In which our Henry goes biblical, the onion muncher celebrates with autocrats, and the chairman has problem ...

 

The sheer, abject pointlessness of being a ranting, raving reptile came home to the pond yet again with this story ... (L'Age)

The pond can't begin to count the number of times that it read a ranting, raving reptile piece about dictator Dan, and for what? 

To what avail? (as the pond once heard on American radio while doing a tour).

And yet on and on they blather, with the meretricious Merritt the latest to indulge in black bashing, and so copping a pond ban ...

The only affront to democracy here is the meretricious Merritt and the never-ending, unendurable reptile crusading ... what with News Corp as fine an example of foreign-owned intervention in Australia's domestic politics as could be put on daily parade ... and with an ample serve of democratic deficit ...

Meanwhile, this being Friday, our Henry was full of righteous indignation, and to vent his spleen, had to head back to the Gough days ... as if that was somehow the way to defend the liar from the Shire for his multitude of sins and lies ...

Oh FFS, still carrying on about Gough? How will that redeem the behaviour of the rogue liar from the Shire? Why bother to relitigate that ancient affair? Wouldn't our hole in the bucket man be better off back with Thucydides? 

No, still he persists ...

Um, perhaps the latter-day leftist and socialist, then head prefect, thought that his own scandalous behaviour at the time, not to mention that of his perpetually drunk GG, might suggest that some matters be left under the rug, so that he could get on with being one of the most dismal and turgid PM's ever to hold the office?

Never mind, the pond doesn't have much interest in relitigating the past, and the entire point of Henry's outrage soon becomes clear ...

Oh come now, internet lynch mobs? What about Faux Noise and News Corp lynch mobs, doing a decent day's lynching each day?

Say what? Dictator Dan?

Oh right, so perhaps a last squeak from the hole in the bucket man, and whaddya know, instead of ancient Greek or Roman, he goes righteous biblical apocalyptical ... and we know where that ends ...

Yep, deviant hypocrisy, so naturally the hole in the bucket man must drive the point home ...

A righteous wrath?

More like an interminable bout of defending the indefensible.

Biblical tub-thumping, and rampant, devious hypocrisy was a big part of the problem ... the problem of a devious, secretive, furtive, self-aggrandising, narcissist and refusing to hold the hose incompetent ... here, have an immortal Rowe to celebrate ...

What else? Well another supremely irrelevant ancient warrior was also out and about, and naturally was given a run by the reptiles, but only at the very end did it pay off for the pond ...

The pond should have mentioned that it was the onion muncher in tub-thumping, war mongering mood, doing his leather armchair, dry sherry in hand, thing, but be honest, if the pond had mentioned that upfront, would you have bothered with the gobbet, or would you have sensibly turned to getting on with life and other matters?

Now all the pond can offer is a pay-off at the very end ... but it is a doozy ...

The pond was reminded of the bromancer in his hey-day, yet the bromancer has gone surprisingly quiet about the war with China by Xmas ... not so his bromanced best buddy, but wait, we will get to that pay-off ...

That reference to Edmund Burke is particularly rich as we finally get to that payoff ...

Budapest? Hungary? Really? Fellow-travelling as a lickspittle lackey to an autocrat? 

Well it is the onion muncher way, but still be careful where you speak, and the awesome comedy of righteous stupidity and hypocrisy as ...The EU Watches as Hungary Kills Democracy (Atlantic, not so long ago)

The coronavirus has proved a great boon to the world’s authoritarians. From the imposition of border closures to the utilization of mass digital surveillance, moves that may have once been classed as dangerous expansions of state power are now being lauded as necessary steps in the global effort to curb a pandemic. Extraordinary times, it has been collectively agreed, call for extraordinary measures.

But there is a line between using emergency powers and outright authoritarianism—one that Hungary has undoubtedly crossed. With this week’s passage of a law effectively removing any oversight and silencing any criticism of the Hungarian government, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán can now rule by decree for an indefinite period of time. That such an erosion of democracy could happen openly in the heart of Europe has caused an uproar, with many questioning what, if anything, the European Union can do to stop one of its own from undermining the very values that underpin the bloc.

