In which Jennie and prattling Polonius manage another Hunger Games dead heat ...

 

Dear sweet long absent lord, when the judges sat down to consider the winner of the pond's Sunday hunger games, there was another dead heat ... perhaps out of an exhaustion that began early ...

Talk about the lucky country. It was simply impossible to separate out Jennie and prattling Polonius. 

Both were in seasonal celebration mode, both had splendid track records, and not even a racetrack camera could separate them by a nose.

As usual, one judge was outraged. There was a hugely amusing civil war unfolding in the United States. 

How could room be made for it if the pond indulged in a double header, instead of playing hard and sorting the reptile wind from the chaff?

To placate the tiresome judge, the pond wandered off to Axios for one of their potted summaries:

...Catch up quick: On Thursday, Musk ally and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) co-leader Vivek Ramaswamy posted a lengthy condemnation of American culture and its supposed embrace of mediocrity.

• Musk spent the next 24 hours defending Ramaswamy and advancing his argument that America needs highly skilled immigrants to fill high-tech jobs.
• That argument landed with a thud in the MAGA wing that wants to stop immigration and preserve jobs for American workers.

Zoom in: On Friday, cartoonist and right-wing commentator Scott Adams posted on X that MAGA was "taking a page from Democrats on how to lose elections while feeling good about themselves."

• Musk agreed, and took it a step further.
• "And those contemptible fools must be removed from the Republican Party, root and stem," he posted.

What they're saying: For people used to being called "deplorables" by Democrats, the condemnation from one of the most important advisors in Trump's inner circle stoked instant outrage.

• "Calling people who have their country's best interests at heart and wanting to NOT sell out the American people 'contemptible fools' is the biggest L that I've seen Elon make in a long time. Dude needs to relax," gaming streamer Hooks posted.
• Right-wing activist Laura Loomer tagged Trump in her message. "The Trump base is being replaced by Big Tech executives. So sad to see this. I feel so sad for MAGA," she said. Loomer has alleged Musk was censoring her for her opposition to his immigration comments.
• Andrew Torba, the CEO of the far-right social network Gab, said in an X post: "He's declaring war on us btw. Should go over well for him as it has for everyone else who has tried."

Put it another way ... a devotee of trolls trolled by a mistress of trolling on the troll lover's home site. Sock it to the nutter, prime nutter Laura (the pond doesn't link to X, Y, or Z):

The elephant in the room is that  @elonmusk, who is not MAGA and never has been, is a total fucking drag on the Trump transition. @realDonaldTrump

 He’s a stage 5 clinger who over stayed his welcome at Mar a Lago in an effort to become Trump’s side piece and be the point man for all of his accomplices in big Tech to slither in to Mar a Lago. 

He told Bob Iger at @Disney to “go fuck himself” over Ad money, but he won’t tell Xi JinPing and Li Qiang to go fuck themselves and he’s perfectly happy to take their money to fund his Shanghai Giga Factory. 

Elon cock blocks the nominee meetings and tries to undermine anyone and everyone who doesn’t do his bidding. It’s wildly inappropriate how a guy with no experience in politics who has been a Democrat his entire life is now staffing the Trump admin. 

He’s completely compromised by the CCP and he has unfettered access to President Trump. 

This is fucked up and we need to stop it NOW! 

It’s the biggest elephant in the room and everyone is too scared to talk about it. 

Why is Jared Birchall, @elonmusk’s money manager who is also CEO of @neuralink ELON’S company that wants to put chips in everyone’s brains, at Mar a Lago interveiewing candidates to work at the state department? What the fuck are Jared’s qualifications aside from the fact that everyone who works for @elonmusk

 is a full time Xi JinPing dick sucker? How is he qualified to choose candidates to work in the State Department… you know the same @StateDept that’s supposed to handle CHINA? 

Hellllooooooooo @marcorubio what the hell are we doing here? 

Is this MAGA?

This is not “attention seeking” @elonmusk

It’s called accountability. You want to be so rich that you can bully everyone into not holding you accountable so you can pursue your own conflicts, which are EXTENSIVE. 

I’m happy to list all of them. 

I’ll need a larger character limit on X though to do that.

