The reptiles have created a management problem for the pond.
Too many reptiles blathering at too much length about entirely predictable matters in an enormously repetitive way.
If the pond followed its usual path, it would end up with a humongous post - the dog botherer doing his usual rant about climate science denialism, the born again in reptile la la land Bjorn doing the same, Polonius prattling on about the lack of conservatives at the ABC, Dame Slap railing at wretched women ...
Sad to say, the obligatory bromancer and tedious "Ned" are also part of the problem, and yet the point of the pond long ago turned to the bizarre desire to bore passing readers to tears, and so perhaps wean them off any interest in reptiles, herpetology and the whole damn thing ...
It's an ambitious goal, but really a serve of the bromancer and "Ned" is more than enough for this purpose, and so the pond will proceed with them, and send the others off to odd time slots in a kind of pond Siberian gulag ...
First to the bromancer, increasingly under stress, and sounding decidedly odd as he tries to deal with Xianity and the sociopathic Vlad the impaler ...
Incidentally that mention of a maternity hospital bombing reminded the pond that "Crikey" was now dead to the pond. If only the pond was the active subscriber to the rag, the pond would have cancelled its subscription. It was yet more Grundling that set the pond off ...
More specifically it was the use of "inverted commas" ...
Never mind the Irish, there's way to much RT weirdness in current Grundling and the Crikey readership, almost as weird as the bromancer warming to the task at hand ...
More of Xianity below, but first the reptiles stopped for a snap of Dugin in action man mode ...
You see, the bromancer has a Russian Orthodox problem, to go with a Dostoevsky problem, and even those who missed Luke the philosopher rambling on about his deep love of Russian kultur will find the grappling poignant ...
You see? The bromancer is torn. Somehow Russian Xianity is a treasure of spiritual depth and theological insight, and yet somehow it's as weird and as dangerous as Catholicism, that Ponzi scheme using souls as clickbait for extravagant real estate operations ...
And so the bromancer suffers mightily as he struggles to reconcile the paradox ...
An aside ... the pond doesn't mind the sentiment in that Time cover, in many ways it's very apt, but might not the reptiles have at least noted it's a fake?
Even NDTV could note it, and send it out into the world of social media.
Are the reptiles intent on proving that they're just another form of social media?
Never mind, back to the tortured bromancer ...
Really reptiles? Why leave off the date and other details to found in publications such as The Times of Israel?
There, that wasn't so hard as the pond returns to the suffering bromancer, trying to deal with the weirdness of Xianity ...
Of course the moral of the story might well be that Xianity is as fucked as fundamentalist Islam, but the poor bromancer can't go there, and in the final short gobbet is left with chaos ...
These are the end days? But that's no more bizarre or weird than SloMo not worrying about climate science ...
The pond just had to leave that ad in because it shows what happens when you accept product placement ... safely neutered of course, but likely to turn up again should anyone happen to head off to Independent Australia here to read the rest of a recovering Pentecostalist ... while promoting free books down there with the Rosicrucian ads that used to litter the back page of comics ...
With all that done and dusted, it's easy to see why the pond had to relocate some reptiles this day, because after that lengthy bout of bromancer brooding, the pond still had the Everest of nattering "Ned" to climb ...
As usual, "Ned" has nothing to say, and spends an inordinate amount of time saying it, no real insights to offer, and yet a compendium of portentous, pompous platitudes to hand ...
If this doesn't turn away stray readers, the pond has no idea what will. This is undiluted reptile stew, as heady as OP rum ... which reminds the pond ... sailors wanted to “prove” that their spirit had not been watered down. Gunpowder was doused with the rum and if it ignited, it was over proof. If it did not ignite to much water had been added to the rum and it was considered “under proof”. 57.15% Alc/Vol was found to be the lowest point at which the gunpowder ignited and was defined as “100 Degrees Proof”.
More rum and more bonus illiteracy at the manufacturer's site here ...
If only the pond hadn't gone on the wagon ...
There's probably something in there for "Ned's" readership, with the conjuring of ancient ghosts, but that notion made the pond wonder, did "Ned" actually have a readership?
Does anyone dig in to "Ned" knowing that there would be jewels and treasures of insight? And what happened to "Ned" reading his own words? Where did that go? Why is there no prompt in the text?
Never mind, the pond is only trying a little distraction, as a way of making it to the end ...
Beware of imitations! Only "Ned" could offer sublime tosh of the "there is no sign Australia will have a khaki election" kind ...
