In which the pond continues the Monday tradition of Caterist blather and the Major out for his usual march ...

 

In these troubled times, the pond often finds itself in the company of apostates, dissenters, heretics, deserters, traitors and nonconformists who've abandoned their old ways ...

So the pond was reading a rant by former Republican Mike Lofgren, There's no such thing as a conservative intellectual — only apologists for right-wing power.

It's a long rant, but the thesis was simple enough, and summarised what the pond had learned over the years is what the reptiles at the lizard Oz yearn for day after day, month after month, year after year ...

1. A desire for hierarchy and human inequality. 
2. The only acceptable society is based on Christianity.
3. We must obey tradition. 

Along the way there were some bon mots ...

Modern conservatives are hag-ridden by demons — the fallen state of man, the hopeless decadence of secular humanism, the imminent collapse of Western Civilization (a term always capitalized).

And - spoiler alert - if the pond might cut to the chase and the conclusion ...

...It is not too much to say that conservative apologetics is a vast rhetorical structure that purports to say one thing when it means another. Economic freedom means the right to exploit one's natural inferiors; religious freedom equates to imposing religion on sinful unbelievers; defense of tradition means censoring and rewriting history, the better to make the present seem like the culmination of conservative ideas.

Ideas those may be, but the product of genuine intellectuals — those who employ critical reasoning and approach facts honestly — they are not. Ever since the Enlightenment, there has been a perpetual battle, a war of words, between those who would make the world a little freer, a little healthier, a little fairer and a little saner, and those who are viscerally repelled by such markers of secular progress. We see the practical consequences of this conflict everywhere, from the ruined cities of Ukraine to our own barbarously retrograde state legislatures. It is necessary for each of us to know which side we are on in the intellectual struggle of this chaotic century.

In much the same way as a Catholic turned atheist, or vice versa, there's nothing like an apostate, and of course the whole of The Bulwark is full of reformed apostates of the Tim Miller kind, busy offering up tracts such as DeSantis Video Brags That His Policies “Literally Threaten Trans Existence”.

...Despite a disquieting turn in public opinion on trans issues, Americans are not looking for an edgelord Nazi who winks at the radicals hoping to eradicate trans people. 

In a just world, DeSantis’s latest attempt to get to Trump’s nutball right would result in a backlash so severe that it eradicates from the GOP primary the notion that there is any purchase in signaling to America that your biggest problem with Trump was that he was just too kind and inclusive. 

Alas, I doubt we live in such a world.

Indeed, especially if you live in the world of the reptiles at the lizard Oz, but the pond can spend only so much time with the deviants and the heretics. 

It's the fanatics that call to the pond, though here the pond must apologise for some falling by the wayside, despite heroic attempts to attract the pond's attention ...

 

It takes a stern heart to be able to ignore Killer conflating and confusing the Voice with affirmative action, but as soon as the pond wondered why Killer hadn't mentioned US government treaties with the original inhabitants - albeit most often observed in the breach - that the pond's interest started to wane. 

The pond quickly scanned the text, but news of Native American tribes hail ‘major victory’ after supreme court ruling hadn't penetrated Killer's rather thick and bigoted brain ...

Really, all that's needed for a comment is a Luckovich ...

As for simplistic Simon and his EXCLUSIVE on the Goulburn gull calling for a return to the 1950s - or perhaps when waging a useless war, the 1960s - what could possibly be said?

Oh wait ...

1. A desire for hierarchy and human inequality. 
2. The only acceptable society is based on Christianity.
3. We must obey tradition. 

Or perhaps ...

Back to the Fifties... it's a trend, and the beefy boofhead is on the case, and soon enough we'll all be basking in Ming the Merciless glory (as defined by Humpty Dumpty)...

Tremendous stuff, but not enough to tempt the pond, and so it was that the pond turned to reliable reptile correspondents, because they always guaranteed a laugh ...

Who needs Killer, when you have the Caterist banging on about masks, and to follow up the once proud lizard Oz graphics department inevitably produced a snap of comrade Dan in a mask, a hag-ridden demon sure to terrify the lizard Oz readership ...

In fact the reptiles decided that the entire Caterist piece needed a little visual relief so the next gobbet was short, so that the reptiles could cut away to another demonic figure smirking as he inspected his submissive, subservient troops in North Korean style ...

