In which the pond goes full coalphiliac with the bromancer ...

Please, no distractions - not the testimony of Cohen, unfolding even as the pond types - good old PBS, where dead air is not just a philosophy, it's a way of life - not the fate of Pellism and its onion-munching cohorts, not the skirmishing of India and Pakistan. 

As the Buddha himself said: "I consider the positions of kings and rulers as that of dust motes. I observe treasures of gold and gems as so many bricks and pebbles. I look upon the finest silken robes as tattered rags. I see myriad worlds of the universe as small seeds of fruit, and the greatest lake in India as a drop of oil on my foot. I perceive the teachings of the world to be the illusion of magicians. I discern the highest conception of emancipation as a golden brocade in a dream, and view the holy path of the illuminated ones as flowers appearing in one's eyes. I see meditation as a pillar of a mountain, Nirvana as a nightmare of daytime. I look upon the judgment of right and wrong as the serpentine dance of a dragon, and the rise and fall of beliefs as but traces left by the four seasons. But if you want a sure bet, if you want to get filthy fucking rich, trust me, you can't do better than have a flutter on coal …it's a miracle drug better than any tech or medical device, it's known to cure the halt and the lame and the blind. I consider James Kirby the mote that matters mostest …if he gives you a tip, you'd be a mug punter not to act on it."

Thanks Buddha, thanks Jimbo, and yes, once again, it is the melancholy duty of the pond to observe the condition of coalphilia that infects the reptiles like a bad dose of black lung disease …

Even as India and Pakistan went hard at it, the bromancer came out with signs that he was suffering from a very advanced case …

The pond is always in awe of the reptiles. Climate science, the planet, the future? Nah, forget it, forget all that namby-pamby handwringing.

The answer is always coal … coal can do no wrong, coal is the cure for whatever ails ya …

No, not charcoal, you goose, genuine, true blue dinkum clean Oz coal, oi, oi, oi … it'll fix the planet in a trice ...

Climate science? What the fuck? Still peddling that old bit of fake news? You must be part of the reactionary left or some foolish climate scientist out there observing the real world. Remember, we're with Buddha and the reptiles, seeing the illusion of it all, seeing the wondrous joy of beloved coal …

Here, get it into ya …

Feeling better? Good, because the bromancer hasn't finished his rant, and attention must be paid!

Yeay, look at us ma, top of the world, coal for everyone, we are the champions etc etc …

Now around this point a few might be moaning and whining and complaining, but the pond will allow that there are a few other medicines besides coal that might help …

Get that in ya, and you can do the final coal-loving gobbet in a leap and a bound ...

What a wondrous encounter, distilled essence of coalphilia, an example of the condition which might be paraded to students at the RPA down the road ... 

But don't go away, because there's still the savvy Savva to go … here, have an artistic Rowe reference before proceeding …

More artistic Rowe here … and so to the savvy Savva, in a celebratory mood …

Yes, the ABC sorted, and women on the move, and SloMo a winner, and the savvy Savva herself blessed with the Lobbecke of the day, and so ensured peak reptile cult status ...

Admirable logic. 

If you want a useless, impotent figurehead, make sure it's a woman … but then in the usual Malware friendly way the Savva has, a few saucy doubts and fears begin to creep in ...

A reptile daring to mention climate change? That can't be right, why drag cheap jokes about personal emissions into the conversation? Everyone knows that coal is the answer, the bromancer just told us so … it's much more cheering to let a little Bishop bitterness come out like a hoppy toad ...

Indeed, indeed. This very day the infallible Pope is celebrating John Howard as a character reference …

More infallible Pope here, and waddya know, there's only one gobbet to go … and once again SloMo comes up a little short ...

By golly, the pond has probably got a few spare coal tablets hanging around in the cupboard if this niggling irritation persists …

Why sometimes the pond thinks the savvy Savva sounds like some cheap point scoring Labor politician mocking poor old SloMo …

Poor old Barners, an expert on matters female, and poor old onion muncher …clinging on, knowing that an appeal will provide absolution of a legalistic kind ...

And now the pond must acknowledge there is a real world out there, one where perhaps a little climate change might exist - it's changing all the time, don't ya know, has been since the good Lord created it in seven days - and thanks be to Rowe for this reality check, but really, it's only a couple of kids having fun playing together, or perhaps mature adults doing a little canoodling in the spirit of Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper … and as noted before, reality-checking Rowe can be found here ...

