In which Polonius settles things down with a soporific meditation on the future of lettuce, while the Ughmann has a spit ...

What a relief to have done with the Kirk assassination.

If the pond had wanted to go on forever, it might have referenced Jonathan V. Last in The Bulwark, using the title of one of the pond's favourite Cronenberg movies, A History of Violence, And note on our community and the nature of discourse.

Inter alia...

...One of the sentiments I’ve heard ad nauseam this week is the insistence that “This isn’t who we are.”
This piety is incorrect. Political violence is a ribbon running through American history literally since the Founding. It is one of our unique characteristics as a country. And it is precisely because political violence is a powerful undercurrent in America that our leaders have a special duty to tamp it town and do everything in their power to keep it in remission.
America was founded on an armed rebellion. Not just violence, but political violence, was there in the buildup to the Revolution: The Boston Tea Party. The Gaspee affair. And then there was the violence of the Revolution itself, from Lexington and Concord on.
In the 1840s the nativist Know Nothing party fomented a series of riots in an attempt to drive Catholics out of the country. In the runup to the Civil War Kansas was a battlefield of political violence as pro- and anti-slavery forces clashed. In the 1860s, New York City was riven with open warfare between rival political gangs like the Bowery Boys and the Dead Rabbits. This era of political violence in the city culminated in the draft riots of 1863.
In 1856, Rep. Preston Brooks beat Sen. Charles Sumner nearly to death in the Senate Chamber, in broad daylight. And then, of course, we fought a civil war, placing America in the exclusive and unfortunate club of developed nations that formally divided and then fought full-fledged wars against themselves.

And so on, as Last referenced a piece by Nick Catoggio ... Pyromania, Charlie Kirk and doing politics ‘the right way.’ (paywall)...

Inter alia...

... I would not say that Kirk was practicing politics in exactly the right way when he called last month for the “full military occupation” of American cities with high crime rates until the problem is solved.
I wouldn’t say he was doing things exactly the right way when he urged Mike Pence to ignore the electoral votes cast for Joe Biden by swing states in January 2021.
Nor would I say he was a model practitioner of politics when he applauded Trump’s pardon of the January 6 thugs earlier this year, describing them as “hostages” and celebrating their release as “bold action to save people from lawfare tyranny.”
And I guess I wouldn’t say that he was setting a fine political example when he called for a “patriot” to bail out the man who broke into Nancy Pelosi’s home and beat her elderly husband with a hammer.
Charlie Kirk was a prominent face in a postliberal political faction. He wasn’t the most ardent authoritarian in the ranks, and he certainly wasn’t the person of lowest character. But the movement he promoted and with which he aligned himself fundamentally doesn’t believe in doing politics “the right way,” and we should all remain clear about that in our grief. It likes to intimidate its opponents, as it’s doing right now with the show of military force in Washington D.C., and it reacts to losing debates by trying to overturn the results rather than accept them, as it did on Election Day 2020.
Kirk went along with it, doubtless realizing that he wouldn’t have remained a bigshot in a postliberal faction for long if he hadn’t. By no means is that to imply that he deserved what he got yesterday, of course, only to stress that sympathy for the victim and fear of what comes shouldn’t stop anyone from acknowledging that the populist right is a movement of civic arsonists led by a pyromaniac. If it’s true, as Trump said last night, that Kirk is “a martyr for truth and freedom,” honor the dead by continuing to exercise your freedom to tell the truth about this sleazy administration’s abiding contempt for practicing politics in the right, i.e., constitutional, way.

The pond could have flung in an infallible Pope ...

Or a Wilcox ...

... and gone on and on and on, with endless references to every other US writer scribbling furiously and lathering up a storm.

What a relief to turn to Polonius's prattle, how pleasing it is to be lulled back to sleep on a meditative Sunday...

The header: Lessons of Liberal leaders past: do the work,Opposition leaders who won government weren't always popular, but their success came from years of policy work and research rather than media profile.

