In which the pond farewells the year and the reptiles more times than Melba ...

The reptiles tried to sneak a quick one in on the pond, as if the pond wouldn't be dancing in the street with the news that the 'Gong is now the new home to Western Civilisation.

Weary crusaders can now drop into the 'Gong, though the pond is a tad miffed, because it always had a soft spot for Port Kembla (how many people know that the Australian movie Soft Fruit featured the mighty Kembla?)

The pond knew all along that the 'Gong was the true and proper home for Western Civilisation, with a long and proud tradition of bringing elevated culture to the primitive pagans who dwell elsewhere in the land …

     

Of course there'll be bloody Marxists who want to ruin the dream, and bloody snobs who cackle at how the dream ended up at a university not renowned for its status in academic la la land, and the reptiles have strangely failed to exult in their reporting …

Desperate, moi?

Meanwhile, the reptiles were trying to pull another swiftie while the pond was on its break …

 

An EXCLUSIVE on solar panels, more usually, commonly, even sordidly, known as an OZ BEAT-UP?

What could have provoked this?

Well there were a couple of reasons. 

First there's the fine art of reptile distraction. You see, elsewhere, as in the Graudian, attention was being paid to a CSIRO report involving actual scientists making a report based on scientific observations …a terribly unsporting sort of approach, almost ideological, certainly theological ...

Graudian the details here …and send all angry letters about mis-spelled nouns used as verbs to the lizard Oz …

Make sure to moan about the decline and fall of Western Civilisation, and urge them to get onboard with the 'Gong solution …

And then there was news of a dangerous heretic, who required both reptile barrels  …

Yes, the cad was a coal lover in disguise, and the reptiles needed to 'release the Bjorn' to teach him a lesson about scare stories and hyperbole …

Still blathering about a smart focus on green technology, while the reptiles rage at solar panels? That's just the usual seasonal idiocy ...

The reptiles presumably were spanking Harwin for being a hypocrite, but how poignant that the reptiles should see coal-loving as a dastardly example of double dealing.

Begone from the temple, you hypocrite, hie thee to the 'Gong to learn the fate of all those who deny the cleansing power of dinkum clean Oz coal, while seeking to profit from its carbon goodness …

As if 'releasing the Bjorn' wasn't enough, the reptiles released the Groan …

Now the pond had some saucy doubts and fears about breaking the holyday silence. 

Would news of the 'Gong as the new home for crusaders, and Dame Groan rabbiting on about rogue heretics be as good a place holder as nattering "Ned", or the world-famous musings of one of the greatest climate scientists ever known, namely Moorice the heretic slayer?

No matter. 357k is the sort of price that must be paid to Grand Inquisitors ready to flatten state upstarts, and show the Angus how to conduct a beefy exchange with his lesser colleagues …

See how the reptiles reminded the lizard readership of those dreadful, dire coal links …

Meanwhile, in another bolt from the blue …

Graudian as above, and of course what Harwin and the state Liberals know, presumably from their polling, is that the climate science denialism of the feds, the reptiles and all the rest is pretty much on the nose with those remotely in touch with what's actually happening in the world … and so the more distance and sunshine that Harwin and the state Libs can put between themselves and the beefy Angus and the speaker in tongues and all the rest of them, the better, given the election looming in a few months time ...

But 357k will buy you a power of climate science denialism from Dame Groan, while Moorice might even do it for free, so desperate is he to match the Groan as a Grand Inquisitor expert at hunting heretics …

The climate wars? But, butt, billy goat Groan, everyone knows solar panels are killers, and dear sweet pure undiluted essence of dinkum clean Oz coal, oi, oi, oi, is the future of the country and of the planet … and soon trained crusaders from the 'Gong will spread far and wide to spread the joyous news …

And now, once again, oi, oi, oi, Io Saturnalia! and a little Ovid for the new year … 

Behold, two-headed reptiles …

And now the pond will truly fall silent, though not without noting that the infallible Pope seems determined to find a match for the holyday season. Try hitching up with the Pope here …

In which the pond must heed the siren song of the Xmas Moorice ...

Yes, yes, the pond said farewell for the year, season's greetings, salutations, all that yadda yadda, and nattering "Ned" a most worthy and honourable place holder, but how could the pond ignore Moorice?

