In which the pond discovers a cunning ploy, with a serve of climate science denialism as the reptile bonus ...

Having been trained in conspiracy theories by the reptiles, the pond was immediately on to the Bolter's game.

Launch yet another barking mad assault on Malware, and it would be certain to generate a little sympathy or perhaps a vote or two for the poor man - especially in his moment of legislative triumph - and so the Liberal party might just stagger across the line at the next election ...

Cunning or what? But the way the Bolter framed the splash gave the game away.

What's this talk of "real Liberals"? Are there unreal Liberals? Or are they surreal Liberals? Are real Liberals like real Australians, or are they phantasmagoric illiberal Australians? Is it possible to be a real Bolter? Or are delusional Bolters who scribble for the Murdochians unrelated to wayward horses?

So many questions, so little need to read the answers.

Naturally the pond realised there would be a similar wailing and gnashing of teeth when it turned to the lizards of Oz for its reptile lunch.

Forget the bigot Hanson, surely the reptiles at the Catholic Boys' Daily would be clucking their tongues and tut-tutting about important matters ... like the way Malware has ruined education and the Catholic schooling system ...

What's this? The bouffant one, served up with a bonus of climate science denialism?

Luckily the bouffant one conducted a short service, though it was laced with real Liberal despair ...

Oh Malware, why have you abandoned the Catholics?

A "diabolic" solution?

Diabolic: Characteristic of the Devil, or so evil as to be suggestive of the Devil.

Late Middle English (as diabolic): from Old French diabolique or ecclesiastical Latin diabolicus, from diabolus ‘devil’; the form diabolical dates from the early 16th century. (Oxford it here, a certified free of southern walri site).

As a devoted secularist, and someone who once experienced a Catholic education, there's nothing like the Catholic Boys' Daily to put a smile on the face ...

So Malware is Satan, or at least a close relative. The pond knew it, the NBN saga suddenly becomes clear ... no wonder real Liberals are in a real panic

And so to that bonus serve of climate denialism ... with the google splash giving that game away ...

As soon as someone mentions clear-headed logic by Bjorn Lomborg (and can't find a way to work in a matching mention of special interest Lomborg) in the opening sentence, the pond knows the game's afoot, and the hound is on the moors, and so it came to pass ...

Now the pond recognises the Asten name as someone who's been kicking around in climate denialist circles for a long time.

He appeared in Deltoid's 55th entry on the Australian's war on climate science, and right from the get go, he established his status as a silly, misguided geek:

First the title, “The Australian’s War on Science”. Eye catching but a little harsh. I don’t compile stats but I note that two days before my Commentary last Friday the Oz ran a post-Cancun Commentary from Julian Hunt carrying a pro-AGW perspective. And when the Oz published a Commentary of mine last April on significance of medieval warming, I noted that of about 6 climate-related Commentaries over a few months to that time, three were pro-AGW items from Penny Wong, James Hansen and Ziggy Switkowski. Within a 1-sigma confidence, I call that balance. 

Within a 1-sigma confidence?

That the lizard Oz is balanced on climate science?

What a clown, all the more so that this day's piece is close on the heels of a recent piece by Lomborg that turned up, filched and re-branded, in the lizard Oz ...

Naturally Deltoid made mincemeat of that bizarre notion of a balanced Oz.

But do go on ...

Secondly, yes I made an error in my piece on Friday. At the time of publication I sent my workings and references to two of our leading climate scientists, and they were quick to point out the error, and provide further references. Since you have technically-minded readers, let me expand on my correction.

Actually, don't bother. Why not just get it right before getting published, you goose?

And then a year or so later, Asten turned up in Deltoid's Australians War on Science 69, with a handy link to Michael Ashley scribbling in The Conversation, Event horizon: the black hole in The Australian's climate change coverage:

Anyone wanting their gob smacked some more can head off to Ashley for more gobsmacking via the link above ...

Meanwhile, it's back to the current Asten, sounding like the clunker Austin that used to be in the extended family (let's not get to talking about the Morris Minor, ever):

Now the pond recognises the syndrome. Silly retiree with too much time on hands wants to stir the pool, muddy the waters, and generally be unhelpful.

Quoting Scott Pruitt, a notorious denialist, and urging science to be treated as a kind of political debate between red team and blue team is beyond the valley of the pathetic, and hinges on the notion that current science is some kind of conspiracy ...

The whole point is to mount a rearguard action, and use the old routine about unknown unknowns to generate uncertainties, saucy doubts and fears, and phantoms of the diabolical mind ...

The notion that Scott Pruitt has the remotest interest in the science is as comical as your average cartoon ...

Throwing in John Christy and Judith Curry just adds petrol to the denialist bonfire of the vanities, but it does remind the pond of exactly how unbalanced the lizard Oz's real climate science coverage has been for more than a unreal decade ...

Meanwhile, there's always unreal cartoons ...

... with more xkcd here ... so that, by the time we get to Phoenix, these days we'll be melting ...