More shrieking, moaning, sobbing and sighing from the crony commentariat in the Murdoch bunkers ...

As a correspondent has already noted, there's more than a touch of irony in the story tucked away in the Sunday Terror amongst matters of more pressing moment in rum-sodden old Sydney town ...

Yes the Terror has caught up with the Indonesian press, as you can read in Indonesian newspaper depicts Prime Minister Tony Abbott as a deviant.

Deviant? Having a wank while taking a look at porn is deviant? Why the pond reckons by this definition, every man in the world is a deviant, and the more they protest they aren't, the more likely they're a first class deviant (look no further than a protesting Xian, Republican or Islamic fundie for convincing proof).

But the irony of course isn't the crudity of the art work - after all, it's pleasing that in an open society, wanking and sex should be openly discussed - it's that the Murdoch tabloids have already shown the Indonesians how it's done, and with better photoshopping and graphics.

The tabloids know they should be outraged at this shocking treatment of dear leader by the wretched northerners, shamelessly imitating their superiors, but when you're down in the gutter, routinely looking at the mud rather than the stars, how can you suddenly turn noble and highbrow, and get indignant at the gutter ways of the gutter press?

I mean, it's not anywhere near a Pickering or even a Leak. The question is, will the Murdochians do another tit for tat? Will they break? Will all this talk of lowering the temperature prove too hard? Will they text like a Textor?

After all, we know their preferred style. Jolly whimsy:

Already things have gone way too far - fancy stopping Barners making a legitimate trip with legitimate expenses! Next thing you know he'll have to settle for an Indian wedding or the football.

Meanwhile faithful hagiographer Piers Akerman keeps doing a Scott Fitzgerald:

So Akker Dakker, hapless boat in a swirling current, is borne back ceaselessly into the past, here. Because it's easier than contemplating how his clunky cloth-eared hero is having a hard time.

How's this for first class, exceptional apple and knob polishing?

Prime Minister Tony Abbott's dignified response to this Left-wing assault elevates him beyond measure.

And there's more, way more, though it's possible that even the craziest of right wingers have stopped listening to poor old Akker Dakker.

What's quaint, charming and beguiling is that he persists with a half-baked legalism by talking of "alleged spying".

It's part of the problem of course - slagging off the Labor years is still much easier than dealing with current realities and circumstances, and just as the hagiographers find it difficult and alarming, so too does dear leader.

Is there any other form of distraction to be offered today?

We're so glad you asked:

Yes, the Devine is still banging on about a conspiracy in Leaking ABC is awash with cash, but she's had to tone it down. 

There's only so much paranoia and hysteria you can launch into the stratosphere before the balloon bursts:

The allegation that Australian spies tapped the phones of Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his wife in 2009 had no discernible public interest benefit. 

Uh huh. That's a lot of horse manure about an 'allegation' of what the spooks got up to under Labor. As for discernible public interest? Of course.

Much like it was of no discernible interest to learn of the extent of US spying, even up to and including the German chancellor's phone. Nary a German with the remotest interest in it.

The information was of dubious origin, having been stolen by fugitive former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, and provided to left-leaning British newspaper The Guardian.

Dubious origin? Ah, it's part of a leftist plot, just like that leftist plot to expose that right wing Kenyan socialist Obama. Picked up and run by leftie newspapers throughout the United States.

The local online version of The Guardian shared its story with the ABC to benefit from the credibility and amplification provided by the national broadcaster. 

But the ABC has no credibility because it's full of deviant left wing schemers!

It added nothing to the public store of knowledge, since allegations that Australia spied on Indonesia had already been published. 

Which is such a fatuous, addle-brained remark, the pond can only admire the cheeky spirit that wrote it, and the cheekier spirits that then published it ... and yes allegations that Indonesia spied on Australia have already been published, and wouldn't some more be really handy right now.

And yet Scott thought it was out of order for the taxpayer-funded salaries of ABC staff to see the light of day. 
 No. What was out of order was that the ABC recklessly provided cover for The Guardian on a story that has damaged Australia. If the Abbott government can't see that the ABC needs reining in now, it never will. 
 This is an opportunity for Malcolm Turnbull to shine. 
 The Communications Minister, a darling of the Q and A set, now can show conservative voters who mistrust him that he is willing to lose skin for the greater good.

Oh dear, she's off again, she's cranked up, wound up too tight, and now the main spring has snapped, she's calling on climate science accepting Big Mal to do something, and can climate change be somehow too far away? Maybe even bicyclists?

With a few honourable exceptions, its reporting and commentary is often distorted by a reflexive green-left mindset that uncritically pushes damaging climate alarmism, for instance, and has been persistently hostile to the Coalition approach to border protection. 

Uh huh. Never mind the bicycles ..

Does the Devine ever begin to comprehend how she sounds? The distortions produced by a truly weird uncritical mindset that routinely pushes all sorts of alarmism, and is persistently, slavishly supine to the coalition, as befits a supping, dining member of the crony commentariat?

No better demonstration that the ABC is out of control was its refusal to apologise for portraying conservative commentator Chris Kenny as a "dog-f … er". 

On a comedy show. What say you, son of Chris Kenny, here?

In the Daily Telegraph, the always yawn-inducing Tim Blair suggested that Kenny would be treated much more kindly by the public broadcaster if he were an Islamic terrorist — flogging an excruciatingly worn out, tired slur. 
In the Herald Sun, populist torch-bearer Bolt has demanded to know why ABC managing director Mark Scott has allowed this deterioration of standards to occur on his watch. Standards in media and cultural sensitivity, of course, being Bolt’s twin areas of expertise. 
 ‘The Left’ is often characterised by those who appoint themselves as its opponents as lacking a sense of humour, too ‘politically correct’ and too self-righteous to lighten up and take a joke. No doubt Kenny, Bolt and Blair would argue that the difference in this case is that tax-payers fund the ABC, and should not have to hand over their hard-earned cash for this type of trash. 
 And I tend to agree. Let’s see the ABC give back every cent of what it cost them to use Photoshop for thirty seconds. Maybe I’ll spend the spare change on a bus to go see the Great Barrier Reef before it, like the Chaser’s dog, is completely fucked in the arse.

Oh dear. Miranda the Devine joins the yawn-inducing Bleagh ...

But there is a real problem here, and it's revealed by this bleat, this moan, this petulant whine, this self-indulgent whinge, this self-sorrowing, navel-gazing flurry of self-pity:

While other media organisations lay off staff, cut costs and fold altogether as revenue streams dry up, the ABC has been living high on the hog, as its leaked salaries and lavish infrastructure show. The ABC commandeers the prestige of being the "national broadcaster" with none of the responsibilities that its special position should entail.

On one spiteful level, that's a nonsense. Turns out there was nothing much to see, for all the fuss. The salaries being paid to the talent are relatively modest, especially compared to the upper management, with a few bizarre Quentin Dempster moments excepted.

In television especially, none of them cut it up against the commercial networks, and this in the straitened times of commercial networks.

Are we likely to see the day when ABC local radio or RN cave in to Kyle Sandilands' demand for a 100% $2 million pay rise?

Probably not.

But that's not the real point. You see it's newspapers that are really hurting, and unless you count in ABC news online and The Drum as minor helpers, the ABC didn't destroy the tree-killer model, the internet and their lack of vision did.

