Oh cruel world, that such mockery there should be … and yet there were others waiting in line to mock …
What is this? Pick on onion muncher week?
A Lord Kitchener joke? Outrage heaped upon outrage, slur upon slur …
Rally troops, the onion muncher's future is at stake, and his presence at the pond is threatened ...
May the long absent lord in her mercy steel the valiant onion muncher for the battles ahead … because it's likely the Catholic church will be a little distracted for the time being …
But after the onion muncher, what then? The deluge or Dame Slap?
Well no, the pond, at least for a day, has decided to ban any mention of virtue-signalling.
There's so much virtue-signalling about virtue-signalling that it producers a superabundance of virtue-signalling and virtue-signallers of the Dame Slap kind …and if the pond virtue-signals about these virtue-signallers, then the whole enterprise might collapse under the compounding post-modern, post-ironic levels of virtue-signalling, reaching a fairly unique level of virtue-signals …
Besides, Dame Groan was much more on the money …
Yesterday's technology? Oh yes, it's so old and tiresome, and in no way compares to the sublime joy of rocking along from Melbourne to Sydney on the day train at 100 kph, and knocking off the journey in eleven hours. Now there's your futurist technology at work …for those who've got a day to kill and reading to catch up on …
By golly, you can rely on the Dame for being in touch with what is now commonplace in China and sundry other countries ...
And what about that echo from the lost wonder known as Justin?
But alas, metaphorically speaking, he was burnt at the stake …
But what of all the usual reptile terrors? Well the fiendish Cook Islanders threatened to tramp on the colonial heroes that inspire the onion muncher and the reptiles so …
By golly, when climate change and rising seas threaten these heretics, they can expect no sympathy from the reptiles for pretending to be afflicted by theological nonsense …
And that brings the pond to a classic reptile EXCLUSIVE …
So much stupidity, so little time …but when it comes to dinkum clean Oz coal, the reptiles will always find the time and a room at the inn …
Phew, the pond feels the moment is right to interrupt with the lizard Oz editorialist explaining emissions, and as it's a right royal emission, there can be no arguing that the editorialist knows whereof he (unlikely to be a she) scribbles …
Indeed, indeed, back to Queensland for more good news and potent arguments …you know, the usual talk of theology and mad fundamentalist religions, as a way of elevating the scientific discussion to the level of SloMo speaking in tongues ...
No wonder the lizard editorialist is up in arms ...
Well all that must be worth a cartoon, and luckily, there's an infallible Pope available, with more artistic impressions here …
But here's the problem. Once the pond gets a taste for the lizard Oz editorialist, it finds it hard to stop.
Dame Slap virtue-signalling about virtue-signallers? How could that compare to the long march?
Everyone knows from their reptile readings that there's a long march going on, everywhere, everyday. Some mistake it for life, but the reptiles know better …and what's the bet that somewhere, somehow, coal will work its way into the conversation?
What a gigantic conspiracy! Why it makes Gramsci look like he heads out for a walk to the shops and calls it exercise … and wouldn't you know, the klaxons of theological speaking in tongues to the lord activism are once again sounding off about coal, glorious coal ...
What else?
Why not make it a reptile editorialist trifecta, because as well as fast trains being old technology, the reptiles are haunted by the spectre of the new world order …remember, all you need is a paranoid persecution complex, and the sense that perhaps a business model appealing to elderly gents shouting at clouds might have its limits ...
Indeed, indeed, good old Burkey, busy financing crap, and worrying about making money out of crap. Once it was tapes that would rooon them, then it was discs, and now it's the intertubes …
They need the forward-thinking of a SloMo …
Blockchain, high tech, fantastic, but how unhappy are the reptiles … how they fear and hate and loathe the logarithms ...
Say what? Did the reptiles just confess that lizard Oz reporters are dumb fuck unsuspecting internet users who don't have the first clue about data usage on the internet? Might they not be wise to follow the pond's example, and not use Facebook?
