The vanity of the fundamentalists ...

(Above: click to enlarge Crewdson's Brief Encounter)


Feeling a little poorly, the pond took to bed yesterday afternoon.

What else to do but turn on the telly? (And what's wrong with the sybaritic indulgence of a telly in the bedroom?)

First up was a repeat of a documentary about Gregory Crewdson, which made the pond contemplate the vanity of staging still photographs like an indie feature film shoot. But the results have a nice Hopperish feel, so never mind.

Next came Richard Burton in Where Eagles Dare, a truly appalling movie, but never mind that, because Burton was happy to be a star, with a star wife, and the price of stardom is a willingness to sacrifice talent, cultivate a love of grog, and appear in bad movies about the second world war.

The show was directed by Brian G. Hutton, who might well have gone on to direct traffic in Bangkok, but instead went on to make the equally dire Kelly's Heroes.

Burton's fate reminded the pond of the best bit of poetry in the bible, in Ecclesiastes, about vanity, and how all is vanity, and so on (and on).

And the mention of vanity immediately reminded the pond of the angry Sydney Anglicans, because though they do their best to hide it, to pretend they're not vain, it lurks everywhere as a kind of passive aggressive Uriah Heep vanity, a perverse power designed to sway the world to their way:

Father and me was both brought up at a foundation school for boys; and mother, she was likewise brought up at a public, sort of charitable, establishment. They taught us all a deal of umbleness - not much else that I know of, from morning to night. We was to be umble to this person, and umble to that; and to pull off our caps here, and to make bows there; and always to know our place, and abase ourselves before our betters. And we had such a lot of betters! Father got the monitor-medal by being umble. So did I. Father got made a sexton by being umble. He had the character, among the gentlefolks, of being such a well-behaved man, that they were determined to bring him in. "Be umble, Uriah," says father to me, "and you'll get on. It was what was always being dinned into you and me at school; it's what goes down best. Be umble," says father," and you'll do!" And really it ain't done bad!' It was the first time it had ever occurred to me, that this detestable cant of false humility might have originated out of the Heep family. I had seen the harvest, but had never thought of the seed. 
'When I was quite a young boy,' said Uriah, 'I got to know what umbleness did, and I took to it. I ate umble pie with an appetite. I stopped at the umble point of my learning, and says I, "Hold hard!" When you offered to teach me Latin, I knew better. "People like to be above you," says father, "keep yourself down." I am very umble to the present moment, Master Copperfield, but I've got a little power!' (Charles Dickens, Great Expectations)

Indeed. So it comes as no surprise to see the way the Sydney Anglicans are preening themselves over scoring from the taxpayers, and being a very successful leech on the public purse:

In an ever so umble way of course.

And then, since we all need a good dose of righteous judgmentalism on a Sunday, who better to supply it than Phillip Jensen in A Muslim's Oath - An Atheist's Affirmation.

Reading Jensen on Labor politician Ed Husic's swearing on a Qur'an is a truly bizarre experience, and a first class example of what might be termed the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" thinking.

If the pond decoded the Jensenist text correctly, it turns out that Christians don't need to swear, because they're full of integrity (stop that sniggering in the back stalls!).

But it's okay if they do swear, though that won't increase their truthfulness (any more laughter will be dealt with forcefully).

It also turns out that it's okay to swear by Molech, at least if you're an ancient Ammonite:

There is no point swearing by something less than yourself. For an oath to be believable you have to point to something, like God, greater than yourself. However, to which god can somebody be held accountable? At first glance you can only swear by the true and living God. For swearing by Molech is of not much consequence, as Molech is a powerless imagination of the ancient Ammonites - hardly reassuring to the modern listener. Yet you must swear by the god that you believe in. If you were an ancient Ammonite there is no point swearing by Yahweh, while to swear by Molech would indicate your sincerity.

Which means when the pond demands to swear on Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, or perhaps Beckett's Waiting for Godot, it's doing the right thing, by swearing by a god it believes in ...

It also means Ed Husic is safe swearing on the Qur'an, even though he believes in a god as useless and worthless as Molech, which will in due course see him cast into eternal fire and brimstone in hell, while smug Sydney Anglicans sit in heaven.

Australia is a Christian nation, not in the sense of it being run by and for Christians with an established religion that all must follow, but in the sense that Christianity informs the people, heritage and culture.  

And the Romans informed the heritage and the culture, and the Chinese inform the two dollar shops, so we're not quite sure how a multicultural modern Australia conforms to this vision, but that's what happens, most likely, when you're stuck thinking about the Moloch.

As a Christian nation we have freedom of religion, which involves limiting government to matters secular, while allowing free expression of religious beliefs. It is part of our wonderful Christian heritage that a Muslim migrant can become a Cabinet minister and express his religion without fear or favour.

But not, it turns out, without rabid ratbags littering Facebook with obscene and ethnic/racist comments.

But the pond promised you a little umbleness, and here it is:

When Christianity has ruled in government, both Christianity and the government have been distorted. We win people to Christ not by government fiat but by prayerful persuasion to the truth. 

And there you have it - megalomania in the knowing of the truth, and prayerful persuasion to get others to toe the line.

The real attitude to others, the condescension and the righteousness, then emerges from the cocoon like a rather shabby moth, as poor old atheists cop yet another battering:

The practice of swearing an oath is therefore better than a simple affirmation. 
Affirmations have been in use for some centuries because of the conscience of people not wanting to invoke God in their promises. Some of these are tender Christian consciences, who misunderstand Jesus’ prohibition on swearing. However, others will only make an affirmation because, as atheists, they refuse to refer to a higher being than themselves. They are like Napoleon placing the crown on his own head for there was nobody greater to crown him. So they are not answerable to anybody or anything other than themselves. 

Yes there's your prayerful persuasion at work. It turns out your average atheist is just a bloody Napoleon, and never mind that they might be answerable to a court of law if they've taken their oath in vain!

 With an affirmation we have to take the word of a politician seeking more power on the basis of their ‘say so’. Often this doesn’t matter in practice as most of the oath-taking politicians are practical atheists and most of the affirming politicians unconsciously practise Christian values. However, theoretically those who affirm are swearing by themselves for they have no greater source of moral reference to which they can point or to which we can call them to account but themselves. Of such arrogance comes tyranny. 

Actually the real tyranny in Great Expectations came from Uriah Heep, and if you want to exercise your rights in an angry Sydney Anglican's church, expect a decent burst of  tyrannical arrogance worthy of Napoleon.

You see how trippingly abuse flows from an atheist's keyboard? Thank the long absent lord we have the demented Sydney Anglicans to show us how its done, with their poisonous verbal darts.

The New Testament understands the problem of the atheist. 

Uh huh, and how lucky that Dickens understands the Uriah Heep problem of the angry Sydney Anglican.

This sort of judgmental fundamentalist claptrap - my swearing is better than your affirmation because I'm a chosen one, nah nah - made the pond think of other fundamentalists, most notably the Islamic Brotherhood in Egypt (please, no talk of the Islamic Sisterhood, that would upset Islamics and angry Sydney Anglicans).

It would be tempting to see the recent upheavals as secularists against fundie religious ratbags, but truth to tell, it's just as likely that's because the Islamics stuffed the economy, while trying to steer the country towards their repressive conservative agenda.

