Then the NBN decided to have one of its daily outages, thanks be unto Malware, and the pond realised that Malware had also been determined to drive the pond mad. And succeeded.
And so an interest in luddite reptiliana and a love of clean dinkum Oz coal would become grist to the pond’s mill for year upon year.
But that would have to wait. This turned out to be a long outage.
There was nothing to do but sit around and read about Andy Warhol and Henry Miller in an actual tree-killed edition of the NYRB while the gods determined when the broadband might flicker back to life. If the pond had ostentatiously lit a candle, it might have been back in ancient times in the bush, with the very unique sounds of the ABC coming out of the battery-powered radio built to look rather like a large cupboard.
Yes, they were that big, and doubtless you could hear very unique cricket …
The wait turned out to be longer than usual. This was a Malware determined to turn grey hair stone-white mad, while out there in the real world, wired people rushed to and fro, not caring about reptiles, but having a life …perhaps playing a “very unique” game of cricket in South Australia. Not that the pond could check exactly where, because it was off-line, in a Malware cavern of despair …
The pond began to muse at the way that everything the reptile-inspired agenda touched fucked up in some spectacular way, be it the modest matter of broadband in every home, to Brexit, to the Donald to climate science …but that way lay madness and stone-white hair, and what was needed was Buddhist tranquility, but how did that explain the Buddhists full of religious hate in Myanmar?
The pond began to transcribe a little Miller, now thoroughly out of fashion, as something to do:
To walk in money through the night crowd, protected by money, lulled by money, dulled by money, the crowd itself a money, the breath money, no least single object anywhere that is not money, money, money everywhere and still not enough, and then no money or a little money or less money or more money, but money, always money, and if you have money or you don’t have money it is the money that counts and money makes money, but what makes money make money?
Why you could substitute coal or broadband or reptiles or very unique cricket for money and it would make just as much sense … reptiles lulled by coal, reptiles dulled by coal … and at that moment the pond was saved, as the broadband returned from wherever it went in reptile la la land …and the day’s very unique business could begin.
First an acknowledgement that the pond is not alone in its fascination with the reptiles … this from the Weekly Beast, essential reading for students of reptiliana …
It was too fucking bizarre, but the pond is glad that Amanda Meade was there to cover the night beat for the Daily, because as usual the pond had other fish to fry, and was like the white rabbit, and running late for the latest news …
Sheesh, the pond should have realised that "We're for you" actually meant "We're for coal and SloMo and fuck you and the planet and all who ride on it …"
Well after the recent China coal scare there were sundry developments.
The Pravda down under did its dutiful duty by publishing the thoughts of a fearless climate denialist leader, and the reptile readers came up with novel suggestions to save the day …
Then the hysteria seemed to fade a little, and the reptiles could relax …
But not before Rowe delivered a ripper cartoon, with more ripper Rowe here …
But enough of the short and curlies, because with that, the pond could at last get around to the main course, though it will be clear why the pond has been delaying the moment.
You see, it's not prattling Polonius, it's nattering "Ned" who will hold the floor, and as everyone knows, that's equivalent to climbing Everest …
But "Ned" has the cult status of the Lobbecke of the day - oh how funny the canaries are - and so attention must be paid …
What a world. "Ned" and the CFMEU united! Only clean dinkum true blue Oz coal can draw together a divided nation … though others put a different interpretation on recent reptile events …
Oh you won't mind a little break at base camp, will you?
Tedious old "Ned" will be rabbiting on for yonks, so why not a little breach of the Crikey paywall, purely in the interest of a shared love of reptile studies?
The pond should play fair and put up that link to Concept Economics goes bust, appoints administrators, though the sad tale of our Henry "hole in the bucket" Ergas and Brian "wait to see if we need to do anything about climate change" Fisher showing what expertise in economics will do for you might lurk behind the Crikey paywall ...
Actually the pond has a bone to pick with Crikey.
It's clear it's still 2001 in reptile la la land, and that's why nattering "Ned" can blather on about climate moralism and theologians and such like, based on his very unique understanding of climate science …
Now the pond understands that "Ned" is only able to frame the issue in terms he understands, which is to say blather about contradictions and quasi-religious faith, and exaggerations, and poor, helpless coal suffering, with its supporters mocked …
But the science has got three fifths of fuck all to do with quasi-religious faith.
