Thank the long absent lord for kool aid and trolls this miserable Sydney morning ...

This bleak Sydney morning provides yet another example of a newspaper intent on deeply drinking of the kool-aid and acting as a supine cheerleader for government policy.

It's the very same kool-aid that this man seems to have drunk:

Read George Brandis rolled on changes to Racial Discrimination Act, an EXCLUSIVE (the Fairfaxians don't use vulgar red for their 'exclusives') and you'll discover leaks and abuse of the book library man, and alarm at his stand for bigotry:

The outcome represented what one minister described as a compromise between the conservative and moderate factions. 
One minister said: ''George has really drunk the right-wing Kool-Aid.'' 
Another minister said Mr Brandis' original proposal was ''much worse'' than the agreed text and he had been forced to back down. A third minister present at the meeting said the original bill had been ''terrible''. 
Asked if the cabinet had forced the change from a bill to an exposure draft, that minister said ''things are evolving all the time'' and that the exposure draft still ''needs to be changed quite substantially''. 

The rats are arguing amongst themselves, but for understandable reasons.

Brandis, an arrogant chap whose arrogance frequently leads to terminal folly, caught an admiring glance from the pond when he wondered if anyone could drive a truck through his new wording:

The changes remove the words ''offend, insult and humiliate'', leave in ''intimidate'' and adds the word ''vilify'' for the first time. 
But a passage in the exposure draft that exempts words and images "in public discussion of any political, social, cultural, religious, artistic, academic or scientific matter", has attracted a storm of criticism for being too broad and weakening current protections.

And indeed truck is the wrong metaphor.

Truth to tell, you could fly a 777 through that wording or the Bermuda Triangle.

Why if it's allowed, this blog could, in public discussion of a political matter (and never mind the art, the science and the academic rigour), call Brandis a fuckwit of the first water ...

And not even have to plead truth as a defence.

Meanwhile, the Oz is busy showing how to go about the work of a propaganda sheet, perhaps a little like Der Stürmer in its glory days:

Yep, the reptiles have their very own EXCLUSIVE (remember the vulgar red), and never mind that because of ideological blindness, it entirely misses the interesting tensions within the federal cabinet:

And just who is Sue Gordon?

Well with the greatest respect, her major virtue is that she's not Warren Mundine. Instead she once spent time fellow travelling with John Howard, and she's never lost the art:

The former head of John Howard’s indigenous council has taken a very different view from Warren Mundine, the head of Tony Abbott’s indigenous council, who yesterday told The Australian the race changes were outrageous and retrograde. 
Dr Gordon said the repression of free speech was damaging to race relations and she agreed with Attorney-General George Brandis that people had the right to be bigots. “I think sometimes there is too much emotion in this topic and people need to just look at it calmly,” she said. “I agree with what Brandis said. People do have a right in this country, you can’t suppress everything.” 

Indeed, indeed. You can't suppress everything, and it's surely the aim of those outside the cult of the kool aid. They want to suppress anything, which is completely unlike mounting an invasion  of the Northern Territory.

But is there any deeper irony?

Dr Gordon was backed by Anthony Dillon, a researcher at the Australian Catholic University who identifies as a part-Aboriginal Australian. In an article in The Australian today, he writes that political correctness has gone overboard. 
“Political correctness, with regard to people who identify as Aboriginal Australians, has reached the ridiculous stage where one can be accused of being racist simply by questioning the motives of some people who identify as being Aboriginal,” Mr Dillon says.

Hmm, it seems Mr Dillon is right on side with the Bolter.

It would be shockingly remiss of the pond to question his motives simply on the basis that he says he identifies as a part-Aboriginal Australian ... but really he should reach for a deeper understanding of what the Bolter is saying. We're all one "race", that's if there's any "race" at all, so what point or relevance is Mr Dillon's identification with an ethnic grouping?

You can read about Sue Gordon here if you like to do a Greg Hunt, but the point about her not being silly old Warren Mundine is that Mundine's now going around telling anyone who will listen Mundine: don't let bigots off chain.

Oh look, there he is, back in his days inside Valhalla, right next to hoary old Tory Zeus himself.

But having switched sides and sold his independence to both sides for a mess of potash, who's listening to Mundine?

It's not that the arguments he presents aren't interesting:

The head of the prime minister's Indigenous advisory council, Warren Mundine, has suggested the government’s proposed changes to the Racial Discrimination Act will “let people off the chain in regard to bigotry”. 
Defending the changes, Tony Abbott has mounted a freedom of speech argument but Mundine said many freedoms are already curtailed for the protection of others. 
 “You're not allowed to walk down the street and swear because it's offensive,” said Mundine. “We have a number of laws already. We have libel laws. We have a whole wide range of laws. 
 “I just find it … funny, that we are quite accepting that no one should swear in public, but it's OK for people to be bigots and I find that a bizarre situation. I can assure people, more people died from bigotry than people died from being swore at.”

But he's not the flavour of the month.

He's more like the chewing gum left on the bedpost overnight to the reptiles at the lizard Oz, who now need a new indigenous spokesperson, one more willing to bend and bow to the kool aid cult.

So Mundine now turns up in The Graudian! So thanks for the help in getting Abbott's government elected, Mr Mundine, and now off you go ...

Meanwhile, the king of the trolls has taken time out to congratulate himself on the success of his trolling:

You see, trolls just do what trolls do, and the header for Sheehan swept the pond back to schoolday sin Tamworth.

Nah, nah, you dill, you daggy, deadhead, dropkick, dipstick, der brain drongo, you're a loser, you're so slow you couldn't catch a cold, and so on and so forth, you're fucked in the head, you bludging bogan boofhead blobhead... (do a Greg Hunt and you can find a handy list of abusive terms here).

So after calling everyone losers, let the rational discussion commence:

Yet there is incessant noise that the major media is being pushed to the sidelines. What may be happening is that people are increasingly existing in their own info-bubbles, having set filters for news and views with which they are in furious agreement. 
Here, too, the tenor of politics is going backwards. The street-marchers on the left complained last week that the mainstream media basically ignored their ''march in March'', but the major media have never been interested in student politics or the collective personality disorders of the permanently enraged political fringe.
Some politicians play to this fringe, now that it is so easy to do via Facebook and Twitter. On Monday, my column ran under the headline ''King of the trolls'', referring to the Greens Senator from Western Australia, Scott Ludlam. 
The great thing about trolls is they have no sense of irony. They can never, ever see the bigotry in their own shrillness. Occasionally I like to remind the trolls they are cowardly anonymous scum or tell the angry ants they have anger-management issues. 
Monday's column attracted several thousand responses in our comments section, on Facebook and on Twitter. About 200 comments sent to the Herald were too personally abusive to publish, a policy that applies to comments about any of our journalists. I have asked for a copy of the rejected comments so that I could enjoy the spluttering lack of irony of being trolled because I called them trolls. 
Regular readers would know that I hate to waste a good insult. This, however, is also self-indulgent if done too often. I can say that this week I was called a whore and a leech in the same sentence, which I enjoyed. I will select the best/worst to share, so we can consider the quality of political debate on the fringes. And why losers keep losing.

So the troll takes pleasure in his trolling, and the way he can provoke anger and outrage, and most marvellously of all berates others, for lacking sense of irony, and marvelling at how others can never ever see the bigotry in their shrillness.

This from a magic water man who routinely imitates a headless chicken, or Chicken Little, announcing that the sky is falling (the Chinese have invaded Sydney, the Lebanese run the outer west, the left is ruining the country, you can achieve nirvana by sipping on magic water).

What's astonishing is that this fluff gathering and navel gazing is considered an interesting, amusing part of the world of Fairfaxians ...

Second thoughts, what's really astonishing is that Sheehan intends to mine the results of his trolling for another column about trolling. So we can consider the quality of the political debate ...

The man is now so bereft of ideas he thinks running the fruits of trolling will contribute to the quality of political debate.

The dear boy seems to have absolutely no understanding that he's down in the gutter with the boofheads, flinging the mud and the excrement, or on a jolly up-market day, engaging in a food fight ...

