In which the Major and the Caterist renew old reliable routines with a lick of reptile paint ...

 

The reptiles seem to have lost their way. This day there's still endless blather about Lisa Wilkinson, but the fallback seems to be stale old ranting about the wicked greenies, given a lick to paint to make the rants seem fresh, and a search for a new messiah, though some might wonder if the mutton Dutton is just a naughty boy ...

As usual, the pond embarked on its Monday mission with the Major, and discovered that lick of paint was more a lick of the old tar brush, with a hint of a greenie feathering ...

That's the great thing about the Major. He can scribble, in a lazy, ideological, naive way, about lazy, ideological, naive journalists without blinking an eye, while sending the pond into an irony overload, simply unable to cope with the Major's base load. 

There's no need to mention that long lost Order of Lenin medal when new drivel of the Major kind trickles out each Monday ...

Of course it's not just the greenies, it's that loose cannon, and so the reptiles offer up a snap of their new satan ....

Once upon a time the Major would have devoted all his energy to the wonders of dinkum, clean, pure, innocent Oz coal, but these days he must stress the grid by abusing batteries, renewables and the whole damn thing.

Once upon a time, the Major would have mocked climate scientists as religious zealots, but things are getting a little hot on that front, so the Major must have a go at those wretched bunnies pounding away on their drums, pretending they can run forever ...

Ah, yes, the poor people. It goes without saying that on behalf of chairman Rupert and his squillions, the Major's heart bleeds for the poor people ... and the pond was taken back in time to the days when the reptiles cried at the polluting of the urban landscape by the NBN ...

These days it's the Major stressing about how to charge EVs, what with them constituting an astonishing 2% of the market place, though to be fair even 2% is an insult to any ranting reptile ...

It’s no secret that Australia lags sorely behind the world in electric vehicle uptake.

Stymied by a distinct lack of carrots and sticks to encourage carmakers and drivers to sell and buy EVs, the percentage of new cars sales in Australia that are fully electric has only just hit 2%.

That’s in stark contrast to overseas, where decades’ worth of EV policy are now seeing many drivers choosing to go electric because they have the choice they need and prices are made more palatable with rebates or tax credits.

The latest figures from Europe show that one in four new cars sold can be plugged in, and one in eight are full battery-electric cars. In Norway the case is even more impressive; with 30 year’s worth of EV incentives in place there are now nine EVs sold for every combustion engine vehicle.

And perhaps less well known is how difficult it is to track electric vehicle uptake in Australia, because of the haphazard and opaque way in which the sales and registration data of alternatively fuelled vehicles is collected and stored by various authorities. (here)

Dammit, that's the way the Major likes it, let's not have any talk of more EV gruel, you woke rich people, you environment writers pretending that the planet is in peril ...

Talk about a plaintive cry in the wilderness. "What happens when an EV is driven at night? Do the lights go off?"

No, no, things go bump in the night! A renewable energy boogeyman stalks the laneways, and the long absent lord help any reptile caught out in the night air ...

And so to a survey of the rest of the reptile offerings this day ...

Say what? No Oreo, just Dame Slap blathering on, and seeming to show off a paranoid persecution complex? Has some media vigilante been giving Dame Slap a hard time? Charge Lisa is the new reptile cry? But what if someone cries charge Dame Slap for donning the MAGA cap and blathering about the UN using climate science to introduce world government by Xmas?

Never mind, the pond isn't going to indulge the reptiles with their Lisa fixation - giving Polonius a chance to prattle was more than enough - and the grave Sexton had nothing to say about the Talibanisation of the United States, save to say that a bill of rights was and is a bad idea ... and so leave the issue of women's rights, not that they deserve any, to politicians ...

So the pond had to be content with the Caterist search for a new messiah, as you'd expect from naughty boys throwing rocks at eddies swirling in quarries ...

How the reptiles love Vlad the impaler sticking it to the Germans. If you ever wanted proof that renewable energy was a danger, trust in a sociopath intent on imperial delusions of grandeur ...

