Sorry, minions and serfs ... forget the seven million whys ...

Sorry, the pond is unable to attend to any business at this time, including reptile hysteria, though it does appreciate the attention of minions and serfs, engaged at a modest stipend, to attend to its most whimsical and frivolous desires...

After all, where would the health system be, without fast food, served by wretched, indigent third rate citizens for the good of all?

If anyone has any complaints about current discussions, please take it up with the relevant authorities ... and best be quick about it, before attention wanes over the break ...

Please, oh please, note the early closing time, serfs and minions.

What's that you say?

Having a go at the earnings of the underbelly underclass while companies worth billions making squillions pay no tax at all?

Why that's the joy and the meaning of Xmas ...

Irony ...

Try a dose of mineral-laden irony with your breakfast cereal. Feel its sustaining power ...

And now the pond is truly off for the break. Felicitations and salutations to all, as the pond's tiresome uncle used to say ... and let us look forward to a prosperous new year ...

Oh and remember, serfs and minions, while promenading, the pond likes its treats just so ... if you're not able to prepare a coffee just right, have you thought about ditch-digging for a newly enlarged Sydney council?

Jules (Samuel L Jackson): “Mmmm! Goddamn, Jimmie! This is some serious gourmet shit! Usually, me and Vince would be happy with some freeze-dried Taster’s Choice right, but he springs this serious GOURMET shit on us! What flavor is this?”

And so to Rudyard:

I keep six honest serving-men 
 (They taught me all I knew); 
 Their names are What and Why and When 
 And How and Where and Who. 
 I send them over land and sea, 
 I send them east and west; 
 But after they have worked for me, 
 I give them all a rest. 

 I let them rest from nine till five, 
 For I am busy then, 
 As well as breakfast, lunch and tea, 
 For they are hungry men. 
 But different folk have different views. 
 I know a person small -- 
 She keeps ten million serving-men, 
 Who get no rest at all! 

 She sends 'em abroad on her own affairs, 
 From the second she opens her eyes -- 
 One million Hows, two million Wheres, 
 And seven million Whys!

Update: loonish minds think alike ...

Why Malware will struggle in 2016 ... poodle wrangling is an almost mystical art form ...

The pond's judges have been distracted by an agile, innovative, pivot to win the award of silliest politician of the year, sub-category "never put it in a tweet or a text message"...

The pond's judges remain resolute - the joint award, previously given, stands undisputed and unchallenged and the co-winners may continue to enjoy the silly season as champions, thanks to their many silly contributions during the year ...

The pond's judges note that they have gone on Xmas break,  temptations of wi fi not withstanding, and are resolutely uninterested in re-visiting awards already won, as if the pond was some sort of Miss Universe pageant, and as if the obvious candidates hadn't already been garlanded with many richly deserved honours ...

The pond is absolutely not working through the Xmas season, as some others are doing, so that they might discover the power of a union campaign ...

Ah the pity of it all, and not just the Australian education system and the teachin' and the learnin' bout 'postrophes and punktuation and that sorta thing ... which is still slowly sinkin'g in ...

Meanwhile, roll on the new year ...

And then in 2016 we can all learn to love and play with the drones we'll have been given as Xmas presents ...

The pond is now cruising to Xmas ...

Yes, yes, the pond promised not to publish until the New Year, but this is such deeply weird shit, even if taken in the parodic spirit in which it's offered ...

And as for the use of children in the thing? Talk about grooming ...

Don't say you weren't warned ... and how deeply fucked is the United States of Weirdness ...

Wild Tales redux and farewell to the year ...

This being the pond's last outing for the year, we wanted to go out with a bang, like a plane descending on suburbia - well we couldn't leave the last post in the hands of the dog botherer - and what better way to do it than with trusty tabloid key board warriors of the raving rant kind ...

Heroic champions of blather ... a trio, a triptych of the journalists you know, and trust will preen and ponce ...

Yes, if anyone should stumble across the pond on the break, we want it to be fully representative of the swill the pond has presented on a daily basis throughout the year.

Even if the pond wanted to keep on blogging through the break, it couldn't.

