The reptiles now seem to have adjusted to their fate, gone through some kind of catharsis and now yearn for a new transcendence ... and can't shut up about it.
As a result, the pond today is a lengthy and tedious affair, but then the pond has always thought this is about the reptiles rather than stray readers. There they lie on the couch of life, pouring out their hearts, what's left of them, and it's the pond's duty to listen.
That's why the pond could cheerfully return the dog botherer to the morning slot, listening to his tale of woe, while muttering occasionally in best Sybil Fawlty style, "oh, I know, I know .... it must be terrible..."
Oh I know, I know, it must be terrible ... but please note that snap of the mutton Dutton at the start of the doggie boy's rant. It's become the new reptile treasure, and we will see its like again before this day is out ...
Meanwhile, hearken to the dog botherer's desire to maintain his climate science denialism as the way forward for party, country and planet ...
Oh I know, I know, it must be terrible, having to come up with such a tortured metaphor of the netball turning into basketball kind. Couldn't you have come up with a more manly image? Perhaps thugby union, turned into thugby league, and full of vulgar boofheads?
Oh wait, sorry, it's okay for people talking in tongues to imaginary friends to be vulgar boofheads ... sorry, do go on ... get stuck into the moderates, because your extremism has been such an astonishing electoral success ...
Dear sweet long absent lord, still blathering on about Malware? But weren't you one of the gang? Didn't you have something to do with utegate? Never mind, the irony is so rich and delicious the pond is strangely content ... n
Now let's have a snap of the real problem. Bloody women ...
Ah it's the new reptile theme song. If we must do zero, we must nuke the planet ... and so to stick up for the Canavan caravan in the Sky after dark way ... perhaps even a snap of the brave lad looking weirdly scientific and blessed with ultra high tech gear?
Oh I know, I know, it must be terrible, fancy, being a climate science denialist, and then called a climate science denialist and then dressing up the science as a form of theology so that you can bray like a donkey about heresy, where will it all end?
Well it could end by having a read of the venerable Meade's richly amusing Toto Albanese steals the post-election show as News Corp front pages do an about-face, but there's no about face for the dog botherer, just a short final gobbet ...
Speaking of the hard man talking the hard talk, and making the doggie boy very, very hard, Dame Slap was also out and about, and by golly, she's found a new Christ to worship ... water into wine, bread into fish, the whole damn thing ...
Oh wait, what was that the pond said about that snap turning up again?
So soon? It's never too soon for the reptiles, because indoctrination must start at an early age ...
Sure, it's going to be a tough makeover, but by golly, Dame Slap is just the right person to do it ...
Oh, I know, I know, and it's not for the pond to wonder why the liar from the Shire's children were dressed like refugees from an Amish colony on the big night, it's on with more of the make-over ...
Oh I know, I know, it's terrible, fancy giving potato head plod a hard time ...it's a sure sign he's the new messiah and will give those sandgropers a terrible what for ...
Truly he's a veritable genius this new Messiah, unlike the old Messiah, who is now so yesterday ... and luckily Cathy Wilcox generously suggested ways to help with the makeover ...
Be pictured with your family? We can tick that one off, because the reptiles have already done the family snap twice, and surely that's more than enough?
Oh and Wilcox forget the other tip: get Dame Slap to write glowing things about you and denounce pussies, wet lettuce leafs, wimps, crybabies, sooks, whiners, moaners, squawkers, headless chooks, bawlers, bellyachers and snivellers ...
Still haunted by Malware, both Dame Slap and the dog botherer, and yet such is the ongoing confusion in the reptile ranks, they don't know what to say about the shameless self-serving Sharma ... is he capable of open and honest debate, per the dog botherer, or is he just a sniveling crybaby sook, dribbling snot all over the place?
There came no answer in the final gobbet, just more patented Dame Slap rage ...
Oh I know, I know, it's terrible, but thank the long absent lord that blather about open and honest debate gave way to an incandescent rage, and a desire to own the libs and send the left apoplectic. May the reptile wars continue until the planet is completely destroyed, and then we will have saved the village ...
And so to the most onerous pond duty of them all, the scaling of the nattering "Ned" Everest.
