Day 31, thank the long absent lord the reef and satire is safe, and other reptile good news for a good news Thursday ...

Well yes, that satire can be found written in Coalition wants to build 1.2GW coal plant, using climate funds ...

But last night the Meister -  maestro if you will - of Walri Satire turned up on Lateline, and what a show that was ...

It seemed to the pond that Greg “the southern walri man” Hunt was dancing on the head of a pin when he evaded and avoided giving a direct answer to the bizarre notion of re-employing at the BOM climate scientists that had been sacked from the CSIRO.

This is shuffling deck chairs on the scientific Titanic of current government policy, conceding that the policy had met an iceberg of some major proportions, including the NY Times, and so was launching a few lifeboats in response.

The pond pities the CSIRO, BOM and the scientists involved, and the last shreds of the notion that Malware has the faintest interest in climate science.

Pathetic was the word that came to mind when the walri meister reprimanded the interviewer for daring to ask questions, yet Tony Jones had politely avoided asking about the missing walri.

Then when it came to the fate of the Great Barrier Reef, the walri man talked of global and local action, and came out with a marvellous line about Australia being the global role model for the management of heritage properties.

Like this:

You can see the whole sordid interview affair here - and take a gander at the CSIRO story adjacent - just as you can read Hunt’s bickering about phone calls at the ABC here. They didn't call me, why didn't they call me, he sobbed, as if the notion of being proactive was even stranger than southern walri sightings.

Then there's the latest survey at Fairfax here (with forced video) but of course the news had spread far and wide, as in The Independent’s Great Barrier Reef: Half of natural wonder is ‘dead or dying’ and it is on the brink of extinction, scientists say.

At moments like this, naturally the pond turns to the world’s greatest climate scientist and reef technician for reassurance, and he was in sterling scientific form:

Now there's some knockdown science for you, and such artful spin. It's always good to get the news from people who haven't been there, as opposed to hysterical alarmists shedding tears at what they've actually seen.

Yes, those wretches should apologise, and when the reef is much reduced, the pond has an art installation in mind that should bring tourism back to north Queensland - a vast display of the effigies of all those who denied climate science.

Think of it. Who wouldn’t go diving to see thousands of busts of the noble Bolter lurking beneath the waves?

What, you don't like Jeff Koons? How about cosmic absurdity?

But enough of satirical art - that Bornstein piece is at the Graudian as Alarmism, economic idiocy and Orwellian appointments: three years of political disaster, and anyway the Bolter is also astonishingly ept at art appreciation - because this day the reptiles continue their Herculean Labours.

Now there's a valiant attempt to pin it all on Labor ...

But then came disquieting murmurs ...

Oh dear, how to suppress news of the make or break budget?

And the matter of the subs kept burbling along ...

That'd be the subs bid the wall punching onion muncher was so hot to trot on ...

What to do, what to do?

The pond reeled away, askance. An actual approving mention of socialist thinking. What next? Agrarian socialism?

Well there were many temptations this day, but the pond decided to settle for the bromancer's thoughts on Donald Trump.

The reptiles splashed it big at the top of the digital page ...

But it turned out to be more of a mouse squeak than a story ...

The rise of Trump is still utterly depressing ... and yet not a word on the role that Fox and the GOP and the increasingly mad cons have played in that phenomenon. 

But then that would be like asking the reptiles to reflect on the way they have cultivated the worst of right wing politics in Australia, including but not limited to the wall puncher himself and all the rest of the climate denying, innovation fearing, NBN loathing luddites that have flocked to the reptile pages ...

That's why they find themselves in a pickle, as does Malware, and why the government is now desperately flinging money at various parts of the policy wall in the hope that they can plug the leaks in the dyke ... and why Greg Hunt thinks he sounds terribly brave by talking about finally ratifying Kyoto ...

Meanwhile, the cartoonists are having a satirical field day at the efforts to plug the most recent hole in the wall ...

What to say? Well there's more Rowe here, more Pope here, and more Moir here, and that's enough for the pond ...