It's going to a part of the Victorian world, another Malware outpost, where broadband is something they have in South Korea and even mobile connectivity is tenuous and inclined to break mid-phone call, in the way most callers drop out for Phillip Adams, thus providing some light moments amongst the tedium ... (yes, the pond is still Jonesing for the Bolter as his replacement).

The pond will resume in the new year, assuming it survives the Hume highway; the roads of south east Victoria - anything less than a Hummer or the jihadist vehicle of choice, the Toyota Hilux is a risky proposition; the brawling with the Shortenistas in the extended family; rural Victorian medical facilities, or perhaps just being in Victoria again.

Meanwhile, the pond would like to thank readers for their many useful links and their comments, which it has to be said - without the pond wanting to sound like a big suck - are much more elevated, dignified, informative and useful than the crap that passes daily down the flusher known as News Corp.

Even better, this blog doesn't attract the attention of crazed loons of the ratbag Murdoch kind, which is just as well, given how it is full of crazed loons of the ratbag Murdoch kind. As a result, the reptiles can be examined in their native habitat in relative tranquility.

So happy Xmas to all - put what you like in place of the X and happy holidays, or if you will happy holydays, and as Dave Allen always said, may your god go with you, whether that god be a good piss up, a good meal, a bit of fishing or a tour of Melbourne's fine art galleries and street art (oh yes, the old girl still has its charms).

And so to the question that has been tormenting the pond all year.

How long will the Murdochians persist with the blogs that hang like limp appendages from their main publications, offering a backdoor way behind the paywall so that all can read for free the dullard thoughts of the resident raving ratbags?

The front door looks like this ...

Which leads to this sort of paywall nonsense ...

Journalists you know and trust and Turnbull the Liberals' Gillard? More of that bizarrely obsessed man later, but let us first turn to essence of Devine poison ... courtesy of the back door, for which the pond maintains a taste, if only because it makes a mockery of the front door paywall ...

Ah, there wasn't much point reading past the first few comments, was there ... who would contribute actual cash from the paw to the Murdochian hate media?

And so to Akker Dakker, maintaining the rage, as only a Bunter, a fat owl of the remove, frustrated at the thought of sharing multicultural delights from the tuckshop, can do ...

Not another rant about teh Islamics?

Sure thing ... though if the truth is unspeakable, how and why does this ponce, this egregious loon, speak of it in such a regular basis, like cannon farting a fireball into the air in the noon day sun?

Talk about a hive mind with just a few bees in the bonnet busy buzzing away over and over again.

And what's with this work ethic?

See you in February?

We have to wait that long for a rant about the need for people to give up their weekend and holiday loadings and entitlements?

And speaking of the hive mind, and a bonnet with just two bees - love of the wall puncher, hate of Malware - it's farewell to the Bolter for the year, though he's gone terribly quiet since he started working for the ABC ...

Why it occurs to the pond he might just love his cardigan time.

Still, the old obsessions keep shining through ... it seems any story can be turned against Malware ...

How did he manage to turn an award for a biography into a knife-twisting assault on Malware?

It took some doing, but the Bolter managed it this way, when talking about Olsen's inclination to domestic violence and a sharp knife left in the bed as a warning to his wife...

...Bungey offers not the slightest moral judgement of this episode. No judge of the Prime Minister’s book prize noted it, either. Nor did Turnbull himself, who announced the prize given in his name, three months after making his big stand against domestic violence. 
I don’t think anyone’s life should be judged solely or even largely by two such incidents, and surely not when it’s a life as productive as Olsen’s. But I wonder how many other Australians - those outside the charmed inner circle of our culture - would be granted such mercy. 
UPDATE 
Artists of all kinds seem excused from the usual norms. Tim Blair: A group of “progressive, left-leaning, uni-educated men” who became “five of the most successful young comedians in Australia” are accused of covering up repeated domestic assaults committed by a colleague: “They must have known, and they still stood by him.”

This is about as bizarre and as strained as holding the Bolter to account for Puccini's affairs.

Why here he is talking about a link to a Puccini piece ...

The love duet from Act One of Madame Butterfly. Can you possibly beat it? I love Pavarotti’s version best of all  ...

