In which the pond is mortified to discover it spends considerable quality time with scribblers described by others as complete fools ...

Naturally the day has started exceptionally well, and the cartoonists are having a field day, and more Pope in the wild here ...

Of course the pond can only dream ...

He's responsible for it? Well it should be a simple matter for the AFP then ...

We keed, we keed, and so does Rowe, and more Rowe here ...

Around this point the pond has quite forgotten its mission - to survey the output of the reptiles - because of the sundry temptations ...

Indeed, indeed ... and how the Twitterati loved it ...

But actually that 4 Corners - you can catch up with it here - was just too bizarre for the pond, a kind of South American telenovela which illustrated the dangers of too much intimacy for the makers, and for the subjects/victims, when it comes to putting together something which ostensibly started as an objective report on matters of public interest ...

In the end the pond sought refuge in all that was substantial ...

Aah, the Caterists and the Johnsists, a double-barrelled dose of lizard splendour.

Now as a correspondent has already noted, the Caterists were in the wars last night on Media Watch.

The Caterists have the habit of shooting their mouth off, and then when caught out, refusing to back down, instead preferring to bully and bluster.

It wasn't the pond wot said it, it was Peter Davis QC, cited by Media Watch, who said "Anyone who knows anything about the case and what actually happened would actually think that Cater's performance on 60 Minutes just showed him to be a complete fool."

And then there was the response of the man described as a complete fool, handily attached in a pdf to Media Watch:

The inadequacy of the first inquiry and the reluctance to call a second inquiry has prolonged the grief of a town that suffered unimaginable horror. 
But for the persistence of a small number of people, and the commitment of The Australian newspaper, Channel Nine, Alan Jones and other to establish the truth, many more questions would still be left unanswered. 
Questions will always remain about the heavy reliance on computer modeling and the adequacy of the response by emergency services. 
In my view, however, Commissioner Sofronoff made the only finding open to him on the basis of the evidence before him, and there the matter must rest. 
In my view the focus should now be on healing and rebuilding a community that has been deeply scarred by the events of January 2011.

For those who are entranced by the mind of a man described as a complete fool, there's also more in a blog posting here ...

The man described by others as a complete fool finally has to pen these immortal words:

On the basis of computer modeling and other expert evidence, Sofronoff concludes that while the man-made structures altered the course of the flood, they did not significantly add to the devastation.

Some might see this as an eating of humble pie, but for a man others describe as a complete fool, it's a vindication and a triumph ... which explains how some might see white when others see black ...

And so we must trudge through the usual mouthings of a man described on air just yesterday as a complete fool, which admittedly is more admirable than if someone had called him a complete tool ...

Indeed, indeed.

It is of course around this point that the pond likes to point out the infinite capacity for government to back tossers, losers, dropkicks and occasionally, people described by others as complete fools ...

Oh well, it's only fair to parade the rest of the dross:

Yep, the capacity for the government to hinder change, and to subsidise people and centres some might like to think of as complete fools is not inconsiderable ...

Well, where the pond comes from, $240k is more than a little by way of loose change ...

And should you trust a writer who relies on the government to subsidise his centre while he scribbles about the future and gets things wrong in such an extreme way that others describe him as a complete fool?

The pond's answer? Have you thought about having a dance on a marble-topped table ... that's a guaranteed way to pick winners ...

And so to a bonus Rowe, with more Rowe available via his Twitter account here ...