The pond woke up this day to the dismal scene of the reptiles in mid-winter, and experienced a fit of ennui and existential boredom.
Was this all there was? Dame Groan blathering on about spending, and Killer Creighton turning his sights on super and the oscillating fan targeting Labor, apparently because the government has a splendid record when it comes to women in parliament (go on, do the 2019 numbers here).
On the upside, the cult master returned with a spiffing effort ...
On the downside, the notion of entering into an arms race with Xi is risible, and his takeover of Hong Kong has passed barely noticed, with the Donald doing absolutely nothing, zero, nada, zilch, and others of the Boris kind offering some ineffectual huffing and puffing …
That made the cult master's effort even more heroically stupid than usual - SloMo shoving it to Xi - but then, isn't that what is so precious about the cult master? Isn't that what makes him great, and a cut above the usual reptile illustrator?
Speaking of the Donald, there was at least one reptile attempt at comedy. Thank the long absent lord that the flailing, failing local reptile business model means there are imports from other parts of the Chairman's empire, and they don't get much better than this …
Traditional American principles? Surely that means allowing the Ruskis to put a price on a US soldier's head (better still, a back), and then doing absolutely nothing about it, and better still, calling it a hoax?
Yes, the pond's already run that one, and there's a tidy assembly of Donald Ruski cartoons here, but still, what a chance to run a few Donald toons and lighten the spirit …
Already the pond could feel the gloom lifting, the sun beginning to rise on rampant delusion and American exceptionalism ...
Darn tootin', the Confederacy and all its values still live, and what was wrong with a little slavery? Secure job, and sexual benefits for all … and dammit, the cancel culture trying to remove precious memories of heroic traitors and treasonous acts by folks wanting to end the union, and Gone with the Wind, and where would it all end? Who are these wretched sheep blindly on the wrong side of history and the Donald and the WSJ and the chairman?
How deeply in debt the pond is to the WSJ for lifting the pond's fog of ennui...
Yep, the United States is comprehensively fucked, but wait, it just got even better, even richer, even more surreal and absurd …
What chance have local players against the American experiment in surreal comedy?
Oh sure, Strewth! did its best by bringing back good old Cory, but they had to spoil it by running the famous snap of Cory, much loved by the pond, up against some useless bit of promotional work by the poodle …
The pond surfed waves of nostalgia …
Manly men doing manly things. Where had it all gone wrong?
Sadly, the pond knew that there had to be a limit to nostalgia, there was still work to be done, and reptiles to be studied, and the cryptic, hidden meanings teased out, and at least Dame Slap was still on the job …
Now right from the get go, the pond knew it had a problem, but it wasn't the usual one. What was wrong with spaghetti westerns? They promised entertainment, and they sometimes delivered, and they even gave Clint a new profile, and what's wrong with Sergio Leone? And all this as news lands of the death of musical genius Ennio Morricone? Is there nothing sacred, nothing of value in the reptile world?
Just as problematic, what's wrong with Udon noodle westerns?
Was Dame Slap aware that a western had been shot just outside Tamworth, around the hamlet of Nundle?
The pond's parents had even attended the premiere …
As for the rest, the pond knew it was going to be bored to tears by Dame Slap rabbiting on about some AMP business, as if anyone still gave a toss about that bunch of tossers ...
There are alternatives to reading Dame Slap, as a google will show …
All the pond remembers about AMP is that its parents put in a shilling a week for years when they could least afford it, and the pond eventually ended up with twenty quid, which by the time it came due was worth three fifths of fuck all …
But that's how the leeches worked back in the day, and they still know how to suck blood, and surely the IPA doctors will always recommend a cure by applying leeches ...
Say what? Is Dame Slap now acknowledging that Roger was a naughty boy, and noble Dyson might have to be thrown under the bus, despite the valiant work of the meretricious Merritt?
Back in the day, Dame Slap would have been with the malign Merritt, launching a vigorous defence of Dyson, and so it seems that dreadful movement has brought her to a low point, joining in a squabble at AMP, but leaving the bigger fish to fry …
What next? Will she be recommending a viewing of Bombshell as being better than a spaghetti western? (It wasn't).
