Before getting down to reptile business today, which alas and alack, still concerns the budget, the pond would like to celebrate Marina Hyde's opening gambit ...
The rest of it, including the hot links, is here, but it put the pond in a good mood all day yesterday, what with the pond fancying it was a peerless formula one driver, and tearing up the streets of Sydney ...
But uppers must be followed by downers, and so to the savvy Savva of the day ...
Indeed, indeed, and here the pond must get in early with a defining Rowe, which explains all the anguish that is to follow, with more definitional Rowe always to hand here ...
Look, there's that smirk again, and Joe Hockey's memorial bench, and a fragrant cigar still smoking, and off in the distance those dear old dotards, debt and deficit, admiring the glow of the sinking sun ...
How hard it must be to be a reptile, and reconcile all this ... yesterday there was "Ned", wringing his hands and worrying what it all means, and today the jaundiced Savva cultivates her usual saucy doubts and fears ...
Oh dear, another election, as we clap happy towards the rapture ... and the best that the reptiles can offer by way of an illustration? A Scooby Doo cartoon ...
Dear sweet long absent lord, the pond can feel Colin Wilson's mind parasites beavering away in its head, but at least there's only one gobbet to go ...
Well that was one take on this extravagant Labor budget, but the pond was beguiled by another ...
It takes an extraordinary amount of gumption or stupidity to turn a 'spend, spend, spend' budget into an ideological war, but the pond thought that the bouffant one's attempt was wholly admirable ...
Yes, it's a remarkable feat to get from talk of there being no ideological constraints to there being an ideological war, but that's how things are at lizard Oz HQ these days ...
Perhaps most poignant of all was the lizard Oz editorialist, exhibiting what might be called 'phantom limb' syndrome ... a vague memory of once having talked of debt and deficit and balanced budgets and such like, and still feeling the compulsion to talk about them again ...
Poor lizard Oz editorialist. So much talk of little Johnny, so much talk of Ming the Merciless, and yet deep in their hearts, they know that decades of reptile budget blather have gone with the wind ...
See how they struggle on, grasping at straws, celebrating the cash splash, and never mind the dark side, the side that would have once induced paroxysms of fear and endless raging at the likes of former Chairman Rudd and his cash-splashing minions ...
And yet at the end that phantom limb returned, the nerve ends still twitching, a reflex jerking about productivity-boosting reform, but the horse already out of the gate, and long gone, faraway over the hills, and the infallible Pope ready to pounce ...
Now there's an Escher the pond can get behind ... and so to the bromancer and the war with China ... because budget or no, the war still picks up pace ... and the bromancer has a different gripe ...
The pond is all in favour of the solution proposed by M. David, with more solutions routinely noted here ...
Back to the bromancer, still in an agony of eight fits ...
Oh dear, it seems that all that's left is to wave the white flag, or settle for a last gobbet ... and yet the pond has fastidiously followed the reptiles down sundry rabbit holes, to return with excellent news ...
Good one Killer, what's a few lives if it means being free of masks, and now for a killer blow from the bouffant one ...
Of course on another planet, speaking of planetary wars, you might read the Graudian's The 2021 federal budget was light on climate and environment measures. But here's what you should know, or you might even take in a First Dog cartoon, in full form here ...
But no, tanks is the game ... tanks for the memory ... tanks for fighting the last war yet again ...
And so, though the pond has already run well over length, to a bonus, a leftover from yesterday, reheated in the microwave and served as a tasty dish ...
Uh huh ... and from there it gets quite demented and weird ... and fully deserves its place in the pond annals ...
Did anyone else notice that sensitive flourish in the last par? You know, when speaking of the invasion, the light-hearted celebration of the killing, in a manner of speaking, progressive and conservative birds, or dare one say it, uppity difficult blacks, getting in the way of exciting visions of Regency architecture, poems, and grecian urns ...
It's hard to complain however, moving as we have this day from the transit of deficit and debits to the transit of tanks to the transit of Venus ... and perhaps, finally, the transit of Wilcox ...
Now here's a strange thing: in all of the Bromancer's rave about military equipment, not one single whisper about submarines - Collins or other - and not one mention of F35s. F/A-18 Hornets, yes, but nothing about F35s. And no mention of smart marine mines either, though he did mention them just a few days ago. We're gonna need them to sink the Chinese fleet so they can't land enough tanks to challenge our 75 whizzes.
