Talk about a reptile parade of heavy hitters this day ...a bromancer troll, a "Ned" Everest, and aging, battle-scarred Dame Slap under threat from vulgar youff ...

 

 

 

All the top notch reptiles were out and about, on parade in their weekend finery, making it really difficult for the pond in terms of choice. 

But dedicated herpetologists are accustomed to the difficult business of selecting the finest reptile in show ... and the pond has to hand the starter's gong to the bromancer, with as fine a bit of librul trolling as the pond has seen in recent times.

What a way to startle the possums, scare the horses than by celebrating the imminent return of the Donald ...

Cry freedumb ... and never mind if that beginning photo,  dear sweet long absent lord "Save America" was a post-modernist, post-ironic piece of whimsy.

You see, the bromancer doesn't bother considering what it might mean, the return of a gang of coup lovers, criminals and make-out bandits ... he just wants to do a troll ...

 

Um, but that curious category, "a Trump person", has done a heck of a lot, and in any sane world, it would be game, set and match for the level of sleaze offered by Miss Lindsay or perhaps even a "shut the Gaetz when leaving the property" ...

But the point here isn't about past behaviour, it's to appeal to the base and to own the libruls, and let nothing stop in the bromancer's way ...

 

 

And should he win the primaries, and go on to win the Presidency, what then? Well don't you worry your heads about that, remember the art of the game is the trolling, and generating fear ... so that the bromancer might sup on librul tears ...

Who wouldn't want a crazed, loathed, detested, grossly self-centred loon intent on revenge as the next President?

 

 

Ah there's always a both siderist escape clause in every bit of reptile trolling, and it came with that expertly done, distilled essence of bromancing: "Can he win? Yes, he can, though he certainly can also lose."

Can the bromancer scribble? Yes, he can, though he can certainly also deliver a huge pile of horseshit.

But we are at the last gobbet now, the trolling almost done and dusted ...

 

The fabulous weirdness is that the bromancer expects US aid in his war with China. 

Good luck with that if the mango Mussolini, lover of dictators and strong men, gets a chance to go around the block again. But it's never no mind for the pond. If the United States, the bromancer, Chairman Rupert, and the gang at Faux Noise want to catch the bus again, what a fine bus crash it will be ... pity about the planet though, shame if something was going to happen to it ...

And so to nattering "Ned".  The pond usually reserves this Everest for a late climb, but the pond was in such awe and delight this day at the return of the reptile graphics department that it simply had to celebrate ...

 

 

 

 

At last the return of one of those tortured illustrations, this time in classic lizard Oz style featuring a tortured 'roo and a bemused emu ...

But of course a decision made in haste to indulge in wild celebrations means a long repenting ... six whole gobbets of "Ned" ... full of the usual worry wart hand wringing, anxious sighing and crying out to the cloud gods ... with a goodly dose of both siderism, and resorting to all manner of loons to fill in the blanks ...

 

It's sublimely comical in its own way, when all that really worries "Ned" is whether SloMo will win the next election, or head off to the rapture ...

If you wrap up his fate with the future of the federation, the country, the planet, the universe, whatever, of course a headless chook like "Ned" is going to run about in the garden, blood spurting, wings flapping, voice croaking with fear ...

And yet the hand wringing of "Ned", somehow transmogrified, pond-style, into the "Inquirer" has just begun, and there is much more chicken littling to follow ...

 

 

Indeed, indeed and speaking of Dom and the tiresomeness of time spent with "Ned", why not have a break with an infallible Pope?

 

 

 

Ah that's better ... on we go, and who better to bring into the conversation than the craven Craven, asked to move on from his last job, but always with a home at the lizard Oz ...

 

 

 

Find his inner John Curtin? What the fuck? What fresh form of loonacy is this? Oh okay, he could have urged the rapturous one to find his inner Ben Chifley, but whatever happened to finding the inner Ming the merciless?

Well the pond is all in favour of secession ...

 

 

 

 

... and shortly expects to be the first president of the state of New England ... you know, by channeling the pond's inner Jack Lang ...

