There's a new variant on the horror genre doing the rounds, and the pond is sure that most will have caught at least one example coming out of the USA, as most movies still do ...
It usually features a patient on their death bed, surrounded by starkly useless medical equipment, as the patient struggles for breath and seeks to warn others of their folly - of not getting vaccinated, of listening to stupid people peddle nonsense (and here, if you want the monster under the bed, you might like to insert a MAGA cap, or perhaps Faux Noise, or a GOP representative, or a similar sight, though this might result in an R rating).
The pond's rough equivalent is to run with the dog botherer this day ...
Note that still well, because before this is over, you might experience a case of reptile déjà vu ...
And so to business, and first of all, it should be remembered that the dog botherer has a gig at Sky News, recently taken down for peddling misinformation. And the dog botherer quite recently made explicit his aim - to kill people - by hoping that the NSW lockdown might fail.
The pond had to insert those caveats up front because this is going to be a long and pointless trudge through the dog botherer killing fields ...
Indeed, indeed, if you happen to be an old fart in reptile la la land, it doesn't matter if you cark it, and even if the reptile misinformation happened to help you get there, it still doesn't count as a tragedy... which leads the pond to humbly suggest that if the dog botherer were to kick the bucket, it wouldn't be a tragedy, it might even be a blessed relief ... but in the meantime, we must carry on as best we can ...
Just the facts ma'am, just the facts? The dog botherer is pulling a Joe Friday? Well speaking of hysteria and Sky News, the Weekly Beast came up with a beauty ...
The holocaust! Then they came for another serve of the dog botherer ...
Or perhaps, if you happen to be a reptile in love with the killing fields, to die with Covid, to die for the dog botherer and Killer Creighton cause ... and then we can talk of the holocaust some more ...
But the pond digresses because life in the killing fields with the dog botherer does get tedious at times ...
Indeed, indeed, who wouldn't rather be a victim of Ron DeSantis's success? Who wouldn't want to replicate the current US experience down south? How else to generate those horror film clips of people gasping a warning with their dying breaths?
Of course while talking of the hysteria in others, the dog botherer is himself inclined to hysteria. The one thing that history suggests is that times change, not necessarily for the better, nor for the worse. After the Spanish flu came the roaring twenties, and then a big bust, and then a recovery and then a world war, and so it comes and so it goes, and so "possibly irreparably" is one of those deeply stupid thoughts that only a dog bothering idiot might come up with ... because if you want irreparable disruption, try life in the grave, or perhaps years with Covid after effects ...
And then the pond was truly astonished and appalled at this sighting in the next, final, short gobbet ...
Nattering "Ned"?
Nattering "Ned" inserted to natter away at the end of the dog botherer column? Could there be any better way for the reptiles to help the dog botherer in his claim that purgatory triggers despondence?
These are desperate times, and with a sinking heart, the pond knew that in due course it would have to tackle the towering mountain known as "Ned" ...
In the meantime, the pond just wanted to draw attention to how troubled the reptiles are becoming ...
Time to lead, Mr Morrison?
Oh that's bad, that's shockingly bad. When Shanners takes to talking of Mister Morrison, we're in desperate, dire straits ...
The bouffant one has only one duty, so far as the pond can tell, in reptile la la land, and that's to write gushing hagiographical tosh about the fearless leader, and yet now we get "Time to lead Mr Morrison"?!
The pond usually doesn't bother with Shanners, but this made the pond stand up and pay attention.
What's even more astonishing is that the usually brief Shanners - there's only so much you can insert into a hagiography - carries on at some length ...
A singular, bold declaration of hope? That's the best we've got? How about a singular bold declaration of vaccines freely available and everybody rushing to get their fix?
Nope? Then please waiter, a shot of that perfidious comrade Dan, just to remind reptile readers who's really to blame ...
The required response may only be rhetorical? Oh fuck, we're doomed ...
What's that? Rats in the ranks and disagreements? But as the Weekly Beast noted, it was a Gladys fest at the Terror ...
The pond can't keep up with the mixed messaging and then came a sight that thoroughly unnerved the pond ...
Nattering "Ned"?!
Nattering "Ned" nattering away yet again?! In the heart of a Shanners column?!
This bloody "Ned" is a veritable cane toad, a cockroach ... or is it just that the reptiles are desperate to make a folly seem vaguely presentable and listenable, and are shoving him everywhere just to lead some mindless reader astray?
