What better way to start off Australia Day than to celebrate clean, dinkum, pure, innocent, virginal Oz coal? There it was, at the top of the digital page ... but it was also at the top of the tree killer edition ...
But wait, there's more, much more in the digital edition ...
Already the pond had a feeling the reptiles had finally overwhelmed it ... the Canavan caravan, the pious lizard Oz editorialist, Killer Creighton, quarry man Cater, and salivating Salavatore all out and about ...and there was also the sweet smell of nausea in the air, because wait, there's still more ...
Talk about a Grand Slam. Look, there in the middle is a man who is friends with QAnon believers, and himself speaks in tongues to his imaginary friend. And over on the right is a prime loon praying to her imaginary friend for the deviant Comrade Dan.
Of course there had to be a culling, and the pond bitterly regrets it, but how could the pond ever go past the onion muncher on this day?
Oh sure, he's a pathetic irrelevance in a constant and desperate narcissist search for ways to keep turning up in the pond, but as a result, we've seen the grandest times together ...
It turns out that it's a pretty thin gruel this time ... as he seeks a return to relevance, and anyone who will pay attention to a used and pretty soiled ex-PM, mainly remembered for a knightly ability to munch on an onion ...
Yep, he's become a 'fellow' of the Institute of Public Affairs, that wretched blight on humanity, Gina's mob, where he may consort with Dame Slap, and how pathetic can it get? Fortunately there was only one further small gobbet to swallow as the gorge rose ...
Poor old bouffant one, forced to turn out this sort of piffle, as an irrelevant pissant ponce hooks up with the IPA loons ...
Still, it left room for others, and the pond first thought of covering the court, beginning with the Caterist ...
Stop right there, with your cant and your humbug and your bullshit. It's okay when you're just being a complete clown about the movement of flood waters in quarries, or even a climate science denialist, but endorsing Court as being full of profound Christian charity (and then going on to bash TG folk) was too much for the pond.
Everyone who bothered to look has a fair clue what Court preached for years ..
There's a few more Court references tagged in an archive here ... but the pond didn't want to waste time this day with a prick like the Caterist doing an underhand serve on gays and TG folk.
Instead the pond decided to return to traditional values with the Canavan caravan ...
Oh the agrarian socialists at work again. A Buy Australian act will fix everything ... just like the United States has been well and truly fixed ... but wait, there's more, because the government should be building a coal-fired power station. Private sector? What the fuck would it know? It's the Canavan caravan, and everyone on board ...
That tag line should really read "Matt Canavan is a loon who can regularly find space in the lizard Oz, hidden behind a paywall, so that the wider population is spared his loonacy."
And so to the pond's favourite reptile for 2020 ...
The pond knew it had made a mistake. This wasn't going to be up to the great standard set by the Killer during the past year ...
Ah me hearties, those were the days ... but still the pond should press on ... because the Killer wants to get on to the topic of masks. How much humiliation can a possum bear?
Indeed, indeed, why attempt to tackle a pandemic at all, and as for policies, and as for mask wearing, how humiliating. And what about the science? Well it turns out that in a century we've learned nothing.
We just got lucky, punk. But I'se gotsa know how on earth the writer of this dribble came to be called the economics editor of the lizard Oz ...
You fuckwitted loon. Once the virus landed here, if we'd done nothing, we'd be in the same situation as elsewhere in the world ... yes, it helped to be an island, but that advantage went for nothing if we'd all wandered around blathering about Sweden in a triumphalist way, and abandoning track and trace and other policies and deplored masks as humiliating ...
Well the pond has, as usual, made some bad editorial decisions, but at least one thing remains true. No matter who turns up in the lizard Oz, they will have some comedic element that makes the pond realise it should some day return to reality ... a place unfamiliar to the reptiles.
As for celebrating a nation and its achievement, not a date, fuck me dead, the tradies out the back don't seem to realise it's January 26th, which, when the pond looked last, was a date, with symbolic and resonant overtones.
In keeping with the notion that January 26th has nothing to do with January 26th, the pond will end with a few US cartoons, because why not ...
Sod it ... and a reader had sent to the pond a collection of well over twenty Bernie memes, and now Bernie's making money off it (for charity natch), but dammit, the pond might as well slip in a couple ...
Killer C: "Chance, which governs so much in life, doesn't rate a mention."
ReplyDeleteOoh, Killer C has been reading Ecclesiastes too ! What an incredible chance coincidence that is.
The IPA is of course the principal Australian anal-retentive mouthpiece for the world wide phenomenon of Rentier Capitalism which is the title of a new book by Brett Christopher titled Rentier Capitalism Who Owns the Economy & Who Pays For It which was recently reviewed in the Irish Times.
ReplyDeleteTrying to work out which offering is most cringeworthy, Killer insisting he is not wrong, Abbott - well, no explanation required, Cater - well, same as Abbott, but it really has to be Canavan in blackface I reckon.
ReplyDeleteA Gold Coast boy, finding his way via KPMG, the Productivity Commission and the Canberra swamp to a cosplay event. Derek Zoolander going back to his roots or a Village People revival?
