What is Tony Abbott to Britain or we to him? A failed Australian politician who will be remembered, if at all, for believing climate change was “probably doing good” as his country burned, and being eviscerated for his sexist comments by Julia Gillard. Abbott is a has-been from the other side of the world of whom we know little and care less. Nevertheless, Boris Johnson is thinking of making him our trade envoy. No one has voted for Abbott in Britain and he negotiated no major trade deals in his error-strewn period as Australia’s prime minister, which ended in 2015, when, incidentally, his own party judged him to be worthless and brought him down.
His record does not matter to Johnson because Abbott is a product of the global network of rightwing thinktanks that has learned how easy and cheap it is to manipulate British politics. I want to emphasise the cheapness. Britain is the Poundshop of European politics, where money goes further. Pecunia non olet – “money does not stink” – said the emperor Vespasian as he defended his tax on the sale of urine from Rome’s sewers to tanners who used it to soften animal skins.
The onion muncher and a tax on piss together in the opening pars? Is this not the way to begin a Monday?
There's more at the Graudian here, but the pond felt in good cheer as it began the drudgery of tackling the usual reptiles at the lizard Oz ...
Of course bias swings both ways in the world, but the dog botherer is so biassed he can't conceive that he's biased. Such is his delusion that he somehow he imagines he doesn't show his true colours with his talk of biased US convention coverage ... when what he really means is that the coverage of the whining, narcissist American carnage, showboating, snake oil salesman carnie and his neoptic crew isn't to his liking ... and that certain commentators refuse to recognise that reality television Donald style is a train wreck which commands attention (even if ratings were down on the first season) ...
Yes, it's outrageous that the ABC should carry on so, whereas the bromancer, the dog botherer and the like are busy tending to their duties of expert Donald arse-licking, because everyone agrees, and promises made, have been promises kept ...
And so to a doggie botherer special ... though it takes an inordinate time to get there ...
Say what? Is the dog botherer suggesting Obama was wrong. Is the dog botherer confounding the optimist with news that the oceans are still rising. Is the dog botherer suggesting that the planet hasn't begun to heal? Is, in short, and in fact, the dog botherer proposing that climate science is real, and that climate alarmism is a more useful response than Obama's?
Lordy, lordy, lah-di-dah, the pond promised it would be special ... there's nothing like a world on fire to put the dog botherer's denialism to the torch ...
And so on to the dog botherer railing about double standards and gullibility, as if he's never seen the glazed eye fish look of the Fox and Friends crew as they listen to their demented president ramble ... but relief is at hand, because it's the last gobbet ...
Keep Trump on is the dog botherer cry, and the pond must echo it, because the chance to fuck the sanctimonious nonsense of the United States being the font of democracy and a civilising influence on the world will at last be laid to rest, and instead all we'll get is a continuing clown show, with the dog botherer in the premium seats ...
And so to the Major doing his best for SloMo ...
The Major wasn't the only reptile to attempt to distract with talk of the flu, and how the pandemic was just a doddle, and what's the fuss, and never mind what's happened elsewhere.
The reptiles dipped as low as dragging in Clive Palmer to join simplistic Simon and some Karen the reptiles illustrated as """ ... (Clive had the same honour, apparently the reptiles haven't got a photo of him, or couldn't be fucked) ...
And yet at the top of the reptile page itself ...
While the war on China dominated the front page of the tree killer edition, even there came talk of "premier power" ...
Naturally this put the Major on a war footing ...
To put the Australian pandemic experience into historical perspective, one of the reasons we've done so well is that the science is better, and leaders haven't followed the moronic advice of the reptiles, especially that moron in chief the Major, who seeks to make points about influenza and World War 1 and the misnamed Spanish flu in a way that entirely misses the point, both in the past and the present ...
But back to saving SloMo's skin, and the suffering of reptile favourite Graham Turner ... who has frequently turned up in the pages of the lizard Oz to urge people to travel, and never mind the pandemic, or the return flight in a body bag, without mentioning the most naked of reasons ...
Troubled travel group Flight Centre has warned investors of a multi-million-dollar loss ahead of its financial results, flagging the coronavirus pandemic is still inflicting pain upon the tourism-dependent business.
The Queensland-based company is anticipating a statutory loss between $825 million and $875 million from direct impacts of COVID-19 grounding the travel and tourism industry.
Flight Centre’s expected shortfalls are off the back of the economic downturn sparked by the virus, reducing the value of its assets that will be recorded as impairment charges.
