Relax, relax, the pond is taking a break from the hagiographic, Uriah Heep-like knuckle-cracking, and forelock-tugging, the uxorious fawning of the bromancer over his new bro, the most excellently dinkum ScoMo …
There's only so much even the surrealist pond can take in a week …
Watching The Ballad of Buster Scruggs last night, there was much talk of the uncertainty of life and thought, and assorted grim dramatic illustrations were provided, to the pond's amusement … but, it has to be said, without convincing the pond entirely (though that episode about death in the frontier made a powerful case), because it's safe to say that if, the sun rises on a daily basis, then the bromancer will daily, routinely go to that place where the sun doesn't shine and crawl up it … because that's his reptilian duty, that's his lizard Oz job, and he's diligent about his reptile obligations …
But enough of being able to replicate an observable bromancer experiment in a scientific way, because this day there was much to read, and top dog in the opinion pages, at least for a nanosecond, was the dog botherer …
Oh fucketty fuck, the dog botherer doing climate science for the umpteenth time, and blathering about climate science?
Wouldn't the pond be better off kneeling beside the bromancer and worshipping in an ever so humble way at the church of the fine job ScoMo?
Well yes, perhaps, but the pond loves irony, and you see, the ironists were out in force at the lizard Oz this day…
The joke here of course is that Malware himself was incapable of doing anything meaningful about climate change and climate science, and the foolish fop was a complete waste of space and time … but he does have the likes of the dog botherer, cheering on the onion muncher, the lesser Craig member of the Kelly gang, and assorted others, as a handy excuse …
This has, of course, three fifths of fuck all to do with climate science, but that's the dog botherer, all apples and oranges and useless blather…
Come on Malware, how do you deal with rampant denialism?
Ah you didn't manage it, and nobody can talk sense to a third rail. Might as well just do a Taking of Pelham 123, and step on it …
Well, that's true enough … how to talk sense to a loon blathering on about New Zealand apples as if that proves a point about climate science?
And what about those jokes about "believing in the science", as a way of provoking the pond, since science isn't a religion and isn't about beliefs, as opposed to replicable observation?
Why does the pond always take the dog botherer bait in a Pavlovian way?
Well, one thing that the pond can propose is that the dog botherer has even less in the way of scientific qualifications than the pond, who, for its enormous crimes against humanity, once taught geology to innocent squatters' daughters in a private school in Tamworth (well, just like the dog botherer, they were innocent in the matter of science).
Why does the dog botherer carry on so, without the weight of evidence, understanding, observation, or qualification?
How silly of the pond to ask … because that's what reptiles do, and besides, the dog botherer sees everything as a political or perhaps a religious experience, and he has his certainties and beliefs, no matter what tricks of fate that Buster Scruggs might line up against him as he floats off to some supposed clean-coal-laden heaven, angel's wings flapping ...
And there you have it … because does it matter whether it's a tech billionaire or a ponce from the eastern suburbs if the science is real, the observations genuine?
Weren't we going to be talking about science rather than doing the old ad hominem rag?
How many times can the dog botherer blather on about dinkum clean Oz coal, oi, oi, oi, and avoid the weight of evidence?
Silly question, might as well ask "How many times can the sun rise, and the bromancer peer up ScoMo's dinkum coal-loving arse?"
You see the irony in all this now, you see the simplistic, simpleton way the true believing dog botherer rails against those who refuse to embrace his coal-loving religion?
How weird that the reptiles should this same day recycle a piece from The Economist …
Luckily there's no need to run the rest of that piece in The Economist … it can be found here as California's wildfires and the new abnormal, and it's only a couple of days old, and outside the paywall at time of writing …
Here, have a cartoon …
And so back to a final gobbet of dog botherer climate denialism … though with an interesting spike in the dog botherer's understanding of the science ...
Astute observers will note that the dog botherer has now shifted to "given the scientific consensus about the impact of anthropological emissions on climate", it might be thought that - in his theological and ideological terms - he's become a believer, or perhaps adopted a scientific attitude to observable things going on in the world … but he's just doing the old snakes and ladders routine …
There needs to be a new stage, call it 4 (a). Allow the pond to paraphrase it so the dog botherer can make use of it:
Deep down I think climate science is bunkum and a load of hot air, and I've never really accepted the science, even if I'm about as much of a scientist as the bromancer heading where the sun don't shine, but if I wave my arms about and blather on about "myriad policy options, from adaptation to rapid decarbonisation", and talk sagely of such things warranting "cost-benefit calculations and pubic debate", I won't sound like a bullshit artist and can talk of leftists and catastrophism, and quickly move on to point five, and urge everyone to keep on with keeping on with dinkum clean Oz coal, oi, oi, oi …
Well yes, so much bullshit, and so little time ...
