The return of Barners, slouching towards leadership like a Tamworth mite, has startled the reptiles, and so the top of the digital page was full of it this day ...
Yes, it was all hands on deck, and yet there was one man who showed how the reptiles might manage the transition with smooth assurance and ongoing humbug and hagiographical hope ...
Come on down, bouffant one, reacting to the news yesterday ...
A huge challenge? Do go on, perhaps with a little gap where the pond has removed irrelevant links ...
Ah that good old reptile-celebrated pragmatism. A little sound and fury perhaps, and truth to tell as Barners strode away from that press conference, he didn't seem like a happy winner, he seemed more like a profoundly angry and deeply unhappy man, intending to wreak vengeance on his enemies and anyone else he might find ... starting with all those bloody journalists who kept asking questions about his fornicating ways ...
But how quickly the clouds can part, and the sound and fury settle, when you're a bouffant one ...
Yes, within a day, it's a seamless, practical transition boding well for the new team ...
By golly, this sort of scribbling leaves Pravda for dead ...
Splendid stuff. Why, here's a scribbler who deserves a special koala stamp, instead of all those loons given one by the wretched Adams ...
But what of the other reptiles? Would they be as compliant and as sycophantic and forelock-tugging as the bouffant one? After all, it takes a special skill.
To answer the question, the pond had to toss the usual favourites, or suspects if you will, aside ...
Dame Groan raging and fulminating about a high migrant intake yet again?
Listen to the old biddy carry on about the pesky, difficult furriners who were ruining everything, and quite possibly nicked her door mat as well, the one with the "welcome" sign on it? While luddite Barners is out and about, stomping around and giving the dunny door a good kicking?
Sorry, it was back to the Barners show ... and first came nattering "Ned", though for once he seemed at a loss for words, and was astonishingly short ...
A climate showdown? Well yes, for a goodly time now, the reptiles and SloMo and his mob have conspired, offering up a form of words, economical with the truth, Janus like blathering to the world and to the domestic market about the way they cared about emissions, talking up technology and doing a dance around 2050 ...
Suddenly a genuine climate science denialist, Gina's chosen one, is back in the temple, and all that carefully constructed bullshit, and elaborate beefy Angus malarkey has flown right out the window ... and yet even as he scribbles, "Ned" someone manages to say with a straight face that there is an actual "climate strategy" ...
His belief in the global energy revolution? Really? Just scratch the surface to see how shallow that notion is in relation to the speaker in tongues to imaginary friends, and his beloved coal, held up high so that all might adore it, just like a wafer suffused with human flesh and too much gluten ...
Poor "Ned" was caught so short there was just time for a few more words, and a video clip - some sort of click bait, neutered by the pond - with yet more blather about professional and pragmatic in the chyron - and "Ned" was done ...
The showdown has come? It never went away, there was so much dissembling and denial in relation to climate science.
That's the best a "Ned" lost for words could offer?
So the pond turned to the lizard Oz editorialist, trying to cast oil on disturbed waters, hoping for the best ...
Advocate more forcefully? It's Gina's pet, and being from Tamworth and not house trained, he's likely to piss in the kitchen and poo on the lounge room rug ...
Say what, lizard Oz editorialist? You expect some sign of sanity in Gina's climate science denialist big mining party? It's a long time since it's been a Country party, but there are lots in it who now fit that other unmentionable rustic word which Shakespeare once made a punning joke about in Hamlet...
And there you have it in a nutshell, as evoked and summarised by the infallible Pope ...
Talk about a hollow Treasure of Sierra Madre laugh ... but there was one reptile who wasn't interested in this natural phenomenon ... ancient Troy had a few words to say ...
But we already knew about that. Barners knows how to fuck all sorts of marriages, and was encouraged by the reptiles to say so ...
On and on he went, using marriage fucking as a metaphor, and yet the pond is pleased in a way, because instead of all that socially conservative Catholic crap the pious ones go on with, at last an adulterer has been approved of by his colleagues as evoking all that's best in the Tamworth lifestyle ...
But now back to ancient Troy, perhaps enraged by a shot of a smirking Barners, inserted by the reptiles ...
