In which an exiled prophet points to a crisis which can only be solved by the return of the Messiah ... and his prophets in cushy jobs with classy titles ...

(Above: and more Rowe here).

There's much movement in the world at large - as heralded by David Rowe's cartoon - but the pond spent a restless, excited, anxious night tossing and turning after Rowan Dean had announced the imminent return of the Messiah ...

Oh not in the next year perhaps - though there's always hope - but certainly within four or eight, and the pond began to hunger, to yearn, for more news from the prophets, now in exile, but destined to return exalted and honoured and treasured ...

The reptiles of Oz, in their usual way, had lined up some splendid distractions ...

How noble of the Caterists to have done a wide ranging survey of dinner parties and come to this conclusive insight into what dominates the discourse of dinner party celebrants. The sheer expense of the exercise boggled the pond's mind ... just so we could all learn what dominates polite dinner party chat.

Of course that doesn't cover impolite dinner party chat, but perhaps that's an extensive survey for another time ... and perhaps the pond should learn the difference between discourse, chat and conversation, because that too might contain a clue to the Caterists' astonishing discovery and remarkable insight.

But such considerations were immediately swept away by the return of a prophet to denounce the cruel treatment of the Messiah ... and the false gods now worshipped in His Place.

Put it another way ...

Hey nonny no, on we go, with a heart-rending tale of suffering and loss ...

Put it another way ...

Hey nonny no, on we go, with this heart-rending tale of suffering and loss and sadness and suffering and misery and despair as the abridgment of Moorice's appointment all too clearly pointed to what was going to happen to individual liberty ...

Put it another way ...

Hey nonny no, on we go, with this heart-rending tale of betrayal and the breaking of the ten commandments, and Machiavellian plotting, and repugnant, treacherous behaviour, and a lack of moral authority and the BoM out of control, and climate scientists like Moorice in despair and ...

A crisis is inevitable! Now that's a worry. Or put it another way ...

But there is an upside of course.

Maurice writes as the former chairman of the prime minister's Business Advisory Council, and the views expressed are his own and are free of bitterness and sour grapes, because he is, in his own Chicken Little way, softening up the electorate for the return of the Messiah, which, with a bit of luck, will see Maurice once again sit on the right hand side of the Messiah ...

The reaction of the punters was a little mixed, as this pond short survey of the conversation at dinner parties shows ...

And so on, but then it's the business of the prophets to be abused and even stoned as they herald the return of the Messiah ...

And happily, amidst the stone-throwers and the cynics and the mockers, there are still some out there willing to hear and listen to the message of betrayal and treachery, and the dinner party talk of crisis and moral bankruptcy which will only be sorted by the return of the Messiah ...

Then soon enough bells will ring from churches and memes will again festoon the intertubes and all will be well in the spring in the garden, so long as the roots are not severed, and the pond loves to watch television, and so in only a few brief, short years, we will be able to celebrate the return of Moorice and his happy gang ...

Revanche, mes amis, Revanche!

First a little mood setting ...

Some dreams can never die, though for some strange reason, the pond found the framing by the Currish Snail of a Rowan Dean 'dreaming for dear departed leader' moment somehow poignant and moving ...

Good stuff Currish Snail, but let's get down to brass tacks:

Excellent points, every single one. Get lost you feral army of Twitter addicts, remember John Howard, remember Ming the Merciless, remember Jesus, why remember Kevin Rudd, and didn't that revival of the Lazarus syndrome work out really well ...

Ah yes, Mark Latham and what a tremendous revival he made when he returned to the Labor party leadership ... or was that a talk show on the Nine network? The pond gets so befuddled these days ...

But back to the yearning for the Führer to return, with bonus possums ...

By the end of this moving piece, the pond was almost moved to tears ...

Oh alright, we blubbered at the memory of Tony Abbott's many great deeds, knighting Sir Phil and so on and so forth, and what a wonderful opposition leader he will again make when he gets to be PM again, and so on and so - only in the serendipitous world of Rowan Dean - in a waltz down the streets of Tomorrowland (and what a terrible movie that was ...)

