So for starters, the pond should note it won't be going down the rabbit hole this day with Alice, or with Sharri ...
Sure, Sharri is all over the front page of the tree killer edition - how many more trees must die before the Chairman pulls the plug on the free giveaway hard copy? - but the pond doesn't share Sharri's simpleton obsessions. And as soon as the pond reads "what really happened", the pond is really sure it's really in the land of not knowing what really happened ...
So instead the pond turned to the reliable Dame Slap, out and about in her usual way on a Wednesday ...
The pond had promised itself it would celebrate the work of the IPA under its chairman by referencing First Dog's cartoon on the matter ...
Sure it's a little long in the tooth now and this is only a sample, but the full effort can be found here ...
There, the IPA made it into the penultimate panel ...and with the work of the IPA under chairman Dame Slap so celebrated, it was on with the Dame ...
Now the pond must pass over a few matters - only in the world of the IPA chairman might the lesser Leak spawn be dubbed "brilliant" - to note with shock and surprise that the pond agrees with Dame Slap ...
The pond is resolutely opposed to do gooding pandering, and targets, and such like. What you need is the stench of corruption, and someone leaning across and furtively whispering "what can you do for my little mate?"
It's so much more direct and a lot simpler, and really gratifying when another someone behind closed doors, or perhaps in a furtive corridor, whispers back, "say no more, ask not, want not, got just the thing for your little mate!"
More of the venerable Meade here, celebrating what can be done for your little mate ... now back to the little mate chairman, rightly deploring targets, because there has to be a better way for the IPA crowd to fly ...
Again the pond is fully on board with Dame Slap. These mandates are shocking; all you need is someone willing to take care of their little mate ...
There you go, matey ahoy. Targets? Schmargets ...! Get yourself a mate, just remember how to grease them up with kind words ...
Yes, once you bake in Dame Slap, it's bloody hard to undo ... but now the pond must move along because nattering "Ned" has made an appearance and one of the first rules of the pond is that it must bore its readership to death with a ponderous, portentous offering, and no one does it better than "Ned" even if his podcast remains mysteriously elusive in this outing ...
In due course, and at full and proper length, "Ned" will explain how it's all the US fault, and now Afghanistan is nothing to do with us, and that old pottery shop rule about you break it, you own it? Forget it, you break it, you forget about it, and look around for something else to break ...
At this moment, the pond must pause for a completely irrelevant aside. The pond was recently looking at an old field recording, made back in the days when disc was king, and what should the pond stumble across but an advertisement for the Ruddster ...
See if you can guess the year* from the context ...
Frankly you need to hear the words and see the smirk to enjoy the full lived experience, and to say the pond was startled is likely the pond's understatement of the year ...
But now back to nattering "Ned", channeling the Ruddster, because any port in a reptile storm ...
Ah yes, so much "nothing to do with us" going on and going down, and now for the best strategy of all ... Afghanistan, is that a country?
Ah yes, it's all passed into history. Fuck a country and forget about it, and turn to the Indo-Pacific and see how that might be fucked ...
And speaking of that, the bromancer was out and about this day too, and in full hagiographic mode, and the pond thought he was just right for a bonus offering ...
Oh indeed, indeed, masks are astonishing filters, and produce completely incomprehensible jibber jabber, or so Killer Creighton tells the pond ... and it's that sort of bromancer piece, and so inevitably the reptiles felt the need to slip in a click bait video clip and the pond felt the need to defang it with a screen cap ...
Yes, yes, the war on China, going splendidly well, wot wot, pip pip, but then this talk of foreign affairs suddenly got very silly with the next click bait video clip ...
Say what? What on earth has talk of Xians being embarrassed about owning up to their faith got to do with the Australian government, foreign affairs, the current trip or just about anything ...
Oh wait, the pond gets it, we're now crusaders for a Xian Catholic world, or perhaps a branch of Hillsong ...
And there was another upside ... the pond had been waiting for a discreet interval to pass so as not to interfere with Crikey's business plan, while yearning for a chance to put the Rundle up against the bromancer in full embarrassed Xian mode ... and here at last was the chance ...
No wonder the bromancer is sometimes inclined to be embarrassed ...
Speaking of the tykes, as the pond sometimes does, how pleasing to see that the Archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, was battling any notion of a vaccine mandate, because what better way to die than to head off to a Catholic church, pick up a shot of the virus and die in the arms of Christ? (paywall limited)
But the pond has digressed as usual, and so for a final hagiographic, almost uxorious if this was a marriage, gobbet from the bromancer ...
Yes, the crusaders are on the march, and the world might yet be made safe for Hillsong and the Catholic church ...
Meanwhile, the immortal Rowe was looking closer to home for a little comedy, and as always, what better way to bring this day's reptile musings to a close, with more Rowe here ...
It's got it all, and not a single simplistic Sharri in sight to make the easily googled headlines ... Beeetaloo Basin fracking given the green light, the amazing Hunt in power Pfizer form, gold standard Gladys, and the Fowler flyer who so agitated Dame Slap (though should it be a cannon when all the talk is of parachutes, and the sorry saga provides another reason for the pond to show its inner city 'leet form by turning greenie) ...
* 2007, as if you didn't guess ...
