Huge news today ... see if you can pick it among all the fluff, and dross, and sub flip-flopping ...
Yes Piers is coming to town, immediately sending the pond down memory lane ...
Within Victorian British culture, a remittance man was usually the black sheep of an upper or middle-class family who was sent away (from the United Kingdom to the Empire), and paid to stay away. These men were generally of dissolute or drunken character, and may have been sent overseas after one or more disgraces at home.
Historian Monica Rico describes in Nature's Noblemen: Transatlantic Masculinities and the Nineteenth-Century American West (2013) how the figure emerged in the 1880s: "Unable to succeed in Britain [...] the remittance man represented the utter failure of elite British masculinity to function in the modern world." Where he was to go was a wide-open question. The British Empire offered wide-open spaces and possibilities of redemption in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and colonial parts of Africa; some thought the American West was also an appropriate destination. Rico concludes that "the remittance man, in his weakness, symbolized his culture's fear that British masculinity was imperiled both in Britain and abroad." (more on remittance men at their wiki here, or at any News Corp outlet)
And so to that other, more minor matter, though it sent the reptiles gaga, and here the pond would like to conduct a thought experiment, and possibly produce an exam question ...
Yesterday the reptiles were caught napping ...
... but the bromancer did his best and dipped his thumbnail in tar and turned out a response ...
It had the aura of a gazelle startled by the headlights, and the reptiles felt the need to help out by filling it with snaps ...
Talk about a rough charcoal sketch, each line done in Hemingway manner, terse and abrupt ... with the bromancer desperate to find things to praise and doing his best ...
Indeed, indeed, the bromancer has always yearned for the war with China to proceed, like yesterday man, or maybe today, come on man, but certainly no later than tomorrow ...
Meanwhile, the Nine papers took their time to adjust in a different way ...
Talk about a contrasting reaction ... but now, consider this.
The bromancer had a little time and space to adjust his response ... and so came his amended and expanded column today ... and that's where an exam question, a compare and contrast, might come in handy ...
First there was a slightly amended header ... and then a tweaking and a fiddling with the contents ...
At first blush? Oh rose thou art sick, the invisible worm of doubt that flies in the night in the howling submarine storm has found out the bromancer's bed of first blushing joy ...
And so to the rest of the amended text ... just the text please, we've already seen the snaps ...
Ah the delivery schedule ...
And so to a final rewrite of the muddled response of yesterday ...
The pond likes to think that little comparison would serve as a HSC question.
You know, "many journalists give former Washington Post president and publisher Philip L. Graham credit for being the first to describe journalism as 'the first rough draft of history.' Was the bromancer's second draft any better than his first draft, and should he keep on drafting, or will we just feel like we've been standing in a draught because someone left the drafty door open while we were imbibing a draught ..."
And while on first draughts, the pond should record Killer's first response ... and here too a lot of snaps and a video clip were pressed into service as filler ...
Yep, thus far we've pissed off the Japanese and the French, and sucked up to a Britain currently experiencing a resurgence of delusional imperial, colonial grandeur ... bring on the hagiographic video clip ...
Oh dear ... from deputy to actual sheriff, running up against the meanest hombre in town, a bit like Daffy Duck in the showdown saloon ...
Is it time for a song?
Mama take this badge from me
I can't use it anymore
It's getting dark too dark to see
Feels like I'm knockin' on heaven's door ...
No? Best to keep the illustrations flowing then, like verbal seafood extender ...
Now the pond will just pause to note how the reptiles loved that snap of a live-fire drill, because you know, subs on the surface, and admire how Killer managed to own not just the Chinese but academics before wrapping up ...
Indeed, indeed, it's not just a chance to nuke the subs, it's a chance to nuke the country ...
Well there was a lot more excitement in the reptile camp this day ... just look at all the carry-on below the fold ...
There was simplistic Simon creaming his pants, and the onion muncher was also out and about, having done such a sterling submarine job himself, and the pond can feel a late edition coming on to cope with all the excitement, but dammit, the pond insists on spending its usual quality time with our hole in the bucket man ...
