The pond is aware some readers were keen to see prattling Polonius's response to Pellist matters, and the pond has done its best to keep track of reptile coverage.
Jack the Insider was the latest reptile to distance himself from the Catholic Boys' Daily coverage, but what of Polonius this weekend?
Alas and alack, the poor old thing has had to resort to the most preposterous angle known to any scribbler alive, as his weekend distraction, and as a way of avoiding the Pellist matter …
Yes, when given the chance to scribble on Pellist matters and the state and reputation of the Catholic church, Polonius fudged it. He went to water, or under water, what with his new love for SloMo and his discarding of his tattered Pellist rags … and and yes, we'll start with a tedious piece of history ...
Fancy that. But what then to make of nattering "Ned" explaining in the very same edition of the reptile rag that it was nothing to do with SloMo, it was all up to the devious, deviant state premiers?
But didn't Polonius just scribble that the Australian approach is sound, or at least appears to be? If you read nattering "Ned", it's chaotic, confused, conflicted, and the federation is no more …why the lizard Oz editorialist was pleased to announce it officially …
Yes, the federation is no more, and it seems it's nothing to do with SloMo, it's those bloody states, the unions, the Labor party, and being Polonius, no doubt the ABC is at the heart of the problem … oh please, be still, when he sobs from his pleasant North Shore eerie ...
It might be observed that at his age, if Polonius happened to be a teacher, entering a classroom might not be the wisest career move, unless he was determined to die in a heroic fashion for the good of the economy …
It's strange how selfish people can be, valuing their life over their death for the common good, and yet nattering "Ned", who is in the same bracket, and can churn in his copy from anyone isolated place with an internet connection, is determined that it's nothing to do with SloMo, and it's up to the premiers to make people die for the good of the cause ...
As always, the pond looks to Polonius and "Ned" to set the pace, to get out and about, and to show that if an aged person catches a dose, it's all for the good, and economic and social life can gather pace without them.
Why think of the economic benefits of funeral services for both "Ned" and Polonius, and think of the large crowds gathered to send them off …has someone got an economic multiplier handy so that the pond can calculate the benefits that might arise?
And so to the final gobbet, and Polonius bringing a tear to the pond's eye at the wickedness of the naughty ABC, and especially those vile renegades, Speers and Karvelas, with their treachery and betrayal of the reptile empire ...
Um, perhaps Polonius missed a dastardly union press release, Morrison abandons casual and contract workers ...
There's nothing like a dose of Polonial "fuck you Jack and Jill, I'm alright" to make the pond's weekend meditation a pleasant one … especially when there's an infallible Pope to remind the pond that Polonius fudged his chance to write about the infallible Pell …
And so to the difficult editorial decisions the pond must make as it curates the best of reptile thinking. These days all the best stories seem to be elsewhere …
Why even Barners is at the Nine newspapers …
And you have to read Crikey to get the best of pure Angus "beef" Taylor …
Sorry, it's just a screen cap, you need to head off for the original for the links …
Meanwhile, back with the reptiles, it's true that the cult master Lobbecke tugged at the pond's heart …
But no, there's something really weird about the way that the reptiles keep on trying to prop up the oscillating fan by assigning him the cult master, and with such a breathtakingly bleeding obvious observation as that headline about the jobless rate…
Strangle the pond in the shallow waters before it gets too deep.
The pond simply couldn't go there, cult master or no.
And sadly just those short gobbets of "Ned" were more than enough for the day, and the pond couldn't go here …
So what to do, what to do?
Well there's always the bromancer, preferably paranoid, rising to the level of blind panic, sometimes going over the top into distilled essence of hysteria … and teaching nattering "Ned" a little what for in the process about how to be a cowboy … because nobody mixes a metaphor or a shrimp cocktail better than the bromancer …
Was this not a wise choice, oh master? Who wouldn't want a plate of poisoned shrimp bromancer to round out a Sunday meditation? Especially when the bromancer knows how to please by doing a fridge door reminder list with handy numbering ...
