Thursday, July 31, 2014

A day of headlines in the pond's angry echo chamber ...





(Above: yes, it's a headlines only day at the pond, so check out the full version of First Dog's take on Greg Hunt here and if you don't spoof to get your Colbert fix, you can find his riff on Sarah Palin here, and now on into the echo chamber)

Yes, yes, of course the pond understands - please pause here for toss of flowing mane and stamping of firm hoof, Houyhnhnms style - that it is better to be mildly stupid like Richard Dawkins than deeply stupid like Richard Dawkins.

The pond is heavily into logic.

And gossip. Which is no doubt why the pond was inundated with links to suppressed matters. Of course like everyone else the pond can't mention what might be happening in relation to Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia, but then the pond understands that it's better to be mildly stupid like the Australian legal system and government than to be deeply stupid like the Australian legal system and government.

Thanks to the myopic crew at Fairfax, you can now read Richard Ackland brooding about it at The Graudian, here. Comments closed for legal reasons!

So where's your Tim Wilson now? Probably off with George Brandis helping him work out who and what else to ban, silence and intimidate.

So what else? Well naturally the reptiles are all over Twiggy:


Yes, yes, there's nothing like a 1984, heavy-handed, interventionist, big brother, controlling, interfering government to warm the cockles of a reptile's heart, but the pond understands it's better to be a mildly stupid reptile infatuated with Twiggy than a deeply stupid reptile infatuated with Twiggy.

And with friends like these cranking up the heat, how can the Abbott government fail to achieve universal applause?

What else?

Well it seems there's a deep crisis of the stupid in Victoria:


Seats empty, the faithful deserting the temple, atheists everywhere, the centre will not hold, anarchy and indifference loos'd on the world.

Yes never you mind about Gaza or plane crash fallout or Ukraine or Putin, or anything else doing the rounds, the footy filling the hearts and minds of Victorians with despair. Has it come to this? Et tu aerial ping pong?

Anything else from the peculiar south? Well the HUN has gone full-on feminist:


Oh and there's a story about pensioners suffering at the hands of power giants on the right hand side.

Strange, the pond thought that with the abolition of the carbon tax, everyone could live in peace and harmony with a triple bar radiator blazing through the 25 degree heat predicted for Sydney this day. Sssh, don't mention climate change, it's a one-off weather event, and you know how it gets the Bolter, the world's leading climate scientist, agitated ...

And there was the pond thinking that pensioners would head off to the Quay and order their six dollar ice cream and otherwise live wild and free, and with cheap morphing power, all thanks to the abolition of the carbon tax.

Surely there must be happy news from Queensland, because as the pond is aware, it's always happy day at the Currish Snail:


Oh dear and not a Photoshop in sight. Is this the end of civilisation as a Murdochian knows it?

Nope, it's just another day in Newman la la land.

But back to Twiggy, helping out his mates in their bid to become the true heirs of Orwell.

Here's how the digital edition pitched the Twiggy proposal:


Of course it doesn't go nearly far enough for the pond, and so you can read here, and let it be said EXCLUSIVELY, and without benefit of gold bar, the pond's modest proposal.

Firstly the 2.5 million should be taught to dress responsibly. This needn't be dull gear, it could be quite stylish, as modelled by the gentleman below:


Classy. Everyone wears one, no exceptions. Hordes of the unemployed can be dragooned into making them.

Once everyone's in uniform, it's time to implement a few simple rules. Up at 5 am to put on electronic tracking bracelet and report to supervisor. First 40 job applications to be done before breakfast, followed by a tidy 40 more after lavish serving of Twiggy gruel ® © ™ patent pending:





Sssh, don't mention the soylent green secret ingredient.

As for the rest of the day, discipline is the word, with fun activities like digging holes and pointlessly filling them in again - at some point enlightenment will dawn and participants will realise arbeit macht frei - and running and jumping while standing still, and killing flies and insects and sparrows, pigeons if you insist, until it gets dark, and so to another healthy serving of gruel, and then 40 more job applications, before lights out at 3am, in good time for that healthy hearty 5am start.