In which the pond seeks distraction with nattering "Ned" and Dame Slap ...

 

No, the pond isn't going there …

The pond has a particular contempt for the Victorian court system's use of suppression orders - a Victorian, in the sense of the Queen - attempt to turn back the internet just as Canute turned back the tide, with the only victims local journalists and the right to know - yet these two clowns and all the others blathering away in the Murdochian empire make cogent arguments in favour of suppression.

Who is Brennan to determine in the court of reptile opinion what is improbable, if not impossible? His own arguments have already been shown to be improbable, if not impossible. How on earth can the craven Craven attempt to pin the blame on the ABC and former Fairfax journalists, as if the Catholic church and Pell himself had nothing to do with the fix he's in? The treatment of victims over the years has been an appalling disgrace and yet these loons still whine and moan about the justice system going about its business?

There's an appeals process to go, and yet these clowns do their very best to contaminate the process and pass comment on a victim who wants privacy and therefore has no recourse …

It was a relief then to turn to old favourite nattering "Ned", sighing yet again about climate science …

Say what? 

Even "Ned" realises that there's an attempt to pass off a very old "knees up,  mother SloMo" tune, and the result is another stop on the way of a long exercise in political weirdness, prompted and provoked by reptile climate science denialism?

Actually it's about ideology …and it's pretty hard to hide the ideological bent ...

But this is "Ned" and suddenly he too is a true believer in climate science and climate action, except not really, not deep down, it's still a faith, it's still ideological yadda yadda  ...

Actually SloMo will never persuade the climate science denialists still running rampant in Murdochian la la land that he's had a change of heart …

The trick is to do dog whistles... all he has to do is persuade them that a little tokenism will take care of things until after the election …please, just allow a little wriggle room until after the election, and then the incoherence and lack of action on all fronts can continue on apace …

How can this be done? Well there's the old saw of blaming China, while failing to mention the way dinkum clean Oz coal heads off to the Chinese burners and no-one in Murdoch la la land ever says boo to that particular goose … and trust nattering "Ned", he knows how that game is played ...

Aah, poor "Ned's" slip showed in that interminable gobbet. 

See how"Ned's" religiously obsessed talked of morality, faith and ideological commitment continues, while making a brave attempt to redeem the onion muncher …suggesting that he rendered magnificent political service, never mind the folly of his green army service to the science or the planet …

Is there a final irony? Of course there is … whenever the blathering bore mentions coal, the pond is reminded of the lizard Oz's endless crusade in favour of clean, dinkum, true blue Oz coal, conducted on the moronic level of a Clive Palmer political ad ...

For fucks sake, when will they ever stop talking of climate science as "radical", or as a "popular climate change wave"?

Okay, the pond understands that "Ned" is old and the science is beyond him, but then why does he keep on blathering about the science with simple-minded, simplistic, reductionist words that prove his complete irrelevance?

Climate change isn't a a fucking popularity contest, it's not women in bikinis parading with lumps of coal, or sex symbols like SloMo, or even, long absent lord help us, that Tamworthian temptress Barners …

And now speaking of the hard lunar right orbiting in the planet Janet, how pleasing it was to see Dame Slap out and about, mixing profound contempt for Liberal wets with a liberal dose of her own brand of misogyny …

It puts the pond in a peculiar position.

Usually the pond wouldn't spare a moment's sympathy for the asbestos woman, but here she is being assaulted by Dame Slap, in a particularly vicious mugging. 

She's barely out the door, but Dame Slap dons her steel-capped Blundstones and hoes into her in a way that evokes the droogs in Clockwork Orange … and what's more the reptiles love it so much they've given the Dame cult Lobbecke status for the day ...

