The pond approached the reptiles this weekend with some trepidation. It's been a rough time for reptiles, and the pond wondered what it must be like in the bunker. Was the admiration for the last rat of Tobruk still standing akin to the rats of Surry Hills struggling to survive?
The final straw came with the news of the impudent ABC having another ago, as reported in the essential media musings of the venerable Meade ...
Hours before Lachlan Murdoch dropped his defamation case against Crikey, the ABC dropped its own reaction to Fox News and Dominion reaching a $787.5m settlement over US election lies.
In a move which could be interpreted as the public broadcaster thumbing its nose at News Corporation and the local media watchdog, Four Corners will re-broadcast Sarah Ferguson’s spicy documentary Fox and the Big Lie on Monday.
“Fox will no longer be scrutinised through a trial, so this is the complete story,” the ABC said.
This is a bold move because the two-part doco infuriated News Corp Australia and Fox News, and triggered an unprecedented 45 articles in local papers. The Australian called it a “full-frontal hit job on Rupert Murdoch, News Corp and the US Fox News channel”.
When the ABC didn’t budge, Fox took its lengthy complaint to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (Acma).
In a move which could be interpreted as the public broadcaster thumbing its nose at News Corporation and the local media watchdog, Four Corners will re-broadcast Sarah Ferguson’s spicy documentary Fox and the Big Lie on Monday.
“Fox will no longer be scrutinised through a trial, so this is the complete story,” the ABC said.
This is a bold move because the two-part doco infuriated News Corp Australia and Fox News, and triggered an unprecedented 45 articles in local papers. The Australian called it a “full-frontal hit job on Rupert Murdoch, News Corp and the US Fox News channel”.
When the ABC didn’t budge, Fox took its lengthy complaint to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (Acma).
We all know what that pandering mob of Acma fuckwits did, but 45 articles?
And now the ABC is gloating, and rubbing more salt in the wound, Lachy has left the field, and Crikey has been mentioned on Colbert and is righteous (the pond can't tell if there's a paywall) ...
We won?! Yah yah, liar, liar, pants on fire and so on and so forth?
Oh it's too much, but what's a rat of Surry Hills to do but grin and bear it, keep on bunkering down and carrying on ...
Even so the outrage machine intent on generating angertainment seemed caught with a crappy clutch, grinding the usual gears ... and so the pond could hand out a double red card to Dame Slap ...
The voice and the Lerhmann matter coupled together?
Well the pond has noted Dame Slap's twin obsessions many, many times, but monomaniacal obsessive compulsive behaviour is best left to psychiatrists, so the pond handed out the double red card and moved on.
What else? Well it seems this weekend nattering "Ned" decided not to take to the field, and what a blessed relief that is, because the pond didn't have to recycle the old joke about hitting head with hammer ...
In "Ned's" place, the dog botherer was out and about, and full of whining self-pity, and being of a vengeful mind, the pond found it an undiluted delight ... because if there's anything more comical than the dog botherer pleading for tolerance, the pond has yet to find it ...
It wouldn't be the right sort of weekend if the tolerance-loving dog botherer hadn't been caught recycling intolerant Sky News after dark nonsense ... and yet two days ago in the ABC, Lidia Thorpe says prime minister is trying to silence her, after strip club altercation ... and three days ago Anthony Albanese criticises Lidia Thorpe's early morning expletive-laden altercation outside a Melbourne strip club ...
Which is more than enough, unless you happen to be an anally fixated reptile devoted to angertainment.
What you won't find in the dog botherer is any form of recantation or admission of error, even as the latest climate report comes down and even news.com.au found space for it ...UN reports 'off the charts' melting of glaciers ... (yes, that's a News Corp link)
The pond understands why the dog botherer is in a whining, self-pitying mood. He decided to go for the voice, which puts him at odds with all the other rats in the bunker, not to mention the forces being marshalled by the head spud ...
All that said and acknowledged, the whining, self-pitying tone is hard to take, especially when the self-pity leads to cackling Claire, the one often busy nuking the country ...
At this point some mindlessly moronic reptile decided it would be a good idea to stick in a huuuge snap of cackling Claire, posing in a way designed to agitate the lizard Oz's aging male white demographic.
Naturally the pond cut it down to size ...
There's enough there in the image to get the drift without being needlessly provocative ... and so on with the whining ... and with the dog botherer apparently unaware that News Corp is, on its very own, perhaps the most divisive and disabling force abroad in the world, daily doing immense harm ...
Ah, after the whining and the self-pity comes the petulant outburst and the stomping of foot ... and climate and all that jazz and blather about modern ignorance - takes one to know one - because ...
The pond has no idea why it exists, it undercuts the lizards of Oz, it makes nonsense of the subscription model, and yet here we are, and here's the dog botherer full of self-pity, imagining himself trapped in a silo, when the pond much prefers the image of a rat in a Surry Hills bunker ...
What a tortured soul, and at last a couple of lines about Faux Noise, and so to that rhetorical question as to what can be done ...
Teach your parents well, even if they never listen ...
