In which the pond assails Presbyterians, the 'fellow travelling with terrorists' Greg Sheridan, foolish climate believers unable to understand the insights of Dennis "cola" Jensen, and triumphantly scales the Everest heights of a Caterist column ...

(Above: to get the show underway the pond attended a values class with Moir, and more Moir here).

Speaking of values classes, the reptiles today announced yet another exclusive EXCLUSIVE:

Of course you'd have to be deep into kool aid to think it was an actual SCOOP.

Let google show the times:

But in any case who cares? Who cares what a minority in decline, a blathering of bible thumpers, has to say?

If they want to opt out of legal weddings and adopt strange exotic rituals, if they want to go illegal and underground, like a gang of Weather people, why let them, says the pond, let them don sheets and do it in Roman toga style if they want, followed by strict missionary position coupling for the rest of their monogamous lives ... like that great Presbyterian, the Donald Trump ...

And the reptiles had other scoops, even though it involved what anyone with half an eye could have seen on television last night:

Oh wait, that's just an entry in the funny Barners photo competition which routinely bobs up in the pond. Here's the Graudian entry:

Ah the deferential, creepy crawling, obsequious, fawning, slithering on his belly Barners ...

As for the other, there was a lot of hand-wringing at reptile central about the childish, petulant ban, as if the hapless lizards had suddenly discovered their emperor was a foolish, prideful man with a love of skimpy clothes.

Worse, it turned out that one of their very own, one Greg "the bromancer" Sheridan was in fact a terrorist, or at the very least, a lick spittle running dog consorter with a terrorist organisation, and so, by appearing on the show, became a participant in undermining the very fabric, the warp and weave of a decent Australia, where bannings and shunnings and banishments should become major policy achievements.

Look, weep at the anguish of the bouffant one as he scribbled more in sorrow than in joy with Jared:

Yes, as Media Watch said last night,  while noting big Mal's electorate seemed to like the ABC, watch the big Mal space.

Will he fold? Will he roar? Is he a lion or a mouse? Or is he the mouse that roared? Or is he just Peter Sellers and wants to spend his time dressed in a funny frock?

The pond just flung that one in for any stray film buffs out there. More to the point, do the reptiles have a clue?

Ah yes, the treacherous, traitorous bromancer Sheridan, consorting with a terrorist organisation.

So will big Mal have the guts to join this traitor? Bring it on. Either way, the pond can dance for joy.

Meanwhile, let's ignore Barner's agricultural policy paper - if he can't be bothered talking about, why should the pond give a fig? - and briefly mention with admiration the way the climate denialists keep simmering in the Abbott government:

Yes, Dennis and Chris are still maintaining the rage, as you can read in the ABC here. But they still try to don the fig leaf of respectability:

Thanks reptiles for that, but the pond still doesn't know why they keep carrying on. 

Things are going very well, spiffingly strong, and the feeble bit of window dressing deployed by the obsequious wiki man, is already looking threadbare, and should expire, as planned, just after the election:

You can Graudian that story here, and Greg Hunt's other strategies are going swimmingly well.

Why there's The climate one year on: exit carbon tax, enter brown coal - how the pond's Morwell frequenting relatives just love the news - and Power sector's emissions accelerate one year after carbon tax's demise and thanks to private suppliers Victoria's electricity prices continue to soar and investors are happy, and it's coal, coal, coal for Australia ...

But enough of the frivolity and light-hearted romping while we prepare to fry like a crisp and join the crustaceans in a light acid bath, because there is a solemn duty for reptile cultists, and that's to do their duty for the long absent lord, remote queen and banishing country, and make it through a Caterist column.

This duty is reserved for the pond elite. The toughest of the tough, the SAS of blog readership, the willing grunts who take the ball up the middle and can do the hard yards, and stomp on toads and ...

Well you get the drift, and lesser souls who have much more important things to do in life - clipping toenails, picking pimples, sweeping up leaves - can consider themselves dismissed - but there is a reward at the end of the haul.

And it should be noted up front that in the usual way the Caterists don't ask the most salient question.

To wit and to woo, as the pond's unendurable uncle used to say, what on earth are the Caterists good for? What earthly use is served by a Caterist column?

