In which the pond goes hugely, bigly denialist with sundry fracking reptiles ...

First a cartoon to crank up the juices, heat the blood and get it flowing, because today's pond is a bigly, hugely one … and right out of the block, it begins with the dog botherer ribbiting away ...

The reptiles slipped out a dog botherer yesterday, apparently in the hope that some might not notice or pay attention.

Well the pond could pass over our Adam doing the 'climate doomsayer/isn't the Donald wonderful' routine, but damned if it would ignore the dog botherer. If the pond could munch on stale Oreos, it was more than willing to reheat a bowl of dog food denialism, and serve, and never mind a dog hair in the cereal bowl, Larry ...

The pond immediately knew where this was heading …

And it was just a matter of time before the dog botherer would get there ...

Now as certain as the sun rises, once Malware and his many failings are mentioned, the dog botherer will almost certainly feature the heroic onion muncher … preferably accompanied by heroic reassuring picture ...

And in his downtime, what has the onion muncher been doing?

Using the tragedy to support his carbon emissions policy preferences and misquote scientists, and cause them to turn up in Crikey in a complaining way…

And so on, and on, and on, and so much for saying nothing in a time of tragedy ...because the reptiles simply can't help themselves when it comes to using tragedy to reaffirm their climate science denialism, while resorting to the crudest of emotional, irrational ploys …

And so to the final gobbet where the dog botherer confirms he's indulging in the most pathetic, wretched and cynical IRA style strategy of all ...

This is where we should leave it this summer?

What a malicious, malingering, malign, malignant, baleful doofus, because of course the reptiles aren't going to leave it this summer …

The very next day, which is to say this day, the Oz editorialist was at it again, refusing to leave it this summer, out and about indulging in a fit of climate denialist activism … and repeating the dog botherer's talking points …

Judging by the ongoing reptile hysteria, the emotional appeals for silence, and the transparently false yearning for logic rather than emotion, the coal-loving denialists are hurting ...

Sheesh, the pond loves it when the reptiles, harbingers of fake climate science denialism, get excited about 'fake news' ...

The Donald stuck to the facts? How desperate can a reptile editorialist get, appealing to the climate science denialist in chief?

And as for that blather about celebrity activists demanding others do useful work?

What, like the celebrity activist the dog botherer, wh,o so far as the pond knows, mainly scribbles nonsense for the lizard Oz, or reverts to the 'Tiser by the Torrens, or blathers on about others on Sky? None of which could be described as useful work … because these sorts of opinion mongers are a dime a dozen in reptile la la land …

And speaking of useless opinions, guess who else was out and about today? A man making no useful contribution to the economy, except perhaps to make defamation payments so that others might spend the cash, and so stimulate the economy ...

Well if nothing else, the Caterist scored the Lobbecke of the day, which means that the expert in the movement of flood waters is speaking to the reptile heartland ...

What's this? The Caterist mocking the Donald, talking up the market, and giving a toss about carbon emissions?

Sainted dog botherer, rolling in grave, must the job of mocking the Donald be left to the pond and cartoonists?

Ah, but it's all so that, if dearly beloved dinkum clean Oz coal is to take a hit with a baseball bat, then surely it can be replaced by dearly beloved fracking. What's the odd earthquake or a fucked water table, up against the joys of fracking?

No doubt the Caterist thinks he's fooling inattentive readers, as if hiding his climate science denialism in plain sight is a new evasive wrinkle ...

No doubt a stray pond reader or two will have heard about the Manhattan Institute, and its assurances that the science around human activity and climate change is uncertain and muddied …

Doubtless a few of them have come across at least one of the many pieces that hint at a few issues with fracking, of particular concern to farmers, or anyone else in the vicinity …

But that's the way it goes when an expert in the movement of flood waters in quarries tries to go to the land where solar and wind can never be tolerated. 

If coal must be abandoned, then we must somehow keep fucking the planet, at least until the twelfth of never, and that's a long, long fracking time ...

