For a long time now, the pond has thought of itself as old school, slightly moth-eaten, worn around the edges, a tattered outlaw trailing behind the reptiles, with monstrous head and sickening cry, a walking parody of all keyboard things, and yet it seems that the pond is actually state of the art, happening now, a truly Presidential phenomenon, ready to be awarded the flying fickle finger of fate …
Please Donald, forget the Zuck. He's a cruel, inhuman monster. Forget the Twittersphere. Join with the reptiles in fearing and loathing it. Better still, join with the pond and we will vanquish these enemies of humanity.
Oh how the reptiles cruelly mocked bloggers back in the day, before failing at their own wretched long-forgotten blog, but now the pond can bask in the reflected glory of the Donald, a man who revitalised universities and steaks and such like, and who now sees that blogging should, must, return to the limelight.
Fools, the pond has had its hour come again, palms scattered at its feet, a tacos and diet coke in hand … and even if a tad more delusional than usual, feels up to the challenge of tackling the reptiles yet again … for those that shall survive this day and see old age, will yearly on this vigil feast with others and remind themselves they had these mental wounds on a sodden autumnal day …
And now, as fellow bloggers, might the pond humbly offer the Donald a few tips.
First the pond understands that you never type, and that suits the pond. The easy way is just to take little gobbets of thought and then have arguments with them as the mood suits ... and a natural taste for stupidity will help enormously. You can bleach them and throw light and shade at them as you will ...
Indeed, indeed, how will we be able to celebrate Santa and the easter bunny if we fail to recognise Xianity?
And so to a sad truth Donald. Once you've decided you're too lazy just to quote the odd sentence, and argue from there, and gone the gobbet route, you're left with large piles of shit, and picking through for the odd delicacy isn't a business for the squeamish.
Take the matter of genocide. Why? Well it's about to score a superficial, strikingly silly mention.
There was, without doubt, a determined attempt to remove Tasmanian aborigines from the face of the earth. Sure, there weren't as many as the Armenians done down by the Turks, but an admirable job was done. It wasn't complete, and there are some in Tasmania who can claim a link to Aboriginal forebears, but why should we downgrade the noble, valiant attempts by white British colonialists going about their business? Apparently some want to ...
Yes, the fact that Australia had its own vital reasons for fighting in the first world war is not discussed, and because they're not immediately apparent, they certainly won't be discussed here. Funnily enough, no one ever quite understood why poppa headed off to enjoy the mud of the Somme in 2017, though he did have a pension which enabled him to live a sodden, pissed as a parrot life ...
And now to a difficult matter. The pond has long enjoyed the reptiles' difficulties with furriners, and you Donald, will be able to share your hostility in your blog ...
Oh it's a simple-minded segue to talk of Greta, but that's the way the patriotic, always Australian, unerringly anti-globalist blogging game is played ...
Why not a brilliant young 15-year old Australian? Well they've been brought up on the extreme lizard Oz diet of a deep love of dinkum, clean, innocent, pure, virginal Oz coal, and an even richer vein of climate science denialism ...
But then we must hunker down in our isolationist bunkers, shelter white mainsteam Australian boys who just want to be lifesavers in Broken Hill, or perhaps in Alice Springs when the Todd is flowing freely ...
As for the curriculum, the pond has its own complaint. Why isn't the Battle of Broken Hill included? Why aren't we showing Muslims for what they are, treacherous and deviant, and hostile to the wonders of Australian democracy? With any luck, we might even export a Blainey student to New Zealand to shoot the shit out of a mosque. Australia, huzzah!
And now with that done Donald, you must accede to the demands of a demanding readership. The pond still doesn't understand it, but many clamour for the thoughts of Dame Groan ...
You mustn't let your own interests or concerns get in the way of pandering to the readership. And you certainly mustn't draw attention to other matters being celebrated by cartoonists, as might be found on David Rowe's Twitter account here ...
Underarm! Even the pond gets that reference ... but no, that would be too distracting, that would be too savvy Savva, we must groan away with the Groan ...