Is it true that reading one Caterist collation of incoherent burblings can reduce a reader's IQ by ten points, and that prolonged exposure can induce terminal gibbering senility?

What would happen if the ABC went away, and all that was left on the desolate, blackened earth were Murdochian reptiles and 'short of a picnic loaf' Caterists?

With that warning in mind, we must plunge on:

Oh it's simply unendurable.

The half-witted fool thinks that a little alliteration, as in "barmy bohemians" passes for bien peasant wit.

And what a cheek for the head of a taxpayer funded non-think tank - yes the Menzies Research Centre scored a handsome amount of cash in the paw - to talk of harlots? What, it's only the ABC that's a slut on the taxpayer dime, and not the Menzies Institute sluts?

And when it's not direct cash in the paw, private donations cop a tax deduction, meaning we all pay - coming and going - to keep the harlots in the money and the lifestyle that befits bien peasants...

Anyway, what's wrong with being a decent sex worker? At least of the ABC kind - at least they're not Murdochian whores, in the generality, and they discreetly fail to point out the uselessness of Caterists and instead invite them on sundry programs to burble and bore their viewers silly ...

Oh dear, it's working. Shortly the pond will be fully exorcised and ready to do a useful day's work.

But first the final duty, the final bite of the lemon. What's the bet words like "luvvies" will flow from the wan fop's foolish lips?

Should the ABC promote farming? That's the best joke of the lot. Well you can take the ABC away from the agrarian socialists, but damned if a lot of them don't actually like their ABC in rural and regional areas ... the pond's male relatives get quite excited and unseemly about sweet Pip's hat:

You can Landline here, and it reminds the pond that we stopped listening to RN when they got rid of Bush Telegraph.

But it's typical of the bien peasants in their remote, elite, taxpayer funded Canberra eerie that they'd be stupid enough to question the usefulness of catering to an audience of farmers ... or children ... or any other demographic outside the fluff-gathering, navel-gazing, anal retentive Caterists ...

But hey, the pond promised not to discuss Barner's useless agricultural polices, so let's round it out with a First Dog, always a treat at the end of a hard and useless slog.

Come on little dawgie, sock it to that doofus Caterist, and more First Doggie here and thank the long absent lord you're a gluten free kale lover. That news will send the bien peasant Caterists into a wittering frenzy.

In which the pond contemplates the antipodean emperor and his assorted princelings and courtesans ...

(Above: but no token representative of the emperor, and as for a token female host, more Cathy Wilcox here).

The pond was sitting on the toilet, as the pond often does, reading an old New Yorker, as the pond always does, brooding about Evan Osnos's excellent portrait of Chinese emperor Xi Jinping in The New Yorker, which happily for the moment is outside the paywall and is available online in full here.

A couple of lines leapt out at the pond:

...The son was too young to be an official Red Guard, and his father’s status made him undesirable. Moreover, being born red was becoming a liability. Élite academies were accused of being xiao baota—“little treasure pagodas”—and shut down. Xi and the sons of other targeted officials stayed together, getting into street fights and swiping books from shuttered libraries. Later, Xi described that period as a dystopian collapse of control. He was detained “three or four times” by groups of Red Guards, and forced to denounce his father. In 2000, he told the journalist Yang Xiaohuai about being captured by a group loyal to the wife of the head of China’s secret police: 
I was only fourteen. The Red Guards asked, “How serious do you yourself think your crimes are?” “You can estimate it yourselves. Is it enough to execute me?” “We can execute you a hundred times.” To my mind there was no difference between being executed a hundred times or once, so why be afraid of a hundred times? The Red Guards wanted to scare me, saying that now I was to feel the democratic dictatorship of the people, and that I only had five minutes left. But in the end, they told me, instead, to read quotations from Chairman Mao every day until late at night.

Then the pond remembered a long forgotten feud between filmmakers Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut, around the time that Godard jumped the shark and became a French Maoist. Truffaut might have been making bad films, but Godard stopped making films altogether, and instead began making slogans, silly mindless sloganeering in lieu of actual content.

