Oh dear sweet long absent lord, which reptile let prattling Polonius out again ...

Dammit, why did you do it, reptiles, why?

There was the pond with its Sunday meditation planned, relieved at the thought it wouldn't have to deal with the Devine, Akker Dakker or prattling Polonius, and then you went and leaked Polonius into the ether, and the pond knew at once that other pleasures had to be foresworn and duty called … even if the tedious old prattler was humming a tune the pond had heard a thousand times or more …

The immediate reaction to this predictable carry-on might take the form of a tweet ...

Or it might even be an extended tweet ...

Or that much loved yarn by nattering "Ned" might be recalled in context, way back in 2012, and what do you know, there's Polonius in the sidebar, still yammering on about Aunty in the sidebar …

He never shuts up, he's a classic psychological study of the nit-picking obsessive pedant … even Charles Dickens would struggle to make him a believable real character, and would head off into satirical caricature ...

Oh it's a much loved and much clipped and circulated column, verging on the status of a meme ...

The pond has no idea if nattering "Ned" has any shame or a sense of contrition or the need for confession, with his dismissal of the Royal Commission as gesture politics …

But speaking of confession, and in direct contradiction to what Polonius said, on page 220 of the pdf here of an RMIT report in to Child Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church, the casual reader might stumble on this ...

There's a lot more about the arcane, abstruse, meaningless rituals of the confessional, not a whit, or jot of which can be found in the bible or in Christ's words, but the pond can stand only so much, even on a meditative Sunday …

Some more pedantic than the pond might quote that fisher of men as reported in the lizard Oz itself…

The same pedant, if worried about the accuracy of the quotes, might head off to the Graudian here, and read ...

An empathetic person might wonder what it would be like to be a child molested by a priest back in the day and head off to the confessional to confess the experience to another priest (assuming they didn't live in a country town where there was only one priest on the beat, so to speak)…

What would the reaction be? Would the priest spring to attention and advise the child that luckily, for him or her, the secrecy provisions of the sacrament of penance did not prevail, and so dear child, you and I, the caring priest, shall immediately hie forth and take ourselves to the police, where we shall dob in the recalcitrant criminal priest …and see him sent down for a very long time…

The very last thing you will see dear sweet child is the priest walking off to court with one of his own as a defiant gesture ..

But allowing that this might have happened a few times, please allow the pond to reassure the troubled child.

Please bring forth evidence of the remarkably caring and theologically correct - according to Polonius - Polonial approach… please, show a few reassuring examples from the historical Catholic record …

Uh huh.

In lieu of the sound of crickets, it's time for the rest of the Polonial prattle, which of course will be a stout-hearted defence of the Catholic church, because you see others did it too, and that makes it okay for Catholics and priests, who are being singled out and persecuted … merely for asking suffering children to come unto them … for a little more suffering, or sex, or whatever ...

Would it have been simpler for Polonius simply to note that pedophilia is a crime that has been committed by many people and many institutions, and that arguing about who did it more is roughly akin to working out who might molest the most angels clustered on the head of a pin?

But that's the way it goes with blind, irrational loyalists, devoted forelock tuggers and apologists.

That's how you get nattering "Ned" shamelessly scribbling in favour of a cover-up, so that the churches and the pedophiles might keep on going about their business unmolested, and that's why you get Polonius shocked and outraged … at the ABC surprisingly being against pedophilia, even though there's no doubt the odd pedophile that has also been employed by that institution …

But that's more than enough of Polonial double-think and tortured defensive double-speak, why not end with another semantic exercise, celebrated by the one true Pope, with more papal encyclicals available in a better gallery format here ...

In which the pond is blessed by an alien visitation of the reptile overlord ...

Forgive the pond, but it just wanted to set the mood in a right, proper and fitting way …

For weeks the reptiles have kept the Oz editorialist behind the paywall, but such is the impending delight of the 30th birthday, they let the paywall drop …

Sure it would have been nice to let the organ go on a bit more, or perhaps do the whole of the Strauss (though the pond isn't a big fan of the rest of the piece), but at least respect has been paid …as the reptiles agonise over the really useless way they've helped ruin Australian politics by making it poll-driven, and trivialising it into a personality cult …

Sssh, best to blame Malware for that ...

Oh fucketty fuck, not that old saw … "this newspaper has always supported Australia doing its fair share, in concern with others under international consensus, to reduce carbon emissions."

It's the home of climate denialists and denialism, from Moorice to the dog botherer to Bjorn to Dame Slap to any passing loon of the sort of lordish Monckton kind … and it's been that way since as long as the pond's been blogging.

It's the Scott Pruitt of Australian journalism.