What's more, has the 357k Dame Groan drunk of the religion of global warming?

Why should she care if energy in the US is not only cheaper but much greener?  Who cares if it's greener? Only crackpot delusionals deep in the grip of a heretical religion, if Moorice, the world's greatest climate scientist (perhaps only with the exception of the Donald) is to be trusted.

Hang on, hang on, is Moorice calling Dame Groan a crackpot delusional bleeding heart, bleating about greener energy?

Of course the pond had to take note, of course the mad uncle had to be invited down from the attic to join in the seasonal festivities …

Um, yes, but is climate science really a religion?

Does that put Moorice in the position of a Grand Inquisitor, fiercely hunting out heretics so that they might be burnt at the stake? Doesn't that put Moorice's position as the world's greatest climate scientist in some doubt? Shouldn't he be hailed instead as the one true believer in the religion of Moorice the great?

As always, the pond reverted to a cartoon for light relief …

Now it will be noted that Moorice never actually gets down to the scientific business of debunking the science with his extensive field research and peer-reviewed papers, but prefers to sharpen his stakes, keep garlic and silver bullets handy, and so the pond likes to respond in kind to the Grand Inquisitor as he fervently searches out the heretics ...

Ah Richard Linzden …

In a 2001 profile in Newsweek, journalist Fred Guterl wrote that Lindzen "clearly relishes the role of naysayer. He'll even expound on how weakly lung cancer is linked to cigarette smoking." James Hansen recalls meeting Lindzen whilst testifying before the Vice President's Climate Task Force: "I considered asking Lindzen if he still believed there was no connection between smoking and lung cancer. He had been a witness for tobacco companies decades earlier, questioning the reliability of statistical connections between smoking and health problems. But I decided that would be too confrontational. When I met him at a later conference, I did ask that question, and was surprised by his response: He began rattling off all the problems with the data relating smoking to health problems, which was closely analogous to his views of climate data. (here).

There's a lot more fun to be had following the Linzden trail, as here, but now the pond must confess to some confusion.

You see, as a one-time Catholic, the pond understood Moorice rabbiting on like a Grand Inquisitor …you know, everything's a religion, and then there's Satanists, venial and mortal sins, thought crimes, delusions, black specks of soot on a white soul … and so on, all terribly scientific, and full of scientific terminology.

But how did Lenin get into it?

Wasn't Lenin an atheist? Yet suddenly it seems that it's the underlying Leninist manifesto, long denied by the left, that's been driving UN climate policy since whenever …

So everything's a religion … Leninism, climate science, the sun coming up in the morning, not forgetting devotional relativist thinking of the 'truth isn't truth' kind?

Io Saturnalia!

Never mind, expecting Moorice to keep his metaphors in a straight line is probably like expecting a headless chook on the way to the Xmas dinner party to talk sense …

Here, have another cartoon …

And now on with Moorice's deep love of dinkum true blue clean Oz coal oi, oi, oi, though really any kind of coal will do ...

Lucky children, and even luckier, Moorice has a very special Xmas gift for you …

And now to celebrate the way that Moorice stole the pond's Xmas preparation time, another cartoon ...

Put it another way, the lizards of Oz will explain to you why climate science denialism is the one true religion, and beautiful clean coal its wafer and wine all wrapped into one lovely chunk of carbon ...

Ah well, io Saturnalia! and felix sit annus novus all over again, but whenever there's a sign in the Batcave that Grand Inquisitor  Moorice has put out an urgent notice of unrepentant Leninists in the thrall of a religion, the pond will be ready to attend the inquisitorial tribunal to speak of fluent climate science denialism and a deep love of dinkum clean Oz coal …

At least the pond stayed in the game a little longer than the ABC in the silly season ...

This is the last post by the pond for the year, and the pond offers no excuse, except to say that at least the pond lasted longer into the festive season than the ABC …

The reptiles will have to look after themselves until the new year, and if a few soil the nest or make fools of themselves, well, that's the way it works in the Darwin Awards …

The pond wishes everyone who's dropped in, but especially regular correspondents, who respond to reptile musings with exceptional good cheer and a clarity singularly lacking in the reptile world, a merry Xmas, happy holydays, io Saturnalia!, felix dies nativitatis, or whatever else turns you on, and while doing the Molesworth thing, felix sit novas annus! …

The good thing is that hopefully everything in the new year will look up.