There's nothing like pushing pie in the sky by and by, while trying to institutionalise your power base, when others are more interested in getting enough of the worldly pie just to get by.

That's the thing some societies have learned - even Jensen recognises that placing an angry Sydney Anglican in charge of things could only lead to tears, since in their heart of hearts, Oliver Cromwell still holds a lot of appeal.

Which is why the pond sheds no tears for the Egyptian fundamentalists. And mocks this talk of noble Christians and naughty Napoleons. Try persuading the Irish about the pleasure of being ruled by the fundie Cromwell ...

Fundamentalists rarely tolerate minorities. Jensen's toleration of Husic, condescending as it is, is merely a device to display a more fundamental intolerance and a desire to punish unbelievers.

Better to believe in tosh than to be an unbeliever. Oh and stick out your paw and cop a government grant ...

And lastly, speaking of superstitions, what better institution to show the way than the Catholic church, and the news Pope Francis to make John Paul II a saint.

Yep, a second miracle has seen John Paul take the field as a saint, but in the case of John XXIII, they don't even need a single miracle to get him from the bench on to the field, and perhaps save Australia's losing sporting heroes while they're at it.

Never mind, they're going to be able to sell a motza of plaster statues in Rome.

But at least all this thinking, of the humble Anglicans, the crazed Islamics and the plaster cast Catholics brought the pond full circle ...

(Below: click to enlarge on Crewdson's The Madison)

He's from South Australia, and he's here to help you mangle logic ...

(Above: time for the pond to dust off a favourite old mug?)

The pond knew the Ruddster was back when the fateful reference to "irregular movements of persons" fell out of the ether into the speaker of a nearby television receiver.

But it's not the mangling of English that concerns the pond this morning, it's working out who has been designated the reptile at the lizard Oz to take up the baton passed on by the departed Christopher Pearson.

It would seem Chris Kenny is the go-to man, and being from South Australia, and a worker for John Howard's government, and more particularly for Alexander Downer, and the scribbler of a book about the Hindmarsh island affair, and an actual Liberal party candidate (failed), and the man who didn't help big Mal at all, there's a tidy symmetry and a resonance, and we haven't even mentioned his fear and loathing of the ABC and an enormous capacity to scribble nonsense.

Kenny is in fine form this morning and there's a simple way to appreciate his infinite capacity to twist in the wind.

First let's compare and contrast Peter van Onselen. Having trolled for the return of Chairman Rudd, van Onselen knows he needs to have some sort of consistency. So today he scribbles:

Now you might think he's wrong about the new bunch of Labor people, but at least van Onselen's being consistent, and anyway, is it so radical to propose that the current line up of Liberals are a bunch of tired, no hoper, has beens and drop kicks, way too many held over from the Howard days, and in need of a little urgent renewal.

Coyly van Onselen coyly refuses - in Tony Abbott's silly game could cost the Coalition (behind the paywall) - to name names regarding said drop kicks that could do with a time out, preferably permanent - I've named them before, he says, fluttering his eyelashes - but it's easy enough to fill in the gaps.

And there's another point he makes:

Even though the Coalition, more so than the Labor Party, has a depth of talent worthy of a government - and all of them are willing to serve, incidentally - Abbott is playing the silly game of refusing to debate the new Prime Minister until the election is called. His shadow ministers for the most part are refusing to debate their opposites until the election is called. It reeks of fear that a square-off will show up the Coalition as an unworthy alternative government.

Which reminds the pond of another factoid that popped up in Crikey the other day:

As an election approaches, the ABC’s current affairs big guns are becoming mightily peeved that Tony Abbott refuses to sit down with them for a long-form interview. So, in a bid to ramp up the pressure on the Opposition Leader, they’re letting their viewers know about it. 
QandA host Tony Jones kicked it off on Monday by asking Coalition frontbencher Sophie Mirabella: "Can you explain why we don't see him doing long-format interviews? Why he won't do this program or Lateline or the Insiders?" Abbott hasn't appeared on the Monday night talkfest since August 16, 2010. That’s 1054 days. And 7.30 presenter Leigh Sales -- who won a Walkley for last year's Abbott grilling -- followed suit on Wednesday night. After an exclusive interview with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Sales told viewers: "[W]e've invited the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, to join the program tomorrow night to talk us through his policies and plans. Hopefully he'll be available." He wasn't. Abbott last fronted 7.30 on April 24: 72 days ago. 
Lateline's Emma Alberici got in on the act last night, telling viewers: "In case you were wondering why Tony Abbott hasn't been on our program for some time, we’ve had an open invitation for the Opposition Leader to join us since the start of last year, but he’s so far refused." Abbott last fronted Lateline on November 30, 2011: 583 days ago. As for Fran Kelly’s agenda-setting Breakfast program on Radio National, Abbott hasn't appeared since July 2, 2012: 368 days. He last appeared on Insiders on July 8, 2012: 362 days ago. 
Abbott has been more willing to front up for AM -- where he was interviewed after the May budget -- and ABC local radio. It'll be fascinating to see if the name 'n' shame tactics flush Abbott out. -- Matthew Knott (you'll need to go to Crikey to get the justificatory links)

The obvious point is that Abbott, like the ape-like bullies the pond endured in school days, when it comes to the crunch, wants to hide in the dark like a mushroom away from the ogres at the ABC (And if that mixing of metaphors doesn't please, what will?)

Which brings us to Kenny, peddling an entirely different line:

Crocodile tears!

But there's a real problem of logic at work in this form of special pleading, putting Kenny firmly in Pearson's vacated chair, as you can read in Return of yesterday's man Rudd is no way to rebuild the road to credibility (behind the paywall) - and never mind the yesterday men and women who continue to litter Abbott's front bench. Or the yearning for a Howard era that never was, where apparently the border protection policies worked so well it was one of the reasons Howard was kicked out of power ...

You see, here's the conundrum. Kenny has spent the last many years explaining just how Labor's most experienced and skilled performers were a bunch of drop-kicks - Conroy a loser, Swan the world's worst treasurer, Gillard a red-headed deviant (quite possibly atheist), and so on and so forth. You can do chapter and verse if you like, but haven't you got something better to do on a Saturday than Chris Kenny head-kicking the Gillard government and its key figures?

It's simply not a sustainable or credible argument - if Conroy was a drop-kick when he tried to filter the intertubes, then he surely wasn't one of Labor's most experienced and skilled performers (and it took him a long time to dismount from his pony and stop tilting at that particular windmill, only to discover that the NBN roll-out was taking far too long to happen, and now we all must worship at the feet of copper).

This sort of special pleading is pathetic, like the sort of crocodile tears Abbott himself shed at a few departing Labor figures.

With Kenny, it reaches the height - or the pit - of absurdity when somehow Kenny finds a soft spot for the likes of Robert McClelland, always ready to enhance intrusions on privacy, and dear sweet long absent lord, even that union hack Martin Ferguson (has Kenny ever heard others in the party, like Conroy, roll their eyes in private about good old Marty?)

Suddenly in Kenny land the droning tedious Marty is given to offering pithy windows on the philosophical void, proving that indeed there is a use for wind bags.

And how about this?

High-profile rock 'n' roll recruit Peter Garrett, a former head of the Australian Conservation Foundation, quit as education minister and will leave politics.

