In which the pond brings together coal and western civilisation, thanks to nattering "Ned" and Tess of the Catholic Boys' Daily ...

As noted earlier in the day, there's simply too much reptile magic on parade this day for the pond to deal with ... so choices had to be made, and in the end the pond decided to couple together talk of coal and talk of a vast conspiracy to undermine western civilisation by a bloody South American. It meant dropping the Devine and the bromancer and the mutton Dutton, but that's life, or fascism, or racism, or whatever ...

There's nothing like western Xian civilisation to get the pond going, and nobody like nattering "Ned" to inspire the punters ...

In fact nattering "Ned" is so beloved at the pond that fierce legal arguments have erupted over the ownership of "editor-at-length", though the pond tends to treat everything as public domain ...

Is it possible to patent an observation that the sun shines, the moon glows with reflected light, and "Ned" blathers at such tedious length that even prattling Polonius abandons the field for a snooze?

That said, the pond is always attentive to "Ned", who has been deeply concerned of late about the future of dinkum Oz coal, oi, oi, oi, and deeply sceptical of all this climate nonsense, and yet of late has become dimly aware that perhaps there's something of a problem, and perhaps it needs some attention ...

Uh huh. As in the matter of mutton Dutton being appointed to a super ministry which in due course will prove itself a spectacular failure - in much the same way as having the military roaming the streets will produce the kind of kickback the invasion of the NT evoked - Malware is doing for coal exactly what he did for the NBN.

Talking up the copper-driven future, celebrating coal as a potent solution to what ails the planet, appeasing reactionary thought in the hope that somehow he's heading into the future, when in reality he's constantly being swept back by the tide ...

It's a familiar syndrome ...

And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Malware's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of his Point Piper dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the commonwealth rolled on under the night. 
Malware believed in the green light of copper and coal, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning —— 
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. (the proper version in full here).

That's how nattering "Ned" can quote him talking about coal as a part of a modern, low emission energy future ... because clean coal ... because no need for fibre when there's copper ...

And there it is in a nutshell. To save the county from socialism, Malware should become a socialist and ordain a government-funded coal-fired power station ... and perhaps, to save the economy, we should also revert to five year plans ...

Now there's no point shaking nattering "Ned" hard and asking the senile old goat to think about what he's saying ...

There's no point in pointing out that if private investors think a new coal-fired power station is a dog of an investment - given scientific realities and future energy trends - what on earth is the point of doing a comrade Bill and hitting up taxpayers, so that Malware can appease luddites of the onion-munching kind ...

But Malware and the reptiles have form in this sort of bizarre logic, and so, to appease the onion muncher, Malware gave the land copper and a truly fucked hybrid system which will take decades of expensive fixes (loaded on to taxpayers) to unravel ... in much the same way as the national energy market has been implemented in a half-arsed way ... and now, sheesh, nattering "Ned" is talking of taking us back to the future of government coal ...

Why cling to coal if market forces are against it and it requires a socialist intervention? Well that's why the ineffable "Ned" is always an interminable crowd pleaser ...

And so with a glimmering of light in nattering "Ned" - perhaps coal isn't quite the future, perhaps there's something in all this scientific mumbo-jumbo, perhaps we should embrace socialism and start building coal-fired stations because it's never too late to start the next five year plan  - it's time to turn to a wider crisis in civilisation ...

Now the pond probably should have made this a separate posting, but those exhausted by prolix nattering "Ned" can drop off, and leave this for the western civilisation in crisis experts to muse about ...

There's something sublimely comical about the Catholic Boys' Daily quoting an atheist about the Pope aspiring to destroy Christianity, along with more than a none too subtle disdain for bloody useless South Americans ...

An atheist? Well when the pond Greg Hunted Marcello Pera, that's what it said about him, for those brave enough to step over the southern walri and land here ...

However Pera is of that peculiar Italian stripe which sees atheists fellow travel with Catholics and Christians, except when it comes to tedious matters of Christianity, such as what to do with some tedious refugee that turns up with expectant wife in some bloody stable, and then builds a mythology out of it, with stars and wise men and camels and myrrh and the whole bloody refugee deal and Samaritan kindness to strangers and all the rest of the silly Xian nonsense ...

And in this context, the hard-core conservative Catholic Boys' Daily - can we have an Opus, can we have a Dei? - are happy to consort with an atheist having a go at the Pope ...

It's a cunning ploy of course, one designed to generate the pond's sympathy for a Pope forced to deal with the conservative forces within the Vatican who won't settle for anything less than a return to the medieval church ...

Oh wait, that's a bit too late, better the church of c.300-400 AD ...though the pond would settle for a trip back to the 1930s when western civilisation was at its finest ...

Ah, good old Xian civilisation at its finest, though the pond could have mentioned instead one of its favourite movies, an example of western civilisation at its finest in South America ...

Well at least the Wrath of Werner ...

Never mind, it all helps set the mood for the second burst of Tess of the Catholic Boys' Daily channelling Pera ...

The sting in the tail is that mournful note about the departure of Muller, a man who had kept alive the proud Catholic tradition of not giving a flying fuck about its victims ...

And that's enough of a western civilisation midweek irony overdose, leaving just enough room for TT, still struggling to keep up with yet another of the finest flowerings of western civilisation, with more TT here ...