In which the pond marvels at the riches on view thanks to the reptiles, the bromancer and the very unique political situations here and abroad ...

The pond routinely wakes up in this morning, as it did this day, with silly people on RN saying stupid things about the US election in their 'very unique' way (the pond must do a silent, very unique scream at least once a day thanks to the ABC's abuse of the English language).

Please, it is entirely possible to lose the popular vote in the United States presidential race, and yet win the Electoral College votes required to win the presidency. It's rare enough, (watch out for walri), but George W. Bush showed how to do it, albeit with the aid of the Supreme Court.

As a result, nation-wide polling might indicate trends - though even here, with the singular and inept ways of American polling, it pays to be cautious - but it is the voting in particular swing states that tells the more interesting story. The pond realises that the cardigan-wearers are terrified that the Donald might win, but this is no excuse for sounding like an hysterical News Corp tabloid or broadsheet wanting to spook the markets.

Never mind, the pond immediately switched off RN, and speaking of the reptiles, as the pond must, there were many other excellent distractions to be found.

The pond must report with deep regret that the reptiles are befuddled, confused and depressed. Savva is in a sulk ...

The editorialist was also perplexed ... after all Malware had rushed off to fix the Senate, and he really did fix it ...

Naturally the reptiles tried to press on with business as usual, moaning, whimpering and whining about an issue which interests very few people at large, but which is of inordinate interest to the reptiles ...

Oh dear, another shambles, and then coming up at the rear, the tirelessly tiresome Bettina blathering on her usual bizarre way ...

Confronted with this abundance of riches, the pond had only one obvious choice, one that didn't require a segue or a pivot, but kept it in good old Mississippi enjoying the McConaissance in Free State of Jones ...

Well not quite, but close enough, it's the bromancer, running wild and free ... 

Now the bromancer, and the reptiles, seem to be a tad worried about their American buddies and kissing corporate cousins at Fox News, the WSJ and the New York Post etc have wrought, but the challenge for the pond is to find one really nice gem in all the bromancer iron pyrites dross ...

Now the pond loves listicles, but can we just intrude to note that in the very first par, the bromancer was clearly doing an audition to host an RN show. 

Genuine, actual, certifiable Clinton scandals - as opposed to those beaten up by far right hysterics, GOPers and Murdochians - don't amount to a "hundred real scandals". 

And the majority of the scandals involve the other Clinton, the cock-flashing one, which is a bit like holding the wife of Weiner responsible for the flashing of the weiner ... (dear long absent lord, hasn't that documentary about Weiner  set in the NY mayoral election taken on fresh resonance? Haven't the resulting comedy stylings been excellent?)

So right there, at the very beginning, the bromancer offered the sort of loose exaggeration that the pond has discovered is a feature of US cable news, with added lots of shouting (it wasn't a hundred scandals, I'm telling you it bloody was, it bloody wasn't, it bloody was, though the US pundits lack the wit or the imagination or the cultural riches to use 'bloody' in a proper way).

But now let's get back to the listicle and the hunt for gems ...

Indeed, indeed, and as usual the bromancer rewards the pond with his "literally inconceivable". 

Let us not dwell on the way that Niki Savva is married to Vince Woolcock, a Liberal political staffer in the office of the Prime Minister ...

Dear sweet long absent lord, how the pond loves Trove, and yet, Malware and his chums are starving for funds one of the great Australian digital institutions ...

How about a bum-patting joke?

And so on, but where were we? The pond has drifted off, as if zapped by alien lizard reptiles ...

Forget Savva, and while thinking about the literally inconceivable, let us instead contemplate the headlines which have been going down about the literally inconceivable in the past few days ...

Well at least that's literally conceivable, and the story is easily googled. Presumably the bromancer knows how to google ... and not just goggle ...

And luckily, just as the pond gets all its American political news from US comedy shows, so it gets all its Australian political news from cartoonists, and the infallible Pope scores big by joining Alice to Malware ...

