In which the reptiles go fishing for coal yet again with the Fisher man ...

 

Talk about a crisis in reptile confidence, down there with forgetting lines and drying on stage …

What could the reptiles possibly do with the new SloMo "plan", a pitiful re-run of the onion muncher's notions?

Nothing much, came the answer.

Anyone interested could spot it down the page on the tree killer edition, exeunt bottom right, below the reptiles worrying about the banks …because everyone loves and cares about the banks so …though the banks and the dawn service probably seemed like the best way of hiding the bad poll news … one scare campaign down, and Simon left to conduct the funeral rites …

It was left to Lloydie to rise to the challenge and make something of of the "new" climate policy, and build it up big …

Of course Lloydie is usually more comfortable recycling IPA propaganda, and scribbling climate science denialist drivel, so it was a tough ask …but no doubt he lathered up reams and reams of slobbering support ...

That's it, that's all, he wrote? ...

Pathetic, really, but then it's a tough sell.

After explaining all these years why climate science is a nonsense, and clean dinkum true blue Oz coal is the planet's salvation, it takes an incredibly resourceful actor to emanate sincerity …

Alas, poor coal lover, we knew him well ...

Is that a lump I see before me?

And what of the Surry Hills 'leet? How could they adjust their performance? Here the pond thought stagecraft might provide an answer. Should they go full, glowering Marlon method? Or should they adopt the blithe insouciance of Larry, and why not try acting ... just act, dear boy, just act …

The Swiss bank account man didn't bother with any method nonsense … he stayed honest and true, by explaining that climate science is little more than mindless stupidity ...

And there was a parade of like minds, with the dog botherer out and about …and naturally it was all the fault of the ABC ...

Apparently in the valley of the twits, the one-eyed dog botherer is king … and what you know, Brian Fisher was dusted off yet again ...

For those who came in late to the story, the pond felt the need to re-run a piece it borrowed from Crikey what seems like aeons ago …

Ah that feels better, how good to be back in 2001, the pond feels a lot livelier.

And better still, there's only a short gobbet of the minor war criminal to go ...

Never mind, this is a major day for the reptiles. The government announces its new climate policy, the reptiles bury it, and all the loons come out on stage, and the pond must pay attention …

Why there's the Caterist, going all Larry, and suddenly pretending he gives a flying fuck about emissions and climate and all the rest of it …

Well he could hardly go method, could he? He's an honest thespian, with government cash in the paw for his performance, and he'll do it all like a survivor of repertory in provincial England …

And what do you know, that Crikey piece will still come in handy ...

Fisher, Fisher, Fisher … what a murmuration of fuckwits, all chanting the same song. But it makes performing easy. No chance of going dry. Prompt, next line … oh just say Fisher … or perhaps blather a bunch of meaningless statistics so mind boggling  that you'll have them rolling in the aisles ...

Um, actually, if they read the lizard Oz, they'd be reminded on a daily basis that BoM is a conspiracy, climate science a hoax and a fraud and the IPA the shining light on the hill …and the Caterists would be out there chanting along that there's no such thing as global warming, so why do anything …and yet, suddenly the wretched tosser wants us to believe he gives a flying toss ...

Dear sweet long absent lord, it must be hard to take to the stage day after day to explain what a nonsense climate science is, and then get back up and explain how the lizards of Oz are ably assisting the federal government to produce an astonishing policy response to climate science … and everything's for the best in a warming world, which isn't actually warming, but never mind, just for the sake of the argument and the performance, we must pretend that it is ...

Naturally the pond saved the best performance to last … if you're going to go through a three hour plus Oscar ramble, the best picture must be the last gong to come out … and the Major is surely the best lizard gong of all …(is that why he's so obsessed with lost medals?)

Of course a reptile never forgets … climate science is a hoax, and the future is dinkum clean Oz true blue coal, oi, oi, oi ...

So much pain, and all for a hoax, and only the reptiles ready to reveal the hoax and the folly of trying to do anything, because you know, any coal that Australia ships abroad has got nothing to do with anything.

Why for all the exporter knows, they might try to make diamonds as big as the Ritz out of the stuff. Some might burn a little, but what's that got to do with us?

