In which it's back to business, with nattering "Ned" and the dog botherer ready to wage war on nature, and whatever else you've got ...

The pond usually holds the immortal Rowe back, down the bottom, but he's always to be found here, and today being 1st February, the January holyday season is officially over, and the reptiles are rampant once again …

Only the bromancer is missing from the first eleven for the moment, but no matter, because nattering "Ned" has returned to bore completely shitless everyone and anyone innocently passing by, and is there any better way to introduce "Ned" than to lead with a gaseous Rowe? 

The arch bloviator and mind-numbing bore started quietly at the top of the digital page …

 

But the pond knew at once, after it was immediately tempted to click, that it had hit the jackpot, the mother lode of tedium, when the reptiles blessed this "Ned" natter with a hugely, bigly Lobbecke ...

He's holding the world in his hands and he's using a garden hose, and long forgotten is the thing he once held in his hand with trembling awe and delight in the font of Australian democracy …

Alas and alack, those days are gone, and now it's fossil gas that must set the pace, and if there's a better form of fossilised gas than nattering "Ned", the pond and the reptiles can't imagine it ...

The pond must apologise. There is too much "Ned" to comment on, though the pond does appreciate the comments below the fold by those heroic souls who wade through the tedious political calculations to pick out a nugget of reptile stupidity …

And the pond's cartoons are in short supply, rather like a cool day and rain in the current plague of bushfires …

Well yes, and there's more Wilcox here, but the prolix tedious bore down from the attic has only just got started … 

Why, the pond has had to revert to small print gobbets just to contain things a little ...

Mmm, rhetorical questions. The pond can play that game. Does anyone believe that the climate science denialist reptiles have really changed their spots? Does anyone ever tire of the 1.3% mantra, while at the same time, refusing to count in the emissions to be derived from the export of coal and gas around the world?

Well there's a lot of tedious fact checking going down at Crikey, reprinting an ABC/RMIT fact check here, but suffice to say, however you calculate it, we do much better than 1.3% if you include exports …

But just as the reptiles have floated 1.3% a zillion times, the pond has added the corollary and yet there's never been any thought of a change, because once you've recited the mass once, you might as well keep on with the Angus Dei for all eternity …

Why would the reptiles bother to change, and consider such issues in a meaningful way? A token gradualism, spiced with saucy doubts and fears, is all that's needed.

After all, we've gone from outright climate science denialism to grudging acceptance that the weather is changing, as the weather has always done, and all that's needed is a few practical solutions, like burning down the entire country in order to save it, as once was done for Vietnamese villages, and all will be well ...

Yes, it's the fault of everybody else. We know that, we know it's nothing to do with Australia, and there's certainly no leadership role down under. Let California suffer its fires, but don't expect SloMo to do anything more than murmur a few thoughts and prayers.

Of course those reptile chants celebrating clean dinkum Oz coal might seem a tad unfortunate in retrospect, but how were the reptiles to know? It's not like they ever actually listened to any climate science, which it turns out, only became available in the last six months, and so we must turn to non-existent technology for a solution, because … well, because delay, befuddle and bewilder still remain the most useful tactics for when the reptiles must cry out for beloved coal … (and gas) …

And so to the biggest joke of all, the notion that Scotty from marketing must purge the anti-renewable mob in his midst … as if the reptiles would suddenly turn around and purge all the denialists and anti-renewable loons in their midst ...

Ah, so that's how the game is played. It's wrong to call Scotty from marketing a denier, even though he has been, because all that does is stop him from developing a different form of fossil fuel as the solution …

Truth to tell, whenever the pond reads "Ned" its brain begins to hurt and it's soon reduced to a sullen numbness, but at least that allows the pond to keep pounding its noggin with a piece of "Ned"-approved 2 be 4 …or a gaseous 5 if you will ...

Now there's a comforting thought. If there are fewer fires next summer, all will be well …

Oh dear, the pond is running short on Wilcox, but at least that gets us to the last, mercifully short gobbet of Ned ...