And anyone who made it through that epic amount of dissembling might now need another cartoon …
Heck, once the pond gets a taste of a Donald cartoon, it tends not to stop …
Oh okay, that's not directly about the Donald, but it does remind the pond why it hates Facebook so …
And now, just in case anyone missed Colbert's exposition on toilets, time-travel and big foot. It's a few days old, but in its own way, like time-travel itself, it's timeless ...
And now, just in case anyone missed Colbert's exposition on toilets, time-travel and big foot. It's a few days old, but in its own way, like time-travel itself, it's timeless ...
"The stubborn refusal of the climate to replicate the alarming predictions of the climate models". This is what worries me most - that the models have held up so well or the outcome has actually been worse than predicted. Even if you haven't followed this as it has unfolded a quick google search for, say "climate model accuracy" will provide a few hours reading.
ReplyDeleteAlso nice to see Stiglitz dismissed on the basis of a hesitation when asked about a commodity price fluctuation. Some very insightful analysis there - guess that proves its all a conspiracy!
The aircon is obviously holding up at Surrey Hills so all is well.
" Might as well just do a Taking of Pelham 123..."
ReplyDeleteEven better to do a 'Chelmsford 123', DP. "Viatorus the Bender they'll call me."
"You see the irony in all this now, you see the simplistic, simpleton way the true believing dog botherer rails against those who refuse to embrace his coal-loving religion?"
Indeed we do, DP, indeed we do. And the simplest, clearest example of that is where the Doggy Bov intones that :"the working families whose taxes fund the ABC are struggling to pay power bills that have been driven up by climate gestures."
Now that is just one of the litany of reptile lies that get repeated endlessly, quite possibly because the reptiles are stupid enough to believe them, but more likely because it's just their way of prosecuting virtue signalling in the perpetual round of wingnut identity politics.
Just for some "fact based" thoughts, we have input from the ACCC about the 63% increase on top of inflation over the last decade in our electricity bill:
" 48% of that bill was network costs, 22% wholesale costs, 16% retail and other costs, and 8% retail margins. Green schemes, which have been the focus of most public attention in recent times, made up only 7%."
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/oct/15/australias-household-power-prices-rose-63-in-past-decade-says-watchdog
But then, I guess that's just "Fake News" full of "alternate facts". So, for instance, Doggy Bov goes on to rave that "The stubborn refusal of the climate to replicate the alarming predictions of the climate models ..."
Which is only matched by the stubborn refusal of the reptile climate denialists to be able to see the world as it actually is.
Just like, for instance, Australia's worst performed ever Prime Minister who sold a bunch of lies about so-called 'weapons of mass destruction' and conned us into a war that killed hundreds of thousands of totally innocent people, then thinks he can set himself up to run a group that claims to want to educate people in "Western civilisation". I think, Johnnyboi, that a lot of them already know. Those that survived, anyway.
Love your collection of cartoons, DP.
Another way of looking at this:
Deletehttps://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-27/electricity-prices-compared-to-biggest-household-expenses-chart/10148524
If Fido's close friend was worried about struggling households it might be time to look at the housing ponzi scheme or health insurance costs rather than go all the way down the list to number thirteen.
My memory may be failing me here but I think energy only became a talking point after the South Australian storm blew down the transmission network. It's been a blatant misrepresentation from the very start.
That's very much a composite chart, Bef. For example, people paying item 1: New home purchase are unlikely to be also paying item 2: Rent ... unless they're big into negative gearing. Also, not all that many people spend money on item 8: tobacco. And I for one spend nothing on item 7: overseas holidays.
DeleteSo for a lot of us, electricity is more like item 4, not item 13. Especially those of us who have had their loyal old gas heater killed because of carbon monoxide and now have to rely on electric heaters for internal heating.
PS: electricity became a "talking point" with me, and a lot of other Victorians back in around 1994 when bloody Kennett privatised the SECV. Let me quote:
Delete"The SECV in fact delivered affordable electricity to consumers whilst making a healthy profit. In 1992/3, the year before it was broken up, ‘it paid $995 million in interest, a $191 million dividend to the State Government, and had a profit of $207 million’ (Skulley 1995)."
https://www.uow.edu.au/~sharonb/ProjVictoria.html
And now what ? We all pay a heap and get no profit at all. Cheers, Jeffy.
However I do wonder sometimes, just how ready an old-fashioned utility like SECV would have been to adopt renewables. Though it did once expect to go nuclear, and even recruited some number of nuclear physics graduates - some of whom stayed on in ADP (aka ICT nowadays) and as far as I know, most left to seek other employment when the SECV did not proceed with nuclear.