Good old frugal Dame Groan. Frugality! Here some might insert a comical story about a frugal woman in a fairy tale ... others might just prefer a few jokes from a frugal girl...
Be patient while your nest egg grows — and for goodness’ sake, forget about making a killing — The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg
Beware of shaky real-estate investments — The Three Little Pigs
If a get-rich-quick scheme sounds too good to be true, it probably is — Rumpelstiltskin
Don’t trust sweet deals if the company offering them is unfamiliar — Hansel & Gretel
Your assets can grow dramatically if you just wait out the current economy — Sleeping Beauty
Two words: soybean futures — Jack and the Beanstalk
Never miss a window of opportunity — Rapunzel
One word: plastics!
Then refreshed after that visit to the ancient boneyard of frugality, you can move on to the next Groanian gobbet ...
And there you have it, Dame Groan as a supporter of working women, urging the government to adopt a socialist agenda, and support lowly-paid women on struggle street. Take from the rich to give to the poor ... and if you believe that, you'll have a goodly career as a blogger ... because in the very next line, you'll discover a breach of Godwin's Law, Soviet sub-section ... because, let's face it, many women want to sit at home, quietly watching daytime TV, doing a bit of tatting or knitting, or whatever else might quieten suburban neuroses ...
Okay, duty done, the masses have been served their chance to sup at Groan parritch, but likely a few have come away hungry, and so must be served a great disappointment.
Yes, the bromancer has run up the white flag ...
This is against the very best advice on offer this day, what with the lizard Oz editorialist and the Swiss bank account man gung ho, safe in the knowledge that no one can touch a Swiss bank account in the event of war ...
How can the bromancer deal with these recalcitrants and urge a truce? Well that's the charm of blogging ...
Um, perchance, is it wise to ask which party was in control in Canberra and the NT at the time? Certainly not, that would be inappropriate, and see the blogger putting on fancy airs and graces. As humble supplicants, we must listen to the sublime bromancer's logic ... it was likely the fault of Julia Gillard (left office, 27 June 2013), or that Kenyan socialist, Barack Obama, president of another country ...
Indeed, indeed. Poor old federal government. Hapless and helpless and compelled to follow the advice of the Defence Department. What else could it do? It's not like it had a mind of its own, it was just a quivering jellyfish, floating willynilly, a cork on the great ocean of possible policy-making ... as it has been ever since ...
But there were precedents. Pig iron Bob comes to mind ... and anyway, who was to know anything at all about the future, and the reptiles sudden desire to bring on a war?
Ah yes, enough of this talk of a port, and taking action. Let's instead talk up a cyber attack, and the valiant mutton Dutton, ready to bung on a do, but perhaps not a do about the port if they listen to the bromancer ... though he sounds sorely tempted to bung on a do himself ... because where would sales of the lizard Oz be without the war on China?
Yep, it's white flag time, at least for the moment, and that allows the pond a chance to pursue its own personal Thursday pleasure, quality time with the savvy Savva.
Sure, that means rambling on endlessly, but remember, Donald, you always loved to do speeches that ran a couple of hours ... so a couple of hours with the reptiles is just more of the same ...
What's great about the savvy Savva is her intense dislike of Scotty from marketing ... and as usual, she lets him and his mob have both barrels ...
Immoral and cowardly! And now because the pond can sense the reptiles are going to slip in a pathetic cartoon, please allow the pond to slip in one first ...
And so to the reptile 'cartoon' ...
Blood on his hands! Just for bowling up a lollypop ...
Is there any harm in repeating an immortal Rowe? If Pavlov's dog reacts to the sound of a bell, can't a blogger react to a mention of cricket?
Oh no ... is the savvy Savva going to jump the shark and nuke the SloMo fridge with the ultimate insult?
Grotesquely unAustralian! Roll that that one around on the tip of the tongue, and savour it to the full, then let it hit the back of the throat, and savour it again. SloMo is grotesquely unAustralian, or if you will, merely grotesque ... some weird bat out of hell.
There we were starting out with Australian lifesavers, and dinkum young heroic white Australian boys saving a damsel in distress (perhaps from an infidel), and now suddenly we're grotesquely unAustralian!
