The pond thought it heard the beginning of the end when it finally, belatedly caught up with the chairman's very short - a whole two minutes - introductory speech to his company's annual meeting. By the first minute, he was flailing and muted; by the end of the second, he sounded whacked and done.
Now he might last as long as his mother - apparently his ambition - but the conspiracy theorist in the pond was stimulated by the decision to make it an audio only presentation.
There have been major health scares in the past, and the chairman has bounced back, but the pond has always promised itself that it would wind back in the event of the departure of the leader, or the bankruptcy of the company (or the pond's own health doing it in).
The pond sees no reason not to stick to that promise. To mangle Godwin's law yet again, if the Führer departs, the pond has no interest in the minions, groundlings and underlings running about like headless chooks, keen to keep the empire and the white nationalist dream alive ...
The pond long ago lost interest in the actual content being offered by the reptiles, and so it would be a blessed release if the Führer were to depart. How many times can anyone report on Dame Groan's climate science denialism, or marvel at the bromancer's obsessive hatred of tanks?
And yet here we are again today, and yet another reptile column begins with a snap of those satanic windmills ...
Any chance of the Groaner doing a Bret Stephens and heading off to Greenland so she too could realise what prime doofus's they've been? Not on your nelly ...
And so to the bromancer blathering about tanks ...
No, as the pundit put it, he's fossilizing before our eyes ... and ready to partake in a Beeb sitcom featuring a comical home guard ...
It goes without saying that the war monger piously wishes that there's no war, but he's a devoted war gamer, and here we are back with the bromancer and his vest in the thick of it ...
Well yes, it's pretty much the same, and yet the pond never watched a full episode of the show ... and still here we are, off with our very own Bullpitt, which is marginally less interesting than being off with Captain Mainwaring ... though they didn't mind snappy clothes either ...
Oh it's too rich, but the pond must get back to the missiles ...
Yes, if you do everything the Generalissimo tells you, you'll be immensely secure and safe. First up, all you need is a 1950s vest and a very comfortable armchair, from which to pontificate ...
And now, even as the pond tries to cut back for the holyday season, there are continuing temptations, with the odd stray loon turning up ...
At least once every six months the pond has recorded John Williams strong protests about mining ... and the health issues and the destruction of the land, which once gouged, will never make a comeback ...
Yes, you stupid doofus, the pond can see where you're coming from, and never mind that the planet has been fucked, is being fucked, and will continue to be fucked, and your inane stupidity isn't helping ...
And still the pond wasn't done. Perhaps it was the feeling of liberation, perhaps it was the sense that the Führer might be on his last legs, perhaps the pond could soon be winding back to its roots and a weekend posting, with only the very best reptiles featured, perhaps the daily dross could soon be behind it ...
And yet how would the pond provide space for the startling hypocrisy of ancient Troy ...
Nope? Completely clueless in his blathering?
Well there's always a cartoon-led recovery ...
Amazingly ancient Troy is apparently unaware of what his kissing American cousins have been up to in the past decade or so ...
Confronted by the monstrous infamy of it all, ancient Troy most resembles the survival strategy of the ostrich, a triumph of memes over reality ...
Note in the opening par of the final gobbet, how he coyly refers to "some media backing."
Truth to tell, the Chairman is no longer in control at Faux Noise, and while he might instruct his newspapers to take a stand, there's no way he's going to undercut his money-making television machine ... still trying to work out how to keep the bucks flowing while dealing with the Frankenstein monster the Frankensteins of the Hannity, Laura and Tuckyo kind built ...
No, the pond's best hope is that the Führer carks it, and then the pond can forget about the rampant stupidities of the likes of the ancient Troy, apparently entirely unaware of the deeds of Fox Corporation and News Corporation, both a source in the world of much grief, orange Jesus worship and climate science denialism, and both in thrall to the whims of the Führer ...
Dammit, with all that the pond failed to note this bizarre juxtaposition ...
It was going to be the way that the pond introduced the Rowe of the day, and provide a quality control assurance that football would never score a mention on theses pages, except in this form ...
What a contemptible organisation FIFA is, and what a great hatchet job John Oliver did on them on the weekend for his season finale... he's done it before, and he did it again ...
And so to a couple of almost obligatory cartoons celebrating the deeds of that other prize loon intent on proving that money sometimes doesn't amount to a hill of beans or a pile of garbage... (yes, the pond is aware of the meta-irony of the inclusion of those earlier tweets)
"Now he might last as long as his mother - apparently his ambition..." Well, he'd have to keep on going until at least 2034 to achieve that. What are his real chances, do you reckon.
ReplyDeleteBut hey, if he does, he'll almost certainly have outlasted me.
