A Sunday meditation on all sorts of matters, including the world's leading climate scientists, the world's leading war wongers and criminals, book lovers and sexists ...

(Above: the pond apologises for ruining anyone's Sunday. Images of war might be less unsettling).

The pond spent part of a glorious winter solstice on a glorious walk through glorious Newtown, and in the studious, scientific, approved manner, didn't once mention climate change - unlike Suzy Freeman-Greene, quite the spoilsport, who kept on insisting on mentioning climate change in It's the season for reason in a climate of discontent.

The pond has notified the thought police, and in due course expects Freeman-Greene to be prosecuted for her declaration of an heretical religious faith.

Naturally the world's climate scientist, who during the daylight hours dons a suit and glasses and moves amongst ordinary mortals as Clark "the Bolter" Kent, was on to it right away:

Bloody useless women. If only they read the world's greatest climate scientist, they wouldn't be panicking like silly stereotypical women.

Sadly the Bolter's link to Tim Bleagh went into a digital void.

Well it's one thing to be the world's greatest climate scientist, but you can't expect them to worry about the mundanity of hot linking.

Happily the pond was able to wander off to Tim Bleagh, himself a wondrous top notch climate scientist, immensely well trained about starting off his scientist observations on the Melbourne Truth.

What an impeccable scientific guide it was for the punters interested in horse flesh and big boobs:

Young Timmy managed to compare people with an interest in climate science and democracy to ratbag Islamic fundamentalists:

Click to enlarge if you like, the pond only includes so much as a way of avoiding a link. Not that it couldn't be done, but because clicks only get the trolls really excited, and before you know it, onanists spill their seed and wisdom on the ground, and then where are we?

The pond was also pleased to note that, not two hundred metres from the Newtown police station, pirated goods were proudly on display, and promised not to mention it to that humbug George Brandis.

The pond enjoys Newtown, though if the bedraggled, tattooed, pierced hipster throng that litters the streets can be passed off as dangerous inner city elites, why the cats of Australia must be radical revolutionary freedom fighters as they go feral and consume the wildlife ...

But it did get the pond to thinking about Brandis, and why the man wanted such a big collection of books.

Of course in the old days princes and potentates always assembled large collections in libraries. Few of the collectors actually read all the books, or understood or acted on any of the wisdom therein, it was just nice to have a symbolic indicator of intellectual leanings.

It's roughly equivalent to having a talisman or an amulet - the power in the object transfers to the owner, and suddenly the owner is magically transformed.

It's possible to suspect that Brandis has yet to realise that a digital book is easily searched, as is the internet, with a word doing the work of a once laboured over index, or that information just wants to be free, and in the internet we've found the most powerful way for it to be free - though no doubt if Brandis wants the world to go back to disc-based ripping and pirating that could be arranged. Well it's still the style in Newtown ...

The pond was also pleased to note on its perambulation that the Newtown Jets are still in the local eye.

Now the pond has never actually attended a game involving the Jets, but the pond was made to read Matt Cleary going Tamworth old school at The Graudian in Away Days: North Sydney Bears v Newtown Jets, and was almost moved to tears - not moved to attend a Jets game, mind you, but moved that in these troubled times a thugby league writer could open by referencing Ripping Yarns:

Remember that show Ripping Yarns that was on telly around 1978 and had such episodes as "Murder at Moorstones Manor”, “Roger of the Raj” and "The Testing of Eric Olthwaite”? Never heard of it? Never mind. Because if you can download it or however people watch olden days television in these modern times (suck it onto an android?), I would advise that you do. Created by Michael Palin and Terry Jones of Monty Python fame, there’s a dozen or so episodes, and it’s pretty funny stuff.

Download it? Well at least he didn't say Bit torrent it, but still the pond is wondering whether Cleary should be reported to the Newtown police. The pond's sporting advisor - yes the pond is to football what the Bolter is to climate science - insists that young Cleary is revolutionising writing on thugby league by making intelligent references to ancient humour, and knock the pond down, if Cleary doesn't mention Monty Python's The Meaning of Life as a guide to restraint, here.

Oh the lad has won the pond's heart ...

