In which the pond contemplates many ironies, from Peter Westmore to the bromancer to a seat in the Security Council to the pitiful, tragic choices on offer to NSW voters ...

As well as a taste for homicidal rages, psychopathic murder, and holocausts, and a hatred of women's rights and certain food stuffs, the long lost lord has a wicked sense of humour, and a love of irony and hypocrisy.

And She's given them to one Peter Westmore in spades.

There's nothing else to be said after reading Catholic crusader Peter Westmore blesses daughter's gay marriage in New Zealand, except to nominate Westmore for the pond's ultimate prize, the Golden Loon award, to sympathise with the daughter, and to wonder how the NCC can bear the thought of New Zealand sliding into such a dun of unuqutuy as to rival Sodom ... or perhaps Gomorrah ...

But hark, the pond is not the only one to invoke Her in their thoughts today. This in Australia's allegedly leading newspaper:

If there was a god, She'd surely smote mightily the reptiles for this epically stupid splash of "with god on our side", which is actually just promoting a commercial game of paddling ball with bat ...

But at least it explains where the reptiles get their climate science from ... with god on their side ...

Meanwhile, it seems that a few readers were puzzled as to the answer to this question

It seems, if the pond might pose as Humpty Dumpty for a minute, a question that's easily answered. A liar must do what a professional, born liar must do, and remember the tale of the frog and the scorpion ... and please no question as to who's the scorpion in the yarn ...

And while we're on the headlines, it seems petrol heads are in mourning that some no name ning nong, a legend in his own lunchtime, has got the sack from the BBC for being a violent verbal and physical bully.

The pond only notes it because it will no doubt have caused little Timmy Bleagh deep pain and suffering - oh the ratbag petrol head rabid fundie righties do love their work place bullies and chairman Rupert - and to boast that the pond has never watched an episode of anything featuring the nonentity ... (see how we failed to mention the bully's name or his program's title?)

Speaking of people with delusions of grandeur, it was also pleasing to see that Twiggy "the cartel card man" - let the serfs live according to my stern injunctions - managed to reveal himself as a comprehensive idiot this morning, having gazed on OPEC and decided it was good and just and so:

Again there's nothing to say, except note that it shows that filthy rich folk like Twiggy - let the peasants have no fun on my card watch and eat three vegies and a little meat each day - remember arbeit macht frei - don't seem to understand much of anything to do with the law, and perhaps shouldn't be let out on the lawn, without a gaggle of legal eagle advisers in attendance, checking every word written and spoken ...

The pond is thinking about issuing its own Twiggy card rationing the number of words Twiggy might spend on any issue in a week, perhaps a month, better still a year ... but then how could he make a bid for the Golden Loon of the year award for his Twiggy card endeavours?

But with the sob and sorrowful sight of a mock turtle, the pond must once again report for duty on reptile watch.

But first a little background research is required, which will lead readers to Dr Rachel Stevens in the Sydney Morning Herald on 2nd February, 2012, scribbling No, the Fraser era was not a golden age for asylum seekers. Here's a sample:

Now the point of Stevens' piece was to swing it around to contemplate current attitudes and rhetoric:

In 1981, immigration minister Ian Macphee warned the House of Representatives that a ''boat load of illegal immigrants'' was approaching Australia ''under the guise of refugees fleeing Vietnam''. 
The following year, Macphee concluded ''that a proportion of people now leaving their homelands were doing so to seek a better way of life rather than to escape from some form of persecution''. He argued that to accept these boat people as refugees ''would in effect condone queue jumping''. 
The resettlement of the Vietnamese refugees was an unfamiliar challenge for the Fraser government, just a few years after the formal abolition of the White Australia Policy. The government was resistant, ambivalent and at times pragmatic in responding to the Vietnamese refugee crisis. 
The fact that Australia struggled with the arrival of these asylum seekers was symptomatic of an insecure nation threatened by Asian penetration, an anxiety that has influenced the national psyche since the mid-19th century. Unfortunately, this anxiety continues to inform asylum seeker policy today.

Remember that was back in 2012, and well enough known by anyone who lived through the times ...

