In which an environment editor sits on the sidelines, the better to show how much he cares for the environment ...

It's an old joke, but a good one and Dr. Strangelove still works for the pond, with Terry Southern channelled by Kubrick worthy exponents of Orwellian double speak ...

Now here's a similar joke ...

There, get it? Graham  Lloyd, environment editor.

Talk about oxymoronic, or perhaps just moronic ...

What fun Southern and Kubrick would have had with that joke. As for Lloyd himself, and the reptiles of Oz, the story is a remarkably short and empty but impassioned cry for inertia and doing nothing:

Uh huh. Lloyd builds and builds, weaving a rich logic to arrive at his conclusion:

Yes sit on your arse, because nudge nudge, wink wink, we all know that climate science is a fraud developed by grant-grabbing cardigan wearers anxious to usher in world government via the UN ...

Now there's a splendid example of fuckwittery ...

Sorry, are you saying the pond is emotionally charged?

Not really, calling Graham Lloyd a fuckwit isn't emotionally charged, it's just a scientifically rational observation ...

Meanwhile, what actual stories are out there in the intertubes ether?

Well there's this one at the Graudian:

Uh huh. No doubt that's because Graham Lloyd's sitting on his arse in an ante-chamber somewhere.

If you read Australia named worst-performing industrial country on climate change, Denmark gets the nod, followed by Sweden and Britain (ye ancient cats and conservative Dave), and there are handy graphics, like this one:

So what other stories are doing the rounds?

Well if you trot off to Fairfax you might cop these:

That first story, about Julie Bishop outflanking Tony Abbott on Lima, was scribbled by Peter Hartcher.

It seems someone's sour on Abbott within the government, and recently Hartcher has also gone sour on Abbott, and now the leaks are gushing his way:

After the prime minister's office blocked Julie Bishop's proposal to travel to a global climate negotiation in Peru, she took the matter to a meeting of the full cabinet to get the decision reversed. When the deputy leader of the Liberal Party and Minister for Foreign Affairs put the case to the cabinet, no one raised any major objection, according to informed government sources...
The episode demonstrates the tensions between ministers in the Abbott government on the one hand and the prime minister's office on the other. In particular, ministers sometimes chafe under the close control of Mr Abbott's chief of staff, Peta Credlin, according to many ministers. 

But all they want to do is sit on their arse, as advised by Gra Gra Lloyd ... So isn't it working out?

Fairfax Media can also reveal that ministers in the Abbott government had repeatedly counselled the prime minister's office against trying to shut down G20 discussion on climate change. 
The prime minister's office ignored the advice. The cabinet consensus on Ms Bishop's Lima proposal demonstrated that the ministers had no appetite to repeat the G20 blunder. 

Yes, it turns out that the advice of the fuckwitted Lloyd - steady, that's just a scientific observation, without any emotional charge - is a recipe for G20 disaster, and Abbott and his office might still snatch stupidity from the jaws of sane policy responses ...

Hartcher ended his story this way:

The World Meteorological Organisation last week reported that 2014 was on track to be the equal hottest year on record. 
"Provisional information for 2014 means that 14 of the 15 warmest years on record have all occurred in the 21st century," said the WMO secretary-general, Michel Jarraud. "There is no standstill in global warming," he said.

Uh huh. Which is a cue for that other Hartcher story:

Yes, but per Lloyd, that's what dinosaurs do. Sit on their haunches and munch vegetable matter, or flesh if preferred, and wait for oblivion ... because it's all too hard ...

The opening to the piece shows where Hartcher is heading:

What a lovely dinosaur, and if you read Tony Abbott must shift with the tide on climate change (forced video at end of link), there's a lot more of the same.

Four sorts of damage to the Abbott government, adverse poll results, stupidity at work in draft communiques, the minister for walri and wiki making an abject fool of himself, juvenile antics, tactical misjudgment, pain which seems to indicate an incapacity to learn, an office with a remarkable ability to undercut a sensible decision with a foolish footnote - that footnote being Robb - and a cabinet still smarting from the G20 experience ...

By end of journey, the pond found it hard to believe it had just read a piece by Peter Hartcher ... whoever is leaking to him really has had a gutful of Abbott and more particularly Peta Credlin - and it ended this way:

Bishop and Robb are both unhappy, Bishop at the implication that she cannot be trusted without a chaperone, and Robb at having to reorganise his own travel schedule on trade matters to play second string to Bishop. 
The political misjudgment of climate policy has been central to the downfall of the last three prime ministers. Despite the best advice of his ministers, Abbott is flirting with the danger of being the fourth.

So that's where following Graham Lloyd's advice to stick your head in the sand and hope no one notices gets you ... and that's why the pond claims scientific evidence supports the notion that Lloyd's as silly as the PM.