Sorry, sorry, but there's still three bloody gobbets of meaningless "Ned" chaff to go ... so now we must pause for the obligatory both siderism, and a filling of the column with endless thoughts from others ...

 

 

Ah, a "sign of hope" ...

 

 

 

Oops, sorry wrong denomination ... should have been something pentecostal, because we all know that worshippers in the tent of the Babylonian whore are destined to eternal hellfire ...

Sorry, sorry, but at least it was a distraction, and now there's just two gobbets of handwringing and crying out to the falling sky to go ...

 

 

 

Consider this point. The latest surge in Victoria came directly from gold standard Gladys. Credit where plague credits are due. And let's not forget gold standard Gladys's earlier effort with that cruise ship ...

On second thoughts, don't consider this, contemplate instead how much "Ned" wants to sound like an old fashioned preacher with that "The final chapter is coming" ...

The final chapter? No, you bloody loon, it's just another election ...

No, you idle loon, the final gobbet is coming, and not before time ... and if that must mean turning to a bully boy for advice, so the pond can swallow the rich irony whole ...

 

 

There is one broad scenario in the pond's future. More relentless blather from "Ned", and so what a dark, dismal future it will be ...

There was only one point to be resolved. The pond managed to lightly skim "Ned", but what of a reader forced to endure "Ned" reading his own words? What of them, what of their epic suffering?

But hang on, there was no "Ned" player in all of that text. What happened to it? Where did "Ned's" tormenting of his readership with his audio ship go?

For an answer to that, the pond had to turn to Dame Slap ...

 

 

 

 

In the spirit of both siderism, to be fair to "Ned", this week Dame Slap is almost as tediously long as him, and the piece is full of the usual Dame Slap shibboleths, and that might explain why the reptiles felt the need to stick in some happy snaps ... after opening with a horror snap of that terrible woman in urgent need of a Dame Slap taming, or at least a good slapping ...

 

 

 

 

Whenever Dame Slap gets going these days, the pond is increasingly inclined to turn Freudian, and there was one little slip that seemed to sum up Dame Slap's deepest, darkest fears ...

"The young woman" ...

Yes, Dame Slap is a bit of a veteran, a long-standing player in the culture wars, and she's showing her age ... and the best she can offer is a ritual stabbing of the sacred cow of vulgar youff ...

And now to solve the mystery of "Ned" ... yes, they stuck him in Dame Slap's piece, just in case readers got tired of the aging woman ranting and raging at vulgar youff ... because if you really want Neil Young doing an old man take a look at your life, who better than "Ned"?

 

 

 

Say what? It's not even "Ned" doing this day's dirty deeds?

As for Stoker, the pond refers anyone curious to Crikey here ...

 

 

 

 

... and going a little further back, here ...

 

 

And so on and on, and perhaps that's why the reptiles felt the need to insert this hagiographic snap of the god botherer giving Tame a gong ...

 

 

Why not the god botherer with the god botherer, so we could get a little more god bothering going?

And then after a little more stoking of the Stoker flames, it was on to another Dame Slap Freudian slip, with a standard assault on an even younger threat ...

 

 

 

Of course Dame Slap herself is just an aging climate science warrior. Long gone are her glory days, her wild affair with "Lord" Monckton, her reckoning that the UN would use climate science to introduce world government by Xmas ...

These days the aged, battle-scarred warrior is just a lickspittle lackey of Gina's, an IPA chairman who follows the company line, but rarely gets into the thick of it, contenting herself with asides about "climate zealots" full of passion, saying "patently silly things" and blathering about adulating activists ... as any aging Cleopatra might do when forgetfully talking to a cockroach, and completely misremembering her own patently silly words, and her adulating "Lord" Monckton activism ...  

These days it's others who set the pace, as in Crikey ...

Of course they go on to celebrate coal and the Canavan caravan and such like, but Dame Slap's climate warrior days seem to be gone, or at least just a pale echo of what she was once, as vulgar youff snaps at her heels, and she feels tired, and must retire to Gina's lap for a quiet purr ...

Or even worse, and completely bizarrely, evoke Arthur Miller in the context of Pauline Hanson ...