Well yes, but you won't find any such thoughts in the bromancer's piece on the subject in the lizard Oz today, some three years after that piece appeared in Fairfax.

Instead the bromancer used the occasion, and Stevens' work to sink the boot into Malcolm Fraser. The pond was wondering when the slagging off of Fraser would begin in conservative circles - how cold he'd have to be in the ground - and the answer came quickly:

But you won't find a word about that anxiety continuing to inform asylum seeker policy today in the bromancer's piece. Instead there's just the slagging:

Now there's some interesting stuff in there, not least the way the bromancer boasts of being an activist for the NCC, the very same mob which the marvellous Westmore now chairs, and along the way there's also some wonderfully rich stuff about "doing the right thing", and the shame of calling genuine refugees economic migrants.

And a little further along there's talk of Australia "behaving decently", albeit reluctantly:

So where's the lesson Stevens drew? Where's the talk of Iraqi and Afghan refugees, wanting to flee a country turned into a mess by an axis of weevils (the very same weevils that have also helped turn Libya and Syria)? Where's the denunciation of Australia's current unusual and cruel treatment of refugees, dressed up as idle abuse of the lot of them as economic refugees? A policy that can be shared by both the major parties ... but pursued with exceptional vigour by the current government, who also set the pace in opposition ...

Will we see in a few years a headline saying Tony Abbott was no saint for Iraqi and Afghan refugees?

Not likely. You won't see any of that in the commentariat reptile columnist's column in the lizard Oz today and there's little chance it will turn up in the future...

There's a couple of other ironies that should be noted today.

One's predictable:

Well with god on our side, of course She's going to allow us to keep on burning the coal.

The other's just delicious:

Remember back in the day when you could read on an almost daily basis the nattering negativity of Abbott on such matters, including this piece in Fairfax, Scrap UN security council bid: Abbott?

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said it was not a good use of taxpayers' money in tough economic times. "There are vastly higher priorities for Australia right now than pursuing a seat on the security council," he told reporters in Melbourne, adding that dropping the bid would save $5.7 million this financial year. 
The nation was $57 billion in deficit, and heading towards $90b in debt, so spending had to be restrained, he said.

Such stupidities got him power, and now all he and his chums can hope is that people forget the stupidities ...

But not the pond, which cherishes the stupidities and the resulting back flips ...

Moving right along, the pond now turns to parochial matters, because it's only two sleeps before the pond gets to vote for the Happy Birthday party in the state election.

The Daily Terror has reached a fever pitch of excitement and has turned positively uxorious about the west (inner west latte sippers not welcome):

Why this nonsense? Why does Whittaker keep offering free hand jobs to the west, apart from the way the Terror perceives it as the demographic offering the last hope for its tabloid gutter sporting ways?

Well the Bolter's accompanying piece provides the answer:

Yes, they're all at it today:

Savva doesn't seem to appreciate the way the anti-Abbott sentiment has already rubbed off on the NSW premier.

For all the talk about Baird welcoming Abbott - he was much more talkative about that than about doing deals behind closed doors with Chinese players - the reality has played out very differently.

Abbott has been a no show during the campaign. He didn't get to speak during the launch and he's been mute ever since, such that big Mal was wheeled in to do the robocall voice for marginal seats, as can be read in Liberals snub Tony Abbott by wheeling out Malcolm Turnbull for assault on marginal state seats - if only the pond lived in a marginal Liberal seat so it could abuse the robotic big Mal and his fraudband and his support for Stasi land.

If Baird wins, it will be called a victory for Abbott, but that will be a lie.

Meanwhile, the magic water man is outraged at the pond's desire to vote for the Happy Birthday Party.

Which joyously assumes there's been no mischief or skulduggery amongst the two major parties. Like backroom deals with Chinese players, so hush hush no one dare speak its name or scheduled meeting time, or CSG licenses issued willy nilly, or electoral fraud in the central coast, or scams in Newcastle, or bottles of red wine, or just plain greedy corruption, or all the rest of the scandals that have plagued both major parties these past few years ...

What a stupid man Sheehan is. No wonder he fell for the magic water scam ...

