Tuesday, April 05, 2022

In which the pond offers a solid groaning for the late arvo slot, together with a new entry in the pond's Hume highway series ...

 

 

As promised, the pond now offers a solid groaning in its specialist late arvo slot, as Dame Groan does her best to join the reptiles in 'all claws on deck' for the coming election.

Tragically Dame Groan has chosen a topic which didn't even rate a mention in the Caterist outing this morning ...

 

 


 


Sorry, sorry, the pond can't get enough of unpublished data and paranoia and the lull of complacency, perhaps with a tinge of arrogance... but it's time to get on with the groaning ...




 

Lordy, lordy, that was even duller than the pond had been expecting.

Time for the pond to introduce a bit of a distraction, with its ongoing survey of towns and villages off the Hume highway.

Come on down, mighty Coolac, take readers minds off the groaning ...

 

 



 


 

More on this splendid vision anon, but first the hard yards must be done with another bout of the groaning ...

 




 

The pond gets it. Unions bad, News Corp good, builders sticking up hovels that fall apart before they even hit the market really good ...

But what of mighty Coolac?

Why there are some splendid buildings, including the usual memorial hall ...





 

And there's heaps of parking outside the store ...






And there's also a pub, built in the grand style, and possibly even with union labour ...





 

And with the rest stop almost over, time to return to Dame Groan for a final gobbet of groaning ...




 

Say that again: "Whether the abolition of the ABCC can be made an election issue that resonates with voters is unclear, but it's worth a shot."

So this day, the pond has seen the bromancer trash the mutton Dutton, the wailing Caterist drag out unpublished polling which doesn't go within cooee of mentioning the ABCC, and all he had as an alternative was blather about arrogance and complacency and the ghost of comrade Bill, and now the very best Groaner in the land can only offer "worth a shot"?!

...And as I sat there watching
I had the feeling that something was missing
I don't know what, but when it was over I said to myself
Is that all there is to the circus?
Is that all there is, is that all there is?
If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
Let's break out the Coolac booze and have a memorial hall ball
If that's all there is ...

Is it any wonder the pond took the detour to Coolac?

And what with being lulled to sleep by the sighing and the groaning and the worth a shot, the pond almost forgot to mention the splendid buildings to be seen back when the building industry built things to last ...






Okay, it's looking a little aged now, but look at the stone work and make an offer ...

Finally, for anyone wondering, yes there are ways to leave Coolac ...






But the pond preferred this way out, via the ghost of Tim Fischer past ...






And that's all there is for the pond's detour to Coolac and the thoughts of Dame Groan ...



5 comments:

  1. What nice restful-looking country town, Coolac. But there is a Coolac PO: 427 Coolac Road. And where there's a PO these days, there's generally at least 4 banks represented.

    So civilisation is at hand.

    ReplyDelete
  2. So, Groany: "Whether the abolition of the ABCC can be made an election issue that resonates with voters is unclear, but it's worth a shot." Oh wau, it's "worth a shot". Yep, I can just see $loMo doing a fabulous song and dance about that intensely important issue that every Australian has high up on their list of 'things I've never heard about and couldn't care less about either'.

    Of course I could be wrong, and maybe we'll be subjected to three years of being regaled with how Albanese lost because he didn't look after the ABCC which the Aussie voters were so passionate about.

    ReplyDelete
  3. ‘sham contracting - . . . .- it is likely that its extent is not nearly as great as the union thinks’

    Yep - the Dame must have her own cache of unpublished data to support that observation.

    There seems to be a lobbying body for any and every conceivable subsection of industry in this country - could there be an Association of Sham Contractors, with its own research arm, supplying the Dame with the good info.?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Dorothy,

    Compass Polling for some reason reminded me of this, from Sonia Shah’s “Crude: The Story of Oil”, on the topic of how much pumpable oil is still left in the ground;

    “Essentially, the size of the reservoir is estimated using a formula that multiplies several different factors together, each of which is itself an educated guess. Different estimates for the variables render “wildly different answers” on the size of the reserve…

    …To make statistical sense of it all, each factor used estimating the reserve can be given a range of figures and the formula crunched through in all the various combinations fifty to one hundred times.

    The result is a range of possible answers for the size of the reserve, within which, it is hoped the truthful one hides. This range, again, can be evaluated statiscally, rendering a series of guesses, each with its own statistical probability of being true (their “P” factor) attached like a price tag. The reservoir engineer then chooses one, gracing it with the banner emblazoned “proven.” But which one?”

    The resulting joke in the oil industry was;

    “Shell was interviewing three potential employees, a geologist, a geophysicist, and a petroleum reservoir estimation engineer. The test question asked was “what is two times two?” The geologist mumbles for a while and announces that it is probably more than three, maybe less than five.The geophysicist punches it into his calculator and announces 3.9999. When the reservoir engineer is asked, he jumps up, locks the door, closes the shades, unplugs the phone, and whispers, “What do you want it to be?””

    DiddyWrote

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yes DW - can see why you would associate that story with Compass, and their ilk. The wicked lefties on ABC, this very day, have put up an assessment of the fundamentals of polling by businesses who are trying to be seen as right at the time of the 'only poll that counts'.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-05/election-2022-can-we-trust-opinion-polls-again/100965412?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web

    as ever - the link is about as long as the clip.

    ReplyDelete

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