The caption for the uncredited graphic, classic AI visual slop: Menzies, Fraser, Howard and Abbott were not popular when they won but all had clear messages and all were on top of detail, from foreign policy to immigra­tion.

Now it's true that Polonius's prattle is in the archive, but the pond likes to do Polonius old school ...

There's an almost tactile pleasure to be found in fondling the old pedant's verbiage, and all the more so because the pond's current toilet reading is Hesketh Pearson's decidedly old fashioned bio Gilbert and Sullivan (archive rough pdf quality), which is a reminder of the pleasures in Mike Leigh's Topsy-Turvy  (YouTube trailer)...

A politician’s lot in opposition is not a happy one, to paraphrase from the comic opera The Pirates of Penzance. But it can be useful.
The Liberal Party-Nationals Coalition is destined to be in opposition for at least another three years after its disastrous performance in the May 2025 election – and possibly longer. But politics can change quickly.
As I have pointed out previously, political commentator Judith Brett wrote in The Age in July 1993 that “the Liberal Party in the 1990s seems doomed”. It was back in office in less than three years.

Dear sweet long absent lord, what a caricature of himself he is, as the reptiles flung in a snap of the head prefect to establish the age of Polonius's readership, Malcolm Fraser pulling beers in Bondi Junction during the 1977 election campaign.

Does the pond have a criticism of this outing?

Well yes, despite many cues by Polonius, several mentions of Ming the Merciless, there's not a single snap of Ming, which constitutes an epic fail ...

Following Labor’s defeat by the Malcolm Fraser-led Coalition in December 1977, The Bulletin magazine’s front cover asked: “Is Labor finished?” under a photo of a triumphant Fraser. But Labor was back in office in less than six years.
There is not much talented politicians in opposition can do but to work hard on policy, in addition to their electoral duties. In the public sphere, the task is to achieve publicity without making mistakes. Last week provided an example of what not to do in opposition.
I agree with Greg Sheridan that the talented, articulate and "forceful senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price" has made three significant mistakes since the 2025 election.

Now at this point you might expect that link, here only highlighted in pretty pink by the pond, would take you to the bromancer and his three significant mistakes. 

But the reptiles are cunning, the link actually takes you to petulant Peta ...

It's the Hotel California all over again, and once you check in, you can never leave ...

What joy, she too can be found in full in the archive ...

Meanwhile, Polonius carried on in his soporific way, explaining how in reality it was all the fault of the ABC, and The Price Was (sort of) Right ...

First, it was unwise that, having been elected as a Country Liberal Party senator from the Northern Territory who usually sits in the Nationals partyroom in Canberra, she moved to the Liberal partyroom. Second, it lacked judgment to contest the Liberal deputy leader position having just joined the party. Then there was the serious error of claiming there was “concern” in Australia with the “large numbers” of migrants coming to Australia with respect to “the Indian community”.
In Nampijinpa Price’s defence, it is true that ABC TV Afternoon Briefing’s presenter Patricia Karvelas was the first who raised what she termed the “strong anti-Indian sentiment”, which she said “was not just about migration numbers, it was about the type of migration coming into Australia”.
Before Nampijinpa Price made her comment, she correctly said to Karvelas “you yourself mentioned that there is a concern with the Indian community and only because there’s been large numbers”. The senator’s error was to state that the “large numbers” of Indian immigrants is “reflected in the way that the community votes for Labor”.

Cue a snap of the shameless harridan misleading a hapless polly, It was Patricia Karvelas who was the first who raised what she termed the ‘strong anti-Indian sentiment’.

Once the ABC was implicated, Polonius hit his stride ...