Even better, talk of chaperones is as good an excuse as any to run a David Pope cartoon, and more Pope here in new, bigger sized glory:

The fuckwitted Lloyd - just a rational deployment of a scientific term - no emotional heat here, here no emotional heat - might think sitting on the sidelines twiddling thumbs and bench warming is a suitable response - but in reality it just leads to comedy and to leaks which further destabilise the Abbott government ...

No wonder this reign orchestrated by the Murdochian puppet masters has stumbled and bumbled ...

What else?

Well today is Caterist day, but talk about a pig snuffling at ruined truffles ...

Oh he's still not blathering and babbling about the follies of Spurr ...

Meanwhile, New Matilda is promising fresh excitement:

We’re researching a major feature which touches on much of the privacy issues that were initially broached in the Spurr story. We hope to have that story ready for publication in the New Year. 
In the meantime, watch this space for some stunning new revelations later this week about racism in the Australian education system. (here)

Oh no not further revelations. That'll set the Caterists off on a fresh burst of agitation about how right and just it is to call Caterists stupid fuckwitted Pommy bastards ... purely in the interests of intelligent and witty discourse of a professorial kind which shouldn't in any way be restrained by the dead hand of politeness and civility. That was old-style conservatism. These days bunkered down in the club, why any form of raillery about wogs is certifiable wit and jolly good hockey sticks fun ...

Oh dear it seems the pond has gone potty mouthed, but really, it's not emotionally charged ... it's (a) scientific and rational, and/or (b) a protest at dead hands ...

There are of course many other things to talk about.

Thanks to the poodle, the government has got itself and its knickers into a right old twist about promoting the poodle's agenda.

Bureaucrats have been hung out to dry and to lie on behalf of the government - poor contorted cardigan wearers twisting and writhing in the breeze - and angry Abbott attacks on government propaganda have been dragged out of the archives, and Glenn Lazarus has got agitated and outraged - now there's a good way to get his vote onside - and so has John Madigan:

Following the Senate defeat of the reforms last week, Education Minister Christopher Pyne said independent senator John Madigan had requested a government-run education campaign to quell community concerns about the changes. 
Senator Madigan reacted angrily, saying he did not support a taxpayer-funded advertising campaign on higher education reform and that he had not called for one. (here)


And all this for a policy which hasn't passed parliament.

And the defence? Labor did it too ...

Yes, and Labor got booted out ...

Politicians really do seem thicker than your average brick, and your poodle seems more like Roman concrete, attempting to endure for the ages ... but perhaps he felt a shiver run over his grave this week with the South Australian by-election ...

But leaving that aside, leaving the lizard Oz editorialist ranting at the ABC and Fairfax for failing to bring down Clive Palmer, leaving aside the lizard Oz editorialist shedding tears of blood at Hedley Thomas failing to score a Walkley for failing to bring down Clive Palmer, leaving aside all the wonderful surreal Alice rumours of rumours that now circulate around and about the federal government, the pond most loved the way even the early morning talk shows have proved to be dangerous ground for Abbott.

Tony Abbott has shrugged off concerns about his government’s unpopularity, comparing himself to conservative giants Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan who rebounded after struggling in the opinion polls. 
The Prime Minister has faced repeated questioning about his own job security amid poor polling, a fierce opposition campaign over broken promises in the budget, and Labor inroads at state elections in Victoria and South Australia. 
Mr Abbott has flagged a ministerial reshuffle ahead of the next election but is determined to remain as leader, saying the nation needs “stability and continuity” following years of Rudd-Gillard government infighting. 
Mr Abbott today urged Australians against taking “a glass half empty approach”, saying his was “not the first government to have a rough patch in the polls”. 
“The Howard government, the Thatcher government, the Reagan government all had rough patches in the polls, and I’m not the first leader to be subject to a bit of speculation,” he told Seven’s Sunrise.
“But I think that the public are also focusing on performance and this is a government which has fundamentally kept faith when it comes to the big commitments we made to the Australian people. “There are a lot of things which people have said and frankly a lot of these so called commitments were commitments that people attributed to us post the election.” (reptile text, google if you want more)

Margaret Thatcher? Ronnie the raygun? Hubris moi?

So called commitments? Like the ones spoken by the so called PM?

Delusionalism doesn't get any better than this, and it drew a splendid response from David Rowe, and more Rowe here:

Weird or what. Those zombie figures clutching at Abbott are quite creepy, but perhaps a garnish of that lovely man perfume Hypocrise deadens the smell ...

And at least the path forward is now clear. Abbott has to develop the charisma of a smooth Hollywood empty head, so when the Argies invade New Zealand, or with a bit of luck, Tasmania, he'll march to victory at the polls ... assuming the canoe builders have managed to get the submarines working well enough ...