Towards the end of the week, the pond tends to get a little tetchy with the reptiles, and their wilful refusal to cover interesting matters.
Oh you can cry out for St Barners all you like in the comments section, demanding urgent comic relief from the Tamworth sage, with lashings of hypocrisy (perhaps start with love of family life?), but surely Scotty from marketing shows how to deploy a bus, for shoving people thereunder, so why not start with a Rowe, knowing that there's always more Rowe to sup on here ...
And what brought that cartoon on? Well Crikey is dead to the pond thanks to the Grundle grundling away on Ukraine, except when it isn't ...
Well you won't find any talk of natural born liars at the lizard Oz, nor any notice of the shoving under bus, but you will see signs that the reptiles are still eagerly taking Klive's kash in their klaw ...
Why there's even a yarn about the pastie Hastie on the front page of the tree killer edition, but as that's a matter before the courts, the pond won't comment on the astonishing and mysterious ways that someone can comprehensively defame themselves by taking a defamation action ...
As for the commentary section, the pond thought about a late arvo posting and decided against it ...
Poor simplistic Simon, in a world of pain. Oh nooze, not the aspirational class?
Speaking of class and conflicts of interest, how's it going with Bid?
The pond still can't shake that image of Bid and Benson ... such a naked display of how the reptiles play the conflict ofinterest game ...
As for bubble-headed booby Claire, sorry, it is transphobia, and with a goodly dose of stupid paranoia to boot.
Female athletes will be wiped out? Oh for fuck's sake, that's why the pond can't be bothered doing a late arvo post featuring a paranoid making a transphobic mountain out of a molehill.
As for the tinkering Trinca, trying not to take someone's decision to do something else with their life personally?
Personally? What, she's got to keep playing or you'll be personally devastated and bung on a fit and blame her for your suffering, a bit like bubble-headed booby Claire blaming trans folk?
What the fuck? Get a life, and let others get on with theirs as they choose ...
That only left the Swiss bank accounts man, and the lizard Oz editorialist and of course the bromancer, and if nothing else, the pond is loyal to its reptile favourites ...
Sure it's just a short, lightly tossed word salad featuring favourite bromancer memes, but it's Friday ... and at least the mutton Dutton is at the head of the story ... and all the better, the bromancer is pleading with the spud man to do nothing, or we'll end up with patented mutton Dutton mashed potato ...
Do nothing? Or just keep making announcements about announcements?
The pond couldn't be sure who the bromancer was channeling: “Sometimes the most important thing to do is to do nothing.” - Debasish Mridha; “I don't believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing.” - Ronald Reagan
Whatever happened to lying your socks off as a solution to everything?
Never mind, the bromancer soon turned to his favourite topic, the uselessness of tanks, and the pond has to concede, on the evidence in Ukraine, that perhaps the bromancer is on to something, and perhaps defence is living in the haze of a Brad Pitt fury from a war long ago ...
Oh come on bromancer, surely with a bit of skill, we could take back Adelaide from that newly installed rogue premier ...
Or how about sending a bevy of tanks to take back Queensland from the toads?
But having reached the point of beyond the rational, the bromancer sputtered out ...
So the best bromancer advice to Scotty from marketing is to do nothing, except perhaps lie your socks off?
Meanwhile, speaking of the maritime environment, the pond couldn't help but notice this cry of pain from another reptile ...
Luckily the infallible Pope was out and about to supply the salve of a blessing ...
Yep, good old beefy boofhead prime Angus has been at it again ... and what a delightful conjunction of prayer, corruption and incompetence ...
If you're feeling choleric and in need of a graph to go with the three heil barners burgers, go here ...
And what a tangled web has been woven with the carbon credits scheme ...
...while the pond proceeds to the main course for the day, featuring the hole in the bucket man ...
Machiavelli? Vonn Clausewitz? But what of Tuckyo Carlson?
Here for the full tweet - too nauseating for the pond to feature - as it seems the hole in the bucket man is, like a number of other reptiles, apparently unaware of the valiant deeds of the corporation they're scribbling for ...
Yes, it's all very well to blather on about von Clausewitz, but what about von Tucker and von Rupert?
Indeed, indeed, but speaking of quislings and Vichy and lickspittle fellow travelers, what about Cuckyo Tarlson? Others have noticed ...
The time has come to be honest? The pond looks forward to next Friday when the hole in the bucket man pens a blistering denunciation of Cucker Tarlson, savages chairman Rupert and resigns his position as columnist at the lizard Oz ...