The implication was that the Labor government is allowing immigration from India because, in time, it wants votes from Indian Australians. This is an error of fact. The Australian points-based immigration system awards points for criteria such as age, English proficiency, work experience and qualifications. The large number of Indian immigrants reflects the reality that many readily meet Australia’s immigration criteria.
Under Peter Dutton’s leadership, Nampijinpa Price was the opposition Indigenous affairs spokeswoman. In this role she was a fine performer in advancing the No case in the voice referendum. Under Sussan Ley’s leadership, Nampijinpa Price was defence industry spokeswoman. Both portfolios, important as they are, are a long way from immigration – which requires a high degree of technical and policy knowledge. During the Karvelas interview, the senator was out of her depth.
However, opposition provides time to do research across numerous portfolios. Policy development is what’s missing in the contemporary Coalition. This is significant since, these days, the Labor Party is much more skilled at basic politics than its rival.
The task of the Liberal Party in opposition is to learn from former leaders Robert Menzies, Malcolm Fraser, John Howard and Tony Abbott – the only Liberal Party leaders who have won government from opposition.
When in opposition for much of the 1940s, Menzies delivered his successful The Forgotten People broadcasts, which were later published. He read widely and delivered numerous speeches. Menzies presented as a leader who was in touch with the middle class and opposed unnecessary government intervention. Agree with him or not, when he became prime minister for the second time in 1949 the electorate knew where he stood.

You see? What a golden opportunity to feature a snap of Ming the Merciless. 

Instead, what do the reptiles do? 

They fling in a Sky Noise down under distraction ... Former Liberal senator Hollie Hughes says Senator Jacinta Price “lacks discipline” after she was axed from the shadow ministry by Opposition Leader Sussan Ley. “No one’s bigger than the team,” Ms Hughes told Sky News host James Macpherson. “We have a bi-election in NSW at the moment, and a block of voters who have been alienated now through the comments she made. “It’s been very frustrating for me to see anyone come out and think that they’re bigger than the Liberal Party.”

They have a bi-election? So there's a 'swing both ways', gender diverse seat up for grabs?

All the pond can do is faithfully reproduce the reptile workings...as Polonius wandered down mammary lane in a way designed to make our Henry envious ...

Fraser was a minister during the second half of the 60s but also spent time as a backbencher. When not a minister, Fraser focused on speeches and the occasional publications. When he became opposition leader in March 1975 and prime minister in November 1975, Australians knew what he was about.
It’s the same with Howard. Elected in May 1974 in opposition, he was a minister by December 1975. In opposition at times in the 80s and early 90s Howard focused on writing and speeches. When he defeated Paul Keating in 1996, the electorate knew what he stood for.
It was the same with Abbott, who became opposition leader in 2009 and narrowly failed to win the 2010 election. Abbott, who has probably written more than any Liberal Party MP, could always cut through with a clear message.
The lesson is clear. Successful Coalition opposition leaders who win office by defeating incumbent Labor governments invariably get there by sustained policy work over a long period.
Menzies, Fraser, Howard and Abbott were not popular when they won – respectively in 1949, 1975, 1996 and 2013. But all had clear messages and were on top of detail, from foreign policy to immigra­tion.

You see, another chance to feature Ming, and instead the reptiles offered a snap of the lying rodent, the man who didn't just lose government, but lost his seat as well, thereby qualifying for an Oscar Wilde putdown about being decidedly careless, John Howard was not popular when he won in 1996. Picture: Michael Jones

The pond is eternally grateful to Polonius for being a Kirk-free zone, and so to the moral of the story ...

To be a successful politician requires a lot of hard work and research. Sure, it’s more fun being interviewed on the electronic media or making seemingly clever points on social media. But the lack of knowledge can lead to mistakes. In politics it is better to avoid mistakes than have a high profile.
Ley has been Liberal leader for less than four months. It’s one of the toughest jobs in politics. So far, in a relatively long political career, Ley has not made much contribution to the public debate. But she now has the time and the staff assistance to do so.
The same is true of Nampijinpa Price. Sure, she has political ability. But the real test of judgment is to know what you do not know. It makes the lot of a politician in opposi­tion significantly easier.

Ah, so the competition is still on ...

And so to an honourable mention ...with the reptiles giving it a big splash ...

It turned out that it was just a feeble attempt to draw in the reptile base and get them interested in the y'artz, because in reality Storrier had some paintings to flog, and so it was enough to mention this feeble outing as being in the archive...

