Tuesday, February 14, 2023

In which there's an EXCLUSIVE, a jolly good groaning, and a trip back to the future with the bromancer ...

 


The right to teach creationism and bash gays and TG folk is extremely precious to the reptiles, and so top of the digital page this day came this EXCLUSIVE ...







It's an old reptile routine, part of the staple diet, albeit a feat performed by the lesser member of the Kelly gang, but the pond had to wonder if reptile hearts were really in it, because they only sent out the old codger to deal with it in the comments section ...







If the bouffant one constitutes a political bushfire, then it's a pretty low grade bushfire, and the pond thinks it'll take days before the reptiles move into "watch and act" phase ...

There'll likely be others to fan the flames, but for the moment, the bouffant one was quickly extinguished ...






That's it? That's the best the reptiles could do? Once again the pond began to worry for the reptiles' future ...






There's the stench of musk in the room? Plenty of gossip to go on with there, including News Corp’s job cuts cast a shadow over the future of its newspapers.

Historically, when it comes to political influence, it is not a question of how many read a newspaper but who reads it. It was that which gave the broadsheets their edge. The influence of tabloids rested on their mass readership, and this gave them influence of a different kind: electoral influence.
A consequence of their decline in reach is that this electoral influence may also be in decline.
Nationally, the Murdoch press campaigned relentlessly for a return of the Liberal-National coalition government at the federal election of May 2022. The government was heavily defeated.
In Victoria, the Herald Sun campaigned viciously against incumbent Labor Premier Daniel Andrews at both the 2018 and 2022 elections. Andrews won both in a landslide.

Oh dear ...

Meanwhile, it was time to placate the one cultist who cares with a jolly good groaning ... though to the pond's taste the groaning was beyond predictable, as was the target ..





We all have our regrets, the pond has had a few, but then again too many to mention, and one of the regrets is the way once the reptiles get on to a theme, they just kept banging away, and ever since he had his Monthly period, Jimbo has become a reptile obsession ... 

There he was again featured in the top of the reptile digital edition, the rotating fickle finger of reptile  doom, with exactly the same snap deployed ...



 



What a wretched graphics department it's become, but the pond has no time for ancient Troy, it must continue with the groaning ...







No doubt the one cultist who cares is chomping at the bit, but by this stage, the pond had begun to yearn for some decent comedy, and so decided to slip in a cartoon to celebrate a recent triumph ...








Hard to turn your back on that one, but the pond managed so it could finish up the groaning ...






How many times can the Groaner carry on groaning like this? 

Did she really need to remind the pond of the enormous stupidity of Malware and the onion muncher in relation to the NBN? Did she have to mention price caps? Electricity bill pain stifled for Aussies after government intervention, data shows.

And so to the rest of the field, and here the pond noted that yet again it was being left to the lizard Oz editorialist to do the hard yards ...






Good old Damon, and simplistic "here no conflict of interest" Simon doing their best, and no doubt Victoria will feature in the news ...






As for the rest, the pond felt like it got stuck in a time warp, because at the top of the page came the bromancer ... and what a coming it was, though it felt like it was a couple of weeks out of date ...






The pond loves it when a white fundamentalist barking mad Catholic always blathering on about the wonders of Western Civilisation gets on to the topic of identity politics, and being imprisoned by beliefs, because nothing says so much about a person as their moral and intellectual choice to indulge in cannibalism of a Sunday, what with the notion of wafers as human flesh and a bit of plonk from Sevenhill as human blood ...

But that date still worried the pond. 

Why this? Why now? Hadn't the reptiles already fired their shots long ago?






They had, they had, and Sky News had done the last of its fulminations a goodly week ago, and the pond realised that things must be getting tough for the reptiles, and the bromancer in particular when in search of a topic ... 

Perhaps we need a balloon across the NT just to give the bromancer a break ... meanwhile we had to keep doing the time warp again to appease his strange god ...






