The pond enjoys conversation stoppers as much as conversation starters, and what else is there to be said about the current fuss, after the infallible Pope's offering, with more papal stoppers and starters here …
Even the reptiles ran silent, ran deep, with fear mongering giving way to a standard tree killer bit of Pravda news about HECS …
HECS relief? What about the hordes pouring down from the north?
It left the pond grasping for content, and for a nanosecond, the pond thought of reverting to yesterday's reptile panic …
But the pond already has a gay priest in the extended family, and 'Chrislam' is such a ghastly concoction that the pond recoiled in horror. Besides, everyone knows Christ's message … how did it go?
Or some such thing.
But enough of baiting and switching, because joy of joys, the savvy Savva has returned to the Thursday lizard Oz, and no doubt is keen to celebrate the Malware view of life …
Ah, saucy doubts and fears, and the pond knew immediately what the savvy Savva was saying …he doesn't have the ticker.
He might be a Beazley, or he might be a Costello, but whoever, whatever he is, he lacks the gumption, he lacks the 'tener cojones', the plain old fashioned ticker.
He needs to channel the 'angry Malcolm' that the savvy Savva knew and loved, and which worked so well for the country, the NBN and Malware himself …
As it is, we've now embarked on an election campaign which will run longer than Malware's and lordy, long absent lordy, without Malware's cash ...
Kill Billon? Must be a typo, probably meant "Kill a Billion" tax dollars and hand them to the rich, and give the banks a pass, because that's yesterday's story and today the fear and the hysteria must be nurtured, and spread like wildfire …or, if you're feeling nationalist, bushfire …
Never mind, the pond does enjoy Savva wielding the scalpel, and inflicting little nicks and cuts on SloMo, all while sounding like she's devoted to the cause ...
Ah, but he has no ticker, he has no gumption, and if a boat lands, all that will say is that they let it in for abject political purposes, and SloMo's famous border protection failed just when it was most needed, unless of course comrade Bill is already in de facto government, and so it's his fault that the boat turned up …
Or some such thing … but where was the ticker, where was tat short drive to glory, the opportunity the savvy Savva saw, and SloMo missed?
Stormin' Norman, stopping the boats?
Well there's always hope, even if he missed a moment and lacked the ticker… as the savvy Savva noted, a boat might yet arrive, and what do you know, just as the pond thought the infallible Pope had said it all, along came the reliable Rowe offering hope to SloMo and the mutton Dutton, with more hopeful, helpful Rowe here … (and just what is that weird crab scuttling on the foreshore?)
Well these days one reptile is never enough for the pond, and it especially loves reptiles with a bee in their bonnet, and what joy that the bromancer has gone barking mad, and regularly howls at the moon over the subs …
Serious flaws in our national character? What, the pond has to accept responsibility for the deeds of the Liberal government that produced the NBN and then the bromancer's sinking feeling about the subs?
Okay, he's scribbled it all before, and it sounds just like the re-treads the pond once relied on to keep the HK running, but be fair: the bromancer scored the Lobbecke of the day, guaranteeing him cult status, and probably no-one at reptile HQ in 'leet Surry Hills thought to tell him that perhaps the submarine fiasco exposed serious flaws in our national government …after all, the best coffees from the finest baristas in the land are just a step away ...
He believes in the Donald? He trusts in the Donald? Actually the bromancer's incipient hysteria tends to belie that, but it's surely worth a cartoon featuring loyalty …
Call the pond weird, but the pond loves it when the bromancer savages his own, goes feral, tries to claim it's all bipartisan, but then turns to that great climate scientist John Anderson to try to pin it all on Labor ...
Strange. With two climate denialists on the case, the pond was expecting a list of Labor names, but curiously, the bromancer and the rustic only mentioned the foolish Ciobo, the onion muncher and Kev "the undertaker" Andrews …
Sorry, it's wrong for the pond to interrupt the bromancer in the middle of a splendid anti-government rant ...
And that's where the pond routinely stumbles. No, it's not the 'blaming the victim' bit, whereby perfectly innocent bystanders are lumped with responsibility for the onion muncher, the mutton Dutton, SloMo and the rest of the mob, doing their NBN, submarine thing. That's a stain on the pond's character that's hard to remove, when really the lizards of Oz can take a lot of the credit …
It's not even the implicit suggestion that climate science is a "fashionable issue".
Here's the real problem. How is it possible to take the bromancer and the lizards of Oz seriously? After all, the bromancer routinely celebrates the possibilities of the Donald, and it's impossible to take seriously anyone who sounds like a guest on Fox and Friends …
You can't have it both ways … saying that the Donald is our friend and will save us, and at the same time, knowing deep in heart that the Donald is a loon and who knows what the fuck he might do ...
