Where to start? Where to start?

(Above: fools or frauds? Or a bit of both?)


Where to start? Where to start?

Well it seems like the reptiles at the lizard Oz have done a makeover while the pond's been junketing, the sneaky furtive mice sensing the cat's away (can a skulking reptile also be a furtive mouse? Why do you ask such a silly question?)

It seems that the rag has decided the gold bar fickle finger of fate - aka demanding money with menaces and false pretences as to the truth - should be a little more discreet.

But the raging barrage of red-coloured EXCLUSIVES still pepper the front digital page, no doubt before disappearing up some nearby fundament.

Oh and there was a burst of unseemly fury about PANPA daring to approve of The Age above the lizard Oz, when really any assault on the awards should have begun with the disgraceful decision to allow a rabid ideological feral rag to call itself the newspaper of the year ... last year ...

What can be said about Nick Leys' piece PANPA award sparks outrage and accusations of bias from rival editors that hasn't already been said?

Suck it up, cry baby lizards and spoilsports, bleating and sulking like sore losers at an Academy shindig.

Even better was the news that only an accounting trick had kept the rag and its colleagues from being part of a massive blow-out, as the full-year's financial results for News Corp sidled into the arena like a warthog (News Corp's hall of mirrors can't hide newspaper woes, may be paywall affected).

Suck it up lizards, it's sure to get worse, as astonished readers of Nick Leys' petulant princess piece of sullen perverse bellyaching decide to can such a narcissist rag ...

It turns out that nothing has actually changed, at least if Media Watch is anything to go by.

Last night's piece, A real scoop or just hot air?, watched with bleary-eyed incredulity through jetlag, was a lovely smack down, and by the end of it, the pond was left wondering how Graham Lloyd - allegedly the lizard Oz's environment editor - sleeps at night with himself.

What does he think when he looks at himself in the mirror in the morning? Does he see a dunce, or a fellow traveller seeking out anything eggbeater to hand to serve his master's voice? There can't be too many other options ...

And this was rapidly followed by news that the Daily Terror was in the middle of one of its feral campaigns, as detailed in Bike Bashing at the Daily Telegraph.

Having just been in two cities - Amsterdam and Paris - where bike riding is both pleasurable and practical, you have to wonder why the Daily Terror wants to turn Sydney into the nightmare on the roads that torture Los Angeles. What's in it for them?

Even more peculiar, don't they realise that Dear Leader loves to cycle, and is, without a shadow of a doubt, a lycra-clad lout?

There can be only one diagnosis, and the pond offers it for free - the Terror is in the grip of a deep and deadly schizophrenia.

What else? Well there was some good news - yes only Andrew Bolt can do it for the pond - with the news the ratings for The Bolt Report have slipped under the 100k mark, with 96,000 and 94,000 for its September 23rd outings. (here)

It seems that the Bolter was shifted to the 11.30 am slot, but still had less appeal than Video Hits running highlights of the disco era (ah, for an opera buff to be done over by Xanadu, what joy, what joy).

Or as Glenn Dyer put it here, may be paywall affected:

The partisanship of Bolt and people like Piers Akerman who was on Insiders yesterday morning aren’t liked by viewers who have moved on from the election campaign and the Rudd-Gillard years. Bolt and Akerman and their fellow travelers are fighting yesterday’s battles, like the two old codgers on The Muppet Show.

Akker Dakker and the Bolter as muppets?

Oh so unkind, kind sir, so unkind ... but you do make a fair point, because now that Dear Leader Abbott is installed, all that's left for the Bolter is the simpering, fawning air of a lickspittle doe-eyed deer ...

What's he do do? Criticise Dear Leader for being a soft leftie?

Even better - yes it's hard to imagine but the image of a bloated Akker Dakker making a fool of himself yet again is even better than the petulant reptiles at the Oz or the fawn-like Bolter - is the way that the ABC has been compelled to distance itself from its guest commentator.

You can, thanks to the wonders of the slow-intertubes - make it slower, big Mal, make it even slower, use copper, Queen Victoria would approve -  catch up with the circus here, though any stray and wiser reader might have just been content with the ABC having to acknowledge the folly of showcasing tired ideological hacks and fetid Murdoch warriors:

Misinformed? That's a quaint word for a rabid zealot ...

Now if the pond were to say it was pleased to return from bicycling in Amsterdam and doing a tour of the galleries of Paris, it would be a bald-and-bare-faced lie, up there with the Murdochians and their Janus-like approach to the truth, but it has to be acknowledged there are some compensations at returning to see such pleasant scenes ...

As for the rest, everything as it was. Peter "send in the hounds" Reith continues his permanent residency at the ABC, perhaps thereby showing how privatising the place and making it a division of the IPA might well be an excellent policy initiative in the next year or so.

It takes an enormous gall to title a piece The return of stable government without the surprises, but then this is a man who thinks sending in the hounds is a way to produce industrial harmony.

Naturally stable government includes furtive secrecy on the matter of boats - conceal news of their arrival and hey presto they don't arrive. Do they really think if they turn back a boat, and it sinks and people drown that  no one will ever know?

But it turns out this also includes a novel approach to science.

Abolish any news of climate change, and hey presto it's not happening (and by the way have you finally come to understand that copper is all the working class dregs need for their connectivity?)

And as usual, there's prattling Polonius, still rolling out his tedious and banal insights, and calling into question with every word the singular and peculiar slogan of the Fairfaxians to be always proud of their independence ... a quaint way of putting their ongoing publicity for and promotion of the Sydney Institute and its guru ...

Happily the pond skipped Blame game should start with party names because the pond lost a good bottle of red wine betting that prattling Polonius wouldn't be frothing and foaming about Clive Palmer and the AEC and the Liberal Democrats, but instead would be shocked and outraged at David Marr's takedown of the Pellists (you can sample it at The Monthly here). Maybe next week, or maybe Pellism is a losing cause ...

More to the point, as a way of confirming that it's business at usual at Fairfax, it seems that their expert troller at large, Paul Sheehan, has been trolling away in fine style.