The bad thing is that things never look good to nattering "Ned", and the pond has decided that a dose of portentous pomposity is the only right, fit and proper way to bring this year's reptile proceedings to a close …

Beside, that means the final post will be an endless yammering, and a heartfelt dose of handwringing and sackcloth and ashes, and that will give the pond a sense of seriousness that it tends to lack whenever in reptile company …

It might even help the pond's business model, which is to replicate the reptiles' plan, and send stray readers screaming from the room.

Provided they scream in nattering "Ned"'s patented pontifical, pretentious, grandiose and sententious style …

 After all, gravitas is needed in these perilous times, which is perhaps why the Murdochians take their cue from the Donald …

That''s the only way to explain the already remarked upon astonishing news from "Ned" that the main parties take different views on some issues of national importance, up there with "one of the wettest we've ever seen from the standpoint of water."

If that isn't enough reason to jump off a cliff, the pond can't think of any, and instead it has decided to see out the holiday season in Massachusetts … not the American one, you understand, but the deep south, amongst actual - gasp - Victorians, who tend to be just one step away from vile socialist filth. 

There'll be a few days in Melbourne, a sort of Boston, if the pond understands what little Johnny was saying, but then there will be days deep in the heartland, where Malware's NBN still don't shine …

Now let us begin at the beguine, blessed by the hallowed Krygsman, with an image that will never date …

Oh heck, a mere ten in the gulag, and never mind the adults, who cares about them, no doubt a bunch of terrorists, except for all the ones noted as refugees …

And there are fresh reptile crusades to run in the new year, and the pond feels like it's at an office party, ready to kick up the heels and celebrate a year of successful crusading, including efforts by the apple that didn't fall too far from the gum tree …

Why that's a mystery up there with transubstantiation, and the pond thanks Crikey for explaining it, but the lesser Kelly's crusader work is never done …

Speaking of the crusade, there was some excellent news, with the bromancer wildly excited …

As everyone now knows, it's predicated on mealy mouthed verbiage and equivocation about peace in the middle east, and as the speaker in tongues knows, as soon as peace comes to the middle east, the rapture is sure to follow …

  

Sorry, the pond is getting a little-headed and giddy, what a great year 2019 is going to be, at least if the pond makes it out of Massachusetts alive …

And now duty must be done and it's back to nattering "Ned" and the sobbing and the moaning and the hand-wringing ...

Hmm, speaking of religion and the crusades, the pond was reminded something Guy Rundle wrote in Crikey recently …

Usually, the pond leaves Crikey alone, but where's the harm in a bit of mano-a-mano biff and bash for an end of year party?

By golly, the pond remembers Rundle in his wild-eyed gun-slinger Massachusetts glory days reviewing for The Age, as in this celebrated bashing of John Waters reported in The Sunday Age on 11th June 1995 …

Steady, that's just to whet the appetite. He'll get out the axe handle and indulge in a little "Ned" bashing in a minute, but first, please, let the disastrous, appalling, utterly transcendentally bad nattering "Ned" have the floor ...

Okay Guy, you can come out of your cage now …get him, get him good ...

Well the pond promised an end of year spectacular, and as we're in the territory of own goals, it should be noted this is a nattering "Ned" speciality, hidden only by obfuscation and a capacity for bloated rhetoric that would put a puffer fish to shame …watch out, fugu alert ...

He didn't keep on blathering on about religious freedom did he, father of the apple who fell not far from the potato field? 

Oh sure, the last couple of pars were hand-wringing about another matter, but the pond felt the need to let loose the Guy kraken again ...and promises faithfully not to breach the Crikey paywall next year, but hey this is the holyday season, and the pond felt the need to break the glass and bung on a do. 

Party hard bay staters of the south, even the potato who fell from the apple tree should feel the wrath of the axe handle …

Why that reminds the pond of a recent piece in the NYRB about new Hindu-inspired curriculums in India, currently outside the paywall here …

So the pond could get soup Nazis and Hitler into the conversationI And again ...