It's an old one, way back in 2013, but it's a reminder that the problem can't be the solution, and backing the voice isn't a get out of jail card for decades of boofhead aggro boorish misbehaviour and narcissist attention seeking...
As might be expected, the dog botherer's solution is down there with the braying of donkeys ...
Hmm, the dog botherer left out Twitter, which is a pity, because the pond did love that line about SpaceX finally providing a metaphor for Twitter ...
As to answering the challenge, perhaps the dog botherer could just fuck off, and leave the world with just a little more peace.
Take nattering "Ned" as an example ... how much more tranquil this weekend will be with his baleful droning boring the shit out of stray pond readers ... (though perhaps if you're constipated that might be useful).
But if "Ned" has gone missing, what else for the usual pond bonus?
The oscillating fan? Nope, never bother. Prattling Polonius blathering about the ABC for the umpteenth time? Nope, there's got to be something for the pond's Sunday meditation.
The hole in the bucket man dragooned into weekend service to rabbit on about the voice? Nope, red card. Rabbit hole Warren rabbiting on about the voice? Nope, red card.
Dog botherer? Been there, done that, and that only leaves the bromancer, and it was with great reluctance, and eventual profound regret, that the pond decided to go there ...
Jeepers creepers, if this isn't enough to produce a little self-doubt in Wong, the pond can't imagine what would.
Suddenly she's in the same stable as the bromancer and being hailed as a heroine?
The pond should have warned stray readers that this is going to be a long and tedious expression of love, excessive and silly, and almost uxorious, except for the technical matter of the bromancer not actually being hitched to Wong or the Price is right ... it's more a spiritual kind of connection, of the kind to be found in courtly medieval times ...
Weird times or what? The pond can recall the days when Pearson was the apple of News Corp's eye, and was great buddies with the dog botherer, and everybody loved the way he got stuck into the woke mob, though in those days they weren't so much woke as rabid lefties trampling on Aboriginal communities ...
Now he's another of our great bullies?
It would take too long to recount the whole sorry Pearson saga, and the falling out of reptile favour, and the dragging in of a new reptile pet, the Price is right ... but here we are ...
At this point, the reptiles stuck in a snap of Wong, and to spare her the shame and the humiliation of having to endure the bromancer's praise, the pond downsized it ...
There should probably also be a warning. Just as Pearson can go from an Aboriginal sage worshipped by the reptiles to being a great bully, so the bromancer can turn on a dime and Wong will find herself on the wrong side of the reptile fence.
Truth to tell, no matter how many times you get them to do their lines, they do it with a surly, festering resentment ...
Sorry, the pond had to put in a few jokes because the bromancer goes on and on ...
Meanwhile, Wong finds herself in favour with all the reptiles ...
Yes, so long as the war with China continues, Wong will be right ... and here the bromancer takes a bizarre turn into Labor history. How weird can it get, with even Doc Evatt getting a bromancer tick ...
Why is the pond reminded of the story of the frog and the scorpion when reading the reptiles? Back with the lizard Oz editorialist as we approach the edge of the pond, and Wong is offering the reptiles a ride ...
There'll come a turning, but in the meantime, it's back to the bromancer, and it's time to turn to the Price is right ...
Now he's a vicious attack dog? And what of the pack of rabid reptiles baying at the voice? As noted above, they were all out and about, braying and blathering, a murmuration of natttering negativity ...
Never mind, it's the last gobbet, and the Price is right, and we must fight, always with the fighting, can't get enough fighting, and hate, and hostility ... it's the News Corp way ...
Thank the long absent lord that interminable sermon has finished. Go out and fight and fight and it'll be a better world for all the fighting ... and think of the money to be made from the angertainment ...
It almost made the pond yearn for nattering "Ned". Being bored batshit silly is better than all that fighting ...
Meanwhile, the immortal Rowe was celebrating another remarkably effective woman ...
It's always in the details ...
Ok, so " ...UN reports 'off the charts' melting of glaciers ...". Yep, we're all doomed.
ReplyDeleteBut maybe not:
"Discovery of carbon-capturing organism in hot springs could lead to efficient way of absorbing climate-heating gas"
Volcanic microbe eats CO2 ‘astonishingly quickly’, say scientists
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/19/volcanic-microbe-eats-co2-astonishingly-quickly-say-scientists
So who knows, maybe Nature will save us after all. And maybe not.
Plus a bit of hooman ingenooity too GB.
Deletehttps://www.cnet.com/home/energy-and-utilities/hundreds-of-these-24-ton-bricks-could-change-how-we-use-renewable-energy/
Yes, a fine competitor for pumped hydro: pumped stone blocks instead. And possibly just in time as we start to run out of available water to pump for hydro (and to irrigate the crops and grow rice). Then there's also the high-speed rotary system where a massive shortish cylindrical body is rotated at high speed to drive the generation process. And there's also molten salt heat storage too.
DeleteAnd just as well, because with the CO2 eating microbes, we're sure to get it wrong and spread too many of them around the world so that they reduce the atmospheric CO2 content to the point where we get an ice age instead of a heat age - and the plants don't grow well either. But at least that way we won't end up as a second Venus.
I look forward to Senator Rennick's take on the CO2 munchers.