Which leaves just time for a few cartoons on this very subject, thanks to Pope, more Pope here, and First Dog, at the Graudian here:

Now to decode this one, you first must know about Sydney's bin chickens, the noble white ibis, also known as "tip turkeys". Now read on, and if you refuse to shed a tear for NSW, why you must be a toad or a garden state hater:

In the lull before the budget storm, there's just time to celebrate Singapore, and establish Stasi land ...

(Above: Bishopgate rolls on thanks to Pope, and more Pope here).

Look at that pensioner scarper from Mathias, dropping his cane while he runs. Run pensioner run ... what fun it is to mug a pensioner as a way to start the day and get the budget into shape...

But the chortling with glee led the pond to a sickening realisation.

You see, the pond spends so much time covering the howling, whining, moaning commentariat that there's rarely time to take pleasure in a useful piece of scribbling. Each day is usually a din of noise worse than a dog kennel, with all sorts of dog consorters barking at the moon.

Come on down Ross Gittins, you old curmudgeon, please the pond:

It's here at Fairfax and what a blast from the past it is.

Ever since the 'funding religious indoctrination is good and just and right and proper and so' got accepted by both major parties long ago, there's very few in the mainstream media that bother to put their head above the parapets and bother the god botherers, for fear of having their head knocked off.

Why immediately there'd be charges of sectarianism, with the charge being led by the likes of that prattling Polonius, Hendo.

Few dare challenge the Ponzi scheme that is the Catholic church, or its acquisition of property, or the way its voracious appetite for taxpayer funding is matched by other schools, some of a deeply fundamentalist persuasion.

Yet the points that Gittins makes are unexceptional, more the bleeding obvious:

If you were a pollie, which would you choose: risk being preached against on the Sunday before election day, or be photographed beside a beaming archbishop as you sign the deal?  
Recognising the Catholics' superior bargaining power, the other religious and independent schools tend to ride on their coat-tails. 
Late last month the Catholic Education Commission announced that in the NSW election campaign it would "play an advocacy role in the interests of students, parents and teachers in the Catholic education sector". Catholic schools are leading the charge in asking for more public funds. Catholic schools are leading the charge in asking for more public funds. 
Its "key policy issue" is that, in the light of the expected growth in the number of schoolchildren, the state government "must increase its capital funding to Catholic schools to help Catholic schools enrol their share of this growth".

By article's end, Mr Gittins expresses the pious hope that NSW politicians won't fall for the pleas of Catholics out for yet another grab of taxpayer funding:

For religious or other groups to say they have school facilities they wish to make available for the education of kids - kids of their own choosing in locations of their own choosing - is one thing. For those groups to argue governments have an obligation to subsidise their provision of additional facilities so their share of the overall school population doesn't drop is quite another.

But both the contenders for the NSW crown have yammered on at length about their faith-based approach to policy-making.

So good luck with all that Mr Gittins. What's the bet the pollies will glad hand the Catholics and in the process feel obliged to fund all the other fundamentalists with their begging bowls?

Every so often the pond feels that the best late career strategy might be to set up a Free Church of the Flying Pastafarian, and demand government subsidies for helping free the minds of children. Healthy minds and healthy stomachs, and a free bowl of mystical spaghetti a day ...

How about it Mr Gittins, feel like chipping in to fund a chaplain or three? Oh never mind, we'll just approach the federal government, Tony's sure to understand.

Meanwhile, back in reptile la la land, the reptiles were shocked and appalled that the ABC hadn't joined in the universal reptile celebration of the joys of a soft dictatorship designed to turn a town into a nice little family shop.

How the reptiles shed tears - they routinely shed them for all the tin pot dictators doing the rounds of Asia, no doubt inspired by their very own tin pot dictator, the Chairman:

Shocking stuff, Oz editorialist. How right you are to be indignant and outraged.

The pond was frankly appalled that when listening to the ABC, all we could hear was this sort of shocking tribute, reproduced under the outrageous headline Lee Kuan Yew Warned Australia Could Be the White Trash of Asia:

Mr Lee was a much loved figure in Singapore, but Professor Cotton said his legacy remained a mixed one. 
"There's absolutely no question that he and his people dominate the show completely," he said. 
"I mean, ask any Singapore taxi driver — the standard expression that they have for Singapore is 'Lee Jiating dian', which means 'the Lee family shop'. 
"They'll use that expression and they'll usually burst into laughter, because it captures the reality of Singapore more than anything else."

