Friday, October 16, 2020

In which the pond turns to Flinty for help, before retreating to reptile memories, and a submarine swim to victory ...

 


 

 

What's the pond going to do with this sort of Friday offal, waking early in the morning? 

What a useless dunghill ... left-over Savva, for a microwave reheating, Francis """ on parade doing standard Comrade Dan bashing, Killer Creighton blathering on in the usual 'oh the humanity, the humanity' Killer way, the roving Rove pleading for a royal flush to keep the emperor in power, and the bromancer grovelling in a most unseemly way, forgetting everything he once scribbled?

And then when the lazy reptiles eventually got around to refreshing the page, did it get any better?

 


 

Our Henry lining up to distract from Gladys by doing over Comrade Dan, and Gra Gra supporting Gladys, and Killer Creighton making the cut, along with the roving Rove?

Dammit, the pond decided to go full Flinty ...

 


 

What a relief. And even better, while today conventional calendars suggest it's the 16th October, the pond is able to peer into the future and see the Flinty of tomorrow. 

Aye aye C'pn Flint, and with that talk of constitutionalising the pub test, the pond is reminded that it frequently sees good old Flinty in the public bar nursing a midi, or at least at the Admiral Benbow, old sea-dog that he is, ranting away in a style only Flinty in full voice can manage. Lay to, me hearties, and scupper me chips if Flinty isn't the right call ...


 

One thing's certain, you won't find your average reptile carrying on like a Flinty with a taste for a serve of rum and molasses ... see how Flinty only takes a few gobbets to spin totally out of control ...


 

Ah the Donald, what a Donald lover our Flinty is ...




At least he has climate science denialism and Donald worship in common with the reptiles, though it's passing strange that none of them seem worried about dear, sweet, dinkum clean Oz coal, under the hammer of late by those fiendish, devilish Chinese ... but what to do, oh what to do?



Oh what to do? Why it's bloody simple,  bung on a Royal Commission, bring back the bromancer, and go direct democracy, reclaim the country, because who wouldn't want to be functioning like the United States right now?

 


 

Sadly all good rants must come to an end,  but what a rallying cry it what, what a call to arms ...

But after that serve of common sense Flinty - why the pond is sure to spot him in the public bar in Newtown this week having a midi with a mob of vulgar youffs - the pond began to wonder if it had been entirely fair to our Henry ... perhaps some highlights featuring his usual erudition and stylish references?


 

Indeed, indeed, sage advice, but how serious is it in Victoria, good sir? Why positively a Shakespeherian rag, so referential and elegant ... o o o o ...



A thought that would never occur to our Gladys! And for a final flourishing, a rousing call to arms with Machiavellian intent that sounded - can praise get any higher? - almost Flintian ...



 

Meanwhile, the pond had only just caught up with the fantastic good news that will fix everything ... as celebrated by the bromancer ...




The pond got tremendously nostalgic at that one, and returned to the Bolter and the bromancer, back in 2016 when the devious Malware was putting together that submarine nonsense ...




Back in those days, the bromancer was the go to expert, and he was shattered when Malware abandoned Japan ...



 

Ah those were different days, and different ways ... but today, let's dance in the streets ...



 

Yes, yes, who would have thought the whole project a white elephant, apart from those reading the lizard Oz, the bromancer, the Bolter and such like when Malware's white elephant first came out on parade, just ahead of the NBN in the parade of white elephants ... 

For some reason, the pond was reminded of the infallible Pope cartoon this day ...

 



And now the pond has overheard some wretches in the front bar with Flinty muttering about those subs, and what did we need with those white elephants ready to arrive at a time when the pond will be long dead? 

 Why, lordy, lordy, don't cha know, we'se gunna bung on a do with China, and teach 'em a lesson - damned if they can do that to pure, dinkum, sweet, innocent, virginal, clean  Oz coal - and luckily, we have a wolf at the door, and he's howling away ...



The pond has to admit that it was really only drawn to Wolfie by the presence of the cult master, but once there, the pond also has to admit that it loves a history lesson from armchair warriors remembering the good old days when they took to sitting behind a desk, or perhaps savoured a port in the leather chair in the club, as they planned to bung on a do ...



Hmm, this verges on heresy. Hasn't the Donald signaled troop cuts in South Korea, or at least tried to shake down the South Koreans to pay more, and pulled troops out of Germany, and formed deep, warm, loving friendships with Xi, Vlad the impaler, and that friendly, benign North Korean dictator who loves a night parade just like the Donald?


