In which the pond allows the Dame Slap djoker to run wild, with support performances from a vast array of reptiles ...

 

 

The pond had it all figured out. It was going to be a ripper groaning Tuesday, with the pond going the full Groan ...

You see, this little snippet caught the pond's eye ...

 

 

The pond still retained some vestiges of reptile memory and scurried off and sure enough found this from Lloydie of the Amazon under the header Battery storage may have its place but this isn’t it, way back on 15th March 2017 ...

South Australia’s emergency power plan proves that battery storage is a fringe response rather than a durable solution to the state’s electricity woes.
Silicon Valley billionaire Elon Musk has milked South Australia’s problems for plenty of publicity to coincide with the launch of his new Powerwall 2 battery in Australia.
But Musk’s money-back guarantee always was on meeting a 100-day installation deadline rather than actually fixing South Australia’s problems caused by its over-reliance on intermittent wind and solar.
To the dismay of armchair electrical engineers, Premier Jay Weatherill yesterday confirmed the solution to South Australia’s blackout problems would overwhelmingly be gas.
Showing the hide of a rhinoceros, Weatherill cast the blame for South Australia’s predicament far and wide.
But the cost of the latest instalment in a decade of electricity adventurism will be paid by South Australian taxpayers and long-suffering electricity users...

There was more, it was a feast of riches, and the pond also found this from Dame Groan herself on the very same day under the header SA is making a bet both ways, using taxpayers’ money ...

South Australia is effectively broke, but it can still manage to put together $550 million of taxpayer money to solve a problem that should never have occurred in the first place.
It’s an iron-clad political law that when an electorally sensitive issue emerges, politicians will always throw money at seeking a solution.
If the total power blackout of the state in September last year wasn’t embarrassing enough — and caused massive commercial damage to the few large industrial operations left in the state — the load-shedding that affected 90,00 households last month was the final straw.
Mind you, the South Australian government should never have allowed the coal-fired Northern power station to close. Its owners proposed a value-for-money deal to the state government that would have offered energy security to the state for many years as well as provide continued employment in two regional centres.
At that stage the hapless Energy Minister, Tom Koutsantonis, thought he knew better and could score a few political brownie points by turning the government’s back on coal. This was notwithstanding the astonishing hypocrisy associated with the state’s increased reliance on importing coal-fired power from Victoria.
Now the state government wants to have it both ways — spend taxpayer money on building a gas-fired power station as well as subsidise some large-scale storage, the latter which cannot be assumed to work and is likely to cost about $200/MW.
The gas-fired power station is unlikely to make money because it will simply be used for back-up and the minister may use emergency powers to force producers to come up with the gas. It doesn’t sound very free-market but that’s what desperate governments tend to do.
The state government also intends to use its monopsony power as purchaser of electricity to induce an additional entrant to the generation market, but it’s not clear the size of the purchase is sufficient to achieve this result...

Now the pond doubts that Dame Groan referred to "monopsony", but that's because the quotes came from copy prepared by a barking mad anti-wind site here, where there's more of Lloydie and the Groaner ...

Despite the odd typo, it was going to be the perfect introduction to a Tuesday groaning. 

Alas and alack, what should happen? No new groaning! Here no groaning on a Tuesday, no groaning on a Tuesday here ...

But damned if the pond was going to waste a perfectly good, richly ironic opening just because the Groaner went AWOL on hols ...

Still, it forced a hasty regrouping, with the pond remembering another snippet from yesterday's news...

 

 

What was it that the savvy Savva said in another place at another time? Morrison, who has a habit of allowing problems to become crises before mishandling them …

That cleared the decks for Dame Slap to give the marketing man a damn good slapping.

Now the pond appreciates that the pond has said it was bored by the Djoker affair, but still, if it produces a damn good slapping, why not indulge the reptiles?

 

A Maggie bashing along with the Slomo bashing? Oh it's too much for a koala bear to bare ...

The pond's original point remains true. The pond doesn't really care about a stupid tennis player up against the performance of sublimely incompetent political managers, as seen in recent times with Domicron all the go ...

But the pond must take its pleasures as the reptiles provide them, so it's on with the bashing ...

 

Oh it's too rich, even if the pond's original point about more important forms of incompetence than an idiot tennis player still stands ...