Put it another way. The subtards (so Uncle Leon calls them) are being verbally and monetarily assaulted, banned, banished, undone and sent to the cornfield:

It's a full-on civil war, Rolling Stone. It's all out, NBC. It's knee-capping time, Axios again. It's a helluva hill to climb. It's a Politico brawl.

Delicious. Even David Brooks joined in the braying, Why the New Fight Inside MAGA Matters So Much (paywall), concluding in a typically clownish both siderist way:

...the reactionaries have a point. One of my favorite sayings from psychology is that all of life is a series of daring explorations from a secure base. The reactionaries are right to point out that the past few decades of go-go change have eviscerated many people’s secure bases — stable families, vibrant hometowns, plausible career paths for those who didn’t want to go to college, the stable values that hold communities together.

I don’t know if Trumpism will ever evolve into a serious governing force, but if it does, then resolving the tension between its dynamists and its stasists will be its chief mission — that is, giving regular people a sense that they are being taken care of and seen, so that they feel secure enough to welcome all the bounty that skilled immigrants and technological change bring to our lives.

In its own cranky way, MAGA is now having an interesting internal debate.

Next time you see a cat and a dog go at it, conclude they're having an interesting internal debate. No wonder they're eating the cats and the dogs ...

Splendid stuff and perhaps the judge was right. Not even to the transition yet, and already in full squabble mode, with chaos sure to follow.

Up against that level of wankery, it's hard for local players, but some do try to do a Gout Gout in their own humble way.

Consider Jennie, consider her form guide. 

Jennie has been in training for a long time and is a worthy contender. Back on 4th February 2021 she had scribbled about The false promises of green-tech energy, The 100,000 ‘carbon workers’ in Australia deserve better than rubbery jobs figures about the transition to net-zero emissions.

Inter alia ...

...It was interesting to hear Scott Morrison embrace the mantra of green steel this week. The problem is that while it could provide opportunities for electric arc furnaces in mini-mills, it is not suited to blast-furnace steelmaking at Port Kembla. Again, it’s important not to raise false expectations.

It is a pity advocates of such technologies don’t tell the community the whole truth: that there are no proven and commercially viable technologies to replace coal/coke in the blast furnace steelmaking process at BlueScope in the Illawarra. Is it a just transition to see integrated steelmaking lost to the nation? Try convincing the thousands of workers and their families that this is the price they will have to pay.

Likewise, NSW’s Hunter region provides thousands of jobs in mining and coal-fired power generation. It will be particularly susceptible to proposed moves to carbon neutrality.

The Tomago aluminium smelter near Newcastle is a major employer whose future is problematic. The newly formed Hunter Jobs Alliance, led by the Australian Metal Workers Union and the Labor Environment Action Network, falsely raises expectations that the smelter could be powered by renewables in future.

It operates 24 hours a day, directly employs 950 people and produces 25 per cent of Australia’s aluminium. It is called on to reduce operations to avoid widespread blackouts when there is a system security risk.

Renewables are not commercially viable, nor can they guarantee the required reliability for the smelter’s continued operation. The largest South Australian battery today would power that smelter for less than 15 minutes.

Labor’s talk of a jobs and emissions compact and the government’s technology roadmap will be critical to the community’s evaluation of future plans. False technology solutions are as inexcusable as the rhetoric of a “just transition”, without the real economic costs and employment impacts of moving to carbon neutrality.

As recently as 24th October 2024 our Jennie scribbled Is Labor finally realising the folly of its energy plan?, Being a responsible global citizen and playing our part under the Paris Agreement should not be at the expense of our national interest.

Inter alia...

...Being a responsible global citizen and playing our part under the Paris Agreement should not be at the expense of our national interest. In 2017, then chief scientist Alan Finkel was asked at a Senate estimates hearing to comment on the impact on the world’s climate if carbon emissions were reduced by 1.3 per cent, around the level of our contribution. In reply, Finkel said the impact would be “virtually nothing”.

His response won’t meet with approval by the virtue signallers, but surely our energy transition must be based on a strategy that’s grounded in reality, is accountable for costs, accepts the need for baseload power 24/7, recognises that renewables can’t power the economy, and avoids potential harm.