That "frankly weird" shows the bromancer is trying - he can be very trying - but it remains frankly weird that he should be forced to disinter the speech, and as usual, it was a classic case of projection, because by any measure the bromancer is the weirdest reptile of them all ... especially when in that last par, he gets into the argument that one form of bigotry and oppression is an excuse for another ...

For once the pond bit its tongue and refused to get on to the subject of the British empire. That's been done by others at some length ...






Just to pick a few among many...

Meanwhile, the weirdness kept on coming ....





It seems we must always stay in the reptile bunker, but speaking of the faith, the infallible Pope came up with a splendid variation this day ...






As always the devil is in the detail and the pond paused to say a Hail Mary to the icons plastered on the wall ...





Oh bountiful fathers, and so it was back for one last dip in the time warped bromancer well ...






Ah yes, back to the future with the bromancer, and luckily the immortal Rowe had a good closer for the thinking in that last gobbet ...






22 comments:

  1. Here's a novel idea: why doesn't government get out of funding religious schools entirely? Then it could justify allowing them to employ whomever they want. No public funding? No worries!

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    1. Naah, funding religious schools was started by Menzies and continued by Whitlam: neither side will want to be the one to end that.

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    2. It’s rather like the housing Ponzi scheme, a series of political bribes that seemed expedient at the time but are now too entrenched to undo. In a workplace where most political issues were off the table to avoid conflict this one regularly caused a flare-up. Interesting to see someone arguing that they were deserving of the public’s money but had no obligation to abide by public standards

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    3. https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/king-s-school-ordered-to-immediately-cease-plans-for-headmaster-s-plunge-pool-20230213-p5ck5f.html

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  2. Simon Benson isn't going to make the same mistake two days running. Today he refers to 'the Albanese government', deeming a thing (albeit containing the name of its leader) as sufficiently personal.

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  3. The “religious freedom” thing is a perfect example of the Reptiles’ skewed perspective. Both Kelly (Secundus) and Shanners seem convinced that Morrison’s failure to push through the relevant legislation resulted in his government being abandoned by the fundies and was a major factor in their electoral defeat. Back in the real world, most voters either opposed or didn’t care either way about the legislation and its failure was widely seen as another example of the Morrison government’s incompetence and weird priorities. The idea that fundies may have shifted their votes away from the LNP and caused its defeat is absurd (they certainly wouldn’t have gone to Labor or the Greens, and even if they voted for minor parties their preferences would likely have flowed back to the LNP - plus some groups like the Exclusive Brethren simply don’t vote), as is the proposition that the Albo Government may bleed support if it doesn’t meet fundamentalist demands. Not if you’re a Reptile, though - these are Earth-shattering major issues!

    BTW, while I know this could be said of many senior Reptiles - isn’t it time to gently pension-off Shanners? I know that he’s a “National Editor”, but what does that actually mean? Perhaps he copy-edits Angie’s stuff, but I think they’d both be happier ensconced in the Sir Keith Murdoch Home for Retired Reptiles, tapping away on their Olivettis and producing articles for each other.

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    1. This story from 2019 https://www.uow.edu.au/media/2019/esteemed-political-journalist-awarded-honorary-doctorate.php tells us that Shanahan had 'close to 50 years in journalism' and so is now probably about 70 years old. So he gives a youthful perspective for The Oz readers.
      Interesting that he was awarded a honorary doctorate by Wollongong Uni but seems to have had no connection with Wollongong.

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    2. Born November 1956 and formally began his journalism trade with The Bulletin in "the late 1970s" according to Wikipedia, Joe.

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    3. Hi A, J and GB,

      Interesting that Shanners byline picture hasn’t changed in a very long time (neither has his mad fundamentalist wife’s for that matter).

      They do say vanity is an example of pride, one of the seven deadly sins and as “good catholics” they should be aware of their guilt.

      Still choosing your byline picture may say quite a lot about you;

      https://www.theguardian.com/media/2000/sep/11/pressandpublishing.mondaymediasection1

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  4. Regarding the Bromancer’s time capsule spray against Wong - I wonder if he penned it at the time of her speech, but the Oz simply held it over until they had a Bro-sized gap that needed filling? I know it’s hard to believe that the Reptiles might have minimum quality standards, but even by the Bro’s standards it was a pretty average contribution, and as demonstrated there was no shortage at the time of other outraged rankings.

