The Major won the Monday reptile race by a country mile this day, and left the pond gasping in admiration and awe, as he came out with a couple of ripper zingers that left the rest of the dotards staggering to the kool aid in the office water cooler.
You can't beat an old liar when it comes to delivering classic porkies in style. The Major showed that his hunt for that Order of Lenin medal was no flash in the pan … by golly, taking more holidays than a cardigan wearer at the ABC has done wonders for him ...
Now all that opener was just standard reptile fodder, repeated a zillion times, and the sort of stuff the Major could trot out in his sleep. Just give him a Xanax and a keyboard, and he could do variations on the reptile climate denialist riff without a twitch of the eyeballs …
But it takes real genius to open the next paragraph this way:
My colleague, Chris Kenny, never a climate denier ...
Well in a perverse, yet deeply humble way, it's true … the dog botherer has never denied there's a climate, and has even gone so far as to suggest the weather is changeable. But as for being a climate science denialist?
The pond just has to interrupt the Major to head back to the archives. Crikey in 2017 will do - there's lots more here if you can get behind the paywall, but this comedy is more than enough …
But enough of the comedy - the pond could spend all day deploying dozens of examples of the dog botherer at work - it's on with the zinger, as the Major has to do some major back-pedalling, and explaining how the reptile vision of climate science in some way has a remote connection to reality …
Another zinger. Of course it was left to Bjorn.
Bjorn is the best, cleverest, trickiest climate science denialist the reptiles know. How they love Bjorn, and what do you know, he too is a believer in warming. Hallelujah sisters and brothers, feel the sudden gush, the sudden rush of true belief from the new believers (it is after all a religion, and has nothing to do with replicable studies that might lead to acceptance rather than belief)...
And note the way that the Major moved, with no noticeable shifting of gears, to a litany of other complaints about lefties getting it wrong …
He's still got it, and that's why poseurs like simple Simon can only gasp as they're left behind in the dust ...
Yes, Boris and Albo, two peas in a pod, and a lot more peas in that pod.
Sure simple Simon has a parrot-like capacity for mimicry - apparently his imitation of the Major is a show stopper at the reptile Xmas party - but the pond thinks it can move on in comfort, knowing that Simon can be safely ignored, because the Major has set the world right, and it's time for the Caterist to set wretched modern youffs right ...
Indeed, indeed, what would young voters know of the movement of flood waters in quarries? What would they know of a decent defamation payout? What would they know of lower north shore living, a prerequisite for any sensible commentary on austerity?
And besides the Caterist scored the Lobbecke of the day. It might not be the best of the cult master, indeed some might think it pitiful, but the pond thinks it a perfect match for the simplicity that emanates from the Caterist himself ...
A little woke?
Ah, the Caterist has made a basic linguistic error. He doesn't seem to realise that woke has a new status, as noted in the pond recently …
Should the pond help the Caterist get woke, get Donald and Mike?
Not really, not when he can go on, in the usual paranoid, hysterical reptile way, to get agitated by a wave of left-wing populism. Ah, right-wing populism and the Donald and the dictators of the world, so yesterday ...
All is as might be expected from the director of the Menzies Research Centre, one of those cushy little perks that allows the Caterist to denounce idle talk of lack of balance in incomes … though it turns out having a humble degree in sociology from the University of Exeter might be part of the reason that the world is going mad ...
Hmm, salaries for those with lower-ranked college degrees are lower than those who didn't bother?
Was the whole thing a plaintive cry about what the Caterist was scoring by way of cash in the paw at the MRC? Is he still feeling resentment at missing out on Eton and a position in the Tory government?
After all, the lad has a rather large defamation payout looming … scruffy, ugly youffs, take heed, or you too could end up a Caterist, and be forced to scribble for the reptiles for your supper.
But now, as the Caterist mentioned wokeness, another woke moment ...
Let us all pray, though the pond might have to start believing in a melding of KFC and the spaghetti monster.
And so to the dog botherer, allegedly not a climate denialist ...
Luckily the dog botherer this day has forsaken his scribbling on climate for more esoteric and arcane activities up there with the Inquisition.
Heretic spotting …
This is a very technical sport, but the pond might offer just a few tips as we wend our way through the thickets of dog botherer thinking ...
Ah Speersy. Everyone knows that Speersy was once inside the tent, pissing out. But now he's outside the tent, everything he says, whether ancient or modern, can be virtually guaranteed to show some sign of heresy, some deep flaw in understanding …
And there are other miscreants and heretics to be spotted ...
