The pond woke up to news today of a crash. Naturally the ABC sought out a retired military man in Washington for expert commentary, though there was no sign he knew what had actually happened, was somewhat distant from the actual events on the ground, and so was left to valiantly fill in with whatever background he could muster ...
The pond frequently has the same sense of detachment when contemplating the top of the lizard Oz digital edition ...
There's Dame Slap, sex ed warrior, rabbiting on about another case, and advice from Geoff about what the Voice must do, when in reality, the best way to advance the Voice cause would be to dismantle News Corp ...
Detachment began to sway towards alienation, but suddenly the reptiles offered redemption and a reminder of the pond's mission ... to dwell among reptile loons ...
There was the usual chaff, but also a few reliable gems shining out of the chaff ...
A Killer was on the loose.
Before savouring the treat, the pond was suddenly haunted by a fallen warrior. Whatever happened to the Oreo? She was there one day, and then suddenly she was gone. If you google her name, she still bobs up as a lizard Oz correspondent, yet this was her last report from the reptile trenches ...
October 2022, and in a few days, it'll be spring 2023, but never mind, the pond has the Killer, and he makes the Oreo a lightweight, and while the pond truly misses making jokes about biscuit Oreos, Killer is the joke itself ...
Of course, of course Hunter ... what else could Killer possibly scribble about in his Letter from America?
Anyone got a clue? Perhaps a cartoon or two might help ...
That's why the pond will always have a soft spot for Killer, and he gets better and better as he goes on ...
Who else would stand up for both Vivek and RFK Jr in the one column? No fact checking needed, just a Killer good time ...
Wrongthink! Say what you will, it's a Killer variation on 'Orwellian'.
Thus far in fact Killer has only disappointed the pond in his failure to mention the deplorable malevolence at play when being made to wear masks ...
As for the war in Ukraine, it's only natural for Killer to support Vlad the impaler's heroic efforts to crush a country, and provide endless comedy about defenestrations and sundry poisonings and the odd SAM ....
The pond was instantly put into a good mood for the day. Sure the planet might be heading to hell in a climate crisis, sure there are likely to be more epidemics, not helped by anti-vax nutters, sure the current crop of Republican candidates are a bunch of weirdos, sure the Democrats can more than match them by offering up RFK Jr., but as Killer reminds us in his final gobbet, the guvmint is out to get ya, unlike Chairman Rupert's minions, who rely on angertainment to shake a few shekels from your pocket in tribute to Chairman Rupert's empire ...
Truly, deeply weird, though Killer clearly fancies himself as someone with a deep understanding of the underlying issues, which is far more clever than having an overall picture (the pond has stopped featuring pictures of ancient overalls) ...
Clearly here was someone who has read The Turner Diaries with relish ...
You never know where anti-government rhetoric might lead, and as usual, the
NY Times entirely missed the point ... the underlying issue is that the government will trick you at every turn, and only in Killer can you trust ... because Killer will always question The Narrative ...
And so to the Caterist, not because the pond wants to, but because it's the pond's duty ... especially as of late it seems that the Caterist is intent on becoming the new Gary Johns.
These days Johns seems to spend most of his time with the Speccie mob ...
It's all very well for white kids to have cakes and Coke, but shouldn't black kids be made to revert to their ancient noble diet of flour, sugar, tea, and tobacco?
Tempting to contemplate, but in the meantime, the pond will always have the Caterist ...
Never give an inch, or a millimetre, it's the Caterist way, and as an expert in mumbo jumbo, he knows what he's blathering about ...
As a third rate sociology student who decided to drop out of England and invade Australia, he's exactly the sort of black sheep who should be called on to rant about First Nations people ... when he can spare the time from whispering to flood waters in quarries ...
Black privilege, it's a constant threat, unlike the constant drip drop of taxpayer cash into the Menzies Research Centre paw ...
A consensus view? Clearly Caterists don't read Killers, or the Caterist would have been alert to the notion of The Narrative ...
And now to a more general rant about uppity, difficult, tricky black folk who keep on trying the Caterist patience with their uppity, tricky ways ...
Ah there's an excitement. Reptile on reptile, or mano a mano if you will. Duelling reptiles ... and is there no end to the angertainment? Rush your shekels to chairman Rupert by telegraphic transfer ... because there's just a final gobbet of wailing and Caterist indignation to go ... and wouldn't you know, it's by that splendid member of the lumpenproletariat, the man who knows nothing of life in lofty Kirribilli, the man who positively loathes 'leets ...
Sadly it seems the only way to read about the report of life in Kirribilli among the 'leets is at the
Press Reader, though it does begin in a titillating way.
Since she pleased guilty in Manly Court to assaulting a neighbour in her Kirribilli apartment building, we haven't heard much from Rebecca Weisser, the former opinion and propaganda editor of The Catholic Boys Daily.
