floating apartment blocks ...‘Cruisezilla’ passenger ships have doubled in size since 2000, campaigners warn.

Meanwhile, Dame Slap's ranting leads her into exceptional gloom ...

Abortions? The pond had been briefed on that one, what with abortions apparently taking place after birth. 

It's a difficult notion to comprehend, but the mango Mussolini was on top of it...

Trump's unhinged solution is to claim that President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party advocate for abortion available, "even after birth."

That's not true. But Trump's most loyal supporters have shown us they don't care about truth if you feed them incendiary lies they want to swallow. And this Trump lie, which he has trotted out repeatedly since 2016, plays well with them and maybe takes the heat off him with the right-wingers.

As a certified MAGA cap wearer, Dame Slap wouldn't have any time for that sort of librul nonsense and the lies the libruls keep spreading...

...Trump knows that repeating this kind of lie cements it into the foundation of his supporters and then can spread to undecided voters who don't know they're being told a lie.

Katie Rodihan, a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood, called Trump's claim "pure propaganda."

"What Trump is describing is infanticide, which is already illegal, and it is dangerous and insulting to say otherwise," Rodihan told me. "No abortions take place after birth."

Third-trimester abortions, Rodihan added, are "often a result of catastrophic medical diagnoses."

In such cases, the fetus has a severe medical condition and is unlikely to survive, or the life of the pregnant woman is endangered by the pregnancy. The notion that someone who has been pregnant for nine months and then just decides to call it quits at the last moment is absurd.

research and policy organization that supports abortion rights, noted that less than 1% of abortions happen at 21 weeks or later.

"These types of inflammatory claims have no basis in evidence, facts or medical standards of care," Friedrich-Karnik said. "Misrepresenting and stigmatizing abortion care later in pregnancy only serves to increase the risks to patients and providers."

Outrageous. And now the pond is off to claim its cash prize for noting the squillionth time that virtue-signalling has been deployed in a reptile colum ...

Then it was time to roll out a bit of the black bashing, with white folks extraordinarily generous and having enormous good will, as shown by the reptiles during the Voice campaign, and since forever ...

... though sad to say some of those pesky, difficult blacks don't understand or appreciate the kindness ...

Indeed, indeed, Dame Slap is proud to have done for indigenous recognition what she's done for climate science, and so to the final gobbet and a defiant call to arms by the "fair and balanced" one ...

What a fine, exceptional rant by the "fair and balanced" one, with dire warnings about the perils of incoming tides, and indeed if you scan the headlines, you will find all sorts of incoming tides.

Hottest ocean temperatures in 400 years an ‘existential threat’ to the Great Barrier Reef, researchers find

Moving along, the pond prefers it when the Ughmann does a general rant about everything and Xian Western Civilisation in particular, but will accept that a rant is a rant, and a rant about the Labor government still qualifies for the pond's Bumper Sunday Book of Reptile Ranting ...

Presumably that stunning formula (as in stunned mullet) passes as an Ughmann attempt at comedy, though the pond rarely shares the sensa huma doing the rounds in former seminarians.

To paraphrase Sam Johnson on another matter, 'Sir, an Ughmann attempting a joke is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.'

At this point the pond should note the reptile interruptions and distractions, which the pond always downsizes and neuters ...

That paves the way for undiluted Ughmann ranting ...

You have to hand it to the Ughmann, once he gets a joke running, he stays with it, and flogs it to an RvR early death ...

On and on he rants, savaging the formula gag with his very own wet lettuce...

Zen! At last a chance for a comment ...

Ikkyu, the Zen master, was very clever even as a boy. His teacher had a precious formula, RVRi, a rare antique. Ikkyu happened to break this RvRi and was greatly perplexed. Hearing the footsteps of his teacher, he held the pieces of the formula behind him. When the master appeared, Ikkyu asked: “Why do people have to die?”

“This is natural,” explained the older man. “Everything has to die and has just so long to live.”

Ikkyu, producing the shattered RvRi, added: “It was time for your silly formula to die.”

And that leads to the final anecdote and then at the end an astonishing reminder...

This is the conflict of interest the reptiles care to note? 

Though it has to be said, the pond is weirdly intrigued by what must pass for kitchen table conversation in the Ughmann's house when it comes to climate science denialism ...

It reminded the pond of how the wife stays with the accused in the tired mini-series reboot of Presumed Innocent ... why anyone in that tortured family stayed together is a mystery for the ages ... and yet it seems rats in the ranks can lie down with rats ...