 

 

Fuck that's weird, as if Dame Slap doesn't recognise at all her own intolerance, and her desire to conduct burnings, preferably of young and threatening women ... those bloody witches, and worst of all, they're jut just witches, they're young witches ...

Perhaps that's why the reptiles had to slip in a snap of an aged demon ... just to reassure Dame Slap that she was still relevant, she could still do a Pauline at vulgar youff ...

Could it get any weirder, should the pond have elevated Dame Slap to her position at the top of the pond? Well yes and no.

It does get a hell of a lot weirder - Dame Slap next turns to Shakspere - but it's just another sign that the aged, battle-scarred warrior is losing her touch at this point in her scabrous career ...

 

 

 

Sad really. The aged warrior pleading for mercy, but only deserving contempt ...

Once she would have stoked bitter partisan divisions, and danced on the graves of her enemies.

Oh sure, she continues to do her best, but she's old and battered, and besides there's Gina's lap in which to have a quiet purr of coal contentment ...

But enough Freudian analysis. Instead let the pond celebrate by offering a Rowe, and Barners' balls to Dame Slap ... with more ballsy stuff always here ...

 

 

 

In which the pond develops a deep anxiety about Lloydie of the Amazon, but is reassured by being able to do a deal with our Henry ...

 

 

 

A prisoner in Nigeria? 

If the pond has one complaint with the reptiles, they lack imagination and never go far enough. Surely the loss of freedom should have reminded Judy of her time in a Nazi death camp, or the time she was forced to wear a yellow star?

Here the pond always looks to the United States for loonery nonpareil. Take this effort reported by the Daily Beast involving the efforts of a state legislator by name Ken Weyler...

...Sununu’s statement referring to “absurd emails” from the chair of the finance committee—which recently voted to table $27 million in federal vaccine aid for the state—come after Weyler blasted colleagues’ inboxes with materials on Monday rife with COVID conspiracy theories, including a document entitled “The Vaccine Death Report” that claimed vaccine injections were “murdering millions of people.”
The email from the legislator contained a 52-page “report” with disinformation on COVID-19, including claims that “unknown, octopus-like creatures are being injected into millions of children worldwide.”
The report also made claims that 5G technology had somehow been inserted into the vaccine to control people’s thoughts and called the pope and others “at the top” of the Roman Catholic Church “satanists” and “luciferans” for backing public health measures. The report additionally made the wild suggestion that the babies of vaccinated parents in Mexico were “transhuman”—born with “pitch-black eyes” and undergoing accelerated aging.
“It’s all one huge puppet theatre, where the majority of the people—even most of those who are complicit —haven’t got the slightest clue what is going on, and how everyone is being played,” the report states.
When asked about the report and calls for his removal, Weyler responded to The Daily Beast in an email: “No comment.”

There you go Judy, instead of invoking Nigeria, you might have scribbled about octopus-like creatures, 5G, satanists and transhumans ... or perhaps settled for a tidy "no comment". You're welcome, have a nice day, don't come back for a little while  yet, ya hear?

And so to another reptile offering this day, which featured a certain Geoff Chambers ...

 

 

 

 

To say the pond was surprised, was startled, was the least of it. The reptiles star Chambers doing climate change? A question immediately sprang to the pond's lips?

 

Where's Lloydie of the Amazon?

 

Oh sure the star Chambers knew how to gild the lily, and frame the issues the right way ...

 

 

"Resources sector"? Okay, that's passing fair, and Lloydie of he Amazon would have been proud at that way of dressing up a deep and abiding love of coal..

It's good, it's cunning window dressing, and it steps around the question of where's coal-loving, IPA-backing "resources sector" Gina? 

There's an easy answer to that one for anyone with a google machine ...

 

 

But where's Lloydie? The pond simply had to put its mind at rest, and and went in search of the lad, fearing he might have headed off to do more Amazon saving. The pond discovered that Lloydie must be taking a break because these were his last two emissions ...

 

 

 

 

Sorry reptiles, you might think sending a star Chambers out on the job is the answer, but is the lad up to the task? Who else but Lloydie could discover the upside to bushfires? And your star Chambers last gobbet verges on the pitiful ...

