In which the pond salutes our very own Bunterish Colonel Blimp down under ...

(Above: and you may Greg Hunt the notion of 'travesti' here, but be careful of walri straying up from the south).

The pond has become seriously alarmed in recent times.

What if all the recent talk led to men and boy actors imagining they could play women and girls? Or even more shockingly, the notion that women might don pants and play men? Or boys ...

Why the very fabric of the world might crumble.

The pond was shocked and startled at the news that only a few blocks away from where it lives, the perverts were having their way with innocent young folk at a school in Newtown, as you may read at the ABC, as it gives space to the ACL here...

Imagine: a man playing Lady Macbeth, or even more incomprehensible, a man playing Portia. What's that you say? Women playing Hamlet?

How would it be if the daughters in Lear were to be played by men? What to make of the Queen and Ophelia being played by men? Fancy the comedies being filled by gaily clad men going about the business of cross-gender jokes ...

Haven’t we had enough of this gender confusion and chaos? What would happen if a young boy was called upon to play Juliet? Why to be true to character the poor lad would have to be somewhere between 12 and 14, and this would be little short of grooming. A career in the Catholic church might be the lad's only future ...

The very notion of Empire would shake and quake. Shakspere would roll in his grave ...

What's that you say? This role-playing didn't get Bill and the first Queen Liz agitated?

Oh alright, the pond has its tongue stuffed firmly up the codpiece of the hysterics, and is there a greater cod in more urgent need of a stuffing than George Christensen?

So shameless and desperate is the man in his attention-seeking of late that the pond has been inclined to ignore him, in the manner of its shunning of Paul 'the magic water man' Sheehan …

But you can't keep a good man down, or a fuckwit bobbing to the surface, even if that reminds the pond of a recent Colbert image...

The turtle has gone, but not our George ... not yet anyway ...

Sounds like a desperate fuckwit desperate for attention, you might say, but the pond admires the exemplary use of the notion of "graphic critique", even while wondering if George might have the first clue what "critique" means, let alone "graphic" ...

It sounds a little French, and we know what they mean by French kissing ...

Trust AAP? Maestro, a pulsating beat on the British Paints can, along with a "sure can!" for emphasis:

But here's the thing. So long as Moorice keeps hitting the mark, gorgeous George hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell of returning to his place in the pond banner ...

Sure he's a clown full of astonishing bigotry and stupidity, sure he flings around 'North Korea' in a way born to the Joe McCarthy style ...

Is there an Orwellian in the house? We need an Orwellian in the house ...

But his attention-seeking is pathetic ...

George has returned to twittering with an epic flourish of bigotry and homophobia, smiting mightily anyone in his path ...

Sex toys!

Gay bars!

Sexual fetishes!

And so on and tediously on. Turns it the lad's a bloated troll, trolling while claiming to troll the trolls ...

And a correspondent kindly provided a link to this little effort, which can be found in its original form here ...

Surely there's identify theft involved with that one.

Could a man be so stupid?

So much with the hate. It reminded the pond of this recent effort by the reptiles, letting a piece in The Times out from behind its paywall ...

Indeed, indeed. Now what would have happened if the story had featured a couple of funny looking Jews with funny looking hats and funny looking hair curls, with the header "Western progressives are colluding in cruelty and abuse," as it launched a scathing attack on male genital mutilation ...

It would have created a great opening line for google ... Male genital mutilation is barbaric ...

How about a couple of heavily garbed nuns in the bizarre traditional manner? With the header "Western reptiles are colluding in the cruel notion that virgins get a short cut to heaven ..."?

That Times' piece ended with a clarion call ...

The West is not culturally perfect. Women are still often denied equal pay and suffer domestic violence. But there is a sense that this is wrong. If the West is to keep improving rather than regress to a darker age, everyone needs to stand up for our liberal heritage.

Uh huh, so why are you scribbling a piece for the chairman,  Ms Thomson, as illiberal a man at the head of an illiberal corporation as is doing the rounds?

You see, you can't pick and choose. You can't be on the side of liberalism, and then pick and chose the form of genital mutilation of which you disapprove.

And you can't be on the side of liberalism and let Cory Bernardi do his thing,  or allow a fuckwit like gorgeous George out of his homophobic, gay and Islamic bashing cage at regular intervals ...

