There was the usual plethora of reptiles on parade for the weekend, and the pond will do them slowly, in the usual way, but the pond was hoping that at least one of them would deal with an ontological issue, a matter of essence, raised by this astonishing porkie ...
Never told a lie in public life? Even the phrasing indicates he knows that it's a lie - "he doesn't believe" is a precursor to a well-told lie, a personal opinion which opinions the door to "I can't recall" and assorted other obfuscations and dissemblings ...
Well there's nothing like a liar doubling down with a lie, but we all tell lies. The pond has lied to itself and others in the past, and will no doubt lie again in the future. The pond tries to avoid it, but sometimes it happens. Some might dress it up with the racially charged implication of it being the telling of a "white lie", but the pond will leave the blackening to the reptiles ...
Politicians inevitably lie, it's part of the game, but the canny politician doesn't lie about the lying. They just go on evading, or dissembling ...
Every so often a lie is noted, as in The Graudian in this piece by Sarah Martin a few days ago regarding SloMo and his discovery of EVs ...
Well yes, his chutzpah knows no bounds, but his lying about the lie with another lie takes the art of lying to an existential level of reflexiveness, a level only a natural born liar routinely accusing others of lying could manage ...
The pond had hoped at least one reptile might take up the challenge - Albo naturally parroted the SloMo lie about not lying because he knows he must at least match the lies of others - and be honest about the art of lying, but not one of them managed the task.
Prattling Polonius had a go, and so the pond bumped him up from his usual Sunday meditative perch, if only to explore further this painful business ...
Ah, a matter of context, which is rather equivalent to being economical with the truth ...
Another way out is to propose magical thinking ...
There's a lot more about the magical thinking here, aka delusional lying to oneself and others, but for the moment the pond must trudge back to the olden days with Polonius ...
This sort of nonsense is, on the face of it, and just below the surface, a bald-faced set of lies, with poor old Polonius forced to use definitional means to save a liar from his lying ...
Didn't the pond just read a shameless liar accuse others of lying, as in "that is just a Labor lie."
You can't just use definitions to get that sort of shamelessness off the hook ...
SloMo routinely accuses others of lying, yet denies his own lying, and yet ...
Better to call it a pivot to magical thinking, and so avoid any existential questions about a natural born liar lying to himself and others ... but sadly Polonius fails the nuance test ...
Now there's some mighty fine dancing and jigging on the spot by Polonius, but there's no walking around the reality that Macron thought SloMo had deliberately lied to him, and there's plenty of evidence that he did. That's business, as Polonius would surely know, but still he keeps on lying about the lying ...
Well, it might be undiplomatic, but it might also be truthful, and for once being economical with the truth might not have suited the situation ... and as for leaking and lying about the leaking, where's the Artful Dodger when he's needed?
As for the rest, David Rowe settled the matter with this, as he usually does here ...
Yes, it's important to allow the chickens to come home to roost on the carefully cultivated Pinocchio nose ...
The pond can still remember its grandparents' pain when a fox got into the henhouse, and indulged in a wild slaughter.
The pond was young at the time, and the grandparents tried to prevent the pond from catching a glimpse of the destruction, but saw enough for the sight to seer into the memory. You can try to hide the truth, but even a chicken apparently safe on its roost can be threatened by a fox lying about climate science ... or some such thing ...
And so to a painful task, down there with the memory of dead chooks lying about ...
You see, the bromancer this day has had something of a nervous breakdown, and worse, detailed it at great length in public.
The pond has been slowly coming to the conclusion that the bromancer is afflicted by certain obsessive compulsive tendencies, as well as manias induced by a manic depressive condition, and while the pond is only an amateur Freudian, take a look at this, and see if the pond is lying ...
You see? "In crisis," "woke concerns", and then to top it all off, the unironic, unaware use of "trumping" with regard to "real-world problems"... as if the mango Mussolini trumped anything, except perhaps the world championship for political liars ...
Only someone in the fanciful grip of flighty delusions could use that header as a starting point ...
Of course the pond should have noted the difference between lying and delusional and irrational thinking. How could, using the bromancer's very own words, be it a diplomatic gift to France to send someone the bromancer considers most of the most unpopular and ineffective vice-presidents in recent American history?
