In which the pond starts off a gloomy Monday with the dog botherer's thinking pump ...

The pond has to admit, a little shame-faced, that these days it can only take a little of the dog botherer and his denialism.

The doggie fucker was out and about on the weekend, but the pond took a pass, knowing that there would be an abundance of doggie drivel on the Monday. And lo, so it came to be ...

For a nanosecond, the pond had thought of doing a late breaking weekend edition to celebrate the ongoing moral vanity of the doggie dribbler confusing science with free expression. There would have been a chance to put up some links as a useful counterbalance.

For example, back in May the NYRB published a useful summary, via a book review, of the current state of play regarding a world without ice, but alas and alack, it's inside the paywall. 

And Jessica Riskin in the same publication did an amusing review of a book on the scientific method, Just Use Your Thinking Pump!, but alas and alack, it too is inside the paywall. Please allow the pond to put this anecdote outside the wall …  that reference to a thinking pump came in a discussion of Edward Youmans and The Popular Science Monthly: 

As a young man, Youmans had discovered the writings of Herbert Spencer, then at the height of his powers. Spencer was churning out best sellers of social theory and popular science that Darwin described as "detestable", obscure, unedited, clever but empty, a lot of "dreadful hypothetical rubbish," and a disappointing tissue of "words and generalities," and inspiring Darwin's friend the botanist Hooker to characterise Spencer as "all oil and no bone … a thinking pump." (If you're finding that image obscure, so did Hooker. "I can attach no meaning to the simile," he confessed, but "it ought to have one." Darwin was so pleased with it that he read it aloud to his family, by whom "it was unanimously voted first-rate and not a bit the worse for being unintelligible.")

The pond realises it's defaming Spencer to put the doggie botherer's moronic scribbling the category of a thinking pump, but at least the pond can note the tendency to greasy, slimy oil, and lack of bone ...

The arrogance and stupidity here is the implication in that line "anyone with an understanding of climate and/or science." It implies that the dog botherer has an understanding of climate and/or science, when the pond has already scientifically established that the dog botherer is all greasy oil and no bone, by the simple expedient of referring people to an article which has a first clue by people who use ice cores, go out into the field, observe, devise theories and models.

The pond might have been crueller and noted the absolute lack of credentials or peer-reviewed publications or field work or whatever, but why try to establish that a thinking pump might at some point in the future have some credibility or usefulness?

Instead the pond is left with the dog botherer doing the usual jibber jibber about the Donald and his fourth of July speech, apparently unaware that months too late the Donald decided to wear a mask to distract from another of his initiatives …

Why does the pond bother? Well it's the doggie's arrogant assumption that everybody else is wrong that still gets to the pond ...

They ignored a self-seeking, self-promoting narcissist selling the brand of snake oil the reptiles love? Shame on them …

Well it wouldn't be a doggie piece if the ABC didn't turn up with a thought crime, and here's a thought. Which politician did Speersie name as a favourite before scoring the job at the ABC, and suddenly overnight becoming a cardigan-wearing mindless zombie, a figure of fear, loathing and treachery amongst the loyal kool-aid imbibing reptile ranks still yearning for their Jonestown?

Indeed, indeed, all that and more venerable thinking pump, but the pond would rather put an immortal Rowe into action, with more Rowe here …

And so to the next hurdle the pond must jump before it reaches a tranquil Monday state of mind ...

That Major headline made the pond wonder when in the last month, year, decade or perhaps eternity, it had read, in the opinion section of the lizard Oz, a solid piece by a climatologist, or just a scientist … almost anyone would do, but instead we routinely get the likes of the dog botherer and the Major, cluttering up the thinking pump with fatuous thoughts ...

The Major, being part of the hive mind, is actually preparing the way for other reptiles to do the dance of living with the virus - see below - when in reality, what you do, if you're of a certain age, is die …

Why should the pond pay attention to the Major's thinking pump, since he doesn't have the first clue about medicine, public health, the virus or anything much else? Lordy, lordy, he couldn't even find a humble Order of Lenin medal when it mattered ...

Actually it doesn't much matter about parties or ideology when it comes to the virus, which really doesn't pay much attention to that sort of nonsense - as shown by the recent outbreak in NSW surrounding the Crossroads Hotel in Casula …

If anything, all that blather does is remind the pond why it has an affection for Melbourne and Melburnians …

Yes, there's a refugee Victorian in the house at the moment, but relax, you can get Melburnian approved coffee by attending Euroespresso on Parramatta road in Campberdown ...

Fortunately, the good thing about the Major is that by trimming off his failure to mention the Order of Lenin fiasco in his CV, and the rest of his CV, the pond can get him out of the way in just one more large chunk ...

We will need to take on board? What, in the way that the Donald took to wearing a mask?

And so to the 'learn to live with it' routine which unfortunately means the pond has only time to note that things at the 'leet reptile HQ in Surry Hills seems be be falling apart ...

Well, time to span and transform this, and let the pond say it in lower case, the pond has never used Flight Centre, and certainly never will, even as the reptiles sublet their opinion pages to the Flight Centre ...

The pond was immediately reminded of that callow youth in the United States who attended a Covid party … a lot of people have marvelled at the folly ...

Dr. Appleby said the man had told his nurse that he attended a Covid party. Just before he died, she said the patient told his nurse: “I think I made a mistake. I thought this was a hoax, but it’s not.”

The pond thinks it made a mistake. It started reading Graham Turner, and his naked commercial concerns seem to have affected his thinking pump …

Please allow the pond to assure anyone in the vicinity that the pond has never used Flight Centre, and should air travel become a possibility in the future, the pond will certainly not be availing itself of Flight Centre's services …

If the pond wants to fly to the US to get infected, it would rather fly by way of cartoon …

But do go on ...

The obvious question is why anyone should be paying attention to this brand of thinking pump? And that question gets more pointed when it comes to the next par, which starts off with "I believe."

When it comes to questions of science, the pond believes that for every drop of rain a flower grows, somewhere in the darkest night a candle blows, for someone who goes astray someone will come to show the way, the pond believes, the pond believes, but it actually has fuck all to do with how to handle a pandemic. Is there a public health expert or epidemiologist in the reptile house? Apparently not ...

You don't learn to live with the coronavirus, you learn to die with the virus … but one thing's certain, the pond can certainly live and die without benefit of employing the services of the Flight Centre Travel Group …

And so to a bonus, because what do you know, the lizard Oz editorialist knows how to sound like a Little Sir Turner echo ...

Pardon the pond, but that blather about the widespread, deadly consequences of Swedish-style "herd immunity" is a nonsense. The reptiles, for a time, just like Boris and the Poms, were all the go when it came to following Sweden …

They kept on publishing rapturous stories, frequently bludged from The Times …

There was the WSJ too …

The pond could go on and on and on, like the reptiles do, but will suffice to say that it has no use for the services offered by a newspaper peddling the services of the Flight Centre, or acting as a Little Sir Echo for the words of the Flight Centre, with naked self-interest to the fore ...

Business leaders aren't experts on public health, but they want to keep on making a shitload of money to keep themselves in the style they're accustomed to?

Amen to that.

The pond understands only too well the objectives and strategies of the reptiles and the sayings of Mr Turner and his thinking pump. They want to kill the pond … but luckily the pond has attended a better class of school in the United States, and learned a few lessons from the Donald …