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 …
“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...
I was reticent about leading-off today, because I thought many here would be considering that Lobbecke. Should it not be on page 3, in the best tradition of those publications of Limited News that actually sell copies?
ReplyDeleteBut, there was another issue, triggered by Adam the Economics Editor.
It is 30 years since John Allen Paulos published his ‘Innumeracy - Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences’. Over the last couple of days, the Limited News group has been churning its Newspoll on how the Premiers ( the elected heads of state governments - not the remnants of last year’s footy finals team being lads together) are viewed by voters. The churn has included deeper analysis by reporters in each state, with blithe disregard for confidence limits, or any of the other strictures of formal statistics. It is all based on a sample of 0.1% of the population of voting age.
Yet the same publications, and often the same reporters, will disparage epidemiological models, in terms that could have been taken from one of Paulos’ books, but used by Paulos to show how innumeracy, promulgated by the news media, was dumbing-down perceptions of what should be significant in life.
He wrote another, titled ‘A Mathematician Reads the Newspapers’. It was reviewed for the flagship by Gideon Haigh. No doubt that reviewer was chosen because he writes mainly on cricket, and cricket is all about ‘statistics’ innit? Example - ‘second highest 4th wicket partnership in a test at Dacca’, or the immortal ’99.94’. This is all ye know of statistics, and all ye need to know.
Other Anonymous
Well reminded, OA. Of course Paulos was lost to the forces of selective amnesia - if you forget something, it can't have been important anyway. And Paulos is very well forgotten.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteBradman's lifetime average revised to 100 under the Creighton method! Well, no method actually, just say stuff and rely on no one checking.
DeleteWhilst not very numerate, I can see that one of these lines is not like the others
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-deaths-covid-19?country=AUS+SWE+NOR+DNK
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-cases-covid-19?country=AUS+SWE+NOR+DNK
and, before we wrap up for the night - for the record, Newspoll's sample, from which its contributors divined the standing and future of each state Premier - is more like 0.01% of the possible voting population.
DeleteBefuddled's 'Creighton correction' of the Bradman number is quite in keeping with the methods of the Economics Editor.
Other Anonymous
Hi OA.
DeleteConsidering today’s Lobbecke. The CM has certainly deviated from his usual cryptic confusionals and delivered a straightforward narrative in which Scomo, as Baudelairian flaneur, wanders aimlessly through a Hopperesque Canberra’s twilight backstreets.
Furtively glimpsing a beflagged near-naked “hostess” he shies away, pretending to notice a distant lone airliner fading off into the crepuscular sky. The scantily clad floozie, having just lost her job as a Branson figurehead and unable to claim JobKeeper payment, has resorted to soliciting from wayward passersby.
In this uncharacteristically unambiguous graphic Lobbecke has successfully rendered the exact moment the troubled PM resolves to stay well away from ex-virgins who have - in the words of Dame Slap - “been screwed by poor management”.
Kez - I am sure many of the readers value your guidance on the CM as much as I do. And when it can include that delightful word 'crepuscular', we word fanciers are doubly pleased. Thank you.
DeleteOther Anonymous
I liked "Baudelairian flaneur" roo.
DeleteCheers AO and GB!
DeleteWhoops! I meant OA of course...not enough cofveve.
DeleteThey really do think in slogans, don't they. "Governments must not pick winners!" So, approving more coal mines is not "picking winners", it's a sure thing. Three LNG plants? Sure thing! Supporting private health insurance? Sure thing! Others will add their own "sure things".
ReplyDeleteJust repeating what Bef said: " replacing complex facts with a simple narrative".
DeleteSo it goes.
It is refreshing the about face the Dame has done with Qantas describing them as a prudently managed business.
ReplyDeleteWasn't it only back around the time of the marriage equality she lambasted them for virtue signalling on social issues instead of purely focusing on shareholder returns? She was highly critical of their management....
Well remembered Anon. She notoriously loathed Alan Joyce and routinely gave him stick. Such are the joys of following the reptiles and remembering their rich capacity for hypocrisy, contradiction and 180 degree about faces ...
