The pond has now entered the bronze medal stage of its Xmas posting season, and can but hope that there will be some stirring reptile to hand on Thursday to help it lift the gold medal day proudly to a new high in the last post before the silly season begins...
That said, the true comedy has shifted elsewhere, with the pond observing the huddled masses of lovers of the lover of Nazis in their lover of Nazi cars, looking very sheepish as they cluster together at their chargers ...
*(* actual pond field observation of lovers of Nazis in their lover of Nazis cars)
But then they purchased their vehicles to do the right thing by a visionary, only to be confronted by the latest spectacle of relentless narcissism, American and mango Mussolini style ...
(Beast here)
However it plays out, the pond is delighted that a new style of company management has been reinvented, or rediscovered, and commends it to the reptiles and to their chairman ...
Meanwhile, with the war on Xmas a definite fizzer, and an abject disappointment this year, the reptiles have turned their gimlet eye on the war on Australia day, with both the bromancer and the lizard Oz to the fore ...
... though the pond settled for the bromancer as being more than enough in one day, even if blather about 'national identity' from an American-owned company could have been richly fulfilling...
Ah the scourge of identity politics ... the relentless, unedifying spectacle of identity politics. If you want a reptile to rant on endlessly about identity politics, the bromancer is your man, and he will reliably rail at the wretched way womyn want to ruin everything ... and never mind that importuning Sharma begging to be given another chance ...
Pádraic Súilleabháin: Some things there's no moving on from. And I think that's a good thing.
All they want is to ruin the unification of the country under chairman Rupert's most excellent leadership, an American company completely capable of understanding and moulding and shaping the Australian identity, whatever that is, and instead somehow manage to identify with the wretched Irish: Some things there's no moving on from. And I think that's a good thing.
Is anyone else counting the number of times the bromancer has mentioned "identity politics"? Truth to tell the pond, rather like Dirty Harry, has lost count, but could sense the spittle spraying on to the keyboard each time the bromancer pounded out the words ...
Please allow the man free of identity politics - though he writes as an Irish-Australian - to explain just how lucky the bloody blacks, useless and disorganised, a motley crew incapable of a dinkum war, were ...
We all know where identity politics lead ... why even dictionaries have been rooned ...
Bloody womyn, bloody blacks, it's enough to make a dinkum Irish Australian Catholic's hair curl, though the pond uses those terms without any sense of implied identity politics ...
And now for those counting, a chance to add to the tally of mentions ...
And now for the usual serve of Dame Groan, not that there's anything new, it's just that each serve of parritch should be the same lump of groaning oats ... and here the pond should mention that it will shortly be off to Gippsland, and there has been tremendous news for the bigots of the deep south and the local groaners, as can be read in the ABC's South Gippsland removed from offshore wind zone after community concerns ... (and there's a bonus snap of satanic windmills).
Waratah Bay resident Robert Boelen co-founded community organisation Responsible Renewables with to push against wind turbines in waters near South Gippsland.
He had been calling for wind turbines to be placed further away from the shore than the initially-proposed 6 kilometres.
He said the outcome exceeded his expectations.
And with that accomplished, it's on with the Groaning and the always present yearning for gas, and even clean, dinkum, innocent sweet Oz coal ...
First the pond must compliment the lizard Oz pictorial department on that picture of natural gas burning and helping to warm the atmosphere, it's been unseasonably chilly of late and every bit helps, and how much better to have a positive image than the admittedly terrifying sight of satanic windmills or even an array of solar panels polluting the landscape and offending the eye ...
As for the rest of it, it's familiar turf, and Dame Groan remains the child of Santos, and some might remember some other dialogue in that film, what with it being the usual shite ...
Colm Doherty: I was too harsh yesterday.
Pádraic Súilleabháin: Yesterday, he says! I know well you was too harsh yesterday.
