Rain. Interminable, dreary rain, and the pond is in some form of lockdown hell. But this is Victoria, so what else could the pond have expected?
All that's left is time for a good gloating, and "Ned" was on hand to oblige.
Usually the pond would leave the Everest known as "Ned" to last, as it's an extreme climb, suitable for only the most experienced reptile devotees.
But this burst of schadenfreude is simply too delicious to put down at the bottom of the page ...
... and as a bonus, the pond won't have to bother with Dame Slap's latest bout of black-bashing.
It's troubling when all that planet Janet has to offer week after week is a dose of black-bashing, but the pond is free of that today.
First however the pond must set the scene for the schadenfreude with a visit to Amazon ...
The pond wanted evidence that Kindle was a blight on humanity. But oh, there's that line "featuring interviews with Morrison and members of his cabinet" ... and perhaps there's something to be said for kindling if you want a bonfire of the vanities.
And now the pond proudly features "Ned" and his schadenfreude ...
It's going to be a long haul, and all the pond can do is apologise for the off-stage snickers that might sometimes intrude, as "Ned" does his best to salvage redemption for himself and the Librul brand ...
Truly, what needs to be said, except to celebrate the pleasure of the read, and relish the desperate, pathetic attempts to avoid the many ironies, especially if you've endured the many bouts of "Ned" in the lizard Oz celebrating the speaker in tongues to imaginary friends, the power-crazed liar from the Shire ...
Quick, a gasp of hope ... yesterday's man, a remaindered book, and new hope in the shape of a potato ...
But never mind, let it past, we're into the bonfire of the vanities ...
Why the styling was elegant, up there with the best wordsmiths ...
Friends, fellow reptiles, country people of Tamworth, lend me your ears;
I come to bury the liar from the Shire, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with the speaker in tongues. The noble “Ned”
Hath told you the liar from the Shire was ambitious:
Yet if it were so, it was a grievous fault ...
Oh it's terribly hard not to feel jolly and do a little Shakespearean rag ...
The rain is still falling and "Ned's" tears still fall, and oh how the supping is delicious ... stay, how can it be? Only two sweet gobbets of pain to go?
How could "Ned" not remember his book, or his endless columns about the many wisdoms and wise ways of the speaker in tongues?
Perhaps the pond has done it and conquered Everest, and if anyone else has reached the peak, brave Sherpas all, the pond apologises for any altitude sickness ...
Integrity? The last thing the Liberal party needs now is integrity? They need bums on seats, and frankly any bum will do ...here, have a Rowe for a break ...
And now back to the schadenfreude, this time with the dog botherer ...
It's too rich ...
The pond apologies for the giggling coming from off stage ...but what need to add more than the occasional sound of mirth and merriment?
It truly seems puzzling, but then the reptiles intervened and ran a snap that showed the real problem. The megalomaniacal desire to make people wear masks, and ruin things for Killer Creighton and all the reptiles ... and at once the dog botherer saw the way out ... change the subject, and blame Covid ... or better yet, Wuhan ...
Ah yes the coronavirus from Wuhan. How you assaulted good governance, and the poor hapless speaker in tongues could do little to stop you, no matter how much he tried. Nor the rest of the mob, helpless in front of your wicked commie long march through the institutions ... just look at all those bloody masks and the social distancing, and oh the humanity ...
The most locked down city in the world?
The long departed Josh was fond of saying that, and yet when he was given an extended fact check by the ABC here ... and what do you know, it turns out that there were many other contenders ...
"And then there's Chile", it went on, but the pond learned long ago from the movies there could be no "and then" ... though some might wonder why the dog botherer himself didn't bother to introduce a little doubt or uncertainty into his righteous, monumental, endless and teeming stupidity ...
But why should the dog botherer care about facts, when he likes to think in mindless, moronic memes of the simplistic Sharri kind?
And now to wrap up this session replete with ironies, a word or at least an image with words, from the infallible Pope ...
