The current lockdown is producing a deep state of ennui in the pond, and these reptiles on a Friday are no help at all ... but one piece did intrigue the pond and luckily it had nothing to do with vaccines or viruses or such like.
What on earth could "Chinese military threat is overstated" portend?
Hadn't the scribbler been following the war on China in the lizard Oz these past few years?
Had the lizard Oz suddenly gone full Graudian and peacenik, as they used to say back in the days of crispy bacon?
The pond felt the vicarious thrill of heresy creep up its leg, so on the pond plunged ...
Say what? The reptiles decided they'd plunder Getty Images for a shot of a ceremonial band? But we all know that the sound of the pipes, ay the sound of the pipes, is the right response when marching off to war ...
No, it'd take more than the image of an army band bunging on a tune to call off the lizard Oz hounds of war ...
Play on prof, and let us see what proof you have for your perfidious, odious heresy ...
The reality? The lizard Oz doesn't deal in reality! Where would reality end? Where would reality take us? What would we do with reality if climate science came knocking at the reptile door? Please, no more talk of reality, reality is no excuse for stepping down from a war footing ...
Say what? Sun Tzu? A lack of deployment capability? Sufficient warning time to warn the warmonger dragon off? The pond reeled at all this realpolitik, this shameful and shameless abandoning of the war on China ...
Dear sweet long absent lord, what is this talk? After months of the reptiles pounding on the China war drums, they throw up this aberrant, shocking heresy? Please prof, in the remaining few pars you have, return to sanity, start pounding a few drums ...
Thinking heretically? That entire piece was littered with shocking heresy. It's as if the prof hadn't read a single word of the bromancer, and didn't understand how we needed to give up tanks, and instead bombarded the dragon with long range missiles until they simply gave up ...
Confused and confounded, and feeling betrayed, the pond lurched off to other parts of the lizard Oz, in search of another war ...
Forget little Johnny, we've already abandoned the Afghans. Forget that talk of defamation action for being soft on China. We've already been soft enough on China this day.
Luckily, there was our Henry on his soapbox, perhaps preparing for a speech in the Domain featuring all his pet peeves and profound pedagogical book larnin' ... but also clearly willing to declare war with some fighting words ...
No doubt it will be news that our hole in the bucket man is an expert epidemiologist, as well as an expert medical practitioner, as well as an expert climate scientist, but the pond is betting that before our Henry is finished, he will have dragged in an assorted set of sublime irrelevancies to pad out his piece ... but first we must endure the epidemiological advice ...
Hmm, what did the infallible Pope have to say about all this?
Eek, that's one brain the pond didn't need to peek into ... back to our hole in the bucket man, and the cause of all the reptile problems ... golden Gladys, the no lockdown heroine in full lockdown mode ...
Now at this point, the pond should note the chaos and confusion being flung up by today's headlines in other rags ...
There was the Graudian and a sub-set story ...
Easy enough to google, so much damage control, so little time to actually roll out the vaccine, and then there was this from the SMH ...
Say what? Let 'er rip?
But the lizard Oz were positively triumphant, with victory snatched from the golden 'no lockdown' Gladys' jaws of defeat ...
Yes, not only is Sydney saved, so is the entire Pacific! All thanks to Scotty from marketing ...
What sayeth our Henry? Why of course, it's just the flu ... because he's been reading the lizard Oz too ... in fact, something of a devoted reader, who knows all the standard reptile talking points ...
Yes, we're all weak-kneed pussies now, fancy not wanting to die. Oh you cowardly custards, person up and act like a reader of the lizard Oz. See how the lizard Oz editorialist counsels and advises you on the manly way forward ...
Compassion, common sense?
Strange, those ingredients seemed to be in short supply when it came to the toads and comrade Dan in their moments of peril and need. But now we're going to join our neighbours and let her rip, aren't we? Or is all the mixed messaging just a way to sow doubt, confusion and fear?
Yes, compassion, like common sense, is essential, except when showering praise on our golden "no lockdown" Gladys, and berating the toads and that fiendish comrade Dan ...
Of course flinging in the lizard Oz editorialist was a big tease, a bit like those Saturday matinee hooks when the burning wagon flies off the cliff, and arrows rain down on the occupants as they hurtle to their fiery doom, at least until next week.
But the pond has built up the moment as much as it could ... because it's the moment the pond predicted at the get go, when our Henry drags in the likes of Hans Jonas, and Martin Heidegger, and Plato and ontology, and dear sweet long absent lord, not the Holocaust, oh please, not the Holocaust ... not 'arbeit macht frei' and Hiroshima ...
Of course the virus is now in full retreat. Our hole in the bucket man's wise words have sent it scuttling, and the bonus ... our Henry heading off to the Domain to show us the ancient art of seppuku with his trusty Wakizashi, to show us us all how to die bravely ... will eliminate the elimination strategy, and stare down fear ...
