It's grim days for the reptiles, and so for the pond, and so this will be a relatively short listing, with the top of the digital page dominated by macabre sights and the rat these days routinely in the reptile ranks ... and this day promoted to the top of the digital page ma ...
The pond is exceptionally tired of the lizard Oz's daily black bashing, and to have the rat blather about elites and celebrities was simply insupportable ...
Besides, if a referendum doesn't involve politicians, it's going to be an extremely novel referendum.
There's nothing to be done with rampant stupidity, and so the pond decided to do nothing ...
But those other rituals reminded the pond that it had once gone down that path ...
In one visit to China, the pond did all that was mandated for tourists, including the wall, the warriors and Mao's corpse ...
As was the fashion, the pond scored a stamp for attending, but the display in recent years has lost its potency, as noted in the Graudian back in September 2016 in Preserving Chairman Mao: embalming a body to maintain a legacy ...inter alia ...
The pond confesses it felt nothing, not even a frisson, to be in the presence of the corpse of a mass murderer ... and much the same lack of feeling attended the pond when it looked beneath the reptile fold for some other content ... anything but the rat in the rank, whom the pond routinely refuses to contemplate ...
What a wasteland, though the pond will confess that Mort's name seemed peculiarly apt ... Le Morte d'Arthur and all that ... while at the same time, the pond simply couldn't go into another bout of Liz worship, what with King Chuck III all the go ...
Even the reptiles triptych, which usually strikes terror in the pond, offered no hope ...
King Chuck on the fiver? This is where we landed? And students doing a parody "offensive"?
It provoked a brief spark in the pond, thinking back to that Marina Hyde opening ...
Yesterday, police arrested a 22-year-old man in Edinburgh after Prince Andrew was heckled as he walked behind the Queen’s coffin. “Andrew,” the shout was heard, “you’re a sick old man.” Hand on heart, I’ve heard worse. And if Prince Andrew hasn’t, he certainly will. Money and position and expensive lawyers can insulate you from a huge number of consequences in our imperfect world, but if some boy in the streets wants to go full Emperor’s New Clothes on you, you might just have to suck it up, even if it is bad manners in the circs.
Oh, hang on. You don’t actually have to. The man – he looks like a boy – was cuffed and later charged. There could be more to it than currently meets the eye, but it is arguably not hugely encouraging that a heckle may be deemed illegal when burglary effectively isn’t any more. Then again, do remember that this year’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act increased the minimum term for various serious sexual assaults to four years, and the maximum term for assaulting a statue to 10 years. If women are going to get sexually assaulted, we should strongly consider doing so while dressed as a living statue of Winston Churchill. That way we can seek the full force of the law as applied to inanimate materials, as opposed to the lesser versions typically offered to female flesh and blood.
Oh Myer's, what a tragedy, what a loss, what a shadow of your old self, how sad the pond felt as it recently traipsed through your diminished corridors and later gave up in despair when reminded that the David Jones food hall had closed long ago, because it seems even ponces now do their ordering online... or get their sushi in Swanston street ...
Ah, the mask thing, the pond knew it would pop out, but at least that talk of corporate greed resonated like an infallible Pope ...
Why is it that no one in the lizard Oz thought to mention a living, breathing, local example of corporate greed... and thereby give the pond something to scribble about other than Killer's fear of masks and vaccines?
The keen Keane in Crikey back in May (paywall) offered the hint of an explanation ...
Good old friendly News Corp, and that's why the pond has nothing to scribble about ... though that talk of gambling is tempting because of the many ironies involved, as reported by Neil Chenoweth at the AFR (outside the paywall at time of writing) ...
Oh it's rich stuff, and way better than Killer, especially when the Chairman gets on to media ethics ...
Of course it all turned murky, as you can read in the SMH if you've deleted your cache, with Lachlan Murdoch's $220m bet on digital bookmaking falls flat ...
Lachy, the taker of defamation actions, wanting to screw punters and make out like a digital casino mogul, aka bandit, in the manner of a Donald?
And there back in the day was the chairman castigating Kezza the goanna for impropriety ...
No shame, no shame at all ... but you can bet on one thing ... with the lizard Oz a ghost of itself, and News Corp having sweet fuck all to do with journalism, gambling is the future ...
And at least that thought provides a segue to the immortal Rowe for a closer...
Not wishing to associate with a maskless, mindless Killer, I thought I would just post some comparative information:
ReplyDelete"Influenza viruses cause over 500,000 deaths worldwide and are associated with an annual cost of 12 - 14 billion USD in the United States alone considering direct medical and hospitalization expenses and work absenteeism.
Animal models are crucial in Influenza A virus (IAV) studies to evaluate viral pathogenesis, host-pathogen interactions, immune responses, and the efficacy of current and/or novel vaccine approaches as well as antivirals. Mice are an advantageous small animal model because their immune system is evolutionarily similar to that found in humans, they are available from commercial vendors as genetically identical subjects, there are multiple strains that can be exploited to evaluate the genetic basis of infections, and they are relatively inexpensive and easy to manipulate."
Influenza A Virus Studies in a Mouse Model of Infection
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28930978/
"The main animals used for testing vaccines destined for human use are laboratory mice and ferrets and, to a lesser extent, macaques."
Animal models in influenza vaccine testing
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18665776/
Do we think that cranky Creighton will ever learn to read ?
GB - perhaps rhetorically - asks ‘Do we think that cranky (nice choice of word there, GB) Creighton will ever learn to read?’
