Are we talking bullsh*t or are we talking bullshit at a rollicking north shore dinner party?

Only in Queensland.

Oh wait ...

Only in New South Wales ...

And so on and so forth ... probably only wherever you live.

The quest for a new angle shows "the squirrel factor" runs high as news of the royals - even Prince Chuck, normally an environmentalist feared and loathed by the likes of monarchist Tim Blair - breaks the banks of magazines (oh women think of what you do when you buy them, would the real Dorothy Parker buy "women's magazines) and floods the tabloids, gushing like the breaking of the waters ...

Perhaps most admirable thus far is Anne Twomey, professor of constitutional law at the University of Sydney, scribbling Messing with the royals is a crime (behind the paywall but you know what to do).

Twomey seizes the chance to make an impassioned plea for the NSW parliament to take a stand on the Treason Act of 1351:

Yes, the Treason Act 1351, enacted at the time of Edward III, is really part of the law of NSW. It is so old that the original version was written in medieval French rather than English. In translation it states, among other things, that it is high treason to "compass or imagine" the death of the king or the queen or their eldest son and heir, or to violate the king's wife or his eldest daughter if she is unmarried, or the wife of the king's son and heir. 
To "imagine", in this sense, is not just to think about something happening (otherwise all those officials planning for the Queen's funeral would be in a spot of bother) but to plot or plan it.

It goes without saying that the pond has reported Twomey's act of treason to David Flint, and may the long absent lord have mercy on her soul. Hanging's too good for some of these dissident academics and their modernising ways ... what was good enough for 1351 is surely good enough for now.

And then there was Zoe Williams scribbling Birth of future monarch has animated the unique lunacy of royal watching.

Oh it started out sounding like the sort of treason that should agitate the NSW parliament and shame Twomey:

... the frenzy around Diana would have been a modest village fete compared to this carnival; the arrival of this future monarch somehow animated for me, in a way that nothing has before, the unique lunacy of royal-watching. Waiting for this baby to come out has never had anything to do with its constitutional import, except to use its place in history as a cover for the unabashed prying. There was a woman in labour, whom none of us had ever met, and Nicholas Witchell was disappointed not to be able to give us hourly updates on her vaginal dilation.

But by the end Williams had fallen into benevolent, simpering line, delivering the sort of sentiments that would surely placate the NSW parliament:

... actually, besides the threats to privacy and the hassle of pomp, there have been the inevitable "dramatic comparisons": how was this baby born, compared to its birth-twin in Liberia? What will Kate's post-operative care be like, compared to a mother in the Central African Republic? Even though you can see how irresistible that is to campaigners for maternal health worldwide, how piquant, how potent, is that comparison, I don't think it's fair to Kate Middleton. 
When you make her the emblem of all the inequality in the world, you make her its agent. She isn't; she's a person who's had a baby, as precious and awe-inspiring to her as any baby is to anyone who's just had it. Some other time to rain on their (ridiculous) parade.


Yes she's just a person, just an average Josephine Blow, who happens to live in a castle with a prince, and all's right in Williams' (ridiculous) world.

Never mind, at least it's a distraction, and the pond is sorely in need of a distraction, and the usual distractions don't offer the usual pleasure.

Take Dame Slap today in the lizard Oz, usually a reliable source of fun:

Who could argue with that as a proposition?

Yes Tony "Mr Smooth Humanitarian" Bourke was sounding out of his depth on RN, confronted with claims of what was happening on Manus island, and never mind the rioting that had happened on Nauru shortly before that.

Meanwhile, Tony Abbott has been running around like a headless chook wondering what's been happening and what's the contract with PNG, and calling it a two page document, and all the chooks in the media have been flapping and squawking, and yet what dropped into the pond's email box yesterday?

Exclusive: Our Contract With Manus

Yes, New Matilda claims to have scored a copy of the Manus contract between G4S and the federal government, and thoughtfully put it up on Scribd for the world to see.

So while the PNG deal might remain a mystery, you'd think in the light of talk of what has been happening on Manus island that the mainstream media would be all over this document, examining it, testing its veracity, measuring the claims made by NM, inter alia:

New Matilda and Detention Logs analysis of the Manus contract reveals: 

• The Immigration Department has set out terms that suggest the standard of care and services on Manus Island may not meet the same quality as facilities in Australia. 
• There is no requirement for mandated independent audits of the facility. 
• A weaker financial penalty system has been set up than for the mainland detention centres in Australia.

Did the MSM get the sulks at being scooped by NM?

Well the pond was infinitely reassured by the news that the Auditor-General is on the case auditing Manus, and Tony Bourke is going off personally to sort out the problems, and all will be hunky dory, at least until the election is out of the way, and let's not get too excited about sordid stories of rape and violence.

Oh yes, the pond is sorely in need of distractions, and it's got so the pond can't even have fun with Miranda the Devine:

Worried about News Corp's paywall? Just head off to the Devine's blog under the header The great Australian bulldust detector is beeping. (please explain, why do they allow the blogs and still seek to charge for the content?)

Oh wait, we can have a little fun:

I was at a rollicking north shore dinner party on Saturday night, at which talk turned briefly to Kevin Rudd’s much trumpeted Papua New Guinea “solution” to the asylum seeker boats problem.

Rollicking? North shore? Dinner party?

Oh and they routinely take the piss about the inner west and urban elites, the ponces and the gits, yes they do ...

And then the Devine made much throughout the piece of the splendid bullshit detectors deployed by the great unwashed Australian public:

A well developed bullsh*t detector has always been a quintessential element of the Australian character, part of a cynical, anti-authoritarian streak that perhaps stems from our convict roots.

Yep, it was written throughout as bullsh*t and the pond calls bullshit on anyone who doesn't know how to spell the word bullshit - not to mention the bullshit that credits the anti-authoritarian streak to convict roots and fails to mention much more important factors, such as the union movement, and a readiness of working class people to call people who attend 'rollicking north shore dinner parites' as chronic bullshit artists ...

What's even more astonishing is that the Devine spends considerable time listening to the word of a tobacconist, which is to say a professional dealer in pain, misery, sickness and death.

But then she's really only interested in the opinions and the issue as a way of taking down current chairman Rudd, and as a way of installing Tony Abbott, as if he'll sort things out. Well the pond's not in the business of defending, supporting or cheering on the Ruddster, but if you believe that Abbott will fix things, you really do need a brand new bullshit detector ...

And now as a further distraction, how about this stroll down memory lane, from the Sydney Morning Herald on 9th December 1977, when the sleaze merchants at the Liberal party were up to their usual bag of tricks.

