Yesterday's set of inspired comments set the pond to musing about which reptile was best at triggering and provoking, and surely the combo of Killer, Caterist and the Major makes Monday a top notch day for reptile spotting. The pond can't name an absolute all time winner, but surely Killer is at least in the semi-finals ...and if you were constructing a dream team, surely Killer would be among the first picks ...
And on most Tuesdays, Dame Groan's passionate imitation of desiccated coconut inspires a cult following, but alas and alack, the pond searched high and low, but could find no sign of a dinkum, decent groaning designed to send correspondents to their key boards ...
Instead the digital edition was dominated by a flurry of EXCLUSIVES ...
The pond regrets it has no interest in encouraging the reptiles in these matters, though does note in passing that simplistic Sharri's
WORLD EXCLUSIVE has now dropped down a notch to being merely
EXCLUSIVE...
As for Dame Slap's ongoing obsession with the Lehrmann matter and the reptiles obsession with the Dark Emu saga, say no more, though there was a little more emu egg laying in the comments section...
Actually people who make documentaries can make them how they like, but never mind, the pond is just trying to fill the void left by Dame Groan ... a void also apparent in the tree killer edition ...
What to do? The pond says all this knowing that "Now's the time to be informed", and so the pond headed to the lizard Oz editorialist to be informed of the latest in lizard Oz denialism ...
Ah Lloydie of the Amazon, still doing his work, albeit in absentia, with the lizard Oz editorialist reaching back to Lloydie's splendid January piece ...
It was splendid stuff, but where is Lloydie? Has he disappeared up the Amazon with Colonel Fawcett? The pond has asked this repeatedly because the last Lloyie sighting came quite some time ago ...
Dammit, this is a crisis, there's been far too much talk about the weather, and Lloydie's gone missing, possibly doing field work for an actual peer-reviewed paper, and bloody cartoonists of the infallible Pope kind are having a field day...
Is the best the lizard Oz can offer a Tezza outing, with Tezza pinch-hitting yesterday for the long-lost Loydie?
The pond went looking and sad to say, Tezza is indeed just a second class duffer entirely out of his depth ...
Frankly Tezza is no Lloydie, he's not even a Killer, trotting out killer lines...
Sure, he knows all the right words to fling around, like "cult" and "hysteria", but he's simply not in Killer's klass ... and the reptiles didn't help him by showing a snap of the villain at the dark heart of the matter, always insisting on talking about the weather ...
Naturally Tezza was triggered, but not to do any actual science ...
He's just recycling Killer ... and apparently hasn't noticed that things have been heating up in the ocean ...
per the Graudian ...
Why the records that have been tumbling, and that the lizard Oz has been studiously ignoring until they were triggered by Guterres, even turned up in the
Scientific American ...
Sorry, sorry, Tezza is totally on top of it - in Tezza's world, that's - how to phrase it into a scientific Tezza way - utterly stupid ...
Ah, it's all the fault of comrade Dan, but actually the pond blames the cartoonists ...
So there is a reason that the pond has routinely ignored Tezza, who couldn't trigger a snowflake in a hail storm ...
And so to a familiar fall back position for the pond, a retreat, but no surrender, as the pond turns back to the bromancer, speaking as we are of hysteria and experts ... because no one can be more expert than armchair defence expert bromancer, fresh from front line duty on any number of battlefields, though his battle with a glass of port in a leather chair is surely the most legendary ...
Here the pond should get the snaps out of the way in a batch. Stick them wherever you feel triggered ...
Now sit back, crank the volume up to eleven, and enjoy the show as the bromancer realises that his war with China by Xmas might be a fading dream ...
Is there an upside to a bromancer rant in lieu of a groaning Dame? Well it does all sound familiar, the pond has heard it a zillion times ...
Gad sir, he's right, and for a nanosecond the reptiles seem to have forgotten other matters ...
Sorry, sorry, on with the ranting, and remember, keep the volume at eleven ...
Now the pond is no defence expert, and certainly no bromancer, but for all the talk of missiles, the war in Ukraine seems to have suggested some limits to the usefulness of missiles, unless they happen to be capable of nuking the country.