No doubt the results of the US presidential election will have a profound impact on climate policy. If Donald Trump is elected, will he withdraw from the Paris Agreement? And what might that mean for global climate action?

It seems the Albanese government won’t provide their 2035 emissions target before the election, signalling it could be as early as February. The Coalition made clear that while it’s committed to net zero by 2050, it would not be making any interim commitments ahead of the election.

Both parties have an obligation to provide their whole-of-system costings and the modelling that underpins their plans. This will enable voters to make an informed choice between two distinct and competing visions for the way forward. The result will decide the shape of our energy policy which, as ever, will be fundamental to Australia’s future prosperity.

Over time that plea for dinkum sweet virginal Oz coal and co-adjacent dissing of renewables - how the anti-wind farm flock love her - morphed into an urgent plea to nuke the country to save the planet, in her very latest outing, Keeping the door closed on nuclear makes zero sense, The Albanese government wants us to believe it governs in the Hawke tradition. But Bob Hawke believed in the contest of ideas and on nuclear believed we should ‘put all the passions and prejudices to one side and look at the facts’.

As required by reptile rituals, the first snap always must feature if not Satan herself, then at least one of Satan's keen helpers, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen’s energy transition plan is anchored in magic pudding economics, held together by subsidy upon subsidy, taxpayer-funded relief packages and off-budget outlays. Picture: Jeremy Piper

Sure enough, that Satanic sighting sent George right off, down her by now very familiar path, with just a few Frontier Economics tweaks and bonuses ...

Many nations believe that achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 requires nuclear in their energy mix.

Australia is the only G20 country that maintains a nuclear ban. It has been 26 years since the Howard government agreed to the Greens’ amendment, a condition of proceeding with a research reactor at Lucas Heights in Sydney’s southwest. There’s no rational reason for maintaining the ban.

Just days ago the government signed an agreement with Britain described as “an important step in establishing a sovereign nuclear submarine build capability in Australia”.

Keeping the door closed on emissions-free, next-generation nuclear technologies makes no sense and is not in our national interest.

The recent Frontier Economics report outlined a less costly pathway to 2050 with nuclear in the mix. Labor clings to its mistaken belief that intermittent, weather-dependent renewables can power our economy.

With Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen rejecting gas even as a transition fuel, how will the government ensure reliable baseload power 24/7 to meet the demands of industry and households? Bowen’s immediate instinct was to score political points by challenging the credibility of Frontier Economics.

He described its costings as not passing the “sniff test” and claimed the figures were dodgy. Another minister said it had “the shelf life of a seafood milkshake”.

Bowen can’t sustain any credible argument about costs until the Albanese government makes public its whole-of-system costings for its Reliable Renewables plan. We know the government’s energy transition is anchored in magic pudding economics, held together by subsidy upon subsidy, taxpayer-funded relief packages and off-budget outlays.

The opaque underwriting of secret contracts for renewable projects provides a bonanza in what’s described as crony capitalism. The government’s costings remain a mystery, and the Energy Minister maintains the fiction that the plan would cost $122bn.

Bowen references the use of that figure by the Australian Energy Market Operator but conveniently fails to mention its exclusions. AEMO makes clear that “the $122bn value includes transmission augmentation, utility-scale generation and storage capex, and does not include the cost of commissioned, committed or anticipated projects, consumer energy resources and distribution network upgrades”.

What is being constructed is not the cheapest energy system for consumers, it’s the lowest-cost pathway to meet the government’s targets and objectives. That’s precisely why AEMO’s chief executive, at a Senate hearing, could not promise lower power prices.

Frontier Economics costed the opposition’s plan at $331bn, $263bn less than Labor’s at $594bn. How that 44 per cent cost differential will affect power prices is still to be revealed.

Still to be revealed? That's passing strange ...

But don't let the socialisation of nuking the country at vast government expense trouble you, instead admire The Darlington Nuclear generating station in Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada. Picture: Getty Images

The thought of an actual nuclear generating station sent Jennie into another reverie ...

Bowen argues that extending the life of coal-fired power stations is “terrible news for Australia’s emissions … and for the reliability of our grid”. His statement is disingenuous.

