The pond went a little mad yesterday. The pond's not proud of it, and knows it needs its stuffing knocked back into shape ...
There was something about the wretchedness and impotence and futility of the reptiles that brought out the Marquis de Sade side of the pond ... and what do you know, in the digital edition, the reptiles were at it again today, tempting the pond to that Ginsbergian Howl of pain that some correspondents wish on the Dean of stupidity ...
Look, there was the bouffant one turning to ... the onion muncher for sage advice about election success, what with him being such a spot-on election winner himself... and lo, there was Dame Slap seeking to apply unguents and bandages to the wounds, while a nightmarish windmill bestrode the far right column of the reptile triptych ... always with the windmills, the nightmarish Blakeian windmills ...
Oh you hideous spectres, straight out of a Pink Floyd video clip ...
Such was the fear and the panic and the loathing that the reptiles felt the need to rush two Lloydie of the Amazon columns to the breach...
Two Lloydies and a groaning in a day!
Why it was like that tale of brave little tailor killing seven flies in one blow that used to entertain the pond back in the day ...
Luckily the first Lloydie was short ...
... and thar the Dorothea Mackellar in our expert climate scientist blows, and just learn to live with it vulgar youff ... the weather is what the weather is, and the weather will always be the weather, and there will be a spring, though perhaps a tad early, and a summer, perhaps a tad longer and maybe hotter, and a winter, and maybe nasty, but what a chance to enjoy endless rain, or endless drought, whatever, and you've got as much chance fixing the planet as Lloydie had fixing the Amazon, so sucks boo yah all ...
And oh bliss, oh poop, it wasn't just Lloydie that lapsed into the gloom of doomist defeat ... Dame Groan was also on hand with a mighty groaning ...
Yes, by all means gloat, but we're doomed, doomed I tells ya, it's economic ruin and the planet fucked, and just listen to Lloydie, and you'll realise it's all pointless, and have you thought about ending it all ...
Dammit, there's even a logjam at the funerals as the infallible Pope joins the Canavan caravan attempting to give the lost a seemly farewell ...
What is that knocking in the casket?
And so the pond came to an agonising choice for its bonus ... should it turn to the onion muncher for uplifting advice, as transcribed by the bouffant one?
Sorry, that had to be more pathetic than amusing ...
Sure, he's an affiliate at the IPA, and Dame Slap is nowhere to be seen, having apparently stolen off into the darkness in her MAGA cap, like a thief in the night ...
Yoo hoo, Dame Slap, where are you?
But the pond is loyal, and knows there's a disease in the land and Dame Slap is the cure ... get out your Make Australia Great Again caps and prepare for the vision ...
Funny, all those years abusing the inner city 'leets, laughing at their coffee habit (though Surry Hills has the best baristas in the world serving the reptiles, so they say) and their drinking (though the reptiles are said to enjoy a good quaffing red), and then the bloody 'leets turned on them, and there even seems to have been some dissident behaviour in Dame Slap's house ...
Crikey, what is it with the crikey? It seems Dame Slap is full of crikiness ... or at least the joys of defenestration ...
Indeed, indeed, bring back the onion muncher. He's already chewing, or champing, at the bit.
Sure the mutton Dutton will offer conviction, determination and the sort of grand vision you might expect from a plod - hello, hello, what's going on here, just the climate science denying, coal loving facts please - but when you really want to toss a knight on the barbie, you need the onion muncher, with petulant Peta back by his side, to get the country truly in shape ...
Meanwhile, the immortal Rowe has also introduced a note of unease at the elephant in the room, with many more elephants here ...
Hi Dorothy,
ReplyDeleteTo truly understand Dame Groan it is important to know the society and community that forged her views of the world;
https://ibiblio.org/philecon/life-econ-crop.pdf
Perhaps we need another law, similar to that promulgated for internet discussions, by Mike Godwin, to regulate unnecessary or inappropriate comparisons of recent events with ‘what happened in Hitler’s Germany’.
ReplyDeleteOurs could apply to unnecessary or inappropriate citations of Ms Mackellar’s poem. It was written in 1908. Ms Mack did live for another 60 years - into the time in which information was accumulating to show that our climate was not following cycles determined solely by planetary movement, but it seems that for much of her later life she was not wholly in touch with the world.