Oh there's nothing like Plato and ontology and Hiroshima and Jonas to show the virtue of sacrifice, the pleasure of blowing the pipes and winning the battle, just as they did at the Somme ... unless, in another universe, we're following the immortal Rowe, with more Rowe to follow here ...
Packham and Maddison: "John Howard says the country has a 'moral obligation' to provide asylum to Afghans who worked with Australian troops." The country has an obligation ? Ok then, as a citizen of this country, how do I go about fulfilling that obligation ? Can I issue them with visas and passports, perhaps ?
ReplyDeleteOr is it "the government" that has this "obligation" ? And just what 'moral obligation' does Little Johnny think that ScottyfromMarketing and the mutton Dutton are likely to exhibit when being moral is not any part of their world ?
I thought that the staging of announcements by Scotty from Marketing seemed familiar - and found the source of his style.
ReplyDelete‘drawing a deep sigh of relief from everybody, the hostile figure melted into the face of Big Brother. . . . . full of power and mysterious calm, and so vast that it almost filled up the screen. Nobody heard what Big Brother was saying. It was merely a few words of encouragement, the sort of words that are uttered in the din of battle, not distinguishable individually, but restoring confidence by the fact of being spoken.’
‘As short a time ago as February, the Ministry of Plenty had issued a promise (a ‘categorical pledge’ were the official words) that there would be no reduction of the vacccina . . chocolate ration. . . . . . .All that was needed was to substitute for the original promise a warning that it would probably be necessary to reduce the ration at some time in April.’
What was that saying about ‘1984’ was not intended to be an instruction manual?
Deary me, Holely Henry is drifting off further and further into 'never-never land' each time he writes. So, consider: "The safety blanket [Jonas's "guardians"] would, in other words, serve to suffocate the very way of life it was intended to preserve, thus 'prizing the physical survival of the species over its freedom'."
ReplyDeleteSo, simple minded as I am, can anybody tell me just how many 'degrees of freedom' an extinct species has ? Holely is one of those reptiles who cannot quite grasp that the world, and all the humans in it, cannot be frozen forever - change is inevitable. Or does he believe that, say, the world of Plato's republic and its 'philosopher kings' guardians can endure for millions of years. Or Orwell's 'inner party' guardians ?
So what if the regulated and constrained society under the rule of 'guardians' lasts a million years - is that forever ? They just have no sense of time and duration and history - if anything ever turns out badly in their opinion, then that's how it will be for as long as homo sapiens sapiens exists in sufficient numbers to have a society replete with guardians.
So just consider this:
"For mammals, the average species exists for 1 million to 2 million years, according to an article in the journal People & the planet.
However, this average doesn't hold during all geologic periods and for all mammals. The average for the Cenozoic era (65 million years ago to present) mammals is 3.21 million years, with larger mammals lasting longer than smaller mammals, according to a 2013 study in the journal Integrative Zoology."
How long do most species last before going extinct?
https://www.livescience.com/how-long-do-species-last.html
Now 'modern humans' (homo sapiens sapiens) are considered to have been in existence for close on 200,000 years. Therefore, even if we're in the shorter species' lifetime range, Homo sap sap still has somewhere between 800,000 and 1,800,000 years to go. All lived in societies controlled by Jonas guardians, yes ?
Site was that bit coy last night - so let's see how we go now.
DeleteGB - I looked at the Henry contribution - and, on the second read, it came to me that he could have cited the 'Tullock spike' and ventured into risk compensation. Except that that would suggest he took seriously, what Gordon Tullock called a thought experiment. Tullock's thought - as befitted a genuine economist looking at public policy - came when there was still debate in the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave, about seat belts in cars. He wondered what would be the outcome of governments mandating that there be a sharp spike extending from the steering column, so that even a minor accident would cause the driver's death.
Actually, as you probably drove the Holden/Fords of around the 60s - the steering column was a pretty lethal proposition (without a restraining belt) anyway, but most drivers were oblivious. The spike would have got their attention.
There are studies that show that addition of safety equipment to many human activities does not markedly reduce injury/deaths, because participants just go harder when they feel safer.
Fortunately not so much, Chad; my early driving was in my Morris Minor side valve, and later in a VW Beetle 1500, though also a few years driving a Torana in between. Though I did get to do a few years of driving in Yellow Cabs' Holdens including several years in an EH - and since 1966 inclusive, apparently, all local models of Holdens had seat belts fitted. That's one year after the EH.
DeleteI do like Tullock's idea though, but would it have actually worked or are even Aussies too 'larrikin' for that.
But I think it is clear that 'visible safety' inspires significant complacency and a tendency to 'go harder' as you say. Indeed, being a Victorian I can see that Deathly Dan's strict 'platinum standard' long lockdown did create a lot of carelessness and complacency which has been cured to some extent by the most recent, thankfully short, lockdown.
Waiting to see what the effect in NSW of Gladys's 'gold standard' lockdown will be.