More infallible Popery here, how the pond loves him, but as things get curiouser and curiouser, here's an excellent Rowe (and as always more excellent Rowe featuring demonic figures at the window here).

And for those wanting to jog their memory about section 44, it can be found at another invaluable digital resource here ...

Oh it is so good to be a blogger as the end times and the rapture and the Donald slouch towards Bethlehem ...

In which the pond spends some quality time with the tone-deaf, totally humourless Dame Slap and emerges with one joke ... and that belonged to David Pope ...

So many distractions this day, including this remarkable observation about Fox News and the power of News Corp ...

Yes, has Sean Hannity and Fox ever been more in for him than they are in for the Donald now?

But enough of observations of the astonishing media bias of the reptiles, because the pond must now attend to what it must, in the manner of a Tamworth shovel, be called a spade load ... of sense of entitlement, moaning and groaning and whining ...

It can be found summarised in the reptile editorial of the day ...

Now the pond must pass over the peculiar situation of Kerryn Pholi, though those interested can read Why I burned my 'Proof of Aboriginality', and check out Pholi's case of Stockholm syndrome, she and her scribbling being major exhibits in the local version of the colonial Spectator, tagged here ...

The pond does so reluctantly, but only because paying heed to Dame Slap is the greater need on a Wednesday, and the Dame is in fine form.

Her scribble takes the form of a litany, a catalogue of complaints and injustices, accompanied by a whining and a keening.

The pond uses 'litany' not so much in its sense of ceremonial or liturgical prayer or supplication, though those meanings apply, but more in the sense of recitation,  mainly as in "a prolonged and tedious account ... we heard the whole litany of their complaints" ...(dictionary here).

Of course the funny thing about this opening is the way that Dame Slap takes not just offence, but the gate too. She's offended by everyone, she is herself a key proponent of the cult of taking offence, she is clearly infected by the sly unchecked virus ... it's impossible to count the number of greenies, leftists, progressives, centrists, mellow-ists, wets and even some dries who provoke her eternal intolerance.

So yet again, she sets out at tedious length the way she takes offence. This is not new, this is a sort of by the numbers set piece, and can be found all over the place, as in Anthony Dillon scribbling The Oh-So-Easy Habit of Taking Offence, which displays standard Quadrant outrage at the outrageous outrage displayed by the twittering class and their hashtag sermons ... is there anything more designed to lather up the outrage than the full to overflowing intertubes and its netizens?

The tone is always judgmental and sanctimonious, with a hint of the apocalyptic ...

Perhaps the pond should issue a trigger warning, but we have always thought that Dame Slap's scribbles will only set off mild seizures and where's the harm in that? Uncurl tongue from roof of mouth, wipe off foam and on we go ...

Now in this litany, the pond always finds certain curiosities.

What exactly did Dame Slap mean by "Jerry Seinfeld has said he has been warned to stay off campuses because they're too PC"?

How are campuses a "they're"? How did campuses become PC? Is this the same condition as their having tar and cement? Why would Seinfeld be such a wimp? If he's been warned, surely the honourable thing to to would be to take up the challenge and storm around the PC campuses teaching them good humour, instead of wasting his talent on his tedious coffee routines ...which are so lame even the coffee has grounds for complaint.

The pond was reminded of the lines by stand-up comedian Todd Glass:

You can be crass, you can be vulgar, and it’s not about worrying about offending people. Fuck offending people. Offend the right fucking people. Don’t let this fake argument that makes you not want to grow [as a comedian] and say, ‘Oh, you’re always going offend somebody.’ No one said you shouldn’t! It’s your fake argument! Offend the living fuck out of people! But make sure you’re doing it to the right group. Because, I’m sure George Carlin, most of the time, was offending the right people.

Now the pond grew up in different times, to the sounds of Lenny Bruce doing stand-up, and Woody Allen doing his Jewish schtick, and in those days, the Dame Slaps of the world were routinely outraged by their comedy stylings.