Food fight, food fight ...

The pond pleads a social anthropology and therapeutic interest in all this. There aren't many other reasons for looking at the supine, arse-licking, brown nosing ways of the right wing commentariat except to marvel at the way Sheehan, and presumably the rest of the Fairfaxians, think Sheehan is contributing to an elevated public debate.

He's a troll who'd be right at home in the UK's Daily Mail or Telegraph, dishing out click bait, stirring up anger ...

And remember if you leave a comment, you're only encouraging the loser to keep on being a loser.

No matter how much he irritates, have you thought about not reading him? Not giving him a click? Not buying a Fairfax rag with Sheehan in it? Just walking on by ...

The pond has turned over a new leaf by not bothering to provide a link.

And there's an upside. Boycott Sheehan and you wouldn't even miss out on David Rowe, who at least appears in another branch here:

And so to the final irony of the day.

What do you call a publicly listed company?

Why it's a family firm ...

And what do you say about nepotism? Emperors passing on their empire, in much the same way as Vlad 'the impaler' Putin hands out treasures ...

Why it's an excellent form of business practice.

And what do you do with a man who's helped drive the Ten network into the ground?

Why you give him a hand up.

Let's hope he does for the family firm what he did for Ten.

Oh they were all over it, the kool aid drinkers:

Rises to the top?

Now that brings an old Tamworth saying to mind, but we can't quite remember whether it involved cream or shit ...

Ah to be alive in the wonderful new world of Brandis-approved bigotry ...

Welcome to the nineteenth century, courtesy Sir Tony Falstaff and his minions ...

Of course ... of course ... it's on everyone's lips, and the pond was swept back into the great days of Queen Victoria and The Punch and prophetic visions ... (and you can go there by heading off to Project Gutenberg here).

The point of course is that the recent behaviour of the royal mandarin Abbott must be a delight and pleasure, and a search for comedy.

Greg Barnes on 7.30 (you can relive the horror here) had exactly the wrong reaction. While the saturnine and bizarrely sun struck David Flint looked like a cat engorged on cream - but refused to do the decent Cheshire thing and fade away - Barnes sounded genuinely angry.

But there's genuine absurdity to relish. Like the ineffable Brandis attempting with all due solemnity to explain that 'knights and dames' were a domestic version and nothing to do with empire and monarchy, as if Abbott wasn't a monarchist, and as if Abbott wouldn't be making a recommendation to the Queen for future appointments.

Thanks to a correspondent, the pond became aware of the ineffable stupidity of that pompous prat and twat Malcolm Turnbull attempting to reconcile the irreconcilable here, which is so delicious we reprint it in full:

As a former Chairman of the Australian Republican Movement many people have asked me whether I regard the Prime Minister's surprise decision today to reinstate Knights and Dames in the Order of Australia as a slap in the face for republicans. 
It is important to remember that Mr Abbott's decision is not without precedent. The Order of Australia was established by Gough Whitlam's Government in 1975 without Knights and Dames, but in 1976 Malcolm Fraser's Coalition Government established the orders of Knight (AK) and Dame (AD) in the Order and they remained there until Bob Hawke's Labor Government effectively abolished the ranks following their election win in 1983. 
It is also important to remember that views about Knights and Dames in the Australian Honours system have not been driven by attitudes to the republic. Bob Hawke was not calling for a republic in 1983 and of course John Howard, a staunch monarchist, did not reinstate Knights and Dames during his time as Prime Minister. Attitudes to Knights and Dames have in my view been largely a function of how Australians regard honours and titles generally. 
As far as republics are concerned, most countries have an honours system and many of them have an order of knighthood. The Republics of France and Italy not to speak of the Republics of Peru, Argentina and Guatemala all have orders of knighthoods in their honours system. And so if a Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur can be a loyal defender of the French Republic and if a Cavaliere di Gran Croce Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana can be a patriotic citizen of the Italian Republic, Australian republicans should not lose too much sleep over the Prime Minister's decision today.

Now there's a supine, forelock tugging, lickspittle abject wanker of the first water working his magic ...

The question remains then, why do we now have sirs and dames rather than a Chevalier de La Region d'Honneur Australie?

As for hapless quisling Quentin Bryce, remember the shock and the anger amongst monarchists when she dared to say "And where perhaps, my friends, one day, one young girl or boy may even grow up to be our nation's first head of state."? (relive the moment here)

Some republican, and because of the family connection, short circuiting Bill Shorten can't have any fun with Abbott attempting an inside run at becoming the next warden of the Cinque Ports.

It helps explain the canniness of the Abbott ploy. He has a sir instead of a general as GG, and an allegedly republican immediate past GG donning the most tragic bauble.

As always, the pond reverts to George Orwell and Animal Farm for an explanation:

The stupidest questions of all were asked by Quentin, the white mare. The very first question she asked Snowball was: "Will there still be sugar after the Rebellion to establish the Republic?" "No," said Snowball firmly. "We have no means of making sugar on this farm. Besides, you do not need sugar. You will have all the oats and hay you want." "And shall I still be allowed to wear ribbons in my mane and call myself Dame?" asked Quentin. "Comrade," said Snowball, "those ribbons that you are so devoted to are the badge of slavery and British imperialism. Can you not understand that liberty is worth more than ribbons and a risible title?" Quentin agreed, but she did not sound very convinced.

Apologies to Orwell, but at least the pond avoids such issues by favouring basic Puritan black ...

Sadly, things didn't work out well for Quentin in Animal Farm:

As winter drew on, Quentin became more and more troublesome. She was late for work every morning and excused herself by saying that she had overslept, and she complained of mysterious pains, although her appetite was excellent. On every kind of pretext she would run away from work and go to the drinking pool, where she would stand, foolishly gazing at her own reflection in the water and murmuring to herself Dame Quentin, Dame Quentin, while donning the ribbons of her Dameship. Quentin refused to learn any but the six letters which spelt her own name and the letters needed to form the sentence "there is nothing like a Dame". She would form these very neatly out of pieces of twig, and would then decorate them with a flower or two and walk round them admiring them, while singing out loud with surprising ferocity, vigour and joy:

There is nothin' like a Dame, 
Nothin' in the world, 
There is nothin' you can name 
That is anythin' like a Dame! 

More apologies to Orwell, but forget it Jake, did you imagine a genuine certified monarchist would change his spots?

And if you voted for Tony Abbott, welcome to the nineteenth century.

Which brings the pond to a different grievance. While settling down to serve out time and get to the Tuesday night double bill of Air Crash Investigations, the pond couldn't help but note the lead story on ABC news, whereby the reporter advised the world of the nineteenth century Doppler Effect.

This made as much sense as talking of the seventeenth century law of motion, or the seventeenth century of planetary motion. Then came a reference to the information in the black boxes reaching their limit by thirty days. But it's not the information that's limited, it's the locator signal that expires in around a month's time. The flight recorders for Air France 447 were recovered some two years after the crash, and the data were able to be downloaded.

And these two howlers led the major news bulletin on the hour on the major ABC channel.

Oh come on, you say, the pond is being silly.

Nope, not as silly as dumb journalists in search of a really dumb angle:

No, you can't play it, it's a screen cap, but if you want to learn about 19th century scientific theories at work, head off to ABC news here.

Meanwhile, with a bit of luck you might hear a plane, a train or a car on the move, or the pond's favourite - roadside warning bells changing pitch and fading as you pass them on a train - and discover that strangely the 19th century scientific theory is also a twenty first century theory.

So this is what happens at the ABC when you have a clap happy in charge, and standards woefully deteriorate, as Murdochians and rabid Bolters nip at the heel ...

Speaking of the Murdochians - as fine a bunch of bigots as can be found in the land - it seems it's not just letter writers from Monarto that get a little editorial tweak and polish, even when it's the chief hagiographer and knob polisher diligently going about his duties:

Uh huh. Well done bouffant knob polisher.