The pond would love to burst into laughter, but then always remembers that Singtel owns Optus, the ISP the pond uses, and surely it's the most half-assed, useless ISP doing the rounds, with the always grand exception of Telstra.

One of the more wondrous routines in Australia is to deplore the way inefficient governments hold on to assets, and to praise the efficiency of the private sector holding said assets ... then selling them off to an allegedly private sector company which is in fact a front for a foreign government.

But if you point out the bleeding obvious - like Optus being owned by Temasek Holdings, which is the investment arm of the Singapore government - you're immediately accused of racism, rather than indulging in a whimsical 'Alice down the hole' observation of the bizarre realities of Australian politics ...

Roll on Chinese government business fronts ... Australian assets await your benevolent private sector efficiencies ...

Meanwhile, there's a nervousness and skittishness in the air at reptile la la land.

There's the election in NSW and while it seems like a shoo-in, you never know, and the only poll that counts is the poll on the day, and while the pond will maintain its policy of voting for the Happy Birthday Party, who knows what the rest of the great unwashed might do.

Already the alarmists are rushing into print warning of the dangers:

A letter from John Howard? That's guaranteed to help the pond make up its mind ...

And then there's the impending federal budget with all its difficulties and dangers, and what with it being master-minded by jolly Joe and the Terminator's assistant, it could well turn into a major clunker.

Well it'll either do nothing about the blow out - what fun can be had with all the old talk of budget emergencies and a budget crisis of unimaginable proportions - which have suddenly and amazingly turned into promises that absolutely no horses will be startled, and all will be dull and well, and never you mind about irreconcilable contradictions.

Well let's face it, pensioners are too old and silly to be startled by the news that they'll be shaken down to save the day for jolly Joe ...

The reptiles have responded by wheeling out a one time cynic to express contrition and hope:

 
If you're googling you'll find it as Dreadful Newspoll numbers no doubt, but there's hope for PM.

True to title, van Onselen goes through the poll figures finding nuggets of joy and gems of hope, and the Oracle ends up seeing hope in the runes:

Be still beating heart, don't flutter those tremulous wings just yet, soon enough, soon enough jolly Joe will get to his feet and bring the glad tidings to the nation.

Oh sure the business of the last budget isn't complete.

Oh sure the federal government is about to introduce Stasi land without having the foggiest about how much it will cost, except for the absolute certainty that ISPs will charge the taxpayers more for their fraudband, and the government will also help them out, by splashing taxpayer cash at the ISPs.

What's hundreds of millions, except a little spare change?

Aren't we lucky we'll be able to store all the data cheaply on an Asian server, perhaps somewhere deep in China?

Yes, the pond for its sins was out and about last night listening to ABC's news radio and the committee sessions in the Senate on the Stasi land bill, featuring gorgeous George, his bookcase and library, responding to the questions of Senators Leyonhjelm and Ludlum with his typically barely suppressed hints of arrogance, impatience and condescension ...

There was, for example, the question of which agencies might access the metadata, and what uses they might make of it.

And when it all was boiled down, the answer was 'trust us' and trust the agencies to make decisions based on the prioritisation of their resources and tasks of the day.

The notion of trusting George Brandis, or big Mal, or any of the other Ministers doing the rounds in this area suddenly filled the pond with a deep distrust. Thank the long absent lord for the trusty, reliable VPN ...

Meanwhile, we can expect a lot more stories along the lines of the Graudian's Greens' Scott Ludlam provides tips on how to hide metadata from government.

Who knows how it will play out today, but the pond is routinely shocked that it seems only the likes of a libertarian or a greenie dare to ask the government sensible questions, and for their pains get stonewalling and insouciance ...

The upshot? The pond reckons the main result of the government's attempt to turn Australia into Stasi land, with the connivance and assistance of zinger Bill and his cohort, will be an increasing sophistication and awareness on the part of those using phones and the full to overflowing intertubes.