What else? Well as noted yesterday, the Bolter is one of those right men who can't stand being told he's wrong, and so he had another go at Mike Carlton this morning.

The pond can imagine him pacing up and down, brooding, seething, still in shock and rage and hurt, perhaps gazing balefully at the raven sitting on the statue above the door as it croaked "Nevermore" (take that Matt Cleary, see what the boofheads make of that):

Only a tone deaf, clunk-eared fool of the first water would scribble:

Some countries made democratic "at gunpoint":...
Iraq (imperfectly) after the 2003 invasion 

Indeed. And then there were all those other countries made democratic at gunpoint after the second world war. Russia, Poland, East Germany, and who can forget the triumph that became North Korea ...

But there's the world's greatest climate scientist for you, and such a timely and elegant retort to Carlton, as reports filter in of Iraq crisis: Armed Shiite militiamen stage show of force in Baghdad as ISIS militants seize Iraq-Syria post (ABC with slide show).

So here's the thing.

Boris Johnson had the good sense - yes, the pond knows that's an oxymoronic coupling - to scribble Blair's Iraq invasion was a tragic error, and he's mad to deny it, We cannot make the case for engagement unless we are honest about our failures, and in that piece, he had the good sense to call Tony Blair mad, unhinged in his refusal to face facts, and in discussing the disaster, that he was so jaw-droppingly and breathtakingly at variance with reality that he surely needed professional psychiatric help.

And yet there's the Bolter carrying on like a Bleagh, and we don't mean Timmeee, we mean Tony ...

Yes, the Bolter's peddling the Tony Blair line, lock, stock and two bloody barrels.

Which leads the pond to conclude, borrowing from the Boris, that the world's greatest climate scientist is in fact mad, unhinged in his refusal to face facts, and in discussing the disaster, that he is in fact so jaw-droppingly and breathtakingly at variance with reality that he surely needs professional psychiatric help.

Send any lawsuits for peddling this insight to Boris please ...

What else?

Well Senator Boyce, about to rejoin the real world, shows signs she's joining the real world:

Yes, if you read Liberal senator Sue Boyce slams Abbott 'sexism' you cop, inter alia:

Reflecting on her career in Parliament - she retires at the end of June - Senator Boyce said she thought Julia Gillard's famous misogyny speech was ''powerful'' and, for Ms Gillard's purposes, ''a brilliant speech''. But she thought the former prime minister had used the wrong word to describe Mr Abbott. 
''I think it would have been more accurate if she had called him a sexist,'' she said.

And you copped this Matt Golding cartoon:

Naturally the pond raced off to an online dictionary while George Brandis raced to his groaning bbok shelves, and found:

1. sexist - a man with a chauvinistic belief in the inferiority of women;

Uh huh. And chauvinist?

2. Prejudiced belief in the superiority of one's own gender, group, or kind;

And misogynist?

1. misogynist - a misanthrope who dislikes women in particular.

Uh huh. And can we have some like words in the dictionary?

Chauvinist, sexist, patriarchal, woman-hater, male chauvinist, anti-feminist, MCP (informal), male chauvinist pig (informal), male supremacist 

So many choices, let's not argue about the right word, let's just agree on the condition and the syndrome, and let's throw in the Bolter and the Bleagh for their bah humbug, women outburst ...

But enough of this Sunday meditation on climate science, war mongers, dullard book lovers out of sorts with the digital age, and luddite sexists. It's been said before, and most likely it will have to be said tomorrow.

Right now the pond will likely go for another walk through the sunny streets of Newtown. Hasn't it been unseasonably warm in this neck of the woods of late ... and though it's a little cloudy, the cloud is likely to burn off and the day turn bright and sunny again.

Here's hoping it's seasonably warm where you live, even if it allows the Satanists in the Blue Mountains to bung on a magic festival dedicated to the winter solstice ...

By golly, the pond is going to tell the Calvinists and the angry Sydney Anglicans on you lot ... look at all that magic gear. It's off to hell with you, even if hell on earth has a fair chance of arriving sooner, thanks to the mighty efforts of Timmy and the Bolter ...