"It's troubling when all that planet Janet has to offer week after week is a dose of black-bashing..." Yeah, though it always has been her metier, hasn't it - life is simple when everybody but the few you approve of are 'black'. But when are the reptiles going to do a 'Cater' on her and update her photo - we've had the current one for many years now. She is 56 after all and NickC is only 64.
ReplyDeleteJust in case no one mentions it, GB, Marina Hyde was in her usual excellent form, citing the right sort of movie for a political discussion ...
DeleteGiven the various crises besetting the UK, the seemingly inevitable passing of power from Boris Johnson to Liz Truss calls to mind that old political saying: out of the frying pan, into the heat death of the universe. The progression between the previous three prime ministers has shown us the timeline can always get worse. The country is basically trapped in that scene in Toy Story 3 where the toys escape the shredder only to find themselves heading towards the incinerator. Unfortunately, the grabber claw is not going to save us...
And then moving on to a reference dear to the pond's heart ...
...You might be wondering how much worse our standard of government could actually get, given that we ceded control of the country to a newspaper columnist for almost three years. And in many ways you’d be right. It’s actually quite difficult to find people who are more wrong on a regular basis than newspaper columnists – but it’s possible that economists do edge it. Patrick Minford certainly does.
The Cardiff university professor so admired by Truss is one of Britain’s leading wrong people – tough field – having forecast such fantasies as Brexit boosting Britain’s GDP by almost 7% and significantly reducing consumer prices for British people, to say nothing of his giving the zealot’s shrug over the potential self-imposed destruction of the country’s car industry. “These things happen as evolution takes place in your economy,” Minford breezed to a parliamentary committee back in 2012. As for who’ll be joining Patrick in executive Loon Town, there are persistent rumours that Truss plans to exhume Iain Duncan Smith and John Redwood to give them operational roles.
Loon Town! If only the pond had had the foresight. Soon it might have been Loon City, then Loon Metropolis, then Loon Gotham. As it is, all the pond can become is Loon Lake or maybe Loon River, or perhaps Loon Sea, though it could dream one day of becoming Loon Ocean ...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/19/liz-truss-lead-uk-sewage-leadership-marina-hyde
Yes, I did read Marina, and Amanda's Weekly too. I did love the "into the heat death of the universe" image though (remembering that the 'heat death' is actually the death of heat ending as a frozen cold universe).
DeleteAnd I did wonder, just in passing, who would be less right: Minford or The Groan. It's a question I would never want to have to attempt to answer (and anyway it just might be Terry McCrann - more wrong than both of them).
One sad item of reportage in this week’s Amanda Meade column - that all News Corp rags will soon cease running comic strips.
DeleteAs a lover of classic comic strips i’m saddened, although most modern strips are only a pale shadow of the form’s 1920s - 50s Golden Age. It also has to be admitted that the average Reptile opinion piece contains more absurdist lunacy than the entire run of George Herriman’s “Krazy Kat”, and a single Oz editorial greater evil than Ming the Merciless’s efforts in “Flash Gordon”.
The irony is that for many decades a decent comics section was a major promotional tool for populist, mass-market newspapers; “quality” mastheads traditionally made little or no use of comics, other than editorial cartoons. Often the yellower the journalism, the better the comics. William Randolph Hearst, for example, understood the circulation benefits of a good comics section.
But that’s Rupert for you - all the downsides of gutter journalism, without the entertainment value.
Murdoch just doesn't want to pay for the 'comics' any longer, Anony. Like a lot of things (subeds, photographers etc) he's just pissing them away. But then the age of the great comics is well and truly over anyway, despite the Melbourne Herald Sun continuing runs of Garfield, Ginger Meggs and the Phantom. And reviving Calvin and Hobbs.
DeleteNeedless Ned: "Morrison had stellar results protecting Australia's health and economy from the pandemic ..." The reptiles are going to push that lie as hard as they can, especially after all the practice they got pushing the Mango Mussolini's lies. But I suppose he did at least one good thing, set up the premier's National Cabinet and let them run with it.
