In which the pond takes in a little sunlight, before dosing up with minerals and the bromancer ...

The pond apologises from the get go, because it's going to have to jump around a little today. 

At first the pond thought it might celebrate the dog botherer catching a spanking from Media Watch, as can be seen here … it was delicious, and no doubt Dr. Kenny (U of Trump) will be brooding and gnashing teeth for days before he erupts. 

Then there was Andrew O'Hehir in Salon announcing the decline and fall of the American Empire, as here …but the pond had already sensed that and conjured up images of fires and violins ...

But that image of bikini-clad sunlight on a golden beach haunted the pond, and it had to look further …

Yes, there it was again, so pure and cleansing and enticing, and yet what was that caveat "may help us" in the header - why so uncertain? - and then there was the author, one Mark Whittaker. 

The pond immediately set out in search of Mr Whittaker's credentials … and stumbled on this …

Ah, a cow man, apparently of some leisure.

Obediently the pond clicked on "read more about Mark" and scored this …

Okay, his website might not be up to much, but he does have a wiki listing here … and so to the read announcing wondrous cures for all that might ails ya …dosed up with impressive graphs that would have Alan Kohler weeping with envy …

Note that the graph has absolutely nothing to do with the matter under review, which will no doubt please Alan Kohler. 

But what of the study under review? Was it peer assessed? Does it have any direct, discernible relevance?

Neale et al can be found elsewhere, worrying about whether sunscreen might affect vitamin D uptake, versus skin cancer, as here … and here … and so on …

But what's the real point of the proceedings? The pond read on … and with the next headline, the pond realised immediately what was up.

 It was a chance to run a few more Donald cartoons …

You see, right from the get go, Whittaker introduces a distortion … Donald Trump wasn't talking about sunlight. He was talking about inserting light up the wazoo …

This is what he actually said, according to the BBC …

"So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous - whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light," the president said, turning to Dr Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response co-ordinator, "and I think you said that hasn't been checked but you're going to test it.
"And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside of the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you're going to test that too. Sounds interesting," the president continued.
"And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?
"So it'd be interesting to check that."
Pointing to his head, Mr Trump went on: "I'm not a doctor. But I'm, like, a person that has a good you-know-what."

And this was the feedback loop outlined by Politico here …

For once, President Donald Trump’s latest tossed-out suggestion for a way to combat coronavirus — injecting ultraviolet rays — did not originate from a Fox News guest, a viral Twitter thread or an article on a conservative website.
Instead, the process worked in reverse. First, Trump offered a muddled but hopeful theory — that one could somehow insert light or medicine into the lungs — and conservative and Trump-friendly media outlets started trying to explain and boost it. They flagged obscure research papers and said the president was simply attempting to raise the country’s spirits. They tried to discredit mainstream media coverage of the comments.
“Trump used the word ‘inject’ but what he meant was using a process — which he left ‘medical doctors’ to define — in which patients’ lungs might be cleared of the virus, given new knowledge about its response to light and other factors,” wrote Joel Pollak in an article posted on Breitbart hours after Trump made his remarks.
It’s the latest example of the symbiotic relationship between the president and his media boosters during the coronavirus. At times, conservative outlets have promoted ideas, such as the possibility that the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine might help cure the disease, that Trump has then adopted. Other times, Trump throws out his own theories, and conservative outlets swiftly parrot them and defend the president.

… which leads us to this headline in the lizard Oz ...

Peer reviewed studies? Evidence? Oh here, have another Donald cartoon or three…

And so back to the read … and the anecdotal evidence …

Note that this is to do with a matter in 2003, and involved a study of an entirely different virus, and so everything is speculation … but we've been there before …

 

And then comes the killer line … "but not in a study format." So we've moved from Trump seeing the light and sunlight and nitric oxide to "but not in a study format" ...

Well a little sunlight never hurt anyone, if taken in moderation to avoid skin cancer, and it is a good way to get Vitamin D, even Dr Parker (U of Trump) knows that, but as to the the rest of the idle speculation offered up by the idle gentlemen farmer? 

