The pond is making an early return, but only because of the Weekly Beast ... "Sky News Dumped" is the sort of talk the pond loves, especially when it refers to inner city 'leets being snatched away from rustic folk, for fear of contamination ...
Sky News Australia will lose a large chunk of its audience in July after it was dumped by regional broadcaster Win, which has carried the pay TV channel in Tasmania, regional Western Australia, Victoria, Queensland and southern NSW since August 2018. The deal saw Sky After Dark beamed into unsuspecting free-to-air households which had previously been immune to Andrew Bolt, Peta Credlin and Alan Jones unless they had a Foxtel subscription.
Three years ago, Sky was trumpeting this larger footprint when it signed the historic deal with Win to launch in 30 markets to a potential audience of 8 million people.
But along came Nine Entertainment last week to ruin the party by inking a new seven-year deal to broadcast its metropolitan free-to-air television channels 9, 9GO!, 9GEM and 9Life into the regional markets, displacing Sky because it has no room.
No room at the inn! Forced to roam the bush like a sundowner without a home!
And in the same edition came low comedy in relation to the treatment of Abdel-Magied:
Abdel-Magied left Australia for London in 2017, writing that she had become “Australia’s most hated Muslim” and received daily death threats and videos of beheadings and rapes after a post she made on Anzac Day was seized on by conservative media.
Leading the charge was the Australian, which published commentary including opinion articles about the engineer from Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Lionel Shriver, Janet Albrechtsen, John Lyons and Caroline Overington, as well as editorials and items in the now-defunct Cut & Paste column – a vehicle commonly used by the Oz to target enemies.
Under questioning from committee chair, Sarah Hanson-Young, Reid denied the coverage had driven Abdel-Magied out of the country.
Reid: “You paint a picture that the Australian, on a whim, because somebody’s sent an innocuous tweet, decided to character assassinate somebody. My recollection is that the tweet itself was seen by many, many people in Australia as highly provocative and triggered a pretty fierce debate. I don’t remember the exact text of the tweet, but it was a very, very provocative opinion. Again, absolutely, that person’s entitled to have that opinion.”
The tweet she posted was: “Lest. We. Forget. (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine …).”
Lest we forget that the reptiles are also jackals, feasting on any corpse that happens to be available at the time when conducting their culture wars to preserve white western civilisation ...
As usual the infallible Pope had a cartoon for the occasion ...
But enough of the comedy - as always, the pond insists to anyone interested in the reptiles that the venerable Meade is essential reading, and anyone wishing to join the pond's crash course on reptiles for dummies must demonstrate they have done their weekly homework.
And so to today's reptile feast, and the pond was right to take a break, because the pond didn't think about the reptiles for a nanosecond for two whole days (apart from the venerable Meade) and what a joy it was ...
And now what a terrible, tiresome, tedious way to resume ... with a doleful burst of nattering "Ned", indulging in an endless bout of hand-wringing, ashes in the mouth, Chicken Little, "all is rooned" despair ...
It's pretty rich, that talk about being trapped in an age of delusion. Just look at that photo of "Ned" and the three besuited clowns shown beneath him ... not a woman in sight, just the usual suspect potato heads ...
Of course the main reason for "Ned's" terrible two petulant foot-stamping is that he and his gang of besuited brothers didn't get their way ...
The other good reason for the pond to have stayed away is that a wealth of Rowe that accumulated over the last few days, and the pond is inclined to spend some of that wealth ... as we go on with the petulant piety of "Ned", awash in an age of delusion ...
It's passing strange, everything being doomed, and yet Australia a global study in COVID recovery. Yes, the infallible Pope had thoughts about that recovery ...
The good news? Well it's not the same as seeing the return of the cult master, but the reptiles decided to illustrate "Ned's" hysteria with a post-apocalyptic image which might yet turn up in a Mad Max sequel ...
Of course the immortal Rowe had another illustration for the moment ...
By now the pond was fully into a cartoon-led recovery, and knew it could cope with the incessant whining and hand-wringing ...
Christian Porter? The cartoon is clear ...
And so to the penultimate gobbet, and indeed Porter going MIA was noted by "Ned" ...
Worker friendly? SloMo and the Liberals want to be worker friendly? Has the pond got a crocodile to sell you ...
But hopefully the right to screw casuals has been preserved in some kind of form. Where would we be in this age of Uber and Deliveroo if we couldn't keep on with the notion of screwing "contractors"?
And so to the last gobbet of the forlorn "Ned" ... with a delightful typo that turned the noble Porter into an "it presence" ... or absence, as the case may be ...
What a blast from an ancient doddery mariner, pretending that any desire for equity is false ... because, you know, what an inspiration the United States is when it comes to equity ...
And now the pond must rush on because Dame Slap was also out and about, delivering an equally interminable bout of hysteria ...
Every so often Dame Slap pretends to turn feminist, and this was a classic example, a way of purporting to care about one issue, while actually trumpeting the standard IPA rallying call of Freedumb, and let the virus run wild and free ...
Dame Slap followed up with a clip from social media, that leftist forum dominated by leftists of the Nigella Lawson kind ...
