In which Polonius goes Wilcox, while the Angelic One and the Canavan caravan honour Queensland's Norwegian Blue pollie...

 

The pond has done its best to avoid the lizard Oz jihad, but this is the pond's Sunday meditation, and Polonius's prattle has led the way these last few years.

Sadly, inevitably he is now, in his prim, ponderous, clucking and tut-tutting way, all in on the jihad, and the pond had no way around it...

But at least the topic allows the pond to do a brief Tootle flashback. 

Remember this? The Australian defends 'insulting' Bill Leak cartoon

Oh how they loved freedom of expression back then, how devoted they were to it ... 

Five years on, Bill Leak’s cartoon remains spot-on
If only outrage at Bill Leak’s cartoon were matched by outrage at the neglect and abuse of Aboriginal children. (that's a lizard Oz archive link)

Oh they were all in on cartoonists' rights to push boundaries and exercise free speech and be as tasteless as they liked ...

Now please allow the pond to parse the Wilcox cartoon that's got her into hot water, at least in la la hive mind land and with rabid Zionists...

What's anti-Semitic about that? (There's a reason must of the rags have run the story with 'anti-Semitic' in scare quotes).

It slags off special interest groups with obvious reasons for calling for an RC, with shilling lawyers leading the way for obvious reasons. 

It mocks sporting types and Labor has beens and it defames dogs who don't want to mention the Gaza genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Below the astro-turfing it shows Chairman Rupert leading the way for a bunch of unsavoury characters interested in making political hay, marching to Benji's drum beat (and has be been drumming, or what?)

The 'toon studiously avoids any Jewish stereotype or meme, while mocking the notion of 'grass roots' in favour of jihadist astro-turfing.

No wonder special interest groups and lobbyists and unsightly rags of the lizard Oz jihad kind took a fence and the gate too, and yet there are good reasons to tread warily with a RC, as outlined by Michael Bradley in Crikey ... (sorry, paywall)

Okay, the pond has done as much preliminary sanitation spadework as might be needed.

Now for that Polonial prattle ...

The header: Three strikes? Nine’s papers march to the beat of leftist drum, Could Nine’s Sydney Morning Herald be heading for a hat-trick in reverse after it listed Cathy Wilcox’s cartoon titled ‘Grass roots’ in its “best cartoons” category.

The caption: The Cathy Wilcox cartoon that featured in the Nine newspapers and online.

The old routine, the usual slur: label something as being leftist and that's all that needs to be said.

And yet, it will be noted in Daanyal Saeed's timeline for Crikey (sorry paywall) that the Nine rags and in particular the AFR were front and centre of promoting calls for an RC:

And so on and note how the SMH and the AFR feature, while Saeed seems to studiously ignore mentioning by name the lizard Oz jihad.

Speaking of that jihad, on with Polonius:

Could Nine’s Sydney Morning Herald be heading for a hat-trick in reverse? On January 7 it listed Cathy Wilcox’s cartoon titled “Grass roots” in its “best cartoons” category. Arsen Ostrovsky, who was injured in the terrorist attack on the Jewish community celebrating Hanukkah at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on December 14, has described Wilcox’s work as an “unadulterated form of Jew hatred”.
In her artistic statement against a royal commission into the massacre, Wilcox listed those who are supporting a “Royal Commission Now!” movement. Standing on a box containing grass, they are depicted as lawyers, business people, open-letter writers, sports greats, Labor has-beens and, wait for it, “dogs”, with a canine holding a bone declaring “Don’t mention the war”. This is a reference to the Hamas-Israel conflict following Hamas’s brutal invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023 – an implied criticism of Israel.
This group is being held up by those who appear to be Rupert Murdoch, Jillian Segal, John Howard, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Sussan Ley and David Littleproud. Marching behind with a drum sounding “boom, boom” is Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The message is clear: Australian lawyers, business people, open-letter writers, sporting greats and current and former politicians who support a royal commission are marching to the drum of the leader of the Jewish state of Israel – along with dogs.
To be fair, the SMH and The Age (which also carried the cartoon) have published letters critical of Wilcox’s cartoon. But it has not withdrawn the work.