Oh dear, and with that bat out of unAustralian hell reminder of poor Jim Steinman's passing not so long ago, the pond has finally woken up from a shocking nightmare in which it imagined it was communing with fellow blogger the Donald ...
Quick, pass the pond an infallible Pope ... so that at least we can leave one nightmare for another ...
Talking of 'moth-eaten', DP, how about this:
ReplyDeleteGiant wood moth: ‘very heavy’ insect rarely seen by humans spotted at Australian school
"Mammoth moth which can have 25cm wingspan found by builders working on Queensland primary school"
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/05/giant-wood-moth-found-queensland-australia-school
The pond will be checking the back yard forthwith ...
DeleteGeoff Blainey: "Should the new draft curriculum convince them to respect most of their nation's achievements, or deride modern Australia as primarily a procession of failures, cloaked in racism ?"
ReplyDeleteYeah, Geoffrey, definitely both of the above. And especially about their nation's achievement in dispossessing, murdering, enslaving, oppressing and exploiting the local natives - did you know that our nation's early settlers in Tasmania essentially eradicated an entire 'race' of aboriginals - whilst managing to keep any knowledge of this from most of our own citizens and virtually the whole 'civilised' world.
Now that's an "achievement" to gladden the heart of every wingnut and reptile. Even yours, Geoff, if you ever get to hear about any of it.
Maybe Dame Groan would like to give us all an economics lesson on this negative externality (or whatever you call this)
ReplyDeletehttps://www.smh.com.au/environment/sustainability/hunter-coal-miners-don-t-have-enough-funds-for-land-rehabilitation-20210505-p57p4b.html
It seems that whilst we have constant hand wringing about planned government spending we don't hear much about the costs we are going to incur as a result of business as usual. The $11-25 billion here would just be the tip of the iceberg.
But then again, that sort of talk would upset the sponsors, wouldn't it?
Reading a biassed, racist, mysoginistic duckhead like Blainey is an educative joy, isn't it. Let's consider a couple of examples: "Aboriginal people often suffered from the frontier wars but they suffered even more from the many wars fought by their own "nations" against the other during thousands of years."
ReplyDeleteFirstly, nobody is seriously disputing that Aboriginal tribes fought and Aboriginals killed each other. But at least in part because we destroyed Aboriginal 'culture' and decimated the population, nobody, least of all Blainey, has any idea how inclusive and how often tribal battles were fought.
So why introduce it ? Because somehow, in Blainey's deranged head, it excuses what we did to them. This is a favourite piece of bullshit that reptiles/wingnuts practise repeatedly: unless they are "perfect" then that excuses anything we ever did and do to them. Just go on, Geoffrey, and offer the English Civil War as justification for the Germans starting world wars against them - that'll go down a treat, eh ?
Secondly, I just love this one: "Only one sentence would be needed to inform students of this feat [one of our 'great achievements']. Australia was the first nation in the world to grant women both the right to vote and the right to stand for parliament."
Ok, so a bunch of ex-convicts plus some free settlers and a few local borns make one small step - hesitatingly and with much dissent and opposition - to 'cancel culture' millenia of sexist, mysogynistic repression and enslavement of women and suddenly we're wonderful ? Up your arse like all your self-justifying bullshvt, Blainey.
And of course, that's just another reptile/wingnut self-justificatory diversion.
The Bromancer: "... we now have a Defence Minister, Peter Dutton, with a bias for action."
ReplyDeleteO beudy, mate: maybe we can send him to patrol the Kokoda Trail or defend Singapore ? Oh no, let's post him to Taiwan - those guys need a lot of "action".
And: "If we end the Port of Darwin lease, Beijing will react with extreme vigour." Beudy mate, a real war ! But where ? Besides, how would we know if the Chinese haven't already scurrilously introduced sabotage materials into Darwin so they can destroy the port just when the Americans are making most use of it.
Savvy Sav: "...NSW Pemier Gladys Berejiklian, who has done the lion's share of quarantining, who has kept a sensible perspective on handling breakouts. and for whom Morrison should be lighting candles ..."