Either you accept the science and the role that coal plays in it, or you don't, and if you don't, you can then cheerfully blather on about how there shouldn't be a permanent war between coal and climate change commitments …(this isn't a matter of belief, secular or religious, come up with alternative provable science if you want to make a case, and show how the vast majority of scientists have got it wrong and are living a delusion, as opposed to the reptiles' rich delusions).
But here's the truly bad news. Thus far, the pond has only traversed two of Ned's gobbets. There are six in all, which means four to go.
The pond can hear the sighing and the sobbing, and senses a mutiny might be at hand. But it has the whip to hand, and shoulders must be applied to the wheel … because the prescient Crikey will now see nattering "Ned" return to Brian Fisher, and lead with him, perhaps in the hope of winning a hand of misère ...
On the matter of Fisher, Crikey referenced social media and some learned tweets by one Erwin Jackson, here, but it was this addendum that caught the pond's eye …
He couldn't make Concept Economics work either …
Well you can find Roger Jones tweeting away here, but the pond can't keep doing these distractions, because we're still only half way there ...
Et tu, Ned? Doubting coal might be a winner? But what of Henry Miller?
To walk in coal through the night crowd, protected by coal, lulled by coal, dulled by coal, the crowd itself a coal mine, the breath coal, no least single object anywhere that is not coal, coal, coal, oi, oi, oi everywhere and still not enough, and then no coal or a little coal or less coal or more coal, but coal, always coal and if you have coal or you don’t have coal it is the coal that counts and coal makes coal, but what makes coal make coal … when it might be making money and fucking the planet?
But enough, we're at the penultimate gobbet, and the love of coal and Adani must shine through ...
And so to a final flurry of pinning it all on the contradictions in the Labor party, while climate science denialists of the Angus Taylor kind can wander about with an insouciant air, reciting the thoughts of the Brian Fishers of the world, so that we might all stay in 2001 and "Ned" can blather on about moral wildernesses, because strangely, world famous climate scientist though he is, he doesn't seem to have the first fucking clue about what the science might be saying ...
The pond has absolutely no idea what it must be like for a young person contemplating this ponderous old fart blathering on about the future of their world, with his humbug political calculations and his pious ambiguities and equivocations … except to propose that sooner or later the wheel will turn, and there will be a new land at the top of the faraway tree ...
And what can the pond possibly say to those who managed to make it to the end?
Perhaps a 'well done chaps and chappettes, well done lads and lasses, you have the colonial right stuff, you are true blue, and dinkum clean Oz coal surges through your veins' … or perhaps just a cartoon from the infallible Pope, with a reminder that there are always more papal gifts on hand here ...
Hi Dorothy,
ReplyDelete“The risk is Labor is seen as either betraying workers or being hypercritical, or both.”
Whilst trying not to be seen as ‘hypercritical’ (excessively and unreasonably critical, especially of small faults) I think nattering “Ned” meant to write hypocritical and the subbies, like overworked Sherpas, failed to spot the erroneous autocorrect amongst Kelly’s excessive verbiage.
The reptiles appear infatuated with Fisher’s economic modelling and the predicted costs to the GDP if emission reduction targets are enacted. They don’t point out however that Fisher’s modelling doesn’t include the cost to the country’s bottom line of the consequences of severe global warming if no action is taken.
Half a million drowned cows don’t come cheap for instance.
DiddyWrote
And that's only a beginning, DW, only a beginning. If the global warming scenarios are even moderately accurate, most of the current residential land of the human race - very large amounts of it being on the shores of seas and oceans - will disappear. Then we could be considering the question of how cheap hundreds of millions of humans come.
DeleteI'm confused. I thought it was the inner city 'leets that were unpatriotically opposed to dinkum aussie clean coal, but now Nattering Ned tells us, like some latter-day Alfred P. Doolittle, that it's "middle class moralism". Or is it that in the Humpty-Dumpty land of the reptiles, the middle class ARE the 'leets? :/
ReplyDeleteTo me, it seems that many have recognised there is a choice to be made between doing well and doing good, and many of those (Enough? - remains to be seen) have chosen the latter. It is not that the hippy anti-coal cultists are unaware of the economic impacts, they have just decided that it would be the lesser of two evils. Conveniently the "Fisher Analysis" (ooh, how august sounding) ignores the cost differential of continuing to do BAU - lost agri-exports, dead fish, etc etc.
