While Monday has yet to return to 'normal' at the lizard Oz, 'normal' is in any case a postmodernist, relativist concept, and 'abnormal' is the preferred reptile mode at any time of the year, and so, the Caterist being truly abnormal, things might be said to be normal, with business as usual at the lizard Oz …
Unfortunately, as the pond recently confessed, it is now too lazy to fact check the standard lizard Oz climate science denialism, and so it turns to the comments section whenever a lizard Oz denialist turns up to do his or her thing …
Of course, of course, talkback radio as the source for your science and your climate policy and perhaps even your aspidistras on your what nots … though as Guy Rundle noted in Crikey back on 19th November 2019 (sorry, might be paywalled), reliance on any kind of meejia might be a tad fraught …
Speaking of kowtowing faithfully to the company line, it's back to the Caterist in the present, in the hope of another kind of mirabile dictu …
It goes without saying that it's all the usual greenie bashing stuff beloved by lizard Oz reptiles, and it's been refuted by people who know better than the pond, or the Caterist, who, it seems, is mainly expert in the movement of flood waters, so it's on with more guff ...
Here, the pond should pause to note the unusual, or for the reptiles, usual phrasing about "Morrison's cultural opponents."
There, that's how you talk about climate science, it's a matter of culture and cultural matters, and there's SloMo and then there are greenies, and perhaps men wearing green carnations, and philistines, or as Victor Mature used to say, Philistinians …
Is there any good news to add?
Well, yes, it seems the immortal Rowe has returned, and it seems he is intent on catching up on recent events, as can be found here …
Meanwhile, our dear hole in the bucket Henry offered an alternative delight …
Should the pond lounge about in the sauna and gorge some more on this reptile fodder?
Why, of course, though the usual lazy refusal to critique must apply … after all, the lad has been blessed by the cult art of the Lobbecke, and that's a sign of quality, and more than enough reason for the pond to pay attention...
Note how cleverly our Henry tiptoed past that talk of vigorous engagement in political controversy.
At this point, it would be remiss of the lazy pond not to insert a few quotes from Kenan Malik in The Graudian, in full here …
But back to our Henry, probably also deeply worried about furriners and poofters ...
Indeed, indeed, let us talk on, regardless of political views …and here, the pond again reverts to The Graudian ...
Well, our Henry is certainly happy to accept his station in life, because few things beat being a pompous scribe for the lizard Oz. Where would we be without a little racism and poofter bashing?
Frankly the pond's eyes misted over with that quote from The Pilgrim's Progress. Has there ever been a better time than the glorious days of Britain's empire, unless perhaps it's being a wondrous pilgrim? When will we return to decent Victorian standards of living? (and by that, the pond isn't referring to those deviants south of the NSW border).
Really our Henry could only have done better if he'd come up with something from Thomas Carlyle, or perhaps Tennyson at his grandest …
What do we have now in this age of lead?
Yes, a cheap hussy of an off-colour kind, leading Harry, neigh the country, neigh the world, astray … and didn't that keep the reptiles neighing this day …
Unprecedented, appalling? Oh for the love of Wallis Simpson and for the love of Nazis, oh for fuck's sake, is this what it has come to? The lizard Oz bids fair to turn into Woman's Day ...
How then to ignore this tosh, while doing an unseemly republican gloat quietly in the corner? Well perhaps a cartoon an entirely unrelated matter … as the United States heads pell mell towards an epic market crash …
Actually, it's leaving with a bloody huge payout, but that's another story …
Hmmm "towing the company line".
ReplyDeleteNow does that mean Crikey has basically little or no editing, or just maybe very bad editing, or was Rundle cracking some kind of in-joke ? "Towing" the company line as in having the line deeply attached to one's anatomy and so having to "tow" it wherever one goes.
Or maybe just kow-towing the company line, as you have it DP.