The Murdoch press - especially The Australian - at one point commanded the prestige and responsibility of being national journals and national bearers of news, but in recent years, the Murdochians sacrificed their status to rabid ideology and a ratbag fawning hagiographical crony commentariat.

Now they're being scooped by a tag tag colonial Graudian intruder.

And all they can do is bleat about the ABC staff living high on the hog.

Resentment, bile, fear and loathing, served piping hot every day of the week, and they expect people to pay for it.

But even if Turnbull does what the Devine wishes and ham strings and de-guts and castrates and mutilates and ring barks the ABC as we used to do with the gums.

Even as the predictable Alexander "the stocking" Downer and Cory "the Islamic crazy" Bernardi cry for blood ....

Even as the Devine scribbles in a fury ...

Turnbull should also examine the ABC's octopus-like reach into new media, where its guaranteed taxpayer revenue gives it an unfair competitive advantage. 
For instance, former Sydney Morning Herald editor Peter Fray sank his own money into fact-checking venture PolitiFact, which barely got off the ground before the ABC launched a rival fact-checking unit, funded in part by an extra $10 million gifted by the Gillard government. 
 Turnbull could resist the call for full privatisation while taking the pruning shears to the national broadcaster. Saviour and reformer, he would win friends on both sides.

...does she really think that PolitiFact was a good idea done down by the ABC?

Does she really think if the ABC is constrained and hobbled that she will see a surge, an uplift of support for the Murdochian crazies?

Does she really think people will pay to keep the crony commentariat a little higher on the hog than they already are for scribbling bombastic, paranoid, opinionated opinion, in the process frequently shredding the facts of a matter?

Does she really think Turnbull will win friends on both sides if he hacks into the ABC?

Does she really think this sort of constant moaning and harping is a turn on, rather than a turn off?

Is she really as weird as she sounds all the time?

There's no doubt all this hard work is tiring for the hagiographers and apple and knob polishers, and things have been even tougher these past few weeks. Why they might even get tougher in the future, and Akker Dakker might be forced to berate the Whitlam government.

But this also helps explain why they're routinely so tiresome, and not a ha'pence of the pond's money will they get, even if the ABC is forced to use big Mal's most excellent sooper dooper copper wiring to communicate...

(Below: why we almost forgot where we started, so enchanting is the Devine in full, ludicrous, shrill cry, but here you go Indonesians, here's how you do it. Hone those photoshopping skills and you too could be a Murdochian)

If it's just another meditative Sunday, how did a peanut butter and jelly sandwich get into it?

The Anglican church has been in the news this week, for all the wrong reasons, but the harrowing tales and the smirking arrogance and stonewalling aren't the sort of things the pond cares to contemplate on a meditative Sunday.

Oh sure you can read abut Grafton in Anglican Church abuse compensation not motivated by suffering, inquiry told,  and follow the links to associated stories, but the likely outcome is a fit of depression. Headline after headline - Child abuse victim 'manipulated' by Anglican Church - or Inquiry told Anglican Church approach to abuse victims was antagonistic, and so on.

So what do we cop on the front page of the Sydney Anglicans this week? Lashings of mortification? Self-excoriation of the strongest kind? Self-examination and a deep expression of regret? A promise to do better, and think again about ancient bigoted attitudes to gays and women and their rights?

Oh get off the grass:

What happens in Grafton stays in Grafton, and so we have a lead story about an ancient political hack warning year 13 graduates not to be fooled by the world. How about not being fooled by the Anglican church? I mean, what gormless cheek and twaddle:

The former leader of the National Party told the audience gathered at the Danebank School auditorium that the western world is in the midst of a major moral crisis.

The western world? Is that code for Grafton? Nope:

Students came mainly from Sydney but also from other parts of Australia including Cairns, Townsville, Wellington, Maitland, Lismore and Noosa.


Anderson, who was always a bit of a dopey agrarian socialist, was once given a decent dust-up by Tony Windsor, back when Tamworth was the centre of the universe, as you can remember in Tony Windsor accuses John Anderson of bribery.

Anderson, who is a bear with very little brain, prattled on about the secularists:

To the parents of friends of the graduates he spoke of the self-centredness of the secular society. "How are families going to raise the next generation to think beyond themselves?" Mr Anderson asked. "You don't have to show your children how to worry about themselves .... 
You don't actually have to sit down and say to little Johnny 'The great key to life is it is all about you'. Do you? It comes innately and if it goes unchecked, its a disaster. Yet, that's the value that our post-Christian age has promoted as the appropriate one to live by."

Yes young ones, look to Grafton to see how to live your life.

  "These are real issues we need to grapple with" he told the graduates. "They are not reasons for us to give up or to live in ghettos. they are reasons for us to engage wisely, with courage and with compassion undergirded by humility. But the world is in the mess that it is in because we have deserted the beliefs that drove the values that drove the behaviour and the ethics that made our societies such wonderful places, in worldly terms, to live in. And we need to again point people to the core of those beliefs."

Well it's proof yet again, should anyone feel in need, that the god botherers can supply lashings of humbug with a pious sauce of hypocrisy ...

 "Western man has come to hate the truth and to deny it and to mock it and to distort it. But if you have met Jesus then you will know that nothing else matters by comparison" Mr Anderson said.

Western man? Yep, it's the usual nonsense, because you see, western women aren't valued enough for the way they hate the truth and deny it and mock it and distort it ... in Grafton ...

And then just to rub even more hot pepper sauce into the wound, Michael Jensen got to wondering Is the Sermon on the Mount humanly possible? Well certainly not for Anglicans in Grafton ...

It is, of course, a silly rhetorical preacher trick. Ask the question, ramble through the eccentricities of Tolstoy - lordy, was he as mad as a hatter or what - and it turns out an idealistic life is simply impossible, so let's forget all this nonsense about the Sermon on the Mount....

That stuff about turning the other cheek and all the rest of the bloody hyperbolic, exaggerating, explosive shelled stuff Jesus vented is just too bloody tricky. which is very handy if you happen to live in Grafton.

By the end of it all, the pond was yearning for a bit of straight old fashioned fun.

Wheel in the crack Methodist! Yes, it was all over the English tabloids, and it even got a run down under, as you can read in The scandals that brought down 'crystal Methodist' bank chief.

The pond had an aunt who turned to Methodism in her old age. It was understandable enough given the alcoholic ways of her partner, who turned abusive when in drink, so when at last the drink got him, she became teetotal and turned to bible reading. Her dress was modest - some might say that never a dowdier bird wore such dull plumage - and there was no ribaldry or much laughter, and not even a scratchie in the house, so severe was the ban on gambling. She was canny and knew it was a form of state tithing and leeching up there with the weekly Catholic envelope ...

But now it turns out that she led both herself and the pond astray. Did we miss out on the real meaning of Methodism or what?

And now that Michael Jensen has assured us all that the Sermon on the Mount is just too bloody hard, waiter, please bring the pond some of that dissolute Methodist lifestyle you keep in the fridge in the kitchen ...

Meanwhile, it's been a good week for Islamic bashing amongst conservatives because it's much easier to bash other versions of god botherers than bash your very own god botherers lurking in Sydney.