And why should it? To be fair, there are arguments against an RC. 

Just to finish off that Bradley piece:

At this point, the reptiles slipped in a snap to make sure the hive mind knew who to blame, The controversial cartoon of Cathy Wilcox remains online.

Polonius carried on:

Late on January 7, commentator Mike Carlton, a vehement critic of Israel, posted on X: “It’ll be interesting to see … if the editors of the SMH and The Age back Cathy Wilcox and this cartoon; or will they turn to jelly beneath the howls of rage and the deluge of abusive emails from the Israel lobby?”
As far as I can determine, only one member of the group of six advocates of a royal commission is Jewish. But the leftist Carlton reckons that support for this cause is part of a conspiracy organised by what opponents of Israel call “the Israel lobby” or “the Jewish lobby”. No other religious or racial group in Australia is referred to by such a sneering “lobby” reference.
Last Thursday, News Corp’s tabloids carried an opinion poll by Melbourne-based research firm Fox & Hedgehog. It indicated that 54 per cent of Australians supported a royal commission with 19 per cent opposed and 27 per cent neutral or unsure. Jews comprise less than 0.5 per cent of the Australian population. Enough said.
At the time of writing, Wilcox’s cartoon remained on Nine’s website. Not so the article by Ahmed Ouf published in the SMH and The Age on December 23. Titled “I went to Bondi and hugged people who’d never spoken to a Muslim before”, Ouf wrote of his visit to Bondi Beach in the week beginning December 21. It is not clear how he knew whether the Jews he met at the murder site had ever spoken to a Muslim before. It would be difficult to live in Sydney or Melbourne without speaking to Muslims – or Christians, Buddhists, Hindus or nonbelievers.

The reptiles offered another visual distraction, Ahmed Ouf’s piece lacked judgment and was out of place. Picture: Tim Hunter

Polonius was now in full frothing and foaming mode and seemed to have forgotten the 'toon that so offended him, with new targets in his sights:

Ouf’s self-important piece lacked judgment and was out of place. After all, he was not the story and some of the victims had yet to be buried. Soon after publication, Nine retracted the piece “out of respect for the Jewish community” and apologised for “any distress its publication caused”.
No doubt “any distress” would have increased when it was revealed that Ouf had contested the seat of Blaxland in western Sydney, which is held by Labor frontbencher Jason Clare, at the May 2025 election – running as a Muslim Votes independent.
It also was revealed that Ouf supported the BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) movement aimed at debilitating Israel.
Ouf received 19 per cent of the primary vote and failed to defeat Clare, whose vote increased after the distribution of preferences. So did the vote for Labor frontbencher Tony Burke in Watson. In one of the few revelations in Niki Savva’s book Earthquake, Burke told the author he believed the Albanese government would be returned at the 2025 election but “was convinced he was about to lose his once-safe seat of Watson”.

And some reptiles will still try to tell the world that this isn't about politics and scoring a political edge, as opposed to being concerned for the victims, their families and friends and the wider community: Dr Jamal Rifi opposed the concept of a Muslim party. Picture: John Feder

It's just another chance to slag off the Islamics, and hope that the RC will help continue the relentless lizard Oz jihad, so that more subscriptions can be sold (do they even pretend to be selling tree killer editions these days?) ...