The cawing Crowe of Nine Newspapers?
Who can forget the long ago days when the cawing Crowe was a member of the News Corp team, and regularly drank the corporate kool-aid? Then something happened, one day he missed a serve, and suddenly he stepped outside the tent, and he's been more than a little while gone, and now he's off consorting with the likes of Fran Kelly, a decidedly lesser Kelly, a completely wrong Kelly, a - gasp - ABC Kelly - an almost unimaginable thing …
At least the cawing Crowe gives the dog botherer a chance to have his say on zero emissions, and naturally he takes a dim view - but then why wouldn't he, because as noted above, back in 2017, he managed to discover a global warming pause up there with the Caterist ability to predict the movement of flood waters in quarries ...
The astonishing about-face from Crowe?
Yes, it's shorthand for saying that the cawing Crowe was once in a News Corp paradise, but then ate the poisoned apple of reality, and left paradise, and so can never be forgiven, and must have his liver pecked at by reptiles for all eternity …
As for the rest, it's just the usual dog botherer shit, and not really worth a commentary, not when the pond has the immortal Rowe standing by, with more Rowe here, ready to assure us that ignorance is bliss for the Donald, and certainly for the Major, the Caterist and the dog botherer ...
Is this some kind of attempt to show that "bad things come in threes", DP: the "reptile triptych" on Feb 20th, and now this triad of nonsensical nonentities.
ReplyDeleteThe Major, of course, did his usual act: pursue the people and ignore the issue: "The left media was desperate ...". Well yes, of course, but isn't "the left media" always "desperate" according to the reptiles ? That's why we get "the idea of an imminent climate emergency popularised by The Guardian and Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg..."
Oh yes, for a moment, I forgot: Greta has to be attacked and demolished every single chance that the reptiles get. Otherwise, all we get here is episode one of three in the "high- decoupler" stakes. But in that The Maj really isn't in the same league as the Doggy Bov.
There isn't much to be said on the subject of Goosebumps Cater, is there. As usual he's running way behind the ball ("woke" ?) with nothing of any consequence in his rambling.
As for the Doggy Bov himself, well he's really laying it on: "the next, he [David Crowe] is telling us that a historic, complex, and costly global transition to a new net-zero carbon emissions economy, that will require undertakings and yet-to-be-detailed plans, developments and reforms in countries and industries across the world over the next three decades, no matter what events happen along the way, is not only "quite possible" but "probably the outcome".
You'd think he'd never heard of that great human undertaking begun in the 18th century and still going - the Industrial Revolution - wouldn't you. But increasingly, those who control the money and those who control the research, and those who control the computerisation and the manufacturing, are turning away from the present and looking to make a different future. One that even Greta may not be too unhappy to live in.
And it won't be a matter of depending in governments; as usual, we'll be fortunate if governments just mostly stay out of the way of progress.
Very nice summation there. The role of government in Australia at the moment is to simply stand in the way.
DeleteEven though real damage is done, technology and the market just go around them by a longer route.
The funny thing is that even the folk that sip on Murdoch's cool aid are part of it. They stick panels on their roofs and use streaming services etc because it saves money. When battery costs come down a bit they will install them also and sign up for virtual power plant schemes and demand management schemes because they can save money that way too. None of these things are in any way theoretical, they are in limited operation already
https://virtualpowerplant.sa.gov.au/
It's an amusing wingnut dilemma - the ideology or the hip pocket?
Ah well that's where a major (heh) wingnut, and hence reptile, ability comes into play: it's called "compartmentalisation". It's closely related to that other wingnut/reptile ability, "high-decoupling". It simply means that wingnuts/reptiles are able to close down their minds - decoupling them from any unwanted interconnections - and seeing only one thing at a time.
DeleteSo the hip pocket is one thing and ideology is quite another. And therefore they can have both without any internal conflict whereas you and I would be working really hard to resolve an obvious conflict.
And that's why The Major can talk about how bad the fires in Victoria in 1926 and 1939 were and therefore the Black Summer fires of 2019/2020 are nothing much in comaprison - sheesh, only 31 dead compared with 60 (in 1926) and 71 (in 1939). Because, you see, to the "high-decoupled" reptile mind there's no difference in the circumstances of those fires: they had tens of thousands of volunteer firefighters back then, they had humdreds of robust and sophisticated fire trucks back then, they had helicopters and big planes dropping tonnes of water on the fires back then, people had cars and SUVs and made roads to escape with back then, people had mobile phones and constant information updates back then.
