Sunday, May 10, 2015

In which the pond maintains Melba mode, thanks to Kate Mills, the poodle, Lomborgians, Matthew Bailes and a guest appearance in the Abbott cabinet by Peter Unstinov playing Nero ...

(Above: and more Pope here).

While the pond is in Melba mode, a couple of miracles have occurred.

Slumped in sick bed, the pond finally saw Quo Vadis from beginning to end, and at last began to understand why American Christians don't have the first clue about the history of Rome. Or much else for that matter. Dear sweet absent lord, how could the pond have missed this masterpiece, which you can Greg Hunt here.

Speaking of Greg Hunt, then this morning came the vision of one Kate Mills on "News and distorted views 24", mourning Bjorn Lomborg being turned away from the haven of Western Australia, and slamming Australians for not being open to "fresh ideas".

Now let's forgive the notion of "fresh ideas", because everyone has had to endure for what seems like centuries the notion of "fresh food" advertising. You know, you just head down to the university supermarket, key in a few numbers, and bingo fresh ideas are yours for the devouring.

Anyone who's actually bothered to read Lomborg, thanks to the faithful efforts of the lizards of Oz charging for what elsewhere you could find on the Internet for free, the pond has actually kept track of Lomborg's fresh ideas.

By now most of them are old, stale, tedious and in need of a diligent polishing, except that's hard because they're also contradictory, revisionist and inclined to be fully changeable, blowing with whatever anti-climate science breeze that's wafting like a zephyr through the air.

But even so, the pond found Mills ineffably silly, sounding off about fresh ideas the way she did. That sort of blather is a bit like intelligent design people pitching a fresh idea and getting a bit shrill when some evolutionary types point out it might have been fresh around 4,000 BC but it's a bit shop soiled of late ...

Where does "News and distorted views 24" get these chattering people from? You can find Mills on Linkedin, and frankly as the pond brooded about doing a Melba - how many years of the tour could long-suffering readers stand? - we thought of letting it go.

But really, watching the tedium that is the alleged news channel that's supposedly the jewel in the crown of Mark Scott's reign has been a revelation to the pond. It's as half baked, as superficial and as gormless as a Fox down under.

But it was this offering from a correspondent that swung it:


And yes the pond will treasure this Twitter conversation too.

Of course, it helps in the joke if you know who Ann Bressington is. Not everyone is aware of the assorted conspiracy theories cultivated by the eccentric Bressignton, though reasonable hank will give you an idea of the Bressington follies, at least up until the time of his post in March 2013 here.

Talk about being deep into fruitloop territory. Why it makes the pond seem like a survey of the outwardly normal, but once beguiled, you can have a Bressington field day on the full to overflowing intertubes.

What's most problematic in all this is that the poodle will now proceed to trawl through assorted craven universities in the search for other "fresh food" people.

He won't have to look far. Not so long ago, the reprehensible Matthew Bailes, pro-vice chancellor (research) at Swinburne University of Technology scribbled this cry of pain at The Conversation, here:

So getting back to Bjorn, yes I’m annoyed that the minister didn’t ring Swinburne and want to give us A$4 million for a new research centre. But I’m also of the opinion that it has to be valid to challenge the costs of the various CO2 reduction schemes. And if they are good enough they’ll stand up to evidence-based scrutiny, by Bjorn or anyone else. If we refuse to have our carbon strategies costed and scrutinised, we’re no better than many fundamentalists.

So there's your chance Prof Bailes. Just pick up the phone and explain to the poodle that you're one of those fresh food, fresh ideas Kate Mills people, willing to indulge in a bit of bin diving ...

Unless of course it was just a bit of ostentatious twaddle, and now when the rubber hits the road, you go all craven on your taste for fresh food ideas ....

And so to the real reason the pond was in a state of agitation.

Ye ancient cats and dogs, the pond thought it knew ham, but nothing prepared it for Peter Ustinov, who come to think of it, might well, as Nero, have made a decent fresh food people man for a government so inspired by wood burning, Moorice Newman and Bjorn Lomborg.


11 comments:

  1. DP - you must admit Ustinov does a superb job of hamming it over the top. And he knew what he was doing as admitted later on Parky.

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  2. That's it! It wasn't Ustinov and his retinue of handsome men in drag wot dun it. Your undoing, DP, has been watching ABC Breakfast TV! Didn't you know? How can any person withstand the boring, but o-so-earnest gazes of those 4 eyes? I beg you, turn the TV to the wall and just listen to them! That, after all, was what the ABC was supposed to be. They are all mere voice-overs. The only exception is Catalyst, where Science must be presented by a sexy kick-boxer who has mastered over-the-shoulder with a pout.

    Newman is a piss-poor conspiracy theorist, anyway. While you are indisposed, DP, look up Jade Helm for the full box o' chocs.

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  3. The best performance in Quo Vadis was by Patricia Laffan, who played Nero's wife. She is also famous for starring in 1950's cult film "Devil Girl from Mars", which can be downloaded free to watch.

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  4. The greatest performances playing mad and/or evil Romans were by our very own Frank Thring.

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  5. How could you go past the spell-binding performance of Kenneth Williams as Julius Caesar in Carry on Cleo;

    "Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in for me!"

    DW

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  6. The ventriloquists left the building and then the dummies began speaking to each other

    Andrew Bolt: (laughs) Barnaby, I’m worried about this whole global warming phenomena, you know, this big scare. And the search for ultimate catastrophes, right, by institutions. For example, El Ninos are changes in ocean patterns, as you know, that tend to bring us drought. The Bureau of Meteorology thought we’d get one in 2012. We didn’t get one. We were warned we’d get a terrible one last year. We didn’t. And now the Bureau, hyped up by the Sydney Morning Herald and others, are claiming we could be in for a shocker this year that’ll dry out the continent – disaster again. Are you shaken in your confidence in the Bureau and the CSIRO and other warmist institutions like this?

    Barnaby Joyce: Well, it’s not too warm here, I can assure you. But, look….I just – I’m always sceptical of the idea that the way that anybody’s going to change the climate – and I’m driving in this morning and we’re driving through a frost – is with bureaucrats and taxes. All that does is….it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. I make you feel guilty so I can get your money and put it in my pocket and send reports backwards and forth to one another. I want to make..

    At 10 min.45 sec

    http://tenplay.com.au/channel-ten/the-bolt-report/2015/5/10

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  7. Mike Carlton ‏@MikeCarlton01 2h2 hours ago

    Intrigued by a tweet or two, I broke an old rule and read @mirandadevine today. She is nuts, isn't she ? Incoherent, unhinged, barking...

    12:10 AM - 10 May 2015 • Details


    Mark Textor ‏@AGFchairman

    @MikeCarlton01 @mirandadevine she is a fine citizen. A great mother to her children. A fine writer. Loyal to her friends. And sober.

    12:16 AM - 10 May 2015


    Almost as great a discord as that between a theist and an atheist.

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  8. I think it's called "doing a Farnham" these days, Dot

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  9. "Slated for sell-off are the east and west blocks near old Parliament House. The buildings were constructed in the 1920s as supplementary office space for ministers and officials working in the original Parliament House. The east block now houses the National Archives of Australia."

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  10. Just dropped by to see how you are. Best wishes. Clem

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  11. Get well soon Dot. Regards Greg

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