Doesn't poor old Gough look like a snake oil seller, quite possibly a child molester?

Oh Fraser has developed a classic case of the guilts since, but look how he smiles at the character assassination at the time ...

Things only change so that they can stay the same ...

(Below: click to enlarge)

Hendo and Cater, as fresh as Irish bread, or a shipping container in Botany ...

(Above: Steve Bell on royal breeding. More Bell if here).

One thing is absolutely certain: there is no way the pond will start off the day by referencing, let alone celebrating, the breeding activities of the House of Windsor.

What's that you say? By mentioning the breeding activities, they have in fact been referenced?

Damn you reflexivity, you dirty reflexive ape, damn you to hell.

But at least the pond isn't as bad as RN, which has seen Fran Kelly cooing and clucking, and a gentleman in the studio celebrating the triumphs of the British ... the Olympics, the Test cricket, the Tour de France, and now a Royal bub. Yep, breeding as a kind of sporting contest.

Truly why old Flinty goes on about the ABC, when it's a nest of Royalists of the most dubious kind.

Another thing that's absolutely certain is that the pond won't reference the hypocrisy that's been doing the rounds in relation to boat people. Nausea's certain to follow ...

What's that you say?

Oh okay, after the utterly incredible and amazing Tony Abbott said a few days ago:

"I will never subcontract out to other countries the solution of problems in this country," he said... (here, may cost you a Fairfax hit and a forced video)

Because you know the Pacific solution didn't involve other countries because there aren't any countries in the Pacific ...

And because you know towing back the boats and telling Indonesia to fix it up by themselves isn't subcontracting, just a form of piracy ...

Yes, after Abbott showed once again an infinite capacity for lies and deceit - possibly involving lying to himself and self-deceit, such is his inability to hold a straight line on anything - the feral rabid Scott Morrison turned up in the lizard Oz with this:

Hello Nauru, goodbye responsibility.

No link, the pond would rather link to its favourite brand of rat poison (yes if you live in the inner west, you have rat problems, and they're not all political).

Meanwhile, prattling Polonius - yes it's Tuesday and we all know what that means - has gone all Catholic in 'Sorry' would give Rudd credibility (it'll cost you a Fairfix hit, but who's counting or caring):

Yes, this from a man who never apologises for anything, presumably on the basis that infallibility means you're never wrong:

Sometimes a confession of error works better than evasion or denial.

Uh huh, and how many Hail Marys and Our Fathers are involved?

Howard erred when, as opposition leader in August 1988, he called for a reduction in the Asian proponent of Australia's immigration intake in order "to ensure the maintenance of social harmony and cohesion". Howard soon distanced himself from this comment and came to express regret that he had ever spoken in these terms since his position was clearly wrong. The mea culpa worked and Howard went on to establish excellent relations with Asian communities in Australia. 
A Rudd mea culpa would diminish some of the opposition to the Prime Minister's current stance by those who resent his apparent denial. Also it would give greater authority to his new position.

Which is nonsense, gibberish, and yet amazingly the Fairfax troops routinely publish this sort of nonsense.

A mea culpa just out of an election? Why not just hand Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison baseball bats and urge Rudd to give them a free hit?

And never mind John Howard's fellow-travelling with Pauline Hanson:

“Of course I will be called a racist, but if I can invite whom I want into my home, then I should have the right to have a say in who comes into my country,” she (Hanson) said. 
Five years later, after he had stopped the Tampa with its cargo of boatpeople from landing in Australia, Howard raised the rafters at his election campaign launch by declaring: “We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.” Coincidence? Perhaps. But it represented a certain meeting of minds. (here)

Now the pond long ago gave up on the notion of coherence without back-tracking, hypocritical double dealing, and other political chicanery - the pond isn't actually sure it's believed any politician saying anything, no matter how apparently heartfelt it was, because the average politician would ship their grandmother to Indonesia if there were enough votes in it ...

But surely it's right to expect a bit more subtlety and nuance than the routine follies of a Hendo?

Never mind, aficionados of twittering twits will today have an exceptional pleasure, thanks to the reptiles at the lizard Oz:

Beelzebub? WTF?

If you want a light-weight showing what it's like to match wits with a hot air balloon, look no further than Cater being Cateresque in Still waiting for the Left's condemnation (behind the paywall, because the lizard Oz thinks there are mug punters out there keen to do their dough cold, but tired of the nags and the pokies).

Is there anything more offensive than a git who not so long ago hopped on a plane and landed in country with a plum job poking a stick at hapless refugees?

Not in Cater's world. And yet this squawking goose sounds just like Hendo, wanting an apology:

Either way, the nation is unlikely to get the humble and forthright apology it so richly deserves. 
The rules of progressive politics mean mistakes can never be acknowledged, since it would destroy the illusion that constant social improvement is the one true path to civilisation. 
A mea culpa, even a small one, requires abandoning the moral high ground.

Uh huh. Much like the Howard government grovelled and apologised for all the pain, suffering and abuse of its policies.

But you know you're in the presence of a really offensive, pathetic, tawdry git when you cop this:

In the Rudd government's defence, it clearly had little choice but to repudiate the Howard administration's policies if it wanted to calm The Age's editorial writers and avoid a shellacking from the pontiff of progressivism, David Marr.

Bugger the pond dead, yet another tedious riff on The Age v the reptiles at the lizard Oz.

So tired, so lame, so wretched.

Now look, the pond generally has nothing against British refugees landing in Australia by air and taking up residence. But can it be made a rule of law that at Customs said refugees are stripped of their dictionaries and keyboards so we don't get this sort of simpering, pathetic prose?

We must forever be on our guard, for Beelzebub and his agents - "Piers Akerman, young Andrew Bolt and the indestructible Alan Jones" - never sleep. "Old fears recycled work their magic over and over again." 
We tremble as we await Marr's denunciation of Rudd, now that the devil has taken hold of his tongue and his policies. Mighty will be the sword of righteousness that is about to smite this fallen cherub. Verily, they will withhold fellowship from he who walketh on a path abhorrent in the eyes of the righteous ones, seated around the table in a fair-trade bakery in Annandale.

Actually Marr did a fine job in Captain Rudd steers Australia into new depths of shame, but sssh, he works for The Guardian these days, and some people might be refugees from the rag. Double sssh, actually given the way both Fairfax and News Corp a going into a new round of downsizing.