Now not everyone need adopt the pond's policy of only using cash. Let the supermarkets get their big data from other mug punters, there's no way that they're going to be able to track the pond's consumer habits with their totally useless card schemes.

But if you're not a paranoid like the pond, aware of the facts of the big data manipulations going down these days, at least users should think twice before giving details to anyone about anything.

Enough already.

You see the pond has been recently having much trouble with its Optus service, and this morning's post has only been put together courtesy of a little barbed wire, a stocking, string, sealing wax and an elephant's ear.

So we'll have to cut short the celebration of the reptiles celebrating the way the federal government is moving Australia a step closer to Singapore in terms of its supervision of its unruly citizenry.

How the reptiles will dance and clap hands with glee.

And now there's just time, and enough sealing wax and string left, to end with a Moir cartoon, and more Moir here:

In which the pond uses naughty words to berate the political correctness of little Timmie Bleah and dumb Caterists and upstart pandering James McCann ...

(Above: and if you dare visit the home of the tyrannoboltersaurus, there's more Knight at the HUN here).

Now that eyerollgate - or should it be sighgate? - is behind us, it seems we can relax, and the foreign aid budget is safe from further cuts.

It marks a new advance in democracy - policy as a kind of domestic, with a poodle chortling and yapping on the sidelines ...

But that leaves the budget in peril. What other areas might be right for cutting?

Steady, get around behind, no way, what were you thinking?

That's called droit de seigneur, whereby politicians get rorts and junkets while fucking the country, and fucking the old, the young and the helpless and the weak to pay for the pleasure ...

Of course it was the bromancer himself that created the brouhaha, and ensured that another area of the budget would experience a back flip before the original flip was ever performed in public ...

Today the bromancer has been called away on important hagiographic duties ...

Why is it that Murdoch journalists love profoundly corrupt dictators, who build a nation state into a family shop so they can pilfer at their leisure, and let anyone who lets them pilfer have a share in the pilfering, but in the same breath, brook absolutely no opposition?

Why is the pond routinely so dumb? As if 'Murdoch journalist' didn't explain everything when it comes to the love of soft and firm dictatorships ...

Why is it that alleged liberals just love government intervention, and the more burdensome and onerous the better? Yep from Stasi land to bludger card:

Now the pond grew up in a deeply alcoholic family, and is ready at any time to tell Twiggy that he doesn't have the foggiest clue about vulnerability or welfare issues. The pond's grandfather would have sold the pond's grandmother for a hit of grog, and regularly pawned the family's few treasures, and no welfare card would have stopped it.

Why is it that stupid wealthy people always think they know better for their inferiors? On and on Twiggy yammers, denying he's being paternal, while trotting out a form of paternalism that's a reminder of the 'kraft durch freude' days in other lands ... (okay that's a schilling for the Godwin's Law swear jar).

But enough, because the pond - routinely being in touch with the zeitgeist - is aware that today marks the beginning of an important cultural shift... unless it happens to be a tired repetition of old tropes and memes ...

It started in the Oz with the thoughts of a try hard wannabe comedian who had previously passed under the pond's radar but now sees career advancement in pandering to cultural warriors.

Take it away Mr McCann:

Stop right there Mr McCann. You see, you're not being funny, and what on earth do you mean scribbling "closeted attacks on Pyne"?

Where the pond comes from, closet has a particular significance, but out in the world, there's nothing closeted about opinions of the poodle.

Why even the poodle thinks the poodle is a cosmic Star Wars joke, and that was funny enough to double its viewership since the pond last looked at it here.

Do you realise you're sounding like a typical whiner and moaner and whinger? And if your idea of clever remarks is an episode of Are You Being Served?, we can end the discussion right there ...

Fulminations? Is that a funny word?

You see, Mr. McCann the problem with calling someone Dr Goebbels is that it isn't clever and it isn't funny.

It might have been funny when Basil Fawlty strutted around imitating Hitler and urging everyone not to mention the war, but lordy lordy, the episode The Germans was ep 6 of series 1 back in - be still aging heart - 1975!

In fact, if you can come up with a decent comedy riff, you can still be offensive. After all Micallef has made a career changing move with zinger Bill.

