Yes, within the day, the bromancer's panic - 'why this COVID-19 pandemic will kill globalisation' - turned into 'whatever the virus kills, it won't be globalism', and at the top of the page too, with a very British illustration.
The pond had surely wasted too much time and energy on the bromancer, and ruined things for readers still stuck with Safari, when surely at the least Firefox must be the solution … (the pond got fully over Apple when it discovered that its ancient tower could be replaced, fully speccd, for upwards of 40k, while a decent PC tower could be had for under 2k).
Speaking of changes in tone, the pond noted a marked shift in tone this week for our Henry, of hole in bucket fame … last week, as noted in the pond here, he was all blithe insouciance, and full of recondite philosophical musings …
This week, with catastrophe well and truly here, our Henry indulged in a strategic retreat …
Yes, our Henry had become a catastrophist, and as if to provide evidence of the confusion and chaos at reptile headquarters, next door to him was a "contributor".
Sure, this "contributor" had a photo, but for all the pond knew, he might have been a toilet roll speaking out about the chaos …
The pond could have spent an entire 'compare and contrast' entry looking at last week's Henry and this week's, but it's more than enough for sanity and peace of mind to restrict the attention span to his new effort …
Yep, confronted with the current crisis, what does our Henry do? Head back to the days of Gerald Ford, the man who had trouble with airplane steps, and talk of flu and the 1918 epidemic ...
Is there some message to the present times in all this guff? Or are we going to end with a reference to Latin? You know, as Henry immediately labels his previous speculations as "foolish", though at least it saves the pond the trouble ...
Thank heaven for the Latin, and deep within it, what seems like a mourning for the Donald and the current GOP, driven mad since the days of the tea partiers … but as for Henry's last sentence, the pond has a ready retort …
And so to the Caterist attempt to deal with the crisis, him having proven himself by his Sherlock Holmes' capacity to deduce the movement of flood waters in quarries…
It surely makes the pond's concern about the provenance of a Lobbecke drawing seem trivial, though the pond accepts the expert identification provided by a reader … and there can be no doubt about the Lobbecke to hand, because it's signed by the master, and shows all his inimitable style ...
Surely the speculation about Lobbecke now ends, and the attribution accepted, and the result sold for squillions into the art market of the world ...
As for the Caterist, even now, he can't resist slipping in a little climate science denialism, and as for demanding a pragmatic, apolitical response, in which last shower did this newly apolitical Ming the merciless lover think we all came down in?
Ah, the 'nostalgia of another era of history' tour … with the reptiles haunted by Chairman Rudd and Julia Gillard.
The pond guesses that the current reptile headlines were too graphic for the Caterist, and might have produced a case of toxic shock …
Well perhaps they could nationalise News Corp … make it an arm of the ABC … but what to do with all the layabouts and riff raff who have scribbled endless nonsense in past years?
Could they just be allowed to grumble in peace in some quiet institute somewhere?
Reading all that, the pond realised that as usual the Caterist had entirely missed the point, and failed to note how dismantling the welfare system, devising the gig economy, stripping away benefits, and such like efforts had produced a just in time system ill-equipped to deal with a just in time disaster, and once again the pond might be better off turning to the infallible Pope for an insight …
As for that mysterious "contributor", the pond just had to go there, if only so others might be tempted to avoid the reptiles in time of plague …
It turned out that it was a scribbler from the deep north, still furiously arguing on the need for Australia to go full Yank, and end up with the hopeless legal system which has been heavily politicised, and which has reached a kind of centre for political division and disaster in the Supreme Court …
Indeed, indeed, the pond has long suspected that pesky, difficult uppity blacks were aliens, strangers in a stranger land, and how much easier it would be if we could just ship them off to their country of origin, wherever that might be, perhaps somewhere in Africa, if the DNA might give a clue?
Never mind, on with appointing conservative judges who would come to this sort of appropriate conclusion, and who knows someday we might get a beer-loving Brett sitting on the highest bench … and what's wrong with that, because everyone should love a beer ...
Well it's nice to know that it's business as usual for some, blathering on about 'leets and the lawyerly caste, but the pond decided it had already dallied too long with the reptiles, and quickly scurried through the last gobbet ...
Irony much? "Contributor" just spent an entire column asking for his own first-order political views to be advanced, only to then assure us that this was what he wasn't doing …
Is there a beer in the house, since it seems ill-advised for Brett to have a party with buddies or head off to the pub at the moment?
But at least there's some relief to be found.
The age of Trump still lives …
… and yet all the pond could think was where was it going to get a replacement bottle of tomato sauce, a little soap and perhaps a roll of toilet paper …
Perhaps the answer lay in a Rowe, with many more answers to be found here …
Christ on a stick, for a bunch of climate science denying zealots, the reptiles are all over the science of virus’ like a blue rash.......although it is ultimately really about the economics of, and in, their hive mind.”