Some loyalists tried to stay with him - perhaps in memory of his early days - but he'd jumped the Maoist shark, into the shallow waters of banishment and childish petulance and all the rest of the diseases that afflict small-minded ideologues.

So what's all that got to do with Australia, right here, right now?

Well for starters, the end product of Maoism is a China that Mao wouldn't recognise, led by a man Mao would despise as his successor emperor.

But more importantly the country is now in the hands of a man, and an office, that operates like the Red Guard.

First there's the endless simple minded slogans, and now there's the childish, petulant bannings and banishment ...

Now the pond should admit up front that the pond would never, not in a zillion years be asked to appear on Q and A, but if indeed asked, it would be a zillion years before the pond agreed to appear ...  on the basis that the pond can't stand the heat that's routinely generated, and the singular absence of any policy light.

But anyone who has watched the program knew that years ago, and it didn't stop Liberal and National politicians lining up.

So what's Barners' excuse for the no show?

Say what? It's because the PM told him to?

Talk about a knackered ram, talk about a naked crutching.

Perhaps it had something to do with Barners' wretched appearance yesterday on The Insiders, trying to sell his dog of an agricultural policy, more poodle than working dog. 

The hapless wretch got caught up on climate change, and then gay marriage. 

What he should have said was a simple "I believe marriage is between a man and a woman, and now I'd like to talk about our exciting new agricultural policies", and deflected any further questions, but truth to tell, Barners is just a small town accountant, promoted on the Peter principle to an office where more's needed than blokiness and a beer in the front bar ...

The man is dumb - no wonder there was talk of needing to cleanse the policy paper of bizarre, out there ideas - and so there were good pragmatic reasons not to expose the sheep to more nipping and biting at the heels by agile working dogs used to the sport, and used to herding woolly ones into the yard for a good shearing. Narrow combs, wide combs, it'd happen in a trice ...

But how does it look in the headlines?

Boycott, decree, and a craven, folding, and it has to be said, an abject, pathetic and lickspittle-looking Barners doing his emperor's bidding.

No wonder the pond was thinking about Maoist ideologues, mindless chanting, and the rule of emperors issuing decrees.

How stupid did they want Barners to look, walking backwards in circles and reciting slogans, because within the last 24 hours the pond had actually watched Barners say he'd appear on the show:

(Fairfax here).

And there's the rub - poor Barners is just a stalking horse for an attempt to make big Mal appear just as gormless, weak and gutless.

Will big Mal defy his emperor and turn up on the broadcaser - hey, that's how Fairfax spelles it - or will he fold like a pack of Barners' cards stacked with sheepish Jokers?

The pond doesn't mind either way. Just watching the banishing, boycotting emperor and his office go about their business is endlessly fascinating, while the tremulous princelings tip toe in a way that suggests they're walking on eggshells ...

In the days following Mr Mallah's appearance on QandA, Mr Turnbull said he would continue to appear on the program even though it had made an error of judgment. 
"Most of the leading figures in this building have been on the show plenty of times and from my point of view I think we are in the business of getting the message of the government across," he said. "And so we need to take advantage of every platform that's available. So I'll continue to appear on ABC programs, including QandA, if I'm invited to be there."

Couldn't be clearer, and only a few sleeps before we see how the princeling handles the emperor.

Meanwhile, sharp-eyed pond dwellers will have noted another story appended to that reptile splash about Barners, featuring Tim "Freedom Boy" Wilson.

Now the pond was in a state of extreme agitation. What to choose? Because the reptiles had also lined up this:

That's a bit cruel. Abbott?! No first name for brother Tony? She's had debates with Abbott? Well the pond routinely debates with brick walls, concrete floors and assorted tiles ...

But then there was this:

Now the pond had not the slightest clue what Wilson is blathering on about, except to parrot fundamentalists dwelling in the United States.

What neglect of preserving religious freedoms has graced this fair land? Could it be the incessant funding of religious schools, including those of the most fundamentalist creationist and Islamic kind? Could it be the funding of chaplains in schools at the expense of secular, skilled, credentialed counsellors? Could it be setting aside times in public schools so that propagandists of a religious kind could have a captive audience and spend the time warping their victims on matters sexual, social and religious?