What we need or at least the Liberals need, is a strong unifying leader ... or if you will, thanks to Google, eine starke einigFührer ...

And stories such as this are certainly not white-anting or destabilising or making life tricky or difficult for Malware because we all know this lover of public transport and other perfidies is cruising for a fall and within a couple of years, the leaders of the Liberal party will hunger for stability and be in desperate need for someone who can reunite the liberal and conservative strands of the party ... and we all know what a great job Tony Abbott did in unifying his party ... and bringing together  everyone to celebrate coal, coal, coal for the nation and the woorrrrlllddd ...

What's that you say?

No, never. The pond puts hands over ears and hums loudly ...

We've run this Pope before - more Pope here - but how prescient of him, as the drumbeat of a new leader resonates in the heart of Rowan Dean, and soon that leader will begin his march on Canberra anew, Revanche, mes amis, Revanche!

A. − Fait de rendre la pareille pour un mal que l'on a reçu (un préjudice, une injure), de racheter une défaite par une victoire. Synon. vengeance.Prendre sa revanche. Alors, il ne parla plus, ayant une revanche à prendre, se disant tout bas, crûment: « Toi, tu vas y passer! » comme elle refusait de le suivre dans la chambre, il la renversa brutalement au bord de la table (Zola,Pot-Bouille, 1882, p. 76): 

1. L'idée qu'un homme à tête froide, comme Poincaré, pût souhaiter une guerre de revanche, était stupide; et, non moins stupide, l'idée que, sans la souhaiter, simplement parce qu'il la croyait possible, ou fatale, il pût agir de manière à la rendre inévitable. Martin du G.,Thib., Été 14, 1936, p. 141. 
P. ext. Avantage, compensation que l'on tire d'une situation défavorable pour l'autre. Les jours où les nouvelles étaient bonnes, il prenait sa revanche en assurant à Françoise que la guerre durerait trente-cinq ans, et, en prévision d'une paix possible, assurait que celle-ci ne durerait pas plus de quelques mois et serait suivie de batailles auprès desquelles celles-ci ne seraient qu'un jeu d'enfant, et après lesquelles il ne resterait rien de la France (Proust,Temps retr., 1922, p. 843).
La soumission, l'obéissance, cette immense tendresse que je voyais, que je sentais en lui, c'était ma revanche, à moi, la fille lâchée, la fille dédaignée (La Varende,Souv. seigneur, 1953, p. 247). (here)

In which the pond discovers with alarm that the reptiles of Oz have gone rogue ... and turned ABC heavy ...

(Above: and more Wilcox here).

And speaking of falling into line, the reptiles of Oz are doing their very best:

Even crusty old Henry 'there's no hole in that bucket' Ergas is ever so helpful:

Indeed, indeed, and there's nothing so helpful as telling the young they've never had it so good, or that there are many job opportunities out there, working for the so very nice 7-Eleven - help your friendly billionaire achieve his personal flying machine dream - or perhaps applying for offers of lone wolves' job opportunities:

But what's this? Yes, it's a Monday, so it's the day the dog botherer bashes the ABC. All hail Chris, philosopher king:

Hmm, thank heavens there's a dissenting voice in the reptiles of Oz. 

The reptiles are waging heavy peace on Malcolm Turnbull, and it's probably worth warning them that it could get pretty ugly on the way down,  and who better for the job than the dog botherer?

Indeed, indeed, and perhaps now's the moment to contemplate the brutal continuing treatment of the sadly diminished former dear leader:

Ah well, it's a pretty short and pathetic effort from the dog botherer. 

Clearly he's suffering from some ongoing trauma himself, and so has to recycle endlessly the Leigh Sales angle, with a dose of Kelly, so naturally the pond turned to reptile Bramston for a devastating exposé of the Turnbull mania that's infested not just the ABC, but the lizards of Oz, and in particular a brutal dismissal of all that tosh that Malware spouted - sprouted if you will - at Fran Kelly, so admirably spotted by the dog botherer:

Oh dear. Why it's clear that Troy Bramston is an ABC plant, lovingly recycling the Kelly interview so mocked by the dog botherer.

