More mysterious and mystifying by the minute ...

(Above: the inestimable David Rowe. More Rowe here, and it has to be said, the only reason for the AFR to exist. Help them with a click, even if it means that Rowen Dean lives to be a fool in print for yet another day).

The pond has absolutely no idea why the ABC thought the idea that a roughly forty year old man donning blackface to play a 14 year old Pacific Islander was a winner ...

It might have worked for the Black and White minstrels, or for vaudevillians in the Mo McCackie era, but for the few precious minutes the pond lost and will never recover, it didn't seem controversial, but merely extremely tiresome (though the ABC did its tiresome best to whip up a controversy here, and Debi Enker should hang her head in tiresome shame - if this is successful satire, the pond has lost any idea of the meaning of success).

But it's not just the tiresome Enker, the equally tiresome Graeme Blundell yesterday nominated the show as the 'pick of the day' for the reptiles at the lizard Oz in Life on the inside sees Chris Lilley's talents bloom.

On the bright side, TVS - that's community television in Sydney - was running the Howard Hawks, Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy Ben Hecht Charles MacArthur comedy His Girl Friday. Whenever Lilley did his cross-dressing routines as a teenage girl, the pond often resorted to Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot, and so life and the universe balanced itself, and a genuine laugh could be found ...

Cross-dressing is a serious pleasure, as any RAN officer can tell you, and it was almost ruined for the pond by Lilley's capering ...

But it does help explain why the pond finds the universe inexplicable, mysterious and mystifying. What moves some people to laughter invariably moves the pond to tears, and vice versa ...

Perhaps that's why the economy is apparently booming, but we're mired deep in an astonishing budget emergency - a crisis so wide and deep the poor must be savagely punished - and meanwhile the miners are making out like bandits, but they can't afford to be taxed...

Why any hint of touching the fuel excise would have sent Twiggy and Gina into a frenzy, and so the country cousin bumpkins have to be gulled like the red and grey galahs they are - yes, Tamworth, once centre of the world, you elected a gulled galah as your representative ...

And yet, and yet, the buffoon is using his mining money to land in Canberra and torment the reptiles at the lizard Oz and the Abbott government, and it seems Campbell Newman as a bonus, and so readers of the Oz are regaled daily with shocking stories about the villainy of the buffoon.

There's an irony here, and perhaps even a comedy, provided Chris Lilley can be persuaded to don a fat suit the way Tom Cruise did in Tropic Thunder.

No wonder the world is mysterious and mystifying.

Yes, here they are, the daily parade of stories, with the reptiles seemingly incapable of understanding that the more attention they pay to the buffoon, the more the buffoon - like Geoff Shaw - is immediately gratified and rewarded:

That's an EXCLUSIVE? Two renegade buffoons are going the biff?

But it's not just the reptiles. The whole of Murdoch la la land is in the grip of a Clive fever.

The demented Andrew Bolt - hush now, the pond only does the courtesy of describing the Bolter as he describes himself - is in a demented uproar:

The interesting thing isn't the Bolter railing at the buffoon - that's merely tiresome - but the embrace of the word 'demented'.

What does it say when a demented man scribbles about a crazy Clive? So this is how the Abbott government intends to conduct negotiations with Palmer in the Senate? Sending out the kool aid hacks - hacks must hack - in wave after wave of abuse?

But back to the demented one. Has the Bolter at last achieved some deeper understanding of himself?

Did all that expensive red wine and feasting on opera deliver an insight? Or is that whisky? Yes, no doubt everyone caught up on this entry, here (paywall affected):

It's tough when one of your friends falls out with one of your family. Yet such (sort of) is the scenario that has befallen Tony Abbott, courtesy of the contretemps between Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull — a man firmly placed in the warm bosom of the Liberal family — and News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt. For those who’ve come late to the circus, Bolt is down on Turnbull for being an insufficiently enthusiastic Liberal and for supposedly trailing his coat for the leadership. Turnbull is down on Bolt for suggesting such a thing; the word “unhinged” may have been used. If only Labor’s Jason Clare hadn’t so callously forced Abbott to choose, asking of him in question time, “Who is right? Your friend Andrew Bolt? Or your frenemy* Malcolm Turnbull?” Cheeky. Abbott replied: “In any dispute between a member of my frontbench and a member of the fourth estate, I’m firmly on the side of my frontbencher.” Rather than relying on mere words when the atmosphere is so fraught, why not turn to great art? We asked Bolt which opera would capture the flavour for him. He replied, “I have Verdi’s Otello blasting in the background. Iago reminds me curiously of someone I saw on the telly today.” Hopefully not the PM! Continued Bolt, “I’d pour myself a drop of Sullivan’s Cove, but that would only encourage a comparison with Cassio.” Ah, yes, the gentleman soldier. We’ll see what Turnbull comes up with; a large tapestry would be nice. (*An enemy disguised as a friend. We’re confident this is frenemy’s first Hansard appearance.)

Gentleman soldier indeed, said Crikey, when it picked up the piece, and it indulged in a little additional analysis here (paywall affected):

Bolt’s real predilections. A highly paid migrant with a taste for opera and expensive whisky — sound like the latte-sipping Left? Oh wait, we’ve just described that champion of the workingman, Andrew Bolt. His more rarefied tastes seldom make it into his column or blog, where the constant theme is the Left trying to steal your tax dollars and bludgers who are living a life of luxury on the dole. But lest we forget, The Australian’s Strewth column has reminded us of the true measure of the man. 

Yes, the demented one is a prime example of a bludger living a life of luxury, but at least he now seems to be able to acknowledge that he's demented:

Demented radio from a demented man! Or will Steve Price sue for defamation?

What it does remind the world is how thin-skinned the Bolter is. He likes to deliver the cut and thrust abuse and the barbs, but when it comes to a little biff the other way, he retreats to Verdi and whisky.

Which is a tragedy, because it seems his skills as the world's leading climate scientist are going to be urgently needed in the coming years, if a report which accidentally slipped onto the lizard Oz's front page is any guide:

Shocking stuff.  How astonishing to find a report by the Climate Institute and consumer group CHOICE being given space in the lizard Oz.

How soon before the Communists take over the country?

But it is a nice cue for the David Pope cartoon, and more Pope here:

Indeed. What a relief he escaped from his meeting with a dead duck Indonesian president without doing a Gerald Ford and stumbling down the steps of the plane:

What else? Well the pond was bemused and mystified by this headline:

But when you read Michael Gordon's beat up puff piece, John Howard rebukes Tony Abbott over fairness (forced video at end of link) it's clear Gordon completely missed the real point:

''One thing I've learnt about politics, and I'm sure Bob's experience would have been the same, Australians fundamentally don't like zealots, fanatics - they get very suspicious of fanatics,'' he said. Both slogans and argument were important in politics, he added, observing ''we have sometimes lost the capacity to respect the ability of the Australian people to absorb a detailed argument''. 
''They will respond to an argument for change and reform [but] they want two requirements. They want to be satisfied it's in the national interest, because they have a deep sense of nationalism and patriotism. They also want to be satisfied it's fundamentally fair.''

