In which the reptiles let Dame Slap out and the pond has a bad hair day ...

The pond gets it … it was hoping this weekend to head out on to fresh pastures, perhaps enjoy a little time with the Fox wars, thanks to the Beast here, or perhaps spend a little time at WaPo here ...

“Despite all the doom and gloom from the economic pessimistas, the resilient U.S. economy continues moving ahead,” Kudlow wrote on Dec. 7, 2007, in National Review, predicting that gloomy forecasters would “wind up with egg on their faces.” Kudlow, who previously derided as “bubbleheads” those who warned about a housing bubble, now wrote that “very positive” news in housing should “cushion” falling home sales and prices. “There’s no recession coming. The pessimistas were wrong. It’s not going to happen,” wrote Kudlow. “ . . . The Bush boom is alive and well. It’s finishing up its sixth consecutive year with more to come. Yes, it’s still the greatest story never told.”

...or at NYmag here ...

...The purest supply-siders, like Kudlow, go further and deeper in their commitment. Kudlow attributes every positive economic indicator to lower taxes, and every piece of negative news to higher taxes. While that sounds absurd, it is the consistent theme he has maintained throughout his career as a prognosticator. It’s not even a complex form of kookery, if you recognize the pattern. It’s a very simple and blunt kind of kookery. The passage of the Trump tax cuts follow from the party’s “tax cuts über alles” philosophy. In the face of widespread social and economic problems, the one legislative goal the party could agree upon was reducing taxes paid by business owners. The existence of relatively high deficits even at the peak of the macroeconomic cycle did not deter them; indeed, Republicans — even moderates like Susan Collins — insisted the tax cuts would not increase the deficit. The onset of deficits exceeding a trillion dollars a year in the midst of low unemployment has not prompted any regret, or even a hint of willingness to compromise on the party’s rigid opposition to higher taxes. This was the Trump agenda even with the relatively moderate Gary Cohn running the National Economic Council. Now that true believer Lawrence Kudlow is taking the helm, the dawn of fiscal sanity in the GOP is receding ever farther into the distant future.

But there came a sense of false security, and a mounting sense of alarm.

The reptiles were onto a big one, with the urbane Urban leading the way … and what should have just been a waggish post about the Donald turned out to be an epic journey roughly equivalent to a bad hair day …

Now it goes without saying that the lizard Oz has nothing to do with the filthy, vile 'leets and aims all its work at the western suburbs, with Ming the Merciless a champion of the working class … so agitation in the ruling classes is just a chance to pay back some hubris and offer some ethnographic observations ...

The pond could sense this might be a matter for Dame Slap - there was an ominous reference to "morality lessons", but surely the reptiles wouldn't let her out from behind the paywall?

Surely the Anglicans would intervene and straighten things out. After all, they know how to keep complimentary women in line. Once more the urbane Urban was on the case ...

Cut the council, cut it short, cut it by COB!

Oh this was building in what the reptiles knew was a slow tease, a kind of necessary promenade before Dame Slap came on the scene, but surely they wouldn't let her out from behind the paywall ...

It's rare these days that the pond feels like it's being swept back to the 1960s - the acid flashes only seem to come as weird dreams  - back to the days when the hair debate was in full swing, and the nuns still got out the ruler to measure the hemline, and ensure everything was modest and proper … and teachers felt they could harass and intimidate to ensure that ancient cultural values remained in full force …and the pond saluted the flag, and marched and marched, and said the mutton Dutton's pledge of allegiance to an imaginary friend and a distant foreign queen ...

But they wouldn't allow Dame Slap to emerge, would they?

They did, they did! The reptiles let Dame Slap out of her cage, and it was on ...

Now it goes without saying that Dame Slap, as a registered member of the proletariat western suburbs is only interested in Trinity in an ethnographic way, and it occurred to the pond that she might ask why there was so much fuss about a little long hair, it not being unusual for long hair to come and go in fads, and for it once to have been sported by kings, even if only as wigs …

Indeed, indeed, cut it off, cut it off …

Of course hair must be above the collar when playing sport.

The pond occasionally pays attention to Melbourne's religion, the AFL - at least once every two hundred years - and just look at the sort of hair styles that ruin the player, the team and the game ...

  

Oh it was never any good once they shipped Fitzroy and South Melbourne out of the game, was it? (You see, the pond speaks the Melbourne religion as easily as talking of transubstantiation).

As for the question of study, it's clear that unruly and seemly hair can ruin a country. There's no need to look far ...

  

So the pond is onside. Cut it off, cut it off, and let Dame Slap get into the rucking and the mauling ...

Think Dead Poet's Society?

Hmm, wasn't that a mealy-mouthed, pious, wetly liberal Peter Weir tract dedicated to alternative lifestyles and - gasp - poetry, and didn't the hero scorn maths?

On the first day of classes, they are surprised by the unorthodox teaching methods of the new English teacher John Keating, a Welton alumnus who encourages his students to "make your lives extraordinary", a sentiment he summarizes with the Latin expression carpe diem. Subsequent lessons include having them take turns standing on his desk to teach the boys how they must look at life in a different way, telling them to rip out the introduction of their poetry books which explains a mathematical formula used for rating poetry, and inviting them to make up their own style of walking in a courtyard to encourage them to be individuals. His methods attract the attention of strict headmaster Gale Nolan. Upon learning that Keating was a member of the unsanctioned Dead Poets Society while he was at Welton, Neil restarts the club and he and his friends sneak off campus to a cave where they read poetry and verse, including their own compositions. As the school year progresses, Keating's lessons and their involvement with the club encourage them to live their lives on their own terms. Knox pursues Chris Noel, a girl who is dating a football player from a public school and whose family is friends with his. Neil discovers his love of acting and gets the role as Puck in a local production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, despite the fact that his domineering father wants him in the Ivy League (and ultimately medical school). Keating helps Todd come out of his shell and realize his potential when he takes him through an exercise in self-expression, resulting in his composing a poem spontaneously in front of the class... (Greg Hunt more of the plot here)

What the fuck?

Love of poetry, love of acting, make up your own style of walking, individuality, exercises in self-expression?

Next thing you know, the little fuckers will be wanting to wear their hair long …

You tell 'em Dame Slap, you show 'em what for ...

It's true, it's true. The pond always wonders where the next generation willing to die like mindless sheep in world wars is going to come from. These wretches with their long hair and their desire to live … how did it come to this?

Truth to tell, the pond suspects it's got something to do with the current fad for beards … oh sure, beards and moustaches were once fashionable, but this revival is ruining sport …

 

How can he see the ball past that foliage?

And it's ruining politics …

And we haven't even got to the real ruination …

And now for a bit of bashing the young, a skill which Dame Slap has excelled at since she first ran her school in the land above the clouds …

Harden the fuck up, young 'uns … 

The pond has absolutely no idea why young people think the world is dangerous. Why don't they live in Dame Slap's bubble? As if life in Syria is in any way difficult at the moment …

Where will it end? Next thing you know girlies will be playing footy, and with long hair too, as if they don't have a clue how it's ruining their game …

And while we're at it, no more man buns!

Oh he's well cut, maybe keep the man buns ...

And now since somehow the Donald crept into the discussion, as he seems to creep in all the time, a few more cartoons for danger seekers and death cheaters interested in exciting times …