Saturday, March 04, 2023

In which the reptiles keep having a super time, but the comedy stylings aren't really that super ...

 


The pond has been struggling of late to take an interest in the local reptiles. 

Why was the United States gifted with the best comedians? Probably with a larger population, the odds are that more people with genuine comedic ability would be inclined to emerge. 

The Bolter, for example, is a humourless sod, as are most of his Sky News companions, and rarely do they achieve this sort of comedy styling ...

Fox News host Tucker Carlson was accused of projection following his monologue Thursday in which he attacked President Joe Biden’s administration and warned “weak men in positions of power” are destroying society.
“First, you always imagine in your mind’s eye that it’s evil men who destroy society — wild-eyed spit-flecked dictators pounding the podium, to demand the annihilation of their enemies,” the self-confessed liar began.
“That’s the Hollywood version of it. But in real life, people like that rarely get very far. They’re too obvious,” Carlson continued. “It’s not the cartoon demons you’ve got to worry about. It’s weak men in positions of power. They’re the most dangerous. Men with no principles but the desire for self-preservation. Hollow men who live in terror of being revealed for who they really are, men who will do anything to save themselves. That’s who you should be afraid of. And you can see that in our current moment. The weakest are the most destructive.”
Carlson attacked several Democrats as “sad, insecure, broken men filled with envy and bitterness from their lonely childhoods.”
"They hate you because they hate themselves,” he continued. “It’s not their masculinity. It’s their lack of it.”

Only a truly manly man could come up with that routine ...





It's true that the local reptiles' obsessive super campaign has lately had something of a comedic result, and there were some attempts at comedy stylings in this weekend's lizard Oz ...



 



And there was this outing by the oscillating fan ...



 




... but the pond can't be bothered going there, over and over again, and the only news worth noting about the oscillating fan came from the venerable Meade, as it often does, in The Australian finds super ‘victims’ among Sydney’s well-heeled – or is it satire? ...

Van Onselen returns to academia
After four years of daily news reporting Peter van Onselen has quit as Channel Ten political reporter to return to academia.
He leaves with a bullying claim against him and Ten, lodged by former Canberra colleague Tegan George, unresolved.
George alleges Van Onselen undermined and humiliated her, including by backgrounding other journalists against her. She also claims Ten failed to stop Van Onselen from “tormenting” her in social media posts.
Network 10 and Van Onselen have previously denied the claims.

Unfortunately that means there's more time for the slack-jawed yokel to scribble for the reptiles ...

Is there any upside to the suffering this day? 

Well it seems that nattering "Ned" has taken a powder, or at least hols, so the pond is spared his interminable monologue, which is never funny, and at best sometimes unconsciously, unintentionally hilarious, at least for those who can remember the reptile attempt to promote the pompous poseur by having him read his own words, as much fun as desiccated coconut before you add the water...

So these days the pond's efforts largely consist of a string of apologies, for those not covered - farewell Dame Groan and your incessant Groaning - and those covered. 

Oh fucketty fuck, not the dog botherer again ...







For those wondering about that link - not the one with the startling news that Chalmers is Treasurer, but the later one - relax, it just led to another reptile ratbag who began thusly ...









The pond realises it might be accused of favouritism, because doggy boy is also blathering on about super - the whole murmuration of reptiles is doing it - but what choice did the pond have? Look at the meagre offerings ...









Not another serve of the Price is Right, and as for the Bjorn-again one, the pond has completely lost interest since he devised his "sssh, whatever you do, don't mention climate science", and the irony of his preaching of the virtues of vaccines to the anti-vax brigade celebrated by the reptiles is probably completely lost on him ... so it had to be doggy boy, even if the pond was guaranteed not to have a super time ...






It must be awkward for the dog botherer to have to celebrate Keating to do down Chalmers, but you have to hand it to doggy boy ... though the pond does prefer the spin that Kudelka put on it this day ...








But on with the dog botherer, as a little intergenerational bitterness and envy pops into the brain of the bald pate ... with doggy boy, it seems, even going to the trouble to dig out Jimbo's thesis ...







That reference to Gen X probably revealed more than it should, in the dog botherer's frequent desire to give raw meat to Freudians ... and at this point the pond must take a comedy break, because the venerable Meade was in top form ...










The pond really should pay more attention to The Shovel because they sometimes do some super work ...







In the end, it seems the only way through the reptiles' super morass is to crack super jokes ...







As an operative who helped fuck Malware's career, no doubt the dog botherer knows whereof he scribbles, but the pond was still on a comedy jag, because so were others ...








