The Lair of the Emerald Serpent

It's been a while since I have posted anything from my all time favorite cartoonist. Generally because so much of his stuff recently has been about local politics which requires too much explaining for anyone overseas.

But this one reminds me of the Golden Age for political cartoonists when they had Trump, Bojo, Bolsonsaro and Trump to play with.

I am still peeved that FUX settled the Dominion libel case. The court case would have been worthy of its own television series.

As always with David Rowe, the Devil is in the details.

David Rowe has done it again. This time he is reusing and recycling all those old Trump Naked Emperor masterpieces. Since sQomo is also a trump minion and a narcissist in his own right, the transformation is just so suitable. I am waiting with baited breath for the Royal Portrait make over.
Those smoke stack hats and sQomo Sharts socks are a stroke of genius. I have been trying for ages without success to snaffle David Rowe's Vitruvian sQomo as an icon to use for sQomo posts.


Since David Rowe has been on FIRE the last few weeks and I have 6 weeks sick leave, I suspect there will be a lot more of them. I really need to find some way to get my stash of David Rowe cartoons off my phone and on to some safer place. Because the phone is Android and the Big Mac is Apple, I cannot think of any straightforward way of doing this.

About 6 months ago David Rowe just vanished from Twitter. All those quote tweets I had made of his amazing trump cartoons just vanished. Not a single cartoon was to be seen. All GONE. It turned out that the absence was only for a week but if felt like an eternity. Ever since then, I don't want to leave it to chance. But I do wonder, when we can click and save all sorts of amazing artworks for free, how on earth do such artists make a living?

In the meantime, on account of those 6 work free weeks, I got tempted by an email from Coursera and signed up for an introductory course on Cybersecurity. Especially after one pesky charity store that I work for is demanding that all staff and volunteers get their police clearances through Equifux I did find another way of getting the Police Clearance and dropped by the shop to give it to them. Or rather, to get email details so I could send it since I only had it in pdf form rather than a printed hard copy. That was last Tuesday but Equifux are still spamming me with reminder emails every single day. Yes. I know that is not the company's real name but they deserve it after their pathetic response to the giant hack of March 2017.

Now I must be off. I'm currently just past 13,333 words for Nanowrimo and the target quota for today is the nice round 10,000 words. So that means I am now 2 days ahead of schedule. I had hoped to stretch it out to 4 by now.

What I notice with Nanowrimo, when all those sprinters who rely on initial motivation to get going and to clock up the words start falling by the wayside during the infamous Hump of the dreaded Week 2, that is when this plodding old serpent starts warming up. I see no reason why this year should be any different especially for the first time in 5 years, the Muse has finally returned so I now no longer have the problem of the blank page and lack of inspiration but for the old fingers to be unable to keep up with the stream of thoughts rushing through the old serpent skull begging to find their way onto the page.

It's so so long since David Rowe has drawn the tin pot emperor since he became such a sad has been.

I am almost nostalgic looking at it. In the meantime, trying to make sense of all those whisperings, plotting and scheming concerning August.
There's always some new date to keep the Q cultists living in hope.

I resisted the temptation to post the Sqomo Strangelove cartoon because I could not bring myself to inflict such NSFW abominations on the serpent circle.
I guess if smug Scomo could be compared to any of trump's mob, he would be most like that puffed up pompous popinjay Pompeo.


In the meantime, I managed to snaffle a first dose of the infamous Astra Zeneca vaccine about 2 weeks ago and I have lived to tell the tale.

But I have definitely been in Zombie mode for quite a while now. These days I hardly ever manage to slink into the spare room where the Big Mac lurks. Usually I get distracted by the snug serpent sack


Thanks to the Cat, I have a deck of demons to join me celebrating the Devil's birthday. But we are all too tired to be bothered getting drunk and disorderly.


Tomorrow is a public holiday so if I'm not being a lazy snoozy serpent, I will be pottering around the garden planting lots of weeds to make the most of the winter growing season.
I might even plant some garlic bulbs even though I am more than a month too late.

In May I planted more than 40 weeds and all of them are still alive and thriving. I have got another 6 to put out tomorrow. Mainly westringia fruticosa which looks rather like rosemary. It does not have the same gorgeous aroma but is definitely an amazing butterfly magnet.
It's all about luring the critters to the Lair.