You can't have the cheap and easy shots of the faux patriots, strutting like overweight peacocks, flag-waving in the first refuge of the scoundrel way ... or else you end up with this sort of hate and fear mongering muck ...

Let's not get too Freudian about it, let's just note that there's something deeply unhappy and angry going on in this man, as deep and as angry as the stupidity and anger which Daesh and the rest of the fundamentalist followers of fundamentalist religion daily offer the world ...

Well the pond generally supports rampant secularism on all fronts, but we can occasionally drift back to our Tamworth days, and remember how to honour the long absent Hughie, and serve the Queenly imperialists like a lick spittle colonial lackey, and salute the flag like some dullard dead-witted monarchist, and get on board with that sort of Bunterish, Colonel Blimp crap...

So we honour and salute gorgeous George in our Cobert way ...

Now on with the flushing ...

In which the pond puts the bigot out to pasture and joins Maurice in the magic garden with the stigmatic gentle giant ... as we impatiently await our knighthood ...

As it seems retrospectivity is now all the go, in matters of taxation and otherwise, the pond might mention the recent apocalyptic shaming of Paul Sheehan, with an apology for ignoring it, while offering a triumphant justification.

In recent times, the pond has ignored the magic water man, with his columns increasingly rambling, eccentric and bizarre. If you look at his Fairfax tag here, you might range from headlines such as The fate of one small mouse hints at a huge problem for Australia to We are losing dogs and cats, and it is a great loss.

The man was clearly and deeply unhinged, and increasingly desperate to produce click bait copy of the Is Malcolm Turnbull insane? kind

The pond was tempted to note his moan about A sorry tale of dealing with Telstra's 'customer service' because he carried on about a relatively mild encounter with the forces of darkness. All the pond could think The Optus The, or if you speak German, Die Optus Die ...

Now everyone has piled in on the magic water man's latest folly, including himself. Oh there's Finally, The Islamophobic Race-Baiting Of Fairfax And Paul Sheehan Blows Up In Their Face at New Matilda and over at the ABC there's Paul Sheehan's unchecked allegations 'a catastrophe for assault victims.'

But this is ultimately a matter for Fairfax. No doubt they keep a very accurate record of all the clicks that Sheehan attracts, and they must weigh up the odium of having a ratbag loon deep in senility up against whatever business he manages to attract.

In the case of Mike Carlton, they acted much more quickly over a much more minor matter (back then it was talk of a suspension that set the cat amongst the mice). Will they bite the bullet with the magic water man? They haven't in the past, but surely the time is now nigh, though given his age and his incapacity, a suspension would be a folly, when what's required is a putting out to pasture.

But the pond takes no pleasure in this. A bigot brought low by basic incompetence provides no joy ... and Sheehan's "apology" just compounds the incompetence ...

After publication I learnt that a woman had made very similar claims of rape during two rallies last year organised by Reclaim Australia, which opposes militant Islam. When I sought to speak to Louise about this she was unresponsive. In the story recounted to me by Louise, she made insulting references to rapes committed by Middle Eastern men. I had wrongly amplified this insult by including her words in the column. Had I known on Sunday what I knew by Wednesday, the column would not have been written. Hindsight has a ruthless clarity.

And bigoted foresight has a ruthless, relentless stupidity.

But ultimately this goes beyond Sheehan, it goes to Fairfax and its click-baiting, trolling ways, and its ever-expanding cupidity, which the pond hasn't wanted to encourage by paying attention to it ... besides, the pond still feels residual guilt for digitally stalking the Duffster,  even if he deserved it.

There's nothing to be gained by stalking a man in his dotage, and Sheehan is now well beyond the valley of the doting.

The magic water man should have been allowed to retire with what grace he could muster many moons ago. If Fairfax allows him to stay, then the shame - as well as the profound editorial lapse - is theirs to own ...

They trusted him? They said they trusted him, as if that's a sufficient and complete excuse?

And that's why Fairfax gets not a shekel from the pond.

You see, the pond is always attracted to the bright side of reptile follies ...

Like this outing from the Daily Terror today ...

The pond often speaks of the crypto-fascist spirit, mind and soul at the heart of the Surry Hills bunker, but always in error, because there's nothing crypto about that front page. It's pure unadulterated fascist joy ...

Now some this day might take their pleasure from simple reptile thoughts and deeds ...

