How many times can the reptiles tell us that on occasions the wind don't blow and the sun don't shine, and fossil fuels remain the salvation of the planet? Why ask, when the Major can show you how it's done ...
What else? Well naturally for a final thrust the Major turns to another expert climate scientist in the lizard Oz stable ... Shanners, the bouffant one himself ... because that's how you learn the reptile way, via navel-gazing, and in house fluff-gathering ...
Amazing how resolute the reptiles are in insisting that the Pacific islands are feeling no climate change pain, but that's the way it goes.
What would mere islanders know up against the intrepid Major's scientific skills, honed by centuries of colonial superiority worthy of a Somerset Maugham story?
But the pond can at least help out the Major in understanding why wannabe dictator for life chairman Xi and his minions have been able to make their move in the Pacific. They've been up against klutzes of the first water ...
Noting that today's meeting on Syrian refugees was running a bit late, Mr Dutton remarked that it was running to "Cape York time", to which Mr Abbott replied, "we had a bit of that up in Port Moresby". Mr Dutton then added, "time doesn't mean anything when you're about to have water lapping at your door". (ABC)
Talk about laff ... what wit, what good humour ...
“I also get a little bit annoyed when we have people in those sorts of countries pointing the finger at Australia and say we should be shutting down all our resources sector so that, you know, they will continue to survive,” he said.
“They will continue to survive, there’s no question they’ll continue to survive and they’ll continue to survive on large aid assistance from Australia.
“They’ll continue to survive because many of their workers come here and pick our fruit, pick our fruit grown with hard Australian enterprise and endeavour and we welcome them and we always will." (Graudian)
Yep, and the bloody fruit pickers had the cheek to get agitated at dinkum largesse ...
That noted, the pond must confess to being disappointed with the Major's offering, because he failed to push hard the reptiles' new solution - nuking the country and the planet - but the pond has every confidence that now he's back, he'll catch up on the latest scientific reptile developments ... piss money against the wall on anything, provided it's not tainted by that hideous word 'renewable' ...
And now if a dose of climate science denialism from the Major isn't enough, the Caterist has returned with his own dose ... and it's all what might be expected from a master of the movement of flood waters in quarries ...
With that done, the pond can press on with the Caterist ... still simmering at the way that a certain colour has become fashionable ...
There's a wealth of neuroses in that lot, but you'd have to be a student of sociology to work out the Caterist's astonishing ability to confuse science with class ... perhaps it's because his work on the movement of flood waters in quarries has left him a tad broke, or at least a member of the conspicuously immoral government cash in the paw cognoscenti ...
Every time the pond reads the Caterist, it can feel the old IQ - should anyone care about such old fashioned measures - dribbling away, out the door and gone ... back perhaps to some ancient, dim, musty past where Margie and Ronnie Raygun remain legends, entirely forgetting that the mango Mussolini is now the sort of politician to which News Corp reptiles swear allegiance ...
And now in search of a bonus, what else did the reptiles have to offer?
The pond can safely ignore the bromancer for once - the very notion that taking the temperature down with China verges on treason, and goes right against all he's scribbled of late regarding the impending war with China by Xmas ... and the pond can also leave aside some standard Palestinian bashing, because the Oreo calls ... though Sir Walter Scott captured the flavour of her text long ago ...
Breathes there the woman, with soul so dead
Who never to herself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
And you can all just fuck off ...
The Oreo takes a lot longer, but anyone wondering if a reformed, recovering feminist might turn into a heartless, cold wretch with not a scintilla of empathy, sympathy or humanity can find the answer here ...
The pond hates to be pedantic, but there was an attempt at a boat arrival while the country still suffered under the coalition government, and the coalition famously made it known on election day ...
Soon after, Mr Morrison discussed the matter at an election day press conference.
The Liberal Party also sent a mass robo-text message to voters in marginal seats, urging them to back the government and its tough border policies. (ABC)
Meanwhile, things are going so astonishingly well in Sri Lanka that the pond wonders why anyone would want to flee the country ...
Now back to the Oreo showing how a reformed, recovering feminist can adopt the guise of Queen Grimhilde ...
Are the minions of mutton Dutton going to keep up with the bashing of this one family? The pond was over it long ago, and the election results would suggest that the electorate was also over it, and just wanted to bring it to an end ... with the situation in Sri Lanka likely to be a little more pressing than the fate of one family ... but the Oreo seems determined to blather on, and all the pond could think of was William Blake and his
songs of innocence and experience ...
If you think of the Oreo as a priestess armed with briars the metaphor sort of works, though Scrooge might be a better comparison ...
Ah yes, the taxpayer and the bill, and all that jazz, and as for Scrooge? “If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!”
Yes, and heaven forfend that the Oreo should show a scintilla of humanity, because that's not what reformed, recovering feminists do, not when there's bills to whine about ...