Dear sweet long absent lord, it's the apocalypse. It's the end of the world, and suddenly the Donald, once the reptiles' best friend, is at the heart of it …though surely he's doing his very best …
Sorry, it was wrong of the pond to interrupt with that echo of "Ned" and Polonius. The bromancer is only just getting wound up, and the foaming and the frothing is truly terrifying, and he still hasn't finished his fridge list ...
Oh not the Donald again, the reptiles' friend. He's always willing to do a deal …
Now at this point the pond will probably be reminded that it chose the bromancer path when it might have chose "Ned" …
But the pond grew up in Tamworth and always liked cowboys and always attended the rodeos they put on at the show ground … and in his own humble way, the bromancer is a bit of a midnight cowboy, all glitter and flash and fear, burrowing into the underbelly …
Sheesh, there's a movie the pond hasn't thought about in a while … a bit like the pond forgot we were the deputy sheriff …or mebbe even the sheriff hisself …
16 years ago? Back in the days when reptiles knew where they stood, and manly men patrolled the borders, rather than a potato head in disguise. Why back then, we could teach the Iraqis a lesson or two, and tame Afghanistan, just like we tamed Vietnam and won the war ...
How time flies when you're a sheriff ...
Not with the poison shrimp again …when we all know how to make a country look as unattractive as possible, aided and abetted by the chairman and Fox News …
But the pond as usual digresses when the bromancer is in the middle of strategic hysteria, though he even he has to wonder about a poisoned kanga, or an emu dipped in bleach.
Let nothing stop this proud warrior, not even bone spurs, from putting the nation on a war footing, ready to apply deadline kinetic energy, close and capture and destroy, like one of those Hemsworths …
You think the pond's brain got addled by too much Netflix and John Wick movies?
Just read on, and see if the pond managed to get remotely close to the weird world of the bromancer's gung ho brain ...
Sea mines? What, we block off Sydney harbour because the Russians might be coming, and Pinchgut no longer does the job?
Say what you will, but reading the bromancer is better than a Mark Felton YouTube show about Nazi tanks, or some first person shooter video game, or almost anything else that punks with a yearning for violence might drum up …
High adventure, and conflict and bravery, preferably from the Space Force, with sea mines in space, is what we need …
But all good paranoid outbursts, all joyous fear-mongering, must eventually come to an end, and so it is with the bromancer ...
Actually, with the Donald and the reptiles as friends, who needs enemies. The pond never forgets this, and never looks for an excuse to try to forget ...
As for the rest of the hysteria, personally the pond has a few things closer to home to fear, as evoked by the immortal Rowe, with more Rowe here …
It seems it's a dance being done elsewhere too …but the pond does appreciate the bromancer's valiant attempt to distract the attention from the waltz at end, with thoughts of a future tango with imminent invasion and complete catastrophe …
What a fuzzy, foggy Sunday - witless wiffle piffle in extremis.
ReplyDeleteJust take pontificating Polonius, starting with: "...green left types, including quite a few journalists, took delight in sneering at Scott Morrison as "Scotty from Marketing"."
I for one, though I'm neither a "green left type" nor a journalist, could inform Polonius that there was no "delight" involved, it was pure unadulterated despair that we'd gone from the Onion Muncher, to Malfeasance Turn-bull to Scotty from Marketing without the appearance of a brain or a sense of reality to be seen anywhere.
Then we get this: "a more appropriate term would be "ScoMo for the workers"." Oh yes, right, let's get all the workers back to work right now, so that we can have lots more Cedar Meats clusters all throughout the work force. Well, at least there'll be heaps of togetherness, won't there, and that is undeniably good for workers, isn't it ?
Well at least Nullius Neddy thinks so: "Morrison wants a full COVID-19 safe economy operating by July in three agreed phases - and even that is cautious."
Cautious ? You really have to be rabidly bonkers, Ned. But maybe you'd like to claim to be "for the workers" too ?
Finally, we have Australia's finest military buffoon: the Bromancer, who just wants to transform Australia into "a poison shrimp". Because that's what Lee Kuan Yu did with Singapore. Nobody would dare to invade Singapore because they wouldn't want to eat a "poison shrimp". Sheesh.