The best bit? Well there needs to be a huge army of supervisors to ensure that the wretches follow this regime, and the pond has proposed a ratio of one supervisor for ten wretches, which instantly producers a 0% unemployment rate.

Now there will be whingers and moaners who complain about big controlling government and needlessly intrusive bureaucrats and reptiles gone barking mad as they fall over and fawn at Twiggy's feet, but it's clear they need to do the pond's 101 preliminary course, Demonising the poor for Dummies.

Okay, is there anything else?

Well yes as it happens, the pond understands that it's better to be mildly stupid like Malcolm Turnbull rather than deeply stupid like Malcolm Turnbull, so you can imagine the chortling this headline produced:


If only the pirates gave enough of a flying fuck to distribute government financed feature films and high end television drama.

Of course what the headline should have said is Village Roadshow warns online piracy is providing an alternative to the exploitative behaviour of American majors in Australia and the Foxtel monopoly and the Apple iTunes cartel, but it wouldn't have been half so catchy.

Now silly old big Mal has decided to go down into the foxhole with Gra Gra Burke, in a way guaranteed to produce a whole new set of alienating headlines and an unhappy community of geeks. The pond's tip? Invest in suppliers of VPNs ...

What else?

Well to tell you the truth, you could spend all day and night dining out on Bolter gruel.

How about this headline a few days ago?


Yes, Abbott was standing up to the authoritarian dictator Putin, and brave Tony Abbott was standing up to the beast, and it was legendary stuff, and there's more to come, as you can read in Tony Abbott strides large on stage:

The morning after MH17 was shot down, Abbott declared “the need for Russia to be told in no uncertain terms that what is happening in the Ukraine is wrong”, but last Saturday, he claimed this was not actually his concern. 
“Others can get involved if they wish in the politics of Eastern Europe,” he said. “Our sole concern is to claim our dead and bring them home.” 
That is untrue. When our dead are back, expect Abbott to fight what he from day one identified as the true cause of this disaster — nationalist Russia’s war to reconquer parts of Ukraine. 
Abbott has seen such a film before, starring Czechoslovakia in 1938. This time an Australian leader plans to help change the ending.

So there you have it. No Putin at the G20. Well would you invite Hitler to do a deal at Munich?

Meanwhile, in an alternative universe:




And today came this effort:



Which is rich, for a man who spends a tireless amount of time, space and energy helping spread the ugly face of fear and loathing of all Islamics around the blogosphere ... and somewhat of a contrast to those who might have a shred of empathy when confronted by this sort of headline.



But there was a fine indication of how the Bolter really plays the game, and it came with a report on his war with a Melbourne academic, here:

Hirst said: “I am pleased and relieved that the matter is resolved.” 
Bolt hung up on Guardian Australia before any questions could be asked.

Yes, slam down the phone because that's your style.

So you have to go to the horse's mouth, or the Bolter's mouth, however you like to call it, to get the full flowering of righteous indignation:

      "Martin Hirst was accused of bringing Deakin university into disrepute after right-wing press columnist, Andrew Bolt, posted a series of the tweets on his blog in the Herald Sun". 
The Guardian reporter who wrote those lines has already vastly minimised Hirst’s offence - I suspect in order to invent my own to an audience as far-Left as Hirst himself. Hey, she even falsely claims I am “right-wing”.

Yes, because in the alternative universe in which you exist, the Bolter isn't right-wing. Why he's clearly a raving ratbag left-winger, well to the left of Genghis Khan, Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon and that hero of radio, Father Charles Coughlin. So far to the left he makes Trotsky look a man deserving an ice pick in the head for his revisionist ways ...

So it's okay to say others are far-left. But even hinting that the Bolter might have a streak of right wing in him is an outrageous and offensive slur.

You see, you are living in an alternative universe.

There should come a time in any rabid right wing member of the commentariat's life, and scribbling, that they should be able to shed the delusions, and come out and stand tall and proud, unabashed and unashamed, and say "yes, I am of the right and proud of it", and drape themselves in conservative colours, the rainbow having been taken by others ...

Just come out and say yes I trade in hate, and my comments section is a cesspit of hatreds, fears and loathing and that's how I gets my hits and makes my living ...

