Speaking of sleepwalking towards a cliff-hanger, there were only a few minutes to go in the movie, and then came a classic Malware moment …
It was drop-out time.
There's no point ringing up about the drop-outs, intermittent and erratic as they are… the service usually returns as mysteriously as it disappears and as the film was Extinction, it didn't matter much matter, it being a Universal turkey that ended up on Netflix because they didn't dare to do theatrical.
They say Ben Young's a gun director from WA but it was almost a blessed relief when Malware's NBN intervened and shut the show down, and in a way, the twirling circle of doom eerily suited this feeble hodgepodge of Blade Runner meets Westworld …
Then the pond was offline again this morning, and breathed another sigh of relief. A chance to be free of the reptile stew, though it did make the pond wonder just how many people experience interruptions to service as a reminder of the mess Malware made of the NBN … with each outage a potent reminder that this is the last man to deserve their vote.
Unhappily, the service returned as mysteriously as it dropped out, and the pond was left contemplating doing the usual reptile racist rag about the fate of angry white men shouting at clouds …
The pond decided it was too much for a Sunday morning …and consoled itself with a Wilcox to go … with more Wilcox here …
Well it made a change from talk of the Sudanese, and then it was time to get down to business with the dog botherer …
There's nothing like a gloomy dog botherer to put the pond in exceptionally good spirits ...
That reference to climate activism is a reminder - should anyone forget - that the dog botherer is a devout climate denialist.
Things haven't been going that well on the denialist front …
The northern summer as been attracting attention, as in this piece in The Conversation, while NASA had things to observe about Antarctic ice loss …
Sorry, the pond always wonders why it should pay a nanosecond's attention to the dog botherer when there are more important things to think about … like why the NBN keeps dropping out, or why the planet's fucked ...
Speaking of policies, Wilcox had another cartoon to go ...
Meanwhile, the dog botherer carries on bleating ...
Are there you go, another mention of the dog botherer's climate denialism, and somehow that drags in Wilcox with another iceberg …
The pond can't thank Wilcox enough for helping the pond get through the dog botherer, because now it's time for a full on dose of climate denialism ...
What, instead of Extinction, the pond should have attempted to watch re-runs of Seinfeld using old-fashioned television?
Well luckily there's only a short gobbet of dog botherer to go … and he can't resist stirring the pot by celebrating the luddite nonsense still being offered up by Barners and the onion muncher ...
Oh dear, the pond really does wish the reptiles would give the dog botherer a better credit.
How about "Chris Kenny was a war criminal assistant to Lord Downer when the government of the time conducted an illegal war? And now as a climate denialist is contributing to a pending disaster."
Probably a tad too long, but as for the other matter bring it on, because the pond feels more than a dash of ominous intent … though it does wish that instead of leadership, Wilcox had inserted "NBN" in the placard in the wilderness …though leadership will do, cartoonist, leadership will do ...
Does anybody else think like me that the Doggy Bov has run out of things to say ? That all that's left to him is long winded self-repetitive bloviation*; like he's in a low level apprenticeship to replace Ned Kelly ? Not that he ever did really have much to say, anyway (which makes him a totally fitting replacement for Neddy).
ReplyDelete* For those, like me until today, who had just guessed the meaning of bloviation, here's what Wikipedia has to say:
Bloviation is a style of empty, pompous political speech particularly associated with Ohio due to the term's popularization by United States President Warren G. Harding, who, himself a master of the technique, described it as "the art of speaking for as long as the occasion warrants, and saying nothing".
Yep, that encapsulates the reptiles precisely.
I later encountered this excellent analysis:
DeletePunditry performs a couple of practical functions for newspapers. On the old principle that comment is free and facts are expensive, it takes care of a couple of pages on the cheap and gives the publisher a proper sense of his own importance to boot. It also provides a stepping stone for those on the way from the newsroom to retirement: a stint as Sage in Residence and then the ink-stained old nag can be quietly let out to pasture.
Absolutely says it all, really
[ https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3958-the-pundit ]
Yes, I did think I had heard all this before. It reminded me of The Pat Hobby Stories by F Scott Fitzgerald.
Delete"Pat Hobby. scenario hack and one-time wonder, is on the decline. Loafing around studio lots, scheming for a film credit, turning any trick to make ends meet, he lingers forever on the outside, a casualty of no account"
From A Patriotic Short: "Pat was getting two fifty a week - so, casually and without effort, he wrote in one of his favorite lines:
Lee (to his officers) Well, what are you standing there gawking for? DO something!"
On criminal gangs, some people are taking action that actually works! Violent crime is like infectious disease – and we know how to stop it spreading.
ReplyDeleteCan't be long before our governments take this approach. Hahahaha!
Hmm, I encountered a revolutionary thought today: "The Pundit: Opinion columns were designed by God to have the same lifespan as a croissant."
DeleteAnd, I'd have to aver, so, generally, does sanity. But about once or twice every century, some kind of sanity catches on. Let's hope this is one of those times.
It's notable just how complex real solutions are compared to the simple knee-jerk reactions favoured by the conservatives (clear, simple, and wrong). It's similar to the harm mitigation versus prohibition argument regarding drugs.
Delete