There is a real world out there, but anyone expecting any hint of reality in the pond should abandon such hopes and delusions, and settle down to the usual reptile follies ...
That one's at the Graudian here, and it's been everywhere, except in reptile land and Joel Fitzgibbon's pea brain ...
And this one was at the Daily Beast, outside the paywall when the pond checked, and what a sorry story of snake oil salesmen and humbug it was ...
But enough of all that, because too much contact with reality is fatal for the reptiles, and what a fine collection of delusional, reality-avoiding local reptiles there was in the lizard Oz this day.
The pack had the pond reaching for collectives ... beds, dens, nests, pits or slithers of snakes, or perhaps you'd like another from this list of collective nouns for reptiles and amphibians ...
It began with a bask of crocodiles, and perhaps that's why the pond began with a bask of Dame Slap ...
She really is the Queen of IPA hysteria, which is why the pond feels no shame leading with her, while the real world beneath the faraway tree lumbers on ...
Ah, it's just the old IPA libertarian rag, with liberal references to Soviet-style techniques - strange no mention of the weird poisonings caused by the drinking of tea amongst Australian dissidents - and east Germany and all the usual hysteria ...
Of course we've been here before many times - what are you against? what have you got? what are you for? is there a super spreader event I can support wholeheartedly? - as noted at The Conversation in Mask resistance during a pandemic isn't new - in 1918 many Americans were 'slackers' ...
Gina's mob is desperately worried that people might prefer to take sensible precautions than die, and expect leadership from government in enabling the ability to go on living. Dame Slap, living far away on her own planet, or above the faraway tree - experts still can't settle on the exact location - perhaps it's a faraway tree on a faraway planet - will have none of that. It's the business of serfs to get back to making money for others, so that the IPA overlords might continue their languid rule ...
There you go, it's the old coming and going routine. Berate them for the severity of their measures, then berate them for the failures of their severe measures, because they obviously weren't severe or rigorous enough.
And please excuse the pond for that startling sight of the parrot ... apparently doing a new parrot routine in his Sky News dotage, and shoved into Dame Slap's piece with an autoplay to feed the ads, just to pretend someone's watching...
Now back to the whining ... and of course Dame Slap is at one with the Killer Bolter, and most likely Killer Creighton too ... because remember, we have a quiver of cobras here ...
Oh it's rich, no doubt about it. The woman who announced that the UN would use climate science to introduce world government by Xmas suddenly carrying on about anti-vaxxers "their distrust of science, corporations and government is nothing short of deranged."
When she donned her MAGA hat and slipped out into the New York night, wasn't Dame Slap aware that her hero had tipped to the nod to anti-vaxxers many times? And what's she got to say about her hero's recent embrace of QAnon, as weird and delusional as it gets, with Bill Gates being blamed for the virus ... (BuzzFeed back in the day)
But to be fair, Dame Slap knows plenty about being, and sounding, deranged. Didn't she at the very beginning of her piece call for scepticism about government? And now she's angry at delusionals for being sceptical about the government?
She really can't think beyond a par or two these days ... but at least this rant is coming to an end ...
Now for a break before moving on to a rhumba of rattlesnakes, because the pond thinks that Wilcox caught exactly the delusional tone of Dame Slap ...
It also happens to be a fruity introduction to the next burdensome task, to make it through a weyr of dog bothering dragons without bursting into laughter ...
You know the old joke about the loony bin patient who thinks he's the only sane one? Welcome to the delusional world of the dog botherer, with his impression of Uncle Dick doing a bit of kite flying ...
Each day the pond is thankful that the likes of the dog botherer have no connection to actual political action in this country, but instead get their jollies by rabbiting on about everything and nothing on Sky News ... itself relatively isolated and quarantined, simply because few people bother to watch it ...
Gone are the days when the dog botherer could help Lord Downer fuck over Iraq, gone are the days when he could lead Malware down the Utegate path ... and even in these perilous times, that provides the pond with a slice of camembert cheese comfort ...
Well, the reptiles are welcome to form a mess of iguanas in a frat party, and see who's the first comes down with the virus, but the pond has different desires and needs ...
If the pond had its way, it'd be stopping the young 'uns on King street - backed by storm troopers of course - and have them put on masks before they could saunter off to infect someone ...
Now there are no doubt some contradictions and behaviours that might be worth a nit pick as politicians try to balance and juggle, but at least in this country, a death is considered a death, and worth some caring.
When the pond contemplates what Fox News and the Donald have wrought on the United States, the pond is thankful that the reptiles, simply by viewership, have been placed in extended isolation and quarantine ... so this sort of thing can be avoided ...