Yes, follow the logic. China is the largest emitter, and much of that will be fired by Australian coal, but Australia is doing nothing to make things worse, because … climate science is a hoax, and the Chinese know it, and it's all a conspiracy, and besides …

Yes, Crikey spotted it, but got the detail a little wrong …

Surely it should be the Oz Fishers …

Oh to the Major, still back in the good old days, when a scare campaign meant something and the enemies were clear - the wicked Fairfaxians, the derelict ABC, and the humbug Graudian was just a foreign gleam in the eye - and a few bits of coal dust were likely to send these wretches into a cry-baby funk …

How times have changed. Who could imagine it, a time when the reptiles could suddenly find it in their hardened hearts to cheer on the CFMEU and its bullying tactics, because anyone who loves coal is a friend of the lizard Oz … especially if it helps the scare campaign, what with the boats and the mutton Dutton and border security apparently a bit of a fizzle …

Yes, the reptiles, the Daily Terror, the lizard Oz and the Major all lining up with the CFMEU to save dear sweet innocent clean dinkum Oz coal ...

Oh fucketty fucketty fuck, how many times is it that the reptiles have trotted out Brian Fisher this day? And did that Crikey reminder come in handy or what?

Yes, it's coal, coal, coal, oi, oi, oi, the murmuration of loons mumble in a method way …

No improvisation is allowed, stick to the script, and it's Fisher for us, a fisher for coal and a fisher for denialism, but for the pond, the Major's most singular advance was that at last he'd stopped talking of Fairfax, and instead used the peculiar construction "parts of the Channel Nine media."

Oh you know who you are, parts of the Nine media … you bloody Fairfaxians by another name, with your fiendish coal hating and your wretched attacks on the noble onion muncher, under assault by globalists who dare to drive expensive European cars … as opposed to the honest little Citroën 2CV the Major trundles about in when he's not using his battery-powered bicycle. Say what, it's French … oh, will the globalists ruin everything? 

Now some might think it would have been simpler just to run the Fisher yarn again, instead of all these little Sir Echoes, and some might wonder if the pond understands there's a real world out there, beyond the reptile bubble … 

But reptile obsessions are roughly the same as having a pacifier in the mouth, and everybody loves a pacifier …

If it's not Caroline Overington, it's John Anderson, though being rustic, he prefers to have his thumb in his mouth …

Sorry Jordan, but if you've got a man with a few sheep short in the top paddock as your supporter, no story or reptile splash can possibly redeem you …

Life's about more than happiness? 

Life's about dinkum clean Oz true blue coal, you Canadian loon …you can only get a warm fuzzy feeling from climate science denialism, and if that results in a suffering planet, there's your happiness and your meaning all in one ...

And now, thanks to Rowe, the pond feels the need to note the real world, even if it only involves stand-up comedy on a global scale, with more comedy to be found here …

Yes, we're a long way from plum pudding but clicking on the image will produce a larger slice ...

In which the pond discovers Polonius prattling about Clive before moving on to the singular patterns in the bromancer's brain ...

Friends keep sending the pond snaps of funny things that Clive has been doing lately, and the pond has resolutely refused to run them.

Clive is, in reality, not a comedian but a cockroach of the airwaves, and he conspires to make the pond's time on the YouTubes devouring pirated content more a misery than a pleasure …those bloody ads.

Whenever the braying loon turns up, the pond begins brooding about Tony Jones late at night on the ABC forever soiling his reputation as a journalist, but in good training for the circus sometimes known as Q and no A, but rich in argumentative BS …

Why if it came to the crunch, the pond would rather spend quality time with Lloydie in full climate denialist mode … as when he bobbed up yesterday …

It was of course more distilled essence of Jennifer Marohasy and the IPA and it featured news of a remarkable conspiracy …

A paper on the treatment of the bureau’s Darwin data by Dr Marohasy was accepted for public­ation in one of the world’s premier meteorological journals, but was pulled at the last minute.

And then Lloydie disappeared like a summer breeze and the pond wondered if it should instead have spent time dallying with the dog botherer …

Every rag needs its partisan hack to pretend, in a balanced way, that the game's the thing, but their side is a great team deserving of support and with a winning edge, while trotting out silly sporting metaphors …

Yes game on, ten to win, the Gatling's jammed, the square runs red with blood and cliches and SloMo might yet be a winner and snare the title, hubris and all that, and the dog botherer will have done his duty, brave lad …

What a loyal minor war criminal prat he is …

And then there was our Adam, joyous in his understanding that even if clean dinkum Oz coal went unloved, still, around the world there was genuine, dinkum love for some kind of coal somewhere … any kind of coal, all kinds of coal, some kind somewhere … out there, there's a place for us, peace and quiet, coal laden air, somewhere, time together with sweet coal, time to look, time to care, somewhere ...