ReplyDeleteI dream of the day when the whole reptile cast are reduced to busking for a crust outside a $2 shop......possibly along with a lot of us ‘leets’, the way things are shaping up.
“Well perhaps they could nationalise News Corp … make it an arm of the ABC … but what to do with all the layabouts and riff raff who have scribbled endless nonsense in past years?”
Make them all war correspondents....a frontline resistance if you will.(maybe that should be assistance) They are obviously aptly qualified either way, as they always remind us at the end of each missive. Cheers.
"(the pond got fully over Apple when it discovered that its ancient tower could be replaced, fully speccd, for upwards of 40k ..."
ReplyDelete$40K ? What was it made of ? Even gold wouldn't cost that much.
But I kinda approve of Apple in a way. The Apple Mac really started the small/home computer era. Compact, visual, mouse driven - ah them was the daze. But Apple went all out on the 'closed system' idea: what Apple provided was all you could have. Then IBM/Microsoft came out with a completely open system: a motherboard which could be accessed and into which all sorts of specialist cards could be inserted.
That made Microsoft's Windoze just a little harder to build and keep stable, but the MickeySoft folks (mostly) managed it. And that left Apple's little closed system unable to keep up with technical innovation and what the world wanted to do. And so it continued for (in modern computing terms) a very long time. Until Apple finally gave in and invented USB so that all kinds of external items could finally be plugged into an Apple without having to open the case.
And that's how technical innovation happens nowadays. But now, on with the show ...
On to the Holely Henry and his history lesson on the fame and fortune of Gerald Ford. Not much really to be said, is there: Gerald was a non-entity then and is still a non-entity now. But I considered this: "[The program] neither failed as miserably as its critics claim, nor succeeded as greatly as it [sic] supporters contend."
Just about a final summation for the human race, that. But otherwise, Henry was his usually droning self, so enough is a sufficiency.
Now we get to Goosebumps Cater once again, and one of the long-running reptile/wingnut lies: "Our immunity to external shock was weakened considerably by the Rudd government's extravagant spending spree during the 2008 global financial crisis."
Well of course the fact that 6 years worth of LNP extravagant spending that has more than doubled the federal debt - and pumped up private debt too - just isn't worth a moment's thought is it. But here we have seen what happens under those circumstances: the Reserve bank prints a whole pile of extra money for the government to spend. No problem at all, is there.
Like all of his fellow travellers, Cater never gets that while money in an individual's pocket is a reality, money at the level of a national economy is just a social construct. A government (or its central bank if it has one) can print as much money as it likes, and provided that does not occasion runaway inflation, there is no real downside.
So, finally, to the legalist from the Far North Side: "We seek the appointment of judges who will interpret the Constitution in a non-activist way."
In other words, interpret the Constitution in a wholly "capital-C conservative way". My only question with the likes of this numbnut is just whether they really believe what they are saying, or, just like ScottyfromMarketing, they believe what they say for just as long as it takes to spout it, and not a moment longer.
Apple’s most expensive Mac Pro costs $53,799 Plus another $5,999 for a Pro Display XDR to match
Deletehttps://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/12/10/21003636/apple-mac-pro-price-most-expensive-processor-ram-gpu
Plus instead of getting Photoshop for a fixed price, you get to pay a monthly rental fee because Apple doesn't allow old purchases into its universe.
As for the numbnut from the north (no disrespect to Nanook) the pond wonders - if he's so against mystical words - why he doesn't get equally agitated about that reference in the Australian constitution to an imaginary friend, Almighty God, and why he doesn't rail against parliament for opening with a prayer to an imaginary friend:
The Speaker then reads the following prayers:
Almighty God, we humbly beseech Thee to vouch safe Thy blessing upon this Parliament. Direct and prosper our deliberations to the advancement of Thy glory, and the true welfare of the people of Australia.
Our Father, which art in Heaven: Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil: For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/House_of_Representatives/Powers_practice_and_procedure/Practice7/HTML/Chapter8/Acknowledgement_of_country_and_Prayers
Or why you can find this in the High Court legislation:
I, , do swear that I will bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Her Heirs and Successors according to law, that I will well and truly serve Her in the Office of Chief Justice [or Justice] of the High Court of Australia and that I will do right to all manner of people according to law without fear or favour, affection or ill-will. So help me God!
https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2004A02147
So help me, I'm a monarchist and I call on an imaginary friend for help.
Yet suddenly it gets offensively difficult when the pesky, difficult blacks start talking about kinship with the land … and might even imagine they were here first, the cheeky buggers.