Luckily there is a Messiah ready to lead the country into the wilderness ... because it's all ruined, the reptile dream has been shattered, and renewables and those damn greenies have unleashed chaos ... and sheesh, please, don't interrupt the flow with idle talk of climate science ...

It's astonishing how difficult it is for the reptiles ...

As for the sudden sags and surges in the planet?

The southern Spanish city of Seville is to become the first in the world to name and classify heatwaves – much in the way that tropical storms or hurricanes are named – in an effort to better shield residents as periods of excessively hot weather become more frequent.

The year-long pilot project in one of Spain’s hottest cities will classify heatwaves into three categories and named from a list that include Xenia and Wenceslao.

The initiative is part of a broader set of measures, from emissions reductions to decarbonisation, aimed at countering climate change, said the city’s mayor, Antonio Muñoz.

“We are the first city in the world to take a step that will help us plan and take measures when this type of meteorological event happens – particularly because heatwaves always hit the most vulnerable,” Muñoz noted in a statement this week.

The pioneering programme comes days after Spain sweltered through one of its earliest heatwaves on record and after a May that ranked as the hottest in 58 years. The frequency of heatwaves in Spain has doubled compared with previous decades, according to state meteorological agency Aemet.

Seville, where temperatures often climb above 40C, is about 100 miles from the town of Montoro where the mercury last year climbed to Spain’s highest-ever temperature at 47.4C. (the fully woke Graudian)

Damn you woke greenie Spaniards, just cope with the surges ... while the pond does its best to cope with the Caterist, surging towards his new Messiah ...

Perhaps it's just the energy irony overload in the pond's system, but the reptiles seem to be in top form this day. Who else but the Caterist could scribble about "the pragmatic, more worldly approach that drives Liberal governments at their best."

So that's what beefy boofhead Angus was doing in the Cayman Islands ...

Is there an upside? Yes, because each day now the pond gets to sup on reptile tears, and relish the whining and the pining, as they dream of some fresh apocalypse so that rough beast, the mutton Dutton, can slouch towards Canberra ...

And speaking of rough beasts, the pond has been enjoying the theatre of British politics. 

At one time, the pond thought of the Graudian as a colonial invader, but as the pond is home to reptiles acting as stooges for the Talibanisation of the United States by News Corp, what the heck, bring on the old blighty fun ...

The pond did enjoy Nick Cohen's piece in The Observer, bringing back to mind the Dolchstoßlegende (stab-in-the-back myth) in relation to Brexit ...

The mediocrity of Lord “Frosty” Frost isn’t ordinary. There is an epic quality to his failings. The parochialism of his nationalism and irresponsibility of his conspiracy theories have allowed one paunchy man to embody the entire collapse of modern conservatism into know-nothing paranoia.

No serious person outside the ruling elite doubts that Frost and Boris Johnson’s hard Brexit heightened the misery of millions. They have raised inflation, cut the national wealth and diverted the energy of Britain’s rulers away from the economic crisis into needless disputes with our neighbours.

Extremist movements face their greatest danger when their supporters realise all hope is gone. Failure brings the risk that the faithful will think again and walk away. Conservatives might now move from nationalism to patriotism, and contemplate the compromises the UK must make to repair the damage they have caused.

Without visible benefits from Brexit, betrayal narratives are all the leaders of the Brexit right have to hold the movement together. They must persuade their followers, and perhaps themselves, that they have not wasted their lives on a futile cause. The internal struggle to keep the faithful in line is why it can feel as if you are eavesdropping on private conversations when you listen to Conservative debates. The right is talking to itself rather than to the country: dousing its supporters’ doubts by feeding their fears. Conservatism hasn’t diminished Britain because Brexit was a mistake, it tells them. Your leaders did not take you for fools. You were betrayed – we were all betrayed! – by saboteurs who turned victory into defeat...

So it goes and even the lizard Oz editorialist couldn't resist taking a look at the saboteurs ...

Oh say it ain't so, remember the over and over cry of the internationally famous bromancer ...

And so Britain got its wish, over and over, and now to celebrate the saboteurs, a few cartoons from the Graudian, with more here ...