In which the pond leads off with beautiful Daisy, before doing a triple header of savvy Savva, the taboo Bolter and dashing Donners ...

The pond is in a constant state of failure ... so many dropkick reptiles, so little time ...

The pond was reminded of this by a recent link provided by a reader to the bizarre world of Daisy Cousens, an attention-seeking young ratbag of the pathetic kind, perhaps driven by the way her parents burdened her with an unfashionable first name (though these days with hipsters, the unfashionable is determinedly fashionable).

The pond was aware that Cousens existed ... in the usual way, their ABC featured her on The Drum, a few weeks back, as can be seen here ... and as a result the pond switched off in its usual way ... (she also turned up on their Q and A, but the pond never bothers with that cauldron of ignorance and venom, to quote the headline here).

The pond almost made mention of what a bubble-headed, air-headed waste of space she was as she scratched and clawed for attention and her moment in the sun, but then forgot all about it.

Of course Cousens' bizarre piece on Bill Leak achieved her real aim, which is the dubious status of a conservative Joan of Arc, mocked by the likes of Crikey here (paywall protected) ...

The persecution complex goes well with the paranoid, and both are cash in the bank at the Spectator ...

The Leak piece was so monstrously stupid and silly that it disappeared and then re-appeared in edited form, as noted by BuzzFeed here. 

The  attentive Mark Di Stefano offered the new and the old versions, a tweet from Mark Colvin calling it a staggeringly bad piece of writing, and the revelation that the Caterist and Leak describing Cousens as "beautiful Daisy" had been removed from the piece, along with other examples of stupid excess.

Well it's good that BuzzFeed and Crikey are on hand to do their own reptile watch, but the point to be made is that Cousens thrives on attention, conflict and hate. It's what she wants, in her own Trumpian way ...

Cousens might, as she grows older, look back on these times with regret and a bit more understanding. On the other hand, Ann Coulter will keep on being Coulter until she hits the grave or needs to do an Ayn Rand and ask for welfare - and even that humbling didn't stop Rand from being Rand, or her simple-minded followers keeping on with their Randian thinking...

As a result, the pond much prefers to salivate over the savvy Savva, offering a safe pair of older hands, and so it is that Savva kicks off a gigantic pond triple header, a triple decker designed to keep in touch with the reptile zeitgeist ...

There, everything is for the best, and the ashes of the west produce the Malware phoenix in the east, and if the roots are not severed all will be well in the garden, and there will be growth in the spring, and beautiful daisies will bloom, and flowers will lead to peace or at least a re-shuffle ...

The pond loves the way that the savvy Savva can spot a media tart at ten paces, and then tartly show she too is a Leakian, though so few of the tributes mentioned that he was an alcoholic who struggled with drugs and the demon drink ...

But enough of this, or the pond will start singing Daisy, Daisy along with the HAL 9000 ...

Well that's as good a segue as any to the Bolter, the man that Crikey alleges Daisy consumes with the passion an overweight woman reserves for apple pies ...

The pond can hear the questions right away.

Why read the Bolter when this might be a suitable source of conversation?

(here)

But the pond isn't about the real world, the pond is about the reptile world, and right away the pond feels comfortable, because the Bolter ploy is such a familiar one ...

When discussing climate science, always invoke religion, and religious terms, such as taboos and superstitions...

It avoids any actual discussion of the state of the science, or the reef,  or whatever, and instead allows the Bolter to make all sorts of wild assertions.

Now it is possible to find thoughtful discussions of some of these matters elsewhere - such as Tasmanian Aborigines and fish here in pdf form - but of course the point of reading the Bolter is to celebrate tabloid ignorance, bigotry and prejudice ...

Actually, at the time of the original bans, it made some sense not to eat pigs, whether the ecological-economical, or the swine as worm carrier arguments are accepted (Greg Hunt here), in much the same way as some shellfish might offer a dose of poisoning, a tad uncomfortable in ancient times...

It's not so much the initial reasons for refusing to eat something or step around a restaurant (how many times did the pond cop food poisoning at Mario's and still go back?) as the slapping on of a taboo and making it general and permanent ...

