... it occurred to the pond that the last the lizard Oz saw of the savvy Savva on a Thursday came way back when, on 28th December last year. Where is she, what's she up to? She was always a pond oasis on a Thursday ...
Yet here we are, with Fergo doing over comrade Dan yet again, the wrong sort of Mead to sip, and the bromancer frothing and foaming in the usual way ... with the other Costello tipped in to show the newly formed reptile desire for diversity in the opinion page...
Well the pond has never been for diversity, not in reptile la la land, and so settled for the bromancer ... because who else could start off in a ludicrous, irresponsible, culpable, mad use of assorted words to set the tone for his piece?
Say what? Has the bromancer gone bolshie? He's sounding just like an MUA submission back on 26th July 2019 ...
Sorry, it's a direct pdf download, but it can be easily googled under Rebuilding Victoria's Coastal Shipping. But now that the Maritime Union of Australia and the bromancer are at one, it's back to the bromancer to sort out his other concerns ...
Fuel security? But that's all been sorted this very day ... thanks to a plucky band of intrepid government stooges who'd do anything rather than resort to renewables ...
The pond envisages nuclear powered shipping and nuclear powered cars in every home - yes, why not, what have you got against nuclear powered toasters? - and nuclear energy everywhere else in this fair land ...
Really up against the bromancer, the pond and National party MPs feel like they come from the Land of Know-Alls above the Faraway tree.
Remember we've had the mad Monk, Malware, SloMo and all the follies and mayhem attendant, and yet the bromancer still dares to ask a teaser question? Straight to the shipping and nuclear node, the pond is inclined to answer.
Not surprisingly, it's not much of an answer to the lathered-up hysteria of the bromancer ... who wants the country on a war footing forthwith ...
And yet he spares the beefy doofus pure beef Angus, and lets go by the strange notion of storing oil on water (when it's the bouffant one's job to pour oil on SloMo's waters), and still says not a word about the real emergency, which happens to involve climate science?
Unfortunately the pond has been waking up at night and listening to assorted ABC programs, the most recent one being at Big Ideas, Three writers discuss the climate emergency ...
Well you won't find any of that idle chatter at reptile HQ or in the coalition government. What to do about polluting the planet for the generations who (hopefully) might come? Why, pollute the planet even more ... make sure there's an afterlife of thousands of years ... it's the perfect solution ...
Thankfully there's an infallible Pope to hand which might be applied to almost any situation involving the current government ...
And so to the wrong sort of Mead, sure to create a hangover ...
The sniping has already started, but again the pond was lying awake at night contemplating the recent rift between the turtle and the orange one, and a dire comparison took hold.
Yes, Yes, Godwin and all that, but the pond was reminded of all the conservatives, right wingers, industrialists and controlling 'leets who thought they might manage Herr Adolf and get what they wanted - say judges of the right kind, and a bloody big tax concession for the filthy rich - and yet when it came time to put said Adolf back in the box, it turned mighty tricky.
Now the best the turtle can hope for is legal action by others, or perhaps a pay-off as a result of a bad diet ... come on down, cholesterol, and save the turtle ...
Meanwhile, the wrong sort of Mead will do their best to pretend that the Donald never happened, and it's all the fault of Joe ...
Apparently there's not a clue at the WSJ how comprehensively the Donald and their chairman collectively fucked the United States in the world's eye ... and yet Joe is supposed to fix it all in a month?
Naturally there's an immortal Rowe to hand to remind the pond of what it was thinking last night, with more Rowe reminders here ...
And so back for another reluctant tipple of mead of the wrong sort, the kind that sticks to the tongue and fogs the brain ...
So soon after the Donald and a riot and an insurrection, and the deluded Mead thinks Americans can proselytise about democracy? We're still fascinated by the ongoing, never ending fallout, though with a bit of luck, thanks to the Nationals we might soon have our own form of fallout ...
Oh okay, the pond only ran with this kind of mead as a way of having a cartoon binge for a closer ...
Apologies for going off topic again but I thought this would provide some comic relief
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/swearyanthony/status/1361984919795240973
I don't watch 7.30 anymore but I had to check because it seemed too richly ironic to be true and there it was at 25 mins.
Perhaps we should have a "lack of self-awareness" award? Plenty of deserving candidates in the herpetarium.
Yes, that'll more than do BF. The pond also misses 7.30, and lo, what a thing to miss ... but at least Barners is out of Tamworth, but nothing can eradicate the shame of being born in the same hospital ...
DeleteHow about a 'Total Lack of Awareness of Personal Lack of Awareness' award, Bef ?
DeleteAnd yeah, quite distressing, DP, but we all know you've risen well above such a murky beginning.
Bromancer: "In World War II ... we lost more merchant sailors than navy sailors. Our cargo ships kept us alive. That won't happen next time ..." Oh, so the Bromancer is adamantly telling us that there will indeed and inescapably be a WWIII ! But it's not much of a recruitment sell for merchant sailors is it: if we start up a merchant fleet, they'll be the first, and the most, to go.
ReplyDeleteOn with the Bro: "Appalling industrial relations in our ports is one factor that killed our shipping industry." That's funny, I thought it was when the Liberal Government flogged off the ANL (Australia National Line) to the French CMA CGM in 1998 that killed 'Australian' shipping. Along with a lot of other things flogged off by both Libs and Labs (but mainly Libs) over the years. And that is why, as the Bro reminds us, "as far as possible, we make nothing in Australia and buy it a from overseas." Especially motor vehicles which we did once upon a time make in Australia - what happened to that, again ?
And about motor vehicles, the Bro reminds us: "Consider fuel security. Last week we learnt we would lose another oil refinery, leaving us with a pitiful two refineries." Will the Bro ever notice, perhaps, just in passing, that Jaguar is going 100% EV and that GM will follow in just a few short years ? And that those vehicles will be powered from wind and solar generators (don't believe a word of that nuclear nonsense).
Just remember: locally generated green hydrogen is the answer !
Good thing the pond is not deep enough to need the services of ‘Australian’ shipping. In 1998 I was involved in R’n’D on hull fouling of ships. There was to be an international conference in Townsville which included some of that work, but what was presented in certain media as the brave Patrick Corp. single-handedly revolutionising Australian port services was moving to an unpleasant confrontation. I called the organisers to ask if the conference was likely to go ahead. They represented most sections of the then Australian ports and shipping, and their response was that the kerfuffles in the south were essentially about Peter Reith revisiting a battle his dad had lost to the maritime unions years before. Some Sydney investors were currying favour with Reith for various reasons, so they were prepared to recruit mercenaries and go into industrial civil war to make good fellas of themselves with the Howard/Reith administration.
DeleteConference went ahead, with full roll call, although the international visitors were, well, puzzled by the images on the evening TV news. The ‘dispute’ was taken through all the courts - with the Government and the company losing on just about every issue.
The Coalition has continued its attrition of ports and shipping in more subtle ways; cabotage has been virtually eliminated within the last 3 years.
If there is a WWIII, the shipping that supplies Australia will sail under flags of convenience. The owners (where they can be identified) will give no more of a toss for the welfare of the crews recruited from various pestholes than they do now, but in the spirit of free enterprise our home of Girtby (useful reminder there) will continue to be serviced by shipping, up to the point where, if we are battling the Chinese, owners from that nation are told to stop allowing their vessels to visit Australia, except, perhaps, for that excellent port in Darwin.
Thank the long absent lord some remember that it's been the conservatives, egged on by the reptiles, that have destroyed the notion of Australian shipping, in a bid to destroy the notion of Australian unions ...
DeleteNow if I wasn't just a tad slow on the uptake, Chad, I'd reckon that was just anther case of the usual right wingnut 'cancel culture' as they have waged against unions for a long time now. And they're winning.
DeleteDorothy - at the time, the reptile opinion writers in 'economics' or 'business' were putting out odious comparisons of the hourly loading rates of shipping containers in Australian ports, compared with (very carefully selected) overseas ports. The people I had got to know, in the business of moving cargo, were unimpressed. Yes, selected ports could load perhaps 20% more containers in an hour than an Australian container port, but much of the activity in the Australian port involved moving containers around on the ship to get to the one - perhaps three layers down - with the goods to be offloaded at that port. The super ports overseas - Singapore, at that time, had as many ship movements in a month, as all of Australia had in a year - were set up to take containers off row by row. Australian ports had a 'pick a container' system in part because of state parochialism - at that time, every state administration, regardless of its political colour, wanted to publish statistics showing goods going out and coming in through THEIR ports. There was no national arrangement to take off almost all of a load in the port best set up to do that - and send containers to other states by rail, which was by far the most efficient (cheapest) way to handle miscellaneous goods. The state parochialism fostered elements of corruption which bodies like the Productivity Commission either ignored, or, more likely, were quite unaware of. GB - your shot at the Productivity Commission.
DeleteGatling or 4-guage ?
Delete"Milo has been banned from Parler."
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/patriottakes/status/1361747894412345355
As recently as 11 March 2019 the Oreo was screaming, let him be heard!
How will children get their natural vitamins and stupidity now?
DeleteMarked the account 'private' and changed the password ! Oh, I'll have to remember that one. Except, if Parler changed the password, how did Milo find that out ?
DeleteDorothy - In a discussion on the question of an evolutionary root for human commitment to gambling, which appears in ‘New Scientist’ #3321, issued February 13 2021, one correspondent referred to Samuel Johnson’s ‘triumph of hope over experience’, but paraphrased to ‘human stupidity, for which no convincing evolutionary explanation has ever been put forward.’
DeleteSo, perhaps it is a behavioural factor with which we must be re-inoculated at intervals.
Actually Kahneman ('Thinking Fast and Slow') has done some work on gambling which is relevant, but personally, I think it all comes down to a simple proposition: many humans are simply not capable of sustained (or even short term) 'slow thinking'. Myself, I have noticed that many humans who have performed some very meritorious 'slow thinking' in certain instances, are simply not capable of extending it into general use.
DeleteI know I'm not, so after some years of betting on the long-nosed chaff bandits, I abandoned gambling altogether - well, conscious, intentional gambling anyway; as we all know any time we go out and drive a car is a high-stakes gamble.
Now, for the lesser (low alcohol) Mead: "Americans often assume that other countries see US leadership as a global public good, are grateful to Washington for providing it and like us more the more we lead."
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, right on: from the American invasion of the Philippines on through the Korean war, the Vietnam war, the Gulf war, the Afghanistan and Iraq invasion wars and sundry middle eastern interferences, the praise has been deafening. Ok, so for WWI, WWII and the Yugoslavia breakup actions there's been some praise, but ...
And now, when we could really do with some 'feet on the ground, propellers in the water and wings in the air' over China, Mead and his Muckers want Joe to just cool it and get on with tax cuts for the rich back at home. And we can't even sic the APC onto him or Roopie.
Wisely you did not choose the Shanahahaman today DP, and just as well - looks like he's shat on the couch - again.
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/bairdjulia/status/1362230725173407745
Thank you VC - and thank you Julia Baird.
Delete