As for the joke about a fair-trade bakery in Annandale? Oh that's so funny, so elegant, so intelligent, so witty and gay, but it just misses, since clearly Cater hasn't caught up with vegetarian butchers ...

But what's the bet this British refugee in fact doesn't drink shitty coffee, or quaff four buck De Bertoli, or eat at his local fast food joint as a special treat on a Friday nigh?

Even more offensive is Cater's assumption that refugee politics can be just played as another game, with the Ruddster denounced for hypocrisy by the right, and given a free pass by the left, and vice versa Abbott can be given a free pass by the right, and never mind his hypocrisy ...

You might think that if you're a privileged refugee from Britain, and never mind that country's recent success at sport and royal breeding, you can get away with rhetorical tripe of the half-baked biblical kind, but as cheap point scoring goes, Cater is about as cheap and as pathetic as it gets ...

Now hie yourself off to your local server of bulk white bread, pre-cooked in Ireland, and show you're at one with the gormless mob ...

(Below: read about Nick Cater's preferred form of baking in Kennett toasts Coles over 'fresh' bread. Well you wouldn't want your bread from a bakery in Annandale, would you?)

Sheehan, Rudd and Bonhoeffer ...

One of those honoured above the Great West Door is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian, pastor and peace activist. Bonhoeffer is, without doubt, the man I admire most in the history of the twentieth century. He was a man of faith. He was a man of reason. He was a man of letters who was as well read in history and literature as he was in the intensely academic Lutheran theology of the German university tradition. He was never a nationalist, always an internationalist. And above all, he was a man of action who wrote prophetically in 1937 that "when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." For Bonhoeffer, whatever the personal cost, there was no moral alternative other than to fight the Nazi state with whatever weapons were at his disposal.  
Three weeks before the end of World War II, Bonhoeffer was hanged by the SS because of his complicity in the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. This year marks the centenary of his birth. This essay seeks both to honour Bonhoeffer and to examine what his life, example and writings might have to say to us, 60 years after his death, on the proper relationship between Christianity and politics in the modern world. (here)

Ah, the good old WWBD test ... almost as much fun as WWJD ...

Bonhoeffer had indicated to Bishop Bell even before the Saar plebiscite that if the Saarland were annexed by Germany, there would be a considerable surge of refugees reaching Britain. He was able to make the first preparations for aiding them himself, with Bell's help, before he left London. He found lodgings for refugees, raised money and gave pastoral care himself to many of the new arrivals. Among the people whom Bonhoeffer aided during the first weeks of this migration was Armin T. Wegner, the German author who, as a war reporter, had witnessed the Armenian genocide. Wegner had protested to Hitler against the way the Jews were being treated, and escaped to England after being tortuted by the Nazis. Former Transport Minister Treviranus was also compelled to flee, and his son was conformed by Bonhoeffer at Sydenham Church in London.
The work with refugees was greatly expanded later on ... (here)

But don't take it from an academic.

Take it from the horse's mouth, or backside if you will:

Another great challenge of our age is asylum seekers. The biblical injunction to care for the stranger in our midst is clear. The parable of the Good Samaritan is but one of many which deal with the matter of how we should respond to a vulnerable stranger in our midst. That is why the government's proposal to excise the Australian mainland from the entire Australian migration zone and to rely almost exclusively on the so-called Pacific Solution should be the cause of great ethical concern to all the Christian churches. We should never forget that the reason we have a UN convention on the protection of refugees is in large part because of the horror of the Holocaust, when the West (including Australia) turned its back on the Jewish people of Germany and the other occupied countries of Europe who sought asylum during the '30s. (here, the same place as before)

Smell the usual stench of political hypocrisy?

Well that was then, but this is now, and hypocrisy isn't just to be found amongst politicians.

Isn't it wonderful how the commentariat have gone rabidly leftist, almost indecently Bonhoefferish? Isn't it amazing how those celebrating Scott Morrison baying like a rabid ratbag hound are suddenly shocked?
Isn't it astonishing how those who wanted to turn the boats back are suddenly suffused with compassion?

Look around and you can find any number of weird examples, but can any match generally grumpy Paul Sheehan and his header, Devil's Island plan unmasks Rudd.

Never mind that the sneering designation of Papua New Guinea as a Devil's Island is as pathetically colonialist, arrogant and condescending as the Ruddster's own plan.

After all, at one point Australia used to be in charge of PNG, and has been busy back-pedalling away from responsibility and engagement as quickly as it could, while maintaining a semblance of a decent appearance.

Now you'll hear from those on the left and the right that it's a hellhole:

The real gotcha is the generally grumpy Sheehan's pious righteousness, which is as nauseating as the Ruddster.

Here's a sample. 

Oh you've guessed it. 

We're all - Sheehan, Abbott, Scott Morrison - Bonhoeffish now:

Rudd's Devil's Island ploy is beyond cynical. It is grotesque. The policy has not a shred of functional credibility, policy consistency or moral coherence. 
In an essay in The Monthly in October 2006, Rudd wrote: ''Another great challenge of our age is asylum seekers. The biblical injunction to care for the stranger in our midst is clear. The parable of the Good Samaritan is but one of many which deal with the matter of how we should respond to a vulnerable stranger in our midst. That is why the government's proposal to excise the Australian mainland from the entire Australian migration zone and to rely almost exclusively on the so-called Pacific solution should be the cause of great ethical concern to all the Christian churches.''

Sheehan quoting Bonhoeffer. It's beyond cynical, it's grotesque.

Now let's get a dose of Sheehan's own moral coherence:

The policy of turning back the boats is humane compared with this policy. 

Waiter, bring that bowl of water. Turning them back and who the fuck cares what happens to them is vastly more humane than letting them land ...

Uh huh. And now can we have a mention of the cost to the poor old taxpayer. Because you know, being a bleeding heart and a good Samaritan can be damned expensive:

Not surprisingly, there was a riot at the detention centre on Nauru on Friday night, leaving the centre destroyed by its inmates and a bill estimated at $60 million - to be footed by you.

As were the costs of the various riots, and all the rest that went on in detention centres in Australia during the Howard years, until they hit on the spiffing policy of exporting the problems.

Here's the really revealing line in Sheehan's polemic:

Even the opposition, which has always supported offshore processing of asylum seekers, appears gobsmacked by Rudd's audacity. As Scott Morrison - the immigration spokesman and a man not noted for softness on border protection - pointed out, it will take years to build a functioning processing centre on Manus Island, as distinct from the row of tents that Rudd is now treating as a policy centrepiece.