And with not a single mention of Puccini's sordid personal life!

The marriage between Puccini and Elvira was also troubled by infidelity, as Puccini had frequent affairs himself, including with well-known singers such as Maria Jeritza, Emmy Destinn, Cesira Ferrani, and Hariclea Darclée. (Greg Hunit it here).

Put it another way:

...the Bolter offers not the slightest moral judgement of these episodes. No scribbler in Murdoch la la land noted it, either. Nor did Turnbull himself, who announced the prize for best aria selections, awarded to the Bolter and given in Turnbull's name, three months after making his big stand against domestic behaviour resulting in suicide.

Or some such thing, because the absurdity proved too much for the pond. Yes, Puccini led a wild life - there's a lot more here at the Independent about it ...

...as he himself put it: "I am a mighty hunter of wild fowl, operatic librettos and attractive women." It was Puccini's pursuit of women that created the great crisis in his life. 
This is a tale of infidelity, jealousy, vengeance and despair. It goes a long way towards explaining the composer's fallow period. Its repercussions are still being felt on the lakeside today.

Well yes, and of course that tale of domestic tragedy is remarkable, but harping on about would be as tedious as listening to the Bolter blather on about Malware.

Yet if we follow the Bolter's logic, it's the very first thing that the Bolter should have mentioned.

Even if he'd done it, it would still take a lot more to convince the pond that the Bolter or Tim Blair give a flying fuck about domestic violence .... as opposed to using it as an easy way to mount an assault on the usual target of progressive, left-leaning men and Malware ...

This is more the standard Bolter tone ...

I’ve never quite understood why Rosie Battie is an oracle on violence against women. What happened to her son is a ghastly tragedy, a shocking crime, but that does not mean she is herself wise. And as we see here, she most certainly is not fair.

Because apparently the Bolter and Tim Blair are feminists of the first water ... who could doubt little Timmie's credentials... except if you cross the line, and speak against the wall puncher.

All of which leaves only one thing that's certain in the new year...

That the reptiles will display an astonishing capacity to sound like bees with a hive mind, and the Bolter will continue endlessly to parade his new obsession ...

Say what? He's even obsessed by a black bird called Turnbull ...?

Oh dear. Barking mad. 

No wonder the radio ratings are in the toilet.

And so there's nothing else to do except urge hope, and agility, and innovation, and belief to all ,because never have we existed in more exciting and reptilian times as this, and that includes the age of the dinosaurs, so magnificently captured in Andrew Hastie's preferred scientific textbook, which explains creation and global warming, though it struggles to explain teh Donald ...

Could it get any better or worse?

Well it depends if you scribble about loons and you want to keep a prize loon in the banner at the top of the page ...

Enjoy the break and summon up the strength. Devotees of reptiles and loons will need it in abundance in 2016 ...

Has he left yet, good on us for having a go, and other wild tales from down under ...

The pond is always slow to catch up on things, but the Argentine movie Wild Tales (Greg Hunt it here, watch out for Walri) is a hoot, and Damián Szifron as close to Luis Buñuel Portolés as any film director might get, which is to say very close to one of the pond's most favourite film-makers, and besides the title of the film resonates wildly with the wild things that have been happening this year down under ...

If you've missed it, find a way to catch up, because it will make stories like this even funnier ...

Put it another way ...

Yes, the smelly old diesel motor is a Vdub clunker, if you read Tony Abbott should go, with forced video ...

But this is the pond's penultimate post for the year, and so it's in search of distractions rather than obvious truths, and what better way to start than with Akker Dakker ...

Say what?

The pond couldn't believe that line, with its double edged meaning.

Why it verged on illiteracy and surely some NZ sub must be to blame ... but no, when you read Akker Dakker this is what he wrote:

Relax, he isn't really say that the surrounding Arab nations attempted to invade and obliterate Israel with the help of Australia, the day after it came into existence, but the pond suggests that lovers of far right Israeli governments should lay off the white powder and take a course in communicating what they mean.

Of course people in glarse hooses should be careful throwning stones, but the pond at least doesn't purport to be professional and demand money with pop-ups each time a site is visited ...