A wrecker and a spoiler? Oh come on, he's just Gina's boy, and he knows how to jab, he and the one with little to be proud about ...
Perhaps a snap of Barners with a woman in the vicinity would help?
Oh look, there's the man with little to be proud of, except his appearance in a David Rowe cartoon ...
And look, sweet Bid is onside with Barners too ... but ancient Troy still seems unhappy ...
Actually the joke is on the planet, but then the joke has always been on the planet, thanks to Scotty from marketing and beefy Angus, and thanks to Cathy Wilcox too ...
He's baaack ...
Well, there's nothing like poking a stick in a bull ants' nest, Tamworth style, or picking up a few bindi-eyes while walking in Tamworth grass, but all good things must end, and so there's just one gobbet of ancient Troy rage to go ...
"Black Jack" rolling in his grave? Surely that's one pleasure to be found in this affair, save perhaps the added pleasure of Ming the Merciless also rolling in his ...
As for the return of the dinosaur, there's just one thing wrong with that talk. We've been living with luddites and louche loons all this time. All that's happened is that one has reappeared in a brazen, shameless, naked way that might make an onion muncher shed a tear and yearn for what might have been ... and most alarming of all, he will say out loud what many reptiles and what many from the marketing man's team think and believe and do in private ...
And so to a Rowe to evoke the mood, with the pond promising to return to the normal detritus of pesky furriners, the war on China, the war on climate science, the deep love of coal, and so on and so forth, in the near future ... (with more evocative Rowe here).
Something about CCS that I wasn't really aware of: "upstream emissions account for more than half the total with CCS. Most of this is due to methane leakage from coal mines. Methane leaks out from the seams - this has caused many accidents in the past and is a huge danger to miners. Methane continues to leak from seams for decades even after the mines have been closed. Overall, more methane leaks from coal mines than from oil and gas production"
ReplyDeletehttps://energy-surprises.blogspot.com/2021/06/how-clean-is-clean-coal.html
Never pay any mind to a no-matter, Joe, there's heaps more methane beginning to be released from the thawing Siberian permafrost than ever was released from coal mines.
DeleteAnd never-no-mind about CCS which is just another wingnut fantasy, of which they have at least one for every possible occasion.
So much of the happenings of this week are way beyond even the gentlest satire, but, in his rush to put Barnaby down, Troy has made comment on the history of the Country/National party that should be challenged.
ReplyDeleteAside - is it mischievous to speculate that Troy is offspring of Mavis? Age is about right.
Troy uses the terms ‘intellect and integrity’ in the same sentence as Arthur Fadden, John McEwen, Doug Anthony, Ian Sinclair, Tim Fischer and John Anderson.
He might recall that the Country Party had two distinct groupings, although, as far as I know, they were never named by an political writer. Let’s call them the northern and the southern groups.
The northern group represented farmers on small holdings, who often had to work seasonally on the big runs to make a living, and who otherwise milked cows, grew grain when the seasons suited or diversified into orchards. Those who needed seasonal work off the farm (there were few employment opportunities off farm for wives then) shared some interests with the emerging labour movement.
Their economic policies, well understood, were for minimal tariffs on those factors of production that they needed for their farms - which applied to most manufactured items - coupled with single desk arrangements to sell their produce overseas, so that individual producers could not be played off against others by international buyers.
The southern group - landed gentry - had no sympathy whatever for workers from any source. As graziers they were largely unaffected by import tariffs, and their products generally sold fairly freely to established international buyers.
Arthur Fadden was the last leader of the Country Party to identify with the policies of the northern group - from which he came.
McEwen simply drove the party into his vision of ‘managed economy’ - reflecting the particularly Victoria indifference to import tariffs. McEwen was also remarkably naive in believing in his principle of recruitment - that bright chaps (no pushy women for ‘Jack’) in their mid 30s, would stand for rural seats, serve 2-3 terms - then step aside for the next bright one. With one exception, those who came in under his aegis could not be removed with a uteload of ammonium nitrate.
Doug Anthony’s father, Larry, did battle for rural communications, but it is difficult to identify any policy area where Doug saw need to exert himself - apart from ‘kicking heads’, which is not particularly specific. The one good thing he might have done, for the family, and the country, would have been to persuade his son, Larry, to stay out of Parliament, but, then - rights of succession.