In Canberra, communications consultant Gai Brodtmann’s margin was much closer, defeating Wood by 17 votes.  Brodtmann, who has been active in the local party much longer than Wood, is broadly aligned with the Right, but came under quite vicious attack during the contest. (Crikey)

Truly, she's aligned with the Right, or perhaps the right royal loony reptiles ...

But wait, the ranting hasn't stopped, it's barely begun, with glib, gabby, garrulous Gemma also offering a rant ...

Here we go again, with the tired and useless clichés. 

The pond can't begin to count the number of times it's noted that "rolled-gold" refers to a thin coating of gold over a base metal. 

If you want gold, you should want something better than rolled-gold or iron pyrites.

The Oxford, in a pdf here, made it 'word of the month', and contemplated the weirdness in the shifting usages ...

Rolled-gold is used in Australian English to imply something undeniably good, first-class or genuine, such as a rolled-gold opportunity or a rolled-gold offer.
Evidence dates from the early 1980s. The term is often found in the phrase rolled-gold guarantee, notably used in early 2018 by National Party deputy leader Bridget McKenzie, who gave a ‘rolled-gold guarantee’ that Barnaby Joyce would continue in his role as leader of the Nationals (wrongly, as it turned out). 
Rolled-gold is also often found in negative contexts, such as rolled-gold disaster, rolled-gold idiot and rolled-gold betrayal. Negative usage is especially evident in political contexts: ‘Prime Minister John Howard said of Labor: “They are total rolled gold, complete hypocrites on this issue and the Australian public
knows it.”’ (Melbourne Herald-Sun, 6 October 2000) 
The adjective rolled-gold is a figurative use of rolled gold, a form of gold used in the manufacture of inexpensive jewellery and other small items. It is a thin coating of gold applied to a baser metal by rolling. With use, the gold on these pieces will eventually wear away to reveal the metal beneath. A rare early figurative use
reflects this. A socialist newspaper headline, ‘“Rolled-gold” Laborites’, refers to
former Labor Party members who have become anti-Labor election candidates (Sydney Labor Daily, 5 August 1927). Their Labor principles have worn off.
How did the meaning shift? How did a term for a cheap method of manufacturing gold items come to have the current sense ‘first-class’ or ‘absolute’ in the Australian lexicon? It is likely that it derives from the appearance of rolled gold, since it does not imply lack of quality, but quite the opposite: ‘Rolled-gold guarantees are the best kind you can get. Of course, when you make them you have to be very confident you can deliver.’ (The Australian, 1 July 2005

And so on, but it least helps the pond avoid talking about the current genocide in Gaza, which possibly might see all Palestinians gone in the not too distant future ...

• The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) says Israeli military forced between 60,000 and 70,000 people to evacuate from Khan Younis in southern Gaza towards already densely crowded al-Mawasi area.
• At least 35 killed in most recent Israeli attacks on Gaza Strip, including 19 in Khan Younis, medical sources tell Al Jazeera Arabic’s correspondent.
• At least 39,699 people have been killed and 91,722 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7 and more than 200 were taken captive.

Or perhaps this ...

Meanwhile, the reptiles interrupted gabby Gemma with just a few snaps...

Then it was back to the ranting ...

Ah yes, little England and two-tier policing. The pond has been abstemious with cartoons this day, but that line is worth a 'toon ...

Then it was back to a final gobbet of ranting ...

It's good if you can choose how you live. Some aren't so lucky, some don't even get the chance to choose how to die ...

Israeli military strikes tent in Deir el-Balah, killing at least 4

The Israeli military has bombed a tent near the al-Mazra’a School, east of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, killing at least four people, the Wafa news agency reports.

Wafa has also confirmed that at least four people were killed in a strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp. Earlier, we reported that Gaza civil defence teams had recovered four bodies from under the rubble of the Hamada family home.

And so to a final rant, and how could the pond leave out prattling Polonius ranting about the ABC? 

By the pond's calculation, this rant has now been going on for decades, and constitutes at least a squillion words, but the pond could no more leave Polonius out of a Sunday rant than Polonius could stop his endless obsessive compulsive listening to and watching of the ABC ...

Sure, it puts the pond wildly over length but attention must be paid ...

The pond doesn't say he's a great man. Arguably he's a tedious bore. He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him.

