In which the pond settles for a standard dose of dog botherer denialism, before following nattering "Ned" down the garden path to the war on Facebook ...

 

 

The pond thought it would get straight down to business this weekend.

The war on Facebook has replaced the war on China as a reptile distraction, but what stuck out like the proverbial dog's balls was the dog botherer doing a spot of denialism ...

Was it only back in November 2019 that the Chairman was reported in the Graudian here this way ...

News Corp executive chairman Rupert Murdoch has said “there are no climate change deniers around I can assure you” after he was asked at the corporation’s AGM why his company gives them “so much airtime” in Australia.
Murdoch was speaking in New York on Wednesday when he received a question from a proxy for Australian activist shareholder Stephen Mayne.
Murdoch was asked about the company’s “stance on climate change”.
The questioner asked: “What do you believe is the global role of News Corp in the geopolitical climate? If you do believe in climate change, Mr Mayne is interested to hear why News Corp gives climate deniers like Andrew Bolt and Terry McCrann so much airtime in Australia?”
Murdoch responded with a promotion of his company’s corporate carbon reduction goals, saying “we have reduced our global carbon footprint by 25% six years ahead of schedule”.
Murdoch, 88, who was born in Australia, said News Corp was the first North American media company to commit to “science-based targets to limit climate change” and the company had cut its energy costs by US$18m ($26.5m) since 2014.
He also said his company was sourcing its print paper from certified sustainable sources.
Murdoch then added: “There are no climate change deniers around I can assure you.”

At the time, the pond felt miffed on behalf of the dog botherer. Why only the Bolter and MCrann? Why not mention the dog botherer, as stout hearted a denialist as a Chairman might want over the years?

But that was then, and this is now, and suddenly the dog botherer was with Ted Cruze, deep in the heart of Texas ...

 

 

 

 

Actually, the Texas tragedy reveals what happens when you have a state run by climate denialists who refused to take sensible precautions, who refused to link up with other grids, and who sought to blame a non-existent, yet to land new green deal for their catastrophic incompetence ... and amongst the failures was their nuclear energy sector ...

But never mind, let's get into it ... because, you see, it still isn't science, it's just a debate ...

 

That's not a fact, it's not even a misrepresentation, it's just a bald-faced lie, and most certainly an ideological point, all to do with the reptiles never-ending love of sweet, dinkum, pure, innocent, virginal Oz coal?

But will the dog botherer ever get into what might have contributed to the disaster? After all, others have joined the debate and made suggestions worth considering, as per Vox here ...

Wow, an ABC style graph! But if the pond might answer its own question, the dog botherer isn't all that interested in what climate scientists have to say. All the dog botherer wants to do is attack renewables, when in reality all sectors in Texas had a massive failure, and a lot of the responsibility belongs to anti-regulation Republican types at one with the dog botherer about climate science ...

 

Just as certain? Only in the world of dog botherer denialism ... with bonus bullshit about renewables undermining system resilience, and blather about energy security.

Republicans of the dog botherer sort fucked Texas, and dog botherers of the dog botherer kind are busy fucking the planet ...

And so here we are, at the start of another year, the Chairman's assurance that there are no climate science denialists around here, still faintly ringing in the pond's ears, and yet we have to cop more of this shit, with the usual blather about nuclear as a distraction ...

The pond isn't that generous with its contempt, and it reserves its contempt for special reptiles, and the dog botherer is one of them. What a contemptible fuckwit he is, and so reliable in the way he goes about his fuckwittery and denialism ...

And so to the war on Facebook, and what better way to bore the Zuck to death than to ignore Killer Creighton taking a break from the killing fields to talk of Facebook's appalling behaviour, and instead wheel in nattering "Ned" to natter on at interminable length...

By the end of it, Zuck will be screaming for mercy and a settlement ...

 

 

 

 

The sweet joy for the pond is that it has no dog in this fight - it loathes the Murdochians and Facebook in an equal and fair-minded way ...

 

In fact, the pond was struck by Guy Rundle at Crikey here (paywalled), summarising the distilled delights of disdain ... 

