In which the pond is unnerved by this week's groaning, seeks redemption with the bromancer, and is lulled to sleep by the inanities of the grave Sexton ...

 

The pond has made no attempt to conceal the way it intends to take a short break from its herpetological studies and head south to Melbourne. 

The reason is simple enough. The pond has long yearned to experience life under a Communist dictatorship, and the number of countries calling themselves communist are shrinking. There's really only China, North Korea, Laos, Cuba and Vietnam, and none of them appeal. True, Russia is run by a sociopathic war mongering dictator, but if the pond wanted to see a tin pot dictator at work, why not Nicolás Maduro Moros in Venezuela, and thereby avoid an encounter with a drone.

Besides, those faraway places involve too much effort. Far simpler to hop on a train and visit comrade Dan land, which the reptiles have long advised the pond is the most vile form of communism in the world. 

This will be the pond's penultimate outing before making the ultimate trip, and waddya know, Dame Groan was on hand today to advise the pond that it was risking everything in its bold foray south ...

What set the silly old duck off this time? Was it the reptile snaps? It's true that Flinders street is terrifying, even more than Spencer street, and that opening shot of dictator comrade Dan gave the pond pause, especially as the reptiles repeated the dose, and instead of a whacky grin, he seems to be gesticulating like a Castro...

 

Nope, it was the usual ... bloody unnerving migrants and furriners, always a terrifying prospect and certain to produce an excellent groaning ...

Sheesh, the pond will just be adding to Dame Groan's despair, another face in the enormous, ever swelling crowd, another victim of a socialist regime, and it will come as a shock to the pond, because here in Sydney, we can teach hapless Victorians how it should be done ...

Never mind, the ticket is booked, the pond will soon be on its way, and Dame Groan can conjure up sights worthy of a Bosch, but it will be what it will be ...

Well it wouldn't be a decent, dinkum Groan if the Groaning hadn't featured a railing at furriners ruining her life. 

The old biddy is the perfect example of a climate-science-denying, Santos-share-loving, Nimby bigot, and has been so for many a year, but dammit, the pond yearns for a crispy pork belly roll from Heartbaker Bun Mee. 

When the pond first visited Melbourne, long ago, before actually living in town, the most exotic thing to do was to head off to the Copperwood in Lygon street and order up a pizza.

It came as a shock to the pond, trained on three vegies and a Tamworth chop, and ever since, the pond has been inclined to decadent socialism and an appreciation of the benefits of culinary diversity ... and so to a final gobbet of the Groaner Groaning, explaining the complete and utter ruination induced by letting furriners into the country... which does at least mean a bit of a break from the usual rant about renewables ruining the country ...

Quelle catastrophe, and no doubt the old biddy feels better for having got that off her chest, admittedly for the umpteenth time, but this time avec Hanrahan passion ...

The pond needed a chaser to settle nerves. It seems life under comrade Dan's dictatorship is tougher than anything the pond has experienced in Sydney, and so it was time to cast a nostalgic eye over other reptile offerings ...

Dame Slap was still ranting about the Lehrmann matter at the top of the page, matching up to that Chambering down below, and as for ancient Troy, he could be despatched quickly. The silly lad ended his piece this way ...

...Trump remains a disgusting, disgraceful, dangerous individual. He is the first US president to be charged with a criminal offence. Trump’s indictment for attempting to overturn the presidential election of 2020 will be one of the great trials of our time. It is imperative, for the survival of US democracy, that he is found guilty of these crimes and does not return to power.

Uh huh, but what of the disgusting, disgraceful, dangerous corporations that have facilitated him? Oops, sorry, that would mean News Corp and Faux Noise. Resign, ancient Troy, resign today, and show them it's not just idle verbiage ... you really do despise what Chairman Rupert and his minions have done to the United States, you do really regret that you're a kissing cousin to the Hannitys and Lauras of the world ...

And with that done and dusted, what the pond really wanted was a return to the quiet time of the 1950s when the DLP and B. A. Santamaria and the NCC meant something, and a love of Franco was right and proper, and who better to expound on those fundamentalist days than the fundie bromancer himself?

The reptiles slipped in several snaps and as usual, the pond decided to lump them together to get them out of the way ...

That way the pond could focus on the bromancer's words ... because whenever someone wants an explanation of why the bromancer is not to be trusted in anything he scribbles, the pond always mentions that he's a barking mad Catholic fundamentalist, and there's an immediate flash of enlightenment ... oh, he's that sort, and indeed, he is ...