A few days earlier he’d reached initial agreement to give the states the power to mandate the extension of retiring coal and gas-fired plants if that was needed to keep the lights on and ensure reliable supply – yet another confirmation of problems with Labor’s transition. This is the inevitable result of Labor’s plan that prioritises meeting the 2030 targets at the expense of ensuring reliable and affordable power all day, every day.

NSW Premier Chris Minns understood this and reached agreement with Origin Energy to keep the Eraring coal-fired power station operating at least until 2027. The Victorian government, in secret contracts, extended the life of Yallourn to mid-2028 and Loy Yang A until 2035. That leaves 10 coal-fired plants in the national market scheduled to remain operating beyond 2030; three in NSW, six in Queensland and one in Victoria.

Then there’s the critical issue of power prices and the broken 2022 election promise of power bills to be cut by $275 a year by 2025.

In a recent interview Bowen was asked: “If it wasn’t for cost-of-living subsidies, would power bills be cheaper next year?” He replied: “Well, I don’t quite follow the logic of that question. But look, we’ve just had the largest reduction on energy bills in Australian history according to the ABS.” Why did he resort to spin instead of stating the obvious?

An analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics data reveals that without taxpayer subsidies we’d be paying prices that were higher by 66 per cent. Power bills will keep going through the roof while reliability falls and the queues in energy poverty grow.

Energy and cost-of-living pressures will be key issues at the election, which could be held as soon as late February. This timing would suit the government to avoid disclosing its 2035 emissions reduction target (previously suggested at 65-75 per cent); the draft power price increases for 2025-26, due in early March; and the bad news budget scheduled for March 25.

The Albanese government wants us to believe it governs in the Hawke tradition. On nuclear energy they are miles apart.

Bob Hawke believed in the contest of ideas and as a known supporter argued we should “put all the passions and prejudices to one side and look at the facts”. It would be a fitting tribute to his legacy for the government to lift the nuclear ban, make public its whole-of-system costings and lead a meaningful debate on an issue of such national importance.

Jennie George is a former ACTU president and Labor MP for Throsby.'

Some might be disappointed that Jennie is still at the "teach the meaningful debate" stage of the fuss, when it's clear she's made up her mind, and if she can't have coal, she'll settle for nukes.

The reason that she managed to draw level with prattling Polonius became clear when the pond turned to the tired old war horse, and discovered that not even a battery-powered whip could flog away his obsession with the ABC, and the petulant sulk dressed as smirking wit which comes on to his face when anybody suggests anything outside his very narrow Sydney Institute universe.

Cue Hypocrisy, bad taste and other follies of 2024, On New Year’s Day 2024, morale was relatively high since the Year of the Dragon was expected to usher in a time of rational thinking. Not quite how it worked out.

Speaking of seasonal hypocrisy ...

An old new joke but a goodie and needed, because it was the start of  a five minute read, or so saith the reptiles, and Polonius needed a defibrillator to kick him in to action. 

What better way than a snap of a phantasmagorical creature from the ABC swamp, The ABC’s Laura Tingle at Sydney Writers Festival this year described Australia as “a racist country”.

To be fair to Laura, if you happened to read the lizard Oz, the Murdochian tabloids or Sky after dark on a regular basis, you might well conclude that Australia is a racist country.

For confirmation, you don't need a Bill Leak cartoon, you just need to tune in to Rowan Dean:

Sky News host Rowan Dean says a new breed of “vile racist” has infiltrated our schools, universities, bureaucracies and corporations. 

“Vilifying, denigrating and treating as sub-human individuals because of the colour of their skin … white,” Mr Dean said. 

“Those extraordinary, brave people who brought industrial technology, modern legal systems and health care, prosperity and advanced civilisation to societies and cultures that had not experienced them before are now denounced as evil and criminal.”

Yes, Laura was right, it's a deeply racist country.

Okay, okay, that's just projection, a chance to flip the script and give uppity, difficult black folk a hard time, but it does suggest that however you cut it, racism seems to hover in the filthy Murdochian air.