Would that the pond had a penny for each time the wood is mistaken for the trees of the whirled ...

What else? Well that discussion about the way crazed cultists have made out like bandits with breakfast cereals reminded the pond of a recent Colbert sketch ...

You can see it here, and while you're at it, enjoy his take on the Republican debate here, though it has to be said that the current state of weird right-wing politics in the United States is beyond satire ...

You can read that story at the Graudian here, as proof that we're deep in the silly 'war on Xmas' season.

Trump also had a go at that, proving what happens with an unrelenting diet of Fox News and the thoughts of Chairman Rupert ... though you can also rely on the angry Sydney Anglicans for seasonal stupidity...

Yes, a capacity for child-like superstition of the saintly Mother Teresa kind is deeply embedded within the high and low Anglicans, just as it is with the original whore of Babylon...

Those who want to brood further might do a Greg Hunt and look up Miraculous births in their infinite variety - careful, you might end up fucking a ghost or a spectre - but the pond has other fish to fry this Sunday ...

You see, the pond simply couldn't overlook the dog botherer's predictions for the New Year ... because if this is the silly season, is there a better example of being fucked in the head or the tail than the dog botherer?

Naturally he provides a perfect example of the sackcloth and ashes mourning, the wailing and moaning and gnashing of teeth, that still bedevils the reptiles of Oz.

This text is so rich in delusional, deeply Freudian material that the pond doesn't know where to begin, and so - as Abbott's own electorate calls for him to piss off - the pond will be content merely to press on ...

Roll that one around on the tongue... voters would probably be happy enough with the Abbott government led by Turnbull.

So that's what happens when you consort with a dog ... fucked in the head as well as the tail.

As for that other matter of the ASIO DG, on which the reptiles have been harping of late, is this true?

ASIO chief Duncan Lewis telephoned just two MPs about the tenor of the political debate around Islam, and neither of those has complained about being pressured to conform, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has said. 
The revelation, which is corroborated by Fairfax Media's own investigations, flatley contradicts media reports that Mr Lewis had rung around conservative MPs in order to whip them into line with Mr Turnbull's position. 
It also suggests that those forces opposed to Mr Turnbull's leadership have been prepared to put at risk not just the independence of the nation's top intelligence bureaucrat, but the very consensus on which Australia's national security relies, in the quest to damage the Prime Minister's standing. Advertisement 
The revelation that just two MPs had been contacted – each of whom had a pre-existing relationship with Mr Lewis – also weakens any claim that Mr Lewis has been "playing politics" by involving himself in the national debate about the relationship between Islam and violent extremism. 
Speaking to reporters in Japan, Mr Turnbull said that just two MPs, backbenchers Andrew Hastie and Dan Tehan, have been called by Mr Lewis. (More at Fairfax here, with forced video).

What to say? Well a reader provided a link here, to someone else saying the bleeding obvious:

Gadfly’s personal favourite came from retired Moloch executive Ken Cowley, who told The Australian Financial Review last year: “The Australian is now pathetic. It should have been growing stronger.” For his troubles, the paper turned on poor Ken and gave him a terrible payback. 
Classy stuff. Of course, the old boy is right. It’s difficult to believe what you’re reading in The Oz, whether it’s part of some loony agenda or something approximating what’s going on. If the paper had not been so ideologically batty under Kransky’s leadership it may have appealed to a much wider audience and would not be losing $30 million a year. 
Instead, it’s read largely by retired majors in Wahroonga, ancient climate-deniers, New Guard conservatives, boots-on-the-ground advocates and David Flint. (More vintage Gadfly Ackland here).
And, it goes without saying, the pond, a dedicated, fascinated, strangely compelled, observer of the reptiles in the their herpetarium ... with a loony agenda that explains the title of this blog ...

Of course what the reptiles want is for Malware to become Tony Abbott ... bizarre as that might sound.

Here's the dog botherer concluding his thoughts about the new year, without realising that he's actually back projecting to the recent time of deep grief for the reptiles ...

You see ... Abbott's policy foundations ...