Yes on any other day in the lizard Oz, that would have been written in a foam-flecked, spittle-laden way as:

High-profile deadhead rock 'n' roll dunce and wretched token recruit Peter Garrett, a former head of the despicable greenie, climate change accepting, Australian mining ruining Australian Conservation Foundation, quit as education minister and will leave politics, and what a bloody good thing that is.

But the pond's favourite, and surely the capper is this one:

Ferguson knows where the Hawke-Keating continuum should have been taking Labor but he has bailed out, along with Crean, Combet and the rest. 
It seems clear modern Labor lost its way when it turned its back on Crean.

Good old Simon Crean!

Now any readers of Christopher Pearson of long-standing will remember he was always banging on about Simon Crean. Whenever he was short of a column, he'd write a piece demanding, proposing, or insisting on the return of Crean to the leadership.

It must be something in the water in South Australia.

Yes, there's an amazing nostalgia for two leaders who proved themselves to be durable losers, Crean and Beazley. 

No wonder Kenny loves them - after all, his entire career in politics depended on Bomber Beazely routinely dropping his bundle, and handing Howard the keys to the lodge.

Anyhoo, Kenny lathers himself up into a final burst of indignation about the Ruddster revival, and the loss of Crean and Kim Beazley.

... a panoply of ALP experience has voiced its despair by walking away.

The very same panoply of ALP experience he's spent years describing as drop kicks and losers ...

And never you mind that it was actually Crean who laid himself down on the path so that the Ruddster could return ...

So what do we learn from this?

Well surely that Kenny is capable of enormous duplicity and hypocrisy.

Perhaps he's delusional and believes what he writes, or perhaps Pearson style, he thinks he's fucking with the minds of the ALP and somehow this will help Abbott gain power.

As if somehow his readers will fail to note the impossibility of reconciling years of writing about the appalling state of the Labor party, and then writing an eulogy about how the appalling loss of these appalling people is simply appalling.

Oh yes, it's classic Pearson, the sort of nonsense Pearson routinely scribbled (and on the other side, Bob Ellis).

It simply makes no sense, and it's right up or down there with Pearson helpfully explaining how the Labor party might heal or fix itself.

It must be something in the water in South Australia, but at last the pond has a credible Pearson replacement. Now if only Kenny would convert to the Latin rite ...

Okay, now the pond sees that you're hooked, that you can't get enough.

Well never mind the lizard Oz paywall, you see Kenny has his own blog, and you can access it here, and it has the wonderfully satirical heading "An unashamedly rationalist approach to national affairs".

So at last you understand that rationalist actually means foam-flecked ABC bashing, paranoia and hysteria.

Enjoy, and never let it be said that the pond is against the irregular movements of the English language ...

(Below: an old Pope for a laugh after too much time with Kenny. More Pope here, but it might cost you a Fairfax hit!)

Taking time to koan with chairmen Rupert and James, and grokking about girlies with Gra Gra ...

(Above: click to enlarge the twitter's tweets).

It's been awhile since the pond has dropped in on the koans of Chairman Rupert, and he has just broken his recent twitter silence with a magisterial fourth of July remark regarding immigration.

But not a single twitter about other matters currently raging on the internet. Never apologise in a meaningful way, never explain, always denounce.

Golden rules, and, as always, there are gems amongst the rubble:

Australian public
Now totally disgusted
With Labor party
Wrecking county
With it's sordid intrigues.
Now for a quick election ...

Oh wait, oh no, with it's sordid intrigues? Damn you possessive, damn you apostrophe, damn you to hell you dirty apes ...

Is this why the great traditions of western journalism have gone to hell in a handbasket?

Did Chairman Rupert ever learn the golden rule, it's means it is or it has, and should never ever be a possessive?

Clearly he doesn't know or care because his twittering is full of wayward ways with words - he accepts the law of the clunky thumb - and so he fills the intertubes full of wretched work which would see a first year cadet given a three strike warning in the good old days ...

Never mind, the reason we suddenly thought of the Chairman came from catching Channel Four promoting a tape which revealed Rupert speaking with a forked tongue.

Now for anyone interested in the Chairman this is old news.

There are two golden rules on the path to riches:

1. Convince other people to observe ethical standards;
2. Make out like a bandit by stretching said ethical standards as much as you can.

Stand back and watch the ethical mugs lose out; collect bundles of cash.

But what's the pond going on about?  Well the story broke on Exaro here,  but you happen to need some cash in the paw to access the joint.

For punters like the pond, ruined by Tom Waterhouse and the Nine network, you're better off on Channel 4, here, or any of a dozen other places peddling the goodies, like The Independent here, or The Guardian here.

Now there's no need for the pond to recycle all the juicy details - Roy Greenslade has already dined out on the feast here, and you can too - but it surely made the pond's day last night cruising around the headlines as the good old Chairman copped yet another bruising.

And to be fair, while Murdoch didn't get a run on the front page of the lizard Oz this morning, he did turn up in the media section:

But there's the rub. They want you to pay to read the ways of the mendacious Murdoch! And it wasn't even their scoop, and what's the bet they'll spin it the way of the boss. Yes, yes, they wrap up the story this way:

News Corp later issued a statement saying: "No other company has done as much to identify what went wrong, compensate the victims, and ensure the same mistakes do not happen again.'' 
Murdoch was showing "understandable empathy" with Sun staff, the News of the World's sister paper, it added.

Waiter, another serve of tongue please, and can we have a crocodile shedding tears as a side dish ...

Murdoch was of course practising the devious art of pandering to one audience, having already pandered to others in a public way, and stands revealed a dissembling hypocrite.

Oh okay that's hardly news or a fresh insight, but anyone with an interest in the art of the western will know what best captured the devious Murdoch's ways.

No, not the pile of digital crap dumped in the cinemas at the moment, the real deal:

Ah yes, you speak with forked tongue, kemosabe ...

Of course the real meaning of the leak is that someone made a recording at the meeting, as a way of getting the goods on Rupe, lining up some possible payback, if it was felt that Chairman Rupert didn't deliver.

Clearly the person who did the recording felt Rupert had dudded them. And now it's out there, and ain't payback a bitch?

Oh yes, it put quite a spring in the pond's step, and not just because it's the weekend.

You might have your own pet word's - like double-dealing or duplicitous or scurvy knave (oh come on, that apostrophe was a joke, get up and have a dance, don't just sit there brooding, we live in post-grammatical and ethical times).

And even better all the fuss means there's not much time to spend with the lickspittle knave commentariat who alway suck up to the Chairman.

For a start, we won't be reading Gra Gra:

Get over it girls?

That's your opening pitch to women? That's the bold bright way the Labor party intends to woo women voters?

Oh go fuck yourself while tracking your Swiss bank accounts, but thanks for explaining in a few words to the pond, why not voting for the Labor party will be an invigorating experience.

It'll come as news to Richo, but back in the 1930s there was a famous line celebrated in the title of a documentary about Australian films:

That was the 1930s (in a 1937 Ken G. Hall flick called Lovers and Luggers if you must know).

The pond is standing by and will let you know of the first sign that Richardson has reached the 1920s and the talkies...

But don't hold your breath, it could be a long wait.

And so to a lighter note. Sydney siders awoke to this vision:

Is it a kind of shadow,
Reaching into the night,
Wandering over Barangaroo unseen
Or is it a dream?

Well big Bazza's got himself into a mess with shooting in national parks, and the pond cheerfully predicts there'll be tears long after he takes the hefty deposit for Packer's vision.