Who supplied all the information that turned up on Facebook? Was it Facebook? Nope, it was the dim-witted lizard Oz journalist that put it there … and if that's the level of stupidity in the rag, no wonder they think Adani is all about foreign ownership and nothing to do with climate science …
If you don't want your personal information known, don't put it online you goose. Pay cash at the supermarket, anonymise your content, make sure you don't do a Donald and use cheques ….
But where does this leave the pond, after all this nonsense still searching for something full of substance, full of rich content?
Well the pond had intended to celebrate the passing of the poodle, aka the wing man, before it became distracted …
The omens were right, because it looked like the poodle had been given the ultimate cult accolade … a Lobbecke impression …
Winner, the ultimate seal of approval!
The mighty Boomerang, available for Greg Hunters here …
Not to forget the mighty Wirraway, available for Greg Hunters here …
And then there were the Collins class subs, deadly fighting machines with nary a day off, and the mighty new line of subs, ready for duty by, oh sometime in the future, let's not pin it down too precisely … what a legacy the poodle leaves, what hopes for the future ...
Is this a surreptitious way of suggesting that the F-35 is a dud, a monstrous waste of money, and that the future looks like it might head elsewhere … you know, to fast 100 kmh an hour trains, roaring between Sydney and Melbourne?
All the pond knew was that it was badly in need of a cartoon …
Happily there's more Rowe here … but meanwhile, the pond had gained the strength to make the final surge to the poodle summit …
How the pond will miss the poodle …what a triumphant farewell present …
Say what? It appears that the practice and the economic benefit might be uncertain, and the build unlikely … and the Americans could snaffle it and call it their own?
All that for another glorious military victory, up there with the onion muncher roaming the roads in the north, howling at the moon and passing drivers, and calling out for Lord Kitchener?
Never mind, you take your triumphs where you find them, the pond says, and who knows you might even make a name for yourself by tackling the parrot. Well at least the pond now knows his name …
By golly, the parrot and Moorice in a single blow? And Moorice in a legal frenzy?
Happy days …and happy cartoonists, and you should already know where to find more Rowe ...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi Dorothy,
ReplyDeleteWhat’s the betting that the poodle Pyne will have landed a cushy advisory job or directorship with Boeing or another defence industry company before the year is out?
DiddyWrote
I'll have to put a memo entry in my calendar for 31/12/19, DW, to remind me to check this out.
DeleteYou mean in the footsteps of Andrew Peacock
Deletehttps://www.theage.com.au/technology/the-hornets-nest-20070709-ge5b0u.html
"Making the Super Hornet deal even more remarkable is the fact that Australia's air chiefs and Defence Department did not want the plane or consider it necessary. They had judged that Australia's existing stocks of old, but formidable, F-111 bombers - due to be retired in 2010 - and classic FA-18 Hornets would do the job until the JSF arrived."
and
""A brilliant strategic appointment ... he was very good in dealing with the top level of government," says a source who has seen Peacock in action for Boeing."
This seems to be the way business is done in Australia.
The pond has a spare threepence from a plum pudding and that's all it would dare to risk on the poodle getting a submariner gig ...
DeleteI'm reading Rutger Bregman's book Utopia for realists after a recommendation by Dame Slap - "It’s an appalling book" she wrote, can't get a stronger recommendation than that - and it's brilliant. It adds to the case made by Bernard Keane recently, that Nixon was the most progressive US president of the last 50 years.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting contention, Joe, and I guess we can grant Nixon "first visitor to China" accreditation, but apart from that, what else did he do that was actually "progressive" ?
DeleteHi GB,
DeleteNixon took office with a 37-point Environmental plan, including the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency by executive order. The Clean Air Act and Clean Water Acts, the Endangered Species Act were all passed during his tenure. He was also in the chair when the Equal Employment Opportunity Act was passed, along with much stronger Health ans Safety laws. Those Acts were, of course, passed by Congress, but largely with his championing. And for them to have any teeth, the administration has to enforce them, which his did.