The cretins have been on the march at Menzies House - how Ming must roll in his grave - recycling British FUD about a school excursion, cleverly satirising the Australian Bullshit Corporation - by golly that's as subtle as a meat cleaver to the noggin, and most bizarre of all, praising peanut and jelly sandwichs as the font of western civilisation under threat from the Islamic hordes - without understanding how or why the United States is such a fucked obsese nation ...

And along the way, coming up with lines like this:

I’ll say it again, Islam runs counter to every single progressive left ideology, but because the right doesn’t like Islam, progressives continue to make excuses for it. The facts are, should Islam ever become the majority, it will be the progressives that will be targeted first by the Islamists. (here)

Actually, Andy, liberals, secularists and anyone standing remotely in the shade to the left of Genghis Khan are targeted first by drooling peanut butter and jelly sandwich munching fuckwits like you ...

Have a go at Grafton, and then let's talk about the Islamics, and the fact that should raving foaming peanut and jelly sandwich chewers become a majority, the progressives will be the first to go down ... and if you're going to make a stand for western civilisation, at least make a stand for something a bit classier than a fucking peanut butter and jelly sandwich, you addle-brained peanut ... (here for the sandwich routine).

Which inevitably brings us to Cardinal Pell, now a splendid and seemingly permanent presence on the tabloid front page of the Sunday Terror.

The piece itself, Celebrating the feast of Christ the King, is utterly trivial and mindless, of the kind that Catholic priests used to trot out long ago, with Pell having an each way bet on Christ being a monarchist:

Is it right and proper to call Christ a king or does such a title mislead us?

You know - if you were ever exposed routinely to Catholic tosh - the rest of it, the paradox, the consoling, the hope, and the need for a good lawyer and a clever set of trusts and plausible deniability and responsibility rests with Rome and an exclusively male structure and weird sexual attitudes permeating through the church like a canker at the core so that anyone listening to a priest for advice on sex and contraception must be at least a little bit balmy. Heck, even the pond's mad aunt couldn't go there ...

But never mind, what the pond really enjoys is the way expert climate scientist Pell and Pellism has now been given top digital tabloid exposure.

The fine fickle finger of tabloid conjunctions means that Pellism is now conflated and confused with all the tabloid dross doing the Sunday rounds.

Christ wasn't afraid to get amongst the brothels and the money lenders and the tax collectors and the rest of the riff raff, and so the pond has put together a little show and tell to reveal the real home of the Pellists. Suffer little children to come unto me, or perhaps, just suffer little children, suffer bloody suffer endless tabloid gossip...

Yep, Christ is the king ... of the gossip tabloids, that is ... though no doubt if you actually bothered to read all this crap, you might in fact have a flash from heaven, turn religious and even embrace the Sermon on the Mount.

UDATE: and now thanks to a reader, the pond has been pleased to learn of Michael Jensen's rant about lullabies of lucre while directly, right next to, giving the details on how to hand over your filthy lucre, unless you happen to be dropping the filthy lucre on his next book.

Oh it's a grand, wonderful, strange world. Click to enlarge and be sure to follow the reader's link below. You're sure to stumble on a magic faraway tree marvel:

So many questions, when all we need is so many loons ...

(Above: more Wilcox here)

The pond is deep, abjectly, mortifyingly sorry and apologetic.

Apparently the last, profoundly frivolous post was covered in a rational, sensible way by Jonathan Holmes, in Spying on Indonesia - Here is the news: a good story gets told, not held.

Strange, isn't he a conspiracist? How much does he get paid? Is he still writing stuff? Just how old is he? Does he wear a cardigan? Does he have elbow patches? Shouldn't he be quiet?

Naturally, the ABC didn't want its payroll details broadcast to the world, and naturally I didn't want my former salary in the national daily. But of course, once the figures were leaked to The Australian's Sarah Martin, the paper ran them on its front page. 
Good luck to it. That's what news organisations do. Unless there's a very good reason not to, they publish what other people want to keep secret. And the embarrassment of the ABC's management and stars is certainly not a good enough reason to bury a cracking yarn.

Ah, a cunning ploy, wishing the reptiles luck. A cracking yarn! Cracking cheese, eh Gromit...

It gets worse. He accuses generally grumpy Miranda the Devine, the Bolter andPaul Sheehan of scribbling addle-pated conspiracist, paranoid nonsense. Well, the pond added a few of those adjectives, but you catch the drift.

And he calls the lot of them painters of utterly ludicrous scenarios.

It's deeply disturbing, verging on the outrageous.

Even worse, Holmes explains just how a genuine journalist would muddle along through thousands of pages of leaked material, and then run with the story.

Why he sounds just like the Warren Commission in a state of complete confusion. Fancy imagining the Murdochians cling to journalism over ideological zealotry.

And then this:

If they had known about the document before or during the election campaign, it would have been an even bigger story, because the prime minister then, Kevin Rudd, had been the prime minister in August 2009 when the phone-tapping allegedly took place. 
Of course, there's a legitimate argument about whether or not the national broadcaster should have co-operated in breaking a story that was bound to be damaging to the Australian-Indonesian relationship. 
But the story was going to break anyway. ''Mark Scott'', wrote Paul Sheehan, ''had a clear choice''. So he did. He could have told his senior editors to turn down the scoop, wait until The Guardian had broken the story, and then follow it up as best they could. Or he could let them take the offered documents and run first. 
To any real journalist, that's no choice at all. If it's legal, and it's verifiable, and it's not endangering lives, and it's not invading privacy or intruding on grief, and it's a huge story, you publish, and let the chips fall where they may. 
Unless you're Bolt, or Devine, or Sheehan. It's for them, not the ABC, that the politics matter more than the story.

Fair dinkum, that's the sort of level-head, rational analysis that ruins the pond's day.

Here we are, romping in the valley of the loons, and along comes spoilsport smarty pants Holmes hosing down a bunch of decent conspiracy theories.

What next? There was no magic bullet?

There ought to be loons, there should be loons, please send in the loons. Is there no curiosity, none at all?

The Guardian's curiously delayed leak about Australian intelligence-gathering in Indonesia - strangely gifted by them to the ABC - has only embarrassed both nations, undermined their relations and co-operation and thereby diminished national security operations on both sides of the Timor Sea. 
 Someone at the ABC who views national and international reportage as more than game-playing will need to contemplate all this and decide what to do the next time they are asked to amplify the damaging reports of another organisation.

Phew, thank the long absent lord, thanks Chris Kenny. Curious! Strange! Game-playing!

Hint, hint, say no more, is your wife a goer, is she, is she, hey hey?

Yep, it's behind the paywall here because you have to pay to get the purest smack of conspiracy theories.

Somebody, it seems is playing for the wrong team, the treacherous, traitorous deviant sons of bitches and bastards:

The Indonesian media is lively and competitive and, strangely enough, always line up on the Indonesian side. They can be relied upon to accentuate Jakarta's line and attack Australia. The Australian media, especially the vast publicly funded entities, is just as predictable. They tend to line up on the Indonesian side too, presumably because it creates a stronger story out of Canberra. 

Take that, you Indonesia lover, Mr. Holmes, for shame. Damn you all, ABC brown rice and lentil eaters. What's the bet you love a gado gado?

Tony Abbott's barracking for Manly and these deviants are donning the Indonesian colours.

Do carry on Mr. Kenny

 Let us be frank. 

Yes, let us be frank, and certainly not Mary or Jonathan!