The pond remembers visiting Vegas and contemplating the hole in the ground that represented another Packer dream ...

Let's hope the Chinese stay the course, if only so Sydney can remain a Packer playground ...

And finally since we've been on a period comic kick, how about this old Davy Crockett?

Truly if you accept this sort of routine, you're more than ready for chairmans Rupert and James ...

For absolutely no reason, the pond seizes on a New Zealand stereotype while frolicking through News Corp, and with only one excuse ... being driven insane by the commentariat ...

(Above: the pond lightens the mood with a dose of fush 'n chups).


It's the second, or is it the third, day of the Fairfax paywall, and the pond is doing it easy.

Well easier than the Somme veteran grandad who locked the entire family out in the street while he chased pink elephants past the aspidistra on the whatnot in the hallway ... Poor bugger ...

You see, it's just requires a measuring out of the dose, no more than a hit a day, supplemented by methadone from other sources ...

Oh sure the Daily Terror slapped a ban on Miranda the Devine's most recent piece, but if you head off to her blog, there it is, as cheap as a New Zealand seagull's chups, under the header Standing up to the paedophiles.

It's not much of a hit, except for the remarkable sight of the Devine acknowledging that the Catholic church and its priests mishandled things, though she then proceeds to provide as many distractions to the proceedings in Newcastle as she can find.

And there's no need to turn to the ABC to get a daily fix of Akker Dakker's bilious bile, because there he is free to all in his blog, and droning on in the usual one-eyed salty dog fush and chup way in Stop trying to bully us, Kevin, just call an election:

The notion of Kevin Rudd as the glasses-wearing, library-locked school nerd is beyond ludicrous.

The great thing about Akker Dakker, apart from the routine frothing and foaming, is the way he's so easily teased, so quick to anger, so outraged about everything. You have to wonder why the vinegar he stores in a cup on the desk for his chups doesn't melt a hole in his keyboard.

And the comments were well up to the usual Akker Dakker standard, with the opening one proposing that Kevin is a bed-wetter.

Oh yes, quality insights, and all for free.

And if you want a short visit to a gadfly, buzzing like an asinine bee in the winter sun, you can always visit Tum Bleagh, though it's advised the visit be kept short if you want to avoid terminal loss of faculties. Take a slice of lemon.

And if you want that master of hate, Andrew Bolt, oh sure, they might want to make you buy your way into the Bolter's Chameleon Kevin Rudd is a master of disguise, but alas and alack, you can get yourself a serve of Bolter magic by googling up the opening line, and going straight through to It's a tale of two Kevins, but which one is real? at the HUN.

But why would you bother? You know what the cheerleader is going to say, in much the same way as you can pretty well guess how a New Zealand seagull will act when confronted with a box of chups ...

Oh sure, he pretends to an even-handed analysis, but if you head off to his blog, the real Bolter, the true cheerleader is on show in Rudd wants debates on policies he does not have ...

But what is Rudd’s policy on asylum seekers? 
What is his policy on the Budget parameters? 
What is his policy on the carbon tax? 
What is to discuss?

Indeed. The pond just loves rhetorical flourishes:

But what is Abbott’s policy on asylum seekers? Turn back the boats and bung on a do with the Indonesians?
What is his policy on the Budget parameters? Follow the gradual path to a surplus currently on the table, while doling out a massive hit of middle class welfare?
What is his policy on the carbon tax? Fight the climate wars with a valiant group of 15,000 direct action souls planting trees and using magic soil to make it all go away?
What is to discuss? Yep, three fifths of fuck all ...

Meanwhile, let's abandon the fush and chups metaphor, because if you want a splendid dose of paranoia, you can always head off to Greg Sheridan in Is Abbott facing ambush by SBY? (behind the lizard Oz paywall but you know what to do).

It's as fine an example of straw man writing as the pond has seen in recent times.

Here's what you do. First devise a very solid looking straw man:

Could Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono do to Tony Abbott what George W. Bush did to Mark Latham? It must surely be Kevin Rudd's fervent wish as he meets the Indonesian President in Bogor tomorrow. 

On June 3, 2004, in the run-up to a federal election, Bush virtually destroyed Latham, without mentioning him by name. Bush, standing next to John Howard, said it would be a disaster for Australia to withdraw from Iraq - Latham's policy. 

Say what? Bush and the CIA destroyed Mark Latham? No, no, relax, it was all for the very best, and right to this day, the pond is assured that Iraq and Iraquis are profoundly grateful for all that the United States did for the country during the decade long war:

Latham is a clever fellow, but he has never had a sophisticated understanding of foreign affairs. Latham's determination to withdraw from Iraq was popular in itself, but Bush's intervention meant Latham's ability to handle the US alliance came into question. Australians were more attached to the US alliance than they were to withdrawing from Iraq. So Latham lost credibility, gravitas, the aura of electability. Some thought it an unwarranted US interference in Australian politics. But Latham had attacked Bush, he had no grounds for complaint...

And neither have those bloody Iraquis and all their whinging and moaning about car bombs still going off. Sheesh, what do they expect?

But hey, back to the straw man routine

Could something similar happen to Abbott while Rudd is in Indonesia? 
If SBY said at a joint press conference with Rudd that turning around the boats - Abbott's policy - would be a grievous mistake, that Indonesia would regard it as an unfriendly act and that its implementation would hurt Canberra-Jakarta co-operation, that would be a devastating blow to Abbott. It would undermine the central pillar of Abbott's boats policy and call into question his ability to function effectively on the international stage. 
I don't think it will happen, however. 

Say what? We've read this far only to be told it's a complete furphy, and wretched meaningless speculation of an indulgent, insolent kind? What's the bet that in reality it's going to turn into yet another lickspittle cheerleading job for Tony Abbott?

Unlike Latham with Bush, Abbott has been diligent and entirely respectful in his approach to SBY, and to Indonesia more generally. SBY likes Abbott personally and is far too shrewd, I would think, to want to get plonked into the middle of Australian election politics. 

Uh huh. Who'd have guessed it. And yet there's not a mention of Indonesian election politics, with the next, third direct presidential election to be held in mid-2014.

Now you might think that what might happen would be of interest to an alleged foreign affairs editor in an article allegedly discussing Australia's relationship with Indonesia, whether via Abbott or Rudd.

But no, not a chance.

Instead we go straight to the standard song book of abuse, which we'll be seeing much more of in the next few months in News Corp:

Rudd is exceptionally popular with young people. At first blush this is surprising, given that he certainly doesn't look like Hugh Jackman, and tends to speak in bureaucratic circumlocutions peppered with slangy ockerisms - fair shake of the sauce bottle, rough end of the pineapple, gotta zip. But Rudd's triumph with the young is a weird mix of sober, strategic political planning combined with Energizer Bunny relentlessness and almost Confucian discipline. 

Yes, yes, but what about the Indonesian presidential election that's just around the corner in 2014?

For a start, no one in Australian politics works harder to be ubiquitous on social media. Rudd understands the interlocking dynamics of celebrity and political leadership as mediated through social media. There is a banality to many of his tweets. But that is not a criticism of Rudd. It's the nature of Twitter. Rudd has 1.2 million followers and he understands that quotidian banality is the currency of the medium. 

Yes, yes, but what about the Indonesian presidential election that's just around the corner in 2014?