How can you tell he's a troll? Well he boasts of the hits arising from his trolling in Fakes, trolls and counterfeit politics:

Last Monday's column, ''Welcome to the Abbottoir'', about the fundamentalist subculture of Abbott-hating, generated more than 300,000 visitors on the Fairfax websites and more than 1000 comments, 300 of them deemed unpublishable. As I say, trolls don't do irony. 

Yep, Paul Sheehan doesn't do irony, though you'd think that his love of magic water might have led to a little self-awareness.

What's even more interesting, apart from the peacock-strutting and the boasting about the way his shit-stirring stirs up shit and resentment, is the way that Sheehan sees himself and Fairfax at war with the full to overflowing intertubes:

These were real numbers, generated by a real company, with people operating in the sunlight, in contrast to the counterfeit politics and counterfeit morality that inhabits great swathes of the internet.

This from a flim flam magic water man.

The irony is too delicious.

But it reminded the pond that the war just isn't with the reptiles at the lizard Oz, it includes the Fairfaxians, who routinely value shit-stirring trolling over substance.

How so? Well the flim flam magic water man had the cheek to scribble this:

In modern politics, fakery and insult are thus growing enormously via social media. For me, the biggest issue in our society is the environment and I believe we have underestimated the damage done to the soil and water during the past 200 years as Europeans tried to turn a highly complex ecosystem into a new Europe. But, instead of a genuine, grassroots, pragmatic, environment-centric environmental party, we have the Greens.

This from a man who wrote in praise of "Lord" Monckton, and took all Monckton and Bob Carter's and the other denialists' talking points seriously, while at the same time pretending an interest in the environment.

Yep, Paul Sheehan doesn't do irony.

But it should be noted that the Europe Sheehan routinely berates is changing rapidly, with wind farms in abundance, high speed rail long a banal reality, and electric fuelling stations all over the place in Paris - Libre comme l'air runs the slogan, which is more than can be said for Fairfax wanting people to pay for Sheehan's trolling.

More like merde agitation à un prix.

Never mind, as the pond was strolling through the Louvre with an independent air - as one does - an image caught the eye.

It seemed to be the perfect visual metaphor for the new Australia - xenophobic, isolated, parochial, and with remarkably little interest in the ways of the world, preferring a hunkered down fear and loathing approach to real engagement - and a perfect evocation of the way the new policies of Dear Leader would be applied:

Ouch.

Silly pond.

Of course the painting means something else entirely different and in any case it features two women, when it's well known you need only one woman in cabinet to do a hearty nipple pinch ...

Still while away, the pond did come up with a solution to certain fiscal woes.

Sale and leaseback.

Take all the works in the Louvre, and other European museums (what a fine looter Napoleon was), and don't forget ones held by the Papacy or the expert museum looters of Britain and the United States, and value them at a fair market price, and send the money off to Greece and Italy and Iran and such like places, and suddenly these poor countries would be rolling in cash. The Etruscans and the Carthaginians would also be in great shape.

So the Louvre could keep itself in the tourism game - with maybe a five per cent royalty for the leaseback - and all would be well.

Perhaps we start by helping the Egyptians. Who will start the bidding on the Seated Scribe?

At this point, technophobes might like to leave the room ...

(Above: at least the pond can be amused and superior about the Dutch convention centre's notion of 'The Beach')

At this point, technophobes, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and sundry other luddites might like to tiptoe out of the room for a while.

The thing that's most noticeable wandering around IBC this year is how stone cold fatherless dead 3D is in relation to commercial television and domestic viewing. It might continue to survive at the high end for Hollywood tent pole pictures, but the circus has moved on for the foreseeable future from a vision of a four-eyed lounge room, and the world looks completely different from the way it was a few years ago at NAB in Vegas.

Instead, as everyone predicted, the future is seen to be in 4K, whereby the quality of post-production online suites ends up on big screens in the home.

It'll be a few years yet before it rolls out, but already the gear is there for the complete supply chain - though if anyone attempts to sell you a 4K TV which isn't H.265 compliant - like the wretches at Sony, feel free to berate them up hill and down dale.

The thing about 4K screens is that they almost make 3D redundant, such is the clarity, the sense of depth and the vividness of colour, and they can be made big enough to dwarf Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451 nightmare of a wall filled with incessant teletube images.

No doubt many will mutter and wonder why people think they have to have a screen the size of a small multiplex, but then they once said that about the gigantor 23" TV screen.

The other thing is the amount of sheer grunt and data required for dealing with the 4K behemoth, though the codecs out and about already do a wondrous job of delivering a compressed but still startling image.

There are other interesting movements - ultra HD cameras are now so small they can be put on to the smallest of drones - and what was the odd sight of a bunch of foolish ideologically driven animal liberationists invading privacy could soon stand into a media free for all, unless politicians begin to get a clue. Perhaps what's needed are a few drones circling outside motel windows in Canberra as the pollies feel frisky ...

And there was of course an unholy number of people peddling optical fibre (along with satellite) as the only viable solution to the needs of 4K.

Which sadly brings us back to Australia, because it so happens that Mark Latham's essay on the Labor party for The Quarterly Essay this year, was lurking on a lounge chair.

It purports to be about future directions for the Labor party, and Latham spends much time on climate change, and education, and the way of dealing with markets, and the infamy of the authoritarian right.

But he barely mentions new technologies, their implications and their possibilities. There's the occasional acknowledgement of new information-rich people and their workplace mobility and differing expectations from smokestack workers, but so far as the intertubes goes, there's nothing. Nada. Zip. It's a bit like writing about future directions in the days of Gutenberg and failing to mention the printing press, and for all Latham's claims to offer new directions, it's a dismal, depressing effort.

Which naturally brings us to Malcolm Turnbull. The pond has started to think about Turnbull by using a favourite metaphor, the way silent movie directors and stars adapted to the talkies. In general, they didn't - whether it was D. W. Griffiths, or a nervous Charles Chaplain, or a hapless Buster Keaton, who made a string of silent masterpieces and then retired to a farm to drink himself to death.