But then if you read the actual piece with the actual title Fighting for freedom of speech eerily similar to a defence of bigotry, (behind the paywall because you have to pay for free speech), you find these remarks top and tail:

Bombarded with accusations in question time yesterday that the Coalition was promoting bigotry and “dog whistling” racism, Tony Abbott looked on the defensive over the amendment to the Racial Discrimination Act...

...But the government’s first full day of fighting for freedom of speech looked more like a defence of bigotry.

Yet in Chris Mitchell's world, instead of giving the splash a line like "Prime Minister Abbott on the defensive", the sub plucked the bit about 457 and a pamphlet in the South Australian election to highlight Labor's double standards.

But here's the point. Labor paid a price for the way it behaved in relation to 457, and if the pamphlet is in breach, then let the court action flow (this might prove tricky - Top Liberals at odds over 'racist' Labor pamphlet targeting South Australian candidate Carolyn Habib).

Of course if Abbott and Brandis have their way, talk of court action in cases of overt racism will quietly fade away ...

What else? Well that twit Tim Wilson seems to think he still belongs to the IPA and can scribble furiously for the reptiles:

But why should the pond have to wend its way past the pricey gold bar the Murdochians require, in order to read the thoughts of a public servant, and thereby aid a public servant aiding a failing Murdochian business model?

How does he get around it? Here's the tag at the end of the piece:

Tim Wilson is Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner. These comments are made as an individual statutory officer. tim.wilson@humanrights.gov.au

WTF?

Well let's ignore the reality that the whole of Wilson's piece is the standard burst of IPA guff aimed at degutting the law while blathering about social activities as the way forward, and never mind any of the power imbalances involved between an agitated private citizen from Monarto and the reptiles in Murdoch la la land.

Let's concentrate on that Wilson explanation of his "individual comments", and use a document issued to the Queensland public service as a guide (it's a MS Word document, so no link, you'll have to google it):

A conflict of interest issue is defined by the Public Sector Ethics Act 1994 as a conflict between a person’s private interests and the person’s official duties. 
The statute establishing an office or the terms of employment will describe the official duties. On occasions a statute will recognise that an individual is appointed to represent the interests of a particular group. This can modify what would otherwise be the ambit of the official duties. 
In the area of conflict of interest perception is all important. The established test is an objective one, namely whether a reasonable member of the public, properly informed, would feel that the conflict was unacceptable. Essentially it means that such reasonable member of the public would conclude that inappropriate factors could influence an official action or decision. 
Because the test is an objective one, it matters not whether you as an individual are convinced that with your undoubted integrity you can manage what would otherwise be an unacceptable conflict of interest. The test does not permit you as an individual to be a sounding board. You must step back and objectively assess what a reasonable member of the public might think. 
It is well known that there are dangers in being a judge in one’s own cause. For this reason you should not hesitate to seek the advice of your peers or supervisors and to keep firmly in mind that the Integrity Commissioner is available to give confidential advice on conflict of interests matters to statutory office holders. 
There is nothing wrong with being placed in a potential conflict situation. Every statutory office holder has private interests. The important thing is to be able to recognise the potential for a conflict of interest and to manage it appropriately. Failure to do so can lead to drastic consequences in the field of public perception. 
Private interests are those interests that can bring benefit or disadvantage to an individual, or to others whom they may wish to benefit or disadvantage. These include personal, professional or business interests of the statutory office holder, as well as the personal, professional and business interests of those associates, including family, friends, rivals and enemies. 
Private interests can be pecuniary, or non-pecuniary. Pecuniary conflicts arise through actual or potential financial loss or gain. Non-pecuniary interests are those that occur through personal or family relationships, or involvement in sporting, social or cultural groups and associations. 
 Examples of private interests include (inter alia):
 (4) A person’s relationships influence or appear to influence a decision, recommendation or advice that person may make or be a party to making. 
 (5) A person’s strongly held personal convictions which may make it difficult or appear to make it difficult for the person to make an impartial decision, recommendation or advice. 

Indeed. Well as a reasonable member of the public, the pond thinks that Wilson actively lobbying for the government to enact the wishes of the IPA and the Bolter, lobbying, crusading and carrying on a public campaign, courtesy of the reptiles at the lizard Oz, makes it extremely difficult for Wilson to avoid (5):

 (5) A person’s strongly held personal convictions which may make it difficult or appear to make it difficult for the person to make an impartial decision, recommendation or advice. 

Sadly the public service is now as fucked as the ABC when it comes to objectivity and impersonal impartial advice ... with Wilson behaving like a lobbying arm for government activities ...

Never mind, just as we've reverted to nineteenth century scientific theories, we're now well on our way to nineteenth century English politics:

Living in the land of Oz and bigots ...

I know, I know, as Sybil would always say to the telephone when considering a bit of gossip.

Bigotry rulez.

And we now have government of the bigots, by the bigots, for the bigots...

What a fine flowering it is.

1. a person who is intolerant of any ideas other than his or her own, esp on religion, politics, or race

Actually as an aside, the origin of the word has more than a passing resemblance to Monty Python farting in a general direction:

Bigots may have more in common with God than one might think. Legend has it that Rollo, the first duke of Normandy, refused to kiss the foot of the French king Charles III, uttering the phrase bi got, his borrowing of the assumed Old English equivalent of our expression by God. Although this story is almost surely apocryphal, it is true that bigot was used by the French as a term of abuse for the Normans, but not in a religious sense. Later, however, the word, or very possibly a homonym, was used abusively in French for the Beguines, members of a Roman Catholic lay sisterhood. From the 15th century on Old French bigot meant "an excessively devoted or hypocritical person." Bigot is first recorded in English in 1598 with the sense "a superstitious hypocrite."  (here)

Of course the head bigot, which is to say chief bigot, tried to reconcile the irreconcilable:

"Well Mr President, people do have a right to be bigots, you know ... In a free country, people do have rights to say things that other people  find offensive, insulting or bigoted."

What to do? What to say?

Of course this Government is determined to try to ensure that Australia remains a free and fair and tolerant society, where bigotry and racism has no place ...

Except of course in the government of bigots valiantly working to smooth the path and pave the way for bigots expressing bigotry ...

So, Attorney General for bigots, will Chris Kenny graciously withdraw his action against the ABC for featuring a satirical piece which suggested that Mr. Kenny did things with dogs? Or will you persuade him and the rest of the Murdochians to fall into line?

After all,  it must seem like a harmless bit of fun to you.

Of course not and that's where all the idle chatter about freedom of speech is so much horse shit. There have always been limits on the freedom to speak one's mind and to say things that are denigratory or offensive.

What the government of bigots, by and for the bigots, is wanting to do is to make good the promises made to the Murdochians, as fine a tribe of bigots as has been assembled in recent times.

But does any of this make the Murdochians uncomfortable?

Like the abject Abbott, caught in the cross hairs of an Attorney General who is demonstrably a bumbling fool who routinely speaks before he thinks...

After all, it's long been known that this is a rectification program designed to sooth the Bolter.

How does the Bolter feel, by way of Brandis innuendo, that he is a bigot, saying bigoted things, who requires an adjustment to an act of parliament to carry on his bigoted ways?

No, no, no. The Bolter isn't part of your average rabble. He's not one of the attack dogs, the baying hounds.

Why he's a sophisticated and refined gent, he is. He's dead set against vulgarians, truly he is, not to mention fair-skinned people cruising their way to paradise by pretending to be black:

Vulgarians?

Well indeed, that's way worse than being a bigot. What's the chance they don't listen to opera and drink a decent Grange?

You can read the rest of it here, but be warned, right beneath this toffy sort of piety, the Bolter has printed an image deemed by Chris Kenny to be hurtful and defamatory, and presently the subject of a legal action.

Why did he do this? Is he so intent on hurting the ABC that he'd wilfully hurt the feelings of Chris Kenny all over again?

Will Kenny take action against the Bolter for further circulating and giving currency to the alleged defamatory image?

Will the HUN issue an apology for the Bolter's unseemly behaviour, which looks very much like a vulgarian on a hunt for other alleged vulgarians?

