In which the pond goes to the radical middle and discovers a radicalised Sheridan ...

Is there any more desperate, pathetic and meaningless abuse of the English language than to attempt to construct a radical centre?

The pond might as well attempt to construct a radical pond, or a radical doughnut (with extra radical cinnamon please), or an innovative radical centrist harness with which to work the horse ...

Of course, with the greatest respect, Pearson himself is in something of a crisis because he backed the wrong horse, got hitched to the wrong leader, and now finds himself on the radical sidelines ...

(and the rest of that story here).

Pearson has of late taken to talking how at 35 he made a mistake in his career path, and how he should instead of gone into politics, because he's gone as far as he could as an "outsider". 

But he was never an outsider. He was just a gambler who backed the wrong horse. Suddenly, according to him, indigenous affairs is in deep crisis, but it might just be that Pearson is in deep crisis, and indigenous affairs is in just the same sorry mess as when his departed hero - now off to deplore teh gays and such like with his fundamentalist conservative Christian cohorts - started his showboating routines in the north ...

Never mind, it wasn't Pearson regretting the departure of the most singularly useless and radical politician to grace the stage in recent times that got the pond going. It was only the feeble attempt at a "radical centre" ... 

It's ironic how something that gathered momentum as a bit of Jules Feiffer satire - with his invocation of the radical middle back in 1962 - keeps turning up like a bad penny as the 'radical middle' and 'radical centrism', as if Tony Blairism wasn't "radical ugh, how awfulism". 

Never mind, the bizarre notion can be Greg Hunted here ... and it's time for a radical cartoon break ...

The real pity of this radical distraction is that  the pond wanted to celebrate yet another contribution by the real radical brains at the core of the radical reptiles of radical Oz ...

Oh not that new old furphy ...

Sadly, the radical splash at the radical Oz doesn't reveal the radical origin of the radical bromancer's radical thinking ... so let us radical google instead ...

Yes, the great minds of the bromancer and Rush Limbaugh think alike, radical peas together in their radical pods. 

It led the pond to thinking that Rush Limbaugh is to blame for Greg Sheridan, or perhaps Greg Sheridan is to blame for Rush Limbaugh ...

Or perhaps they've just fortuitously arrived at a shared monumental stupidity ... because this is what happens when you've got nothing better to do with your time than fill in dead air with drug-laced rants on a radio station, or scribble deadhead columns for the reptiles ...

Indeed, indeed, and if working in Congress is the way to get legislative experience, why that explains what legislative experience is good for ... stalemates, an inability to compromise and extreme devotion to pork-barrelling ...

The pond would have red carded the bromancer for a breach of Godwin's Law, except for the way that it gets its current dose of US politics from Colbert ...

You can watch that one here, and perhaps then you'd like to follow up with Colbert's A Simon & Garfunkel Tune For Every Candidate ... nothing says youth vote like a song from 1965 ...

Well the pond's still crazy after all these years, and one reason is reading the bromancer. 

It wears you down, that steady moronic Santamaria-laced drip, drip, drip, and so we must turn to understanding why Obama is responsible for everything wrong with the world ...

Uh huh. The pond is beginning to understand. It's like the commentariat shouting out a deeply unhinged conspiracy theory that Obama is responsible for everything wrong with the world.

It's simple, it's understandable. It's deeply nuts, and the meme is essentially unchanged since the day he was elected president and it ran through Faux Noise and the reptiles of Oz like a virus-laden mosquito or a birther scam...

Thus far of course the bromancer has managed to avoid the actual requirements implied in his click-baiting, trolling splash on the digital front page, but now he must get around to it ...

And there you have it. 

An infinitely stupid man offering an infinitely stupid analysis which absolves the Republican party and its many Murdochian supporters from any responsibility for the state of politics in the United States in this seminal year ...

Because somehow the readers of the New York Times were the ones that got Obama elected ...

Now it would be possible to get pedantic and wonder if there have ever been any other celebrity candidates, and not just a Kennedy ...

(more cartoons here).

And it would be possible to wonder how any sensible person could have voted for a McCain/Palin ticket. Lordy lordy, did they dodge a Palin bullet there ... much as some people still celebrate dodging Mark Latham ...

But the pond is weary.