The beak did not record a conviction so it's hardly worth mentioning the incident. Nonetheless, she's now popped up in the local Spectator, edited by The Waffling Pikelet, with a good old hatchet job on the Ethiopian director-general of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Being a global organisation intent on stealing our sovereignty, the WHO is, ergo, bad. Goosebumps Cater pointed to Rebecca's article in his weekly newsletter issued by the misinformation department at the Menzies "Research" Centre.
"...the international body responsible for these matters has been found sadly wanting. Rebecca Weisser's piece in Spectator Australia this week on the World Health Organisation explains why we should not expect too much from this bloated, politicised and ineffective organisation."
In keeping with Goosebumps' lax editorial standards, he forgets to remind his reader Rebecca is also Mrs Goosebumps.
She is the poster girl for right-wing politics in this country, calls former prime ministers Tony Abbott and John Howard friends, is a regular guest panellist on ABC's The Drum, is a board director of the Australia Council and is the executive associate of the impressively titled conservative think-tank The Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation. But there is one thing Rebecca Weisser is adamant she is not: an assailant.
Weisser has entered a plea of not guilty to a charge of common assault following an alleged incident involving residents at the Kirribilli apartment building that she calls home with her husband, fellow conservative commentator Nick Cater.
The matter is listed at Manly Local Court and due for mention next Tuesday.
Weisser declined to elaborate on the charge when PS called, though given her and her partner's often controversial views, she is used to unflattering headlines.
Weisser and Cater have hosted many of their like-minded pals for drinks, parties and get-togethers at the harbour-front flat they bought for more than $1.3 million back in 2009.
A former opinion editor with Rupert Murdoch's The Australian, Weisser has certainly had an illustrious career since she graduated with a first class honours degree in arts from the Australian National University.
She joined the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in 1990 as a career diplomat and had postings to Vanuatu and Mexico.
In 1998 she joined Qantas' public affairs department, where she worked for three years, and subsequently moved to the Australian Catholic University, where she managed the university’s communications department.
Weisser still lists herself as a "contributor" to The Australian and The Spectator Australia.
Interestingly, last year, The Spectator Australia had to cough up $573,000 in costs and damages to settle a defamation action that resulted from Weisser's husband's journalism back in 2015, when Cater wrote about Queensland’s 2011 Grantham floods headlined: "Dam Busters! How Cater and [Alan] Jones burst Grantham’s wall of lies".
The story wrongly blamed Toowoomba's wealthy Wagner family, which owned a local quarry, for the deaths of 12 people during the floods. The Wagners were cleared of any wrongdoing in an official inquiry into the floods.
But Cater's troubles with the Wagners are not over, with another defamation action due to begin next week in the Queensland Supreme Court, the family suing for $2.5 million in damages over comments Cater and Jones made on 2GB and 4BC about the floods.
A harbour front flat, and so many ongoing sagas, and didn't that quarry story kick on ...
The pond felt goosebumps.
Memories of the lost Oreo, a Killer day, Mr and Mrs Goosebumps, a Weisser assault, and the Caterist railing at the 'leets ...
Such are the days of 'leet lives ... and what a joy to be able to observe it from afar ...
And so to wrap things up with an immortal Rowe, celebrating the Caterist 'leet world view ... though perhaps the notion that a "soul" is involved is a tad generous ...
Was it wrong of the pond to answer the question?
Cater in reference to "If not now, when?" as "the title of Primo Levi's 1986 novel 'Si non ora, quando?'." Funny, I always thought that was by Rabbi Hillel in the Pirkei Avot as part of the famous quote: 'If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?', but I guess NickC used his superior education to sort that one.
ReplyDeleteA 'X' would have been more appropriate, surely?
ReplyDeletePommie Remittance Man Cater, Murdoch's anointed Haemorrhoid ointment.
ReplyDeleteThe Remittance man can't spell the word he tries to mock people with. Anointed.
Oh dear, that won't do, won't do at all for this transplanted Fop.
I wonder if our Killer looks at Vivek (if I may be so familiar with a possible president of the untied states) and finds that Vivek has retained as little of his claimed major in biology at Harvard as Killer has of the study of economics at UniNSW and his Balliol MA.
ReplyDeleteVivek has played a particularly American game, summarised by one trade writer as setting up companies to try to retrieve abandoned pharmaceuticals. The details are almost horrendously complicated, with much spawning of new corporations - all with names ending in ‘- vant’ - which are good at soaking up venture capital, but have yet to resuscitate any of those orphan pharmaceuticals.
He talked up a big story for a monoclonal antibody which someone named ‘Gimsilumab’ (which sounds like an inhabitant of Lilliput, but - so many pharmaceuticals, so few catchy names) to treat significant symptoms of Covid-19, but independent testing (randomized, double-blind, etc.) concluded ‘Gimsilumab did not improve mortality or other key clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia and evidence of systemic inflammation.’
If - a biggish ‘if’ with our Killer - Killer had delved into the history of Vivek, no doubt he was lost in admiration for Vivek’s talent for persuading investors to bet on pharmaceuticals for which the companies that actually synthesised them could not identify results for better human health and wellbeing. I guess some of the attraction of things with new names was that they were not ‘ivermectin’, for which we also await truly independent proof of efficacy treating Covid-19.