It's all too hard for the pond so early in the morning.

Meanwhile, how pleasing to see that the Catholic church is well along the six phases of a project, and have now moved from the search for the guilty to the punishment of the innocent, and to the scapegoating of others not around to comment or defend themselves, and praise and honor for the alleged nonparticipants.

Now we all know how to get ahead in a Christian church and make it to a top dog position - deny all knowledge of what went on, adopt a hands off management style, blame others when it buggers up, and take no responsibility for anything that happened. And then having ruined lives, explain how the church will do its very best not to ruin lives in the future ...

Perhaps the pond has a jaundiced, bigoted view, but it's impossible not to feel like Alice going down the rabbit hole when reading the semantic contortions and the lack of humanity in some of Cardinal Pell's evidence:

Cardinal George Pell removed an expression of regret from a letter to the victim of a pedophile priest because it was “illogical” when the Catholic Church was disputing whether any abuse occurred, an inquiry has heard. 
The royal commission into child sexual abuse saw the tracked changes of edits made by Dr Pell to a draft letter to John Ellis, a former altar boy who suffered years of abuse at the hands of a Sydney priest, Father Aidan Duggan. 
Mr Ellis said the letter, which he received on Christmas Eve, 2002, felt like the church was slamming the door in his face by rejecting his complaint. 
The original draft, prepared by the church’s former director of professional standards John Davoren, suggested an expression that the church “very much regret any hurt that you have experienced”. Dr Pell told the commission he removed the reference to regret because it was “illogical”. 
“Because if hurt had been caused that would indicate that the case was established,” he said. 
 “If the case could not be established then the hurt could not be established - that was my reasoning, I was attempting to be honest.” Dr Pell also removed a sentence which read “as you are aware, this is not to suggest you are not believed”. 
He told the commission the sentence was “inconsistent” with the church’s position that Mr Ellis’s case could not be established. “The whole point of this letter was to say the matter couldn’t be resolved and I don’t like talking out of both sides of my mouth, especially to a victim,” Dr Pell said. 
The commission also saw edits where Dr Pell deleted a reference to Mr Ellis’s desire to “achieve some peace of mind” by meeting with Father Duggan, saying instead that he understood Mr Ellis wished for a meeting. 
 “I didn’t want him to be feeling that something was going to be done which wasn’t going to be done,” Dr Pell said. 
 “Obviously I was keen for him to have peace of mind but I didn’t want to mislead him.” Under questioning from Commissioner Peter McClellan, Dr Pell agreed that his position that Mr Ellis’s story could not be established because Fr Duggan could not respond was wrong and not in accordance with the church’s own procedures for abuse complaints. (here, may be Oz paywall affected)

There was plenty more, but soon enough Tony Abbott's spiritual mentor and inter alia, one of the world's top climate scientists can head off to Rome having washed his paws and blamed others, "muddlers" and never mind the muddler who employed muddlers,  and expressed formal remorse in a way that was remarkably lacking any sense of genuine personal remorse or contrition ...

Meanwhile, Arthur Sinodinos was experiencing his own inquiry moment,

Former Sydney Water chief executive Kerry Schott told the Independent Commission Against Corruption on Monday that she cautioned him that AWH was charging expenses to the utility that were ''not appropriate''. 
Despite the warnings, Senator Sinodinos remained as chairman of the company for another year. (and there's way too much more here)

And now suddenly Mathias Cormann has put dear Artie's dear reforms on hold:

The Abbott government has backed down on a key element of its controversial reforms to financial advice in a bid to head off a backlash from seniors, consumers and parts of the $1.5 trillion superannuation industry. 
Freezing rules that were to be imposed within days, the government said it would launch new consultations on changes to the way consumers were charged for financial advice on retirement savings and personal investments. 
Critics feared it would allow the return of hidden commissions that would cost workers thousands of dollars a year. (Financial advice on hold, Oz paywall affected because you need to pay to get decent financial advice)

Oh dear. The rorters will have to wait a little longer to stick their snouts firmly in the trough, but fear not, remember this is a government for the rorters by the rorters, and in due course truth and justice for a rorting way of life will win through.

Is there any sign of cheer and joy then?

Any chink of light in the darkness?

Well the man who did a more than fair passing imitation of Oscar Wilde's sky rocket has spluttered off in another direction, and now that it's closed, the pond feels no compunction re-printing the result of the Fairfaxians' most unscientific poll:

(with the accompanying story here).

But no, that's not the upside.

The upside is that you can read the Oscar Wilde story about the sky rocket ending up as a stick in the mud by heading off to Project Gutenberg for The Happy Prince and Other Tales. It's called The Remarkable Rocket.

Oh and you can find plenty of David Rowe cartoons here.

Now there's an upside.

And with all the fuss about bigots, the pond quite forgot to mention the nauseous spectacle arising from the grand tour of the gulags by the chief bigot ...

It was such a bizarre sight, so craven, and so uninterested in human rights or humanity - what you might expect of a man with a certain kind of spiritual mentor - that it even stirred the usually phlegmatic and cautious Michelle Grattan to make a few remarks.

Grattan is inclined to the anodyne, so fearful is she of being seen as unbalanced or favouring one side at the expense of her journalistic "objectivity", but something snapped when she scribbled Tony Abbott, PNG and asylum: an Orwellian parallel reality:

At their joint news conference Abbott said he was gratified to have from O'Neill his assurance that the people and government of PNG were committed to “staying the course”. 
“I really value the mateship that Peter O'Neill has shown to Australia on this.” The following day he said: “The co-operation that we are getting from PNG is a real act of mateship on their part and I’m really thrilled by it.” 
It’s a sort of Orwellian parallel reality: people held in dreadful conditions, two government conspiring to traduce their rights and suppress as much information as they can, and no one having the slightest clue about the future of people who really did flee persecution – while Abbott declares it’s been “a very successful visit”.

Ah yes, but in the land of bigots, where bigotry is right and proper, where's the harm?

Cue David Pope, and more Pope here:

And how are the assiduous, dedicated, devoted knob polishers and hagiographers tracking all this?

Yes, never mind the competence, never mind the dirty linen, never mind the celebration of bigotry, never mind the snouts in trough.

Got away with another one ...

That's it.

Got away with another one ...

Oh well, I'm living in the land of Oz 
I'm living here because 
My folks lived here, yeah they brung me up 
And their folks lived here too.   
Yes, and their folks and my folks know 
They came from far away 
They made a stand and they grabbed some land 
And they settled down to stay   
Now we're all living in the land of bigots 
Living in the land of bigots
Out there we're living in the land of bigots ...

Apologies to Ross Wilson. Sorry, Mr Wilson, the pond can't find it in its heart to finish on your original line "Uh huh we got to change yeah".

Bigotry's so neat and cute ...

More from that trolling political commentariat pornographer at Fairfax ...

There's something poignant, revealing and incisive about this header:

Yep, it's one of those reflexive, ironic, 'physician heal yourself' outbursts from generally grumpy Paul "Magic Water Man" Sheehan ...

It almost goes without saying that Sheehan is the king of the Fairfaxian trolls, but the pond is fond of saying the bleeding obvious ...

How do you know it right from the get go with King of the trolls stripped bare?

Well in order to lay into Scott Ludlam and the greenies, in the way he's done a zillion times before, Sheehan uses a classic click bait troll, by dragging in a gratuitous, fatuous reference to pornography.

Here's how he does it:

There is nothing more popular on the internet than pornography, and that extends to political pornography, the territory of trolls and zealots. 
Senator Scott Ludlam knows this, and Ludlam is fighting for his survival. He has only just narrowly averted disaster and now he is appealing to the fringe because he cannot appeal to the majority.