The leak was embarrassing. But the Australian government's response (belatedly joined by the opposition) has been mature and sensible. 

Yes, it's been mature and sensible, and Tony Abbott has done his very best, despite being martyred by treacherous turncoats, and all this paranoid talk of traitors and treason and an ABC and Fairfax conspiracy has been entirely reasonable.

You see, it's the fault of those bloody northerners:

Indonesia needed to voice its concern but its behaviour has been typically petulant and unreasonable. Sadly its best friend, urging it along this destructive path, has been the Australian media.

Typically petulant and unreasonable!

Because that's all they ever do, whinge and moan and whine, unlike dinkum Aussies, who are just, well let's say it modestly, fan-fucking-tastic salt of the fucking earth, but not too much salt, mind the blood pressure.

Now there, what better way to sort out a situation than to explain in a cogent way just how fucked everybody is, except Chris Kenny, the Bolter and the reptiles at the lizard Oz.

Wash out your mouth with soap Mr. Holmes.

The pond must have its loons, send in the loons.

Why thank you kindly David Rowe, loon spotter nonpareil, more Rowe here, it should almost go without saying.

Everywhere a magic bullet ...

Put it another way:

If you can fill the unforgiving minute 
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, 
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, 
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Thank you Rudyard and Akker Dakker.

Frankly the pond is sorry, very sorry. Yes, that'a an apology.

Confronted by the vast ABC and Fairfax media conspiracy, a conspiracy which makes whatever went down in Dallas a mere doddle, the pond routinely underestimates the hard work done by the sycophants (no, it's not spelled psychophants) and the hagiographers.

When the going gets tough, and the conspiracy is at its deepest and darkest, the tough get going, and sort the vile, filthy conspiracists out.

Bravely, bravely, steadfast, standing tall and true, like an English batsman facing bizarre moustaches and strange tatts bearing down on them with malevolent fury. Oh and they said the pond didn't do cricket metaphors.

Oh songs will be sung around campfires just as Alan-a-Dale once celebrated tales of derring do in Sherwood forest:

Come listen to me, you gallants so free 
All you that loves mirth for to hear 
And I will tell you of a bold brave hearty heroic wondrous pollie 
That lived on the north shore and occasionally in Canberra shire.

And so on and on.

Sorry, it doesn't scan, and anyway it's not nearly as good as Dennis 'the tie, the suit and the lustrous bouffant hair' Shanahan when he gets down diligently to the burnishing and the buffing and the shining:

Oh you childish pathetic conspirators, you see, Dennis is at the moat and at your throat, ready to celebrate the brave Tony, the St. Sebastian of Labor crimes if ever there was one.

Meanwhile, you wretched conspirators, you're so confused you even leak your pay details to anyone who asks.

No, it's not good enough to pretend that this has revealed that the preening reptiles at the lizard Oz are about as clever at investigative journalism as the notorious Small Throat ...

But what else can be done? What Homeric odes can be chanted, what urgent national business can be contemplated?

Ah, the fine art of the squirrel.

Look, squirrel Rudd!

Why of course, with the ship of state righted, and the fearless leader steering a fearless path into the heart of darkness - only so things can be sorted by bare minimum commentary, except to tell people that love means never having to say you're sorry and oh the love, the love - what else to do but brood about the momentous mistakes of the former Chairman Rudd back in 2006 ...

Because 2013 is so naff, so not now ...

Oh sure there are quislings and lickspittle lackeys, possible infected by the ABC and the Fairfaxians bug of compromise. Why they might even be in on the conspiracy

Oh they talk of concessions, in a way certain to arouse the fury of the righteous and the splenetic, not limited to, but certainly including the Bolter and Miranda the Devine, but where will it get them?

Into the halls of shame, specially erected so that the populace can throw pulpy tomatoes at them.

Do we have an example of this craven, cowardly, unmanly, Rudyard Kipling-hating, forelock-tugging?

Oh dear. Concessions the only way to respond?

Who is this lickspittle sell out?

Paul Kelly? Oh to die of shame, the pompous Kelly revealed as a tool of the ABC and Fairfax!

Why after reading that, the only image that can come to mind is the tin man in need of a heart ... or is that a scarecrow in need of a brain?

Ssh, whatever you do, don't mention a lion, it'll send the Bolter into a foaming frenzy about the treasonous Paul Kelly ...

Doesn't the goose get it?

Shocking, shameless. Is there another quisling in the house?

Oh no, not the Obama ploy. Apologise?

Who is this abject, reprehensible apologist?

Et tu, confused, craven, oscillating Peter van Onselen?

Surely this is a house divided by the most base, demeaning and wretched cowardly lions.

What next? Calls for unmanly swimwear? A cry that dear leader untog and unbike himself and become the subject of coarse, crude humour?

There's a deep-seated conspiracy at work here, and no, it isn't Chairman Rupert's minions spying on the rich and famous.

It's the meejia, and Chris Kenny is on hand to explain just what a treacherous, traitorous anarchist bunch they are:

You see, you see!

Spilling the beans on what people earn ... no, let's not dignify them in that way, let's not call them peeple, let's call them what they are, leather-elbow patched, cardigan-wearing, horn-rimmed glasses anarchist traitorous conspirators ...

These so-called journalists, who dared to scoop the Murdochians, wouldn't know a decent journalistic investigation or how to do it if it bit them on the bum. 

Exposing how much these wretched peeple get paid is absolutely a top notch example of investigative journalists probing suspect government activities like Q and A. 

This is miles away from cheap, stereotypical suggestions of Big Brother and Chairman Rupert spying on the citizenry using hi tech digital know how and devices.

It's certainly not wages voyeurism, it exudes a higher ideal, the ideal of showing how cheaply these peeple can be paid to indulge in their traitorous anarchy ...

Why the next thing you know, all that should be decent and upright and Queen and long absent God fearing will be revealed as a closet supporter of gay marriage and the republic.

Is there no end to this astonishing conspiracy.

Oh okay, you guessed it, the pond looked at the deeply superficial headlines of the deeply predictable hagiographers and decided to look no further, because life is tedious and to read on would have been to descend into the utter fatuity of being an apple polisher like Akker Dakker:

All causes shall give way. I am in blood

Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,

Returning were as tedious as go o'er.

Strange things I have in head, that will to hand,

Which must be acted ere they may be scanned.

Apologise? 

Crawl like the creepy crawly Obama?

To Indonesians?

No, no, summon up the courage, stiffen the sinews, etc et al.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; 
Or close the wall up with our dinkum Aussie lizard dead. 
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man 
As modest stillness and humility
Or even a craven apology: 
But when the blast of war blows in our ears, 
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Forget the cowardly lion caper and cheap talk of apology; 
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, 
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage; 
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; 
Let pry through the portage of the head 
Or even pry through the contents of a mobile phone
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it 
As fearfully as doth a galled rock 
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base, 
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean. 
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide, 
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit 
To his full height. On, on, you noblest dinkum Murdoch reptiles. 
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof! 
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders, and Downers too,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought 
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument: 
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest 
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you. 
In a proper traditional loving marriage blessed by Queen Bess
Be copy now to men of grosser blood, 
And teach them how to war. 
And you, good yeoman, who sing brave songs of Abbott,
Whose limbs were made in Woop Woop, show us here 
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear 
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not; 
For there is none of you so mean and base, 
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes. 
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, 
Doped up on cocaine, amphetamines, caffeine and EPO,
As all the best greyhounds in NSW are,
Straining upon the start. 
The game's afoot: Follow your spirit, and upon this charge 
Cry 'Long absent god for Tony, dinkum Oz, and Saint  Rupert!'

