In which the pond fails the petulant Peta test, and only has a Killer letter from America and a somnambulist Sexton as replacements ...

 

On the matter of AI, some might have heard the old joke that if you ask Bing whether Australia exists, it immediately cites three sources saying it doesn't. 

One source actually says it's a conspiracy theory and another leads you to the immortal Shelley Floryd in full flight and sounding pretty convincing on Facebook way back when: 

"Australia is not real. It’s a hoax, made for us to believe that Britain moved over their criminals to someplace. In reality, all these criminals were loaded off the ships into the waters, drowning before they could see land ever again. It’s a coverup for one of the greatest mass murders in history, made by one of the most prominent empires.
Australia does not exist. All things you call 'proof' are actually well fabricated lies and documents made by the leading governments of the world. Your Australian friends? They’re all actors and computer generated personas, part of the plot to trick the world.
If you think you’ve ever been to Australia, you’re terribly wrong. The plane pilots are all in on this, and have in all actuality only flown you to islands close nearby – or in some cases, parts of South America, where they have cleared space and hired actors to act out as real Australians."

These days she'd find a home on Twitter, sharing Pizzagate theories with Uncle Elon ... or perhaps going full in with Mike Lee ..

The pond only starts this way as a distraction, before reluctantly admitting to an F in herpetology studies. 

There was the challenge, posed as usual on the top barking mad far right pole position on the digital Oz ...

For a nano second, the pond thought of going the full ten yards with petulant Peta ... then reality kicked in ... with the hysterical headline West slides into abyss of intellectual decay a fair enough warning, this being the woman who once ran with the onion muncher, or should that be, once ran the onion muncher into all forms of political stupidity imaginable, such that even his own mob couldn't stand him ...

End result? The pond simply couldn't do it. 

The pond preferred to accept an F in herpetology studies. The pond did a little prep and scanned it, but flinched. There was the usual all-in stuff for Benji's program of collective punishment, and displacement. Along the way there was a snap of Niall Ferguson, Greg Sheridan. Rebecca Heinrichs, and Andre Hastie at ARC and a revival of the Crusades:

In part, it’s the persistence of the world’s oldest prejudice, even in societies such as ours that have had two millennia to assimilate the words of St Paul in Galatians that “there is neither Jew nor gentile, slave nor free, male nor female for you are all one in Christ Jesus”. 

There were sundry and abundant breaches of Godwin's Law, with many references to Adolf, as in:

And then there’s the sheer ignorance and muddle-headedness of millions who can’t remember Hitler (and increasingly aren’t taught about the Holocaust) and who have been brainwashed to see everything through the prism of oppressed and oppressors where, in this case, it happens to be Israel that’s the relevant “colonial” exploiter and it’s Jewish people who happen to be the current representatives of “white privilege”.
At a deeper level, it’s a profound moral failure to appreciate the difference between a liberal society under existential threat and a terrorist statelet that wants to conquer and oppress its neighbour based on a creed that’s still in the Dark Ages. 

Never mind the settlers in the West Bank, never mind the displacement, the collective punishment and so on and so gulag forth ...

Along the way, there was a huge snap of Bari Weiss and a ravaging of Aboriginal people for daring to want a voice in their affairs, and a parade of lies, including inter alia Israel is not trying to drive the Palestinian people into the sea or to exterminate Gaza, a program which has in fact been espoused by members of Beni's government.

There was also a huge snap of Bill Leak, and a ravaging of TG folk, dismissed as confused teenagers, though some might wonder how TG folk got into the conversation about anti-Semitism. And Alexander Solzhenitsyn was dragged into the final rabble-rousing par, and never mind that Solzhenitsyn had written the at best ambivalent Two Hundred Years Together ...

In all, it was as good an assembly of hate speech as you might find in the lizard Oz, and singularly without any empathy for Palestinians caught between Hamas and Benji's thugs, locked in a gulag for decades, and now destined to never find a home ... because if you think there's a two state solution to hand, the pond has a nice little opera house on the market for a song ...