The best of the silent era had so refined their understanding of the art of the silent form that they couldn't adjust to the new ways of doing things.

A stroll around IBC induces a kind of digital shock which would be most salutary for Turnbull. He couldn't go on about copper for a nanosecond, not when he had the 1,400 plus exhibitors pounding on his eyeballs with their future digital dreamings.

He is in fact old school intertubes, a kind of Buster Keaton - let's hope he doesn't in the end retire to a farm and drink his life away in guilt for pandering to the technophobe Abbott. His "solution", which is to deliver a cheap, half-arsed version, will in the end cost more, and contain many ambiguities - why for example would you disconnect the HCF cables which can already offer 100 down, for the sake of deformed copper in the ground which if replaced could perhaps offer 25 down?

It's humiliating, actually, for the pond to have to listen to Europeans scoff at Turnbull and copper. Oh sure you can find copper supplies at the IBC, but you can also find tape splicers for people still wanting to run their 35mm films into digital so they can build a library, and exploit the heck out of it ... digitally ... on their big new screens.

What's even more problematic is that you can roam around the 1,400 plus exhibitors and be hard pressed to find an Australian company. You could herd them into a corner of the Sony exhibition and take them out with a single shotgun blast.

Of course it's not just all about screens for entertainment - there's one exhibit detailing robot human interactions using 4K for surgery over 2,000 kms. And it's not just 4K. Dear old Japanese government broadcaster NHK who helped start the game with analogue HD were busy announcing their plans to shortly unveil an 8K system. Perhaps they should skip 32 and go straight to 64.

But where does this leave Australia, ground down by Murdoch, envying Apple, and wanting to herd the sheep into closed systems away from the anarchy of  super-fast inter tubes?

... In the hands of a pandering Turnbull, offering a little but not too much and certainly not enough.

This isn't just a reflection on where Turnbull's head space is at; it's a bipartisan attitude, as shown by Mark Latham's inability to see a future or imagine life in the cloud, preferring to conjure up apocalyptic visions of a world torn apart by climate change (while dissing the greenies for doing the same).

No doubt no one will much mind in the land of the lotus eaters, and now with copper-headTurnbull pandering to technophobe Abbott, safe in his own delusions about what he's offering by way of connectivity, travellers who head off to NAB or IBC can be assured of a gloomy time - confronted by all the digital technological wonders of the age, and not many geeks in view, and certainly not an Australian politician with even half a clue ...

But as a result, the pond is thinking of doing a joint venture with Malcolm Turnbull in the 4K area. Who knows, if you join in, it could turn out to be a very good investment for your great grandchildren, or with a bit of luck, perhaps by 2084 ...

(Below: as close to down under content as you get at IBC)

Gloating is unseemly but sometimes it just has to be done ...

(Above: doing the Facebook rounds but creating a profound need to include it on the pond as an item of record. Forwarded to the pond but kudos to the unknown artiste).

Notes from a land far away.

The pond understands that the land down under is in a state of national emergency, and that Tony Abbott has not announced a plan to produce a budget surplus in the first year of government.

Despite jolly Joe Hockey saying, this very year Anno Domini 2013:

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has backed Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey's claim that the Coalition would be on track to deliver a budget surplus in the first year of taking office. (here).

Lies and bullshit you might think, hot gospelling about pie in the sky by and by, and yet Abbott has the cheek to talk of keeping the voters' trust. If you told porkies to get to power, what odds you'll keep on telling them? So many porkies about so many national emergencies, it seems Australia is doomed.

As a result, the pond understands that backtracking on this 101 budgetary pledge will produce an imminent catastrophic national crisis and this grave awareness of an impending disaster that could result in imminent, or even immediate and forthwith, bankruptcy and penury.

Here in Amsterdam it's quite sunny, and thus far the dykes are holding.

But how long, if the coalition's direct action plan to control non-existent climate change undermines the dykes and fails to stop the boats? Or some such thing. If you read the double-Dutch Andrew Bolt, you'll understand.

Other news suggests that prices down under are spiralling out of control, what with the ongoing increases in the costs of petrol, electricity and other basic necessities (don't bother to check the actual prices, it's a rhetorical point, and all we want to feel is your fear and your panic).

The pond further understands that the minority government is completely stymied and stuffed by its lack of control in the Senate.

It seems that Australia is likely to endure a catastrophically unstable period of government.

This is what happens with all minority governments. Ruination and despair, and a good dose of eccentricity.

Of course over this way no one's sure whether Belgium actually has a government, though they seem to have a new king for the two nations ...

But back to the alarming news seeping through to the pond.

Once upon a time, it was behooven on the part of the commentariat to announce at least daily, a national crisis, a national disaster, a national catastrophe, and it seems only fair to continue this tradition proudly into the future.

From what little the pond hears in Europe - and it's truly amazing what little is to be heard in Europe about down under - Australia is comprehensively, catastrophically fucked.

What's even worse we understand that Tony Abbott's fitness regime might be suffering and the endorphins aren't kicked in as much as they used to.

He's being fucked while fucking the country.

But never mind, the pond is just dropping by to report that old familiar treats are still to hand in Amsterdam, and there we were thinking the Dutch were comprehensively, catastrophically fucked.

Who knew?

First up was a visit to the new bathtub, commonly known as the Stedelijk Museum.

It's in a state of chaos and crisis, what with the new director resigning already.

And then there was time spent at the newly refurbished and opened Rijksmuseum.

With the odd Vermeer and Rembrandt, and others from the Golden Age, along with plenty of insights into the Dutch penchant for colonial exploitation as a way of achieving a tidy lifestyle.

And you must take in the Concertgebouw.

Now the pond didn't take these snaps, but we just wanted to mention that we've had our usual feast at our favourite potato chip store, the Meals on Wheels hole in the wall of Amsterdam, and a must visit place for delusional tourists who think they're going native when actually all around are English yobbo tourists desperate to eat half-way decent chips. Who knew that David Cameron had fucked the chips of England? Along with everything else ...

Here's the link.