The weather is slowly cooling down here in the Wild West of Oz so I may finally get back to the odd squiggle or two

Aside from the usual Dementor problem, it looks like some of them have flown over to Canberra to keep slimy Scomo company, it has also been a month of many distrsctions

February began with an unexpected 5 day lockdown but then it got back to business as usual. Both the Fringe World and the yuppie art festivals were on during the month.

So when I wasn't going to shows (to make up for that lost week) I was watching the drama over in Washington.
I caught snippets of the impeachment proceedings which was badly timed not to be on during the first week of February. But then I went for a YUUUUGE binge on the final stretch. I went to bed early on the evening of Saturday 13th February and set my alarm clock for 11pm, 2am, 3am and 4am (to wake me up just in case I fell asleep during the shit show)
The proceedings started at 11pm local time. Most of the time I wasn't actually watching the screen but just had the phone near the pillow and listened to the lawyers.

I did eventually fall asleep when the crazy Philadelphia cheese cracker was carrying on but woke up just in time for the final count. Of course the acquittal was a forgone conclusion but I was there for the theatre of it all.

I most definitely thought I was hallucinating when just after the vote, Mitch McTurtle delivered an astonishing rant about trump provoking but not inciting the riots followed by the big BUT... he did it but is no longer President so case dismissed. In spite of the fact that they started with a discussion and a vote about whether impeaching an ex president is constitutional. If the vote had failed, then the whole proceedings would have been terminated.
But more importantly, in spite of the fact that it was Mr Mitch himself who deliberately delayed proceedings so that trump would in fact no longer be president when the case got to the Senate

I thought I was hallucinating listening to him tearing strips off trump while having most definitely voted to acquit.
Probably the most blatant bit of gaslighting that I have ever witnessed


Lucky I could sleep in late on Sunday but still suspected that losing so much sleep would make me a zombie for most of the week.

But just when I thought that politics was about to get boring again, the shit hit the fan closer to home.

It's a long and sordid story. Disgusting and despicable actually. The simplest way to describe it is that the current Cabinet are a creepy bunch of Brett Kavanaughs. Quite literally.

Adding fire to the flames was the recent first anniversary of the murder of Hannah Clarke and her 3 children at the hands of her ex. A nasty control freak who stalked her to her parents' place where he set her and her children on fire in their car as she was about to do the morning school run

( A Cabinet of Creeps )

Today was the day I finally managed to visit the zoo after an absence of at least a year. The highlight of the day was feeding time in the sneke pit where the pretty little pythons were offered little mouse and rat snacks.
Personally, I would have preferred to see some of the squealing kids on the menu instead.

Normally I love to adorn my Dreamwidth posts with David Rowe art works, especially now that he has just won a well deserved Walkley Award.

But I do not want to be responsible for any vomit covered computers, sudden conversions to veganism or an assortment of post traumatic stress reactions.

So I am hiding the beast behind a cut


( Lame Quack is getting ROASTED )

I wonder what is the cricket equivalent of a Monday morning quarterback?
Because the orange jerk will be at it forever unless they take his tweet stone away


Meanwhile, while on the subject of trash talking


Next week I'm giving a speech at the local Toastmasters club

The title is
"Taking out the Trash"

I intend to mention some of the memorable moments of the trump era

I'm looking for simple symbolic things
Like Puerto Rico paper towels and Hurricane Sharpie

The main thing is finding incidents that illustrate the true nature of his malevolent nihilistic narcissistic nature which do not require previous knowledge of politics at all

Here is one example

In April 2017 when assorted Easter events were taking place on the lawns of the White House, the trump went for a meet and greet with fans. One of these was a boy - maybe 8 years old. He was proudly wearing his red MAGA hat and then gave it to his hero to sign his name

Dodgy Don took the hat, got out his sharpie, signed the jagged scrawl that passes for his name and then THREW THE HAT INTO THE AIR!

The poor kid looked devastated. I am not sure if he ever got his hat back but just imagine, if that is how trump openly treats his most devoted and loyal supporters, what on earth would he do behind closed doors to his enemies?

