In which the pond takes a winter break, but not before quality time with Dame Slap, the bromancer and nattering "Ned" ...

 

 

The pond is taking a break to celebrate the impending arrival of winter.

The pond also admits to being more than slightly jaded at the thought of reading the local reptiles in the chilly morn.  It's so unfair, how can they possibly compete with their US counterparts? Take the Killer for example, and his well-known fear and loathing for masks. Not even the Killer could manage to compare wearing masks, in the MTG manner, with the Holocaust.

The pond has also been increasingly distracted by other events. Strolling past the Enmore theatre in Enmore road, for example, the pond saw this interesting spectacle ...

It reminded the pond of the day it saw a line-up of strollers and prams outside the theatre while inside The Wiggles did their thing ... the scent of saturated nappies hung heavy in the air ... though in this case the demographic was slightly different ...

 

Well done Spacey Jane, you've hit the core female teen demographic ...

As for the rest, it's just a FAQ day at the reptile factory ...

 

 

 

Another disheartening outing, another reason for the pond not to pay attention. There's the bouffant one talking up the state election, and there's Dame Slap doing her usual thing, showing how IPA chairmen are a tough bunch and don't mind a few deaths in the family,  not if there's a Virgin flight to hand ...

The pond didn't have much choice ... so in it plunged ...

 

 

A year plus more than a little change and we need to be told the truth about a world pandemic? 

Only in reptile la la land could that be considered as a headline, but the novelty of the proposition - that IPA chairman Dame Slap was a truth teller who could handle the truth, evoking memories of Jack - at least caught the eye ...

 

To tweak an old adage, we get the IPA-dominated reptile media we deserve. And how wondrous for Dame Slap to deplore the yelling, when it's the reptile business to do the yelling ... but the pond is really pleased that Dame Slap has stood up and is happy to die, all for the pleasure of flying on Virgin ... and so to the slagging off of SloMo, which has become a feature rather than a bug in recent Dame Slap outings ...

 

The pond isn't sure where Dame Slap's strident antipathy to SloMo has come from, but it's palpable and real ...

 

Where does all this leave the pond? Perhaps a little closer to joining Virgin, Killer and Dame Slap in a killer flight, or perhaps safely in the hands of a Rowe cartoon, with more safe hands here ...

 

 

What else? Well the bromancer was out and about in the reptile triptych ...

 

 

Forget Xian Porter, why not celebrate preparations for the next world war?

 

It won't take long...

 

Indeed, indeed, how comforting to think that Darwin will become a likely hotspot in the next eagerly anticipated world war ...

 

 Oh yes, things are heating up nicely ... proceed with speed ...

 

And so on and on, as the drums of war keep copping a pounding, and so to a final duty before the pond's winter break ...

 

 

No, not the dreaded Sharri lathering up another dreaded conspiracy-laden reptile storm ... the pond will await the inevitable report about Sharri's latest on Media Watch, as when she had a chat with Steve Bannon - but rather a tour of duty with nattering "Ned" ...

It's always a tough, lengthy, endurance-laden assignment, and the pond will be pleased to avoid doing it for awhile ...

 

 

Ah yes, the handyman PM ... but the pond promises not to show those same paws clutching a lump of coal ... there's no need to lengthen this tour of duty unduly ...

 

 

Indeed, indeed. The Upper Hunter hasn't been won for the past ninety years by the Labor party, so we may certainly take it as a sign of voter realignment under way for many years. 

In the pond's old stomping ground of the federal New England seat, Labor has only won the seat twice - in 1906 and 1910 - or so the wiki says here - which certainly suggests a sign of voter realignment under way for many years ... what with Barners now triumphant after his dual citizenship and marital woes hiccups ...

But why does "Ned" blather so? Well, he's obsessed with "progressives", as you might expect of an antiquated luddite scribbling for an organisation situated in Surry Hills, with young hipsters all around him ...

 

At its heart, reptilism thrives on anxiety, fear and loathing. Note well that talk of being a banner carrier for the tertiary-educated, because it will produce a splendid joke at the end of "Ned's" piece ...