Just a few wee gems: "They [long range anti-ship missiles from the USA] would be carried by our Super Hornets", Of which we currently have 24, apparently. And we'll be buying a whole lot more because the F35 is basically useless - but of course the Bro doesn't mention them. And how many "swarms of weaponised drones controlled by artificial intelligence" would it require to take Australia's entire air force out of the sky ?
But never mind, we'll also be getting, some time 15 or more years in the future, a fleet of "the best conventional subs in the water" which, single handedly, will poison the Australian "shrimp". Of course they will. And just exactly how many underwater "swarms of weaponised [submarine] drones controlled by artificial intelligence" would it take to sink all of them ? And if not, where would they be stationed to repel an invasion ?
Australia's mainland coastline is 35,877 km long: where will our wonderful submarines be ?
Part of me reckons I should have become a Murdochian "journalist" - good pay, travel, free coffee (make mine a large, hot, soy latte, please), but honestly, I just can't sustain thinking down to that depth of stupidity; you just have to be born that way.
Never mind too that the decision to make/buy the Barracuda submarine is widely regarded as an act of all the way down the line stupidity. A hugely enormous waste of money which WILL definitely be obsolete when it is ready for service - it already is of course. Detailed essays explaining why have been featured on both Quadrant magazine and John Menadue's Pearls & Irritations website.
DeleteThe Bromancer has exceeded even himself today. What a wanker's wet dream he presents: patrol boats retrofitted to carry missiles (there's no reason they can't). Constabulary vessels? Yeah, nah, we'll use them to protect Australia's - what's that you say GB? - 35,877 Km long coastline. Just make my order 2,000.
ReplyDeleteAnd on the subject of anti-robot images, I have learnt a new word: "crosswalk" is (I presume) a pedestrian crossing in the USA.
Well "crosswalk" is somewhat shorter than "pedestrian crossing", Merc.
Delete35,877 km is only the mainland coastline, it doesn't include Tasmania, Kangaroo island, Christmas Island etc. So those evil unnamed "invaders" (who ? Timorese maybe ? Singaporeans, Vietnamese, Malayan, Phillipino, Taiwanese ... Japanese ?) could just take Tasmania in a canter, and then mount continuous warfare against Australia - cutting off all our trade routes, for example. We'd be gone after 30 days of no oil or fuel deliveries.
Just to counter any thoughts that I might be a bit hysterical about COVID-19:
ReplyDeleteCommentary by virologist Peter Piot:
I’m glad I had corona and not Ebola, although I read a scientific study yesterday that concluded you have a 30% chance of dying if you end up in a British hospital with COVID-19. That’s about the same overall mortality rate as for Ebola in 2014 in West Africa….
Many people think COVID-19 kills 1% of patients, and the rest get away with some flulike symptoms. But the story gets more complicated. Many people will be left with chronic kidney and heart problems. Even their neural system is disrupted. There will be hundreds of thousands of people worldwide, possibly more, who will need treatments such as renal dialysis for the rest of their lives.
The more we learn about the coronavirus, the more questions arise. We are learning while we are sailing. That’s why I get so annoyed by the many commentators on the sidelines who, without much insight, criticize the scientists and policymakers trying hard to get the epidemic under control. That’s very unfair.
'Finally, a virus got me.’ Scientist who fought Ebola and HIV reflects on facing death from COVID-19
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/finally-virus-got-me-scientist-who-fought-ebola-and-hiv-reflects-facing-death-covid-19#
Yes, the union movement lost a master sloganeer when, so early in his existence, Polonius chose the other path, to follow the bosses, the capitalists.
ReplyDelete‘ScoMo for the workers’. You can imagine the chant being taken up when the workers march again on May Day. Except, as you say it to yourself, the scansion suggests a presentation more like the timeless, singsong ‘You’re a dirty rascal’. Good one, Polony.
Not that he suggests much else to help those workers get back to - work.