But it raises the question of tone and audience. Your average astute comedian realises what sort of crowd they're working and how far and in what direction they can go. It's being tone sharp rather than tone deaf. Some crowds can be pushed over the edge and beyond their limits. But a wedding, or a funeral say, aren't the best places for tone-deaf humour.

A few tips for the Dame might help her future comedy stylings. It's possible to make a joke about Jewish holocaust survivors, but it's better if you wheel in a Larry David to do it. He might be a secular Jew, but he's a Jew, and he can get away with it. Ditto black jokes. If you must tell a joke about the lame, the halt, or the poor, it's better if it's not Donald Trump mocking a reporter's issues. If you insist, remember that you're better off playing a tramp, laughing at the rich, rather than siding with the rich, and laughing and mocking the tramp. Your chances of imitating Charlie Chaplin head towards zero if you don't see the funny side of a rich man hitting a banana skin, and the lack of humour in mocking the dispossessed and the colonised ...

Now to explore this further, the pond must do a little time travelling back to an earlier Dame Slap litany of rage ...

Yes, it's the same old routine, but back in 2012, only this time it was accompanied by cluck clucking and tut-tutting and pursing of lips ...

Yes, there you go, the pursing of the lips in the line "it's called entertainment when they poke fun at the tykes" ...

Well yes, it is called entertainment ... and let the jokes fall where they may ...

Now the fascinating thing about all Dame Slap's columns is their complete humourlessness. Their lack of jokes, their lack of wit, their lack of laughs.

The same might be said of Bill Leak's cartoons. Somewhere, somehow, for some mysterious reason, the muse of humour abandoned him. It can still be found in the world, plenty of people possess it, but it never turns up in Leak's work, which is usually as funny as a tooth extraction. This goes beyond the crudity of the drawing into the crudity of purpose, the lack of irony, the lack of self-reflection and wit.

The pond will now step back into the time machine, return to the present, and observe how Dame Slap's columns continue to be a humour desert, with nary an oasis or a date in sight ... because litany ...

Oh okay, that talk of finding a Tasmanian tiger might pass as a joke in some circles ... provided said circles were impossibly lame, wet, feeble and pathetic ...

Oh and there's the notion that it's only the ABC, sections of Fairfax media and much of the academe that's intolerant, which could only be scribbled by a woman who has made a career out of extreme intolerance for anyone who disagrees with her ...

But speaking of Chris Rock, he had this to say, quoted here:

“Some people aren’t making comedy for me,” Rock said, recalling his experience watching the TBS late-night show. “Okay, this is not for me particularly. This is for a certain group of women, and I gotta kind of defer. I think people should be funny to the people who look like them first. If you can’t be funny to the people who look like you, something’s wrong.” 

Rock also pointed out that, as the director of Amy Schumer's stand-up special Amy Schumer: Live At The Apollo, he left in “all the stuff that I don’t know,” which, fortunately for him, includes a deep, personal understanding of yeast infections.

Not everything and everyone is funny to everybody, but Dame Slap is supremely funny to anyone who doesn't live on Planet Janet ...

Never mind, there's not much point exercising liberal tolerance in the presence of Dame Slap. It will do you no good at all ... rather it's taken as a sign of weakness and another reason to go for the jugular ...

Actually it might start with the telling of a good joke or three. But sadly whenever the pond visits Dame Slap's school for lessons, all that it gets is stern looks and a savage strapping, and confusion about what actually happened, forcing a trip to CBS News to check out the yoga saga.

Thank the long absent lord there are joke tellers out there still telling jokes, not least about the way that the humourless reptiles are determined to take over the planet earth, pod people with nothing but a relentless desire to ensure conformity to their way of thinking ...

Well damned if the pond will make that mistake. It's almost about time for the war on Christmas to heat up in News Corp, with demented angry white folk agitated about Christ having a swarthy middle eastern appearance ...

Never mind, the pond might not be good at telling its own jokes, but at least it can resort to papal humour of the first water, and as always, more Pope japery here ...