In case of emergency, break glass and activate poodle with a click to the mouth ...

And then there's the Oreo, a sugary confection seeking to create cavities in Malware ...

Indeed, indeed. The pond must concentrate on fixing its tendency to left-right walking ...

But no, there's a special joy today, a vision that will sweep away tawdry, tragic reminders of the magic water man ...

Settle, settle. The pond's breast proudly expands at the thought of Australia's overwhelming military superiority, as the Murdochians construct a fortress Australia from their bunker ...

But no, today, in pursuit of that vision, the reptiles have blessed the pond and the world with the Delphic oracle himself ...

It's Maurice time. Get ready to rrrrruuummmmbbbllleee ...

Now that sort of splash brings a tear to the eye of the pond right at the get go ...

There's a reason that Maurice holds an honoured position in the pond's banner ... and his celebration of the gentle giant Abbott moving to shelter the nation in his warm, comforting, caring embrace brought back fond memories of Oscar Wilde's fairy story The Selfish Giant ... in which tale the gentle, happy, caring giant let the Christ child play in his garden ...

With Maurice, you get the Christ child and the gentle giant rolled into one.

Now that the pond has set the scene, let us read on, though remember to bring a very fierce paranoia with you ...

You see, this is what gets the pond going of a morning. Who could remember the bigot Sheehan now?

Who wouldn't roll jaffas down the aisle at that line about the philosophical reorientation the country so desperately needs?

You know, like knighting Phil the Greek ...

But stay, Moorice needs no commentary. Maurice delivers the goods ...

What a splendid outing, and with the need to mention the global warming botherers only once in the diatribe of doom and gloom and disaster, as we watch in awe and wonder the gentle Tony carrying his stigmata and his suffering, when all he wanted to do was take the snow out of the garden and make it glow with an ethereal light.

No doubt there are a few brave souls who've made it this far and experienced a bout of nausea, and perhaps are asking the pond - with its extensive medical experience - what to do?

Well avoid Paul Sheehan entirely and take two cartoons at once, and more at lunch and dinner if the symptoms persist.

The pond always recommends a healthy dose of Rowe and Pope on a daily basis - better for eyesight strength than carrots - and you can find more Rowe here and more Pope here ... but watch out for that sea mine at four o'clock captain ...

In which the pond is inconsolable at sundry irreconcilable differences, thanks be unto to David Lipson ...

(Above: and more tremendously agile, swinging all ways Rowe here).

Once again the pond had retired in the night to the television in the bedroom - oh the Roman decadence of the concept - when lo and behold, one David Lipson was summoned to Lateline to deal with the 'ABC merging with the SBS' controversy, and he spaketh ...

DAVID LIPSON: A lot's changes since then, and today, many within Australia's vast ethnic community see inconsolable differences between the two broadcasters. (the pond hadn't believed its ears, but accepts the fidelity of the transcript here).

The pond was inconsolable. The gulf between the ABC and literacy seemed irreconcilable. A lotsa stuff's a changes since them old days and old ways of the dinner-suited radio broadcast ...

The pond wished this was a rare, relatively unique event - thanks as always, ABC style guide - but it seems that it now happens a relatively infinite number of times ...

Was there any bonus by way of good humour?

Well, yes, because in the very same show, the hideously grimacing Erica turned up, delivering what he seemed to think was a smile - though suddenly the pond understood what the word 'rictus' meant...

And with that astonishing grin came these fine words ...

ERIC ABETZ: Look, can I say, as a migrant to this country myself, I believe I have some understanding of the issues involved and I think it is important that we encourage newcomers to this country to learn the English language. It is vitally important for your social interactions to have a good understanding of the language, be it for welfare purposes, for business purposes, for road rules, for social interaction, bus and train timetables, etc. And so, I believe that we should be encouraging new Australians to learn the English language and I'm not necessarily sure that the SBS caters for that. (don't believe the pond? It's here).

No, the pond isn't necessarily sure that the fucking illiterate ABC is wot caters for it either - Mark Scott and news 24 must take a share of the blame - or so it seemed to the inconsolable pond, as it contemplated its irreconcilable differences with Erica ...

By the time Erica had got to the end of his interview, the pond thankfully new where it stood .. (or should that be knew? After a bout with the ABC, the brain is ratled).