Any half-arsed wretch can play this simplistic sort of game:

There is nothing more popular on the internet than pornography, and that extends to political commentary, the territory of trolls and zealots like the Bolter, Paul "Magic Water Man' Sheehan, Miranda the Devine, Chris Kenny and a jam jar of Murdoch reptiles. 
Paul "Magic Water Man" Sheehan knows this, and Sheehan is fighting for his survival and for eyeballs and clicks on his trolling eye candy bait. He has this far avoided heading off to News Corp, only just narrowly avoiding the disaster that awaited his onetime colleague Gerard "prattling Polonius" Henderson and now he is appealing to the fringe because he cannot appeal to the majority by leading with pornography as an eye catcher. 
What next? Miranda Kerr's boobs? as featured in the other click bait parts of the digital rag?

It's lazy, empty headed, addled, emotionally laden stuff.

Now the pond doesn't advocate the Crikey solution. Bizarrely at one time they even had a tag for S-XISM.

Which led to this sort of nonsense in No s-x please, we're gendered:

Joe Boswell writes: Re. “Keane: defining terms in the great misogyny conspiracy” (yesterday). Bernard Keane’s piece missed one of the most glaring examples of the phenomenon he describes by concentrating on “misogyny” rather than “s-xism”. For example: “… a hatred not merely of Gillard herself, but of her gender. This isn’t casual s-xism …”. 
S-xism is a prejudice based on s-x. But it is now unacceptable for anyone to be labelled by s-x in the plain and useful biological sense, a point illustrated by Keane’s determined avoidance of any mention of Gillard’s s-x. It is years since I heard the word used in that sense in relation to people. Even the government, in the various forms it issues, is no longer interested in knowing my s-x, and demands instead to know my gender. I do not know why. So, surely “s-xism” too is wholly obsolete and we can argue instead about genderism and the genderists responsible for it.

Well actually let's start with the bizarre and wilful refusal to print "s-x" as "sex", or 'r-pe' as rape, and so on and so forth.

No doubt way back when, Crikey determined that doing it this way would avoid filters picking up on the word and blocking the article.

And so you could cop the censorious, repressive Clive Hamilton rabbing on about how Net p-rn goes way beyond naughty, and Art or p-rn is not the question.

Now don't get the pond started on Hamilton doing over Henson, let's just note the explanation attached:

Crikey hyphenates words like s-x and v-gina not out of prudery, but in an attempt to lull over-zealous email spam filters into a false sense of security.

Yep, it's the price you pay for having part of your business turn up in a newsletter delivered via email.

Which brings us back to Sheehan. As a king of the trolls, he doesn't have to worry about email filters, and any web filter surely must have given up on the "porn" part of the job years ago.

And so just to make sure he keeps his title, he opens and closes with a gratuitous reference to pornography:

With Ludlam's political survival at stake, he chose to take the path of political pornography.

Why you might just as well have said that, with the Western Australian senate re-run looming up in early April, Sheehan has chosen the path of pornographic punditry.

As he routinely does, always resorting to Chicken Little hysteria and never ever taking a cold bath ...

Oh go on, the pond knows you're dying to read about Dr. Kellogg's electric light bath protocol.

Yes, you've guessed it, the pond is tired of dealing with the pornographic troller Sheehan, but let's have at it:

'Mr Prime Minister … we invite you to leave your excruciatingly boring three-word slogans at home.''

Indeed, indeed, though it has to be said that Ludlam is a little out of date here, and the new rage is to note Abbott's incredible slowness of speech and his redundant repetition of words - say that three times and you'll nod off without worrying about the repetition - which has seen some demanding a "may damage eardrums" warning before Abbott answers a question.

It led to Shaun Micallef doing a sketch which luckily for the moment you can find here:




Sadly Micallef lacks the writers of a Colbert or a Stewart, but you can Facebook his show here, and he deserves some encouragement because nobody else, outside the always reliable cartoonists, is even attempting political comedy.

Unless of course you count Paul Sheehan as comedy, rather than click baiting trolling of the pornographic kind.

Let's pass over Ludlam's reference to the gulags - Sheehan naturally finds nothing wrong with gulags and the odd killing - to get to the matter of Abbott's homophobia:

 ''… you show up waving your homophobia in people's faces''. (Not a word of evidence was put forward for this insult, which also insulted Abbott's sister, Christine Forster, who is gay and close to her brother.) 

Yes, it's Sheehan who inserted that note about not a word of evidence being provided for the insult.

Yet Abbott himself in a revealing moment said he felt a bit threatened by gay people, and then compounded the folly, when he tried to explain it away, as reported in Abbott still 'threatened' by homosexuality:

When asked to clarify what he meant by "threatened", Mr Abbott would not say if he felt threatened that men might be attracted to him, or if he felt that traditional families were threatened. 
 "There is no doubt that it challenges, if you like, orthodox notions of the right order of things," he said.

The orthodox notion of the right order of things ...

Which is how Abbott can cheerfully insult his sister, a supporter of gay marriage, and deny her rights and those of others, on the basis that these people are a challenge, an insult if you will, to orthodox notions of the right order of things.

If you happen to believe in the right order of things as ordained by camel herders a couple of thousand years ago ...

And so on as Sheehan thinks indignantly quoting Ludlam is enough of a rebuke.

But this hardly warrants the tedious business of compiling contrary evidence:

''Boasting about your ever-more insidious attacks on the trade union movement and all working people …'' 

Nor does this:

''It looks awkward when you take policy advice … from mining billionaires and media oligarchs on the other side of the world - awkward, and kind of revolting.'' 

A photo will do that job:

As for the rest, it's also unexceptional stuff:

''You and your financial backers in the gas fracking and uranium industries …'' 

But then Sheehan must love the smell of coal dust in the Hunter valley.

And this isn't remarkable either:

''… your heartless racist exploitation of people's fears''. 

Oh wait, that must have struck a bit close to home for Sheehan, seeing as how he's spent the last few weeks trolling to whip up fear about the Chinese buying up Australia, and has spent the last few decades getting people worked up about invading Islamics and other furriners ...

And so to that resounding conclusion:

With Ludlam's political survival at stake, he chose to take the path of political pornography. 

If nothing else, it reminded the pond of why it choses not to take out a subscription to Fairfax, seeing as how they're now in the business of supporting a click baiting troll who'll free associate pornography with politics at the click of a mouse ...

Now that's genuine journalistic pornography.

Meanwhile, it's likely that Western Australians won't pay the slightest attention to Sheehan's professional pornographic rituals, nor will they have much of a care about the way Arthur Sinodinos is now the butt of cartooning humour.

More Rowe here.

Arriving late at a Malcolm Turnbull folly ...

Thanks to a pond correspondent, the pond eventually arrived late to the latest thought crime of that pompous prat Malcolm Turnbull.

But what ongoing fun it's provided since getting there.

(And more twittering tweets here, and more generally Keady's twitter account, here, with the subsequent fall out and follow up).

Oh that's a cruel thrust, that last remark about Vaucluse or Double Bay. What about Woollahra?

How do you know a politician is tone deaf?

Well it's obvious enough when the tone dead politician doubles down:

Now that's a toff in denial mode.

And if you read Turnbull tweets up a storm, blog goes crazy, you get a wonderful imaginary dialogue:

Indeed. As for Turnbull rabbiting on about social media, his own attempt at using social media to justify himself is bizarre, and a hoot.

Is it possible to have a rational discussion on twitter? The NBN and the outrage.

What's truly remarkable is that Turnbull could in any way imagine that his initial tweet was an attempt to start a rational discussion:

The amazing ponce attempts a remarkable Houdini feat and tries to pretend that his original tweet was a just a clever way of engaging with Keady, a clever way of extracting information, so he could be useful:

That gave me some useful information and so endeavouring to learn more in order to suggest a solution I asked her "okay how far are you from the pillar in the street." 
This is an important issue, because depending on the distance I could then make an estimate of the likely speed that would be available to her from a fibre to the node solution which is capable of being rolled out much sooner than fibre to the premises given the significantly reduced level of civil works.

No.

No, you simply can't get, in any rational way, from just curious, you useless goose, why you moved into a useless house without the coalition's useless version of the NBN,  and now you're moaning and whining about it not being available, you useless whining, whinging, moaning goose.