But in a choice between doing good and doing well, the idea that enough of the Australian public might actually decide to do the decent thing is, for the reptiles, not so much anathema as incomprehensible.
More "inconceivable" than just "incomprehensible" I reckon, FD. Just about as "inconceivable" as any hypothecated negative effects of the (mythical) "global warming" is to them
DeleteThat was a good choice for weekend reading DP. I was totally sucked in by my fruitless attempt to guess/predict when Neddles would cross over into some semblance of reason and rationality. But never no mind, for as usual Neddles was true to Shakespeare: "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
ReplyDeleteBut then, I came across this exercise in reasoned rationality:
https://theconversation.com/the-decoy-effect-how-you-are-influenced-to-choose-without-really-knowing-it-111259
Would you believe that our beloved Catholic Boys Daily gets an honourable mention therein as practising "decoy" in setting the options and associated charges for subscriptions ?
Now all I have to do is read Neddles just once again, to see if I can discern any entrance of human meaning anywhere within his galloping senility.
Good link. I notice both Richard Thaler & Dan Ariely are linked in that piece. Ariely is best known for his book Predictably Irrational. If you haven't seen his work this gives a sense of it:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhjUJTw2i1M
Basically, despite our pretence of being rational we don't always act that way. Big, scary issues are often ignored and if a decision is required we often "anchor" on some established solution that may never have worked in the first place. Everyone suffers to some degree but the most bone-headed iteration is called conservatism.
So climate change is a big scary issue. Even if we go far beyond what is proposed under Paris we are only pulling back from existential crisis to catastrophic change. Rational beings would still take that deal, but the conservative is a deeply irrational being. It's easy for the reptiles because the readership wants to be told the problem is just made up and they don't have to change anything.
The changes Ned is moaning about are inevitable in any case, the timing will just determine the degree to which we (or our kids) are screwed by climate change.
I think some of us, and their kids and cattle, are already being screwed by climate change, Bef. But lots more to come, lots more to come. And probably for a millenium or maybe two.
DeleteAnd thanks for the Dan Ariely link Bef. Most entertainingly enlightening. Especially the bit about The Economist's 'default'; just like the Murdochratian one.
DeleteWhat stands out to me is how this clown will carry on about peripheral subjects when the real action is about the dishonesty of the liberal party but don't write about that use a smoke screen to fill the pages of the Liberal party advocate in the Australian newspaper they will do what ever it takes to ensure that the Labor Party fail in their endeavour to become the government
ReplyDeleteNo black helicopters?
ReplyDeleteYes, interesting links, thanks Anony (those outside of paywalls anyway). The CFMEU one is relevant in a few ways; particularly in respect of unqualified people expounding on matters they have little grasp of. In particular, Tony Maher's enthusiasm for Carbon Capture and Storage.
DeleteCCS is a wish fulfillment dream, much like fusion power has been for the past 60 or so years. Maher mentions that: "There is a CCS power station in Canada right now." and yes there is, the Boundary Dam CCS "project". He also avers that "the technologies that could cut carbon emission from the use of coal by 90%.".
Pure wishful thinking, that. Here's what Wikipedia has to say:
"In 2015, internal documents from SaskPower revealed that there were "serious design issues" in the carbon capture system, resulting in regular breakdowns and maintenance problems that led the unit to only be operational 40% of the time. SNC-Lavalin had been contracted to engineer, procure, and build the facility, and the documents asserted that it "has neither the will or the ability to fix some of these fundamental flaws.""
And
"It is expected to result in a 90 percent (1 million tonnes/year) reduction in CO2 emissions and will also reduce the output of Unit 3 from 139 MW to 110 MW.[11] Critics point out that the 90% figure refers to the percentage of total CO2 emissions captured, and that only about a half of this CO2 will be actually be permanently stored. The remainder is released into the atmosphere during capturing and processing in the oil field."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundary_Dam_Power_Station
So, not quite the fixall solution that Maher would have us believe. But then it never has been which is why 'renewables' are booming (because they deliver) and Coal is dying (because it kills).