Oh wait, what's that you say?
He's comfortable being an armchair general, sipping on an extremely dry and academic sherry, and his fear of war may yet see Faux Noise be the gravedigger for the world?
After all, they did their best to destroy democracy with the mango Mussolini, and the job's not nearly done yet ...
And so to end with an infallible Pope, and luckily there was one spare from yesterday ...
Now considering the lost Grundle: "Morrison has a history of lying when under political pressure ..." And when he's not under political pressure, too. But is it, perhaps, that SloMo is actually mostly unaware he's lying ? Trump certainly was because he couldn't possibly have consciously made up the huge number of lies he told incessantly.
ReplyDeleteBut in this case, it may all hinge on the difference between "not at" - because he goes to a local church - and "to". So, if SloMo interprets "at" to essentially mean 'a regular member of' and "to" to mean 'an occasional visitor' then is he lying, or is Grundle just willfully misunderstanding ?
I should give our Henry a little credit this day for his acknowledgement of Machiavelli, in a way that shows most of what he wrote reflected a good understanding of how individuals and communities actually behaved.
ReplyDeleteNiccolò has always had a bad press, because he showed up the myths about military conflicts. Those myths have been maintained by those who have believed that declaring another group of people to be an ‘enemy’, and sorting them out with military action, would be simple, to the benefit of the aggressor, and the people being sorted out would roll over and declare allegiance to their saviour.
Machiavelli’s realism became the target of the pubic relations industry, which has been around, well-funded, for a very long time. In his case, it was quite successful. The term ‘Machiavellian’ is still seen as a synonym for sneaky tactics, dishonesty, lack of principle through to outright chicanery - even by those who claim to have read ‘The Prince’. One such was Piers Akerman, although his claim to familiarity with the actual work was not borne out by his frequent use of the term.
Having given the Henry that credit - I will take issue with his actual quote. It comes from ‘The Prince’, Chapter V - and chapter headings were given in Latin - which translates as ‘How cities or principalities which lived under their own laws should be administered after being conquered.’
Niccolò wrote of the time of the ‘city state’, and most accepted translations refer to ‘cities’. The example that follows the quote that the Henry has taken refers to the city of Pisa breaking out of ‘servitude’ to Florence after a hundred years.
The last sentence in that Chapter, unfortunately, does not suit the Henry - it concludes that the only long-term solution for the aggressor is to live in the city in person - or to wipe it out. Putin’s ‘campaign’ so far suggests he has not troubled himself to read Italian courtiers or 500 years ago.
What a pity it took so long for humanity to develop 'easy writing' (ie. a bit easier than sculpting stone tablets) so that we don't have a string of Machiavellis who could have given us the ongoing histories from extended families to tribes to villages to cities to principalities to nations to empires.
DeleteAnd it would all have said the same: rule them from co-habitation or annihilate and enslave them. Like Çatalhöyük maybe ? Who knows what happened there ? But who wants to bet that it wasn't just a bit of good old Machiavellianism.
I guess the only time it didn't fully apply was when we were extended family/small tribe wandering gatherers who didn't run into each other very often (which explains why numerous diseases didn't actually get to wipe us out. Cf the cities of Europe and the Black Death which got about 1/3rd of Europe).
"Never mind, the bromancer soon turned to his favourite topic, the uselessness of tanks, and the pond has to conceded ..." Indeed so, DP, indeed so. And where did you see it first ?
ReplyDeleteHenry Ergas says Finland was
ReplyDelete"comprehensively defeated twice by the Red Army, in the 1939-40
Winter War and then..."
Yo, Hank. Finland kicked hell out of the Soviet Forces in
the Winter War of 1939-40.
It shook the Red Army to it's core, exposing it's
poor operating doctrines/tactics, worse supply issues,
and dearth of key experienced officers as a result of
Stalin's purge trials.
1940 Finland was not comprehensively defeated, it's army
was still intact and capable of inflicting casualties the
Russians couldn't afford, though Moscow would have prevailed
eventually.
Little Finland eventually had to yield land it's true but it had
destroyed the prestige of the Soviet forces and was decisive in
convincing Hitler that all he had to do was
'kick in the front door and the whole rotten structure - of the USSR - would fall'.
If I was Henry I would have drawn the far more apt analogy of
comparing the success of 1939 Finland against the USSR with Ukraine today.
If either had had a capable offensive arm they
would have defeated their befuddled bogged down foe.