Or words to that effect.

It finally drifted into the head of the rich dullard, the pompous preening potentate, that the world wasn't running as it should:

Even the reptiles at News could work out the plain meaning of the Turnbull twittering: Malcolm Turnbull suggests resident move house for decent broadband.

But it did produce a fine tweet which shows that, along with the witless Turnbull's tweets, you can find funny tweets:

And that's where the pond pretty much left it, though it also became painfully obvious that as well as fucking up the NBN, Turnbull will never become leader of the Liberal party or the nation. He's just too tone deaf.

By the time the pond had stopped following the story, it had been picked up today by the likes of the Geelong Advertiser in Ocean Grove woman in twitter stoush with Malcolm Turnbull.

And if you google Turnbull's name, you quickly discover the foolish fop hasn't been getting on with the job, head down, tail up, beavering away delivering the HFC cable to the door outside the pond's home so we'll have some splendid broadband - oh wait, it's already there, and it's fucking useless.

No, instead he's been indulging in his own version of the culture wars, in petulant outbursts which can be read in pieces such as Malcolm Turnbull denounces 'vicious ingratitude' of Biennale artists after Transfield withdraws as sponsor.

All that reveals is that Turnbull thinks art should be kept in its place, and artists should perform like grateful trained seals:

The pond doesn't have much time for Tony Abbott, but he really has learned a political lesson or two in his time.

In the good old days, with consummate skill, Ming the Merciless despatched any number of talented ambitious men who aspired to wearing his crown to remote outposts and tough work that destroyed their reputation and brought them back into the field.

Poor old Lord Casey and Percy Spender disappeared overseas (Rivals not removed), while others were encouraged to await their time, because Menzies knew their lack of weight and worth as rivals (and so the useless Billy McMahon and Harold Holt eventually got their ill-fated momenta in the sun).

John Howard did the same, and as Howard's attack dog, Abbott has learned the lesson well. Abbott has neutered his rivals, by giving them jobs that ostensibly suited their enormous talents.

And so Turnbull, the man who invented the internet in Australia, is now in a world of pain.

He's accepted the job of delivering a half-baked, half-arsed, downgraded facility, and his chief job in that process is to act as a snake oil salesman, selling the oily pup to disbelieving consumers.

Yet his twittering and his blogging shows he doesn't even know how to do that.

And it isn't going to get any better, because he's tone deaf.

Well the pond long ago realised it was never going to get decent broadband, not unless Satan has recently decided to wire up hell ... so now the only pleasure is to dance with delight at the enormous folly of Turnbull as he goes about failing and flailing at everything in sight.

Taking a few steps backwards ...

(Above: a couple of oldies but goodies, the latter to celebrate the news that First Dog is leaving Crikey and heading off to The Guardian, story at mUmBRELLA here)

Amazing scenes.

Miranda the Devine scribbling furiously in the Terror, the least trusted newspaper in the world, Sinodinos delay is an own goal:

Sinodinos’ tardy acceptance of the reality of his situation has delivered ammunition to those cynics who regard the major parties as equally reprehensible. It’s played into the hands of those who claim the last three years didn’t represent a new ethical low in public life and that it was just Tony Abbott’s aggressive “misogyny” which made politics look tawdry. It gave succour to those who say the royal commissions into corrupt unions and pink batts are politically motivated and hypocritical. It’s given Penny Wong her first taste of blood.

And so on and so forth. How bizarre can it get?

Eric Abetz on ABC’s 730 looked like any of the myriad Labor spin artists we have seen blithely defending the indefensible. “You came into government promising new standards of probity and accountability,” he was asked. “Doesn’t this sound very much like NSW Labor Inc?” Groan. 

Oh no, not sweet Eric. Groan.

For a government which won its spurs on the back of what Christopher Pyne rightly calls the “sewer” of Labor politics, standing by Sinodinos a fraction too long was a devastating own goal.

Oh no, not the poodle. Groan.

Just as shocking is the way Samantha Maiden drags Bill Heffernan into the affair in Arthur Sinodinos, Bill Heffernan and the Australian Water Holdings affair (paywall affected):

How did the Liberal Party’s much loved success story, the son of Greek migrants who did good end up mired in this terrible mess? 
 Ultimately, Sinodinos should have known better. In politics as in life, judgments are made about the company you keep. 
 With a lifelong distaste for all that glitters in Sydney’s world of wheelers and dealers, Heffernan was never going to let the mystery of EightByFive slide.

Oh dear, not heroic Bill battling for truth and justice.

The pond felt like it had spent Sunday morning bathing in a stew of the ABC and the Fairfaxians. Could it get any worse?

Oh no, not dear old Bronnie. Groan.

She's the head clown in the circus? Seems so, if you read Bronwyn Bishop's role as Speaker in federal Parliament is becoming a circus (paywall affected)...

Meanwhile, over at Fairfax, the Fairfaxians were showing the reptiles just how top notch, hard hitting investigative reporting should be featured at the top of the digital page (no links, screen cap only):

The pond began to feel disorientated, in the way you do when stumbling out of bed in a deep sleep, or getting chilled and the mind turning numb.

Everything seemed wrong, out of kilter, out of sorts. The Fairfaxians trying to match the Daily Mail, and the reptiles ravaging the Liberal party?

How could this be? How to redress the balance?

Surely there was a way the Devine, for example, could rush to judgment, jump the shark and nuke the fridge, and maintain her status as the Sunday voice of the demented Murdochians?

Glad you asked, and happily it's there under the sub-header Hot debate is under review:

As Labor and the Greens blocked the government’s repeal of the carbon tax in the Senate, last week, on the other side of the world came the first rumbles that the scientific establishment may be seriously rethinking the costly climate alarmism that has landed us in this pickle.

Uh huh. The American Physical Society is conducting a review of its statement on climate change, and the Devine takes great heart from three of the six of the names involved, all stout-hearted sceptics and deniers:

After six years in which global temperatures have not budged, computer models which predicted wild warming are looking dodgy. May the APS review be the start of a trend, which leaves Labor, the Greens and the Australian Science Academy like shags on a very cold rock.

Now there's as fine an example of the scientific principle and method at work as can be imagined. Reach a foreordained conclusion, appoint true believers to make it so, and issue a report confirming that the prejudice is reality.

Rush off to the APS site, and you cop this rather dull statement, more here:

The standing policy of the society is to review its statements every five years. The society first adopted the climate change statement seven years ago, but appended an addendum in 2010. The review also coincides with the release of the latest report on the physical science basis of climate change from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 
The months-long process started last year with the formation of the subcommittee and a steering committee, which is guiding the statement review subcommittee through the review process. In addition to weighing the opinions of experts from its workshop, the review subcommittee is researching information related to climate change and reviewing the roughly 1,500-page climate change report by the IPCC. 
If a new statement is drafted, it will be submitted to the full POPA committee in June. Once approved by POPA, it will go to the APS executive board for a vote. If approved there, the proposed statement will be posted on the society’s website for members to read and comment on, likely sometime later in 2014. 
Once all of the comments have been collected, POPA will again review the statement and may revise it further based on members’ input. It will then go to the executive board and the full council for a vote on whether the statement should be officially adopted in its final form. 
“We’re not rushing this. Climate science and climate change will be around a long time and we want to get this right before sending it out to the membership for review and comment,” Jaffe said.

What's that? Climate science and climate change will be around a long time?

And the APS is embarking on a process, which if it were the IPCC, would see the Devine frothing at the mouth about bureaucratisation of science and consensus science and all the other usual saws ...

Of course the APS has been there before, what with Hal Lewis carrying on like a tortured wombat, and some in the membership acting like a bunch of geologists deeply afraid for the mining industry.

Whatever the political processes might conclude, the only likely result is the ongoing politicisation of the science, much blather about models, and bugger all attention paid to the actual findings based on actual research ...

Meanwhile, over at the Fairfaxians, there was Tom Arup seeming not to understand that climate science was over, dead in the water, a cold shag on a very remote rock, as he scribbled IPCC warns climate chaos will worsen, harming Australia's economy.

