In which the pond must deal with reptile wars on several fronts ...

 

How goeth the reptile war on China, what with Twiggy throwing a fast curve ball (no, the pond knows not what it means, apart from tricky tedium)?

As always, the cult master had an image which conjured up a world of pain arising from the new war …

But image aside, the pond can't waste precious time on a big day out with the reptiles by dallying with the corporeal Korporaal …

You see, Moorice has spoken … and whenever Moorice speaks, the pond jumps to attention, especially  when it's to help with the war on China …

Strange, back in the day, in 1995 to be precise, the climate denialist, coal-loving Moorice - we must keep those Chinese coal-fired power stations operating! - was something of a pioneer …

But I guess once you've made your squillions you can take a more relaxed approach, and join the pond in demanding a boycott of China, beginning with a refusal to ship any more coal to China, just to teach 'em a lesson ...

Of course when it comes to praising China's work and transparency, Moorice could have looked closer to home …

15 Times Trump praised China as coronavirus was spreading across the globe …

Why is it that the reptiles never go there?

Never mind, there's still time for Moorice to join the pond in a trade war the like of which the cunning, fiendish Chinese have never seen before …a trade war using coal, which will make the Donald's trade war seem like trade war diet Coke lite ...

Well, the pond is no lover of the Chinese government, but isn't that simply pathetic?

What the fuck does a cliché like "time will tell" mean, followed by the bullshit of "national interest means we should not return to business as usual."

Why stop just when it might have got interesting. Does Moorice have even one single proposal, one humble suggestion, as to how we might not return to business as usual? Nope, nada, zip, nihil, nothing...

Come on reptiles, show some spine, this isn't 1939. It's not just a matter of dropping a few pamphlets and a column by Moorice by parachute over Beijing …

  

Confronted with this crisis, the pond turned to the bromancer for a second opinion.

Maybe he'd be made of sterner stuff than Moorice … maybe he'd give Twiggy a serve for his uppity ways and his kowtowing and his impudent assistance with testing ...

And indeed the bromancer started strongly, with a dose of Janus-faced mythology and hyper-driven schizophrenic analysis of a Freudian kind ...

Shocking stuff, almost as shocking as the notion that the humble Hunt wouldn't have turned on his heels at once, left the room, left the building, and spurned the tests … but what do you know, the bromancer himself sounded humble, and remarkably positive, because, let's face it, we're all in this together ...

Yes, yes, but what to do, apart from the anodyne stupidity of "time will tell", and the bullshit of "national interest means we should not return to business as usual", because everyone knows that once the virus is a little bit more under control, the reptiles will return to climate science denialism, and shipping coal and iron ore to China, to keep those coal-fired power stations running, and to make sure it's business as usual, especially as the Australian economy is fucked with a capital F.

Say what? Et tu bromancer?

"… there's likely very little we can do to make it better."

So it is just a phoney war, and the bromancer just put up his paws in surrender, and the pond felt like dropping another 1939 pamphlet, but instead decided to drop a cartoon …

… which of course is a segue into that other war currently doing the rounds …

Today Holman W. Jenkins was imported from the WSJ editorial board to take up the work of the valiant Adam, sometimes known as the admirable Crichton (not that the reptiles acknowledged the WSJ source, in much the same way that they refuse to admit Dame Slap is now an IPA hack), but the context at the top of the page wasn't the best one for the visiting Yank …

… what with the notion that the old should nobly die to save the economy in the Swedish way a tad upsetting next to a picture of an heroic old duck on the front line … and Boris presiding over a handshaking herd immunity disaster ...

Oh who wouldn't turn to the US for advice, with so much winning?

(here for that graph and more)

Strangely, the hyperactive bromancer had transformed himself from China specialist to doctor in a trice, or perhaps a nanosecond, and he had expert words on the subject … with an evocative image that surely would have charmed Holman W. Jenkins and fulfilled his wildest dreams …

Lordy, lordy, was the pond and Holman W. Jenkins in for a shock, or what ...

 

Why young Adam must have reeled away in horror. What had the bromancer been taking? Surely there was a strong case to ...

… or at least run a Donald cartoon …

And yet the bromancer persisted in his heresy, sounding for all the world like that dreadful Dr Swan from the reprehensible alarmist ABC ...

What to say, what do do? Where's young Adam when he's needed? What about that damned Yankee Holman chappie and his love of the Swedes?

