A survey of the lizard Oz commentariat, the leet of Surry Hills, this day produced a deep sigh of despair.
First petulant Peta drives the pond down into the pits yesterday ... and the next day this selection is all that's on offer ...
What to do? The pond hasn't the slightest interest in prattling Polonius's relative, nor in simplistic "here no conflict of interest" Simon, nor tedious Tom, nor the meretricious Merritt still doing his best for war crimes ...
That's why on a Friday the pond always somehow ends up trying to fix holes in buckets by referencing some great historical figure, strictly Western canon, with dear old Henry ... and it never ends well ...
You do me wrong to take me out o' th' grave.
Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears
Do scald like molten lead.
Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears
Do scald like molten lead.
Oh enough of the maudlin self-pity, let's just do it, we'll do it live ...
And there are others who are just as bad. Why that wag Charlie Lewis in Crikey (paywall) yesterday disseminated a tweet which purportedly featured News Corp crappy merch ...
The pond didn't believe it for a second. But at least Charlie followed it up with an oldie, but a goodie ... though a tad parochial and a slight on the national reptiles, who surely should have been given the pictorial honour ...
Sorry, the pond's mortified ... it should be taking JSM and the hole in the bucket man seriously. The old curmudgeon and disinformation disseminator is taking it personally ... as if being tackled by ACMA was in any way worse than being given a stern slapping by a tepidly warm lettuce leaf ...
The pond suddenly imagined itself in a Charlie Brooker Black Mirror episode where there were ontological planes and levels of existence playing out on screen thanks to a Quamputer, or even worse trapped in a nauseating Sartrean Holt street hell, “I am alone in the midst of these unhappy, unreasonable voices. All these creatures spend their time explaining, realizing happily that they agree with each other. In Heaven's name, why is it so important to think the same things all together?”
Yes, that's a deliberate misquote and for all you know the pond could have hired in a Quamputer to write our Henry's column and pound the keyboard to devise the pond's response ...
What a nightmare of existential doubt and uncertainty. The only way through the miasma must be to allow as many falsehoods to multiply as can be devised, and soon enough you'll end up in RFK Jr land ...
... and more falsehoods than you know what to do with (paywall) ...
Just the facts, ma'am. Some spoilsport will probably come along and try to upset Gym's apple cart ...
...At the time of the Hall of Famer’s death, Kennedy said it was “part of a wave of suspicious deaths among elderly closely following administration of COVID vaccines,” adding that the Atlanta Braves legend had “received the Moderna vaccine on Jan. 5 to inspire other Black Americans to get the vaccine.”
Despite Jordan’s claims that Kennedy was merely “pointing out facts,” his suggestion that Aaron died from the vaccine has been disproven over and over again. In fact, the medical examiner’s office that examined Aaron’s body said the 86-year-old died of natural causes.
But Gym was just repeating the facts ... always the facts...
Uh oh, there's a logic overload in the old Quamputer, so it's time for a gigantic billy goat butt.
Please, butt away, billy goat ...
Talk about iron in soul and brain, and while it's a kind of perverse comedy, enough already.
Desperate, and hoping a bonus might produce a switcheroo in the pond's fortunes, the pond turned to the top of the digital edition to see if there was some light relief...
Utopia Jim?
Was that on the tree killer edition too?
It was, it was, but at least the pond is relieved, knowing that the alleged news reporting has disappeared up the lizard Oz's fundament, and opinion can now freely parade as news, mingling freely and with gay abandon, and our Henry will be cheering from the sidelines ...because the lizard Oz has found its true calling and can carry on like a rabid blogger using cheap nicknames for easy point scoring.
And speaking of that sort of fun, that's when the pond noticed that cackling Claire, legendary climate scientist and expert in energy, was also at the top of the digital page ...
Of late WaPo and the NY Times have taken to tracking the way that the weather has been kinda funny of late in the US of A (and elsewhere, all over the shop and the planet if you indulge in climate change porn) ...
It's also produced the odd cartoon ...
So how does cackling Claire, legendary climate scientist and energy boffin, tackle the problem?
Spoiler alert: nuke the country, nuke the planet, it's the right thing to do.
Sorry, the pond already did the spoiler, so best get to the end as quickly as possible ...
“I am alone in the midst of these unhappy, unreasonable voices. All these creatures spend their time explaining, realizing happily that they agree with each other. In Heaven's name, why is it so important to think the same things all together?”
And so it seems we must abandon renewable energy, and spend squillions on inventing nuclear energy down under, and all because of a file photo dragged from the bowels of the reptiles' lost graphics department ...