And now because the pond is a glutton for punishment, and was astonished a reader had never donned the cilice, which the pond suggests is essential clobber for the Catholic Boys'Daily, and must be worn during any reading of the reptiles, there's surely room for just more more after-dinner mint, and what a banquet there was to choose from at the top of the commentary section ...

The pond could immediately overlook Bjorn.

We don't need no stinking furriners coming in here, telling us how to do climate science denialism. For too long the reptiles have relied on Bjorn, and the pond, growing tired of him, banned him long ago …

We must turn, in these nativist times, to our native experts for a burst of insanity, and by golly, Peter Jennings  delivered a good headline ...

Yes, fuck it, we're at war with nature. Let's turn on it, all guns blazing, burn it, bomb it, wreck it. Heck, if the war doesn't go that well, there's a good case for bringing out the nukes and nuking nature to teach it a lesson …

It was great stuff, an echo of "Ned's" blather about the ADF, but when all things were considered, and Ukraine was located near Bangladesh, how could the pond fail to recognise the dog botherer's invaluable ongoing contribution?

He's indefatigable, he's a little energiser bunny of denialism, and how the reptiles love this noble warrior, always ready to go to war with those lacking his intense theological faith … including nature if She gets uppity and difficult …

Strangely though, the pond noted a certain muting of the denialism, a certain softening, and a lot of blather about SloMo being on the case, as the dog botherer shifted from combative field warrior to sensible strategic deep thinker (oh, it worked so well for Iraq, that deep thinking).

Oh dear, starting off with a rant about social media? Was it only yesterday that the pond pointed out a reptile dilemma?

Please, reptiles, get up to speed. The dog botherer should have started with "social media is great, and I am in the climate science denialist bubble with the Donald, and things look mighty fine from here", rather than blathering about "sensible things" and seizing on Peter Hartcher as the problem … as if somehow Hartcher, a doofus himself, was responsible for Scotty from marketing being a remarkable doofus all on his own, utilising his own doofus skills, and infinite capacity for mis-steps and for doofus policy responses ...

Indeed, indeed, it's a total disaster that the federal government might assume any responsibility for bushfires, when as everyone knows, it's all a matter of personal responsibility …

And there's simply no point in discussing climate science, because deep down, everyone in reptile la la land knows the onion muncher was right to call it complete crap … or bullshit, or whatever …

Still, there's no denying it's a difficult time for the reptiles, what with those dreadful greenies out and about, with their terrible signs …

And meanwhile, it turns out that rorting is just a classic case of politics as usual … because rorting is what everyone does …

Fine words from the rorter at the heart of the utegate affair … (not to mention a proud minor war criminal who played his part in fucking Iraq).

Indeed, indeed, and what was that which nattering "Ned" nattered about, the way that the left-right divide hampered exciting policy initiatives?

But that's the way it goes in reptile la la land. Stupidity, inconsistency, and a routine diet of follies, while the country burns, and the planet is slowly, but ever more comprehensively, fucked …

Well the pond's brain is also now fucked, thanks to "Ned" and the dog botherer, and what a relief to arrive at the final gobbet … and what do you know, it begins with the dog botherer jerking his own and other reptile chains, wanking on about the wonders of the lizard Oz, masturbating in public, and possibly growing hairs on his palms as a result.

Stop watching Cats, the pond is tired of all this ejaculating furry nonsense about the glories and wonders of the lizard Oz and its "evidence and accurate assessments", as if cluelessness had suddenly left the 'leet Surry Hills HQ for a world class coffee from the best baristas on the planet ...

Uh huh. The dog botherer still knows how to do undiluted hagiography, though the tone has shifted from watching Cats to humping the leg of SloMo like a dog botherer on doggie heat …

Sheesh, and after all that, all the pond can offer in compensation is a cartoon which distils down the essence of the scribbling into a digestible image …