All the pond can do is apologise from the get go, for reptile dereliction of duty and shameless lack of interest.
Wednesday is Dame Slap day. That's when the IPA chairman lays out her plans for Gina's mob, frequently offers a litany of complaints, whines and howls at the moon, and sometimes cuffs SloMo around the ears for not being Gina enough ...
But the pond looked and looked, and found no Dame Slap. A Wednesday without Dame Slap? Unendurable, especially in these troubled times.
Maybe she'll turn up later in the day, but then it's too late for the pond.
And what did the reptiles offer up instead? A chance to nod off with "Ned" ...
Yep, the pond's eyes glazed at that one ...
Why that must be better than the pond's own patented elixir ...
... and should the pond ever want to nod off on a Wednesday morning to the dulcet sounds of "Ned", it'll give it a go, and have a listen to the old loon reading his words rather than taking a swig of its favourite syrup ...
But instead, meanwhile, must make alternative preparations ...
... and toothpicks in place, on we go ...
By now the pond was really mad at the reptiles. All this blather and no Dame Slap. Could they make it any worse?
They could, they could ... a click bait video of SloMo, as if the pond needed any more incentive to nod right off with "Ned" ...
All the pond could do was render the paltry offering inert by way of screen cap, and make it really small, while still keeping as part of the pond's record of "Ned's" offering ... you know, ship shape, everything in good order and tidy, before moving on to the next gobbet ... but not before pausing for a Wilcox ...
Yes, that's a nice intro into "Ned's" next line for those parking their cars in their rorted car park before heading off to the local federally funded sports rort ...
Always NSW, but if fool's gold standard Gladys is going to be the test, then can the pond shift to Victoria?
Incidentally, the pond has been advised by a family member that in south Gippsland they're now giving away the lizard Oz for free. Is this true?
Has anybody else seen this phenomenon?
Is the rag now so worthless it's deemed priceless? Might that help explain the yarn in yesterday's Crikey? (paywall)
Sorry, sorry, got distracted again, must finish "Ned" ...
Well Ned's done and dusted, and the pond remained awake enough to look around at other reptile offerings ...
Sorry mate, the pond knows you want to appeal to the reptile readership base, but you lost the pond right there at the 'spot-on' start.
Something happened to Bill when he took that tumble and his lines began to coarsen, and so did his jokes, and there's an end to it, and you can just spot-off ...
What else?
The Swiss bank account man talking about popularity? Pass, and pass too on Shanners, doing a standard reptile offering.
There was nothing for it but a tedious history lesson with Blainers, while the pond shouted into the ether once more at Dame Slap's failure to show ...
Really? Is that the best image the reptiles could turn up to begin a story about the Spanish flu? Really? Aren't we going to have a history lesson?
Okay, okay, that "wear a mask or go to jail" sign should be enough to give Killer Creighton the heebie jeebies, we can move on with the history lesson ...
Sorry, the pond got that wrong, it thought it was going to get a history lesson, but ended up with an ode or perhaps a paean ... though there followed a tremor, a hint that things were not entirely as the poet had hoped ...
Hmmm, what to do? The reptiles thought long and hard about that one, and eureka, realised they had a graph left over and ripe for recycling ...
Troubled by the size? Not to worry, just see above.
The pond only inserts that graph to keep the entire Blainers presentation in order ... and as a painful reminder of those grim words in that Crikey story ...
Instead of investing in its lagging Australian papers and Foxtel/Sky News, or its faltering UK masthead The Sun, the Murdoch clan’s second company is buying a major global oil and gas data reporting website called Oil Price Information Service (OPIS)…
…The latest deal comes as News Corp has started cutting dozens of jobs from its back offices in Australia as part of the revamp of its shared services across the empire. That is being overseen by Damien Eales, the former chief operating officer of News Corp Australia.
As part of its shared graphs across its columnists?
Oh poor old underfunded graphics department, slashed to the bone so that the Chairman can toss his dollars elsewhere ...
Anyone want a free tree killer lizard Oz? The pond understands that a nicely crumpled up rag works terribly well as a fire starter, and they have a need of warming fire in south Gippsland in winter, what with being only a hop and a step away from the Antarctic, thanks to the winds that blow up from the south ...
Sorry, sorry, the pond is bored shitless this morning, and open to almost any distraction, so why not a passing jibe at the rellies and a burning of the lizard Oz, but on we go ...
Xians? Oh indeed, indeed, just a step closer to heaven ...
... though perhaps more to the point and more useful ...