Never mind, dinkum clean Oz coal lover devotees, it's enough to know that coal from somewhere, anywhere is also truly beloved by the reptiles of Oz …

But in the end the pond had to come face to face with the awesome reality. 

Sure, prattling Polonius had maintained his rage with the ABC in his media report, but in his weekend release, he'd focussed his laser eye on Clive …

 

Oh fucketty fuck, why couldn't he just have stayed on the ABC, with his honest and open and transparent position in the political spectrum, howling at the moon about the fiendish cardigan wearers' very unique leftist tendencies?

There was nothing for it, but to take the medicine and listen to the history lesson …though it should be noted that only a loon as complete and silly as Polonius could take Clive seriously for a nanosecond …

Ah yes, the pond recalls the dismissal, and as Polonius suggests, there wasn't a hint of instability there, why none at all … but was the pond only saying that to pander to Polonius, in the hope that he might cut it short, while dreading the sense that Polonius was only just starting to wind up and get going ...

By golly, he really does make desiccated coconut seem laden with moisture, and what's the point of this tedious lecture? Does the ancient obsessive seem to think that if he can hold Clive transfixed with his withered finger and baleful gaze that Clive will stop being Clive, and end talk of rebuilding the Titanic?

Suddenly the pond realised the benefit of Polonius's obsession with the ABC … it brought him into some vague connection with the real world. Hitch him up with Clive and it was off to another galaxy ...  

Other pedants will have their fun with Polonius's history lesson. Only the truly deluded will believe that Clive has some connection to Ming the Merciless, and only the truly deluded would think that ancient political party names should be preserved in aspic. If anything, Clive helps establish the lofty level of his delusions of grandeur by his behaviour, and he and his big cash spend will be blown away come the next election…and only a pedant always focussed on the leaves rather than the tree might have some sense of this.

But the gob smacker for the pond was the notion that the UAP government set about rearming Australian in the lead-up to the second world war, and never mind pig iron Bob.

Sure, Polonius knew he sounded stunningly stupid, so he slipped in a modifier, "certainly Lyons and Menzies could have done more in this area", but then he undercut the correction by blathering on about the UAP having a short but successful life. 

Roll on the fall of Singapore, the panic of Darwin, and a country woefully unprepared for what was about to befall it, which is why it turned to the Labor party to try to fix the mess … and frankly if it hadn't been for a few chocolate soldiers woefully under equipped and undertrained, no thanks to the UAP (but thanks to one of the pond's uncles), it could have been a bigger mess than it was …

Thanks Clive, ruining the tubes for the pond, and setting a hare loose in Polonius's brain. Is this the best we can do for a Trumpian model down under?

And speaking of the Donald, the pond felt the need to offer a little light relief after that Polonial folly, and what better way than attending to the bromancer. 

You see, the Donald, who ranges between moronic and narcissistic, is a child of News Corp, so the bromancer must paint the Donald, in a very artistic way, as rich entertainment, a circus, a Broadway musical, a cinematic outing, a splash-up restaurant feast, a child to be indulged and cherished, in his own peculiar way …

The pond should warn that this is a very long circus, a kind of D. W. Griffiths' Birth of a Nation, with suitable southern attitudes embedded in the spirit of the work, so those worn down by Polonius should just toddle off for a cup of tea, and enjoy the free popcorn …

Ah, so that's the trick. Focus on Kim and downplay the Donald and ignore the adulation offered by the Murdochian hounds …

Well at least the pond can do its usual trick of interspersing text with cartoon ...

Admirable really. The Donald isn't a fat-head, even if he is a moron, who prefers the advice of Vlad the impaler to his own team on intelligence matters and just about everything else …

Only a loon as skilled as the bromancer could come up with this sort of half-baked equivocation and soft-peddling …. and weave a skein of truth from naked mendacity …but that's where artistic skill comes into it ...

And now for a little more deflection and distraction …while forgetting the romance between dictators celebrated by Colbert …

That monologue is on YouTube here, hopefully without a Clive ad intruding, but mug punters will carry on with the bromancer's monologue ...

A singular pattern keeps repeating itself with the bromancer.

There's no point looking for verbal consistency. One minute he's very mad at the Donald, but then he softens and melts and whispers sweet nothings …oh the Donald can be naughty, but he can be very good, why he could  be evolving into something grand … a rational human being … capable of almost anything …provided some remotely sane minder is nearby to help with the toilet training ...

And now for yet more of that singular bromancer pattern … he might be mercurial, and yet he might not be mercurial, he might be a moron, but stay, he might be a genius, he might seem unconventional, but in reality he might be very conventional … and there in a nutshell is the singular genius of the bromancer and his singular pattern ...