On another subject Mrs Befuddled suggests the Invasion Day disagreements could be solved by celebrating Australia's first Coup d'état this day in 1808. If you insist on Invasion Day we could possibly celebrate the second coup on 11 November.
Marketing.
ReplyDeleteIt's a curious art.
If your project invited in a partner with a bit of an image problem - an onion eater. A lip licker. A man prone to inappropriate comments and behaviours. Is this the sort of image that you would use to celebrate his arrival? I'm honestly completely bushwhacked as to why a person would approve an image with the odd man looking.....odder than ever: https://twitter.com/TheIPA/status/1353836080806514693
I'm studying for an IPA in marketing.
All credit to Mrs Befuddled for that idea. I write as an admirer of Vice-Admiral William Bligh FRS, if not of all who claim to be his descendants in Australia now, so would support pinning the obervance to the year 1808, noting that the actual day would remain at January 26, the day the New South Wales Corps marched on Government House.
ReplyDeleteIt could be Coup d'état day (which has a particular cadence) or, more appropriate to what celebrating citizens might understand - Rum Day, or even Rum'n'Coke Day, for our American cousins.
Now come on Chad and Bef, we all know that there is only one possible 'Australia Day': March 3rd 1986. The day that Australia, as an independent nation, actually came into existence with the simultaneous UK-Australia signing of the Australia Act.
DeleteUntil that event, Australia was still just a dominion comprising 6 separate 'state' dominions and a territory or two. Afterwards, it was the nation-state of independent Australia. Worth just a tiny little bit of celebration, don't you think ?
But then I suppose that the Citizenship Act - when we Aussies (yes, including me) ceased being British subjects and became citizens instead, has some claim. Though that was Chifley, and the Act came into effect on 26 January 1949, so I guess that rules the wingnuts both in and out.
If I might, with respect, disagree with you, GB - I can see reasons why Mrs Befuddled's idea would appeal greatly to the IPA, and particularly to its new 'Fellow'. The 1808 event determined that the main function of government was to identify the resources of the country, and transmit them seamlessly to the men of property - all at no cost for the act of transfer, nor for any of the future expenses of government in attending to the security of those resources. It was also an exercise in reducing the size of government, so should appeal to the rest of the libertarian/'Spectator'/'Quadrant' wring cycle.
DeleteDunno why the IPA - styling itself as a 'think tank' - has not thought of that already. They owe Mrs Befuddled a consultancy fee.
Disagree away, Chad, but note that you'll have to face Prof John Quiggin as well:
Deletehttps://johnquiggin.com/2021/01/26/australia-act-day/
When you wheel out that grade of artillery - I reach for a white flag. Still - it was an amusing speculation from Mrs Befuddled.
Delete- and a better way to spend time than reading Shanaham, or the Cater, or having to point up the innumeracy or logical inconsistency of Dr Lally, or what issues from Salvatore, and thank you Dorothy for dealing with the Canavan, to save us the risk to brain tissue.
DeleteNow getting back to Killer C and how we really had nothing whatsoever to do with it: "We want to believe our actions make a big difference, but that doesn't make it true."
ReplyDeleteWell, Killer C being what he is, I don't reckon it's worth bringing up the discussion of design and emergence again, is there. If you want a review: https://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2020/12/news-versus-emergence.html
So, if we take Killer C's view, then it doesn't matter what we did and didn't do, it was all down to "luck" "Save the Covid triumphalism - we've been lucky" he screams. Yep, well if you have no ability whatsoever to analyse and understand cause and effect, then, like Killer C, you can only believe it was luck. So that's it for praising Gladys, yes ? No credit to her, it was just luck.
Well, the luck of being an island, anyway. But then, correct me if I'm wrong, Britain is an island - well several actually, but one main one. So no luck there ? And in a sort of way, the USA is an island too: just consider the Canada border to the north and the Mexico border to the south and unless there was a sizable influx across either border, the USA is essentially an island too. No luck there, either.
But this is the real one: "We want to believe our actions make a big difference but that doesn't make it true." See, if we'd have done nothing at all, the "luck" would still have saved us, because: "Many of those actions are very costly for certain industries and businesses, and have required public borrowing on the scale of a world war."
Terrible, ennit: just do nothing, and like with Sweden it will all turn out for the best with no economic damage and no "world war" scale borrowing. Now we can all agree with that, can't we. Sheesh, this idiot makes Cater look almost just subnormal instead of the galloping moron he is.
The Canavan caravan seems to be perpetually stuck in a self-promotional rut.
ReplyDeleteLet’s start making stuff in Australia again
And pump out the products like we did way back when
Lets fire up the factories and run them on coal
And while we are at it let’s find some more oil
My bro's got the resources to fuel the revival
Enough to make sure of our family’s survival
Let’s stick it to China and the WTO -
From now on us Diggers will be running the show
It's a wondrous theme from those who destroyed Australian manufacturing by getting rid of Ford, GM and Toyota (having already seen off a few others eg Mitsubishi in SA) and therefore ending the parts and addons industry in Australia as well. Does anybody remember Repco as a once major auto parts manufacturer, not just a retailer.
DeleteYep, let's bring back manufacturing after we killed it.
PS does anybody remember Astor, AWA etc etc etc.