All that just to get a header that says Trump saw the light? All the pond saw was ...

But the pond is pleased to report on what could be found … an infallible Pope, doing a Manet …

Well we all love our lunch on the grass, and getting a little sunlight, even if Manet seems a little shaded in his wiki listing here ...

And now this is where the pond must skip around a bit more, and get even more skittish. 

You see Helen Coonan was out and about today beating the minerals drum, and as is the reptile wont, they obliged with a "news" story that regurgitated all her talking points …

Some might think of it as journalism, the pond prefers to think of it as a pick up line …

Now we needn't waste too long with the Coonan, because her love of minerals could be scribbled out by pond readers while in a deep sleep. 

All that needs to be said is that the illustration for her piece was very disappointing …

And so on and so forth, and because the pond had to keep the tedium under control - the ennui introduced by that deadly mix of a Coonan and a Jellett - it was on with a hop and a skip so that the pond could arrive at the last couple of pars ...

Note the canny Coonan framing: "… will grow in line with the expanding needs of highly populated nations."

Phew, what a relief, Indonesia perhaps, or India or other Asian countries, but no mention of that dragon to the north ...

Meanwhile, simplistic Simon was also out and about …

Ah free trade. Well the pond could only stand so much Simon guff, and so again it cut to the last gobbet, not quite certain with whom we might be free trading ...

But what of that dragon to the north?

And here the pond must introduce a bummer, a downer, because the bromancer was on the warpath …

But what of the minerals boom? What of shipping coal to the fire-breathing dragon of the north, which needs plenty of coal to keep the fire going and turn Beijing into a nightmare of pollution? 

What of the Coonan and her valiant lobbying? What of the reptile "news"?

What of simplistic Simon's yearning for free trade? (Did he speak to the Donald about that, and finally come to understand that the way forward is to slap a tariff on anything that moves … or anything that doesn't, there being a certain stillness in the air).

Sorry, the pond warned it was going to be skittish, because keeping company with sunlight and snake oil sales folk always leads to a case of the nerves.

Perhaps the bromancer will settle the pond down, with more talk of war with the dragon from the north …

What a relief. At last we're going to do something for climate science, by refusing to ship coal and iron ore to the fire-breathing dragon of the north … and it's not as if the planet couldn't do with some help …

Graudian them here while they last and before the lands above the faraway tree move on … and back to the bromancer, still on the warpath … and wonder of wonders, the bromancer leads with Malware, even though the reptiles have spent a week announcing he doesn't have a clue, and kept that up today …

Stand aside, Troy, let the warlike bromancer and Malware through ...

Ah, so it's all bully boy bluster and projection. 

Put it this way. The bromancer and the reptiles are extremely unsentimental in trade, never doing you a favour because you are a friend - it's tricky being friends with Murdochian reptiles - but never walking away from a good deal because you're not a friend …

Yippee ki yay, Hans, the Coonan is redeemed, and we can still keep selling all our stuff to that dangerous northern dragon.

As a result, the pond rates the chance of getting an independent review in inverse proportion to the reptiles' ongoing desire to dump clean pure dinkum Oz coal up north …

And so to the pond's one regret, with all this skittishness, from sunlight to minerals to trade wars to the bromancer speaking out of his UV-cleansed arse …

There was no room for Dame Groan. Oh how sad, the Groan left in the outer darkness ...

But you already know all that. It's a simple message, pure and true. Don't forget to screw contractors and casuals, and make sure the gig economy keeps fucking over people, and remember to hate unions and resist any attempt to organise labour and provide decent living conditions, because once they stop being on the front line, who really cares about checkout operators, nurses and such like …oh, and remember to slam the door on their grasping fingers on your way out, and don't forget to break the arm of those milksop judges who worry that some might live in abject poverty on what's supposed to be a living wage …because if you can't screw the workers after the virus has been subdued, what was the point of living through the virus?

