In which, heavy reptile yards done, the pond can relax with Polonius and the planet, and our Gracie and the unions and gay Paree ...

 

 

 

Having done the weekend reptile hard yards, the pond these days has taken to waking up on a Sunday with a Polonial meditation, and this outing shows why ... because Polonius has dared to go there.

Usually Polonius steers clear of climate science, aware that he's as out of his depth as the recent floods ... but there's nothing like the ABC to enrage him, and make him plunge into the murky brown waters (wherein in Peel street long ago, the pond once frolicked and cut foot very deeply by treading on a broken beer bottle. Luckily the pond was too young to drive a car into the water) ...

 

 

 

Arguing about records and what was the biggest flood or fire is of course a comforting distraction, a way of having a go at the ABC and also ignoring the science ...

The pond has its own style with distractions, reminding stray readers that the Weekly Beast always provides herpetology students with important updates ...

 

 

 

 

 

So it's win-win for the lizard Oz and the pond and Claire the bubble-headed booby lives on and it's a win-win ...

As a bonus, the Beast helped explain why Dame Slap didn't make the cut this weekend ...

When you criticise News Corp Australia you can expect swift retribution, as a former reporter for the Australian, Lanai Scarr, discovered this week. Scarr, the political editor of the West Australian, dared to criticise the Oz for its reporting of domestic abuse in relation to Kumanjayi Walker. Despite softening her criticism by saying the Oz was a “great paper”, Weekly Beast understands Scarr received more than one furious, accusatory email from the Australian. The Australian’s editor-in-chief, Christopher Dore, has defended the paper’s recent coverage, which was labelled a national disgrace by Indigenous journalists. The tone of the coverage has shocked regular readers of the Oz who say the paper’s long-serving Northern Territory correspondent Amos Aikman has a good reputation for covering Indigenous issues, as does the Indigenous affairs correspondent Paige Taylor. The Weekly Beast understands it was no accident Aikman’s byline was nowhere near other reportage that has been criticised as graphic and insensitive.

Aargh, or should that be double aargh, where was the pond? 

Oh that's right,  Polonius, climate science, and records ...

Dr Britta Schaffelke, director of Great Barrier Reef research at the Australian Institute of Marine Science – a partner in the survey effort – told Guardian Australia it was too early to know how the current event compared to previous ones.
“At the moment, what we see is widespread and in some parts it is severe and that is worrying. There is no doubt about it,” she said.
While some bleached corals can recover, those badly hit can take weeks or months to die from bleaching, so the full impact of the current event will take a long time to fully understand.
“It’s a major stress event for corals even if they don’t die from it. There is no historical record of such stress events happening so frequently,” Schaffelke said.
Richard Leck, head of oceans at WWF Australia, said bleaching was directly attributable to global heating caused by rising greenhouse gas emissions.
“Reducing Australia’s domestic and exported emissions fast, this decade, is the main solution within our control,” he said.
The environment group released analysis on Friday showing that for Australia to be part of efforts to keep global heating to 1.5C, the country should release no more than 4bn tonnes of CO2 between now and mid-century.
But the analysis, carried out by scientists, said the Morrison government’s current strategy to reach net zero would release 9.6bn tonnes.
“We’re going to blow our emissions budget by more than double,” said Leck.
Dr Zebedee Nicholls, one of the scientists that carried out the analysis, said: “The science is clear: the outlook for coral reefs around the world is bad at 1.5C, and their fate is all but sealed at 2C.”

And after all those distractions, back to inspirational Polonius, savaging the ABC about records ...

 

 

Good old Polonius, he really has learned off by heart all the talking points, and like any well trained parrot, he can recite them in style, with a scant discussion here and an unfashionable fact there, and yet, nary a real thought about actual climate science ... and so it goes for the final gobbet, with a patented Polonial history lesson, because science be too tricky ...

 

 

 

Apparently as well has having nothing to do with the culture wars, it also has nothing to do with climate science. 

Climate science tells us things are happening, but Polonius tells us there is nothing to be done, except keep shipping out that coal to hostile countries and bunkering down, mitigating against fires and floods as best we can ...

Good luck with that young 'uns, as the pond turns for its Sunday dessert to our Gracie ...

For some time now, the pond has been deeply concerned about our Gracie, and the thought that she might have turned, and so yesterday's piece came as a great relief to the pond ...

Ah yes, our Gracie is facing up to the dread event, as the reptiles have been wont to do of late, scribbling furiously even before news of the SA election landed ...

Oh the reptile fear, oh the palpable fear ...

 

 

 

 

So what dire future has our Gracie discerned?

Eek, not bloody unions. But it's all been going so tremendously well in the gig economy ...

 

Ah yes, the chance to be independently screwed in your own time and in your very own way ... but back to our Gracie sounding the alarum ...

 

It's not difficult to envisage the future? 

But where does our Gracie stand? Is she keen to work in an Amazon warehouse, would she like to join Deliveroo, would she like to be screwed to the ground like the US workforce, especially as it doesn't seem so simple now to ship jobs off to China?

The pond isn't sure but there seemed to be dark portents for our Gracie in her envisaging of the future, and alas and alack, what would happen if labour happened to get together and demand a fair price for its labour?

Relax, the pond isn't alarmed. Melbourne used to be known as the home of unionism in Australia, at least long after that tree turned up Barcadline, when the ACTU headed south ...

A pond correspondent sent in some snaps of Melbourne turning into Paris, and instead of ending with a cartoon, why not those shots of Melbourne in all its gay Paree glory ... (though what might happen if Australia were to carry on like the French?

French trade unions have called a national strike Thursday to demand salary and pension increases, less than a month before the presidential elections.
A day after the government unveiled an economic recovery plan in the face of the war with Ukraine, in which it promised to increase wages for public service employees, trade unions are calling for a general salary increases, in the face of soaring fuel prices and the general cost of living.
"The only solution against expensive costs of living is an increase in salaries and pensions,” Philippe Martinez, the leader of the CGT trade union, told L'Humanité newspaper.
He also called for a reduction of VAT tax on petrol, gas and electricity, as prices are increasing due to the war in Ukraine, and Europe’s pulling away from Russian gas imports.
Some 150 marches are planned by the CGT, FSU, Solidaires and Unsa unions, along with several high school student unions.

Zut alors, mes amis ... better stay in Collins street, way more Parisienne than gay Paree ... with bonus reflexivity, featuring a photograph of a photographer taking a photograph ...

 

 

 

 

By golly, that'll learn the French and trade unions and all that carry on...

Oh okay, it's Sunday, perhaps a few Polonial related cartoons from The New Yorker ...