And so the pond failed, but luckily there was an immortal Rowe to hand to cleanse the palate ...

Having comprehensively failed the test, the pond was left to wonder what to do and so headed below the fold ...

The pond failed another test. If it had been Lloydie of the Amazon having a go at renewables, the pond would have been in like that memorable Flynn, but just a chambering by Geoff?

Nah, better a bout of isolationism, served up in Killer's Letter from America, with a handy confusing and conflating of Israel and Ukraine ...

The interesting thing about Killer when he's in these moods is the way that he talks up the mango Mussolini and fellow conspiracy theorist RFK Jr.

There's no thoughts of doing a Bulwark, Jill Lawrence style and scribbling an outraged Trump Rallies are Tutorials in Hate, Vulgarity, and Disrespect ... Children are absorbing terrifying lessons that will haunt us for generations...

Nah, it's more that they both seem like a good bet, a way to ruin democracy and ban mask wearing ...and by the way, bugger off Ukraine ...

At this point the reptiles slipped in a huge snap of LBJ, though the pond reckons it would win a bet with any vulgar youff asked to say which PM belonging to which party opined that we should be all the way with LBJ ...

Why not a dinkum memory of those heady times?

The pond digresses, as it usually does, which is just as well, because at the end of the next gobbet Killer goes full Vlad the sociopath ...

Um actually, Russia had begun cunningly enhancing troop numbers in Crimea way back when, before annexing Crimea in 2014, and then, after backing separatist forces who helpfully shot down a Malaysian Airlines plane, invaded the joint ...

Why should the pond mention all this to Killer? Agreed, it's hard to imagine that he has the imagination or the memory stick lodged in the brain to make sense of it all ... better instead to blather about a NATO base ... (though he surely missed a trick by failing to evoke memories of the Cuban missile crisis). 

Oh heck, just run a huge snap of Vlad and Killer's mortal enemies taking an outrageous stroll together ...

Then it was on to more Killer business doing self-confessed superficial parallels ...

Naturally, with Killer in full isolationist flight at this point, there had to be a shot of the mango Mussolini ...

Indeed, indeed, and if the reptiles insist on doing huge snaps ...

... though perhaps you can dream the impossible dream ...

Meanwhile, with Killer a sure guide to what will happen to Ukraine if the mango Mussolini does return to  power,  there's a bonus Killer suggestion, with Killer happy to see Israel miss out if it means Vlad the sociopath can finally achieve his dream (though once that's done, perhaps he'd like a nibble on another country here or there?) ...

And there you have it. A little self-sacrifice on the part of Israel, happily turning Gaza into rubble on their own, and to save money, hand Ukraine over to Vlad the sociopath ...

As for the US standard of living, the pond recommends a viewing of John Oliver, who when not ruining New Zealand bird competitions, does splendid work observing what it's like to work in a Dollar store in the US ... there's a guide at the Graudian and at Huff Post ...

If you believe Killer that's all the fault of sending US dollars to Ukraine. Did the pond mention it had a tidy little opera house going cheap?

Oliver would be surprised to hear it's all the fault of sending US money abroad ...but then if he ever noticed, Oliver would be surprised that such a thing as Killer Creighton regularly wrote Letters from America, without apparently ever having watched Oliver on the current hostilities ...

And with that it was time for a bonus, and who better than the sanctimonious Sexton ...

Once again the pond made the mistake of clicking on the links. Faced with talk of remembering two key principles on the subject of freedom of speech, somehow the pond ended up even deeper in the hive mind ...

The pond doesn't know what it is with Sextons. 

Perhaps it was an early exposure to The Pickwick Papers at a tender age, and The Goblins Who Stole a Sexton, with those excellent illustrations by Phiz ...

If only there was a goblin to steal this Sexton ...

That's a short hand way of saying the pond is bored and will do anything for a distraction, but at some point must face the soporific Sexton ...

With the greatest respect to WOD, an idea on Facebook that Australia doesn't exist might attract 22,000 shares... and if you extend that syndrome, one day you might end up with a mango Mussolini in charge.