Indeed, indeed, politics is not a popularity contest. Just ask for a reptile opinion on comrade Bill …but that sounds like a stand-up routine from Dame Slap, when you consider the alternative, the grifting snake oil salesman who thinks he's immensely popular … as most clowns do …

Talk about an entertainer, and the pond apologises to the immortal Pope for carving out this splendid portrait of the performer at work in his very own popularity contest, before reverting to Dame Slap …

It turned out she wasn't just going the Bishop, she had her eye on any woman with the guts to do what Dame Slap didn't have the guts to do … wend their way through a party of patriarchs and try to score pre-selection and then get elected, knowing that all the time the bullies would be queuing up to see if you were tough enough to take it …

Actually the yammering about gender goes hand in hand with all the other problems … because behind it all is the dead hand of the dullard hard right, the dopes that nobody can rope, the onion munchers, the outlaw Kellys, the mutton Duttons … ably abetted by the lizards of Oz, helping them confound intelligent responses to matters such as climate science, energy, welfare, gulags … why once you get started, the list of ineptitudes is endless …

In fact, the lunar world of Dame Slap is at the heart of it, because she simply can't stand anything that hints of moderation or the centre ...

No, it seems we must continue to live in the bog of Dame Slap's deeply entrenched - and dare the pond quote nattering "Ned"? - deeply weird policy prescriptions … but thank the long absent lord, there's only one more gobbet to go, with Dame Slap getting wildly excited by the triumph of the patriarchy ...

And there you have it. If anyone wants an explanation of why the onion muncher ministry looked like this in December 2014 … 

Can we have a token woman over there …

…and why the SloMo ministry had to stack a few women in the front row in an attempt to seem like a mixed bunch …

...Dame Slap has provided your answer … and it's a fair bet that, following her nostrums and prescriptions, the Liberal party will go on looking like this for years to come, and while dreaming of Margaret Thatcher, wonder where a female leader might come from, sometime perhaps around the year 2525 …

And now is it so wrong for the pond to enjoy a cartoon by the genuinely infallible Pope or the always reliable Rowe? With more Pope here, and more Rowe here …

In which the pond wonders if coal and the reptiles are going the way of dairy farmers ...

 

The reptiles were at it again today, with the twin loves of dinkum clean Oz coal and Jordan at the top of the tree-killer page …

Apparently the dear dumb things don't realise there's a quisling in the camp, a lickspittle double-crossing, double-dealing, starry-eyed renewables lover …

Of course you have to look a little hard in the lizard Oz to find him, but not so far in a Pope cartoon, always in infallible guide to folly, with more here …

Has the lizard Oz lost all integrity?

Has the true spirit of genuine climate denialism taken a hit?

Media Watch certainly gave them a hit. What a hoot it was to watch Apocalyptic Australian, Two front page stories in The Australian exaggerate the cost of climate action policies ...

The pond, of course, never bothers to fact check the reptiles. What's the point? It enjoys it when others do it, but what's the point?

The pond knows that any lizard Oz story on climate science will be full of lies, distortions, untruths, evasions, equivocations and half-baked rhetoric …because in the end, the only truth is love … the deep, unyielding reptile love for clean dinkum Oz coal …

Now there's no need to repeat all the errors noted by MW, rather just note that it again built up to a fishy climax …

Somebody else noted that the reptiles are doing Pravda down under?

And in response, that's the best lemony old Lehmo's got?

Everything was a hopeless stew of fucked-up figures and gross miscalculations, lies and deceptions, but the analysis suited our climate change narrative? So there ...

And yet the gormless one has ducked for cover when confronted by that traitor in the ranks … that quisling who hails the onion muncher as a climate change warrior,  valiantly mounting a green army to battle emissions, a drop-kick sellout loser who dons the tattered cloth of the failed Malware and dreams of Snowy 2 and renewables …

The pond such a deep shame, such a deep swelling of pity for poor old Brownie and the rest of the reptile pack, forced to embrace Malware and the onion muncher in just one short paragraph … but the readership knew what was going down …

That's more like it. Dinkum clean Oz coal!

But where were the reptiles? Oh sure they were lathering up hysteria about comrade Bill, but what about the Turnbull clone? Is there anything more despicable than a traitor doing the Malware dance, and poor old Brownie forced to transcribe his thoughts?

Why he'd been blathering on about lowering emissions only the day before and the reptiles had been forced to put it at the top of the digital page …

Oh sainted aunts, electric cars of all the modern gadgets … why they'll stop the wisteria growing on the verandah in a trice.

The pond felt soiled and shamed, and deeply sorry for the reptiles, forced to abase themselves and stoop so low …

Surely someone still had integrity? Someone who perhaps remembers that fucking the planet is a bit like being a wild-eyed, wild-fucking member of parliament ...