Tim Storrier: in defence of old, white male art, Archibald and Sulman Prize winning artist Tim Storrier says it is ‘extraordinary’ there has been no pushback from the art establishment against ‘dangerous’ identity politics.

The archive header suggested it was going to be boldly radical ...Archibald Prize winner Tim Storrier on art, marriage, Barry Humphries’ cancellation and identity politics ... but it was more like a desperate old f*rt imitating a field mouse in a wall of fire, so it was off to the archive cornfield with him.

And by consigning Storrier to the archive, that left room for the pond to turn to the Ughmann, again keeping it local, though it was disappointing that there wasn't a dead whale in sight, despite the many on view near the Hume down Goulburn way ...

The header: Memo to Libs: unite to expose Labor’s energy mirage,Here’s a thought for the party now starting to resemble a critically endangered species: make the government the target.

The caption for the illustration: On energy, divisions within the Liberals’ ranks are deep but any recovery has to begin with defining what you stand for and standing up. Picture: Max Mason-Hubers

The Ughmann started off in what counted as witty mode for him ...

The cursor blinks on the empty page when contemplating the Liberal Party. Gfhbtv. Sorry, I nodded off and face-planted on the keyboard.
I’m pretty sure I stole that last bit from PJ O’Rourke but can’t find the reference. Call it a tribute to the ghosts of the old Republican Party reptiles and their Liberal fellow travellers. An era when conservatives were predictably prudent, occasionally absurd, but never confused about their purpose or reckless with their heritage.
There’s that cursor again. A pulse of procrastination. What was the topic?
The Liberals. What to say? Which part of the wreckage do you turn over first? Is there a black box somewhere in this smoking ruin that might provide some answers? If there is, one of the few survivors has probably nicked it to post lurid details online.

Once again the Price is Wrong turned up in a starring support role, Senator Jacinta Price has been axed from the Liberal frontbench after refusing to declare confidence in party leader Sussan Ley following a week of bitter infighting.

The Ughmann specialises in offering TMFI, and so again it was today ...

Is it even fair? I was a fat kid who had to change playgrounds every two years in the 1960s and don’t really want to join the ranks of the bullies, particularly when the quivering wreck bleeding out at our feet is incapable of defending itself. If only it would suffer with some quiet dignity.
It won’t. An annoying death rattle persists, peppered with fresh humiliations.
As I write in a Sydney bar, news notifications keep pinging my iPad. “Victorian Liberal director ridiculed women.” “Jacinta Price dumped from shadow cabinet.”
What the hell? Does anyone else get the feeling that the next Liberal prime minister hasn’t been born yet? Or that there might never be another Liberal prime minister, because this organisation appears wilfully determined to eat itself.
Part of its problem is trauma. The last federal election all but erased Liberals from the cities, driving their primary vote to an epic low. Every survivor of the wipe-out has a different diagnosis of the illness, so all we can hear is a cacophony of competing cures in an endless public therapy session.
The remnant is now waging an uncivil war for the party’s soul. John Howard calls the Liberals a broad church, marrying John Stuart Mill’s creed of liberty with Edmund Burke’s faith in tradition.
Today that church is a sectarian battlefield. Maybe that is too generous. There is nobility in a battle for ideas.
For some this is just a battle for power. But power over what?
Survey the nation and the Liberals resemble a critically endangered species. The party is barely registering a pulse in Western Australia, and the looming South Australian election hangs like an executioner’s axe over the already thin blue ranks.
The Tasmanian Liberals govern in a state of near-permanent crisis and the party has been locked out of power in the ACT for all but the first year of this century.

As if to confirm the Ughmann's despair, the reptiles offered up a Frank collage which frankly was awful, Victorian Liberal state director Stuart Smith joked about women, and an MP 'with dementia', in leaked text messages. Artwork: Frank Ling

Oh Frank, Frank, please, pretty please, remember to credit AI when offering visual slop ...

Meanwhile, the Ughmann maundered on in his misery ...

