There's a 101.5% chance the pond will start with the bromancer, but a 101.6% degree of certainity it will turn into a tainted Riddster day with the reptiles ...

 

 

Okay, okay, it's Riddster day at the lizard Oz, but first the pond would like to indulge one of its favourite reptiles, the apple of the pond's eye ... a gorgeous hunk of weirdness, verging on paranoid madness ...

 

 

You see, the pond has some important news to go with the bromancer  piece. 

The pond has done some important high tech modelling and concluded that the chance, the risk of the bromancer being barking mad and might yet manage a General Ripper with China, might be as high as 51.495 per cent, though the pond's level of accuracy would normally not go beyond two decimal points.

Why, you might ask, is the bromancer and the pond suddenly so keen on modelling and percentages and all that malarkey, as when it comes to climate science, the reptiles routinely diss modelling and predictions and calculations and such like ...

Good question, and the pond has no real answer, but it confidently predicts, within the standard deviation of a random variable of its constant sampling and statistical population, that as many as 79.95% of reptiles are barking mad on any given day ...

 

The long gone Bob Ellis taught the pond its methodology. The headline was to make up figures, and then below the headline, to turn them into meaningless percentages ...

Bizarrely, in her farewell to Ellis in Meanjin here, Jan McGuinness suggested Bob was the repository of a convincing stream of facts and figures, but in the pond's experience, there was a 71.5% chance that Bob would come out with a figure that was at least 98.1% bullshit, and when challenged, would freely make up some more figures, because it intuitively felt right.

How pleasing that the bromancer should also rely on his fabulous gut instinct, his wondrous intuition ...

 

 

 

The pond hesitates to talk about confirmation bias, but reading this latest outing, the pond suggests that there is a 95.9% chance that the bromancer can sense that his war on China isn't going very well, and it hasn't even started ... and yet if he keeps on going, there might be a 101.5% chance he can replicate the way that the world stumbled into the first world war, and then assigned thousands of academics to spend endless years trying to work out what the fuck happened and why ... (the pond was almost one of them, but realising the futility of the endeavour, veered off into another thesis topic) ...

Never mind, we're already at the last gobbet of this latest offering of saucy doubts and fears, bolstered by impeccable modelling ...

 

Might the pond make a suggestion? The bromancer is already teetering on the edge of hysteria when it comes to his war with China. 

The sight of his beloved onion muncher trotting off to Taiwan to give dictator Xi a good whacking and a dose of what for filled him with envy, but the good folk at Coolabah - thanks, a glass of moselle from the cardboard chateau would have suited the pond down to the ground before it went wowser - have done the bromancer no good, and might have done him some real harm. 

The pond has been forced to revise its own modelling, and proposes that 99.9% per cent of the time, some reptile will go barking mad and howl at the moon, and declare war on China, and there's a 111.1% chance that this will be the bromancer on any given day when the moon's in the sky, as big as a pizza pie ...

And so to the matter of the Riddster, and here the pond must observe certain rituals and chronologies.

So to the first ritual, the obligatory observation that the "no climate change deniers around here" had petulant Peta at the top of the digital page, doing her thing, albeit with a delicious juxtaposition ...

 

This was high comedy, but because the pond has placed a lifetime ban on petulant Peta, it had to turn to the other headline on both the digital and tree killer editions ...

 

 

The implication seemed to be that the Nats were being naughty, yet only yesterday - the pond can never turn its back before the reptiles are doing something naughty - this was the tack at the top of the digital edition ...

 

And not to worry about nuking France and mirages and such like,  Perry's yarn was still out and about today, with just a tweak ...

Well duh, isn't that the point? Isn't it supposed to plunge?

Oh right, the climate science is all surface at the lizard Oz.

Iit set the right tone for the reptiles' extensive coverage of the Riddster matter, and so the pond's coverage of the reptile coverage, though the pond felt the need to start with a note in Crikey, just to add to the tone ...

 

Sorry, no hot links, and likely the Crikey piece is paywalled, but you catch the drift ... but the pond thought there was at least an 87.1% chance that Crikey caught the flavour of what's to follow.

One of the first out of the blocks yesterday was that esteemed dodderer, Dodds, like all reptiles, an expert in climate science, and so able to determine the rights and wrongs of the affair ...

He was given a most excellent headline, to accompany an heroic figure ...

"Tarnished". 

A most excellent word, though the pond was disappointed when it saw the word had undergone a transformation, and turned up as "does not emerge unblemished ..."

Unblemished? The pond thought that had more to do with the sexual status of Victorian heroines, or the vicissitudes of manly men in a Jane Austen novel ...

 If he had been wavering before as to what he should do, which had often seemed likely, the advice and entreaty of so near a relation might settle every doubt, and determine him at once to be as happy as dignity unblemished could make him. In that case he would return no more. Lady Catherine might see him in her way through town; and his engagement to Bingley of coming again to Netherfield must give way.

But then the pond remembered we were dealing with sweet, innocent, virginal coal, clean of any diseases, and so the word could stand as most apt ... and perhaps even a little poignant ... and certainly unblemished ...

