In which the reptiles deliver a Wednesday dream team ...

The pond just had to note this reptile story, without bothering to go deeper … toss the pond in the shallow waters before it gets too deep.

Passing strange, to remember the way the pond once thought it was sad to see Jim Cairns hawking his wares outside the Prahan market …suddenly poor old Jim seems like a kindly old man peddling hope in his dotage …

But on to the main game, because the reptiles this day offered up as close to a dream team of runners as the pond might ever have hoped for …

The beefy Angus can be dealt with quickly, because the pond's main complaint is the way that the reptiles tagged his job description … so please allow the pond to drop in at the end of the story ...

Note that line about "previous poor policy is biting years later …"

Yep, good old Angus is beefing about the way that the Liberal/National government has fucked it up, which is why the pond was so indignant that the reptiles got it wrong.

Please, he's the energetic Minister for Meaningless Blather and Pointless Guilt Trips…

And so on to Dame Slap. The pond had promised itself not to write anything about the current state of American politics, but where Dame Slap goes, the pond must follow … though not without first running a ritual reminder of the Dame's deeds immediately after the Donald won …

And so on, and really after that, there's not much to be said, but with that sauce, this later meal is especially piquant …blessed as it is by a Lobbecke ...

Yep, the pond promised it would be piquant. There's nothing like a MAGA cap wearer slinking back out into the glare as if it's all been business as usual these last few years, and the Donald has had nothing to do with assorted forms of darkness ...

Please, credit where credit is due. The pond was dangerously radicalised and plunged into even deeper psychosis, not by social media - the pond doesn't tweet, Facebook or use a cell phone in the modern manner - but by an intensive study of the reptiles, guaranteed to produce feelings of nausea and madness on a daily basis ..

How surreal is it to read the deeply, profoundly intolerant Dame Slap talk of peak intolerance?

How richly absurd, how weird, as each week her duty is to rage at something or other, while around her the cacophony of raging reptiles routinely reaches a fever peak … frequently raging at identity politics, or queers or such like …

And so to a bout of blaming ignorant, foolish youff ...

Virtue signalling? If the pond had a dime for each time that monstrous cliché is trotted out by raging reptiles, it would be doing a Scrooge McDuck and frolicking in its money bin …

You see, ignorant foolish youffs, forget this latest blather.

The way forward is clear … don a MAGA cap, slip out into the streets of New York at night to celebrate the arrival of the Donald, and then a few years later, you can blather about the decline of liberal democracy … 

Will this be seen as a sign of rampant stupidity and perversity? No, you'll be rewarded with a bizarre Lobbecke guaranteeing you cult status in reptile la la land …

And so to an even bigger treat … though if the youffs of today take the pond's advice, they might see it as a salutary warning about the dangers of dotage.

You see, when the reptiles get to reading things, there's usually a problem.

But how can you stop nattering "Ned" from getting out of his cage, and devouring some book that will feed his relentless appetite for gloom?

Now the pond was brought up a Catholic, in a world of venial and mortal sins … and those last two pars are so monstrously silly that the pond couldn't resist cackling …

You see, amongst many other confusions, "Ned" just did the thing the reptiles love to do...

Recast climate science as a moral issue, rather than simply considering the science, its implications, and whether it might actually involve a need for some action …

Former chairman Rudd was just as guilty …but there's a point to "Ned's" blather. You see, by talking of "radical action" and "moral threats", and "betrayal", you can produce what's supposed to be a rational and scientific solution … wheel out the beefy Angus to deliver another energetic Ministerial full of meaningless Blather …and somehow pretend that doesn't involve distorted morality. Why, it's just the science, nattering "Ned" style ...

Luckily, just as the pond was hoping that "Ned" might become one of those threatened species the UN drew attention to recently, there was an infallible Pope on hand …

More Pope here, but now it's back to "Ned" and a bizarre illustration heralding the decline and fall of tertiary education ...

"Woemotion at the cost of reason?"

Please don't ask the pond to explain, it's out there with transubstantiation …

Anyway, the pond is too busy endorsing white supremacy, the patriarchy and heteronormativity, as any reader of "Ned" and the reptiles would do …

Charlottesville? Why, there were good folk on both sides. Truth isn't the truth. What you're seeing and reading is not what's happening … when it can, the pond tells the truth, the pond likes to be truthful, but so many things get in the way …

Oh and it's all the fault of teh Marxists ...

There's an alternative reality of course. Has there ever been a greater destructive force than Fox News, Hannity and the like, all so that a grasping billionaire can feel like he's in a position of great influence and power? All so chairman Rupert can stay in touch with the Donald ...

Fuck fragility and "Ned's" blather about it, which really doesn't move us much beyond "harden the fuck up" and "get the fuck off my lawn…"

Instead marvel at the way "Ned" manages to tippy-toe around way Fox has helped fuck over the United States and the world …

As "Ned" is into citing irrelevant reading material as a gospel guide to all that's wrong with the world, the pond wondered if there might be another syndrome at work which might be cited …

The Dunning-Kruger effect explains that the problem isn’t just that they are misinformed; it’s that they are completely unaware that they are misinformed. This creates a double burden. 

Studies have shown that people who lack expertise in some area of knowledge often have a cognitive bias that prevents them from realizing that they lack expertise. As psychologist David Dunning puts it in an op-ed for Politico, “The knowledge and intelligence that are required to be good at a task are often the same qualities needed to recognize that one is not good at that task — and if one lacks such knowledge and intelligence, one remains ignorant that one is not good at the task. This includes political judgment.” Essentially, they’re not smart enough to realize they’re dumb. (more here)

More to the point, perhaps, is "Ned's" strange inability to realise he's old, and that the youff inherit the world, and they will make of it a different beast than the one that "Ned" constantly moans about …

Each generation sings a variant on that old Dylan song ...

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

But this old codger who produces prophecy with a keyboard …prophecy, prophesize and prophesy here … is routinely inclined to sink like a gloom-laden, depressive stone ...

Witness the appeal of Donald Trump among many?

Wonder why the youff of today and Pacific Islanders have a passing interest in climate science?

Contemplate the Donald and his deeds, and the cheerleaders surrounding him?

Come on down, Chairman Rupert, the Fox News mob, Dame Slap, and reptiles everywhere …introduce yourselves to the sublimely oblivious nattering "Ned"...

As for the rest, the pond is no shrink and can't help nattering "Ned" and what is clearly a deep-seated form of anxiety and depression, given the way he works for an organisation dedicated to hysteria, irrationality and the Donald … and yet is simply unable to see it …

Are we regressing? The Murdoch empire has helped the world regress at an exponential rate, and all "Ned" can do is natter about a tribalism that his organisation has helped produce …

What was it those psychologists proposed?

... if one lacks such knowledge and intelligence, one remains ignorant that one is not good at the task. This includes political judgment, and perhaps scribbling columns for the lizard Oz. Essentially, they’re not smart enough to realize they’re dumb

And speaking of political judgment, and flogging dead horses - yes, the carnival of pain produced another death on the track - there's a Rowe here to celebrate it, with more celebratory Rowe here …