In which the pond exits stage far right for the year, with seasonal Saturnalia greetings to all ...

 

This is the last serious pond post for the year - the pond knew the jig was up the minute the venerable Meade abandoned her reptile watch to take it easy in the silly season. (As for Media Watch, and derelict cardigan wearers taking an extended break from hive mind duties, don't get the pond started).

The pond will drop in intermittently, especially if a reptile actually veers away from the current jihad - or for holyday snaps purposes - and in in the spirit of the season, the pond would like to begin with an incredibly stupid New York Times' headline ...

What Would Surprise Jesus About Christmas 2025? (archive link)

Just think about that headline for a moment. A nanosecond should suffice.

(1) If Jesus is, as is sometimes alleged, the son of, and a trinitarian section of, an all-knowing, omniscient deity, nothing about Xmas 2025 would surprise him (her if you will). 

Just like Santa, he'd know everything, including the 'who's been naughty or nice' list detailing the thoughts and deeds of the 8.2 billion or so currently on the planet. Just like the Dominican nuns used to remind a naughty pond on a daily basis.

(2) if Jesus was just the son of a carpenter, incapable of earning a living from his trade, and instead turning to speechifying and garnering disciples, with monomaniacal delusions of grandeur and a penchant for faking miracles, including a faux resurrection, pretty much everything about the last few thousand years would surprise him, including new strategies for goat herding, sheep tending, and fisheries management (not to mention ways of baking leavened bread. Did they have baguettes in the French style in AD 25? From what the wiki says it was an 18th century thing).

The pond gets it, it's that time of year, and if you want to, you can follow the intermittent archive link to see who's asking and answering the questions, so that you can get to this sort of splendid insight ...

Q: If Jesus were to time-travel and show up for Christmas 2025, what would surprise him the most?
A: I don’t think Jesus would recognize Christianity today. The idea that he was a pre-existent divine being who came into the world as a newborn is not found in any of his own teachings in our earliest Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, and I think he would be flabbergasted to hear it.

So Brian's mum had it right: "He's not the Messiah. He's a very naughty boy! Now, p*ss off!" (*blogger bot approved).

And with seasonal reflections done, it was time to look at this day's lizard Oz line up and frankly it wasn't a pretty sight.

Mass murder of any kind is a terrible thing, and anti-Semitism led to one of the worst obscenities of the generally dire twentieth century, and in its current form (come on down Nick Fuentes) is completely offensive, but this relentless politicisation of a tragedy is also offensive in its own way ...

Golding put it one way ....

The infallible Pope in another way ...

The pond recognises it has an obligation to those too lazy to take an URL and head off to the intermittent archive, so for what it's worth here is pond regular Caterist joining in the jihad ...

Bondi should end refusal to reckon with imported malice
The status of permanent residency must be abolished. The only permanent residents in Australia should be its citizens. Everyone else is here on probation.

The irony is considerable, what with the pond dealing each week with the imported malice of the Caterist.

Sadly his imported malice has passed the probation period where we could summarily send him back to Pom land to teach the lads how to play cricket ... not that he could help them, what with them seemingly beyond help, and what with him being a prize maroon n'all.

As for the rest, as LeLievre put it ...

As for ning nongs of the Steve Hawke kind ...

I'm Labor by blood, but I despair at today's modern left

Those who chant ‘from the river to the sea’ with understanding and intent: I despise you. Those who join the chant, perhaps without such understanding and real intent: you are misbegotten fools. Those who say ‘globalise the intifada’: look what you have wrought.

By Steve Hawke

Labor by blood?

Does the gormless twit have the first clue how that phrasing echoes the worst of the worst kind of thinking, the Deutschblütigkeitserklärung, or German notion of a blood certificate...

For the sake of the long absent lord, forget about blathering on about blut, it's one of the reasons we keep on ending up in the same mindless mess ....

And does he have the first clue how anti-Semitic he sounds, what with "from the river to the sea" deployed by all sorts?

Per Haaretz, yet again ...

Per Haaretz again ...

Per Haaretz yet another time, though there are many other moments...

Per Haaretz one last time, Gideon Levy under the header Undemocratic From The River to the Sea, way back in April 2018 ....

Inter alia ...

Oh and this JUST IN, per the Graudian ...Israel approves 19 new Jewish settlements in occupied West Bank, Decision takes the total number of new settlements to 69 in past few years as construction binge continues ...

The pond regrets having to end the year this way, but when fools like Hawke revile the "from the river to the sea" mob, do they have the first clue who they're reviling?

Here, have a break, have a little light comic relief, of the kind the blut demands...

Only Major Mitchell broke ranks with the rest of the hive mind, but that was to deal with a war criminal, and in typical Major style, to do a major recycling of the words of another ...

As a pro forma, the pond will provide an intermittent archive link...

Lost truths about Ben Roberts-Smith, amid harsh realities of war

Journalist Aaron Patrick’s book, The Last Battle, offers a fascinating insight into what Australia asked its Commandos and SAS to do behind enemy lines in Afghanistan.

And the pond will do a teaser trailer ...

That done, the pond is tired of war and war criminals and murder.

Instead of ranting on in Major style about the virtues of being a war criminal, the pond would have appreciated an update on what the war criminals left behind ...

Things haven't gotten any better since the UN put out a press release back in August 2025 on the State of women's rights in Afghanistan ...

Sorry, it seems it's optional for the Major and the lizards of Oz, what with the Major preferring to do a bleeding heart routine about the triumphs of a war criminal ... rather than focus on the mess that was left behind.

But then it's hardly news that the pond despises religious fundamentalists of all stripes. 

Delusional pedlars of any kind of cult or religion are bad enough; fundamentalists more so ...

There's a reason the immortal Rowe included this shameless bird ...

... in his portrait of carrion eaters eyeing off a dove ...

And with all that, there's no chance to provide a final end of year celebration of Dozy King Don ... though next year is going to be a doozy with the demented dozy one and his drooling minions, so there'll be plenty of chances to come ...

In the meantime, thanks and best wishes to all the pond's correspondents, the only reason the pond gets out of bed these days ...

You can say Merry Xmas if you like (remembering that "X" is an entirely legitimate symbol), or you can just talk of seasonal Saturnalia greetings, but whatever, the pond wishes all the best for the holydays and for the New Year to all those who drop in and drop the odd note ...

It would be invidious to mention by name the most die hard contributors, the ones that make the pond's day by shouting "yiippee ki yah motherf*fucker" at the hive mind with regular posts, but you know who you are, and the pond appreciates you all ... (*blogger bot approved)

And so to close, and while it's already old, it's in the spirit of the season ...