In the bromancer's terms, that's an insult, a slap on the cheek, a shameless effrontery, almost a call for a duel at dawn ...
Okay, okay, the pond is joking, but there has to be some way to defuse the ongoing sense of panic and hysteria ...
Yes, SloMo is a bald-faced liar, but it's not the end of the world ... oh wait ... that's not magical thinking by the pond, it's just wild, delusional optimism ...
Indeed, indeed ... that reminded the pond of this ...
Now that's the sort of history the pond can get behind. The pond sometimes goes back in mind to the history textbook it was given in Tamworth primary school, which established conclusively that indigenous people were dangerous, dirty, threatening ... and black ... and it was a jolly good thing that whites had turned up to make something of the country ...
Has Trove bothered to make a copy, like it did the Catholic catechism? The pond should make a check some day, but must get back to the bromancer, because he's really doing a nattering "Ned" this day ... so much hand-wringing, so much bonkers analysis ...
Actually the real way to a comprehensive victory is to fuck the planet ... and the pond was sorry and surprised to learn that the bromancer didn't get it ...
Sorry, the pond must stop interrupting the bromancer, because he's still got two tedious gobbets to go, full of meandering mendacity of the trudging Tudge kind ...
You know, it's good that David Brooks loathes himself, because it saves the pond the time and the trouble, but the pond would really appreciate it if the bromancer could come up with the same level of self-hate. He makes a perfectly decent living blathering for the 'leets in an allegedly upmarket broadsheet, still published in a tree killing way for the sheer vanity of it all, with its HQ deep in the heart of Sydney's Surry Hills ... as trendy a place to find a barista as might be imagined by humble folk ...
And wasn't it cruel of the bromancer to celebrate the IPA, and yet somehow overlook or forget the Caterists and the rivers of government cash in the paw gold sent the way of the Menzies Research Centre?
The pond will however admit that the government can be niggardly when it comes to sharing the wealth compared to the likes of Gina ...
...The IPA has been significantly funded by Hancock Prospecting, of which Gina Rinehart is the Executive Chair. Hancock Prospecting paid the IPA $2.3 million in financial year 2016 and $2.2 million in financial year 2017, which represents one-third to a half of the IPA's total revenue in those years. These payments were not disclosed in IPA annual reports, and Rinehart's daughter Bianca Hope Heyward submitted in court that the Hancock Prospecting payments were credited to Rinehart in an individual capacity. Gina Rinehart was made a life member of the IPA in November 2016.
Other businesses who fund or have funded the IPA include ExxonMobil, Telstra, WMC Resources, Philip Morris, Murray Irrigation Limited, Visy Industries, Clough Engineering, Caltex, Shell, Esso and British American Tobacco (BAT).
Funders are able to "earmark" their payments to support the work of particular units within the IPA.
The Institute of Public Affairs has also been funded by Liberal Party associated entity the Cormack Foundation.
In 2003, the Australian Government paid $50,000 to the Institute of Public Affairs to review the accountability of NGOs.
Go to the wiki for the footnotes ... but what an admirably stinking, festering brew of climate science denialism that has produced ... and all the better because it was done by lying, or in this case, lying dressed up as discreet omission, because who can handle the truth? The IPA certainly can't ...
But now back for the final gobbet ...
Indeed, indeed ... can the pond just note that if the answer to the question is the likes of Campion College, Quadrant, and fundamentalist Catholicism, then we're all truly fucked ... because the ability to lie to themselves and to others is taken by the Catholic church to a remarkable Jesuitical level ... trust the pond, it once kept the company of Jesuits, and was astonished at their ability to lie to themselves and to others ...
And so to the pond's Everest duty, climbing nattering "Ned", though to be fair to "Ned", for once he seems almost short in his hand-wringing and inclination to hysteria, at least compared to the bromacner's dirge ... perhaps because, as usual, "Ned" spends much of his time recycling the thoughts of others ...
Now the pond should note, amidst the chuckles, that it won't be interrupting "Ned" with cartoons and the like, but as a reward for those who make it to the end, it has saved up an infallible Pope ...
It's hard enough to get through the sighing at the clouds and the hand-wringing and the moaning, without adding to the length with interruptions ...