Colm Doherty: I just... I just have this tremendous sense of time slipping away on me, Padraic. And I think I need to spend the time I have left thinking and composing. Just trying not to listen to any more of the dull things you have to say for yourself, or the Groaner has to scribble. But I am sorry about it. I am, like.
Pádraic Súilleabháin: Are you dying?
Colm Doherty: No, I'm not dying.
Pádraic Súilleabháin: But then you have loads of time.
Colm Doherty: For chatting?
Pádraic Súilleabháin: Aye.
Colm Doherty: For aimless chatting about the wonders of Oz gas?
Pádraic Súilleabháin: Not for aimless chatting. For good, normal chatting in the Groan way about the wonders of Oz gas ...
Colm Doherty: So we'll keep aimlessly chatting and my life will keep on dwindling. And in 12 years, I'll die with nothin' to show for it, bar the chats I've had with a limited man, is that it? Or feckless limited groaning woman, come to think of it, about the wonders of Oz gas, is that it?
Pádraic Súilleabháin: I said, "not aimless chatting" I said "Good, normal chatting." And there's much to chat about when it comes to the wonders of Oz gas ...
Colm Doherty: The other night, two hours, you spent talking to me about the things you found in your little donkey's shite that day. Two hours, Padraic. I timed it.
Pádraic Súilleabháin: Well it wasn't me little donkey's shite, was it? It was me pony's shite. Which shows how much you were listenin'.
Colm Doherty: None of it helps me. Do you understand? None of it helps me.
Pádraic Súilleabháin: [after Colm leaves] We'll just talk about something else, then! Perhaps read a column by Dame Groan together ...
And indeed we can Pádraic, indeed we can ...
Truth to tell, Some things there's no moving on from. And I think that's a good thing, and when it comes to a love of fossil fuels and fucking the planet in so many ways, that's a really good thing ...
You won't find the Groaner being caught out by a long hop or a full toss ...
See how she plays a straight bat ... and it could all be over in two days ...
And thar she blows, as she always does, that yearning for dear sweet innocent dinkum Oz coal, so cruelly treated, given such a bungled exit, when it might have been around for years to come, helping the country and the planet.
Why, to be sure, there's even talk of blackouts, and how the reptiles love to talk of blackouts and vengeful righteous gods smiting and smoting the pagans for their love of false gods, abandoning the worship of black gold ... and don't think cheap gas is gunna save ya, 'cause it won't, so there ...
Oh there'll come a time when they'll suffer and suffer mightily and a catastrophic darkness will fall upon the land ... but in the meantime, a last quick gobbet to go ...
Ah, economics, the ghastly, somewhat dismal, science, with its abysmal groaners, and there was an infallible Pope out and about today celebrating its arcane mysteries ...
And as for the planet?
“We are still moving in the wrong direction,” he said on Monday. “The 1.5C goal is gasping for breath. National climate plans are falling woefully short. And yet we are not retreating, we are fighting back.”
He added: “The invitation [to the summit] is open. But the price of entry is non-negotiable – serious new climate action that will move the needle forward. It will be a no-nonsense summit. No exceptions. There will be no room for backsliders, greenwashers, blame-shifters or repackaging of announcements of previous years.”
Guterres has become increasingly outspoken about the climate emergency, and the summit will put further pressure on countries to act.
A series of reports in October laid bare how close the planet is to irreversible climate catastrophe. Carbon emissions must fall by half by 2030 to have an even chance of limiting global heating to the internationally agreed 1.5C limit. But emissions in 2022 will set a record high. (Graudian)
And when anybody asks the Groaner what she did for the planet, she can hold her head high, and proudly say she helped gas it, if only to put it out of its misery ...
And so to finish with the bromancer, who has been out and about this day, plugging the gaps in the lizard Oz's shrinking commentariat ...
The pond notes that the bromancer doesn't once mention identity politics, and even goes muted when it comes to the question of all-out war with China in the new year, what with the war by Xmas now a little too close to get the missiles into the air ... but to be fair, he does allow the odd ominous threat to hover in the air, and produce a chilling effect ...