Yes, that'll work. A flying horse and Dame Slap cracking wild-eyed jokes about Chairman Rupert ...

In which the pond stays loyal to Moorice, while humbly suggesting the virtues of NoDoz plus ...

There's such a wealth of material organised by the reptile overlords today that the pond doesn't know where to begin ... 

There's the beguiling photo of the pasty Hastie, and then there's Dame Slap, and then there are people offended by HRC, because Hillary Rodham Clinton is much worse than Bill Leak ...

And that's just the beginning ...

Indeed, indeed, and their connection to the international Jewish banking system and the Rothschilds and their innate reptilian quality also remains hidden to this very day, despite the very best attempts of Lyndon LaRouche to expose the conspiracy, while David Icke's valiant attempts to reveal their reptility seems to have fallen on deaf ears, and Australians remain dedicated to a reptile monarchy with Nazi tendencies ...

But if Ben and the reptiles are mere purveyors of click bait conspiracy theories, at one with the usual talk of the New World Order, what to make of news that the onion muncher is a mere pawn of The Spectator and a powerful Tory, and that he choses as his pawn Terrorist Catherine McGregor - in best Chairman Rudd style - as the empty mindless vessel to channel his ongoing lust for power and to launch a backdoor blackmail threat on Malware ... reward me or face continuing torment ... apparently, because Malware's very best attempts to be Tony Abbott Lite have failed to impress ... and despite his astonishing capacity to listen to the mutton Dutton's unrelenting inclination to fascism ...

Truly there's a sitcom waiting to track that branch of the deeds of the lizard empire.

But wait, it doesn't stop there, as the goodies keep flowing ...

Indeed, indeed, the pond is firmly against good health, and ponderous 'Ned' Kelly pontificating on the profound is always a momentous read, but the pond feels a tremendous loyalty to Moorice ...

Now it turned out that this was a disappointing read, suggesting that the old dodderer needs to take a speedy pill, or at least a NoDoz and a triple strength coffee before sitting down to the keyboard. 

The great frothing and foaming has subsided, as Moorice totters over familiar ground ... but still, attention must be paid ...

Now astute readers of reptiles and tea leaves will realise that something was not right from the get go, from the moment the reptiles led with "Free market, no state capitalism", a typo up there with the relatively unique use of language to be found on the ABC's 24, suggesting as it does that free markets and typo anarchy are closely affiliated...

And it gets even sadder as Moorice is forced to channel the thoughts of others, including 'Ned' Kelly. When one dodderer must quote another, we're off in the bowling club having a rant between rounds on the pokies and much shouting ...

Great scintillating insights seem to have become harder for poor old doddering Moorice, but the pond pressed on, in the hope that he would manage a second half epic spray ...

Now the sentiments are wholly admirable and some lines are truly excellent - who could not resist the appeal of that insight "free markets may be great for the masses but not for entrenched elites" ...

Yes, there's a world in a grain of sand in that one, especially for anyone who has for a moment checked the historical record when it comes to actual uncontrolled, untrammelled free markets and their attention to the needs of the masses ... assuming that the masses are more interested in food, health, shelter and the meeting of basic educational needs rather than the cornucopia of goods available from the nearest two dollar store ... or in the transformations a Margaret Thatcher might produce in their lives ...

And the wonderful notion that Moorice has the first clue about technological advances (or advancement if you are dedicated to illiteracy) while deploring the notion of a nation wired with decent broadband is the sort of monstrous stupidity that routinely pleases the pond ...

And that bit about entrenching elites, scribbled by an elitist in an elite situation for an elitist rag, reminds the pond of Moorice's grand moments ... even if said 'leets are falling on hard times in this digital age, where they have the relevance and potency of dinosaurs mourning times past ...

Yes, behind it all is the sort of New World Order, end of days, doom and gloom, and lost golden age thinking that should remain an inspiration to us all ...

We live in an age of lead, and Moorice's scribbles prove it ...