Perhaps the pond has mangled the message a little, but sadly the Groaner's moans had to go, to make room for an immortal Rowe, with more Rowe to hand here …and what do you know, it brings us back to the bromancer and the rest of the minerals mob ...

In which the pond overdoses on reptile paranoia, as sometimes happens on a Monday, and a bleach bypass might be required ...

The pond doesn't like to start a Monday with the dog botherer, but what are you going to do? 

This particular reptile is such a sea of neuroses, such a foaming mass of rabid paranoia and hysteria and venomous thoughts, that he demands attention be paid … even, as the saying used to go, this outing is a classic beat-up, which enables the wretched creature to do yet another standard reptile beat up of the ABC …

A lower global population? Can the pond volunteer for the dog botherer to depart the planet first, all in the cause of following Michael Moore's prescription?

As usual for the reptiles, they're keen to promote the film, as if the ABC alone should show it, and as if there's no such thing as three FTA networks and the SBS and Foxtel, though even Michael Moore might wonder at the use of screening a film on a cable network that is deeply fucked. 

Well luckily, what follows are screen caps, so we're left alone with the dog botherer's neuroses ...

            

Will Foxtel run it? Stay tuned, if you haven't learned the noble. eminently sensible art of cable cutting …

What gets the pond in this is the moronic level of repetition. It came with that talk of 'virtue signalling' - is that its zillionth outing? - and sure enough in the next gobbet there came another lazy bit of dog botherer blather, with "groupthink" being trotted out for the umpteenth time ...

 

Groupthink? It's actually called projection, given the way that News Corp loves the Donald, and the Donald is prone to saying things like this ...

… which is as close to George as anyone could hope to get …

But really, the whole beat-up is just so that the neurotic dog botherer could get agitated by his favourite bête noire, the triple horned beast known as Barry …

After it was revealed that the bromancer had a glass jaw, the pond thought of renaming him Greg "Glass Jaw" Sheridan, because who remembers his long lost deep, passionate, wildly infatuated romance with the onion muncher? 

But it turns out they all have glass jaws, and the term would have to be applied indiscriminately, as in Chris "glass jaw" Kenny, because they don't like it up 'em, no siree, they don't like it up 'em at all. But what's the point of pointing out the bleeding obvious glass jaw syndrome, when even in the Czech in their glory days, made a better brand of glass ...

Defensive, weird, paranoid … but why would anyone bother to go on air with the dog botherer to debate climate science, given he's a fuckwit, not a climate scientist and without a clue on the subject? It would result in one of those useless arguments familiar to anyone who avoids Q and A, with a lot of hot air, and no purpose or meaning beyond the blather, and right now the planet could do without more hot air …

Update courtesy Crikey:

Problem solved. Barry and the dog botherer could discuss the virtues of injecting disinfectant, in a non-sarcastic way … fair enough? Fucketty fuck, tricked by Trump? The snake oil salesman can spot a moronic mark a mile off ...

As for The Insiders, it's now dead to the pond. Not because Speers is trying to introduce News Corp ideology, but because he's deadly dull and a poor host, and when given a chance to shine under a bigger spotlight, he's failed miserably …

And so to the next reptile instalment, and the pond confesses it has been ignoring the Major and his hunt for the Order of Lenin medal for too long …

Yes, it's a classic example of News Corp/lizard of Oz pile on, with everybody, including the dog botherer and his molested dog, dishing it out to Malware these past few weeks, just as they did when the onion muncher was doing his wrecking, sniping and undermining on  daily basis in the lizard Oz. 

But what choice did the pond have? Go with another example of reptile group think, which bobbed up yet again this day?

No, not the Pellists, better the briar patch than the Pellists, so it had to be the Major, tormented by the monstrous Malware …

The mutton Dutton a good minister? The usual sensible reaction would be to stop at that point, knowing this was yet another delusional bout of the Major howling at the moon, driven mad by his failure to find that tricky Order of Lenin Medal …

This stuff is about as anal retentive as it gets, and is riddled with the same defensive posturing as offered by the dog botherer, and the pond, with its expertise in crowd behaviour, can only think of it as an example of crowd pathology ...