So we's gots to know, and plunged on in, but the bracing deep end of the reptile pool revealed a couple of things.

The reptiles are so absolutely and completely entranced with their in-house pet freedom boy that they had to run, not just Wilson's story, but a hagiographic EXCLUSIVE story about their pet's column, complete with hagiographic photo of the freedom fighter waving in royal, if modest and unassuming, fashion to the crowd:

On and on went the EXCLUSIVE story, summarising Wilson's column in excruciating detail:

Was this a ploy to get readers not to bother reading freedom boy himself?

Well the pond is made of sterner stuff. Over the years we've become used to treading through reptile sludge, and so we moved on to freedom boy himself doing his best to pander to his conservative and fundamentalist constituency:

Well there's a huge amount of blather about an already given. Let's see if freedom boy's extensive reading of the doings of Republican state governors can unearth a genuine jewel or three:

Yep, there's a goody. There needs to be mutual respect on both sides, and the right of commercial service providers to unjustly discriminate should be upheld ...  provided they be fair in their discrimination ...

Only in Wilson la la land would a florist build a business model out of servicing Sikh weddings, and only in that bizarro world would a sensible person would wander in to a kosher store expecting non-kosher food... unless they also routinely walked into a hardware store and demanded vegetarian sausages ...

Which goes to show that the pond can do stupid examples too ...

In reality. what Wilson is proposing is a rich extension of work for government bureaucrats patrolling a new set of anti-discrimination laws, because businesses discriminating against gays would routinely expect to have their wedding cake and to eat it too ...

There's no way, except in Wilson's la la land, that suppliers would accept their market should be narrowed, as a result of their desire to maintain a purity of conscience.

And suppliers of specific products - such as gluten free for the pond household's genuine coeliac, or fair trade products for guilty chocoholics - shouldn't be conflated with the vast bulk of small businesses who need all sorts of trades, but might be able to afford to discriminate against a relatively small clientele, perhaps the gay market in Penrith as opposed to the gay market in Surry Hills...

There would be challenges, claims of exemptions, ongoing controversies, endless jobs for bureaucrats, and plenty of Irish gay marriage cake scandals for the media to feast on ...

It would be a lot simpler for people in business not to discriminate, as sensible business leaders in the United States have pointed out to assorted Republican governors as they go about their discriminatory, prejudicial and bigoted business of providing religious freedom laws that allow people to keep on discriminating against gays ...

It's as if Wilson hadn't actually caught up on the endless controversies that have recently erupted in the USA, summarised in The Republican Party is being torn apart by the 'religious freedom' debate, but available to anyone who cares enough to google ...

But that's where pandering to your conservative, fundamentalist audience gets you ... empty slogans and useless solutions so that you can talk in Orwellian fashion about freedom, as a way of contriving that bigotry, prejudice and discrimination might continue ...

But okay, the pond will go with Wilson's suggestion ... providing he issues a clarion call requiring that school chaplain funding be abolished, along with taxpayer money being used to support religious schools ...

In your dreams, foolish pond.

But it also meant that the pond was yearning for more cake, and why not, even if it made for sad reading ...

Uh huh. So she's had robust debates and she's talked to the media and where's it got her?

Sad really.

In the end, the emperor Abbott isn't for changing.

You'd have to be a blind, perhaps mad, monk not to realise that Abbott is the single biggest obstacle,, the largest roadblock on the way to gay marriage. You don't have to be Penny Wong to understand this.

You just have to see the emperor standing in his clothes, decreeing, and the courtiers and princelings scraping and bowing and devising ever more abstruse schemes and arcana, blathering on about religious freedom, while the minions blather on about Asia and decadence and polyamory and...

Well perhaps there is a message coming from Asia, and that story about the Chinese emperor ...

Like many others I met this winter, He Weifang worries that the Party is narrowing the range of acceptable adaptation to the point that it risks uncontrollable change. I asked him what he thinks the Party will be like in ten or fifteen years. “I think, as intellectuals, we must do everything we can to promote a peaceful transformation of the Party—to encourage it to become a ‘leftist party’ in the European sense, a kind of social-democratic party.” That, he said, would help its members better respect a true system of law and political competition, including freedom of the press and freedom of thought. “If they refuse even these basic changes, then I believe China will undergo another revolution.”

