The great silence? The great myopia? The ostrich syndrome? The blind spot? The vast empty void? Donning the blinkers? Sporting the blinders?
Whatever you call it, you have to admire the astonishing ability of the reptiles to ignore a rather large media story.
Meanwhile, the down under reptiles returned to old favourites, with cackling Claire showing how it's done ...
The battlers and cackling Claire know? And the reptiles are going to break the tedium by inserting a bunch of snaps? Not on the pond's watch. They'll be noted, and appropriately down sized ...
The pond - and those correspondents who can muster the strength to care - have been down this path so many times before, but it seems the decision by Germany to at last write off its three remaining attempts to nuke the country have sent Claire right off into yet another fit of cack-brained cackling ...
Another acronym? Relax, it's just
Roy Morgan in drag, and it seems a little survey reading is a dangerous thing when a cackling Claire does the reading.
And dammit, after that treachery by the Germans, the reptiles decided to insert a snap of grapes... you know, because grapes and nuking the country are almost one and the same ...
Never mind, if cackling Claire has her way, the pond will be linking to a headline Cost of costly SMR failed experiment rises by more than 50% ...
Yep, there blows the billy goat butt, in the sublime form of "while SMRs are a developing technology", meaning we should piss billions against the wall ... because the Canadians and Justin and if not grapes, then perhaps maple syrup?
And so to the final gobbet ...
It passes for reptile comedy on a Friday, though it's only a bare pass ...
Meanwhile, the great myopia, the splendid silence continues, with the reptiles obsessed this day with the RBA ... just look at the tree killer edition ... nary a Fox in sight, nor any sign of fox hunters ...
There is a sound commercial reasoning behind this kind of distraction ...
... and in honour of that sort of reasoning the pond decided to slip in a groaning, before getting to its main event, an exciting display in the pond's reptile museum of an ancient relic, a worthy museum piece ...
On the upside, it's a relatively short groaning, and it comes to a remarkably anodyne conclusion ... but before we get there, shouldn't the Groaner have considered a US solution to what ails us?
Sorry, the pond just had to slip that one in ... on with the groaning ...
Suddenly Dame Groan has a problem with commercial and business skills? But as noted by an esteemed correspondent, we could crater the economy the way some crash and burn tweets and rockets and such like ...
Sorry, sorry, the pond slipped in an Uncle Elon joke, when it might have been better off with an
immortal Rowe joke ...
And as promised, now to the final short gobbet in a short groaning, and to the anodyne, banal, bland conclusion in the last par ...
That's it? It's not clear? Dame Groan gazed into the mirror and came away befuddled and beclouded? Is that why the
infallible Pope looked to the heavens?
And so to a check of the rest of the field ...
Nope, nothing to see there. Just Jennings of the fifth form keeping up the war with China, and Dimitri having a go at the RBA - but who could run a diminished Dimitri up against a Groaning? - and the hapless Damon still doing a Damien about comrade Dan ...
The pond could only marvel at the meretricious Merritt suddenly discovering that there had been errors in NSW, but it did serve as a cue for the pond's prize museum piece, the Henry of the day.
At time of writing, the hole in the bucket man had been promoted to the top of the digital page, to sit alongside all the RBA blather ...
Is there an upside? Well the RBA fuss has taken the reptiles' minds off another matter ...
But there was something unnerving about the wording in the hole in the bucket man's splash.
It turned out that the crisis in our museums, reaching far and wide, was actually pretty limited, to the sort of treatment dished out by successive NSW Liberal governments to one museum ...
What has Andy Warhol or the ongoing Bearup beat-ups or Aboriginal art got to do with it? Sweet fuck all, as it so happens ...
Oh dear, the whole in the bucket man should resist any attempt at humour, though the pond did wonder where he was way back when ...
After almost a decade of Liberal Party mismanagement of Ultimo’s Powerhouse Museum, NSW Minister for the Arts Don Harwin announced a $500 million transformation of the precinct into a hub dedicated to fashion and design.
It comes as another chapter of epic waste, stupidity and policy incoherence from the NSW Government, with the poor Powerhouse Museum still remaining yoked to the Government’s museum blunder at Parramatta.
Harwin is doing for the friends of the Powerhouse Museum what he’s done at Parramatta – breaking a promise made just a year ago, not consulting the community, not listening to expert advice, and disregarding the unique culture and collections of the museum particular to its history, design and context in Ultimo since 1893.
This Government has learnt nothing since November 2014. This is yet another museum policy by thought-bubble.