Dear sweet long absent lord, even Nine having fun at the reptiles' super expense? 

Sadly the dog botherer was completely unaware that he was just part of a machine designed to bring comedy back to life in the antipodes, and stick it to the Yanks ...





What else? Well there was this exceptional whine by Gemma, which was as good as any The Shovel or Vella might offer ...






Oh yes, the fair go offered by Chairman Rupert ... the pond is familiar with that one ... but is that gigantic chip on Emma's shoulder a match for the wondrous ability of Kellyanne Conway to continue to hog the limelight? As in Kellyanne Conway Brazenly Gaslights Fox News Viewers With Bizarre 'Challenge' ...

The former Trump White House counselor joined Sean Hannity for a segment about the “lying corrupt media mob,” as an on-screen graphic called it, ostensibly referring to all mainstream media that isn’t Fox News.“I want to challenge people watching tonight who don’t wear red hats, don’t consider themselves MAGA, don’t consider themselves very strong political people,” Conway told viewers of the right-wing network, which is currently fighting a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit for amplifying lies about the 2020 presidential election.
“I want you to ask yourself how many times you’ve been lied to, not just by this government, but how many times you were lied to by the people whose job it is to tell you the truth in the media,” she continued. “All in the service of ‘getting’ the president. Trump derangement syndrome is real.”

Indeed, indeed, it seems TDS is real, and it seems the Chairman is suffering from it ... Fox News reportedly imposes ‘soft ban’ on Donald Trump. And it's not just the Graudian, The Independent was on it too ... Trump ‘soft banned’ from Fox News amid clash with Murdoch over election lies coverage.

It seems a feud for the ages might be developing ...









How can a whining Gemma compete and be heard above the Faux Noise?







Dear sweet long absent lord, it's just the dog botherer lite, albeit with a bigger chip on shoulder, and a seething resentment that's pitiful to behold ...





The savage backlash we're seeing? All the pond can see is reptiles coked to the gills, eyeless and endlessly carrying on in Gaza ...







Moving right along to the bonus, it falls to the bromancer this day to perform the task usually reserved for 'Ned's' natter... a lengthy boring exegesis that sends people scurrying back to bed for an extra hour's weekend nap, and what a tremendous substitute he makes ...






Because the bromancer does the job so well - the pond can already feel the ennui and the swelling sense of tedium - the pond isn't going to interrupt ...

Oh heck, maybe just one last joke about world defence and world awareness ...










That's better, that sets the right tone for the bromancer's rant ... a little isolationism always helps when confronted by people confident in their stupidity ...







The answer to this is agonisingly simple. A single sub will do the trick ... there'll be lots of training, in time for the arrival of the first sub, long after the pond has departed this world and even the bromancer might have ceased scribbling, though the man who led a delegation to kowtow and to shake the hand of Suharto is an inspiration to us all ... (what grand times they were for 'Ned')...








Ah, the credibility gap, but a single sub will do the trick ... yes, Virginia, there is a bromancer Xmas ... and all he needs in a stocking is a single sub, what with the training and some kind of capability, yadda yadda ...






By this point, many will have abandoned the armchair Reichsleiter, always wanting a world war by Xmas ... but in the best 'Ned' tradition there are still gobbets of anxiety to go ...






Yes, they'd better produce, or else the bromancer will embark on another rant and stomp his foot and type loudly, and send thousands scurrying back to bed ... but take heart, this is the penultimate gobbet and soon, thanks to the tireless bromancer, Australia will be as safe as a bug in a rug ...







Say what? The perfidious French? The pond supposes it's a sound strategy, and once we place an order, we can always cancel at the last minute and arrange for a big payout, and then everyone's happy ... and so to the final, thankfully short gobbet ...





No doubt the bromancer's constant shrieking in a panicked cry of fear will get the government on the move - sound the alarums, to the battle stations reptiles - but at least it's a change from the super time other reptiles have been having, and no doubt the bromancer will be the first to suggest that the government might need a super-charged saving or three, and contributions by the filthy rich, to help sustain his desire for lots of kit so he can bung on a third world war by Xmas... why he might even fling a glass of '55 Grange against an artwork to help out the cause.

And with these super times in mind, why not end with an immortal Rowe?






How could anyone not feel safe with the mutton Dutton, the fat cats and the bromancer? It's always in the detail, bringing together super and super defence in a super pose worthy of a Coppola ...







19 comments:

  1. If I may be allowed to go off on another tangent - my reason being that the fluff flying from the rigging of the flagship is now so predictable but so vapid that there is minimal challenge in its alleged content (although, as ever, thank you Dorothy for trying, and for adding the cartoons).