Back to Polonius, noting all that got him agitated during the year, and being something of a prim pompous Pecksniff or Mr Pootle, that's a lot ...

On New Year’s Day 2024, morale was relatively high since the Year of the Dragon was expected to usher in a time of professionalism and rational thinking. However, that we live in a continuing vale of tears was evident as narcissism, anger, false prophecy, hyperbole, rudeness, intolerance, bad taste, double standards and ignorance prevailed over the land. On a monthly basis.

January. Leftist author Jane Caro welcomes the new year with a post on X declaring she is “blocking sanctimonious, creepy, misogynistic, human joy hating Christofascists on sight” and recommends all others “do the same”. There is no discernible change, probably because few, if any, know what she is on about. Nine columnist Jacqueline Maley enters 2024 declaring that Twitter “increased my contempt for humanity”.

February. The Australian Financial Review’s Rear Window column claims “spies in Canberra tell us (former Labor minister Stephen) Conroy has been an omnipresent odious smell wafting down the halls of parliament under the Albanese government”. Not to be outdone, Crikey contributor and non-funny comedian Tom Ballard asserts that “the Albanese government appears to have achieved the impossible: successfully polishing a turd”. The reference is to abolition of the full stage three tax cuts. Asked on the ABC TV documentary Nemesis what word springs to mind after “Peter Dutton”, Malcolm Turnbull replies “thug”.

The pond should have noted that in this traditional outing, Polonius is inclined to revert to his dog alter ego, and bark out some doggie wit at his victims, including: Bernard Keane for Crikey opined that Donald Trump’s ‘cognitive decline makes Joe Biden’s look benign’. Enough said.

Yes, enough said. King Donald I has already made some fine choices, at one with his tremendous cognitive powers ...

The pond has already mentioned the civil war raging, such that the Beast, in an epic troll, scribbled MAGA Crisis Could Mean There Is No Trump Inauguration on Jan. 20:

...“Johnson is f---ed,” one Republican lawmaker told The Daily Beast.

If the election isn’t certified by Jan. 20, the Constitution is clear that Biden’s term has ended, taking him and Vice President Kamala Harris out of the line of presidential succession. The speaker of the House would be next in theory, but since that position would be empty too, it would pass to the Senate president pro tempore, the majority party’s most senior senator.

That would be Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa. Speaking of whom, has anyone checked on Grassley lately? The lawmaker turned 91 in September.

Enough said. The gerontocracy is in fine shape, and things will work out and what fun there will be for Mike ... or his substitute...

And there's no need to worry about the Donald I, who has already achieved his major policy aim ... a Diet Coke button on his desk.

On we go ...

March. The Monthly publishes its profile on newly appointed ABC chairman Kim Williams. Interviewed for the article, Phillip Adams opines: “I prefer Kim Jong-un to Kim Williams.” But Adams remains a resident near Scone, which is a long way from North Korea. ABC presenter Jonathan Green suggests a taxpayer-funded public broadcaster is a “voice for immutable truths”. Really. Crikey politics editor Bernard Keane writes that Donald Trump’s “cognitive decline makes Joe Biden’s look benign”. Enough said.

Didn't we just do the 'nuff said?

Then came another snap.

Jewish atheist and Israel critic Antony Loewenstein appeared on an ABC episode of Compass entitled Not in My Name, about how Israel should not have responded to the Hamas atrocities ‘in his name’. Somewhat narcissistic, don’t you think? Picture: Alan Place

Well that's one way of deflecting talk about the current Gaza genocide ... or its consequences ... or the sorry state of Israel. 

Per Dahlia Scheindlin in Haaretz ... Israel, Snapshots of a Disintegrating Society, Hostage families begging their fellow Israelis, hat in hand, for help. Furious parents of IDF soldiers pointlessly killed. Besieged Arab citizens emigrating. Rising addiction rates. In Israel today, 'unity' is a bitter word.

Inter alia...

...Haaretz's Sheren Falah Shaab reported this week on a not-yet quantified wave of Arab citizens who are leaving or considering leaving. Palestinians in Israel, it should be noted, are integral and often senior figures in Israel's medical system, and their flight surely won't help the problem there. But Arabs feel assaulted by the ultra-nationalism and political pressure against them, both during the war and before.