Ian Sinclair was, in my observation, by far the smartest person in the house in his day - but, again, difficult to identify a policy he championed for rural interests. And he stayed on too long, largely because it seems he needed the money. Familiar circumstance.
Tim Fischer - ask anyone what they recall of Tim, and they will say ‘trains’. Not with building lines and modernising rolling stock - just - liked trains.
Anderson - made McCormack look dynamic, and otherwise was yes person to whoever was Liberal leader.
So Barnaby is really of a piece with most of those predecessors. Never likely to be as smart on his feet as Sinclair. The Coalition’s performance on rural communications is just sad, and pretending to cosy-up to people who gouge coal out of the ground probably does not sit well with the remnants of Victorian squattocracy. But, otherwise - Barnaby is out for Barnaby, so following a tradition back to McEwen. The only open question is which of his sons (now that he has some) will inherit the seat.
Of course Troy would equate 'intellect and integrity' with 'Arthur Fadden, John McEwen, Doug Anthony, Ian Sinclair, Tim Fischer and John Anderson'. That just represents his total "understanding" of those terms.
DeleteBut I guess the questions are why, and whether, the northerners continue to vote for the Nationals. They must get something out of it.
The pond wondered if that list of names would get a rise, and you have risen to the task superbly Chadders ... but be fair, he did love trains, especially steam trains...
Delete"Nowadays he writes about trains, most recently in Steam: Locomotives that Galvanised the Nation, a beautifully written, superbly researched, richly illustrated narrative of the days when steam power ruled.
While Fischer has an enthusiast’s love of facts, figures and minutia, he revels in the big themes, especially rail as a driver of economic and social progress."
Yes, beautiful steam, beautiful dinkum Oz coal, driving the steam, driving economic and social progress, onwards with coal, to eternity or perhaps beyond ...
https://www.thesenior.com.au/story/5712064/full-head-of-steam-for-a-fabulous-era/
Yeah but Chad knows/knew 'em all personally, DP; a fate that I do most gladly forgo.
DeleteAnd hey, who isn't proud of "the first standard gauge Spirit of Progress". Truly a national wonder for those if us who at least once shared Mark Twain's view of being woken to change trains on the Vic-NSW border.
GB - from what I observe around me now (in what I will now think of as Chicken Littleproud's electorate!) - the locals farm as their grandfathers did, prepare for fire season as their grandfathers did, and vote as their grandfathers did. Saves having to think. I suspect the Bridget reference to 'Country Party' was carefully placed - some had been getting confused, particularly by the supposed merger of Libs and Nats up here. Oh, and in best agrisocialist tradition, you, the southern taxpayers, are committed to spending somewhere 'north' of $100 million on a dam just north of the border, which will hold an amazing 12 gigalitres of water for irrigation, for the benefit of about 15 known supporters.
DeleteThat's always been the way of things though, hasn't it: the few who want, and even maybe seek, change and the vast majority who either resist it or ignore it. The big change that clearly has been decisively lost is "socialism versus capitalism" which has clearly been won by capitalism (by the "neoliberal" version of captalism which some people are just now beginning to see as the giant con that it is - pity Hawke and Keating were as ignorantly thick as the best of 'Country Party' leaders and followers).
DeleteAnyway, "socialism" never really made it out into the countryside. But here's a couple of links you might find interesting, or at least entertaining:
https://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2021/06/heterodox-economics-as-rediscovery.html
https://jabberwocking.com/theres-a-primal-reason-for-our-collective-culture-war-madness/
As to the 12 gigalitre dam, well $100 million isn't even small change nowadays, is it. Not with a GDP of around Au$1.6 trillion (nominal) or around Au$1.3 trillion (PPP). Though I'd hope that it does the nation some good overall - eg being largely, or even wholely, exported. Though not to China, I guess.
Barners is baaack !
ReplyDeleteSo the Nats have replaced a dodderer with a diddler. Mike McCormack is a lad of 56, and Barnaby is a mere 54, but it appears that senility does come early in the bush.
'Only in Australia !'