Forget about Farmers for climate action, talk to AgForce ...

 

Oh yes technology, long-term projections, a pathway to zero emissions, yadda yadda, all good stuff, pressure on Labor etc etc, no doubt Lloydie would be pleased and think it passing fair, but for expert weaving of climate science denialism into a story, while puffing up the coalition of coal lovers, we desperately need Lloydie of the Amazon to return ...

Meanwhile, speaking of a coming to Jesus moment, the pond always knew the road to Goulburn was the best place to have it ... as celebrated by Rowe, with more celebrations here ...

Speaking of amusing distractions, the pond loved this little note in Crikey ...

 That tweet is here, but you'll need to go to Crikey for the hot links ...

And speaking of star Chambers, the pond had to pay attention to our Henry, regurgitating a standard bout of reptile nonsense, because dammit, he doesn't want the hole in the bucket fixed, or even checked on. What's wrong with helping out your boyfriend when it comes to the odd grant or other deal?

 

Yes, never you mind about corrupt politicians - it's been the 'roach way of life since the Rum Rebellion - though as this is a day for distractions, the pond did love this other Crikey aside ...

 

As before, you'll have to go to Crikey to get the hot links, while the pond gets cracking with abolitionist Henry, and a standard history lesson a little distant from his usual ancient Greek turf, but not so far from blather about Nigeria ...

 

Why does the pond find all this immensely funny and charmingly irrelevant? Well anyone paying attention to the real world outside the lizard Oz la la land would have noted recent developments in another Star Chamber matter, as featured in the Graudian...

 

Yes, if we wanted to speak of star chambers, there's a goodly yarn going down about Xian Porter's unseemly behaviour ... cue the Graudian ...

Witness K’s actions helped expose a 2004 Australian bugging operation against an impoverished ally, Timor-Leste, which was designed to give Canberra the upper hand during sensitive negotiations to split oil and gas resources in the Timor Sea. A collection of oil and gas companies, led by Australian corporate Woodside, was hoping to exploit the natural resources in the Timor Sea.
The operation diverted intelligence resources during a period of heightened terror threat after the Bali bombings.
Collaery and Witness K had their homes raided by Australia’s domestic spy agency in 2013 as they were preparing to help Timor-Leste lodge a case in the international courts, alleging Australia’s spy operation meant it had negotiated in bad faith.
Witness K’s passport was taken and he was prevented from leaving to give evidence.
The proceedings at The Hague were never finalised but eventually a new deal over the Timor Sea resources was struck, giving a far better outcome to Timor-Leste.
The Australian government then signed off on prosecution of Collaery and Witness K. The former attorney general Christian Porter subsequently invoked the NSI Act to keep significant parts of Collaery’s trial secret.
Labor’s shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, said on Wednesday that the court of appeal’s judgment was a “humiliating rebuff to the Morrison government”.
“Labor strongly supports the principle of open justice and believes Mr Collaery, like any other Australian, has a fundamental right to a fair trial,” he said.
“For reasons that still remain unclear, the former attorney general Christian Porter personally authorised the prosecution of Mr Collaery. After today’s decision the current attorney general must now provide a detailed explanation as to why this prosecution remains in the public interest.”
Human Rights Law Centre senior lawyer Kieran Pender said the case represented a rare win for an accused against the use of the NSI Act, which typically weigh in favour of secrecy.
“Because the NSI Act tilts the scales towards secrecy, defendants have typically failed to overcome the high bar in making the case for open justice,” he said. “But before the court, Collaery has done just that.”
Pender joined Labor in calling for a reconsideration of the prosecution, and separate cases against former military lawyer David McBride and tax office employee Richard Boyle, both of whom blew the whistle.
“There is no public interest in prosecuting whistleblowers – the CDPP can and should drop these cases,” he said.

And that's why the pond is profoundly pleased whenever Xian Porter cops another blow.

Now back to our Henry, wailing and moaning and offering a flurry of historical parallels that are sublimely meaningless ... but as for the dubious deeds of Lord Downer and his mob? No comment ...