Delete"Unpalatable facts censored in favour of ideological setting" - I did not have Dog Botherer coming out hard criticising Faux News on my bingo card.
ReplyDeleteBut it's been that kind of 2023. Long may it continue!
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DeleteYes VC, as long as the reptiles keep ignoring nonfake news the entertainment will continue.
DeleteYes, VC - I had to laugh when I came to that line. Talk about a total lack of self -awareness!
DeleteBut what a pathetic, spooky whinge by the Botherer. Wah, wah, there’s a diversity of views out there. Wah, Wah, nasty social media. Wah, wah, not everybody is drinking the reptile Kool-Aid. Wah, Wah.
Also, were we really all taking in our news from the same sources back in the day, as Doggy appears to believe? I seem to recall that some decades ago the mainstream media actually provided a bit of diversity in its perspectives - certainly a lot broader than is now the case. But hey, who am I to question the wisdom of a seasoned media professional like the Dog Botherer?
And what’s with the sudden deference to Claire’s cackling? Does she have a book coming out, and he’s scratching a fellow Reptile’s back? Does he genuine believe that she’s the font of all wisdom on this newfangled social media stuff? Or perhaps he just can’t be arsed coming with more verbiage himself and is resorting to a fine old Reptile tradition; they may not believe in climate change, but they’re certainly keen on recycling.
Oh c'mon Anony, the Doggy Bov is just another one of those reptiles that knows he possesses the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and he just can't understand why all we wicked woke Lefties can't see that and therefore start admiring him.
DeleteActually, all the reptiles and most of the wingnuts are the same. We should just express our pitiful views and beliefs and then throw ourselves worshipfully at his feet as he pitilessly demolishes them.
Such is life.
Dame Groan’s pastiche of Friday said little of significance about the RBA review. She pretty much cancelled herself out when she wrote about ‘quantitative easing during the pandemic’ which ‘assisted the federal government to overstimulate the economy and set in train the current inflationary bout.’ Much as I would like to lambast that federal government, it was not ‘quantitative easing’ that drove this inflation, it has mainly been their long-term conversion of Aussies having somewhere to live into the largest, but still speculative, investment element for an increasingly unequal Australia. The RBA review makes passing reference to asset inflation, but seems to think monetary policy, polished up with more ‘transparency and accountability’ can, somehow, have an effect on that. Dream on.
ReplyDeleteSubmissions to the review reminded me of Sherlock’s dog that did nothing in the night-time. Of over 100 submissions by named persons or institutions - none carries the name of our Dame, or Killer Creighton, or any of the ‘contributors’ to any arm of Limited News. There are several ‘anonymous’, but I cannot imagine our reptiles being anonymous.
I think John Quiggin’s submission struck right to the roots of the exercise - it is much too focussed on having ‘monetary policy experts’, inferring that monetary policy alone can deliver on stability of currency and full employment.
Quiggin’s succinct submission is worth noting if only for his observation that the target of 2-3% inflation over the last 3 decades is based on historical observation rather than theoretical derivation.
Amongst names also absent from the list of submissions is that of Peter Dixon - main initiator of the ‘ORANI’ economic model 30 or so years back (it was actually named after his wife). There was a time when Australian economics was highly regarded for its expertise in producing economic models that could be used in practical ways. Of more recent time, fewer resources are going into that area, and I have never been able to find out why. I think it unlikely that it is still the influence of the ‘Chicago Boys’ in Chile, post Allende, who made a great show of destroying every traceable component of Stafford Beer’s ‘Cybersyn’, which was quite revolutionary, in management methods, in 1971. The fundamentals of Beer’s thinking are still applied in many commercial systems, producing real gains in methods, and are not edging those countries into Marxism.
Oh, and in spite of the Dame’s groaning - the review sees no fundamental conflict in a central bank seeking to optimise currency stability and employment, even if it still has more faith than many share in monetary policy alone to deliver that. Her aside on the Phillips cure suggests that she thought it once had life; realisation may be sinking in to her Chatbot.
Yes, as usual Quiggin is way more worth taking notice of than a Groany.
DeleteIt’s not the role of the Reptiles to provide anything so trivial as detailed proposals, Chad. True wisdom consists of a 2-3,000 word diatribe. Leave it to the little people to deal with the practicalities.
DeleteNor can you expect to be paid for making submissions to government inquiries (this I know from personal experience.) You didn't ah - happen - to write out one of the submissions to the RBA inquiry from the Anonymous family, did you?
DeleteAnother day, another 90 cents ($1 discounted for inflation) and nobody has anything to say about the Bromancer's teenager crush on Penny and Jacinta - but then he is "the bromancer", isn't he. Really nothing much else to say, is there.
ReplyDeleteNow Penny was, at one stage, regarded as a possible PM, but not so much today, I guess.
Ah, but Jacinta, Jacinta, Jacinta: the personalisation of everything that's wrong with the Liberals and therefore beloved of the likes of the Bro. She will single-handedly transform the Liberals into the party that will rule Australia for the next 30 years (thus leaving Menzies for dead ... which he is I guess).
So it goes.