In which the pond plunges into a Victorian heart of darkness more threatening than comrade Dan's big city socialist hell, and when - if - the pond returns, normal herpetology studies will resume ...

 

This the last post before the pond goes dark for a few days. The pond will be attempting a trip into the Victorian heart of darkness which would make Conrad tremble with fear, and Marlon seem like a friendly Santa greeting a lost traveller with a cow butchered for an Xmas feast.

When the pond returns - or should that be, if the pond returns - herpetological studies will resume in the usual way. 

As a result, the pond will miss the Major's long voyage up himself this day, and also the Caterist, likely wanting to join the Littlebush - or is that little pride? - with little feet wanting to nuke the country to save it. 

As a pond correspondent noted, a retreat from the reptiles for a little while can be wonderfully cathartic and health-inducing, and besides, by now anyone incapable of using AI to construct a Major column or a Caterist wank has either shoddy software or a lazy attitude ...

In the interim, the pond can report that Melburnians seemed healthy and active, and the dismal gloom proposed by the likes of Dame Groan and craven Craven signs of tetchiness and grumpiness, as might be expected from old loons. 

A trip along old haunts - Chapel street, Smith street, Brunswick street, etc. - showed the town bubbling with energy, and there was still a chance to get food poisoning at Mario's. If you haven't had a dose, you clearly have never had anything to do with the y'artz in Melbourne. 

It's true that at the bottom of Smith street, the pond was startled to see Lidia Thorpe's office, but the Melbourne reptiles are safely distanced from her, and would likely be distracted by the factory outlets a little further up. Lured by the sight of cheap sneakers, they'd never make it to greenie socialist radical leftie hell ...

The pond did see one disturbing sight while out and about and it wasn't the student day for the ACU, disturbing as that was. It was the old fear of the RMIT surfacing again, with nascent students yesterday wandering around clutching goody bags, apparently unaware that their HECS fees would be paying for the tree-killing trinkets.

The pond's nightmare was compounded by this sight, come purely by chance, though the town is littered with such chances ...

Many would be distracted by that large Sauron monolith towering in the distance, but it was the plastic decoration that caught the pond's eye. The pond has no idea if someone from RMIT did it, but the RMIT spirit was strong ...

Then the pond noted this sign ...

It wasn't so much protesting academics, but a reminder of the way that RMIT, together with UMelb was devouring Carlton, in much the same way that USyd was devouring Glebe and Darlington ... and even worse, apparently Monash has also set up a research centre to add to the conglomeration.

Tertiary education is now first of all about real estate speculation ...

As for why the RMIT architecture department has ruined the Melbourne landscape, take a look at their dour, grim lodgings and you'll understand why ...

"The School of Architecture" looks even worse in slightly wider shot ...

What a grim cruel joke played on the lovers of colourful plastic fittings by the RMIT administration, and what a vengeful result still plays out in olde Melbourne towne. The result? RMIT turned the pond into Prince, latterly King, Chuck, and the last thing the pond every wanted to be was a talking tampon ...

On the upside, the pond noted that old favourites still lurked in Smith street ...

Note the harmonious way that meat and organic fruit and vegies live comfortably side by side, and oh the meat and the fittings ...

Sad to say, not too far away, there was a shop going down, but the trinkets were a reminder of the town's bizarre obsession with football ...

It was the pond's catching sight of a hopelessly addicted rellie sneaking glimpses at his phone at a social gathering to check the scores that helped explain why a shop might expect $25 for a toy doll or ten bucks for a rusty old badge ... or maybe not, because they were closing down ... perhaps sanity is returning to the town, along with a desire to ban pokies.

The pond also came across a shoppe ... and it's been a long time since the pond saw a ye olde schoole olde worlde shoppe ...

The pond supposes that it should purport to have done some reading, but the holyday fever is strong.

The pond did look at a story in Vox about Oppenheimer v the movie, but noting that he was a rich ponce seemed a tad beside the point.