 

 

It takes singular skill to bury the nose deep in the past, wallowing in ancient times when there's something going down in the present that our hole in the bucket man completely ignores, such is his desire to preserve politicians from scrutiny ...

Former Witness K lawyer Bernard Collaery says a ruling that lifts secrecy over significant parts of his trial is a “victory for justice” and a testament to the legal profession, which has banded together to support him through his prosecution.
The ACT court of appeal on Wednesday overturned a ruling that would have hidden evidence during Collaery’s trial from the public, saying there was a “very real risk of damage to public confidence” if it could not be publicly disclosed.
In handing down its ruling, the court cited the importance of open justice in preventing “political prosecutions”, allowing scrutiny of prosecutors, and giving the public the ability to assess an accused’s conduct.
Some evidence will still be kept secret and the matter has been remitted back to the ACT supreme court to consider further arguments from the federal attorney general, Michaelia Cash, whose government has used the National Security Information Act (NSI Act) in a bid to keep parts of the case from public view.
Independent senator Rex Patrick at a rally in support of Witness K and Bernard Collaery
Rex Patrick launches bid to make government reveal long-secret cabinet documents on Timor-Leste
Read more
Collaery told the Guardian the court of appeal ruling was a “victory overall for justice” and paid tribute to his lawyers, Gilbert and Tobin, and the rest of Australia’s legal fraternity for supporting him.
“For the commonwealth to spend millions on this pursuit, you can imagine the sacrifice the lawyers supporting me have made, not just in money they could have earned, because they’re pro-bono, but in time away from their families,” he said.

By way of contrast, here's a handy timeline, to be found here (paywall affected):

OCTOBER 16, 2020: Maguire tells the ICAC he regularly refrained from telling Berejiklian “too much detail” when they were in the relationship and agreed with her in a 2017 phone call when she said, “I don’t need to know that bit.”
OCTOBER 21, 2020: Senior advisers from the Premier’s office are called before a parliamentary inquiry to explain why the NSW Premier handed out $250 million in council grants without signed paperwork.
OCTOBER 23, 2020: Berejiklian gives Maguire’s Wagga Wagga electorate six grants totalling $40,000 from her discretionary fund - the inquiry heard that one of her advisers shredded the documents showing the Premier’s approval of projects under another scheme.
NOVEMBER 12, 2020: The NSW upper house votes to refer Berejiklian to the corruption watchdog for failing to report her relationship with Maguire.
DECEMBER 3, 2020: It is reported that Berejiklian oversaw a fund that set aside $5.5 million for a project championed by Maguire and that he allegedly later tried to profit from.
DECEMBER 28, 2020: Maguire referred to the ICAC by One Nation leader Mark Latham for not getting approval to travel from Berejiklian while he was in a secret relationship with her.
MARCH 2, 2021: The ICAC releases a statement confirming Operation Keppel, which is investigating Maguire, is ongoing.
MARCH 4, 2021: The Premier denies any wrongdoing over a meeting she held with her then lover Maguire about a highway that was more than 100 kilometres from his electorate but ran alongside an investment property he had just purchased.
MARCH 22, 2021: The ICAC refers Maguire to the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions for possible charges following final report on an inquiry into the conduct of councillors and staff at a council in Sydney’s west between 2014 and 2016.
JUNE 19, 2021: Berejiklian is dating high-profile barrister Arthur Moses, SC, the lawyer who represented her at a corruption hearing into Maguire.
OCTOBER 1, 2021: The ICAC announces an inquiry into the relationship, triggering the resignation of Berejiklian as Premier and an MP.
 

And there you have it, complete ignorance regarding persecution of whistleblowers and an idle defence of the indefensible, and they say that our hole in the bucket man has lost 'is touch! Never! Why he's an Arffer man, through and through ...

 

 

Indeed, indeed, but meanwhile the pond has an interesting little property speculation going, dear Henry. dear Henry, and the ear of a few state politicians. 

