In which the pond hits the road, takes a drive on the wild side, and ends up doing serious study with a prof from the west, and then endures Roger of The Times droning about drones ...

 

Now that the date has been set, the pond is determined to boldly ignore all the screeching and squawking and alarmist fear mongering that will be emitted from the Murdochian camp like farts let off in the wind to protest the sun's rise.

If that's all there is, the pond will abandon duties for the day, because nothing is better than promulgating and spreading the usual rabid reptile bigotry. It might also mean keeping some unusual and odd company.

That said, the pond has some fair hope that enough of the hive mind will be distracted from the main reptile mission to provide some entertainment.

Perhaps some might think the pond is exaggerating. But what were the first few words out of simplistic Simon - here no conflict of interest - within minutes of the date being announced?

 Yep, "Fear and doubt".  The very first words out of a reptile keyboard ...

Sure simpleton Simon then threw into a mention of empty symbolism and tortured guilt, but you could hardly count those as positives up against the fear and the doubt...

So the pond is now on a quest to find alternatives. A bit of old-fashioned climate science denialism - is there a Lloydie down from the Amazon? - or perhaps the bromancer returning to the war on China, or Dame Groan railing at pesky, difficult, uppity furriners ... anything but the screeching and the squawking and the carry-on ...

To get the jokes rolling, here's a good one from Charlie Lewis in Crikey (paywall) about a US activist investor Arjuna Capital in the Faux Noise henhouse...

...Citing the US$787 million settlement of the lawsuit brought against it by electronic voting company Dominion ...Voting systems, and the ongoing defamation lawsuit from Smartmatic (which is seeking $2.7 billion in damages), the proposal, filed in May, argued: “Fox must address how it is assessing and mitigating risks such as misinformation and disinformation.”
The proposal has now been withdrawn after Fox committed to hiring a law firm to assess its oversight of these risks. Last month, Fox asked the US Securities and Exchange Commission to be allowed to omit the proposal, arguing it was already implementing the requested measure via language which has the same relationship with caveats that Bonnie and Clyde’s V8 Ford had with bullets:
After discussing the proposal, the board concluded that conducting an evaluation of the merits of establishing a risk oversight committee is an advisable exercise and is taking steps to implement the proposal.
Unequivocal stuff. It’s hired law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen and Hamilton to undertake the review. We’ll see what happens — qualifiers aside, Fox trying to mitigate the risks of disinformation is rather like advising lions on the risks of attacking zebras.

A risk oversight committee? Could the lizard Oz and Sky News after dark be in urgent need of a risk oversight committee?

Time to let the metaphors run wild and free. Perhaps like mad dogs advising humans on the risk of rabies? Advising reptile zombies on the risks of going vegan,  or perhaps advising Killer to don a mask? And there must be some way to evoke Lloydie of the Amazon ... perhaps baby Emperor Penguins advising reptiles of the dangers of falling off the sea ice?

Charlie also had other jokes about sporty Bid McKenzie and Richard Marles taking to the air, but they must be reserved for those who pony up for Crikey.

The pond's main game is the reptile stew, and so to today's digital offerings ... and naturally the lead announced there could be no path to victory ...

Nope, nothing there for the pond. Simplistic Simon was still hanging about, there was much about the voice, Petey boy was on about Qantas and there was a distraction offered up by cane toad land, but as for pond fodder, zip, zilch, nada...

Down below was equally sparse ... with the pond showing its workings, before finally landing on a reptile offering on the basis of any port in a sterile storm...

"Voice debate must unfold in respectful spirit of unity"? Well there's a laugh, and as for Penbo, just allow the pond to spend a quality moment with a bucket. What's the point, apart from an upchuck, for a man who starts with "irrefutable"?

There's also a note about Qantas, but in all that surely explains why the pond welcomed a new voice, one Alex """" Coram of the west ...

Dear sweet long absent lord, the pond hadn't expected a ponderous serve of desiccated coconut, but that's the price you pay for leaving the rest to the cartoonists ...