And sure enough even that pompous bit of nonsense was immediately followed by the usual "butt Billy goat butt" routine, as if there's always a but …

Do they expect the pond to just gaily accept and traipse over the bridge?

Never mind, go on with the rest of it, the pond feels ever so grateful to be in your buttish presence ...

And get cracking they did, because they sent out the bouffant one to remind everyone that polls don't matter and indeed might be totally irrelevant, unless you happen to build a business model out of it ...

The pond doesn't know which is funnier … the reptiles' poll remorse, or the attempt to pump up a rabble of feuding power mongers, backbiting, undermining, sniping and wrecking each other, and barely paying attention to anything that matters …

And what do you know, even as the bouffant one tries to pour oil on troubled waters, he can't help but talk of insurrection and perhaps annihilation during the winter break, when the spilled blood will freeze in the mud ...

This humble rag, with a tree killer readership as small as the customers than turn up at corner stores, is as good a reason as any as to why the Liberals are in disarray. All that fawning over and attention to a politician who should have gracefully exited and headed off to London where he might have felt truly at home is now coming home to roost, that and the poll-driven mania the reptiles have used to regularly boost their slack Monday circulation ...

Did the pond begin by looking at the stars?

By journey's end, it had joined Moir in looking at the mud (with a chance to sign up to Moir's humble crowd funding here …)

In which the pond eagerly awaits manic Monday ...

Thank the long absent lord the reptiles have decided to keep Polonius prattling away safely behind the paywall about things dear to his heart … the wicked ABC and how the Catholic church has unjustly suffered from charges of child abuse, because everyone was doing it … so why pick on the tykes for harming the tykes?

Instead, what better way to start off the hot debate of the week than with a ripper Rowe - and anyone wanting to cross the Andes by frog will find more ripping Rowe yarns here …

Now some have decided that the way forward is to abuse the onion muncher, as Guy Rundle did in Crikey, here for those who can get inside the paywall … 

The pond doesn't like to cap Crikey, they have enough survival problems as it is, but here's a taster ...

... the question raised by recent events is: what is Tony Abbott faithful to? One answer, I suspect, in the wake of the Monash Forum fiasco is that beyond all concrete and particular beliefs, Tony Abbott is devoted to the beau idéal of failure. Failure has been his political muse for decades, coming to the fore once he gained power. Failure, in politics, is a form of secular martyrdom. Success? That would mean administration and governance, mingling your soul with the muck of the world. Failure preserves the soul’s integrity. 

No one who is not seeking failure would start a political ginger group without sounding out the family of the man it is named after. This is not simply incompetence; it is a form of self-sabotage of the sort Abbott has displayed since he won the premiership in 2013. Since he was executed by an exasperated party room, failure has become pretty much the sole focus of Tony Abbott’s activity. He has created an entirely new thing, Beckettian Westminster politics: fail often, fail better, fail again. His collected stuff-ups should be gathered in a single volume, as a sequel to Battlelines. 

Will the Monash Forum fiasco finally finish the right-wing fantasy that Abbott could ride back to the Liberal leadership, as the paladin of Christian civilisation? Abbott has been a would-be Pope Julius II, Savonarola, De Maistre, a Guy Crouchback, latterly an Iago, of which Australian politics has no shortage. But now one has to raid popular culture for a register: he is Gareth/Dwight Schrute from The Office, the awkward, perpetual work-around man, fantasising secret missions in the reserve army that will not have him.

Rundle goes much too far, calling the onion muncher ...

... a joke, a gargoyle hanging among the buttresses of the backbenches, a jester whose outsize features are redolent of Mr Punch.

This is terribly unfair to Mr Punch, a gregarious and jolly old soul, while all the onion muncher can do is try to flog green ties …

 

You see, Mr Rundle? Take it back, for decency's and Mr Punch's sake …

Meanwhile, the reptiles are busy setting the table in assorted ways for the grand feast that is to take place on Monday …

Attention was being paid to the honoured guest …

Is there any doubt that there's a war going on? And is there any doubting Rundle's diagnosis that the onion muncher has now reached full blown narcissist stage?

As always, the reptiles faithfully paid attention ...

It sounded a bit worrying, with the civil war in full swing … but the reptiles are also having a civil war.

The oscillating fan was particularly troubled and turned his fury on the onion muncher … anyone unaware that this is an epic haul are here invited to put up their hand and excuse themselves because they urgently need to check how the red backs are doing in the outside dunny …

Truly delusional? Them's harsh words, especially when it applies to the truly delusional reptiles - the dog botherer and Dame Groan amongst them - who danced with glee at the thought of the coal lovers' Malware-hating, onion munching forum … (the pond can't bear to mention the general's name)

Harebrained? That's a harsh word for the dog botherer and Dame Groan and sundry others, but okay the pond will go with it ...

