The pond understands from the Graudian story that the think tank aims "to promote a more widespread study and understanding of the western canon of budgie smugglers..." and that amongst its first tasks will be taking up the Terrorist cause to free the budgie nine ...
Well good luck with that, there is much work to be done for our brave, bold, fearless defender, promoter and celebrator of western civilisation, not least celebrating the wondrous deeds of well-heeled, well-connected private schoolboy chums doing tremendously jolly japes to show off the richness of Australian culture ... though perhaps that should come after the celebration of knighthoods, and the monarchy, and workers tugging the forelock and showing due and proper respect to the toffs ...
Meanwhile, the pond faces a crisis of its own, confronting, as it must, thanks to heartless reptiles, a Wednesday now officially suffering from PDS trauma (that's post-Dame Slap for those not up on pond acronyms). There is a crisis in terms of available loonery of the finest kind.
It will be noted from the front page above that the poisonous Devine, in her usual way, is off worshipping a thugby leaguer involved with a one-punch killer ...
Naturally this involves a complete loss of corporate memory and a revocation of many recent Terrorist crusades ...
And so on.
As it's all to do with thugby league, it's a hospital pass for the pond, though no doubt the onion muncher will once again be active defending all that's best in western civilisation.
But the situation doesn't get any better when the pond turns to the reptiles of Oz ...
Sheesh, the bromancer is also scribbling about thugby leaguers?
And if you want to read about obesity, why not do a fact check rather rely on the barking mad Johns?
There was only one port in this remarkable storm, and that had to a jeremiad from the pond's favourite Jeremiah ...
Hey nonny no, on the pond goes, not because it wants to, but because it's there ...
Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last time, the pond notes the singular inability of this Jeremiah, and the reptiles of Oz in general, to note the role played by chairman Rupert, Roger Aisles and Fox News in his analysis ...
It's as if the baying of the hounds was on too high a frequency for "Ned" Kelly to hear ...
And yet before he fell into twitter silence, the senile old goat was still urging on the dysfunctional politics "Ned" Kelly purports to deplore ...
Let us see if "Ned" has the courage to mention anything of the actual realities going on in the current Sean Hannity/Bill Orally inspired debate ...
Nope, it's just a lot more blather about the 'leets from a well-heeled member of the Murdochracy, who has made out like a bandit over the years by being a lap dog to a billionaire mainly interested in accumulating power and wealth to himself ... and never mind the way that Fox News actively conspired to swing the country into the mire of extreme right wing politics of the most weird and absurd kind ...
It's a familiar enough story, and a sorry enough sight, and typical of the western malaise never spoken about by the reptiles ...
Instead, we get yet another faux attempt at balanced analysis, of the Murdochian kind which always manages to disregard the fluff in the navel ...
But it would be wrong to end with the ruination of western civilisation, when we can still celebrate the right of strong banks to screw the weak and the meek ...
Thoughtfully, the masterful Rowe has helped in the celebrations, and more Rowe here ...
Ah, the glories of western civilisation.
As it was in the beginning, so it shall be in the end ... and remember, budgie smugglers rulez ...
Mr Kelly ifalls back on that nonsensical idea that salesmanship is to blame for the failure of neo-liberal policies.
ReplyDeleteI suppose he believes that an engaging butcher could sell anyone a green leg of lamb buzzing with blowies.
Tony Abbott is simply all over the place. One minute he is expressing concern over Brexit. The next he is telling his Tory audience in Britain that he is really chuffed that Britain voted to leave the EU.
In truth those who believed in a Free Trade Utopia cannot bring themselves to accept that they have been dazzled by a mirage. They are like the old Stalinist in his bed sit who pores over old newspaper clippings annotated with comments in the margins in green ink and written in a spidery hand. And so, he will wait, wait, wait for Manly to see sense and rise in revolution. In like fashion those blinkered neo-liberals cannot accept that enough people are now trying to deal with the results of neo-liberalism: falling wages and the disappearance of many, many jobs to countries where labour is cheap and working conditions are poor.
Miss pp
Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems
Deletehttps://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot
"Imagine if the people of the Soviet Union had never heard of communism. The ideology that dominates our lives has, for most of us, no name. Mention it in conversation and you’ll be rewarded with a shrug. Even if your listeners have heard the term before, they will struggle to define it. Neoliberalism: do you know what it is?
Its anonymity is both a symptom and cause of its power. It has played a major role in a remarkable variety of crises: ..."
Indeed, it is as grossly materialistic as communism. Human beings become economic units.
DeleteMiss pp
"The ideology that dominates our lives has, for most of us, no name ... Neoliberalism: do you know what it is?"
DeleteWell, it is not even on the "List of Isms"! Perhaps the closest there would be "Randianism"?
It's a neo liberal thing, the belief in selling and the power of advertising. The advocates of unlimited advertising also believe that they can and should sell anything to anyone including I'd think, a green leg of lamb buzzing with blowies. Never mind the long term consequences for the poor choice on the part of the 'consumer' who is persuaded to make this bad choice.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the chatter on the Gruen Report, everything can and should be advertised and there is no difference between advertising coca cola and a banana. The difference in nutritional value between these two 'products' and the cost of one choice over the other, has nothing to do with reality in neo-liberal land.
It's perfectly okay for the awesomelly entrepreneurial seller to influence the buyer using all the psychological expertise that research provides for free - free riders or what? - to influence people to make choices that are bad for them and will be expensive for everyone in the long run.
That's just the way clever people who can, will skew that invisible hand of the market so that they come out the winner, every time. Yay for the alpha males and their women.
Re the new Ramsey outfit one of its newly appointed directors is Julian Leeser who, surprise surprise, is an executive member of the Menzies "research" Center, and again, surprise surprise, also holds a post at the Australian "Catholic" University.
ReplyDeleteHow many more right-wing research or propaganda outfits (think tanks) into Western Civilization does the world need - there are already hundreds of them.
What "policy failure by elites"? It has all worked and continues to work to the tremendous advantage of the 1%.
ReplyDeleteOn Cater's rant yesterday, about how electricity storage is useless, the UK Renewable Energy Association in a report notes that "existing storage operating capacity (3.2 GW) is broadly the equivalent to that of the Hinkley Point C nuclear project in Somerset, or four new large gas power plants", that is it's yuuuge!
ReplyDeleteI haven't even read the post yet DP,but going by Ned's header line I suspect there will be a lot of self flagellating talk to the hand crap.
ReplyDeleteI love the smell of balanced hysteria in the morning.Cheers DP.
ReplyDelete