I never believed that this would occur and wrote on these pages on July 6, 2024, in support of Dr Jamal Rifi, who opposed the concept of a Muslim party since he believed that “Australia is well served by the different parties that exist”.
The evidence suggests there is widespread support in Australia for a royal commission into the Bondi terrorist attack. Ideally such an inquiry should date back to the explosion of anti-Semitism at the Sydney Opera House demonstration on October 9, 2023 – which took place before Israel initiated its defensive war against Hamas.
NSW Police maintained that chants of “Where’s the Jews?” were heard. Others, myself included, heard “Gas the Jews”. But there’s little difference in intent. No demonstration has heard chants of “Where’s the Muslims?” – or the Christians, or the Buddhists or the Hindus.
Presenting ABC Radio National Breakfast this week, Barbara Miller queried independent MPs Allegra Spender and David Pocock as to whether there should also be a royal commission into Islamophobia. Neither agreed. Spender, who at times has been a critic of Israel, made the hard point that “the Jewish community is a community that lives behind security fences in a way that no other part of our community does”.
Apparently Miller was not convinced. On January 8, she told opposition frontbencher Jonno Duniam a “fair number” of ABC RN Breakfast listeners “don’t think a royal commission is a good use of time and money”. Quelle surprise. It is the far left (including some RN listeners) along with radical Islam that is at the forefront of anti-Semitism. If Nine offers a column to Miller to present her leftist views on this issue it will complete its reverse hat-trick.

It's the far left at the front? And no mention at all of the far right?

There are none so blind as those who refuse to see their comrades in arms...

And so to the bonus, and to more pleasant times with the Angelic one...

The header: Vale, Ron Boswell, a true politician of the people; The former National Party senator was not every political and general know-all’s idea of a great man, but he was.

The caption: What you saw was what you got from Ron Boswell, delivering his valedictory speech in the Senate in 2014. Picture: Gary Ramage

Back in the day in Tamworth, the pond was always reminded that it was wrong to speak ill of the dead.

But those who said it routinely spoke ill of the dead - Stalin, Hitler, all that mob ...

The pond decided if you happened to chance on a d*ckhead (*google bot approved), you had every right to speak ill of them...

Take Ron. Someone, please take him. Okay, grim reaper, if you must.

He wasn't a d*ckhead on the grand Adolf scale, but he did his best to ruin the planet for everyone ...and he found a home in the AFR for it, peddling his folksie humbug cornball braces-wearing image ... (that's an archive link)..

And again (that's an archive link):

And so on and on and on, always keen to f*ck the planet (*google bot approved), and he was also a terrible bigot and hater. See this page for his thoughts on gay marriage.

Inter alia:

Madam Acting Deputy President Crossin, I understand we are debating your bill today. I find it a very serious debate. In fact, to me it is one of the most serious debates that we have ever had to face in this parliament, because it will fundamentally affect the way Australia reacts as a society. In my party, one of the basic philosophies is that the family is the basic unit of society and without a family you do not have a society. I cannot imagine a more severe attack on the family than undermining marriage. It is what the whole of our society is based on. It is what the whole of society over centuries—probably from the start of man—has been based on: a man and a woman getting together to procreate children and for those children to stay together under the care of a mother and a father. Without that, what do you have? What is society? That all stands before us. Fortunately, the Marriage Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2012 is not going to get through, but I have been around long enough to know that this is only the first attempt.
But what I want to say to you, Madam Acting Deputy President, is: yes, in the inner city suburbs of West End, South Brisbane and Redfern, there might be a bit of support for this, but there is certainly no support for it out in the western suburbs among the blue-collar workers, where the families are strong. Among the different communities, whether they be Catholic, Muslim or Jewish, it is an anathema. It is an anathema with my party. Senator Bishop said that he has not been lobbied very much. I can tell you, Madam Acting Deputy President, that I have not been lobbied at all except to say to me, ‘You stand up strongly for the basic unit of society, which is marriage and the family.’
I believe we now stand at the brink. We have to make a decision. Do we as a society turn away from everything we know and everything that our society is based on—the ideal that the family has been based on for thousands of years—or do we go the other way? Do we say, ‘Near enough is good enough, because it does not really hurt anyone, it does not cost anything and people want to do it; why not?’ and allow gay marriage and just give up on the ideal that the family is the basic unit of society and it gets there through marriage? We know from experience that the whole of the family—a marriage between a man and a woman—allows children to live in a safe, protected environment where they are allowed to grow into adults and pass strong values on to their children. The family is a continuum. We know this from experience, and therefore we continue with that ideal and look to uphold it.
I believe people have not thought this through. I think people in Australia do not give a lot of thought to these important issues, and we as members of parliament have to. From a distance, the issue of gay marriage looks a lot like other issues for Australian voters. From the outside it looks like it does not harm anyone, does not affect any individual who does not engage in it and does not seem to harbour any cost to the taxpayer or any other organisations. It seems relatively harmless—a relaxation of laws and conventions. If it does not hurt me and it does not hurt them, who does it hurt? It hurts society—that is who it hurts—and people have not thought it through.
What happens when the conventions are relaxed? What happens after the conventions have been removed? Marriage is based on a man and a woman, for the reason of having children. Two men and two women cannot conceive without some outside assistance. Marriage is not just a convention or a mere formality; it is a mechanism that was created by society to bring two sexes together and create a foundation of moral, social and legal protection and stability. Without this foundation, we are risking the lot. Like all things that have a foundation, society has a foundation. What is it based on? What is society based on? A man and a woman getting together, having children and then, in a broader sphere, an outer family of cousins, uncles and aunties, all providing support for the family, and that family fighting like crazy to make sure their kids get a good way of living, a good education and sometimes even the parents backing them into a home—people standing up for their family. The family is what people give their children. They send them to expensive schools and make great sacrifices for them because they believe in the family.
People think, ‘How does it affect me—a man marrying another man?’ If it is made legal they think it will not have an impact on their lives. But they have not considered the real harm that homosexual marriage can bring about, and there are three big harms in legalising homosexual marriage. It abolishes a child’s birthright to have both a mother and a father. Marriage includes the right to start a family. Under article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the right to marry comes with the right to start a family. If two men are legally able to marry, they obtain the absolute right to have a child via surrogacy. After gay marriage is legalised, a child can henceforth be brought into the world without ever having the right to a mother and father. Sometimes this happens inadvertently—through desertion or death—but it is not something we plan for; it is not something we want.
Same-sex marriage says that a mother or a father does not matter to a child—and it does. Two mothers or two fathers cannot raise a child properly. Who takes a boy to football? Who tells him what is right from wrong? What does he do—go along with the two mums? How does he go camping and fishing? Yes, there might be some attempt by one of the mothers to fill in as a father figure but it will not work. It is defying nature. And what about a young girl changing from a teenager into a young woman? Is it fair to say to her, ‘You don’t have a mother; your mother can’t take you shopping’ or to not be able to help her understand how her body is changing? What are we trying to do here? Why are we trying to defy what has been the right thing for hundreds of thousands of years? What suddenly gives us the inspiration to think that we can have gay marriage and it will not affect anyone?
I say to the people who very narrowly think this through or who do not think it through: it is more than saying, ‘It doesn’t hurt me; it doesn’t cost anything.’ It is a lot more than that. Once you have gay marriage in law, you have normalised the law, you have normalised homosexual marriage in law, which forces the normalisation of homosexual behaviour in the wider culture—
Senator Hanson-Young interjecting—