 Would you like to get in on the game? They've abolished ICAC, and we've not got much to fear from the plods! How about it? After all, dollops of sanctimonious righteous bullshit must mean you're ready to do an Arffer style deal about a nice little used unit, with barely a hundred clicks on the wound back clock ...

Thank the long absent lord there's no need to hold politicians to account (no, the pond won't go into that sordid business whereby a donation to a certain NSW political party helped get a street reservation changed, to the immense benefit of the people living on the street under the cloud of an impending freeway. The pond knows nothing about corruption, it just has a sweet deal going, suitable for Arffers and Henrys everywhere).

And so to end it all for the day with an infallible Pope, who just happens to be aware, in his infallible way, of that other matter touched on by the pond ...

 

 

In which the pond has a light Thursday relaxing with the defeatist bromancer and the meretricious Merritt ...

 

 

 

The pond now looks forward to Thursday, because, having withdrawn its ambassador over the matter of petulant Peta, the burden of reptiles to be considered has considerably lightened ... but all that said, there was a powerful temptation in this post-ironic, post-modern juxtaposition ... 

 

 

Where have all the conviction politicians gone? 

Apparently off to Taiwan to defeat the Chinese ...  though when the Graudian wrote it up yesterday, it sounded not so much like a wandering conviction politician as a wandering, pointless piece of distilled, meaningless irrelevance...

Abbott was prime minister from 2013 to 2015. He left parliament in 2019 and was named an unpaid adviser to the British government’s Board of Trade in 2020. He travelled to India in early August as a special envoy for the Australian government to push for closer trade links.
Since last year, Abbott has been listed on the Australian government’s foreign influence register for his adviser role, which is described as being “to advocate for free and fair trade especially trade with the UK and its allies”.

If only the pond could summon up a fig leaf of giving a flying fuck, and scribble "poor old irrelevant onion muncher" ... and if that's the Taiwanese best hope in their fight with dictator Xi, the dear long absent lord help them ...

Never mind, the pond is always about entertainment, and so it was vastly relieved to look at the  lizard Oz's tree killer edition front page this day ...

Comrade Dan possibly in trouble? Why the reptiles would be all over it ...

What's that you say?

 

 

And Dennis """ Cowdroy was scribbling that the very same day that the reptiles had the chance to tear into comrade Dan.

Oh it's a terrible worry and a real nuisance. The desire to persecute comrade Dan is unrelenting among the reptiles, and yet how they fear and hate integrity agencies ...

How they yearn for comrade Dan to go down, and yet how they yearn even more for the cute puppy celebrated by Rowe, with more Rowe celebrations here ...

 

 

Not to worry, the pond went to the top of the early morning digital fish and chips wrapping in search of entertainment, and sure enough, there was Facebook again, and Comrade Dan front and centre, but there was also the bromancer, and the pond knew that it could relax ...

 

Look, it's not much, the pond has read it all before, the bromancer loves to repeat himself, but so does the pond, and it does so enjoy the bromancer's ongoing subs nightmare ...

 

 

 

Ten years in the making!? How the wretched remnants of the lizard Oz's graphics department loves to taunt and tease the bromancer, and occasionally reduce him to tears ...

 

 

 

So that's it, then. The bromancer has been yearning for quite some time for world war III to start, preferably by Xmas, but now he's run up the white flag and surrendered ...

The reptiles tried to console him by inserting a click bait video showing four whole subs in the water ...

 

 

So much for the Anzac spirit, so much for stout-hearted dinkum Australians emulating their chocolate soldier ancestors on the Kokoda trail, or even adopting the guerilla tactics of the Vietnamese to defeat a sophisticated air force dropping more bombs and chemicals on a small country than was ever conceived of in the second world war ... (why, they even have a wiki listing the bombs, together with Curtis LeMay's proud boast of bombing them back into the stone age ...)

But nope the bromancer has thrown the towel into the ring, and indulged in bourgeois defeatism ... or even worse, has turned to the F-35, with the pond standing by to link him to the NY Times' 2019 Inside America's Dysfuncitonal Trillion-Dollar Fighter Jet Program, or perhaps the 2021 The US Air Force Quietly Admits the F-35 Is A Failure, or even an ancient piece in The Conversation.