And so to the Rowe of the day, and though not entirely in keeping with the reptiles this day, well worth the mentioning and the note that there's always more Rowe
here ...
Oh yeah, it's so good to get the Maj. Mitch. back: "Gillard was forced to do a deal with the greens and other independents to secure minority government after the 2010 poll." Wau, what a revelation; and if Gillard hadn't done that, what would Tony Abbott have had to do ? Why, he'd have had to "do a deal with the greens and other independents", wouldn't he.
ReplyDelete"Sad really, still touting the onion muncher as some sort of example" But of course The Muncher is an example, isn't he. As, for instance, when the Maj. says: "Yet thermal coal and gas prices are at all-time record highs." And, but of course, they will only go higher and higher, won't they. Because, as he informs us "Global emissions, despite US$2 trillion spent on renewables, rose 6 per cent last year to 36.3 billion tonnes." But how much would global emissions have risen if nothing much had been spent on renewables ?
But oh, the Maj. quoting the Bouffant: "the gas crisis is in part the result of a deliberate decision by the Gillard government in 2012 not to introduce a national domestic gas reservation policy..." And it's been 10 years since that Gillard government decision, and have the Bouffant and the Maj. completely failed to notice who's been in government for 9 of those ten years ? The correct statement is: "the gas crisis is in part due to the three LNP governments since 2013 not introducing a national domestic gas reservation policy."
So, the Maj. exclaims: "This newspaper editorialised strongly in favour of such a policy throughout the Rudd and Gillard years." And then completely ignored the matter throughout the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison years.
Oh, its so good to have the Maj. back, isn't it.
Your coal companies are a generous lot. All the money that they are paid for coal is distributed to the Australian public, and the amount is so great that it pays for our imports and our social security systems! And still some people complain!
ReplyDeleteIt seems the Cater is not on friendly terms with the Wagner family yet. Probably because it is difficult to find confirmation that he has paid up the amounts the courts assessed as due to him for things he imagined about, and against, the Wagners.
ReplyDeleteOddly - simple invocation of the $12 lettuce actually illustrates how the parties of Government have bumbled and stumbled around rural issues these recent 9 years.
Some of the bumbling was to do with the backpacker tax. An idea that must have surfaced in the brain box of an LNP tactician; almost certainly one not really in touch with rural families, so he/she did not know that the offspring of many such families had backed the pack through the northern hemisphere, working as needed, and free of most income taxes in the countries they visited. But, somehow - backpackers in Oz hadda pay tax.
I watched, in some amazement, as the local representative to the fruit and vegie association ummed and ahhed, not about the whole dumb idea of levying that tax on itinerant seasonal labour (with all the extra paperwork and other compliance) but about what seemed to her to be the appropriate rate.
That did rather make their outcry over subsequent determination of a partial award rather hollow.
Then came the supposedly superior idea of a special agricultural worker visa. Championed (using that term loosely) by the MP for much of the horticultural lands of Queensland - Littleproud. He became Minister for that very industry, so it should have happened in weeks. Thirty months later, his cycle of blame for it not happening had spiralled down from Foreign Affairs and Trade, to ‘Labor’.
What about the Wagners? Well, when that visa was proposed as the solution to labour supply in this industry, and the Pacific islands were promising sources of labour - proven workers, many non-drinking mission folk, coming from areas not ridden with Covid - the Wagners said they could build a quarantine facility which could process up to 1000 workers at a time, at their airport, which is at the centre of major horticultural districts.
The response, from Liberal spokespersons, started with assertion by the then Prime Minister (Scott Morrison - in case that had slipped readers’ minds) that Wellcamp could not handle international flights. This was supported by LNP members for Toowoomba electorates - many of whom had joined direct flights to China, on ‘trade missions’ (back when that was popular) from Wellcamp, but, as is the way with LNP members, they were readily able to damn every other aspect of the Wagner proposal - exposing Toowoomba to health risks (er - people coming from parts of the Pacific region not afflicted with Covid?).
The other steady response, from ‘experts’ consulted by the Curious Snail, was that it was just plain impossible for anyone to build that sort of facility in the time they said. This was the Wagners, who built an entire international-grade airport, within the time they set, under budget, and to the great benefit of Toowoomba, which every second resident will tell you is the largest inland town in Oz, after Canberra.
Oh - I ran up against the 'too long' rule - so - herewith part II
ReplyDeleteAs it happened, when the State Government became involved, the Wagners did build the facility as they had said they would, to time and budget - but, because of Federal bumbling and stumbling, there still wasn’t a gee-whiz special agricultural visa for people to use it, right up to the recent election. So the Curious Snail now labels it a shocking waste of taxpayers’ money - often on pages facing its bleating about how ya just can’t get workers to plant and pick yer crops, so - don’t be surprised if a lettuce costs ya 12 bucks.