Yes, the Donald is just like any other US President, and all the prosecutions happening around him are just another sign that Richard Nixon was the most typical President of modern times …

Oh fuck it, the pond just has to have another cartoon before devouring the last gobbet …

Just one to go, but since when has the bromancer taken nattering "Ned" as his inspiration? Is there something about the Donald that brings out the bloviator and the snake oil salesman in him?

Hold the Summit in Vietname to get a Sub-text?: "Look how great economic reform can be for ex-communist nations?"

Didn't the bromancer scribble?: "The Australian intelligence and analysis agencies have long believed the Kim dynasty cannot even embrace serious economic reform along the lines of China, or indeed Vietnam. Once they do that, our agencies have long believed, the Kims begin the end time of their rule."

What the fuck? Why the fuck does he keep pretending he has the first clue? Why does he manage to forget more quickly what he's written than the Donald trying to remember the lie he told a minute before?

More to the point, perhaps, why does the pond keep reading him? Well perhaps it's the fault of Clive, or Polonius, for leaving the pond dissatisfied, or perhaps it's just for the theatre … you know, The Persecution and Assassination of the Pond's Mind, as performed by Inmates of the Reptile Asylum of Surry Hills Under the Direction of the Marquis de Bromancer …

Oh yes there's  theatre and laughs everywhere, and never mind the joke that the Donald is fucking the planet … that's why stand-up comedy is booming ...

In which the pond climbs "Ned's" nattering Everest again ...

The pond woke to the sounds of a “very unique” game of cricket being played, and realised that the ABC, and RN in particular, was determined to drive the pond mad. Suddenly the pond’s interest in reptiliana became understandable - madness had made it so.

Then the NBN decided to have one of its daily outages, thanks be unto Malware, and the pond realised that Malware had also been determined to drive the pond mad. And succeeded.

And so an interest in luddite reptiliana and a love of clean dinkum Oz coal would become grist to the pond’s mill for year upon year.

But that would have to wait. This turned out to be a long outage.

There was nothing to do but sit around and read about Andy Warhol and Henry Miller in an actual tree-killed edition of the NYRB while the gods determined when the broadband might flicker back to life. If the pond had ostentatiously lit a candle, it might have been back in ancient times in the bush, with the very unique sounds of the ABC coming out of the battery-powered radio built to look rather like a large cupboard.

Yes, they were that big, and doubtless you could hear very unique cricket …

The wait turned out to be longer than usual. This was a Malware determined to turn grey hair stone-white mad, while out there in the real world, wired people rushed to and fro, not caring about reptiles, but having a life …perhaps playing a “very unique” game of cricket in South Australia. Not that the pond could check exactly where, because it was off-line, in a Malware cavern of despair …

The pond began to muse at the way that everything the reptile-inspired agenda touched fucked up in some spectacular way, be it the modest matter of broadband in every home, to Brexit, to the Donald to climate science …but that way lay madness and stone-white hair, and what was needed was Buddhist tranquility, but how did that explain the Buddhists full of religious hate in Myanmar?

The pond began to transcribe a little Miller, now thoroughly out of fashion, as something to do:

To walk in money through the night crowd, protected by money, lulled by money, dulled by money, the crowd itself a money, the breath money, no least single object anywhere that is not money, money, money everywhere and still not enough, and then no money or a little money or less money or more money, but money, always money, and if you have money or you don’t have money it is the money that counts and money makes money, but what makes money make money?

Why you could substitute coal or broadband or reptiles or very unique cricket for money and it would make just as much sense … reptiles lulled by coal, reptiles dulled by coal  … and at that moment the pond was saved, as the broadband returned from wherever it went in reptile la la land …and the day’s very unique business could begin.

First an acknowledgement that the pond is not alone in its fascination with the reptiles … this from the Weekly Beast, essential reading for students of reptiliana …

Free speech for Adolf too! There's a lot more, including the Daily Terror's bizarre joining in on the reptiles'  national branding campaign "We're For You", when everyone knows the reptiles' tea; slogan should be, "We're For Coal… and fuck you and the planet for all we care ..."

It was too fucking bizarre, but the pond is glad that Amanda Meade was there to cover the night beat for the Daily, because as usual the pond had other fish to fry, and was like the white rabbit, and running late for the latest news …

Sheesh, the pond should have realised that "We're for you" actually meant "We're for coal and SloMo and fuck you and the planet and all who ride on it …"

Well after the recent China coal scare there were sundry developments.