DeleteWell - he is quite coy about identifying what it is he claims to have read, so we could compare his, er - conclusions with what we might understand from the same paper. Only a week back, I pointed out that his glib quote from one Paul Offit about eight mice, had completely missed the point on the efficacy of boosters in Covid vaccination, which was the actual research paper to which Offit had contributed, published in ‘Nature’.
That left me with a strong suspicion that our Cranky had not actually read the paper in ‘Nature’, but had gone for something that might have come from the mighty intellects who fill in the evenings on ‘Fox’.
For his comments today, it was relatively easy to track down the source. Set aside the mandatory identification of ‘nine top scientists and doctors’ - I found the paper at
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4206070
The title is ‘COVID-19 Vaccine Boosters for Young Adults: A Risk-Benefit Assessment and Five Ethical Arguments against Mandates at Universities.’ and we are told it runs to 50 pages, which SSRN offers without charge.
SSRN, formerly known as Social Science Research Network, is a repository for preprints devoted to the rapid dissemination of scholarly research in the social sciences, humanities, life sciences, health sciences, and more. Elsevier bought SSRN from Social Science Electronic Publishing Inc. in May 2016.
So, this is a preprint - we trust Cranky understands what that is - essentially a draft, run up the flagpole, for persons working in the area to review and comment on.
It would be wise to identify the actual paper, particularly when it has the status of ‘preprint’. Preprints have their place in scientific discourse - as a way of putting particular ideas in front of others in your professional area. That is a long way from ‘peer reviewed’ and many preprints never make it into journals of record.
It is interesting that Cranky chose one author from nine. Again, perhaps all he knows of Vinay Prasad is his comment on social media. Prasad puts a lot of comment on social media, to the extent that he has a ‘Wiki’ entry. No surprise - he is agin’ masks, and - oh - is part of the whole ‘denying our freedoms’ schtick.
His ‘Wiki’ entry does identify him as someone who breached Godwin’s Law in his campaigning - and I will let the ‘Wiki’ cover that -
‘In October 2021, Prasad prompted social media controversy when he published a blog post comparing the U.S. COVID-19 pandemic response to the beginnings of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. Bioethicist Arthur L. Caplan said that Prasad's arguments were specious and ignorant, and science historian Robert N. Proctor said that Prasad was "overplaying the dangers of vaccination mandates and trivializing the genuine harms to liberty posed by 1930s fascism”
Of course, that may have been what brought him to Cranky’s attention - and marked him as a useful citation for Creighton’s reports from America.
GB - if I may - no question Cranky can read. Very likely he can also understand - when he takes the trouble to go to primary sources. But I think he has long figured that his paycheck depends on promulgating the glib sayings circulate through the ‘freedumb’ movements, and there are plenty of quotes about the intellectual pull of the paycheck.
I think we have been some way along this pariculr blind alley at least once before, Chad, but thanks for going over it again in significant detail. I'm sure Cranky can read after his fashion, and he can even comprehend - at least to a simple minded surface level.
DeletePrasad sounds like just the kind of chap that reptiles love to quote and, by eliding the difficult bits, pretend is worth paying some attention to.
However, just one small note about The Killer: "...a US government report found American primary school students' test scores had dropped dramatically since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, wiping out, in effect, more than 20 years of steady improvement in reading and maths." Yep, there's just another one of those reptile truths: as things are now, so they will always be.
ReplyDeleteSo, because the kids missed out on some schooling, nobody in America, not one single person anywhere, anytime, will give them any remedial teaching so they are all stuck as retarded losers for their entire lives. Yes?
Just one small addendum:
DeleteWe were on a global panel looking at the staggering costs of COVID – 17.7m deaths and counting. Here are 11 ways to stop history repeating itself
https://theconversation.com/we-were-on-a-global-panel-looking-at-the-staggering-costs-of-covid-17-7m-deaths-and-counting-here-are-11-ways-to-stop-history-repeating-itself-190658
Here’s one for the Killer. To the tune of This Masquerade.
ReplyDeleteThe Mask Brigade
I am really happy here
In this reptile game I play
Writing fake news for pay
Working hard at spreading
Fear and doubt with every spray
At war...with the mask brigade
I’m not afraid of piling on hyperbole
And taking misreporting way too far
I like to dump on Fauci
When the truth gets in the way
Of all...the lies...I make up every day
Thought and reason disappear
Every time I see a mask
I’m such a contrary guy
Who’d rather die than wear one
And that’s why I’ll always stay
At war...with the mask brigade
Yep - you have it right there, Kez - and from most of us would think of as unpromising material. Well done
DeleteThe Masquerade goes back a while, Kez - Helen Reddy did a cover in 1972 and then later there was, of course, the Carpenters. Very neat choice though and nicely adapted.
DeleteCheers Chad and GB. I never knew Helen Reddy and the Carpenters did that song. I had a listen to both but George Benson's version is the one for me. It's the great guitar work that sets it apart.
DeleteThis one, Kez ?
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWZFGXTuoRo
But then Benson is a musician, Reddy and the Carpenters are songsters.
But if you go for guitars, how about this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIufLA7Bx2Q
Point taken on Benson GB. He is more guitarist than singer, but his 1976 recorded version was a much better vocal effort than this live version of about 25 years later, which is very professional but he seems to be going through the motions. On the other hand that version of Sultans is the best I've seen! Cheers.
DeleteThis one purports to be the 1976 Benson version:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-ibK5L2a4I