Actually it's south London under Boris, and Boris himself is a wondrous example of the British male in peak form ... (how many children does he have again? So hard to keep count and remember).
Anyway if we're going to do an illustration, why not an old Rowson?
Ah, fortunately Dame Slap's cry of freedumb will take into account that curious bill, even as, in classic Dame Slap fashion, there's a confusing and conflating of sensible precautions in relation to a pandemic to a more general whine about the police state she imagines is around us ...
Can the pond help it if the Brexit-loving, Boris loving Dame Slap suddenly discovers that her beloved Boris is a tin god, a straw dog?
Say what? Dame Slap has gone full anarchist? Dame Slap has turned nihilist and wants Extinction Rebellion nutters to roam the streets? Civil rights have been cemented? Except that right now the GOP is doing a new Jim Crow, before our eyes, urged on by the American Murdochians? Where's Dame Slap when it really matters? Why is she chitchatting over cups of tea and Murdoch paid for cheese and cucumber sandwiches?
Why hasn't she taken to the streets in support of women's rights and the end of the Murdochian empire, the Sauron, the Mordor of the ages?
The pond had never imagined a day when Dame Slap might have been radicalised, but alas, it was a fleeting moment ...
Boris Johnson is meant to be a liberal, after all? What sweet delusion is this? Scotty from marketing is incompetent? Dame Slap has only just come to this realisation? And just remember, at some point Dame Slap will celebrate Gladys, and yet if the pond is not mistaken her example at Coogee Beach is in NSW (unless they have a beach of that name in WA).
Never mind, a cartoon to celebrate a speaking in tongues liberal in action is called for (Jen approves) ...
But instead of Scotty, Dame Slap stays her hand and turns to an easy target ...
What's most remarkable about this? Oh sure there's the standard shining of Gladys, whose starting position at Coogee was to be sensible and proporationate, and never mind mentioning her panem et cirenses vouchers stunt, or the strong whiff of corruption that surrounds her still, but what's more astonishing is that comrade Dan escapes without a mention - such are the benefits of a slip on wet steps - and the new enemy is the man who reduced the Liberal party to a rump of two ... oh how it must stick in the reptile craw that the secessionist west voted for this man ...
A politician is attached to power? We should be reclaiming our rights from overzealous politicians, health bureaucrats and the police?
But what of Abdel-Magied? Who helped reclaim her rights from overzealous, slobbering, slavering insulting reptiles? Not Dame Slap ... she was one of the horde that piled in, and forced a woman into exile. Rascally, hypocritical beadle that she is ...
So it goes, and so the pond turns to western civilisation for some speechifying ...
LEAR: What, art mad? A man may see how this world goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears. See how yon justice rails upon yon simple thief. Hark in thine ear: change places and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief? Thou hast seen a farmer’s dog bark at a beggar?
GLOUCESTER: Ay, sir.
LEAR: And the creature run from the cur? There thou mightst behold the great image of authority: a dog’s obeyed in office.
Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand.
Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back.
Thou hotly lust’st to use her in that kind
For which thou whipp’st her. The usurer hangs the cozener.
Through tattered clothes great vices do appear;
Robes and furred gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks.
Arm it in rags, a pigmy’s straw does pierce it.
None does offend—none, I say, none. I’ll able 'em.
Take that of me, my friend, who have the power
To seal th' accuser’s lips. Get thee glass eyes,
And like a scurvy politician seem
To see the things thou dost not. Now, now, now, now,
Pull off my boots. Harder, harder. So.
But enough of all this. The rain is pissing down, exceedingly hard, the pond is totally confused by Dame Slap going full libertarian, and perhaps only an infallible Pope can help resolve the situation with a helpful explanation ...
Ripper!!! Good to have you back so soon.
ReplyDeleteWelcome back Dorothy, please stay a little longer.
ReplyDeleteGiven Morrison's inability to negotiate his way out of a paper bag, I'm not surprised he doesn't get consent either. Perhaps he should study JE Gillard AC, who was brilliant at both.
ReplyDeleteReading Dame Slap, it seems I might have been premature. SloMo's just suffering from an excess of dopamine.
DeleteAnd as for 'working harder to find criminals among us', I'd be happy if they'd do something to reduce the incidence of crime in the first place.
DeleteSo Dame Slap reckons a bit of 'hyperactive policing' is all about us "losing our freedoms". It's very amusing to see how the Slappys of this world are quite ignorant as to even recent history. But of course you couldn't expect an out-right wingnut like Slappy to have ever heard of, for instance, Vietnam conscription demonstrations, anti-apartheid South African rugby and cricket tour protests, and even the Richmond mothers demonstrating against the closure of the Richmond High School:
ReplyDelete"The school commenced in 1967 in portable classrooms at the back of Brighton Street Primary School, before moving in 1970 to purpose-built premises on the banks of the Yarra River near Bridge Road. The school's name was changed to Richmond Secondary College, and in 1992 it was listed for closure by the Kennett Government.[2] Community protests against the closure were endorsed by the Victorian Trades Hall Council and lasted 360 days before protesters were evicted by the Victoria Police Special Operations Group. The methods of crowd dispersal used by police on Monday 13 December 1993, which included "pressure holds" and a baton charge, were the subject of a parliamentary inquiry, with 30 demonstrators receiving $300,000 in a settlement from the Bracks Government in 2000. In 1994, the buildings became the campus of the new Melbourne Girls College."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond_High_School_(Victoria)
But that was then, and that was Kennett's police force, I guess. And look at all the freedoms we lost after such autocratic police behaviour !