Tom claims to have seen a final draft of the current IPCC report, which places the fuss at the APS in a different light, what with it being likely that there will be a whole new set of questions being asked after the report's release on March 31st.

What implications might there be?

Jean Palutikof, a review editor of the assessment and director of Australia's National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, said while adaptation measures were important, there were limits to what the world could achieve, and it was important to cut global emissions to ensure thresholds were not reached. 
''It is quite black-and-white there is a risk we will go beyond the limits of the natural environment and human society to adapt to the climate,'' Professor Palutikof said. 
A spokesman for Environment Minister Greg Hunt said the government recognised the importance of adapting to climate change, pointing to the refunding of the research facility, which it has asked to ''focus on putting practical adaptation information in the hands of decision-makers so we can build a stronger and more resilient Australia''.

Say what?

We'll have to adapt to climate change?

O tempora o mores!

Et tu Greg Hunt?

Or should that be Greg Hunt is a cold shag on a very cold rock?

And who will tell the Devine that she should have scribbled May the APS review be the start of a trend, which leaves Labor, the Greens, the Australian Science Academy and Greg Hunt and his spokesperson like shags on a very cold rock.

The pond loves the smell of irony and napalm on a Sunday morning ... and thanks the long absent lord for sort of order being restored in the world ...

And so to a few old jokes to wrap it up ...

And so to a Sunday meditation on 18C and many other matters ...

It being a meditative Sunday, the pond got to brooding about 18C and religion.

Now it so happens that the act doesn't actually mention religion, which naturally explains why some people get upset about its implications in relation to religion:

RACIAL DISCRIMINATION ACT 1975 - SECT 18C 
Offensive behaviour because of race, colour or national or ethnic origin 
 (1) It is unlawful for a person to do an act, otherwise than in private, if: 
 (a) the act is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people; and 
 (b) the act is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the other person or of some or all of the people in the group. 
 Note: Subsection (1) makes certain acts unlawful. Section 46P of the Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986 allows people to make complaints to the Australian Human Rights Commission about unlawful acts. However, an unlawful act is not necessarily a criminal offence. Section 26 says that this Act does not make it an offence to do an act that is unlawful because of this Part, unless Part IV expressly says that the act is an offence. 
 (2) For the purposes of subsection 
(1), an act is taken not to be done in private if it: 
 (a) causes words, sounds, images or writing to be communicated to the public; or 
 (b) is done in a public place; or 
 (c) is done in the sight or hearing of people who are in a public place. 
 (3) In this section: "public place" includes any place to which the public have access as of right or by invitation, whether express or implied and whether or not a charge is made for admission to the place. (the original here, with links)

Now the pond isn't too keen on the words "offend" and "insult", since it seems that one of the chief benefits of blogging is an attempt to offend and insult passing unaware readers who stumble into the pond.

There's a little more purpose to humiliate and intimidate, in the context of race, ethnicity, colour and at a pinch nationality, though it seems to the pond that the whole point of Mitchell Johnson's existence seems designed to humiliate and intimidate the Poms (ah, another word that causes trouble, though why it should be any more problematic than dingbat colonial Australian is something of a mystery to the pond).

Never mind, one of the problems in relation to the act is that some people routinely conflate race and ethnicity with religion, a tradition given a fine flowering by Adolf Hitler but in truth a routine practised by the Catholic church for centuries, and with equal fervour by Islamics when their religion came along.

So does this mean it's impossible to talk about religion in a cavalier way?

Well not really. If Richard Dawkins wants to be a doofus, there's nothing to stop him, except the weight of public reaction to his tweets.

And the way to avoid trouble is to point out generally the theological insanity rather than point out that a particular  person is theologically crazy.

For example, it's entirely possible to be astonished at and comment on, the sordid revelations at the Royal Commission that have fallen like confetti in the last week, and to look forward to Cardinal Pell's appearance in the stand tomorrow.

There it was in black and white: Royal Commission: George Pell was calling all the shots, and Royal commission: Pell instructed lawyers to fight Ellis claim 'tooth and nail'. And so on and on, sordid and disgraceful and offensive and evasive ...

On a lighter note is also possible to make satirical reference to Cardinal Pell's love of frocks. This is demonstrably true, and defensible.

Not that there's anything wrong with a man liking a frock.

And it only becomes satirical if you take the bible seriously:

The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. 
Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity (get your forged Ecclesiastes fix here)

Without certain knowledge, and witnesses and evidence, however, a reference to Pell's sex life would most likely be untrue and defamatory, and it would also be tricky if you mixed it with references to his race, colour and ethnicity.

It's not so easy to have fun with the Islamic religious fundamentalists when it comes to frocks.

That's more a beard and a hat thing, though the vanity of the fundamentalist is easy enough to see.

And it's still possible to talk about the immense stupidity of Saudi Arabia, which sees women not allowed to drive a car, and otherwise repressed, and it's still possible to rail against the wretched mix of religion and culture which proposes that female genital mutilation is in any way okay, and to cheer on the belated prosecutions detailed in Two men first to be charged in UK under FGM Act.

And if you want to see the insidious side of ostensibly moderate Islam, you only have to take a look at what is happening in Turkey and the Twitter nonsense.

Luckily Christopher de Bellaigue's review for the New York Review of Books, Turkey Goes Out of Control, right at the moment outside the paywall, is an impeccable guide to the feud between two cults - the cult of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the cult of US-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen (and while reading please note how government educational policies favouring religion have seen the Gülen cult acquire hundreds of schools, and get its hands on 135 charter schools in the United States).

As for your theocratic Jewish state, it is just as possible to criticise it for being as theocratic and dangerous as Iran if you happen to think that way. It is however advisable to avoid suggestions of a Jewish conspiracy running international banking, the House of Windsor, the UN, or Hollywood.

It turns out that the Jewish faith have their own Australian child abuse scandal, as per Haaretz Australian-Jewish community rocked and shocked by ongoing abuse scandals (paywall limited), and it has just as many silly messianic cults, from those who fixated on Menachem Mendel Schneerson to Messianic Jews to fundamentalist members of the Haredi Judaism cult, which has helped turn Israel into an increasingly fearful and fundamentalist state. And that's way before we get to all the stories about the cutlery in the garden.

And while we're doing a tour, who would want to leave out the angry Sydney Anglicans, with their strange attitude to the rights of women and gays?

Where would we be without a Jensenist rant about the evils of society, such as Phillip Jensen's Why Holidays Are More Christian Than Holy Days:

... as the society is in the grip of materialists - both philosophical materialists and their children, the economic materialists - both Holy Days and holidays are under persistent attack.

The funny thing here? Well you see the angry Anglicans are bunging on a big do at the Cathedral. Let's give them a good plug:

Don’t miss our Cathedral Good Friday Celebrations this year (10am Lord’s Supper, 2pm Convention, 7pm Handel’s Messiah). If we didn’t have such a day, our lives would be poorer but our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ’s death would be undiminished.

Hmm, parking in the city is a real bitch, and expensive too, though given the penalty rates, it's understandable that parking charges are savage, what with all the people needing to work on a Good Friday. 

What to do, what to do? Yep, go by train, or bus, or ferry, and let's hope the poor buggers driving the things are on triple time.

What's that? The Transport Industry (State) Award only offers double time for Good Friday and Easter Monday?

Outrageous, but no doubt the Anglicans wending their way to the city will tip the driver generously. Perhaps the pond will stay home and teach those bloody materialists a lesson by hacking into a nice Easter egg.

You see, if you want to, you can point out all kinds of absurdities involving all kinds of religions and not for a moment do you put yourself in peril via 18C.

You might put yourself in peril from a mad angry Mullah, but that's another story.

It's always better to play nice and veer away from the personal.

It's far too much information to hand for the pond to know that Michael Jensen likes cricket - it's enough to know that he has very strange ideas and belief systems revolving around Adam and Eve as a guide to the way men and women should behave.