The difference is that with the West's support of Kiev
today the Russians have a rapidly closing window before
their army has to claim victory and withdraw.
They have the longest border in the world to defend but all
their offensive capabilities are tied down in one theatre
and being ground into ineffectiveness.
That is nuts.
No sane patriotic general staff is going to allow this to
continue indefinitely.
If Tucker is to finally consummate his love with Putin he better
hie to that honeymoon cabin on the Black Sea quick smart.
Jersey Mike - always good to have your perspective here, thank you.
DeleteAh, the Finland-Russia wars weren't known to Thucydides, JM, so we couldn't expect Holely Henry to get any of it right.
DeleteGB,
DeleteThe words "it's all Greek to me" leap to mind with the Hankster.
Chadwick,
Thanks buddy, right back at you. I have learned a lot from you
and DP and her crew here over the years.
Just an aside, but after watching the Sydney set "Underbelly"
series I read up on it's post war development. There is a
well known building named Australia Square but it is in
fact round.
Is this meant tongue in cheek or have I lost the plot
here?
Hi JM,
Deleteby chance the pond caught this on the winter war ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkxbDwsJo38
The replies are interesting, especially as Felton failed to mention the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, which set the hounds running ...
cheers
That was an endless source of childhood humour for me: why is Australia Square round?
DeleteYou haven't lost the plot, JM. It's built on a - roughly - square block of land.
Mercurial,
DeleteFinally, the answer.
Previously I was advised that someone was
'having a lend of me' and that it was
actually called Australia Round on the Square.
I bought that for a fast minute.
No offense but you lot have a bit of the
wiseguy in you.
Thanks again.
DP,
DeleteThat Felton link was pretty good but as you noted
he didn't mention the Pact.
There have been other times as well that he didn't
consider the political dimensions and focused on
the horrors of battle exclusively.
Still, he does seem to be the best at what he does.
Hi Dorothy,
ReplyDeleteThe Weekly Beast at the Grauniad was in fine form today;
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/mar/25/oz-editor-in-chief-rages-against-the-tearing-down-of-news-corp-journalism
In particular the dummy spit from the editor-in-chief of the Australian, Christopher Dore was a classic;
“He raged against Twitter and said that the “golden age of journalism” – the Australian was selling 22 million copies each year – was being tarnished by activist journalists who had “an irrational and tireless obsession with tearing down News Corporation journalism”.”
A perfect example of a glass jaw (a common affliction at NewsCorp). Happy to dish it out but all hurt and upset when anybody returns fire. Toughen up Chrissy!
Considering he has co-ordinated a near constant campaign of vilification against the ABC he is either taking the piss or is quite delusional.
Possibly both.
DiddyWrote
I remember a quote that goes something along the line of: "Savages and children are very aware of the justice due to them, but very little aware of the justice due from them."
DeleteSo what can we say about Dore, and the whole reptile/wingnut mob: is he a child or a savage or both ?
Yes DW, it was most excellent and the pond couldn't help celebrating even though it's freely available. It's an even better source of reptile lore than Media Watch or other poseurs ...
DeleteSo, Holely Henry: "NATO military intervention is clearly not on the cards as the US and its allies seem petrified of the possible consequences, despite the lack of any evidence in the Kremlin of suicidal instincts." So despite all his claims to classical erudition, HH has never heard of 'unintended consequences' leading, for example, to wild escalation.
ReplyDeleteSo, how many of the rulers of Germany, UK, France etc actually planned and intended for WWI - or WWII come to think if it - to escalate to the extent and intensity that it did - just as well they didn't have nukes until it was basically all over back then. And why did the US develop the 'atomic bomb' ? Because otherwise, they believed, Germany might develop it first - and wouldn't that have been just wonderful.
But maybe Putin will not last the distance (sudden heart attacks are in these days) to be replaced by someone even more "off planet" than he is ? When MAD no longer works because at least one of the nukes plus deliverables nations is already mad, what then ?
The pond read Albertini's three volume The Origins of the War of 1914 from cover to cover as preparation for a Masters thesis, concluded it showed the lemming like suicidal instincts of tribal humanity, and gave the topic away ... there was nothing more to be said, except to remark on the loonacy with some slight variations ...
DeleteYeah, except that lemmings don't actually commit suicide as such, they just mill around as over-populated rodents and blunder off cliffs in the process of migrating.
DeleteErr, much like humans now you come to mention it. I do wonder though how many of those human 'lemmings' truly believe that because of their God, they'll get eternal 'life' anyway.