This weekend the reptiles are full of all kinds of helpful advice ...
There's the bromancer with an open letter on defence, there's our Gracie advising on deficit and debt, there's the oscillating fan helping out the Liberals ... and elsewhere in the triptych of terror a little higher up, Dame Slap was helping out with child care ...
The pond isn't much interested in helpful advice from the reptiles, and was disturbed, as well as astonished, to see that the dog botherer had been nobbled by Pearson and so talked grandly of a constitutionally recognised voice ...
Is it any wonder that the pond, in desperate search of filler before getting to the usual Everest of "Ned", the professional bloviator's bloviator, turned to the Angelic one for a little light queenly relief?
In the old days that 'holding of the ears' snap would have been front and centre on the lizard Oz, and all the Murdochian tabloids, as it was with the English tree killer papers, but the response has been strangely muted down under, even among the reptiles.
Still the Angelica one was blessed with an image that almost brought tears to the pond's eyes ...
Truly if you believed all this guff, you'd be astonished to have caught Steve Richards being a tad sceptical on Sky News on the Friday ... (if you missed it, it's on
YouTube)... and you might also have missed Sky News reporting on assorted surveys in Scotland regarding the monarchy ... where it seems the institution is regarded rather lower than a badly cooked serve of parritch ...
But why should the pond rain on the Angelic one's parade, even when the gush turns truly bizarre ...
It's a vocation from God? Where has the pond heard that one before?
And so to another warm-up act for "Ned" - some Bjorn-again advice ...
Mindful that the Bjorn-again one is always in the lizard Oz to help, the pond did hope he'd be campaigning for the return of the much maligned DDT, when it still has so much to offer, together with solid sort for companies of the Monsanto kind, who have done so much to help farmers with their patents ...
The pond was depressed by all this: had the Bjorn-again one forgotten that, together with organic farming, climate science was the author of all the world's woes?
Thank the long absent lord, fossil fuels still have a role ... and what's more the reptiles were still on song with clean, decent, pure, innocent Oz coal ...
And with that EXCLUSIVE offering hope to a troubled world, the pond had done its scatty preparation for tackling nattering "Ned" ...
Um, the pond will quickly skip by that dreadful graphic at the top of "Ned's" piece, and note there actually there has some public discussion, and what's more it came from the dog botherer in the very same edition of the lizard Oz ...
To say that the pond was astonished is an understatement, and so the pond had to do a quick pivot back to "Ned", who is of course not interested in solutions, so much as portentously pontificating about all the problems, wringing hands and sighing at the sky, and doing his usual Chicken Little routine ...
And yet the pond couldn't help but return to the dog botherer, even as it meant "Ned's" time in the pond sun would go on and on and on ...
The pond had to pinch itself! Was this some sort of dreaming, or just the usual reptile nightmare, dinosaurs struggling to tear each other apart while Raquel Welch looked on?
The pond turned back to "Ned", knowing he'd explain how difficult, neigh how impossible it all was ...
The struggle? In the pond's time Aboriginal kids were sent across the oval to a portable, where they could mingle with their own kind, and not disturb white folks in their book larnin ... oh Tamworth High, it was a caring, sharing place ... though the pond's mother did warn of the dangers of going anywhere near the portable or Coledale for that matter ...
And still the dog botherer carried on ...
What a remarkable heresy, and it was with relief that the pond returned to "Ned" ...
Cynics such as the pond might suggest it has something to do with the dog botherer's fear and loathing for Malware ... and yet, and yet ...
Oh it was too much for the pond to bear ... fancy the dog botherer talking of Malware and the onion muncher was alarmist and erroneous.
Is it any wonder that the pond returned yet again to suckle on "Ned's" teat for comfort? (An image designed to provoke the sense of undiluted horror the pond was feeling).
And yet with all that said, there was still the dog botherer ...
A traitor in the ranks, and of all people the dog botherer ... and even worse, the reptiles decided to slip in a click bait video from the infidel, right in the heart of "Ned's" argument. Of course the pond had to neuter it, so that "Ned" might carry on explaining how everything was simply too hard ...
Indeed, indeed, and yet the dog botherer kept nagging at the pond, and at some fair concluding length ...
Nobbled, and it was left to "Ned" to throw a few more saucy doubts and fears on the flames ...
So the world turns, and if anyone had told the pond it would wake up this day and pit the dog botherer against the bloviator's endless bloviations, the pond would have said they were dreaming ...