Alternatively, perhaps it fits into the study of primates, and their bum-sniffing habits, with the Major doing a lot of sniffing of the bums of familiar News Corp illuminati …

Everybody, including the dog botherer's molested dog, knew that News Corp was gunning for Malware, with a few personal exceptions that could act as deflective window dressing. Why bother to pretend otherwise? Why protest so loudly? Why attempt feeble, pathetic defences?

The pond didn't mind. After all, Malware had fucked the NBN, and for that he deserved a tar and feathering and a trip out of town on a donkey.

Why do the reptiles carry on so, why is the Major so agitated? Because they're guilty, guilty as hell, and they know it … and the Major knows it too ...

And speaking of group think, as one must when dealing with the reptiles, imagine the horror of Malware putting up money for the Graudian, when instead he might have invested in shitty News Corp, as a subordinated investor with no say in what La Famiglia might get up to  …even Malware's not as thick as that.

But enough of the Major because what a wealth of other opportunities there were this day beneath the fold …

There was simple Simon assigned SloMo arse-licking duties for the day, and Gra Gra wandering back past his Swiss bank accounts to Jim Cairns and Vietnam war protest days, and the war on China cranking up … but the pond could do only one more reptile, and surely it had to be the Oreo, a familiar feature in China …

Now it so happened that that tale of Antarctica, and the terrible pun about floes, handily set the scene for the Oreo's paranoid outburst …

Yes, Bergin and Press scored the elusive cult master this day … and what an introduction to the Oreo … because the recovering, reformed feminist was in great form, set upon by alien forces worse than the pack of cards that attacked Alice ...

Actually, might it not have been better for the Donald to stay in the game, and attempt to exercise some control over, and input into, the WHO? Ah, but logic is never handy when being paranoid …

Yes, it gets hard to talk conspiracy theories and delusions, when you have the CIC of the USA peddling conspiracy theories and undiluted nonsense on a daily basis, to the point where his aides might finally have persuaded him to just shut the fuck up, and cut back the daily showbiz briefings …

But we can't expect the Oreo to shut the fuck up … 

If she must keep speaking, given her fear and loathing of WHO, might she not at least do a revision of her CV?

Cited by the WHO? No wonder it's fucked, but back to the next gobbet ...

The wet markets? But everyone knows that the Chinese started it in a lab, as a way to undermine the West …or so the Donald said, quoted here ...

The pond is all for an independent inquiry, since neither can be trusted, and the Donald is a mystery unto himself …

But don't expect any of this ambiguity, nuance or subtlety, or alternative facts to penetrate the smooth sugary outer layer of the delectable Oreo …just expect another blast at Iran, as if the Iranians aren't in the middle of covering up a full-blown pandemic crisis … and trying to head back to work with the virus undefeated, because if a failed state like the US can do it, why not a theocracy?

Um, actually, it's about a reluctance to die a horrible death in the name of the economy. 

But the pond urges the Oreo to show us all how it's done, and get out on the front line, and expose herself to the virus, and prove to us all how she can overcome fear, as an example to us all. 

Perhaps a week on the front line at the checkout, perhaps a week as a nursing aide in an old folks' home? The possibilities are limitless, and freedom fighters can fight for freedom in many places, while showing that the virus is just like the reptiles, and doesn't like it up 'em …

Of course none of this should be taken as the pond being sarcastic ...

Instead the pond is in tune with the grim spectre featured in the immortal Rowe, with more Rowe here … because we all know what we should say to a sociopathic murderous dictator. as we defend the west, don't we?

In other news, the Donald was quoted as wishing Herr Hitler good luck, with the hope that the Disney cryogenics plant might restore him to life, so that at last Germany could be led by a good leader with whom the Donald might have a very good relationship. 

We all wish Herr Hitler well, and good luck, and a dollar in the Godwin's Law swear jar, and now take it away Mr Rowe …