I'm having trouble squaring the Bromancer's interpretation of Dutto and Payne's fuel-stop diplomacy with what I see in the (non-Murdoch) press. Like the recent veep Asian trip they seem to have received the basic courtesies and a "we will get back to you". No one, apart from Oz, is keen to get trapped between world powers for dubious political reasons.
ReplyDeleteThe Bro's job description includes propaganda but his level of self delusion also helps him with this task. Everything he says leaves me thinking "hang on, that's not right".
Ah well, you see, Bef, according to the Bro it was all a "tout": "...a superbly conducted tout through Indonesia, India and South Korea". And you know what a "tout" is, yes ?
DeleteAh BF, you've made a basic mistake, you looked outside the world of the reptiles and worse, probably forgot to take your red pill. If you'd stayed safely inside, you would have realised everyone was keen to embark on the reptile war on China ... with crusader Bromancer leading the way from his armchair ... or perhaps, if GB has his way, from his perch in a brothel ...
DeleteWell spotted GB. As we aficiandos know - typos never lie.
DeleteHe'll be singing a song of sixpence and a pocket full of leaky, reused condoms, you reckon DP.
DeleteI do now GB. Maybe they took the Member for Manilla along as a subject matter expert?
DeleteAnd yes, I apologise DP, clearly the whole point of the herpetarium is to detach the reader from any connection with reality.
Thanks for that excellent expose on the Bromancer’s moralising attempt to convert the world’s godless heathens DP. It started me riffing on a previous comment by Bef about Sheridan’s book being offered to entice membership of the IPA.
ReplyDeleteMurdoch Hack Writer
Isn’t anybody going to buy his book?
It took him years to write but it’s still a crock
It’s based on the bible by a bloke named God
But it hasn’t sold because it’s written by a
Murdoch hack writer
It's a boring story by a boring man
No one’s reading it except Chris Uhlmann
And his agent’s fuming over lack of sales
It’s no easy job if you’re trying to flog a
Murdoch hack writer
It’s four hundred pages give or take a few
If I read one more think I’m gonna spew
There’s a thousand copies sitting in his shed
There are thousands more and they’re headed for a
Bargain bin somewhere
You would really love it if you’re on the right
It could make a martyr of you overnight
If you want free copies join the IPA
You can meet the chairman yes she’s another
Murdoch hack writer
By golly, Kez, the pond can sense that collected edition coming on nicely ...
DeleteCheers DP. Working on it!
DeleteBro: "If there's one member of the Morrison ministry you're not going to bully, it's Dutton." But then, seeing how doltish he is, nobody needs to. And the Bro can't even begin to grasp the diplomatic technique of telling the people you're dealing with what they want to hear, and then telling other people different things.
ReplyDeleteIn short, as an Aussie politician of some note always says; an intent without a plan to achieve it, is worthless. So, when will we hear all about the Dutton-Payne plan to surround China ?
Speaking about religion, "Why Australia needs to become a secular republic" https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/why-australia-needs-to-become-a-secular-republic,15515 (via The Rationalist Society)
ReplyDeleteRundle: "After two decades of delusion and failure, do we need to hear from him [the Bromancer] at all ? ... by what mechanism does it [Christianity] manage to keep the central message of its beliefs separate from its actions. It is, as they say, a surpassing mystery."
ReplyDeleteWell no, it isn't really, one just needs to read some Bertrand Russell:
"I am persuaded that there is absolutely no limit to the absurdities that can, by government action, come to be generally believed. Give me an adequate army, with power to provide it with more pay and better food than falls to the lot of the average man, and I will undertake, within thirty years, to make the majority of the population believe that two and two are three, that water freezes when it gets hot and boils when it gets cold, or any other nonsense that might seem to serve the interest of the State. Of course, even when these beliefs had been generated, people would not put the kettle in the ice-box when they wanted it to boil. That cold makes water boil would be a Sunday truth, sacred and mystical, to be professed in awed tones, but not to be acted on in daily life. What would happen would be that any verbal denial of the mystic doctrine would be made illegal, and obstinate heretics would be "frozen" at the stake. No person who did not enthusiastically accept the official doctrine would be allowed to teach or to have any position of power. Only the very highest officials, in their cups, would whisper to each other what rubbish it all is; then they would laugh and drink again. This is hardly a caricature of what happens under some modern governments."
http://panarchy.org/russell/rubbish.1943.html
Or under some old religions. So there we have it: Christianity is old enough, and has been through conflicts enough, to have largely become a "Sunday truth" religion. Virtually all "Christians" are now just Sunday believers. So the Bro can write his book, and ScoMo can respond without either having to recognise and/or admit, the yawning chasm between "belief" and "action".
It hasn't always been thus, back in the good ol' days there were plenty of Christian 24/7 believer practitioners. We all remember the Spanish Inquisition, don't we. Whereas Islam, amongst others such as Hinduism, Chinese communism and neoliberal economism, are still full of 24/7 believer practitioners - eg, the Taliban, Xi Jinping and the pro-Liberal Party reptiles.
But then, possibly the single most useful piece of wisdom ever propagated, is the fabled 'universal response' supposedly created by the sages of an Eastern monarch: "This too shall pass". It just occasionally takes a very long time about it.