Freedom of thought?

"Bah humbug," said the emperor, "minions, you shall not speak on the ABC's QandA. You shall boycott, discriminate, ban and banish, shun and shame and send it to Coventry."

And so it begins ... perhaps not the end of the beginning, but certainly the beginning of the end.

Roll on next Monday, and luckily there's an old Pope to conjure up big Mal's latest dilemma as the emperor turns cowboy again... (and more Pope here, in a gallery always worth browsing).

When decadent chooks are elected to represent mighty Tamworthians, there will be incoherent blather, babble and bluster ...

Dear sweet, innocent, helpless, hapless, useless, hopeless Barners.

Does the man have a case of foot in mouth disease or footrot or what?

We're all used to comical photos of Barners - where would we be without them? - but the latest outbreak of foot in mouth was pure gold.

The pond had the undiluted pleasure of watching Barners go through the gate and get drenched on The Insiders, and you can too, here. By the end of it, the pond was thinking that perhaps the only way to save the herd was a good crotching, or maybe a little tar on the open wounds.

No wonder they hate the ABC. Asked a simple question, Barners was reduced to a stumbling, flummoxed, babbling, blathering incoherence, until he reached deep into his vocabulary and came out with "decadent", juxtaposed with Asia.

Now this will have been all over new media, but what does the mighty Northern Daily Leader think of it?

Remember, Barners represents Tamworth, once the centre of the known universe - at least until Barners turned up on the stump and made everyone look silly.

No doubt the NDL will treat their fearless representative with respect and a statesmanlike photo:

Oh that's so cruel, NDL, and worse you just had to add:

Asked directly if Australia embracing gay marriage would be seen as decadent, Mr Joyce said: "I think in some instances they would, yes." (here you go, take a squiz at the rag the pond grew up with).

Actually Barners, decadent is what country boys get up to with poddy calves, but shush, the pond's genteel city slicker readers wouldn't have the first clue what we're talking about, eh Barners?

Now here's the crucial, the key question Barners.

Are we being severe enough? Are we taking a firm enough stand against these decadent deviants?

If we're to avoid the impression of decadence in Asia, shouldn't we be immediately legislating against decadence?

How about we take a leaf out of Malaysia's statutes? Here, allow the pond to refresh your memory:

(And there's more here - since we're talking old school fundamentalist Taliban thinking, have you thought about the advantages of Sharia law?)

There was silly old David Marr rabbiting on about how he'd be locked up for 15 years in Malaysia, but let's face it, hanging's too good for him. Got to be tough on decadence Barners, or we'll lack respect. You know, the sort of respect a Mafia gangster expects ...

And have you thought of some of the other advantages? Why you could send your political opponents off to jail for years on trumped up charges of offending the order of nature! Solid Asian values! No one could call us decadent then!

Occasionally the pond feels a twinge of guilt about all this. Gays no doubt feel hurt and offended, being labelled some kind of decadent ancient Spartan Greek or barbaric Roman senator with a taste for oysters and snails, but look at the upside ...the pond gets an easy post every time these geese open their mouths and cackle.

It's an ill wind, as we used to say in Tamworth when the wind blew like a gale down the Peel valley ...

But now Tamworth, it's time to own up and to 'fess up.

Just when did you get into the business of electing cackling geese? Surely ripping off cheap foreign chook labour is more your game ...

In which the pond pauses for a Sunday reflection, and notes the great threat posed by feminists, homosexuals and intellectuals, with their lah-di-dah ideas ...

Being a day of review and reflection, it's worth remembering this Sunday Jon Stewart's smackdown of the Donald, one of many, even if it ends in despair - for those who don't spoof the Comedy Channel, it's still available online here.

And then there was the death of a Mormon poo bah who reminded the pond of the real enemy, when:

In 1993, he warned that the religion faced the greatest threat from three groups: feminists, homosexuals and intellectuals.

Because Mormons and their funny underwear have always had problems with women, gays, and ideas, and blacks too, but that's another weird story ...