Never mind, there's one word that the pond always looks forward to when it comes to a Dame Slap rant …"finally", and "finally" thar she blows, and the pond can end its sense of tedium and ennui, and look forward to the day ...
Of course it would be absolutely wrong and incorrect of the pond to note that it's frequently observed that photos of Dame Slap are terrifying … because of course her terrifying photos have absolutely nothing to do with her terrifying opinions, which are generally terrifying all on their own, whether talking of climate science with "Lord" Monckton - something of an irrelevant Cory these days - or donning a MAGA cap to welcome the arrival of the MAGA man …
Usually that would be a cue for a final orgy of MAGA "grab 'em by the pussy" man cartoons …
… but this day the infallible Pope and the immortal Rowe have other things on their minds, and attention should be paid, with more Rowe always to be found here …
Since Creighton isn't otherwise featuring today, I thought I'd give a short run to this: "Compulsory superannuation costs us all too much."
ReplyDeleteIndeed, if Killer C is going to do his best to kill us oldies off every time there's an "inevitable pandemic(s)" [copyright Moorice] then yes, it's way too expensive. Live it up when young and die broke, I say.
Dorothy - this is not to hint at insurrection, but GB has mentioned the Adumbrate Creighton’s typing today (‘he started it’!) and I have had some exchanges with my source on the broad topic of - what should one expect from a (THE?) Economics Editor?
DeleteParticularly one whose claim to qualification does not include actual training in journalism, but is replete with activities as an apparently professional economist.
Yesterday the source shared the Adumbrate’s filleting of one of the papers from PwC on possible tax reform. PwC’s initial discussion paper, in June, said there would be several papers on specific aspects of tax. On the keyboard of the Adumbrate, that has now become ‘Lifting GST rate is critical for meaningful tax reform, economists say.’ which then became ‘critical to boosting economic and productivity growth’. What about that line - much refined by the senior Winston (Churchill) “We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle. —Churchill, Why I am a Free Trader (London: 1905)”?
One might expect an economist with the onerous duties of ‘editor’ to guide the writer to put whatever assertion into its wider context. When the writer IS the editor - hmmm. Any mention of a little focus on the ’S’ part of ‘GST’? Not really. Can we assume the Economics Editor has read the GST legislation, and noted all the little exits there for financial services, but does not want to confuse the average reader of the Flagship?
Then today we have ‘Our superannuation nest egg has turned rotten’. Which includes ‘The vast, artificial, highly complex edifice of compulsory super costs taxpayers a fortune. That, in turn, requires other taxes to be higher than necessary, with all the associated damage caused.’
Again - where is the discussion, not of other taxes to be ‘higher than necessary’ (necessary for what?) but of other activities that have been virtually excused from the tax system. Negative gearing? Dividend imputation? Oh, yes - great for confusing the punters at election time, so - no need to discuss.
Makes one wonder if economists’ lives matter, even to them.
Chadwick
Oh now pish tush, Chad. The GST is a wondrous regressive tax that taxes the less well off proportionately more than the rich (does anybody know what the GST on a private jet is ?). Especially those appalling dole bludgers: since they must buy things, they have to give a percentage of their dole back to the government. Now, increase the GST but hold the 'Jobseeker' allowance constant, and ?
DeleteExcept that Meg Lees and the Aus Dems insisted on exempting some things (her one and only half-way decent political act) such as fresh food, books, etc. Wau, some small amount of the Jobseeker's dole is exempt ! Bloodywell can't have that: tax all them things and increase the GST rate as well !
Set libertarian neoliberal economics free again !
But, but, Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone) is one of the great Westerns!
ReplyDeleteThere are no great westerns, only great westerners ! Oh, ok, OUaTiTW was close, but being 'spaghetti' it probably counts as cultural appropriation.
DeleteReading the WSJ hagiographic harangue was a joy: how wonderful to be able to spout away like that and not have to put your name to it. Let me see: "Trump had the temerity to point out that the past few weeks have seen an explosion of "cancel culture - driving people from their jobs, shaming dissenters, and demanding total submission from anyone who disagrees."