TONY JONES: Well you just saw what Malcolm Turnbull said when he was Communications Minister, that it'd be a bad idea to try and merge a smaller, more efficient organisation with a larger, more cumbersome one. I mean, what about that principle? 
ERIC ABETZ: Look, I'm not going to get, as I said before, into the minutiae. I believe that this is an idea worthy of consideration and can I simply say to your viewers if Eric Abetz and Mark Scott happen to think it might be a good idea to consider this proposition, then chances are it might be worthwhile?

Erica and Mark Scott agree? Then chances are it might be completely fucked ... and the chances are that the pond would give it a nanosecond's consideration, as long as a snowflake survived in hell ... or so the greenie whisperer suggested as the Ludlum poured mercury into the ear of the pond here.

NO transcript for him, the fiend, the pro-SBS rascal, this fine over-heating Sydney morn (please no mention of climate change, Fiji cyclones or an early start to the tornado season). The ABC only transcribes the thoughts of Erica and quite runs out of puff when the deviants begin to sprout nonsense. Or do they spout? The pond gets so flurried by floozies after a surgeon with the ABC ... or is that a sojourn? Relatively infinite possibilities are available ...

But it put the pond in a good mood for a flurry of reptile EXCLUSIVES this morning ...

Well played Joe. They speak well of you everywhere ...

"I frankly do not believe that Joe Bullock does much that is motivated by the interests of his members; I think Joe does what is in Joe's best interests". (Greg Hunt it here, careful of the stray walri).

But thanks Joe, for reminding the pond of why it must share its contempt between the major parties ...

And then came Niki Savva ...

The pond knew exactly what this meant, without reading a word of it. 

Malware, with his current inept and contradictory mutterings about tax - he and Kelly O'Dwyer doing a Hewson tango that makes David Lipson sound like a Cicero - Kelly O'Dwyer forced to clarify comments after contradicting Malcolm Turnbull on live TV (forced video attached) - was crashing and burning, and so it was Niki's duty to rush to the breach and stick her thumb in the dyke ... and flip it around and assert that a coup was a crash ...

Well it was in one eye and out the other for the pond, because there was sabre-rattling afoot and the pond was exceptionally exciting.

All the gang were rushing to see the shirt-fronting, and what a sight it was, another exceptional EXCLUSIVE ...

Now the pond has been much heartened by reader stories of Powerpoint, and the epic days before Powerpoint using overhead projectors and other wondrous technology - yes the pond was initiated into the Delpic art of the mimeograph and first photocopied when chemicals sloshed around in the bowels of the machine - and so it's stating the obvious to these experts that we're back in the three phases syndrome.

Tell us what you will call for tomorrow.

Tomorrow call for what you told us yesterday you would call for tomorrow.

The next day remind us what you had called for yesterday.

And then tell us what you will call for tomorrow.

It's known as a virtuous circle of blather and attention-seeking and strutting. Part of the no wrecking, no undermining, no sniping policy expected of all honest politicians...

Is there a better or more expert way to stay in the public eye?

And all you need is a chum, nay a devoted bromancer, to do your bidding and service your spleen.

See how google reported the scam ...

Oh irony of ironies. When casting around for a suggestion for images for the tale (or is that tail? Advice please, David Lipson), google put the servile, lickspittle lackey, the faithful transcriber and bromancer, in first place.

As for the rest, it's just more sabre rattling from the back bench, the sort of idle strutting that might be expected by a bully who, when in power, talked the talk but was singularly inept at walking the walk ...

This struck the pond as the purist comedy gold ... as if China would give a flying fuck about the thoughts of a plucked chook, a featherless former leader sent to the back bench to brood ...

Unless the chook was intent on making a comeback. 

Unless the unhinged, wall-punching warrior king was determined to make his presence felt and rattle his sword in a way that might make the usurper hesitant and fearful ...

And so it goes. It's all of apiece with the reptile rags this day ...

Yes, they're rattling their sabres ...

Take that China. Take that Vlad. How's your shirt front going now!!??

And the tabloids are also in the game ...

It occurred to the pond that we could do more than a symbolic flyover or a passing ship to make a point with those devious Chinese...

We could cut off all iron ore and coal supplies, we could freeze the capital outflow of the Chinese hierarchy, we could ...

It was at that point that the pond realised that the pond was sounding as demented as the bromancer and the wall puncher ... and was in need of a good dose of common sense, and where better to find it, than in a David Pope cartoon, and more papal infallibility here ...

