The pond was startled to hear the story turn up last night ... if true, it would be an exceptional scandal, one involving both of the main parties in dereliction of duty and singular incompetence ...
There's more here, but there'll be plenty of ducking and weaving on this one - it's already begun in that report.
It isn't even the naked corruption involved that's symbolic of the state of things - it's that research into "clean" coal - such an offensive term, so casually flung about - clearly doesn't enchant an industry only interested in digging the stuff up and shipping it abroad ...
Naturally the pond turned to the reptiles to see how they'd responded to this scandal ...
After all, when they're not talking dinkum Oz coal to the world, oi, oi, oi, they're spruiking the notion that "clean" coal technology is just around the corner, apparently unaware it's just a jingle.
Oh sheesh, the pond clean forgot. It's Caterist coal day ...
The pond once had the pleasure of living with coal gas, the kitchen walls begrimed and greasy and impossible to clean.
That's why it's probably easier to make ads saying "it's an amazing thing" than devise clean coal technology, but the pond reckons even the kitchen walls might not be as greasy, unctuous and slimy as Caterist in full toad mode ...
And what about climate science? Will that haunt Australia and Australians for decades?
Of course not, because in the sublime world of Caterist climate denialism, climate science is just one of a number of contending religions.
Others might head off to the Graudian to see the results of a poll showing a clear majority of respondents supported renewables ... here ... others might head off to the Graudian's climate change section here ...
But the Caterists are made of sterner tone deaf stuff.
What better way to tilt at windmills than to roll out former chairman Rudd and use him as a straw dog?
Actually, the best way is possibly not to grow filthy rich but to have a nice little earner providing comfortable riches...
Hmm, is the 2017 grant in the bag yet?
Who knows, but it's safe to say that the Caterists dwell in an extremely humble abode ...
And far too it is from the halls of power. Look how it's situated in a veritable wilderness.
Yes, your average Adelaide pensioner would refuse to live in such sordid squalor, so far from the comforts of civilisation ...
And so to the last gasp of Caterists for coal, coal, coal, oi, oi, oi ...
There's that "low emissions" lie again. Clean coal research? Better spend it on a jingle ...
Luckily, the immortal Pope had another tremendous result from all the research work being done ...
At last a genuine carbon capture and storage solution, and more infallible Popery here ...
And now for hardened pond devotees, a bonus ... because late last night a notorious dog bothering enemy of the people was out and about ...
To say the pond was startled is an understatement. It seems that the dog bothering enemy of the people has some sort of hipster Surry Hills bunker growth on the face ...
Never mind, once over the shock, the pond stumbled in for a read ...
It is of course a favourite tactic of the moronic, which is to attack everyone as morons except the moron who sparked the fuss in the first place ...by watching a moronic and hysterical report on Fox News, home of alternative fax ...
More here.
It's the sort of behaviour the pond routinely expects from Murdochian enemies of the people ...
The notion that it was journalists who had the Swedish ambassador seeking explanations - when a former Swedish PM had tweeted his bemusement and sundry Swedes were bewildered - is exactly the sort of distortion of reality the purveyors of false news specialise in ...
It's easy enough to discover the nonsense behind the statistical distortions presented as truth by an hysterical Fox network - CNN here, Fairfax here channeling WaPo and adding a forced video for your pleasure ...
But of course being into alternative fax, the growth-growing dog botherer really just wants an excuse to slag off ABC types in Ultimo, presumably for their tendency to hipster beards ...
Speaking inexplicably?
What - to put it bluntly, in Trump-speak the dog botherer might understand - a fuckwit the dog botherer is ...
Sober reporting and analysis?
What, Fox News is suddenly going to go sober-sided, and truth-telling? Pull the other one ...
As for that reference to the Berlin Wall, the ironies are so abundant that the pond didn't know where to start.
Only a fuckwit of the first order would assume colleagues are unaware of, or ignore, the current wall. Movies love the notion of the zone, as in Monsters ...
The irony of course is that back in the day it was Ronnie Raygun who led the chant to "tear down the wall", representing the wall as a monstrous infringement on freedom of movement and neighbourly interaction, while these days the Murdochians are amongst those chanting "build the wall", because building the wall has always worked out well in the past ...
Meanwhile, the mainstream respectable media - those that don't make a living pandering to paranoid right wing fantasies - have bent over backwards to be even-handed and been rewarded with alternative facts, fake news and enemies of the people status ...
And now carefree bloggers use the same technique to label the likes of fools like the dog botherer - enchanted by the way the dog whistles work so well - as enemies of the people.
It wasn't the mainstream media that flung fuel on the fire by misquoting a highly suspect YouTube video. It was the Donald quoting Fox News, which still even now insists on doubling down on the lies and the distortions ...
The dog botherer could have spent a fruitful column analysing the many ways that Fox News has contributed to the awesome fucking up of the United States of America ... because one thing's certain. There no sober reporting and analysis, no sober reporting and analysis there ...
But that's not how it's done in dissembling Murdochian la la land ...
Luckily Rowe had a cartoon to fit the circumstances this day, and more Rowe here ...
Maybe that's a different breed of dog-botherer (like the wire-haired vs smooth-haired fox-terrier).
ReplyDeleteRe the Dogbotherer and his "...there was once a story about a boy crying "wolf" .", personally I've always thought it was much better to cry wolf than to be eaten by one.
ReplyDeleteOh and Fox's 'Sweden's migrant crime wave' - is that like Sweden's once-upon-a-time suicide wave ? We all remember that one, yes ? According to "...a speech given by US President Dwight D Eisenhower in the 1960s. No fan of Sweden’s social democratic politics and neutrality, he blamed the country’s generous welfare system for ‘sin, nudity, drunkenness and suicide’." [ https://sweden.se/culture-traditions/10-swedish-myths-uncovered/ ]
An excellent reminder GB, though after watching a few too many Bergman movies and Scandinoir, the pond knows the source of the myth ...
DeleteIt was a fair time ago, DP, but I do kinda empathize with the Bergman bit, at least. Though 'Smiles of a Summer Night' - later to become Stephen Sondheim's truly great 'A Little Night Music' and origin of the great song 'Send in the Clowns' (hooray for Glynis Johns) - was elevating. 'The Seventh Seal' though, was basically slapstick, though 'The Virgin Spring' was effective (after which I kinda started to lose interest).
DeleteHowever, my now dubitable memory did remind me about Australia's reaction to the Swedish suicide 'wave': basically self-satisfied slinging off at the Swedes and their failed socialist culture. But then, back in those days, we didn't actually have reporting accuracy, so that a death due to a lone, usually youngish, driver slamming into a lone tree on a back road at 150km/h would be recorded as "Death by misadventure". There were quite a few 'deaths by misadventure' back then.
Funnily enough, when we did get some reporting honesty and started calling suicides as suicides, we found that Australia had a higher suicide rate than Sweden, though they're nearly the same now (Sweden 11.1/100,000 versus Australia 10.6/100,000 age standardized).
So it goes.