Vivek’s understanding of broader science is now indelibly on the record from the ‘debate’ t’other night. Climate hoax - anybody?
Vivek is scoring hit after palpable hit ...
DeleteBash continued to press Ramaswamy: Could his comparison of a Black congresswoman to a KKK grand wizard maybe have been a step too far?
“I stand by what I said to provoke an open and honest discussion in this country,” Ramaswamy said. “Because there is a gap, Dana, between what people will say in private today and what they will say in public. I think we need to close that gap. We need to have real open, honest, raw conversations as Americans.”
Ramaswamy then complained that Bash, like “what many in the media do,” was pulling a “fringe comment” out of context to attack him, giving Bash an easy retort. “So you just said that your comment was fringe,” she said.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/cnn-host-dana-bash-forces-vivek-ramaswamy-to-admit-comparing-ayanna-pressley-to-kkk-grand-wizard-was-fringe?ref=home?ref=home
Vivek has to be a better con-person than Elizabeth Holmes; she's in jail, he's standing for the right to stand for president. Or is that just the usual GOP misogyny ?
DeleteBut hey, if you can grasp the reaction to ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine you'd have some idea of why he can get away with it. And he's not the first, only or last, is he.
As to KillerC and his uni studies, well in my time I've known many who can cram for an exam but then 10 seconds after walking out of the exam room at the end, all is forgotten.
Hi Dorothy,
ReplyDeleteA fine MAGA inspired rant from Killer, warning against the mainstream media and its attempt to push (drum roll please) “The Narrative”.
Maybe Creighton should start calling it the “Lügenpresse” all the best people used the term.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lying_press
I’ve often wondered if The Australian has a style guide to enforce some sort of consistency on the output of its correspondents. If so it must be an odd document indeed. The Killer has suddenly taken to using the phrase “To be sure” before making an excuse, seemingly copied from the output of The Bromancer.
It makes you think you’ve wandered into an episode of Father Ted or the explanation of an Irish peat cutter who you have asked for directions, “To be sure, if you want to go there, I wouldn’t start from here”.
Here’s an amusing and informative discussion between Jon Stewart and Ian Hislop, editor of the British satirical magazine, Private Eye. A good explanation why the reptiles and their ilk want everyone to avoid the “Mainstream Media”. Newscorp and Fox not being mainstream at all it would seem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbOiXmMnyw4
Thanks DW, the pond has seen that discussion on YouTube, but that suggestion of “Lügenpresse” was genuinely inspiring. The pond was delighted to see that Killer's comrades in arms had embraced the term ...
DeleteBERLIN — When a video of two Donald Trump supporters shouting “Lügenpresse” (lying press) started to circulate Sunday, viewers from Germany soon noted its explosive nature. The defamatory word was most frequently used in Nazi Germany. Today, it is a common slogan among those branded as representing the “ugly Germany”: members of xenophobic, right-wing groups.
Its use across the Atlantic Ocean at a Trump rally has worried Germans who know about its origins all too well. Both the Nazi regime and the East German government made use of it, turning it into an anti-democracy slogan...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/10/24/the-ugly-history-of-luegenpresse-a-nazi-slur-shouted-at-a-trump-rally/
Die Erzählung doesn't have quite the same ring to it, but if Killer could go full 1930s, who knows what movement he might end up leading ...
Ah yes, emperors and clothes yet again. And if the majority of humans see the emperor's clothes that are invisible to us, who is insane - us or them ?
DeleteI can think of a few possibilities for a 2024 incarnation of Horst Wessel, but the MAGAs probably have their own nominees for that (no lack of candidates). Some of the contrived dialogue on gender could even give us a new Knappschaft. And all so much classier by being in a foreign language, that of Goethe.
Delete
ReplyDeleteAnother cartoon, with comments: https://economicsociology.org/2014/10/07/yes-the-planet-got-destroyed-but-for-a-beautiful-moment-in-time-we-created-a-lot-of-value-for-shareholders/
Dunno that the planet will actually be destroyed - Earth has been significantly hotter (and much colder) at various times in its history:
DeleteWhat’s the hottest Earth has ever been?
https://earthsky.org/earth/whats-hottest-earth-has-ever-been/
But we sure are going to get some very rude weather from now on:
Dramatic climate action needed to curtail ‘crazy’ extreme weather
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/28/dramatic-climate-action-needed-curtail-extreme-weather
And the main problem is that the worst it gets will be how it is for a very long time (millennia, at least) if we can't start actually removing CO2 from the atmosphere.
"The Waffling Pikelet" - yeah, Ackland has a way with names, doesn't he. I confess to being just a tad surprised that there still is a 'Australian Spectator' given that, according to Wikipedia, in 2021 it had a magnificent average circulation of 9,828. But then I guess the wingnut wallets and purses are wide and deep, and 'wingnut welfare' is generous.
ReplyDeleteAlso lovely to get the inside goss on Mrs Cater; she is a one, isn't she, and a perfect match for Goosebumps Nick.