DeleteOh dear, Polonius should leap in to correct Dame Slap's ignorant claim that "Since the day the First Fleet arrived, Australia has been built on foreign investment and has always been a net importer of capital."
ReplyDeleteNow compare that to this: "The gold exported to Britain in the 1850s paid off all of Victoria's foreign debts and helped lay the foundation of her enormous commercial expansion in the latter half of the century."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_gold_rush
That gold went very largely to finance the Bank of England and was a major factor in the expansion of Threadneedle Sreet in general, IIRC. It also brought a lot of Chinese to Victoria, thus helping to spark the later 'White Australia' policy. Then also later, the export of wool took over.
And so we get to Creighton the Deadly: "Sweden meanwhile, the bete noir of the global lockdown movement, is experiencing the same number of new infections each day as it was a month ago ..."
"global lockdown movement" ? Now actually, the numbers for Sweden are these:
....... .. 26th 27th 28th
March 314 229 378 = 921
April. 463 286 695 = 1444
Yep, 921 is the same as 1,444 isn't it.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/
Now for The Editorialist: "But a mature nation faces its responsibilities, seeks solutions and avoids practices that have caused death, misery and disruption on a vast scale."
Oh, so that's what we were doing in Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq: we were avoiding "practices that have caused death, misery and disruption".. Good on us, way to go !
Enough for now though, except for one small Nullius Ned contribution: "In summary, Turnbill's conclusion is he changed his mind on China because China changed."
Yes, absolutely, Ned, China changed. And when and how did China change ? When sundry "Western" nations acceded to 'Most Favoured Nation' status for China and decided to export large swaths of their manufacturing chains to China because it was cheap there.
To recall the quote attributed to Lenin (and Marx and Stalin and ...): "The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." And then we'll tie the hangman's knot and take it from there.
I must brush up on my letterisms GB. i.e. IIRC. With Threadneedle St./BoE, I hived off here.
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_reporting
In a sense, sounds like standard NewsCorpse reporting method.....one in all in.
https://www.iasplus.com/en/resources/sustainability/iirc
Even stumbled upon Google groups who work with metallic thread. You did lead me astray...probably really led myself astray, to be honest. :) No wonder DP calls them the Interwebs sometimes.
As for the Ed. Could not agree more strongly on your point on the 50+ years of endless carnage.
Ditto Ned, particularly the most favoured nation reality. I still have memory of former LNP braggart John Elliot hailing the virtue of sending meat pies to China decades ago.....although this whole war of words could end up a lot more serious than your comedy Hollywood pie fight.
Plus the whole Editorial piece sounded like a journalists briefing note straight from the gunslinging wolf warrior Pompeo. Cheery Anon.
Umm, If I Recall Correctly, CA, in case you really did get led astray (though I don't believe it for a moment). But 'Integrated Reporting' ? Hmmm.
DeleteDon't hear much at all about or from John Elliott these days. Nor from son Rom though he is still live on 3AW apparently. Oh, but can't we just remember how, once upon an imaginary land, John Elliott was going to be our greatest ever Prime Minister.
But now the glory days of Elders, CUB, Carlton FC and Toorak mansions are long gone and forgotten.
Ooops again, that's Tom Elliott (the letter markings on my keyboard are somewhat worn away, and I never did learn to type).
DeleteHi Dorothy,
ReplyDeleteAlbrechtsen is of course correct, the predicament that Virgin Australia find themselves in is all down to poor management.
If for instance Virgin’s management had made a wise investment by generously donating to the coffers of the IPA then this article would have looked a whole lot different.
For a consideration, Dame Slap would have stopped carping on about how the government shouldn’t pick winners or losers and instead would have been rattling on about the necessity of competition and the dangers of a monopolistic Qantas, whilst won’t anyone think about the poor old flying public.
DiddyWrote
Oh you are just so cynically realistic, DW.
DeleteHow else to read the reptiles, without a dose of cynicism or at least a hearty serve of bleach?
Delete