What a pity the pond had already deployed that immortal Rowe as part of its operational strategy ...
Never mind, it's always good to know it's on standby, ready for deployment in the field ... but now back to "Ned" ... actually swallowing the notion that the news of a submarine base suddenly landed because it has nothing to do with signs of a khaki election ...
"Ned" of course doesn't mention the mid-terms and the possibility that once again the United States will be bogged in a logjam and the world will go to hell in a handbasket, helped along by the climate science denialists that surround him ...
On the upside, never mind the end of the world, the end of "Ned" is approaching ...
Oh dear, the pond had feared that would happen. That invading cockroach, Piers Morgan, is now likely to start turning up in News Corp, much in the way that black sheep were once sent to the colonies to see if they could make their fortune ...
Well the pond neutered that click bait video and then had only one gobbet of tedium to go ...
Indeed, indeed, or perhaps focus on "Ned's" insatiable desire to carry water for the end times man by way of subtle innuendos and platitudes...
Did the pond say subtle? Off to get a bar of soap, for washing out of mouth with same ...
And after all that, surely anyone would agree that enough is more than enough, and it's time to wrap things up with an infallible Pope ...
So Noodles Neddy tells us that "Our national security interests should transcend the partisan divide, Albanese said." And you can read all about it here:
ReplyDeletePenny Wong says better relationship with China possible if Coalition stops ‘playing politics’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/11/penny-wong-says-better-relationship-with-china-possible-if-coalition-stops-playing-politics
Oh yeah, there's just nothing worse than politicians playing politics, is there.
So the Bro stentoriously informs us that: "International sanctions have crippled the Russian economy, crashed the rouble, cased a flight of capital." Right, so, regardless of the outcome of Ukraine vs Russia, what will happen to the "sanctions" ? Even if Russia wins, will the sanctions be lifted so that it becomes obvious that "the West" has no dedication to honour and no staying power in righting wrongs ? Just put up with some negatives for a while and then pretty quick-smart things will get back to normal again.
ReplyDeleteAnd whilst I'm with DP all the way about the Grundle, I do remember the bit about "invading Iraqi troops had ripped premature babies from humidicribs so that the equipment could be sent back to Iraq." and we can't even blame the Faux Noise folks for that one - but I'm sure they learned heaps from it.
"It's difficult to imagine two environments more different than a club of country wives and a military unit of elite soldiers.
ReplyDeleteBut what they share, according to evidence heard in a Sydney court this week, is a propensity for rumours."
SAS 'rumour' mill, bullying claims and doubts over Victoria Cross dominate Ben Roberts-Smith trial
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-12/sas-witnesses-talk-of-bullying-rumours-ben-roberts-smith-trial/100903596
Well that's just amazing, isn't it: members of the human race acting like members of the human race. What's the single most wide-spread and frequent human activity ? Making up stories and telling lies and believing them.
No wonder the world-wide Murdoch press is so successful.
"...the dog botherer doing his usual rant about climate science denialism, the born again in reptile la la land Bjorn doing the same"
ReplyDeleteHmmm. John Quiggin: "Amazingly, the Courier-Mail ran a piece pointing out the link to global heating and the fact that the costs of climate disasters far outweigh our earnings from coal."
Also, a piece in The Conversation, explaining why terms like “1 in 1000 year flood” need to be retired in favor of probabilities, updating using Bayesian reasoning."
https://www.couriermail.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=CMWEB_WRE170_a&dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.couriermail.com.au%2Fnews%2Fopinion%2Fjohn-quiggin-disasters-cost-far-more-than-fixing-climate-change-threat-opinion%2Fnews-story%2Fd2b1495a2aa785802b5b93df91dbfb78&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium&v21=dynamic-warm-control-score&V21spcbehaviour=append#share-tools
If you've got access (I haven't).
And:
One in 1,000 years? Old flood probabilities no longer hold water
https://theconversation.com/one-in-1-000-years-old-flood-probabilities-no-longer-hold-water-178524
Part 1, with the reptiles making a meal out of attached galleries:
DeleteJohn Quiggin | Disasters cost far more than fixing climate change threat | Opinion
People in Quensland (sic) and NSW don’t need a scientific report to know that climate change is causing dangerous and widespread disruption. It is increasingly evident that the costs of the carbon economy outweigh the benefits, writes Professor John Quiggin.