Mormon leader Boyd K Packer dies aged 90 ran the Graudian headline, but all that said to the pond was that Packer had a good long run spreading hate, fear and division, along with a lot of silly ideas (yes, the pond has read that very weird Book of Mormon, which is up there with Xenu in terms of ultimate nonsense).

And then a correspondent - where would the pond be without its correspondents - notified the pond of yet another angry Sydney Anglican who showed off both the bile and the lack of humour that's notable in the breed:

Ould's probably too much of a fuckwitted fool to understand that not so deep beneath the surface of what he deems funny is just more of that Mormon hatred of women, gays and intellectuals.

What's funny is that a hate and fear monger should dress himself in the clothes of Christ:

The pantalooned loon ... if he'd wanted a funny dress joke, why did he go past the frocks?

And if you can be bothered reading Ould's more recent post, Australian Bishops Begin "Subtly Promoting" the Same-Sex Agenda - yes, there's still doofuses out there aligned with American fundamentalists chattering about the same-sex agenda - you'll discover the few comments are filled with lamentations about liberals and progressives, with much talk of shunning and banishment ... and so the virtuous circle is complete, as we're blessed with a PM who talks of a modern form of banishment as medievalism still stalks the land.

There's no point in being polite to these folk - they are incessant and rabid and always on the move and they fight their battles at the grass roots level, spreading poison - for example, who remembers the Angry Anglicans copping a ban from the NSW government on certain books peddling guilt trips about sex back in May - Anglican church angry over Department of Education banning of "one-partner" material - followed in June by the inevitable news that the NSW government (currently led by a clap happy facilitator), had folded.

One partner for life? Only in the Donald's dreams and yet the regularly married Donald counts himself as a Presbyterian ...

Then there was that reliable cult Hillsong making the news by seeking to redeem the irredeemable Mark 'penis house' Driscoll and practising harassment on anyone who dared to criticise it. (Outspoken Hillsong critic arrested for trespass).

Shades of scientological folly ...

Meanwhile, as the Xians busily go about the continuing persecution of liberals, gays, progressives, women, intellectuals and actual ideas, there are ongoing howls of pain at the way Oregon cake bakers get fined $13,500 for being fundamentalist bigots, and headlines complaining that Christian Americans, and Christians around the world, are under siege ...

Because they can't keep heaping abuse on the different and the unbelievers ...

Of course it's a toss-up between fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Islamics as to who can manage to be the most offensive in any given week.

But in Australia and America, Islamics tend to be cowed, silenced.

Their activities in schools - separating boys and girls, banning music classes, encouraging conservative dress - tend to creep under the radar, unless they suddenly pop out as a result of protests - the latest outing being Adelaide Islamic College student forced to get haircut, protestors say.

Shades of the 1960s. Next they need to get out the ruler and measure the hemline of girls' dresses. Oh how the pond remembers and treasures the days of the ruler, and the unholy interest the nuns and priests took bending down to measure the hemline (mouthings of slobbering and slavering are permitted in any mental evocation of the scene).

The problem is that as a result of the old Christian guard wanting to keep their hold on taxpayer money, any hair brained religion can front the Australian government, and courtesy of the Australian taxpayer, score a subsidy to indulge in brain washing and hair cutting... and yet the result, in terms of gays, women, intellectuals, ideas and, it seems, hair, is very much Tweedledee and Tweedle ...dumb ...

But it's the United States which is the heartland for the truly weird and barking mad. This, courtesy of Crooks and Liars, here:

What to say, except this:

Catholic Vote is the newest up-and-coming comedy group to capture the public’s attention! Their new sketch, “Not Alone,” is absolutely hilarious and has already garnered over 500,000 views on YouTube. Oh, what? The video isn’t a joke? 
They had us fooled. “Not Alone” is the latest propaganda from religious organization Catholic Vote, and features young adults giving us such gems as “I am a little bit nervous about people hearing what I have to say” and “I’ve tried to change this before, but it’s too important to me” — all in reference to their anti-gay marriage beliefs. 
 The video is filmed in black and white, features chilling orchestral music, and is practically SCREAMING for an SNL parody (bonus: one of the women in the clip looks vaguely like Kristen Wiig). Check it out below, and try to remember: this is an actual thing that some genius somewhere thought would actually be taken seriously.