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    1. You're not the only one speculating about the late coming of the bromancer: "...and what a coming it was, though it felt like it was a couple of weeks out of date..."

      But hey, Anony et al, Sheridan is supposedly the Australian's Foreign Editor, and what with one thing and another, he has a job that he's trying hard to keep. So eventually he had to get on to having a reptile go at the Foreign Affairs Minister and Leader of the Government in the Senate, didn't he.

      But really, why he thinks he has a clue about what Penny is saying is just the usual reptile exaggerated self-admiration. Why he thinks that just mentioning Deakin refutes and demolishes Wong I simply don't get, but apparently he does.

      So, he gives us: "Why would it be only the Brits whom we demand confront their 'uncomfortable' past?" Why ? Because the Brits had this thing called "an empire" which they used to rule over a large part of the Earth, and in which they could commit atrocities like the Amritsar massacre. Along with imposing slavery in the Caribbean and exploiting many others. Why is the Bromancer so completely ignorant of British history over the past couple of centuries in particular. Has he ever heard of the Kenyan uprising and "the Brits" brutal treatment of the Kenyan rebels ?

      Among many other like events. And the fact that Australia is a British 'dominion', yes ?

      Then the Bro spouts: "Wong said that only from the 1920s did Australia begin to consider its own national interests in foreign policy. That is absurd." Is it ? Then perhaps the Bro might like to explain to me why having been born into 'Australia' in 1943, I had to spend my first 5.5 years as a British subject because there was no such thing as Australian citizenship ?

      And why it took until the Australia Act 1986 for Australia to finally become a self-ruling nation instead of just a self-governing dominion of Britain.

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  5. It’s not often that I feel sorry for kiddies attending elite private schools, but according to the Costello rags, the Onion Muncher is scheduled to address senior students of Sydney’s Scots College -
    https://www.smh.com.au/national/tony-abbott-s-scots-college-speech-angers-parents-20230213-p5ck65.html
    (Paywalled, but easily accessible via the usual getarounds)

    Once upon a time, strange men handing around schools and talking to the pupils would have resulted in the police being called, or at least a firm request to move on, but standards have obviously changed.

    Hang on - with a name like that, I assume Scots isn’t a Catholic school? What would Cardinal Pell have said?

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    1. Scots college started off in the Presbyterian realm, so not only would the frock lover hang his head in shame at the diversity and inclusion love-in, but so would John Calvin and John Knox.
      “In vain do Papists, Mahometans, and other sects, boast of their antiquity, while they are mere counterfeits of the true, the pure religion.”
      ― John Calvin, Complete Bible Commentaries

      “The difference between us and the papists is that they do not think that the church can be 'the pillar of the truth' unless she presides over the word of God. We, on the other hand, assert that it is because she reverently subjects herself to the word of God that the truth is preserved by her and passed on to others by her hands.”
      ― John Calvin

      “that where a woman reigneth and papistes beare authoritie, that there must nedes Satan be president of the counsel, p.”
      ― John Knox, The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment of Women

      “That the Pape is not the successour of Petir, but whare he said, "Go behynd me, Sathan.”
      ― John Knox, The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1

      And so on, the pond loves Xians showing Xian charity towards each other ...

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    2. I take it that the Great Vowel Shift was only getting started in the time of Knox, then.

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  6. Observations about psychological projection are a weekly, sometimes daily occurrence amongst the Pond readership, but have you ever seen a finer example than the second para of the Bro's offering?

    He basically describes his entire life history of attaching himself to the identity groups he inherited at birth then implies he was driven instead by his own moral and intellectual choices. He never had any choices, he just got his religious, social and political views given to him and accepted them as gospel (some literally), unless you believe that he considered all the options presented to him and decided that all the questions had satisfactory answers and nothing, absolute nothing, needed changing.

