The pond woke with a fair sense of dread this day.
The pond had a fair contempt for Pell when he was alive, and now has a fair contempt for him dead, but also knew that the reptile air would be full of lamentations and wailing, sack cloth and ashes and all the usual carry on ... and so it came to pass ... with the Pellists given a more than fulsome airing in the digital edition...
Oh there'd be talk of the meretricious Merritt and links, with this one by a correspondent to a piece in The Conversation worth noting ...
But the pond began to wonder if the reptiles had anything to distract from all the keening and the carry on ... and if there would be anything to post this day.The pond has observed many times the way that people who sublimate some essential part of themselves in the lust for power results in warped situations and individuals, whether it be J. Edgar Hoover and his partner, Cardinal Newman and his partner, Alan Jones and his weirdness, or a deep love of frocks and being surrounded by handsome young acolytes ... and had little to add this day ... except perhaps to mourn how much better it might have been if he'd stayed in football and so in locker rooms, and able to gaze upon the bodies of manly men ...
The fuss had swept from reptile minds the dire threat that the Voice posed to democracy so there was no room for a Wilcox ...
It got even worse when the pond looked below the fold and the onion muncher came on to the field to pose and strut ... aided and abetted by Tess and the craven Craven ...
Oh spare the pond ... or at least spare this Wilcox ...
But then came a glimmer of hope, a barely remembered moment.
Wasn't Killer Creighton also at the top of the digital page, and wasn't he putting his best face on all the GOP carry on of recent days?
Saved once again by the mask hater ... take it away Killer, delight the pond with your inimitable comedy stylings ...
And how clever Killer is ...
You've got to hand it to Killer - who else could come up with "a more dynamic, flexible political party"? - come on down more dynamic and flexible with the truth George Santos - or run with that aged far right Tacitus meme, while ignoring what Cicero said in De Legibus ...Salus populi suprema lex esto.
There's a cartoon for that one too ...
And so to the search for a bonus, and frankly the pond came up with a blank, and so ended up with this outing ...
Indeed, indeed, and after the gloating was over, it was time to say a final farewell to the Pellists.
No more jokes about men devoted to wearing frocks - not that there's anything wrong with that if you're honest about your motives and desires - and no more mentions of the gay priest in the extended family embittered at the way there was a Pellist enclave of handsome acolytes within the Melbourne hierarchy - and that just leaves time for a last tribute from the immortal Rowe ...
At least one tiny part of the Lizard Oz won’t be overflowing with tributes to the late Big George; to the surprise of nobody, it’s canning its yoof site, “The Oz”, after less than a year. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/jan/11/the-australians-youth-title-the-oz-folds-less-than-a-year-after-launch
ReplyDeleteIt would be fascinating to know how many - or how few - forked out the $8.99 a month for a subscription.
Well "the Oz" was beloved of a certain drunken bum ex-editor, so I guess its days were numbered. Especially since it was "Helmed by a team [7] of young female journalists". That'd have to be a formula for very rapid death in the Murdoch world, wouldn't it ?
DeleteAh no, say it ain't so Anon, but the pond did love this intriguing note at the end about the usual disaster featuring old farts trying to lure in vulgar youffs ...
DeleteThe seven staff will no longer file stories under the Oz brand but will be absorbed into the newspaper, sources said.
Dore, who left last year after Murdoch executives became aware of his inappropriate behaviour at the WSJ Tech Live conference, defended the “brilliant content” after legacy staff grumbled about the amount of resources devoted to it and critics sniped at the content.
“For a new brand, The Oz has already built a strong, loyal and growing audience across all platforms,” Dore said on 15 July. “The growth in audience is exceptional, well above expectations.
“Likewise the subscription numbers for The Oz are already fantastic and growing faster than I imagined. The Oz has more subscribers than any other news site (all of them combined in fact) purporting to serve a similar audience.”
Mentored by Dore himself, the young team pumped out news, celebrity and lifestyle content for Instagram and TikTok for eight months but the posts largely failed to gain traction. Traffic and subscriptions were slow, sources said.
The Oz made a spectacular error in July, publishing a highly salacious and unsubstantiated gossip item complete with photographs and graphics about the British royal family. The item was so defamatory the Guardian cannot repeat it.
Minutes after the Guardian asked Dore to comment on why the unusual article purportedly about a royal’s sex life had been published, it was taken down.
The article discussed in graphic detail the alleged sex life of a royal, based on a single “blind” item of gossip from a notorious Instagram account that did not name the subject.
The Oz published a jokey TikTok video of the Queen “reacting” to the sexual gossip and the story was live for about three hours.
Dore’s former deputy Michelle Gunn was promoted to editor-in-chief last week at the same time as News Corp created a powerful new role for Sky News Australia chief executive Paul Whittaker. Whittaker, who sources said is no fan of the Oz, now oversees editorial at the masthead.
While discussing AI and bots the other day, it occurred to me that The Australian could save a goodly sum by simply having a bot do most of the articles instead of paying contributors / commentators. Just feed in choice words like “drowning in rules and regulations” and a Creighton-style piece is ready. Feed in “ABC conservative free zone”: a Henderson-style article results. Feed in “climate catastrophism”: Chris Kenny-style article. This would reinforce The Australian’s complete divorce from reality.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous - as the item from 2012 listed below shows - 'Nedbot.1.2' would just substitute 'Albanese' for 'Julia Gillard', 'Voice' for 'Royal Commission' - and there is tomorrow's lead article. It will take a day or three for Polonius to finish listening and viewing everything, but everything, broadcast by the ABC these last couple of days, then to try to inspissate it into a suitably sticky column, so they have not finished with pellism just yet, but the Flagship will need a bit of other rigging and canvas. Our Henry, of course, is combing through disintegrating copies of the Edict of Thessalonica to get the appropriate precedent for his column on Pell tomorrow. It would be particularly attractive because it set out some of the earliest heresies, which have offered so much to appeal to the more authoritarian leaders of the one true christian church.