 

But why the current anxiety? Could it be that there's an elephant in the room prompting Wolfie's war-mongering talk?



 

That's in The Atlantic under the header Keep an Eye on Taiwan for anyone with free clicks left .... but now back to Wolfie for a final gobbet ...



 

Let's hope that the Donald wins, because if anyone's going to sound credible, it surely must be the Donald, or so Lindsey assured the pond when we were chatting about the good old days ...

And by golly, David Rowe is thinking along the same lines, celebrating the superspreader of sweet American victory, with more Rowe as usual here ...

 


 

5 comments:

  1. On manufacturing, Daniel Petre put it well: "They've got a religious aversion to software which doesn't make sense. Their obsession with manufacturing is not matched by what should be an equal obsession with software."
    The value in manufacturing is in the software. A car is a computer on wheels, a plane is a computer with wings, etc. See also Computational photography, and software defined radio.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. But, butt, Joe, we've already got a world-class software industry: Atlassian.

      Trouble is, it's owned and run by a woke progressive who doesn't contribute to the Libbies.

      Delete
    2. If only Cannon-Brookes had some of the 'common sense' that Flinty has in abundance we could probably introduce some of the most cutting edge 19th century technology.

      Delete
    3. Now Bef, don't go dragging the poor old guy who's in his 9th decade out of his comfort cell to tell him that it's already the 21st C. He won't believe you anyway, since he can't see any evidence at all of that.

      And neither can Wolfowitz, apparently.

      Delete
  2. Some Friday, DP: the decidedly disingenuous Fabulous Flinty, just a smidgen of Holely Henry, the totally ingenuous Brazen Bromancer and a very old fogie Warmonger Wolfowitz who's still living in the 70s and may have just reached the 80s.

    Gotta credit the Flinty though: "Polling is not a science ..." Wau, apart from the fact that "polling" actually is a 'science' (it's got established theories, mathematical foundations and it conducts a lot of 'trial and error' experiments which are used to reinforce and/or refine the practice), that is just such a perspicacious perspective, isn't it.

    Which leads Flinty on to note that: "[Polls] now predict the implausible, a massive Biden landslide." Wau, a "Biden landslide" that Flinty, a man of faultless prognostication, knows is "implausible". But not the stock market, apparently:
    Belief Joe Biden will win drives shift in US stock purchases
    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/oct/14/joe-biden-win-us-stock-investment-patterns

    Well, when Australia can finally be driven to "Constitutionalise the 'pub test'" (would we perhaps need to recruit Amy Coney Barrett to achieve that ?), then surely the day of Earthly Paradise will have arrived.

    But not according to Henry: "It may be that Machiavelli, living in a world of petty tyrannies and ruthless oligarchies, was too pessimistic." And just maybe he was too optimistic, consider this:
    Stealing "libertarianism"
    https://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2020/10/stealing-libertarianism.html

    From which we can all learn that it isn't the evils of capitalism that matter, it's the evils of bastardised libertarianism. And then we can go on to learn about the evils of feudalism (something that both Henry and Flinty know very well):
    https://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2020/10/on-feudal-exploitation.html

    On to the Bromancer and his paean to Australian "built" submarines. Now like most folks applying the 'pub test' I have absolutely no idea what use these submarines will be when, if ?, any of them actually take to sea, but I do know that the Bro reckons this is just a fabulous way for SloMo'n'Josh to blow multi $billions on subsidising manufacturing that could have been saved - by supporting GMH, Ford and Toyota - at a small fraction of the projected expense. But the Bro sure loves a good old fashioned Competitive Evaluation Process, doesn't he.

    Finally, Wolfowitz and his obsession that "The best way ro prevent war is to threaten war". Sure it is, Wolfy, sure it is. Or at least it was the last time we had a big one - that one in Korea. But in this day of AI, drones, smart weapons and 1.3 billion Chinese virtually all of whom can be drafted if necessary then will it still work ? Sure it will, sure it will:

    About 1,789,000 American soldiers served in the Korean War suffering 33,686 battle deaths. The Chinese suffered 114,000 battle deaths. Now, does anybody really, sincerely believe that the USA actually wants to go through worse than that in a war in Taiwan ? Why, you'd have to be as insane as Pompeo to believe that.

    And now for the words of the week: "magnified minority" {qv).

    ReplyDelete

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