That'd be the ones that led him to become the most despised Prime Minister in many a year, with wretched polls  month after month, and now a poll proposing that even his own safely conservative electorate thinks it's time for him to go and make a decent living elsewhere - except, as in the case of Peter Costello, no one can find a decent, useful purpose for him ...

Well we can expect more tripe from the reptiles in the next year, that at least is certain, and much sniping and undermining and wrecking and destabilising and leaking and lies and misrepresentations, and all for what?

So that the country can be as fucked as it was under Abbott ...?

So it seems and so we can expect many more highlights and low lies of the Wild Tales kind ...

As for the year past, there's no point going there, not when First Dog has already done the job here ...

What's that you say? Bronnie will be back next year to fight terrorism?

The farce and the tragedy will continue, like a bad Republic(an) serial...

Speaking of spent fuel rods and containment facilities for reptile minds ...

(Above: the most excellent Pope, reminding the pond of spent fuel rods, still toxic and in need of a home. But will anyone take the rod? Rickie Lee Jones style, the pond was inclined to throw all the rods he gave her. No wonder NIMBY-ism is so popular, and more Pope here).

Only a few more sleeps before the pond heads off to a timeless land where broadband is a state of mind, and mobile phone connectivity requires a kind of Carlos Castaneda, or dog-like ability, to curl up in exactly the right spot. Yes, there are other places besides Camperdown in the land of Oz.

How pleasing then to see that the fascists are out and about today in the lizard Oz.

What joy! Not just a column by a rabid, raving ratbag, but an EXCLUSIVE as well.

Of course this doesn't go nearly enough for the pond. Surely there's a case for enforced sterilisation, state-mandated internment camps - off to the islands with the cheap hussies - and a couple of onshore gulags. (No, it would be absolutely wrong to suggest men be castrated for having sex with the hussies - men must be allowed to run wild and free and sow their seed as they will, for of such pleasures is a nirvana made).

No doubt some of the hussies would try to evade compulsory contraception, so where's the harm in having their wombs untimely ripped from them? We all know what damage Macduff did to the world ...

Now the pond is pleased to help, provided the uniforms are of a decent Fitzroy black (Carlton black is so yesterday), and there are plenty of skulls and lightning symbols on caps and belts and suchlike. The pond has many wild ideas that will come in useful - such as the enforced sterilisation of Oz columnists relying on a parliamentary pension in their dotage.

Funnily enough that 60,000 number had a great ring to it ...

For a minute there, the pond was tempted to spend the rest of Saturday looking at Nazi posters trumpeting eugenic joys. So many posters, all speaking to Johns' Godwin Law-breaking heart, so little time.

But there are always other pleasures in a fascist rag, and speaking of parliamentarians in their dotage, the pond was reminded of the wall-punching spent fuel rod ...

You see, the reptiles are in deep grieving, because they still yearn for the Tony Abbott business plan of relentless nattering negativity. How else to fill a front page than with screeching about teh Islamics and their death cults?

This story particularly moved the pond ...

Oh dear. Just a knock on the door? What about enforced castration?

But that story drew attention to the poignant sight of crazed, fanatical minds, so closed you couldn't use a stick of jelly to blow them open.

We speak of course of the reptile mind, a study of intransigence, dedicated to maintaining the rage and the hate and the division and the fear, and to speaking out in support of same ...

Oh brave fearless, plain-speaking reptiles. Why sterilisation is too good for these noble warriors of the keyboard ... let them speak forth ...

Excellent plain speaking, though if Mr Lewis is entitled to express his views, what's all the fuss about?

Well for that we must turn to the bromancer, still deep in his grief and his shattering sense of loss.

It requires a history lesson of almost unendurable length, a Himalayas trek which might challenge the toughest minds and bodies ...

And yet it could all be summarised by this poignant plea for Tony to stay and vent and vent and vent ...

No way should the spent fuel rod knick off, because venting at Islamics is as much fun and as much sport as talking about the NSW art gallery ... and climate change, which everyone knows is a delusional conspiracy by the UN to produce a world government ... as will be seen when the former chairman gets the top job and we enter a thousand year Queensland-run world reich ...