By golly that Rowe cuts the pond up every time, and it's even better when it heralds the last gobbet of dog botherer that needs to be chewed on ...
Bordering on delusion? By the pond's observation, the dog botherer jumped the delusional shark and nuked the Iraqi fridge a long while ago ...
Look, if the dog botherer wants to show the way, and show to us all how the dying is easy, and how dying makes living better, he should feel free. The whole Sky mob could get out into the field, and nuzzle virus carriers, and what a noble thing that would be ...
But that brings the pond to an ongoing pressing concern ...
What is our Gracie doing? What is our Gracie thinking? How long can she stay in this lizard Oz lounge of lizards?
You see? Just the header was enough to give the pond a quiver of fear, a shiver and slither of snakes loose on the reptile Surry Hills plane ...
Not worth the risk?
When Dame Slap and the dog botherer have just been explaining how important it is for people to get out there and die, and keep the IPA and Gina in the style to which they're accustomed, (and maybe not realise that cable cutting Sky News could save a lot of wasted money, because that way lies anarchy and the need to get a real job ...)
Say what? All this verges on rank heresy, as if workplaces should be safe and employers owe a duty of care to their employees? What next, east Germany, and Soviet Russia Stalin style? Please, be careful Gracie, someone at the rag might actually be reading this, and next thing you know the Murdochian thought police will be knocking on your door, and wondering why you haven't been drinking your kool-aid ...
Dearie me, our Gracie is beginning to sound like one of those sponsored government docs that Film Australia used to make ...
It's completely alien to the reptile spirit. Does she realise what she's doing? Has she no regard for her own safety? Isn't she aware a knot of toads could descend on her at a moment's notice, and drum her out of News Corp?
Each time the pond trembles when it sees the danger that our Gracie puts herself in, and this attempt at rational assessments of workplace safety, risks, duty of care, and such like, and wise behaviour in response is perhaps her most bold and brazen refusal to join the flock for their daily shearing ...
The good news is that having dealt with the worst, tomorrow will see hope arise afresh in the pond as the brightest reptile stars, the bromancer, nattering "Ned" and prattling Polonius usher in a world of hope ...
Then all this - our Gracie feuding with the dog botherer and Dame Slap - will seem like a passing dream, or perhaps a nightmare, and then who knows what the morrow will bring, with the infallible Pope advising that there is a cure to hand ...
... while the immortal Rowe sees it more as an athletic event, with more athletics here ...
"It's the business of serfs to get back to making money for others, so that the IPA overlords might continue their languid rule ..."
ReplyDeleteTheirs not to reason why. Theirs but to do and die, eh DP. It was ever thus, wasn't it.
And especially when it comes to Dame Sloppy ooops Slappy. "She really can't think beyond a par or two these days ..."
Well, an IPA Chairman isn't actually expected to think beyond a par, is she ? if she could, maybe she'd move on with her life and try to achieve something even marginally worthwhile. But I did nearly cop whiplash trying to follow her as she continually pivotted 180 degrees on an IPA dime.
But I do have to repeat myself yet again: "If I never, ever mention it again, then it never happened". So, Monckton conspiracies and Trumpian MAGAs just never happened, did they. And the Greenland Ice sheet isn't melting, is it - and even if it was the best thing to do would be to fire up the gas and also burn more coal oi oi oi. That will fill the sky with dark, foreboding clouds that will diminish the surface sunshine thereby countering that imaginary global warming and sabotaging the solar power plants and rooftops at the same time. Win win !
So according to the Doggy Bov: "Other states [ie other than NSW] have done little but keep their borders closed."
ReplyDeleteOh I'm so very glad to know that: it means that all that mandatory masks bit and 5km limit and only 4 reasons I'm allowed to leave home (and so I had to go for a walk in the rain today, because old buggers like me need our exercise but I can't just go and walk quickly twice around Chadstone Shopping Mall to avoid the rain and the cold like I used to) just hasn't happened at all.
And so all that oppressive authoritarian government stuff that Dame Slap was complaining about didn't happen either, because all those states did was "keep their borders closed".
Bit ooh, cop this: "...overall deaths in Victoria last month were down 500 on July 2019" Eh ? What happened to all those people committing suicide because they just can't tolerate the lockdown ? Didn't any of them actually happen ?
Love this one though: "We are seeing a national retreat from personal responsibility."
Oh yeah, that's worked a treat wherever it's been tried - especially in Sweden as The Killers B and C will gleefully attest. Now maybe we now also have a Killer D(oggy Bov).
And this one: "Our media, dominated by publicly funded progressives ...". Yep, seldom a sillier lie ever told.
If by 'progressives', the conservatives mean the voices of rationality and civility, the program to deplatform them is coming along nicely.