Now before going further, the pond must introduce a spoiler. It was Bishop Robert Barron himself who offered up a homily, "Laudato Si" Athwart Modernity ...

...Practically every commentator on Laudato Si five years ago remarked that this was the pope’s “global warming” encyclical, and indeed that issue is amply discussed in the pages of the text. But what almost every pundit missed was Francis’ extraordinarily rich development of the point just made regarding the objectivity of moral values. The same technocratic and anthropocentric prejudice, he says, that gives rise to environmental disaster gives rise as well to population control through artificial contraception and abortion: “Instead of resolving the problems of the poor and thinking of how the world can be different, some can only propose a reduction in the birth rate. At times, developing countries face forms of international pressure which make economic assistance contingent on certain policies of ‘reproductive health’” (para. 50). Moreover, the setting aside of intrinsic moral values and the concomitant placing of the individual and his needs at the center conduce toward what the pope calls practical relativism: “Hence we should not be surprised to find, in conjunction with the omnipresent technocratic paradigm and the cult of unlimited human power, the rise of a relativism that sees everything as irrelevant unless it serves one’s own immediate interests” (para. 122). And finally, the domination of the ego over nature also finds expression, says Pope Francis, in a gender ideology that would give to the individual the right to define him or herself even at the physical level. Moreover, there is a clear link between this extravagant claim to freedom and the abuse of the physical environment: “Thinking that we enjoy absolute power over our own bodies turns, often subtly, into thinking that we enjoy absolute power over creation” (para. 155).

What this brief survey demonstrates is that the “Fox News vs. CNN” hermeneutic just won’t work if we are reading Laudato Si in full. Pope Francis takes positions that annoy both standard-issue liberals and standard-issue conservatives. This is because his overarching opponent is the philosophy of modernity, which in fact has produced both the “conservatism” and the “liberalism” that we know today. His appeal to a worldview that antedates the modern is what makes this encyclical particularly intriguing.

Hmm, time to return to the bromancer blathering on about modernity ...

Word on Fire? That reminded the pond that the world seems to be on fire. 

The pond just caught up with Andrew Meijers' Is the climate crisis finally catching up with Antarctica? Finding the answer has never been more pressing.

...Our inability to confidently predict between an extremely challenging two metres and a civilisation-ending 10 metres of sea level rise is an exemplar of the problem facing Antarctic and Southern Ocean researchers. Without more data and more research, we cannot confidently say whether the Southern Ocean will continue to sweep our warming and CO2 emissions “under the carpet” in the deep ocean, whether we are severely underestimating the scale and speed of sea level rise, or how and when melt may influence the global ocean circulation, gradually or suddenly via a tipping point.

This uncertainty is encapsulated in the ongoing phenomenally low sea ice growth season. There is now 2.5m sq km less sea ice than there should be at this time of year, roughly the size of Western Australia. It is so far outside our observed records that hyperbole has flourished even within the scientific community. Many theories exist for this year’s anomaly, but the question of whether this is climate change finally catching up with the previously robust Antarctic sea ice, as it has in the Arctic, is still unknown at present and will take years to untangle.

These are the pressing questions oceanographers need to answer to chart a course through an uncertain coming century. Hundreds of scientists are meeting this month in Hobart to discuss exactly how we should do this. The Southern Ocean Observing System, a coalition of scientists from across the world, is holding its first ever global conference on the Southern Ocean in a changing world.

Dearie me, they need a gaggle of scientists to try to work it out? Why it's simple enough. One day reading the lizard Oz and you can walk away convinced it's all just alarmism. And if there's a teeny weeny problem, just say the rosary. A few Hail Marys, the odd Our Father and it'll all be sorted ...

The last time this Meijers was in the Graudian was back in February 2021, and he was furiously scribbling Changes in Atlantic currents may have dire climate implications for the next century...

...The far southern end of the AMOC around Antarctica is also of concern. The global ocean as a whole has absorbed more than 90% of human induced warming, absolutely dwarfing the changes in air temperature that we are all so concerned with. The vast ocean ringing Antarctica is where most of this extra heat (and carbon dioxide) has been injected into the deep ocean, and it is warming and acidifying at an alarming rate. One of the main areas of research for oceanographers such as myself is whether the ocean will continue to essentially sweep human impacts under the carpet – and what may happen if that stops.

This should not be a cause for despair and inaction though. The same models that predict the AMOC slowdown also show that strong emission reductions now can drive an AMOC recovery towards the end of the century. Research may reduce uncertainties, but the message is clear: strong climate action at governmental and industrial levels is needed now, and it is the job of the people to force such action with their wallets and votes.