Weabonga? Why that's in the Tamworth council district, and so isn't remote at all, it's passing close to the known centre of the universe, or at least it was until the town decided that a wild-eyed fornicator might be its federal representative …

Trust Barners to mock his kin. These days sensible farmers go off grid and have plenty of spare power with which to tootle into town, but allowances have to be made for the thickness of Barners' hide and brain-covering membrane ...

But forget all that, where are the reptiles ready to call out the nonsense that a few token gestures and wastes of money means we can have our cake and eat it too, and we'll hit all our targets in a canter and have no impact on the economy …

And what's this tosh, "We don't believe you have to choose between our environment and our economy…"?

Everyone knows a love of clean dinkum true blue Oz coal involves a little sacrifice, and the reptiles have regularly called on dinkums and the entire planet to make that little sacrifice … while this faux fraud, this Hollywood liberal blathers on in ways that the reptiles would once have found unendurable …

More faux Hollywood liberals exposed by Rowe here …

And with that done done, dusted and deplored, the pond went on the search for a second offering … but there was one place the pond couldn't go …

 

A set-up? The Canadian wimp is afraid of having a chat with a TG person? And as for Caroline Overington, wouldn't it be simpler if she just hit on him …

The pond realises that you need unresolved sexual tension to keep things going until the third act but this yarn is verging on a truly pathetic romcom ...

The reptiles are so love-struck silly, so Canadian raptured, the lizard editorialist even offered this …

Yes there's nothing like talk of "leftist unreason" to offer hope beyond "polarised politicking."

Ye ancient cats and fishes, the pond suspects that all these emissions from SloMo have put the reptiles in a panic …

"We don't believe you have to choose between our environment and our economy…"

Say what? Where's a manly Peterson reptile ready to stand up for the patriarchy and call it for what it is …you can choose the economy and you can fuck the environment, and damn it, if you feel like it, you can fuck a dolphin or three too …

The pond usually doesn't bother with our Adam, but that "fuck the dolphins" sounded like a showstopper number, and besides, does that thumb hint that the bold lad scored the Lobbecke of the day, thereby guaranteeing himself reptile cult status?

Oh it's true, it's true ...

Yes, indeed, fuck the dolphins and fuck the dairy farmers of south Gippsland (oh a big cheerio from the pond, how are the potholes in the roads going?)

Truth to tell, we can never have enough plastic on the planet and especially in the oceans …

Great Pacific Garbage Patch plastic pollution dwarfs previous estimates and is 'growing exponentially'

As for the notion that Woolworths cares about anything other than Woolworths, the pond is reptile aware of all the dangerous talk going around …

Why next thing someone will be saying that SloMo has clean emissions …stay strong and stern, young Adam …

Lordy, lordy, the next thing you know, someone will be proposing a floor price for journalism …you'd swear nobody had heard all the whining and the moaning and the lamentation from the reptiles about the wickedness of tech giants …

Tech giants must take the blame for any perceived erosion of trust in journalism, having failed to tackle fake news and to give trusted news sources fair treatment, a conference will hear. News Corp executive Campbell Reid, one of several high-profile panellists at a Navigating the News conference in Hobart next month, said companies such as Google and Facebook needed to match rhetoric about supporting journalism with action.

On and on they blather, with their paranoid talk of persecution and unfair, unbalanced playing fields ...

Let them drink cheap milk, the pond says, that should succour them in their hour of distress … the question, as young Adam so poignantly noted, is why some businesses or workers deserve special help …

Let them fall flat on their faces while they're fucking the dolphins (and perhaps the planet too) and see if the pond cares …

You tell 'em, young Adam …

It's true, it's true, and the pond can assure young Adam and Campbell Reid it won't be crossing the street or walking a yard to spend money on a News Corp product, no matter how beguiling they make them seem …well if you live by fucking the dolphins, perhaps you should also expect to die while fucking the dolphins ...

No, you're not, you're not with the pond or dolphins or diary farmers or the planet or the ocean or a clean environment or any of that do gooder stuff, you're with dinkum clean Oz coal, a harsh mistress, and SloMo puffery of the extreme wanking kind, and for god knows what reason, Jordan Peterson … (Mumbrella has the comedy act here, but it's been bobbing up all over the place, as here).

As it is for dairy farmers, so let it be for reptiles … but please, don't go away empty-handed, have a few cartoons …