The pond will only pause to note here, that here "Ned" goes again, and so anyone who missed Jake Sullivan will now get "Ned" proving that environmentally aware lizard Oz reptiles know how to recycle ...
Sheesh, a parrot couldn't do better at re-squawking Jake, and so the pond must move along ...
Sullivan this, Sullivan that, and even the reptiles knew that the most valiant reader was going to be sullivaned out for the count, and so they chose this point to insert a click bait video. The pond notes it for the neutered record ...
The pond also notes that the reptiles didn't bother to interrupt "Ned" with a chance to listen to "Ned" reciting his words in his remarkable podcast ... perhaps because listening to "Ned" recite "Ned" reciting Sullivan was thought too much for anyone to bear ...
The construction agenda? "Ned" really does believe in magical thinking, but luckily we've only got one final short gobbet of delusion and being Sullivaned to go ...
And so to the reward for those who lasted the distance and made it to the bitter end ...
Good luck?! Damn you, infallible Pope ...The pond is on the road to hell ... with the likes of prattling Polonius, the bromancer and nattering "Ned" for company ...
Hendo: "However, journalists should be above political activism." Oh my, that the Pontificating Prevaricating Prattling Polonius - a long-standing member of Murdoch's rapacious reptiles - should so assert. But it's not a lie, oh no, for Polonius believes every single word of it, whether taken separately or together.
ReplyDelete"You know, it's good that David Brooks loathes himself..." Yeah, he loathes himself just like the Bromancer loathes himself. He's also of that nauseous rag the New York Times and only an occasional "contributor" to The Atlantic. But it's so very good to have such as these running the world, isn't it.
ReplyDeleteThe pond occasionally sees Brooks indulging in self-loathing on PBS, but has to admit his self-loathing is better than the WaPo substitute they wheel in when
DeleteBrooks' form of nausea is elsewhere ...
Instead of the Bro, try Robert Reich:
ReplyDeleteThe other problem with this “culture over economics” narrative is it overlooks the fact that after Ronald Reagan, the Democratic party turned its back on the working class.
But both Clinton and Obama allowed the power of the working class to erode. Both ardently pushed for free trade agreements without providing the millions of blue-collar workers who thereby lost their jobs any means of getting new ones that paid at least as well.
They stood by as corporations hammered trade unions, the backbone of the working class. Both refused to reform labor laws to impose meaningful penalties on companies that violated them or enable workers to form unions with simple up-or-down votes.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/07/virginia-new-jersey-white-working-class-critical-race-theory-democrats-republicans
Nothing much to be said about that, is there Joe. Neither Clinton nor Obama had any understanding of or empathy with "the workers". Neither of them ever were one. Biden is better in some respects, but not all that much. My view is that Obama was the American Gladys; 'gold-standard' for being over-rated while achieving very little.
DeleteAnd of course we had ours: Hawke and Keating. Two libertarian neoliberals that together with that union traitor Bill Kelty (never trust a union man who befriends billionaires) did much the same here.
Now that Pope question isn't one of those "if I asked the other guard whether his door was the way to heaven, would he say yes" things, is it ?
ReplyDeleteI never get them right.
ICYMI:
ReplyDelete"Schools in Kansas starting to ban The Handmaid’s Tale…
is exactly like the beginning of The Handmaid’s Tale."
https://twitter.com/ACoupleOkooks/status/1459223678160363527
:)³
DeletePolonius fails to mention the Right hurls the words Socialist and communist with great enthusiasm at anyone who dares to think differently to it.
ReplyDeleteWhile on History lessons, poor old Polonius's memory is fading, Fascism survived through to the end of Franco's Fascist Government, in Spain, 1975.
Journalists and Politics, does not Henderson ever read the gutter rag he writes for?
As for tired old Shrill Sheridan, The word woke, has been changed from its original meaning by the extreme far right in America, during the Trump time, and repeated ad nauseam by far-right types in Australia who think its use is clever. What a joke, right-wingers use this word as if it is an insult, in fact, it is a measure of the intelligence of those use it.