DeleteVirtually nothing said about the hatchet job on Emma Alberici, half of the airtime devoted to faux balance with every reasoned view matched by a right-wing ideologue. If the intention was to stop me watch ABC current affairs it has pretty well worked.
Befuddled - thank you for keeping the name of Emma Alberici before us. The DWAGs who run ‘Catallaxy’ are on her case. Although items appear under several aliases, they are not good at disguising elements of style. To my occasional eye, at least three regular ‘contributors’ are likely to be found sitting in the same chair in front of the same keyboard, but the mugs who respond seem happy to be taken in by this subterfuge.
DeleteNow, one common characteristic of the DWAGs is that they are in tenured academic positions, so largely funded by the public to a lifestyle that, until recently, included regular trips overseas to attend those conferences - or to take ‘sabbaticals’ - that are so essential to academic life, the entitlement to do paid contract work for the consulting arm of the institution employing them (but with certain benefits to the earnest ‘researcher’), and to write books, many of which are published by Connor Court, to the primary benefit of the author(s).
Yet, one of the alter egos, trading as ‘The Artist Formerly Known as Spartacus’, acknowles Polonius Dog’s barking yesterday about Ms Alberici, and mention by the Benson of the Flagship (it all runs in circular circuits) of her book - and asked -
“So Ms Alberici has been writing a book while a paid full time employee of the ABC. Was she doing this writing during the hours she was paid to work?
Given she is a mother of 3 kids, when did she otherwise have the time?
So if this book was written during the hours she was paid to be working for the ABC, will the ABC be getting a clip of the royalties?”
Perhaps some of the unhappiness comes from her choice of publisher - Hardie Grant, not Connor Court, but it is an indulgence for someone settled in the academic sinecure, from which to level charges of ‘hypocrisy’ at any public figure to the left of Peter Dutton, to ask about these circumstances, in these ways. And slipping in the line that appeals to the shellback readers - mother of 3 kids, when did she have the time?
So Limited News sows the seeds, the DWAGs on the fringe take up their sickles, and the persecution of Ms Alberici goes round and round the circle.
DWAG Chad ? When I looked that up via Google, it came up with Denture Wearers Action Group and I thought, oh yeah, I'm one of them ! DuckDuckGo on the other hand came up with "A word which depicts a very close friend". Nope, don't think I'm one of them.
DeleteThe Free Dictionary - also via DDG - came up with Data Warehouse Advisory Group and I might just have qualified for one of them about 20 years ago.
Though the one I liked best was Detecting West Australian Gold. Yep, I'll be in that.
But the best I could come up with myself was: Don't Worry About God which, sincerely, I never do.
? Maybe Dumb Wanking Academic Goons ?
But bypassing those deep semantic mysteries, Chad, let us consider "Was she doing this writing during the hours she was paid to work?".
DeleteNow that illustrates beautifully the juvenile ideas that reptiles have about work. Put very simply, Emma wasn't paid by the hour worked, she was paid by the results produced, and so long as the results were good, she deserved her pay. Sheesh, even I was paid by results and not by hours which meant some weeks I might work 60 hours or occasionally more if I had a disaster to fix, and some weeks I might work only 10 hours. And a lot of weeks - especially when I was producing a complex report, I might work 20 hours at home and only 10 hours in the office.
So, do all academics and reptiles actually get paid by the hour just like any other factory worker ?
Don't wanna, ain't gonna if I recall correctly.
DeleteInteresting that they have to engage in deceit in order to make their views seem more than just the ramblings of a tiny lunatic fringe. The whole reptile project is very like this, they would like to think they are part of a silent majority but must know deep down that very few folks share their views.
All good choices, GB - but it goes back a month or three when I had sought a collective for the self-proclaimed 'conservatives' across Catallaxy, Quad Rant, Spectator and similar publications of limited circulation. I had said something along the lines that the classic 'conservatives' would not have recognised much of what these characters write about, because their, er - philosophy - did not extend much beyond a personal attitude of 'don't wanna, ain't gonna.' I think it was Befuddled who pointed out that that could be simplified to 'DWAG'. Which has a good sound to it, and is much easier to use than 'self-styled libertarian pseudo conservatives.'
DeleteYes thanks Bef and Chad, the mental clouds have parted and I do remember DWAG now. Very good.
DeleteBut Bef, the only reason for claiming a "silent majority" is to be able hugely exaggerate how many "supporters" you can claim.
GB - I agree with you completely on the nature of 'work'. It is why I noted down DeMarco and Lister ‘The manager’s function isn’t to make people work, it is to make it possible for people to work.’ from Brooks' 'Mythical Man Month'. One of those deceptively simple observations that, I am sure, came from long experience.
