As the pond continues its week of winding down with the reptiles to peak silly season, it should begin by noting that the recently established noble tradition of Clive's cash in the reptile claw continues, and freedumb, freedumb is the front page cry ...
And speaking of crying freedumb, freedumb, is that too much of a segue to get to the bromancer and the latest chapter in the never ending reptile war with China? (though sadly it seems the war must be postponed for Xmas, and perhaps can take place in time to be wrapped up by Australia day).
In this episode, the bromancer is visited by a kindly furriner, who gives strength and hope, and scores a tidy deal ...
Oh yes, it's a very subtle act of resistance, especially if you read other rags ...
Well at least he did a tasty defence deal, and as for the other?
Mr Moon said his nation’s alliance with the US was the “basis of our diplomacy” and “security affairs” and its the relationship with China was “important”.
But, he said, South Korea also had to take into account “peace and security on the Korean Peninsula” and the “de-nuclearisation” of North Korea”.
“We need the constructive efforts of China to enable de-nuclearisation of DPRK. Therefore, Korea is focused on the steadfast alliance with the US and also with China,” he said.
“And, of course, with regard to the relationship with China, there may be certain conflicts and there may be some issues of competition. However, if you look at climate change and the supply chain issue and also in terms of pandemic and infectious diseases, there are global challenges, and these are domains where we do need to engage in cooperation and collaboration.”
Mr Moon also confirmed his government was not considering following Australia, the US, Britain and Canada in imposing a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics, to be held in February.
Now let the bromancer get to work on that, and spin it into a tasty reptile meal, so that we can have a dinkum ally when that war with China breaks out in the new year...
Ah, it's just a visit, but that's enough, a chance to wake up from our China infatuation ...
A chance to get out the scones and the blackberry jam, and who knows, an election might just be around the corner, and we wouldn't want to be reading other rags with their wretched messaging ...
Good one beefy boofhead, good one net zero ... and now back to that warm glow of a visit ...
But, butt, billy goat, what about the war on China, soon to enter a crucial phase? Will this Moon do something solid, or will he pussyfoot around?
Mr Moon also confirmed his government was not considering following Australia, the US, Britain and Canada in imposing a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics, to be held in February.
Say what, he's a pussyfooter?
Never mind, the mutton Dutton will show the dastardly Chinese what for.
Say what, it's just a meaningless diplomatic boycott, with no meaningful effect if the athletes are there, and the commentators are yelling and celebrating ...
Oh never mind ... and now, with the bromancer having fulfilled his duties this day as official Pravda correspondent for the government, and done his bit for the government's guest, a final gobbet of warm welcome ...
Phew, the pond hasn't seen that sort of scribbling since the last visit by the Queen.
But what's this? Behind the bromancer's back, the treacherous lizard Oz editorialist has entered into a dialogue ...
Dear sweet long absent lord, how is jibber jabber about a religious cult full of climate science zealots going to improve matters? Better just to poison the grasslands, the pond says, as an inspiration to all ...
Indeed, indeed, and as the infallible Pope noted today, things are on a democratic high ...
And now as part of the week-long pond wind-down, the pond is prepared to throw in a Dame Groan, even if it's just the old groaner clutching her pearls and avoiding any chance they'll tax her on her departure to wherever old groaners go...
After noting the truly abysmal, awful state of the lizard Oz graphics department - could it get any worse? - the pond has nothing much to say, but realises that Dame Groan's groaning has something of a cult following, so here's the sarin gas straight from the groaner's mouth ...
The pond had started to nod off, and was grateful that it had whacked all of the groaning into a big gobbet, and decided to do the same again ...
Thank the long absent lord the rich are safe to pass on their wealth to their spawn. How else could we get grand buildings in Sydney?
By this point, the pond realised it should probably have been reading something else, and the mention of Britain in the next gobbet sent the pond off to the Graudian to check how it was going in Pomlandia....
Oh stop it, stop it, you're making the pond go blind, and it still has a morsel, a wee dram, of groaning to go ...
Well that was a goodly dose of desiccated coconut, and the pond hopes that devotees of Dame Groan were satisfied, but the pond couldn't leave it there ...
It needed some high comedy, and there's nothing better for that than a dose of Killer Creighton ...
You see, the Killer was early in the day the centre panel in a reptile triptych of horrors.
Imagine it, Killer surrounded by Twiggy and the wretched rape accuser who did that poor Xian down ... second thoughts, don't imagine it, look at the horror, the horror ...
No wonder the poor Killer was feeling down and despondent ...
Lack of money isn't the problem?
Only a fuckwit who's never done a shift in an Amazon warehouse, or held down three jobs to get by, or lived in a trailer park could come out with that line ..
That's when the pond realised it had never really gone into that jolly tweet by the Killer, which produced some splendid responses ...
It was the one about him catching Covid and it being no big deal, even though his current piece seems to be making a very big meal of it ...
Sorry, sorry, it's very hard to resist going there, but the pond should get back to today's Killer yarn ...
Oh heck, just a few more? Just a couple of after dinner mints?
Oh alright, back to today's yarn ...
Dammit, that click bait video of Boris trying to distract from Xmas parties reminded the pond it was Xmas party season, and as catching Covid is no big deal, the pond was determined to party, and party long and hard, maybe with a quiz or two thrown in ...
Oh that's cruel, that's most unkind, the Killer really cares, he really does, and so to a last gobbet of caring ...
Oh yes, indeed, as Herman Cain himself noted, catching Covid is no big deal ... but the pond is pleased to have caught a dose of Killer in fine form ...
And with that, it's time to finish off this edition of the wind-down week with an immortal Rowe, with more Rowe as usual here ...