What's even more astonishing, the reptiles seem to have completely forgotten the energy crisis ... preferring this culture wars territory ... perhaps for reasons suggested by Cam Wilson in Crikey ... (paywall affected)
Damn it all, the pond won't give up on the energy crisis.
There's an old infallible Pope to hand, badly formatted because he's under strict guard these days, and an immortal Rowe, and the pond can't let them go to waste on mere culture wars ...
Yesterday the pond included a bubble-headed booby. Just one. But idling around youtube, I find that the sky/news octopus is nurturing a congress (such is the accepted collective term) of boobies. On rotation we have the wide-eyed Rita, cheerleader for the Liberal team, Teena, Ms Ton-yee-nee - amongst others. One outstanding performance a couple of nights ago was from someone called Daisy, whose day job is to be a ‘commentator on social media’. Daisy was supposed to be giving a special kind of insight into the Depp/Heard case.
ReplyDeleteFor that, she invoked what she called the ‘presumption of incidents’, which certainly would have enlightened however few people bothered to watch. One hesitates to suggest that she intended to refer to ‘presumption of innocence’, because that seldom figures in what are basically non-criminal proceedings (one hesitates also to suggest that the Depp/Heard matter was, er ‘civil’). Whatever - Sky is a great place to get information that you are unlikely to get from any other alleged news ‘source’.
It’s Saturday, so -with your indulgence, Dorothy - a few observations on boobies, in the ornithological sense. They were a food source for William Bligh on his ‘seemingly impossible’ voyage in the launch of the ‘Bounty’, to Timor. They include the entertaining blue-footed booby (images at https://unsplash.com/s/photos/blue-footed-booby - amongst many other photographic stock sites) and - yes - Abbott’s Booby, now drifting into extinction on Christmas Island, and, no, we will not anthropomorphise another regular ‘presenter’ on Sky.
The pond is grateful on a daily basis that Rita, Sky News meter maid, is a Melbourne phenomenon and never appears in the lizard Oz. Small mercies. However that presumption of coincidences sounds like it might have been up there with peach tree dishes, gazpacho plods and the like.
DeleteAs for the booby, the pond doesn't mean to defame the hapless birds, who were punished for being friendly, and trusting, and thus were eaten without mercy by cruel reptile ancestors ... much in the same way as the current lounge of lizards devours the readership subsidies ...
And just to think that pre-pandemic when I used to go for a morning coffee every day I had the privilege of reading the whole Rita in the wonderful Herald Sun at least once a week (I couldn't come at the whole Bolter though, lines do have to be drawn).
DeleteSheesh, the Bolter, and the grandeur of Melbourne. For some strange reason, the pond could never past the way that Panahi echoed panhandler...a person who stops people in the HUN and demands attention and money for the Chairman ... even with the paywall demystified, the pond would rather tear out an eye. Thanks to rain 24/7 in Sydney, the pond doesn't even get to read the Terror at the carwash these days, and is all the better for it ...
DeleteBy the way, Chad, "beautiful Daisy" Cousens was once upon a time an "associate" of Bill Leak and Nick Cater. If you're at all interested, the story is here:
Deletehttps://www.buzzfeed.com/markdistefano/leak-tribute-reemerges
The Saturday Doggy Bov: "The proposal for an indigenous voice to parliament is not racially divisive, does not confer special rights on Indigenous Australians, does not constitute a 'third chamber' of parliament, and most certainly does not insert race into our Constitution. Nor is it radical, leftist or symbolic reform, emanating from the progressive side of politics." Well, that's just utterly demolished everything that Slappy and the Bro have thrown at it.
ReplyDeleteAnd so: "The voice exemplifies our visceral concept of a fair go and has sprung from decades of work - including by constitutional conservatives from the centre-right of politics collaborating with Indigenous leaders ..." Who would have thought the Doggy Bov was capable of such ? Not me, that's for sure.
And not only not me: "To say that the pond was astonished is an understatement...". Yeah, me too, DP, me too. But unfortunately I don't think it means that Doggy Bov has actually discovered his latent humanity, does it. He'll be back to the D. Boverer of old come Monday.
What do you reckon GB? Did Pearson nobble him? Did someone else get to him? Why him of all the reptiles? Surely a hatred of Malware isn't enough ... surely for some reason he found the light?