Yes, rabid attack dog Morrison is gobsmacked, and so is Abbott, and so is Sheehan, to the point where Sheehan is caught quoting Bonhoeffer!

Sheehan quoting Bonhoeffer!

Oh it had the pond rolling the jaffas down the aisles for hours, though it's unlikely a genuine refugee fleeing Iran - were we only a few years ago talking of mad Mullahs needing a good bombing? - would share the laughter.

Could it get any funnier, in a bleak, dark, cynical, sour way?

Of course it can, of course it can:

On and on it has since gone, creating a multibillion-dollar black hole that can only get bigger. ''It will not be inexpensive,'' Rudd said with a straight face as he announced his PNG ploy. ''Our responsibility … is to ensure that we have a robust system of border security and orderly migration … as well as fulfilling our legal and compassionate obligations under the refugees convention.'' 
Legal and compassionate obligations. What a dark joke. Two weeks ago I met long-serving foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer, who has friends on both sides of politics. This is what he had to say about Rudd: ''In all my years in politics I never encountered anyone more cynical, opportunistic and narcissistic than Kevin Rudd. ''He will do anything to gain an advantage.'' 

Alexander Downer? Alexander bloody Downer talking of doing anything to gain an advantage?

Has Downer - or Sheehan for that matter - never met feral attack dog Scott Morrison?

What about nattering negative naysayer Tony "invisible substance" Abbott?

How about John "don't want no Tampa here" Howard outsourcing the problem with the Pacific solution?

How about Alexander "the stocking" Downer himself?

Here's the real problem. For years, the Morrisons, the Sheehans, the Abbotts, none of whom have given a toss about legal and compassionate obligations, have whipped up the hysteria, and used the boats as a stick to beat the government around the head with, so desperate were they, so offensively disinterested in people, so obsessively interested in gaining a political advantage, were they ...

And now it has come to this, in this game of poker. A bidding war for the darkest side of the Australian psyche,  and the Ruddster, playing with the thinnest of hands, has gone all-in, and all that's left on the hard right is is clucking and tut-tutting by Sheehan about Bonhoeffer and political advantage ...

Waiter, a bowl of peppermints. Anything to squelch the taste of nausea and bile in the mouth ...  anything to disguise the stench of hypocrisy ...

But I suppose there's an upside ... at least we can say Paul Sheehan unmasked in story about Kevin Rudd unmasked ...

Oh okay, here's a little Bonhoeffer. Apply it to Sheehan, Rudd, Morrison, Abbott, and Downer how you like:

Would it be Sunday without the angry Sydney Anglicans taking on the pagans and the gays?

It's excitement city time at the angry Sydney Anglicans, as Davies goes head to head, glove to glove, with Smith (nominated by Mark Thompson of Moore College, say no more) in a fiery smackathon, as you can read in Archbishop-in-waiting.

Inter alia, it included this poignant remark from Davies:

...we prayed for each other, because – especially with social media, which provides a great temptation for immoderate, unedifying discourse – we wanted to model godly and edifying discourse.

Well the pond is always on the search for immoderate and unedifying discourse, and what better way to start than by celebrating David Pettett celebrating the way brave Sydney Anglicans have stood up to the Pagans.

Truly, according to Engaging a community, up Katoomba way, there was all sorts of stuff that could send your average Sydney Anglican in to a total Reverend Lovejoy meltdown:

Twenty years ago Katoomba started its Winter Magic Festival, celebrating the winter solstice. 

It was a decidedly 'New Age', 'Pagan' event, a counter to Christians. The churches closed their doors. Witches, warlocks, fairies and goblins paraded. 

Shocking. But there's good news, and such a relief:

The event has changed somewhat over time and has more of a community focus and inclusion these days. People still dress up and the odd warlock can still be seen. But the pagan symbols have been removed from the promotional material. 

Um, but it's still on the solstice, right? It's still a pagan ritual? 

No, thanks to the steadying hand of the Anglicans, the pagans are being tackled head-on:

Here is a church that exists in a hard place, side by side with an overtly pagan, new age community. It has become the Christian voice in this public sphere from which it once retreated.

Oops, a little clarification please:

My article is about the engagement Christians are having with their community but I may have given the impression that they had retreated in the presence of an overt paganism until recent times.

Ah well, it was a good story, pagans in retreat, angry Anglicans back off the mat and on the march ..., while it lasted.

The pond has only one suggestion. Until they stop holding it on the winter solstice, the pagans will be winning. There's no time for faint-hearted fellow-travelling here, the festival must be shifted to John Calvin's birthday on 10th July, and to hell with those pagans ...

Meanwhile, Michael Jensen is on hand, ready to tackle a subject even more problematic than pagans, which is to say teh gays, under the header Book review: Is God Anti-Gay? by Sam Allberry...

Anybody who expects an answer to the actual question in the header will be bitterly disappointed, as will anyone expecting an answer to interesting questions such as why did god create gays - so She could persecute them?; or why did god allow homosexual behaviour in other parts of the animal world - so she could perplex bigots and irritate angry Sydney Anglicans?; or why is god such a misery - is it because She really likes kicking people around and making them miserable over the form of sexuality She's given them, because it's so much fun...

No, Jensen isn't having any of that:

It’s ‘the issue’, isn’t it? 
If ever there was an issue in the Western world for which Christians feel assailed, then it is homosexuality. Gay rights is a political and social issue that doesn’t seem to want to disappear anytime soon, with the push for same-sex marriage seemingly sweeping all before it. 
The media seems extraordinarily biased in favour of this agenda, and against those who take a different view. The churches are most certainly the enemy, as far as this debate goes. And so the ‘issue’ has become one of those things we are known for, like it or not; it is a cause in society with which the Christian community is associated, and not much in a good way. 

Oh dear, the media, totally biased and pushing an agenda. Is that paranoia slip showing or what?

Why it turns out that even the actual Sydney Anglican site is part of this deviant agenda:

(One of the few complaints I have about this excellent website is the amount of stories it links to that are to do with homosexuality. The impression given sometimes is that in the Sydney diocese it is our particular fixation.) 

Oh no, fixated Angry Anglicans. What a tragedy if there was a hint of gayness about the place. And then to a confession:

And so the temptation is for church people to forget that this is not ‘an issue’. It is not simply about ‘us’ and ‘them’ in a political or social argument. It is about real people, many of whom are ‘us’: the people alongside us in the pews of our churches, and their children. I know I have spoken angrily or aggressively about the 'gay agenda' in such a way that any Christian who was themselves experiencing same-sex feelings would have felt very alienated.