His expenditure on civil rights programs expanded 10-fold, forced resistant public schools in the South to desegregate, and moved against anti-minority employment practices.
Despite the ongoing cost of the Vietnam War, he increased social welfare spending (the first government since Truman to spend more on that than on Defence), and tried (and failed) to set up something like (better than) "Obamacare" 30 years earlier.
So, yeah, he was pretty progressive. Of course, he was also a paranoid crook, but that's another story.
"So much to learn, so little time" to quote Peter Sellars, FD. And all of that from Nixon in less than two full terms as president - though also a prior (full two terms) as vice-president.
DeleteFor some reason - likely a youngish guy's superficial (if any) interest in politics back in those days - I have no recall of any of the initiatives you list. But that is a reasonable claim to progressivism, even if his tendency to associate with other crooks (Spiro Agnew) does diminish him somewhat.
And of course Nixon's time as president overlaps with our own 'progressive', E G Whitlam (who also did the China visit thing), and Gough took more of my attention than doings in America back then.
So thanks for that short tutorial, even though I wouldn't think it quite qualified Nixon as "the most progressive" president for the past 50 years. After all, Clinton tried and failed for a 'Health Act' too. But what about Lyndon Johnson and the 'Great Society' ?
To quote:
"The Great Society program became Johnson’s agenda for Congress in January 1965: aid to education, attack on disease, Medicare, urban renewal, beautification, conservation, development of depressed regions, a wide-scale fight against poverty, control and prevention of crime and delinquency, removal of obstacles to the right to vote. Congress, at times augmenting or amending, rapidly enacted Johnson’s recommendations. Millions of elderly people found succor through the 1965 Medicare amendment to the Social Security Act."
https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/lyndon-b-johnson/
And not to overlook the famous Civil Rights Act of 1964. And all that in less than two full terms too.
https://www.salon.com/2013/05/05/i_was_a_nixon_junkie_defending_the_20th_centurys_most_misunderstood_president_partner/
DeleteA very interesting read indeed thanks, Joe. And definitely a perspective on Nixon that I was mostly unaware of.
DeleteHowever, I found three statements to be very apposite:
"And his liberal stances? Perhaps nothing more than acts of opportunism, more convenient than principled."
"Lyndon Johnson’s White House tapes has revealed perhaps the greatest of Richard Nixon’s sins: deliberately sabotaging Vietnam peace talks in 1968 in order to win the presidential election, purchased at the price of five more years worth of American blood."
And not just American "blood", but also many, many Vietnamese lives and even a few British and Australian lives amongst others. I think this Vietnam thing is the Nixon point that most sticks in my craw.
And finally:
"Richard Nixon was, beneath all else, a mind at work. To be sure, it worked for evil as often as it did for good, and — no matter the moral equation — worked always for itself."
In consideration of which, I turn to Hillel: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when?". Or perhaps do I just say "There was a good side to Hitler, too".
But Nixon certainly was more politically "progressive" than I ever was previously aware of, so thanks to you and FD for just a wee bit of enlightenment.
Ahhhh, Rowe. Love that red shoe going 'Bish' on Plod's head!
ReplyDeleteDo you find that the reptiles, despite the wailing and renting of garments, increasingly seem to be making a case for their opponents?
ReplyDeleteThe Oz editorialist acknowledges that the industry funds have "superior performance", "lower fees", the for-profits need to attend to trustee responsibilities and generally be less crap at everything. Even the "activist" claim seems like little more than asking businesses to plan for foreseeable future risks.
If you are arguing against something it's probably not wise to list all the benefits.
Oh pish tush, Bef, they've got to show how "even handed" they are to be able to continue to claim how morally superior they are.
DeleteEven if it does just show how everlastingly thick they really are.