Rudd's appeal to youth, especially youthful idealists, is much more substantial, of course, than just that. No doubt he sincerely believes in the foreign aid budget, which he has relentlessly championed. But it is also the case that the Make Poverty History movement, Live Aid and all the rest, is one of the few political issues that has energised large numbers of young people. The same with climate change. Add to the list, now, gay marriage. 

Fuck the pond dead, what about the Indonesian presidential election that's just around the corner in 2014?

Here is another surprising trend. International relations is a boom field in our universities. Ever fewer youngsters want to study Australian politics, ever more want to study international relations. These courses at universities have an almost built-in bias towards multilateral institutions and the mythology of the UN. Rudd's mind is always preoccupied with great power issues, and his way into those issues is generally through multilateral forums, where he is comfortable and performs best.

Oh okay, the pond gets it, you don't really want to get into an actual study of relationships with Indonesia and how they might be best managed.

Could we close it off with a splendid example of preening pomposity:

As a foreign editor, I am absolutely delighted by a politician who appreciates the centrality of foreign affairs to the common good. 

Yes, but whatever you do, don't actually manage to mention that kinda central presidential election in Indonesia, or how it might play out.

And that sadly is why the Fairfax paywall faces stiff competition if you go out in the world loon-hunting. So many loons, so little time, and so many useless paywalls that don't do their job ... when so many should be sealed off, and the world made sane, lest some start to babble about fush and chups.

Oh sure there's Paul Sheehan and he's writing about Egypt, and amazingly he takes a pot shot at the forces of sexual repression in Islamic societies in general and Egypt in particular, and yet the pond can't recall a single word Sheehan has ever written about the sexual repression inherent in the angry Sydney Calvinist Anglicans, or the sexual repression inherent in the Pellist cult, but the pond seems to remember Sheehan having things to say about gay marriage worthy of a repressive Islamic fundamentalist deeply troubled by sex and sexuality....

Oh dear, sorry Fairfax paywall, this little duckie is way too tired to bite, or to link, so that others might bite ...

Speaking of singular peanuts ...

(Above: what's that? He's been attracting cartoonist attention since 2009 for putting his foot in it? More Nicholson here).


And, leaving Barners aside for a moment, there you have it in a nutshell.

A singularly appalling, quite singular peanut.

Which is to say Daily Terror opinion editor and infiltrator of the ABC with wretched programs, Joe Hildebrand explaining to mUmBRELLA why journalists and opinion piece writers shouldn't be paid, why in fact they should learn to live and love the joy of not being paid by the Daily Terror ...

... so the Terror can pay Peter Costello:

“I can’t even afford to commission a full article a week for the entire op-ed pages or the features section. 
“We used to have Bill Woods who was a very good and very popular columnist who was a huge hit with readers and we could only afford to have him fortnightly. And we had Kellie Connolly the other week, she’s also very popular, very good. We had to slash what we paid them because we couldn’t afford him. I was only able to persuade the bean counters above me to keep them under that.” Hildebrand said the coup of former politician Peter Costello moving from Fairfax Media to News Limited added to the pressure. He said: “Obviously we’re paying him. He left the (Sydney Morning) Herald. We’re managing to share the cost with (News Corp’s Melbourne paper) the Herald Sun – it’s the only way we can afford that. 
“And as a result of that we’ve had to cut Bill Woods and use him as a pinch hitter. So we couldn’t even afford to keep our own columnists.” (Daily Tele opinion editor Hildebrand: We can't even afford to pay our own columnists)

As if Peter Costello needs the money.

As if getting a political hack to shift from Fairfax to News Corp was any sort of coup.

As if anyone with half a brain would break through the Daily Terror's paywall, slavering and foaming at the mouth in joy just to fork over the readies, for the pure and adulterated pleasure of reading Peter Costello, the man who couldn't, the man without the ticker...

Truly if there was any single reason why the Daily Terror, and the rest of the Murdochians, locked in their fetid, squalid, poverty-stricken ideological and political castle are struggling with readership and budgets, that's it in a nutshell. A most peculiar, quite singular peanut ...

No wonder Hildebrand moonlights for the ABC, though it's a wonder the ABC will have him ... as for that shitty tabloid shock horror Shitsville Express, who at the ABC thinks that Hildebrand is a hot tabloid expression of the unholy gutter-based shock horror demographic that they're apparently targeting on ABC22? There, the pond has said it, shit, shit, shit. Oh we'll say it again, so bold and brave we are, shit.

Oh huzzah, how naughty, brave and bold, and above all, so insightful ...

Meanwhile, the pond was delighted to learn the depths of negativity that still infest the federal opposition leader, which now sees the man urging that people vote no, if they're unclear (and so clearly haven't been cleared by their nearest scientological cult).

TONY ABBOTT: If you don't understand it, don't vote for it. If you're not fully persuaded, don't vote for it. (Tony Abbott urges no vote on referendum if unclear).

Yes, if I personally have completely failed to explain my own personal position, or why I personally voted in favour of the proposition, or why all of my colleagues, why heck initially all of parliament save for two very lonely voices, voted in favour of it, you must certainly join me in convoluted back-flipping and nattering negativity and vote no.

Along the way, please make sure you blame the federal government for mishandling the matter, and in no way attribute any of the confusion and chaos to my own back-flipping nattering negativity.

And to prove my sincerity, I will send out from the trenches "Poodle" Pyne and Barners to explain that it really is all the government's fault, and has absolutely nothing to do with my cheap desire to create confusion and policy chaos wherever I go.

Take it away Barners, and while you're at it, introduce some of your legendary comedy lines and Vegas routines:

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: So you're saying because it's a different minister, that the Labor Party is no longer fully committed to the referendum, and that's not true. 
BARNABY JOYCE: If I'm committed to our relationship with you, I don't have, I'm not one of three husbands. I just try and stick with the first one. 

This line reminded the pond with a shudder that thanks to Tony Windsor stepping down, Barners now looks like he has a lock on the seat representing Tamworth, centre of the known universe, with the aim in due course of becoming leader of the Nationals and deputy prime monster of Australia.

It truly is a remarkable, some would say terrifying prospect. But do go on Barners:

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: But isn't it actually more damaging that Tony Abbott, the Leader of the Opposition, the potential prime minister, is saying the people should vote no? 
BARNABY JOYCE: What he's saying is that the local governments, if they believe that it's not going to be successful, should, should say no... 
SAMANTHA HAWLEY: And he said if anyone has any doubts about this that they should vote no for it. 
BARNABY JOYCE: Well if people have any doubts about anything in life, when in doubt, they knock out, but I... 
SAMANTHA HAWLEY: But most voters would have doubts, wouldn't they, because they wouldn't be across the in and out details of this? 
BARNABY JOYCE: Most voters would have doubts because the Labor Party, who actually are supposed to be the Government - I know it's unlikely, but they're actually supposed to be the Government - have been unable to hitch this issue up to one person.

Remarkably Samantha Hawley couldn't lay a glove on Barners or the inherent stupidity of what he was saying, or the huge contradictions involved in Abbott's position and dog-whistling, but to her credit, she kept trying:

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: But isn't the greatest confusion actually coming from the Coalition, because originally the Coalition said it supported it and now Tony Abbott's saying that people should vote against it? BARNABY JOYCE: Well I do support it, and the issue has been through the Parliament. We've managed to get it through both Houses of Parliament and then, after spending a lot of political capital - and I did the worst thing, I trusted the Labor Party in this relationship. I trusted that they'd actually take it seriously. They haven't. 