If anything, relying on missiles seems to be a way of stoking rage and defiance, much as Göring managed with the blitz of London way back when ...
The sociopath in charge of the invasion, Vlad the cruel impaler, seems to think that's all he's got left ...
per the Graudian yesterday...
War crime after war crime and all the bromancer can bleat about is our inability to commit even bigger and grander war crimes ...
If only the reptiles would adopt a US ploy when it comes to just about everything ...
Sorry, today has just been a placeholder, and there will be another Groaning, the pond is sure of it ... and meanwhile the bromancer is wrapping up his rant, so often repeated that it were as tedious as to return to the vomit as it is to go on ...
Still the hope of that war with China, but as for the Americans, things are going really well ...
Sorry, it's an old riff and an old gif, but it never truly gets old ...
Brazen Bro: "We...should have our full fleet of eight nuclear subs by the late 2050s or early 2060s." I wonder just what state the 'global boiling' will be in by then, and is anybody, including the Beatific Bromancer, asking themselves that question.
ReplyDeleteAnd not to forget asking themselves this question: what will be the condition of the Chinese armed services (land, sea and air) by "the early 2060s" and just how much and many of which military equipment and personnel would Australia need to be able to resist them in any noticeable way ?
Oh dear, jumped in too quickly; the Bro again: "In the six years ... Beijing will have built the equivalent of more than six Australian navies." Right, so is anybody really, truly wondering why we should waste time, effort and money in trying to defend ourselves when really the only option we have is to get the Americans to defend us instead. By becoming not a client state as some (hello, Bob Carr) would say, but by becoming a true 'de facto' American state.
Delete“Built the equivalent od six Australian navies”. Yes, how could China possibly accomplish such a feat, given that it has a mere…. errr, 56 or so times the population of Australia. Right, if we drop all other activity - including such non-essentials as farming - no doubt we could easily achieve parity with the Commies…..
DeleteI don’t suppose it might occur to the Bro that China probably also has its fair share of planning and procurement fuck-ups, but for fairly obvious reasons they don’t get widely publicised.
And the Yanquis too, butt of course, who are no more happy with negative publicity than the Chinese. After all, who made that pile of crapola, the F35 - which it seems we might finally have grown the nonce to be shot of.
DeleteOK. Let’s ignore experts.
ReplyDeleteTerry McCrann, lauded for having journalistic awards, having an honours degree in economics and being an expert in economics:
“His forceful opinions came with economic predictions that were rarely wrong.”
“https://halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/article/terry-mccrann
“McCrann has provided expert analysis and commentary on critical business issues and controversies.”
https://mgs.vic.edu.au/about/our-people/meet-our-alumni/mr-terence-james-mccrann
The next time this never wrong expert provides economic commentary, it would be best to ignore it. As McCrann and Creighton testify, we are overrun by economic and business experts and particularly experts in The Australian who have not a skerrick of knowledge on the subject they comment upon, but who are definitely in the class of expert denialism.
Anonymous - McCrann's infallibility? There was a famous exchange in Paul Keating's time as treasurer. Press gathering actually to do with announcements from the Reserve Bank. Tezza, full of his own importance, interrupted, with one of his instant predictions. Keating took over the gathering, and, unscripted, gave Tezza a resume of several of his instant predictions, and how they panned-out later. Fail, fail, fail. Add a couple of Keating character reflections on Tezza, and those who were present almost felt sorry for the infallible. Almost.
DeleteOne result of that was that for years afterwards, and long after Keating left office, several of us used to play a kind of 'McCrann bingo' - look at his weekly column in the Flagship (yes, I used to pay money for it for a while) and see how many lines it took for Tezza to outline whatever economic or social ill was, for that week, the greatest threat to our nation - and attribute it entirely to a decision of Paul Keating.
It all rather confirmed just what a job Keating had done on Tezza, from memory, and very much in public - and the scars that had left on McCrann. In retrospect, Tezza should have been quite chuffed that Keating had paid so much attention to his - McCrann's - writings, but it was very obvious from his subsequent writing that he did not see it that way.
So did I, Chad - pay for The Australian, that is. Back when it cost somewhat less than a dollar. But it was almost worth it for a while.