And then at last came an interesting point from Blainers ...
A lot of false and fickle information from hidden followers of the new media?
Oh come now, don't be shy, and better still, don't be full of pompous, delusional, distracting bullshit.
Celebrate the sources, boast how they're not hidden, but parade shamelessly in the public eye ... or at least they did, until they were noticed ...
Blainers kissing cousin with dissemblers, liars and fraudsters, and apparently unaware of it, and was there word in that Graudian piece of the stupendous role played by ACMA? There was, there was ...
Yes, you can blame new media if you're a wilful, obfuscating old historian pandering to reptile hosts, but you can't hide old media and the wretched uselessness of ACMA ...
Now please, aged father William, do finish up. You should have taken to the law, because arguing each case with your wife would have given you the muscular strength in the jaw needed to argue with reptiles for life ... and besides, the pond has Rowe's alternative Olympics to attend ...
Thank the long absent lord, at last and long over time, the meandering nodder in chief and the delusional new media dodderer have left the stage, and it's time for another alternative Olympic event, with other events to be found here ...
My Source tells me that our Killer has come on the stage late with ‘news’ of an ‘Explosive Republican Report’ on possible origins of the Covid-19 strains. Nothing of economic consideration in the ‘report’ - a document compiled by wordsmiths on the staff of Michael McCaul (for the unaware - apparently an important congressperson, of the current Trumpublican faith).
ReplyDeleteThe lines of reasoning and rhetoric read like the breathless, exclusive, revelations of our Sharri, but the Source was too busy to check (well, wanted to make herself a frothy coffee) if she was acknowledged in the references. The report does refer to Australian virologists co-authoring papers in international journals.
Anyway - clear the way for the Explosive Republicans.
Oh - the Source’s original intention was to tell me about a rambling item, under the name ‘Angus Taylor’ on the dreadful EU carbon tariff. She says it is so disjointed it might even have been written by the Beefy one himself, rather than some nerdy minion. Whoever the author was, they grieve for what ‘will punish developing countries relying on energy-intensive industries to generate the economic growth and jobs that will lift their citizens out of poverty.’
Yep - spoken for a government that puts concern for the poor at the front of every consideration in cabinet.
Which of the trinity said, “The poor you will always have with you” (Matthew 26:11)?
Don't seem to have heard much of, or from, Sharri of late have we. I wonder why - surely if she'd been much to the forefront, DP would at least have mentioned it. Any input on that from your excellent source, Chad ?
DeleteAs to Beefy Angus, well I don't think we'll ever get any sense from him. Or on behalf or a bunch of "developing countries relying on energy intensive industries" who will be paying heaps for the building of, and fueling of, expensive fossil fuel generators when the much cheaper to build and operate 'renewables' might allow the citizens thereof to survive long enough to actually enjoy their leap out of poverty.
How much higher does the sea/ocean have to rise before Bangladesh begins to really disappear ?
Ah, GB - The Source and I go back to a shared involvement mainly in management of natural resources. We now share despair over the dwindling quality of what purports to be economic discussion in the mass media. She provides me with examples from the reptile pits (not limited to the Flagship) for which she still pays wall money. In return, I think it only fair that I do not ask about utter lightweights, unless they are particularly amusing. Sharri ceased to be amusing when whoever was sailing master of the Flagship actually thought she was capable of writing stuff that people might want to read. Perhaps that master has reconsidered, or a new sailing master has realised that she writes nothing of substance.
DeleteOh point well made and agreeably taken, good sir. However, I wasn't so much inquiring as to what Sharri was repeating as though she had actually written it herself, but to whether she has been noticeable at all, just in passing as it were.
DeleteOh I see she's sill having her love affair with Carlson and Fox:
DeleteSharri Markson says YouTube suspension of Sky News Australia is ‘cancellation of free speech’
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/aug/04/sharri-markson-says-youtube-suspension-of-sky-news-australia-is-cancellation-of-free-speech
Ta, GB, irresistible, so the pond didn't resist ...
Delete"Aren't we going to have a history lesson?"
ReplyDeleteIndeed. And when are we gong to have a history lesson about how Gladys's gold-standard lockdowns in bits of Sydney were so much better done with much less effect on the economy - state and federal - that all the bumbling efforts of Dictator Dan ? And how NSW will come out of it better and stronger than anyone else could possibly imagine.
So, the Noodling Ned would like to inform us that: "The new metric by which the Prime Minister will be judged a success or failure is the 70 per cent adult vaccination rate before the end of this year to enable a national transition to stage two is the plan."