 

 

 

 

Well yes, all that and more, but the pond only wanted to set the scene for nattering "Ned" trying to cope with it, dithering old dotard that he is, with not the first digital clue ...

 

Oh fucketty fuck, hysteria wot? It's not the end of the world, it just means the Murdochians missed out on some cash in the paw. 

The pond was reminded of the early responses, when Scotty from marketing and all the reptiles in the game scoured the world for support, and then the ABC came back with this from the UK, here. It turned out that Julian Knight was fully supportive, in a very Boris way:

British authorities are currently looking into the role tech giants such as Facebook, Google and Twitter play in the daily lives of its citizens and the economics of different industries, and Mr Knight said the Competition Markets Authority had set up a Digital Markets Unit to regulate the industry.
He resiled, however, from committing Britain to follow Australia's path.
"I'll be honest with you, I don't think that the policy that was designed by the Australian government is something that I would want to see precisely in the UK," he said.
"I'm not as such in absolute accord with everything the Australian government is doing, however Australia is very much like the canary in the coal mine right now."

Um, isn't it the business of canaries in coal mines to die to save others? 

But back with a righteous "Ned", in full Chicken Little 'end of the world as the reptiles know it' mode ...

 

Does "Ned" have the first clue that everything he just scribbled about big tech, per Guy Rundle, might be scribbled about big Rupert, except that these days the Chairman's monopoly isn't what it once was, and any chance he had of matching Zuck was blown when he blew up MySpace ... but do go on with the rampant hysteria, because the pond always loves to drink the tears of reptiles ... and "Ned" reliably produces an almost endless supply of tears ...

 

 

 

Yes, yes, ancient working through history, but we can we just move along a little "Ned", and at a pace faster than a waltz of doom, more like a foxtrot of reptile disaster ...

In short, submit to blackmail by government, while complaining about blackmail by Facebook. Such are the delusions of the players ... and at this moment, the reptiles took the opportunity to put up what they must have construed as a forlorn graphic, and a terrible indictment ...

 

 

For fuck's sake, who cares? Sure the young or the foolish might head off to Facebook for their fix, but in the old days, if you had a decent enough brand, you could just go direct to the supplier. 

If the pond wanted a dose of reptile malarkey, it would head off to the lizard Oz; if it wanted news from BOM, it would head to the BOM site and check out the forecast or the radar. If it wanted government information, it would go to a government site, instead of expecting a government to take the lazy way out and fall in with Zuck and his mob.

Why should anyone expect a private entity to promote and carry their content? Why not just do it themselves?

The reptiles fell into line with Facebook, and now they find themselves stuck, and all the pond can offer is a Beckett hollow laugh ... and yet it seems that this has finally begun to dawn on "Ned" ...

 

Um, in much the same way that the News Corp platform is notorious for its reluctance and inconsistency in meeting its publishing responsibilities, saying there are no climate denialists here, while routinely offering space to climate denialists of the dog botherer kind?

Physician, heal thyself (Greek: Ἰατρέ, θεράπευσον σεαυτόν, Iatre, therapeuson seauton), sometimes quoted in the Latin form, Medice, cura te ipsum, is an ancient proverb appearing in Luke 4:23. There, Jesus is quoted as saying, "Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, 'Physician, heal thyself': whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country." (wiki here)

Luckily by this point "Ned" had begun to run out of steam, and there was just a short gobbet to go ... but there was a final laugh to be had, as he quoted the man responsible for Jewish space lasers, or so the pond has been informed by Republican devotees of Fox News ...

 

What a hoot it all is, and the more they wax indignant and wrathful, the more the pond hoots, and goes on with its Facebook-free life, knowing that at some time in the future, it will also lead a reptile free life. As Toad himself might say, O bliss! O poop-poop! Oh my! 

And so finally to a matter raised by a reader, and an explanation. Rape isn't a matter for joking, which is why the pond tends to avoid the subject, the pond being designed to look at the lighter side of reptile life, but when the reptiles get involved, there's always a warped sense of the surreal ...

 

 

Indeed, indeed, and the pond thanks the reader for the tip, and it serves by way of introduction to the Rowe of the day, with more Rowe always to hand here ...

 

And by way of collateral insight, here's an infallible Pope ...