But is there any consequence, any downside?

Show us First Dog, show us what it means to look into the boiling, steaming cauldron of right wing backlash fury. And as always more First Dog here.

It's the only link the pond has bothered with today, perhaps because it's the only link worth having. If you want to step into the bloated briar patch known as Murdoch la la land, feel free to do it, but there's no way you can blame the pond for facilitating it. Meanwhile, click to enlarge:

General Ripper, say hello to precious bodily fluids and Chinatown ...

And now is there any other business before the meeting comes to a close and things dissolve into a TGIF riot?

"Madam chair, it seems some insouciant saucy wretches are reporting to this blog that they saw Mark Textor deliver a surly, truculent glare to camera while talking of imaginary tweets about imaginary people, before delivering an imaginary tweet which some people foolishly imagined was a half-baked, half-arsed apology because it mentioned twittering and diplomacy". (Liberal pollster Mark Textor denies offensive tweets referred to Indonesian leaders, forced video at end of link featuring the amazing twittering Textor).

Yes, yes, but your point is?

Apart from it being likely that the macho strutting, aggro, in your face attitude arises from something in the water he drinks?

"Well Madam you looks and sounds like a chair or a hat - isn't Bronnie such an inspiration - it would seem that the research funding which proposes to discover why Liberals, unlike liberals, are completely incapable of any sort of simple, direct apology is now urgently required, especially as the Indonesians are now proposing our fearless leader, Tony Abbott, lacks diplomatic skills."

Oh if you insist, make it so.

Dearie me, is there anything else at all positive arising from this sordid affair, which could have been nipped in the bud by anyone who understood you needed more than a baseball or cricket bat or a piece of 2 be 4 when strutting the international stage?

"Well Madam, it seems hits on the Jakarta Post from Australia have soared, first to find out about what's actually happening with boat people, and now to discover the truth about Tony Abbott. It's an ill wind and all that."

What's that? Let the boat people cross to Oz: Lawmaker ...

Oh dear, that'll teach the Murdoch press.

Is there anything else before we declare a TGIF orgy?

"Well Madam chair, we draw your attention to bizarre events in Queensland, Newman axes committee in CMC stoush, because some people dared to point out that Dr Levy had shown he was partisan, biassed and lacking in independence".

Oh Jake, how many times do we have to tell you on a Friday, forget it Jake, it's Queensland.

"Madam chair, we'd also like to report that there's another bunch of weirdo dropkick hippies, libertarians and ranting ratbags of the American tea party kind who've voted against fluoride in the water, thereby expecting the rest of the state to pay for all the additional dental work their children will require in due course."

Jake, you've been warned once already. Please, no more mentions of Queensland this fine Friday, just forget it Jake."

"Um Madam Chair, it's the good citizens of NSW, the hippie fruitcakes and freaks who lurk in Byron Bay, as in Byron Bay still holding out agains fluoride in water."

Oh shit Jake, we're ever so sorry, what a total fuck up.

"Think nothing of it ma'am, at least you're sorry at discovering the wilful stupidity of stupid people".

Is there anything we can do Jake?

"Well ma'am you could sign the petition which proposes that no toothpaste containing fluoride be shipped to Byron Bay".

But that means there'd be very little toothpaste in Byron  Bay, Jake, except for deluded users of very expensive chocolate toothpaste and other hippie crap imported from America, and they would get even less fluoride in their diet and their teeth would rot even faster ...

"Exactly Madam, and then you could say you were deeply sorry, like an exemplary liberal".

This is, Jake, rapidly turning into a very bad imitation of a Downfall pastiche on YouTube. Does anybody have anything else for the Chair?

"Well Madam hat on a chair, a correspondent has drawn attention to the noble Henry Ergas scoring a "mate's gig" on the NBN, despite having been a fierce, unremitting and woefully ignorant critic of the NBN, as reported in Crikey, in When Malcolm met Henry: Ergas gets at second bite at NBN".

After pointing out Henry's fine track record, being slammed for his performance as an "expert" for his "performance" in 2004 in a matter involving Qantas before the Australian Competition Tribunal, Crikey dared to mention Henry's clutch of right-wing economists, Concept Economics, going belly-up. Some Concept!

And then they dared to question Henry about his analytical skills:

....forget about all that – what about the NBN? In 2009, Egars and friends prepared an analysis of the NBN, predicting it would cost $133 a month to connect metropolitan customers and $380 a month to connect non-metro customers, “averaging out at around $170 nationally”. 
 Currently, iiNet and Internode offer NBN deals starting at $49.95 a month. Optus starts at $65 a month, Telstra at $73 a month, somewhat less than the cost predicted by Henry and co. 
Why the disparity? Well when we first pointed it out, Ergas immediately wrote to us to complain that, far from him being wrong, it was the government’s fault — the actual costs were being skewed by the fact that the NBN was going for an uneconomic rate of return. We asked Ergas at the time if he stood by his original prediction, but he never replied. Now he gets a chance to explain how he was right all along.

Sheesh, all this before breakfast, and we even get on to contemplating any business for today?

Could there be any more surreal, disturbing, existentially weird bit of business to hand?

The Abbott government has made a strong start?

Sweet long absent Jesus, today is the day that Dennis 'the suit and the tie and the sleek conservative bouffant hair' Shanahan decides to do a puff piece on Abbott for the reptiles at the lizard Oz/

The pond wants a good dose of whatever fluoride-free libation they serve for lunch at the lizard Oz.

Could anyone come up with anything more inane or silly, without reverting to Miranda the Devine, or the Bolter, which isn't playing fair, because that's like having all the twos and threes in the hand and declaring a lay down misere ...

"Well Madam Chair, the reptiles have played a regular favourite."

Oh sweet long absent Jesus. Okay, the pond will bite. What on earth are the Japanese doing to meet the challenge of non-existent global warming, remembering that Lomborg has routinely maintained that global warming is by no means the world's greatest threat.

Direct action!

Oh and a humble 0.2% of GDP, about a $100bn, and someone will come up with a clever idea that will get us out of the mess we're in, if only we realised it's a phantom mess we're in, and so it should be jolly cheap to clean up the phantom mess ...

Or some such nonsense of the usual FUD kind.

Last orders, six o'clock swillers, please!

"Madam chair, it seems that the Bolter continues to rant and rage at The Graudian and the ABC for daring to outscoop the hacks at News Corp and dressing it up as being for free speech, except for free speech involving deviant, filthy vile leftist cardigan-wearers. You can read the elegant contortions, and double flips and pikes in You can be for free speech, yet criticise how the media speaks".

Right Jake, final warning. You know you should forget it, it's the Bolter.

"Madam chair, Madam chair, we should really pay attention to the Bolter's foaming, frenzied denunciation of all the self-serving malevolent shysters and hypocrites who are deliberately damaging Australia and blaming Tony Abbott, when we all know dear leader and dinkum Oz are one, an indefinable duopoly roughly akin to the holy trinity".