Yes, remarkably and amazingly, it's all the fault of the serial adulterers in the ALP that Tony Abbott has decided to have a fling with a bunch of floozies ...

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: But what's your proof that they haven't taken it seriously when they're still fully committed to the actual policy? 
BARNABY JOYCE: Oh. Well, how many ministers do you think they can go through before we decide that they're not taking it seriously? 
SAMANTHA HAWLEY: But it's - 
BARNABY JOYCE: Maybe if they go through, may if they go through 20. Would that say that they weren't serious about it? 

Which is a wondrous, truly amazing distraction, because clearly Tony Abbott himself isn't very serious about it, having urged anyone, anyone at all, who is "unclear", who has failed to be "cleared" by Uncle Tone's E-meter, to vote no. But still valiant Samantha kept trying:

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: Do you think it should be withdrawn now that it will not get the support it needs, and that it should actually not be on the agenda? 
BARNABY JOYCE: I want a government that's diligent, that actually puts their shoulder to the wheel... 
SAMANTHA HAWLEY: That's about the Government though but what do you... BARNABY JOYCE: They are the Government. No, they are the Government. We're not the Government. 

It was about this point that the pond wanted Samantha to pull out a baseball bat and start whacking Barners about the head, saying what about the bloody bipartisan, cross-party lines support, what about everybody, except for some dissidents and abstainers in the Senate saying it was a fine thing, what about Abbott deciding that the way to sort out his rogue colleagues was for himself to go charging through the china shop like a bull ... But still she kept trying:

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: That's fine, but what do you think should happen? I mean, should a vote proceed on this or do you think that it would not have the support now to get up? 
BARNABY JOYCE: Well it's for the Australian people to decide. 

Actually in a bipartisan world, Barners would also have to decide, and actually attempt to make a coherent statement, either of support or nattering negativity.

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: Right, so if this fails, do you envisage any time in the future that this question could be put again? 
BARNABY JOYCE: Nope. If this fails, that's it. 
PETER LLOYD: That's the Nationals Senator, Barnaby Joyce, with Samantha Hawley.

It surely was Mr. Lloyd and truth to tell, it's much richer in the listening than the reading - it was the best comedy routine that the pond has heard in yonks, way better than "Poodle" Pyne, who has been going around urging anyone who'll listen that the government should "pull" the referendum because it has set it up to fail, and never mind how the opposition has set it up to fail.

Forget about it, there's no chance Pyne will pull himself to a quiet spot and give himself a quiet "pull" (Pyne wants Rudd to 'pull' doomed referendum).

And now in passing, the pond feels the need to draw your attention to the latest conspiracy theorist to grace the pages of the lizard Oz.

Oh dear sweet long absent lord, it's bloody old """, aka Maurice Newman, at it again in Climate change science has become an expensive smokescreen.

Yes, the lizard Oz's war on climate science continues.

What a shame Tim Lambert turned to other things after reaching war item number 81 ... and how predictable you need to head off here to read about the latest in actual science ...

No doubt you'd appreciate a quote so you can take the text and google up the article, in order to give yourself a good free laugh at Jonathan Holmes' notion that you should subscribe to any rag, any rag at all, in order to maintain quality journalism.

As if Maurice Newman writing on climate science, without any discernible qualifications, except an enormous lump of paranoia sitting on his shoulder, is worth a brass farthing. So here's your google quote:

This is the world of climate change. The science has become an expensive smokescreen behind which vested interests hide. 
Sooner or later, though, the laws of economics, which are more certain than the laws of anthropogenic global warming, will prevail and determine the sustainability of these gestures. Once upon a time legislators could justify the need to enforce reductions in CO2 emissions. Today we know these policies are based on back-to-the-drawing-board science and we have firsthand knowledge of their growth-slowing, economy-distorting, job-destroying impact. 
In the meantime, the UN is claiming damages for "climate injustice with a human rights dimension" inflicted by wicked Western "polluters" on poor developing countries. It wants huge financial compensation. 
Legitimate or not, any such claim of injustice pales in comparison to the ongoing harm and callous indifference shown by wealthy governments towards their own people. 
 This, is the greatest moral challenge of our time.

Sorry, the pond didn't see that spot of spittle landing on your brand new suit. Here, wipe it off with a dose of bile and righteous paranoid indignation.

But what set Maurice off, in the way that a passing rabbit will get the hounds sounding the alarm?

Signing off as "Mr FOIA", the person who leaked the emails from East Anglia University that came to be known as "Climategate" and that drew a line in the snow at the Copenhagen Climate Summit recently released to a select few the password to the files containing 220,000 emails. 
 He didn't expect the remaining emails to hold big surprises and observed, "Even if I have it all wrong and these scientists had a good reason to mislead us (instead of making a strong case with real data) I think disseminating the truth is still the safest bet by far." 
Indeed it is.

Oh indeed, indeedy deedy do, and by recently, Maurice means back in March, but he does give us a terribly good clue as to the rat-bag company he keeps (as you can discover here) because truth to tell, nothing at all has arisen from the matter with which he leads off his piece.

And Jonathan Holmes thinks the pond should be supporting the reptiles at the lizard Oz for bringing us the paranoid hysteria of Maurice Newman as part of its ongoing war on climate science ... why that's almost as funny as Barners.

Which brings us to a very grave matter, also relating to paywalls. As of today, or maybe yesterday, the average punter is reduced to 30 free reads a month at Fairfax, and so the pond has stopped linking to the rag, except when very important comedy items are on display.

Perhaps it will emerge that it is a cookie based thing, and so - as the pond runs three browsers, Safari, Chrome and Firefox - 30 will actually mean 90.

But we don't want to encourage readers to click on a link reporting the mere news of the day, when this might mean that right on the end of the month they might end up missing out on Paul Sheehan explaining the joys of magic water ...

Now this might mean that occasionally all the pond can do is mention things like Fairfax's recent discovery of the intrigue and ongoing hints of dirty smelly laundry in the New South Wales Labor party, this time involving John Robertson, who sat on a company for four years which received large sums of money from a mysterious company based in the British Virgin Islands ... without at any point ever bothering to discover who might have been involved in said company ... and there's more dirt about the Currawong sale on view ...

Ah well, all it's telling the world is that NSW Labor is full of murk which hardly counts as news these days, more like saying it's the business of garbage collectors to deal in garbage ...

So it goes, and all the pond can say is that the pond is sworn to no master or mistress, of no sect am I ...

And to make sense of that, you'll have to travel past the ABC below, to a blast from memory lane, the Sydney Morning Herald announcing major changes on 23rd May 1977, and to read it, you'll need to click on it to enlarge.

So it always bloody seems to go, to borrow a notion from shitty Joe Hildebrand.

It only encourages them ...

(Above: cheesy ABC Media Watch graphics, which made the pond feel like Alice)

There's probably not much point arguing with him now that he's left, but what the hell, the pond will do it anyway ...

You see last night Jonathan Holmes turned into a shill:

Noun 
An accomplice of a hawker, gambler, or swindler who acts as an enthusiastic customer to entice or encourage others. 
Verb 
Act or work as such a person: "your husband in the crowd could shill for you".