 

 

Sorry, the pond felt the need for a coal joke before proceeding to the penultimate "Ned" gobbet ...

 

Thank the long absent lord that there's someone as bold and as brave as "Ned", willing to disappear up the arses of SloMo and Josh ... a place where even Dame Slap refuses to go ...

And so to the punchline ...

 

Yes, there she blows. After all that blather about working class values, and the need for hard honest toil, what do we get as values? Get an education and start a business. But if you get an education, won't you become one of those useless progressives, seeking a new moral order, weakening traditions, institutions and established cultural norms?

Don't try to resolve it, it's just the usual nattering "Ned" bullshit, purporting to provide analysis, but desperate to provide reasons for SloMo to get back in, so that we might all speak in tongues and wave hands in the air as we talk to our imaginary friend, and celebrate our values ... you know, Hillsong and all that, making a mint of money, and never mind a little child molestation along the way ...

Meanwhile, on another planet faraway ...

 

 

Don't worry SloMo. "Ned" and the other reptiles have got your back, and they like nothing better than blathering about progressives, because it sure as hell beats talking about the science of climate change, and paws holding up lump of coal in triumph, not to mention gas power station follies ...

And so to a final duty before the break ... a cartoon from the infallible Pope ...

In which the pond copes with the bromancer and Killer ...

 

 

Yes, the pond has reptile coping mechanisms, and isn't ashamed to confess to them. Reptile wrangling on a daily basis can be emotionally exhausting, intellectually draining, and result in negativism and pessimism.

Each week, usually on a Monday night, the pond takes a dose of John Oliver. Regrettably, in Australia, there's only one cable service, so the pond has to use other ways to access HBO, but then the rich fantasy life follows - make the Major sit down and watch John Oliver on the situation in the Palestine gulag; make the reptiles watch John Oliver sending up Andrew Giuliani as a terrifying clown in a car full of clowns; watch Oliver observing absurd homicidal US gun laws; watch John Oliver send up local news with a sexualised magnetic blanket in a way that would make Paltrow weep with envy for an opportunity missed.

Then for light relaxation, the pond takes in Mare of Easttown. It's by the numbers in terms of plotting, but Kate Winslet has a great screen presence and the other performances are solid. Sadly, the pond has to use other means to watch the show, but never mind.

Then, for something truly weird, showing just how dysfunctional the Danes are, the pond might turn to a show such as Riders of Justice.

By the time all this, and more, is done at night, the pond is ready to wake up to a dose of the lizard Oz ...

At the same time, the pond will admit it's becoming more selective in its reptile tastes. 

Simplistic Simon is such a fuckwit, it's hard to waste time on such a gormless propagandist doing his bit for Joel and coal ... and as for that blather about inner-city cafés, how does a mob bunkered down in the inner suburb of Surry Hills manage such nonsense on a daily basis? 

Do Greg Brown and David Tanner ever look at themselves and wonder how they became involved in a reptile assassination squad as a way of making a living? Wouldn't playing a serial killer in Mare, predictably coming out of the blue, be a more honest way to make a living.

As for that photo of Albo, do either Brown or Tanner ever have a cup of coffee? Do they only do it in Wilcannia on the way to the black stump in the quest for authenticity, or do they only do it in the privacy of their own home?

What is this crap?

 

 

 

The reptiles are your guide to coffee shops and dining spots and such like around Holt street?

 Oh okay the pond has played that sort of cheap shot too, as recently as the weekend, with this portrait of the dog botherer ...

 

But the pond is just a failed blogger, just like the Donald. Aren't the reptiles supposed to be a bit more subtle and nuanced?

Never mind, it's all by way of explaining why the pond yet again ended up in company with the bromancer this day, because he turned up below that embassy "EXCLUSIVE". 

As usual, the bromancer was plaintive and whining, and talking of honour, as if that had some meaning to the reptiles ...

Who on earth thinks of Australia as an honourable nation? Why just last night, the pond had to interrupt the latest Oliver-Clooney gag to head off to Media Watch to endure the latest news of the latest Star Chamber secret trial, in Collaery's secret trial, perhaps one of the most appalling abuses of the legal system ever mounted in order to save Lord Downer's shameless skin. 

