Some might wonder why these stories keep cropping up in the lizard Oz?
No, not dear sweet onion muncher, living out dreams of right things and monumental stupidity and sublimate irrelevance … rather the relentless bashing of the ABC, as shown on the right hand side by dear sweet lickspittle reptile fellow-travelling Nick …
Readers of the Weekly Beast will know at once …
Poor old Killer Creighton … and these days the reptiles keep on publishing stories about his heroic Scandinavians skating on thin ice …
Oh dear, did the pond mistakenly also include the bromacer skating on thin ice? How about the Weekly Beast on that too. with the beast wondering if the bromancer got Lachlan's memo?
But the bromancer wasn't alone, because these days the poor old lizard Oz is just a colonial outpost for the thoughts of WSJ pundits …
Impeccable logic, and luckily for the pond, even on a public holiday, the Major is not one for rest, and not for the first time, he shows that parrots of any kind are adept mimics, especially Major Mitchells and other galahs of the lizard kind … (now that's how to mix a metaphor) ...
Indeed, indeed, the Donald is all the fault of inaccurate journalism … but do go on …and deliver a blatant lie about there being no evidence that the Donald is a racist … apparently never having bothered to read stories such as The Atlantic's An Oral History of Trump's Bigotry, speaking as we were of inaccurate journalism and sleepy-eyed galahs caught on warm tar in winter ...
Alas and alack, if those online numbers are any guide, the punters have seen through the lizard Oz, and associated News Corp rags … featuring the likes of the Bolter showing that genuine, sustained, ongoing relentless racism isn't as big a seller as the reptiles might have hoped…
Hasn't the Bolter been on a ripper tear of late?
The pond gives thanks daily that it decided to restrict its herpetological studies to the lizards of Oz, and parrots of the Major Mitchell kind … blathering on like a fully paid up member of QAnon or MAGA cap wearers about conspiracies of the Russiagate hoax kind ...
They need to write the truth? What a classy comic he is … what with his conspiracy theories and his talk of hoaxes, and yet never a word about the best hoax of all, that long lost Order of Lenin medal …
But if you can't rely on the reptiles, there's always another way ...
And so to a little stodgy holiday filler …and who better than the Caterist to provide it, with an extra dollop of government buttercream ...
Indeed, indeed, if only universities could get back to their core business.
Why a chair in advanced fluid movement would attract thousands of Australian students. Who wouldn't flock to a course with Professor Caterist lecturing on the movement of flood waters in quarries? Think of the immense knowledge acquired - but please don't think of law suits or the size of defamation payouts, think rather of the advantages of quarry walls, and erecting walls in general …
But why does the pond love it when the Caterist talks dirty, and rabbits on about the way that bludging academics holding out their paws for government grants, and the need for savage haircuts and such like? Answer for those who can make it through the next gobbet ...
Well yes, universities should have seen it coming, and got in early, like the Caterists. Was it only a short time ago that the pond was celebrating the cunning ability of the Caterists to get their government buttercream cash in the paw?
And there's a lot more where that came from if you know how to get it, if you're a genuine cultural heritage item of the Caterist kind, but sadly there's only one gobbet to go in course 101 of righteous indignation and water movement ...
And so to the immortal Rowe and a fuss that arose over a cartoon that recently turned up in the pond.
The pond merely reprints the fuss, and lets others decide …and no, it's not just a matter of showing Josh out of uniform, though surely that's an egregious historical error, given that he's one of the finest foot soldiers in the land in SloMo's army of marketeers ...
Next week a series of cartoons featuring Benjamin Netanyahu and the gulags of Israel …
According to this article Friedman, Rand and Hayek are monkeys and Nobel laureate James Buchanan is the organ grinder.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.alternet.org/2020/06/meet-the-hidden-architect-behind-americas-racist-economics/
Maybe there should be a new chapter in Why Nations Fail devoted to the US.
DeleteIt's not unusual that the interests of the powerful don't coincide with the interests of the nation as a whole, after all, Trump now has a wall around the White House to keep the riff-raff at a distance.
The wealthy live well in even the poorest of states, it's the welfare of the majority that suffers and the Kochs of the world don't care, or actually prefer it according to this article.
This explains some of the reasons that extreme wealth disparity skews conservative politics
Deletehttps://mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2020/01/how-business-lost-its-influence-on.html
I really will have to get around to reading 'Why Nations Fail', especially since I hold it as an article of faith that all nations (using that word in its widest sense) have failed and will continue to fail for the remaining (hundreds, thousands, millions ?) of years of human society (maybe we'll degenerate back into basically lone hunter gatherers before finally going extinct).
DeleteAt the root of it is, so I believe, human imperviousness to reality combined with the fact that things, and societies, change over time. Still not real sure about the Mayans, though.