The pond was alarmed. Sure, the bromancer was following the government line, but what if the bromancer and the government happened to be more right than the fuckwitted Yanks following the Fox line? Had we reached a peak level of Murdochian schizophrenia?

Well yes …

And now, even though the pond acknowledges it has meandered on far too long, and really should break off and do another post, the pond insists that it must serve up its daily dose of the savvy Savva.

Why? Well the savvy Savva today carried the imprimatur of the cult master, and even exhausted pond readers know that they must stand in awe and respect, and carry on regardless of all the previous winning …

Is that not inspirational? A phoenix in the shape of a galah rising from the ashes, and the beaked wonder hinting at a bizarre spectral Canberra figure emanating from the marketing department? 

Lay on McSavva … and why not, for starters, smote the Trumpists ...

Uh oh. It was all going swimmingly, what with the ravaging of the Donald, and the celebration of SloMo, and then the pond came to the immovable "But" of the billy goat variety, and the chance of slipping in an immortal Rowe seemed to be slipping, but what the heck …

But now it seems that the war on China has turned into the war in Cooma, and the savvy Savva wasn't sounding that confident that things would go well in the new battlefield  …

Yes, yes, yes, but surely there's some hope? Perhaps an infallible Pope cartoon might help?

Oh that didn't strike the right note, naughty infallible Pope, and nor did the but butting savvy Savva ...

Damn you infallible Pope, with your joke about schools and disadvantage. 

Please try again, perhaps with a joke about the bridge to the other side, even if cruelly truncated by the gallery format ...

And for those still not tired of all the winning, a few more …

In which the pond is taught to hate losers by Dame Slap and embarks on the war with China, with the lizard editorialist and nattering "Ned" ...

There were far too many """ contributors early this day in the lizard Oz, so the pond knew it had only one right and proper choice to make. 

Dame Slap it must be, and immediately the Lobbecke hovered into view, the pond knew it had made the right choice, even if it didn't really care that much about Virgin ...

Talk about a sensitive classic. Why the recovering, reformed feminist, the Oreo, must be seething with rage, envy and jealousy … why doesn't she get this classy level of work from the cult master? What an inspiration for Dame Slap and the IPA ...

Now around this time the pond's mind began to wander, as it often does with Dame Slap, and the only thing that stuck in the noggin was the assertion that the government should particularly not pick losers. 

Say that again? We all know that Google and Facebook and such like are winners, even if the pond loathes Facebook more than most. So according to the Dame Slap formula, we should have nothing to do with the losers in that particular commercial war…

Oh wait …

That AFR story is here, but truth to tell it's been all over the place, with loser News Corp leading the way by pleading for assorted helping government hands. 

And then there's loser Foxtel, which has generated endless stories about its losing ways, but the one the pond loved best was this one at the ABC ...

Money for a loser spelling bee, for a loser organisation? Oh it was too rich, but it allowed the pond to get through the next loser Dame Slap gobbet ...

Ah, at last,  despite the attempted distraction - look, an aeroplane - we get to the nub of it. The war on China.

This day the reptile pages are littered with the news of the war on China …and so the pond must race through the last loser gobbet to get to the frontline ...

We will need a lot more foreign investment?

Sorry the pond cut off Dame Slap's credentials, but note how the reptiles discreetly refuse to lead with her role as chair of the IPA? Instead, there's talk of her being a lawyer, when we all know we must first kill all the lawyers (How Big Law Makes Big Money, inside the paywall), and then of her being a poncy academic, when we all know we fear and loathe fancy pants academics ...

And what was the result of all that expertise? Well nota bene how Dame Slap and her IPA mindset danced delicately around the war on China. Surely in the war on China, the time was right to denounce all foreign investment from China, and set up a bamboo curtain?

Well Dame Slap and the IPA might be a little feeble - oh think of clean, dinkum pure Oz coal - but the war is on folks, and it's already produced results ...

Oh sorry, our Adam intruded on that China turmoil, mainly so the pond could wonder how 'advice' had turned into plain old advice in our Adam's headline ...

What's so funny about that? Well suddenly, the devil known as WHO allegedly offered the right advice, and in the usual way, our Adam kept on insisting on the right of people to die ...

Well yes, but no need to quote the WHO worshipper, and NZ knocker at length … just celebrate his ongoing work in the cause of death with a cartoon, so we can get on with the war on China ...

At last, may the war with China begin, and who better to light the match than the lizard Oz editorialist?