That's because the nuclear energy debate is a tired, hoary, eternally hashed over reptile trope and meme, and the pond is heartily tired of it ... and almost the last person on the planet the pond would turn to for advice on nuclear energy and renewables is cackling Claire, doing what all the reptiles have done of late ...
Meanwhile, on entirely another planet, far removed from the land above the Holt street faraway tree, the pond sometimes needs to visit ... The question of nuclear in Australia’s energy sector ...
...Using the standard formula for levelised costs plus the additional calculations specific to storage and transmission, wind and solar come in at a maximum of $83 per megawatt hour in 2030. This is a useful point in time for comparison because this is the earliest date at which nuclear SMR could be built in Australia.
In contrast, SMRs come in at $130-311 per megawatt hour. This range allows for nuclear SMR capital costs to halve from where we think they are at present.
"Nuclear costs per megawatt hour are calculated by converting the hard infrastructure costs into annual loan repayments, adding other annual costs such as fuel and maintenance and then dividing that sum by the annual energy output. Every item in the calculation has an uncertainty factor resulting in a cost range," Paul says...
And again ...
...Beyond the unfavourable economics, is the long time to build nuclear capability. The opportunity for the technology to play a serious role in emissions reduction for Australia is fast running out.
According to Renewables 2022, the latest edition of the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) annual report on the sector, renewable energy will surpass coal by early 2025 as the largest source of global electricity. Over the forecast period, their share of power will increase by 10 percentage points, reaching 38 per cent in 2027. Electricity generation from renewables is the only energy source that is expected to grow, while shares for coal, natural gas, nuclear and oil will decline.
"We know that in terms of addressing climate change and hitting emissions reduction targets, the electricity sector really needs to be the lynchpin," Paul says.
"It needs to go first – and it needs to do that very quickly – and then other sectors like transport, building and manufacturing can use electrification of the energy grid to reduce their own emissions. It would be a real challenge for nuclear to come in and make a contribution in a timely way."
That’s especially true in Australia, where there are a range of other considerations at play: not least the fact that that nuclear power is currently not permitted by law. Two separate pieces of Commonwealth legislation – the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Act 1998 and the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 – expressly prohibit the approval, licensing, construction, or operation of a nuclear plant. The only exception to that rule is a research reactor near Sydney, which is used for research and the production of medical isotopes.
"Plenty of other people have made the case against nuclear on the basis of issues like a lack of social licence, or the challenges involved with siting. Those issues are not unique to nuclear – but unlike other technologies, nuclear hasn’t had to go through siting or approval processes before in Australia," Paul says.
"Taking all that into account and knowing that the longer it takes to build something the more likely it is that real costs will increase rather than decrease, it’s very clear that nuclear is going to find it very challenging to compete against renewables."
And with that NIMBYism in mind and remembering what recently happened in SA in relation to a little nuclear waste ...
... that means it must be o'clock time, and so time for a closing infallible Pope ...
And while that guest appearance by the planet is more than enough, why not a few more celebrating the pond's current favourite loon and distraction when the going gets tough, and the tough times get truly weird ...
Henry: "The right to be wrong is both the most vital of freedoms and the most constantly threatened." Yeah, right, Holely Henry, you tell that to anybody who has suffered from incorrect or inadequate medical treatment, just because some medicos simply can't get medicine right. Yep, they would defend unto the death their right to be wrong and to inflict their wrongs on their patients. Just remember how many "doctors" never got past bleeding their patients (and If you don't believe me watch the TV series 'Botched' - oh yeah, the right to be wrong).
ReplyDeleteAnd so: "Vital, because freedom of expression is the guardian of every other liberty...". Sure it is, mate, sure it is, and that's why it is jealously guarded, isn't it. You can look up William Tyndale and learn just how 'religiously' the Roman Church defended it. And that's why that great Judeo-Christian Western Civilisation founding body had its Index Librorum Prohibitorum, just so that everybody would be well informed as to what they were permitted or proscribed from saying.
But hey, just consider mathematics and the devotion to 'proof' that goes with it. If there's not an absolute devotion to irrefutable proof, then there is no mathematics. And if there is no mathematics, there is very little science.
However: "It is therefore far better to allow ten falsehoods to run loose than to rob the public of a single truth..." Oh, but of course: the organisation that publishes and promotes self-serving falsehoods - and they are self-serving, have no doubt whatsoever of that - would just like you to think that it has an unlimited license to lie to you.
Yeah, great work Henry.
Fair crack of the whip GB, the old reprobate and misinformer has inspired some great comments ...