The pond realises that as a floodwaters in quarries whisperer, and climate science denialist, the Caterist is terrified that he might qualify as a prime example of a promoter of misinformation, but the pond promised a laugh ... and after we've got past this terrifying sight ...

... we can move on to more terrifying sights and hag-ridden demons ...

As soon as there was a mention of Juliar, the pond knew what must follow, a shot of a frowning, frumpish Gillard, looking chaff bag unhappy ...

But the pond had promised a laugh, and the best one came at the very end  ...

There you go ... and if the pond might paraphrase, "catastrophic errors in relation to flood waters in quarries are best avoided by allowing rampant stupidity and misinformation to flourish online", so that a defamation action might balance the federal government still providing funding for the Menzies Research Centre ...

Or some such thing, you catch the drift. For a devout climate science denialist to talk of scientific progress as refuting the consensus simply gives the pond a chance to provide a link to a story about toxic blooms, ‘It gets worse every day’: why are sea lions and dolphins dying along California’s coast?

...The answer to what exactly is driving this outbreak, or why they are increasing in severity, is complex. Ocean water resembles a delicate broth comprised primarily of chloride, sodium, sulfate, magnesium, calcium and potassium, with a host of other ingredients that contribute to plant and marine life. Phosphorous and nitrogen, which are mostly responsible for driving plant and algae growth, accompany myriad other substances such as carbon, boron, strontium and bromide.

When this broth gets out of balance, algae can start to bloom in a harmful way. Factors contributing to an imbalance can include massive ocean-wide shifts like El Niño or underwater volcanoes, natural ocean cycles, lack of iron or other nutrients algae need, human wastewater, which can have high levels of urea even after being treated, and agricultural runoff, which can include pesticides, nitrogen-rich fertilizer and animal waste. Cold water upwelling is another factor, an important natural process that occurs when water from deep, colder parts of the ocean travel upward into surface water due to wind currents, bringing key nutrients that algae of all kinds and fish thrive on.

Scientists say the climate crisis also drives imbalances in two key ways: rising ocean acidity creates conditions where more harmful algae can thrive, and warming ocean temperatures are leading to a proliferation of more toxic algae species and blooms globally.

Or you can read the Caterist moronically blather on about masks ...

And speaking of prize maroons, how can the pond go past the Major, out for his Monday march? And waddya kno, the maroons are in it together ...

Please, you've got to hand it to the Major. He's always straight out of the blocks. "Thanks to special prosecutor John Durham".

So quickly the reptiles can forget, faster than a man in black waving a neuralyzer at them ...

Not only did he indict numerous Russians — and win convictions of multiple Trump associates on other crimes — but he also uncovered how the Trump campaign’s chairman had shared internal polling and strategy with a Russian and Ukrainian political consultant the government says is a Russian intelligence agent, among other things....

...Mr. Durham called Mr. Mueller a “patriot” and did not contradict any of his findings. He said that Russia did interfere in the 2016 election — and characterized that intelligence operation as a “significant threat.” (NY Times, paywall)

None of this is to deny that the Major is a prime doofus, or that the lizard Oz has been a haven for dropkicks peddling conspiracy theories ...

Still banging on about Covid? It's the reptile way ... and in the case of the Major only exceeded by the sublime extent that he can crawl up the backside of his fellow reptiles and News Corp in general ...

The pond didn't have the heart to downsize that snap.

The reptiles had inserted it as a way of terrifying the pond, and they succeeded admirably, up there with the time that the pond first watched Psycho ...

Yes, it's the same sort of grin, going on smirk, going on demonic skull possession ...

And so, all to soon, to the final Major gobbet ... and if the Major can't slip in a "woke" or at least an "Orwellian", the pond will be bitterly disappointed ...

Speaking of Orwellian, Matt Taibbi as the Major's preferred reading? And yet again "overblown claims of climate emergencies"?

Relax, dead sea lions and dolphins, you're just a blip on the Major's watch ...

And what about the clown carnival that Taibbi fell for, like the all day sucker he is? Sorry there are simply too many stories to hand to process ...

And so to end on an up note ...

Ah, how soon the reptiles forget ...