Yes, it was actually Howard mounting an astonishing, savage attacked on the self-admittedly demented, rabid, off the planet Bolter, and his remarkable influence on and hold over the Liberal party and its more fundamentalist fringe barking mad followers, and on the kool-aid imbibing reptiles that infest the lizard Oz like the dinosaurs that gave Raquel Welch such a hard time ...

Can we have a measure of the delusion involved in this la la world?

Well how about this?

The Australian began its journey to profitability?

Say what? Did they actually run that splash today, with the inimitably comic header "Rationalism takes hold"?

Why don't the reptiles run comedy classes for Chris Lilley to show how it can be done?

Meanwhile, on another planet, back in February:

(And the rest of that mUmBRELLA story here).

God only knows what Chris Mitchell was thinking if only there were a god to know, but the pond finally worked it out, though initially it was truly mysterious and mystifying, like so much in the world is to the pond.

That journey the reptiles at the lizard Oz are on?

It's a never ending journey, a never ending story, and god knows when it will end, but after apologising to all for such a pictorial news.com. au laden piece - perhaps the world will seem less mysterious and mystifying tomorrow - at least the pond can help out mUmBRELLA with a more recent snap of Chris Mitchell:

Momma said there'd be days like these on the long trip to Planet Janet and the Moon Cater ...

(Above: which is why the pond needs a rocket every day to travel to Planet Janet and the Moon Cater. More Leunig here)


What a cornucopia of riches the pond confronts every day ...

There's Andrew Wilkie calling for the Senate to block supply, because you can never have enough constitutional crises, and there's hapless Denis Napthine (what did happen to that other 'n'?) going through his own little melt-down, thanks to a fundie zealot who did naughty things and now wants every Victorian to suffer with him ...

Meanwhile, Campbell Newman is selling off the farm, and expecting the toads to be ever so grateful.

And then there was poor old Ken Cowley. When the pond caught up on Ken Cowley retreats on News criticism (inside the paywall, or fish and chip wrapping, your choice), thanks to being given a paper thrown away in the Qantas lounge - oh the paper the lounge in a something shocking way to keep up the numbers - it learned that John Hartigan thought the words used by the hapless, financially troubled Ken showed a "corporate revisionist" at work.

Indeed. And perhaps also a lickspittle lackey and running lap dog ...

What a hoot that Marxist notions of revisionism should now be turned to corporate use (and there's more from the Fairfaxians on the Blundstone Avengers going the boot here).

The pressure on the pond to keep is now so great that we barely have time to announce some of the greater insights of our time, like Nick Cater's splendid effort yesterday, Abbott haters put rage before reason (behind the paywall because lizard Oz readers must put money before Murdoch).

Ugly slogans were sometimes used to attack Gillard, but the worst of them could be printed in a family newspaper without being masked by asterisks. 

Because calling a woman someone Bob Brown's bitch, or a deviant witch is just common or garden conversational chit chat in a Caterist household.

Phone camera footage from a May 22 event at Sydney University shows conservative students trying to hold back the doors as a mob tries to force its way in, chanting “Tory scum, here we come”. It is not just the students who find it difficult to state their case without resorting to profanities.

Whereas "Tory scum" is such a profanity, so shocking, so disgusting, that the only thing worse is the protestors suggestion that they have a rich sex life - "here we come" - while slyly hinting that "Tory scum" don't know how to get their rocks off ...

Animosity towards Abbott is a cultural and political paradox that demands an explanation, but you won’t get one from his detractors. They loathe him absolutely, but they have apparently forgotten why. It takes a prime ministerial wink to jog their memories. Julia Gillard too was unpopular and attracted unsavoury protests, but it is hard to remember the word “hate” — one of the bluntest expressions of emotion in the English language — being thrown around so casually.

Indeed, because proposing that a woman be put in a chaff bag and taken far out to sea isn't a sign of "hate". It's just what you need to do when confronted by too many kittens or by evil witches ruining the world.

The pond can't get enough of the Caterists, as the splendid Cater bizarrely spends most of his time seemingly obsessed with the activities of Socialist Alternative students, a socialist rabble that threatens the very fabric of society, in much the same way that bitch witches once did ...

But it's also a handy way of conflating popular opinion - a surge of dislike for Tony Abbott's government and Abbott himself, if the polls are any guide - with a few student activists carrying on in exactly the same way as jolly Joe,  Abbott and others once did (and yes, surely the jury is in on the notion that Abbott was a boofhead student politician of a classic thuggee kind).

Never mind, here's how it's done, as the hapless Caterist keeps worrying about that wink:

Mobilising he masses is easy these days. All it takes is a couple of dozen nut-jobs, a semblance of firm policing, the presence of a television camera and you have what The Sydney Morning Herald likes to call “a wave of popular unrest.” 

Yes, because the polls that show the Abbott government as being deeply unpopular are the work of a couple of dozen nut-jobs ...

“Waves of popular unrest” were once confined to the foreign pages. 

You know, fuzzy wuzzies, though we can't mention fuzzy wuzzies in quite the same way as we once did in England, though the pond is never quite certain how this tragedy came about. Was Dad's Army so bad?

The Abbott regime is now so despised, apparently, that ripples of rebellion are lapping our shores.

Yes there are fuzzy wuzzies in our midst. You can see them on the street, though you'll rarely see them writing opinion pieces for the reptiles at the lizard Oz. Just remember it's got nothing to do with the polls, keep those fuzzy wuzzies front and centre.

 “Senior government ministers are signalling a willingness to compromise on key budget reforms after a wave of popular unrest,” read the Herald’s splash 10 days ago. 
 “A willingness to compromise” is what we used to call negotiating with the Senate, but for the gallery it is just another sign that Tony Abbott is desperate. 

Yes, completely unlike the Gillard government, which in its desire to compromise with all sorts of odd bods, was desperate every day of the week, and really desperate on a Murdoch tabloid Sunday.

This commentary dressed up as news echoes the inkblot test used by psychologist Hermann Rorschach to determine personality. Like those who see dark monsters in a random symmetrical pattern, commentators are predisposed to read into Abbott’s actions whatever they want to see. Once you make up your mind that the current prime minister is morally irredeemable, an insignificant wink is replete with meaning, a post hoc justification for a judgment already formed.

Pitiful, you might be thinking by now, pitiful that the Caterists should be dressed up as commentators, and paraded - with a demand for money - by the reptiles, but wait, you forgot your set of steak knives, because today there's more, and it comes courtesy of Dame Slap with Paternalism a public-free zone (behind the paywall because there's no free lunch or free column to hand at the lizard Oz).

Dame Slap is also obsessed with the Socialist Alternative, and she rises to enormous Edmund Burke-ian (Greg Hunt him here) heights of indignation, because, confronted by Tony Abbott's government, where better to retreat than the eighteenth century, with the voracious peasants howling at women who humbly proposed they eat cake ...