So far, the answer has been, well, nothing. For while the EU has long been regarded (particularly by its detractors) as an entity that has become all too powerful—able to set rules that national parliaments must accept, implementing bloc-wide standards that must be adhered to—this pandemic is proving the exact opposite: that, in the face of a global crisis in which nation-states are leading the response, a multinational force such as the EU is largely powerless. As norms have been overturned to contain the coronavirus, the EU, which is built on, and gains strength from, promoting and upholding a rules-based order, has demonstrated itself incapable of keeping up.

Hungary was hardly a beacon of democracy before this pandemic started. Since resuming the premiership a decade ago (his first stint was from 1998 to 2002), Orbán has overseen the steady dismantling of the country’s democratic institutions, eroding its press freedoms, undermining its education system, and limiting the power of its judiciary. As an open advocate of “illiberal democracy”—his country is the first and only EU member state to be considered just “partly free” by the think tank Freedom House—Orbán has never tried to sugarcoat his autocratic aims, and has justified them by invoking national sovereignty and national security.

And so on ... here, have an infallible Pope to celebrate the onion muncher and freedumb to criticise ...

And so to a bonus. The pond wouldn't normally bother with the WSJ ... even though its paywall means nothing to the pond, the pond never bothers to go there, but when one of its reptiles strays into the lizard Oz to remind the pond that they're kissing cousins, why not have a little fun?

Why is this vastly amusing for the pond, and perhaps its American correspondent? Take it away Alex Barker at the FT with Rupert Murdoch's tricky dilemma over Trump ... (in full here, possible paywall)

Meanwhile, poor old Bill at the WSJ seems entirely unaware of chairman Rupert's Faux Noise dilemma, righteously railing at the GOP, without asking the question, where's Hannity and Laura and Tuckyo and the like - all the parrots in the birdcage singing the same song - when they're needed?

Still, it's not just Mr Joyce who can't break with the mango Mussolini. Where's Faux Noise when it's needed?

There was a little sting in the tail at the end of that Alex Barker piece in the FT ...

More worrying for Murdoch long term is the way Trump has divided his audience. Since 2020, “trust” in Fox News among right-leaning voters has dropped from 73 per cent to 56 per cent, according to surveys by the Reuters Institute at Oxford university.

This is alarming for a Murdoch media machine that prizes one mantra above all: give people what they want. Can Murdoch deliver in 2024? Fox News might find a saviour from the Trump choice in the Florida governor Ron DeSantis, or it might just hedge its bets and bank on cosying up to the former president if required. But this election, the dilemmas will be sharper, and the stakes higher — even for Rupert Murdoch.

Well, yes ... we all know the reason for the WSJ navel-gazing and fluff-gathering and heartburn. 

Suddenly they're in the company of a loser, suddenly they're on the wrong horse ... so does Faux Noise stay on the wrong horse, or do they somehow manage a massive U-turn?

Here, have a cartoon to celebrate ...

Did someone just mention mention Kari Lake?

And so to a final gobbet of WSJ wailing ... which naturally contains fulsome praise for the mighty deeds of the Donald and his wondrous policies ... (please, no arguments about the use of 'fulsome', in the land of the pond, Humpty Dumpty's attitude to words prevails) ... but best of all begins with a mournful snap of a loser ...

Yeah, nah, genuine accomplishments? Pull the other WSJ leg ... or better still, tell it to Faux Noise, put in a call to Hannity, see how it goes ... 

Can he turn on a dime, and forsake his orange Jeebus? Perhaps, but you'll need a lot more than 30 pieces of silver for him to wear that overcooked egg on his face... and we all know how tight the chairman is with his silver ...

Here, have a few more cartoons to celebrate and to close the day's proceedings ...

German speakers, or perhaps Bart Simpson devotees, will realise he's only saying The, constitution, the!

In which the pond maintains its petulant Peta ban, leaving only the bromancer and a little Killer entertainment ...

 

Given the recent fuss about microphones, the pond decided to do a little explore, and sure enough the two Musks of their day - Edison and Bell - always with a sharp eye for ripping others off and claiming the credit - still remain household names, at least in households not dedicated to bigotry and ignorance - while the man who filed the patent, Emile Berliner, remains largely unheralded, or worse, confused with Adolf.