Kerry Packer once famously observed that you only get one Alan Bond in a lifetime, so it has to be said that the pond is likely to get only one fuckwitted bromancer in its increasingly short lifetime ...

If the answer is Greg Sheridan, why did anybody bother to ask the question.

And so to a pleasant distraction ...

Yes, it's your ABC - it's not the pond's - at work once again ...

The infinitely stupid argument here is the notion that Tony Abbott jetted off to the United States to have an argument with the fundamentalist Christian warriors with whom he will converse ... and will somehow, by the cogent power of his arguments, convert them to the liberal, forgiving, gay loving, gay marriage approving side to which he belongs ...

But then Uhlmann has always been a dimwit, as can be discovered by Greg Hunting him and his early days in the ACT here ...

Once upon a time journalists believed in free speech and the quaint notion that it was better for Tony Abbott to argue with fundamentalist Christians and press home his support of gay marriage than to muzzle those who disagreed with him ...

Or some such thing. Time for a few old cartoons ... you should know by now where to find the cartoonists. 

Dame Slap ... celebrating cake for the rich and gruel for the poor, and remember, when that sliver of turnip trickles down, be grateful, be ever so grateful ...

It's exhausting blogging at dial-up speed - thanks be unto Malware and "the Optus the" - and for a minute there, the pond also thought that it might have a problem reporting on Dame Slap's column this week. 

After all, she slags off Bono, and who could argue with that. 

She also assaults Taylor Swift and DiCaprio, to which the pond is never no mind, while defending heroic business leaders and noble CEOs, slaving away at their assorted coal mines.

The pond almost shed a tear when the Dame got on to dismissing all this cruel and idle chatter about income inequality. It turns out that income inequality is all about freedom. A select few have the freedom to be rich and the vast majority have the freedom to be poor. Now there, as Humpty Dumpty might say, is a knockdown argument.

As for the pond, we're mortified to brood about narrowband, and deeply ashamed to lack the deep empathy for the poor that fills Dame Slap to her core.

So what has Bono got to say for himself? Why did he rouse the Dame's ire? Why the cad's a tax minimiser. What's worse, he doesn't do it particularly well.

Let us jump to the heart of the matter, and let us just wonder why it remains cool to be dinkum: 

Oh you wretched, feeble Bono, and we're not just talking about your songs. Here's how you do it, Bono me lad … 

But don't think this gives Dame Slap any credibility problems. 

Just because News Corp is famous for keeping its tax away from the tax man doesn't mean stones shouldn't be thrown in glass houses. And please don't expect Dame Slap to start scribbling about News Corp taxes in a scathing manner. After all, a society that puts censorship and the thought police above equality will surely see chairman Rupert keep his billions …

  

But look, the pond admits that it took that gobbet from the end of Dame Slap's piece and as the loon archive of record, it behoves the pond to submit to the court the first parts of the text, because there are other weighty matters to be considered. 

Dame Slap, it seems, is angry about Hollywood and its stars, which is piquant considering that Chairman Rupert owns one of the majors, and she was even angrier about The Revenant, though no doubt it had nothing to do with Fox turning down further financing of the show because of pay or play contracts for both DiCaprio and Tom Hardy (or so you can Greg Hunt here). 

That must have been irritating to the Foxers, given the positive critical response and the okay but not spectacular b/o. 

What really gets Dame Slap wound up is all those Hollywood stars preening about pretending that they care about the poorest people of earth when really they should get their climate science from a real expert, like the Chairman or one of his minions. 

You know, because getting hitched to a showbiz celebrity is, when you think about it, just the sort of outrageous behaviour we might expect of rich pigs savouring the pleasures of their trough ...

Happily, it seems we must turn to the likes of Chairman Rupert to put human creativity in the service of humanity. 

Yes, it's fuck the poor and celebrate the rich day at planet Janet, and why not, while we're at it, also fuck the planet ...

Which perhaps explains why, likely as not, the pond came away with a sense that however it's cut, whatever uprisings there might be of the 18th century kind in the future, however much Dame Slap might urge the rich to enjoy their cake, while telling the poor to shove the gruel down their cake hole, humanity is deeply fucked … 

Forget about coolness and degrees of dinky di coolness or even warmth and that international conspiracy of world government being organised by the UN, as Dame Slap warned us about a few years ago … 

Oh and other like minds too ...