ReplyDeleteYep, that's a very accurate description of the White House culture and conditions.
But never mind, because Alice would like us to seriously consider the deep and meaningful question "Is Cory Bernardi reinventing himself as an influencer?" Now that's really putting a pigeon among the feral cats, isn't it. Do we think there'll ever be a clear resolution of that profound conundrum ?
Lastly we have a fabulous rave about #MeToo from Dame Slap. Except that it's just the same tired old crap that she farts out repeatedly: #MeToo is damned if speaks out, and damned if it says nothing. And that's only fair after all, isn't it.
Just another highly motivating Monday in the herpetarium. Ho hum.
Oh me, oh my; this explains a lot:
ReplyDeleteFrom Dan Baum on Harper's:
I started to ask Ehrlichman a series of earnest, wonky questions that he impatiently waved away. “You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/
Great link GB, damned hippies ruining everything ...
DeletePedantry - but the Dame (Slap) should know that the expression is 'hoist with his own petard' - wording probably chosen to improve the cadence of that speech in 'Hamlet'
ReplyDeleteChadwick
Hi Dorothy,
ReplyDeleteI can’t wait to see how the reptiles “Labor’s Pink Batt Fiasco” report on Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson’s spiffing new plan to get the economy going.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53313640
DiddyWrote
Great link DW, and even better, a reminder that de Pfeffel and piffle go really well with spiffing ...
DeleteAh, DW - it is for the chance of such gems (of purest ray serene?) that I happily search the pond several times a day. Thank you
ReplyDeleteChadwick
Yeah but this time it's Boris de Pfeffel not KRudd and everything always turns out well for Boris.
Delete"GrueBleenJul 6, 2020, 7:39:00 PM
ReplyDeleteThis might interest some people (JM ?)
US interest in moving to New Zealand jumps amid Covid-19
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/06/us-interest-in-moving-to-new-zealand-jumps-amid-covid-19"
GB,
Please alert your Kiwi cousins to what happened when Mexico allowed Stephen Austin and a few friends to buy some vacation property in Texas.
Next thing you know thousands were pouring in.
Once they settled they were put off by laws prohibiting slavery.
Who was supposed to pick the vast fields of cotton the settlers intended to plant?
This was beyond the pale, no way Jose!
The Texas bound immigration from southern US states was almost wholly financed by the monied Slave Interests.
It was an article of faith with them that slavery had to keep expanding or die, along with the power of the Southern aristocrats.
Wanting to be good sports, the newly minted Texans quite reasonably suggested they be
allowed to enslave Indians instead in order to Make Texas Great Again.
Meanwhile they would still bring in masses of black slaves on the down low.
As there was almost no Mexican authorities in Texas beyond a few towns much less
'beyond the black stump', after awhile it would be a fait accompli.
The Mexicans objected, Santa Anna demanding the gringos obey the new Mexican constitution.
The next thing you know Laurence Harvey is drawing a line in the dirt with his sword on
the set of John Wayne's The Alamo.
The Mexican's might have got the Duke in the last scene but we still heisted Texas in one
sweet caper.
So warn your Kiwi cousins, when that initial First Fleet of fleeing Trump
officials arrive off South Island in order to avoid indictments back home,
send them on their way to Victoria.
I understand there are unsuspecting "Mexicans" with lots of open land there as well.
A really neato piece of potted history, JM, and a useful warning as well.
DeleteBut Enzedders aren't known for taking any notice of Australians (and especially not us Mexican Aussies who even the NSWers and Qlders love to ignore).
So, back to "those who are ignorant of the mistakes of history are condemned to commit even worse ones". But I'm not sure that Enzedders know all that much history either.
A nice piece of potted political history comedy right there GB......via JM, as well as fair warning to those over the ditch. :))
DeleteYour curiosity rewards us all.....as sometimes happens GB, with your link to Mandolin Orange. Brilliant and bookmarked.
Cheery Anon.