Even worse, that alleged link about an alleged brutal style of debate connected the pond to an almost invisible nonentity ...

Sensing the pond was losing interest, the reptiles flung in a huge snap of Lord Sumption, there being an incessant demand for attendant lords ...

Then it was on with more stale Sexton, serving up what has already been done to death by the lizard Oz ...

Close down Dame Groan blathering about the costs of migration? Never, though instead of a link to Dame Groan in full flight, railing at pesky, difficult, expensive, uppity furriners, that 'fallacy' link led to Jack the Insider ...

It didn't seem to have much to do with the argument at hand, unless the scolding Sexton was suggesting that the Graudian had been wrong to take down bin Laden's letter ...

Removed: document

Wed 15 Nov 2023 20.19 GMT

This page previously displayed a document containing, in translation, the full text of Osama bin Laden’s “letter to the American people”, which was reported on in the Observer on Sunday 24 November 2002. The document, which was published here on the same day, was removed on 15 November 2023.

The transcript published on our website had been widely shared on social media without the full context. Therefore we decided to take it down and direct readers instead to the news article that originally contextualised it.

Perhaps the stultifying Sexton should mount a campaign for a copy of Mein Kampf in every school, because truth to tell, properly contextualised, it makes for an interesting and informative read ... if you want to look deeply into the mind of a sociopath ...

Instead the reptiles offered a snap of a demonic figure designed to terrify the lizard Oz readership ...

... and with that the sleepy Sexton ran out of steam ...

His latest book? Connor Court published that back in June 2020. Time to get back to proper scribbling for a grand publisher instead of wasting everyone's time at the lizard Oz.

Everyone at the lizard Oz already knos that the right to do Nazi salutes and don Nazi uniforms are an important freedumb, and all the best do it... and think of the papers you can sell ...

... and yes, the pond did note there was a link in that last gobbet ... though the pond was astonished that the solemn Sexton was suggesting that somehow cackling Claire was an opponent of free speech, with this the link to the hive mind ...

All in all, it's been a learning experience for the pond, and henceforth, no matter the temptation, the pond will not click on a single reptile link. You only ever stay in the hive mind, and the results, to say the least, are peculiar and sometimes downright weird, and there's only so much of the hive mind anyone can take before going insane ...

Besides, if the pond wanted a discussion starter, it would always turn to the infallible Pope ...

Today an epic find, and an even more epic triptych of reptiles ...

The pond was wildly excited yesterday. The pond happened to pass a street library on the way to pick up a Lebanese treat. There, glowing like the holy grail, was a book, a mystical thing that the pond had never laid eyes on before. It was a transcendent, mystical moment ... it was F. A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom.

How had it come to be there, and how did no one else manage to snatch the prize before the pond scored it? The library was beneath the local gulag, where they imprison kids in much the same way Benji's mob does with gulags. Who had dropped it there, why had it been cruelly tossed aside? Was it to rouse the tiny tots to revolutionary anger?

A closer inspection revealed that someone had paid a full $29.98 at Kinokuniya, and then hadn't disturbed the contents ... there wasn't the slightest sign of anyone ever having opened the book or read a word of it. No hint of a gift, a complete mystery, perhaps a complete waste of money.

Trembling, the pond lifted the virginal text, caressed it and immediately jumped to the end, and was astonished how clunky the writing was. Dull, tedious, academic. Who could write a sentence like this and expect to get away with? 

The exposition of a point of view which for many years has been  decidedly out of favour suffers from the difficulty that, within the compass of a few chapters, it is not possible to discuss more than some aspects of it.