Please, bang your Caterist head here, and score a grant while passing go and deploring the culture of handouts ...

The pond is not inclined to brood, but on the other hand, the pond prides itself as being the blog of record for prime, hardcore loons.

How did that wording on the Statue of Loonerty go? 

Give me your tired, your poor loons, your huddled masses of loons yearning to breathe free in reptile la la land, the wretched refuse of Murdoch's teeming rags. Send these, the taxpayer-funded with generous grants, nicely domiciled, and tempest-free bludgers to the pond, we lift our lamp beside the golden door so they might enter the glittering dome of blog loonery ...

Or some such thing, perhaps it got garbled in translation.

You see, the pond was still in mourning at not celebrating the thoughts of the Caterists this week ...

The pond has been a devoted follower of the Caterists for yonks, with every word faithfully transcribed, as the pond stands in awe and admiration, transfixed like a wedding party guest in the grip of an ancient and wise mariner.

And that's when it occurred to the pond.

The thoughts of the Caterists aren't just valid for a day. There's an eternal nugget present, gems that might be fossicked at any time. Essential verities are at play.

In short, what was wrong yesterday is just as wrong today, as it will no doubt be wrong tomorrow ... and so reading aged, well matured Caterism, a day old and so rich in the bottle and ready to be drunk with wild abandon - no more cellaring required - could still be done with enormous personal profit ...

Oh that's such a smooth, velvety drop, yet with a hint of Hunter Valley earthiness and a tang of saddle leather.

Who else could discover the tremendous virtue of Mark Latham?

Who else would hail Mark Latham as an astute judge of the mood in the outer suburbs where the middle class resides?

In just the same way as Mark Latham once scribbled at length about the many virtues of Caterism ...

It takes a fair bit to offend me these days but Nick Cater’s new book The Lucky Culture and the Rise of an Australian Ruling Class has done the trick. It is an infuriating and fundamentally dishonest attempt to demolish everything Labor might reasonably stand for this century: action on climate change, support for the Hawke/Keating economic model, ongoing higher education expansion, Whitlamite service delivery and sensible human rights safeguards. 
Cater’s core proposition is that Labor is part of a new social and political elite, a class of tertiary educated progressives who look down their noses at ‘ordinary Australians’. I’ve had my arguments with the party’s parliamentary and trade union leadership, but it has never been about snobbery. The Laborites I talk to are as earthy and grounded as they were 30 years ago. The only elitists I see in Sydney are the old North Shore and Eastern Suburbs set, the born-to-rule brigade who brush past the workers at the racetrack and other public events like they are trying to avoid typhoid. It was ever thus. 
Cater, in effect, has reignited a class war – a debate as to where snobbery resides Down Under. He argues when he migrated from England to Australia in 1989 we were an egalitarian utopia, a classless society in which all citizens were given a fair go. I remember something different. Friends from Western Sydney who missed out on job applications for no other reason than they listed their addresses as Liverpool and Green Valley. Newly-arrived migrants who were labelled ‘slopes’ and ‘towel heads’. Women who were expected to do paperwork and prepare supper for community organisations but not to run for elected office. Public housing estates which looked like war zones – a world apart from the North Shore, Eastern Suburbs and gentrified inner-city (where Cater eventually settled). 
If Cater wants a fuller understanding of social values in Australia in the 1980s, perhaps he should ask Geoffrey Blainey, who is launching The Lucky Culture on May 13 at the Institute for Paid Advocacy (IPA) in Melbourne. In 1984 Blainey called for the re-introduction of a racially discriminatory immigration program, complaining of the “slow Asian takeover of Australia.” 
I don’t want to be too harsh on one of our cultural imports, but Cater’s understanding of Australian egalitarianism is poor. On pages 92-93 of his book, for instance, he complains about panellists on the ABC’s Q and A program picking on Gina Rinehart because of her looks and apparent inability to “afford a hairdresser”. This was, in fact, a light-hearted exchange in May last year, involving the irreverent Australian comic Barry Humphries. Yet for Cater it represented “boorish” behaviour devoid of appropriate “courtesy and a modicum of respect” for “Australia’s most successful mining entrepreneur”. He opined: 
A class that relies for status on cultural rather than financial capital cannot concede that wealth carries virtue, and resorts to attacking Rinehart’s cultural standing in the most personal terms. It amounts to a crude assertion of cultural refinement … (on) how to handle money and how to arrange their hair. In a society where net wealth is considered a poor guide to character, the sneer is an assertion of class superiority … In a country where cultural superiority becomes important, belittlement of others is an underhand form of self-aggrandisement, a habit that once adopted becomes almost impossible to break. 
Australian culture has always involved mockery. Our egalitarianism is a social habit, not an economic doctrine. This means taking the piss out of the rich and powerful, which is exactly what the Q and A panellists did. They used common, irreverent Australian humour – the type one would hear in pubs, clubs and mateship groups every day.