And while in Amsterdam the pond always has a little herring.

Raw. A bit like the raw Abbott prawns daily dished up down under.

Why it sounds calamitous, you poor dears. Here. have another haring.

Okay, the pond didn't take the picture, you can find it here, and you can also try Stubbe's haring.

Naturally the pond has been to both stalls. Just remember you must eat the onion and the pickle for the full, rich experience. It'll take your mind off the catastrophic, comprehensively fucked experience in Australia, routinely reported on the hour by the frenzied Murdoch press as disaster after disaster unfolds, even worse than the Gillard government...

What's that you say? No one can be fucked recalling the parliament until October or  November or whatever?

Does the pond care about your predicament?

Go eat a haring ... and don't forget to shove a pickle up your nose ... it's the Australian way ...

Sorry, gloating is unseemly, but sometimes it just has to be done.

What to do? What to do?

What to do? What to do?

The pond scoured the excellent First Dog for advice, and came up with this:

More First Dog here, but in the meantime, the pond has decided, if not to live overseas, then at least to head OS on a junket and a jaunt, scarper the joint, do a bunk, and leave the festering stewing country sticky in its new mess ...

Of course it's craven and cowardly. 

Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: ‘'fore God I am no coward; 
But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of gear, 
And half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow quick. 
We are six ships of the line; can we fight with fifty three?' 

Then spake Sir Richard Grenville: ‘I know you are no coward; 
You fly them for a moment to fight with them again. 
But I've ninety men and more that are lying sick ashore. 
I should count myself the coward if I left them, my Lord Howard, 
To those Inquisition Pellist dogs and the devildoms of Abbott's pain. (apologies to Lord Alfred Tennyson, the rest here)

But before going we have prepared a sacred oath:

In the old days, the Phantom was big in Tamworth ...

But you can't expect a sexist racist comic that began to run in the 1930s to have the right sort of relevant modern wording.

So the pond has a modest proposal to correct a few of the errors and right the gender imbalance.

The new sacred oath goes something like this:

I swear to devote my life to the embrace of all forms of piracy, greed and cruelty, including but not limited to purloining as much intellectual property from News Corp and Sydney Fairfax as is humanly possible, and never paying a cent for it, not a red cent or a nickel or dime or a ha'penny, and otherwise denigrating, downgrading, contributing and playing a humble part in the disintegration of these evil empires. 

My daughters and my daughters' daughters shall follow me. The pond swears this oath on the ashes of a Murdoch rag burned for the occasion, and pummelled into a heady broth of fillet of fenny snake, eye of newt, toe of frog, wool of bat, and tongue of dog, adder's fork and blind worm's string, lizard's leg and owlet's wing. (You know the rest but for heaven's sake don't forget the scale of dragon, and tooth of wolf, as you have to omit the liver of blaspheming Jew, nose of Turk and Tartar's lips). 

She was the second Dorothy Parker - never forget the first and the very best Dorothy Parker - and the eldest child - preferably female, but hey what the heck, any sex will do, let's stretch the gender boundaries - of each succeeding generation of Dorothy's family carried on! 

So with the curse and the oath in place, what to do?

Well we could celebrate other comic book heroes:

(Wonder Woman appearing in December 1941, click to enlarge)

With truly weird creation myths:

Sad to say, these days Wonder Woman is really just a chance for submissive ten year old boys to get their knickers in a knot, as they get excited about very skimpy fancy costumes and Amazons giving them a hard time (and nothing wrong with that) ...

Still, it's not a bad angle:

At last, in a world torn by the hatreds and wars of men, Murdochians and Sydney Fairfaxians, appears a woman to whom the problems and feats of men are mere child's play ...

Would it were so ...

Of course as well as the Murdochians and the Fairfaxians, the pond blames it all on Queensland and Queenslanders ...

… it is, after all, all their fault, the Brisbane Broncos, the Ruddster, the cane toads, blackbirding, too much sugar in the diet, Bundaberg Rum, the reef in peril, star fish, global warming, the swing to Tony Abbott, Clive Palmer,  the Titanic, Bob Katter, dinosaurs, large hats, pineapples, bananas, Campell Newman, Joh, the whole damn thing ... the list is enormous and endless ...

Is there any good news at all on the loon front? Well the rough Brough and Sophie "Nasty" Mirabella were given a fright, though perhaps not the fright they deserve, and the consternation of ace reporter Hedley Thomas, it seems his constant blather about Clive Palmer might have helped the PUP to get over the line, thereby ensuring the next three years will continue as a comedy.

And with any luck Kevin Rudd will do the honourable thing and POQ, but such is his narcissism and ego, this is no sure thing.

So the pond is packing up and fleeing the country. Like any coward, the pond knows how to get when the getting's good.

We might occasionally break our silence with travel advisories and unseemly gloating, but first of all, we're adopting the Paul Keating solution, and we're flying over Queensland and Darwin without pausing to look down, on our way to Paris

How does the pond feel about leaving everybody trapped in a brand new nightmare?

Pretty, pretty good.

Enjoy, and the pond promises to enjoy Europe on your behalf, and flying apartment blocks permitting - there's always the possibility of becoming an episode in Air Crash Investigations - the pond will be back in a couple of weeks …

Oh sure, it might get rough OS.

Obama and the French might bomb Syria, the Syrians might drop sarin gas into the Metro - with the pond's luck at the very moment we use our Paris Visite Pass to go to the Musée d'Orsay - the Israelis might bomb Syria, the Syrians might bomb Israel, and world war III might erupt, but hey look on the bright side, at least we won't be copping the first few weeks of the reign of the mad Monk ...

And then on return, there'll be work to be done, the same sort of work daily, routinely faced by Wonder Woman.

Just as she battled evil, so the pond will return to tend to the reptiles at the lizard Oz and the rest of Murdoch la la land, and their wretched, deviant Abbottian, reptilian spawn:

Time for cocktails but first check to see if the glass is connected to the full to overflowing intertubes ...

