The pond isn't sure of the how or the why of the Caterist now turning up on a Friday in the lizard Oz, but it does provide the pond with a chance to wind down and get ready for the weekend, and for that at least the reptiles must be thanked.
Poor old Henry seems to have wandered off to spend some quality time with Cicero in exile, so the pond must be grateful that at least one quality loon has been left behind to defend Hadrian's Wall ...
Besides, there was something about that Caterist header that reminded the pond of a favourite text of the reptiles, and so the pond turned to it, and lo and behold, sure enough, the good book was relevant, as always ...
None of the other animals on the farm could get further than the letter A. It was also found that the stupider animals, such as the sheep, hens, Caterists and ducks, were unable to learn the Seven Commandments by heart. After much thought Snowball declared that the Seven Commandments could in effect be reduced to a single maxim, namely: "Gas good, coal not so good." This, he said, contained the essential principle of Murdochian Animalism. Whoever had thoroughly grasped it would be safe from greenie leftist influences. The birds at first objected, since it seemed to them that there had been a time when coal had been very good, but Snowball proved to them that this was not so.
"Coal, comrades," he said, "is an ancient fossil and when Napoleon held it up in parliament, it was to note an object that should be despised rather than revered. The good thing is gaseous, of the same kind and nature that you fly through so freely, and which you love so dearly, an ontology of airiness, while the greenie lefties fear it greatly."
The birds did not understand Snowball's long words, but they accepted his explanation, and all the humbler animals set to work to learn the new maxim by heart. Gas good, coal not so good, was inscribed on the end wall of the barn, above the Seven Commandments and in bigger letters. When they had once got it by heart, the Caterists developed a great liking for this maxim, and often as they lay in their research centre counting their taxpayer-funded government subsidy, they would all start bleating "Gas good, coal not so good! Gas good, coal not so good!" and keep it up for hours on end, never growing tired of it.
And anyone else who wants to re-read Animal Farm can find it on Project Gutenberg here ... but the pond must now trudge on ...
Sublime really.
"Whichever way you look at it, natural gas is preferable to coal."
Was it only yesterday that the poor old bromancer was still chanting the line "coal is good", unable to catch up with the transformations made at The Australian's Sheep Farm?
The pond usually avoids references to Orwellian and 1984 and such like, if only because the reptiles love them so, and also because they turn up in cartoons ...
Likewise the pond isn't keen on the word "sheeple", which was allegedly coined by a ten year old, not that the pond believes a word that it reads on the full to overflowing intertubes ... but sometimes, when confronted by a ten year old, adjustments must be made ...
Okay, okay the pond is having trouble getting back to the Caterists, but settle, settle, get around behind, we must deal with ten year olds as we find them, and the next gobbet from a bleating ten year old has finally landed, and it's full of more gaseous Caterist emissions ...
Around this point, for gluttons for punishment, it's worth trotting off to the research centre for sheeple here to read the wisdom of the Caterists a little while ago ...
The pond doesn't know which is richer or sillier in that text, though surely evoking people falling off roofs as an indicator of the dangers of solar energy is richly stupid even by Caterist Ridleian standards.
As for nuclear environmentalism? How soon it faded, how soon it was replaced by gaseous Caterist emissions ... but it's sudden fall from grace does give the pond a chance to get to the next gobbet smiling ...
What to say? A little scepticism might not go astray, given that the Caterist runs a government funded research centre, is a Liberal stooge and a lizard Oz sheeple, but he does allow the pond to sneak in a couple of cartoons ... because the United States has now reached a kind of peak madness, spurred on by the lizard Oz's kissing cousins ...
And so on to a final encounter with the lizard Oz sheeple, chanting away in Orwellian delight ...
It was a stark choice. Should the pond free Josh's thoughts from the paywall, and let them roam wild and free so that taxpayers who had paid the loon's salary had access to them without putting a guinea in the chairman's pocket?
Or would it be better to let them stay trapped and invisible to almost the entirety of the 23 million in the country? This was perhaps a flawed strategy, because the pond realised that the ABC would take Josh's words and spread them around, acting as it usually does, as a super spreader of lizard Oz stories... but given the starkest and most brutal of choices, it might still be worth the risk.
Poor Josh eally doesn't have much of a clue, and so instead of relying on the original text, which would be flawed, full of Joshims and so badly in need of interpretation, shouldn't the pond turn instead to the high priest of Joshism, the lizard Oz editorialist? Then we'd get the original Oracle, with Delphic reptile spin (oh did they really spurn Henry and ruin the pond's Friday treat? Maybe he'll turn up later in the day).