Well indeed, because you just whinged about the media and the angry Anglican website.

But is there a way forward?

Sam brilliantly explains how sexuality is not the same as identity, and how the gospel helps him to see that. He does not make rash promises about change, although he does know some people who have experienced a change in their same-sex attraction. He also reminds us that the Bible is very positive about singleness as a calling, and doesn’t absolutise marriage at all. One of the best sections of the book is the section ‘What should I do if a Christian comes out to me?’ The advice is exactly what pastors especially need to hear, but any thoughtful Christians as well. 
I would really hope that this short book is widely read. It should be available in any church or youth group, and I pray it will be of a blessing to Christians seeking to live a God-honouring and biblically faithful life.

And there you have it, in one short burst, every form of patronising exclusion that can be mustered. Feeling a little gay? Work on a new identity ...
Feeling like changing your gayness ... well it can be done, it might just take a little work, but no rash promises, just loads of guilt and humiliation ...
Still feeling like a gay fuck ... ever thought about "singleness" as a calling ...

And so on and on, down to the Reverend Lovejoy sign-off.

The long absent lord help any young gay person caught up in an Anglican church and being hectored, lectured and admonished about the need to live a god-honouring, biblically faithful, screwed up, fucked-up, self-denying, self-abnegating life ...

Finally it's been such a long time since the pond dropped in on Cardinal George Pell's musings for the Sunday Terror. Well that's because they've stopped printing them at the Catholic site here.

Maybe there is a god after all, and She's decided to do the right thing, and support the Terror's paywall ... thereby saving thousands from enduring Pellism ...

Knavery, hypocrisy and a little popery this Sunday ...

(Above: the Daily Terror in a frothing and foaming frenzy).


A long time ago, Paul Cox made a film about an elderly woman trapped in an old folks home, where she had absolutely no affinity with the other residents, still being alert of mind, interested in the arts and interested in the world.

It was called "We Are All Alone My Dear", and anytime the pond gets melancholy, that title still swims around in the mind.

The pond has no political party and no religion, and in melancholy mode looks at all the others in the world running around with certainty and wonders where it comes from. It's not much of a country either, what with dropping its refugee solution on another, still developing, country ...

This being Sunday, it's meditation day, and while the pond loves Yeats, it was a wretched thing for him to capture in a few lines the essence of the problem, in a way which has long haunted the pond:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre 
The falcon cannot hear the falconer; 

The pond was never likely to vote for the Labor party, but its latest flourishes of policy in relation to refugees and other matters makes it a certainty - this falcon can't hear the falconer, at least not if its the Ruddster. As for its local rep, Albo, the member for useless reports ... if this falcon caught a mouse, it would only be so it could drop it down Albo's useless pants ...

As for the thought of contemplating a vote for Tony Abbott and team, how to live with the shame? The ignominy? The sheer implausibility and impossibility...

And the Greens, led by Christine Milne? So severe ...

Is it wrong to judge this way? Guilty as charged - but at least Bob Brown showed a sense of humour at the same time as setting up interesting initiatives (and why not listen to Off Track's tale of Naree Station as a heritage site on the ABC here).

What's even more appalling in its own way, is the response of baying right wing loons to the Ruddster's lurch to a tougher position than even the Liberals imagined:

Yes, suddenly the hardliners baying like hounds have turned sook, as you can discover if you can summon the stomach to read Miranda the Devine in Kevin Rudd just created another boatload of humanitarian problems.

Is it possible to imagine the Devine as a bleeding heart?

Of course not, she spends the entire piece attacking bleeding hearts for not attacking Rudd, and then comes the real comedy:

In the end, if Abbott wins the election, Rudd may have done him a favour. No matter what policy he implements, it can't possibly be crueller than Rudd's PNG solution. 
Abbott has a conscience and this will lighten his load.

Abbott has a conscience? Abbott welcomed the policy, only pausing to note that he was the best gauleiter to run it ...

The pond has at last come to understand why many don't bother to enrol, why those that do then evade voting, and why those who get inside a voting booth deliver a donkey vote or scribble abuse on the paper, making it invalid.

The pond can even understand Alan Langer, and why he came up with the Langer vote, though when you remember the jail sentence he copped, it might be best to speak of it in hushed tones. In his day he first Australian prisoner of conscience in twenty years ...!

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; 

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world ... 

Ah well, at least, we've still got mere anarchy!

And a goodly dose of comedy, and again it features the Sunday Terror.

A long time ago - well it seems a long time - and in another country, John McTernan wrote a piece for the UK Terror, the header for which says it all: Julia Gillard: Australian blokes have done their country down, Julia Gillard has been driven out as Australia's prime minister by a brutal and unfair misogynist culture.

Fair enough. And rags like the downunder Terror were front and centre with this sort of stuff:

Yes, McTernan was routinely abused as a spin doctor and a spin meister of the lowest and most pathetic kind, a rogue 457 ratbag smuggled into the country to fool the natives. News Corp hacks spent a considerable amount of time demonising him as an out of touch Scot who'd ruined things in the UK for Labor, and was now ruining things in a foreign land ...

At the time of the 'Spins and Needles' cover, the Terror opined in an editorial:

Six prime ministerial staffers accompanied her at the photo session, which was the idea of her senior adviser, John McTernan. Consider the public expense, all just to present a positive angle at a time when Ms Gillard's political stocks are in freefall. 
Rather than being positive, the image suggests a prime minister who is completely out of touch with the electorate and who cannot read the public mood. It also supports the view of critics who claim Ms Gillard misunderstands the seriousness of her office. (here)

Ah that McTernan, coming up with a grand idea that showed how completely out of touch Gillard was, completely incapable of reading the public mood, in the grip of a profound misunderstanding about everything ...

So who turns up in today's Terror scribbling what?

Not to worry, people on a 457 have to have an employer and make a living if they're to hang around, but if you actually click on The Julia I know and love but you never really met, you'll find an astonishing pile of guff of the most fawning kind.

What's even worse is if you click on it to read it, you might get a news+ demand for money before being able to proceed ...

So why is the Terror finally on board with Julia worship? Why hire McTernan? 

Well it's mischief-making and hypocrisy of the first water, and all that we've come to know of the Terror and its ways ...

To deal with it, the pond had to turn to a little Popery to get through this Sunday. More David Pope here.

Swimming with the goldfish ...