And as always there was the hate, as in Female AME Pastors In South Carolina Receive Threatening Letters.

Where does all this lead?

Oh sure, hate and fear mongering, but inevitably, being the pond, it also leads to the Murdochian press.

The Murdochians, you see, being largely made up of and run by angry old white men, with the fellow travelling help of the clueless like Sharri and the hate-filled, like Dame Slap, are close kissing cousins of the angry old white men who run the Christian churches, and the reptiles daily help out with a rearguard action of prejudice and bile ...

So today you get Akker Dakker in the Sunday Terror offering a fudging and a delaying tactic of a typical kind:

 The funniest thing? Well if you knock on the Terror's front door, this is what you cop:

That had the pond rolling jaffas down the aisles. Akker Dakker as premium content? Akker Dakker as a journalist the pond knows and trusts and worthy of the pond's few and precious shekels?

Tell 'em they're dreaming, but in any case, if you knock on the back door via google, you get the humbug bloviator in full hate-filled flight, preening and posing in his usual arm crossed way:

Ah the pesky blacks. Now what's the bet that the ABC will rear its ugly head again?

Oh dear, the pond completely forgot about the wicked Fairfaxians. 

But here's the pressing question. Will the bloviator shut up or will he keep on bloviating? Well you already know the answer to that question:

Lordy lordy Sunday Terror-ists, you want to know what the pond thinks?

It'll be a cold day in hell before the pond pays a shekel for the insights of a hate monger, and damned if we'll play the digital shell game and offer any thoughts up to a paper sheltering a rabid bloviator.

But in the circular way the pond loves, it brings us back to those enemies, the feminists, the gays, and the intellectuals and their wacky zany ideas, and thanks to Akker Dakker we can throw in the ABC and Fairfax on the faggot heap ready for a burning ...

And so the pond can add to its list of enemies, not just the Christians, the Islamics, the Scientologists, the Mormons, and any other Calathumpian it's too tedious to mention, but the Murdochians and their rabid bunch of offensive, angry, divisive and hate-filled commentariat. Ah the pond knew there'd be a place for this image, provided by another caring correspondent:

Now that's a Catholic scented perfume!

And now Mr Ould, coming back at ya a few cartoons:

In which the pond shows off its expertise as cat and reptile whisperer ...

(Above: oh come on this is a serious blog, but we're all allowed a Saturday meme. Found here).

As a skilled cat whisperer - oh the cats and the cowboys and cowgirls the pond has herded over the years, up Tamworth way and beyond - the pond naturally thought that reptile herding would be a piece of cake, a doddle, a walk in the park.

Foolish pond.

You just can't keep the reptiles down. From the light-hearted to the solemn, they always have a view, but you never know when they're going to turn, break on the flank, and come up with a piece of gibberish that, it turns out, is at the heart of their world view.

Look at the reptiles of Oz. Now it's well known that the reptiles have their hearts set on a little recognition of Aboriginal people in the constitution.

But it must be just like the porridge in that tale of Goldilocks and the bears. Not too hot, not too cold, but just right, or put it another way, certainly not too much, perhaps not too little, but just a little above too little, and so just right ...

They've had their own in-house, pet tame black helping them measure the temperature for years, and their latest outing in today's reptilian editorial finds them in top Goldilocks form. 

Now summon up all your remaining strength because this is the reptiles in solemn mode:

You see, Goldilocks? But not a word about how the reptile approach would solve the serious problems faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples ... except perhaps by returning to the good old days when governments were very busy legislating for indigenous people, with fabulous consequences and results ... and they're still busy doing it today, with or without changes to the constitution. Anyone for food stamps?

But hey ho, nonny no, on we go and let's see where the reptile musings will get us. Perhaps the perfect bowl of porridge?

Now let's ignore the fuss surrounding Pearson's model - Patrick Dodson raises concerns over Noel Pearson's model for recognition, What is behind Noel Pearson's change of stance ... etc - or the tragi comedy of the attempt to revive an ATSIC in some form or another, without mentioning that name or it being put to the sword by the Howard government containing one Tony Abbott - Howard puts ATSIC to death - did anyone spot the fatal flaw in the reptilian thinking?