So here's Groany: "When you realise what's at stake - reliable, affordable power for households and businesses..." There we have it, again, and again, and... Absolutely no consequences of not doing it, are there ... no, none whatsoever.
ReplyDeleteNow, DP, you say that: "The pond long ago lost interest in the actual content being offered by the reptiles..." probably, I imagine, because there simply isn't any content being offered by the reptiles - well no content applicable to the real universe that everybody else has to live in.
The Groany is 68 yo, and given the current estimate of human female lifespan that means she's likely to have at least 16 more years (and so will outlive the Chairman) and if nothing even minimally effective is done about climate change, I wonder just what the world will be like when she expires.
I suspect our Dame Groan’s ‘contact with deep knowledge of the NEM’ has more tangible form than the ‘sources within Labor’ who Blot, and Doggie Bov and other contributing reptiles would have you believe contact them regularly to tell the world what is happening within the perpetual revolution.
DeleteMy guess is that someone within the coal or gas producing networks (remembering that she was on the board of SANTOS at one time) provides our Dame with current discussion points. Unfortunately, she does not apply the same degree of care with assembling her list of thoughts. That includes the amusingly casual use of ‘growing headwinds’ as an adverse factor in renewable energy.
She characterises a Queensland plan as having ‘all the hallmarks of being devised by political advisers without any real knowledge of how the electricity grid works.’ just one paragraph down from her glib dismissal of South Australia’s experience in 2016. The ‘Wiki’ has a neat description of why so much went down in South Australia in September 2016
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_South_Australian_blackout
showing that much of the problem was with established suppliers who, um, lacked real knowledge of how the electricity grid worked. A few diesel generators in no way suggest a ‘Plan B’. I suspect that is a little Groan Gambit, not something suggested by her ‘deep contact’
So - agree with you completely, Dorothy. Nothing hinting at a ‘plan B’ other than the standard Groan of ‘oh, it can all end in disaster, so won’t somebody come up with a plan ‘B’. The reptile cause would be better served if she started her column with ‘Here is a list of discussion points sent to me from the oil/coal/gas industrial association.’ and added none of her own dubious interpretations.
Re the South Aus grid failure, Chad, it's the same device that Shannahanna uses re Julian Porteous: there's some sort of connection, so it must be an evil woke plot. But hoping that she might actually take a position of actually reporting on the state of the world via "a list of discussion points sent to me" is futile: Roopie wouldn't love her, and she might not get paid as highly as for the bullshit she regularly espouses.
Delete"Any chance of the Groaner doing a Bret Stephens and heading off to Greenland so she too could realise what prime doofus's they've been? Not on your nelly ..."
ReplyDeleteAnd isn't this just the problem with global warming? You can't really "see" it with your own eyes (ring marks around Lake Mead notwithstanding) and, in any case, how many of us can afford a joy flight over Greenland as witness?
But Bret's on the case: 'I have travelled far, from the deserts of the Sahara, to the icescape of Greenland, and have seen things that, to your eyes, would be wondrous sights.
'Therefore you mortals are commanded to find a million small solutions, to save governments of the world from having to find any large solutions.'
Better would be for Bret to speak to some scientists and get some facts under his belt. That way he won't come across as such a hapless neophyte.
I wouldn't have any expectation that Bret Stephens could recognise a fact much less act on one. He's one of the reasons that so many 'progressives' have abandoned the NYT.
DeleteTrue, GB, but the pond takes a special delight in a fuckwit realising he's been a fuckwit and recanting. It doesn't alter his nature, and it means climate science is suddenly flung into doubt - if a fuckwit can get it, can it be true? - and that's the only reason for mentioning Stephens on these pages...
DeleteBut, BG, butt, true fuckwits never realise that they are fuckwits. So, Stephens is just showing how much like JM Keynes he wants us to think he is.
DeleteNever thought I'd say this, however, if wishing Rupert well means a daily ( even weekly ) post from The Pond, then "buona salute Ruperto."
ReplyDeleteSeconded ! Though I do think that DP's dedication over many, many years has been exceptional. It's almost enough to make one wish that there really is such a thing as 'Heaven' so that she might receive her due recognition.
DeleteI'm sending Roopes a get well card right now! But seriously, I can only imagine the heavy toll DP's tireless reptile wrangling has taken, so I wish her good health and a happy retirement whenever that happens.
DeletePlan -B's Dead Trees. A nice ring and as old as flowering plants & reptiles. Remember real charcoal chickens. With mulga stump charcoal. Yum. When did we put an end to such reptilian energy? Groan.
ReplyDelete"To pay for electricity Yalta, on the edge of the Nullabor Plain has started a "Yalata firewood business creates jobs, reduces power bills and makes community proud
"Yalata Anangu Aboriginal Lands head ranger Andrew Alderson said it was a very slow-growing tree, and could live up to 500 years.