And so to the real test, and a warning. Anyone who falls by the wayside will be shot and left in the ditch, their only consolation some peppermint-flavoured condoms. Chew on those, you lazy rascally Fairfaxians ....

Oh don't you just love the pond's black leather jacket and aren't the jackboots just so scrumptious?

So what's it all about, what's the real bromancer agenda? Well it doesn't take that long for it to become clear ...

Of course! Lewis crossed the line and dared to suggest that Tony Abbott and a number of other senior Liberals were endangering national security.

Now this is true enough - is it possible to imagine a group more dangerous and deadly than the wall puncher, Cory, George, Erica and friends? Why their bumbling impersonation of Colonel Blimps could reduce even the most solid security walls to jelly-like wobbly laughter ...

So Sheridan is on about the right of his good mate to maintain the rage, and the fear and the terror and the loathing and fomenting of the divisions and so on and so forth ...

Now at this point, the pond is prepared to let out of class the weaklings and the starvelings who can't handle the pace or cut the mustard.

Just remember that if you find someone following you, it's simply procedural, because the pond will be checking up on your fornicating single mum and her wanton disregard of the pond-mandated contraception that produced such useless, weak, snivelling, tear-sodden spawn. Epic fail, dropkick losers. Couldn't make it through a bromancer story? No more welfare for you ...

Oh just harden the fuck up, there's an important history lesson to follow, which admittedly reveals much more about the strange world that the bromancer inhabits than the actual history that happened ... where would the world of the kool-aid saturated reptiles be, without a post-ironic, post-modernist reflexive reference to lazy, insular Fairfax journalists?

Oh the sweet delusional bromancer, still singing his song of Tony, and yet somehow - remind the pond if this is true, pinch the pond on the cheek, as pain induces pleasure and a reality check - is it true that Tony has now gone and Christmas and the New Year not yet upon us?

Weep, bromancer, weep. Shed more tears of pain, take it out on whoever is nearest ...

How interesting. A man who dares to speak of narrow provincialism from the depths of his bromancing Catholic fundamentalism.

Strange days, surely the end times are nigh.

And so to the rest of the history lesson.

The pond has had its fun, and tedium and a deep sense of ennui must be the price to pay ...

Has there ever been a scribbler more wrapped up in his cocoon than this? Now he discovers that opposing the war in Vietnam was a legitimate activity?

What about those who oppose a war with Islam? What about opposition to the war mongers that led us into Iraq? Like the war criminal Howard and his wall punching lackey?

It was not up to ASIO to have political opinions and it was certainly not up to ASIO to act on those political opinions.

So why were the reptiles running that story about ASIO tampering with young minds?

Oh right, that's because they're young minds. All ASIO needs to do is avoid tampering with reptile minds.

Now you don't have to be Jean-Luc Godard to realise that on one level everything is political and so that guff about being above politics is just pure gibberish of the kind which should see the sterilisation squad called in to prevent such impaired brains from reproducing.

Too late? Never mind,  though it's a pity the pond had to endure the irrelevant tirade ... when all the bromancer needed to scribble was "let my fundamentalist chum be as Hansonite as he likes, because that will really help fix things up ..."

All that blather just because a professional suggested that Tony Abbott and friends might still be fucking up the country? Why is it that the reptiles would want to feel a shred of sympathy for ASIO, caught between fundamentalist camps, when the pond has spent a lifetime disdaining ASIO? Talk about fiendish plots ...

And what is this jibber jabber about a nonpartisan inheritance?

Has the country ever been more divided and partisanal - not quite the same as artisanal - as a result of two brief years? Are we tired? Is there a containment dump somewhere that will take the spent fuel rod and his partisan scribblers?

As if it wasn't obvious for all to see, and Sheridan - already awarded the egg beating columnist of the year by the pond - wasn't content, and wanted another feather on his cap, a bar for his pond-approved DFC, short for Distinguished Fucked-up Commentary ...

Now the pond would usually end with a cartoon - oh Rowe why have you abandoned us - or perhaps a Nazi poster or three, so many with a Johnsian flavour, but as we're soon to hit the road, here's the pond's favourite RL Jones song ...