ReplyDeleteLike I said, a good liar needs an excellent memory, and the Bromancer's is kinda fading.
Murdoch has ordered 'beat to quarters' and Sheridan is banging away ceaselessly on those drums.
DeleteKind of reminiscent of Iraq, isn't it? "Editor Greg Sheridan deserves special mention for hyping up Iraq's supposed threat. No other Australian journalist produced more fawning attention to the claims churned out by Bush, Blair and Howard, though stable-mate Paul Kelly was also competitive. Virtually all of his claims have subsequently been proven false and yet no apology has been forthcoming."
https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/sleeping-lies-dogging-the-media-over-iraq-20040623-gdj6y1.html
The thing is, he doesn't have to remember this lie anymore than "George W Bush will be seen as the new Winston Churchill" or a dozen others that Dot can probably list without thinking. We all know this is bullshit, the zombie army of Oz subscribers do not care to be corrected and the average voter is watching The Block or whatever.
Although the link is tenuous I will link this podcast I listened to whilst travelling recently
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/strength-of-australian-anti-war-sentiment/13313746
One of the guests, Douglas Newton, has published this as well on Menadue's blog.
https://johnmenadue.com/whitlam-keating-anzac-and-the-drums-of-wars-past/
I'd known about some of these things before but it's interesting to see the real motives for war laid out so plainly. " In March, Britain and France did a secret deal with Russia, the ‘Straits and Persia Agreement’, gifting the spoils of the imminent Gallipoli campaign to Tsarist Russia: the Straits, and Constantinople, to be rechristened ‘Tsargrad’. In return, Russia offered support for an Anglo-French carve-up of the Ottoman Empire – bounty beyond counting – and a bonus for Britain, a doubling of her share of Persia, an area about twenty-five times the size of Belgium. The oil in Persia, under the control of Anglo-Persian Oil, was secured". Admittedly, this is a bit more complex than "they died for our freedom" so is unlikely to be mentioned on Anzac day.
Apologies for the digression but a little bit more cynicism is required when right wing organisations start talking about freedom or express concerns for minority civil rights.
I have one small qualifier about right wing organisations: they will talk long and loud, maybe even shout a bit, when justifying their own freedom and defending their own "minority civil rights". But apart from that, much agreement; though we should keep in mind that the wise and incredibly well informed Polonius has clearly told us that "Australia had its own interests in WWI". Well, of course we did - and Polonius' certification just makes it as yet another pile of bullshit.
DeleteWhitlam's points, of course, are way beyond the ability to comprehend of Australian journalists. Though, since I seldom do long trips in motor cars these days, I think I'll just pass on 53 minutes of listening to "the man in black".
Otherwise, yes the American "newspaper of record" pushing Judith Miller's lies amounts to war crimes.
And George W Bush was indeed the "new Churchill" who was something of an incompetent idiot and a poor war leader - just consider the fate of the Repulse and the Prince of Wales in WWII. One might even be tempted to think that Churchill was actually the first Trump.
Motor car? Planes and trains in this case.
DeleteThis episode covered historical anti-war sentiment, conscription, capital punishment (did you know Monash was in favour of shooting the odd deserter), the role of the yellow press (well, they were all pretty complicit) and the general bastardry of those in power.
Planes and trains (other than metropolitan suburban) go way too far for mine. I was going to add "and are far too expensive" but they practically pay you to get on board these days. Though I occasionally do a 50+ minute car ride down to the Mornington peninsula, so who knows.
DeleteMonash I know little about except that he's reputed to have been a very effective general. Shooting deserters ? Well I guess when you become acclimatised to death by shooting, it all goes down quite easily. Pour encourager les autres is the way it goes, n'est ce pas ? And who performs 'The One Day of the Year' nowadays.
Who is Liz Cheney ? Here's a bit of background about her:
ReplyDeleteLiz Cheney’s Stand Had Nothing to Do With Principle. Ask Her Sister.
https://theintercept.com/2021/05/12/liz-cheney-republican-house-trump/
....even most militias....
ReplyDelete"His success in polls has owed much to his image as the person who can best ..."
DeleteJust another one of a very large cohort that includes Trump, Johnson, Morrison and even Hawke and Howard.
https://youtu.be/bI3QVsW30j0