ReplyDeleteWhat ? We could go to stage two before Victoria has learned how to properly conduct a successful lockdown by imitating the magnificent gold-standard effort of NSW ? Appalling !
But just the same, ScottyfromtheHalloftheInvisibleFriendWhoSpeaksInTongues may want to try to grasp this:
US hits 70% vaccination rate -- a month late, amid a surge
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/us-hits-70-vaccination-rate-month-late-amid-79225274
And perhaps he should note:
"The U.S. on Monday finally reached President Joe Biden’s goal of getting at least one COVID-19 shot into 70% of American adults -- a month late and amid a fierce surge by the delta variant that is swamping hospitals and leading to new mask rules and mandatory vaccinations around the country."
Ned seems to be assisting the government in digging pitfalls which they will rediscover at a later date.
DeleteWhilst good modelling is essential to good policy, the Doherty document has lots of if and buts any of which should require a reassessment. I say 'should' because I know in my guts the government will want keep the program even if some of the assumptions prove incorrect.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/03/peak-transmitters-vaccine-rollout-should-shift-to-young-people-to-minimise-covid-deaths-modelling-shows
“What we’ve evaluated and assessed is, is how far we think we could get with 80% vaccine coverage based on the current circulating strains and assuming the population stays on board with behavioural measures and other things. Beyond that, we think it’s just too hard to know what will be happening in the external context for us to be able to really meaningfully inform that assessment.”
Vaccination targets won't mean a thing if ICUs approach capacity. Similarly, glib talk of trade-offs between freedoms and death won't count for much if the death toll goes up.
Of course the old duffers populating the opinion section won't see review and reassessment as sensible management, they will see it as inconsistent messaging. After all, being consistently wrong is the easiest thing in the world.
Yeah, "based on the current circulating strains" is a key point, isn't it. I just don't think that the current "faith" in the present vaccines and in so-called "herd immunity" is at all reasonable.
DeleteNingnongs such as Blainey blithely pronounce that "That virus ["Spanish" flu] killed a far higher proportion of Australia's population than have been killed by this pandemic." Well, in 2019 - after about a century of vaccines and "herd immunity", that virus, or its manifold relatives and successors together with pneumonia, still killed far more than "this pandemic" in Australia: flu+pneumonia killed 4124 Australans in 2019 and was the 9th biggest cause of death.
https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/causes-death/causes-death-australia/latest-release
So how long and how many deaths - even with hopefully better vaccines than the modestly successful ones we have now - to get to that stage ? We've kept the death rate in Australia down incredibly well, but as soon as we open up - even with a so-called 80% vaccination - it will rise, and who knows how high.
Nullius Ned asks in lumbering, and yes portentous fashion:
ReplyDelete"Does Australia posses the unity, social cohesion and leadership to secure the first-stage 70% by December?"
Dear old fellow, I'd say more critically, does Australia POSSESS the vaccines at all?? That's been the question all this blinking year!!
Oh my, what a strange mind pop today: Richard Stilgoe 'Who pays the piper' - 45 minutes of classical verse and music. Unfortunately never distributed commercially, so not available via youtube or anywhere else that I can find - but you can get the words here:
ReplyDeletehttp://richardstilgoe.com/poems/Who%20Pays%20the%20Piper.pdf
It's a 42,267 Kb file. If you have a copy yourself, do remember to enjoy it periodically as I am now: the glorious voices of Michael Williams, Maria Bovino, Bonaventura Bottone, Paul Esswood, Aidan Oliver and the BBC Concert orchestra (cond. Andrew Greenwood) from back in 1992.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteUmmm, no comment Bef ? In case the way I wrote it was confusing, the pdf isn't a 42MB file. It's only 83KB.
DeleteSee also
Deletehttps://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Music/WhoPaysThePiper
GB and Dorothy - thank you both for the links to 'Who Pays the Piper'. I have it on tape cassette - but currently without cassette deck. How quickly does useful technology disappear from that wonderful 'market' that supposedly satisfies our wants and needs.
ReplyDeleteIt is good to have the words - as reminder that, in this world, there is talent, and somewhere well above that, there is Richard Stilgoe
On tape cassette, Chad ? That's where I originally captured it too (from an ABC rebroadcast of a BBC session) before applying Cool Edit 2000 to it.
DeleteNo player ? But I thought that cassette tape - after the successful resuscitation of vinyl some time ago - was going through its own revival. Remembering the times, unless there was a great deal of indiscriminate junking back then, there should be quite a few cassettes still around now.