The company has set aside $110 million for COVID-19-related costs, with the 2020 financial year loss a significant reversal on the 2019 net profit of $364.3 million.
Removing impairment charges caused by impacts of the virus upon its business, Flight Centre is anticipating an underlying loss between $475 million and $525 million, largely incurred from the company’s inability to operate during the height of lockdown measures. (here)
If you want to see how a corporate head can handle their plight, contrast the self-pitying carry-on routinely offered by Turner to Alan Joyce at Qantas, as he slashes and burns ...
Sorry for that detour, the pond will turn to the Major now, it just wanted to pre-empt some of the gibberish in the final gobbet ...
And yet, and yet, for all the Major's work, for all the reptile efforts ...
And with the immortal Rowe on a break, the pond has decided to celebrate an event, because today is the last day of a certain person at the White House, and the pond has studiously avoided mentioning the fraudulent liar or contemplating the state of her marriage (though imagining being one of her children sets the pond's teeth on edge and puts its mind in a tizz and generates thoughts of emancipation) ... but surely all will be well ...
Ah, that symbiosis, nay mutualism, between mass media and the travel/tourism businesses. How could the mass media maintain their 'travel liftouts' if they had to pay fares, and accommodation, for their writers? Not, of course, that enjoying unlimited freebies would have any effect on the writer's assessment of the amazing new resort, or seating arrangement, or in-flight catering by (insert name of chef recently on TV show).
ReplyDeleteAnd it is not restricted to actual resorts - there are tie-ins with new cars, which are much better assessed in, oh, Spain, or Italy, than in Oz - boats, fashion accessories - the entire business model would be (further) at risk without those philanthropists in the travel businesses, and writers would have to look for stories in their own neighbourhoods. Where's the glamour in that kind of, er - journalism?
Oh the wonders of Maj. Mitch:
ReplyDelete"This column reported in April that a bad influenza season could kill up to 3000 Australians."
and
"Reporters have also hyped stories of potential longer-term organ damage to COVID-19 sufferers apparently unaware the influenza virus can damage the heart muscle. It's called myocarditis and can even kill children."
Isn't it just wonderful that for Maj. Mitch this means we are paying too much attention to COVID-19 rather than us having become too habituated to, and clearly not paying enough attention to, the flu. So what he reckons is that in a short order of time we'll become just as passively accustomed to 3000 deaths and a heap of myocarditis, every year, from COVID-19 as we are now to the flu.
I guess that's what he'd call "living with the virus". Just like we learned to "live with" poliomyelitis, tuberculosis and smallpox, and measles, mumps and rubella of course. And influenza too, obviously. Confession: I am obviously an obsessive-compulsive because I get my flu vaccine, and often a booster second jab, every year.
Gerald Henderson wrote
ReplyDelete"the surviving communist regimes in China and North Korea".
What are Laos, Cuba and Vietnam, chopped liver?
Tsk, tsk, JM: you're not actually accusing Polonius of a faailure of his encyclopedic knowledge of just everything, are you ? Oh, the shame.
DeleteGB - your invocation of Hill and Knowlton gives me a convenient segue into 'Gravy Planet' a.k.a.'The Space Merchants', and to thank you for that referral. Although it was disturbingly prescient for something written before most people alive now were born - I did enjoy finding the little gems - the 'Galton Whistle', a moon transport named 'Vilfredo Pareto', and, so near the end - Maxwell's Demon.
ReplyDeleteVery glad you enjoyed it Chad, and that after all this time it can still be relevant. I might even have to re-read it myself now to recall all those charming bits.
DeleteHi Dorothy,
ReplyDeleteAt the top of your screen grab of The Australian’s Front Page, it says “Trolls Target ABC Hosts”.
Is this a advert for the Opinion Pages?
DiddyWrote
As supporting evidence - Doggy endorses trolling in this statement regarding Drumpf "Whatever you think of his character or his policies, you would have to be consumed by loathing not to find amusement in the way the US President deliberately trolled his opponents".
DeleteDB is engaging in his own bit of trolling in saying this. Most people would use the term purely as a pejorative rather than conflating it with humour.
Still, I guess it is all that these fruit loops have got.
To engage in satire requires some perspicacity and wit, qualities that 'Drumpf' clearly lacks and that the Doggy Bov is ignorant of. So all they can manage is the base "and so's your old man" kind of childish "trolling" which DB considers some kind of badge of honour.
DeleteWell spotted DW, très drole, :)³, and with evidence immediately produced of an expert troll.
Delete