What's guaranteed to stoke the pond's ire is humourless twits railing at humourless progressives in a way that shows a lamentable lack of humour ...

Besides, we already have plenty of lower order comedians, like little Timmie Bleagh ...

Bleagh routinely fancies himself a funny man, but really you'd have to be a petrol sniffer to get off on some of his jokes (is that why he's a petrol head?)

Yesterday the Bleagh strutted and preened in the Daily Terror:

Yes, little Timmie was taking a stand against wicked women like that crabby Crabb, but here's where it got funny. Pay attention Mr McCann:

You see, it's not enough to be a fucking idiot who makes a fucking joke about fuckin dare ya, you have to somehow in the deepest recesses think it's a fucking joke. And possibly fucking funny at that, a side splitter, a rib tickler, a bone shaker ...

And then  to quote a journalist who couldn't even write arse... and that wondrous climate scientist James Delingpole  at that...

And then little Timmie has the cheek to moan about a level of hypersensitivity ...

Nope, it just wasn't fucking funny, it was juvenile, it was pathetic. It's like calling Tim Blair little Timmie Bleagh and expecting a laugh.

Adolescent, Tamworth school playground stuff ...

Now maybe if we wheeled in Tiny Tim to sing it, with banjo and daffodils ... well at least Martin Sharp would have enjoyed it if he'd still been around ...

But the reason the pond knew the game was really afoot was that today it was Caterist day, and yes, that stolid dumb Englishman was harping in the same humourless way about the same political correctness stuff ...

PC stifles vital debate? Tony Abbott sounding silly about paddies is a vital fucking debate?

Instead we just cop more of the usual stuff about earnest progressives and humourlessness from a man who strikes the pond as being a contender for a top ten position as one of the most dour, humourless, dull men on the planet ...

Why he makes a Dr Johnson joke about Scotchmen and porridge seem positively modern.

Let's see how he goes with the rest of his comedy stylings ...

Stop right there. This whole piece is just an excuse to borrow an English git blathering on about issues so he can promote his Channel 4 documentary?

And somehow racism is now not just biological racism but also cultural matters racism? Which presumably means racism now covers not just religion, but also men angry at divorce laws, feminists, gay rights activists and fundamentalist homophobics?

And what is the heart of the issue that we're prevented from reaching by the imprecise rules of political correctness?

That Caterists are dim-witted, thin-skinned Pommie gits?

Oh enough already. Is there a single intentionally funny, clever comedy line in the entire piece?

Scan away if you have the strength:

Yes, okay, the pond will cede the line that the Poms must be more ready to offend each other is a bit of a rib cracker. As if they haven't been offending themselves, the world, the Scottish and the Irish for centuries ...

Anyone who has a cricket team as bad as the English must surely be ready to be offensive, since even that came to the pond's attention, and what the pond knows or cares about cricket could be written on the head of a pin by an inattentive angel ...

But was it intentional? Or was it just more of the stuffed shirt rhetoric that thankfully gave rise to Monty Python, routinely criticised by conservatives as being offensive?

What's that you say? The Pythons first went to air in 1969? Be still aging heart and bless the cheesemakers ...

Well just for good form we should read the rest of yet another whining, whinging, moping Caterist outburst, the chief complaint of which seems to be that he wants to be funny about race but he doesn't know how:

:
Don't you just love the logic in that first par? We need a candid discussion about the problem of having all these darkies in the country, and the pesky blacks being difficult, just so we can tamp down on such candid discussions because they might lead to an insular, jingoistic political force coalescing around the reptiles in the lizard Oz ...

But the pond has to hand it to the Caterists. That last bit quoting Joseph K - as the Caterists brand of preferred government moves to implement a metadata regime which will turn the country into a Stasi land - is one of the funniest lines the pond has read in recent times.

Yes, head off to shoot Tim Soutphommasane, while the metadata laws are rammed home, with the help of zinger Bill.

But was the comedy intentional? Or did the Caterist think he was making a serious point?

Either way, he totally misses the point ... because journalists and others will soon enough be living in a real Joseph K land ...

And in that context, it would be remiss not to mention how the supine media, including the Caterists, have rolled over, while it's been left to the program they all hate, Media Watch, to point out the bleeding obvious here.