DeleteOne of the unexpected, and unfortunate, outcomes of putting screens and keyboards in front of so many people, particularly in relatively 'open plan' offices, was that too many 'managers' came to think that unless a person was tapping keys on the keyboard, they weren't actually doing much. My own background in biological research taught me that most of the thoughts that justified what people were paid, came to them when they were staring into space, or out for a walk on the weekend, or in the shower.
No doubt your time also crossed with that race of charlatans who sold miracle one day seminars on thinking, or productivity, or whatever - complete with reams of butchers' paper, all of which would have been much better used by, well - butchers. But I digress.
I did previously mention that the Dame Groan, in her days as a researcher, was involved with the groups at Flinders and Adelaide Unis doing interesting, and potentially useful, investigations of all the elements that made people productive. That might even have been how she scored the lucrative spot on the productivity commission. I don't recall ever seeing any evidence that she injected any of that research into anything that limped out of the productivity commission.
A goodly percentage of my working time was spent "tapping keys on the keyboard" because much of my job consisted of telling large mainframe computers what to do. Though 'automation' has made great strides there too, I believe (it's 12 years since I retired).
DeleteI do agree about the ideas element that you've mentioned: it's as though ideas and experiences mull around in the subconscious until some kind of 'resolution' occurs that must then percolate up to the conscious mind at an opportune time - which mostly seems to be a time in which the conscious mind isn't fully occupied and quiet thoughts can come up to it. Maybe why Kant insisted on taking his daily walk.
Thanks for the reminder of DeMarco and Lister, I had completely forgotten about their existence: Peopleware Rulez. I notice that their book was first published in 1987 - when I had been in ADP/EDP for just 13 years - and revised in 2013 when I had been retired for 5 years. Quite a span. And 'simplistic solutions to important problems' charlatans have been an integral part of the human experience since forever.
Otherwise, I wouldn't have picked you for 'biological research' and I certainly wouldn't have picked Dame Groan for "elements that made people productive" - nothing of that comes through in anything of hers that, via DP's good graces, I have ever read.
Checked my pile, Chad and I couldn't find a copy of DeMarco and Lister's 'Peopleware' though my alzheimered memory insists I did encounter it professionally. All I could find was 'Controlling Software Projects' by Tom DeMarco (published way back in 1982) and 'The Peopleware Papers' by the Aussie immigrant Larry Constantine (published in 2001) and a bunch of Ed Yourdon books (and even two by Donald Knuth, including 'Fundamental Algorithms'). And a book on project management by Rob Thomsett (a local born Aussie). Oh my my.
DeleteNow on to the Gracie: "...imagine a workplace; say, a call centre in Brisbane with 50 people in it."
ReplyDeleteNow that'd take some high-power imagining, Gracie, I don't think there's even a single 'call centre' with more than about 5 people left in Australia, is there ?
And so, DP: "Each time the pond trembles when it sees the danger that our Gracie puts herself in ...". Yair, she couldn't be at greater risk even if she turned up in person at the office and demanded an open plan desk to work from. I reckon she just might be joining those "publicly funded progressives" real soon now.
Hi Dorothy,
ReplyDelete“A cab driver told me this week the pandemic is a conspiracy caused by 5G, and that Bill Gates secretly wants to implant us with a tracking device using a COVID-19 vaccine.”
Hurray, the return of Janet’s mythical taxi driver!
“"Are you quoting from me? Are you quoting from me? I don't see anyone else here, so you must be quoting from me!"
An ‘everyman’ who allows the Dame to know what the common people are thinking.
It looked like the pandemic had put paid to Albrechtsen’s ‘interactions’ with the great unwashed but suddenly Janet is able to pull out a true blue conspiracy theorist to helpfully flesh out her copy.
As the Dame is bravely warning us about the perils of sliding into the clutches of an Authoritarian regime, I’m sure that she will be writing in horror about how a draconian government is prosecuting a whistleblower and his lawyer in what could only be described as Kafkaesque circumstances.
Surely Janet and the IPA would be on the front line to denounce any government that carried out a vituperative judicial attack on somebody whose only ‘crime’ was to throw light on the criminal use of the intelligence services that resulted in the minister involved being later financially rewarded.
DiddyWrote
I think that must have been a cab driver working for the Qanon group. I was a cab driver on and off for about 5 years (Yellow Cabs back in the day in Melbourne) and in that time I never met a cab driver, including me, who ever had anything of any worth to say - no "mobile wisdom" to be had for love or money.
DeleteQuite a few taxi customers did though, but somehow I can't quite see Janet fulfilling that role.