Senator BOSWELL: I will not be drawn in, Senator—especially in the school curriculum. I ask the people of the Western Suburbs: if you have gay marriage and it is legal, how can a teacher discriminate between normal marriage and gay marriage? He has to explain both as part of the curriculum. How can a teacher explain one part of the law but not the other?
So I ask these people who think it does not hurt me: do they want their children to be taught about gay marriage?
Senator Hanson-Young: Why not?
Senator BOSWELL: That is the question—why not? You do not find it objectionable from your side of politics. My side of politics finds it abhorrent and does not want any part of it.
But that is what we have to face up to, because these things are like a salami slice. You start off thinking, ‘It doesn’t hurt anyone.’ Then: ‘Oh, little Freddy’s got to go listen to why homosexual marriage has nothing wrong with it. Why is nothing wrong with it? Because it’s legal. This parliament has made it legal.’ I say to the people: do you want that for your children? Some of you will not object. Some will think it is a good thing. Certainly the progressive left will think it is wonderful. But I do not think they will think it wonderful in the western suburbs—the people who rely on the ALP to defend their jobs through the unions. That is why they are there. They are not there to have their kids taught about homosexual marriage versus traditional marriage. That is going to happen the very day this legislation gets in. Once you legalise something, you cannot discriminate against it. It is happening already in America, where homosexual marriage became law and the next thing in Massachusetts was the teachers teaching about homosexual marriage and traditional marriage.
I want to quote from the Australian Education Union. This is what the teachers said: ‘If Australia normalises homosexual marriage, the Australian Education Union’s 2006 gender identity policy would be implemented. Homosexuality, bisexuality, transgenderism and the intersexed need to be normalised. All curricula should be written in non-heterosexist language.’ I suspect the Greens would not see any objection to that but I suspect the Labor people would go into meltdown, because this will be out there. This is what the teachers union have said—and why shouldn’t they? If it is legal, they have to teach it. If it is legal, it has to be taught. You cannot just pick out what you want to teach and not teach.
If homosexual behaviour is legalised then schools will have to treat homosexual behaviour and marriage on the same basis as heterosexual behaviour and marriage. Parents will no longer have the right to object to these teachings. All conscientious objection to both gay marriage and the normalisation of homosexual behaviour in the school curriculum would be abolished. That is what those people who think, ‘It doesn’t hurt me, it doesn’t cost me; if it doesn’t, let’s just let it go through’ are opening up. Let’s think a bit deeper because it is your society, your Australia that you are playing with.
I ask people, particularly from the Labor Party—and I admire the people who have had the courage to stand up over there: do you want your children to go into classrooms that give equal weight to heterosexuals and homosexuals? I do not think many of them do. There will be a few who support the Greens and think it is wonderful, but they are hugely in the minority. John Howard, whose views I admire and respect, said last year:
Changing the definition of marriage, which has lasted for time immemorial, is not an exercise in human rights and equality; it is an exercise in deauthorising the Judaeo-Christian influence in our society, and anybody who pretends otherwise is deluding themselves.
I agree with him. We are told there will be certain legislation that will respect churches and that, if they do not want to perform certain marriages, they will be excluded, but it does not take long for the antidiscrimination committee, instrumentalities, the Greens and GetUp! to start to wage a campaign.
If business or the churches object to hosting homosexual marriage or to blessing them, they will be hit. They will put up a defence, but it will only last for a certain time. They will be crushed by the anti-discrimination laws. We have already seen it happen in countries such as Denmark. The churches will have no choice but to facilitate homosexual marriage. We might push it out three years, four years or five years, but it will happen in the end. We have seen it happen with the abortion laws. You cannot walk away from them. You have to offer it or if you do not offer it then you have to find someone who will do the job. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that any church situated in a member state where same-sex marriage is legal must marry same-sex couples or be found guilty of discrimination. It will happen here.
Marriage is a social institution with a biological foundation. All society does with marriage is to reinforce this biological fact, to keep men with their mate and then help raise their children. Society merely recognises that marriage is the most important relationship in nature and works to reinforce it. It has no right to reinvent marriage. Politicians have no right to redefine marriage, only to reinforce the biological purpose of marriage. I recall when there was discrimination—when there was huge discrimination—that I had a phone call from a certain minister who said, ‘We have just had a request for a gay doctor to bring his gay partner in and practice in a certain country community. We thought you would object, that you were the person most likely to object. If you let it go, it will go through.’ I said, ‘I could not possibly object to that, that would be discrimination.’ I think it was in 2008 that Warren Entsch brought in, or agitated through the party, that all forms of discrimination be removed. There is absolutely no discrimination against gay people other than the discrimination between heterosexual and same-sex marriage. Frank Brennan, the former chair of the National Human Rights Consultation Committee, said:
I think we can ensure non-discrimination against same-sex couples while at the same time maintaining a commitment to children of future generations being born of and being reared by a father and a mother.
His political masterstroke was to defeat Pauline Hanson in the Senate in 2004. He did it by organising numerous small groups. He got together the hunters, fishers and farmers to organise their preferences. It was like herding feral cats, but he did it.