(Above: two from the NY Times cartoon selection here)

Mirror, mirror on the wall, what's the difference between the Russian FSB and China's MSS and the United States' NSA?

Why the NSA is the ugliest, and does it best of all ...

You see the others don't bother to yabber on about hypocrisy, they just do it. With the NSA you get hypocrisy along with the digital intrusions ...

Boom tish, or tish boom if you will, and before heading off to collect a patty cake from the school - probably gone by the time the pond numbers the hundredth box on the Senate form - the pond felt the need to contemplate the awesome news emerging from the United States.

No need to read the local rags - head off to The New York Times to read N.S.A. Is Able to Foil Basic Safeguards of Privacy on Web.

It's off the top of the digital page now but the pond fancied taking a souvenir:

The opening par's enough:

The National Security Agency is winning its long-running secret war on encryption, using supercomputers, technical trickery, court orders and behind-the-scenes persuasion to undermine the major tools protecting the privacy of everyday communications in the Internet age, according to newly disclosed documents.

It's also all through The Guardian, which has again shown how the lickspittle, Abbott-worshipping world of the Sydney Fairfaxians is just a provincial circus not worth a red cent.

The Guardian headed their piece Revealed: US and UK spy agencies unlock privacy and security on the internet. Ah yes, the Brits up there with the Yanks.

Again it's now off the top of the digital page, but again the pond took a digital souvenir:

Naturally the stout-hearted lads gave the Brits a place in their leading par. They can be as deviant and devious at spying on the citizenry as any damned Yankee:

US and British intelligence agencies have successfully cracked much of the online encryption relied upon by hundreds of millions of people to protect the privacy of their personal data, online transactions and emails, according to top-secret documents revealed by former contractor Edward Snowden.

And so the real - and for once genuinely Orwellian reason - for the pursuit and persecution of Snowden comes tumbling out into the world.

The extent of the lies, deception, corruption and tyranny alleged is right up there with the best the Chinese could imagine in their wildest dreams of citizen control.

This is going to run for a long time, and it's going to help destroy Obama's reputation, and the outrage is already palpable, from people much better placed than the pond to know, as you can read in Bruce Schneier's The US government has betrayed the internet. We need to take it back. 

The pond has a soft spot for Schneier because he's one of the few scribblers who knows a lot about what he scribbles about.

If Obama's not arranging to bomb or drone the shit out of people, then he's condoning the betrayal of their privacy, such that no one can be assured of the safety of anything they do on the intertubes.

Already the denials and the denialism has started, with the standard line about revealing the truth being a way to aid the enemy, or if you will, bureaucratic gobbledegook double speak, a way of "providing a roadmap to adversaries" - as you can read in NSA decryption revelations 'provide roadmap' to adversaries, US warns.

Pathetic.

It used to be a regular joke around the pond about Skynet - it still pops up every so often when the conversation turns to Alien and sci fi:

Following its initial attack, Skynet used its remaining resources to gather a slave labor force from surviving humans. These slaves constructed the first of its automated factories, which formed a basis for its agenda. Within decades, Skynet had established a global presence and used its mechanized units to track down, collect, and dispose of human survivors.

It turns out that the movie got its facts and its timeline wrong.

They had Skynet going active and sentient in August 1997.

Who'd have thought that all you needed to get things going was a Democrat President and a bunch of spooks? Because when you're a spook, spooking is what you do ... (no hammer and nail jokes please!)

Enjoy your patty cake while you vote, but make sure to check it for bugs ...

"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?... Has it ever occurred to your, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?... The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking-not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness."

And now in honour of the day, and the long night to follow, please allow the pond to endorse Guy Rundle's election-night drinking one (may be paywall affected).

It includes some obvious ones:

Every time Michael Kroger appears, have a Cocksucking Cowboy. Not sure what you drink, that’s just a comment on him.

But who can argue the truth of it, not that there's anything wrong with cocksucking cowboys, as Brokeback Mountain showed, and as you can sometimes find thereabouts up Tamworth way.

Rundle is equal opportunity:

Every time Graham Richardson appears to cheerfully trash the Labor Party on behalf of Murdoch, vomit in your mouth a little and swallow it back again — prediction, not instruction. 

Actually you can get started early on this part of the game by reading yesterday's piece by Gra Gra 'Swiss Bank accounts" Richardson for the reptiles in the lizard Oz, where his digital splash proposes that maybe after all, Labor would have been better off sticking with Julia Gillard.

Yes, he did, he really did. After months of denouncing her and white-anting her and pleading for the Ruddster to return.

But we'd rather link to a zombie takeover of the civilised world than link to Richo and give the lizards a hit.

Sorry, just swallowing a little bit.

Rundle has plenty more, and we've omitted his dashes and asterisks:

Desperate attempt at unconsciousness to deal with a decade of Tony Abbott — Clusterfuck clusterfuck clusterfuck. 

Appearance by Fiona Scott or Jackie Kelly — one Sex On the Beach. 

Tony Abbott claims victory, announces clerico-fascist agenda — one Blue Heaven. 

Kevin Rudd gives concession speech, goes 20 minutes too long, meanders hopelessly lost, there’s anxiety about whether intervention will be required, serves out on colleagues — one Red Sunset. 

And Rundle provides cocktail recipes too, and a last sign of hope:

Bob Ellis appearance —  Go To Bed.

Now all the pond needs is for someone, anyone to persuade Bob Ellis to make an appearance by 7pm. How about 6 pm?

And remember to check if your cocktails are bugged.

(Below: some XKCD jokes to help you enjoy your privacy and your cocktails. More XKCD here. The last one is titled "More Accurate" and you might like to dedicate it to Obama).

Another rat in the ranks ...

And now for a little nitpick.

Adam Turner raises the wrong question in Coalition filtering swindle? Abbott and Turnbull play us for fools. (these days the pond prefers to link to The Age)

It's a good and remorselessly logical piece about big Mal, the luddite Abbott, and the bizarre filter policy that was dumped and retracted quicker than you could say big Mal invented the intertubes in Australia ...