And on that note, the pond should end with about the only connection it's had to the Melbourne cup, thanks to David Rowe, Catherine McGregor and the onion muncher ... and as always more Rowe here ...

In which the Caterists celebrate from the eerie of their taxpayer-funded Canberra cabal ...

Because life with the reptiles can be unbearably tedious, please allow the pond to recommend a tidy little comedy, People of Earth ...

It features Wyatt Cenac as a fearless investigative journalist haunted by deer and alien reptilian events in the small town of Beacon. Naturally there are aliens, talking deer, experiencers, greys, and spoiler alert, reptiles ...

Don't take the pond's word for it. A few pars from the Hollywood Reporter review, available in full  here ...

It's hard not to fall for the charms of TBS' newest comedy, the Wyatt Cenac-led People Of Earth, about a support group for survivors of alien abduction: It manages to be sweet, smart, quirky, story-strong and funny all at the same time with what appears to be minimal effort. That's a real coup. Especially since it was only natural to wonder how much material could be wrung from the premise – the whole "is there really a show here?" thing that critics often ask. 
Oh, there's a show all right. And I loved it. 
Executive produced by Conan O'Brien and Greg Daniels (The Office, Parks and Recreation, King of the Hill) and created by David Jenkins, People of Earth feels wholly original and distinctive, thanks in large part to Jenkins' writing, a superb cast and a performance by Cenac that should bust him out bigger than ever; the actor's winning, laconic style is perfectly suited to the role of a journalist used to more hard-hitting news stories but who gets assigned a click-bait piece on this group in Beacon — and, well, his trip up there and his discoveries get weird real quick.

It turns out, "Don't get weird, okay?" is one of the things aliens - in whatever form they take - say to humans when they reveal themselves ...

The pond also blames RN, as it frequently does, for distracting it from the reptiles of Oz. There the pond was, listening away, and the wretches invited listeners to offer up their favourite film score. And somebody called in with John Barry's score for Zulu.

The pond had the damned thing thumping away in its head for days, and could only get rid of it by ripping an old DVD of the movie on to the Plex and gorging away (memo to Hollywood executives, the pond purchased the disc and will recycle the content in its home how it likes, damn you and your territorial limitations).

Who could remember that Jack Hawkins was so ripe and fruity as a crazed Swedish fundamentalist bible basher, inclined to bash the turps and tell everyone that they're going to die ...

Speaking of the fruity and the reptilian and things turning seriously weird real quick, it was inevitable that the pond would be forced to turn back to the reptiles for solace, even as a horse race stops the nation of lizard people in their tracks...

The pond was torn.

Dame Groan, after all, was making an important point. How to ensure a plentiful supply of bellhops, shoe shiners, waiters, chauffeurs, dog groomers, cat walkers and skilled lackeys who know enough to know their place, but not enough to disturb the natural order of things?

There are, after all, many, many more ways to serve Dame Groan than having uppity young things head off to uni and get grand delusions and notions about the world. You can see how it worked out well for her with her part-time hobby of blacksmithing ...

But the siren song of the Caterists can never be ignored by the pond ...

After all, there's something incredibly piquant about a Caterist pillorying the Clintonians for looting the Australian taxpayer, while at the same time looting the Australian taxpayer himself, albeit on a more modest and humble scale.

As usual, the read produced the requisite number of rich, resonant ironies...

Now speaking of the late-medieval abuses of Papal indulgences, it's about this point that the pond usually likes to celebrate the indulgences of the Caterists by the Department of Finance, but perhaps, because the pond has done it so often of late, we should only do just one short-form example.

There are of course other, later examples - right up to 2016, and who knows, here's hoping for 2017 - but this is enough to add a special flavour to reading the Caterists, especially when the total adds up to about three quarters of a million in recent years, and then the Caterists lead with the notion that federal government grants this size aren't so much a fair wage, as an indecent bribe ...

Or some such thing ...please forgive the pond for asking if doling out money to the Caterists isn't all a little shonky ...