Freedom to celebrate the Nazis, the pond says … religious freedom for all.

And so it's back to "Ned", still nattering away in an endless stream of though designed to make Finnegan's Wake feel like a short read …

And what do you know, the inner city 'leets of Surry Hills, so close to the finest baristas in the southern hemisphere, take a very stern view of 'leets ...

Speaking of 'leets, the pond must mention that it fell to poor old hack Ean Higgins to hack out a piece celebrating some dinky di Australians ...

It makes them feel Australian? 

Is that a polite way of saying it makes them feel they're delusional? 

They are, after all, damned furriners, and pesky ones at that, with globalist interests all over the place.

They are, after all, at least the key players, American citizens, right behind the Donald in wanting to fuck up and fuck over the planet.

The pond always listens to the reptiles, and Dame Groan was right on the 'leet $357k money when she warned the pond about damned globalists, and the need to look after our own ...

Yet here we have these damned globalist furriners swanning back into the country pretending to be Australian, when the sold off their citizenship for a mess of pottage …aka the Donald ...

The pond was almost sobbing at Ean's fine work, and the sense of home and 'leet entitlement, seemingly designed to send Ned into a frenzy about 'leets and Dame Groan into a meltdown about invading furriners conducting progressive purchases.

The thought of 'progressive purchases' made the pond shudder …whatever happened to 'conservative purchases'?

And so to the wrap up, because at last nattering "Ned" was spluttering to a close ...

An ideological conflict? 

So that's what the reptiles call the difference between a half-arsed, half-baked idea plucked from somewhere in SloMo's nether regions, and an attempt to produce an integrity commission with some integrity and actual usefulness …on the basis that if you're going to spend a bunch of moola on a lot of lawyers, a little transparency and signs they're actually doing something wouldn't hurt ...

Well, the pond would like to think the year has been fun, and if this effort by "Ned" is any guide, the next year should be even better 

What's even better, the pond thinks that, thanks to a US cartoonist, it's hit on an angle to make the reptiles finally fall out of love with dinkum clean Oz coal, oi, oi, oi … and join with the Donald in a new crusade ...

A simple solution for the reptiles: Malware invented climate change! And then?

Meanwhile, one cartoon always seems to beget another, especially as these reptile dilemmas are still likely to be fun in the new year ...

At last, with political parties hopelessly divided, the war on Xmas and coal lands ...

The pond reeled back in shock and alarm at nattering "Ned's" astonishing insight - the main parties disagreed, they're divided!! Split, and possibly full of splitters ...

Who'd have guessed it, who'd have thunk it? Now there'd be no harmony over Xmas, all was rooned, and yet yesterday, all the pond's troubles seemed so far away, now it looks as the divisive days are here to stay, and there's a shadow hanging over politics …oh yesterday came suddenly and now the pond needs a place to hide away …

Or some such thing, because the reptiles are truly alarmed, with Dame Groan earning her lavish salary by going full racist …

 

Hmm, too many viewings of Midnight Express, the pond suspects. Cut back to no more than once a month, and perhaps substitute the Ayran purity of a Leni Riefenstahl film or three …oh, and avoid hanging around Rick's Café where all those bloody globalists congregate talking of free trade and imported coffee beans…

Never mind, what relief this day brings, because the pond had thought it had avoided the war on Christmas, but suddenly there it was, full-blown, an epic sound and fury, and a braying of carols …

Holy Jane Campion smoke indeed …

Oh sheesh, it was the last straw or perhaps the last lump, and naturally the reptiles selected the most humourless sod, the most mind numbed and numbing of them all, to deal with the crisis …

If ever anybody wants a glass jawed loon up for a trolling, the dog botherer is their all day sucker. 

Every day this atheist prays for the silliness and the rampant dog botherer stupidity to stop, but no, every day, the long absent lord refuses to answer the pond's prayers, and therefore plays into the pond's atheism. Dear sweet long absent lord, why have you forsaken me? Why have you forsaken the world? Won't SloMo's Israel journey bring about the rapture before the pond has to endure another New Year's eve party?

You see, there's one thing worse than a comatose dog botherer with a complete lack of humour. It's a dog botherer tying to suggest he has a sensa huma…

Here, have a cartoon …

And even worse than pretending to have a sensa huma is a matching inability to shut up, so the dog botherer just blathers and blathers ...