Certainly by 1968, Charles Keeling, at the observatory at Mauna Loa, had data indicating a steadily rising concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
So, if reptile opinions are going to persist with the ‘My Country’ of before WWI, we could invoke ‘Keeling’s Law’ to close the non-discussion.
And isn’t it rather delightful that the electorate of Mckellar, having maintained ‘Liberals’ like Bronwyn Bishop in the manner to which she wished to become accustomed - has now chosen Dr Sophie Scamps to represent it in Canberra.
Chad: "1968, Charles Keeling..." Indeed but just a little bit before him came Svante Arrhenius: " in 1896, was the first to use basic principles of physical chemistry to calculate estimates of the extent to which increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) will increase Earth's surface temperature through the greenhouse effect"
ReplyDeleteand
"Arrhenius was the first to use principles of physical chemistry to estimate the extent to which increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide are responsible for the Earth's increasing surface temperature. In the 1960s, Charles David Keeling demonstrated that the quantity of human-caused carbon dioxide emissions into the air is enough to cause global warming."
We really have known a lot about this 'climate change' stuff for well over a century, and even the heat absorption capability has been known for a while: "The year was 1856 [Eunice Newton] Foote’s brief scientific paper was the first to describe the extraordinary power of carbon dioxide gas to absorb heat – the driving force of global warming."
All of which I'd expect you already know, but now that the forces of darkness are in (probably temporary) retreat, we have a duty to counter the lies of the Lloydys and Ridds and Plimers (et al).
Otherwise, yeah, I wholeheartedly support your advocacy of 'Keeling's Law'.
The Discovery of Global Warming - a history
DeleteThanks Joe - looks to be a handy compendium/reference
DeleteIt's a bit misogynistic:
Delete"In 1856, an American woman, Eunice Foote, discovered the absorption of thermal radiation by carbon dioxide and water vapour. That was three years before John Tyndall, who is generally credited with this important discovery—a cornerstone of our current understanding of the greenhouse effect, climate change, weather and meteorology. Tyndall did not reference Foote's work."
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsnr.2018.0066
I looked at the Groaning of this day, but there was no challenge in it. Essentially, our Dame is backcasting, but offers nothing about which way to go as soon as tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteI doubt that Jim Chalmers turns to the Dame's current writings for guidance for his job, but he would have turned that smile on her comment that he had no time now for contemplation. Right - since being given the shadow portfolio, he will not have spent the time of even one quiet cappuccino gathering his ideas on what to do about the national economy, will he?
I guess it would surprise the Dame to know that there are people who come into particular portfolios with a clear idea of what they want to do, and how to go about that. There hasn't been much sign of that in most of the recent LNP members elevated to the Ministry. For example, I give you the departing Special Minister of State, Morton.
Well, basing her comments on her own approach, perhaps ?
DeleteJust picking through the comments on this there seems to be a bit of glee at the impotence of the reptiles (although a lot of comments look like Australians or expat Australians)
ReplyDeletehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/22/australia-election-lessons-scott-morrison-liberal-labor-teal-independents/
If your watching JM I was wondering if the Oz election got much coverage in the US - we are a geopolitical backwater after all.
"Australia’s longest-serving leader in recent years, Liberal John Howard, was hailed by supporters as authentic but bordering on dull."
ReplyDeleteBordering on dull ? Little Honest Johnny ? Nay, say it isn't so. But they trotted him out yet again to 'rescue' their campaign from "...Morrison, who seemed more interested in photo-opportunity campaigning than in governing.". And it worked a treat, didn't it: the Libs would have lost a dozen seats more if not for the fighting passion raised by LHJ.
It really is a very different world from the one I was born into:
ReplyDeleteSolo sailor Lisa Blair breaks Antarctic circumnavigation record
"Australian solo sailor Lisa Blair has arrived in Albany this morning after three months at sea with a new world record to her name."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-25/solo-sailor-lisa-blair-breaks-antarctic-circumnavigation-record/101097378
I didn't even know there was an 'old Antarctic circumnavigation record', let alone a solo one.