The pond never shirks from its duty, its wild ambition, but will understand if even the thought of an infallible Pope or an immortal Rowe is enough to stay reading. Why not just skip to the illustrations? No need to read the article, that's the way it was done in the 1950s ... a cartoon-led recovery ...
Alright the pond has given everyone the chance to just look at the cartoons, now it's on with the Everest ...
It's going to be a long one, but might the pond pause to welcome back one of the old cult masters and that keen portrait of a robotic Albo, though it doesn't quite suit the tone the reptiles struck, per the venerable Meade at the link above ...
Perhaps next time Tom ditch the sunnies and go the rumpled, crumpled PJs?
Sorry, sorry, it's going to be a long one, and the Ancient Mariner has the floor ...
Dear sweet long absent lord, the greenies marching together like the mutton Dutton and his family? What form of cruel mockery or infinite jest is this? Quick, we need a snap of some bloody woman as a distraction from "Ned's" blather ...
You see? The pictures can help, and perhaps that's why the reptiles stuck in a click bait video, and the pond naturally defanged it ...
Some might be wondering why there's that neutered click bait video, instead of a player with "Ned" reading his own words in a sonorous tone, but the pond likes to think everyone can imagine a quavering
"Ned" delivering his hellfire and damnation words, praising the righteous and the just, and smoting the wicked and the ungodly ...
Fuck it, I know, I know, it's terrible, cast into the wilderness and everything broken, and is there another click bait video in the house? You know, given that "Ned" is in the job of prediction, but is strangely unable to predict, exactly or otherwise ..
Yes, the reptiles will still have China ...
Sorry, but the pond did promise the odd cartoon as a distraction ...
"Ned" never gets tired of teh doom and the gloom and the deadly, but lo, there came again the Messiah, and for the third time this very day, the reptiles ran that snap of the Messiah ...
Three times in one pond outing the new Messiah strutted with his family, and the reptiles were mightily pleased ...he's not just a naughty boy ...
Meanwhile, speaking of naughty boys and derelict ruins ...
Oh that, the shameful, appalling ploy by the liar from the Shire?
Please, infallible Pope, that's definitely not reptile business, and that is only right and fair, because whatever it takes is the reptile mantra ...send folks apoplectic and you can do what you like ...
And now how time flies when you're not having fun, and here's the last "Ned" gobbet and mercifully it's a short one ...
So much blather, so little time, but at least time for a final immortal Rowe, with more Rowe here ...
Ah a flying bull ...
That reminds the pond of its unfinished thesis, the flying cow in cinema ...
... to be followed by the flying cow in art ...
Doggy Bov: "the so-called Liberal moderates believe that after last weekend's defeat, the Liberals should become even more like Labor." See ? Hotellings rule hard at work there. "Presumably they have not stopped to ponder how such a trajectory would eventually make their party redundant." Redundant ? No, just much more competitive on a person to person basis: after all, how can Labor - a party of Shortens and Albaneses - compete with a party of Menzies, Howards, Canavans, Joyces and Duttons ? Nolo contendere, si ?
ReplyDeleteAnd here he goes: "if you think the Liberal Party ought to embrace emotive, irrational stances on climate policy, support endless government interventions in energy, and enslave itself to political fashion, then perhaps you are in the wrong party." No, perhaps just that you are in the wrong species on the wrong planet, Doggy Bov. Go talk with Elon and find out how to embark in a SpaceX shuttle to get you back to your true home.
But hold on: "...because the Liberals lost to parties on their left, they must move keft. If that strategy had been adopted by both major parties, they would have melted into a one-party state decades ago." I think maybe I should repeat here what was posted a couple of days ago:
"Traditional centre-right and centre-left parties were established to represent large, coherent social and economic groups, most importantly unionised labour, business, and various religions. But the economic and social model on which these parties were founded began to change in the 1950s and has now largely disappeared, thanks to neoliberalism, deindustrialisation, the feminisation and casualisation of the workforce, the decline of organised religion, the decline of unionism, and the collapse of communism."
https://clubtroppo.com.au/2022/05/26/australia-enters-the-post-party-phase-of-western-democracy/
So, we are entering the "post party phase of Western democracy". Will the Doggy Bov and the rest of the reptiles ever notice that ? Oh, hold on: "Public debate about conservatives and moderates, or conservatism versus liberalism, is a turn-off for voters." Yep, he does notice it, he just doesn't, as is usual for him, understand what he is saying. And never will.