What self-serving, malevolent shysters - deliberately damaging Australia and blaming Tony Abbott for it. Who are these hypocrites who betray Australia, peddle a traitor's leaks and demand we surrender to Indonesia, just to destroy a Prime Minister they hate? (Malevolent shysters are damaging Australia).

Look Jake, forget it. Abbott fucked up, and until we see the results of the research funding, it's likely no one will understand why he found it so hard to say sorry. Of course in the interim, the Bolter is going to do a Joe McCarthy routine, and denounce the treasonous enemies within, and all the other sorts of nonsense required to distract attention from the banal observation that Abbott fucked up, dropped the ball, got bowled around his legs, snicked it to slip, and otherwise behaved like a first class member of Australia's first eleven ...

Someone's got to do a foam flecked frenzy in crazy wild-eyed style, and it ain't Dennis "the tie" Shanahan.

As for outrageous and unseemly comparisons to Obama and Germany? Well really:

... Indonesia is not Germany. 

Indeed. Bloody Indonesians. Tell him, Mark Textor, tell him what they look like! And it could get worse:

And, if Abbott gives such a guarantee to Indonesia, he'll be under pressure to give the same to the leaders of Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia and whoever else demands one. And if the next Snowden leak shows us spying on Chinese leaders, what does Abbott do next? 

Eek, Asians, we're surrounded by demanding, recalcitrant Asians. Why those bloody Indonesians drove out the Dutch, and it's been downhill ever since.

Who to blame, oh who to blame:

 The Fairfax media, mad with Abbott hate, is doing its best to help,

Which is way worse than the Bolter, who is just mad with hate.

And now, before we break for a rousing TGIF, can we have a rousing flourish of McCarthyism:

The hypocrites. The scoundrels. And is it too much to say they've sold out their country?

Yep, it's an old saw, but true all the same, that patriotism is the first and last refuge of the professional baying, braying, blogging scoundrel.

But relax, because it works like a Decibel Meter.

The more the Bolter shrieks and moans and complains about all and sundry, and evil plots and conspiracies and treason, and hate, and ignores the actual end game, which happens to involve actual Indonesians, the more you can be certain that Tony Abbott fucked up, and it's the Bolter's job, as the magician's assistant, to draw attention away from the fuck up ...

And with that, enjoy your Friday, and have another fluoride-free drink on the pond and if your teeth rot and fall out, remember it's a fiendish Fairfax, Graudian, ABC plot to mess with your precious bodily fluids...

(Below: and we were going to lay off David Pope for awhile, and then damn you, brave, bold Pope - more excellent knavish Popery here - you had to go and do a cricketing metaphor, and right now the pond can't get enough of cricket metaphors, as the fearless leader's brave lads flinch under fire. The square is broken, the Gatling jammed, the soil runs red with blood, rally lads, rally behind the Bolter, and don't forget your false teeth).

And a Dirk Diggler to that ...

With friends like this inside the tent, why go trolling around the camp for enemies?

Of course the tweeting Textor subsequently deleted his tweet, but not before it had done an obligatory tour of the intertubes.

If you take the time and the trouble to actually visit the twittering Textor tweeting his texts, you find a seething morass of cheap shots and point scoring, given all the huge complexity that 140 characters allows.

So much anger, so much hostility, so much sarcasm, so little time.

Invariably when someone thinks with his thumb, the best advice is that occasionally he should suck it.

Naturally the reptiles at the lizard Oz did their best to step around the issue, running with a little AAP copy here.

It took the Fairfaxians to give Textor the proper texting honours:

In one tweet, since deleted, Mr Textor attacked the Indonesian Foreign Minister. Advertisement ''Apology demanded from Australia by a bloke who looks like a 1970s Pilipino [sic] porn star and has ethics to match,'' he tweeted along with the hash-tag ''#Fairfax demands appeasement''. 
In another, the Liberal insider asked ''What sort of head of state communicates with a head of a neighbouring government by twitter FFS? SBY''. FFS is shorthand for ''for f---'s sake''. 
In a further tweet, Mr Textor said the phone-tapping incident revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden was in 2009 and said ''Maybe SBY uses some sort of weird-ass ancient calendar''. 
But he also appeared to justifying the phone tapping of the Indonesian President and his wife as well as eight other senior figures with the tweet: ''Last time I looked no Indonesians were ever bombed in Australia.'' He published pictures of the Bali bombers under the tweet ''Nothing to see here.''  (here)

So that's the top level, diplomatic, statesmanlike, oil on troubled waters advice the Liberal party can rely on ...

The point, if there's any, is that Textor's gratuitous childish pugnacity might have been overlooked by the reptiles at the lizard Oz as the prank of a faithful but slightly rabid supporter, but it's now been splashed in the Indonesian press, fuelling the domestic flames involved in the dispute, and there's a direct trail that can be walked from Textor to Abbott:

The Coalition’s pollster, Mark ­Textor, was prolific again on Twitter in playing down the import of the incident, a sign being widely perceived that Mr Abbott was being advised the issue was not damaging him domestically. Among dozens of tweets, Mr Textor said: “Apology demanded from Australia by a bloke who looks like a 1970s Filipino porn star and has ethics to match.”

Not damaging him domestically? Right now we're talking about a short-term storm, but what if it settles into a long march to the Indonesian elections?

And to what avail?

While Textor is still trying to assail assorted domestic beasts - the ABC, Mike Carlton, the rest of Fairfax, The Guardian - it barely seems to have dawned on him that Tony Abbott won the election, and now has the job of governing, which inter alia on foreign affairs, occasionally requires him to sound like a diplomat and a statesman.

While in the background, the twittering Textor turns it all into a tweeting circus ... FFS ...

President of the Western Australian Farmers’ Federation, Dale Park, called for “good diplomacy” to avoid repercussions for the live cattle trade, which Mr Abbott vowed to try and restore when he travelled to Indonesia after being sworn in. (here)

Good diplomacy? Good luck with that. Dragging out a reference to Filipino porn stars is good diplomacy? Instead of a fuckwit fuckwittedly tweeting?

Well ...

... to that ...

But at least it reminds the pond why it's never taken to twitter. If this is the adults in charge, how come so much room was allowed for their children, their illegitimate, thumb-talking spawn?

Meanwhile, in another world, someone has dared to mention the truth of Telstra's copper network, at least so far as it applies to the rain-sodden, wretched, decaying trenches outside the pond's house, occasionally sighted when a despairing technician has to pretend the gunk of copper could actually be made functional, as you can read in Telstra's copper is 'nearly beyond repair' and 'an absolute disgrace': union.

The point of course is that Tony "let's pretend we'll go on an Indonesian fishing boat buying spree in a time of national budget emergency" Abbott is about to renegotiate its copper deal with Telstra, and the luddite Abbott's representatives are going to bunker down and negotiate a deal in relation to FTN use of the useless copper outside the pond's house.

NBN Co's new chief operating officer, Greg Adcock, confirmed at the hearing that NBN Co would test parts of Telstra's copper underground network before it made any definitive moves to a fibre-to-the-node design. 
 "The current thinking is that there would be testing done. Whether it informs the strategic review or whether the strategic review makes some assumptions to be then tested, I think that is the way we would frame it at this point," Mr Adcock said. 

Oh really? First class bureaucratic gobbledegook Mr Adcock, and please, come on over to Newton and Camperdown, and will be pleased to show you the most useless, half-arsed, damp squib of a copper network on this godforsaken earth ...

