In which the pond finds the usual precedents in the Oreo, the Caterist and the Major ...

 

Item: unprecedented heat waves and floods in India. Item: unprecedented heat wave in Japan. Item: unprecedented heat waves and droughts in the western United States. Item: unprecedented heat waves in Spain. Item: unprecedented flooding on the east coast of Australia, helped along by warm waters off the coast. Item: unprecedented retreats of glaciers in the Himalayas and novel and desperate remedies attempted.

Yes, it was cute and clever, as explained in The New Yorker back in 2019, but it's still a sign of desperate times ...

Meanwhile, precedented. Is there a word 'precedented'? 

Never mind, there’s an example of its meaning, with precedenting going down on a daily basis in the lizard Oz.

Precedented: any reptile blathering on about climate science denialism, with this day the reformed, recovering feminist picking the form of low-hanging fruit of activists, and offering reptile "realism" ...

Is there any irony in this blather from the tribe at News Corp who supported the mango Mussolini in his anti-government activism? Or in the activist Supreme Court, devised by the mango Mussolini and his News Corp acolytes, and the result the recent degutting of the EPA?

Is there any irony to be found elsewhere on the lizard Oz front page?

Yep, that'll do for a dose of irony, because the sodden pond has had its dose of rain, and insurance premiums are going through the ripped apart roof. Now back to the bleating Oreo ...

It's business as usual for the reformed, recovering feminist, and News Corp have found a new face to demonise ...

Yep, there it is at the end. A feeble wringing of paws, and blather about "grounding climate policy in reality" and proposing "conservation projects", as if it's just a matter of artificial glaciers, or perhaps a nice pair of knitted socks or a little macrame ... or perhaps a tree planting, then home through the floods to a nice cup of cocoa and a marmalade jam sandwich ... and the reptiles wonder why their wretched complacency produces a radical response ...

And so to the Caterist, though only because it's the pond's duty. This day the Caterist is channeling Killer Creighton, with the usual stridency of a loon who wouldn't have the first fucking clue about the movement of flood waters in quarries, and so feels fully qualified to deal with epidemics ... 

The pond has had this closeted anti-vax, anti-mask, anti-pandemic routine before. It is, if there is a word, reptile guaranteed and precedented ...

Um, could the pond indulge in a first line word check, as in "threat of a pandemic."

Actually, it wasn't a threat of a pandemic. It was an actual pandemic, and if it hadn't been for the quick devising of vaccines, it would have been a horrendous pandemic.

But that's how the Caterist works. A bit of mindless blather, followed by endless beefing, as you might expect from a loon routinely accustomed to dipping his paw in an endless supply of government cash ...

That's perhaps as anti-vax as the Caterist dare go ... you know, just asking a question, just wondering ... calling for transparency, yadda yadda, I'm really a far right conspiracy nut, but I know how to dress for the occasion, so as not to alarm the punters, except I really want to alarm the punters, and I know how to blame vaccines designed to reduce hospitalisations and lower the impact of catching a dose, for not eradicating the epidemic, or even the threat of an epidemic, by yesterday ... or perhaps before it began, because it really was only a threat, don'tchakno?

And then in the next gobbet, there's a real doozy ...

And there's your choice. Go to the Caterist for health advice, blathering on about an epidemic being over-egged, and citing esteemed pandemic scientist Tolstoy, or go to a doctor ...

Well in the pond's world, the fuckwitted Caterist can shove it, and shove an idle quote from Tolstoy, and it's off to the doctor for the pond, carrying a Camus quote ...

"Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world, yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky. There have been as many plagues as wars in history, yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise."

"We tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away. But it doesn't always pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away."

And women, and children, Albert ...

Oh fuck it, what's the reformed, recovering feminist point ...

And so to the bonus, and it has to be the Major, marching off to war with the ABC in the usual Major way ...

There's the Major's axis of weevils in the first gobbet ... the ABC, the Graudian and the Nine newspapers.

As for the pond, it's looking for a climate science symmetry, but might have to wait for the final gobbet, and in the meantime must wade on ...

At this point, the pond was astonished to learn of the Major's kind offer to have his stipend cut in half, because what's the point of paying an astonishing amount for a weekly dose of blather from a superannuated Murdoch hack let out into the pastures to nibble on grass ...

The pond's astonishment was somewhat reduced by the Major thinking again, and wanting his paycheck kept to a decent level ... while the pond was thinking how easy it was back in the day for the reptiles to propose that teachers should get back into the classroom as soon as possible during the pandemic, because there was child-minding to be done ... when as any Dame Slap reader knows, the real teaching should be done by idle parents ...

Yes, yes, though the pond couldn't but help remember that Wilcox cartoon ...

It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it, and the Major is valiant in his efforts to keep the world safe for CEOs and the Chairman ...

And now on, in the search for that climate symmetry the pond had mentioned ...

That she blows ... the Major thinks that there's a better future for the world with ongoing rampant, with a bit of luck increasing, coal and gas extraction, because, climate science, what climate science?

It'd be a tough job for anyone tempted to take it re-educating the Major and the rest of the reptiles about the unfettered impact of carbon on the world economy. Why you'd be asking for a pay rise after the first day ...

And so the precedented circle is complete, and the reptiles have done it again, and just as the average Tamworth dog returns to its vomit in the noon day sun, so must the pond return to another recent cartoon ...

Or perhaps sub in the Major in this cartoon ...

And while the pond appreciates that today is the fourth of July, better stay ahead of the game, and think of the next reason to celebrate the changing of the seasons ...