    Daniel Ellsberg has written a letter about his recent cancer diagnosis. OK - he is 92, so we may say it is easier for him to 'let go' than for others, but as with so much else he has written, it carries a certain inspiration. Alas, the only version I can find is on T...ter, so it is in a couple of installments -

    https://twitter.com/DanielEllsberg/status/1631381696661827584

    Of wider interest to others who come here might be what has become known as the 'Ellsberg Paradox' in decision theory. I borrow from the 'Wiki' for a neat summary - "a person tends to prefer choices with quantifiable risks over those with unknown, incalculable risks." Many writers/commentators out on the ratbaggy edge of the 'right' use a version of this calculus when they tell us that almost any apparently worthwhile initiative to improve human welfare will cost a thousand trillian McDuckillions and won't work anyway, but it does have more realistic applications.

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    1. Hmmm: "...choices with an underlying level of risk are favored in instances where the likelihood of risk is clear, rather than instances in which the likelihood of risk is unknown."
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellsberg_paradox

      Well maybe, maybe, though I've always thought that the near totality of subjectivity in real world "risk assessments" rather mucks up any 'rational assessment' so I would suggest that other than in made up circumstances, the true likelihood of risk is hardly ever known. Besides, as we all know, humans generally prefer to avoid a loss than to make a gain.

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    2. The more tangents the better Chadders, it's the only hope for the pond, which foolishly set sail with the reptiles and now routinely bashes into icebergs of despair ...

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    3. GB - I would not disagree with you on subjectivity overall. From my professional involvement in risks to supposedly renewable natural resources, I have also seen assessments as dependent on the information available (which - aside - is why the 'Trolley Problem' is a chimaera). The agencies that claim to provide us with 'biosecurity' for this country say they base their defences on 'objective risk assessments', and I have seen appropriate courts and tribunals accept such depositions as, well - objective. Unfortunately, pests and diseases continue to breach those defences. Right now, 'white spot' of prawns is spreading around New South Wales, after its outburst in Queensland those few years back. The subjectivity in that case was that the biosecurity bodies, apart from being seriously understaffed because of 'efficiency dividends', were subjective, in wanting to put numbers, often with confidence limits, before ministers, to advise that they - ministers - need not greatly disrupt imports and trade.

      I think engineering continues to put up unhappy examples, and, as in the biosecurity experience, there is an implicit cost factor in the final assessments. As in - look, we can save this percentage of cost of a bridge here, and it will be just hunky dory.

      But I am sure we agree that decision-making is influenced by all manner of attributes from our culture - including the 'endowment effect' you mention.

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    4. Indeed it's rather hard to imagine how it could possibly be otherwise, Chad, human limitations - of which there are many - being what they are.

      However, that variety of 'endowment effect' you've described is common in politics: avoid having to admit a loss by claiming a gain. Quite common in the business world too, it seems.

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    5. Thank you for the Ellsberg link Chad. Stunning to think that anyone could write so clearly and concisely in these circumstances.

      Perhaps we will always be at the whim of the same type of people beating the same type of drum.

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  2. Hi Dorothy . It is beyond my capacity to read the all the trash that is written by these creatures who have been a party to destroying our media landscape with their biased opinions and their participation in the election some of the most destructive right wing politicians. They do in almost all cases resort to personal attack on the individual and not evaluate the policy with an analysis of the outcome of that policy direction as to the benefit or the disadvantage of the policy. Please excuse my poor writing skills but at least I can say that I tried to express my thoughts and put them in writing and would also thank you for providing me with the chance to express an opinion.

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    1. 'Personal attack' is what they get recruited and hired for, Anony. After all, none of them have ever been any kind of success at anything in the real world so they end up on Roopie Murdoch's payroll spinning bullcrap. It's called "wingnut welfare".

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  3. Here is Gemma promoting the politics of envy in an article, entitled: “Green zealotry will not save battlers from power pain”:

    “The loudest voices outside of government pushing the green dream are elites who, from Australia’s largest homes, private planes, islands and yachts, lecture to the rest of us.”

    Perhaps I am not being fair ... like Gemma!

    Still, since commentators at The Australian have lost the policy debate, their next tactic is personal denigration of the person who won the policy debate.

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    1. Whenever the pond sees the use of 'elites,' it thinks of Stalin and 'rootless cosmopolitanism', which is just a step away from 'globalists' which is just a step away from antisemitism and white supremacy which is just a step away from News Corp hacks blathering about international and national 'leets ...