Nope, the Chinese will just have to invade, and flood the country with two dollar stores …
Oh wait, they've already done it …
Perhaps then just another cartoon celebrating the man the bromancer takes seriously, thereby exposing an astonishing defect in our national character …
Here we go again. It's just like the Bromancer has a Rolodex with a title on each separate card that is the header for a regular Bromancer rave and rant. So, last time it was "How good is Trump ?" and this time it's "How bad is the "bipartisan" submarine project".
ReplyDeleteSo anyway, the starting point is: "The shocking, bipartisan scandal of our new submarines ...".
Well of course it's bipartisan, the LNP loonies can never do anything right on their own. So, "fvck the NBN" - bipartisan. "fvck the submarine project" - bipartisan. "fvck the border security of Australia" - oops, no, that one is clearly monopartisan.
Then we get the delivered word of the master of strategy: "...the last thing our nation has been concerned with is the provision of a serious submarine capability."
Ok, I'll be mugwump this time; just what exactly is this "serious submarine capability" actually supposed to achieve ? Are our 12 Frankish subs - if we ever get all 12 working at the same time - supposed to interdict the Chinese navy or something ?
Ah, but our wise and observant Bromancer goes along with: "...militaries across our region are burgeoning and it is easy to imagine scenarios in which the US position in Asia declines."
Ok, so who's doing the burgeoning ? Singapore ? Thailand ? Myanmar, Phillipines ? Japan maybe - but isn't Japan an ally of ours too ? That just about leaves China - but of course - and Indonesia. So, how many obsolete, orphaned submarines would we really need to stop China in its tracks if it was determined to invade ? 200 ? 300 ? And is that before or after the Chinese nuke Sydney and Melbourne ?
As for Indonesia, well how many large scale troop transports does Indonesia have and how many would it need to actually invade us ? And could our handful of "orphan obsolete submarines" stop them ?
I confess to total mystification in this age of emergent drones as to why 12 conventional submarines, "orphaned" and years obsolete by the time they enter the water, are needed by Australia. Can someone please enlighten me ?
GB, if you don't think 12 submarines is serious capability, you might want to look away now. The thing is that of our six Collins-class boats, 2 are in "deep overhaul" at any one time, and only two or three at a time are fit for sea (there is usually minor repairs or refits going on that take one or two of the "active" boats out of service).
DeleteIt will be the same with the replacements. Four will be in deep overhaul, leaving maybe six available at any one time. In fact, the RAN can't find enough submariners now to keep all four serviceable boats on station at the same time. No doubt, with a bigger population and a suitable increase in incentives to spend months under water in a glorified oil drum, we might increase our "capability" to five boats on station at any one time.
Aslo, Sheridan in the Australian's Defence expert, but clearly knows stuff all about it if he thinks that the F-18G Growler is some sort of "bridging" technology between "classic Hornet" and the JSF. It performs a completely different task. And if buying direct, as per the Bromancer's idea for the new subs, is so good, I would note that Australia original planned to convert some of our F-18E/F's into Growlers at a cost of $1.5 billion, but finished up buying them direct at a cost of over $4 billion.
To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher: The problem with being a defence hawk is eventually you run out of other peoples' money...
Ooopsie, for F-18, read F/A-18, of course.
DeleteI think the key, FD is "Sheridan ... knows stuff all about it". After we all agree on that, what else remains to be said.
DeleteBut yes, I am aware of the fact that we barely ever have a submarine "fleet" active with the Collins Class and we haven't been invaded yet, so what will these new French subs actually do for us ?
And none of us will even contemplate mentioning the Oberon Class subs will we. Or having to scavenge some bits from HMAS Otway at Holbrook to repair one of the last of them.
Hi Dorothy,
ReplyDeleteI think I may have a solution to the Bromancer’s angst at not having a brand spanking new ‘Submarine Deterrent’ and it could also win the coming election for the Coalition to boot.
Get Morrison and whiny Pyney to declare that the whole French (or Japanese) submarine tender process has in fact been a huge smokescreen.
It was all just cover for an ultra-secret project that has been designing, developing and building a fleet of state of the art submarines here in Australia for the last twenty years.
The new Harold Holt-Class boats (so named as they will never be found) are equipped with such advanced stealth technology that they are literally undetectable by any navy in the world.
This fleet of 20 or 200 (just pick a number that seems feasible) is equipped with the latest in ultra-clean coal propulsion that is both quiet and environmentally friendly and gives the Holt-Class unprecedented abilities to stay below the waves for years and possibly decades.
Manned by a sect of Warrior-Monks who have sworn a sacred oath to protect a ’sunburnt country’ by diving deeply into the ‘jewel-sea’ possibly for ever. This would be a formidable deterrent to any country who could possibly envision attacking Australia. As they would never know when the Holt-Class may strike in retaliation.
Revealing such an incredible devastating defensive capability to the Australian public would instantly unleash a wave of patriotic pride allowing the Morrison and the Coalition government to ride an electoral resurgence to triumph.
Mission Accomplished!
Sheridan would be overjoyed.
DiddyWrote
You don't by any chance write science fiction for a living, do you DW ? You've got the makings of a good one there.
Delete