Talk about a full-blown reptile panic … the pond didn't know where to begin …
Faced with complete reptile hysteria, the pond knew it had to do some serious sorting …
With great sorrow, but not much pity, nattering "Ned" just had to go.
An endless screed of "Ned's" ramblings at this difficult time? With everything likely to change by tomorrow? No, it was just too tedious for words …and trust the pond, "Ned" was full Inquirer bloatware ...
But what of this mob? Who to choose? Who stood out from the pack?
Scrub all that for the moment …
The pond knows where to begin. It's with Campbell Reid, and his bullshit defence of News Corp, proudly at the top of this week's Weekly Beast …
News Corp’s corporate affairs executive was part of a Judith Neilson Institute editors panel on constructive journalism when he was asked by moderator Fran Kelly if the Australian had overplayed the role of arson in the bushfires.
The former editor of the Daily Telegraph and the Australian said News Corp had published 3,500 stories about the bushfires, had assigned 150 reporters, and only 3% of the coverage was about arson.
“We never overplayed the arson story,” Reid said. “In the middle of the bushfire crisis, armed with some information, 3% is hardly a crime against journalism.”
Asked about James Murdoch’s criticism of his father’s outlets for climate denialism, Reid said the Murdoch heir was misinformed.
“James, like everybody else, was commenting on what other people were saying about what we were saying, not what he was consuming for himself,” Reid said.
“All of the people who people say are News Corporation’s climate deniers were on holiday during that period, so what we were doing during that period was covering the fires.”...
...“We don’t live in a media democracy but in a social media democracy,” Reid said.
“People don’t comment on what we say, they comment on what other people say we said; and so other people said we overplayed the arson story. And people then commented on the fact that we overplayed the arson story.”
A useless, meaningless statistic, and monumental bullshit piled on top of it?
It brought to mind that long ago Media Watch used to hand out a Campbell Reid Perpetual Trophy for the Brazen Recycling of Other People's Work. Surely it should be revived, and possibly renamed, as the Campbell Reid Perpetual Trophy for Brazen Bullshit …and the first winner is …
… Campbell Reid …
And now for those who thought the pond might be confused as to which of the reptiles to pick, sorry, it was easy.
The judges had to rule out Our Gracie's attempt at humour, which was deliberate, even if sadly sub-Python and corn cobbish, and instead went with prattling Polonius, for the most bizarre response of them all …
Only Polonius could manage to extract some sort of bizarre meaning from comparing and contrasting a fight in a supermarket aisle with attendance at a cricket match. And only Polonius could scribble a line like "there appears to be an increase in handwashing, a positive move in any circumstance."
And then only Polonius, a man always ready with an ideological axe to grind, usually, if not always about the ABC, could go on to deplore deplore ideological axes … and then proceed to grind away …
Who would have guessed, what do you know? Yes, Polonius, in his usual way, manages to boil everything down yet again to the sins, crimes, flaws, faults, and grievous deficiencies of the ABC.
Is this a classic example of monomania? What does the wiki say?
In 19th-century psychiatry, monomania (from Greek monos, one, and mania, meaning "madness" or "frenzy") was a form of partial insanity conceived as single pathological preoccupation in an otherwise sound mind.
Nope, "otherwise sound mind" doesn't fit at all, so the pond will have to revert to its usual more subtle form of psychiatry and pronounce Polonius barking mad, thanks to his bizarre obsession with the ABC …
There is a simple solution to hand. Stop watching and listening, stop reading. But that would mean that Polonius, who brazenly recycles other people's content so he can fill up his columns, would have to stop writing, which wouldn't suit at all, not when his pedantic soul yearns to reveal itself in public each week …
And what an ongoing revelation it is.
What a humourless ideological sod he is, and how silly. Surely panic buying of toilet rolls - not to mention tissues - is beyond bizarre, and there's no consolation to be had in scribbling that at least it's not panic buying of food …
But that's our Polonius, and once he's spent his time demolishing the ABC, naturally there comes a moment when he must slavishly defend Scotty from marketing, even as Scotty announced, Hawaii style, that he was going to set an example for the country, and trot off to the weekend footy … even, it should be noted, as our Gracie's grim reaper humour stalked the mutton Dutton …
Oh the pond just had to slip that immortal Rowe in there, with more here, because the pond knew that the squishy thing on the sole of the shoe would appeal to Polonius ...