DeleteYeah, and the western Roman Empire went to pieces after that, culminating in its final collapse during the Plague of Justinian in 541.
DeleteThere is a rumour, that the Bots have already taken over at the Australian, and that the photo heads therein are just images of hollowgrams of lizards who no longer exist, and have been replaced by RWNJs even crazier than the originals, still walking and agitating on planet earth. Anyway, it's just a rumour, perhaps a left wing conspiracy. AG.
Delete"Saved once again by the mask hater ..." Oh c'mon, what about the Sure Shanahan: "George Pell's task of cleaning up the Catholic Church meant he had a target on his back from the moment he was appointed."
ReplyDeleteShanners is clearly telling us that Pell was 'assassinated' by elements of the Vatican ... isn't he ? If not, what exactly is he telling us ?
I had half hoped that someone with the perspicacity of our 'Killer', sent to the land of the free to report to the citizens of Girtby on the intricacies of the superior political system of the Untied States, might, just might, have thought to explain to readers here how it is that in a house of 435 members (and I have just checked that number - 'Killer' has form in claims to numeracy) - in a house of 435 members, 216 votes is, somehow, a majority, or, at least, can be a pretend majority to put in place a speaker.
ReplyDeleteI believe it has to do with the 6 Repugs that voted 'present' instead of for an actual candidate. Thus all 435 members were counted with 216 for McCarthy and 213 for the Dems thus giving McCarthy a majority.
DeleteTony Windsor, sometime (and much more effective) member representing New England, maintains an interesting Twitter site. This day, he has retweeted an item that one of his contacts has kept filed-away. It was by the ponderous Paul Kelly, identified as ‘Editor-at-Large’ for the Flagship, and went up on November 17 2012. With your indulgence, Dorothy - I reproduce some of that -
ReplyDeleteHeaded ‘Commission on child sex abuse a depressing example of populist politics.’
‘The dismal, populist and doomed quality of Australian governance has been on display this week with Julia Gillard announcing an inn-principle royal commission into child sexual abuse, a panicked Tony Abbott falling into line and an ignorant media offering cheer upon cheer.
Rarely has an Australian government embarked on such a sensitive and vast project in profound ignorance of what it was doing, with virtually no serious policy consideration and driven entirely by politics’
That is already too much, even for an historical footnote on our man ‘Ned’
I seriously doubt Ned remembers any of that, Chad, even when he is potently reminded.
DeleteNo worries Chadders, no indulgence needed, but a link to that tasty morsel should be added ...
Deletehttps://twitter.com/GeeForce77/status/1613231236516020224?cxt=HHwWgIDQkeXQrOMsAAAA
Beyond the pompous portentous self-righteous claptrap, and the low comedy it delivers, what a contemptible man is our "Ned" ...
The reptile air may be full of lamentations and wailing, but George was Ballarat's own: https://www.thecourier.com.au/digital-print-edition/ ......
ReplyDeleteand the memories........https://www.thecourier.com.au/
Merritt: "one of the worst miscarriages of justice in Australia". Compared to? "Ronald Ryan was the last person to be executed in Australia...it would have been impossible for Ryan to have shot the guard because his rifle had jammed." "Andrew Mallard should never have been behind bars in the first place, and he still suffers from the torment of being wrongfully convicted and spending 12 years incarcerated." "The Mickelberg brothers:It was 1982, and the Perth Mint had just been robbed – $650,000 worth of gold bullion being taken. Ray, Peter and Brian Mickelberg were arrested and charged just weeks later. They were convicted of the crime and imprisoned – Peter spent eight years in prison and Ray spent six. It wasn’t until 20 years later, in 2002, that one of the arresting police officers, Tony Lewandowski, admitted that he and another officer had framed the brothers, and stripped and beaten Peter Mickelberg whilst in custody. By that time, Brian had already passed away." (from https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/wrongful-convictions-in-australia/, and there's plenty more like it. In 1990 or so the NSW Attorney General proposed that there be a statutory body to investigate miscarriages of justice, but nothing happened, maybe because most of them are popular.)
ReplyDeleteThe propensity of the human race for single and collective error, and single and collective criminality, is great.
DeleteI only very vaguely remember the Perth Mint and the Mickelberg brothers; did Lewandowski ever give any sort of reason for his (and colleague's) actions ?
Struth - apparently the Pell coverage in today’s dead tree Lizard Oz is comprised of an 8 page wraparound section! How does even the Catholic Boys Daily generate that much guff?
ReplyDeleteChatGPT - simultaneously on 10 separate laptops.
DeleteNormally I make a point of avoiding the comings and goings of the Windsors (Saxe-Coburg and Gothas if you prefer) but some text from young Harry’s book seems to be popping up all over the Internet. “Indeed, I couldn’t think of a single human being who in the 300,000-year history of the species who’d done more collective damage to our sense of reality,” he writes of Murdoch. “But what really sickened and frightened me in 2012 was Murdoch’s ever-expanding circle of flunkies: young, broken desperate men willing to do whatever was necessary to earn one of his Grinchy smiles.”
ReplyDeleteThat last bit really rings a bell. You couldn’t have sat through the last federal election without being appalled by the wimpy Murdoch boys and screechy girls screaming out gotcha questions at Albanese.
Neither the election result(s) or the coverage of Big George’s demise don’t seem to have gone Ruppy’s preferred way - perhaps the wind is turning.
“Neither the election result(s) or the coverage of Big George’s demise seem to have gone Ruppy’s preferred way - perhaps the wind is turning.”
DeleteAh - that’s better.