In which the pond sups on potatoes and climate science with the Speccie mob ...

The pond really does do its best to present the best of domestic reptile loonacy on a daily basis, but during the silly season, times get tough ...

While the pond appreciates the Terrorist attempt to fuel a fire about Australia Day ...it was as tempting as the lizards of Oz falling for the latest lamb provocation, because if the pond's desperate, then the reptiles are frequently beyond the valley of the desperate ...

The pond felt a great marketing ennui fall over it, only matched when it drops into the ABC, and sees the few still at their posts valiantly recycling whatever talking points the reptiles can muster ...

And when the pond turned to the Speccie for relief, what a wasteland of despair it discovered ...

Sure, there was Lord Callinan off to the Raj to discuss cricket, and there was Neil Brown pretending to be harassed by women, and only Donald McDonald could write a piece headed Vox Clamantis and not be slammed by the Speccie as a pathetic wanker, but whether it was the denuding of the treasury by defamation action or simply the holyday season, the Speccie seemed to have lost its mojo ...

The pond looked down into the flat white, which promised in-depth analysis, but all it seemed to indicate was that the frother on the coffee machine had clogged up and needed a good descaling.

The pond had already done the republic, but what was that, tucked down at the bottom?

One Andrew L. Urban explaining how the climate consensus had been manufactured?

The pond decided that it had to go there, if with a glum reluctance and a surly indifference, a bit like sitting down to the meal offered to workhouse folk, as celebrated in Angela Carter's short piece about Salaman and the potato ...

Well the Epping soup might have been generous, but the pond had its doubts about the generosity of the Speccie mob serving up Andrew L. Urban, no matter how much oatmeal and salt might be added to the gallons of water ...

Oh dear, that all sounds terribly grim ...

But at this point the pond can hear a few snowflakes asking just who this Andrew L. Urban might be, and what are his scientific credentials?

The pond is ever so glad the snowflakes thought they might score a cheap political point, because Mr Urban's qualifications for talking about evil emissions are impeccable, up there with Moorice, the Bolter, Malcolm Roberts, his humble Lordship, and all the rest of the motley crew...

(Here).

Frankly if writing about Hollywood and Australian films isn't an adequate preparation for writing about evil emissions, the pond doesn't have the first clue what to suggest in relation to hard, pure science ... though perhaps blogging might be another way forward ...

Indeed, indeed, though to be fair, it has to be said that the pond knew all along that it was a gigantic conspiracy, possibly involving the UN's desire to establish world government, possibly by next Xmas, having missed the deadline for last Xmas ...

Yes, Dame Slap was there long ago, and the pond with her and the good faux Lord, but what was particularly pleasing was the way that Mr Urban's discovery of the vast conspiracy produced a typically Speccie comment ...

Virtue signalling! 

Those words again, and never mind the missing "l", and the jolly japes about Range Rovers and North Korea, the pond felt a surge of pity for all those suffering at the hands of wind farms ...

It reminded the pond of an early xkcd ...

(More here, and thanks to the kindly soul who left that book of cartoons in the street library so that the pond might wander down memory lane with an actual book in hand).

And speaking of Don Quixote, there's just time for a final gobbet of Urban ...

Good old Fred. The pond hadn't thought of him for quite sometime, but what a valiant contribution he made to the RJ Reynolds medical research program, as outlined here, with footnotes in place...

Seitz was the former principal scientific advisor to the RJ Reynolds medical research program. A May 2006 Vanity Fair article by Mark Hertsgaard outlines Seitz's central role in a $45 million “medical research” program in the 1970s and 1980s for tobacco-giant RJ Reynolds: 
 “'They didn't want us looking at the health effects of cigarette smoking,' says Seitz, who is now 94 — but it nevertheless served the tobacco industry's purposes. throughout those years, the industry frequently ran ads in newspapers and magazines citing its multi-million-dollar research program as proof of its commitment to science—and arguing that the evidence on the health effects of smoking was mixed,” Hertsgaard reported in the article. 
 DeSmog uncovered a 1989 internal memo from tobacco company Philip Morris explaining that Seitz “is quite elderly and not sufficiently rational to offer advice”: 
“I spoke with Bill Hobbs [RJ Reynolds] about arranging an appointment for you with Dr. Fred Seitz, former head of Rockerfeller University and the principal scientific advisor to the RJ Reynolds medical research program. Bill told me that Dr. Seitz is quite elderly and not sufficiently rational to offer advice.”

When did good old Fred write that op-ed for the WSJ? In 1996, when he was quite elderly and therefore sufficiently rational to offer advice to Mr Urban and the Speccie mob ...

And there's your flat white for the day.

It's not of the same quality as the reptiles imbibe when they saunter out from Holt street to the 'leet baristas of Surry Hills, but it'll do, and it suddenly helped the pond understand why it too was a great scientist and a top notch expert in climate science.

Watching all that Hollywood shit will do it for you ... or perhaps it came from that Irish and German peasant love of a potato feast ...and the capacity to absorb the endless paranoia and gruel of the Speccie mindset.

And so to a Pope cartoon for the day, but first because even the Pope must occasionally retreat into enclave and address local issues, an explanation from the Canberra Times ...

And as always there's more Pope here ...