In recognition of the great work he has done for farmers in his electorate - Littleproud is now leader of the Nationals, and imploring whoever bothers to tune in, for us to have ‘mature conversations’ about what he calls ‘nu-cu-lar power.’
We know what ‘having mature conversations’ is code for - ‘do what I say’.
And the Cater directs our attention to unicorns, and misinterpretations of Milton Friedman (who did rather go on about ‘productivity’ in his discussions on inflation)
At least he didn't call it 'nookyular' like some others have.
DeleteI'd have to call it a real 'pandemic' of 'malfeasance, misfeasance, nonfeasance, unfeasance, afeasance' if I didn't know that's the way it's always been. At least in Queensland (now the platinum crown of the united LNPs) where they kept Joe Bananas on as premier for 19 years. About on a par with Menzies.
But what is it with the (g)Nats and the Wagners - what have the Wags done to excite such pointless opposition ?
GB - it still has us a tad mystified. It cannot be because A Jones took such a set against their airport, because, although Jones proclaims himself 'Toowoomba's favorite son' - we have yet to hear a local say anything in favor of The Parrot. We think that is in part because nobody recognizes his version of what Toowoomba was like when he was at school there, or what an outstanding athlete, scholar, visionary A J was while still 'at Grammar'.
DeleteIt takes a gullible like the Cater to believe the Jones autobiography, and join him in traducing the Wagners.
There is a sometime politician of the National taint, who also made a substantial amount of money as a 'developer' (yes, the two did go together in the Joh days, when Joh claimed it should be expected of MPs of the right sort, that they get special incentives to 'invest' in the state). That person has spoken vehemently against everything the Wagners have done, and it seems he sets the talking points for the LNP members (for the electorates that converge on Toowoomba,)n who may still depend on his endorsement to get the party nomination.
And that seems to be a simple case of the sometime top frog in the pond reacting to a new breed who develop on the grander scale of building international-grade airports, as an investment for their family, and for the great benefit of their town. Good ole jealousy.
Yeah, that makes sense, I guess. But then it would have to be something petty, provincial and party political, wouldn't it. They make the CWA look genteel and civilised.
DeleteTalking about the Maj. Mitch. being a consummate expert in global climate, we now have the Cater as a consummate expert in finance: "We have allowed ourselves to be seduced by a narrative of continuing crisis that deepened with the great pandemic and has now morphed into the cost-of-living crisis."
ReplyDeleteSo helpful of NickC to inform us of that - about on a par with him informing us about the movements of flood waters. But for those who missed it, here's an 'expert' view of the causes of the 'cost-of-living crisis':
Alan Kohler: The two great stupidities behind our inflation
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/finance-news/2022/06/09/inflation-stupidities-alan-kohler/
But hey, you know, Kohler appears on the 7:00pm ABCTV news nearly every weeknight, so as Polonius would also have it: who can believe him ?
So, the Oreo: "We should welcome those who demonstrate respect for our country and rule of law by undertaking proper processes to gain visas." Oh yeah, if everybody who might qualify as a 'refugee' could actually do that, then it wouldn't be the world it plainly is. Now there are people who find themselves in circumstances where they can't just waltz into the Australian embassy or consulate and fill out a refugee application form - though I don't expect the Oreo to ever understand that.
ReplyDeleteWhich is why Australia has a refugee/asylum seeker quotient that is distinct from its approved migrant intake. So, by 2015:
"Australia has a long history of accepting refugees for resettlement and over 800,000 refugees and displaced persons have settled in Australia since 1945. "
and:
"Although those who come to Australia by boat seeking Australia’s protection are classified by Australian law to be ‘unlawful non-citizens’, they have a right to seek asylum under international law and not be penalised for their mode of entry."
Asylum seekers and refugees: what are the facts?
https://www.aph.gov.au/about_parliament/parliamentary_departments/parliamentary_library/pubs/rp/rp1415/asylumfacts
But then one couldn't expect a reptile, and especially not the Oreo, to know or accept that. Way too decent and civilised for such a one.
ReplyDeleteThe Major asks why Pacific Island nations turned to China. The answer is obvious: they are worried and they don’t think Australia will help.
He thinks they are wrong to be worried because the islands are not sinking. He proves this by dragging in an old squabble started by Craig Kelly, although he doesn’t mention that name because nobody wants to be taking their scientific lead from a furniture salesman.
The ABC fact check was sloppy. Nobody has claimed the islands are sinking. The fact is the island heights are stable and the sea level is rising. The study he references says this. It is true that the shape and area of some islands are changing, but if your houses and taro plantations and airport and other infrastructure are now underwater, it doesn’t help that the latest cyclone left a big load of gravel up the other end of the island.
I’ve had a few Pacific Island holidays. Whenever I get a chance I ask how people feel about Australia. It is clear that NZ is a lot more respected.