The state of Australia's copper network has long been a focus because critics say that it has deteriorated and might not provide the speed of 100 megabits per second the Coalition eventually wants to deliver over it, with technologies like VDSL2 vectoring. 
 The Coalition has promised to replace any copper that doesn't achieve the speeds promised but critics say the true state of the copper network is not known, and its costly replacement could blowout the Coalition's NBN costings.

100mgps? Now there's a cosmic joke.

On a rainy day any fool who's kept a landline is lucky to make a connection where the voices sound like a commercial for a snap, crackle and pop breakfast cereal.

Speaking of la la land, let's wrap up with a visit to generally grumpy Paul "magic water" Sheehan, sounding off in Those who exposed spying on Indonesia have got what they wanted.

First of all, he slags off Tony Abbott:

What elevates this diplomatic firestorm is the element of personal affront. Indonesia's president has made his displeasure known in the most explicit, direct and public terms. He believes he has been affronted twice. First, by the cowboys in the Defence Signals Directorate, then by Abbott refusing to apologise, explain or even mollify. 
If Abbott digs in over an outdated, outflanked matter of principle, his relationship with Indonesia will be in tatters, and his credibility in foreign affairs compromised. It's his choice. 

Uh huh. So Abbott made the wrong call.

But that sticks in Sheehan's craw. Waiter, some magic water, so Sheehan can clear his throat and his keyboard, and it explain it's actually all the fault of the ABC and The Guardian:

All this would have been anticipated by the people who lit this conflagration, the ABC and the English import The Guardian Australia. The Guardian had possession of the security leak for months. Nothing happened while Labor was in power. 
ABC managing director Mark Scott had a clear choice. It was self-evident that revealing these phone taps would poison the relationship with Indonesia, damage Australia's intelligence-gathering, humiliate President Yudhoyono, compromise Australian security arrangements, and ripple out to Australia's education market in Indonesia. He decided to go all-in with The Guardian. 
His decision was consistent with, on his watch, the ABC's institutional hostility to Coalition policies on asylum-seekers, and its decisions such as appointing Russell Skelton as chief fact-checker despite his public record of anti-Coalition partisanship. The ABC has got what it wanted. It will now pursue the story with zeal.

Pathetic. In every way shape and form.

Where was Sheehan when it came to Obama and Snowden and Merkel? Stories that crossed the flimsy ideological line, the party consensus that spying and snooping on the citizenry is all good in a "whatever it takes" world?

Why on this Orwellian world did you need to ask, when you could have just read Snowden a threat to US national security:

The Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, has described Snowden's actions as gravely damaging to US security. 
Another inconvenient fact is that the US government was operating within the law, laws passed by a democratically-elected government which must ultimately answer to the electorate. 
Under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a security agency must request permission from a secret court set up to judge requests to target individuals or entities via an internet service provider. The US Congress, the courts and the Obama Administration approved these measures.

Take that whining, moaning Angela Merkel. You see, it's all legit and above board ...

It led one Crikey reader to wonder, here:

Is Paul Sheehan actually a dinosaur of the military industrial complex? ... Really he is as boring and predictable as Gerard Henderson. Belongs in a sandstone quarry with the other primitive artefacts.

Amen. Would Fairfax have run the story, if they'd have got it, instead of The Grauniad and the ABC?

Of course they would. Sheehan isn't so much a bit of sandstone as a smelly sulphur-laden case of sour grapes ...

The difference is that once the leak was out there, Obama ate humble pie.

Whereas Tony Abbott wouldn't or couldn't ...

And that had diddly squat to do with the machinations of the ABC or The Grauniad ..

Perhaps it's because he has a problem with Filipino porn stars ...

Or perhaps it's because he tried to place a call to the Indonesian President using the copper wires outside the pond's house, and all SBY could hear was a lot of crackly shit ...

(Below: and because the pond does cricket these days, Rowe captures the tone perfectly. More Rowe here, the best reason for the AFR to survive)

Can you hit a six by blocking a few Murdochian balls and the crony commentariat?

(Above: First Dog helping the pond maintain its war on the hypocritical stench and sludge that is jolly Joe Hockey. More First Dog here).

And so to lighter things.

The reptiles at the lizard Oz don't do journalism as such - they much prefer if it involves revenge, payback and frontal assault.

Here's a couple of examples doing the rounds in the current digital rag:

Fukushima?

Okay, go stand in the corner for a while and say repeatedly I will not make fatuous, meaningless comparisons in the header.

And take Mark McDonnell with you while you're at it.

It's about what we'd expect from the Typhoon Haiyan of newspapers ...

What else?

Oh dear. EXCLUSIVE to the pond, the reptiles are gnashing their teeth and howling into the pit of despair with resentment and jealousy especially of Tony Jones, the leader of the pack (vroom, vroom).

250k or so? We should be glad we're not back in the salad days when Nine once paid Kerri-Anne Kennerley some $500k a year (dear sweet long absent lord, did they once pay Tracy Grimshaw 700k, Liz Hayes 650k and the likes of Catriona Rowntree, Scott Cam and Tara Brown all 500k+?  (must be true, the pond read it in News Corp here). No wonder the commercial networks are in such a state ...

The pond hates to preach free market gibberish to the true believers, but you see it's one big melting pot of a market for skilled front people, and sometimes ABC staff are lured by the bright lights, though in the case of Ellen Fanning, it might be sad to observe the effect of a bruising encounter with vodka-peddling Dan Aykroyd on the lesser ABC ... or is that the lesser Al Jazeera these days, given the content of the news service?

Never mind, the reptiles can keep on ranting about how overpaid the ABC slugs are, what a drain they are on the taxpayer, and so on and so forth, but how about we now learn how much star members of the crony commentariat are paid?

What's it worth to keep the likes of Janet 'Dame Slap' Albrechtsen on staff, dishing out the bile?

She's at it again today, the pond sees:

This time the target is Hedley Thomas's bête noire, the Titanic Clive Palmer.

So why does the pond find this routinely amusing?

Well the main form of attack in recent months is that Clive is an out of control, dangerous, self-interested billionaire, who is using politics to pursue his own business agenda and his own private empire-building activities. Yes, and your point is? You want to remind us of another stray billionaire?

Uh huh. Speaking of billionaire Rupert, and never mind any talk of criminal charges still unfolding in Britain, has he gone clap happy and religious in his old age, as he feels the impending wrath of the long absent lord, and at best thousands of years in purgatory for his worldly sins?

Dear sweet long absent lord. Rethink much? With a foot in both the Catholic and the evangelical camps, and never what the difficulty of reconciling the whore of Babylon with crazed judgmental fundamentalism.

And what on earth does this mean?

Who hired those damned ignorant consultants? Who signed off on them? The CEO? 

Say the word, and the pond will send the bludger responsible packing ...

But back to Dame Slap, who sadly phrases her column in the most coy, saccharine and cloying form, a personal letter, as you can read in Focus on the main game and score some runs, Clive, if you can summon the energy to work your way around the paywall.

Now the pond knows very little about cricket, but the keen eyed will have noted that the advice in the splash - block a few balls - sits very oddly with the header's score some runs, Clive.

Is bunting the best way to hit a home run?