Devotees might recall that Dame Slap was once right on side with Screaming Lord Monckton's suggestion that climate change was just a covert way to introduce the world to a black helicopter UN conspiracy to govern the world.

These days it seems there's a new conspiracy afoot, thanks to Dame Slap seemingly having discovered Ayn Rand all over again:

While Australia is not about to be overrun by a socialist system of government, there is a 21st-century form of tyranny emerging. It is, as David Gadiel from the Centre for Independent Studies said, the tyranny of paternalism. From health and education to human rights, large swaths of social policy are being delegated by parliament to unelected bureaucrats at the expense of democracy. From regulations about swimming pool fences to diktats about the number of pain relief tablets you can buy at a supermarket, here is rule by the anti-democrats. And as the power of bureaucracies expands, our power as citizens shrinks.
This rising paternalism is the antithesis of Edmund Burke’s notion of civil society. Instead of Burke’s little platoons of family and community, woven together by the collective wisdom of people, of experience, of tradition and custom, the new paternalism is a form of mob rule by the claimed wisdom of the political class over the rest of society. 

Eeek, the tyranny of the paternalists and the bureaucrats (now where's that welfare for Rand in her dotage).

Is there any irony in Dame Slap dragooning a politician from the eighteenth century into service against the paternalists, while blathering on about democracy?

As Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron said in the aftermath of the EU political earthquake, “Brussels has got too big, too bossy, too interfering.” 
 Cameron is right that the EU must change. But, like those young socialists at the conference in Melbourne, the EU supremos seem fixated on a misconceived mission rather than rediscovering the empowering ideas of Western civilisation, those of liberty and democracy.

But hang on, hang on, if you did do that Greg Hunt, you'd have read this:

Burke was a leading sceptic with respect to democracy. While admitting that theoretically in some cases it might be desirable, he insisted a democratic government in Britain in his day would not only be inept but also oppressive. He opposed democracy for three basic reasons. First, government required a degree of intelligence and breadth of knowledge of the sort that was very uncommon among the common people. Second, he thought that common people had dangerous and angry passions that could be easily aroused by demagogues if they had the vote; he feared the authoritarian impulses that could be empowered by these passions would undermine cherished traditions and established religion, leading to violence and confiscation of property. Third, Burke warned that democracy would tyrannise unpopular minorities who needed the protection of the upper classes.

Indeed, and Burke had reason to fear democracy, as he explained in a speech, thanks to the filthy atheistic perfidious French:

Since the House had been prorogued in the summer much work was done in France. The French had shewn themselves the ablest architects of ruin that had hitherto existed in the world. In that very short space of time they had completely pulled down to the ground, their monarchy; their church; their nobility; their law; their revenue; their army; their navy; their commerce; their arts; and their manufactures...[there was a danger of] an imitation of the excesses of an irrational, unprincipled, proscribing, confiscating, plundering, ferocious, bloody and tyrannical democracy...[in religion] the danger of their example is no longer from intolerance, but from Atheism; a foul, unnatural vice, foe to all the dignity and consolation of mankind; which seems in France, for a long time, to have been embodied into a faction, accredited, and almost avowed.

So what does it mean, that Dame Slap should abuse Socialist Alliance students for being wilfully ignorant of Western civilisation (remember that capital "w") while so traducing what motivated Burke in his own world, in his own time?

Well it's just another flourish of that "golden age" mentality, which invariably on closer inspection, sees that golden age contemplating another golden age - though it has to be said that Burke himself, along with Berkeley, thought this nostalgia a waste of time (as you can discover by reading the Stanford Encyclopedia here).

Other ironies abound - Dame Slap specialises in irony. Once again she takes the long iron to Europe and a "creeping democratic deficit", while also noting that as a result of democratic voting, there has been a voter backlash ...

The trouble of course is that this leads to a remarkable set of convolutions:

Notice how group-think is derided when it reflects thinking at odds with group-thinkers who revere the anti-democratic EU?

Which is right up there with the group-think of the group-thinkers who deride the anti-democratic EU, even when the democratic voting process produces a result which upsets and agitates some in the EU...

The deeper problem is that when you're in power, or one of the coat-tailing elite, like Dame Slap, you really aren't interested in protest of any kind. Suddenly anyone who protests is just part of a rabid alliance of weird student socialists (possibly atheist) ... and anti-Burke-ian to boot ... except Burke didn't think much of populist protests in the French manner and all this jibber jabber about democracy ...

Or some such thing. You have to be part of the aristocratic ruling elite to make any sense of Planet Janet ...

But as usual, the pond has wasted way too much time in Caterist and Dame Slap la la land - feel free to spend as much time there as you like, but remember when stuck in the belly of the beast, the acid can be something fierce.

You see, there are serious moves afoot in the real world, which suggests that the Murdoch propaganda machine is failing in its most important endeavour:

The Lowy Institute and The Climate Institute have both tracked the public’s attitude since it peaked in 2006, after 13 years of drought. This high point was followed by the “world’s first climate change election” in 2007, the global financial crisis, the breaking of the drought, the shattering of bipartisan support for laws that price and limit carbon pollution, and the disappointments of the Copenhagen climate conference.
 Through all of these developments public support for Australian leadership on climate continued to fall. It hit rock bottom during the toxic political battles, debate about “lies” and scare campaigns about price impacts that shrouded the introduction of carbon pricing laws in 2012. Lowy Institute’s poll of February this year continues a rise detected in 2013. Agreement with the fact that global warming is a serious and pressing problem, and that we should be taking steps even if it involves significant costs, has rebounded. For the first time in years climate is a major story coming out of Lowy’s poll of public attitudes to international affairs. 
Almost two thirds of Australians think the federal government should take a leadership role, while only 28 per cent believe we should wait for international consensus – often a proxy for inaction. Just seven per cent think Australia should do nothing. (Concern over climate change heats up)

And the Lowy press release is here.

Oh dear. The Murdochians employ the world's leading climate scientist - and occasional blogger - to explain how all is well, not to mention such leading, top notch expert scientists as Tim Bleagh and Dame Slap, always working hand in glove with top notch experts like Lord Monckton, and where's the gratitude? More idle alarmist chit chat ...

Perhaps they need to spend some quality time with Ian the Potato and brush up on their climate science.

And finally the Murdochians are alarmed and indignant at the capers of the buffoon. No, not at the buffoon, so much as the desire to use the buffoon as a handy club to smite everyone else:

Oh dear,  why surely the buffoon's remarks are exactly the sort that any family newspaper could print.

Or perhaps those dreadful lefties in the sisterhood have found the same club that the commentariat snuck away to in those dreadful bitchy witch years ...

Never mind, that witch is still be given a good drubbing at the Royal Commission. Let's see how we go then with that "still and telling silence" ...

What to do? What to do? Should we all flee the country?

No, no,  let's get back to doing what must be done.

Explaining to the peasants how they've never had it so good, and there's far too much cake on hand for everyone, thanks to evil bureaucrats (and more Wilcox here):

What astonishing sights ...