 

 

 

 

And with that sharing of a moment of rats trapped in a Domicron, marketing man maze, the slapping was almost done ...

 

 

Dame Slap really doesn't like the speaking in tongues to imaginary friends marketing man, and there was something of a reptile pile-on this day, with Ross of Griffiths joining the fray ...

 

 

It was a relatively short pile-on, done in a few quick gobbets, so why not ...

 

 

 

Of course Ross of Griffiths might have mentioned that enthusiastic pile-on from Dame Slap of the IPA, shouting freedumb,  crying freedumb, carping about freedumb, but let us not have too much fluff gathering and belly button gazing or get too self-referential... instead enjoy the gloom ...

 

 

 Indeed, indeed, that good old grassroots anger and so to a final gobbet ...

What else? Well the reptiles were terrified this day by the spectre of the unions ...

And the heroic lizard Oz editorialist was working overtime to fill in the gaps left by the bludging regulars ...

 

 

And that's why, for a bonus, the pond was drawn to Luke of Launceston for a little light cultural criticism ...

 

 

The pond hasn't actually seen the show, but never mind, that talk of a powerful white man cliche, as scribbled by a white man from Launceston, promised to be rich ...

 

 

The pond thought it had made a mistake, but reckoned without the punchline that was to come ...

 

 

There you go, girlies and ladies and whatever, there's good old white man Luke from Launceston mansplaining about how good things are for ya ...

...In fact, the reality of living in a liberal Western democracy is a lot like the world of Ted Lasso. It’s a world where women enjoy a great deal of opportunity, and upward social mobility, and sexual agency; and where our cultural industries are increasingly sensitised to the voices, and the aspirations, of minority religions and ethnicities. It may not be perfect. There’s a lot more to be done. But there are many reasons to be, along with Ted Lasso, cheerful.

In fact, just another clueless reptile, terribly busy mansplaining away, while stray women might wonder how Luke got the mansplaining gig, and nobody at the lizard Oz thought it might be interesting to hear a female perspective ... for that, apparently you have to trot off to The New Yorker...

So that's what an own goal looks like, the pond mused, as it wondered whether it should push the window, and offer a bonus to the bonus ... because there was also this triptych of terror in the middle of the digital edition ...

 

Good old Troy, still beavering away in the past and providing fodder for the lizard Oz editorialist, but how could the pond resist the Killer, shivering and quivering in fear?

 

 

Usually the pond would slip in some cartoons to help the reptile concoction go down, but the pond fears it's overstayed its welcome ... so it's on with the Killer good oil, the Killer drum, so to speak, drumming up fear and loathing ...

 

And the reason the pond thinks the United States is fucked?

 

 

 

It's true that the Daily Beast ran a funny piece comparing the mango Mussolini to showbiz under the header Trump’s Arizona Speech Proves His Shock Comic Act Has Jumped the Shark (outside the paywall for the moment) ... including, inter alia ...

 

Being something of a show runner himself, Luke of Launceston might have enjoyed mansplaining how the Beast was wrong ... but the pond loved the showbiz angle ...

...TV sitcom showrunners sometimes react to declining ratings by introducing a “Cousin Oliver”—which, quite often, is a cute kid whose smart-alecky sass is meant to liven up a tired atmosphere. Sometimes it works, sometimes it’s evidence a show has simply “jumped the shark.” But Trump’s never been an ensemble cast type of personality. He’s the whole show, and the surrounding players are as replaceable and ephemeral as Spinal Tap’s exploding drummers....

But then it was back to Killer's own form of shark-jumping as he assiduously continued to show how it's best not to look up at  a senile mango Mussolini ... just cultivate the fear and loathing in the patented Chairman manner ...

 

Note that disclaimer, "even if Biden's performances have been misinterpreted", because it turns out that Killer isn't the doctor in the house, and see how the Killer gives the GOP's obstructionist ways a free kick, and it all becomes the fault of the far left ...

Can there be a more fluent speaker of Chairman Rupert, outside of Faux Noise? 

How lucky the lizards of Oz are to have a Killer in the house ...

 

 

As for that reference to voting rights and a solution in search of a problem, please allow the pond one last cartoon, of a kind that can be found at the NY Daily News here ...