Whaddya know, there's heresy afoot ... and there's also the wretched graphics department of the lizard Oz doing its thing.
Should the pond let Henry know he's been flung into the rambling Campbell category?
Only three days ago, and Campbell Newman doing the Lying Helmsman Liberal Democrat jig just barely interred in its vaccine passport grave ...
Sheesh, reptiles, sharpen the fuck up. The pond realises you think the sheeple will forget everything by noon tomorrow at the latest, but that was just too soon ... rush off to iStock and buy a few new images ...
And now back to our Henry turned government interventionist and possibly socialist ...
Hayek! Tort laws to tackle a virus! Our Henry is on fire with ideas this day ... but the pond senses that he's signalling to the feds that the reptiles might not want to go down the path of Killer DeSantis and Texas Taliban Abbott and the like ...
Meanwhile our hole in the bucket man keeps arguing with himself and for once the ancient Greeks and Romans don't seem to be much of a help ...
Sadly our Henry didn't quite manage a transformation ...
On the strength of our Henry's dithering, it seems reasonable to ask just how soon it will be, before vaccine passports or similar, are rolled out?
Meanwhile, the pond can end up with a relaxing Rowe, knowing that the country is now safe from all possible threats, thanks be unto the dude from down under, whatever his name is, our Henry and all the reptiles anxious to nuke the country, and possibly the world... with more sailors ahoy and relaxing Rowe here ...
HH: "It is undoubtedly true ..." Hmmm now I would have expected our Holely H to use "indubitably" there. Both words, it appears, were first used in the 1400s, and both words mean "beyond a doubt, without question, plainly true" (and hence Holely H would appear to have used a bit of a gratuitous redundancy there) one should point out that indubitably is derived from the Latin word indubitabilis whereas undoubtedly is derived from the Old French word douter.
ReplyDeleteSurely the learned Henry should prefer the learned Latin to the peasant French ? I know I do.
Loonpond word of the day: otiosity. As in, now that it will be broadcasting Piers Morgan, Sky News is even more of an otiosity than ever.
DeleteGB - I just had trouble with the Henry trying to persuade - himself? - that there was sound social theory that lead to 'libertarianism'. This from someone who regularly placed notice of his bucket lists (sorry - couldn't resist) on the 'Catallaxy' site, without realising that virtually none of the 'discussion' there ever advanced beyond declarations of 'don't wanna, ain't gonna'.
DeleteAnd this, in a world where the increase in population will continue to generate ever-more intractable externalities to human attempts to improve our lot.
The Betoota Advocate seems to have everything covered today
ReplyDeletehttps://www.betootaadvocate.com/breaking-news/china-panics-after-learning-theyve-only-got-25-years-until-australia-gets-8-new-submarines/
"The news of Scotty’s new plan to rule the seas has apparently struck fear into the heart of Xi Jinping, who is worried that his army of 2.8 million soldiers only have until 2046 to prepare for Australia’s fleet of underwater superboats."
"It is believed a shadow of panic has engulfed all 21 million residents in the Chinese capital of Beijing today, as the true force of Australia’s military capabilities hits home."
Scotty now searching for an even more putrid dead cat to toss on the table.
The phrase "delusions of grandeur" might spring to mind except that there's absolutely zero grandeur in waiting 20 years for a whole 8 submarines that will by then have been obsolete for at least a decade.
DeleteWhat will be the state of underwater drones/intelligent torpedoes by then ? And how many can be manufactured and activated - using lots of Chinese steel made from Australian iron dust - by the time our first nuclear sub first enters the water.
And how long will Mathias and Scotty have been gone to condign oblivion by then.
"Delusions of grandeur" makes me automatically think of the UK - with Elgar playing in the background. With the US it is more simply "delusions".