What an astonishing sight!

A United States TV host and program mocking and ridiculing Australia's glorious Prime Minister.

What's worse, it went feral on social media. When the pond checked it out, it had around 6,000 views, this morning it was heading towards 350,000.

You've probably already seen it by now - it's even been picked up by sordid types like the Fairfaxians - but you can always catch it here, for as long as the link stays up.

Oh okay, it's not that astonishing.

Everyone knows Tony Abbott is a prime doofus, and John Oliver is just catching up, and hey, Australia deserves everything it gets for having a prize doofus as PM - though it is a little startling to see such a compendium of Abbott's greatest hits prepared by an HBO show.

Is it that naked, is it that obvious, that even Americans can be startled into mildly astonished laughter?

What an astonishing sight!

There was poor old hapless Ken Cowley allegedly delivering a few home truths - Lachlan might not the sharpest sheep in the top paddock, and The Australian in its current guise might be "pathetic", and the pond had completely missed the fuss, until Media Watch here, provided the details and a very handy pdf of the offending story ...

Oh okay, it wasn't that astonishing, more entrancing, or compelling, or curious.

Like watching Jonestown or Waco Texas unfold, as the kool aid drinkers rushed to fence Cowley off and deal with his heretical thoughts, and put him back in a scientological clear state.

Naturally after a decent round of exorcisms, the heretic fell into line, and all was well ... the tremor in the force had been expunged, and the sheep could stay in the top paddock, and the reptiles at the lizard Oz could go back to being pathetic. Yes, it's Caterist day, with bonus Dame Groan, and bilious Gary Johns, but oh dear, a failure in the Newspoll ...

What an astonishing sight!

There was the gormless Rowan Dean, a twit of the first water, po-faced as he assured Tony Jones that the most important thing was to leave a debt-free generation of young Australians, right at the moment that the Federal Government is proposing to extend the burden of personal debt for what might be decades of a young person's life - to the point where some wags in the government even proposed a little grave robbing to ensure that estates re-paid the debt no matter what, because it was just like a house mortgage, and just as an estate could make use of the house, so they could dig the corpse out of the grave, and make ongoing use of the education paid for by the generous Australian taxpayers, attempting an imitation of a usurious pawnbroker ...

Oh okay, it wasn't that astonishing, it was more astonishing that the pond happened to alight for a fleeting moment on QandA, before racing off to watch the men's hockey, or an infomercial, or almost anything other than watching the braying ... but you can if you like catch up with the show here.

Anyway, everyone knows Rowan Dean is a prat. He makes the puddle in the pothole out the front of the pond's house look deep.

Is it something in the water coolers in the advertising game? Not even the Coen Brothers or Arthur Miller can deal with this sort of nonsense, as Dean goes about the business of foisting Tru Coat on the world (with ad and crook sound). How soon before Dean wanders off into the garden to plant carrots and demand that attention be paid?

What an astonishing sight!

There was Cory Bernardi making a prime goose of himself at almost any moment he spoke on QandA (no, Blogger doesn't deal with the ampersand that well).

Oh okay, it wasn't that astonishing. Everyone knows Bernardi is a goose, the only astonishing thing was that he would parade his goosiness in public.

Seeing Bernardi talk about matters scientific is like spending a nostalgic moment with a medievalist ... yes, yes, what's astonishing is that the pond kept sneaking back for a glimpse of the barking mad. Well the alternative was men's hockey or infomercials...

What an astonishing sight!

There was poor old Prof Ian Chubb, ostensibly the government's chief scientist, on Lateline, here, pleading for the government pay attention to science.

Oh okay, it wasn't that astonishing, more desperate and pathetic, as it became clear that Chubb didn't have a clue about the proposed $20 billion investment fund for medical research:

... I guess the issue for science as a whole is that science as a whole impacts on medical research. So what we're really waiting for is to see what the main purposes of the fund will be and how it can be used to ensure that we have enough physics and enough chemistry and enough mathematics and microbiology and biology and genetics and all of the other disciplines to make sure that we can conduct medical research of the quality that's anticipated.

So where did the government get its advice for its thought bubble, whose intent and functions and operations even now seem opaque to its chief scientist? What about a cost benefit analysis and a rigorous, detailed understanding of its purpose? Hard to find in When deep cuts are not healthy.

Well you can always justify the thought bubble by suggesting that the NBN was also a thought bubble ... which begs the question of how fully wired countries like South Korea got hold of that thought bubble a damn sight earlier and then delivered the goods.

Sorry, sweet Prof, do go on, who did brief the luddites on this most excellent idea?

 IAN CHUBB: Oh, well I don't know. I presume that it sought it from the Department of Health, from the National Health and Medical Research Council. I presume that it talked to people within the research sector and perhaps outside the research sector with an interest in the outcomes of medical research. But I didn't talk to them. 
EMMA ALBERICI: Would you have liked to have had some input? 
IAN CHUBB: Oh, well, I mean, I like having input into as many things as I can have input into. I think my advice is extraordinarily wise and useful.

Sorry sweet Prof, while it's good to be ironic and witty, you're dealing with a prize collection of luddites. How dare you talk this sort of talk?

...I use agriculture as an example. If the present public contribution scheme goes through - and it's under review, so it may not - but if it were to go through, then the cost of an Agricultural Science degree to the student would go up something like 37 per cent if the university offering that degree was simply to keep the same number of dollars in per student. And yet this is at the same time when the number of Agricultural Science students has dropped over the last couple of decades to a fairly low level now and it's flatlined, essentially. And at the same time, the Government in other parts of government at least are going out there and developing trade agreements which require us to increase agricultural exports. So you've got - you've put on top of the fact that rainfall patterns in the country are changing, according to Bureau of Meteorology charts over 40, 50 years. So will the agriculture we do today, will the products we produce today be produced in the - in greater quantities given those variables? I think we need research, we need agricultural science, we need to think through what we can do as the country shifts and as the environment within which the - the environment of the country shifts. So, we need them, so why would you charge them more to do a degree that's so critically important to our international relations, to our own capacity to produce food for ourselves and to export it as well?

Enough of that, dear Prof, the pond is after the astonishing, not the perplexing.

Oh okay, by popular consensus, it seems that the truly astonishing sight was the rumble in the jungle between big Mal and the Bolter.

Sure enough the Fairfaxians and the ABC have been running hot with the rumble, because Cory Bernardi turned it into a tag match, and tagged big Mal on QandA (oh just forget the ampersand will you).

Bernardi deploys a demented, unhinged feather!

But really, the pond takes the view that if you pay attention to squabbling children, it only encourages them, and you don't have to do much to encourage the Bolter in preening displays of narcissism that make the Ruddster look like a balanced person.

The funniest line the Bolter came out with yesterday was that it was all Turnbull's fault - he could have just ignored the Bolter on his Sunday program, and then ignored the Bolter's column yesterday, and so big Mal must have a vested interest in keeping the controversy going.

