Of course the pond has no wish to attract a defamation action by commenting on that story on the left, but in any case it has no doubt that the first law officer of Australia, the Attorney-General, will do the right thing, and suggest for the good of all, that his anonymous colleague, the one named in the matter, step forward.
This will absolve all those cabinet ministers currently under suspicion and avoid cartoonists offering up this sort of easy jibe ...
At the same time, the pond has no understanding of, or explanation for, the sudden interest in a flurry of changes in certain wiki listings, and so must turn to the adjacent story for its reptile feast this day.
But as it's Killer Creighton, with a tale of hysterical woe and unremitting exaggeration, who could complain?
Now it so happens that Australia was really like China, the Killer would have long ago been sent to a gulag for re-education, and the pond would have been there alongside him - shudder at that thought, not so much the re-education as being alongside Killer - though the chances of this blog having made it to that point would have been minuscule.
But stupid people love their stupid exaggerations, and they also love their listicles, and so we have a catalogue of people we have to hate - with photos! - in this Killer outing, even as the pond wonders that the fuck it has to do with the alleged job of economics editor ...
Ah it's Killer's old story of how we should have been allowed to roam wild and free, and spread the virus how and when we could, because death is freedom and emulating the Donald, GOP governors of the Kristi Noem kind and baffling, Brexiting, bullshitting Boris was the way to go ...
And so to a photo of one of the worst, Comrade Dan, and more of the Killer venting his fury, though he might find himself in trouble if he was in Hong Kong at the moment ...
Return to the gold standard, and all will be well, the pond says ...
But then the pond recalled that this was a name and shame day, a cancel culture feast, as it were, and is there anybody more in need of a cancelling than that dreadful Kiwi woman (the pond dare not speak her name, because it might form part of an incantation, of the witchcraft kind, and who knows what dire monster might erupt from the ring of magic? Here, gaze on a photo of the Medusa instead, and listen to the Killer's diatribe) ...
Ah the Riddster, the noble Riddster, and noble hydroxy, and yet no mention of the compelling power of bleach and light up your bum?
But stay, we have had our snaps of a couple of chief villains, let us start the last of the diatribe with a portrait of a long suffering hero, a never-ending saga much celebrated by the reptiles as they sit around their campfires at night and celebrate Beowulf and the Riddster...
Indeed, indeed, that profound lament, in the usual pond way, reminded the pond of a recent cartoon full of yearning for freedom in the News Corp way ...
The pond has only one issue with Killer's piece this day ... no mention of Peterson's new book, which provides significant nostrums and insights ... and as a result, the pond was forced to revert to an early notice in The Times to catch up on the reptile favourite, with highlights like these ...
Come on Killer, don't cancel a reptile hero by ignoring him!
Well there's the Mercurius comedy for the day, and perhaps the Killer dodged a dragon's tail bullet, and so to a bonus, because the pond can never get enough bromancer ...
But what of the comedy, as celebrated by Rowe here?
Meanwhile, the reptiles keep on showing photos of the Donald to illustrate the bromancer piece ...
Never mind there's just a small gobbet to go, and another irrelevant illustration to end on ...
Silly young things, donning MAGA caps like Dame Slap? Is it any wonder that the pond turned to the infallible Pope for a final word, happily on matters domestic ...
Oh - I seem to be leading off again, but - ‘Killer’ writes ‘Prices in the financial markets are more and more a function of government regulations, just as they are in China, rather than underlying economic fundamentals.’
ReplyDeleteOne of the innovations that came from clans gathering into - call them ‘states’ for convenience - was coinage - money - to facilitate the markets that were one of the good reasons for forming a state. Most of those ‘states’ soon learned the trick of setting an arbitrary value on its coinage - particularly the trick of ‘devaluing’ it when it suited that ‘state’.
It is difficult to find a time when financial markets existed that were governed only by ‘economic fundamentals’. Although Ec.101 includes contrived examples like the village cut off by floods, with a limited supply of bread - the examples from actual history show the state - or the church (usually an arm of the state) regulating the market in bread in such circumstances, and all others.
Some of Adam Smith’s more entertaining examples involve petty interventions in financial markets - but I have found that many who claim to be professional economists have denied themselves the pleasure of reading Smith.
Yes, somewhere, there may be a mythical ‘state’ in which all goods and services are allocated in ‘the market’, and government attends only to defence and law’n’order. Perhaps ‘Killer’ can wangle a posting to that land; the move to the USA doesn’t seem to be happening.
tl:dr Killer, as with all reptiles, got it extremely wrong yet again.
DeleteUnless you want to include all human 'buying and selling and accumulating' behaviour as 'economic. In which case prices, and money values and bonds and such are indeed all set by 'economic' fundamentals.
Of the $11 you paid yesterday for your latte and muffin at Chadstone (interesting name!) $1 can be identified clearly as your contribution to GST. Had you decided to buy a gold brick instead, you would not have been assessed GST. All in the national interest, of course. And you would have had a choice - bullion grade silver and platinum are also unencumbered by GST, but there it stops. How platinum got in, and other odd metals (palladium, anyone?) did not, presumably is a secret between J Winston Howard and Meg Lees.