The pond also had to endure the appalling sight of the needling HUN on the warpath, but there was at least an Oliver moment when that Gold Coast hairdresser turned up on ... local news ... proving there's always a media loon handy when a Gold Coast loon offers the chance to score a view or a click ...

Luckily the bromancer blathering on about honour - how much honour is there in spying on a neighbour to get a good deal on oil, Lord Downer? - was running short, so there was room to feature the bromancer in a comical situation ...

 

 

An evening with the bromancer, and it looked like the rubber chicken - or  was it the wide angle lens to get in all the men in shirts? - was having an effect ...

Never mind, back to the bromancer, and a quick gobbet, and that idle talk of honour can soon be forgotten ...

 

Yes, you can organise a spying operation on a poverty-stricken friendly neighbour in order to screw them right royally, and then organise a secret Star Chamber trial to hide the matter and yet somehow it's the Whitlam government that's the most dishonourable in history ... as if the intention in Afghanistan hasn't always been to suck up to the Yanks, and as soon as the Yanks slink off, it's time for the traditional Oz slink...

Bullshit from the reptiles doesn't amount to much, but it's something the pond has to deal with on a daily basis, so is it any wonder the pond has to look elsewhere on occasions just to survive the experience? 

Look at this wretched line-up below the fold ..

 

 

Ancient Troy has the cheek to ask whether fact-based journalism still matters at the ABC?

The pond looks forward to ancient Troy's piece on the shameless crusading of the monstrous Murdoch tabloids, with the HUN and the Terror vying each day to be the worst of the worst ...

The lizard Oz editorialist rabbiting on about Labor and Fergo rabbiting on about a third wave, spreading fear and panic, when the infallible Pope noted all that needed to be said on the matter ...

 

 

Killer Creighton hates such talk and hates masks too ... and so the pond ended up once again in Killer's deadly embrace ...

 

The pond should note at the outset that it hasn't the slightest interest in the subject matter at hand, nor Killer's determined effort to spread fear and loathing about inflation, but the point of the pond is to fawn and to pander to the reptiles' obsessions, confused and confusing as they might be ...

 

In this sort of Killer outing, climate change will inevitably get a mention. Will the effects of climate change, if left unchecked, get a mention? Of course not, all there'll be is a mourning for coal, gas and nukes, because that's how Killer plays the game ... with the added bonus of world war III with China as a good way to get inflation on the move ...

 

What matters is fear and uncertainty, so that loons might be persuaded to join the GOP ... 

Meanwhile, in the spirit of Riders of Justice and coincidences, the pond was reminded of this ancient 2017 text in The Graudian here ...

While accepting the Nobel prize for economics, Friedrich Hayek made an astonishing admission. Not only were economists unsure about their predictions, he noted, but their tendency to present their findings with the certainty of the language of science was misleading and “may have deplorable effects”.
This revelation, made about 40 years ago, is a crucial one and yet it has been largely forgotten or ignored. One of the most striking comments before the EU referendum was from Michael Gove. He claimed people in Britain had had enough of experts. This has since become something of a mantra, and polling does indeed suggest that most people place little trust in expert predictions and pronouncements.
One of the problems with economic forecasting is that a small change in a few variables can make predictions almost impossibly complex. To understand how quickly the maths can become complicated, Prof Sir Michael Berry tried to forecast the path of a snooker ball after it was hit. Guessing where the first ball would go was easy; the second impact became more complicated, but still possible. The problem was that to correctly forecast the ninth impact, you would need to take account of the gravitational pull of someone standing nearby. To predict the 56th, you would need to include the effect of every single particle in the universe..

That's worth bearing in mind when the Killer turns to mocking vulgar youff for not having a clue, the implication being that the Killer isn't clueless himself ...

 

That's where Killer stops? Surely he could have gone on to mention how the world's economies were being ruined by the Olympics and by more Zack Snyder movies of the Army of the Dead kind ...