The pond hastily flipped back to the "Conclusion" and discovered something even worse. It sounded like Hayek might have had some trouble with the mango Mussolini:

...The purpose of this book has not been to sketch a detailed programme of a desirable future order of society. If with regard to international affairs we have gone a little beyond its essentially critical task, it was because in this field we may soon be called upon to create a framework within which future growth may have to proceed for a long time to come. A great deal will depend on how we use the opportunity we shall then have. But whatever we do, it can only be the beginning of a new, long, and arduous process in which we all hope we shall gradually create a world very different from that which we knew during the last quarter of a century. It is at least doubtful whether at this stage a detailed blueprint of a desirable internal order of society would be of much use — or whether anyone is competent to furnish it. The important thing now is that we shall come to agree on certain principles and free ourselves from some of the errors which have governed us in the recent past. However distasteful such an admission may be, we must recognise that we had before this war once again reached a stage where it is more important to clear away the obstacles with which human folly has encumbered our path and to release the creative energy of individuals than to devise further machinery for  "guiding" and “directing” them — to create conditions favourable to progress rather than to “plan progress". The first need is to free ourselves of that worst form of contemporary obscurantism which tries to persuade us that what we have done in the recent past was all either wise or inevitable. We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much that we have done was very foolish. 

If we are to build a better world we must have the courage to make a new start — even if that means some reculer pour mieux sauter. It is not those who believe in inevitable tendencies who show this courage, not those who preach a “New Order ” which is no more than a projection of the tendencies of the last forty years, and who can think of nothing better than to imitate Hitler. It is indeed those who cry loudest for the New Order who are most completely under the sway of the ideas which have created this war and most of the evils from which we suffer. The young are right if they have little confidence in the ideas which rule most of their elders. But they are mistaken or misled when they believe that these are still the liberal ideas of the nineteenth century, which in fact the younger generation hardly knows. Though we neither can wish, nor possess the power, to go back to the reality of the nineteenth century, we have the opportunity to realise its ideals — and they were not mean. We have little right to feel in this respect superior to our grandfathers; and we should never forget that it is we, the twentieth century, and not they, who have made a mess of things. If they had not yet fully learnt what was necessary to create the world they wanted, the experience we have since gained ought to have equipped us better for the task. If in the first attempt to create a world of free men we have failed, we must try again. The guiding principle, that a policy of freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy, remains as true to-day as it was in the nineteenth century. 

That flourish of French immediately established the scribbler as a faux member of the intelligentsia of a kind the reptiles despise. And what is this talk of a "truly progressive policy"? That sounds dangerously woke. Sure, he talked of creating a world of free men, but that's not enough. Keeping women in aprons in the kitchen was just pro forma for the times.

What is this lambasting of those who preach a "New Order"? Is there something wrong with MAGA? Is it, gasp, little better than someone who can think of nothing better to do than imitate Hitler?

As for the style, it was worse than reading Ayn Rand, an unimaginable concept. It reminded the pond of something Lenin, Marx or Adolf himself might churn out. The only ideological text the pond ever managed to read was a little bit of Trotsky ...

Never mind, the pond realises you could get a copy off the shelf in many formats at the archive, but that day pond dreams were cruelly shattered and hope turned to despair. Better to have stayed in the dream than discover this was what the reptiles recommended for bedtime reading.

At least he's in favour of the ideals of the nineteenth century, colonialism and imperialism, and the pond recalls with some pride that yesterday it published an urgent call for a breeding program for western civilisation to save it from replacement ...

Speaking of the ability to shatter dreams, and no, the pond isn't speaking of the battle for the UK Terror and the Speccie mob, as bad as it gets for white supremacists,  Abu Dhabi-backed fund says it will take control of Telegraph and Spectator, the pond is talking of the lizard Oz.

Today is an epic day at reptile HQ and sacrifices had to be made ... because there perched in her favourite far right position was MAGA cap-donning Dame Slap and amazingly she wasn't scribbling about the Lehrmann matter, though it was right next to her...

Yes, it was going to be an epic day, because there was a "Ned" Everest to climb as well and somehow the pond also had to make room for a jolly good groaning ...

The pond does appreciate the bro's unrelenting war on China, but the pond figures it had the best of the bro yesterday, and with luck he'll get his war with China by Xmas, but in the meantime he had to go, and not far behind him was Captain Spud calling for "moral clarity" ...

And so into Uncle Elon's space rocket thingie - never mind the tendency to blow up - and off to pay a visit to planet Janet above the faraway tree ...