Perhaps the only funnier aspect was the way the HUN tried to pretend Turnbull wasn't mounting a personal attack on their demented scribbler. Look at this for a really silly header:

Actually HUNsters, the pond is pretty sure that big Mal wasn't just saying that the rumours were unhinged and demented. It seems pretty clear that big Mal was proposing that the spreader of the rumours was unhinged and demented and who can argue with that? Yes the Bolter is the misused "It".

What a surprise.

Of course it's the Bolter that's interested in keeping himself in the spotlight, which is why you can find the dog back at the bone, worrying away this morning in a state of high agitation:

Notice a pattern? It's all very Murdochian.

Ken Cowley was disloyal before the heresy was expunged, now big Mal is expected to be a mindless automaton conforming to the unhinged, demented demands of the Bolter ...

Really they should have found the space for "either way he's disloyal and unAustralian".

The pond long ago wiped big Mal off its personal radar, as he willingly set about the business of ruining the NBN, and yet now he's being abused for not being enough of a lickspittle lackey. Now there's a knock down irony for you ...

And look at that smirk on the Bolter's mug. Notice a similarity to the smirk of the Abbott? The smirk of a narcissist?

Yes that self-satisfied smirk says at all. Once again he's the centre of attention, a reward for being a bovver boy. Make no mistake, the Bolter started it, it was all his doing, he set it in motion, and all that big Mal did was stand up to a bully, and like a bully, the Bolter looked very startled to be challenged in this presumptuous way.

So what was the net result? So what did the Bolter accomplish with his intervention?

Well there's Tony Abbott wanting to pose as a statesman and a Prime Minister as he heads off overseas, and here's the Bolter involved in a dog fight in the street, and so Abbott is now forced to answer questions about big Mal and the Bolter.

Oh Abbott yammers on about how the government is absolutely focussed on its budget, but everyone knows the government is absolutely distracted, and right now, we learn courtesy John Oliver, that Abbott is comic material for comedians around the world.

Right now his office can't even separate out a tribute to World War II veterans from shameless political trawling, as if somehow YouTube couldn't find the space for two separate videos ...

What else did the Bolter accomplish?

Well, spoiler alert ...

... you see, the Fairfaxians decided to conduct one of their random unscientific polls, but what's wrong, sweet Prof Chubb, with being unscientific, in this age of luddite medievalism?

Uh huh. Head off here to add your vote, and have fun reading Tony Wright having fun with Andrew Bolt is undermining Malcolm Turnbull undermining Tony Abbott. Got it? (forced video at end of link)

Yes, the Bolter has kept the issue of leadership alive right at the moment that Abbott was hoping it would go away, and turned everyone to thinking about big Mal as leader - in a remarkably favourable way.

Just when Abbot was hoping he might be able to patch things up with the Indonesians and return in glory waving a piece of paper announcing peace in our time.

With friends like that, the pond hopes that Abbott keeps on cultivating more media friends like that ... especially the really paranoid conspiratorial ones ... demented, unhinged ...

Naturally you only need to see David Rowe's cartoon to realise the sublime folly of the affair.

But let's be fair. It's not really that astonishing, it's just very silly, and the demented Bolter the silliest of all.

Yes even sillier than Tony Abbott, and as John Oliver would note with a raised eyebrow, that's beyond dickhead silly ...

(Below: as always, more Rowe here - please reward him with a click for his portrait of Tony Abbott as roast Beijing duck and for showing big Mal munching on the noodles he uses to improve NBN connectivity)

Meanwhile, David Pope picked up on that other indiscretion by the posturing Abbott (and as always more Pope here)

What a great time it is to be alive. And  what luck, in this Reader's Digest world that laughter is truly the best medicine, because what else is left, except tears ...

A dog's breakfast ...

(Above: who else but that genius David Rowe, and more Rowe here, though we do wish he'd written The Dog's Breakfast, or even The Dogs' Breakfast, but hey you have to forgive him, for showing big Mal dining on wild duck, no doubt filled with tasty bits of crunchy broken NBN).

It isn't just the pond, you know, calling the Pyne a poodle.

Everyone finds the poodle Pyne irresistible fun:

If you're pining for a pun, Pyne is the go to shrine.

You can read the story here if you like because it provides  a handy history of the poodle Pyne's recent thought bubbles and own goals. And what an impressive list it is ...

But the pond is just as happy to deal in headlines:

Oh come on Graudian, where's your sense of humour? Surely that header should say something like Pyne Moonshine Elephantine ...

Of course if you read that story, here, it's an elegant report on the Pyneapple up the student bum confusion doing the rounds, but sadly it also contains some grotesque insults:

The Greens' spokeswoman on higher education, Lee Rhiannon, said Pyne's comments were clearly contradicted by the government's own website. 
 “Either Mr Pyne deliberately lied or he doesn't understand his own policy changes,” Rhiannon said.

Which is outrageous and verges on the defamatory, a kind of "either/or" gotcha we'd expect from Brezhnev lovers ...

Truth to tell, it's perfectly possible for Pyne to have to deliberately lied and at the same time not to have understood his own policy changes.

He's that sort of Whitmanesque man, he can embrace contradictions ...

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes of poodle.

The thought bubble king moved the pond to mangle Shakespeare:

A blank, my lord. He never told his policies, 
But let confusion, like a worm i' the bud, 
Feed on his damask cheek. He pyned in thought, 
And with a green and yellow melancholy 
He sat like impatience on a monument, 
Smirking at student grief. Was not this folly indeed? 
We men may say more, swear more, but indeed 
Our shows are more than will, for still we prove 
Much in our vows, but little in our policies....

Don't blame the pond, blame the poodle ...

The trouble is, it's hard to blame the poodle, when his master also mangled the facts. Was it only a week or so ago we were reading Tony Abbott contradicted by universities, Education Department on how deregulated fees will be applied to new university students (forced video at end of link)?

It's not usual for the pond to quote Fairfaxian editorials, but in the past few weeks, the lack of discipline in coalition ranks has got the pond going and turned it into quite the s'gnt major martinet:

Members of the Abbott government are building a reputation for running untested and often offensive ideas up the flagpole to see if anyone salutes. 
The government is consequently having to become quite adept at pulling the flags down again when the salute from normally civil Australians turns out to be of the one-fingered variety. (here)

Thought bubbles, confusion, back downs, pirouettes on a dime, and worst of all, it's flung the reptiles into chaos and confusion, and a deep funk and a sulk.

Yep, speaking of editorials, after many years of exempting the thunder and the chunder from the paywall, in a bid to be heard and to address the citizenry of the land, the reptiles have now begun to put their thought pieces behind the paywall:

Is this the way it's going to be in the future? Is The Australian disappearing into a void, a black hole? Are the rich, those mug punters who can afford to subscribe, being asked yet again to do all the heavy lifting, and now lift a little more?

Will Lifting, not leaning, is the way ahead for our nation be the final ironic editorial word available for free, before the rich are punished yet again?