Never mind, in a perverse way, our Killer proves the pond's point. The planet is fucked so many ways come Sunday already, that reading the Killer somehow provides the pond with relief ... because things are fucked, no doubt about it, but imagine having to live inside Killer's head, with all the fears and phobias running around like hares on the loose ...

But when the pond has tended to the reptiles' whining, there's also relief to hand with other whine tours of the Joel kind, thanks to the immortal Rowe, with more Rowe always here ...

 

In which the Caterist, the Major and the Oreo do their Monday tour of reptile duty ...

 

 

 

There was something of a role switch today at the lizard Oz. Usually it's the Major assigned the task of ABC bashing, but today the Major took on "the media", while the Caterist got out the whacking stick to teach the cardigan-wearing lefties a lesson ...

It left the pond a tad confused from the get go, because apparently old male lefties are infatuated with the ABC's tribe of feminnazis looking at the world in all its moronic, mindless Caterist complexity through a narrow sexist filter...

 

Uh huh. A poll commissioned by the Menzies Research Centre? A centre designed as a Liberal party front, feigning to be a think tank, but in reality so inept it couldn't predict the movement of flood waters in a quarry ... even with the help of a generous annual grant from the federal Liberal government. What should we call that, just for the pure comedy involved in using the word. "Independent"? Yep, that'll do for a laugh ...

 

A more detailed analysis is called for. What is this True North Strategy the Caterist speaks of? Is it a murky consultancy working out of Cape Town in South Africa, with a website that mentions not one name when it comes to its team? Or is it a local mob hired by the Liberal party front? They would support a local business, wouldn't they?

Who else contributes money to the Menzies Research Centre so that it might indulge in this sort of survey, with an obvious political point in mind?

The answers to these questions will allow the pond to assess the Caterist's claim to special insight, or perhaps to just swallow the standard Caterist peddling of the standard reptile bullshit on the matter ...

 

Indeed, indeed, and the narrowing of the Menzies Research Centre can be taken for a given, but hacks and poor persons' propagandists must take their cash in the paw where they find it, and please their anonymous sponsors as they can ...

And so to the Major, peddling another all too familiar reptile line ...

 

 

Of course by "Australian media" the Major doesn't mean to include the Murdochians. He means "them", the implacable other, the ones who always fail to get what the Major in his infinite wisdom has the singular wit to understand ... including all those clowns who failed to join in the hunt for that long lost Order of Lenin medal ...

 

Uh huh. Still a MAGA cap wearer, even as the paranoid ex goes about the business of demolishing what remains of a belief in the voting system and democracy in the United States, though the pond perforce must admit that the current proceedings in Arizona have provided a fine level of comedy. Who else could have thought of hiring a firm named Cyber Ninjas, blessed with a wondrous team, courtesy AP ...

...At a public presentation last week, Logan cited as part of his qualifications that his firm “worked with some of the largest names in the financial services space.” Two of the companies he lists as former clients in his expert witness statement, Citibank and JP Morgan Chase, said through spokespeople that they have no record of hiring Cyber Ninjas.
Logan’s scant public record before the audit was a history of volunteering for the U.S. Cyber Challenge, a training event for internet security amateurs and professionals. In 2015, Logan received an award from the security firm SANS for his volunteerism with the event,
John Pescatore, the SANS employee who oversees the award program, said Logan was cited mainly for designing an online “capture the flag” game where players try to hack into an opponent’s base. “It takes a lot of work,” said Pescatore of Logan’s volunteering...
...Logan is not the only person associated with the effort to overturn the 2020 election who is working on the audit. Jovan Pulitzer, an inventor who unsuccessfully pushed for a post-election audit in Georgia, has said his technology is being used to detect altered ballots.
Pulitzer is also a former treasure hunter and author of a series of books on lost treasures, including one titled “How to Cut Off Your Arm and Eat Your Dog.” In 2000, he developed a barcode scanner called Cuecat that purported to link print magazine ads to the internet. It was later named one of the 50 worst inventions of all time by Time magazine.