The pond is constantly tormented by those links, and invariably disappointed when it clicks on them. You never get to leave the hive mind ... but just to show what you're not missing ...

Sorry, the best minds are still at it ...

Sorry, was it wrong to put in a distraction, and a screen cap at that so you couldn't hear the comedy?

Back to Dame Slap on secularism ...

Another link, and dammit, the pond just had to go there ...

Dammit, still inside the hive mind, and Dame Slap of all people referencing Cate, an attendee at Chairman Rudd's visionary 2020 shindig ...

Meanwhile the reptiles had decided Dame Slap needed some visual aid and so began a parade of huge snaps ...

Better to get them out of the way even if that means short gobbets of piercing insights ...

Ross Douthat? Doesn't he scribble for the grey lady (gray if you must)? Sure there's a chance at last to get outside the hive mind. The pond kids you not, the pond clicked on the link, and landed on a lizard Oz editorial about woke Pat, the very thing that set off Moorice ...

Is it so hard for the reptiles to step outside the hive mind that they can't even link to Twitter?

Heck there was the execrable Douthat back in 2016 in the NY Times scribbling In Defense of the Religious Right ... (paywall)

Meanwhile, it turns out the barking mad religious right needed no defence, what with a fully fledged youth earth creationist bigot now the speaker of the house ...

Mike Johnson, the new speaker of the House, might represent the party of Great Patriots™ but he sure doesn’t seem to think America is that great. Last week, Rolling Stone reported on remarks he made on a livestream only a few weeks before he flopped into the speakership and well . . . go ahead and read it for yourself:

"This is an inflection point. We are at a civilizational moment. The only question is: Is God going to allow our nation to enter a time of judgment for our collective sins which his mercy and grace have held back for some time or is he gonna give us one more chance to restore the foundation, to return to Him? . . . We will not be able to do it without the Lord’s help, because the flesh and the mistrust, and the sin and everything is so great here that this is going to have to bring people to their knees."

This livestream—a “prayer call” via Zoom with a right-wing Christian network that Johnson is closely associated with—took place on October 3, just hours before Kevin McCarthy was ousted from the speakership, so the turmoil in the House is the backdrop of Johnson’s remarks. At one point, his interlocutor, the pastor Jim Garlow, asks: Could this be a time of judgment for America? Johnson’s reply:

"You all know the terrible state that we’re in. . . . The faith in our institutions is the lowest it’s ever been in the history of our nation. The culture is so dark and depraved that it almost seems irredeemable at this point. The church attendance in America dropped below 50 percent for the first time in our history since they began to measure the data sixty years ago. And the number of people who do not believe in absolute truth is now above the majority for the first time. One in three teen girls contemplated suicide last year. One in four high school students identify as something other than straight. We’re losing the country."

So there you go. The speaker of the House thinks that the prevalence of American teen bisexuals is a sign America is so depraved that it deserves God’s judgment and the best we can hope for is that he shows us mercy.

Doesn’t sound like a country Johnson can be proud of to me. In fact it sounds like he thinks America as it actually exists is shit and deserves what it gets (maybe that’s why he’s for Trump?).

Sheesh, the pond must stop quoting, this is going to be an epic day, there's no time for distractions or a read of I Read Mike Johnson’s Legal Filings. They Reveal a Distinctive Pattern, The new speaker’s view is “the First Amendment for me but not for thee.”

On with Dame Slap ...

By this time, the pond had developed a rat cunning and avoided clicking on the link. Oh okay, sob the pond did show a fatal weakness. We were still in the hive mind, and this time it was prattling Polonius ...

Some days the pond thinks it's joking about the hive mind. Some days it turns out that the X-Files is neo-realism ...

That link? It led to a mangled story about Vlad the impaler showing what fine minds appreciated Rowling ...

Yes, it was still inside the hive mind, but at least there was just a gobbet to go, with Dame Slap explaining patiently to Palestinians that they were living in a liberal democracy, and never mind the barking mad fundamentalism of Benji's mob or the rabid behaviour of colonialist settlers ...