The pond could quote it verbatim and not have a quibble, and loves the link to Turnbull talking on JJJ, and the sounds of big Mal making a prime goose of himself.

Until we get to the end:

Liars or fools? You decide, Australia.

Wrong, Adam.

There is another answer to this trick question:

Liars and fools.

Or if you will:

Crooks and liars, rogues and thieves, charlatans and frauds, deviants and perverts, Maoists and David Cameronists.

Stop controlling our lives fuckwits, wrote one listener.

Welcome to Tony Abbott's Australia ... and facilitator big Mal, the biggest panderer of them all ...

Yes, you!

When the pond thinks of all the time it wasted abusing Stephen Conroy, when there was an even bigger rat in the ranks ...

Yes, you!

And so, trust the pond, at last we reach the last day before we reach the pattycakes at the school stall ...

(Above: a likely pair of rogues, and is jolly Joe starting to look unnervingly like tricky Dick, or what? And is Andrew Robb the dullest politician since Sir William Lyne and the Hopetoun Blunder?)


This message brought to you by a sweaty Joe Hockey:

Fuck you Jack and Jackie, we're alright, and don't even think about coming here.

Ah the humanity, ah the compassion.

The funny thing, of course, is when Labor tried the same wretched trick, the opposition, and in particular Julie Bishop were preening and expostulating with righteous indignation.

And it was only in May!

Has it come to this? Has the intertubes led politicians to think short term memory has been reduced to a nanosecond?

Have a read of Opposition dubs foreign aid raid 'outrageous' and 'inappropriate':

Where does it stop, she shrieked, and now we know the answer. With a sweaty Joe Hockey ...

By golly, this expostulation business is a tricky ...

Meanwhile, the comedy went into a final higher gear with Coalition rows back from internet porn filter plan.

Now the pond waged a long and bitter campaign against Stephen Conroy, and his giant Chinese filter, and big Mal wooed many people by presenting himself as a libertarian giant fighting the minions of oppression.

What's the best you can say about a policy document released in the 11th hour of the campaign, snuck out and then amazingly reversed by big Mal within a couple of hours?

Well it's shameless dog whistling and pandering, it's amazingly incompetent, and it's a David Cameron sign of things to come.

Big Mal went into a twittering frenzy:

But the lasting impression was of a twittering twit and a party which didn't have the first clue what it thought or believed.

The pond believes that when David Cameron gets going in the UK, big Mal will be rolled, and next thing you know the policy that disappeared will mysteriously reappear.

If anyone in the Labor party had tried this 'reverse the policy in two hours' trick, the howls of indignation from the Murdochians would have been amazing to behold.

The funniest headline which makes an ironical juxtaposition with this folly?

He couldn't even hold on to his policy announcement, let alone his word, for two hours.

But perhaps the most wondrous moment came with this headline:

The rest of the story is here, under the header Climate change: Tony Abbott says Direct Action needs no modelling, and what the pond finds most marvellous about it is the way that the pond has endured some three years of NBN bashing from the Murdochians, and always the chanting and the mantra that the thing never had a business plan or proper rigorous financial modelling before it began to roll out ...

And yet here's Tony Abbott blithely proposing to piss billions against the wall, and don't you worry about no fancy modelling stuff ...

And the Murdochians, rather than bleating, lie down like lambs ...

Well for all that the loonacy of the right wing commentariat is its beat, the pond is proudly independent, and all it asks for are sensible policies, mounted with coherence and consistency, and truly every day there's amazed astonishment that Abbott and Co's follies have escaped rigorous assessment ...

It means that it will be a fine time for the pond should Abbott score his precioussss.

Yes, fuck you Jack and Jacki, the pond will have fun, even as the follies fuck over Australia ...

Enough already, amongst today's blitzkreig of front pages supporting Abbott, came Tony Abbott blatantly sucking up to Rupert Murdoch - an American citizen - as a "hometown hero", and a wave of nausea swept over the pond.

Giving up your citizenship for the sake of a fast buck makes you a hometown hero?

Enough already, our beat is right wing loonacy, which is why we want to make an honourable mention of yesterday's effort by Paul Sheehan, titled Roger Corbett pulls no cords in the Fairfax newsrooms.

It seems the Fairfaxians copped a bit of a pounding, what with their Chairman mounting a partisan political assault at the last moment, and the assault being something of an ironical contrast to their new pathetic, deeply bullshit slogan, "Independent. Always".

Anyway, Sheehan's piece is a pathetic attempt to stick a finger in the dyke and heal the breach, and he spends an inordinate amount of verbiage defending Fairfax against its readers' fury, while asserting the right of Corbett to make his "robust" comments.

The funniest thing?

Well it was the rousing conclusion:

As for politics, Corbett is entitled to express a view, as entitled as any reader. He crossed no line. At Fairfax, we do not await his instructions. In stating the obvious about the Prime Minister's biggest problem, he also stated the obvious about Rudd's greatest critic, News Corp: "To be as strongly biased, as News have been in the last few months ... does great damage to the credibility of the press at just the time when the press needs to be highly respected as we go through this digital transition."

This from a man who has spent all his column space  for years celebrating climate denialism and Lord Monckton and Bob Carter, abusing the NBN, abusing unions for merely existing, abusing lazy Celts and Greeks for bludging, and otherwise finding many other novel ways to abuse the government while pausing every so often to  worship at the feet of Tony Abbott?

Let's give it a pond tweak:

As for politics, Corbett is entitled to express a view, as entitled as any reader. He crossed no line. At Fairfax, I do not await his instructions. In stating the obvious about the Prime Minister's biggest problem, he also stated the obvious about Rudd's greatest Fairfax critic, Paul Sheenan: "To be as strongly biased, as Paul Sheehan has been in the last few months ... the past few years ... the past few decades... does great damage to the credibility of the press at just the time when the press needs to be highly respected as we go through this digital transition."

There, that reads better.

... you might walk in (respect, just a little bit)
And find out I'm gone (just a little bit)
I got to have (just a little bit)
A little respect (just a little bit).