But this is where the nuclear option blindly presented by the Bolter as the way of the future - if you don't mind a 250,000 year radioactive future - runs into a few problems, not the least as alternative forms of fuel and energy become more and more competitive.

Now the pond is inordinately pleased that Fukushima doesn't count as a catastrophe, or the likes of Three Mile Island as a near miss, and realises that pedants will rush off to the Graudian for a list of nuclear power station accidents and incidents here ... or perhaps do an intrepid Greg Hunt, dodging the southern walri, and land here ... which mentions that a 2005 study estimated thousands of deaths, and the forcible resettlement of some 350,000.

But we are in the land of Bolter spin, and the world of alternative facts, and the real point isn't actually just to promote nuclear energy.

It's to press a hot button, to foment dissent, to create confusion and chaos in relation to what the Bolter regards as another conspiracy ... climate science itself.

So the pond must press on, because cancer in the young can be treated, so where's the fuss?

It's typical Bolter, shifting from nuclear to fracking, though it must have been written too early to catch up with the news of Malware riding down from the Snowy ...

By golly, is there a Weatherill in the house? Sorting out next year's summer with a four year plan? Mocking a five hundred mill spend, then cranking up a 2 billion spend...

Never mind, here's the Bolter rub.

The Bolter purports to discuss the situation in relation to energy, in relation to climate science and global warming, as if he has an objective interest in solving a perceived problem...

This would all be well, if the Bolter perceived a climate problem ... when all he does is talk of  "global warming alarmists" ...

It's easy to see where this will head ...

Yes, it's just a global warming scare, and it's dinkum Oz coal, coal, coal for the world, oi oi oi ...

Well the pond needs to pace slowly, so here's a Pope, with more encyclicals here ...

And so it's back to the Bolter for a final gobbet, along with a fine illustration of a queasy Malware looking indeterminate and indecisive ...

Actually the pond would dearly love the Bolter to stop, and to get back to the science ... that's his own patented climate denialist science.

Of late the Bolter has been a little shy of the science.

Why waste time and energy on energy options, when the real point is that, as the world's greatest climate scientist, the Bolter is in a position to disprove all those mad scientists swept up in their gigantic fraudulent scientific conspiracy designed to introduce world government by the weekend ...

Time for a little more papal refreshment ...a wiping of the brow ...

But enough of Pope, because there's plenty more Pope here ...

The pond is now in a desperate rush to complete its trifecta, with a little reheated left-over Donners who turned up in the Daily Terror yesterday to deliver a typically dashing piece ...

A few innocent souls might think this is going to be about the joys of the four times table - oh please miss, four times dazzling Donners is fatuous frippery - but it's really about the wonders and splendours of a good Catholic education ...

Wait, wait, the Catholic commercial is coming, though the pond was shattered to see that the piece had been illustrated by a shot of children wasting their time doing PE, when they might be more productively engaged in mindless learning by rote ... parroting Catholic transubstantive nonsense until they took a break to snack on bird seed for lunch ...

Well you have to look past the old codger shouting at everyone to get off his educational lawn ... to arrive at the real point ...

Ah yes, there it is, Catholics do it best ...

Well, it wouldn't be a dazzling Donners piece without the tykes and the other indies getting a plug ...

Being dashing Donners, there's always an irony to be found, and it comes with those two students dragged in to illustrate dazzling Donners' piece ...

See what that sign says ...

My Values

My Values are the things that guide all the decisions I make and all of my actions. Every action I take and every word I say impacts on someone. MY ACTIONS AND WORDS MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

"If you give a little love you can get a little love of your own."

Ah yes children, it's time to slash your bloody budget, you well-off bludgers, and spend the money on the tykes instead ...

It truly puzzles the pond that we spend good taxpayer money on a Catholic education system, and a Catholic University designed to trumpet a form of religious nonsense which really does peddle a lot of taboos ...

Where's the taboo-denying Bolter when he's needed?

Well dazzling Donners only managed to attract five comments by the time the pond got around to it, but this one was a doozie ...

And so the triple header is done, and sure it might have been as boring as a game or three of baseball, and delightful Daisy was the real headliner, but at least there's always a Rowe to wrap things up, with more inflatable Rowe here ...