ReplyDeleteOk, ok, I'm bunny: what are the odds for "Berejiklian for Prime Minister" !
But, butt Savvy: "These past few days have forced me to question my choice decades ago to become a Australian citizen." Ok then, Savvy Sav, relinquish your Australian citizenship and go back to live in Cyprus. We won't miss you for a moment, I promise you.
And then: "What I would like is for governments and prime ministers not to make me feel ashamed of my choice." Awww, there, there Savvy, but do tell us why you feel ashamed of your choice ? Do you think that Cyprus (both parts of it) has behaved with absolute rectitude all these years ? And why has it taken until now for you to feel "ashamed" ? Have Australian governments otherwise behaved with saintly rectitude throughout your Australian residency ?
Or is it just that you voted for Morrison and therefore you qualify for self-merited 'shame' ?
Great day all round, DP; you should do 'Donald Days' more often. And keep the Chairman's MAGA cap prancing in mind next time.
ReplyDeleteBy golly, you were on fire today GB. The pond will have to be careful in its Donald days ... you gave that Blain chap a particular chill, and very enjoyable and warming it was too ...
DeleteAh, well, DP, my poppa never told me there'd be days like this. But sometimes there just are.
DeleteAfterwards I thought of the Blain's pronouncement as basically being: "We had to kill them to save them from killing each other." And yep, that's classic reptile all right.
The Dame could have rearranged her assertions to provide a better contribution. She could have moved her ‘GDP is clearly a deficient measure of community wellbeing’, to the beginning of her column, and, if she wanted to riff on ‘productivity’ - could have made it ‘GDP is clearly a deficient measure of community wellbeing, and of several other concepts important to people, including measurement of productivity.’
ReplyDeleteAs it is, she acknowledges that ‘individuals respond to incentives’ - then closes off any prospect of an incentive many individuals readily respond to - more dollars in their pay - with ‘the only way real wages can rise is if productivity can grow.’ and said growth has been ‘sluggish for nearly 20 years.’
Methods of measuring productivity have been developed for most kinds of manufacturing - but are matters for earnest debate across the service sectors, which have been the growing proportions of our economy for the last 40 years.
For example, how would the Dame show gains in productivity from her ‘work’ as Contributing Economics Editor?
I suspect she is a believer in a supposed surge in productivity in the 1990s, and, by inference, is telling us it has gone bad since then, but John Quiggin has written ‘Stories about Productivity’ that she is unlikely to reference (Australian Bulletin of Labour, V32, #1, 2006 - to cover that omission) that better deals with these questions, and greatly discounts another supposed economic triumph of the Howard/Costello regime.
In any case, the supposed ‘surge’ was perhaps double the long-term annual increase in productivity as measured, and that is still running at a little over 1% a year for those recent 20 years. That may not look like much - but even 1%, compounded over 20 years, amounts to something that most actual workers have not seen any sign of in their pay statements.
I'm always a little puzzled, Chad, that nobody ever seems to want to mention 'GDP per capita' which is surely a much better measure of prosperity than simple 'GDP'.
ReplyDeleteOn international measures, Australia ranks about 13th in the world by GDP, but 9th (IMF) by nominal (as opposed to PPP) by GDP per capita. Nonetheless my recall is that Australia suffered several 'GDP per capita recessions' - ie GDP per capita decreased over at least two successive quarters - during the many years in which Australia did not ever have a 'nominal GDP' recession.
So am I woofing up the wrong tree, or is GDP per capita some kind of valid prosperity measure ? Especially noting that high immigration increases GDP but frequently diminishes GDP per capita.
GB - I think one reason to be cautious of comparing GDP per capita is that it says nothing about the spread of 'prosperity' in the nations being compared. Thomas Piketty has refocused attention to indices of inequality, but the ones on offer so far are not as easily grasped as a $US number per 'average' citizen.
ReplyDeleteYes, purchasing power parity is significant, but, to me, the real issues lie in the differences in supposed quantity and quality of national prosperity.