In his budget speech a few weeks ago, Joe Hockey declared: “We are a nation of lifters, not leaners.” Yet since outlining the Abbott government’s rather modest fiscal repair plan, the Treasurer has been assailed by jumpy agitators and serial complainers, proving once again that Australia is prone to indulging in the culture of complaint. Such baseless moaning has too easily fed an opportunistic false narrative about the budget’s fairness, ignoring the obvious point that one person’s tax rise is not the same as another’s loss of benefit. High-income earners are actually doing all the heavy lifting — paying the tax that supports our burgeoning welfare state — and will now be obliged to lift a bit more.

Oh indeed, it seems the rich are being asked to fork out to keep the fat cat reptiles in the style to which they've become accustomed ...

What will the world do, now it's excluded from the moaning about the moaners, and the elites berating the elites?

Who's to blame for this sorry state? The pond is glad you asked, because it seems it's all the fault of the thought bubbles, and the policy chaos and confusion, which has reduced the reptiles to wringing their claws in anguish:

In September, the Coalition won a mandate to fix our fiscal mess, but has itself became a victim of the politics of the ephemeral. Mr Hockey did not continue to argue the case for slashing wasteful spending. He convened an audit commission to identify cuts and a way ahead in the medium term, but instead of engaging the public with its findings well ahead of the budget, he sat on the audit’s work. To make matters worse, the Prime Minister is clinging to an extravagant paid parental leave scheme and muddle-headed direct action plan on carbon emissions, an untenable posture given he is trying to convince voters and the political class that he is the enemy of the free lunch. There has been poor discipline and mixed messaging on economic reform, too easily playing into the hands of the crazed Occupy crowd.

Oh indeed, indeed. How they pyne for spine and instead they get the bovine ...

There's only one solution. Tony Abbott must immediately head overseas for a couple of weeks, and the cat must allow the mice to play and get it out of their system.

This Monday morning it seems the magic water man, Paul Sheehan, has shown how it should be done, and taken a powder. There's only so much heavy lifting and knob polishing anyone can be asked to do.

So what do the Fairfaxians do? Lead with a piece by Ian Dunlop, Abbott is gutting science just when we need it most:

Grandees such as John Howard and Cardinal George Pell parade cynical climate denialism before international audiences, putting more peer pressure on the current incumbents to toe that line and providing rare insight into the widespread denialist groupthink within conservative ranks. 
Literally and figuratively, we are witnessing a "burning of the science books", the like of which has not been seen since medieval times. It did not work for the Catholic Church in the days of Copernicus and Galileo, nor in Nazi Germany in the 1930s. It will not work today.

Great. More cash in the Godwin's Law swear jar, along with a reminder that it's just not the poodle:

Greg Hunt’s Direct Action white paper has no scientific and economic grounding at all, whether from our own Institutions, the IPCC, the Garnaut and Stern climate change reviews or numerous other global bodies such as the World Bank, IMF and the OECD. It is the climate policy you have when you don’t want a policy.

Want a definition of futility? Greg Hunt going on RN to talk about threatened species and proposing three point action plans and the appointment of a commissioner and grand coalitions, and yadda yadda blather blather, let's degut the Murray basin...

So what can the reptiles come up with?

Who will stand up and do the knob polishing that's now urgently required, day in, day out?

That's it? That's the reason we should have Pyne making a mess of education and Hunt making a mess of the world and big Mal dining on duck?

A kangaroo-poo throwing 4WD enthusiast couldn't make a bigger mess ...?

(Below: a couple of old Popes that never grow old, and more Pope here)

Even prattling Polonius is in a state of denial ...

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. (Winnie it here)

Now forget Bob Ellis turning up in The Gympie Times, announcing the end of the world is nigh. Poor Bob has always been inclined to tales of the apocalypse since the Cuban missile crisis. And things are always a bit slow in Gympie.

But the hounds of the Fairfaxians have found a spot on the moors they can return to whenever they need to troll for a hit - like Tony Abbott says Malcolm Turnbull isn't after his job.

And so it begins, the relentless dripping away on the drip, with every story - from a meal in a Chinese restaurant to performance anxiety about a wink - refracted through the eye of a leadership storm.

Just remember the denials, which even the reptiles ran with just a week or so ago:

Mr Abbott, who is under pressure amid a public backlash over his first budget, this morning answered questions about his leadership saying the electorate was “sick of governments that change their leaders mid-term”. 

“What we need in this party right now is not an action replay of the last six years,” Mr Abbott told the Nine Network. 

“Neither Kevin Rudd nor Julia Gillard made it from one election to the next — I don’t think the Australian people want to see a repeat performance.” (the reptiles reporting, here)

And so it goes. Denial after denial, with the man forced to guess the collective mood of the Australian people, as if polls aren't much of a guide ...

How desperate is it? How far have we already gone down the track with idle water cooler chat? 

Well when you've got the prattling Polonius himself scribbling Populist attacks can make Abbott stronger (behind the paywall so no one has to listen or care), it's truly desperate times, because in defending Abbott, Polonius reminds the world that the leadership is at issue.

Sure Polonius does his best to distract.

After berating the ABC, Mark Scott, public servants, Jon Faine, the greenies, Virginia Triole, Michael Rowland, the Fairfaxians, and Lee Rhiannon - such a flock of tired old bees buzzing relentlessly around in Hendo's hive mind - he saw signs of hope.

The contempt for Abbott ­within the left-wing inclined professional classes was evident in the critical letters that The Sydney Morning Herald chose to run on May 23. There was reference to the Prime Minister “surviving on a wink and a prayer” — a reference to Abbott’s conservative brand of Catholicism. Abbott’s wife and daughters also were mocked. 
That evening, Abbott attended the Australian Book Industry Awards in Sydney. Louise Adler, president of the Australian Publishers Association, introduced him with a professional address appropriate for the occasion. The Prime Minister performed very well in front of an audience that was polite, but evidently ­resentful. He gives the impression of being better equipped to handle opprobrium than his recent predecessors. 

Uh huh. Keep that one in mind, and now back to the distractions:

The most amusing criticism of the Prime Minister has come from Greens senator Lee Rhiannon, who followed her Stalinist parents Bill and Freda Brown into the Socialist Party of Australia in the 1970s. At the time, the SPA was the pro-Soviet Union branch in Australia of the international communist movement. Rhiannon refuses to provide details of who paid for her study at the Lenin International School in Moscow in 1977, during the time of Leonid Brezhnev’s totalitarian dictatorship. But the Greens senator maintains that the fact one of the Prime Minister’s daughters won a scholarship at a private ­institute in Melbourne raises ­issues concerning ethics. Really. 
 Already some commentators are predicting Abbott will lose the leadership in a partyroom ballot or that he will lead the ­Coalition to defeat at the next election scheduled for late 2016. Maybe. Or maybe not. As the joke goes, it is unwise to make prophecies, ­especially about the future. 

Uh huh. But as the old joke goes, at one point or another every rooster becomes a feather duster.