A landmark UN report says that time had nearly run out to ensure a "liveable future" for all, detailing a horrifying "atlas of human suffering" and warning that far worse was to come. Species extinction, ecosystem collapse, insect-borne disease, deadly heatwaves and megastorms, water shortages, reduced crop yields -- all are measurably worse due to rising temperatures, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said.
Two weeks ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest report on the effects of global heating.
The central conclusion was that, “Human-induced climate change is causing dangerous and widespread disruption in nature and affecting the lives of billions of people.”
Those of us living in South East Queensland and Northern NSW didn’t need a scientific report to know this.
By last Sunday evening, Brisbane had experienced an unprecedented 677 mm of rainfall in three days. And as the weather system moved south, coastal towns in NSW experienced events described as 1 in 1000 year floods.
This disaster came only two years after catastrophic bushfires devastated much of eastern Australia. Australia was not alone – floods, forest fires and disastrous heatwaves have been experienced all around the world in recent years.
Gallery: Brisbane flood destruction from the air
The fact that global heating will lead to more frequent extreme weather events, bushfires and heatwaves has been established by climate science research, summarised in IPCC reports, over several decades.
But until relatively recently, it was impossible to say with any certainty whether any particular event was due to climate change.
In recent years, however, improvements in techniques of ‘event attribution’ have combined with increasingly severe disasters to make it possible to say, fairly definitively, that these events would not have happened, or would have been less severe, if it were not for human emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
We don’t yet have an attribution analysis for multi-day events like the recent ‘rain bomb’, but it seems highly likely that climate change is implicated.
As a result, we are now in a better position to compare the economic costs of global heating in Australia with the perceived benefits of continuing to use, produce and export carbon based fuels, particularly, coal and gas.
It is increasingly evident that the costs of the carbon economy outweigh the benefits, and that this imbalance will only grow in the future.
The case of Queensland coal provides one example.
Aerial photos: Mountains of flood debris washes up on Moreton Bay beaches
Part 2, just because it's such a bizarre and unusual sighting:
DeleteCoal advocates have stressed the crucial role of coal royalties, currently around $3 billion a year in supporting the state’s budget.
But that will almost certainly be cancelled out by the costs of the recent floods. And such events are occurring with ever-increasing frequency: as well as the bushfires, there were major floods in Townsville in 2019 and Rockhampton in 2017.
The potential loss of jobs in coal mining areas is also a major concern.
But disasters also cost jobs. Some instances are dramatic.
The population of New Orleans is still far below its level before Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Smaller-scale floods produce job losses that are less immediately evident but can amount to 3 per cent of total employment.
By contrast, coal mining accounts for around 0.4 per cent of total employment in Australia
Turning to the national scene, the proposal by the Greens to spend $20 billion over ten years to enable workers in coal mining to make the transition to other areas of employment has been treated as unaffordable by the major parties. But on current trends, it is estimated that floods could be costing us $40 billion every year by 2060.
Whitsundays Dive Operator Tony Fontes has seen the health of the Great Barrier Reef decline over the past 43 years. He is calling on the Australian Government to increase it's climate change response on the eve of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Climate Impacts Report. VIDEO: Brendan Radke - Cairns Post
The response of our leaders to the impact of climate change natural disasters has been breathtakingly cynical. Because climate change is a global problem, we can’t prevent disasters here by reducing our own emissions.
Rather our reductions mostly reduce the severity of disasters all around the world. The same is true for every other country.
Rather than stepping up to do our bit, Australia’s policy has been to do as little as possible, and hope that others will pick up the slack for us.
The economic costs of natural disasters aren’t the only reason, or even the most important reason to stop climate change.
Massive species extinction and the loss of natural ecosystems like the Great Barrier Reef will be a terrible legacy for our children and grandchildren.
But even in the narrowest economic terms, urgent measures to end carbon dioxide emissions and stabilise the global climate are highly desirable.
John Quiggin is a Professor in Economics at The University of Queensland
They're bringing it on way too fast, DP. I really had hoped, though not in any tearing hurry, that I might have "passed" (ie died a relatively painless natural death, or maybe just a very fast unnatural one) and this would no longer matter, even if the universe did live on after me.
DeleteBut they're not going to be that kind, are they.
Yeah, GB, if the rain doesn't take out the pond, then inhaling the mold festooning the entire house surely will, unless all the mushrooms blooming on the verge prove too much of a temptation ...
DeleteBut thanks for posting the Quiggin, DP. It's always good to know what the world is going to expire from.
Delete