The pond realised its stay outside the hive mind might well be a tedious affair ...

Ah, a navigation app. What an astonishing metaphor, full of clarity and insight, and there was the pond thinking that avoiding the tolls was the way to go, what with an EV battery offering cheap mileage and time a never no mind ...

The reptiles were so startled that they slipped in a snap of a solar farm to remind the pond of the demonic forces at work ...

Then it was back to Alex of the west, and in the next gobbet the scales fell from the pond's eyes ...

To be blunt, it seems he's a cackling Claire man!

And if cackling Claire is his idea of a robust expert, then the long absent lord help those in the west...

To be blunt on the general tone of the piece thus far, it seems that Alex of the west doesn't have much to offer by way of anything other than nattering negativity of the sort the pond routinely expects from nattering nabobs of negativism ... and the pond can get that from your friendly local cartoonist, unless they're determined to look on the bright side of life ...

Well there's a lot of cheery bright side-ism at work ...

Meanwhile, here was one last gobbet from nattering nabob Alex of the west, and the pond wondered if he might at least propose something, anything, perhaps even nuking the country ... some sort of solution to the conundrum ...

That's it, that's all the emeritus prof of the west could come up with? He's worried? Surely these matters should have been called "troubling" or perhaps "deeply troubling" or even "deeply worrisome"?

So what's the solution to all this troubling worrying?

 "A serious economic study", and what's more it's "required as a matter of urgency"? And there will be "wide-ranging theoretical and analytical capabilities"?

So the country, the climate and the energy crisis will be saved by a word salad and a study?  Perhaps with the results to be delivered by around 2050, together with the subs?

What a waste of space and time and life and pretty much everything, but the pond guesses that's what happens when you refuse to take a drive on the wild side with the infallible Pope ...

Set the motor running, looking for adventure, but sadly as a bonus, all the pond could do was forage through yesterday's stale reptile bread, only to come up with Roger of The Times droning on about drones ...

Eek, never mind Roger of The Times droning on about drones, the reptiles slipped in a 'read next' featuring little Johnny maintaining the rage.

So that's how "Voice debate must unfold in respectful spirit of unity". 

By maintaining the rage? WTF? 

The pond might occasionally rage at the lot assigned to the indigenous population, but maintain the rage?

Luckily at that moment the reptiles helped out the droning Roger by slipping in a snap of a drone ...

... and a lot of video clips the pond could delete, and so the pond could get back to the droning and could learn a new word ...

Polycrisis! Luckily there was reading to hand, and the pond could catch up on this Davos buzzword here in company with Adam Tooze, or here for even more on the Davos buzzword ...

Sheesh, and once upon a time the reptiles had trained the pond to think of Davos as being down there with George Soros, but if Roger of the Times uses it in his droning, it must be fine ...

As for the rest of the droning, the pond will confess it hasn't been paying much attention, and found it hard to focus ... but it seems there's a new way for the bromancer to approach his war with China by Xmas ...

Indeed, indeed, much better for the Ukrainians just to sit back and suck it up ...

And so there was a gobbet of droning to go ... and waddya know, dinkum Aussie droning was all the go ...

A cardboard polycrisis!

So Roger of The Times took wing for a final droning on about drones gobbet ...

Meanwhile, for all the evocation of hellfire, there doesn't seem to be an actual way to resolve matters on the battlefield, with civilians forced to wear the brunt of terror campaigns, especially the ones mounted by the sociopathic Vlad the Impaler ...

The pond confesses it entirely missed the point of the droning ... though it seemed it was all part of a polycrisis that seemed to have a singularity, a droning monocrisis involving droning about drones ...

There might be a big price to pay for the pond sitting outside the reptile tent for the duration, with the pond already forced to offer humble apologies for this day's humble offerings of humbug, while cartoonists like the immortal Rowe make out like bandits ...

It's always in the details, the detailing of the baleful wraiths, hanging like gargoyles off the walls at Sydney uni  ...