DeleteOh pish tush, DP, it's just the classical tactic of presenting vices as virtues: Holely Henry and his minion mates are professional liars and they want to be rewarded, not condemned, for their lies. So it's a bit like the old Johnny Howard 'defence': "if I don't know it's false then it's not a lie". Therefore, make "not knowing" into a virtue. Indeed into a prime virtue: by taking every care to not know that they are lying, the reptiles defend their absolute right to lie.
DeleteIt's really very simple, and human history is full of it - especially since we homo saps made "propaganda" one of the cardinal virtues of war.
Now here's something that Holely Henry would rush to condemn:
DeleteScience relies on honest observation
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/07/21/science-relies-on-honest-observation/
The one thing the human race has never been capable of: honesty. But then, when you've already got millions of 'scientists' worldwide and many tens of thousands more each year, then of course they will go where Henry sends them.
Being wrong is a right? Perhaps we should enshrine it in the constitution along with the right to be a bigot.
ReplyDeleteErgas: “It is far better to allow ten falsehoods to run loose than to rob the public of a single truth;”
How will the public know what’s true if all those falsehoods are running?
Take Julius Streicher, who ran the newspaper “Sturmer”:-
“Streicher’s Sturmer, utilizing the lowest forms of mass appeal and scandal-sheet journalism, was circulated throughout Germany and usually had a special display stand (the Sturmer Kasten) in every town and village, where its screaming headlines in black and red and its pornographic cartoons were set in the path of all who passed through the main thoroughfares. Streicher also published special children’s books, like Der Giftpilz, which poisoned the minds of the young with the doctrine that ‘the Jew is the devil in human form’.”
[“Modern Germany” by Koppel S. Pinson.]
Now if Henry had been his DA, Streicher could have pleaded the right to be wrong and that no harm can be caused by an opinion.
The pond had thought of breaking Godwin's Law, and it's right and just and proper to do it, and now regrets that it settled for the easy meat of the mango Mussolini and RFK Jr.
DeleteStreicher and Der Stürmer were a real work of art, and how he would have loved to join Uncle Elon in running Twitter ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Streicher
Ah, the joys of living in the New Nazi Age as creeping entropy begins to gather.
DeleteMore of the usual from Our Henry, using a few lines from Historical Greats as justification for why various things should never be changed. Why bother building a coherent argument when you can simply mention somebody who’s been safely dead and thus unable to join the discussion for at least a couple of centuries? I don’t know whether the Dictionary of Quotations that passes for Henry’s mind has ever been troubled by the thought that maybe - just maybe - some of those he cites might have modified their views and sweeping statements if they’d had the slightest inkling of how the modern era has turned out. Probably not - that sort of speculation is probably outside the parameters of his programming. Alternatively, he may have taken the same approach as those patriotic American judges who solemnly claim that of course their Founding Fathers would have foreseen and approved mass-ownership of AK-47s when they scribbled that ambiguous clause about the right to bear arms - ie, he’d just simply make shit up.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of the founding fathers, the pompous pedant would have no time for this form of myth-making ...
DeleteThe cherry tree myth is the most well-known and longest enduring legend about George Washington. In the original story, when Washington was six years old he received a hatchet as a gift and damaged his father’s cherry tree. When his father discovered what he had done, he became angry and confronted him. Young George bravely said, “I cannot tell a lie…I did cut it with my hatchet.” Washington’s father embraced him and rejoiced that his son’s honesty was worth more than a thousand trees.
Better to lie George, and maybe get away with it - dishonesty is much more precious than a mere thousand trees ...
https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/cherry-tree-myth/
Yeah: "there are lies, damned lies, and lies we can sell for profit." And the reptiles are "good" at all three.
DeleteThe Cackler - “The factors contributing to this economic decline are complex”. But of course this admission doesn’t prevent Claire from simplistically blathering on about nuclear power.
ReplyDeleteOh wiffle piffle, Anony, everybody knows that nuclear power is the solution to everything. I would like to know, however just how accurate or otherwise her description of the decision making of Angela Merkel was is kinda interesting. Angela was a bit strange at times.
DeleteThe NY Times is one source for that plonk angle GB ...
DeleteHow did Germany, Europe’s economic powerhouse, turn its back on nuclear energy?
Most directly, the decision belonged to Chancellor Angela Merkel. Unlike other world leaders, she is a trained scientist, with a Ph.D. in physics.
She reached the momentous decision to phase out nuclear power by 2022 after discussing it one night over red wine with her husband, Joachim Sauer, a physicist and university professor, at their apartment in central Berlin, according to people who spent many hours debating the issue with her but spoke only on the condition that they remain anonymous.