And so on - you can never shut a bigoted politician when he's riding a favourite hobby horse - and the pond quoted Ron at such length to show why the pond will cheerfully speak ill of the dead, especially loathsome bigots dressed out in folksie garb, laden with climate science denialism.

Now on with the Angelic one's obituary:

This week a great and very good man died. Former National Party senator Ron Boswell was not every political and general know-all’s idea of a great man, but he was.
As Liberal Party elder John Howard said of him this week, “Ron’s battle with Pauline Hanson in 2004 symbolised his commitment to an open and tolerant National Party.”
However, although Ron’s defeat of Hanson was his most notable political achievement, unlike many contemporary seemingly conservative politicians he was a true small-C conservative. He never waded into the ever-shifting shallows of popular causes.

The reptiles interrupted with a snap and a caption: Senator Boswell’s political masterstroke was to defeat Pauline Hanson in the Senate in 2004.

That's it, that was his masterstroke?

The last time the pond checked Pauline was still waltzing into the Senate wearing a burqa while Ron is doing a Norwegian blue parrot imitation and pushing up daisies.

Carry on Angelic one, celebrate the bigot:

He was grounded in the fundamental beliefs: freedom and the family, especially the importance of the natural family. When the forces of conservatism had caved in to popular causes purporting to be about individual freedom, he knew that it was a strong nuclear family – mother, father and kids – that fostered the co-operation and individual resilience that was the only true bulwark against ideological domination by government. He realised that eventually this led to a corrosion of individual freedom and national weakness and uncertainty. The idea that “the government should fix it” was not in Ron’s lexicon.

The reptiles quickly interrupted with an AV distraction:

National Party Stalwart and former Queensland senator Ron Boswell has died at the age of 85. He passed away at his Brisbane home surrounded by family. Mr Boswell served as a senator from 1983 until retiring in 2014. He acted as the Nationals' senate leader for 17 years and the Father of the Senate from 2008. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says he will be remembered for his passion for his state and country.

Apparently Ron was a cosmopolitan, or so the Angelic one suggests:

Ron was a supporter of multicultural Australia, but unlike many other politicians he did not wave the multicultural flag without doing too much to support the people it encompassed. I remember particularly the Vietnamese contingent who were prominent at his farewell from politics in 2014.
The main thing that made him different was his ability to stay in touch with the people he represented. As he stated in his autobiography, he was very much of the view that politicians had moved too far away from the people they were supposed to represent. I think we all feel this and it affects many issues, even the current furore over a royal commission.
My view of Ron is as a friend and an outside journalistic view. Ron had no “image”. You got what you saw. Sartorially speaking, he was frankly a bit of a mess. His tie askew and shirt usually partially flapping outside his trousers, he always called you “mate”, and what with being somewhat overweight for long periods and possessing eyes that were not exactly aligned, he could easily be mistaken as an Australian politician in the Les Patterson mould. He often liked to talk about his humble beginnings as “a paintbrush salesman”.
However, Ron’s interests were wide-ranging, from supporting scientist Alan Mackay-Sim’s groundbreaking work on adult stem cells, to speaking out about the persecution of Christians in Syria, and helping some to leave. He had an acute sense of where the truth of an issue really lay.