Could it get any worse? Will the dog botherer be using Bramston as a prime example of the ABC-ification of the reptiles of Oz in his column next Monday?

Well if you can endure wading through endless hagiography, you might come to that conclusion:

... from prime ministers who have often struggled with language ...

The pond is just guessing here, but could Bramston be referring to a very recent PM?

Oh dear, here's a case, here's a job for the dog botherer's tremendous skills.

Of course a few glitches in the use of words shouldn't be held against anyone - the pond routinely falls into error and some take a gate when it does - especially when the man's masterly policy initiatives are paraded for fond review:

But enough, we must leave the dog botherer to continue his denunciations of the ABC in next week's edition, no doubt high lighting Troy 'special roving agent for the ABC' Bramston, and his shameful assault on a man so skilled with words and policies, and instead wrap things up with a few cullings from the Twittersphere because the reptiles hate the twitterati so ...

One series of exchanges followed on from from Miranda the Devine's incisive demolition of the entirety of climate science in an easy peasy, new paradigm, hey presto kind of way, as noted yesterday in the pond:

Ah, the old sexist dog whistle deployed, as if the Devine was an arch feminist of the old school ... nice feminist dog whistle ploy there, old paradigm, easy peasy, hey presto ...

And the pond admired this new-fangled keyboard ...

By golly, if they could only whip one of these up for angry Sydney Anglicans, Catholics astonished to discover a gay priest in the middle of Rome, Scientologists, the reptiles of Oz, and the Daily Terrorists, how easy blogging would be ...

In which Miranda the Devine poses as a liberal, before turning out to be just another climate denialist ... yet again ...

Naturally the pond was wildly excited to discover that Miranda the Devine was right behind the federal government's push to allow radical jihadists to come to Australia and preach their gospel of hate.

Where's the harm in all that kneeling and praying and a splash of fundamentalism?

The pond understands that the Devine is wildly in favour of jihadists talking of the usefulness of executions as a form of punishment for recalcitrants. And then there's the benefits of men controlling women's bodies, perhaps even allowing the patriarchy to revive certain forms of female slavery, because while these views might not be popular with the feminist establishment, it has to be asked why these wretched women are so afraid of anti-women jihadist activists.

After all, Islam and Christianity and share similar views on certain subjects, such as abortion, if you read here:

Well blood ransom might not be as useful as a good hanging or a lethal injection or a beheading or a crucifixion, but the principle's the same, and after all, everyone has a point of view, and it would be dangerously illiberal to try to suppress the barking mad fundamentalists who litter the streets with their extremism.

Oh sorry, the pond was only looking at the splash on the digital front page of the Sunday Terrorists, which lacked a certain specificity and so the pond leapt to wrong conclusions ...

Sigh, we should have known better.

Naturally the Devine would want to ban Islamic fundamentalists, it's only barking mad Christian fundamentalists with an anti-abortion bee in their bonnet that find favour with the Devine ...

Well, can the pond just note here that it's not afraid of this kind of anti-abortion activist, but is extremely pleased that this sort of fundamentalist Christian bigotry doesn't seem to understand the law of the land.

Namely, whatever the rights of the argument about freedom of expression, whenever a visa is revoked, it's revoked, and it's dumb grandstanding to get on a plane and try things on ...

Uh huh. Whether you agree with Islamic fundamentalists or not, their views are not illegal or even very remarkable.

There are plenty of dummies who believe abortion is murder and that doctors and women and men involved in such matters are vicious creatures, murderers, butchers, killers, who should be executed, if not on the spot, at least by judicial means... with a good hanging or maybe a lethal injection or firing squad or beheading or even a good old-fashioned crucifixion ... all still favoured forms of state killing somewhere in the world today ...

As this would also happen to involve the execution of the pond, why on earth would the pond take a fence at this most excellent point of view?

