The reptiles were as happy as pigs in the proverbial this morning, with any amount of wars on the go, and the top of the digital page littered with them.
There was a tremendous revival of the religious wars, there was a flurry around the climate wars, there was more preparation for the war with China, and there was a renewed intensity to the reptile war on Lidia ...
The pond was befuddled and consternated. Even as a frontline war correspondent, how to cover so many wars? The pond decided to split its coverage and do a late afternoon edition so that the war on Lidia could get the treatment it deserved ...
On the upside, it seemed that Dame Slap had taken a powder for the day, so there was no need for the pond to continue its war on her, and hand out a red card. She'd walked off the field and saved the pond the trouble ...
First up? Well it had to be the war on religion, because this is very close to the Catholic Boys' Daily heart ... and they even dragged in a new contributor, so the pond knew it was a serious war...
The pond wondered what planet this Stead lived on. Apart from the admirable example of Hillsong, and the many examples to be found in all the major religions regarding hypocrisy and faith, the pond still fondly remembers the Catholic priest who turned up for a period a week to instruct the pond, and then headed off to the golf club to get on the piss, do gluttony, play the pokies and do a round ...
It's true it wasn't up to the level of the priest who fucked every woman he could see and had to flee to another parish, but it was a splendid confirmation of the Tamworth lifestyle ...
But back to the war, with this Fowler on the case ...
The pond is all for creationism being taught in schools, and the cultivation of cults, and with any luck the Taliban and Ron DeSantis might set up their own schools to join the Scientology school around the corner pocketing taxpayer cash and making the world safe for Tom Cruise (though what with him being able to elevate, was there a need?), but around this point, the pond began to wonder what skin this chook had in the game.
There's always skin the game, and this chook had to have some, and it wasn't long before it was revealed ...
Ah, the chook is alarmed for alarmed parents, and he hails from Notre Dame, which means he works for the tykes, and there's the reason for the ruffled feathers.
Meanwhile, the lizard Oz editorialist was also up for this war ... and never mind the company the chairman keeps these days ...
Elon isn't exactly the ideal role model for the war on religion, given his many confusions, but the lizard Oz editorialist got right into the war ...
Who said bigotry, hypocrisy, aggro and the ongoing desire for taxpayer cash in the private schools paw was ever going to go away?
Long gone are the days when Christ was wont to observe, "then saith unto him, take therefore from Caesar the things needed to keep your schools open, and then you can pray to your god about the filthy secular lucre you acquired to indoctrinate your children in all kinds of nonsense, creationism and a young earth included."
And so it came to pass ...
Well the pond hasn't the time to brood over the hypocrisy, because the war on the planet and climate science also made an entry, and this time it featured simplistic "here no conflict of interest" Simon...
Usually the pond wouldn't bother with simpleton Simon, but here he set the tone for the war by reporting on the war within the war ...
Goodwill on both sides?! Idle blather about a détente? Not if the reptiles, and simple Simon have their say ... though it was a relatively short say, considering everything, with just a gobbet to go ...
In urgent need of reinforcements, the reptiles rustled up a George to bleat about coal and she was blessed by the lizard Oz graphics department...
How many times have the reptiles provided the world with a snap of a long-suffering coal station?
Too many times for the pond to count, and George was up to the task of shedding copious tears ...
It might seem idle for the pond at this point to note the way that the Kiwis are currently being ravaged.
These wars were getting quite wearying but even with the war on Lidia deferred, there was still a biggie war to go ... with the bromancer leading the charge ...
The pond simply had to include this war because of the astonishing reptile graphic, a triumph for the much reduced, maligned and mocked department.
It featured exactly the sort of folder you might covet if you were the mango Mussolini wanting to hide the blue light so you could get a good night's sleep ...
Enough already, there's the war on China coming soon to a store near you, and the bromancer is standing by, ready for promotion to Reichsmarschall des GroßOzen Reiches when the moment arrives ...