In the end, the pond decided to let Josh stay hidden, let the ABC do what it will, and came down on the side of the high priests, because anybody who thinks slashing red tape - that ancient Liberal party Joshist cry - is going to be the thing that fixes what ails us is beyond the valley of the stupid, and really does need a high priest in the temple to make the best of the message ... so on with the job, lizard Oz editorialist sheeple, explain the wisdom of Josh and SloMo, and please, be quick about it, because the weekend beckons ...
Ah indeed, indeed, which is why the pond can't crank-start its day without an infallible Pope contemplating the usefulness of regulation and banks ...
 |
Well it won't be too long before we're back there again, if the reptiles and Josh have anything to do with it ... and so to another feast of Delphic world salad ...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteYou must have nearly choked DP when you read "they would surely starve if it were not for the subsidies they extract from the government". Each day, every day, so much projection, for surely there is no one less able to survive without a handout than this dull grifter.
ReplyDeleteRather than pick a few technology products that may or may not make it in the long run, it might be worth comparing the government's preferred models with the actual results. After all, most of the government's plan is just a reheat of a previous unappealing offering.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/23/the-governments-tech-roadmap-is-a-strategy-based-on-an-old-and-discredited-argument?CMP=share_btn_tw
"In Fisher and Matysek’s analysis they envisaged that growth of wind and solar would be pretty much inconsequential in the globe’s future energy supplies. Instead major breakthroughs would be achieved in capturing and storing emissions (often referred to by the acronym CCS) from coal and gas power plants. This would then lead to their widespread deployment from 2015 across Australia, the US and Japan and from 2020 for China, India and Korea. By 2050, these authors projected, CCS would have been fitted to 60% of coal-fired generation and 70% of gas generators."
"Fisher and Matysek were clearly wrong on both policy and technology choices."
Agh - Brian Fisher, hardly better than Matt Ridley.
It's quite enlightening to see how they slide back from one defensive position to another. When they abandon coal they go in with the boot. Excess water use, sulphur, nitrous oxide, mercury and numerous unnecessary deaths? Why wasn't I told before?
I just have to wait a while now and renewables will be like stimulus or fibre to the home, it's just that we will all be the worse off for the delay.
We do know what the 5th Viscount Ridley is most famous for: yep, that's right - Chairman of Northern Rock Bank and the man of whom it has been said that: "A parliamentary committee criticised Ridley for not recognising the risks of the bank's financial strategy and "harming the reputation of the British banking industry"." In short, a highly successful "libertarian".
DeleteBut CCS ? Reminds me of long deceased attempts to transform Victorian brown coal into something vaguely useful - eg briquettes for blast furnaces (who mentioned low emission smelting ?). It didn't work:
An attempt to produce blast furnace coke from Victorian brown coal
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272372112_An_attempt_to_produce_blast_furnace_coke_from_Victorian_brown_coal
Human history is replete with ideas that failed. Does anybody still use briquettes ? Surely nobody uses them to keep the home fires burning in these times, do they ?
But above all, I really like how the Cater keeps on totally misunderstanding and misrepresenting the SA 'big battery' (which, BTW, was recently enlarged by 50%). Cater seems unable to understand that the battery is basically an electricity stabiliser: it can fill in for very short periods of reduced supply or filter out oversupply (not uncommon with wind and solar), but mainly it allows the current to always be at the correct 50 cycle frequency to avoid damage to sensitive equipment (eg phones, tablets and laptops).
But at least he didn't come the "when the wind doesn't blow" crap: as a Victorian, I know full well that the wind on the East Gippsland coast never "doesn't blow". Just about every night the weather forecast part of the news has a 'high" or "gale-force" warning for the East Gippsland coast.
"Indeed, coastal gale-force winds are a feature of Victoria's climate."
Climate of Victoria
http://www.weather-climate.com/victoria.html
But CCS ? Reminds me of long deceased attempts to transform Victorian brown coal into something vaguely useful - eg briquettes for blast furnaces (who mentioned low emission smelting ?). It didn't work:
DeleteWhich reminds me of Ignite Energy Resources. Been around for long time now, trying many pilots because their License (EL 4416) is worth billions and is connected to very deep pockets on both sides of the fence.
Everything is on the table, coal, nuclear, plastics, gas, briquettes.
https://www.gem.wiki/Ignite_Energy_Resources#Board_of_Directors
https://blog.agchemigroup.eu/australia-takes-leap-towards-total-plastic-waste-recycling/
https://independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/the-liberal-partys-nuclear-dreams-the-strange-case-of-dr-john-white-and-ignite,6270
Rust never sleeps, as they say.......shame that EL4416 site smack dab in the middle of windy old East Gippsland.
CA.
I haven't even remotely kept up with that, CA. Will anything ever become of EL4416 ? Didn't the Vic Gov decide against any form of fracking and/or coal seam gas ?
DeleteOr is it just a matter of waiting until their "representatives" get back in and open everything up again ?
"Poor Josh really doesn't have much of a clue..."
ReplyDeleteNot bloody wrong there, DP. I reckon he might be even more clueless than Cater, and I always reckoned that was about as impossible as empty space.
Things have just gotten worse and worse over the years, haven't they. I mean I never thought RGM or his chums were geniuses, but still. For example, what Wikipedia tells us about Harold Holt:
"When the Liberals came to office in 1949, Holt became a senior figure in the new government. As Minister for Immigration (1949–56), he expanded the post-war immigration scheme and relaxed the White Australia policy for the first time. He was also influential as Minister for Labour and National Service (1949–58), where he handled several industrial relations disputes. Holt was elected deputy leader of the Liberal Party in 1956, and after the 1958 election replaced Arthur Fadden as Treasurer. He oversaw the creation of the Reserve Bank of Australia and the decimal Australian dollar, but was blamed for a credit crunch that almost cost the Coalition the 1961 election. However, the economy soon rebounded and Holt retained his place as Menzies' heir apparent.
Holt became prime minister in January 1966, elected unopposed as Liberal leader following Menzies' retirement. He fought a general election later that year, winning a landslide victory. The Holt Government continued the dismantling of the White Australia policy, amended the constitution to give the federal government responsibility for indigenous affairs, and took Australia out of the sterling area. Holt promoted greater engagement with Asia and the Pacific, and made visits to a number of East Asian countries. His government expanded Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War, and maintained close ties with the United States under President Lyndon B. Johnson. While visiting the White House, Holt proclaimed that he was "all the way with LBJ", a remark which was poorly received at home."
A mixed bag to be sure, but more than anybody in either the Libs or Labs could do nowadays. Except maybe Bill Shorten - pity he didn't know how to win an election. Does anybody think that Joshy will ever get into the history books like that ?
I was a bit lukewarm on Shorten when he became opposition leader but he proved not to be the person I thought him to be. He also seemed to grow into the role which is the dead opposite of Slomo who seems more inadequate by the minute.
DeleteExcept maybe Bill Shorten - pity he didn't know how to win an election. Does anybody think that Joshy will ever get into the history books like that ? Between Re. Josh....he probably will, for all the wrong reasons.:))
DeleteBetween the Reptile press and fat fucking Clive of the North, he was on a hiding to nothing anyway. We will never know what may have been, but it would have to be better than what we currently have IMO.
Not exactly a huge fan of "the Bill we can't afford" myself, but at least he did seem to have some kind of rational program in mind. More than I can see for any of the parties now - taking "the parties" to mean Libs, Labs, Nats and Greens and ignoring One Nation and Katter.
DeleteBut maybe Bill expected too much from the Australian electorate, like maybe some attempt to understand what he was on about. Kinda reminds me of Hewson and Fightback in some ways. I can't say I was ever exactly keen on Fightback, but I was never the least bit keen on Keating - a thick headed bovver-boy at best.
I was also recently somewhat amused by this:
Blaming the voters
https://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2020/09/blaming-the-voters.html
Because, well, who is to blame but the voters ? Really, ignoring just what a feckless, gormless nonentity Boris de Pfeffel is because you want him to "do Brexit" ?
Good article GB. I’ll bet they never considered the possibility of electing their very own Tony Abbott.
DeleteThis is a dilemma. The solution to it – if there is one – is to try to separate talk about outcomes from talk about process. We must ask: what sort of processes and institutions are likely to best deliver policies that are both good (by whatever lights you want) and democratic? Few people, however, want such a debate.
Must say I share your view on Keating whereas with Shorten, I believed we would have got a coherent policy on energy/climate, which was my biggest concern.
The problem with politicians is they are just the enablers of the lobbyists of very powerful/influential people that most punters don’t even know exist. Brexit is a fine case in point.
CA. Just for the album title.
https://youtu.be/I62e8CTmUdk
The "stupidity of crowds", a nice rephrasing like "We have met the enemy and he is us".
DeleteIf you watch this old clip a number of things become apparent that relate to Chris Dillow's offering.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReRQ8DryTWQ
The good folk of Sunderland had no idea how Brexit would address any of their issues, either real or imagined, but they were very keen to lash out at money belts and elites.
As usual, the money belts and elites will be the main beneficiaries of the chaos, the voters, not so much so. It seems like a bit of political vandalism really. The voters don't feel like they have much of stake in government so they do their best to smash it.
The other obvious thing is that British dental care leaves a lot to be desired.
“The other obvious thing is that British dental care leaves a lot to be desired”......not a good look, although Americans slightly out tooth their British counterparts apparently(2015).
DeleteCA.
I dunno about that, CA: some think otherwise:
DeleteEnglish have better teeth than Americans
https://www.dentistry.co.uk/2016/01/06/english-have-better-teeth-than-americans/
Average of 6.97 missing teeth for Brits versus 7.31 for Yanks.
Otherwise, I'd be very happy to go along with Edmund Burke, if only the "representatives" actually had any "judgement" worthy of the name. Hence my point about our Harold: (in)famous for being taken at sea by the Chinese (and subsequently having the 'Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Pool" named for him in Malvern, though the name was modified a few years ago :-) ) and a bloody Lib to boot, but even he actually had some very acceptable judgements and did some valuable things.
But SmoMo, Joshy and Cormann ? What judgement have they to "sacrifice" in any case ? And in what sense are they anybody's "representatives" at all ?
The "attractions" of youth grow ever stronger the further away I get - but did I really want to live forever anyway ?
“Poor old Henry seems to have wandered off to spend some quality time with Cicero in exile, so the pond must be grateful that at least one quality loon has been left behind to defend Hadrian's Wall ...” very good DP!
ReplyDeleteThe yapping chihuahua Cater is bit like when the council decides to put a speed hump at each end of your street...it’s always there, with no way of avoiding the annoying and repetitive jerk.
Talk about taxpayers money for jam. Just shuffle the same words and cliches endlessly every week, and ka-Ching!
The right choice indeed Dorothy, because as Joe 2.0 did make it emphatic in the very last line of his statement...that
his Govt. was committed to eliminating big Govt. He would never have the balls to preface the statement with “simplistic”
as he rolled out the biggest socialist punt on behalf of his small business base in living history.
No surprise banks stocks rocketed this morning. One can’t observe anything other than these folks are running on empty and really don’t have a clue. They don’t even know the extent of the true situation yet, so it is all policy on the fly and god only knows where this ends .......the fact that there appears to be no modelling. i.e slashing jobseeker/keeper for starters.....let’s entrench a bit more poverty.....
and what the real unemployment rate will actually end up at is certainly not going to give people any confidence going forward.
Being of pessimistic mindset, just because it seems to be the new normal standard, I don’t see adopting a American Chapter11 stance and tearing up lending regulation as anything butjust revisiting days of NINJA practices.
If you consider that 60% of small businesses fail in their first three years ....and there are more crooks and spivs around than ever before, there will be a likelihood of rorting which will probably make any assurances of confidence even less probable, I don’t see people rushing out to take too many risks any time soon.
It would appear the Ed. is just having a bit of a scribble to put a bit of sugar on a shit sandwich.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/sep/25/phoenixing-how-unscrupulous-dealers-rise-debt-free-from-the-ashes-of-failed-companies?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
After the GFC, the Govt. gave clear signals, threw the kitchen sink at the problem and the majority of people followed by opening up their wallets, self included. I just don’t see the same thing happening with this mob.
I don’t see any sense in throwing support behind a punt. ........well done Angus and Joshy.
That sounds pessimistic enough. :))
Where did that 50 years go?
https://youtu.be/TLV4_xaYynY
I don't see any sense of any kind in anything this bunch of inept bunglers is saying they'll try to do.
DeleteBut oh, s'welp me Bob, "like a rat without a tail, I'll do and I'll do and I'll do". And oh, but they will fix the budget, really they will:
Mathias Cormann says government's big spending plans will not delay budget repair
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/sep/25/mathias-cormann-says-governments-big-spending-plans-will-not-delay-budget-repair
“We ought to aspire to get back to the situation where we do everything we can to minimise the level of interference of government in private enterprise, so that private sector businesses across Australia can continue to generate jobs and opportunity for Australians today and into the future.”
DeleteWell it’s quite obvious he and prime Angus don’t talk much.....but why should Mathias worry, the horse is in the stable, ready and waiting for new kingdoms.
Shamelessly inept and arrogantly unconcerned appears to be the only descriptive for this mob.
CA.