Indeed, indeed, but surely if we're to take this war seriously, we must immediately refuse to sell the Chinese iron ore, coal and gas, or if we do ship it, only at an outrageous price?

It would be good for the planet, and the pond is sure that Gina and the IPA and Dame Slap and everybody would be on board, and lordy lordy, would it teach those uppity Chinese a lesson or what?

Sadly, the pond knows it's just dreaming, and all we get is more huffing and puffing from the loser lizard Oz editorialist, who is probably already dreaming of new ways that the federal government might bail out News Corp ...

But let's be fair, the lizard Oz has worked out a fiendishly cunning plan in the war with China.

They'll send out nattering "Ned" and bore them into submission, a ploy worthy of a Fu Manchu (well if the cult master can portray a sluttish virgin in the street, why can't the pond resort to stereotypes?)

The pond frankly felt a little uneasy.

Wasn't it a little too soon for the reptiles to begin burnishing the Malware legend? Couldn't Malware do that at great length all by himself?

Apparently not, look how serious and solemn the wise Obi-wan seems at the top of "Ned's" piece ...

So there seemed to be a double-pronged edge to "Ned's" tedium. Conduct the war with China and redeem Malware because he was wise enough to begin the war.

But why are the reptiles fixated on China at this time?

Could it be that there are uglinesses elsewhere which are hard to look at, especially if you happen to be kissing cousins with Fox News, Hannity, Ingraham and the like?

Too soon for an immortal Rowe?

Sorry, it's never too soon, and wiser heads will head off to Rowe here, while dullards will stick with the dullard pond, and keep doing the "Ned" nattering ...

Ah, the Thucydides Trap, how we all love it … 

And what an easy answer the ancients provide to the reptile dilemma of being in love with an Athens that never really was Athens … but instead was home to assorted beasts, including News Corp and the Donald …

Okay, okay, the pond went the cartoons very early in "Ned's" piece, but the mind-numbing tedium can be a killer …

Back to the rehabilitation of Malware, stumbling blindly in the dark to reach "Ned's" sublime level of understanding, and on with the war on China ...

Indeed, indeed, which is why the pond appreciates that in the very next gobbet, "Ned" will surely call for the end of all coal and iron ore exports to China, for the good of the planet, and as a way of teaching  'em a lesson they'll never forget. 

Oh they don't like it up 'em, no they don't, and Gina and Clive and such like will lead the way in teaching them a lesson … much like the Donald is giving that virus a bloody good lesson …

Sorry, it's the only way that the pond can get through all the huffing and the puffing … because, really, does anyone imagine that the reptile war with China will take off in a big way?

Indeed, indeed, but what about the mutton Dutton spying on the citizenry, and for that matter, what about the CIA and assorted other branches of the US government?

Do we really want to end up a sock puppet of the new regime?

And so to the final gobbet … with Malware's legacy triumphant, and SloMo and his mob followers in the wake of Malware's vision ...

Pardon the pond's deep cynicism.

We all know that the Donald loves Xi. He spent all January and February praising the Chinese for their heroic efforts and magnificent transparency. There's a Twitter posting for almost every bit of Donald nonsense ...

And the donald routinely praises Vlad the Impaler, on the basis that Vlad can knock out a Russian rival with a dose of polonium-210 on Fifth Avenue … a skill the Donald has always envied … because all he's got is the right to shoot someone ...

And as for the most sociopathic dictator doing the rounds?

Why the Donald loves the man …

The love came out yet again in that Politico story here …

“Kim Jong Un? I can’t tell you exactly. Yes, I do have a very good idea, but I can’t talk about it now,” Trump said on Monday in response to a reporter’s question at a White House news conference. “I just wish him well.”
“I hope he’s fine,” the president added. “I do know how he’s doing, relatively speaking. We will see. You will probably be hearing in the not-too-distant future.”
Trump has vehemently denied news reports about Kim’s health, labeling as “fake” CNN’s report that the North Korean leader might be gravely ill.
“I have a good relationship with Kim Jong Un, and I hope he’s OK,” Trump told reporters last week.

Yes, we all wish sociopathic dictators around the world good health, so they can keep on with the mayhem and the killing.

Sorry, Xi, sad. You lose. We can't alienate Vlad the impaler, and we just love Kim Jong Un, so the war with China it must be. Just wait until the reptiles cut off all that coal and iron ore. Oh, how sorry you'll be …

And so to a final cartoon for the philosophically inclined featuring the Donald's great friend...