DeleteWhoever got to him, got him good. Remember, this is the Chris Kenny of 'Women's Business: The story behind the Hindmarsh Island affair'. Remembering that a national government took up the time of the national parliament, to pass legislation for a bridge to be built, where the main advocates were a pair of long-time political supporters of that government, looking to make money out of a marina development. And with all that - the 'development' stumbled along, and eventually failed.
DeleteOh yes, I've got a vague memory of that, Chad. Kenny doesn't get a mention in the Wikipedia entry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindmarsh_Island_bridge_controversy) other than in the 'Further Reading' as the author of a book 'Women's Business: The story behind the Hindmarsh Island affair' but he was otherwise credited as 'the only journalist to question the 'women's business' claim'.
DeleteThe marina 'development' may have failed, but the bridge seems to be in fine working order.
The Bjorn - yes, I tried to ignore him, but his contribution of this day is just too glib.
ReplyDeleteYes, it is desirable to produce food better and cheaper, and improving seeds (which is, and always has been, genetic modification, for millennia) along with expanding fertiliser, pesticides and irrigation, can help, if used with care.
Even more obviously, not converting so much of tropical forest to producing palm oil, or food for cattle, would see a lot more people fed, and sustainably. I looked for mention of how quickly rainforest soils degrade after the forest is taken off - but that does not fit the Bjorn reasoning.
I suspect he is also one of the continuing fans of Norman Borlaug. Yes, Borlaug’s methods can boost agricultural production, but much of the benefit now accrues to the companies who receive licence fees for producing the high-yield seeds, the pesticides and fertilisers that are significant factors in the high-yield (and, surprise surprise - those are often delivered by different branches of the same company).
Paddy rice cultivation uses structural ‘capital’ literally built up over centuries to reach the intricately irrigated terraced fields that appear in tourist brochures - and feed many people, reliably. A paddy (padi if you wish) is a fertiliser factory, with the fern Azolla fixing ample nitrogen for each crop rotation, so, in fact, they are doing what Borlaug claimed to have done with his ‘revolution’ - but none of it is subject to charges for the technology - it came with the local culture.
I did think about making a comment on Bjornagain, but oh the ennui of it all. Picking on Sri Lanka as an example of 'natural' agriculture failure which means it can never work anywhere, anytime, anyhow.
DeleteBut talking about 'genetic modification', CSIRO has been at that for years:
https://www.publish.csiro.au/cp/ar07148
However, to be fair there is a significant difference between breeding programs hoping to pick up on natural variants (such as the hunter-gatherer human race engaged in to produce viable wheat many thousands of years ago in the first place) and the various 'gene insertion' programs that are commonly referred to as 'GMO'.
Not always sure the scientists know quite enough to guarantee 'no unanticipated side effects' which might emerge many generations later.
And for anybody interested, an example of 'natural farming'. Small scale, but a good start: "Regenerative farmer Marina O'Connell says the rise in the cost of nitrogen fertilisers has made farmers respond to the urgency of climate change."
Deletehttps://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/03/the-regenerative-farm-working-to-improve-soil-without-fertilisers
GB - I agree with your comments on Bjorn and genetic modification - including the sense of ennui! From my experience in trying to manage groups of scientists, I would add that I simply do not trust them, as a class, to comply with legal or ethical codes if there is a chance of making the 'great breakthrough' in their field, and to scoop up the glory that they are sure awaits them. Some recent examples of mavericks let loose with CRISPR technology, unfortunately, confirm this in my mind.
DeleteThere's just way too many 'scientists' in the world, Chad. Once upon a time there was only a few hundred in the entire world, now there's probably millions. And many thousands more with bright, fresh PhDs every year:
DeleteTo Save Science, Slash the Number of PhDs
https://areomagazine.com/2021/07/22/to-save-science-slash-the-number-of-phds/
It’s time to reduce the number of PhD students, or rethink how doctoral programs work
https://theconversation.com/its-time-to-reduce-the-number-of-phd-students-or-rethink-how-doctoral-programs-work-68972
And they gotta get their fame and fortune somewhere, somehow.
Truely gob-smacking - but can we be absolutely certain that this is a genuine Dog-Botherer contribution? Oh, it’s under his name, but could it that some Green-Left yoof conspirators, with their cursed IT skills, might have hacked their way into the Reptile Central databanks (or whatever the boffins call it), replacing Kenny’s original contribution with this Commie propaganda? It’s only a possibility but if, say, Polonius starts writing screeds in praise of the ABC, than we’ll know that something is going on…..
ReplyDeleteWatching and waiting ...
Delete