The Victorian division has fallen so low that, when not hanging baubles on its woman problem, it spends its time suing itself. It is now on track to pull off a perverse miracle: make the worst government in the federation electable.
The NSW division is under administration but its factional warlords are trying to rebuild a home for their zombie warriors.
The only places where the species still shows signs of life are in Queensland and the Northern Territory, where it is a hybrid creature of Liberals and Nationals. Like a mule, which is sterile, so can’t populate the rest of the nation.
Most of this damage is self-inflicted and nationwide the party now resembles Victorian Labor circa 1968: moribund, factionally riven and electorally toxic.
And, be in no doubt, things could get worse. In the words of a former Liberal cabinet minister, “as long as you’ve got seats you’ve got seats to lose”. If the Liberals are to maintain any hope of being a credible party of government they should etch a couple of mantras on top of their daily brief. Stop the bleeding. Stop doing stupid stuff. Stop fighting among yourselves.
It is not as though there aren’t opportunities. The Albanese government is deeply exposed on two fronts: immigration and energy. Yet on both the Liberals are determined to be the story.
The headline on the immigration story is simple: too many, too fast. Thirty-one per cent of Australia’s population was born overseas. That is an astonishing figure and it has risen remarkably from a long-run average of less than one in four.

So it was back to the migrant bashing, those bloody Kryptonian aliens ruining everything, Anti-immigration demonstrators at the March for Australia in Sydney. Picture: Lisa Maree Williams / Getty Images

Why does the pond pander to this mob?

It's simple, that's where the clicks lie, and the pond specialises in doing the wrong thing...

Sorry, the pond didn't mean to interrupt the alien bashing, though it has to said that the name Uhlmann sounds suspiciously Germanic, and might even heil from the Swabian-Jura region of Baden-Württemberg, as sometimes happens for those of us with German blut (don't get the pond started on its German blut, a sorry dilution of the Irish, it might sound a little Hitlery) ...

No other major Western democracy matches the pace of Australia’s intake. In Canada it is about 23 per cent; in the US it is closer to 15. The consequences are obvious: pressure on housing, strains on health and other services, and the average income per person is going backwards.
People are chafing at it and it’s an insult to call most of them racist, which is the reflex slur on the lips of too many advocates and politicians. Since the end of World War II, Australia has permanently settled more than 7.5 million migrants, a number equal to the entire population of the country in 1945.
This vast transformation was achieved peacefully and the host population rarely gets any credit for its exemplary tolerance.
That tolerance is being tested and the signs of stress over mass immigration should haunt Labor. The pressure in the frontline suburbs is building and so is the anger.
A halfway decent opposition would bring that pressure to bear on the government.
On energy, the divisions within the Liberals’ ranks are deep and it is hard to see how they can be reconciled. Although vanishingly few Australians could tell you what net zero means, it has become shorthand for action on climate change.
The polls say most people favour the illusory target, so the Liberal leadership is paralysed with fear that dumping it is a road to electoral oblivion and keeping it will blow up the party.

Somehow Sussssan got tangled up again in this sorry mess ... Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has established a review of the Coalition’s emissions policy but the Liberal leadership is 'paralysed with fear'. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

That led to the Ughmann wrapping up proceedings, as a way of giving the lettuce a head start (no pun intended)...

But standing like a quokka caught in the headlights ends only one way.
The opposition’s job is to hold the government to account. So, when contemplating targets here’s a thought: make the government the target. Highlight the fact that net zero is symbolism without substance. Targets are not solutions. What matters is what works. The two proof points are cost and the environment.
The government pledged an energy transition that will be greener and cheaper. It will be neither. Chasing the mirage will cost trillions, deliver people into energy poverty and desecrate the landscape.
Of course, these things are easy to say and hard to do when your organisation is so broken.
But any recovery has to begin with defining what you stand for and standing up. As it says in the Book of Revelation: be either hot or cold, for if you are lukewarm I will spit you from my mouth.

That's the metaphorical hill he wants to die on, a spit?

He's going to spit hapless Susssan a goodly revelatory distance?