Not to worry, the pond knew that it must tackle Everest at some point, but meanwhile there was just a gobbet to go ...
By golly, that's about as outraged as the pond has ever seen the bouffant one get, and at his idol of all things ...
Speaking of outrage, the pond simply had to make room for one further burst by a newcomer to the pond ...
It started reptile strong and proud, with a shot of perfidious demonic comrade Dan, and cunningly the pond checked to make sure it was "Ned" free, and then Stevo went full dog botherer, with a dash of Killer Creighton to produce a heady brew ...
Everybody dies is the worst case? What a wag. Just a lot dying is the Ron DeSantis reptile best case ... and so on Stevo went with his killing fields routine ...
Ah yes, die old farts die, or if you will, the old farts the, but at this point the pond should note that the reptiles inserted as a break a really bad snap of the Opera House ...
It's a long time since the pond has taken photography seriously, and it never did like using flash, but really a little fill light, perhaps? Or maybe let the clouds white out a little so we can see the faces?
Sure the 5,000 dead should be represented somehow, but can we at least see them smiling as they head off to Stevo's land above the faraway tree.
That snap's a bit too much like the reptiles wanting to evoke a world where Stevo might be running things, and things really starting to fuck up, and the lighting the first thing to go ...
Why it's a crack-up as big as the Ritz, though the pond isn't sure what's to be gained by staring at this Karen in a Coles aisle, moaning and whining and complaining.
Best get it over with quickly ...
No, in reptile la la land, the point is to kill off the old farts so that we can run wild and free, the hair tousling in the wind, the sunlight bouncing off smiling faces, and so on and so rhetorically forth, and if a few might die, they can die with a laugh and a manic cry of freedumb ... or make a video from their hospital bed warning of what it feels like to get a dose of Stevo and the dog botherer, whatever, the pond is in a never no mind frame of mind ...
Communist China?
Surely as the pond has established, we should be breaking Godwin's Law and talking of the Nazis and the holocaust, but never mind, well-played Stevo, you have taken the killing fields by storm, you even evaded a dose of nattering "Ned", and the pond is only going to take a quick break before tackling Everest ...
There's more competitive immortal Rowe events here, and now to the main event, that fast sprint up the wall known as "Ned", but don't imagine you can top this wall in seven seconds ...
Say what? The reptiles actually have a graphics department? Might the pond match that one with a snap of some graffiti that can be found in a Fitzroy lane ... (oh you perfidious followers of Comrade Dan) ...
Well that's the end of the entertainment from the reptiles and the pond. From now on, it's just a hard slog, made worse if you imagine "Ned" reading his words, and hear his dullard voice sounding in your inner ear ...
A Q & A?
Why that's even worse than the darkest pond fears ...
It's a kind of "Ned" catechism, and the pond went into mind-numbing contortions trying to imagine how "Ned" handled his reading duties.
Did he ask himself a question, and then did he answer his question? Weird, try to imagine it, and if the brain hurts, stop and go get something to eat ...
By golly, the pond was already nodding off, and the reptiles knew it, because they inserted a snap ...
Ha, as if the pond needed a snap of SloMo to carry on ... let it be scaled down, and on we go ...
Did "Ned" just call the dog botherer and Stevo reckless wreckers?
Oh never mind, the pond is too tired to argue, too tired to think ...
The pond knew at this point that it had made a mistake. There was no defeating "Ned", there was no point climbing Everest.
And the reptiles knew it too ...
Does anyone have any memory cells left? Can anyone remember the snap the reptiles inserted at the start of the dog botherer rant? Because thar she blows again ...
The pond had warned of reptile déjà vu, and there it was, a bit like those recurrent nightmares of "Ned" turning up as a recording ...
It was too much for a possum or a koala or a pond to bear, but worse was to come ...
Oh fucketty fuck, there it is again, the cane toad of News Corp, the cockroach of Surry Hills, "Ned" doing water torture, with the threat of the slow drip drip of his voice ... quick, render it harmless, as the pond has done with all the "Ned" audios by offering only a screen cap ... and then on we go, the few brave souls still standing, those who didn't rush up to the virus, shouting 'oh just kill me now, let me sacrifice myself for the dog botherer and Stevo, anything to end this torture' ...
At this point, the reptiles tried another ploy ... a snap of the wretches that Stevo had ranted about, the ones that send the dog botherer into a foam-flecked frothing form of hysteria ...
The pond appreciated the attempt to humour us along, but felt even better knowing that it had made it to the end of the "Ned" speechifying ...