Strange how subdued the pending Reichsmarschall was by this pending news, what with both the pond and even the pending Reichsmarschall likely to be long dead before the subs turn up, and with the war on China due if not by Xmas, then certainly in the new year ...
But there were plans afoot, and the pending Reichsmarschall was content ...
Yes, the pending Reichsmarschall would get his missiles, so the matter of the subs could be quietly passed over ...
Distinctly dangerous times? Oh come on, let the war with China begin ... with the splendid example of the sociopath loose in Ukraine, the planet urgently needs another war.
And with the war on Lidia held over, there was just time for the immortal Rowe to note another war, which strangely seem to have slipped the reptiles' beehive mind, what with all the other wars going down ...
Two straight days of the Bromancer - what fresh Hell is this?
ReplyDeleteIf the Bro manages to work himself into such a froth simply on the basis of the Government receiving the latest defence review, imagine what he’ll be like when it’s actual findings, and the Government response, are released. They’ll have to turn over the entire Lizard Oz website and dead tree editions to him for a week.
Never a fresh hell Anon, in hell they serve popcorn that's at least a year old, soggy and saturated with salt and fat, and that's all you get when being made to read the bromancer ...
DeleteMorning DP. That graphic for the Bromancer's waffle was a bit of misreporting. Turns out that headless suit wasn't Marles at all.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/news-photo/sir-angus-houston-delivers-the-defence-strategic-review-news-photo/1465739126
Top notch find Kez, and to prove the pond followed your orders, the pond quotes the text at Getty Images that accompanied the snap.
DeleteAngus Houston Delivers Defence Strategic Review 2023
CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA - FEBRUARY 14: Sir Angus Houston delivers the Defence Strategic Review 2023 to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Deputy PM and Minister of Defence Richard Marles at Parliament House on February 14, 2023 in Canberra, Australia. (Photo by Martin Ollman/Getty Images)
The lizard Oz graphics department is now officially beyond a joke
Cheers DP. As you say, "it's all in the details".
DeleteTo be fair to the reptiles, Richard Marles was probably holding the folder a few moments later, after that shot was taken. And you know, if a reptile really believes something, there's a pretty good chance they regard it as fact.
DeleteAn absolute certainty they regard it as fact, Merc. For just however long it takes them to expound it.
DeleteDot, expert as you are at debunking these 'right' arguments, you don't need this book. Yet many do.
ReplyDeleteI'd be interested in you applying some of Robinson's rebuttal rhetoric. Own the conservatives and all.
Via Cory Doctorow
" Nathan J. Robinson's "Responding to the Right: Brief Replies to 25 Conservative Arguments"
https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/14/nathan-robinson/#arguendo
Publisher blurb:
"The editor of Current Affairs artfully and efficiently debunks a series of common right-wing arguments.
"Are taxes theft? Is abortion murder? Does regulation destroy jobs? Is white privilege a lie? Conservative talking points are everywhere, and through well-funded media like Fox News, Breitbart, and YouTube’s "Prager University," the right has an impressive record of packaging its views for a general audience. Clearly, the left needs to do a better job of fighting back.
"Luckily, Current Affairs editor Nathan J. Robinson has developed a reputation as a meticulous slayer of irrational and bigoted arguments. He has tangled with the likes of Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, and Charles Murray, exposing their flimsy logic and distorted facts with forensic thoroughness and savage wit. In Responding to the Right, Robinson blasts right-wing nonsense with devastating intellectual weaponry, revealing how everyone from Ann Coulter to the National Review uses fear and lies to manipulate the public. He gives a detailed explanation of how conservative arguments work and why we need to resist them, then goes through twenty-five separate talking points, showing precisely why each one fails."
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250777744/respondingtotheright
A review:
"Nathan Robinson’s Response to the Right
https://areomagazine.com/2022/10/04/nathan-robinsons-response-to-the-right/
thanks for the tip Anon, but the pond is no expert, and these days never bothers to argue with the reptiles. Celebration of surreal absurdity, in the manner of André Breton or Alice in Wonderland, is all the go on the pond. Deprogramming cultists can take years, isn't often successful, and is best left to family members who care ...