As for that rich "independent, always" tosh, it's pleasing, as you will note above, that the Sydney Fairfaxians have fallen into line with their Murdochian pals, and if you look and try to discern a difference between the pigs and the humans, you'll surely fail.

And the biggest joke of all? Well right next to the Herald's editorial explaining why Tony Abbott deserves your vote - because apparently we're all crying out for a government that can be trusted to deliver on its promises - there comes a reminder that Abbott and Co can't even be trusted to deliver a believable policy without turning it around in a couple of hours:

Talk about the irony of juxtaposition. And sharp-eyed readers will note the story at the bottom, Is this a joke, Joe Hockey?

But really you might as well ask, is this a joke, editor of the Fairfaxians, Roger Corbett, and Paul Sheehan?

Of course it is ... and the pond notes the great damage you do to the credibility of the press and to the Fairfaxian bullshit slogan, independent always.

Have you thought about an alternative? Forelock tugging, always ... or perhaps Cheerleading, always ...

Even their stablemate understands that to sell Tony 'flip flop' Abbott as a "trust" politician is a step too far ...

Well at least it means there's less irony on view, in the gap between "trust me" and "coalition's web filter backflip".

Meanwhile, as the reptiles at the lizard Oz once again top the digital page by banging on about the NBN, came this astonishing comment from Judith Sloan, the Dame Slap you have when the real Dame Slap isn't available:

Yep, the country's in crisis, there's a budget emergency, we're on the brink of a precipice, facing imminent doom, looking at a total fiscal collapse?

Pig's arse, all that bullshit rhetoric, faithfully reproduced by Paul Sheehan, Roger Corbett and the Sydney Fairfaxians ... when even Judith Sloan knows jolly Joe deserves a good slapping ...

Independent? Always? Why they're as big a suck as Tony Abbott.

And lordy lordy, does Tony Abbott know how to suck, so let's conclude by celebrating his kind words about that hometown hero:

...Mr Abbott on Friday said Mr Murdoch, who is now a US citizen, should be supported for his achievements. 
"I've got a lot of time for Rupert Murdoch because whether you like his papers or don't like his papers he's one of the most influential Australians of all time," he told Triple M radio in Melbourne. 
"Aussies should support our hometown heroes, that's what I think in his own way Rupert Murdoch is." (I've got a lot of time for Rupert: Abbott)

In his own way ... becoming a US citizen for a quick buck, while building a media empire that celebrates all that's regressive in the world ...

You see, Fairfaxians, that's how it's done. Oh you're learning, but not quickly enough ...

How about a new slogan? Craven, always ...

Now kneel down Tony Abbott, and arise with the blessing of the Don, Il Padrino, and why not do it while at the IPA, home of climate science denialism ...

Ah well, that just leaves time for a picture of the IPA chorus, found here:

As we always said in Tamworth, vote early, vote often - make sure the parrot goes into fits over fraudulent voting - and however you decide to vote, make sure your vote in the Senate can be counted ... and that it counts ...

In which Hedley Thomas gets the fear of Clive ... while the rest of the world get the fear of Sophie and Mal ...

(Above: more excellent Popery here).

The pond is jaded and bored.

Even the usual excellent Popery only provided a hollow, Treasure of Sierra Madre sort of laugh, echoing across the wasteland of ADSL2. Does anyone remember Stars Wars after George's last three leaden efforts?

Oh sure there was a glimmer, a flicker of light with the news that Abbott would stand down if he lost, but that's only a cheap thrill for sublime optimists ...

On another front, there has been some most excellent news in relation to Sophie Mirabella, who is in the thick of it.

Even the reptiles at the lizard Oz have been forced to note Indi row 'dire' for Mirabella. (behind the paywall because they want to keep the news within the castle).

Crikey also ran with Mirabella scrambling as polling puts Indi on knife edge.

Because Mirabella is a nasty piece of work, the campaign has turned nasty, as also noted by Crikey, with the DLP spreading sicko posters featuring a young blonde girl, with barely repressed nasty homophobia at the heart of the copy. (see Tips and rumours, may be paywall affected, but the pond doesn't like to run images that prove the nasties know how to nasty).

The pond much preferred this excellent coverage by the excellent Mr. Denmore:

(screen cap only, no links, but you can find Mr Denmore on Twitter here, and at the top of his page there's a link to his blog).

The smelegraph? Now that's a serious contender to displace the Daily Terror nick ...

Meanwhile, over at The Monthly, there's an air of hysteria settling in, with the offer to punters of a game of election night bingo (you can see it and cop a pdf here)

But enough of the serious issues and the sombre coverage, the pond is devoted to loons, and this morning a certain kind of issue has risen to a head (no, not that kind of head you deviant perverted reader, keep your thoughts to yourself).

And it's all thanks to Hedley Thomas, reportedly and reputedly once upon a time a journalist, until he got a Clive Palmer bee in his bonnet. 

Here's the wider front page digital perspective:

Now a keen eye would have moved past all the talk of Tony Abbott being wonderful and Labor doomed - commentary couched as news in the usual reptilian way - to focus on Hedley's effort:

Yes it's a digital double whammy, and what's even more amusing and bizarre is the header Why we need to worry about the real Clive. (behind the paywall because you have to pay to be worried).

The trouble is, the pond feels absolutely no need to worry about the real Clive, or the surreal Clive or the unreal Clive ... or come to that, any other form of Queensland madness ...

Of course the sting is in the tail of that splash, under the header Magnate sues Brough over Ashby denials. (behind the paywall because legal actions are expensive)

Yes, Clive is taking on the rough Brough:

Mr Palmer yesterday filed a defamation lawsuit claiming the former Howard government minister had caused him distress and embarrassment and damaged his reputation by publicly refuting Mr Palmer's allegations last month that he had sought funding for Mr Slipper's former staffer, James Ashby, to launch a sexual harassment case against his then boss.

But that's just a worry, or perhaps an irritation for the rough Brough - oh what frabjous joy if he lost - and no doubt the same applies to the lizard Oz:

Earlier this year Mr Palmer also issued defamation proceedings against the publisher of The Australian.