But a clear example is given via Acemoglu's and Robinson's refudiation (thanks, Sarah) of Bill Gates' review of their book. It's clear that Gates didn't really take in what they were saying, and my view is that the more effect on and control over society that folks like Gates have (even worse in the case of the Kochs), the more inevitable failure becomes. But did the Mayans have a Gates or some Kochs - or was it mostly down to the weather after all ?
https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/03/12/what-bill-gates-got-wrong-about-why-nations-fail/
Their reasoning seems circular to me on occasions but there is an awful lot of interesting background to historical events that get a very superficial treatment in most history books.
DeleteThe English adventures in the Americas are quite interesting.
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=PLlOCUIAh88C&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=Why+nations+fail+as+the+Spanish+began+their+conquest&source=bl&ots=pmYdxYSgC5&sig=ACfU3U0fPPONcFHcydDDwN1vxdCMgNfYpw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiZ3fvXtvPpAhXwzTgGHaFrB5AQ6AEwAHoECAsQAQ#v=onepage&q=Why%20nations%20fail%20as%20the%20Spanish%20began%20their%20conquest&f=false
Another case of: "the evidence is sound, but the conclusions are very suspect" ? Besides, I thought it was the Great Puritan Migration of 1620-1640 that really marked the British 'takeover' of America. And hasn't the 'Pocahontas rescue' been debunked ?
DeleteAnyway, it does show - since the early attempts at settlement were fairly disastrous - that 'entrepreneurs' (especially when they hugely favour the 'preneurs' bit over the 'entre' part) are usually pretty bad and much given to failure.
The Pommie success against the Spanish Armada was indeed due more to luck - and the wild weather around the top of England and down the Irish Sea (I do believe that my short, light brownish skinned, long straight black haired grandmother had quite a few Spanish genes for an Irish lady) - but there was just a bit of a forerunner of the Industrial Revolution by way of English 'inventivity'.
Supposedly the Spanish shipboard cannon were in fixed positions and after having been fired some poor gun-monkey would have to lean out of the side of the ship and stuff gunpowder and a cannon ball (or whatever) into the barrel from the front. The English cannon however, were on wheels and when fired would recoil into the ship where they could quickly be reloaded. Apparently the English could fire nearly three cannon rounds to every one by the Spaniards. Or so the telly told me one day.
Maj: "Media consumers see through journalists' attempts to defend such behaviour to damage Trump."
ReplyDeletePolling in USA: 32% of media consumers approve of Trump's handling of the riots.
Looks like the Maj is on the wrong side of facts and history again.
Popey has registered a very graceful apology for those offended by his work. A masterclass in dignity - which is everything one could expect from a man is good as he clearly is: https://twitter.com/SmallTimeVC/status/1269589209842507777
"Black lives slowly getting better but that only fuels anger and culture war"
ReplyDeleteSaw the hed and led for the Baker article and rather wondered if anybody had ever told him, or if he had ever noticed, that with the majority of human beings, the closer they get to a long sought and passionately desired objective, the more aroused and impatient they become for it to finally materialise.
I suppose not: nobody that he knows has the faintest understanding of human behaviour. Maybe he could persuade "them" to actually defer any achievement of "black better lives" then so as to reduce the emotional stress.
Reading the Maj. Mitch. has turned into an exercise in trying to understand some kind of aberrant schoolboy psychology. He's even worse than Nullius Neddy, but mercifully much shorter. Just as a simple example there's his stuff about how it's all "blue": "Minneapolis is a Democrat city with a Democrat mayor and Minnesota is a Democrat state ..."
Of course they are, Maj. Mitch because most of the "red" (ie GOP) cities and states don't give a rat's fart about "Black lives". Haven't you even been able to take notice of that ? And then we get the bit about "Most of the cities racked by protests that have descended into rioting ..."
Well actually, Mitch hardly any have "descended into rioting" though some have had both protesters and rioters, the majority of the protesters have started out peaceful and stayed that way. But really, what is the point of trying to be rational with a hysterical child such as Maj. Mitch.
And really, is there any point in trying to parse Cater's nonsense ? He points out that "The number of Australian students commencing courses at Group of Eight universities fell by more than 2000 between 2009 and 2018" but that also "The number of overseas students doubled to 60,000."
So how many places have actually been "taken" from Australians ? Do we have any idea how many ? Not from any actual evidence that Cater has produced.
But oh, sufficient unto the day, DP, sufficient unto the day.
The pond noticed that elsewhere on site you were mentioned in despatches, GB, and truly your valued comments are always sufficient unto the day .. and unto the unappreciative reptiles ...
Delete[Blushes modestly ... yes, again] Thank you for providing such fertile stimulus, DP.
Delete