Even more ironic, Berliner was an agnostic Jew ...

The pond did appreciate an attempt to give James West the credit for inventing a particular form of much used microphone, but the Jews have it ...

What else? Well it wasn't astonishing that Warnock won, it was astonishing that the state of Georgia came within a bee's whisker of having 50% of the state vote for a spectacular maroon of the first water.

What's that you say? Tamworth regularly supplies the vote that sees Barners score a seat in parliament, so perhaps the pond shouldn't be so righteous ...

Fair cop, and no need to mention the member for the Philippines or the rest of the loons and of course all this is a filibuster, as the pond must begin to explain why it can't be fucked covering the reptiles this day.

For a start, petulant Peta indulging in the now regular reptile sport of black bashing and so is right out ...

How tiresome and tedious they are.

It's the reptile way isn't it, to run the debate off the rails and then whine and moan at how the debate has gone off the rails ... get 'em coming and going, and that's how you can briefly fuck a country by telling an onion muncher what to do ...

The comments section was equally unappetising, a bucket of onions ...

The pond has never been able to develop a taste for that rat from the deep north ranks, the minor Milner, and where were all the reptiles to shed a tear and cry alarums at the latest reptile EXCLUSIVE?

Not dear, sweet, innocent, pure, dinkum, clean Oz coal? Where's Lloydie of the Amazon when he's needed? Guess it's back to nuking the country ... and then the planet.

Just as the pond was contemplating declaring an early start to the holydays, the bromancer turned up, to turn his gimlet eye on Georgia ... and there only being werewolves and vampires in the vicinity ...

... perforce the pond had to give the bromancer a run.

On the upside, it was short, though the usual bromancer humbug pervaded proceedings ...

Right at the end, the bromancer lets out a cry of pain, and spoiler alert, the pond will reproduce it here.

"Many accusations made against Trump are not true, or greatly exaggerated."

They can't resist, can they, still feeding the chooks the line of persecution and paranoia ... and yet ...

Okay, okay, the pond is feeling a little light-headed, and the bromancer does get around to recognising that Faux Noise and the Murdochians, have done their level best to encourage a disaster, and now it's a bit tricky walking it back ...

Finally, his only real crime, he's a loser? What about all the other crimes? He could have burned the constitution on fifth avenue if only he hadn't been a loser?

Oh come now, the pond can hear the cries, there's nothing under the reptile piano lid, as the immortal Rowe demonstrates...

... except perhaps a festering, stinking swamp full of mugwumps ... (Republicans or Burroughs' kind, as you like).

And so to the bonus, and very reluctantly, the pond turned to the Killer ...

The pond finds the subject of Hunter Biden's cock a trifle weird, all the more so when the pond's partner began to speculate if it was of John Holmes' proportions ... 

You can see that 12" wonder on parade in the Australian doc Not Quite Hollywood, but the pond recommends the fake one given to Mark Wahlberg in Boogie Nights ... (shame on Wahlberg for disavowing the only movie where he actually delivered a performance, but maybe he thought his real cock should have been shown).

Okay, the pond digresses yet again, though it's because of a deep shame. 

You see, the pond can't be bothered arguing with Killer - he's such a futtock of far right punditry - so it turned to the good folk at The Bulwark, and in particular Mona Charen's Why the Right needs Hunter Biden.

Being former GOP types, they know where the bodies are buried, and the pond decided to deploy its notorious William Burroughs' cut and paste method to tackle Killer's paranoid ranting (luckily no mention of masks to set him right off) ...

Miranda the Devine for a Pulitzer? The pond wants what the Killer is shooting straight into the eyeball, so it can give its own eyeball an undiluted kick ...

Now it's true that Charen's argument could be summarised in a cartoon ...

... but please maestro, the first sample in the pond's filched William Burroughs' method ...

The only question here is whether Killer qualifies as one of the usual suspects?

The pond suspects he's just a part of the chorus, singing along ... though he does seem to have learned his lines and any hint of being out of tune would be hidden by the size of the choir ... and so it's on to the next Killer gobbet ...

"It's almost as if ..."

That's as in, "it's almost as if a fuckwit of the Killer kind was attempting to stoke paranoia and idle speculation" ... and putting his thumb up his arse ...