Golly GB, it's strange to see the dog botherer's entrails laid out and inspected for signs of rational thinking ... but you did force the pond to look up that rule ... which it turned out wasn't the same as his law ...
DeleteHotelling's law is an observation in economics that in many markets it is rational for producers to make their products as similar as possible. This is also referred to as the principle of minimum differentiation as well as Hotelling's linear city model. The observation was made by Harold Hotelling (1895–1973) in the article "Stability in Competition" in Economic Journal in 1929.
The opposing phenomenon is product differentiation, which is usually considered to be a business advantage if executed properly.
And that rule?
Hotelling's rule defines the net price path as a function of time while maximizing economic rent in the time of fully extracting a non-renewable natural resource. The maximum rent is also known as Hotelling rent or scarcity rent and is the maximum rent that could be obtained while emptying the stock resource. In an efficient exploitation of a non-renewable and non-augmentable resource, the percentage change in net-price per unit of time should equal the discount rate in order to maximise the present value of the resource capital over the extraction period.
This concept was the result of analysis of non-renewable resource management by Harold Hotelling, published in the Journal of Political Economy in 1931, on the basis of his previous research on depreciation (see Hotelling 1925), which invites us to consider with caution the application of Hotelling's rule to concrete natural resources, in particular fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas). Devarajan and Fisher note that a similar result was published by L. C. Gray in 1914, considering the case of a single mine owner.
The simple rule can be expressed by the equilibrium situation representing the optimal solution.
The economic rent obtained is an abnormal rent, often referred to as resource rent, since it generates from a situation where the resource owner has open access to the resource for free. In other words, the resource rent is the resource royalty or resource's net price (price received from selling the resource minus costs. In this case costs are zero). The resource rent therefore equals the shadow value of the natural resource or natural capital.
The concept of resource rent also includes biological and other renewable resources.
And so the pond learned something new, even if it lost the equation to be found here ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotelling%27s_rule
Thank you for the clarification, DP. I do recall having vaguely heard mention of the "net price path" but basically just as that, not either as a law or a rule, whereas the "meet in the middle" is often referred to as a 'rule' rather than a law. So now I am better informed too.
DeleteBut as to Doggy Bov's 'entrails', well much can be learned from understanding the madness of others - though, of course, there are many more ways of being wrong than being right, so one cannot truly progress only by studying humanity's many, many wrongnesses.
According to a note I made at the time, there was discussion around the pond of Harold Hotelling in October 2021.
DeleteThe Hotelling rule set off further guidance on what smart governments could do to optimise benefits from exploiting non-renewable resources for the benefit of the public that governments claim to serve.
OK - to save us all time, yes, we understand that most governments demonstrate Pareto Principle, and are much more inclined to deliver the immediate benefits from digging stuff out of the ground to those who have got their hands on the licences to dig, and who show their appreciation by slinging three-fifths of sod all of 1% of the resource rent into the slush funds of the party in power. But it is pleasant to imagine, and there are a few governments that have followed sound economic theory in managing exploitation of non-renewable resources, to the great benefit of the people who voted them in.
John Hartwick further refined Hotelling’s ‘rule’ to show that the rents from exhaustible resources should be reinvested in non-exhaustible assets; which is also a condition for intergenerational equity. Robert Solow further refined this concept through the 1980s, and continues to contribute to the study at age 97.
Solow made sure that his writings on this aspect of resources and intergenerational equity aligned with wider understandings of ‘growth’, because, in the mid 1950s he, and the Australian Trevor Swan, produced the Solow-Swan model of long-term economic growth, which is still a commonly-used model, although too often it shows how politics and distortion of trade impede accumulation of capital for many countries.
This is almost diametrically opposite that Scandinavian economist Jobson Grouth, although he is much more frequently quoted than Trevor Swan, by the political parties in Australia who claim to ‘know about economic management’. And, a f a i k, Trevor Swan and Wayne Swan are not related.
One aside - it might be argued that Andrew Forrest’s ideas on diversification into renewables do align with the Hotelling and Hartwick ‘Rules’. Could good business strategy follow good economic theory?