Nobody will forget? The pond feels like it's just had a mind wipe of the men in black kind ... and so it turned to the infallible Pope for a little boost to the spirit, knowing that this day the virus had been vanquished by the reptiles, and tomorrow would, in those immortal words, be another day ...
This is getting a little eerie. Yesterday, in exchanges with GB, I cited Colin Whitcomb Clark, stressing that he was not to be confused with Colin Grant Clark.
ReplyDeleteEven as I was putting that comment up - one Alex Millmow was spruiking his bio. of Colin Grant Clark, on ‘Quad Rant’ online. Millmow is an Associate Professor at Federation University, and I suppose it would be useful to have a bio. of Colin G., who did useful work on national economic indicators.
I admit to a touch of prejudice that his promo. appears on the ‘Rant’, and felt justified when he writes ‘In 1935 he (Clark) had discovered that Malthus’s dire prophecy of population growth outstripping food production was predicated upon diminishing returns; ‘ - which suggests that either Clark or Millmow has completely missed the point of Malthus’ little volume, which was titled ‘An Essay on the Principle of Population’. It is quite easy to read, but I suspect that it fits that slightly cynical definition of a ‘classic’ as being ‘widely quoted, never read.’
Umm, well I have to admit to never having read Malthus either, but I did understand that his thesis was basically that the human population increases exponentially, but food production increases arithmetically and that therefore, at some more or less indeterminate point in time, population increase will significantly outpace food increase.
DeleteAnd some thought that time had already arrived back when in 1968 Paul Erlich published 'The Population Bomb'. Of course the 'Green Revolution' took care of that (silly Erlich not to have foreseen that would happen just about at the same time as he published his book).
And now that the Gulf Stream is dying [ https://tekdeeps.com/the-gulf-stream-is-about-to-collapse-sweden-can-become-uninhabitable/#:~ ] Erlich's fears might at last be justified.
But no, the way to make food increase become exponential is to forego old fashioned agriculture and fishing and chemically manufacture food. No, not soylent-green, but chemical manufacture like 'artificial meat' is being made.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20161104-the-past-present-and-future-of-the-food
So who knows - do any of us really believe in predictions of a first stabilising, than falling human population ? Would all of our "invisible friends" permit it ?
Oh, and just to rectify a thoughtless omission, yes, food can be manufactured by 3D printers.
DeleteOh that was a truly mad dog howl by Waterson, wasn't it. Such people can't be reached by reason and evidence, the only path is to make sure they have all the freedom necessary to cop a really bad case of Covid themselves. [Just as an aside, now that we have that new variant of SARS-CoV-2, Delta, is the disease now named Covid-21 ?]
ReplyDeleteSo, he screams: "How many small businesses are you ready to see disappear ? How many suicides will you tolerate ? How many bankruptcies ? How many children should forgo their formative primary education and socialisation ? How many deaths from other untreated illness are acceptable to you ?"
But, bg, butt, there has essentially been no increase in suicides:
Distress up but suicide rate steady amid COVID-19 pandemic: study
https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/health/distress-levels-up-deaths-steady-in-covid-c-3450755
But you have to go to a non-reptile newspaper to get that good news.
But I was just thinking about my father: born 1905, migrated to Australia 1908 in a paddle-steam augmented sailing vessel. Finished school at 14 (Form 2 at a State Central), apprenticed and became a bricklayer. Life was looking good despite very little education and socialisation. And then, at the ripe old age of 24, came the Great Depression. He basically didn't work again for more than 4 years. How many small businesses disappeared ? How many bankruptcies ? How many suicides ? How many deaths from untreated illnesses because people had no money and we had nothing even remotely like Medicare.
And best of all, it wasn't some mindless virus, it was a completely human mindful affliction made worse by Otto Niemeyer and the Bank of England plus Churchill's idiotic restoration of the 'gold standard'. But hey, the world didn't collapse, our ancestors worked their way through it. And then in 1939, just after the Great Depression had mostly ended, we copped another fully mindful human affliction: World War 2.
It's been a great century, hasn't it.
Oh, and just for Stevo, some things that could happen if we just open up and "learn to live with it":
"While earlier strains of the virus were most deadly among the elderly, Professor Jason Kovacic, from Sydney's Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, said there was evidence to suggest Delta was different."
Why Delta COVID-19 variant could put younger people at risk of deadly cardiac complications
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-07/delta-variant-of-covid-19-causing-heart-problems-young-people/100352868