Of course it's handy to walk past the Canberra base of the Menzies Research Centre when talking about the grant-saturated, free loading, bludging class that makes out like bandits, while others are instructed to think about a career as a check out operator, or perhaps aiming high, life flipping burgers in a fast food restaurant, peddling fat, sugar and salt to the masses to ensure a healthy turnover in the hospital system ...

Oh yes, there are rich ironies, none so rich as the fantasy of a taxpayer grant devouring bludger talking about cultural cabals ... and with nary a mention of the dubious practices and behaviour of the Trump Foundation ...

Of course, the troubling question arises why a bludger who lives off taxpayer grants should, in effect, be cheering on Donald Trump against the east coast cultural cabal, while working in taxpayer-funded comfort in his very own Canberra cabal ...

Should the pond dare to hope that Trump wins? The Caterists and Julian Assange and good old Putin will have consummated their dream, and the world will reel back in admiration, wonder and awe, especially when the nukes start flying, and the Caterists and the Republicans won't have the Clintons to kick around, and might actually have to come up with an actual political party pursuing more policy ideas than denying women's rights, and celebrating climate denialism and creationism.

Then the pond will really be able to enjoy a daily serve of the ironies of life, at least until it all blows up ... people of earth, what have you got to lose? Enjoy the sitcom while it lasts ... and remember, work as an extra playing an alien or a deer can be a very fulfilling career option.

There, it really wasn't so hard to get into the mind set of the lizards at the reptile Oz, and the deers in the MRC Canberra cabal bunker ...

In which the pond checks out the Catholic Daily ...

It's all happening today at the Catholic Boys' Daily ... 

Even the nags have had to share the tree killer front page and the top digital space with the Pellists ...

The pond only uses the term Catholic Boys' Daily out of habit and infection from other sources ...

The term seems to have sprung from one Gadfly Justinian scribbling this sort of outrageous satire, this column to be found in full here ...

Now this is outrageous and very unfair. 

No, not calling the pope a quasi-Marxist. Everyone knows he's part of the global UN conspiracy on climate science.

It's the bit about the boys ...

Lo, as a healthy corrective, the pond would like to point out the incredible work being done by the prolific and exceptional Rebecca Urban. 

Please allow the pond to curate just a few of the incredible Urban pieces that have graced the Catholic Daily of late ...

     

    

Talk about a wealth of stories, talk about stunning stuff, and that's just for starters.

The pond left that story about the importance of coal, coal, coal in the list just to placate Gadfly's keen interest in the environment, but the rest shows an astonishing interest in sex, sex, sex ...

Who better then than Urban to write about the Pellists?

Sadly, the piece turned out to be nothing more than the standard defence so richly evoked by the Daily Terrorists in relation to other matters ...

Well you won't find any of that sort of thing at the Catholic Daily, just a straightforward plea that the man who saw no problem, hears no concerns, and speaks fluent Vatican was just being scapegoated ...

Now the pond had to play that report straight - it's hard to be whimsical or satirical about the sordid child abuse suffered by so many - but it left the pond wanting more, and fortunately the reptiles had also wheeled in three of their heaviest hitters to report on the matter ...

Akerman, Akerman and Urban. 

A flock of Akker Dakkers, plus the sex specialist herself! This must be extremely serious:

 

What sordid stuff. 

All the pond can do is wait for the outraged defences to flow at the Catholic Daily ... with much talk of scapegoating and persecution and the silent, noble suffering of the Pellists ...

Meanwhile, the pond thought it should turn elsewhere and look at the caring, humanitarian approach of the federal government to other matters of national interest, as celebrated by the returning Pope here ...

Or maybe not ... maybe ending up in the clutches of the current government is is pretty much up there with enduring the Catholic church during its worst days ...

Will the horse race provide an alternative, suitable and uplifting distraction, as celebrated by Rowe here?

Maybe not ... maybe the real horse race happening outside Melbourne features the contemptible in a sordid, cruel race to the bottom ...