Once again, the data tells a heartbreaking story: In the 2024 Democracy Index by the Israel Democracy Institute, fully three-quarters of Arab respondents say they are trying to integrate into Israeli society, a net eight-point rise since 2018. Among Jews, however, the portion who believe Arabs want to integrate has fallen 30 points in that time, to just over 37 percent.

Even advertisements these days tell a dark story. One television ad sponsored by Israel's national lottery informs viewers of rising addictive behavior – smoking, drinking, popping pills or gambling – and encourages people to seek help.

Another ad urges parents to seek help for children suffering from depression. A warm and fuzzy spot for cellphone service provider Cellcom boasts that the company is sponsoring a nongovernmental organization, Sunflowers, which provides "emotional and social support" to children who have lost a parent. An organization for "emotional first aid" observed a 950 percent increase in calls from Israelis in the first half year of the war, compared to the previous year.

The words "unity" and "together" are popular these days, but increasingly they are uttered with sarcasm and despair. It will take more than pills to put Israeli society back together again.

Well at least it's not the Gaza genocide, and now back to Polonius, still ticking off the months ...

April. Former BBC Washington correspondent Nick Bryant comments in Nine newspapers that since Trump stands a good chance of returning to power, “the question of whether the United States is headed towards Civil War 2.0 no longer feels hyperbolic”. ABC television’s Compass highlights what turns out to be a soft profile on Antony Loewenstein, who presents as a Jewish atheist and critic of Israel. Titled Not in My Name, it covers Loewenstein’s claim that Israel was responding to Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023, in Loewenstein’s name. And should not be doing so. Somewhat narcissistic, don’t you think?

May. ABC TV 7.30 political correspondent Laura Tingle advises the Sydney Writers Festival that Australia is “a racist country”. Tingle, however, rationalises her comment claiming she did not have the opportunity to put her remarks in context. At the same SWF, David Marr tells writer Melissa Lucashenko off stage that she is rude for having suggested, perhaps unfairly, that Marr should forward the royalties from his most recent book as reparations to Indigenous Australians.

June. Costa Georgiadis, the presenter of ABC TV’s Gardening Australia, tells Nine newspapers’ Good Weekend magazine “gardening is sexy … (it) is the ultimate release”. Thus joining the gardening band of hortosexuals. Former NSW Liberal Party energy minister Matt Kean links the challenge of climate change to the threat of Nazism during World War II and communism during the Cold War (in which nuclear war was a possibility). Kean is now chairman of the Climate Change Authority.

July. Commentator Quentin Dempster posts a warning on Elon Musk’s X. To wit: “With Trump/Project 2025 our American friends are at grave danger of turning their Country into Gilead (of The Handmaid’s Tale fame). Women will have no rights over their own bodies. Hope the women of America take a stand in November election.” Clearly most American women, who voted for Trump, do not follow Comrade Dempster. Nine journalist Maher Mughrabi criticises his colleague Peter Hartcher for condemning senator Fatima Payman’s decision to quit the Labor Party. He says Hartcher’s argument has disappeared up his own bum.

It's great that Polonius is a keen follower of Uncle Leon ...

It's been a long time since the pond has focussed on the savvy Sava, but here she is, arousing the Polonial ire ...Nine’s Nikki Sava twists her metaphors when writing about ‘Dutton’s clumsy dance of the seven veils on nuclear power’. Picture: Chris Pavlich.

That seemed a bizarre metaphorical thrust, but the pond read on ...

August. Nine columnist Niki Savva, a Dutton antagonist, writes in Nine newspapers about “Dutton’s clumsy dance of the seven veils on nuclear power”. Meaning he had not released details of his policy. Savva forgets that the original Dance of the Seven Veils was a strip tease act, which does not apply to someone who is allegedly without policy in the first place since they have nothing to take off.

Only a supreme pedant of the Polonial kind could come up with that one, and the pond spent hours celebrating the precocious pundit's ability to sound like a puritanical member of the metaphor police. What a finely honed wit he has ...up there with the original Polonius ...