In his dotage all he can do is plant carrots while listening to the ABC, and then is driven mad, and so compelled to shout at assorted clouds. 

So attention must be paid. He's not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. He's still a relatively young dog. Sometimes he even thinks he's a dog, and writes as a dog ...

Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person. You called him crazy... no, a lot of people think he's lost his... balance. But you don't have to be very smart to know what his trouble is. The man is exhausted. A small man can be just as exhausted as a great man. He scribbles away, but do they ever think of giving him a gig? Is it too late? When will he get a medal? Or a slot?

Kim Williams and prattling Polonius at one ... surely the time is now right for Polonius to be given a radio slot or perhaps a little ten minuter on one of the channels...

There are precedents, though perhaps it shouldn't be as blatant as this ...

It's just an idea for Kim, a pitch to elevate the level of discourse at the ABC, what with Kim featured in the one of the two visual distractions included in the Polonial rant ...

Of course back in the day, Kim had a few unkind words about his old masters:

News Corp Australia is a company run along feudal lines which is “vaingloriously ignoring the facts” about the digital future of news, says the man who used to run the company, Kim Williams.

When asked to elaborate on his comments on Rupert Murdoch in his new book, Rules of Engagement, the former CEO Williams told the ABC: “Look, one can only describe the organisational framework and general approach on the part of News as being pretty feudal.”

“I think it’s a simple descriptive statement of the obvious for anyone who has worked there.”

On the publicity trail for his book, the erudite Williams has been throwing polite bombs at his old employer for the past week, partly in response to the company’s willingness to blame his 20 month-tenure for its bleak 2013 financial results.

Williams has accused the company of “repulsive” revisionism. When Williams broke his silence with a book a year after departing News Corp Australia on bad terms with Rupert Murdoch and his newspaper editors, it was always going to be interesting reading.

But when it coincided with a major leak to Crikey of alarming financial accounts, the floodgates of mutual dislike were opened, unleashing what Williams calls a “festival of vengeance”.

“To paint the decline in revenues ... to me is to deny the cyclone of change that has swept through the media in the course of the past six or seven years,” Williams said on ABC Radio’s Breakfast on Tuesday.

News Corp is “almost vaingloriously ignoring the facts of what is happening around the world”, Williams said, becoming increasingly exasperated by the accusations he abandoned print in favour of digital.

One commentary piece, by the Australian’s media business media writer Darren Davidson, in particular infuriated Williams with its claim he was “too eager to get ahead of the digital curve” and that was his “fatal mistake”.

“Look I stopped reading that piece because I thought it was so ill informed; so clearly indifferent to actually doing a piece of proper journalistic discovery that it didn’t warrant reading,” William said.

“Ahead of the digital curve is such a fascinating concept. If ever a set of companies were behind the digital curve, were behind the whole tsunami of change that consumers have wrought upon on the world in response to technology enablement it is print journalism media companies. I mean really? Let’s all grow up; let’s all become serious adults. Please!”

Please, we're not here to trash News Corp, we're here to praise the way that Kim at last realised that Polonius has been spot on for decades ...

You should know the complaints by heart now, no rote learning required. It's a staff collective, there's never been a single conservative voice, Polonius has never been given the gig he deserves, and why does the pond only watch Hard Quiz to enjoy contestants being insulted ...

The obvious way to improve? Give Polonius a gig, he's a stunningly natural performer ...

The pond rests its case, and Polonius eventually rests his ranting ...

The time is right. Let's face it, Polonius is a sensitive, gentle petal, a caring possum, something of a snowflake, and yes ... jackpot time ...

"... the ABC is a conservative free-zone".

The zillionth time, the pond is off to spend its winnings, but not before shedding a tear at the suffering of cruelly treated political conservatives, and even worse, those who are not invited - "read cancelled."

Can he ever forget, will he ever forgive being kicked off The Insiders, which admittedly is just as boring as when he was terminated for inducing terminal boredom.

We all know Polonius's problem.  

The bloody place lacks diversity, and who could better represent diversity than Polonius? Think of him as the ultimate DIE hire... or is that DEI, the pond gets so confused ...

Indeed, indeed ... and what a splendid rant to end this day of rants, with Polonius packing up his couch and stalking off to Sky News ... with the channel doing stunning business and Foxtel flying high ... and yet even they've missed the chance to feature the show the pond is pitching around town, "Breakfast with Gerard Henderson" ... and what a pitch it is ...

Come on Sky, it's a ratings winner ...