I probably will not include this anecdote as it is definitely not well known. However it is a perfect example of his petty cruelty


Other ideas?

Today it has been more obvious than usual that watching the US election unfold while in the Wild West of Oz does have its disadvantages
It is a 12 hour time difference now ticked up to 13 thanks to pesky daylight saving over there

This morning the opening score was 235 for Biden and 213 for trump which had been quite a change from the last count
Joe slowly SNOOZED his way up to 253 before settling for the night at the ever so tantalizing 264 seats while the Teflon Don had barely crawled from 213 to 214. So it was looking increasingly clear that this was on account of the mail in ballots being added to the totals

( Out for the count )

If this had been the year that I had planned, I could be now sitting on a plane from Amsterdam on the way back to Oz
I guess I did dodge a bullet because if I had managed to get over to Amsterdam, it would be likely that I would not be able to get back because seats on flights to Oz keep getting bumped. Even first class and business, let alone cattle class

So it would have been a bit tricky to lurk overseas away from the lair in Coronavirus Central (Europe in general)

Instead I get to water the weeds as well as plotting and planning the week's entertainment now that we are in the home stretch of the biggest horse race on the planet

It looks like dodgy Don has decided to go early with his crash and burn scorched earth games
Bitching and whining because Dr Fauci said some stuff on 60 minutes. Polite stuff about not being happy to have his words quoted out of context in a political advert to make trump look good and not being surprised that trump caught the virus (which still has not been proven beyond all reasonable doubt) due to his endless events, lack of social distancing or mask wearing at said events

But I guess the biggest sin that Dr Fauci committed was to get YUUUUGE television ratiings

So the assortment of rants made the radio news headlines for pretty much the whole day

This segment says it all
A disastrous idiot

"You have to understand him. He's (Fauci) a promoter"

Now that bit of projection must be up in the top ten of all time along with Beijing Biden

I still cannot believe that Liberal Fox (also known as The New York Times) has finally turned on him with those Beijing bombshells. Paid more taxes to CHINA than USA
I guess that makes him smart. More like a traitor

I do hope that Biden takes the gloves off at Thursday's debate and hounds him for the Hunter slander and the sad attempts at replaying all the greatest hits from 2016. Laptops, emails and all.


Time to get myself some popcorn for Friday morning. It's going to be one hell of a shit show

Move over Daisy. Covita is coming




I have seen a lot of political adverts in my life but this one just blows the rest of them out of the field
Even better than their first big hit Mourning in America

I just wonder what people will make of it 50 years from now

Today began like any other day.


Being Friday - it’s weeds day when I volunteer with a native plant nursery and then spend the afternoon on a coffee crawl.
Today’s plans were going to be a little different due to the full moon
I love moon watching and had planned a little picnic on the south shore looking over to the city. I had some bread, cheese, dips and things and the only item missing was the bottle of wine
But it had been raining in the morning so there was still a question of the weather clearing up in time to even see the big fat yellow critter

While pottering around in the nursery I was listening to podcasts as usual. I make a list of them specially for Fridays. First cab off the rank was the 4th episode of “America. If you’re listening” Normally I grab this one when it comes out on Mondays but figured that since it was about the special relationship with Saudi Arabia, today would be the most appropriate day to listen
I thought the murder of Khashoggi was bad enough and was only too familiar with the appalling excuses offered by the White House after the event. I also knew that Mohammed Bone Saw had creepy Kushner in his pocket. But the time line of how trump turned from endless bitching about KSA to being best friends for ever was truly nauseating

Then I had lined up a couple episodes of Gaslit Nation - the commentary on this week’s shit show along with “Donald Trump is a Ponzi Scheme”
But ten minutes in, the broadcast kept stopping and after restarting it every few minutes, I finally got pissed off and gave up listening. It was just too frustrating.

So that was when I paid more attention to the radio that was on in the background. Around 12.30 or so on a commercial music radio station aimed at 30 somethings ( I think) I caught some mention of the White House and Coronavirus. My ears pricked up and I asked some of the other people if they heard what was said. No luck there
So I made a point of paying special attention at 1pm for the official news bulletin

( The Audacity of Hope )