Now that you mention it, Chad, a faint tickle of memory does revive that you did indeed write about all of those weighty matters, including the mention of Trevor Swan who is all but unknown in his own land.
DeleteBut as for Jobson Grouth, well:
https://twitter.com/lawrepforjesus/status/1333868821573115904
GB - the link to 'Jobson Grouth' is a little gem, thank you. And Trevor Swan - prophets without honour. This is much like so many opinion writers giving their own fanciful 'calculations' about the spread of various iterations of coronavirus of recent years, without bothering to use Robert May's simple process to show the range of possible proliferations, probably because they had not heard of the Lord May, or, if they had - it seemed to involve some difficult maths - with brackets, and funny little numbers on top of others - or whatever you call that.
DeleteAh well, now we can settle down to three more years of meeting in the (Hotellier) middle and of getting used to the (Roggeveen) post party phase of Western democracy where "the public drifts away from the major parties, and the parties respond by moving away from the public".
DeleteSuch adventurous excitement so late in my lifetime; now I'll never know how it's all going to turn out.
Talk of going with nuclear power - taking a different path - reminded me of Amory Lovin's essay from 1976 Energy Strategy: The Road Not Taken?
ReplyDeleteWe never did get the nuclear fission power plant technology right, Joe. Always too expensive and slow to build, too expensive (and occasionally very risky) to operate and a real problem to clean up at the end of economic life.
DeleteIf they can ever get the "small modular" technology sorted, that would significantly fix the build problem but only marginally improve the operation and the end-of-life cleanup. But the way things are going, 'small modular fission' might just have to join nuclear fusion and Carbon Capture and Storage in the basket labelled "if we ever get them working, it will be way too late'.
".. thank the long absent lord that blather about open and honest debate gave way to an incandescent rage" It was quite a rave by Slappy, wasn't it DP. Do you reckon she might be just a little undone by being silently dropped by the IPA ? Quite without trace, as the saying goes.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, the only thing I can say about the incoming far out-right hero is: who wants to be around when an arsehole spews his shit ?
Isn't old Ned getting a bit waffly ? Maybe he's got early-onset dementia ? But no, for right at the end, he managed to make just a wee bit of sense: "Expect the teals to keep or even expand their seats." Well, yair, maybe. "That means the liberals are in a structural trap." Well, yair, but then weren't they in one before, having to run with $loMo, Josh and Mutt Dutt; that's how come the teals picked up so many seats already. "There is no way the Liberals can claw back solely from Labor all the seats they need to win government next time". Who said that ? Doggy Bov and Slappy both reckon they can because they're "Liberals" and that's who "quiet Australians" really want to vote for - don't they ? "Albanese has hidden strengths in our realigned politics -" Really ? What "strengths" exactly ? I mean, yes, he has a cute dog but what else ? " but as a conscript of history he will need them." Que ? What kind of "conscript" is that ? And what kind of history is that ?
ReplyDeleteThe more I look at all this the more I think the reptiles are just in denial about the crap product they have been marketing to the (ex)-incumbents. There's very little native content in all the Wiffle Piffle they peddle door to door. Some recycled climate change denial from Lomborg or Anthony Watts, some culture war talking points imported unchanged from Fox News and some warmed up Howard era dog whistling.
DeleteThe election results clearly show how little traction they have. The knuckle-dragging culture war types have just flipped from PON to UAP and only add up to a few percent in any case, the wealthy types who have just held there noses up to now and voted LNP despite all the problems suddenly have alternatives and the Labor types have voted strategically just to take out the garbage.
What market is there for DB carrying on about wokeness or Dame Slap raving about wealthy women?
That great Melbourne newspaper the Herald-Sun - home of Andrew Bolt and still probably the largest circulation of Australian dailies - got by far the largest portion of its readership from its very extensive sports reporting at the back end of the paper and not from the Bolts and Panhis et al who rant nearer the middle. Most readers of the H-S started reading from the back.
DeleteBut I suppose the constant repetition of lies and bullshit has some effect. After all, "constant repetition carries conviction" as Robert Collier tells us. Yep, I reckon we can look forward to mountains of nonsense from the reptiles for at least the next three years.