Yes, there's some wonderful Catch 22s in that piece, along with the reminder that bloggers and citizen journalists and whistleblowers will have no protection whatsoever from patrolling police ...

And all the dimwit Caterists can do is carry on about their right to abuse Islamic fundamentalism, as if there's any problem asserting that Islamic fundamentalists, along with Catholic fundies, talking in tongues Scott Morrison fundies, Scientological fundies and every other brand of Calathumpian fundie is barking mad, using talk of pie in the sky in the bye and bye to do really stupid or malicious things in the present ...

Speaking of which, and moral gnats, there's just time to wrap up with a Pope cartoon, and more Pope here.

In which the tyrannoboltersaurus reveals to the pond the truth about the deviant dangerously greenie Chinese Communist Party ... with bonus support from the ineffable 5th Viscount Ridley ...

That's what happens when you get a stupid, vain poodle too silly to realise what a vain, stupid poodle he is.

Yes, like 78,000 and a few others the pond went off to YouTube to see Star Wars Fixed, and it's cleverly done. What's astonishing is that the vain poodle should link to it.

Doesn't he realise what a smirking arsehat it makes him out to be, or does he enjoy being a smirking arsehat so much that it's all so much water off the poodle's fur?

But on to more serious matters.

The pond was tootling about in Sydney last night, listening to the BBC (sometimes known as Al Jazeera, much more rarely known as the actual ABC) when disturbing news came on the air ...

The story is encapsulated in the Beeb headline Climate change: China official warns of huge impact':

Mr Zheng, the head of China's meteorological administration, said warming temperatures exposed his country to a growing "risk of climate change and climate disasters". 
He said temperature rises in China had already been higher than the global average for the past century. 
These are rare admissions from a Chinese official, BBC Asia analyst Michael Bristow says. 
China's leaders have acknowledged the damage from global warming but they usually do not lay out the full scale of the problems. 
Mr Zheng warned of more droughts, rainstorms, and higher temperatures, which would threaten river flows and harvests, as well as major infrastructure projects such as the Three Gorges Dam. He urged China to pursue a lower-carbon future. 
"To face the challenges from past and future climate change, we must respect nature and live in harmony with it," the Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying. 
"We must promote the idea of nature and emphasise climate security.

You can see why the pond was alarmed.

Surely this had to be a Beeb beat up, being full of leftie greenies as it is, so the pond rushed off to the South China Post to see if this really was the news from the mainland, and sure enough Top meteorologist Zheng Guoguan warns of climate change risks to China:

The mainland's top weather official has issued a stark warning on climate change, saying that rising temperatures could have "huge impacts" on the world's most populous country, state media reported on Sunday. 
Global climate change would reduce crop yields, lead to "ecological degradation" and create unstable river flows, Xinhua quoted Zheng Guoguang , chief of China's Meteorological Administration, as saying. "As the world warms, risks of climate change and climate disasters to China could become more grave," Zheng said.

Naturally the pond was still disbelieving, so it raced off to another source here:

Relax, the pond couldn't make head or tail of it, but just wanted to include it as a service for the pond's many readers on the mainland.

Instead we relied on good old Google translate:

By golly the pond felt like signing up to a TAFE course right away ...

Luckily before the pond could get too traumatised, we turned to the world's greatest living climate scientist, the tyrannoboltersaurus, and he immediately explained that in fact the Chinese government was riddled with greenies of the worst greenie kind, and that all this talk of socialism with a capitalist face was just a discreet cover.

It seems that these rabid greenies had swallowed the international climate science conspiracy lock, stock and barrel. They were using climate change as a way of helping the UN introduce world government - apparently there's a manufacturer in Guangdong province with an exclusive contract to supply black helicopters - and once the world government is installed, it's going to rule that the disputed islands are split 50-50, so that China and Japan can settle the matter without loss of face ...

Of course the pond could just have been taking really bad drugs, and was off on a Dali-esque surreal dream, but there was even better news this day, because the Australian government and the reptiles at the lizard Oz were on the case:

Well that's amazing news, and what joy that Sid Maher was assigned the job of writing the press release for the government and Greg Hunt and what's more, getting to call it an exclusive.