Okay, with the dog botherer, the lizard Oz editorialist, and the Caterist all in one piece, the pond would usually say enough already …

Sure, there's the roving Rove out and about, doing the usual sort of equivalence beloved of the current crop of Donald lovers …

Desperately tedious shit, from a thoroughly tedious and reprehensible human being, and the pond generally goes into a rage when confronted by a classic case of 'whataboutism' …

But when cooling down, the pond made the fatal mistake of spotting yet another story about social media, and as is the reptile wont, with a link to the current bushfires …because they can't leave it alone, can they, in this alleged summer of dog botherer silence ...

Yes, at a time when the dog botherer was suggesting that nothing more needed to be said in bushfire season, the reptiles managed to dig up another columnist referencing bushfire season … to add to the pond's almost biblically long list this day ...

It turned out that there was a punchline right at the very end of this piece, as the pond began its journey of "on the one hand, and on the other hand" otherism ...

Filter bubbles isolate us? Why, in reptile la la land, do they always pin this on social media? The pond already spends far too much time inside the reptile mindset for it to be healthy. Think of absorbing a daily dose of Fox News, Fox and Friends, the Wall Street Journal, the Murdochian tabloids down under, the Bolter, Sky News, the lizard Oz, and … sheesh, does the pond have to keep listing all the assorted bubbles of misleading, downright lying columnists and presenters that litter the Murdochian landscape?

We've already sampled just a few, on just one day … and now some idiot is blathering on about filter bubbles, as if that will sort out Caterist fracking news?

Look, we've all been there before, using social media as a crisis, as if climate science isn't proposing a real crisis …

The pond prides itself on being the one person on any given train not looking at a screen, but it does confess to looking constantly at people constantly looking at screens, as if aliens had landed on the train. Never mind, hey ho, on we go …

Pru fucking Goward? Why, she once belonged to a state government that these days can't get a single simple tram system working …

As for responsible social media, partnering with the ABC (ye ancient howling cats, is anyone in reptile la la land paying proper Alston attention?), why not just watch the ABC? And while you're at it, not spend a dime on Murdochian publications, lies and distortions?

But there was a capper coming, not just blather about engendering a bit of public goodwill by bludging off the ABC ...

And there it was … bloody Uber … as if the pond hadn't already been sent into a frenzy.

A bubble of an organisation, perhaps the worst, most malign example of the exploitative gig economy, reprehensible in its treatment of labour, wretched in its attempts to wriggle out of its responsibilities, perhaps only matched by examples such as Deliveroo …

Oh wait, how could the pond have forgotten Uber Eats?

How could the pond have failed to mention London found unauthorised users were driving Uber, now the same could be happening in Australia …

London is one of Uber's most lucrative markets but yesterday the city's regulator, Transport for London, announced it would not renew the company's licence to operate.
It found the company's app currently allowed unauthorised drivers to upload their photos to other drivers' accounts, meaning they could pick up passengers as if they were an authorised driver, according to London Mayor Sadiq Khan.
"There have been at least 14,000 journeys where unauthorised drivers have been driving people across London," he said.
The issue led the regulator to find Uber was "not fit and proper at this time."

And then there are other questions. Even as it rips off its workers, and transfers its 'contractor' costs down the line to future generations and future governments, it's still finding it hard to make a dime by way of profit …

Hmm, what was that about partnering with ABC stories?

Not to worry, and not to give a flying fuck about the reptiles calling for a crack down on social media, while going on their own merry way without a thought to behaving themselves.

In the old days, they used to say 'physician heal thyself', but truth to tell, the reptiles are incapable of dealing with much beyond climate science denialism, and occasional Donald worship …

Oh okay, that reference to the Donald is just a Rovian segue to a few cartoons, as a token apology to anyone foolhardy or brave enough to have made it to the end …

And then there's the Rowe of the day, with more Rowe here … and that, as they say, is a pond wrap for a hugely, bigly day ...