Well the pond has taken steps ... it's read the bromancer and surely that's more than enough ... worlds on fire? 

What we need is words on fire and blather about the West's broad cultural crisis, and all the rest of the usual bromancer guff ...

As for climate science? Not a clue, not a fit topic for a barking mad Catholic fundamentalist, and that's how you know the planet truly is in trouble, and a return to the 1950s, and B. A. Santamaria and the NCC and Franco and three vegies and a Tamworth chop simply isn't going to cut it ... and alarmingly vulgar youff seem to be on to this modern gospel, and not before time ...

And so to a bonus, and why not the grave Sexton, as a way of keeping on touch with the best of Connor Court Publishing ...

Oh sheesh. Not again ...in no particular order,  that illustration has been dragged out time after time, including but not limited to, in July alone...

Coleman, Killer, the hole in the bucket man, Dimitri, all carrying like pork chops and all with the same illustration ...

It's beyond the valley of the moronic, and if you're now saturated with a feeling of dread, that's because this time you're in the company of the grave Sexton ...

Why are the reptiles at the lizard Oz so sensitive about this? Well it's not just the weirdos and loons that have infested X that make life hard. 

The reptiles themselves are fond of conducting public debate in ways that are offensive and insulting, and then when some woke snowflake takes a fence and possibly the gate, they protest that debate needs to be robust, and suggest that some polite people looking at the way that News Corp remains in bed with the mango Mussolini are too easily offended ...

At this point the reptiles decided to break up the grave Sexton's carry on with a snap ...

The pond thought it might seize the chance to slip in a cartoon ...

That's better, and better still there was just a short gobbet to go, with the grave Sexton apparently unable to summon up a lengthy bout of indignation ...

Meanwhile, on another planet, or perhaps just on The Conversation, there was Prof Andrea Carson giving a judicious overview of the draft legislation under the header More stick, less carrot: Australia's new approach to tackling fake news on digital platforms ...

There was a link to the actual draft, for those who cared, because the reptiles can never allow anyone to stray outside their bubble, and the Prof made some obvious points ...

An urgent problem for governments around the world in the digital age is how to tackle the harms caused by mis- and disinformation, and Australia is no exception.
Together, mis- and disinformation fall under the umbrella term of “fake news”. While this phenomenon isn’t new, the internet makes its rapid, vast spread unprecedented.
It’s a tricky problem and hard to police because of the sheer amount of misinformation online. But, left unchecked, public health and safety, electoral integrity, social cohesion and ultimately democracy are at risk. The COVID-19 pandemic taught us not to be complacent, as fake news about COVID treatments led to deadly consequences.

And there was this ...

...Initial opinions about the bill are divided. Some commentators have called the proposed changes “censorship”, arguing it will have a chilling effect on free speech.

These comments are often unhelpful because they conflate co-regulation with more draconian measures such anti-fake news laws adopted in illiberal states like Russia, whereby governments arbitrarily rule what information is “fake”.

For example, Russia amended its Criminal Code in 2022 to make the spread of “fake” information an offence punishable with jail terms of up to 15 years, to suppress the media and political dissent about its war in Ukraine.

To be clear, under the proposed Australian bill, platforms continue to be responsible for the content on their services – not governments.

The new powers allow ACMA to look under the platform’s hood to see how they deal with online mis- and disinformation that can cause serious harm, and to request changes to processes (not content). ACMA can set industry standards as a last resort.

The proposed changes don’t give ACMA arbitrary powers to determine what content is true or false, nor can it direct specific posts to be removed. Content of private messages, authorised electoral communications, parody and satire, and news media all remain outside the scope of the proposed changes.

None of this is new. Since 2021, Australia has had a voluntary Code of Practice on Disinformation and Misinformation, developed for digital platforms by their industry association (known as DIGI).

This followed government recommendations arising out of a lengthy Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) inquiry into digital platforms. This first effort at online regulation was a good start to stem harmful content using an opt-in model.

But voluntary codes have shortfalls. The obvious being that not all platforms decide to participate, and some cherry-pick the areas of the code they will respond to.

And so on ... and if you want to read more than the rest of the Prof, and certainly more than the gravely silly Sexton, check out The Conversation's tag for articles regarding Online misinformation ...

Nobody said tackling online mis- and disinformation would be easy, but then nobody said reading the reptiles would always be this hard.

The pond felt obliged to offer up those notes because truth to tell, the only excuse it had for going with the grave Sexton was to create some space between the cartoons ...