Never mind, the pond is still waiting on its SMR, so that the pond can apply the highly esteemed "nuke the country to save the planet" solution ...

And with that done, the pond can return to the Kirk assassination, and the dangers of stupid people saying stupid things.

At first glance, it seems that the alleged shooter was as American as MAGA apple pie ...

Charlie Kirk Suspect’s Grandma Says Family Is All MAGA

But that doesn't stop stupid people from saying stupid things...

Megyn Kelly Suddenly Not So Sure Charlie Kirk Shooter Was Pro-Trans

Fresh off her anti-trans rant on Thursday, which she based on incomplete information that seemed to implicate “trans ideology” as a motive behind Charlie Kirk’s killing, Megyn Kelly returned on Friday with a very different narrative about the suspect in custody.
“I don’t know what this guy was into,” Kelly said of Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old male authorities believe killed Kirk. “As for the ‘trans’ reference, that’s unclear,” she began. “The bullet that they said hit Charlie had words on it that were, ‘Notices bulges OWO what’s this?’ And that appears to be a reference to furry culture,” which she misleadingly characterized as “part of the trans community.”
Furry culture, a fandom made up of people who share a love for anthropomorphic animals—is not inherently sexual, nor is it specific to trans people. Kelly continued, however, “It’s a bizarre sort of offshoot of the weird trans thing. You can see this from online. It’s a meme and it has some meaning for these weird, bizarre, furry culture people.”

My my, bless her profoundly ignorant, Santa Clause and Christ were white heart

She could benefit from some Vanity Fair schooling ...

into the abyss
Groypers, Helldivers 2, Furries: What do the Messages Left by Charlie Kirk's Alleged Killer Actually Mean?

Photographs of the ammunition have not yet been made public, and it's possible that there are minor discrepancies in punctuation—but none that would make these phrases appear any less nonsensical. That is, unless you have a passing familiarity with gamer and internet-forum culture.
The “OwO” casing, for instance, appears to be referencing a popular meme making fun of furry culture, a niche lifestyle in which people create alter egos styled after anthropomorphic animals. The combination of arrows found on another matches the combination of buttons players use to call in a bomb strike in the video game Helldivers 2, a Starship Troopers-style parody of a fascist interstellar empire. The Italian words are the lyrics to "Bella Ciao," an antifascist Italian folk song that was prominently featured in the Netflix series Money Heist. And that last phrase appears to be little more than a joke meant to antagonize or troll the reader.

Megyn, that's with a "y", is probably as clueless about groypers as she is about furries and Christ:

Whatever, the alleged killer didn't fit the original narrative that erupted... with the TG-bashing Mace macing herself... rapidly transforming from "it was a tranny wot did it" to prayer...

... and other explanations were hastily dug up ...

And King Donald himself resorted to a ballroom blitz ...

Then again, it would have been unAmerican in the land of iconoclastic individualism - or in Mormon Utah - for the shooter to fit the original narrative - but there will always be the guns ...

The Reasons We Shouldn’t Jump to Conclusions About Tyler Robinson

A .50 cal?! 

Lordy, long absent lordy, that puts the pond's time with the family heirloom .303 completely in the shade.

Well the pond might have bombed out with its order for an SMR order in the backyard, but if the pond happened to be in the good old armed to its teeth USA, there'd be little trouble acquiring any number of ways of resolving a political discussion ...

As fresh as the day it was first posted ...

And now for those wondering why the pond keeps assigning reptiles to the cornfield, in pretty much the same way that the reptiles keep sending news like that report on Islamophobia to the cornfield ...

It all began with a short sci fi story by Jerome Bixby, It's A Good Life, which had earned cult status by the time the pond had read it... 

It still has currency - not so long ago Jon Stewart did a sketch for the Daily Show explaining why KingDonald was the creepy kid from The Twilight Zone...(Facebook link).

So here's the intro for the original creepy kid sending folks to the cornfield (unfortunately the full show is caught up in streamer hell and if you didn't get it on disc, it seems you'll have to pay to view)...