Meanwhile, what happens when you take your eye of the game, and you get a pick or a fumble? 

Sorry, sorry, the pond was supposed to have left the bromancer behind and be doing its patented Burroughs' method, so here's another slice of Mona ... with the reptiles scoring a mention ...

And so on, and that sets the scene nicely for the final Killer gobbet, and how sweet it is not to argue, but to just provide a link to that Cathy Young Bulwark note, which you can find here down the page under the header About that Twitter "bombshell" ...

On with Killer imagining he's a bombshell, though he's sounding more like a dud rocket in an Oscar Wilde fairy story ...

Enjoy the Twitter files while you can? What a goose he is, and a corn-fed one at that, though turning him into a pâté would forever ruin the notion that it's a luxury item ...

And now for the pond to offer, in its lazy way, a final gobbet from Mona, because dammit, she deserves the final word after that Killer stew of nonsense ...

The Killer as Lady Macbeth? 

Well if Rudi can dress up in drag, and the Oathkeepers and the mango Mussolini still cheer him on ...

... then surely the Killer could take a shot at it ...

Out, damned spot! out, I say!--One: two: why,
then, 'tis time to do't.--Hell is murky!--Fie, my
lord, fie! a scribbler, and afeard? What need we
fear who knows it, when none can call our Faux Noise power to
account?--Yet who would have thought the old man
to have had so much blood in him.
The thane of Murdoch had a Killer wife: where is she now?--
What, will these hands ne'er be clean?--No more o'
that, my lord, no more o' that: you mar all with
this starting.
Here's the smell of the blood still: all the
perfumes of the lizard Oz, the Times and the WSJ will not sweeten this little
hand. Oh, oh, oh!
Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so
pale.--I tell you yet again, Herschel's buried; he
cannot come out on's grave... unless mayhap he really is a vampire ...

And after all that nonsense, how pleasing to end on a palate-cleansing infallible Pope, and be reminded of domestic games afoot ...

In which the pond begins downsizing for the holyday season, with only nattering "Ned" making the cut thanks to a fine display of Henny Pennyisms ...

 

Today seemed to be as good a day as any to begin winding back on the reptiles in preparation for the holyday season ...

The comments section featured a bashing of mad mullahs - no interest there, as the pond has long railed against theocratic states of the Iranian and Israeli kind, not to mention Hindu fundamentalists and white Xian nationalism - and look, there was a Labor minister out, but not about, apparently unaware he was pandering to a paywall, and that a vast number of voters would never get to see his words ...

And there was the RBA, and those who strangely believed its predictions, and elsewhere Dame Slap was back to black bashing and other matters ...

Still as loathsome as ever ... and just that line "nothing warrants the ripping down of opponents to try to win people over to their side" reminded the pond that Dame Slap has not a shred of irony, self-awareness, or sensa huma in her body, or what passes for a mind, because there's never been a better flesh ripper, with the possible exception of the loathsome Miranda the Devine, thankfully cavorting in the United States ...though the pond was reminded of a Wilcox cartoon ...

So the pond banned Dame Slap, enough already with the constant black bashing ...

And at the top of the page? Apparently the reptiles are unaware that their readership is a bunch of young earthers, and Xian fundamentalists, and creationists ... because they featured errant science alongside "Ned's" natter ...

Sure Killer was on the subs case, and the reptiles were talking up Ron DeSanctimonious, but that talk of a 100 million year old fossils would either lose the reptiles a lot of their creationist readers or lead to jokes about the fossilisation of "Ned" ...

To be fair, ancient fossil "Ned" was in Henny Penny, Chicken Little mode, and what a right royal flapping there was, loaded up with tiresome click bait videos which the pond either neutralised or deleted ...

Talk about a carry-on and a flapdoodle and blather about grim reality ... and it's been so long since the pond has celebrated "Ned" in full flap ...

Ancient foxing marks and a reminder of how fossilisation works ... and it's back to Hen Pen in a state of high alarm, with vulgar youff and bloody womyn and people getting too uppity, no thanks to some idle book larnin' and all that falutin' edocation nonsense at the root of the problem...

And yet still the liar from the Shire sits in parliament like that raven above the door, offering pathetic and flimsy excuses ... while that plague that isn't a plague (hat tip to Killer) is still scoring hits ...

