Warning, this is going to be a huuge one today, bulging with meaty reptile goodness, which is to say interminable and tedious, but remarkably beneficial to the immune system, because after this shot of reptile stew, stray readers are likely to stagger off and never return ...
First as always, the pond must pay heed to the strategic genius of the bromancer, deep into war-gaming, but with a taste for good, decent, Xian literature to boot ...
The pond will admit to liking that AFP snap atop the bromancer's befuddlement and confusion, but then the reptiles made a strategic mistake with their next snap ...
Oh how the bromancer yearns for a good, decent European war, where his immense strategic skills might surge to the fore ...
For the moment he's reduced to pounding out columns for the reptiles, but what if he was employed pounding out columns to reduce the enemies of the Xian west to rubble?
The reptiles interrupted the bromancer's war gaming with a remarkably pointless illustration, and so must the pond ...
But soft, readers of the bromancer expect a doozy at some point in the read, and sure enough there comes one in the next gobbet ...
Donald Trump, for all his sins? The mango Mussolini actually tried to orchestrate a coup, he actually actively tried to become one of those authoritarian dictators he so actively admired, whether fawning over Xi, Putin, or that North Korean loon ...
There's no keeping track of the many sins and stupidities of the bromancer, but luckily it's the last gobbet, featuring at the start another particularly pointless illustration ...
And there in a nutshell is the Opus Dei in the self-flagellating bromancer. "Never in its history more decadent, lazy, self-indulgent, narcissistic"?
If the bromancer wants to live in Sparta, then he can piss off to a regime that most closely resembles the bromancer's Spartan ideals.
Forgive the pond if it self-indulgently and in a most decadent way, enjoys the paranoid hysteria of the reptiles ... whereby to defeat a fascistic authoritarian regime, you must become an authoritarian fascist of the mango Mussolini kind ...
Hasn't the bromancer noticed what's been going down in the United States, with the book burnings and bannings, and the demonising and disenfranchising of minorities, and sundry other signs and portents of authoritarians on the march? And all provoked and pushed on by the far right antics of News Corp ...
And so to a change of pace, because that closure of a coal plant caught beefy boofhead Angus by surprise - who could believe operators of coal fired plants would take talk of climate science seriously? - and so the reptiles deployed Lloydie of the Amazon to respond to the crisis ...
Alas and alack, Lloydie of the Amazon also thinks more words is the best way to deal with the crisis, but at least the pond can promise a couple of splendid, mind-bending illustrations ...
Actually if the pond might be so bold, and a tad picky, the same lesson wasn't learned from Texas. What was learned from Texas is that if you hire dickhead Republicans as Governors, you'll end up with an isolated grid that's completely useless when you happen to be confronted by a weather event. And in California you might learn that Enron isn't necessarily your friend.
But the pond must move on, even as it was moved to tears by that shot of a forlorn, unloved coal-fired power station. The pond could hear the reptiles chanting, in their Lord of the Flies way, burn, planet, burn, keep the coal fires burning, burn baby burn ...
Frankly that illustration was astonishing, and the good news is that the reptiles have another in store that is even more excellent, and that thought should surely keep the most jaded reader plowing on through Lloydie of the Amazon's saucy doubts and fears ...
Say what? Has Lloydie of the Amazon been reduced to parroting what ENA says? It seems so, and it would be a sad day for the pond, except for the splendid illustration in the next gobbet ...
Look no further?
But there were no actual links, because the reptiles don't want their readers escaping their clutches even for a nanosecond. It's real Ancient Mariner stuff, this dwelling in reptile la la land, and if you're going to get idle chatter about climate activists and various enthusiastic enablers, damn it, you'll get it in the lizard Oz ...
And so to the Saturday mountain that is always there, and must be climbed, the Everest of "Ned", and yes, it's as long as nattering "Ned" usually is, and full of the usual hand-wringing and sighing at the sky, and a little of Chicken Little running about to add spice to the stwe, and yet the pond must present it, although with a warning ...
You see, the splash seemed to promise a spanking for SloMo ...
A huge tactical mistake? Ah, but you see how even in the splash, "Ned" immediately switched to both siderism, with talk of the high-risk strategy backfiring on both sides ... and by the end, he'll manage a complete switcheroo - spoiler alert - wherein brand Albo is in mortal peril ...
Say what? A huge tactical mistake, consumed by panic, a classic blunder, outsmarted? Lizard Oz readers will have to endure a little more of this, before "Ned" rightly turns his gimlet eye (the one for boring holes, not the cocktail) on Albo ...
Dear sweet long absent lord, what's that doing in the lizard Oz, and in a "Ned" piece above all?
Oh wait, of course, it's not a send-up, there's no irony, it's a call to arms, because the square has broken, and the gatling jammed, and there must be a call to arms, so that we can all play up and play the game ...
Yet more heresy?! Surely the tide must turn soon ...
Oh dear, such agitation and worry in "Ned's" voice (whatever did happen to those sonorous podcasts? Are they still happening? Should the pond care?)
First let us forget all that talk about the coalition government and the free trade agreement and Ned's kind words, as featured only recently in the pond ...
Let us forget that ancient childish infatuation, that sense of girlish glee, because there's a new "Ned" reality show in town ...