ReplyDeleteAnd there's quite a few things I buy at the Supermarket (from whence I have just returned) which are also exempt GST thanks to Meg - and books too, I think. Pity she had to destroy the Aussie Dems to do it, sadly.
DeleteDoes make me wonder though, how much GST the Chinese pay on all that iron ore and coking coal they buy. Just as well we Aussies are unlike the Canadians and Brazilians but, can you imagine what the GST on a jetliner would be ?
More sadly - the invoices for the books I order online show me the basic price of the book, its shipping cost, and the GST levied on both factors. A steady reminder of that a crafty negotiator Ms Lees was.
DeleteJust goes to show how often I buy printed books these days. But I still thought that printed books were, and are, exempt and I'm not the only one:
DeleteNo need to pay GST on sale of Printed books
https://howtoexportimport.com/No-need-to-pay-GST-on-sale-of-Printed-books-6392.aspx
Getting back to the Bromancer is always fun: "Donald Trump's speech to the Conservative Political Action Committee shows that he is going to be an absolute nightmare for the Republican party in the months and years ahead."
ReplyDeleteCompared to the lovely sweet dream he has been up to now.
Bro: "It was an unattractive speech, thoroughly self obsessed, as though Trump's personal interests and the interests of the United States of America, not to mention that mere bagatelle, the Republican Party, were identical."
But, butt, they are ! Of course they are ! And that's why Trump has been giving such fine, feeling, empathising speeches all along the way up until now. Not even one teensy soupcon of self-interest in any of the myriad speeches and tweets that the Donald has made until now.
More Bro: "Among its many dolorous consequences is that it will tend to force them to take a position for or against Trump..."
Which not a single one of them has had to do until now, not about anything, given the absolute convergence between Trump's personal interests and the interests of the United States of America. But we know what will happen: 40% of GOPpers will be passionately for him, plus a few percent of Independents and DINOs. Maybe 45% of America all up. And so it will be for all times.
However, DP, you inquire: "Should the bromancer be disenfirsed?" No, of course not; not while he does such an incomparable job of disenfirsing himself.
Has it just occurred to the Bromancer that as far as Trump is concerned, the interests of the USA are his personal and business interests? After how many long years was that?
DeleteThe ABC news site posed a serious question today:
ReplyDelete"Former prime minister John Howard was once derided as "Mr 18 Per Cent". So how did the man who was dumped from the Liberal leadership become Australia's second-longest-serving PM?"
Now that's a question I'd really like to see a good answer to: how did the little r-soul do that. And after that question is answered, the next one is: how did Robert Gordon Menzies become Australia's longest-serving PM ? I think that if I'd had the sense and sensibility to answer those questions back when I was still young enough to get active about it, I just might understand Trump, Johnson and Morrison now.
But as it is, I still haven't a clue.
Former prime minister John Howard evaluates his time in office, 25 years after his election victory
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-02/john-howard-commemorates-25th-anniversary-of-being-elected/13203954
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DeleteA chap got bit cranky with me a while ago because I was criticising Morrison. He had it arse-about, thinking I regarded him as corrupt and incompetent because I disliked him rather than that I disliked him because he was corrupt and incompetent.
DeleteIf you watch him mansplaining to a female reporter you are learning something about his character, about his default assumptions and how he interacts with people around him and it is relevant to his suitability for his job.
But he hasn't got any sons, Bef, so you and I would be screwed.
DeleteAnd was your interlocutor able to explain just how he has assessed Morrison to be competent and uncorrupt ?
The inability to explain those things was the reason for the crankiness.
DeleteHi Dorothy,
ReplyDeleteWelcome to Australia’s independent journalism where the hacks will report the News without “fear or favour”!
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/02/i-knew-about-the-allegations-more-than-a-year-ago-heres-why-i-didnt-report-them
Everybody in the Federal Government knows who these allegations are pointed at. Everybody in the Press Gallery has known about these allegations for months or even years but they won’t report the allegations because of fear of legal liability.
Brave.
Very Brave.
This is starting to look like the reptiles themselves have blood on their hands as they have protected a powerful person by refusing to print a credible allegation from a desperate person.
Not surprising that the minister pursuing a vendetta against a brave whistleblower and his lawyer is not willing to have the same scrutiny of his own behaviour.
This is a very bad, corrupt government.
DiddyWrote
That's just poor Tory, DW, at a loose end since she left the reptiles and suffered from the attention deficit syndrome that affects journos ...
DeleteWhat is remarkable is that the Graudian picked up this waif and now is pleased to call her a freelance journalist and writer. Back in the day the 'Tiser labelled her this way: "Tory Shepherd writes a weekly column on social issues for The Advertiser. She was formerly the paper's state editor, and has covered federal politics, defence, space, and everything else important to SA."
And now she lands in the Graudian to explain how she did nothing. If she'd done something, it might have been interesting, but everyone knows how to do nothing.
"everyone knows how to do nothing" Indeed, DP, a case in point from Tory: "I didn’t call her again, because I worried that she would translate that as pressure." whereas not making any contact was quite likely interpreted not as a lack of "pressure", but more as a total lack of interest and sympathy.
Delete