There's more here, (watch out for the subscriber pop-up), because Latham has a lot to say about this particular budgie:

While the Labor movement is not without its problems – I have written about them at length – I cannot stand by and watch someone like Cater lecturing the party on the cultural habits of suburban Australia. He is a prototype of the ‘cosmopolitan sophistication’ he otherwise condemns: tertiary-educated, widely travelled, mesmerised by the high arts, with a working career in an information industry dealing with abstract concepts. And now the author of a 361-page book. 
The differences between right-wing cosmo-sophisticates and left-wing cosmo-sophisticates are not vast. They relate solely to politics. Thus for conservatives, the so-called culture wars (of which Cater’s book is the latest instalment) are a way of entering the political debate from a different angle. It is an attempt to frame left-of-centre activists as out-of-touch and unworthy, using culture as a veil for party politics. 
Cultural analysis is also useful in diverting attention from one of the right-wing’s traditional weaknesses: the elitism of the establishment. It is not Tony Abbott, the Rhodes Scholar son of a North Shore dental specialist, who has enjoyed a privileged life – or so the argument runs – but Labor MPs who grew up in working class areas and pursued the aloofness of an Australian university education. 
There is a strong element of deceit in this tactic. This was evident in Cater’s appearance on Q and A, in which he claimed his book is “not a left/right argument.” “I’m not making a left/right argument”, he insisted. Make no mistake, The Lucky Culture is a long, carefully-structured assault on progressive values and ideas. Any Labor person who has anything to do with its promotion is fouling his own nest. 
Already, the right-wing barrackers are out in force, with Abbott, Miranda Devine and Piers Akerman writing glowing reviews. It is Abbott’s kind of book: narrow, hypocritical and based on a big lie. It promotes climate change denialism, winding back mass university access and funding state-led economic development through the construction of dams – a throwback to the failed agrarian ethos of Abbott’s mentor, BA Santamaria. In the run up to September’s election, Cater has sounded the bugle of the culture wars and unsurprisingly, the right-wing hunting pack is howling in unison.

And so on, and on, this being in the day when Latham could still pop up at the Chifley Research Centre, before his ever-narrowing self-implosion saw him attempt to reinvent himself as a fellow traveller with those very same Devines and Akker Dakkers and Caterists ...

If nothing else the pond loves a rich and resonant irony ...

And so it came to pass that the Caterists might quote the Lathamites, before moving on to the Ming the Merciless dreamtime, and all was well in the world ...

What's there to say about this celebration of Ming the Merciless? This relentless suggestion that it's Bernie Sanders who's the cause and the explanation of all that's wrong with the United States, as opposed to a symptom. As if the Caterists might never mention the words "Koch brothers" for fear it might ruin a grant application.

Please don't ask the pond about the strivers, the planners, and the ambitious ones.

You won't find them amongst the Caterists.

You see, the last thing the pond would want is for research centres to be destroyed by hand-outs.

Here, score a grant and argue this issue amongst yourselves (and more grants here):

And so reluctantly, with great regret, the pond must leave the 1950s and return to the present ... and a Bill Shorten Zinger ...

Oh dear, it seems we never left the 1950s at all ...

Nope, it's still the land of Queen Victoria's copper ...

Huzzah, huzzah, huzzah, and remember ...

Hark, did you hear the sound of a broken Dame Slap clock chiming in 2016 as if it was 2006?

Now the pond could spend this morning meditating on the continued activities of the Abbott government.

As foreshadowed in these pages a few days ago, the prime minister Tony Turnabbott, insisted on the primacy of defence, and the pond is exceptionally pleased to report that Mal Abbottbull's vision is top of the reptile page this very day ...