It seems he also spared time for the ladies, no doubt happy to share a lamington or a pumpkin scone with them, Ron Boswell arrives at the LNP International Womens Day lunch at the Tattersall's Club in Brisbane in March 2015. Picture: Mark Cranitch

The Angelic one loved the way that Ron did his best to do down research of an un-Catholic kind:

On the stem cell issue his support of MacKay-Sim’s research into mature stem cells was crucial and should be counted as an achievement as important as the defeat of Hanson.
Initially, the script trotted out to the media and the public at large was that stem cells harvested from human embryos had almost magical qualities. They could be coaxed into any type of tissue and this would cure diseases from Alzheimer’s to cancer and replace damaged nerves and tissue in victims of paralysis. The public was bombarded with images of famous people who were paralysed after an accident, and embryologist Alan Trounson’s embryonic stem cell research was granted $40m.
However, embryonic stem cells didn’t work the way they were supposed to and, worse, they had to be harvested from live human embryos, which was highly unethical, as was the next solution: cloning embryos and harvesting their cells. Nevertheless, Australia passed laws legalising this and Ron was appalled.
However, behind the scenes, Mackay-Sim in Queensland had already developed a technique to harvest one’s own cells from nasal cells. This would allow for successful auto transplants and regeneration. It was part of world-first research, but in all the clamour over embryos almost no politician was interested in adult stem cell research – except Ron.
He went in to bat for Mackay-Sim and managed to secure funding for him to continue with his work. This research has led to the development of better techniques for transplant, especially for spinal cord repair. Meanwhile embryonic stem cell research has little to show for it. Trounson later decamped to California and greener grant pastures.

Judge the man by the company he kept and the causes he took up, sayeth the pond, as the reptiles provided visual evidence, Senator Ron Boswell with Alan Jones at the No Wind Farm Rally on the lawns of Parliament House in Canberra in June 2013.

Apparently news of the parrot's disgrace has yet to reach the Angelic one or the lizard Oz hive mind, as the Angelic one finished with a flourish of Latin:

In my opinion this was one of Ron’s outstanding achievements. Despite his at-times shambolic appearance and old-fashioned Queensland speech, Ron could see when it was the so-called smart people who were bamboozled and confused by clever PR.
He understood the science, which isn’t all that difficult but a lot of people, including politicians, were simply too uninterested or too careless of the ethical implications to see what was happening with embryonic stem cell research and allowed themselves to be misled by what has been dubbed “Frankenscience”.
Along with his other good points, Ron was a very warm-hearted person. After the death of his son he brought up and educated his grandson and was a hands-on grandfather, involved in his grandson’s schooling and the trends in education of all young people.
Along with other politicians I have known I’ve had Ron over to dinner a couple of times. I remember the panic when we had to make sure we had a sturdy, well-constructed chair for the senator’s large bulk. We knew Ron did not expect haute cuisine with his favourite rose, but who else but “Bozzie” would turn up at the front door not with wine but with a huge Cryovac bag full of crabmeat?
Vale Ron, a great man, a good Christian. Requiescat in pace.

If only hell existed, so that the pond might add best wishes to the wayward rogue, in the hope that he  requiescats in inferno ...

And so to a bonus for those who haven't had enough of Ron ...

Yes, the old rogue brought out the Canavan caravan, in the Currish Snail.

Why not celebrate it, if only for the sake of the pond's deep north correspondents ...

This is how the Canavan caravan proudly tweeted it ...

This is the archive link:

Opinion: Ron Boswell’s unkempt appearance belied his political savvy
Ron Boswell was not the most fashionable senator going around, but he could outsmart career politicians, writes Matt Canavan.
Matt Canavan
3 min read

And for those too lazy to head off to the archive, this is the Canavan caravan, fuelled by coal and bigotry:

The curious thing about this is how Tamworth's shame features prominently, as if keeping the company of drunken, rolling in the gutter rogues was a virtue ...

It got so extreme that the reptiles in the final snap featured a glowering Barners, and only the back of the Queensland blue parrot's head ...

Phew, that's more than enough. especially given the bushfires and floods that have been raging and surging around the country.

Just time left for more than a few 'toons ...