Ludicrous? But how does "Ned" end his piece?
Yes, the relevant question isn't how this ludicrous posturing might affect the brand of a truly horrible, horrible man, an inveterate liar and hypocrite, and possibly a complete psycho (the pond did enjoy that macro, very handy, the pond will likely use it daily).
Yes, there's a grain of truth embedded in "Ned's" blather about the way that entrenched perceptions based on historical reality drive much of the reptile scribbling ... and so we move from "Ned's" rapture at the China FTA to "Ned's" blather about the damage being done to brand Albo ...
And after all that, it's time for a break, and if not a truly awful chocolate biscuit, then why not an immortal Rowe, with more hearty Rowe breaks here ...
Yes, yes, that works, and the raft metaphor suits ...
Bro: "As goes Ukraine, so goes Taiwan ? As goes Russia, so goes China ?"
ReplyDeleteWWG1WGA ?
Indeed, indeed, the pond is in the queue and dammit that macro you supplied to the pond has come in handy ...
DeleteICMY: https://xkcd.com/2583/
DeleteJoe - thank you, that brightened my day.
DeleteLloydie - ‘The smart money is on advances in fusion reactor technologies, which have experienced some big breakthroughs in recent months but are still many years away from commercialisation.’
ReplyDeleteThat alone is something of an inadvertent admission by a reptile - the money for fusion reactor research is essentially Government money, if not directly, then indirectly. Private entrepreneurial types no doubt look at the now 70 years of emerging knowledge of fusion reactions and figure it is smart to leave it with government for a while yet.
Of course, if a government agency does crack it - then a couple of $mill to a Trumpublican’s campaign fund should see an opening for preferred access to the commercial goodies. Not that I expect the Donald to be around for that - but his spirit will live on.
The smart money on fusion is, as ever, that it is 30 years in the future. The current best hope ITER, the experimental nuclear fusion reactor being built in France, will not produce more energy than it consumes when it is operating. Sabine Hossenfelder explains (http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2021/10/how-close-is-nuclear-fusion-power.html):
DeleteITER will consume about 440 megawatts while it produces fusion power. That gives us an estimate for the total energy that goes in.
The plan is that ITER will generate 500 megawatts of fusion power in heat. If we assume a 50% efficiency for converting this heat into electricity, ITER will produce about 250 megawatts of electric power.
That gives us a Q total (energy out/energy in) of about 0.57. Even optimistically, ITER will still consume roughly twice the power it generates.
Ah, whenever the topic turns to fusion reactors, my mind turns to Peter Thonemann:
Delete"By 1957, early indications were that ZETA [Zero-Energy Toroidal Assembly] had successfully produced tiny amounts of fusion, and the story began to leak to the press. This led to considerable coverage about Thonemann's role in the Australian press. In January it was announced that ZETA had succeeded. After further work, it became clear that the signals of fusion were false, and the story had to be withdrawn, causing great embarrassment."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thonemann
However:
"The publication and press releases were premature and the detection of neutrons was not found to be consistent with fusion reactions. Despite this ZETA would go on to have a long experimental lifetime and produced numerous important advances in the field, being highly significant in the subsequent toroidal designs known as Tokamaks and the contributions to plasma physics and laser physics."
https://www.swansea.ac.uk/science/news/professorpeterthonemann-areflectionofhislife.php
But who, apart from mugs like me, has even heard Peter Thonemann's name in these latter days.
GB - I do recall the enthusiasm in the press, for ZETA, at the time; the name Thonemann did not register as firmly in my memory. It is now in the mental card index.
DeleteWorthy of at least as much recognition as Mark Oliphant, I'd reckon, Chad. But neither quite of the standing of NZ's Rutherford.
DeleteI think that Thonemmann's hot fusion had something in common with "cold fusion" in apparent emission of particles (neutrons, IIRC) that in fact were not 'fusion' originated.
Here in regional Australia the Reptiles headline was something like this.
ReplyDeleteA senior minister (I forget his name) fires off warning shot to Russia
I laughed out loud in the middle of the shop.
Reminds of the randy mouse that after having got his rocks off by successfully! screwing an elephant triumphantly proclaimed to the elephant - did you feel that!
And speaking of Zeta's, does anyone remember the Zeta car which was a complete lemon - a washing machine disguised as a car.
I have now heard of the Lightburn Zeta (1963-1965) thanks, Anony.
Deletehttps://www.below-the-radar.com/lightburn-zeta-runabout/
Yeah, heaps of the usual Neddy waffle yet again - it's inexhaustible, isn't it.. But this little bit is a reptile gem: "The government's deepest fear is that Albanese might win the election without having his history, values and character being brutally assessed." And also this one: "Now it ["the government"] is consumed in a panic to discredit Albanese with only three months left."
ReplyDeleteI can see how that would indeed be totally "panic" making, can't you ? Especially to the thhmtlahtcp man. Oh, the horror of it all.
But otherwise, as usual, was there any intelligence, or relevance, or importance, or coherence in anything Ned wrote ? Other than perhaps his statement back in 2014, as DP reminded us, that "THIS is a moment of transformation in Australia-China ties. In his speech to the Australian parliament, President Xi Jinping has planted Australia within his dream for a renewed China ..."
Yep, moments of transformation just keep on coming.