It is $500m the NSW Government doesn’t need to spend on shrinking the Powerhouse to be something other than what it is: Australia’s only museum of applied arts and sciences, and a museum of wonder and inspiration for generations of families.
The Powerhouse doesn’t need to be the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). It is silly to claim it has the most important design collection in Australia, especially since so many donors have lost confidence in the direction of the museum and have gifted their collections to museums in Canberra and Melbourne. And certainly, NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet doesn’t want to pay for the required staffing establishment on the lines of the NGV.
This is yet another broken promise from the NSW Government, given it said last year that the Powerhouse Museum would retain its remit for technology, science, engineering and design. The Government said the Powerhouse Museum was saved. Instead, the mission and facilities of the Powerhouse are being downsized and amended without consultation, explanation or even a veneer of museum planning....
And so on and on, but that was then, and the reptiles were in the business of being a cheer squad for Gladys, the Dominator and all the other preening pretenders in the grand cockroach parade ...
Strangely, only now, with the Dominator and the rest of the rabble gone, has the hole in the bucket man discovered a problem ...
Where was our Henry when it mattered? Come to think of it, where was our Henry when there was a funding crisis at Trove? It's not all bricks and mortar and displays, but thankfully that was averted, with
the news of four years of funding ... though the pond is prepared to bet, if it happens to be around in four years, that there'll be stories about a funding crisis at Trove ...
Of course thanks to their paywalls, News Corp reptiles don't make it into Trove in a significant way, which is a mixed blessing, because Chairman Rupert's attitude to digital archiving is that of a tightwad skinflint ...
Never mind, our Henry has given the pond a chance to vent, and so to the usual tiresome rhetoric about the spirit of the Enlightenment, truth and humanity, and companions on knowledge's endless frontier ...
you know ...
Sorry, sorry, on with ancient Greeks and Romans and truth and enlightenment and all the usual hole in the bucket bullshit for a closer ...
There are none so dull or feeble-minded as those who have no memory, or those who chose to forget, or those who think the Ostrich meme is an actual strategy ... when really it's just a write-off, a cost of doing business ... and blather about the highest of the muses is just so much hot air up against the harsh reality of frauds making heaps of moola from lie after lie ...
Just a quickie aside from the estimable John Quiggin:
ReplyDelete"The global failure of inflation targeting to reach its stated goals, or to make the global financial system work properly, has been ignored."
The RBA review ignores the global failure of inflation management to prevent financial chaos
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/20/we-need-to-abandon-the-idea-of-an-all-wise-central-bank-keeping-spendthrift-governments-in-check
Does everybody remember when the reptile denialists swore on their honour that the planet heating up was good because the cold kills more than the heat ?
ReplyDeleteContemptible Claire: "In Australia, those on low incomes are vulnerable during summer as well as winter and are especially at risk during heatwaves." Heatwaves ? What heatwaves ? They keep telling us the planet is cooling. Oh, but nonetheless, "In extreme weather, energy poverty kills."
But our Eclaire duly informs us that "the price of building large reactors would have to decline by 'at least 30 per cent' to become locally viable." And then continues: "Excessive financial risk is a valid criticism when it comes to large reactor programs." Really ? a "financial risk" against the risk of letting climate change - that is global heating - continue.
Once again it shows that the reptiles just don't understand what continuing, and increasing, global heating will do. And this from somebody who says she lived through South Australia's "worst heatwave" where she "experienced two weeks above 33C, six days above 40C and four days above 43C". How about weeks on end above 45C, Claire ? Which will come in the not too distant future, long before either large reactors or SMR can make any difference.
But we can build a lot of solar and wind generators quite quickly.
Does she mean 30 percent from the claimed prices or the actual prices? “A 1986 federal analysis of nuclear power plant construction found that the actual costs of building 75 new reactors between 1960 and 1980 was triple the projected costs, and the plants took twice as long to build as projected”.
Deletehttps://www.utilitydive.com/news/nuscale-power-small-modular-reactor-smr-ieefa-uamps/645554/
As for SMRs
“NuScale and the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, its partner in an SMR project planned for Idaho, announced early in January that the target price for the power from their proposed modular reactor had risen by 53%, from $58/MWh to $89/MWh. The companies said higher interest rates and inflation had pushed the costs of building the proposed reactor from $5.3 billion to $9.3 billion”.