Which is to say that in his final episode of Media Watch, The good, the bad and the end of an era, he proposed

...the stories broken in the mainstream media provide us with our talking points, with the raw material that holds our society together. The ABC and SBS are valuable institutions – but they can’t, and shouldn’t, do that job on their own. 
 So my parting plea is this: whatever your politics, or your preferences, and even if you’ve never bought a newspaper, start subscribing to at least one media website: whether it’s the Herald Sun or New Matilda, Crikey or the Sydney Morning Herald, old media or new, pay just a little to keep real journalism alive.

Real journalism?

Now the pond understands Stockholm Syndrome. After a heavy week of reading the commentariat and the reptiles at the lizard Oz, the pond feels like wandering the streets, telling any passing stranger how it's all fucked, how we're all doomed, what a disaster it all is, and how only the minions of Fairfax and Murdoch can lead us to truth and light and understanding ... and how climate science is a gigantic fraud perpetrated on the masses as a monstrous hoax ...

Usually the mood passes, without innocents being harmed, but here's the Holmesian point.

You see, Holmes cites the example of the Sunday Terror publishing the alleged nude photos of Pauline Hanson as one of the most egregious examples of bad journalism in his time at Media Watch.

Who can argue? While the pond has no time at all for Hansonism, by the time of publication, she was irrelevant, and there was absolutely no justification for publishing the photos ... even if they'd been genuine.

So how does the average punter respond? Say oh never mind, boys will be adolescent boys, perhaps stop buying the rag for a week, and then pick it up again as if nothing had happened? What's the odd fraudulent nude photo between friends?

Well the pond isn't like that. Long ago the pond sent the Daily and Sunday Terror off the field. Not a sin binning, not a one match ban, but a lifetime exiled from the game. Way too much head kicking, eye gouging, and did we mention it promotes thugby league?

That's the only punishment the average punter has, which is to withdraw patronage, refuse to flash the cash. Occasionally it's possible to forgive, if not forget, but what's the point of forgiving a tabloid? Nude photos of Pauline Hanson are in their DNA ...

Apart from that, the pond already feels burdened by a drain on the exchequer.

You see the pond helps - in an ever so 'umble way - to pay for the ABC and SBS, and it also helps pays for commercial television, whether it likes it or not.

Not by watching, but if you happen to wander into a major retail institution, like Coles or Woolworths, or purchase a major brand, chances are their advertising money has ended up helping support the dross that is called current affairs on the wretched FTA channels.

Yep, one one or another, there's a slice of the pond's cent at work helping finance The Bolt Report. That's what happens if you like to cut your muesli with cornflakes (no safer a habit than cutting heroin with baking soda). The thought immediately induces a sense of nausea ...

With the other outlets, still reliant on hard copy but with a dawning sense they've totally stuffed digital, the crucial issue remains. How do you reward or punish or express a view?

Do you subscribe to the lizard Oz, and then spend your days, nights and weekends writing angry letters and online comments regarding the malicious falsification and devious misrepresentation of climate science that litters the rag - behaviour Holmes himself remarked on only the week before?

Or do you say you're as mad as hell and you're not going to take it anymore and the reptiles at the lizard Oz can only prise a subscription from the pond's dead cold hands ...

You see, news is news, it's out there in abundance, and opinion is the main selling point, but the pond has absolutely zero interest in the opinion pieces of the commentariat, except as a really perverse hobby and a source of comedy routines for the pond.

Is it worth reading an exposé of Eddie Obeid if the price is to be exposed to the thoughts of Paul Sheehan?

What about that wretched prattling Polonius, Gerard Henderson, doing his predictable routine this Tuesday?

Now the alleged Fairfax paywall remains relatively low-profile and invisible. You can click on Single and atheist an issue for voters, as are gay unions, and read as much as your churning, heaving stomach can stand.

But what if you knew that you'd helped subsidise this sort of tosh? Is it possible to live with yourself?

Why even the header for the piece is offensive, because it should have said: Single and atheist an issue for some voters, including prejudiced bilious gits like Gerard Henderson, as are gay unions.

What's even more appalling is that Henderson spends his time trampling on Gillard for no particular reason or benefit, his only feeble excuse that sneering Bill Heffernan and snickering Mark Latham did it, and sniggering raffish newspapers did it to Billy McMahon way back when.

It says something profoundly offensive about Henderson that he proposes Gillard should have lied, or dissembled, or gilded the lily:

Gillard not only remained unmarried when living with her partner Tim Mathieson in The Lodge. 

Oh the shocking, shameless hussy.

She also declared that she was an atheist. For someone who was brought up a Baptist, this seemed an unnecessary affirmation since it would have been so easy for Gillard to state that she was agnostic. The problem is that some atheists present as what British historian Michael Burleigh has termed ''sneering secularists''. 

An unnecessary affirmation? To say and do what you believe, instead of staying locked in a closet, because next thing you know you'll be tagged a sneering secularist?

As opposed to a sneering, snickering common gossip Catholic?

And so it's on to more innuendo, and the usual repetitive drone of Henderson blathering on about inner city elites:

There is evidence, which some Labor MPs spoke about off the record, that Gillard's non-married status and atheism were political problems, especially among migrant groups in the suburbs and regional areas. 
The Australian Financial Review's Phillip Coorey was one of the few members of the Canberra parliamentary press gallery to raise this sensitive matter. On June 24 he wrote: ''A good proportion of voters had a problem with an atheist female prime minister knifing a church-going family man and moving into The Lodge with her boyfriend.'' Kevin Rudd could face a not dissimilar problem, now that he has embraced same-sex marriage. 

Yes, they get you coming and going, with the relentless pressure to turn into conformist sheep who refuse to disturb the muddy water by making unnecessary affirmations. When lying - calling yourself an agnostic when you're actually an atheist - is so much better ...

What's even more provocative and offensive is Henderson's notion that Gillard should have done a Helen Clark or an Anna Bligh, because indulging in a shotgun wedding or racing to the church and putting on a thin veneer of respectability makes political sense.

Yes, and no doubt it's wonderful that the Obeids show the splendours and respectability of a decent suburban life, just wanting to get ahead a little like all families ...

And so to the usual Henderson conclusion, about those 'leets:

Unlike ABC1's Media Watch, Rupert Murdoch's Fox News employs social democrats and conservatives on its main programs. On the Fox News Watch program last month, left-of-centre Kirsten Powers commented on a Pew Research Centre report that the US media was overwhelmingly supportive of same-sex marriage. 
Powers had no problem with this. But she did point out that ''most newsrooms are located in urban environments where people tend to be pro-gay marriage''. 
In Australia, most marginal electorates are located in socially conservative environments, far away from inner-cities, where same-sex marriage is not universally endorsed.

Actually it's not universally endorsed at the Sydney Institute, which lives in the heart of Sydney at Phillip street ... and where twittery and the sustaining of fear and loathing and division is a way of life ...

So there you have it Mr. Holmes. If the pond followed your advice and subscribed to Fairfax it would be directly supporting the weekly odious expression of Gerard Henderson's thoughts.

Now the pond cannot tell a lie, no matter how much Henderson urges it to lie or dissemble or pretend it's not a happy part of Newtown, or for that matter it truly is hard to believe that the Sydney Institute does all its best work at its real headquarters in Penrith and Blacktown ...