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  4. "It must be awkward for the dog botherer to have to celebrate Keating to do down Chalmers". Naah, the H-K-K trio (Hawke Keating Kelty) are all now 'neoliberal heros' of the reptiles and all who they sail with - like unto the 80,000 winners from superannuation which was concocted to substitute for a genuine wages rise for real workers. Is there a reality to be experienced here ?

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  5. Ms Ton-yee-nee ‘This isn’t intended as a political statement.’ says our Contributor, who, as ever, makes most of that contribution about identity politics. Details of her identity, first up, to remind us of the platform from which she attacks another of her own constructs of identity politics - the subgroup of those who are not of the virtuous ‘us’, and are afflicted with meanness and envy.

    But, of course, it is not intended to be any part of that grubby business of ‘politics’; it is just this day's devotional from the Blessed Gemma.

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    1. Now don't be too hard on her, Chad, after all she has a failed marriage ending in divorce to live through and overcome.

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    2. GB - interesting that that is one detail she has not added to her identity profile - yet? It would fit with the rest of the image she is setting up.

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  6. Pro bono Bro: "Australia must increase military power -- and fast"

    Fear not oh Bro, we have the world patent on rapid manufacture cardboard drones. Armed drones by the tens of thousands, mate, we're invincible.

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  7. Vintage dog botherer - with all the self-awareness of Stuart Robert.

    Yes folks, a person who sits for decades obediently in the kennel sucking from the teat of a) Murdoch, b) the LNP - or if we are lucky, c) both at the same time - is chastising a treasurer for "living in a bubble", or "not knowing a real job".

    A person who is universally the butt of journalistic humour the country wide, who's never been lauded by his peers for anything at all save comic relief - is griping about a treasurer setting out a progressive agenda. What will we do without the botherer when Murdoch passes and he has to find a proper job.

    The self-awareness of Stuart Robert - the Liberal party's exploding cigar (K Murphy)

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  8. The brilliant Bromancer: "...the chance of a major power war is increasing," Ok, right but how exactly is this "major power war" to be fought ? With human troops ? Will China invade the USA or vice versa ? If so, how will either of them get a significant number of 'human troops' over and into the other side's territory ?

    Or will they just pick away at each other ? China sends planes to bomb Hawaii or maybe Alaska ? How does America respond ? What part of China can it bomb ? Or will it just be decades of 'major power' middle eastern style hostilities: sending missiles into each other's territory in an on-again off-again fashion ? No nukes of course, that would end it before the real fun began.

    Bro again: "It's still not likely, but it's more possible than at any time since the height of the Cold War." And when exactly was "the height" of the Cold War ? When the Soviet Union blockaded West Berlin and the 'allies' ran the blockade ? But no actual shooting, was there. So was it the Cuban missile crisis ? Were we really saved from worldwide nuclear holocaust only by the relative sanity of Khrushchev and JFK ? If it hadn't been for them, would the total madness of all the citizens of the USA and the Soviet Union have propelled us all into mass self-annihilation ?

    But hey, how about this: "By the time we have a fleet of eight nuclear subs, Australia's population will be 50 per cent, or 70 per cent, more than now." So hold on, we are currently 26 million, so plus 70% is plus 26*.7 = 44 million. At an annual birth rate of 315,000 (last pre Covid year) over 20 years and allowing for some birthrate increase, that's about 7 million or so local births. Which means about 11 million immigrants.

    What will Australia be like then ?

    Well, "In the meantime, we are going to have to face whatever dire security emergency comes along in the next 10 years without nuclear subs." Yeah, it's just dreadful; why, we couldn't even defend ourselves from a Tuvalu rowboat and crew without a nuclear, could we. And as for just 1,400 million Chinese, well just one old nuclear engined sub would stop them in an instant, wouldn't it.

    Because: "War in the Pacific would be disastrous for Australia." Of course it would - it would wipe out most of the Australian population, wouldn't it. So just as well that "long-range missiles, drones, aircraft and unmanned underwater vehicles" will "keep potential enemies at risk a long way from Australia." Did you see the reference to a couple of obsolescent old nuclear engined subs in that list ? No, I didn't either.

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    1. GB. Great assessment of the crowd that would support that conflict and support the inclusion of Australian involvement like we had been led into Vietnam and Iraq on false and outright lies by Menzies and Howard.

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  9. Just for some comparison:
    Britain’s defence policy is not British, not defensive and not even a policy. It’s a mess
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/03/britains-defence-policy-putin-ben-wallace

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