But bypassing Goosebumps Cater's ignorant raving rant, perhaps some genuine 'prevention management' might work. Read about it here:
Right fire for right future: how cultural burning can protect Australia from catastrophic blazes
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/19/right-fire-for-right-future-how-cultural-burning-can-protect-australia-from-catastrophic-blazes
Now I don't know just how long it might take to apply 'cultural burning' to Victoria's 7.9million hectares of declared forest for instance, but given the total impossibility of achieving a 5% burn (about 390,000 hectares) per annum, maybe we don't have much choice but to give it a go.
However, be warned:
Even so, climate change is affecting their ability to do “right way” fire management, Garstone says.
“These ‘right way’ fire days are getting fewer and fire behaviour is changing along the same lines as over east. Late season conditions are also driving more fires in unusual ways due to the climatic conditions we are currently facing.”
In short, Australia is a very big place with lots of forest and climate change is seriously impairing any efforts we might try to make to ameliorate our burning problem by controlling or reducing fuel. Even 'cultural burning' is not immune to climate change and will likely become progressively less effective.
As to Bucket Holes and his paean of praise for Scruton (who ?), I'd have to say that anybody who trudges through Kant (especially the Third Critique) only to write up his own version is welcome to the total condign oblivion that is his due.
Besides, claiming that "his knowledge was astonishingly broad" is nonsense: he most likely knew very little of physics, chemistry or biology and nothing whatsoever of mathematics. Anyone ignorant of those things is almost completely ignorant of actual "human knowledge". He might have known lots about the opinionated opinions of many opinionators, but that simply isn't knowledge.
But reptiles all think that it is.
What is now known as the Wangary fire in SA, in 2005, is an inconvenient counterpoint to the ‘thesis’ of the Executive Director of the Menzies Research Centre. That fire was ignited from a ‘diy’ exhaust system on a local’s ute. It spread across land used for cropping and grazing, at speeds up to 100 kmh, killing 9 people.
ReplyDeleteThe Coroner’s report recommended that two levels of government, and farmers’ organisations, do research, and formulate codes of practice, to manage actual farming practices to prevent outbreaks or spread of bushfire, with particular reference to stubble.
All that material is readily available, but it may be that the research methods of the MRC are guided by sociology.
Most importantly, local government was to require landowners to manage their land to that effect, and the Coroner’s office indicated the legislative power to do that.
Oh - and to see real empathy from a Leader - look for video of the visits of the then Governor, Marjorie Jackson-Nelson, to those grieving communities.
You're asking a lot, Anony, especially of a simpleton such as Goosebumps Cater, to keep more than one or two (at most) simple thoughts in their head at the same time.
DeleteThe idea that we can get fires started by malfunctioning machinery (especially autos) in "cropping and grazing" land is just way too complex for a simple reptile (especially one whose mind must be fully occupied with the question of how to pony up $1.2 million for an idiotic libel).
Cater is either very selective or possibly deceptive in his scribbling...as always. The issue of heat, oxygen(?) and fuel is well and good, but let’s not forget wind velocity. Unless it is convenient to your dodgy climate denial promotions.
ReplyDeleteAs for allowing the Fed. Govt. to seize the bushfire management agenda......and promote investment in mitigation, spare me. I wouldn’t trust this Govt. with a BBQ in a Hawaiian bunker.
I have a brother living in Talbingo, near Tumut 3. From my understanding, the townsfolk and RFS had three meetings over the same number of weeks, discussing and enacting days of preparation in and around the town.
When the fire hit, it was technically a fire cyclone that actually saw the fire descend on the town in the space of five minutes, jump the Tumut River(1/2 mile wide), rip the roof of a house, sending sheet iron a hundred foot into the sky, burn three homes and leave not a stick of vegetation unburnt.
Adaptation and mitigation is a catch cry of the climate denier, first espoused, if my memory is correct, by Exxon chief at the time Rex Tillerson in the late 80’s or early 90’s and has been used by Govt’s. ever since. It is the catch cry of delay.
I have contacted my local member twice(under Howard and Abbott) with questions related to climate change, accompanied by peer reviewed documents.....