There's nothing like Chris Kenny analysing Chris Kenny as a way of starting a Saturday read:

Goldfish, so they say, have a three-second memory span. So if you put a toy castle in your goldfish bowl the fish will swim by and think to itself, "Oh, look, that's a lovely castle", before swimming another lap, passing the toy and exclaiming to itself, "Oh, look, that's a lovely castle." 
Singularly Chris Kenny is a goldfish. He lives in the present.

Oh sheesh, those bloody New Zealand subbies have been at work again, and totally got it wrong. It seems it should have read:

 Collectively, the media is a goldfish. It lives in the present.

Actually the rather lengthy header tells the reader Kenny's real point, and perhaps makes the exercise of reading his goldfish insights rather redundant - Splashing goldfish of the media overexcited by the resurrection of Rudd. (behind the paywall so you never have to bother).

But hey the pond wanted to read it anyway, because the pond always loves it when one of the media, (or should that be, when one of the mediums?), turns on its own, a bit like those notorious stories of cannibal goldfish that litter the intertubes.

But there was another reason the pond was intrigued, and that's because of the hook on the digital carousel of doom on the lizard Oz's front page:

Hmm, was goldfish Kenny turning into a whale-lover and a whale-hugger, and criticising the current Chairman Ruddster for going more right than Genghis Khan?

You can imagine the disappointment when the pond actually read Kenny's piece and could find no mention of whales at all, except in the splash. Zip, nil, nada. 

Did the goldfish eat his homework?

Perhaps there was some problem with the digital finger of doom:

Anyhoo, that's about as exciting as it got, as Kenny turned on and ate his own:

Since Kevin Rudd has returned to the leadership, the self-perpetuating and self-fascinated media reaction has revelled in what was always going to be. 

Cameras create a crush around the resurrected Prime Minister so they can report the crush around the resurrected Prime Minister. Oh, look, that's a lovely Prime Minister.

But should he have been so cruel? After all the front page of the lizard Oz is littered with the work of reptiles rushing to report and comment on the work of the Ruddster. Et tu lizards?

Look at them all, all hyperventilating - goldfish Shanahan, goldfish Kelly, goldfish Sheridan - quick check the oxygen pump and the filter.

And worst of all, poor old Kenny has to deal with the goldfish who wrote the lizard Oz's editorial, After years of failure, a refugee policy with merit (not behind the paywall, but why would you bother?)

Yes, now that the Ruddster has gone Gengis Khan, the rag is almost sort of kinda on side, or at least on side with the Khan routine.

Never mind, the rest of Kenny's piece is really just an attack on Rudd, dressed up with a sideways assault on the rabble that make up the lizard Oz. 

But then, just when you think the whales are completely forgotten, he concludes the assault with a bleeding heart:

With the stroke of a pen, Rudd could have reinstated temporary protection visas and ordered our navy to turn back boats. Yet he won't. Instead, the man who dismantled the Pacific Solution has created an ad hoc PNG solution: sending refugees to a country bedevilled by corruption, violent crime and serious health and economic issues. 
Whether for good or for ill, this moment will be remembered.

Ah, at last, an attack from the left! And never mind what might happen when the navy turned back boats and they sank ...

And at that point you realise why the goldfish are floundering, now that Rudd has turned Khan. Even Abbott hasn't been able to summon up the nerve to attack near neighbour PNG ...

Is it possible to think that Kenny really cares about refugee seekers and their fate in PNG? Only if you're a goldfish ...

You have to go to another Kenny piece, published this same day, to get the real measure of the man, which is to be found in the lizard Oz under the header Conservative campaign HQ cranks up (behind the paywall so you never need to know).

It's a gushing, to the point of nausea, bit of cheer-leading, and this sort of private dick - or is it war cabinet, Churchill style - opener evokes the tone perfectly:

In a non-descript office block at the parliament end of the Melbourne CBD, some of the nation's most important political operatives have been quietly coming and going for a number of weeks. 
One full floor and part of another have been set up as national campaign headquarters for the culmination of Tony Abbott's 3 1/2-year assault on the prime ministership. 
Some campaigning has already been directed from this nerve centre in recent weeks, with the Opposition Leader using it on Victorian visits. 
The moment the election is called, 100 staff will descend and turn it into a hive of responsive and hyper-focused activity, 24 hours a day for the 33 days or more.

Goldfish!

And so on and so forth as Kenny adores the campaign team - yes Loughnane handled the wonderful 2007 election success and yes the team is ready for the return of the diabolical Rudd, and everything thus far has turned out wonderfully well, and the team has made some specific calls which have been spiffing and top notch:

One of the Liberals' first tactical challenges after Rudd's return was whether to accept the Prime Minister's challenge for a debate. The strategists knew it was a risk to let that opportunity pass -- Abbott could look weak -- but considered it more important not to jump to Labor's tune. This stand-off frayed some nerves among members of the Abbott camp. 
Yet when Rudd was left speaking on his own at the National Press Club, struggling to offer policy detail, they believed their call was vindicated. 

Goldfish!

Especially as that call seemed to result in an overwhelming majority in a national survey preferring big Mal as a leader.

Never mind, in the old days this sort of admiring tosh, served up luke warm, would have been called a colour piece.

It's the sort of stuff you write when you're given a star-fucker assignment (oh Mr Beiber tell me why you're a genius all over again, please, just one more time).

All we need to do is measure the strength of the kool-aid Kenny has imbibed.

By golly it turns out it's pretty potent stuff, and it really is Churchillian in tone:

When the campaign headquarters swings into action it will be filled with opposition staffers, Liberal Party employees and former staffers now working in the private sector who rejoin the battle, like army reservists, whenever the campaign call-up comes. 

Army reservists ready for battle! And what a team?

The political experience and corporate experience already being assembled is impressive. John Howard's former chief of staff Tony Nutt , who resigned as former Victorian premier Ted Baillieu's chief of staff over the police tapes controversy in March, is already among them. 

Tony Nutt? What was that about the goldfish and their memories?

Let's hope he does for Abbott what he did for Baillieu (Tony Nutt the latest victim in secret police tapes crisis).

But do go on with all this rally round the flag talk from the bunker:

Staff will be assigned specific roles, often something below their capabilities - because even the most tedious jobs must be done with diligence and an astute eye for political disaster or opportunity. Seemingly menial tasks such as scanning local media for candidate mistakes, cross-checking opponents' policy announcements, or scouring transcripts for misstatements can produce nuggets of campaign gold. An experienced operative on such a task may swing the campaign by spotting a single error.