Then again, maybe the police took their cue from an earlier time:
"Around 1970, anti-conscription protesters started to regularly take to the streets and, in September that year, a group of La Trobe students and supporters held what appeared to be a relatively routine march.
That is until they moved to Waterdale Road and apparently obstructed traffic. The policeman in charge, the tough and singleminded Keith Plattfuss, was not big on negotiation and ordered his men to use their batons in what one observer described as a 'sickening use of force'.
The unrepentant Plattfuss (German for flat foot) was quoted as saying, 'They got some baton today and they will get a lot more in the future'."
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/war-and-peace-bullets-batons-then-jaw-jaw-20111104-1mzwb.html
That was, of course, in Henry Bolte's day.
But even in the Great Liberal, Rupert Hamer's day, the police did their own thing: I recall (but can't hunt up a reference yet) what I remember as an anti-apartheid protest against the Springboks out at, I think, La Trobe Uni where the marching demonstrators were, for a time, hidden behind a grove of trees. And that's when the police charged. Fortunately, Julia Hamer (Rupert's daughter) was there at the time and was able to inform her father of the goings on. Hamer did at least take some actions to curtail the police brutality.
So how much do we reckon that Dame Slap knows about her own country and how the police suppress our 'freedoms'.
Funny, you seem to be listing a series of those freedom loving conservatives who have misused their powers, or at least looked the other way while others did it on their behalf.
DeleteSlappy once again demonstrates the utility of vague ideas, of highly contrived circumstances that might happen but probably won't. Why go on about this? Because she literally has nothing else to offer. Virtually everything Slappy and the other reptiles have offered in commentary on the pandemic and it's consequences has proved comically wrong so she heads off into the land of woulda, coulda, mighta.
One of your regular posts, Chris Dillow, details the retreat from reality here:
https://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2021/01/on-fantasy-politics.html
The right have been going on about various strawmen for so long that they seem to have started to believe they actually exist. After years of left-wing extremism, for instance, an insurrection actually occurs and rather than damned university educated socialists they got a bunch of toothless MAGAts. Talk about cognitive dissonance!
In Oz we have to eschew right-wing extremists because - - that sounds like part of the conservative tribe.
Who would of thought it?
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/words-matter-asio-to-stop-referring-to-right-wing-and-islamic-extremism-20210317-p57bme.html
DeleteI've always had great difficulty trying to decide whether the out-right wingnuts are cynical - ie. they know they're lying - or whether they are credulous - they believe they're telling the truth and thus pass the Howard test (if you really believe it, then it may be untruthful, but it isn't a lie). Or whether they just oscillate back and forth between both positions depending on which side of their brain is in control at any point in time.
DeleteAnd hence that 'Phil' is basically correct: "right-wing politics, at least in its current form, is living on borrowed time". And, as Dillow has put it, "much of the right suffers a cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, they like to think of themselves as freedom fighters but on the other hand hard facts show that it is the left that’s on the side of freedom and the right [on the side] of repression."
Sooo good to have the cartoons, thank you Dorothy. For words - My Source tells me that both Dames squeezed out a column for the weekend. She only mentioned Dame Groan because, apart from telling the subscribers that there were commercials for superannuation funds on commercial TV (for that information you pay the price of a reasonable cup of coffee?) the rest of it was the Dame's all too familiar references to how superannuation was a cunning plot to overthrow all that we hold dear, thus bearing out your contention that so much of the 'content' of each Flagship is reiteration - but not done in a way that leads to any kind of resolution of the supposed problem.
ReplyDeleteIn the good old days, there was steady demand for Dames, of a certain age, in the Pantomime business. Sort of - superannuation for Dames. Opening for a theatrical entrepreneur?
Talk about reptile reiteration, what about the long, pointless paean from old Neddy One-Note today ? Makes one wonder why evolution ever bothered to provide homo saps saps with personal memories.
DeleteJust a later thought, Chad, but isn't it only "industry" supers that Groany objects to ? The notably lower performing 'for profit (and loss)' supers she's always been in support of - the glory of private enterprise doncha know.
DeleteGB - perhaps an 'industry' fund should have appointed her to one of those apparent sinecures on the board, from which she could have been able to rant about Gummint changing the rules, and otherwise messing with a good system.
DeleteWhen I think about it, the only 'industry' that might have done so would have been one of the pre-existing University funds. But her academic standing in South Australia had declined so much by the time the former Uni 'providents' were transforming to more conventional superannuation structures that she would have been unlikely to be entrusted with responsibility for any of the Uni. funds on the strength(?) of what she was writing, even then, in assorted Rupert publications.
As I recall, such positions were subject to a vote of members.