Okay, perhaps you catch the drift of where the pond is coming from, yet on and on the irrelevant bilious one rants, pretending that she's upholding basic liberal principles.

Oh wash out your illiberal screeching potty mouth, you ranting libeller of twitter lynch mobs, as you go about lynching all and sundry in your columns ...

So much for Miranda the Devine pretending she's a liberal. And so much for Justice Nettle, who with the greatest respect, seems not to have a clue:

 (more at Right Wing Watch here).

Call it the pond's undue sensitivity about its neck, but it seems clear enough that Mr Newman would like the pond legally hanged, or otherwise disposed of, as a murderer.

That's kind of personal, and the pond takes an unfashionable hostility to the notion.

But speaking of unfashionable views - it seems science is very much a matter of fashion - so we move on to a scientific marvel of the 'hey presto' kind:

Actually Evans has been around for a long time, and his views have received many an airing, long before the Devine jumped on the Bolter's most recent bandwagon.

There's a lovely piece about Evans at Watching the Deniers here, where the banksters are given a sound thrashing, and there's an abundance of activity in this list of Favourite climate myths by David Evans ...

Then there's David Evans' Understanding of the Climate Goes Cold, and this profile here, and so on and endlessly forth ...

Evans has been spruiking his kool aid for years, and this outing is just the latest formulation, with exciting fresh new flavours ...

One thing never changes in this "new paradigm". The endless willingness of the Bolter, the Devine and others in the Murdochian denialist world to recycle the very latest theory explaining why climate science is wrong, they're right, and 'hey presto' everything is revealed ...

Sorry climate science, the pond accidentally splashed some of that potent fragrance in your direction ...

And so, speaking of climate science and wolfish denialists in sceptical sheep's clothing, here's another in an occasional series featuring the decline of Bill Leak.

Lomborg as Einstein? Tragic and pitiful perhaps, and funny in its own way, but surely not as the cartoonist intended ... what a pitiful and bleak figure he's become ...

Which leaves just time for a meme, since the pond has taken to supporting the twitter mob in inverse proportion to the frenzied fear and loathing they rouse in the Murdochians, and that arch twitterer Miranda the Devine with her 'look at me' tweets ...

A Sunday singalong with Akker Dakker ...

The pond has been a little slow to get going this Sunday, what with the distress caused by the sight of the fading curtains, and the suffering of the cows, but there's always one guaranteed way to lift the spirits ...

Better than a bleach job, come on down portly prince of prejudice in print: 

Ah, still they come, the Murdochian hordes, to batter down Malware ...

Now Akker Dakker doesn't provide any actual evidence for this statement. It's not quite clear how Akker Dakker obtained this insight into Liberal Party membership, but hey, why should the pond be a doubter?

Why not just pile on, knowing full well that big Mal is just a pawn of the appalling ABC? And heartland Liberals are in complete despair.

Oh the fiend. Pro-climate science, pro-gay marriage, quite possibly a republican, and then there was the night they did poor enviable Tony down ...

Come on, sing along with the Band and Akker Dakker:

Tony Abbott is the name 
And I served on the Abbott express train 
'Till Turnbull's cavalry came 
And tore up the tracks again 
In the spring of 2015 
We were hungry, just barely alive 
By September the 14th, 
Canberra had fell 
It's a time I remember, oh so well 
The night they drove old Tony down 
And the bells were ringing 
The night they drove old Tony down 
And the Murdochian commentariat were singing 
They went, "Na, na, la, na, na, la"

And so on and on ... as the Leftist media elites triumphantly stalk the land ...

The ALA will attract a high sneer quotient, sweet portly potent prince of prejudice?

Far from it, the pond applauds the initiative, and looks forward to the Liberal party having its very own DLP, ranting and railing and maintaining the rage, and following Pauline Hanson into the land of the irrelevant ...

Can everybody join in? You see, fat owl of the remove, you failed to mention the bleeding obvious when it comes to Malware:

But enough of Mr Fraudband for the moment, please Akker Dakker, do go on ...