Ok, the Bro expounds: "So [Moon] is never going to speak about China in the way Scott Morrison and Defence Minister Peter Sutton do, even though China, and its ally North Korea, are much bigger threats to South Korea than to Australia." Now given that China has sorta occupied and ruled Korea at various times - and without the US intervention (aided by Australia and the UK amongst others), China would hold suzerainty (full tributary) control over a unified Korea now, then maybe Moon is "polite and restrained" to China because it is a much bigger threat to South Korea than to Australia.
ReplyDeleteJust maybe ?
Here we go again, the Groany groaning about her identity politics: "This Productivity Commission research [about why not to have 'death duties' because the rich don't like it] and the previous 2018 study Rising Inequality? A Stocktake of the Evidence underscores why this institution continues to play a valuable role in producing dispassionate, evidence-based reports."
ReplyDeleteNow apart from the obvious evidence-based conclusion that if the Groany says it, it must be a lie, we have some expert testimony:
"Australia’s Productivity Commission has long presented itself as the leading advocate of evidence-based policy. On the other hand, the PC has always been keen on market competition. So, what does the PC do when the evidence goes against its policy beliefs? Sadly, if not surprisingly, the answer is the same as for partisan policy advocates in general: ignore the evidence, and restate the beliefs."
If the Productivity Commission puts ideology ahead of evidence, do we still need it?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/20/if-the-productivity-commission-puts-ideology-ahead-of-evidence-do-we-still-need-it
Now as far as I can see that certainly describes "evidence-based" as practised by Tony Blair and we all believe every word he ever said ... don't we ?
So waddaya reckon, Chad: do we award Groany her usual mark of 0/10 ?
The pond just knew the groaning would attract devoted followers ...
DeleteGotta stick with 'em, DP. Gotta stick with 'em.
DeleteWell - it seems either or both of our Dame for this Day, and the Productivity Commission (that is its name - we do not need to diverge into discussion of how appropriate that name might be, any more than we do for the alleged ‘Human Resources’ section of public and private bodies) - anyway, the Dame - a sometime Commissioner of that body, and the PC, have been gulled by a trick pointed up by John Allen Paulos. They try to make a case that wealth transfers reduce inequality because what goes to the already quite wealthy is a smaller proportion of their wealth than what goes to those lower down the distribution scale.
DeleteImplicit in that is that parents tend to divide the inheritance fairly equally across their offspring. That is generally the case for the middle part of the wealth distribution - don’t look at how Western Australian billionaires regard the supposed entitlements of their offspring, or what they are prepared to spend on lawyers to divide unequally.
So - yes - a million clams to the son who has ten million is lower in proportion than the other million going to the daughter who is trying to live on what comes from centrelink - assuming that the parents have not sought to help her previously.
Had our Dame ever shown any sign of having read Thomas Piketty, on the nature of capital in our time, she would not have cited this bit of mathematical flannelling, because inheritances of that order have very different effects on the recipients, and on their capacity, in turn, to provide for the generation that they have spawned.
She waves an ‘hypothesis’ that death duties alter the incentives to make a motza. In Groan world that is supposedly true of all taxes, charges, imposts, and yet we see, right here in Girtby, that CEOs of particular corporations continue to require more salary, and particularly more bonus, to do their job, in the face of sustained evidence that many show no correlation between pay, effort expended and success for the corporation.
Oh - and there is her observation that countries like Sweden and Norway do not have death duties ‘notwithstanding these countries being high tax ones.’ Well - duh - trying to get a fix on inheritance tax without seeing it in context of what citizens of each nation see as desirable functions of government, and the structure of the economy that will provide those functions, is a waste of time. If Australia had mining royalties at the rate of Norway, or - Qatar - our other taxes could be quite different as would our annual ‘Rich List’ .
As with the other reptiles - this is a lazy tabulation, unblessed by any inclination to discuss the entire nature of taxes. Or, come to think of it, that elusive good ‘productivity’.
Yes, a lovely example of "restate the beliefs" isn't it.
DeleteI guess that the reason you never read about Productivity Commission reports 'soon to be published in a respectable peer-reviewed journal' is that most of them wouldn't pass review.
ReplyDeleteMaybe some Americans are depressed because they are realising that the USA is not the Pakistan of the Western Hemisphere - a failed State with nuclear weapons - because that is unfair to Pakistan - but is becoming a plutocracy like Russia. Sure they have three years before their dictator is installed, but hardly anyone believes that it is not going to happen.
So does that mean we now understand what happened in Germany with Hitler ? Italy with Mussolini ? Spain with Franco, Portugal with Salazar, Russia with Putin, China with Xi, India with Modi, Hungary with Orban, Turkey with Erdoğan ... ?
DeleteSo what did John Quiggin say: when the evidence goes against the belief, ignore the evidence and just believe the belief. And isn't that a lesson - perhaps the only lesson - ever learned by the Killer and his reptile tribe.
ReplyDeleteAt no point did Americans ever show any determination to "avoid Covid at any cost". Some did, more or less on an individual basis, and some Democratic States eventually did a bit of it. But that is why America has had over 50 million Covid cases (just about 1 in 6 of the total American population) and over 800,000 deaths (just about 2.4 per 1000 Americans).
A reminder: if Australia had the same ratios, we would have had 4.25 million infection cases (instead of 229 thousand) and 61,200 deaths (instead of 2,072). So really Killer C should be lambasting Australia for taking Covid way, way too seriously.
And here's a very good analysis of America trying to "avoid Covid at any cost":
DeleteDo normal people really not care about COVID?
https://jabberwocking.com/do-normal-people-really-not-care-about-covid/
Now read that and note just how very piss-poor is Killer's attempt to pretend to be a journalist.
Oh, and note the analysis of Sweden - would Anders Tegnell be one of Killer C's heroes ?