 

This is known, in common parlance, as grasping at the straws, or the coral, which will best suit the cause, but realising that there was only so much of this that could be taken,  the reptiles then flung in a completely ridiculous click bait video ... which, in the interests of public safety, the pond has neutered ...

Still it was great news that the world would be made safe for climate science denialists, and might draw down an academic salary in the process, thanks to the trudging Tudge ...

 

Meanwhile, today, down below the fold, what was the climate and the Riddster action?

Simplistic Simon suggesting everyone needs to get on board the net zero emissions train? How craven ... how cowardly. Come on man, sharpen up, a monstrous injustice has been done, and you're bleating about joining SloMo, the man who preferred coal to cash in the paw?

Usually, after tossing simplistic Simon aside, the pond immediately would go with the meretricious Merritt ... after all, "eternal mark of dishonour" is much better than mere "unblemished" ...

it reminded the pond of a passing preacher ...

Instead of shame and dishonour, you will enjoy a double share of honour, and for confusion he shall rejoice in his portion: therefore in his coral and his reef the Riddster shall possess the double: everlasting joy shall be unto him.

Or something like that, the pond's memories of the bible are frail and failing, and perhaps it would have been better to evoke the university as being stripped of its honours ...

 

 

Egad, gadzooks, cashiered sir, like a Dreyfuss ... take that James Cook ...

And so to the next piece, featuring the indignant Begg talking language the pond understands - cancel culture!

 

You, the pond and the passing lamp post might have thought it as as High Court decision, but it turns out that cancel culture is everywhere ...

 

Who is this loon? Ah there's the rub, because it reveals how the Riddster fell into bad company ...

Ah yes, real science exists, thanks to the IPA and their funder ...

 

Same as it ever was, with the lizard Oz always a home to the IPA ... and its denialist mission.

And so to backtrack again, because when the pond did its interim Riddster report, it concluded with "more to come ..." and so some more came ...

 

Perhaps it might have been better to do some actual science?

Never mind, there's a 98.7% chance the pond will find a number of interest in the following gobbets ...

Uh huh, so far, so good, but heard it all before. Is the pond wavering on the chance of an interesting number? Should it cut its prediction back to 66.6%?

The pond had to defuse that click bait video, but even so the message seemed passing strange ... the reptiles are now relying on government "intervention" to save the day? 

Perhaps the government should organise its Star Chamber to insist that there will be freedom of speech, and by golly, if there isn't someone will get their tongue ripped out ...

Never mind, the pond is still in quest of that illuminating figure, and must get past another click bait video to find it ...

And so finally to the numbers that count ...

 

Dear sweet long absent lord, the tight arsed Gina's mob only kicked in 8k, while sending this lamb to the slaughter? And the lamb had to fleece 10k of punters to piss $1.5m against the wall, when he might have been better off heading to the casino to do a little cleansing of the cash?

And now he's going to do unpaid work for the IPA?

The pond realises that johns are usually an easy mark, but this seemed positively ridiculous.

Well, a fool and their spare time are easily parted it seems ...

And so to another part of the reptile performance art, because to celebrate the sorry saga, the reptiles leaked out a Leak ...

Usually the pond would rather tear out its eyes than follow with a leak, no matter how relieving the leak ... but here we are ...

 

 Yep, that's what passes for humour at the lizard Oz, thanks to the lesser Leak leaking...

At this point the pond felt the urgent need to wash out its eyes, and immediately reached for an infallible Pope ...

 Oh doesn't beefy boofhead Angus look grand ...

And so to the bonus for those who stayed the course. Did anyone really think that the pond would overlook the contribution of the meretricious Merritt? There was only a 33.3% chance of that happening ... and so here it is ...

 

A mark of dishonour that will never be expunged! Indeed, indeed, so much worse than rabbiting on about how grand the coral is, and how fine the reef is looking today, and how the planet is definitely not on a fast course to being fucked ... because how dinkum and decent and untainted is sweet, virginal clean Oz coal ...

Yes, all that nonsense about the reptiles changing their climate denialist course, and all this coverage is just the same as it's ever been ...

And so to the very last Riddster gobbet for the day ...

 

Ah yes, Clayton's victory, and the reptile word of the day: "tainted".

But hang on a minute, the pond left off the most important detail ...

WTF? The pond thought that the meretricious Merrit was just a reptile hack. Instead he's some kind of activist?

The pond attempted to find out more about the Rule of Law Institute and its membership and funding but things were a tad murky, though there's plenty of fun to be had trying. The pond settled on this gobbet from Justinian ... which was mainly a 2012 piece about a James Hardie matter, but which included this ...

 

Eek, activist lawyers, who some day will turn into activist judges. By golly Dame Slap will hear about this, and then there's going to be an almighty row ...

But in the pond's usual perverse post ironic way, it put the pond in a good mood - the needle hovered at 91.19% as the reptile soma kicked in - and  so the pond was ready to sign off with its usual celebratory Rowe, with more Rowe celebrations here ...

 

The pond calculates that the odds of that caricature as being close to reality at 113.113%  ... don't ask the pond how it managed this feat of calculation, just be glad that the modelling works, and so the planet is fucked ...