Strewth, DP, $53,799+5,999+a rental fee for Photoshop. Is that grifting or what ?
DeleteYair, I'm always quite astounded by the egoistic self-regard displayed by those who basically claim to "know" what some long ago document "really means". Personally, I wouldn't imagine that the "founding fathers" all completely understood their own work especially as it might pan out over coming centuries, much less a humped up academic legalist like James Allan.
But I've completely given up any expectation that I'll get to vote in a referendum to remove reference to the "invisible friend" before I shuffle the mortal.
Re. The Contributor........Tou-bloody-che DP!
DeleteIntellectually blind imbeciles abound in the north, even without no yellow snow, it seems.
XI CONCLUSION
It may be seen from this article that the Garrick chair is the oldest of the named professorial chairs in law at the University of Queensland, having been established in 1923 before there was even a full law school. The chair and the circumstances surrounding its being awarded or not awarded has been marked with some considerable controversy over some periods but in recent decades it has been made purely, as the Senate had wished, on merit without being particularly linked to any particular position or seniority.
Cheers.
I'm just a little confused, Anony, especially after OA's rundown: exactly what "merit" could be attributed to Allan ?
DeleteIf you interpret the Constitution in a non-activist way, the Feds could not control aviation (surprise, surprise it's not mentioned in the Constitution). Neither Telecommunications, unless you commit the category error of equating 'electricity' with 'electronics'. Neither Education, Transport, Rural Affairs, Science, the Arts...
DeleteI wonder how Menzies would have fared if he had said, I want to change the Constitution so we can give stacks of money to Catholic schools.
Maybe Allan is one of those who believe that 'that government governs best, that governs least', you know, like in Sudan.
‘Contributor’ - that’s not a title. Surely he could have tried for something like ‘Executive Contributor’?
ReplyDeleteThe Garrick Professor otherwise is of that group which peppers what claims to be the national newspaper, Catallaxy, Quadrant and even ‘Aussie’ Spectator with warnings about immigration, its handmaiden multiculturism, persecution of hapless Xians and the dreadful leftwards wheel of tertiary institutions which, they reveal, are stocked with foreign academics, of dubious professional qualification, but who now bludge on the Australian taxpayer, to brainwash callow, unquestioning students, rather than test their talents in a competitive jobs market.
Common characteristics of this group is that they were - oh - born overseas, so migrated to this country, to slip into a tenured academic position, which frees them from the stress of trying to make it in the glorious, golden, capitalist system, so they can lecture - on the standard evils. And write for journals of small, and shrinking, circulation.
Happy coincidence that the Executive Director of the Menzies Research Centre also gets an extra run on this Friday. One of the useful things the Executive Director of the MRC has done for the reading public is to reveal, however inadvertently, that the print run for any issue of ‘The Spectator’ is about the same as for the P & C newsletter of some of our larger public schools.
Yes, it took court proceedings for that information to ‘be revealed’, but it seems the publisher of ‘The Spectator’ was prepared to do that in the hope that it might reduce the cost to them incurred by the Executive Director’s opinions.
This Professor is an interesting case. Other sources reveal that he came to the bar in 1988. By 1994 he was lecturing in New Zealand, slipping into Queensland in 2005 - in another nicely tenured academic position. Prior to New Zealand his ‘Wiki’ entry places him in some kind of academic slot in Hong Kong for an unspecified period. So - how long did he actually toil as a qualified lawyer, on behalf of - whatchacallem - yes, clients?
As one who claims to be ‘conservative’, we assume he is familiar with Burke’s disparagement of those who sought to write laws in parliament, or to interpret as an ‘academic’ observer, without having done a few years tussling with how the law affected actual clients. You know - members of that often amorphous body - ‘democracy’.
In this case, the Professor Contributor seems to have reached the comfortable conclusion that democracy would be best served if he got to nominate the judges. No doubt his students have learned to support that proposition when they are examined.
Other Anonymous.
Thank you for that extensive rundown on "professor" James Allan, OA. It limns him clearly as a reptile - how does it go: "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".
DeleteDon't you love it when a limp noodle like Cater starts this "listen to your elders" routine? Perhaps he's channelling Socrates "The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority etc".
ReplyDeleteA lot of the over 50s I know have sleep-walked through most of their working lives, usually nested in the bosom of a single employer, with compulsory super and guaranteed leave benefits. Add home ownership and what's to worry about? On the other hand, a lot of the kids I know have struggled with insecure employment, flat wage growth and high house prices. Who do you think would be more resilient?
As far as government profligacy is concerned, I would think Howard was the gold standard for middle class welfare. He certainly installed a few structural time bombs ready to be activated during any downturn (how much is the refund of unused franking credits costing - $6 billion?)