This is exceptionally pleasing news - how else are we going to be able to bung on a decent do with the Chinese?

But sadly the pond must abandon the Abbott government (leader temporarily in physical but not spiritual exile) to attend to the important duties hinted at with that Dame Slap splash at the top of the page, and embark on one of its notorious William Burroughs' cut-ups.

This necessarily involves exceptional length, much suffering and much risk to eyeballs for those who bother.

Here's Dame Slap today:

Here's Dame Slap in 2006, demonstrating that she knows how to stay a stick in the mud like an Oscar Wilde rocket:

Here's Dame Slap speechifying in 2006:

Now it would possibly have been more honest of Dame Slap to have said in a couple of words, this tolerance of multiple cultures is all very well, but when it comes to Islamics, let it be noted I just can't stand 'em.

Instead she has to dress it up with all sorts of fancy talk. 

Here's the next couple of gobbets, first in 2016 and then back to 2006, a decade of symmetry, bigotry and prejudice:

So back a decade to 2006, where Dame Slap confronts the same villains in different guises, grinding over the same old same old like a diff where the bananas have stopped working:

And so to the final gobbets. The rousing conclusion in 2016:

And now back to 2006 and the rousing conclusion, with the messiah banging exactly the same drum:

So what has the pond demonstrated with this exercise, except that there's an exemplary continuity to the bigotry and prejudice?

Well there is much fine material on parade, but the pond would like to highlight a couple of exceptional examples from that 2006 speechifying, which can be found as a pdf here ...

First an enthusiastic suggestion that there was "so much more to Cronulla":

There was so much more to Cronulla than racism? Only a genuine, certified bigot could trot out that line.

And then came this rousing finale, when finally Dame Slap got around to explaining what was really Australian:

It made the pond think of its own heritage. It happened to include reading Raffaello Carboni's account of the Eureka Stockade.

Sure he was a wog, as we were trained to talk in Tamworth, but it chimed in with the pond's reading many of the best Irish writers.

It slowly dawned on the pond that maybe the British were just a little bit up themselves, in an Edmund Burke kind of way, and that perhaps other countries ... the French, the United States, others in Europe ... had a slightly different understanding of the world. Different, and not inferior, though often infested with the same sort of delusional jingoism and exceptionalism that manifests in Dame Slap ...

You won't see Dame Slap in her thumbnail guide to the best in heritage talking of James Joyce or his portrait of his sufferings under Catholicism. Nor for that matter many of the other bits and pieces that drifted the way of the pond ... like Dante, Goethe, the Decameron, Cervantes' wonderful Don Quixote, an abundance of French writers and film-makers (everybody must suffer through a Rosseau phase, even apparently Simon Schama), and casting the net a little wider, Sun Tzu, the I Ching, and Zen Buddhism ...

Why it took the pond years to discover that all that bullshit about Gallipoli and Anzac Day and Simpson and his donkey was just the same sort of war-mongering as indulged in by war mongers around the world. Different flag, same nonsense ...

And that was just the beginning, as the pond experienced the joy of moving out and away from the stultifying imperial, colonial presence of the British to discover riches elsewhere, such as Einsenstein's story of Ivan the Terrible or the great Russian composers of the twentieth century ... and so on and endlessly on ...

And where did it all begin, this shocking multiculturalism? The pond suspects it was that moment eating the very first Indian curry to come its way, and the realisation that there was nothing more fucked in the world than the pond's heritage of three vegies (greens with bicarb of soda to keep the colour while boiled to a pulp) and chops or sausages ...

Perhaps this is covered in Dame Slap's talk of the "right to apostasy", but the narrow stupidity and blind irrational prejudice she espouses brushes over all the other things in Australia's heritage that she now emulates ...

And who is the natural heir to Dame Slap's honourable traditions and heritage?

Yep, it's Tony MalAbbott's government ...

Even as we fund chaplains in schools so that the bigotry, prejudice and crusading might continue ...

Well the pond rarely quotes any politician with enthusiasm, but this little Facebook post here, tickled the pond's fancy enough to quote it in full ...

Put it another way ...

Fuck the Islamic fundamentalists, but let's be fair and offer equal opportunity. Fuck Dame Slap and Cory Bernardi too ...

If tolerance isn't much of a virtue, then it's about time the pond didn't bother tolerating them ...