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    1. Yep, very accurate call, Bef. But then, the reptiles are truly expert - via frequently repeated practice - at attribution and especially projection.

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  7. You will never guess who is "a beacon of light in a sea of woke darkness" https://twitter.com/LnpTruthLibrary/status/1554726125292556288

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    1. The pond didn't guess Joe, and was so shocked and startled that it felt the need to do a spoiler ...

      Jacinta Price says…

      ‘Lachlan Murdoch & the Murdoch family have provided a beacon of light in a sea of woke darkness via the necessary media platforms that deliver genuine, common sense, fact driven news reporting for our benefit’

      WHAT THE ACTUAL FVCK AUSTRALIA?

      And at the IPA of all places. WHAT THE ACTUAL FVCK JACINTA? The price is clearly right ...



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  8. Yes, Dorothy, this cultist has been chomping, or, being something of an antiquarian, champing, at the bit. Who would have thought our Dame Groan would be quoting Robert Browning, who is credited with introducing the phrase ‘less is more’ in his poem Andrea del Sarto, about the painter of that name.

    I have never encountered that phrase being called any kind of political adage, and quite why our Dame saw any need to qualify those simple three words is beyond me - why ‘less is often more’? Does she see herself as a better stylist than Browning? Perhaps I should leave a note to my descendants of 200 years hence - if my line survives - to see if the Dame’s collected works have sold as consistently as Browning’s still do.

    If she were bent on choosing something from that particular poem, to apply to Chalmers, she could have used ‘a man’s reach should exceed his grasp’ which also appears there for the first time. That is more consistent of the theme of the poem, which continued the reflection that del Sarto was a flawless technician, but his work lacked soul. A bot might have done a better job of finding relevant quotes from Browning than our Dame has.

    As for the actual substance - she writes of Chalmers using the ‘sneaky device of establishing off-budget funds to hide the true extent of spending.’ In fairness, she should have credited the person who practically invented that ‘device’ - Peter Howard Costello - and who was so successful that he persuaded a generation of voters that he had balanced budgets. What he had done in large measure was stop funding the acquisition of useful assets through issuing bonds and handing the whole business over to those new-fangled merchant banks, who took up the practice of re-raising the same funding every couple of years, but paying themselves a fat fee each time for doing just that. Add a few other quirks, like running down special farm investment funds before they had been able to show useful growth, and you have the abiding myth that ‘the Coalition has a much better record on budget management overall.’

    Oh, and since, dear Dorothy, you decided to slip in a cartoon - I was amused by the lines in ‘Andrea del Sarto’ -

    “And that cartoon, the second from the door
    -It is the thing, Love! so such things should be -“

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    1. Amazingly Norman Lindsay thought Robert Browning was a genius, up there with Shakespeare or perhaps even better. What Lindsay would have thought of the Groaner, and vice versa, makes the mind boggle ...

      As you've offered a quote the pond is reminded of Browning's original words:

      I do what many dream of, all their lives,
      —Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do,
      And fail in doing. I could count twenty such
      On twice your fingers, and not leave this town,
      Who strive—you don't know how the others strive
      To craft a column for the lizard Oz, a little thing like that you smeared
      Carelessly passing with your robes afloat,—
      Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says,
      (I know his name, no matter)—so much less!
      Well, less is more, dear Groaner: I am judged.
      There burns a truer light of God in them,
      In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain,
      Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt
      This low-pulsed forthright would-be columnist's craftsman's hand of mine.
      Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know,
      Reach many a time to groan to a heaven that's shut to me,
      Enter and take their place there sure enough in the lizard Oz,
      Though they come back and cannot shut up telling the world...

      https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43745/andrea-del-sarto

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    2. 'Less is often more' renders the phrase entirely meaningless in my view.

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  9. But, Butt Chad: that is exactly why the Coalition - or at least some members of it - can claim to be much better budget managers than the Labs: never have the Labs been anywhere near as good at milking the budget as the Libs, and they still aren't.

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