In which the pond goes another round in Lloydie v Media Watch ...

It had to happen of course. After the hand is found in the cookie jar, there always comes the excuses ...

As noted on these pages only on Tuesday, in Lloydie v Media Watch, aka Climate Science Denialism on parade in the Lizard Oz, when unfortunate comparisons were made to Dorian Gray, Lloydie has disgraced himself routinely and frequently when it comes to reporting on the condition of the Great Barrier Reef ...

And so the empire decided today to strike back at Media Watch ... providing the pond with a keenly awaited further round in the denialist determination that the coral will survive and revive, no matter what its natural inclinations might be ...

This is an exemplary opening distraction. 

It makes Lloydie look on top of an unfolding response to an unfolding situation. The ace reporter is on the scene, making notes on a still unfolding natural emergency ...

There's no mention of the uglification and derision arising from the battle with Media Watch. 

That must be stewed slowly, and then it can pop out naturally, like an alien emerging from the belly .. (do we really need another sequel or prequel or whatever it is?) ...

And so the little hoppy toad hops into view.

It is pathetic, actually beyond the valley of the pathetic.

The point that Media Watch made was that after a series of headline features last year, attempting to soften and ameliorate and talk down any coral bleaching, Lloydie himself - as the fearless environment reporter for the lizard Oz, and not Sarah Elks or the rag showing a provided video - had gone extremely quiet and ignored the second round of bleaching ...

It also made the obvious point that Lloydie had been muddle-headed in his responses to the first round of bleaching news, a point made by others at the time, as here under the header More sophistry from The Australian on coral reef science in wake of Great Barrier Reef bleaching ...

Well yes, and back in the day, Lloydie's story turned up, as intended, being hailed on the usual suspect sites, such as Watts Up and Joanne Nova, with the usual headlines such as Scientists exaggerated coral bleaching and Great Barrier Reef scare: exaggerated threats ...

Such is the innocence of the dog whistling reptiles regarding the full to overflowing intertubes, they routinely seem astonished at the way their dog whistles end up in their intended homes ... celebrated by rabid climate denialists ...

The funniest thing is to watch Lloydie accuse Media Watch of some sort of hidden "agenda" or of "projecting a narrative", when it committed the thought crime of wondering why Lloydie reported as he did ...

And so to Lloydie sowing further confusion ... he just can't help himself, and this time there's more obfuscation about the status of reporting from the reef ...

After that splendid graph, Lloydie did a little wrap of the naysayers ...

But that was only so Lloydie could return to his favourite form of dissembling, by turning to dissenting voices ...

He did the same last year, as noted in the story linked to above, where all the links, like this one, are active, rather than being a screen cap ...

So what does Lloydie do this time around?

You guessed it ... a chameleon might put on a show of changing colours, but a reptile is always a reptile ...

So tiresomely predictable, and so comical when that last line echoes all that previous talk of "narratives" ...

Yes, climate science is an "entrenched narrative", as opposed to Lloydie's entrenched narrative of lonely voices crying in the wilderness, explaining how it all will be for the best in the best of all special worlds, aided and abetted by the Donald delivering a whole bunch of clean coal ...

What a tiresome, obfuscating wretch Lloydie is. The pond wondered previously how he lived with himself, and urged him not to check the likeness in that Dorian Gray painting. 

This final gobbet provided no answer ...

And so for once, the entrenched narrative seems to have had a final word, but nothing in this piece will erase the contemptible, obdurate Lloydie's efforts of recent years ... and it's hard to imagine that Media Watch won't want another round, given that there are so many ways of jabbing at Lloydie's soft, exposed head, and wobbly denialist belly ...

Naturally the denialists were out and about in the comments section ...

The pond is sorry, it simply can't overlook the "it's" in "it's ancient past" ... if you can't do English, PR how do you imagine that you do science? - and as for the Bikini Atoll? 

What does a Standford student report in 2015 here say for anyone in search of good reasons to nuke the reef?

Now the pond appreciates that Graham is being a bit of a jolly wag, and that after reading Lloydie, there's little alternative than to sound like a fuck-witted wag ...

If the master is an expert in obfuscation, distortion and wilful provocation, why not the readership too?

Well it's only a matter of noting with Pope where all this has ended, this reptile reporting of climate science, and with more noteworthy Pope here ...