The fine art is to judge when it's time to pluck the rooster.

And so even Polonius can't help himself and must talk about the leadership, and the time when the rooster will be plucked ... and yet ... and yet ... hope must surge to the surface in any uxorious scribbler, heart full of hope and yearning for manly strength ...

 Yet, maybe, despite broken promises and all that, the Aus­tralian population reluctantly ­accepts that the country needs a strong personality who is unfazed by abuse. 

You know, like German needed a good springtime with a strong leader (oh okay the Godwin's Law swear jar needed a kick start).

As Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson pointed out in April, when Labor left office after six budget deficits there were a further 10 deficits in prospect. That kind of economic ­scenario will not be resolved by someone who wants to be loved. 
Abbott’s one unchallenged characteristic, at this stage of his prime ministership, is a perceived and real strength.

Uh huh. Kraft durch Freude! (in for a Godwin's penny, in for a pound).

Google some images using that phrase, you'll be so glad you did:

But you know that one could bounce back on you, as it did on Margaret Thatcher. And others ...

Uh huh. It was war time, death and killing were celebrated.

But now we're in a dire national emergency, a budget crisis of the first water. Will feeble talk of income tax cuts save the rooster? How can we afford them in this time of crisis? Should we just burn off the feathers, and plunk him in the roast?

Do the pitbulls smell blood? Is there a whiff of fear in the air?

Uh huh. And what was that Polonius said about perceived and real strength, and a tough guy better equipped to handle opprobrium?

Guess what the reptiles counter-attacked with?

Uh huh. Diddums is hurt.

Harden the fuck up man, Gerard Henderson won't tolerate that sort of bleating, wimpy carry-on. What we need is strength and toughness, or the next thing you know someone will be saying:

'If you don't like the heat, get out of the kitchen'.

Truman that phrase here, where you'll also find this excellent quote:

"I didn't fire him [Chrisotpher Pyne] because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was,  always shooting his mouth off, but that's not against the law for federal Liberal politicians. If it was, half to three quarters of them would be in jail."

Or some such thing.

Quick, someone mention Brezhnev again. Let's keep the conversation relevant, contemporary and NOW.

Oh and maybe hope no one calls a Royal Commission into your bad choice of boyfriends ...

(Below: and a few cartoons, as featured, with First Dog on The Insiders. Catch up on that segment, here).

Community television for cultists ...

(Above: screen cap only, no hot links. First do no harm ...)


The pond used to spend too much time on a Sunday meditating about religion, but since Cardinal Pell has gone, the game has gone flat, and all that's left are tawdry examples of shame and child abuse, with the recent report on matters that occurred in Newcastle a most peculiar and curious affair, in which the whistle blower was blamed for blowing the whistle, while at the same time it was concluded that the whistle blower had plenty to blow his whistle about ...

Only in New South Wales ...

The Sydney Anglicans also seem to have dropped the ball, though as usual they're out and about peddling hate, and it's not just for women's and gay rights:

Beetson, and even Churchill, I never could have loved. They always played for the enemy.

We keed, we keed, it's just David Mansfield infatuated with thugby boofheads in Gasnier's State of Origin. 

No turning of the cheek or loving the neighbour in thugby boofhead land ...

Only in New South Wales and Queensland ... and Victoria and the rest of Australia ...

It turns out Mansfield is a loser in love with the losing St George and Richmond Tigers, and the mention of those epic losers reminded the pond of a curious discovery during a recent trip to Melbourne.

As always, the pond poked down laneways, and looked up alternative activities, as a sure guide to the strange ways of the natives.

And strange they were.

It turns out that Channel 31 is running a Scientology program, and if this blog entry, Scientology infiltrates Channel 31, is any guide, it's been doing it since before September 2009.

Who'd have thunk it, but yep, there it is, scheduled for screening this very night at nine o'clock:

L. Ron Hubbard providing practical and workable solutions to many of life's everyday problems, and don't you go worrying about the cost ...

Workable solutions? Is that a reference to Narconon?

It seems that dole bludgers on drugs is a major worry in Australia.

Perhaps the federal government could take a leaf out of L. Ron's book, and use his techniques to end addiction, and never mind a few deaths along the way. There's always a little wastage to be expected ...

Never mind, it turns out that Melbourne scientologists are wildly excited about being on community television, and they also run all their episodes on Vimeo (the scientology website here, approach with caution and only with sound mind) though it did occur to the pond to wonder if they could use Vimeo, why did Channel 31 feel the need to give the show a run?

And so community television compounds chaos and confusion in the land of cults ...

Oh sure, they still run all sorts of other stuff, but what happened to "first do no harm"?

Why couldn't they have just stuck to psychics and all the other new age touchy feely stuff that makes up the alternative circuit?

We can all lose our innocence at various stages in life, and the pond just lost its innocence in relation to community television.

Along with all the admirable ethnic and minority programming, they peddle the mind-warping activities of a cult?

Only in Melbourne? Or does community television elsewhere provide air time for cults?

Thanks to the blog post which alerted the pond to how long this has been going on, at least the pond was reminded of that splendid image, eminently suited for a meditative Sunday:

Is it time for urine testing in Murdoch's la la land?

So what's the worst newspaper in Australia up to today - yes, for perniciousness and deviousness, it even beats the NT News:

Uh huh, still flogging Roger Rogerson, and running an EXCLUSIVE which cheerfully joins the federal government in abusing the unemployed as drug-taking dole bludgers in need of medical examination, without proposing the urgent need for drug-testing for addled parliamentarians, who seem to be ingesting god knows what ... while fucking up the country.

At any other time the libertarians and the IPA and Tim Wilson would be up in arms denouncing the governmental intrusion on people, their freedom and their right to privacy, but not when it comes to dole bludgers, not when the bludgers could make a decent living serving up scurrilous crap for Murdoch.

What's that you say, the empire is shrinking, and job numbers aren't what they once were?

Oh well,  maybe they can get a job enforcing drug compliance. After all, that's a good way to get people into jobs. Worked for the Stasi ...

It was such an EXCLUSIVE as a story that it featured in other Murdochian rags ...

... though for some reason, the Queenslanders didn't think that much of it, bizarrely running the story of a Russian super-tzar at the top of the page, a keen trans-Pacific rower, no doubt because he landed in Mooloolaba, north of Brisbane. Only in Queensland ... but it does suggest useful employment for drug cheat dole bludgers. Let them row the Pacific ...

The EXCLUSIVE also turned up on the front page of the HUN, though it felt so little about the story, it ran a promo for soccer - soccer in Melbourne, why the pond could feel the earth shift on its axis - and a troll-baiting offer of frequent flyer points, which struck the pond as absurd because this very weekend, the pond's partner reported another classic case of iPad failure on a 767 to Melbourne. Yes, it took three iPads to find a working one, two sets of headphones that didn't work, with sound reduced to a whisper, and privately owned ear pods needed, and agitation elsewhere in the cabin as mug punters asked for replacements in a bid to find something that worked in cattle class ...