 Just think deeply fucked … as they get you both ways, coming and going ...

Yes, that's all the fault of Bono and Taylor Swift and Leonardo. Penn and Teller would approve ... oh what a fine art is the art of distraction and envy in the pursuit of untrammelled greed...

A day for commentariat moaning and whining and carry-on ...

The monarchist Daily Terror is in fine form today, skewering Malware for being a monarchist ...

Or is that just gloating at the breaking of republican hearts? 

Well any republican - come to think of it, anyone at all - who invests their heart with Malware deserves to have it broken.

It's a full and rich day, as the post-celebratory haze clears, and we get back to right thinking democrats always willing to listen to the voice of the people ...

Ah Erica, what an inspiration you are ...

Meanwhile, only one rag, the Graudian, has maintained an interest in Australia's very own fundamentalist extremist wandering abroad in imitation of Candide ...

Don't worry about the US hosts. Just take a gander at Erica and his love of the swill of the people ...

Meanwhile, as always, the pond turns to the reptiles of Oz for a suitable level of gravitas and reflection, and as always, the lizard Oz doesn't disappoint ...

Naturally that aged reptile of infinite wisdom was on hand to explain why everything - Abbott, the republic - was simply too hard ...

 

Heaven forfend that anyone should actually ask the people rather than ponderous pontificating pundits of the Kelly kind somehow imagining they're in touch with the "vibe". The last time Kelly was in touch with the vibe Bing Crosby won the top 100. Why, the pond distinctly remembers Bing taking out the JJ gong in '35 ...

Anyway, pace Erica, anything the people proposers might propose is only there to be ignored ... and so the Kellys can keep tugging the forelock of irrelevancy. Because that's what irrelevant old farts must do, as they shout at clouds ...

But moving right along, the pond wonders when Australia Day became the day for bigoted moaning and whining ...

Now the pond has mixed feelings about the trend, because Miranda the Devine's splash represents something of a triumph for the pond.

It will be remembered by the few who care that the pond chivvied the Terrorists for the copious hagiographic illustrations of the Devine that dominated the Devine's stories, and got chivvied in turn for daring to note that three shots of the Devine was three shots too many ...

Triumph. Sweet victory.

This day there's not a single sign of the Devine's image as she goes about her usual whining and moaning and disgruntlement ...

 

Click on the rant, and it's the same, with a video substituting for a shot of the Devine...

 

Thus emboldened, it's now time for the pond to deplore yet again the way that the blogs provide easy access to such premium ranting ...

Now in all that, the only thing that's missed from the main digital edition is this wondrous illustration ...

But as Damian Parer probably rolled a couple of times in his grave, as did the two diggers who were featured in that original iconic image, perhaps that's just as well ...

Now if some wretched pacifist had done this kind of defacement, imagine the howls ...

As for the actual rant, what's to say? It's entirely predictable bit of hate and fear-mongering of the harridan kind, and the Devine added an entirely predictable coda ...

 

Come on Daily Terrorists, come on, you followed the pond's advice about the hagiographic head shots, now it's time to get rid of the blogs that make your entire business plan meaningless ...

The pond has your deepest interests in its heart. 

Back to the main theme of the day, which is to observe the way that Australia Day has become the time for the reptiles to moan and whinge and whine ...

The reptile editorialist was also at it, in the Devine style ...

 

Yes, there's something truly wondrous and piquant about the whingers whinging about the whingers in a way that's just one long, pathetic whine ... 

 

Naturally, being the reptiles it's all about "me, me, me", or, if you will, "them, them, them": 

 

And because horse-racing and a bet on the nags represents our deepest, purest aspirations, and naturally it's up to the reptiles to honor what is truly great and wonderful about the Australian impulse for a gamble ...

 

Yes, indeed, why can't we have more doers calling for the euthanasia of ill older people, repeat violent criminals, infanticide and the aborting of the disabled ... (Greg Hunt it here).

Yes, people, it's time to get serious, in serious reptile style ...

Never mind, it's starting to become an extremely tedious and long haul, but the pond would like to acknowledge the dog botherer as being ahead of the pack of yowling, moaning hounds when he came out with this little hoppy toad yesterday ...