Actually the pond rather went off singing along after Phil Spector went down, and A Christmas Gift to You From Phil Spector took on a tainted air …you know, you better watch out, you better not cry, Santa's sending you a gift-wrapped slug aimed at the brain …

But once the dog botherer gets to humming, no one, not even Sister Domenica it seems, can shut him up ...

Sheesh, such a leaden buffoon, it must be about time for another cartoon …

Meanwhile, what's the odds that the good folk around Darebin are dancing in delight to see the dog botherer bite? And not just a toothless yappy dog bite, but a full-blown great white bite ...

What a grouch, what a grinch, what a humourless sod, what a stupid, foolish man, how angry, such epic shouting at clouds, and yet ... what fun …oh if only there were more war on Xmas, if only the pond hadn't left it so late …

And now, please wait, while the pond briefly hides behind a screen, puts on a serious face, and emerges to deal with prattling Polonius …

Now here the pond must apologise. You see, the reptiles, and Polonius amongst them, and so perforce the pond, can't discuss another matter of keen interest to students of the Catholic church …

There's only hints, and rumours, and murmurs, and minor reports to see …

What's it all about? Who can say? It's probably another example of the deep animosity that social media, the ABC and The Drum have towards the Catholic church ...

Ah, the old social media routine, a reptile favourite, and here the pond must send out a cheerio call to its one reader in Newcastle. It's all your bloody fault, you fool …

Meanwhile, this is an important social media point. The pond must say nothing about the role of Polonius in advocating the joys and wonders of the blessed Catholic church, long may the pedophiles in its ranks be ignored, or perhaps shuffled from parish to parish …

Instead the pond must wonder if each week Polonius wakes up determined to produce an even more stereotypical performance - rant at the ABC, absolve the Catholic church, column done, caricature complete ...

Hmmm, what if this insight happened to be applied to Polonius? What if the pond should snatch from the aged shelf a typical Polonial column from the past, and find he was blathering about collective memory failure way back on 24th May 1997 in the SMH?

Always with the memory failing, and apparently Polonius the only one with a memory, such is the infinite wisdom bestowed on him by the long absent lord, or perhaps the Catholic church ...

And now for an aside.

You see, Polonius will only ever be happy if everyone shuts up about the Catholic church … even if it so happens Catholic church is a wicked institution, which might benefit from some discussion …

… such as the urgent need for some sensible reforms, such that the gay priest in the family can turn up for Xmas lunch, with his loved one, and not have to hide the love under a bush out in the backyard …

… such that there's a willingness to treat priests and nuns as human beings capable of meaningful loving and sexual relationships, if they so choose, as a way of expressing both their humanity and their religious beliefs …

And so long as the current situation continues, and certain matters raise their ugly heads and yet can't be discussed …

… then the general, multifarious failings of the Catholic church must be aired, and Polonius is no help when he tries to keep sweeping all discussion under the carpet, and tries to pretend that the problems in the Catholic church would be solved if only people on The Drum shut up or toed the Polonial line ...

No doubt further down the track there will be much study and discussion of Pellist matters, and yet the most important point - the ongoing efforts of the Catholic church to obstruct and to deny and to avoid - never seem to be of interest to Polonius, and he wastes very little prattle on the need for reform…and so the chance for the Church to purchase some indulgences and indulge in much needed changes keeps drifting on, and each Xmas seems to have a snowflake's chance in hell of happening …

And now for a sign of the pond's inherent masochism and ongoing sense of Catholic guilt. 

You see, to indulge in the Polonial patter, the pond gave up this delicious guilty pleasure …

May's irresponsible actions. Hello Nigel, hello Boris, hello Rees-Mogg blathering about moral authority? And yet all of them paper tigers who couldn't even bring off a no confidence motion ...

And so the set-up for the David Rowe of the day fell apart, and political parties disagree and are divided, and poor coal is savagely satirised, and we're all rooned, or perhaps even worse, the seas are warming, and how does that help the solitary swimmer on her last leg, the shore ever receding, the stars above gleaming, as coal's light flickers and falters? With more Rowe here ...