Oh valiant warriors, they will sing your song for all eternity, the way Homer sang the stories of the Iliad and the Odyssey

And now for a little comedy:

Even Liberal critics would agree the party has picked up some impressive recruits, with Howard government minister Mal Brough returning ...

Say what? The rough perfidious Brough is an impressive recruit.

By golly, what they feed the goldfish these days ... and so to a last rhetorical flourish:

The Rudd campaign is Plan B and must be more difficult. 
It has delivered one undeniable campaigning boost; removing complacency as a looming danger for Liberal candidates around the nation.

So what ultimately have we learned from the thoughts of a goldfish?

Nothing much, except his opinion pieces are cheerleading and his colour pieces are cheerleading, and not for a nanosecond would you expect a balanced insight into proceedings, but he surely is a dab hand at writing a sponsored documentary for the operatives working so terribly hard behind the scenes ...

The real question is why the editor of the lizard Oz wastes space on the cheer-leading, since it's as naked and as obvious as a killer goldfish ...

Yet another National Emergency, so close to home ...

(Above: did you get your dose of Popery today, here?)


The National Emergency continues, but this time it's much, much closer to home.

Why are these damned pollsters and their damned polls allowed to exist?

How dare they propose that big Mal outpointed the Ruddster 65 to 35 as preferred PM?

How shocking and appalling to propose that big Mal would deliver a two party preferred to the LNP of 58 to 42, up against Tony "invisible substance" Abbott's 51 to 49, which is dangerously close to the margin of error.

Why even the reptiles at the lizard Oz had to accept it was news, as they reported in Kevin Rudd would lose 2013 Federal Election if Malcolm Turnbull returned to his old job, finds poll.

What a header! What a story!

Oh you have to hunt to find it, but it's there ...

As for the Fairfax socialists,  they too were excited, reporting We want Malcom Turnbull, voters say.

And sure enough, the readership had also spoken, with 73% wanting big Mal to the lead the opposition to the election, and only 18% plumping for Tony Abbott.

Poor jolly Joe barely troubled the scorecard with 2%, thrashed by Julie Bishop performing a hundred per cent better on 3%. The long absent lord knows who made up the other four per cent.

And lordy lordy here's the actual poll figures, at the site run by the deviants at ReachTEL.

Oh it's shocked and hurt all the followers of Mr. "Invisible Substance", and having always disapproved of polls, the pond naturally disapproves of this mischief-making.

Abbott has always had a brittle chin, and routinely develops the wobbles whenever he gets asked something more complex than a simple "No" can solve, and it's just not fair, especially coming hard on the heels of ample evidence that Mr. Invisible Substance doesn't have the first clue about economics, climate science and off the cuff rhetoric.

What's even worse, this is possibly the first time the pond has ever been in a majority, which is to say accepting that anyone, anyone at all - perhaps even a Yeti or a Big Foot or a Bunyip - would be more engaging, genial and exciting as the leader of the Liberal party than Dr. No.

So here's the worry. The nation is in the grip of a National Emergency, and Tony Abbott is in the grip of national fear and loathing.

What to do?

Fear not, stout hearts, brave folk of the Volksgemeinschaft, the Bolter is here to steady the ship, and shore up faint hearts, right the wrongs, and perhaps even wrong the right, as he berates the Fairfax fiends for picking the wrong story! It should have been all about the Coalition lead, instead of the angle those hounds of the Baskervilles took:

... the purely hypothetical - and anti-Abbott - is what Fairfax journalists run with... (here)

Dammit, quick, which clown allowed that story in the lizard Oz?

And who put a Fairfax header on it?

Kevin Rudd would lose 2013 Federal Election if Malcolm Turnbull returned to his old job, finds poll. 

Oh you filthy vile reptiles, take it back, just take it back and make it right.

Did someone let a Fairfaxer into the building? Quick, someone get chairman Rupert on the blower, he's not done apologising and crawling just yet ...

Now let's all draw a smiley face Bolter style:

Downbeat data? 
Despite all the hype, all the media promotion, all the stories about an unpopular Abbott, all the sugar hit, the Coalition still leads. 
If the poll figures for Rudd actually fall, wait for a rapid change in this triumphalist narrative.

Triumphalist narrative? Wasn't it about big Mal taking down Mr. Invisible Substance in the popularity stakes?

Quick, pump up the hysteria and the volume ... time for another national emergency ...

The pond remains in the grip of sundry National Emergencies ...

(Above: friends of Dr. Seuss might not realise or remember that Theodor Geisel was a political cartoonist during the second world war. There are a few more examples here, and what better way to start off this solemn Friday for a nation in the grip of a National Emergency).

Day two of the National Emergency continues, and the nation seems to be coping as best it can with the shocking news of the streaker at the footy, the uncertain position of the test at Lords, the terrible trials of Cadell Evans in the Tour de France, and the work Adam Scott still needs to do to bring home the bacon.

Fearless leader Tony Abbott issued a reminder that the National Emergency would continue until he became chief poo bah, and then all would be well, transformed miraculously by magic, and Australia might even manage to defeat the English at cricket.

Meanwhile Melburnians are undergoing a National Emergency of their own:

Sssh, please don't mention climate science, it only gets the Bolter into a deep, agitated funk, what with him being the world's leading climate scientist, and all ... and besides storms put an end to the heat, so all's well that ends well.

And speaking of the Bolter, he's in top notch form today doing what he surely does best, which is lay into the blacks, especially the urban elitist ones, and especially any of them who have a different opinion to Bolter, because after climate science, surely he's the top notch expert on what's best for the blacks ... you know, a little tea, sugar, flour and sitting silently in the corner, as he forcefully explains in Real Aborigines vote Labor, or so urban ones say.

Ah yes, those shifty urban blacks, you can't trust them can you, especially if they lurk on SBS, and especially if they disagree with the Bolter's politics, and the most profound tragedy of all?

Further opinions I have on this topic cannot be expressed under the Racial Discrimination Act, which severely limits discussion on Aboriginal identity and “race”.

Oh the poor man, hampered and hamstrung, and severely limited in his capacity to assault and outrage those pesky blacks, or near blacks, or pretend blacks fellow travelling for their own personal advantage because to be black in Australia is to live in the lap of luxury, making out on grants like there's no tomorrow, and way more than anyone would pay for a bigoted elitist scribbling furiously for the HUN ...

It's an outrage ... think of what might have happened if they'd managed to stop Adolf Hitler pointing the fickle finger of infamy at Jews ...

Oh okay. here's a dollar in the Godwin's Law swear jar, but truly it was worth it, spare no expense the pond says, if you want to compare the Bolter to the likes of Father Charles Coughlin ...

