In which the pond joins the reptiles of Oz in shedding crocodile tears for coal ...

Everybody has been having great fun with the singularly grotesque juxtaposition of photo and headline story on today's 'Tiser front page, but for the pond it's just another day in reptile land ...

Even without the story, what desperate reptile thought that pasta portrait was a good click bait idea designed to lure back lost tree killer lovers?

It reminds the pond that no matter how often and how intensely and devotedly it assures the reptiles that they're offensive, and that they can continue on being offensive, the dear nervous nellies get agitated and alarmed, spooked at the slightest sight ...

The result is that the pond is very over 18C, and extremely over Bill Leak, and well over the US election, and besides the bromancer this day has definitively spoken ...

The day the pond takes the bromancer's word to the bank is the day its income assumes Micawber dimensions ...

But enough of Dickens and literature and misery, because today with great sadness, the deeply conservative pond announces a break with tradition. 

Usually the pond would spend quality time with the Caterists. But this day, while the Caterists are railing at the demonic ABC in the usual way ...

However, the pond regrets to advise that it didn't watch the Four Corners program on the salmon industry, hasn't read the transcript, has no interest in salmon, has little interest in Four Corners generally, and counsels anyone with heart problems to stand well clear of salted salmon. 

A fifty gram serving will deliver a quarter of your daily allowance. Instead the pond prefers to go to the Sydney Fish Markets, as an extra, scurrying about and reassuring Asian tourists that they are actually visiting Australia and that the odd gweilo can be sighted ...

Just as problematically, the pond scoured the reptile Oz for news of the latest Malware triumph and found it nowhere ...

Now it's not as if the story wasn't covered elsewhere. It was in Fairfax ...

Even the Terror managed to cover it, albeit down the page ...

But the news was "disappeared" in the lizard Oz, the so-called newspaper of the year, and the heart of the nation. The onion muncher's triumph, as channeled by Malware, disappeared into a reptile void.

It might turn up later, but in the meantime, the pond was perforce compelled to admire this singular feat of "disappearing", up there with an Argentinian dictator dealing with difficult people ...

But it left the pond wondering what might be of interest. Luckily the Oz editorialist rode to the rescue ...

The dear sweet things, getting all teary and sad about one of the world's dirtiest, ugliest, most polluting coal fired power stations ... ancient and well past its time, and yet no money spent keeping it afloat. Gad sir and madam, this is the very attitude that led to the retiring of steam engines when they had years of good service left in them tugging the Flyer to Tamworth ...

Now in all these crocodile tears it would be entirely remiss for there to be any mention of climate science, climate change, or the whole damn thing ... so naturally the pond was distracted and raced off to do a Greg Hunt on crocodile tears, and came across this cartoon ...

Okay, that's pretty arcane, and not really relevant, except in the spirit of the thing, and it set the pond to weeping, and to reading the final reptile gobbet ...

Yes, it's coal, coal, coal for Australia and coal, coal, coal for the world ... and the old saw of only 1.3% of global emissions, and never mind the truth of the per capita emissions, and worse still, the ongoing refusal to acknowledge the achievements arising from our Herculean efforts in shipping coal to the world ...

Now the pond realises this is all wonderfully clean coal, except in the case of Victorian brown coal, which is wonderfully dirty coal ...

But what is truly inspirational is the way that the reptiles keep clucking about taking action on climate change, because, truly, deep down the reptiles think that climate science is a load of tosh ...

Don't trust the pond's interpretation of this. Just read that editorial and see how it reeks of unstated but deeply felt climate science denialism ...

It's just one step away from the spectacular performance of Malcolm Roberts over the last few days.

That story here, and another version here ... and his inability to use the "c-word" ...

  

Inevitably some tried satire, as if anyone could match the Roberts' reality, because the facts in his lunchtime at least, are clear ...

In full here ...

But the pond has a solution which should satisfy everyone. 

Get Malcolm Roberts to write the editorials for the Oz, and replace the disappointing Moorice - who has fallen off the climate science pace in the past year or so - with a once a week column by Malcolm Roberts exposing the various conspiracies involved in climate science...

He won't use the "c" word once, except when it comes to celebrating coal, coal, coal for the world in finest reptile style.

Now all the pond has to do is step back and wait for the profusion of thanks certain to flow from the reptiles for this most excellent proposal.

And in the meantime, the excellent David Rowe almost makes the pond feel like taking an interest in cricket, as he opens the summer scoring for Malware ... (and more excellent Rowe here).