And climate change was every bit as intense back then as it is now and the planet's average temperature had increased by as much back then as it has now.
So you see, they will always win because they are not constrained by any attempt to adhere to sordid reality.
More on the theme of doing nothing
Deletehttps://www.patreon.com/posts/coalition-is-to-34310610
I guess compartmentalisation is essential in god botherers needing to ignore all that lovey dovey new testament stuff when it comes to dealing with asylum seekers and so on. They are pre-adapted to ignore the conflicts.
Yep, you got it in one, Bef.
DeleteThank you for that link, Bef. I didn't know what happened to Andrew Street after he left Fairfax, so it's good you have tracked him down.
DeleteI became a patron at once, of course.
One of the finest political writers in Australia, IMO.
Not at all sure it would take a lot to win that title in the Great Ausland, Merc - not a lot of real great competition. But if you and Bef both recommend him, I should maybe give him a go.
DeleteI can't remember him from Fairfax though, but then I basically gave up reading the SMH/Age quite a few years ago now. Basically ever since Gregorius Plywood became CEO with the obvious intent of flogging off the Fairfax Press just as soon as he could get an offer that guaranteed him a big bonus. Which I believe he did get, one way or other.
Anyone who can come up with this as title for his first book: "The Short and Excruciatingly Embarrassing Reign of Captain Abbott" gets an automatic head start, GB. Subsequent titles include "The Curious Story of Malcolm Turnbull, the Incredible Shrinking Man in the Top Hat" both enjoyable reads - if you're a loon fan.
DeleteIt's now nearly a week of silence from DP; should we send out a search party?
Hi Dorothy,
ReplyDelete“As scientist and UK media commentator Matt Ridley says of those numbers “Why do something that you know will do more harm than good?””
Ah yes the Mitchell loves a “scientist” and especially one that fits with the reptiles love of inaction. Why do anything, why do anything at all?
As the reptiles have as much idea about science as they do about how flood water moves around in a quarry then one scientist is as good as another. Just pull on a white lab coat and you are an authority on anything to do with science no matter what flavour it might be.
Matthew White Ridley, 5th Viscount Ridley, coal mine owner and chairman of the bank Northern Rock (his Dad got him on the board) when it failed during the GFC and was eventually nationalised, is indeed a scientist. His BA from Magdalen College, Oxford was in zoology and his DPhil degree was on the “mating system of the common pheasant (Phasianus colchicus)” which is vitally important research if one needs to maintain numbers for shooting on ‘ones estate’.
Still any scientist in a storm is Mitchell’s adage and Bjorn Lomborg has all the right scientist credentials. He’s a Danish Political Scientist and so is therefore an expert on Australian Bush Fires.
It’s all science!
DiddyWrote
Oh you're just so very cynical, DW. Of course any "scientist" is as good as any other"scientist"; all "science" is just the same stuff over and over, isn't it ?
DeleteHi GB,
DeleteI’m afraid I am a cynic.
“Cynic, n: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.
Ambrose Bierce
Worst of all I engage in the lowest form of wit, sarcasm.
I should be more like the optimistic Viscount Ridley;
“Paradoxically, one thing Britain needs is more failure, or rather the courage to take risks. In a high-cost economy it’s rational to be timid; in a low-cost economy, you can afford to fail in order to learn... Government has to make risk -taking less economically dangerous.” Spectator February 1st 2020.
Roll that fruity little number around on the tongue and contemplate that Matt Ridley was the Northern Rock chairman who oversaw over-borrowing which led to the first run on a British bank in 120 years (prompting a government take-over which cost a mere £37 billion.)
If only I could fuck up this big and still think people need my advice.
DW
“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but the highest form of intelligence.” Oscar Wilde.
DeleteHmm. In my long gone younger years, we used to say: "Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit and it's used on the lowest form of animal life". The "lowest form of animal life" being, but of course, various ill-regarded human beings.
As to Ridley, well of course none of that awfulness was in the least bit his fault, was it. And the human race is still about and stuffing things, so his "advice" couldn't have been all that bad, could it.
It's 12.30pm Tuesday March 3rd and no word from DP.
ReplyDeleteDP did keep up the 'Xmas Daily' (and twice on Sunday) longer than I thought she would. So maybe she's gone back to a more restful 'Weekend Special' (including twice on Sunday).
DeleteI guess we'll just have to wait and see.
I wish you well Dorothy.
ReplyDelete