DeleteOne reminder there Anonymous - Ann Coulter, who seems to be doing us all a favour by drifting into irrelevancy. Still, I guess it is difficult even for her to compete for attention with Marjorie Greene, Lauren Boebert and Kari Lake. How fickle are the Fox presenters?
DeleteThanks for the tip, Anon. Although these days, I prefer the condensed version, read less and engage more with the internet.
DeleteSound advice, DP; indeed never argue with the terminally fuddled and bewildered, you'll never get to them in any meaningful way. The only reason that I, for one, continue to commentate is that by never directly arguing with anybody I can still befuddle myself with the hope that somewhere out there is a set of non-deaf ears and/or a set of non-blind eyes.
Delete'Deprogramming' is indeed a time consuming and very seldom successful activity though in contrast, it often seems that 'programming' can be all but instantaneous. I still wonder occasionally whether the idea of not arguing with them, but 'gently' questioning them is the go - humans can believe multiple contradictory things simultaneously, but when faced with self-generated contradictions (ie contradictory responses provided by them to otherwise 'innocent' questions) there is sometimes an 'awakening'.
Sound advice GB, you sound like you've done a bit of deprogamming in your time. The pond's experience is with fundamentalist Xians, and there's no way that reason or self-generated contradictions can intrude on firmly held delusions ... in fact, pointing out all the absurdities of a genocidal god who wiped all life from the planet, save for a single boatload, is likely to be seen as a jolly good example of how to handle sinners.
Delete"Gentle questioning" GB; you mean like Justin Greggery KC?
DeleteDeprogramming only in the sense of trying to talk rasoned sense to people I've co-worked with - and don't forget that 'ADP'(or 'EDP' or just 'DP' these days) has a very high average IQ amongst its practitioners. And it wasn't so much intruding in on firmly held delusions so much as trying to get them to intrude in on themselves. Forlorn hope in most cases.
DeleteBut I still find it hard to comprehend that some who call themselves scientists can do good research into the history of living things and note that homo sapiens sapiens is at least 190,000 years old and yet still believe one or other of the variants of assorted 'bibles' without any feeling of self-contradiction.
But then, I suppose if a person can believe in the Omphalos Theory of creation, they can find a way around any objection.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphalos_hypothesis
Ah, Anony, one of the Robodebt inquiry's legal aides. Must admit I haven't really paid much attention to any of that. Have you a good article to read about a King's (once a Queen's) Council's part in that ?
DeleteI think it's amusingly informative, Anony that there is Gregg Jackson’s 'Conservative Comebacks to Liberal Lies' to compare with Robinson's 'Responding to the Right: Brief Replies to 25 Conservative Arguments'. Yep, "lies" versus "arguments" - definitely a meeting of the hearts and minds there, yes ?
DeleteMeanwhile, Barnaby has been being ‘colourful’ at the Walcha Bowls Club, informing locals about the evils of wind power, embodied in the Winterbourne wind farm.
ReplyDeleteBarnaby recommended that the area consider a small nuclear reactor, like the one that ‘Rolls Royce is developing for the city of Leeds to come online 2029.’ And that it would be ’16.4 metres high and 4 metres wide. And Leeds has 503 000 people.’
Interestingly, I found a recent statement from Rolls Royce (Financial Times November 23 2022) to a (UK) parliamentary committee, which had Rolls-Royce as part of a consortium that has designed a 470 megawatt small modular nuclear reactor, ‘which would produce enough power for a city the size of Leeds.’ Rolls-Royce put the cost of the first such plant at £2.5 billion, although the company has ‘argued’ the cost of each plant will drop to £2 bill. once it has a ‘pipeline of orders.’ Pipeline funded, of course, with very large gummint grants, because the power they might produce would be, how can we put this - expensive?
OK, Barners has missed something in the translation. Easy to understand, because he is also quoted as calling the EIS for Winterbourne ‘a packet of poo tickets.’