So it's the use of the "we" that set the pond off.

Back in the day the reptiles at the lizard Oz were right up Clive, and so was the LNP in Queensland - why the rough Brough enjoyed a lunch with him, and nobody sneezed when Palmer donated $200k to the LNP in five instalments in 2011/2012, and set Campbell Newman off like a pocket rocket.

Back then Clive was just an eccentric uncle with deep pockets, and the lizards were cheering on his talk of standing against Wayne Swan in Lilley.

Also back in the day, Clive was the poster boy for the campaign against the mining tax, standing side by side with Gina Rinehart.

Never mind that they sounded barking mad even then - they were on the right side, part of the same team - though Laurie Oakes revealed what an odd couple they made when emails from Queensland Liberal MP George Christensen leaked:

She and Queensland mining magnate Clive Palmer are the "go to" billionaires for coalition politicians and conservative causes. Palmer is the Coalition's biggest donor. He bankrolls the Liberal National Party in Queensland, on occasion even making his private jets available for party purposes. The two billionaires subscribe to similar conspiracy theories. Palmer made headlines a few months ago with the bizarre claim that the Rockefeller Foundation was being used by the CIA to channel funds into Australia to attack our mining industry. 
In her reply to Christensen's email, Rinehart said: "This reminds me of my father's concerns years ago when the same Rockefeller Foundation funds were used in long-running campaigns to mess up the USA mining industry. These USA funds are now to be used against Australia and I feel a more sustained program will be needed to counter." (here)

Yes, those were the days to be worried about Clive, when the Bolter, the reptiles at the lizard Oz, and the rest of the Murdochian crew led a long, relentless campaign against the mining tax, still resonating even now ...

Now Hedley wants us to get agitated ...

Contrary to the flim-flam and spin, Clive Frederick Palmer is not a professor, not an adviser to the G20, not a mining magnate, not a legal guru and not an advocate for freedom of speech. He's probably not a billionaire. And he's a trillion-to-one chance of becoming prime minister on Saturday. 
 If the latest polls are correct, however, there is one disturbing prospect: the Gold Coast property tycoon, a man with a history of peddling fantasies that often morph into a unique version of "reality", could see his party in control of the sixth Senate seat in Queensland - and possibly even Australia's balance of power. 
Palmer, who cut his political teeth as an electoral mouthpiece a quarter-century ago for a bent premier, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, when the rottenness of the ruling National Party and its top police was on the brink of being properly exposed, must now be pinching himself.

As if there's no hint of a smell surrounding the rough Brough ...

But Hedders old mate, old chum, Clive is the man the reptiles at the lizard Oz celebrated and facilitated, up until the big split, and even now, there's not a peep nor a boo from the reptiles about the sordid world of what is known in other circles as Ashbygate.

Poor old Hedders has been given the job of sounding the alarums and ringing the bells about how Clive isn't a successful businessman, and isn't a mining magnate, and yells at hapless Chinese people, and so on and so forth, and at such length that you really have to worry about Hedder's obsessive compulsive interest in Clive.

And then comes the spectre, the ultimate horror:

Is it delusional to tell the Australian public that it is viable to produce a balanced budget that will include big cuts in income tax for every Australian, rich or poor, the abolishment of fringe benefits tax, the mining tax and the carbon tax, while at the same time asserting an intention to massively increase all age pensions and boost spending on infrastructure, schools and hospitals, with health spending to be increased by no less than $80bn? 

Abolishment? But do go on:

If the answers are yes, contemplate the prospect of Palmer's insight, logic and capability being deployed via his candidate, Glenn "The Brick With Eyes" Lazarus, in the Senate. Many voters say "at least Clive is entertaining". Buffoons are entertaining. An entertaining buffoon is close to achieving great political power.

If only Hedders could get as worked up about Sophie "nasty" Mirabella, or the rough Brough ...

Of course the relentless Murdochian crusade against Labor in Queensland can also take a lot of the credit. 

But when you read a different story in the AFR, Could Clive Palmer really be a force in the Senate?, they see it working for good old Tony:

Former rugby league player Glenn Lazarus has an outside chance of winning a Queensland Senate seat for Clive Palmer’s new party, and Labor is clinging to its eight seats in the Sunshine state and will struggle to pick up more. 
 If the former Brisbane Broncos prop is elected, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott will be a step closer to being able to abolish the carbon tax without relying on the agreement of Labor or the Greens.

You see Hedders, Tony can still get a chance to fuck over climate science and the planet, surely amongst the dearest wishes of the Bolter and the reptiles at the lizard Oz.

There's another view at The Conversation, here:

Palmer is a passionate opponent of the carbon tax so one would expect a PUP senator to vote enthusiastically for its repeal. But Palmer says “not necessarily – if [the repeal] didn’t go far enough. Our policy is to provide refunds to consumers” for the higher electricity prices they have suffered. And he’s no fan of Abbott’s paid parental leave scheme. But he adds that PUP would exercise what Senate power it had “responsibly”. 
Abbott would much prefer a PUP to a Green. But it sounds as though a PUP could still be a bit of a handful.

Yep, the Murdochians have gone a long way to helping fuck the NBN, helping fuck climate science, helping fuck the mining tax, and helping fuck almost everything else along the way these last few years, and now they want me to worry about Clive? 

Or a footballer, arising from the thugby league world celebrated by the Smellegraph and the Courier Snail on a daily basis?

In your dreams, Hedders old chum, in your dreams ...

You and your chums have helped fuck the country. You demonised the Labor party and you demonised the Greens, such that now the Liberal party thinks it's witty to show garbage bins and blowflies buzzing and cockies, and this very day, the crazed Courier Snail is still encouraging a blitzkreig by maddened, enraged Queenslanders...

So you can worry about Clive and any mess arising from an untrained PUP in the house ... why it'll just be more of the chaos you've honoured and celebrated in the shape of Dr No ...

Even if Sophie Mirabella and the rough Brough make it, the pond is determined to keep calm and carry on ...

(Below: the good old days, more Nicholson here)