Friday, July 11, 2014

The pond hies itself off to a nunnery in Melbourne ...



Okay, that's guaranteed to send the commentariat into a frenzy, and there's more twittering from ABC News Intern here.

The pond is off to Melbourne and couldn't think of a better place holder.

Oh wait, there is one other item worthy of attention, and that's the pond's discovery of Turnbullistan.

The pond found out about it when reading Slow progress in Turnbullistan, which had this handy accompanying note and graph:

In November 2013, Minister Turnbull visited Blacktown with NBN Co’s executive chairman and said the company would double the premises passed by fibre by June 2014. That number was confirmed by his office as 450,000. 
By the time the strategic review was released, that expectation had been revised down to 357,000. The actual outcome of 381,146 is closer to the review number. On a national basis, we now know the number of additional premises passed per quarter has slowed, as the table below shows:



Uh huh.

And this conclusion:

There have also been delays in securing access to copper for FTTN trials, and last week NBN Co revealed delays in the commercial launch of FTTB. 
This is an incredibly complex project, made even more complex by the decision to replace one technology (FTTP) with four (FTTP, FTTN, FTTB and HFC). 
The current Government accepts that fibre-to-the-premises is the end game, but contends that it is more cost effective to do so in several stages rather than one. 
It has pre-empted the conclusions of the cost-benefit analysis and jumped straight to implementation. But the numbers show that the implementation has not managed to pick up any speed. 
Turnbullistan is quickly discovering it has more in common with Conrovia than Malcolm would like to admit.

Ah yes, all those good old jokes about Conrovia, aided and abetted by Quigleyfolly (well they weren't actual jokes, they were realities in the field).

And now we live in Turnbullistan...

What else to do but fly to Melbourne and have a lane-way breakfast in the howling gale and the freezing winds to remind the pond that there is such a thing as winter, and it's a good time to be alive ... oh, it's alive, alive, I tells ya ...

Sure, in the meantime, the world will keep falling apart. There's a crisis in federal politics, a complete catastrophe, confusion and chaos, the centre will not hold, mere PUP anarchy is loosed upon the world, the sky is falling in, Chicken Little days are here again, run in circles holding your breath and maybe the panic will go away, the budget emergency is now an existential crisis, has anyone seen Sartre lately ...

What's that you say?


Ah yes, it's just like the Gillard government.

How soon before the "kill the warlock", "ditch the prick", and "Clive Palmer's bitch" signs hit the parks and streets of Canberra?

What do you know? It's a meme already:



And there's even merchandise doing the rounds:


Normal business will resume in a few days.

Enjoy the weekend, and remember, if the situation gets dire, and you mistakenly read a Murdoch paper for free at the airport - where they give them away like free froyo samples - there's always the priesthood or a nunnery, or perhaps a collective of atheistic libertarian godforsaken collectivist anarchists waiting for you in Smith street ...

Yes an election's just around the corner so let's all stay calm.

Say what?


Who'd have thunk it. Seeing as how the budget's been such a hit, and Eric Abetz and the poodle Pyne and Bronnie and  jolly Joe and big Mal's Turnbullistan and George Brandis are so loved by the people ...
And please, remember to catch up with First Dog's Senate shenanigans, here. Read it, pore over the runes, decipher the tea leaves, read the palm, consult the stars, and enjoy Hosea 8:7 on Sunday (funnier than a Sydney Anglican in complementarian mode):

For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.

Actually Ride in the Whirlwind's not a half bad movie by Monte Hellman featuring mob vigilante justice. But that's another story ...

5 comments:

  1. More John Oliver - this time on Australian tourists visiting Antarctica. And he does seem to be able to pronounce the first 'c' correctly, unlike the cousins.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH573B1bkHI

    PS. It's AntarCKtic, not an Antartic.

    Pedant of NSW.

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  2. It'll be an Antartic day in Gehenna before the Holy Murdochian Order of the Flaming Heart of Australia forgoes an exclusive opportunity to salute The Creator on a Tiw's day: It’s one of my lifetime achievements.

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  3. And I understand that you have chosen what is officially the coldest day this year (so far) in Melbourne to sit in those windswept laneways sipping your latte Dorothy!

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  4. While in Melbourne, DP, have a look at the profusion of new apartment block towers growing up in the CBD, and hazard a guess at what they'll look like in 50 years. Liveable? Sure, as long as childcare, kinder, schools, clinics, dentists, green spaces, etc are within walking distance. His Most Worshipful Personage, the Lord Mayor Robt Doyle is most pleased to collect the fees from the foreign (read: Chinese) owners of the towers. (Is there a common theme here, Why the Chinese Are Snapping Up Real Estate in the U.S.) Pressed on this aspect, by the lass, not Guy Stayner on 730, he scoffed "They can't take the towers back to HK, can they? Snoooork!" Well, Bob (and your stable-mate and horse-fancier Den Napthine) those static columns will be there for decades, tenanted & maintained, or not. Maybe the Tories like their monuments. Add static columns of vehicles on the Tulla, static columns of commuters waiting for public transport, and overfull waiting rooms in public hospitals. All of these are monuments to "demand" and, hence, opportunities for pollies to grin through their teeth offering promises to mug punters. I mean, if there were no problems, their wouldn't be need for Spring St & Collins St to be gifting their pals & benefactors at KPMG, would there?

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  5. I dunno, the genesis of corrective distance ed. at Moore Theological has offered a very tempting apple...

    "One of the ITS students said, "Chew, my coach was excellent. It is wonderful to be able to talk to someone one on one about the course. I was feeling very frustrated that despite studying hard, completing lots of quizzes and feeling I have a good grasp of the course my test scores were not reflecting this. She went through my answers to the Test questions that were worrying me and helped me understand why certain answers were correct. She was very encouraging and I now feel enthused again to continue pressing forward with the course.”"

    ReplyDelete

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