 

Brazil? Oh it's too cruel, and worst of all, the bromancer has no one to take aim at, other than the ruling coalition ... or perhaps the deviant Americans, and jolly Joe ...

There you go, jolly Joe was extraordinarily naive, unlike the cunning coalition, which acted as if they thought the French would just quietly roll over and accept the done deal, realising that the deal would take a further 18 months to be studied, and then decades to produce anything, while the bromancer's hair went completely grey, at least the bits he hadn't torn out ...

Never mind, the bromancer is standing by, ready to enlist for duty, or at least to enlist younger bromancers ...

 

Ah well, that's it then, game over, done and dusted, the war lost even before the reptiles could celebrate the beginning of the war ... well played reptiles ... but how lucky are the Taiwanese, with the onion muncher jetting in to save the day ...

What else? Well apart from not having any crispy bacon thanks to Brexit and the impending war, it's a light day below the fold.

Of course there's some great news about coal, because climate science? Relax, it's just a hoax, and those Nobel prizes a shameful disgrace best not mentioned by the lizard Oz, and perfidious dictator Xi has finally had to acknowledge he needs pure, dinkum clean Oz coal ...

Sure, it might help completely fuck the planet, but isn't that a fair price to pay to bring the dictator to his coal-loving senses?

 

Apart from coal, glorious coal, the pond must confess to complete delight at that meretricious Merrit heading, "Cash must invoke Ruddock spirit" ...

The pond really had little interest in the matter, but anyone evoking the Ruddock spirit surely deserves a mention ...

Call the pond silly, but what happened to the reptile fear and loathing of social media? 

If you can't be bothered paying to monitor your Facebook, Twitter pages, etc, why have them at all? Then you won't have to worry about defamation actions for comments published under your brand, and you'll have taught Facebook, Twitter et al, a lesson ...

Silly pond, it's a bit like masks and vaccines and all that jazz at Faux Noise. The after dark loon reptiles might preach fear and loathing, while inside the business a stern management maintains a strict anti-Covid regime, and so it is with Facebook. 

Oh the reptiles rabbit on about how it's an unwieldy monolith, but they know how to bend the supplicant knee, and stay in the social media game, only to turn around and demand that the tinkling Cash legislate to save them from possible cash losses ...

But in the next gobbet, the reptiles did give the pond an unholy fright ...

Eeek, Miranda the Devine.

Dear sweet long absent lord, it's Miranda the Devine, the pond had completely forgotten about her, but there she is, as bold as brass in a reptile click bait video ... and she's rabbiting on about how frightening it is that media companies are liable for online comments.

But of course they are when it comes to the comments they publish in relation to their articles, and by simple extension, to comments on reptile accounts on Facebook, Twitter etc ...

It's not frightening, so much as cheapskate and half-arsed if it were to be otherwise.

You can't just open up a page or an account and then pretend you have nothing to do with it, while plastering your brand all over it and using it to join the Zuck in fucking things up and cranking the anger and the hate up to eleven ...

The pond can't count the number of times it has read the reptiles carrying on about how out of control the media giants are, and the pond took it to heart and swore off Facebook for life ...but when asked to assert control over their own accounts, take responsibility for the contents, suddenly the reptiles want to roll over and play dead ... and pretend that it's all Facebook's fault.

It's classic reptiles both ways syndrome, carrying on because they can't be like YouTube, a wild west of yahoos insulting whom they please and then pleading the first amendment ....

Come on reptiles, come on, don't try to cash in with Cash, get off social media, or if you think it's part of your completely hypocritical business model, disable comments, or if you must have comments, moderate them ...

How hard is that? No, don't bother answering, the pond already knows the answer ...

 

Um actually, if you open a comments section on social media, and you refuse to moderate the comments because it's too expensive or you're feeling too lazy, you are by definition intending to let anything go, and keep the full to overflowing intertubes as a jungle, and if you get collared, tough shit ...

Well, it was a light day, and after that most excellent coal news, there's just time for an invaluable Wilcox coal lesson ...