"does not Henderson ever read...". Actually, soth, I reckon none of 'em ever reads the crap they all spew - so boring ! I reckon even the Maj. Mitch. doesn't read any of 'em, he just calls 'em up, or maybe even zooms the odd one or two, so that he get some 'quotes' from them to make it look like he knows what they're writing.
DeleteIt's only mugs like DP and us who actually read 'em.
Our Polonius imagines himself as one of the original ‘sophists’ as he shreds the boundaries of truth and lies. He is of that calling in that he is paid to do it - by the shadowy sponsors of his Institute, and, we assume, the reptile paymaster.
DeleteBut he is a sophist of the time before Plato showed distinctions between sophists and what became known as philosophers - and identifying ‘sophistry’ as largely pejorative.
Polonius feels he adds stature to his column by condemning the use of ‘liar’ as undiplomatic. If such discussion is to be about terms other than liar, there are a few in our language that might be worth recycling.
‘Prevarication’ is still used occasionally, because it carries an element of quibbling, or trying to confuse with extra words. For those who see their task as showing that, for example, the Scum King is always a paragon of virtue, we have words for such fraud, that include ‘ingennation - which has the advantage of sending the reader to a proper dictionary, or we can call the writer a ‘cozener’, or a ‘cogger’ - both worthy terms from the development of our language.
I am fairly sure I recall comments in the Pond that identified Polonius as ‘Jesuitic’. That is fine if typed, but does not flow easily when spoken. For that reason, my personal choice would be ‘meretricious’. My large, printed, Webster reminds me that it is for arguments that are ‘speciously attractive’ . This adds the sense of it being ‘specious’ - superficially plausible, but likely wrong - and the whole word is derived from Latin - ‘meretrix’ - a prostitute.
Our Polonius imagines himself as one of the original ‘sophists’ as he shreds the boundaries of truth and lies. He is of that calling in that he is paid to do it - by the shadowy sponsors of his Institute, and, we assume, the reptile paymaster.
ReplyDeleteBut he is a sophist of the time before Plato showed distinctions between sophists and what became known as philosophers - and identifying ‘sophistry’ as largely pejorative.
Polonius feels he adds stature to his column by condemning the use of ‘liar’ as undiplomatic. If such discussion is to be about terms other than liar, there are a few in our language that might be worth recycling.
‘Prevarication’ is still used occasionally, because it carries an element of quibbling, or trying to confuse with extra words. For those who see their task as showing that, for example, the Scum King is always a paragon of virtue, we have words for such fraud, that include ‘ingennation - which has the advantage of sending the reader to a proper dictionary, or we can call the writer a ‘cozener’, or a ‘cogger’ - both worthy terms from the development of our language.
I am fairly sure I recall comments in the Pond that identified Polonius as ‘Jesuitic’. That is fine if typed, but does not flow easily when spoken. For that reason, my personal choice would be ‘meretricious’. My large, printed, Webster reminds me that it is for arguments that are ‘speciously attractive’ . This adds the sense of it being ‘specious’ - superficially plausible, but likely wrong - and the whole word is derived from Latin - ‘meretrix’ - a prostitute.
I think that, courtesy if the Doggy Bov, we've actually settled for "yelling porkies" - a quite sophistic wording.
DeleteHi Dorothy,
ReplyDeleteDoes Australia have a foreign policy?
It would be worth finding out as to which genius thought it would be a good idea for Australia to start attacking its biggest trading partner? Especially as it was at the behest of the Americans (both the Trump and Biden administrations) only to later find out that the Americans had been engaged with China in high level diplomatic negotiations all the time.
https://asiatimes.com/2021/07/us-a-big-winner-of-china-australia-trade-war/
Yep genius!
DiddyWrote
Saves a lot of messing around, though DW. Previously, Australia would sell bulk stuff to China and buy back less than it sold. We would then buy bulk stuff from the US and sell back much less than we bought. Thus Australia was a 'money pathway' from China to the US.
DeleteNow all they've done is cut out the middleman, ie Australia. Capitalist free market efficiency at its best.