In the end Roosevelt shut Coughlin down, and who can worry about that.

Meanwhile, Gra Gra has sorted out the best way to deal with the Indonesians.

Bribe them! That's what you do with camel thieves, cattle rustlers and horse dealers:

Yes it's the Gra Gra way, it's Gra Gra diplomacy at its finest, it's what made the NSW Labor party celebrated throughout the land, so there you go, current Chairman Rudd, head off to your Swiss bank accounts, and tickle the till, and all will be well, and if you don't know about Swiss bank accounts, no doubt Richo will be there to show you the way ...  because the best way out of any problem is to carry a brown paper bag with you ...

And now to another National Emergency, courtesy Samantha Balaton-Chrimes and Should MasterChef have asked a Muslim to cook pork?

The conundrum?

Many Australians would have watched Muslim MasterChef contestant Samira get kicked off the show on Wednesday night for cooking the worst pork hot dog. To be fair, putting it that way distorts the decision - it was her brioche bun that undid her. But in my mind there were bigger questions raised than whether or not her brioche was a disaster. Should MasterChef have asked a Muslim contestant to cook pork?

Now here right up front, the pond has to make a personal confession, an admission of guilt. Not once, never ever, has the pond actually watched an episode of MasterChef ... so to be fair, considering this question in such a state of profound ignorance allows for a somewhat distorted outcome ...

But all the same the nostrils flare when you immediately stumble on a burst of academic language and nattering negativity:

In my view, the answer is no. Pork, ham and bacon are well known to be haram, or prohibited under Islamic custom. How one of Australia's most popular television shows makes a call between toleration and accommodation of the customs of religious minorities is something that demands interrogation. 

Demand interrogation? Oh okay, interrogate away:

I do not doubt that it will make some qualitative difference to the show, and certain dishes or cuisines that many would find delicious may be off the menu. There is a cost, in that sense, of this kind of accommodation. But, it is not a cost that fundamentally threatens the fabric of our society, or which offends our sense of justice. It is when the costs of accommodation fall in this category that the decisions are difficult. Lamb instead of pork sausage hardly does. 

Well put it how you will Samantha Balaton-Chrimes, but just try snatching, prising that cold pork sausage from the cold dead hands of the pond ... but do go on:

Some will object to this argument on the grounds that Samira knew what she was getting herself into when she went on the show, and the hosts discussed it with her on air. They asked if she was OK about cooking pork, and she said yes. Problem solved?

Yep, they asked and she agreed, and if she hadn't wanted to agree, she could have stormed off or kicked up a stink or said how unfair it was, or behaved in a rabidly fundamentalist way, but instead went with the flow, and still, so you tell the pond, got the chop, but not the pork or lamb chop, a kind of karate judge chop to the brioche.

Undoubtedly you will have a much firmer view than she took, and so you will expose her as a lickspittle fellow traveller and accommodationist, who just needs to straighten the fuck up or be shipped out. Was she right to be a soft cop?

No. The question of whether or not she consented to cook it (which she did on the proviso that she wouldn't have to taste it) is beside the point. That is Samira's personal decision, and it is not my intention to judge her on it. My point is that it is unfair and anti-inclusive to ask her to make such a decision when there are no serious consequences for anyone else of choosing a different meat. 

Well you might think this, but at this point the pond's German heritage kicks in.

Anyone of culinary note knows that the hot dog started off as a variation on the wiener and the frankfurter, and an essential part of both was pork (the wiener added beef to the original all pork Frankfurt mix).

Now since that day the concept has been diluted, as everything in the United States is, with the addition of all sorts of flavourings, preservatives, meat trimmings, and possibly a dash of saw dust ... (naturally the hot dog has a wiki here).

But all the same to suggest there are no serious consequences to cooking a hot dog without pork is like killing off the entire concept of a serious dog. If you're such a philistine anti-foodie, what on earth were you doing watching the show?

Many will object to this argument on the grounds that it is impossible to draw a clear line where the costs or sacrifices meet the criteria I suggested above, of threatening the fabric of our society, or offending our sense of justice. These are contested concepts. What counts as enough consensus to warrant subjecting minorities, religious or other kinds, to participation in practices they object to? Certainly that line is far from clear.

Well only because you introduced obfuscation when the contestant had a choice and made it, with or without your approval, consent, or instruction.

She was only asked to cook it, not to eat it, and frankly one way or another, the pond does that each time it decides to cook kidneys or lambs fry and bacon ...

Okay, next week, time to sort out all kinds of National Emergencies:

Should Catholics be asked to cook a nice New York steak on a Friday?
How to explain to the organisers of MasterChef that they really should ban all meat products?
How to explain to the organisers of MasterChef that they really ban all vegetable products? Out of the pond's sight, vile choko (unless laden with garlic and chili pepper)
How to explain to a vegetarian that they can only agree to appear on the show if they cook meat (and eat some fish eggs and kill off a baby chook by boiling an egg)?
How to feed peanuts to someone claiming an allergy, while proposing that the allergy is likely all in the mind? (Be prepared, and get a waiver signed).
How to explain to a Japanese person that eating 'roo is jolly tasty but eating whale is unseemly?
What to do if MasterChef asks you to display your very best Asian dog recipe?
Can you chop off the hand of someone who refuses to eat sea slug?
How to handle it when Greenpeace says you cooked that last rare turtle to make your turtle soup?
What to do with a fundie Xian who turns up ranting about Leviticus?
...these shall ye not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the hoof: as the camel, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.

Sigh, no camel curry. And that's just the start of the abominations listed in Leviticus here.

Why there's coneys and hares and swine and those that have not fins and scales in the seas and the waters, all abominations, and the eagle and the ossifrage and the ospray and the vulture, and the kite and the raven and the owl and the swan and the pelican and all fowls that creep upon all fours, and flying creeping things are also a problem, especially the weasel and the mouse and the tortoise and the snail (sorry France) and the lizards (sorry Centralians) and so on and bizarrely on, sounding even worse than Samantha Balaton-Chrimes

And lastly, but not least, how to tell your Jewish friends that you find unseemly the sight of them sneaking a snack of bacon while they're out of the parental home ...

Oh there's no doubt plenty more and there's no doubt the country is in the grip of a National Emergency, no doubt at all ...

But it's Friday so kick up your heels and be ready for the next National Emergency ... what to do on the weekend ...

(Below: naturally The New Yorker runs an endless stream of hot dog gags, as you can read here)