The decision to switch off Germany’s nuclear power plants has been widely portrayed as a sudden U-turn by Mrs. Merkel. After the nuclear disaster in Japan in March, the German public, long opposed to nuclear power, was ready to pull the plug, and their chancellor, known for shifting with the prevailing political winds, complied.
But those close to Mrs. Merkel described her change of heart as something more like an awakening. Powerful industrial and energy interests fought the shift, but Mrs. Merkel, her allies say, is ready to lead Germany into a new era in which wind and solar energy, along with enhanced efficiency, can be developed fast enough to replace the lost power from nuclear plants.
The East German scientist who came to politics only after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 seemed to echo some of the fervor of those times: Although Germany is not known for tsunamis, or strong quakes, she said the risks of a nuclear accident were just too enormous to be controlled by humans. A Japan-like disaster could happen again, anywhere. Safety and security were paramount.
In contrast to her excessive caution in the step-by-step rescue of the euro zone, she showed no hesitation in reversing her original decision of just last autumn to prolong the life of Germany’s nuclear plants. Now, she has committed Europe’s largest economy, a leading exporter dependent on keeping industry competitive, to shutting down the source of nearly a quarter of its electric power...
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/13/world/europe/13iht-germany.html
The big mistake that Merkel made was to have no plan B for turning off the nukes, especially as they were a significant part of the energy game, unlike Australia, where cackling Claire would have us start from scratch. You don't ever get points for making a move without a plan B ready to go ...
Now if Vlad the impaler has his way, it's on to Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant ...
Gracias, DP. A common tale: too much spruiking and too little thinking (how very political) together with an inability to keep more than one thing in mind at a time.
DeleteAnd it's a very interesting commentary on modern (and especially German) politics in which a bright idea, apparently formulated while consuming some unspecified volume of 'red' (I wonder which red).
So why was she allowed to get away with it ?
Genesis 18:32 "Then he said, “Let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak but once more: Suppose ten should be found there?”
ReplyDeleteAnd He said, “I will not destroy it for the sake of ten.”
God wouldn't. Henry would
Egas: “It is far better to allow ten falsehoods to run loose than to rob the public of a single truth;”
Adams: "It is more important that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt be punished;"
"Volokh ... notes its importance in the inspiration of Western criminal law, but concludes by citing a question of its soundness:
"The story is told of a Chinese law professor, who listened as a British lawyer explained that Britons were so enlightened that they believed it was better that ninety-nine guilty men go free than that one innocent man be executed. The Chinese professor thought for a second and asked, "Better for whom?"[34]
If eegad Ergas was to introduce his falsehoods ratio, the innocent would NOT be protected. But Ergas has proved he is an avatar from "at least as far back as Genesis 18:23–32 in the Bible" - well - 1760 at best.
"Blackstone's Ratio or Blackstone's Formulation
"Among the most well-known of Blackstone's contributions to judicial theory is his own statement of the principle that it "is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer".[120]
"While this argument originates at least as far back as Genesis 18:23–32 in the Bible,[121][122]as well as versions by Maimonides[121][123][124]and Sir John Fortescue,[125] Blackstone's analysis is the one picked up by Benjamin Franklin[126] and others, so that the term has become known as "Blackstone's Ratio".[127]
"As John Adams, having studied Blackstone,[128] put it:
"It is more important that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt be punished; for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world, that all of them cannot be punished.... when innocence itself, is brought to the bar and condemned, especially to die, the subject will exclaim, 'it is immaterial to me whether I behave well or ill, for virtue itself is no security.' And if such a sentiment as this were to take hold in the mind of the subject that would be the end of all security whatsoever.[129]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blackstone & Blackstone's Ratio
Splendid stuff and vastly amusing as well ...
DeleteYou might think that if saving the innocent from conviction was so important, society would do lots to ensure it didn't happen. Appeal courts help, but often get it wrong. In the UK there is the Criminal Cases Review Commission https://ccrc.gov.uk "Created in 1997 to investigate potential miscarriages of justice" (so before 1997 the courts were infallible?). The NSW Solicitor General proposed in the 1990s that such a body be set up here, but nothing happened. IIRC, it was about the time the NSW Government were trying to keep a Mr Kable in gaol after his sentence expired because he was so evil (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kable_v_Director_of_Public_Prosecutions_(NSW)) He was released after a while and never heard of again.
Delete"Kill them all, God will know his own" - or words to that effect, Joe.
Deletehttps://www.military-history.us/2017/05/1000-years-and-it-still-resonates-the-origins-of-a-phrase/