Only to be given the same pro forma letter of faux commitment and a link to the Govt. adaptation and mitigation sites.
And here we are over a decade later and nothing has changed regards Govt. policy. It’s coal, coal and more coal......and according to Slomo this morning on AM.....millions of jobs. Yes he did say that!
The only thing that saved Talbingo was 4? fire units and a couple of 600lt. tanks on utes, sheer guts, pre-emption and a lot of luck.
Cater and all his Govt. propaganda blather is an insult to everyone in the bush.
Why he gets Govt. funding via MRC is an even greater insult.....possibly. Cheers.
Reckon SloMo must be getting Ivanka to come out here and do her "millions of jobs created" trick like she did for Daddy in the USA.
DeleteRex Tillerson is going back a while (unless you count his more recent stint as a Trump minion), but I reckon he displays the engineer's certainty based on a ton of ego and a kilotonne of self-interested ignorance. Much like Cater, I guess.
Was that fire cyclone 'natural' or was it an offshoot from a raging fire somewhere - as in "fires create their own weather" ?
What do Paul Espie AO, Brian Loughnane AO, Andrew Abercrombie, Hon. Ian Campbell, Mitchell Hooke AM, Hon Andrew Robb AO and Dr Peta Seaton AM have in common? They are listed as the current directors of the Menzies Research Centre. So, presumably, they were all comfortable with their Executive Director’s public statements attacking the Wagner family, and the quality of research that triggered his - repeated - statements about the Wagners. We would assume they were comfortable with that, because I do not recall seeing any kind of apology from the board after the court findings on the Executive Director, or to explain just how any of that unhappy episode followed the political philosophy of R G Menzies.
DeleteOther Anonymous.
@GB........the fire was part of the Dunn’s Rd fire. The impression I got was it basically created its own system.
DeleteMy sister in law was standing in the street talking with a firie, when he said “can you hear that sound” and she replied that it was probably from the power station and he said “I don’t think so” The fire could be heard for some time before day turned to night, so the sister in law bolted to the local club house, and within 5 minutes the fire had raced from the top of the hill and into Talbingo.
My wife spoke with the brother the day after and said he was relaying as though still running on adrenalin.
When I spoke with him the following day, he said he (along with his son) was more terrified than ever before in his life as the speed of the fire was unbelievable.
As a man of 70, I presume he has fought a few bushfires.
After the last 4 months I’m thinking maybe it’s time to have a national “firies” day. Cheers.
https://www.tatimes.com.au/fire-could-cut-off-talbingo-for-days/
Thanks for that. I've lived all of my lifetime in big towns (Melbourne except for 4 1/2 years in Canberra) so I've never encountered this 'fire cyclone' phenomenon at all. And it all seems to be very recent. The key part from your link was this:
Delete"Stewart highlighted the ferocity of current fires engulfing the region, suggesting they dwarf major fires of the past.
“We are seeing fires like never before, Mr Stewart said. “These fires make the 93/94, 2003 and the 1974 fires look like picnics; this is unprecedented for this region.”" [Tumut and Adelong Times]
I think that clearly shows the unprecedented ferocity of the recent, and to come, fires. We're in a new and frightening world and maybe we really need a sizable firies army.
Re Scruton - none of the stuff written about him by all of the usual right-wing culture-war warriors have mentioned that he was a "scholar", or more correctly propaganda hack for the USA "free"-market stink tanks the American Enterprise Institute and the lies, lies and more lies Heritage Foundation, both of which are part of the Republican (repugnant) noise machine as described by David Brock. They also have very direct links to right-wing "catholics", especially opus dei.
ReplyDeleteScruton was also a "scholar" for the right wing Ethics and Public Policy which is essentially an opus dei propaganda factory.
He was also much revered by the IPA and Quadrant wind bags.
Yep, just the kind that reptiles - and particularly the pretentious ones eg Holey Henry - would admire unreservedly. Or to put it simply: idiocy loves idiocy.
Delete