Hell will freeze over - should there be such a thing as hell, or even a more amiable, less intense purgatory, as only Catholics insist, without any justification in terms of scripture - before that happens.

Now forget that idle chatter about supporting "real journalism". Where's that axe, for the pond finds it very hard to tell a lie ...

And so to frisky Fred Nile, and the gender wars ...

And so we turn to the ongoing gender wars.

You might recall that over the weekend, a personage as august as Anthony Albanese advised that Julia Gillard had got it wrong in relation to the gender wars (the class war too).

That might have been about the same time as people were reading Nile bill to ignite debate over abortion.

The deal involved is just standard corrupt horse-trading of the vote-rigging kind, with the Nile bill being contemplated so that Barry O'Farrell can score an upper house vote to privatise Newcastle Port.

In return Nile gets a fast track for his bill, which he explained in this way:

Mr Nile said the government had not given him details of the amendments it might make in the lower house but said he would not accept changes to the bill's essence. 
''The essence is to grant legal status to the unborn child in the womb,'' Mr Nile said. He denied the bill was about abortion. 
''Some Labor women are nervous and saying I am trying to ban abortion, but I have put in an exemption to all medical procedures.'' 
The bill was targeting vehicle accidents and ''all violent acts'' such as attacks on women by violent partners, he said. 

Uh huh. Now let's do a little philosophy or logic 101.

By granting legal status in this way, what Nile is asserting is that violent attacks on a foetus - the unborn child in the womb - are criminal acts, which might well involve murder, certainly manslaughter.

Naturally this loocially applies to anyone who aborts a foetus. They are killers, murderers, and anyone who is a service provider is simply supplying a killing field.

Of course Nile says he isn't trying to ban abortion, or target service providers, because he's put in an exemption to all medical procedures. Which is to say, he's exempted women and doctors from being prosecuted for going about the business of being murderers and killers. That's what they are, but he's generously allowed them an exemption.

Interestingly the woman who was eight months pregnant when she was run down by a drug-affected driver in 2009, with her baby stillborn, is on the record saying she doesn't support the bill, and that Fred Nile hadn't spoken to her about it.

Now is anyone in Barry O'Farrell's government aware of what they will be doing if they create a new criminal offence for the killing of an unborn child?

Well probably not.

O'Farrell was himself so thick that he thought he could promote a solution to Sydney's second airport by sticking it Canberra, connected by VFT. And pigs will fly ...

And he didn't have the first clue where his deal with shooters to roam national parks armed to the teeth would eventually lead him.

So in this particular case it is quite likely that O'Farrell will create a gender war furore, because he's too dumb to realise he's handing a giant baseball bat to Christian fundamentalists to assault women as killers and murderers, guilty of a criminal offence, except for that state exemption so kindly provided by Nile ...

Has anything of this filtered into the mainstream media?

Not really, with the best story doing the rounds in the student magazine Tharunka, where Ammy Singh took the time and the trouble to discuss the matter with Brodie Donegan, the mother in question, as you can read in Proposed Foetal Rights Bill May Turn Abortion into Murder.

It turns out that Nile's bill is part of a general planned legislative assault on the rights of women:

Insisting otherwise, Nile told Tharunka, “my bill completely represents Mrs Brodie Donegan’s concerns, which is why I drafted this bill.” However, the introduction of Zoe’s Law to NSW Parliament this session is expected to be accompanied by a series of more overtly anti-abortion private member’s bills presented by Fred Nile, drawing into question these remarks. 
Among these bills are proposed laws which would require pregnant women to view a foetal ultrasound and undergo counselling before proceeding with an abortion, while another would require medical practitioners to tell pregnant women that abortion causes pain to the foetus. The bills mirror emerging laws in several US states which limit abortion access to pregnant women.

Well if you follow the logic, and it's a simple remorseless fundamentalist logic, abortion causes more than pain to the foetus. By the bill proposed by Nile, it is in reality a criminal act, an assault, a killing, a murder, which requires state exemption ... the sort of state exemption you might have found in a fascist state, the sort of state exemption that should be overturned by any right-thinking Christian or Islamic fundamentalist.

Now O'Farrell has claimed there is no agreement on the bill, and reports that he's done a deal are untrue, which does little to explain why the government agreed to support an urgency motion to debate Zoe's law the very day after it won Nile's backing to private Newcastle Port.

And the men in blue ties stand ready to tell you that there is no gender war, and the gender war doesn't exist, and it's all paranoia in the minds of women, because, well, because ... women ... (shrug and sigh optional).

Meanwhile, as predictable as a sparrow's fart greets the dawn, the commentariat have wheeled in the sky in unison, and found a way to completely ignore such wretched behaviour by a state government.

Yes, it's current chairman Rudd who has sent them into a predictable Chicken Little fury.

Sure enough there's Paul Sheehan, who can never get or give out enough hate on a Monday morning, scribbling furiously in Myth man is back on his throne.

No need to read it in detail - after all, dogs only return to their vomit or munch on grass for proven medical reasons.

But it's interesting to note that inter alia, the generally grumpy Sheehan throws in this aside:

These women rightly did not vote on gender and emotion and feminist ideology but on real-world pragmatism.

That'd be the same real-world pragmatism as Barry O'Farrell is currently rolling out, deploring women for their emotion and their feminist ideology. Bloody women ... so emotional.

Meanwhile, the reptiles at the lizard Oz are in a similar sort of frenzy, a paroxysm of paranoia, as if someone had shoved a giant stick into the heart of the bullhead ant nest.

You want hysterical exaggeration? Well you surely want Greg Sheridan:

In 35 years? Either the fatuous Sheridan hasn't been paying attention, or he merely wants to remind the world why he's completely unqualified to comment on foreign policy.

Then there's Dennis "the tie" Shanahan - yes the pond was into the tie game long before Gillard - reassuring himself after the polls landed with the predictable bounce:

Phew what a relief, but remember to have a stiff drink at close of play, and let the bouffant hair sag a little in the sunset.

The rest of the pack are there, glancing over their shoulders a little nervously, not least Henry Ergas, always ready to do his tremendously effective impression of a packet of desiccated coconut, though pleasingly Troy Bramston took time out to stick another stake in the heart of Julia Gillard, assuring the world she would be denied martyrdom status, though perhaps her status over the years would shift from being a bitch witch to perhaps only a bitch ...

Anyhoo, by close of read this morning, the pond realised that there was really only one good reason for current Chairman Rudd to return, and that was to torture and frighten the bejeezus out of the commentariat, and send them off on a whole new paroxysm of bile and biliousness ...

And in so doing everybody could just say "same old, same old" and step out into the world this Monday, refreshed and ready to deal with whatever might come their way ... even the war on gender being fomented in New South Wales by Fred Nile and his henchmen, including Barry O'Farrell, who will sell anyone down the river or the port or the national park or the Canberra airport in the quest for a deal ...

Meanwhile, a couple of genuine, capable Labor people are leaving the scene. Stephen Smith was given the career-ending job of Defence and did it well, while enduring the completely unsustainable and foolish inherited policies in relation to Afghanistan, and Greg Combet has also gone, while geese like gibbering Joel Fitzgibbon are stepping up to the plate. You don't need to read the commentariat to discern what the entrails are saying ...

(Below: and so to another old but unnervingly applicable Wilcox joke)