Oh and give or take the odd death or three, but why should Polonius worry, since he's been mentally self-isolating himself from sometime in the 1950s …
And so to a heretic in our midst, and even worse, a bloody croweater.
Back in the day, when the reptiles had a blog called The Punch, Penbo provided an endless amount of content for the pond … but then it all ended in tears, and Penbo retreated to Adelaide.
Such is the pond's nostalgia in these troubled times that it decided the time was right to trot Penbo out again …
Now this might sound vaguely heretical, but please, don't worry, because in due course, Penbo will show that his heart is in the right place, and demand that we have a boss, who will instruct us … perhaps in the manner of a Xi down under … but first Scotty from marketing must suffer a few blows, and a bit of a mauling, in a way designed to shock and horrify Polonius ...
Ah, Penbo might be in Adelaide, but he knows the Campbell Reid line about feral lefties talking to each other on Twitter ...
Oh sweet long absent lord, still the same old Penbo. Bring back John Howard as the solution, and by the way, the PM is our boss? Such is the deep longing in the reptile bosom for a dictatorship, and a dictator to be our boss …
And so to the most anguished pond choice of all, and it fell to a contest between the bromancer and the dog botherer.
After all, there's only so much anyone can take, even those cooped up in self-isolation …but as the dog botherer decided to take a trip down memory lane, the pond had no choice in the winner - ah, who can forget utegate? who can forget that the dog botherer was a minor war criminal in the matter of the Iraq war, a collaborator with Lord Downer of Aldgate?
Yes, confronted with difficulties to hand, there's nothing like a trip down memory lane with the dog botherer …revisiting old scores, still blathering about climate science denialism, still politicising everything in sight … still haunted by the spectre of Malware ...
Climate science denialism is now "grave reservations"? Give that man a Campbell Reid trophy for something or other, as on we go with the dog botherer, inspecting his own entrails, along with those of Moorice…
And now, oh surely not, but there you go, the man who knows best the movement of flood waters in quarries, the man expert in defamation actions, the Caterist himself comes in to play to talk of economic shocks …when everyone knows, any domestic household can withstand the economic shock of trifling defamation payouts ...
Slowly the pond began to understand. This could all be reduced to the usual reptile thought bubble. It's all Labor's fault.
2008? It's as if it was yesterday, still fresh in the reptile mind, the moment Eden ended, the moment of the great flood.
2020? Think of it as yesterday.
All you have to remember is that it's all Labor's fault. Everything …even if the mug punters have been out of government for yonks …
Just look at the current miscreants and ne'er do wells …ruining everything, and somehow managing the feat while deprived of the levers of government. Is there nothing these fiends can't do to wreck and ruin? Unlike the utegate man, unlike the splendid adventure in Iraq ...
How ancient is this dog botherer distraction? Well we haven't seen a shot of former chairman Rudd yet, but the pond reckons that the next gobbet will wrap things up nicely, with a snap of the wicked Ruddster, who likely as not devised the current virus as a scheme to ruin Scotty from marketing's most excellent reputation ...
Goldfish memories? Think utegate, think the Iraq war, think climate science.
Polarised partisanship? Think of the rampant ratbag rantings of the dog botherer.
Gesture politics? Why you've just been treated to a whole column of empty gestures, and heaps of dog botherer bullshit and attempts at distraction…but at least the elderly now know they're expendable, and their useless desire to cling to life has simply ruined the budget surplus ...
What more could anyone want? What more could anyone ask for, except perhaps a couple more Rowes …
From Polonius: "Harmer has nothing but contempt for many Australians."
ReplyDeleteDon't we all, mate, don't we all. And between our mostly non-overlapping lists, probably every single Australian is held in contempt by one or more other Australians. Why, even thee, Gerard, even thee.
Particularly when you spout nonsense such as: "However, the success of Australia under most Coalition and Labor governments indicates that Australians make reasoned choices when it comes to lodging their vote."
No it doesn't, most Australians make emotion based choices because they lack both the reasoning skill and the necessary information to make "reasoned choices". What Australia's "success" indicates is that, one way or another, the choices made by Australian governments have mostly been at least neutral, and often a little better - we kinda just 'muddled through'. We have never succumbed to outright ideology or to Johnson/Trump madness. Yet ... ScottyfromMarketing is pushing the boundaries somewhat, now.