But that might lead you to conclude that it's better to be mildly stupid like Andrew Bolt than deeply stupid like Andrew Bolt.

Phew, after that lot, it's time for a cartoon, and wouldn't you know, David Rowe has spun together all the best threads of the day, right up there with Twiggy and his schemes, merging art and Melbourne controversies about stolen milk crates with that lucky underclass living on the pond's homogenous gruel while dressed in the pond's permeate free suits... and no, please don't say it's better to be mildly stupid like the pond than as deeply offensive as the Murdochians worshipping at the feet of Twiggy and the Abbott government ...

(And as always more Rowe here):




8 comments:

  1. Income management for the unemployed ? Sounds like a big fat Nanny State to me.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Despite Blots demonisation of anyone who dares to criticise Israel's right to slaughter 1,300 Palestinians,
    from Bolt's blog, he allowed someone called realitystrikes to post this...

    "But you forget the double speak with Jews. 136,000 JEWS WERE IN THE NAZI ARMY, HITLER WAS A JEW HIMSELF. Soros who made a fortune giving up Jews to the Nazis is one of ntheir best business customers, go figure...And although i hate to admit is JEWS did fund WW1 and WW2, Rothschilds are Jews so are many other Jewish banksters who funded them in SWITZERLAND which was, and still is the centre for NAZIS, bet you didn't know that. They supplied most of Hitler youth especially the homosexuals for the pink Nazis."

    https://twitter.com/boltcomments

    ReplyDelete
  3. DP - following up your response on digital TV and radio, why should I have separate TV, internet/computer and a few radios in my house, when they are all converging? One device could provide all surely. But convergence is bad news for the vested interests I suppose, and Murdoch is trying to control it all.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Isn't it good to see Bolt defending Martin Hirst's right to free speech? And given how much Gillian Trigg has upset poor Scott Morrison, stand by for her to be dumped and replaced by that lovely Tim Wilson.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How could someone who has a Statement of Attainment in carbon accounting replace anyone? Besides, I think he failed because he doesn't make any sense.

      Delete
  5. DP - I appreciate your reluctance to post links to Wikileaks due to the threat of potential legal action, but 1,000 or more sites have linked to it, so I reckon more is better. They can't prosecute all of us.

    Basically the alleged story is about corruption at the highest levels to ensure Australian money-printers got prime contracts in overseas countries, involving at least Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam.

    This has been reported in many international press outlets, so why the fuss about Australia? Maybe because of the high-level figures involved.

    I haven't linked to anything, but many news agencies have.

    Google is your friend (well sometimes).
    .



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Private Eye in the UK reported on this scandal some months ago.

      Here's more -

      http://www.freenewspos.com/news/article/c/893218/today/private-eye-in-the-back-all-the-wrong-notes

      http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/australia-muzzles-press-on-bribery-case-involving-malaysian-regional-leader

      Delete
    2. The pond takes the view that the law is an ass, but providing a link is in breach of the law. The more discussion there is about the stupidity of the law, the better. The pond would like to use its craven following of the law - yes, we also stop at red lights - to draw attention to this failure by the Abbott government.

      And yes, it is the Abbott government.

      The Australian government’s attempts to protect international relations by suppressing details of a sensitive court case in Victoria appeared to have backfired, prompting Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to demand an explanation.
      Apparently in response, the Australian government released an extraordinary statement late on Thursday saying that the “Indonesian President and the former president are not the subject” of court proceedings which Australian media outlets are otherwise banned from reporting.
      A blanket suppression order prevents Fairfax Media and other Australian outlets reporting the contents of the Victorian Supreme Court case, an affidavit in the case, or even the suppression order itself. The order was sought to protect the reputation of international leaders.
      But the order was published on international site WikiLeaks, where it can be read.

      http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/indonesia-demands-explanation-from-australia-over-wikileakspublished-court-order-20140731-zz75y.html#ixzz395aHhVdI

      Now the pond isn't a media outlet in any conventional sense, but the pond likes to think that the more the issue is discussed and the draconian nature of the ban revealed, the more the Abbott government will be ridiculed for its profound stupidity.

      Delete

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