Vultures and hyenas? What, we can't call them reptiles any more?

And for good measure, the oscillating fan did another shorter piece, all about preparations for the 30th loss … though the pond thinks the simpler solution would be for the reptiles to tweak the result. Not an outright win, or even a draw, that would be too obvious, but perhaps claw back a couple of points so that the tide could be seen to be turning …

Would it be so hard, or so wrong, given the many lies that Fox News has peddled in support of the Donald?

Well that's reassuring. He's clearly a manly man and there's nothing more rewarding than being compared to Julia Gillard or former chairman Rudd … even if a comparison to Billy McMahon, John Gorton and Harold Holt might have made the case for winning more forcefully...

Frankly propping up Malware by comparing him to Gillard or Rudd seems like a losing strategy,  and the reptiles must have realised it because they sent Brad out to do some vox pops with your average died-in-the wool Liberal voter, always the best way to get a fair and balanced view of things ...

The pond shed tears at the sense of hope, and the willing of Malware to succeed, and the end to political paralysis, in much the same way as he put an end to the NBN for the next twenty years ...

Tired of undermining?

Well the pond is fair and balanced even if talking to a bunch of Liberal voters doesn't quite do it … so the pond felt compelled to take note of dissidents in the reptile camp ...

Oh dear. It seems some in the reptile camp share the pond's contempt for Malware and his smarmy dithering ways ...

It seems a week since the pond started out on this journey. What did Guy Rundle say?

The truth is, that beneath the religious sanctity, the purity of spirit that Abbott seeks through serial failure, is a less creditable motive: pure, modern, secular narcissism. Abbott perhaps believed that he could go to the backbench and be some sort of austere presence of principle, a Jack Lang, throwing a long shadow. But he is the exact opposite: a joke, a gargoyle hanging among the buttresses of the backbenches, a jester whose outsize features are redolent of Mr Punch. To call Abbott and his new companion Barnaby Joyce “Statler and Waldorf” is an insult to muppets. At least the muppets can keep a show on the road. Time to move on Tone, for our sake and yours. It isn’t funny any more.

So it's Götterdämmerung in Gunghalin, but safe in Robertson, and better than former chairman Rudd and Julia Gillard, though crushing defeat and obliteration is over the horizon, and the alternative might well be Gollum wanting his precioussss back …

Oh yes, the pond is aware of the meme that's done, is doing, and will keep on doing the rounds …

  

 

And now to return to Jack, delivering the coup de grâce ...

Is it any wonder the pond is salivating at the thought of Monday?

Choose your lyrics:

Six o'clock already 
I was just in the middle of a dream 
I was kissin' an onion muncher
By a crystal blue Lake Burley Griffin stream
But I can't be late for the reptiles 
'Cause then I guess I just won't get paid 
These are the days 
When you wish your poll was already made 
It's just another manic Monday 
I wish it was Sunday 
'Cause that's my poll-free fun day 
My "I don't have to run for PM again" day 
It's just another manic Monday ...

Or ...

The silicon chip inside the Liberal party head 
Gets switched to overload 
And nobody's gonna go to parliament house today 
He's going to make them stay at home 
And Malware doesn't understand it 
He always said they were as good as gold 
And he can see no reason 
'Cause there are no reasons 
What reason do you need to be told ...
Oh, oh, oh tell me why 
I don't like Mondays 
Tell me why I don't like Mondays 
Tell me why I don't like Mondays 
He wants to shoot 
The whole day down…

Luckily Cathy Wilcox seems to have summarised the events and the choices to hand with a few cartoons, and more summarising Wilcox in a better gallery format here …

  

 

In which the pond joins the dog botherer in respecting science ...

The careening train wreck formerly known as the United States remains a reliable source of fascination for the pond, with colourful characters of the Pruitt kind turning up regularly, as in an extended profile in The New Yorker, here, and currently outside the paywall, with this sort of salient insight:

In June, Pruitt joined Trump in the White House Rose Garden as Trump announced that the United States was withdrawing from the Paris climate accord. Although there is a consensus among scientists that human activity is causing climate change, Pruitt is skeptical of this view; unlike Trump, who has called global warming a “hoax” created by the Chinese, Pruitt expresses his dissent with deliberate mildness. Last March, he told CNBC, “Measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do.” He went on, “I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see. But we don’t know that yet. We need to continue to debate, continue the review and analysis.” The E.P.A., he has said, will commence a “red team–blue team” review of climate-change science that puts “experts in a room and lets them debate.”