:)³
DeleteHi Dorothy,
ReplyDeleteNice to see Pope referencing Raymond Smullyan’s ‘Knights and Knaves’ puzzles that started with his logical conundrums in “What Is the Name of This Book?”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_and_Knaves
Eventually they would grow to what many believe is the hardest logic problem ever created.
https://www.ted.com/talks/alex_gendler_can_you_solve_the_three_gods_riddle/transcript?language=en#t-10899
Still Scotty remains a bare faced liar.
DiddyWrote
PS It seems to more difficult to post comments or is just me?
No, it's not just you, DW: something or someone periodically puts the Loonpond page into 'Draft' state which then prevents any changes. That's why I long ago took to drafting my comments in Notepad and just checking out the page periodically to see if it's back in 'normal' mode. You can check the mode by hovering your mouse pointer above the 'envelope' symbol down towards the bottom of the page in the line that says "Posted by dorothy parker at ..." then looking at the line that appears on the bottom left of the browser page which starts with "https://" if the next thing on that line is "draft.www.blogger.com ..." then the page is, obviously, in 'draft' mode. So just kill the page in your browser and try again later.
DeleteBut oh boy, Raymond Smullyan: once a favourite, but I haven't read him in years. Still got 'Forever Undecided', 'What Is The Name Of This Book' and 'Satan, Cantor, and Infinity' on my bookshelf, though. Must gift them to the RSPCA Op Shop some day (I don't have anybody waiting to inherit them :-)
As to ScottyfromMarketting, I have been known to point out that 'salesmen' believe every word they say but only for as long as it takes to say them' and I was pleased to get support from one of the Michelle Grattan on Friday posts in the Conversation:
Sean Kelly, columnist and former staffer for Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd, writes in his just-published The Game: A Portrait of Scott Morrison that the PM, “never feels, in himself, insincere or untruthful, because he always means exactly what he says; it is just that he means it only in the moment he is saying it. Past and future disappear.”
https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-scott-morrison-has-a-bingle-or-two-on-the-campaign-trail-171678
Yes, sorry all, the googlebot has been behaving badly, and the pond's attention has been elsewhere, and the best that can be said is that it's free, though that inevitably leads to freedumb ...
DeleteIt comes and it goes, DP and though it's a tad frustrating when it comes, all is well when it goes.
DeleteDP regarding Morrison - Never told a lie in public life? Even the phrasing indicates he knows that it's a lie - "he doesn't believe" is a precursor to a well-told lie, a personal opinion which opinions the door to "I can't recall" and assorted other obfuscations and dissemblings ...
ReplyDeleteDiddyWrote:
"Still Scotty remains a bare faced liar."
The term "pecksniffian" springs to mind. Well not really, I have been waiting for an opportunity to use it. I think I swiped it from Pickwick or one of his crew,
I can't remember exactly, but it's a keeper.
Patience is a virtue, JM. But 'pecksniffian' - means "unctuously hypocritical : pharisaical." according to Merriam-Webster. Wholly appropriate for Scotty the SloMo, especially the "pharisaical" bit.
Delete"Do not repine, my friends," said Mr. Pecksniff, tenderly. "Do not weep for me. It is chronic." And with these words, after making a futile attempt to pull off his shoes, he fell into the fireplace.
Delete“But before he composed himself for a nap, Mr Pecksniff delivered a kind of grace after meat, in these words: 'The process of digestion, as I have been informed by anatomical friends, is one of the most wonderful works of nature. I do not know how it may be with others, but it is a great satisfaction to me to know, when regaling on my humble fare, that I am putting in motion the most beautiful machinery with which we have any acquaintance. I really feel at such times as if I was doing a public service. When I have wound myself up, if I may employ such a term,' said Mr Pecksniff with exquisite tenderness, 'and know that I am Going, I feel that in the lesson afforded by the works within me, I am a Benefactor to my Kind!' As nothing”
Firstly, that it may be safely asserted, and yet without implying any direct participation in the Monboddo doctrine touching the probability of the human race having once been monkeys, that men do play very strange and extraordinary tricks. Secondly, and yet without trenching on the Blumenbach theory as to the descendants of Adam having a vast number of qualities which belong more particularly to swine than to any other class of animals in the creation, that some men certainly are remarkable for taking uncommon good care of themselves.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Martin_Chuzzlewit
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/901325-the-life-and-adventures-of-martin-chuzzlewit