DeleteBearing in mind that military tech is always on the edge of some new innovation that will change everything, rather like a new battery breakthrough or a promising development in fusion, its still worth considering what changes might render a 50 billion dollar program worthless.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-04/chinese-scientists-are-developing-lasers-to-find-submarines/11570886
You can add miniaturised magnetic detectors, drones and so on to the story.
It's worth looking at the huge investments nations made in the early 20th century in battleships that were largely sidelined due to the development of the torpedo. All that investment could be lost to a cheap motor torpedo boat, a submarine or a carrier aircraft.
Going even further off topic you might find this thread interesting.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1438416312909324290.html
It succinctly deconstructs the "living with" (virus/climate change) crowd then takes a good swipe at Nordhaus - why wouldn't you?
"It sounds reasonable and realistic at first. It obfuscates that there is an alternative. Most importantly, it does not take into account non-linear feedback loops. Instead it is based on a linear and short timescale logic."
You see a lot of this stuff dutifully recycled by lukewarmists like Lomborg. Take a crude correlation between average temperature and productivity then reason that this region will become less productive as it warms but this other region will become more productive as it warms. It's a simplistic and crude understanding of how the system works and even how the economy works but it can form the basis of public policy because it is serves the purposes of vested interests.
Great get BF ... it produced the best hollow Sierra Madre laugh the pond has had in a while ...
DeleteBy the way, 2.4 billion down the gurgler already on the French submarines. 400 million in penalties for breaking the contract. I wonder how many vaccine doses, quarantine facilities, water bombing aircraft that amount equates to.
DeleteMy question I suppose is why the constant parsimony regarding things that have a social benefit? The best part of 3 billion ($3,000,000,000 - looks good in numbers?), as far as I can see, to shore up Christopher Pyne's electorate but no money for welfare.
This is a rather long thread proposing that financial support is a vital non-medical intervention that is now being misdirected
https://twitter.com/RageSheen/status/1437923726121529349?s=20
"This is why Victoria can't defeat Delta now either. Employers can't pay people to stay home and stop getting infected at work. New Zealand, which is having great success against Delta so far, never abandoned its JobKeeper wage subsidy program, based on projected losses."
Thanks DP - I always think Nick Park captures the gimcrack nature of Britain's grand past. The Battle of Britain played out on a merry-go-round ride.
Delete"Will we never learn?".
DeleteI've said it before, but all good things deserve to be repeated: the very hardest - impossible ? - thing for humans to do is to learn from other's mistakes so as to not have to repeat them.
Put simply, any military devices that have humans on them or in them are essentially already obsolete in any major conflict. Ok for small stuff against low level enemies - eg against the Taliban for instance - but essentially useless against a technologically advanced state such as China.
But as to learning to live with the virus, well we simply have to because the non-immune "herd" that refuses to learn even from its own, often fatal, mistakes is dedicated to continuing to spread the virus.
I think our Holely Henry is just a wee tad confused. One cannot be une petit peut enceinte, so "degrees" of compulsion are indubitably incompatible with any kind of libertarian "society", and that is, indeed why libertarian societies - Hayekian or otherwise - are impossible. It is hermitic solitude or nothing.
ReplyDeleteIf I remember rightly, Daffy Ducks looks Nasty Canasta right in the eye and says: "I think you're pretty tough, don't I?"
ReplyDeleteThe digital version of a memorial blanket for anti-vaxxers who have shuffled off is well under way. 2 idiots added since I saw it first at breakfast.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.sorryantivaxxer.com/?fbclid=IwAR1hmNW1JLO96l9-aKMVvC115nwHyrNf4QRNb2HecP8ScRVLKZoaPxLnDnI
And three plus a hopeful more this morning. Fairly soon they'll need smaller photos to fit more per screen.
DeleteAnd that still from the Bromancer's video: why do snaps of Morrison usually remind me of that puffed up kid at school who would try and impress his mates with his tall tales?
ReplyDeleteNothing Morrison does is original
Deletehttps://www.buzzfeed.com/jamieross/the-stance
I wonder what Biden was thinking?