However, Polonius avers that "But if, as Badham believes, Australians fo not feel safe under Morrison's leadership, then surely their priority would be to panic buy such necessities as food. For the most part this has not happened."
Surely Polonius does not visit supermarkets and note the growing emptiness of food shelves and the 'limit per customer' that they have already placed on rice, pasta and flour. Nor, purblind shrunken soul that he is, has he noticed the growing 'panic buying' of domestic food freezers.
Polonius knows absolutely nothing about the country he lives in.
Ah, but, butt DP: "Surely panic buying of toilet rolls - not to mention tissues"
Don't forget paper towels too, DP. Can't buy a paper towel anywhere now.
Also "why should Polonius worry, since he's been mentally self-isolating himself from sometime in the 1950s …"
Oh, neatly observed, DP, right on the ball there.
And "All you have to remember is that it's all Labor's fault. Everything …"
Oh yes, that's the way of politics as practised throughout human history (or at least since there's been unexecuted oppositions): When they are in charge, everything is bad, really bad. When we are in charge, everything is good, really good.
Then on to the Doggy Boverer: "Abbott outlined the case in his agenda for the 2013 elections: "Australia is now more vulnerable to economic shocks due to excessive deficits and debt spending."
And yet, yet, the Australian debt - federal, state and private - has increased hugely since the LNP took over. To the point that the federal debt has more than doubled in formal terms. So therefore, ScottyfM simply can't respond to the coronavirus with economic stimulus at all, can he. Or just maybe, the LNP and the reptiles et al have zero understanding of economics on a national level where if the interest rate is roughly zero, and if the debt increase rate, large as it is, is still less on an annual basis than the GDP increase rate, then debt is not a real problem. But no reptile can grasp any of that.
So when Chalmers (as quoted by DB) says: "[Australia] needs the Liberals to do a better job dealing with the challenges posed by the coronavirus than they have done managing the economy" he is spot on the money.
However, to end off, the Doggy Bov says: "The level of political opportunism is sickening, but par for the course in this age of goldfish memories, polarised partisanship and gesture politics."
Hmm, "gesture politics" ? Have we finished with 'identity politics' now and we're on to 'gesture politics' from here on ?
Constantly and consistently surprised how a goose like Kenny has been let of the leash. Total embarrassment.
ReplyDeleteDogger's historical revisionism is a bit of a laugh. It seems that it is important to unlearn history's lessons in order to make all the same mistakes again.
ReplyDeleteIt's not like we need to head of into DB alternate reality, we had real world trial back in 2008 and plenty of nations tried the "too little, too late" approach. John Quiggin puts it this way
"The only major governments to undertake and sustain Keynesian fiscal stimulus were those of China and Australia. Supporters of the classical view have sometimes argued that Australia’s stimulus had no effect, and that our economy was rescued by strong demand from China. This amounts to the nonsensical claim that fiscal stimulus in China was effective enough to provide a substantial flow-on benefit to Australia, but that fiscal stimulus in Australia had no effect."
https://www.crikey.com.au/2013/08/19/quiggin-reading-the-economic-theories-of-rudd-and-abbott/
Despite even venerable ancients like Nullius Ned now accepting that Rudd had "successes", there remain many mindless recalcitrants such as the Doggy Bov. And he can claim the support of old bureaucrats such as Tony Makin. If Australia had gone for "tax reform" we'd have been in deep depression - with possibly a failed bank or two - long before any such "reform" could have had any effect (if ever).
DeleteSo "counter-productive government spending" it had to be as proposed by another bureaucrat of the time, Ken Henry, whose subsequent deep study of Australia's taxation with considerable "reform" recommendations was, and is, simply ignominiously ignored.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-23/henry-tax-review-ten-years-on/11817328
I just found this on the web, Bef:
Delete"Here is the thing to understand about flattening the curve. It only works if we take necessary measures before they seem necessary.
And if it works, people will think we over-reacted. We have to be willing to look like we over-reacted."
That sure covers a lot of instances and cases, from the 'Y2K Hoax' through the GFC 'stimulus' (Rudd's "success") up to and including the coronavirus pandemic.