My source, scouring the weekend Flagship, found an interesting pattern in those writing about getting the nation back to work.
The Korporaal went into detail about the Business Council of Australia’s ‘High Powered Recovery Group’, which, she tells readers, will ‘lift competitiveness’, ‘boost productivity’ and ‘fire up our performance’.
How will it achieve that? (where it has not notably achieved since these last 7 years) - by setting up 17 ‘working groups’, of business ‘leaders’, who will report to the peak body, which will -
Elsewhere, another has written about similar ‘working’ by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
The contribution from Katrina Grace, on the path to local manufacturing, condenses down to - a, or a couple of, committees. Although in this case, she has set out the objective for the committees, which should save 8 or 9 meetings.
Apparently, in all that boosterism, the ‘National COVID-19 Co-ordination Commission’ did not get a lot of recognition. Probably because it has already lost the main game - setting up ‘working groups’.
I suspect many who have successfully managed organizations, and who now gather around the pond for evening choruses of ‘ribbit’, had a slogan to guide their corporate performance which contained wording like ‘If the answer is a committee, you need to rethink the question.’
OK - where are the crosswalks?
Other Anonymous
In the 'Please prove you're not a robot' comment publishing questions, OA. Alonng with a lot of traffic lights.
DeleteWith so many people working from home, productivity must have increased enormously due to the lack of meetings.
DeletePolonius hasn't gone the full Pell yet but I'm sure it's worming it's way into his brain, so we will just have to wait. For the moment we have to make do with another twisted history lesson connected, by some convoluted logic, to current events. He has decided to polish the particular turd known as the Prime Minister.
ReplyDeleteMind you, SloMo hasn't been as bad as I feared in this crisis - which demonstrates the benefits of starting out with low expectations. Mediocre is the word that comes to mind.
It may be just me, but Morrison only seems to move forward to avoid being run over by events. It's clear the premiers would act if he didn't, so hey - jump in front and pretend you are leading the parade.
Here's a typical appearance for Jacinda Ardern. Once again, it may be just my dislike for Morrison, but Jacinda seems very clear and reasoned in comparison to the average Australian offering.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/05/coronavirus-prime-minister-jacinda-ardern-defends-decision-to-remain-at-level-3.html
Being retired, and lockdown being very like retirement minus coffee and gym, my experience may not be typical, but people seem quite tolerant of lockdown. They seem to understand the necessity and have dug in. On the other hand, some areas of business are very keen to reopen and are trying to claim this is some sort of grassroots movement among workers.
Here's one that's hurting really badly, "Advertising revenues at News Corp Australia and News UK in April declined more than 45%".
https://www.mediaweek.com.au/news-corp-q3-australian-digital-news-subs-climb-ad-revenues-plunge/
If only there was some way I could hasten the decline.
"There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader."
DeleteAttributed to Alexander Ledru-Rollin (1807-1874), but probably apocryphal. Sounds just like SloMo though. But I'm kinda thankful that he isn't so dismissively arrogant as, say, the Onion Muncher and any number of other politicians who seem to believe that they are omniscient, if not actually omnipotent.
As to lockdown, we are seeing the usual set of responses: generally accepting, accepting for a while then getting fractious, fractious from day one. Human beings are very consistently simple in their responses to anything, really.
Yes I agree. I have been wondering where we would be with Abbott in charge. A real Dunning–Kruger candidate.
DeleteSaw this the other day "Former Obama adviser says Australian PM was ‘very sure of himself without knowing what he was talking about’"
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/apr/30/obama-white-house-watched-julia-gillards-misogyny-speech-when-annoyed-at-tony-abbott?CMP=share_btn_tw
Unfortunately, I suspect all the usual ideological obsessions and pandering to the lunatic fring will resurface when the panic subsides a bit.
Befuddled, no doubt you have also encountered another adage NOT from the main stream management manuals - 'One thing you can say about the mediocre is that they are always doing their best.'
ReplyDeleteOther Anonymous
Well - I can do the mediocre for myself, it would be helpful if the leaders could manage, say a bit above average?
Delete