You can't trust a scorpion or a dragon to be nice. Better a pre-emptive strike to put a billion odd people in their place, and remind them that the Anzac spirit never dies in armchair warriors ...
Indeed, indeed, of course a wet of the simplistic Simon would get it all wrong ...
... and the bromancer might yet return to harping about war with China by Australia Day, if only all those wretches indulging in identity politics would just get out of the way ... for to be sure to be sure, Some things there's no moving on from. And I think that's a good thing ...
And so to end with an immortal Rowe, as the pond often does, and now with only two days and hopefully a silver and a gold after this bronze day has finished ...
Yes, Bro - Australia Day is sacred, and has been celebrated since time immemorial - or at least since 1938, when it became an official public holiday. Or perhaps since 1988, when the actual public holiday was fixed on the day itself, rather than the nearest Monday, thus stuffing our ability to happily ignore the anniversary itself and simply enjoy a long weekend. Of course, some unromantic should might argue that even aside from the unpleasant symbolism of celebrating a day of invasion that it's absurd to venerate the establishment of one miserable little penal colony, and that "the Australian nation" was actually founded on 1 July 1901 with Federation. But that's already a public holiday anyway, so where's the fun in that?
ReplyDeleteStill the Bromancer has managed to give us one last Christmas cracker of a laugh, with his claim that the "derivative left" imported identity politics from the USA. Apart from the fact that it's only raving Right ratbags and Reptiles that talk about the concept - indeed, are obsessed by it - thus aping their American equivalents, remind us which local groups have picked up on "the evils of critical race theory", sovereign citizenry, anti-vax, anti-mask conspiracy theories, QAnon and the whole spectrum of MAGA-dom?
Enjoy the break, Bromamcer - it'll give you the opportunity to stockpile a few more screeds on how great a war with China will be.
Bromancer: "If Albanese succeeds as Prime Minister, he will be a Labor version of John Howard." Oh, I just can't wait for Albanese to come up with some "Labor version" of Workchoices to impose on the Australian people, only to then lose government by a landslide - Howard lost 22 seats, including his own "safe seat". Yep, that'd be a Labor version of Howard.
ReplyDeleteBut really, Bro, what we want is actually a Labor version of John Curtin and Joe Ben Chifley - could we just have that, please.
OK - it is tedious to point out that those who invoke the name of Marx when they write for Rupert, show no actual familiarity with what Karl Marx wrote (and I thank GB for kind reply yesterday). This day, our Dame Groan simply offers another illustration, with her ‘geological and engineering reality collides with Marxist dreaming.’
ReplyDeleteBut our Dame does not show much familiarity with the writings of many other established economists either, even where she should have picked up some acquaintance with their works, in passing.
Implicit in what she has written for this day seems to be a belief in ‘the market is all.’ Right now, one cannot make a case that the market for gas in Australia is anywhere near Pareto Optimality for Australian society. We need not attempt to dissect the relative effects of war in Ukraine, against Brexit or Covid, to show why this is so, but it manifestly does not show ‘a situation where no further improvements to society's well being can be made through a reallocation of resources that makes at least one person better off without making someone else worse off.’ - which is a definition of Pareto Optimality.
In unpacking her little grab bag of observations and factoids about gas infrastructure she, unwittingly, demonstrates what Lipsey and Lancaster set out in their ‘General theory of the second best.’ That can be condensed down to ‘if you have a market that seems to be working well (near to Pareto Optimality) and one factor changes - you cannot expect to return to Pareto Optimality by adjusting a few other factors by way of compensation.’
The Dame should be acquainted with the Lipsey and Lancaster theorem because it was cited frequently by Hugh Hudson. Hudson was that rare person - a member of parliament who had been a professional economist, and who sought to apply established economics to public administration. He was a cabinet minister in several Labor governments of South Australia during our Dame’s time in that state. As far as I can trace he was the first minister to propose reservation of gas for his state, and did so in negotiations when Alan Bond was trying to take over - SANTOS.