“Second, the new $89/MWh target price of power already means that power from the NuScale SMR will be much more expensive than that from renewable and storage resources even with an estimated $4.2 billion in taxpayer subsidies. The U.S. Department of Energy has provided $1.4 billion of funding to the SMR project, and the recently enacted Inflation Reduction Act offers an additional subsidy estimated at $30/MWh. Without the billions in taxpayer backing, the price of the power from the NuScale SMR would be substantially higher than $120/MWh.”
Subsidies - I thought they were a renewables thing?
It’s an understood thing that infrastructure and military contracts ALWAYS overrun on costs, sometimes by huge margins. The material costs go up, the US comms systems just won’t work with the Euro platform etc, etc.
Just to put a bit more salt in the wound
https://reneweconomy.com.au/gas-cant-compete-with-wind-solar-and-storage-even-in-worlds-biggest-market/
Apologies DP, this is my therapy.
Well that little lot should have laid you back a treat, Bef. Yep, it's wonderful how the costs of any and every thing nuclear just seems to grow and grow, while the costs of any and every thing renewable just keep on decreasing. But apparently not something that a Murdoch minion is able to notice.
DeleteWell, well, well….. it appears that Young Lachlan is dropping his defamation case against Crikey (just a day after it got a mention on Colbert). From the statement from his lawyers, it sounds the reason may be similar to that in the Dominion case - a desire to avoid a lot of additional Murdoch media information being revealed in the process.
ReplyDeleteHeh, can't have those evil Crikeyans using Lachlan's unthought-through actions to gain readers and increase its circulation - that's Murdoch's prerogative.
DeleteBut it will be just a little interesting to see what happens re Crikey's defence expenses now.
So, Canada will invest tens of millions of dollars in 'waste management technology'. They will need a lot more than that, because at present, Canada doesn't have a method for storing nuclear waste.
ReplyDelete" Enter the Nuclear Waste Management Organization. It was established in 2002 under Ottawa’s Nuclear Fuel Waste Act
The NWMO is tasked with coming up with a long overdue plan for Canada’s used nuclear fuel. In 2005 the NWMO recommended and in 2007 Ottawa accepted a proposal to contain all of the country’s used fuel in one deep geological repository. The estimated cost of this project is $23 billion." https://globalnews.ca/news/5329835/canadas-nuclear-waste-to-be-buried-in-deep-underground-repository/
The Canucks should just find a nice deep glacier and plonk the 'waste' (ie radioactive ex-fuel) on top and let the heat generated by radiation melt its way down deep into the ice.
DeleteGiven the rate of global heating, it should be safe for, oh, 50 years ?
Not to seem too fixated on Senator J N Price - but last night, her colleague, Senator M Canavan, on a certain Sky interview segment, was enthusing about her unique life experience, which would make her a telling weapon in the campaign against 'The Voice'. Senator Canavan informed us that a significant part of her life experience was 'growing up in Yuendemu'. Given that her various sites of record have her attending school in Alice Springs, that must have involved one heck of a school bus circuit - 500+ ks a day. OK - all part of developing the myth around Senator J N Price, but - given that she, and the Canavan, are ostensibly of the same party room, and sit in the same house - has the Canavan actually engaged her in conversation, shared the odd coffee, or whatever they offer while you wait for your 3 minutes of interview on Sky?
ReplyDeleteOh, and a letter in the 'Fin' for this day points out that J N P has recorded unusually low votes in booths with high indigenous numbers, both when she stood for the House seat of Lingiari, and then for the practically unlosable top place on the NT senate ticket.
What can one say to that, Chad, other than respectfully quoting DP: "There are none so dull or feeble-minded as those who have no memory, or those who chose to forget, or those who think the Ostrich meme is an actual strategy ... ".
DeleteAnd that is exactly what the reptiles rely on.
Here we go again, from The Groaner: "This fails to acknowledge the inevitable trade-off between the two variables [inflation and (un)employment] (or is the Phillips curve completely dead ?)". The 'Phillips curve' was never alive, just another fine example that correlation is not causation. But I wouldn't expect Groany to ever understand that.
ReplyDeleteSo Groany tells us: "Currently the board is made up of people with mainly commercial/business skills." Yeah, great, they really know how to manage a national economy don't they. But the worst of it is that neither do the politicians (in or out of government) know anything about that either. And as for the general populace, well ... most of them don't even know how to manage a domestic budget, much less a national economy.
And I can't see any way that's ever going to change.