Let the bludgers run Qantas. Couldn't do any harm, but it might help if they were stoned ...

But we digress, as it's so easy to do when reading Murdochian rags.

Was it merely a coincidence that the other night the pond caught a few minutes of American Beauty, and it just so happened to be the scene where the son switched urine samples on his seriously fucked up father?

Does anyone in the federal government have the first clue how they're sounding as fucked up as that dad? And, it has to be said, as stupid ...

Moving swiftly, Ricky pulls the drapes shut and switches on a light. His room is a haven of high-tech. A state-of-the-art multimedia COMPUTER crowds his desk, and high-end STEREO and VIDEO EQUIPMENT line the shelves, as well as HUNDREDS OF CDs. There is easily twenty thousand dollars worth of equipment in this room. 
RICKY Coming, Dad. 
COLONEL (O.C.) You know I don't like locked doors in my house, boy. 
Ricky opens the door. 
The Colonel stands outside, eyeing him. 
RICKY I'm sorry, I must have locked it by accident. So what's up? 
The Colonel holds out a small PLASTIC CUP WITH A CAP. 
COLONEL I need a urine sample. 
RICKY Wow. It's been six months already. Can I give it to you in the morning? I just took a whiz. COLONEL Yeah, I suppose. (an awkward beat) Well. Good night, son. He disappears down the hall. Ricky smiles, shuts and locks his door. He puts the plastic cup on the shelf, then crosses to a MINI REFRIGERATOR in the corner of his room and takes out a cup-sized TUPPERWARE CONTAINER from the freezer, already filled with urine, albeit frozen, and places it on a saucer to thaw overnight.

Coming shortly to Tony Abbott's Australia ...

There's a pay off in the movie of course, though the pond went on to other things before reaching that point:

Ricky enters, followed by Lester. 
RICKY Can you hold this for a sec? 
LESTER Sure. He gives the URINE SPECIMEN to Lester, then locks the door. 
RICKY I don't think my dad would try to come in when somebody else is here, but you never know. Ricky crosses to a bureau and opens a DRAWER. He takes clothing out and piles it on his bed. LESTER (re: urine sample) What is this?
RICKY Urine. I have to take a drug test every six months to make sure I'm clean. 
LESTER Are you kidding? You just smoked with me last night. 
RICKY It's not mine. One of my clients is a nurse in a pediatrician's office. I cut her a deal, she keeps me in clean piss. 
Lester picks up a CD case from a shelf and examines it. 
LESTER You like Pink Floyd? 
RICKY I like a lot of music. 
LESTER Man, I haven't listened to this album in years. He shakes his head, then puts the CD case down. Ricky, having emptied the drawer, now removes a FALSE BOTTOM, revealing rows of MARIJUANA, tightly packed in ZIP-LOC BAGS. 
RICKY How much do you want? 
LESTER I don't know, it's been a while. How much is an ounce? 
RICKY (indicates bag) Well, this is totally decent, and it's three hundred. 
LESTER Wow. 
RICKY (indicates another bag) But this shit is top of the line. It's called G-13. Genetically engineered by the U.S. Government. Extremely potent. But a completely mellow high, no paranoia.

Uh huh. So there's a good job for drug cheat dole bludgers. A life of crime and drug dealing! Why didn't the pond think of it? Kick 'em out in the street, and make 'em street smart, and soon enough we'll have the biggest and best drug culture in the world, and jails full to overflowing.

Why it's a conservative wet dream, all that punishing and belittling and humiliation - and nurses who can help out with free piss might also do okay - but perhaps we'd all better start cultivating that paranoia in Tony Abbott's Australia ...

Meanwhile, the pond apologises to all. In the excitement of seeing Dame Slap turn up on a Saturday, the pond forgot to overlook some sterling contributions as the reptiles furiously scribble away at the lizard Oz. First up was Dame Groan:

What an exemplary effort. All the more so that the Groaner worked her magic the very same day as a vile scaremonger burst into print:

Shame on you, Glyn Davis, you shameful scare mongerer you (and the rest of the story here), running around scare mongering everyone, all the more disgraceful in that Melbourne University is supposed to be at the top of the pack of cautious universities.

Please recall your email immediately and write that fees will climb gently, like a glider on a zephyr, by a mere 45 to 61%, in a way that can only be called less than momentous, more like a molehill attempting to imitate a mountain, and soon enough we'll have you writing commentariat pieces for Murdoch la la land ...

And the pond also forgot to mention the litigious Chris Kenny's magnificent effort. When not demanding money for wounded pride, Kenny is always to hand to pour scorn on attempts to recognise uppity blacks:

You can, if you like, evade the paywall and read Kenny's No winners in a game that reduces race to a political football - a Kenny word is like distilled essence of gold and worth a huge payout  - but have you thought about wearing a cilice on a weekend instead?

It is as perfect an example of sour grapes that the pond has come across in recent times, and if the pond may be so bold as to offer a spoiler plot summary, it seems that while the uppity blacks might play a mean game of football, all this fuss about 18C will result in payback, and they'll miss out on a mention in the constitution. Ya yah, sucks boo ...

Aided by one unfortunate phrase from Attorney-General George Brandis, who was pointing out that legislation cannot control the human heart, opponents now frame the proposal as an ­attempt to protect bigotry. This is dishonest and hysterical — but effective. 
Anyone supporting the changes to the Racial Discrimination Act is now dubbed racist, or at least a defender of bigots. 
This perversion of the debate is not limited to political fringe-dwellers; sadly, it has been the ­tactic used by Labor as well. 
Yet this is the climate in which we expect to engender consensus on indigenous recognition. Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion remains optimistic and wants to frame the step in a positive light. 
But it is difficult to resist a more pessimistic assessment. ­ 
Julian Burnside QC, for ­instance, has tweeted that the ­Attorney-General says “it’s OK to be a bigot”. If this is what we get from a Queen’s Counsel and recipient of the Sydney Peace Prize, we may be waiting a long time for a fair-minded and conciliatory discussion. 
In a speech this week, indigenous leader Patrick Dodson showed how to make these arguments in a less combative way; it is possible to play the ball and not the man. But, generally, the 18C debate has been lost in a melee of shouting and finger-pointing. 
The venom and divisiveness of the opponents may well thwart the Racial Discrimination Act changes. But it also may undermine any chance of fostering a consensus to usher in the historic constitutional change.

Vengeance is mine, saith the rabid, or some such thing in Murdoch la la land.

Do the Murdochians require a urine test of their employees and commentariat scribblers? If not, is the time right?

And that's about it for this Sunday, but before you go, did you forget your own urine test?

Yes, the pond is requiring a urine sample from anyone who's read thus far, but really we don't have the facilities to process it just yet ...

Why not send it instead to the federal government in Canberra, tidily packed in a sample jar? They'll be ever so pleased to receive it and to discover you're clean ...

What's that? How dare you open that fridge ...

(Below: well at least those bloody dole bludgers won't end up like Lance Armstrong)