Hudson saw no problem from wider economic theory in proposing that major resources - minerals, domestic water - should be comprehensively restructured from time to time, because fiddling on the margins was unlikely to improve the welfare of society, which ultimately owned the resources, and expected government to manage for society’s benefit. Fiddling on the margins usually satisfies the cant of the exploiters of resources, as they increase their personal and corporate benefit from their ‘rights’ to the resources.
The current ‘fiddle’, of course, includes ‘increasing production’ into a system that the Dame herself is telling us has many inefficiencies.
If our Dame did not take notice of Lipsey and Lancaster from that time, at very least she should have recognised Kelvin Lancaster as one of Australia’s most respected economists internationally. Richard Lipsey - still with us at age 94 - is Canadian, with the proverbial towering reputation in several areas of economics. He was also once married to Assia Gutmann, who later became part of the complicated relationship of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath.
There's only one thing to be said about that, Chad: if your 'magnus' should somehow find its way into their possession, would any of the reptiles and wingnuts grasp what you're saying and understand that it completely demolishes the Groany.
DeleteBut then I guess it doesn't truly matter, does it - none of the supposedly intended audience for Groany's groanings would care anyway. Just so long as 'something' can be said, then that entirely settles the matter, doesn't it.
We already know the answer to the question - does the Bro do any serious research before putting fingers to keys? His effort on Australia Day, this day, demonstrates that his ‘research’ seems not to extend beyond a few publications either from Rupert’s stable, or which accord with that stable.
ReplyDelete‘(Labor) has said local councils can now hold citizenship ceremonies on days other than January 26.’
That is simply following a remarkably detailed document - available FREE - from the Department of Home Affairs, authorised for publication in 2019, titled ‘Australian Citizenship Ceremonies Code’.
That code, which runs to 46 pages, largely of print, but including several pictures to help with interpretation, tells us that -
in keeping with government policies that ceremonies be held at regular intervals, most local government councils should arrange for ceremonies to be held at least every two or three months.
that ceremonies may be scheduled to fit in with various community events - such as Harmony Day or Refugee Week.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island flags should be displayed at ceremonies.
and - identity politics triumphant - dress code should ‘reflect the significance of - national or cultural dress!’
a citizenship ceremony may be held overseas.
Now - the Bro. only consults sources that support his prejudices. But he cites Dan Tehan, who has been a member of parliament for several terms, so would have received automatic invitation to many citizenship ceremonies (the code tells local councils not to organise ceremonies for sitting days of federal parliament), where he, no doubt, ran of the usual clutch of cliches to those who had just taken the oath to be Aussies. Seems he has not troubled himself to look at the detail of what a government in which he held a ministry actually requires for citizenship ceremonies vis-à-vis Australia Day.
And so the myths are nurtured in the minds of the uncurious.
Yeah, I did kinda wonder if somehow the Bro thought that all of the 'citizenship ceremonies' for all of the several hundred thousand permanent immigrants that we average every year were all supposed to be held together on 26 January.
DeleteWouldn't put it past him - it's wonderful what conclusions somebody who refuses to think (or perhaps is unable to) can come to.
Your holiday reading:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/09/it-didnt-start-with-trump-the-decades-long-saga-of-how-the-gop-went-crazy/
It is a fairly long read for us impatient websters, but well worth the time and it gives us something to do while awaiting the return of DP.
It appears someone left the asylum door ajar
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/Adam_Creighton/status/1603997925805547521
I have a little sign on the in side of my exit door courtesy of Douglas Adams that says: "you are about to enter the asylum". As true today as when he articulated it.
Delete(Are Comments still being accepted/read????) An apt description of the role of the Murdoch press...... " The outcry from the gas industry and its analysts and regular press stenographic services was hyperbolic in the extreme. "
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/28/australian-government-must-take-its-foot-off-the-gas-to-ensure-real-emission-reductions