Which may just be why Groany is asking: "Will the changes recommended by the review, particularly the creation of the monetary policy board, lead to better decision-making?" Sadly, no, nope even a glimmer of hope. Read Quiggin as pointed to above.
GB - I agree with you about the claimed commercial/business skills of the current board. In another life I reviewed an alleged economics study of one of the current board members - it was notable for the aspects of quite conventional economic analysis that that person had not bothered with.
DeleteI am still working through the review document. I was particularly pleased when Renée Fry‑McKibbin joined the review group, although I would also have liked to see Bob Gregory on that group too. Oh well, you can't have everything.
The Dame's collection of words this day suggests that she is not capable of, or cannot be bothered committing the effort to, thinking of a national economy that is other than a 'everybody consume whatever comes to hand, as quickly as possible, because that ticks the boxes for GDP, and, who knows? - productivity.' Which is why she claims there is an inevitable trade-off between inflation and employment; a conflict that the initiators of our Reserve Bank did not see as inevitable, but we did have some more original thinkers back then.
Trouble is that humanity has been in the position for quite some time now that to be a fully 'functioning citizen' takes many more years of formal learning than we are prepared to give ourselves, but 12 years plus a couple 'pre-school' just isn't enough and three more years of a Uni Bachelor's doesn't make much difference because that's really just a paper chase and not real education for many (most ?). So perhaps we are at a stage where citizens will be required to undertake some level of formal learning for most, if not all, of their lifetime. I think that the apparently growing membership of U3A shows that maybe this is a possibility.
DeleteSo I'm glad to hear that you are working through the review document - you may even be able to extract some useful things to pass on to us. Hopefully.
Just as a side comment, I tend to think about economics in terms that I first encountered in (I think) N David Mermin's 'Boojums all the way down' where he reflects on "explanations and descriptions". 'Explanations' are models and theories that enable us to predict what we can and will observe in the universe and 'descriptions' are actual statements about the real nature of the universe.
DeleteClearly, we have many 'explanations' but few 'descriptions' (try quantum physics for an example) and I find that economics is pretty much all 'explanations' and no 'descriptions'. Now the problem with all of that is that 'explanations' are always incomplete and/or inaccurate which is why they are constantly being modified and 'improved'.
Which I believe applies to just about everything contained in the field of 'economics'. So the Phillips Curve was never anything but an incomplete/inaccurate 'explanation' and never a 'description'.
Claire thinks Adelaide's got it bad. She should try Nagpur: https://worldweather.wmo.int/en/city.html?cityId=533
ReplyDeleteAnd it's not even May yet!
So, Henry: "Our muses are ill ...". Really ? Muses ? Have we ever actually had any ... well any that weren't destroyed by "a wasteland of the Australian mind" as proudly and profitbly promoted by the horde of Murdoch minions.
ReplyDeleteJust a little tip via Amanda Meade about a (re)broadcast of an edited Fox and the big lie to be broadcast on Monday 24th April at 8.30pm on ABC TV and ABC iview.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/media/commentisfree/2023/apr/21/abc-thumbs-its-nose-at-news-corp-and-acma-with-rerun-of-fox-and-the-big-lie
At last the ABC showing some cojones. The pond particularly liked the line 'One of Acma’s more dubious findings was that using the word “mob” to describe the 6 January rioters was emotive and strident language.'
DeleteThe pond suspects that the pond calling Acma a mob of fuckwits might be deemed emotive, but is a belly laugh emotion or just hedonistic pleasure?
And talking about seeing things, have we seen this before ?
Deletehttps://twitter.com/i/status/1649059129334308865
GB - was mentally engaged in RBA review, so not keeping up with Colbert; thank you for that link - now stored away in the personal archive.
DeleteDumb, Dumber and Dumbest? “Undecided” Liberal MP looks to a debate between the Onion Muncher and Reptile Joe Hildebrand to help her decide her position on the Voice -
ReplyDeletehttps://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/undecided-liberal-mp-enlists-abbott-and-hildebrand-to-debate-voice-20230421-p5d2b9.html
It says a lot about the Nine rag that it should take this sort of theatrical performance seriously. At a minimum it should have been treated as post-modernist satire, or an exercise in absurdity. The pond had to check the author and discovered someone had taken credit for the straight-faced tosh. Step forward Angus Thompson and take a bow:
DeleteAngus Thompson is a federal political reporter covering industrial relations for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. When not covering industrial relations, he writes comedy for the papers with an unselfconscious and ingenuous style that beguiles readers... (well maybe it didn't say all of that)