Here it is again:

Abbott, modest change, bipartisan agreement, wide consultation and later wider consultation? Now there's a miracle of conflation, to fit all those words and the name Abbott in the one sentence.

What land does he live in, this modest marvel? Is it the same one as the boofheaded bulldozer flattening everything around him? A man so Islamic Taliban fundamentalist that the thuggee boofheads of rugby league emerge as caring, compassionate and kind people, with a sympathetic and generous capacity to understand others? People just need to get over it, says Rabbitohs star as NRL backs gay marriage.

One thing's guaranteed. If that's what's being asked of Abbott, the Billists might come on side, being craven and always open to consensus for fear of being discovered as a policy free zone, but Abbott is completely hopeless at wrangling his conservative base. 

There's no way the Bolter and all the raging, rabid, Adam Goodes booing black haters are going to come on board, no matter how minimalist Pearson cares to make his proposals and no matter how he tries to pander to the fundamentalist conservatives, who claim dear Tony as their fearless non-consultative, kick 'em in the head or the guts leader.

Let's see how Abbott's leadership continues to play out in the gay marriage debate, which has been handled without much fuss in other countries which claim some adherence to whatever "western values" might mean, droning wedding parties aside.

For that we must turn to the bouffant one, returning for another epic bout of hand-wringing apologetics today:

Yep, it's another round of the bouffant one explaining how poor Tony is caught up in the machinations of others and so simply can't do a single thing:

You see how generalities can be turned to good effect? But who were the debaters making overblown emotional claims and displaying no real judgment on what the public feels?

Sssh, please don't mention Erica, or the Asians or Pandora's Box, or bigotry, or marrying your friendly South Australian poodle, or doing a Jack Thompson with sisters, or fear of gays, or being threatened by same, let's get on with poor hapless Tony, hamstrung by absolute necessity and the tyranny of the base:

What's funny is that in the same way that the Oz reptilian editorialist delivered today an impassioned plea for Abbott to do something about Aborigines, yesterday the Oz editorialist suggested that maybe gay marriage should be allowed to happen.

But there you can also see the nonsense of all this talk of bipartisanship. In Abbott's world, bipartisan means the Billistas caving in and agreeing with Abbott and not rocking the leather-jacketed boat.

Hence the bouffant one's handwringing, because look what's happening to the coalition, what with the fluffing of the feathers, and the hissy fits, and the name calling, and the cat yowling, and the cat calling, mrrraaowwww, and the foot stamping, and the cheek slapping, and there's the Billistas getting away scott free.

Naturally the handwringing bouffant one has to be deeply sympathetic to Abbott's plight and feel the necessity of pointing out the misunderstandings about Liberal party backbenchers. Many of them remain deeply homophobic and deeply attached to their long-standing policies confirming and supporting their homophobia:

Gay marriage from an Abbott government? You'd be better off herding cats, and damned if you'll get any sense or help out of a herd of reptiles ...

Of course, as is their duty, the reptiles also provided some light relief today, because, as everyone knows, today is Prattling Polonius day, and we can always rely on Polonius to be still blathering on about an issue which reached its nadir with reptile Sherri Markson grave robbing to discover the opinions of Jonathan Shier:

Yes, the horse is well and truly dead, but they go on flogging it, and today it's the prattler's turn, arriving late to the scene like an ambulance that had only just discovered its siren:

Sweet long absent lord. If they really had a decent left liberal group think, they'd have blackballed the tedious old fart, known as Polonius to his adoring fans only, years ago ... but instead he keeps on popping up and droning on, like a gathering of cane toads or the roar of a locust plague, thereby helping the pond not to waste its time watching the commentariat talk to each other on 24 ...

But it's the weekend and the pond has suffered enough with its attempts at cat and reptile herding - as has anyone else who made it this far - so let's have a little real humour instead, thanks to First Dog, and as always find more of the good-hearted Doggie - git along lit'le dawgie, the pond loves ya, all the way to the moon and a crispy News Corp - at the Graudian here.