In which the pond offers a simplistic, Murdochian tabloid headline view of the state of play ... and it seems Bronnie, the monk and the viper Bolter are a bit like Australian cricket ...

It's simply a day of headlines today, but before we start, apologies, because it seems someone has noticed that the pond's banner has been hacked ... we'll certainly adjust it, and delete the clown face ... once the clown has gone ...

Meanwhile, the Murdochians have finally got the bit between their teeth. The cane toads have rediscovered their Photoshop mojo:

And the HUNsters exude piety:

Let's tiptoe past the rank hypocrisy of that "respect" as the gutter rag hosts, yet again, a prime example of racist thinking, and for the moment just focus on poor old Bronnie ...

Talk about being caught up in the tabloid wars ...

And the Terrorists were in full cry too:

Well you have to look below the exclusive photos of Bindi, but if you do it digitally - who would kill trees on a Sunday to read the Terrorists? - you can wade through stories and an editorial:

So much reading, though you'll need to know how to subvert their "exclusive offerings" paywall.

Even the Graudian tried to stay in the game with Andrew Wilkie, though it's old news as the scandal's days are measured:

And the Fairfaxians had a new angle at the top of the page:

There's actually no need to dig beneath the headlines.

This Bronnie infestation is now everywhere, and it goes on endlessly and turns up in all sorts of odd places, like a Sydney cockroach. It's ruining decent reptile reading, it's ruining blogging, it's ruining everything ...

But above all, the longer it goes on, and the pussyfooting, mollycoddling Abbott sits on his thumb, it's ruining Abbott. So the pond must endure ...

Meanwhile, back to the rank hypocrisy of that HUN front page shouting 'respect', with accompanying blather about the tribe speaking ...

What jolly japesters, what merry pranksters the HUNsters are ...

Of course the Terrorists have their own professional racist:

And in the best 'teach the controversy' style, they have a few making counter-arguments:

It's taken this long for the Terrorists to realise that Miranda the Devine is deeply stupid?

So something positive might come of the Adam Goodes' affair?

But back to the merry HUNsters, nurturing the viper Bolter in their bosom.

Yep, the Bolter has done it again, but rather than link to the Bolter, and thereby reward him with a few innocents clicking on his wicked words, why not just show a bit of the Fairfaxian coverage ...

You can read the best of the story at Fairfax here, but there's nothing more to be said - the Bolter has been called out on this myth-making before - though there is something more to be done.

Yes you can find Ben Eltham on Twitter here, and you can find the Australian Press Council complaint form here. It's not complicated or particularly onerous to complete ...

Wouldn't it be grand for the Press Council to be inundated with complaints about the viper Bolter? Where would the crocodile tears, the rank hypocrisy of the Murdochian HUNsters be then?

There's one person the pond would particularly like to see complain, a man who has frequently got down with the dogs and from time to time wonders why he's got up with fleas:

Well there's another stark choice Mr Pearson. Stay silent in the ongoing matter of the Bolter or tackle him head on ...

More in sorrow than anger, the pond has noted before the tricky path you've followed, at home with the Murdochians, cheek by jowel with the likes of the viper Bolter.

Well it's past time for an intervention and the use of that gravitas ...

Though perhaps we could follow the intervention ordered by First Dog (and the full cartoon and more First Dog here):

Send the Bolter to the land of fush and chups?! Why hadn't anyone thought of it before?

Yee hah ...

Okay, too many people have been pestering and badgering the pond about this "alleged" "scandal".

There's more here at the Northern Daily Laggard, but see if you can spot the grotesque scandal at the heart of this report, which makes it extremely dubious:

Hands up those who were shocked that Abbott was in to rorting! As if you didn't know ...

Hands up those who thought his canoodling with that Tamworth girl a tad too fresh! Why he's got the swagger of a Nashville star ...

Sorry, you may all don a dunce cap and go to the corner at the back of the classroom.

The outrageous, shocking remark was "I really don't know how you could spend $10,000 in one day in Tamworth" ... as if you couldn't get through 10k in a day, and not need to stay the night, in a town known for its bright lights as the Vegas of the north west slopes and plains.

What a lack of imagination Rob Taber shows!

Why not book out the Hog's Breath and bung on a meal for the locals? Oh okay, you could do the Cattleman Steakhouse if you want to help out a newly married couple with a touch of class ...

How about putting on an open tab at Joe Maguire's Pub? With free punch up in the alley ...

Thought about spending a couple of hours running hard earned cash through the pokies at Westies?

Why not make a decent offer on that famous guitar and take it home with you?

Talk about excitement city and Trip Advisor's Top Things to Do in Tamworth!

Why the pond could run through $20k in a day, easy peasy.

The reason why Tony Abbott didn't do that is he's a humble, discreet, rorter. Why he catches economy class to Europe just like your average Joe Blow.

And what does your average Joe Blow say about that sort of stupidity? Sheesh mate, everyone who can afford it wants to fly business to get away from all the useless fucking politicians filling up the seats in economy ...