It's only worthy of posthumous study because of the profound ironies it offers. Anyone on an irony and salt-free diet should feel free to do something useful ...

It's about that point that the irony really kicked in. The petulant, posturing, preening, Kenny the dog botherer saying be gone to those who would call a spade a spade, when a satirist couldn't even call the dog botherer a dog botherer ... without facing legal action and an enormous carry-on.

In Kenny's dog bothering world, a spade is actually a QC's shovel, so it's begone to humour ...

But just for the record and to prove a point, here's the rest of the Kenny opus, which continues with the exemplary moaning and the groaning ...

Yes, it's more of that guff about the nags, our nation's noblest aspiration, and it's further proof that these days the editorialist reads their own commentariat, simply so that they can reproduce everything the commentariat says in the editorial the next day, and so navel talks to navel, and the fluff gathers ...

It's about this time that the pond always feels like sending a Tamworth greeting to the dog botherer.

Oh why don't you just fuck off ...

And take the fucking nags with you ... 

The pond is intent on celebrating Australia Day, and how better to do it than to join in the joyous celebrations celebrated by First Dog, and you can find the full cartoon here ...

It's all about him ... which is code for "it's still all about me this wondrous Australia Day" ...

      


What better way to celebrate Australia Day than to flee the country and score front page notoriety?

But in that flight comes a tale of how, disingenuously, to distort and deflect the truth while purportedly providing the news ...

In one newspaper ...

That sounds harmless. He's just off at a top international forum to blather about the family, and that's what patriots do on Australia Day. Flee the country ...

In others ...

Oh look it's barking mad fundy time, and there's good old barking mad Cory too ... thanks Graudian.

And then there the Fairfaxians who set the hares running ...

Well there's no doubt that the Alliance Defending Freedom is barking mad fundamentalist and extremely litigious, using lawyers and courts as the path to salvation, no doubt as Jesus himself, a keen bush lawyer, intended ...

Cursory Greg Hunting will lead to this ...

Of course they've got a bit cannier since the days they proclaimed they wanted to recover the robust Christendomic theology of the 3rd, 4th and 5th centuries, which, it has to be said, is so much better theology than the pesky nonsense actually preached in the time of Christ ...

For keen Greg Hunters, there's also a wiki here, wherein there are many links to the bigots at work.

So how does Sid Maher go about the business of ironing out the bumps?

Well he's a good reptile hack and he does his very best, even if the reptiles were caught short by the Fairfaxians ...

Well played Sid. And quoting Stone writing for the reptiles keeps the record of anal self-referentialism in good and safe hands, and with great material too!

Tony Abbott is no Kevin Rudd. 

Click your heels and say it three times and it must be true, and so we can cross Stone off the list of today's reading, but we should give Sid his last few lines ...

Oh look, there's good old Cory too ...

Of course Abbott's rather urgent rush to abandon the country on its day of days, and flee to a meeting with the Chairman and talk to a bunch of rabid ratbags about 'teh gays' and 'teh difficult women' distracted a little from the way the poor old commentariat is going to have to put up with another character screeching about women's rights, domestic violence, gender equity, and the republic ...

Sheesh, call that do gooder a soldier? What will little Timmie "fright bat" Bleagh and Mark "is there a taxi-driver needing a broken arm?" Latham do for the year ...

But back to him, because it's all about me this Australia Day, and in particular assorted attempts by brave members of the commentariat to begin the long march, which is to say, the process to rehabilitate and restore him - remember it's all about him, or me, if you're inclined to hear voices ....

These valiant soldiers bobbed up in all sorts of places. There was Tom in the Graudian ...

Well played Tom and you can Graudian away with this splendid delusionary here. 

Amongst the many great lines, the pond loved this the best ...

So what now? Abbott has been written off before, only to come charging back. Sneered at, patronised, condemned, he has battled on. Abbott, at 58, is relatively young and exceedingly fit, he is highly experienced, a man of enormous talent and a magnificent parliamentary performer and an adept and compelling politician.

Yes, which is why he remains the leader of the Liberal party and ergo the country ...

So that's what over-egging the cake mix means ... well and lovingly baked Tom, though you did seem to produce some strong reactions in the comments section. Perhaps a stronger dose of kool-aid as the binding agent in the cake?