Yes, yes, they firmly reject any controversial individuals, which is why they're getting a barking mad Dutch man to launch the show ...

And how strange that you should in your very last par, allow that your first par might well be complete gibberish, and that Malware might have attracted new support for the Liberals and perhaps only the angriest voices are being heard, since all the pond hears in the world of Murdoch are angry voices ...

As a result, dear portly prince of prejudice and bile,  the pond's not putting its money anywhere near where its mouth is ...

We'd rather join the angry voices and dissent.

Of course back in the day - yes the pond remembers 2009 as if it was yesterday - you were firmly in Malware's camp, talking of ugly wires overhead, and $47 billion to be flushed down a broadband pipe dream ...

And now each day, the folly of Malware's version of the NBN comes back to haunt him... why perhaps it might even haunt you and your foolish support of the luddite Abbott ...

(And more of this at the AFR, paywall limited)

Well the chance of Akker Dakker doing a Nadia Comaneci is as unlikely as him coming to realise that Geert Wilders is a little out there, but what fun it is to see the extreme right in the Murdochian commentariat talk up eccentric far right groups and denounce Mr Fraudband himself ...

Let there be more of it ... why, along with the tin can connectivity, we might even manage to save a few curtains, and improve the milking capacity of the nation ...

Coulda, woulda, shoulda, part zillion, and by the way it's all the fault of the social luvvie media ...

What better way to start a Saturday sojourn with the dog botherer, as, gazing up from its tablet screen, the pond wistfully watches the penny lizards dance in the warming sun. 

And lo, over there, the first blowie of summer batters its head against the window pane, while up above the planes drone by, changing gears with a loud roar, dropping personalised touches of Avgas carbon on the roof and delivering toads to the mantoado v. mantoado feud that will see the deep northerners bled dry by the huckstering vampires of NSW tourism ...

Yes it's those personal humanising touches that always help readers relate, and what an excellent way to relate to the dog botherer, as he adopts the pose of stern dad, and hands out some stern words, comforting and organising, to the children playing their games in federal politics ...

No doubt by this point you were almost moved to tears by the dog botherer's sense of balance and poise and his readiness to embrace futurism. 

Well not by giving up his tree-killing newspapers and certainly not by having a kind word for the superficiality of the digital media age...

... but by celebrating the really rich deep understanding you can get from a Murdochian tabloid ...

 Oh yes, that's the very essence of the subtlety and nuance we need ... because volatility and superficiality is everywhere on the full to overflowing intertubes ...

Ah, so that's what it's all about. Just another bout of moping and wailing and mourning and railing, and stewing about what might have been, but now can never be ... and tawdry retweets and somehow it's all the fault of the digerati ...

The redeemer done down by the schemers. What if he'd had a chance to flower, to recover? He was doing so well those first couple of years ...

Not that there's any stewing, mind you, nor basting in juices, nor bitterness, nor a mind set so myopic and fixated and repetitive and blame gaming that it hints at an alarming loss of cells ... or at least a refusal for anyone to accept responsibility for the consequences of their actions, deeds and ineptness ...

And so the yearning continues. Just a little more than the margin of error, the voters haven't had their say, and so now it's time to fool the luvvies, play them for suckers, continue being worshipped by progressives, and change the tone of the debate ... by maintaining the hard man stance, and instituting hard core policies, in effect, becoming a de facto Tony Abbott ...

Is there a flaw to this bizarre logic?

Can anyone else sense that newsprint might be befuddling the dog botherer?

What does the Bolter think of mature judgments and the voters usually getting it right, the very same voters who only a couple of years ago voted for a dud lemon, an epic flop ...?

Well of course he is.

How else can the redeemer now be redeemed and the civil war continue? After all, within hours of Turnbull softening his tone, terror stalked the streets. QED, it's all his fault ...

Oh yes, the civil war is alive and well in Murdoch la la land ... and who knows, it might yet make the Americans gasp in admiration at the way the game's played down under ...