Now could we package that guitar with a harbour bridge and sell it off? 10k the lot and you can fly to Europe for free ...

In which the pond embarks on an epic, obsessive journey with the dog botherer ...

The pond is delighted at the reading on offer this weekend in reptile la la land.

You have to admire the loyalty of the reptiles. When it comes to flogging a mate's book, the chums are always ready to play up and play the game:

A double dose of prattling Polonius! And by golly, the delusional one thinks that Santa is real and he had a friendship with him.

How bizarre can it get, this relentless flogging?

Yep, it's a screen cap only, but there's Polonius's reptilian colleague peddling the tome, as two boring old drones drone on. It's available for your pleasure at the ABC here.

That man clutching the tome actually looks a bit like he's doing a Tony Abbott pose:

Millionaire atheist socialists making a fortune tormenting people with advertising, and now relentlessly talking over guests, march on.

But the pond is tired of Santa and his little helpers. No, not that one:

Aw, so cute.

And now to a solemn duty that will test the strength and resoluteness of any reader.

The pond has long contended a couple of simple truths about the dog botherer. It goes without saying that he's barking mad, but the pond's thesis is also that he's a closet climate denialist, fixated on the ABC and Media Watch.

Now you'll need a choc top or three and plenty of popcorn and diabetes-inducing soda to come to the QED proof. But this is why the pond decided to forego the rich pleasure of more time spent with Santa and his barking mad little helpers. Richer game was afoot:

Already the pond can feel mutterings of dissent, tremors of fear, hints that life is short and there is much else to do.

This is true, but to prove that the dog botherer is deeply obsessed, we must follow him deeply into his deeply obsessive behaviour and his truly obsessive scribbling.

Let the journey begin:

Already the pond can hear pathetic whimpering. Are we there yet, voices moan?

But we've just got into the car, we've barely hit the road. Sure anyone who uses the term "climate alarmist" and considers they deserve anything but a "climate denialist" in return is a pathetic and risible figure, but we didn't promise you anything intelligent or sensible, we promised you madness and obsession, like a Bette Davis movie.

Buckle up, there's another six gobbets to go!

You there, the one foaming at the mouth. Clearly all this talk of obsession has sent you mad. But the pond advised you it would be a tough, long haul. Leave the room immediately or at least wipe the spittle from your mush.

Those that fell over laughing at the line about the reptiles fostering intelligent debate must in any case leave the room immediately.

Hey nonny no, on we go:

The pond hears some pleading and begging. Yes, he's barking mad, yes, he's clearly obsessed and obsessive, and can we finish with it now, please, oh pretty please, just make it end ...

Hah, fie, weaklings and starvelings, tuck into your popcorn because we've only just begun:

Oh yes, it was the moment you've been waiting for.

Orwellian!

At that point the dog botherer disappears up his own Orwellian fundament, with a hefty fine due to an important sub-section of Godwin's Law.

Pre-Mike Godwin and its prevalence on the Internet, the spoken and written word version of this was called reductio ad Hitlerum or argumentum ad Hitlerum, coined by ethical philosopher Leo Strauss in 1953. It means pretty much the same as Godwin's Law: "A view is not refuted by the fact that it happens to have been shared by Hitler." 
George Orwell said something similar in his 1946 essay, "Politics and the English Language", where he noted the new definition of fascism had pretty much become "anything you don't agree with". (here)

And throwing Orwellian into the conversation is as silly as ...oh it's been a long haul, we should stop for a meme:

And you don't get much stupider than flinging around "Orwellian" and expecting it to stick as a debating point.

In fact you have to be dog-bothering dumb, but hey ho, on we go:

Which is completely unlike the selective reporting, omission and fear mongering and emotive posturing about wind turbines that the reptiles routinely display!

Because:

Oh dear, will it never end?

Because burning dirty brown coal is good and right and decent and proper! Just ask the good citizens of Morwell. Let us not hear any dissident talk of alternatives, or even the exploration of same.

Remember, it's coal, coal, coal for Australia.

Oh dear, the pond has just noticed readers dropping like flies. Only a few remain. Courage plucky lads and lasses, remember this is up there with St Crispin's day and just a few more hard yards will see us reach the peak in triumph:

Did you make it? Remember to tip the sherpa in good western colonialist style, and well done, well done, those who managed it.

And that capper "climate change groupthink" was a very nice touch and a reward for all those who wanted a tidy rounding off of the argument in the style you'd expect of a dog botherer addicted to climate change denialist groupthink.

Hey, the pond can be as scientific as Kenny in its use of language.

Now some will wonder why the pond didn't bother actually considering Kenny's very serious and solemn arguments. But that's what scientists are for.

If you read Kenny for the science, no doubt you read The Onion for its serious news reporting.

Sadly, on the evidence, Kenny's no scientist, more a defensive, posturing, obsessive and obsessed ratbag reptile.