Oh wait, must jet off to have a chinwag with the Chairman to see about a comeback ...

But of course when seeking rehabilitation, it's to the experienced professionals, the reptiles of Oz, that the pond must turn, and the very best hands were on deck this grand day ...

Yes, the poor dear thing was forced, compelled to stay, and damn you Kroger, for your contradictory, mixed messaging ... 

But wait, just who is that reptile channeling the spirit of Tony Abbott and in touch with the forces?

Oh look there's Shane Stone again, and ah, it all becomes clear, because there's the bromancer singing a song of heroes up there with Beowulf ...

Let us do the bromance dance ...

Yes, it's taken its toll, so much so that he could barely totter on to the plane, and sit at the pointy end to fly off to deliver the kind of abuse about the wickedness of 'teh gays' that's always been his stock in trade ...

And it gets fruitier from there, because soon enough we'll be talking about how Beowulf saved us from "tidal waves" because you know, Australia is right next door to Turkey, and the carbon tax, because you know climate science is crap, and then oh there's the suffering, and the service, and the humanity, oh the humanity ...

No, it's not the money, it's certainly not the money.

There's a breathless hush in the Parliament to-night -- 

Ten to make and the match to win -- 

A bumping pitch and a blinding speaker, 

An hour to play and the last man in. 

And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat, 

Or the selfish hope of a season's fame, 

But his mighty Lord's hand on his shoulder smote 

"As a bowler that Malware's pretty lame!"

"Play up! play up! and play the game!" 

Oh dear, a British poet on Australia Day. Is there a knight in the house?

Well it's what we had to endure in Tamworth, but back to the bromancer ... and what must be acknowledged is a superior form of hogwashing and anointing with oils and much myrrh (Arabic for mirth) and frankincense ...

And yes, humbug talk of duty, as if the loser, unemployable in normal life, had any decent job prospects ...

Desperate, pathetic stuff and there again, that eerie chant.

Abbott is no Kevin Rudd.

Well it brought on fresh desire to hear more from Henry Newbolt:

The sand of the parliament is sodden red, -- 

Red with the wreck of a party that broke; -- 

The Bronnie's jammed and the Treasurer dead, 

And the regiment blind with dust and smoke. 

The river of death has brimmed his banks, 

And England's far, and Honour a name, 

But the voice of chirpy schoolboy Abbott rallies the ranks, 

Let's get in line with the fundies, as those urban elites we tame,

"Play up! play up! and play the game!" 

Well, it's starting to get to Dickensian length, but the pond must now turn to the fabulous editorialist at the lizard Oz, also on hand this day to help out with the rehabilitation and the restoration, with the bizarre notion that Abbott will help counterbalance the factions ...

Truly, it takes a tremendous imagination to be able to come up with this sort of stuff ...

He's Tony, he's from the north shore, he likes to surf and bike, and he's here to help.

And so we come to what seems will become the mantra each day, as each day Abbott flies off to some new fundie congress and otherwise plays political games.

He's no Kevin Rudd.

No Kevin Rudd is he ...

Yes, how did you guess that same eerie chant could be found in the final pars offered up by the Oz editorialist ...

This is the word that year by year 
While in her place the Liberal party is set 
Every one of her sons must hear (daughters, meh), 
And none that hears it dare forget. 
This they all with a joyful mind 
Bear through life like a torch in flame, 
And falling fling to the host behind -- 
Tony's no Kevin Rudd, you mind
He's heading off to speak to the fundies
And heal the lame and maybe fix the blind
And he's still your tenacious and courageous leader
Call that fanciful only if you have no sense of shame
He's here to help and maim, so let's get on with it, and
"Play up! play up! and play the game!"

Alternatively ...

Yes, there's poor old Michelle Grattan joining in an examination of the entrails here ...

While this next stage of Abbott’s parliamentary career will be a fascinating political story, for Abbott personally it will be the hardest test of character he has faced in his life in politics. Will he wallow in his fury and frustration about what happened or rise above it to do something worthwhile?

But that question's already been answered.

He'll flee the country on Australia Day, and fly off to shout to fellow fundies about teh gays and women's rights and marriage and in the process pre-occupy and befuddle the reptiles as he meets with their master.

How worthwhile is that!?