September. Guardian Australia’s Amy Remeikis, who has since moved to the leftist Australia Institute, condemns landlords on Network 10’s The Project. Asked as to whom the anger of renters is directed, she blames capitalism, mostly, and those who uphold capitalism. It is later revealed that Remeikis herself rents out a property she part owns. Suggesting, perhaps, that capitalism is not so bad after all.

Melbourne media identity Jon Faine appears on the ABC’s Q+A playing down the extent of crime in Dandenong. He lives comfortably in inner-city Melbourne, about 35km from Dandenong.

It would have been remiss of Polonius not to mention Independent senator Lidia Thorpe treated King Charles to her own personal Get Out of Country tirade, an action supported by The Saturday Paper. Picture: Reuters

Just think of the snap ...

How the reptiles love that snap... and then on it was on with the agitated pedantry ...

October. The Saturday Paper (publisher Morry Schwartz, editor-in-chief Erik Jensen) supports independent senator Lidia Thorpe’s confrontation with the King during his recent visit to Parliament House. The paper editorialises: “Nothing Thorpe said is untrue; Charles sits on a throne of stolen land.” As the year ends, there is no evidence that Schwartz Media has returned its “stolen land” in the Melbourne inner-city suburb of Collinwood. (sic, the pond blames that on the lizard Oz, though perhaps it also reflects the way that it's been a long time since Polonius visited Smith street in search of a hit).

On ABC Radio Sydney, Richard Glover suggests of a bad taste Puerto Rican joke told at a Trump rally in New York that “maybe this is the joke that changed history”. Meaning Trump might lose the election because of a bad joke.

How could a bad joke be anything but a good joke? Sorry, FAFOers, no returns ...

At last, the final few months arrived ...

November. 7.30 presenter Sarah Ferguson is one of several ABC journalists who have headed to the US for the presidential election, most of whom speak to other Australians and none of whom anticipates Trump’s substantial victory over Democrat candidate Kamela Harris. On the eve of the election, Ferguson tells RN Breakfast she would be “listening” to Ann Seltzer’s polling in Iowa that favoured Harris. Seltzer was hopelessly wrong. In the aftermath of the election, Nine columnist Hartcher prophesies: “The American people are now abandoning it (democracy) as a failed experiment.”

For some reason that reminded the pond of a story in The New York Times, In Syria, U.S. Hopes to Avoid Replay of Afghanistan, American officials are wary as they try to persuade the rebels now in control in Syria to govern with an inclusive and moderate hand. (paywall)

Apparently the Gray lady's hide is so thick they haven't worked out to this very week that the US is about to be governed by an exclusionary and immoderate hand.

It meant the final few lines rose to a new level of irony:

...Mr. Clarke of the Soufan Group and other analysts said there was little room for trust when it came to the promises of militants.

“Talk is cheap,” he said. “So no matter what these groups say, believe their actions, not their words.”

Well yes ... believe away ... trust their exclusionary and immoderate actions:

And so to the final month ... with Polonius still having a soft spot for Uncle Leon ...

December. The year ends with a sense of bewilderment following reaction to ABC chairman Wil­liams’ late November appearance at the National Press Club. Following his criticism of US podcaster Joe Rogan, Williams is criticised by, among others, billionaire Musk. Fair enough, it may be thought. But Williams describes the criticism as “demonic”. Which leads to discussion about whether the ABC chairman really believes in the Devil. Paul Barry concludes his decade-plus time as ABC Media Watch presenter by showing highlights of his Media Bites segment including footage of him presenting as an ageing clown at a six-year old’s birthday party.

And so, the media year ended on a somewhat unprofessional and irrational note.

The pond has absolutely no idea why the media should have ended up sounding unprofessional and irrational ... that's a job usually reserved for the reptiles at the lizard Oz.

But Polonius is right, Uncle Leon is no demon, he's a bigly admired branch of government ...

... at least for the next few weeks, or perhaps even a few months.

What with the inspiration of Faux Noise and the Murdochians as a font of sanity, leading their tribe into the wilderness, perhaps the wildly irrational ABC obsessive has a point ...

Back to that civil war for uncivil laughs as all these Furk Arounders are busy trolling each other and Find Outing each other ...