"The trees we're cutting down might have been standing dead up to 80 to 100 years," Mr Alderson said."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-21/yalata-firewood-business-creates-jobs-reduces-power-bills/101610460
Welcome to my desert.
"the pond has recorded John Williams strong protests about mining"
ReplyDeleteI listen to John Williamson for atmosphere during my Aussie Studies, particularly
when reading, say, Donald Horne which can be pretty dry going.
Is this the same man or is John Williams another singer?
No idea about Williams but here's a precious small item of Australiana, JM:
Deletehttps://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-22/furphy-water-cart-sells-for-record-price-beechworth-vic/101681456
Though if you're listening to a John Williamson, then you'd surely have heard this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN_AqUK_3LM
Jersey Mike - It may be presumptuous of me, but I think our Dorothy was applying a shake from the sauce bottle of sarcasm to sometime senator Williams. I had not commented on his stream of imagination, because I am too close to some of it. My grandfather was one of the founders of the then Country Party, which was set up to represent the small farmer. The current National Party claims to be the descendent of the Country Party, but those of my grandfather's generation would not recognise it by its actions.
DeleteIt also suits the sometime senator, in an article that claims we will starve because of incompetence of governments other than those containing the Nationals, to hint at a correlation between declining commercial fish catches and declaration of various kinds of marine protected areas. Commercial catches are declining because many state and federal administrations gave the fisheries portfolio to a National - because they were 'for rural and regional Australia' - and those same Nationals consistently ignored warnings that commercial stocks were taking a beating. They were also quite disinclined to proclaim protected areas for the marine environment.
The worldwide experience of marine protected areas is that they boost stocks of fish. Study after study bring in sound numbers to demonstrate that - but even that does not constrain a Nationals minister trying to make a good guy of itself by lifting restrictions that, in terms of press releases, are often described as 'impeding development'.
OK - end of rant, but there is now growing awareness that the Nationals do little for the long-term benefit of rural Australia. I live in the electorate of their current leader.
Chad obviously knows more about this than I do but a marine park near where I used to live provided exactly the outcome he refers to. Fish stocks in surrounding area improved almost immediately despite all the cockeyed “logic” rolled out to oppose it.
DeleteThis relates to a large park off Hawaii with implications for marine parks generally
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2022-10-21/fishing-exclusion-zones-benefit-fishers-marine-parks/101500144
Funny thing is, it’s just what you would expect.
Maranoa seat is a sizable part of Queensland, so I guess it takes a lot of effort and time from Very Littleproud just to keep in touch with his electorate; doesn't leave enough time to actually come to terms with reality, does it.
DeleteBut hey, whatever has happened to the Country Women's Association ? Weren't the farming mums supposed to be in touch with the real world ?
GB,
DeleteI would be telling furphys if I said these furphys were aestheticaly pleasing
even at 61 grand apiece.
It must be a Victorian thing.
I had to look up a picture of a Cootamundra Wattle after I first heard John
sing of them.
That led to an appreciation of the beautiful waratah bush.
I shared pics of both with the flower maven at our local garden center
and she was quite taken by them, but shot down any idea of growing
a waratah bush here.
Florida maybe.
Chadwick,
"was applying a shake from the sauce bottle of sarcasm to sometime
senator Williams."
Thank you for explaining that, I am afraid I miss much of the nuance here
but I am improving.
I do appreciate your above stylish turn of phrase though, and I will swipe
it to use on my fellow Jerseyites.
In the past they took quite a shine to 'stir the possum' and 'bugger me
sideways'.
GB - there was an interesting divergence here leading up to the Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Act 2017. 'Famously' Maranoa was listed as almost implacably agin all that stuff, and the then still new Littleproud voted accordingly. Right through the electorate, many branches of Country Women made clear their support for the 'Yes' case, for all the usual humanitarian reasons. Many also declared that members of their family would be pleased to be able to marry partners - and (unlike a certain columnist for the Flagship) they would be pleased to have such arrangements in their family.
DeleteJersey Mike - you are welcome to re-use any phrases I use. Many of them have been purloined anyway, but I think there is a pleasant spirit of share and share alike on this site, and we are in debt to you for the perspective from across the waters.
Ah, JM, but they were once things of great beauty if one needed relief from thirst and a reaffirmation of basic humanity in the companionship of mates. They kept a lot of horses employed, too.
DeleteBut now, yes, just rusting humps of iron that are no longer of any practical use. Such is life.
As to the CWA Chad, it's always interested me that when I was a lot younger they were, in many ways, the epitome of quasi-religious conservatism (a bit like the Daughters of the American Revolution in some ways JM, but more open in membership) but they kinda 'liberated'over the decades until they are now, as you indicate, much more humanisticaly liberal than the men.