Talk about a dream job. You can be both a reptile hack reporter and a government Greg Hunt hack all in one exclusive go ...

But what's that you say? It's an exercise in futility, and a total waste of money and time?

Yes, the reptiles can't help themselves. Oh sure the news might be good as the economy spirals into gloom:

One significant factor is lower demand for electricity, which ­accounts for 33 per cent of Australia’s total carbon emissions and has cut 32 million tonnes from Australian emissions since 2008. This has been driven by solar rooftop panels, the closure of electricity-intensive industries such as aluminium smelters and consumers lowering demand because of higher electricity prices. 
Other factors driving emissions reductions include: worse-than-expected agricultural con­ditions because of drought; lower manufacturing output because of industrial closures; and weaker growth expectations for local coal production because of a fall in international coal prices.

... uh huh, it's looking good ... because the government's driving industry into the ground, and they're being helped out by the solar energy they hate, and by punishing consumers with higher electricity prices, which sounds suspiciously like a carbon tax in drag.

Never mind, trust the reptiles?

Sure can, because immediately beneath Maher pumping up the volume for Greg Hunt came a classic piece from a classic denialist who refuses to call himself a denialist because climate change is happening - it happens all the time - it just doesn't happen to be a problem.

With their unerring nose for sniffing out this sort of stuff, the reptiles went off to sister rag The Wall Street Journal where this sort of denialism happens all the time:

How lucky that Matt Ridley was to hand once again to call out those dangerous Chinese radical greenies and their nonsense.

But truth to tell, the pond really only mentions Matt Ridley because above all the pond should be fun, and can there be any more a preposterous ponce, git and British lord than said Ridley?

If you google his name, you'll come to a blog with this wondrous smackdown summarising a previous Ridley piece put behind the paywall of that other Murdoch rag, The Times:

Now for the links and for the actual assault on Ridley on the two highlighted key points you have to head off to Testing Matt Ridley's Hypotheses About Global Warming. And if you want to know why Bob Ward is so difficult, why not head off to IPCC corrects claim suggesting climate change would be good for the economy - not that this has stopped "Northern Rock" Ridley from parroting exactly the same line in later efforts.

The pond, being devoted to lizard la la land, will simply replicate the rest of Ridley's piece, and the reward is to see how much of the above comedy routine is once again replicated below, as Ridley urges coal, coal, coal (or maybe oil, oil, oil) all the way:

Uh huh. So the IPCC does agree with him!

Now Ridley is much loved by climate denialists - some say he is to England and Rupert Murdoch what the tyrannoboltersaurus is to Australia and Rupert Murdoch - and he routinely turns up in Skeptical Science - for those who can be bothered, they can wade through any number of posts here.

All the pond can do is admire the way the reptiles of Oz applaud Greg Hunt for achieving the impossible dream, while just below us reminding the world of the futility of the policy, because after all climate science is crap.

Oops, the one thing that won't work is a direct action policy funding crony capitalists!

Who let that loon out of the British House of Lords ...?

Meanwhile, seemingly on another planet, Arctic sea ice reaches lowest maximum extent on record.

Now unfortunately Ridley has distracted the pond from the daily task of reptile review, but rest assured for anyone who wants to google around the paywall there are plenty of pleasurable distractions.

How about this one?

So it's not just the pond that's on bad drugs. 

So the Liberal party should do more to recognise the legacy of Malcolm Fraser. 

Hmm, how to do it? How about everyone leave the party like life member Fraser did in 2009? By golly, that'd be fair recognition and paying due honour to the old boy. Abolish the sell-out party, as he wanted ...

And then perhaps haunted by these events, poor old desiccated coconut Henry Ergas dreamed he was back in the 1970s:

And it would be remiss of the pond not to note that finally someone persuaded Abbott to shut up:

Oh dear, and it would have been a splendid opportunity to mention the Nazi party while eating an onion.

Meanwhile, the bland, dull, nothing to see here budget is simmering along nicely.

Time then for a cartoon or two ... fortunately without the poodle, even in a cameo role ...

(Below: and more Moir here).