The corrupt Pruitt has climate denialism as just one ingredient in a rich brew of ignorance as he goes about the business of fucking over the E.P.A …

But it would be wrong to ignore the great climate scientists assembled by the lizard Oz, who routinely debate the matter for the benefit of domestic punters and coal lovers.

Apart from Moorice, is there a better climate scientist than the dog botherer? After helping fix Iraq, he's gone on to a spectacular career as a climate scientist and he was at it again in the lizard Oz…

Of course this is just another shot in an extended war, with recalcitrant AGL refusing to come to the reptile cry of heel …

The damnable AGL is reprehensibly obstinate, so naturally the dog botherer must insist that the perverse pooch be made to sit and contemplate the error of its ways … and all the pooch does is piss on the lawn …(like they all do in Camperdown Park) ...

The pond regrets that it uses screen captures for its contents … so lazy, and so much lost … who wouldn't want a tour of the Liddell Power Station as a treat, with children offered a free lump of coal at the end of the tour?

Oh children, give a hearty cheer for dinkum Oz clean coal, oi, oi, oi …and remember if you keep your lump of coal on the bedside table it will cure whatever ails you and give you a tremendous surge of energy at the start of day ...

Now let us be clear. Anyone with half a brain realises that the dog botherer is a climate denialist of the old school, and while he purports to be a realist, he's just an old-fashioned luddite ...

There's that mention of Liddell again, and how it torments the reptiles so …

It's yet another reminder of just how perverse and difficult AGL has been, and how they keep on keeping on being difficult.

It's simply too much for the reptiles to bear ...

Oh there'll be more to come, no doubt about it. When the reptiles go on a crusade, they're very reluctant to give up … even to this day, Major Mitchell keeps searching for those fabled Order of Lenins tucked somewhere under someone's bed …

And the crusading reptiles will certainly maintain the rage when it's all about the sweetest, dearest objection of their affection - children, a cheer for dinkum clean Oz coal, oi, oi, oi …

Oh, there'll be more to come, including more from the dog botherer on the pointlessness of this damned climate change nonsense.

What could poor little Oz possibly do? Sure the dog botherer helped fix Iraq - but must we now join in useless attempts to fix the planet?

As always the dog botherer can be relied upon to deliver a classic line.

This time the pond nominates "If you have any respect for science, economics and facts", a ripper of a line for a man who clearly hasn't the slightest respect for any of that nonsense …

But how kind of him to remind us that not only did he fix Iraq with Lord Downer, he also fixed Malware's early ambitions ...

Enough already, the pond feels blessed by the visitation, and luckily, so the pond can continue to celebrate, the celebrated David Rowe also visited the US swamp this day, with more Rowe here ...

In which the pond is pleased to see the reptiles have let Moorice out of the bunker ...

The pond is deeply grateful to the lizards of Oz this day …for they have made the thoughts of Moorice available outside the paywall.

The pond stands in awe of Moorice, perhaps the world's greatest climate scientist, and an elite member of the commentariat every day of the week, and too often of late, the pond has missed out on Moorice as the wicked paywall snaps shut tight on him …

As a preamble, the pond should note that it grew up in the days when the British properly and justly ruled the world, and the pond can still remember the fascinated dread with which it watched Simba Mark of Mau Mau, and the way that violent Kenyans slapped down the Mau Mau mark, threatening kindly whites and good blacks, the ones that were servants of the nice whites …

By golly that dinkum Oz one sheeter is evocative ...

There were no Jaffas rolling down the aisles that day … as the cry rang out in the stalls, "Mau Mau!"

Much later people tried to sensitise the pond to the notion that we should care about all farmers, not just black, not just white, but all farmers, doing lonely hard work for the benefit of all, but the pond knew the truth: "Mau Mau!"

And so to Mau Mau'ing Moorice …

Indeed, indeed, and the pond will leave it to others to decide on the mutton Dutton and the valiant Moorice … because the pond is still in traumatised flashback...

   

 

Of course the pond had to make do with British content … some shows were deemed beyond the pale …

  

So much National Geographic porn, so little time …and so to the end of Mau Mau'ing Moorice's piece …

Indeed, indeed, hapless whites are everywhere surrounded by difficult, pesky blacks, making life so very hard for suffering whites, and all they wanted to do was take a little land, and where's the harm in that?

No doubt some will want to see the mute 1954 Pathé footage of plucky British lads keeping the difficult blacks in line on YouTube here, but despite the irritating watermark, the pond is off to watch highlights from the 1955 Simba here …

Pass the popcorn and the paranoia, oh and a little sense of entitlement and white privilege wouldn't go astray either, Moorice …and you can mix in a little festering race hate, fear and loathing if you like ...