And it's always fun to see him dance on the head of a theological pin when asked about fairy stories:

Indeed and Santa Claus and the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny may be poetically described, but actually historical.

And a lot more evasive disingenuous nonsense here, and fundamentalist young earth creationist angry Sydney Anglicans insisting that Adam was a real historical figure, here.

And while you're at it, if you want to argue, Warren Mundine style, Indigenous culture in maths nonsense (behind the paywall because debate should never be free), off you go:

What is indigenous physics? Physics is physics. If we are to compete in the job market we must learn technology and engineering, we need to be taught subjects properly. 
 "I agree that we need to reassess the curriculum because we need real units that teach the subjects without this ridiculous insertion of culture, the idea that you have to have an indigenous or Asian perspective, to be frank, is silly. The sciences and maths should be taught properly."

What has the discourse on ideas got to do with 18C?

Actually sweet bugger all.

Where the Bolter went wrong and got tangled up was that he performed some sloppy journalism, and got some facts wrong, and made some wretched personal, offensive, assertions about fair-skinned Aboriginal people, their motivations and resulting personal benefits, as if everyone knew that being black was a boondoggle in the lucky country.

The pond isn't going to repeat those assertions here, because they are indeed offensive and as it turned out in part, wrong, and that's why the leery Bolter also won't repeat them.

But if you want the details of the judgment by Bromberg in the matter of Eatock v Bolt, including all the shabby Bolter commentary, you can find it at the Federal Court of Australia here.

Which brings the pond to 18D:

RACIAL DISCRIMINATION ACT 1975 - SECT 18D 
Exemptions 
Section 18C does not render unlawful anything said or done reasonably and in good faith: 
(a) in the performance, exhibition or distribution of an artistic work; or 
(b) in the course of any statement, publication, discussion or debate made or held for any genuine academic, artistic or scientific purpose or any other genuine purpose in the public interest; or 
(c) in making or publishing: 
(i) a fair and accurate report of any event or matter of public interest; or 
(ii) a fair comment on any event or matter of public interest if the comment is an expression of a genuine belief held by the person making the comment.

Now the pond being very artistic, we could of course claim under 18D(a) all the time, but truth to tell, it can be a lot easier and a lot simpler.

It's very easy to point out that the various religious emperors doing the rounds frequently wear no clothes, or they do don garments, they're soiled and torn and worn at the edges from all the appalling institutional ways they behave.

But if you make it personal, and you direct abuse at someone in particular, make sure you have your facts and your defence in place, even when it's a public figure in the thick of a storm.

It is likely, as Bromberg noted, that Eatock might have been able to succeed in a defamation action, but of course defamation involves deep pockets and uncertain results, and there would have been no need for it if the Bolter hadn't been so deeply personal in his allegations.

A little bit of mutual tolerance and respect would have gone a long way, as Bromberg noted:

255. It seems to be that in the context of provisions which seek to promote racial tolerance and proscribe intolerance, the purposes of the RDA are to be served by objectively attributing to the “ordinary” or “reasonable” representative of the group, characteristics consistent with what might be expected of a member of a free and tolerant society. Whilst the following observations made by Nettle JA in Catch the Fire at [96] were made in relation to provisions dealing with religious vilification and in a context more akin to s 18D than s 18C, I think that the observations made are helpful in relation to identifying the characteristics attributable to the ordinary or reasonable representative in the application of the test required by s 18C(1)(a). Nettle JA said: 
In my view one is entitled to assume that a fair and just multicultural society is a moderately intelligent society. Its members allow for the possibility that others may be right. Equally, I think, one is entitled to assume that it is a tolerant society. Its members acknowledge that what appears to some as ignorant, misguided or bigoted may sometimes appear to others as inspired. Above all, however, one is entitled to assume that it is a free society and so, therefore, one which insists upon the right of each of its members to seek to persuade others to his or her point of view, even if it is anathema to them. But of course there are limits. Tolerance cuts both ways. Members of a tolerant society are as much entitled to expect tolerance as they are bound to extend it to each other. And, in the scheme of human affairs, tolerance can extend each way only so far. When something goes beyond that boundary an open and just multicultural society will perceive it to be intolerable despite its apparent purpose, and so judge it to be unreasonable for the purpose for which it was said.

Which if we may be so bold means in generality the pond may find adherents of religion to be barking mad, and adherents of religion may consign the pond to a (fictitious) hell of their choosing, provided the pond doesn't get to send them off to an asylum, and the adherents don't get to send the pond off to an early grave.

But it does raise another issue, the flawed Victorian act, the the Catch the Fire Ministries matter, which saw two sets of fundamentalists try to use the law to their advantage, while hapless secularists stood by and marvelled. It's covered much more sensibly than the pond could ever manage by Skepticlawyer here:

We supporters of free speech can thank our lucky stars that the drafters of Victoria’s Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001 were appallingly bad at their craft. In cobbling together the criminal law conception of ‘incitement’ with the law of defamation’s ‘ordinary reasonable reader’, they have produced a statute so incapable of interpretation that Pastors Scot and Nalliah have been saved – at least in the Court of Appeal – from adverse findings under it.

And she thoughtfully provides a link to the findings in the Supreme Court of Victoria, Court of Appeal here, so we might all contemplate the matter of religious vilification.

It takes a long time to cut to the chase, along with the news that the appeal was allowed, but finally you get to:

98 Of necessity, the standards of an open and just multicultural society allow for differences in views about religions. They acknowledge that there will be differences in views about other peoples’ religions. To a very considerable extent, therefore, they tolerate criticism by the adherents of one religion of the tenets of another religion; even though to some and perhaps to most in society such criticisms may appear ill-informed or misconceived or ignorant or otherwise hurtful to adherents of the latter faith. It is only when what is said is so ill-informed or misconceived or ignorant and so hurtful as to go beyond the bounds of what tolerance should accommodate that it may be regarded as unreasonable.

Put it another way. If you prefer to incite comedy to inciting hate, you might have a better chance than a fundies going toe to toe and slugging it out.

Which doesn't stop the pond from doing a little jig at the news that Westboro Baptist church founder Fred Phelps died last Wednesday (here).

Few have managed to build such a shrine of hate out of a book ostensibly all about love.

Is there any downside? Well of course the incredibly silly Brendan O'Neill finds a way here.

After reading it, the pond had no trouble imagining O'Neill writing about the death of Hitler:

So Adolf Hitler, head of the wacko Nazi Party, is dead. I feel bad for his family. I also feel bad for the international right-on community. How will they get their moral kicks now? For years, Hitler was their Emmanuel Goldstein, a largely bogey figure that they hollered at and tweeted about and were ostentatiously outraged by, mainly as a way of advertising their own inner decency. What cartoon God, Jew and Gay-botherer will they define themselves against now? Times are tough for liberal moral poseurs.
The level of international fame achieved by Hitler was extraordinary. And it was entirely down to his legion of haters in the media and on the internet. That is the great and horrible irony of the anti-Hitler fury of the last decade – it made Hitler, turning his flock from a minuscule and bizarre bunch of Mein Kampf Arbeit Macht Frei Jew and Gay-haters into a globally recognised goose-stepping brown and blackshirt brand. Indeed, in recent years the Nazi weirdos and their massive army of haters were locked in a strange, mutually beneficial embrace – the Gestapo provided right-minded people with things to be outraged by, the right-minded people dutifully expressed outrage, and this in turn fuelled the publicity-hungry Adolf to do yet more outrageous things. And so it would start all over again, a perfect biosphere of empty bile and equally empty outrage. In today's global economy of offence, the relationship between the wrong'uns of the Nazi party and the right-on of the Western world was a very model of sustainable supply and demand.


Oh okay, here's a buck for the Godwin's Law swear jar, but is there a bigger wanker in the world than O'Neil? Seems hard to imagine ... and it's a fair bet that 18C won't mind the pond saying that.

Enough already. We haven't got to Scientology, Hillsong, Hindus and many more of the gang, but there's plenty of time ..

And there's also time for a maudlin cartoon for a closer. If only it worked out this way in the real world: