The pond took it as a bad omen, and knew that getting through the lizard Oz this day would be a struggle.
Frankly the pond doesn't give a toss about gambling and giant erections - if all the casinos and poker machines and horse races disappeared overnight, the pond would be blissfully unaware - and when the pond turned to the commentary section, the reptiles also seemed uninspired.
How bad did it get? Well the pond had to settle for listening to that interminable bore, ponderous, pontificating nattering "Ned" rehearse the war with China yet again ...
"Ned" was always inclined to hand-wringing and nervous Nelly attitudes, but here in the war on China, he turns full Chicken Little.
For all the talk of the war on China, there's precious little thought of holding the dragon accountable, though Rowe has been on something of a campaign of late ...
Well there's more Rowe here, but it's back to nattering "Ned" lathering himself up into a sweat ...
Yes, but what would Australia do? Given all the threats? Given what's at stake?
At the very end, "Ned" reveals his gambit ...
More tensions between our strategic and economic needs?
Tough cheddar, Taiwan. Oh it's all very well, this talk of the war with China, but when it comes to selling iron ore, and dearly beloved sweet dinkum Oz coal, let us pause for a moment to reflect ... on the urgent need to bring back pig iron Bob, so he can make sure that a proper stand is taken, and trade maintained ...
Sleep well, comrade Xi. "Ned" is but a quivering jelly ...
But enough of the war on China and principled stands, what of the other reptiles?
Well Dame Slap doesn't like SloMo, not one little bit, and she launched an epic spray ...
However the pond could only take so much of it ...
Scotty from marketing is a buck-passing incompetent? Who knew? What an astonishing insight ...
After that Dame Slap got into harrowing tales and making suggestions, but as these were aimed at a man best suited to holidays in Hawaii, the footy, photos from the marketing department, and speaking in tongues to imaginary friends, the pond decided to move on, even if Killer Creighton was also down on his form ...
Yes, just exactly what is reform? Here the pond must preempt Killer a little by suggesting the sort of sweeping tax reforms that gets him excited, much better than anything Australia has managed since 2000 ...
Yes, that'd be about right ... plenty of chances to search out stories of the Donald's lavishing largesse on the already filthy rich... but wait, does that mean the pond can slip in another Rowe?
And so to Killer talking up sweeping, significant tax reform in the US, for blessed are the rich, and more should be bestowed on them ... weep not, bit coin Elon, Killer has your back ...
The good thing about Killer is that he has no time for grandmas ... let them sell up and move to back of Bourke, it'll be good for them ... and so to a final flourish, in which Killer explains that voters are simpletons, and simpletons elect simpletons, and so here we are, at least when it comes to Killer's epic visions for the country ...
Yes, he didn't have the courage to say that voters were simpletons, rather that they were incapable of complexity of language and preferred basic, moronic speeches from their politicians. And so we ended up with SloMo ... and Killer blaming the punters, though as the punters seem a little wised up when it comes to the US's idea of tax reform, trickle down bullshit, and assorted inequities, between simpleton voters and Killer, the pond will stand with the simpletons ...
In any case, what need of reform, as the infallible Pope reminds us, when the system is working so smoothly ...
And that sadly is that for the day, but perhaps a reptile or two will return to form on the next day ...
Nullified Neddy: "Xi is a sophisticated rhetorician against whom Donald Trump was a selfish, stumbling, strategically inept rival."
ReplyDeleteOh my, the love affair really is over, isn't it: there's not a single reptile defender of Donald John left in News Corpse. Plenty still left in Fox News though, so Miranda will be ok for the rest of her term.
Neddy: "Xi, backed by China's financial power, has embarked on a strategy of global seduction to defuse critics of his expansion of Beijing's authoritarianism."
ReplyDeleteDoes anybody stop to think and/or to ask how all this will be in 500, 1000, 5000, 10,000 years time (assuming homo saps saps isn't extinct by then). Will there still be a China ? Or will it just be a single unified Chinese world ? Or will humanity be back in a stone age survival struggle in an overheated world praying for an ice age ?
What's your guess ? After all, we have over 3000 years of somewhat documented human history to contemplate already, haven't we.
So, ok: "The subjugation of Taiwan "would up-end the regional balance of power overnight and call the rest of America's commitments in the Western Pacific into question"."
So, is Australia part of "America's Western Pacific commitments" or is Japan next in line after Taiwan ? But oh, wau, just imagine: "with Trump ready to resort to gloating denunciation." Oh yeah, that'd turn around the whole American political situation, wouldn't it: the 81 1/4 million Americans who voted for Biden would switch overnight and Trump would be declared President For Life, right ?
Strewth, technology is raging ahead:
ReplyDelete"An Israeli company has produced the first 3-D printed ribeye steak, and the Washington Post thinks there's an audience for it:"
https://jabberwocking.com/thanks-to-science-we-can-now-produce-ribeye-steaks-in-a-3-d-printer/
Personally, I'm waiting until I can make a good bottle of vintage Tokay (preferably from the Hungarian Communist era) and/or a good Grange Hermitage. Now when they spill out from your average 3-D printer, I'll know that the age of technology has finally arrived.
Killer - ‘In the nine years I’ve covered policy, I can’t think of a major reform in Australia to match these in scope.’
ReplyDeleteContributors do not think ahead, do they? Which coalition has occupied the Treasury benches for the last seven and a half years, free from any unseemly suggestions from Limited News that they might actually do something that was truly in the national interest?
In the absence of any ‘reform’, or even an identifiable attempt at such - one can imagine the Killer, perhaps under the shower, wondering what he might write about, um - reform. Inspiration - rather than write about reforms as things, that weren’t even thought of - we can just settle for a semantic diversion on the word, ‘reform’. What was that about ‘lazy journalism’?
This 'reform' thing tends to get a little lost in history, Chad - and that's not counting the long history of 'deform' practised by the members of what is now called the 'Coalition'. So, just to think about health care: we have that wondrous 'reform' the National Health Scheme created by the Brits in the National Health Scheme Act of 1946. Great, yes ?
DeleteBut then we also had this:
"In 1944, the Chifley Labor Government passed the Pharmaceutical Benefits Act 1944 as part of a wider plan to create a British-style National Health Service. The Act was an extension of the similar Repatriation Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme established in 1919 for Australian servicemen and women who had served in the Boer War and World War I."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_Benefits_Scheme
So in 1944, Australia was going to create an 'NHS' like the British one created in 1946. Hmmm. Except for one small problem:
"Social security was extended by the Social Services Consolidation and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Acts of 1947, though the government's attempt to introduce a Commonwealth health scheme foundered on the intransigence of the British Medical Association in Australia."
https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/chifley-joseph-benedict-ben-9738
So there we had some frustrated attempts at 'reform'. And why did the British Medical Association in Australia have the ability to frustrate the reform ? Because Australia was only a self-governing dominion still subject to acts of the British Parliament and did not become a self-governing independent nation until the joint (and simultaneous) signing of the Australia Act on March 3rd, 1986.
Reform is such fun, ennit.