That sent me searching, because I had long thought the expression was about a ‘pakapu ticket’ - several choices of English spelling of the Chines characters on a gambling ticket - but used to describe confusing layout of print. Well, it seems that assorted self-styled colourfuls have either never understood the source of the original expression, (mondegreens) or they have their own interpretation.
Meanwhile, some of us voters in Maranoa still give thanks to former member Bruce Scott, for taking care to see that Barners did not follow him as our local member. Yes, Littleproud is ordinary, but he does not produce the shudders in the same way as Barners would have.
Excellent research Chadders. Do you have a link for Barners at the Walcha Bowls Club? Apparently he's a regular there ...
DeleteThe pond did spot this one ...
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/sustainability/of-poo-tickets-and-power-stations-barnaby-joyce-takes-on-big-wind-20230201-p5ch2i.html
The pond still has a fear and loathing of Walcha, having once been brutalised in a hockey game there ...
My pleasure, Dorothy. Two links are
Deletehttps://reneweconomy.com.au/a-packet-of-poo-tickets-barnabys-beef-with-wind-power-goes-nuclear/
https://www.netimes.com.au/2023/01/18/bare-minimum-eis-for-winterbourne-wind-project-very-worst-ever/
The 'New England Times' - second link - claims to be one of the still newish independent publishers trying to fill the void left by Rupert's bean counters. It is not paywalled, but offers paydirt, in the form of a video of most of the meeting that Barnaby addressed. Barners speaks from minute 27, and goes on for most of the next 20 minutes. No, I did not watch it all - life is tooo short.
Oh - Rolls-Royce holding out the hand for good gummint money is at
https://www.ft.com/content/21a54a90-1b51-4561-ba9e-c1677e0262ed
You get one freebie viewing, then it slips behind a 'register wall'
It's kinda funny associating Rolls-Royce with SMRs; R-R has been making small nuclears for years:
Delete"The Rolls-Royce pressurised water reactor (PWR) series has powered the UK 's Royal Navy nuclear submarines since the Valiant class, commissioned in 1966."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_PWR#:~:text=The%20Rolls-Royce%20pressurised%20water%20reactor%20%28PWR%29%20series%20has,was%20powered%20by%20a%20Westinghouse%20S5W%20reactor.%20
1966 - that's about 57 years ago; one might think that R-R would be able to whip one up real quick-smart by now, wouldn't one.
As far as I know poo ticket is Aussie slang for toilet paper. Sincere apologies for elaborating on subjects scatological...but Barners brought it up. And he's surely asking for it when he runs off at the mouth such as in his latest squirt.
DeleteIn reference to Barnaby's poo ticket
No need to ask what might he do with it
It's to finish the job
When he's shot off his gob
Then to flush it away when he's through with it
Thank you Kez - puts it all in perspective, or as much as Barners might ever fit into a perspective.
DeleteHeh, flush it away, Kez ? Not if you're a traditional Aussie. Though I guess with the slow demise of the dead tree newspapers the cheapest source of a 'poo ticket' is fading away. Don't flush too good in a modern toilet either.
DeleteCheers Chadders and GB. And yes GB, I bet Murdoch tree-killers are a good source of poo-tickets for many outback dunnies.
DeleteAside: just a little something for the Bromancer to read:
ReplyDeleteSlavery and the British Industrial Revolution
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/02/slavery-and-the-british-industrial-revolution.html
"The authors find that slaveholding areas were less agricultural, closer to cotton mills, and had more property wealth. Not only did the slave trade affect the geography of economic development after 1750, it also accelerated Britain’s Industrial Revolution."
Aside 2: for the next Lloydy effort:
ReplyDeleteAntónio Guterres calls for urgent action as climate-driven rise brings ‘torrent of trouble’ to almost a billion people
Rising seas threaten ‘mass exodus on a biblical scale’, UN chief warns
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/14/rising-seas-threaten-mass-exodus-on-a-biblical-scale-un-chief-warns
How many immigrants will Australia take every year ?