ReplyDeleteThen: "The Liberals are supposed to be the party of principled government and respect for institutions." It's just that they, and reptiles, can't see anything they don't really want to see. Like neither $loMo nor Joshy the Defunct could see any problem with tipping undeserved, unrequired "JobKeeper" $millions into the pocket of Gerry Harvey and never asking for any of it back. That sure "protected" the economy.
But enough of Ned is always way too much, so just a final bit: "Ministerial appointments are the prerogative of the prime minister, not the cabinet." But how can this be when there is no mention whatsoever of a 'Prime Minister' in the Constitution ? And "There was no swearing-in ceremony." Really, Ned ? You don't say ? Because even to a Noodle like you it must be bleedin' bloody obvious that if there had been a "swearing-in ceremony" somebody other than $loMo and Hurley might have noticed ?
What annoys me is that it was a good idea done horribly wrong: if there are matters that only a sworn-in minister can decide and/or approve - exactly because there is no mention of a Prime Minister in the Constitution - there is sound sense behind having a 'backup' minister in case the pandemic disables the primary one - as in the open case of Hunt and Health. But of course, then it would all be an out in the open, known to all, action which would never have enticed the lyre (able to imitate anything) from the Shire, would it.
"But why should the dog botherer care about facts..." But, BG, butt, the reptiles always care about 'facts', but only the swag of ones they make up and endorse themselves. The one from Doggy Bov that I really appreciate most is this one: "From before we imposed our first lockdowns, it was clear that this disease was only a modest threat, or less, to the vast majority."
ReplyDeleteIt will never occur to Doggy Bov, or if it does he will never admit, that the serious actions put quickly into place - even if they were sometimes overdone just a wee bit - saved many lives. The official death count for the USA currently stands at 1,039,026 or 3,129 per million citizens (and remember that the 'true' death count calculated via 'excess deaths' is higher). If Australia had the same ratio then 81,369 Australians would be officially dead from Covid which compares with the actual number of 13,320.
But that's just one more 'fact' that the Doggy Bov will never see or admit (along with many, many others). As indeed he will never see or admit that Australia's low count (even lower before we decided to "live with it") was largely due to the rapidity of application and the stringency of our counter-measures. And one of the (very many) "if I don't mention it then it doesn't exist" things that the Boverer sticks with is that there is simply no such thing as 'long covid' that afflicts as many as 30% of those who have caught but survived Covid (9.9 million or 38% of the Australian population).
But talking about newspaper commentators that "get things wrong", how about this one from DB: "recklessly shunting the costs onto our children and grandchildren". Now does anybody but complete reptile nongs think that ? Does he really believe that only "our children and grandchildren" will pay taxes ? Even us jobless pensioners pay taxes every time we buy petrol and/or anything that cops a GST tax - has that utterly escaped him.
Oh, and despite destroying the Australian Democrats, Meg Lees did one good thing when she prevented the GST being applied to food in the form of uncooked makings - though plenty have wanted to "correct" this oversight since.
Just as a matter of fact, the Australian death count from Covid yesterday was 97. But that's such a totally miniscule number that nobody is going to notice it, are they.
DeleteWTF? I know that Ned is well into his fifth decade at Reptile Central, but even so, to claim that “The Liberals are supposed to be the party of principles and respect for institutions”? Well I suppose they respect some institutions - the IPA, the Business Council of Australia, the Melbourne Club - but the Liberal Party has never seen a principle that it wouldn’t happily trash for the sake of some short-term political advantage.
ReplyDeleteIn recent years, the brains of many deceased sports players - particularly footballers- have been donated to medical research in order to help understand the long-term impact of contact trauma on the brain and behaviour. Ned’s family may wish to consider a similar donation when he finally heads off to that Big Media Conference in the Sky. There could be considerable public benefit in examining the drastic effects of almost half a century of Kool-Aid ingestion.
The Botherer just isn’t going to give up whinging about lockdown, mask-wearing and other mandates pandemic measures, is he? How long can he keep going? Will he end up like Polonius, who continues to nitpick about specific actions by the ABC literally decades after the event? Only time will tell - I just hope that I won’t be around to read it in 2052….
ReplyDelete