Anyhoo, after months of vilification by the rag and its minions, Dame Slap has decided on a personal approach and a personal touch:

Dear Clive, 
First, kudos to you. Despite being mocked by the political class as a buffoon billionaire, you won the Queensland seat of Fairfax. And, against many predictions, your party also won at least two Senate seats. This is a spectacular result. But, Clive, here is the big question. What will you do with your victory? 

Block a few balls? Or bollock News Corp balls?

You've talked about lower taxes, less regulation, making it easier to grow a business and therefore the economy. You've said the carbon tax must go, that we must generate mineral wealth, encourage small business and steer clear of class war politics. 
Despite these fine sentiments, the Clive Palmer brand is lost in a blizzard of weird allegations about the CIA and Chinese spies, a dinosaur park run by unhappy staff, dodging the carbon tax, defamation proceedings, rebuilding the Titanic, twerking, accusations that the Australian Electoral Commission is corrupt, claims of a Watergate-style break-in at your office, and so on.

Yes, yes, it's almost as bad as News of the World, blather about Billy Graham and Pope Francis and so on.

Never mind, Dame Slap's advice - in the crony commentariat style - is actually just more of the News Corp same, a thinly veiled sneering, smug, condescending slagging off of the kind routinely deplored as being in the style of dangerous inner city 'leets:

You see the problem, Clive? Amid this bluster, your policy message is lost. You have the money to get some professional help here. Rudd adviser Bruce Hawker and Gillard spin-doctor John McTernan might be free. On second thoughts, scrap those names. But you understand the point. Get help. Play to your strengths. Finesse your message.

But what's the real message?

Well Queenslanders are pretty weird, and Clive an even weirder, shifty, evasive, silly bugger idiot savant without the savant, and for a closer, in an almost immaculate conception, Dame Slap manages to weave together the dastardly ABC, the outrageously overpaid Tony Jones, cricket, Hedley Thomas, and Clive, and a really stupid, way too extended sporting metaphor:

Here's another tip from neither friend nor foe. We, in the media, are just doing our job when we inquire into your business dealings. You may not like the scrutiny but it's part of public life. Attacking the media - especially the most intellectually curious members of the media - didn't work well for the two former Labor prime ministers. 

Which entirely misses the point for a rogue billionaire - attacking two former Prime Ministers worked very well for rogue billionaire Rupert Murdoch, and attacking Rupert has worked perfectly well for Clive, who seems to be following the Citizen Kane/Chairman Rupert line:

THATCHER I happened to see your consolidated statement yesterday, Charles. Could I not suggest to you that it is unwise for you to continue this philanthropic enterprise - (sneeringly) this Enquirer - that is costing you one million dollars a year? 
KANE You're right. We did lose a million dollars last year. 
Thatcher thinks maybe the point has registered.
KANE We expect to lost a million next year, too. You know, Mr. Thatcher - (starts tapping quietly) at the rate of a million a year - we'll have to close this place in sixty years.

Unless of course Hedley finally does at last prove Clive is a man without capital, though he's struggled in that task to date. But do go on:

You may think Tony Jones is "the best journalist in Australia". We get that you prefer the soft touch the ABC has accorded you. But if keeping Australians genuinely informed about you and your party is the test, Hedley Thomas at this newspaper is doing a remarkable job. You may prefer to dodge questions about the financial viability of your most prominent businesses, whether you have created jobs or destroyed jobs, your management style, your claims about a $500 million royalty stream, about never losing a court case, etc, but it's the job of a good reporter to investigate facts and ignore your bluster. 
As an MP, Clive, you are a protector of our democracy. 
But so is an independent, inquiring press. 
Here's the problem, Clive. You're a slogger at the crease and a tail-end batsman at that. You're trying to hit every ball for six, no direction, no purpose and seemingly reckless about the results. It doesn't seem to matter to you whether you're bowled, caught or hit a six. 
Having rocked the political establishment, it's time to focus, Clive. Block a few balls. Let a few through to the keeper. More Geoffrey Boycott, less David Warner, please. Choose one important one for the hard-working people who voted for you and your party - and hit it for six. Canberra could be richer for having a businessman there. But will it be, Clive? Only you can determine the answer to that question.

Actually the reptiles and the crony commentariat could help determine the answer to that question.

The relentless focus on Palmer, and the relentless Hedley Thomas crusade is bizarre, and has helped Clive keep his deep north schtick going full bore. It doesn't seem to matter if the actual news uncovered is a bowled, a caught behind or despatched to the boundary for six ...

And it leaves the Clive acolytes with an easy retort, of the kind you can find here, in Hedley "Black Knight" Thomas' Descent into Madness, which tackles Hedley on an allegation of a misappropriation of funds:

Sir Hedley is not very enthusiastic in this pitiful attempt to defame Clive Palmer. The Black Knight won’t go anywhere near anything which could see another defamation writ land on his desk. Little details like Mr. Palmer turning around the failed business and actually saving it from being scrapped are ignored. 
Of course the biggest instance of this type of contractual skullduggery is well documented. When Rupert Murdoch realised his life-long dream to buy the Wall Street Journal the family based owners insisted he sign a detailed document which guaranteed editorial independence and ensured a continuation of the family’s management philosophy for eternity. From memory Mr. Murdoch’s respect for the wishes of the previous owners lasted about as long as it took for the funds to be transferred. He deliberately and blatantly ignored the conditions which had in fact been the major sticking point in coming to an agreement.

You see, Dame Slap? You and the rest of News Corp are just feeding the beast. Do you really think your condescending imitation of Jane Austen, or perhaps Pamela, is really going to produce a new and changed Clive?

Of course not. You need each other, you feed off each other, you score easy columns out of the feud, and Hedley scores endlessly repetitive copy, mistaking a flurry of leg byes, wides, no balls and singles for a bumper crop of investigative journalism sixers ...

You know it, Clive knows it, and so does Hedley, who will no doubt keep on maintaining the rage, as he did in Why we need to worry about the real Clive Palmer, and Lateline delivers a mutual admiration society (behind the paywall to save you from another Tony Jones rant), and so on and so endlessly and interminably forth, when Hedley's not scribbling paranoid rants about how the world is out to get the fine, upstanding, truth-telling journos at the lizard Oz...

Well Dear Dame Slap, if we may be so bold, the pond will get on board the very moment we read your column entitled Why we need to worry about the real Rupert Murdoch, and Hedley Thomas delivers a denunciation of the editor of the lizard Oz's attitude to the Abbott government, perhaps under the header The Oz reptiles deliver a mutual admiration society ...

For the rest, it's all a hoot in the land of hoot, and chairman Rupert and his lickspittle crony commentariat remain the biggest hoot of all, with Clive a rank amateur not entitled to enter by the professionals gate ...

And they say the pond doesn't do enough cricket! Well you can blame Dame Slap for that bumper crop of bent arm balderdash ...

(Below: and speaking of the reptiles and their forelock tugging, as their hero stumbles through his first real diplomatic challenge, shorn of simple three world slogans yet bizarrely imagining that blaming the Labor party for things that happened on their watch will somehow cut it as an excuse with the Indonesians, you'll find more funny knavish Popery here, a surer and safer bet than expecting you'll find a statesman buried in boofhead boxing rugger bugger Tony Abbott. Sorry slugger, the bat is in your hands. Why not try to hit a six?)