And anyway, all the pond wanted to prove was its simple thesis that the dog botherer has an unhealthy obsession with climate denialism, the ABC and Media Watch in particular, and that his defence of the ways of the reptiles in relation to climate science displays an alarming sensitivity bordering on hysteria ...

The pond thinks it's done a QED in a way that leaves not a shadow of a doubt ... or at least around that famous 97% level ... and that's close enough for the pond.

And with job done, for those brave - nay heroic - souls who made it this far, here's an old pond favourite:

Well Chris Kenny does, thanks Dr Nathan Null ...

In which the pond, thanks to Pope and Pussyfoot, enters the tent of death, and just loves the show ...

The blizzard of words isn't going away, the thunderers keep thundering.

Editorials have been offered up:

Oh dear, poor tortured public servants, which helps explain why David Pope should be much loved in Canberra.

His cartoon this day is rich in exquisite understanding of the terrorised, caught between the peace they desire and the truth they must obfuscate (and more Pope here):

Yes, we've reached that point:

Needless to say, the Fairfaxians continue to make a meal of it:

Why just look at the feast of reading in this very special tag:

So much reading, so little time. Even the AFR felt the need for a discreet editorial.

But it's not just the Fairfaxians canvassing the sack or new names for the job of speaker.

True, Bishop has once again disappeared from the front page of the Murdochian rags, but not from some tabloid hearts and minds:

And Laurie Oakes conjured up a splendid vision of a dysfunctional parliament with Labor rampant and difficult:

Oh there were a couple of anonymous comments tut-tutting and blaming Laurie for talking about Bronnie - sheesh, it must be hard working in Bronnie's office and attending to all the correspondence. Or perhaps it was the hard-working Murdochians?

But as well as the vision of parliament grinding to a halt - no big deal really - there was this:

Bishop was kidding herself if she thought her apology on Thursday would get her out of trouble over that $5000 chartered helicopter flight from Melbourne to Geelong and her other questionable claims on the public purse. 
Apart from anything else it was several weeks too late. 
Bishop forgot the political maxim that an embarrassing issue is best dealt with quickly because “no matter how smelly it seems to be at first, it always gets worse as it ages”. 
Her delivery of the apology, in any case, was considerably less convincing than her performances in the Nine Network TV drama Divorce Court during a brief professional acting career in the 1960s.

And this:

No one should doubt the resentment government MPs feel over Bishop’s behaviour. 
They can’t talk to constituents anywhere without the matter being raised. 
“They’re angry,” a Liberal backbencher said yesterday. “The ones who aren’t angry are making helicopter jokes.” 
In a desperate bid for support, the Speaker’s office sent out to all ministers, Liberal backbenchers and government staffers the transcripts of the radio interview and subsequent news conference in which Bishop offered her belated plea for public forgiveness. 
But there is no reservoir of goodwill towards the Speaker among her colleagues. 
She has alienated too many of them over the years. 
Former Labor senator Stephen Loosley, in his book Machine Rules published this week, recalls a dinner attended by Bishop in the 1980s when she was being touted by some as possible leadership material. 
According to Loosley, Peter Costello leaned across the table and said: “I bet you’re thinking it would take you only 10 minutes to demolish Bronwyn as Liberal leader. Well, you’re not going to get the chance. It will take me only five minutes.” 
In the affection they display for Bishop, Tony Abbott and Pyne are oddities. 
But Abbott’s affection was not so great he was prepared to have her in his ministry. 
When the Coalition won the last election she fought hard for a portfolio but had to make do with the Speakership as a consolation prize. 
Pyne made clear what he most admires about Bishop during a commercial break before a recent TV interview, saying: “If you dropped the Empire State Building on her, you couldn’t kill her.”

Oh dear, is there a nuke in the house?

By the time the pond got to the Graudian, exhaustion was setting in:

Even the Oscillator was firm for once in the lizard Oz, and the illustration piquant:

What would stop this endless babbling, this barbed blathering, this forensic fossicking?

Which all amounts to two simple notions: Bronnie should go, and the system reformed.

And there was one other matter.

Tony Abbott, to quote a wise man, forgot the political maxim that an embarrassing issue is best dealt with quickly because “no matter how smelly it seems to be at first, it always gets worse as it ages”.

That's what it all comes down to, the chance of a simple move missed, and acres of trees tragically lost to the world.

A headline summed it up:

That was on another disgraceful matter where Abbott failed the test, but it was also the general mood of the week.

Pussyfooter! The sort of figure you'd find in a Chuck Jones cartoon:

Well the pond is outraged at these intemperate calls for Bronnie to go.

She must stay. We must be able to experience all the fun of the fair and a chaotic week in parliament.

It's getting closer and closer, when everyone gathers to witness the performance, better than an old TV show, more like that trip to the show to ride the octopus, or long lost memories of cracker night and the big bang of a rocket going off, until it falls back to the muddy earth ...

The alternative? Bloggers and journalists and cartoonists out of business.

Too painful to contemplate, eh Mr Moir? (and more Moir and other Fairfax cartoonists here).