Okay, it's got nothing to do with Israel or its fifteen year long treatment of Gaza as a blockaded ghetto/gulag (use word that best evokes being cut off from the world and hope and sent stir crazy), but back now to the Major living out the Israeli hack propagandist dream ...

 

Being a lover of the Donald, of course the major would love the big lie, which is why he fails to mention the 1948 Palestinian exodus which more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs - about half of the prewar Arab population - flee or be expelled from their homes. The first Israeli government prevented the Arabs who had left from returning to their homes or claiming their property. 

The Nakba, wiki it here, is the foundational lie for all the future troubles ... and the simple truth is that those who can't deal with this simple truth will forever perpetuate the wrong that was done to salve the guilt (in Europe, the UK, the Unites States and elsewhere) produced by the outrages of the second world war ...

 

Think about this. All the blather about a settlement of differences,  or a two state solution, or whatever, has been thwarted by fundamentalists, with Jewish fundamentalists just as driven as their Islamic counterparts ... and with the corrupt hard right Benny at the helm, what's the chance of it changing?

And so to the Major, explaining why there's little hope for the future, by swallowing the Israeli version of events whole ...

 

Well there's a fine sighting of an apologist doing what apologists do ... the pond has always had a fair contempt for the Major, but this outing is particularly contemptible ... but at least helps explain why the pond will be long dead before there's any solution which provides equality and justice for Arabs under the thumb of a paranoid theocratic state ...

And so to the Oreo, because that's what the pond does on a Monday ...

 

 

The reformed, recovering feminist lathers herself up into an indignant condition but vaccine hesitancy shouldn't be confused and conflated with vaccine preference. Hapless Greg Hunt belled that cat when he noted that Pfizer would be on hand for everyone by the end of the year, and given that it's a superior vaccine with fewer (admittedly very rare) side effects compared to others, who wouldn't follow hapless Greg Hunt's advice?

Some fun stories to google ...

 

 

And now on with the Oreo ...

 

Strange, in that list of refuseniks, the Oreo forgot to mention one of the best sources of confusion. The Donald and his devoted followers ... as in this Miami Herald story here ...

 

 

Of course that's Florida, home of the Donald and the generally crazy, but the story could be replicated across the United States ...what with the Oreo's kissing cousins across the sea, such as Tucker Carlson, routinely fueling the flames ...

 

Um, actually, it's a real slur on social media to confuse and conflate it with blogger Donald, Faux Noise, Tucker, and the GOP ... but the pond has a solution.

Just as Krispy Kreme has offered to kill people with heart disease in a bid to get them vaccinated ...

 

 

... why not an Oreo-led campaign down under? Forget your million dollar lottery lures, why not an Oreo artery overload to go with your shot? Better than an Oreo verbiage overload.

Just trying to be helpful, as we come to the end of the Oreo rant, still carrying on about social media ... but before she does, please allow the pond to reminisce about the way a private school in Miami (Florida yet again) was the source of much nonsense, while also, per Miami New Times, Centner Academy Founders Gave More Than $1 Million to GOP in 2020:

The founders of a Miami private school that recently barred vaccinated teachers from interacting with students spent mountains of cash supporting GOP candidates last year, according to campaign-finance data.
Husband and wife David and Leila Centner, the co-founders of Centner Academy in Miami's Design District, made national headlines this week when the New York Times reported on an internal email from Leila Centner that warned teachers their employment would be affected if they choose to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
The email said teachers who have already been vaccinated would be kept away from the student body until the end of the school year and warned that teachers who get vaccinated over the summer might not have a job waiting for them in the fall.

Good old GOPers. And then there are all those Tucker stories to google ...

Who needs social media when you've got Tucker, Faux Noise, the Murdochians, the Donald, and the GOP? For some strange reason, the reformed recovering feminist does ...

 

 

Or listen to the GOP, the Murdochians in the United States, Tucker, and so on ... whatever ...

And so to the Rowe for the day, and the pond is pleased to advise that, thanks to the Hunter by-election, it has finally learned the name of the leader of the NSW opposition ... Josie Something or Other ...