No doubt some of the reptiles will be busy this day explaining how the Maui wildfires had nothing to do with climate science, but the heresy is growing stronger, as in this AP report ...

...Hawaii's state climatologist, Pao-Shin Chu, said he was caught off guard by the impact Dora had from roughly 500 miles (800 kilometers) away.
"Hurricane Dora is very far away from Hawaii, but you still have this fire occurrence here. So this is something we didn't expect to see," he said.
Strong winds, combined with low humidity and an abundance of dry vegetation that burns easily, can increase the danger of wildfire, even on a tropical island like Maui.
"If you have all of those conditions at the same time, it's often what the National Weather Service calls 'red flag conditions,'" said Erica Fleishman, director of the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute at Oregon State University.
"Climate change in many parts of the world is increasing vegetation dryness, in large part because temperatures are hotter," Fleishman said. "Even if you have the same amount of precipitation, if you have higher temperatures, things dry out faster."
Clay Trauernicht, a fire scientist at the University of Hawaii, said the wet season can spur plants like Guinea grass, a nonnative, invasive species found across parts of Maui, to grow as quickly as 6 inches (15 centimeters) a day and reach up to 10 feet (3 meters) tall. When it dries out, it creates a tinderbox that's ripe for wildfire.
"These grasslands accumulate fuels very rapidly," Trauernicht said. "In hotter conditions and drier conditions, with variable rainfall, it's only going to exacerbate the problem."
Climate change not only increases the fire risk by driving up temperatures, but also makes stronger hurricanes more likely. In turn, those storms could fuel stronger wind events like the one behind the Maui fires.
That's on top of other threats made worse by climate changes.
"There's an increasing trend in the intensity of hurricanes worldwide, in part because warm air holds more water," Fleishman said. "In addition to that, sea levels are rising worldwide, so you tend to get more severe flooding from the storm surge when a hurricane makes landfall."
While climate change can't be said to directly cause singular events, experts say, the impact extreme weather is having on communities is undeniable.
"These kinds of climate change-related disasters are really beyond the scope of things that we're used to dealing with," UBC's Copes-Gerbitz said. "It's these kind of multiple, interactive challenges that really lead to a disaster."

And that brings the pond back to Littlefoot, who has little to be proud about ...

The pond busied itself with domestic busyness as Littlebush made his appearance yesterday on The Insiders, but did pause for a moment to hear that he'd managed to dub himself Captain Killjoy, which is more inventive than anything the pond could have devised...

Little to boast about also did a stout-hearted defence of pharmacies, which no doubt pleased the two humble, entirely local Chemist Warehouse pharmacies that operate in Tamworth ... (and the reptiles love to carry on about big pharma and Covid. Where are they when it matters?) Up the road, the pond buys its washing machine power at discount from a discount pharmacy with over thirty franchises, a brand owned along with other brands, and conveniently situated next to a medical practice established by a pharmacist ...

Enough of feeble attempts at ironies, Little sense, and less light, advanced the latest angle on climate science (coming from the party of big miners), suggesting the country resist taking any action in relation to climate change for the next few decades so that we might instead do some more research, because we can never have enough research to justify doing absolutely nothing, or if provoked to action, nuking the country with modern SMRs coming to a corner store near you at a time yet to be devised.

Meanwhile, on another planet ... Fears many Australians will abandon home insurance as premiums jump 50% in high-risk areas: "Median premiums across all areas rose 28% in the year to March, and actuaries warn climate disasters are driving them to unaffordable heights".

Back on planet Little to be proud about, it would seem that this great effort had the immortal Rowe also watching, as Littleproud (but much to be smug) managed to stick his little foot in it yet again, with Maui still smouldering...

As always it's in the details ...

The pond expects the reptiles will be busy this day furiously polishing that turd sandwich and offering it up to readers garnished with glee, but the pond is off into the heart of Victorian darkness, and contemplating the reptile turd polishers can safely be saved for another day ...