Dame Slap dares to lecture about hypocrisy? Off to the barking mad far right creationists with her, and now to settle things down a bit with a groaning. 

The pond believes this is a rare chance for the two Dames to enjoy an outing together ...

No, the pond won't be following links this time. That one led to a hive mind story by Patrick Commins in November about Jim Chalmers playing down the need for an RBA hike, and the next link led to Tezza McCrann saying that Jimbo overstepped the mark and the RBA should focus on what's best for the economy. Another hive mind outing ...

The pond wonders if this form of desiccated coconut will appeal to the most fervent Dame Groan cultists. The reptiles seemed to think she needed a visual lift by running snaps of alarming villains designed to make the readership wet beds ...

It was a small relief, and the pond hesitated about helping out the Groaner in her Groaning with an infallible Rowe because this day he's revered to his scatological tendencies ...

Not to worry, there was a huge groan up next, somewhat akin to dragon droppings ...

Yes, yes, both those links stayed in the hive mind. The first led to an October piece by Tom Dusevic berating Jimbo, Jim Chalmers rolling in revenue while borrowers roil, and the next a chambering by Geoff, Careful Jim Chalmers fails to deliver the economic boost needed, back in September ...

And the next link? Apparently Dame Groan can't get enough of the hive mind and a bizarre obsession with Jimbo, because there was Patrick Commins again, this time in September,  Jim Chalmers rejects RBA jobless goal of 4.5 per cent ... and all that kept the Groaner in peak groaning mood ...

Conclusion? The hive mind is real, and all Dame Groan seems to do is live in the hive mind ...

And so to the real challenge, the climbing of the "Ned" Everest. The pond realises it's a challenge, but weaklings and snowflakes will have already dropped out long ago. The pond has no time for precious petals when it comes to putting in the long hours needed to become a doctor of herpetology...

Shameful, really, quite shocking. Fancy wanting to avoid the death of civilians. The pond hadn't quite realised the full extent of the astonishing decline of the west. Why when it came to firebombings - Tokyo, Dresden - or perhaps nuking a couple of cities, there were no weak-kneed wimps roaming about ... until perhaps the likes of Kurt Vonnegut started to rabbit on about being in Dresden when it went down and what it was like, possibly down there with being in a hospital in Gaza at the moment ...

As for that link, you guessed it, it stayed inside the hive mind, as did the next one ... so it was left to the pond to link to Simon Tisdall in the Graudian, The pressure on Netanyahu is starting to tell, as good as any reason to keep up the pressure, and heck while at it, why not link to a cracking Crace, Today we learned Laura Trott is the unthinking person's Helen Whately.

It doesn't have anything to do with "Ned", it's just a reminder that there are a world of stories outside the hive mind, it just so happens that the pond routinely gets stuck in the hive ...

By the way, that hot link to Yascha Mounk? It took the pond to this ...

The pond began to think it was some giant conspiracy to drive the pond mad, and the moment the reptiles ran with a huge snap of Benji the pond knew it ...

Downsizing was about the only way the pond could fight back ...

That link? It led to the latest news on the war, 2nd November, and the pond realised that there was something in the reptile logarithms designed to send the pond insane ...

Luckily after that downsized snap, there was just one gobbet of "Ned" to go, and the Everest summit would be reached ...

"Juste milieu"? What a pompous, portentous Hayekian git he is ...

As for that final hot link? It was still inside the hive mind, but vaguely relevant, though by the end, the pond had realised there was something badly wrong with either the pond's browsers or with the reptile hot links ...

As for what "Ned" was blathering about, suffice to say that the pond has over the years developed a profound contempt for the man, and nothing in what he scribbled persuaded the pond to change its mind ...

The pond did learn one thing from its reading

It is indeed those who cry loudest for the New Order who are most completely under the sway of the ideas which have created this war and most of the evils from which we suffer. The young are right if they have little confidence in the ideas which rule most of their elders. 

If "Ned's" idea of the future is to stay with Benji's mob through thick and thin, there isn't much of a future ...

And so, just to balance matters, to end with an infallible Pope ...