The great thing about having only one reptile clucking about madly is that the pond can throw in a current infallible Pope just for the heck of it ... before getting back to "Ned" in mild hysteria mode ...

Say what? What happened to all the reptile blather about dictator Dan? Victoria apart? How dare they prefer him to the "not my job to hold a hose" man?

Labor is close to winning as many seats in the Victorian lower house as it did in the 2018 "Danslide" election, with the count in close seats expected to be finalised by the end of Wednesday. (Cardigan wearers)

Around this time the pond felt like bursting into extended song ... perhaps the ballad of an aged nattering man ...

You walk into the room with your pencil in your hand

You see somebody naked and you say, "Who is that man?"

You try so hard but you don't understand

Just what you will say when you get home

Because something is happening here but you don't know what it is

Do you, Mr. "Ned"?

You raise up your head and you ask, "Is this where it is?"

And somebody points to you and says, "It's his"

And you say, "What's mine?" and somebody else says, "Well, what is?"

And you say, "Oh my God, am I here all alone?"

But something is happening and you don't know what it is

Do you, Mr. "Ned"?

You hand in your ticket and you go watch the geek

Who immediately walks up to you when he hears you speak

And says, "How does it feel to be such a freak?"

And you say, "Impossible!" as he hands you a bone

And something is happening here but you don't know what it is

Do you, Mr. "Ned"?

You have many contacts among the lumberjacks

To get you facts when someone attacks your imagination

But nobody has any respect, anyway they already expect you to all give a check

To tax-deductible charity organizations

Ah, you've been with the professors and they've all liked your looks

With great lawyers you have discussed lepers and crooks

You've been through all of F. Scott Fitzgerald's books

You're very well-read, it's well-known

But something is happening here and you don't know what it is

Do you, Mr. "Ned"?

Well, the sword swallower, he comes up to you and then he kneels

He crosses himself and then he clicks his high heels

And without further notice, he asks you how it feels

And he says, "Here is your throat back, thanks for the loan"

And you know something is happening but you don't know what it is

Do you, Mr. "Ned"?

Now, you see this one-eyed midget shouting the word "Now"

And you say, "For what reason?" and he says, "How"

And you say, "What does this mean?" and he screams back, "You're a cow!

Give me some milk or else go home"

And you know something's happening but you don't know what it is

Do you, Mr. "Ned"?

Well, you walk into the room like a camel, and then you frown

You put your eyes in your pocket and your nose on the ground

There ought to be a law against you comin' around

You should be made to wear earphones

'Cause something is happening and you don't know what it is

Do you, Mr. "Ned"?

By golly, it's been such a long time since the pond sang that song, but what's the odds it passed the ancient "Ned" by when it was fresh and young so long ago?

And with that epic filibuster, the pond has made it to the last screeching, yowling, cackling bit of "Ned" carry-on ... as "Ned" discovers that some people actually care about the planet being fucked, never an issue in reptile la la land, what with their grand array of denialists, including but not limited to Lloydie of the Amazon, the Bjorn-again one, the dog botherer, petulant Peta, Dame Groan, Dame Slap ... the list goes on and on and on ...

So to leave"Ned" behind, to continue to gaze at his navel and keep up the fluff-gathering, and nary a thought that what ails the coalition is precisely what ails News Corp and its pampered pets, and Sky News after to dark, and all that jazz, and off to the immortal Rowe of the day ... to celebrate the gift-giving RBA ...

The pond can hear some muttering that the pond is short-weight, but anyone still in need of reading could head off to Marina Hyde for Dominic Raab may have the most terrible record in government, but at least it’s perfectly formatted ... fun of a very English kind is guaranteed ...

Or there's always why the Right is compelled by Hunter Biden's cock, or in a more genteel way,  Why the Right needs Hunter Biden,  or perhaps there's still a few who may be entranced by the sight of an emperor who might finally be on the way out ... though that's been said before, and once was said about Adolf, and he hung around for an unseemly amount of time, until 1945 at last arrived...

Actually the pond only ran with Charlie - follow the link for the hot links - as an excuse to have a cartoon festival, which is always better than a ransacking of raptured reptiles ...