The Pravda down under did its dutiful duty by publishing the thoughts of a fearless climate denialist leader, and the reptile readers came up with novel suggestions to save the day …

 

Then the hysteria seemed to fade a little, and the reptiles could relax …

But not before Rowe delivered a ripper cartoon, with more ripper Rowe here …

But enough of the short and curlies, because with that, the pond could at last get around to the main course, though it will be clear why the pond has been delaying the moment. 

You see, it's not prattling Polonius, it's nattering "Ned" who will hold the floor, and as everyone knows, that's equivalent to climbing Everest …

But "Ned" has the cult status of the Lobbecke of the day - oh how funny the canaries are - and so attention must be paid …

What a world. "Ned" and the CFMEU united! Only clean dinkum true blue Oz coal can draw together a divided nation … though others put a different interpretation on recent reptile events …

Oh you won't mind a little break at base camp, will you? 

Tedious old "Ned" will be rabbiting on for yonks, so why not a little breach of the Crikey paywall, purely in the interest of a shared love of reptile studies?

The pond should play fair and put up that link to Concept Economics goes bust, appoints administrators, though the sad tale of our Henry "hole in the bucket" Ergas and Brian "wait to see if we need to do anything about climate change" Fisher showing what expertise in economics will do for you might lurk behind the Crikey paywall ...

Actually the pond has a bone to pick with Crikey.

It's clear it's still 2001 in reptile la la land, and that's why nattering "Ned" can blather on about climate moralism and theologians and such like, based on his very unique understanding of climate science …

Now the pond understands that "Ned" is only able to frame the issue in terms he understands, which is to say blather about contradictions and quasi-religious faith, and exaggerations, and poor, helpless coal suffering, with its supporters mocked …

But the science has got three fifths of fuck all to do with quasi-religious faith. 

Either you accept the science and the role that coal plays in it, or you don't, and if you don't, you can then cheerfully blather on about how there shouldn't be a permanent war between coal and climate change commitments …(this isn't a matter of belief, secular or religious, come up with alternative provable science if you want to make a case, and show how the vast majority of scientists have got it wrong and are living a delusion, as opposed to the reptiles' rich delusions).

But here's the truly bad news. Thus far, the pond has only traversed two of Ned's gobbets. There are six in all, which means four to go.

The pond can hear the sighing and the sobbing, and senses a mutiny might be at hand. But it has the whip to hand, and shoulders must be applied to the wheel … because the prescient Crikey will now see nattering "Ned" return to Brian Fisher, and lead with him, perhaps in the hope of winning a hand of misère ...

On the matter of Fisher, Crikey referenced social media and some learned tweets by one Erwin Jackson, here, but it was this addendum that caught the pond's eye …

He couldn't make Concept Economics work either …

Well you can find Roger Jones tweeting away here, but the pond can't keep doing these distractions, because we're still only half way there ...

Et tu, Ned? Doubting coal might be a winner? But what of Henry Miller?

To walk in coal through the night crowd, protected by coal, lulled by coal, dulled by coal, the crowd itself a coal mine, the breath coal, no least single object anywhere that is not coal, coal, coal, oi, oi, oi everywhere and still not enough, and then no coal or a little coal or less coal or more coal, but coal, always coal and if you have coal or you don’t have coal it is the coal that counts and coal makes coal, but what makes coal make coal … when it might be making money and fucking the planet?

But enough, we're at the penultimate gobbet, and the love of coal and Adani must shine through ...

And so to a final flurry of pinning it all on the contradictions in the Labor party, while climate science denialists of the Angus Taylor kind can wander about with an insouciant air, reciting the thoughts of the  Brian Fishers of the world, so that we might all stay in 2001 and "Ned" can blather on about moral wildernesses, because strangely, world famous climate scientist though he is, he doesn't seem to have the first fucking clue about what the science might be saying ...

The pond has absolutely no idea what it must be like for a young person contemplating this ponderous old fart blathering on about the future of their world, with his humbug political calculations and his pious ambiguities and equivocations … except to propose that sooner or later the wheel will turn, and there will be a new land at the top of the faraway tree ...

And what can the pond possibly say to those who managed to make it to the end? 

Perhaps a 'well done chaps and chappettes, well done lads and lasses, you have the colonial right stuff, you are true blue, and dinkum clean Oz coal surges through your veins' … or perhaps just a cartoon from the infallible Pope, with a reminder that there are always more papal gifts on hand here ...