DeleteAnyway, did you know that Emma Alberici once in public writing thanked McCrann for 'tutoring' her through her 'cadetship' with the Herald-Sun ?
Emma may have been profoundly grateful to Tezza for providing an abject lesson in how not to build a journalistic career.
DeleteWell it worked, didn't it ? She didn't exactly make one.
DeleteAnd given this, who would want to build a journalistic career, especially with any News Corp masthead:
DeleteNews Corp using AI to produce 3,000 Australian local news stories a week
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/aug/01/news-corp-ai-chat-gpt-stories
Is there an AI sufficiently stupid to start generating content under the monikers of the chief Reptiles?
DeleteA further observation on the Killer assertion ‘No one denies the climate changes, it always has, for reasons obviously unrelated to human activity.’
ReplyDeleteBy this, we must assume he has picked-up some passing information on correlation of long-term climate cycles on this planet, with those changes in orbits and alignments of planets. There are several ways to demonstrate those planetary cycles, but several indicate that - if orbits and alignments were the main drivers of climate on this planet - our planet should be going into a cooling period.
It is upon the Killers, and the Lloydies and - nah, not Tezza, too much technical there for him - anyway, it is for the other 'authorities' to show us - if it is only about planetary motion - how we are clearly in a strong warming phase, when, by most analyses, we should be cooling.
It isn't always and only 'orbital', Chad - we have had CO2 caused climate changes previously, though clearly not as bad or 'long lasting' as Venus.
DeleteI think one of the real great climate changes was back in the time of the Permian-Triassic 'great dying' - aided and abetted by the Siberian traps.
GB - I am particularly attached to the 'Azolla event' - in part because the dams and ponds on our estate have regular cover of Azolla; which our local council lists as a possible pest. Yep - the plant that helped set up the atmosphere of this planet for Homo to thrive, to which we all might show a little gratitude.
DeleteThe 'Azolla Event' - now that's something I had simply not taken on board until now:
Delete"In the early Eocene, global surface temperatures were 8℃ higher than today. Tropical forests extended almost to the poles, and atmospheric CO2 concentration was 3500 ppm in contrast to today’s 400 ppm! Then, 49 million years ago, the global climate cooled 6℃, with a simultaneous drop of atmospheric CO2 to 650 ppm, beginning the process that led to the development of the Antarctic ice sheet, and the annual freezing of the surface of the Arctic Ocean."
https://www.livingcarbon.com/post/this-fern-is-the-best-analog-we-have-for-stopping-climate-change#:~
So like KillerC said: the 'global boiling' might just be good for some life forms. I'm particularly fond of the Medjool dates:
"Dates are built for desert climates and the temperature will help the fruits ripen as their sugars develop."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/01/medjool-dates-arizona-heat-climate-bard-valley
And yes, I do eat Medjool dates occasionally.
Not much player depth in the Reptile ranks if they have to sub Terry McCrann when the Dame goes MIA. Given his chance to shine, though, wouldn’t you think that he might actually scribble something about economics, given that’s his supposed area of expertise? Instead he just flings around third-rate insults, when the Reptiles already have plenty of second-raters in that area.
ReplyDeleteThe Conservative mantra is small government, but here’s Sheridan claiming the government could buy “much else” in “proper” arms and military equipment “if we wanted to spend the money.”
ReplyDeletePerhaps taxpayers just don’t want to have their money (remember the “it’s your money” mantra?) poured into the pockets of private weapons manufacturers and the privately owned nuclear industry simply because this old Santamarian thinks China is a threat to us.
As you have noted, Sheridan is concerned that we buy proper arms - well you can now buy proper tea at the supermarket, and you can send your kids to proper schools, so I guess if we are going to pay for them with proper (i.e. taxpayer) money, then they better be good and proper arms. I do wonder what improper tea is, and what improper arms might be, but I guess we will have to trust Greg on this. I'm pretty sure that tanks are on the improper list, and I suspect that nukes will be on the proper list, if recent rantings of Greg and news corp are anything to go by. I share your concern that Greg and company are making a proper mess of our relations with China. AG.
DeleteNow the reptile press doesn't actually have any intelligent economcs commentators - definitely not Groany and most assuredly not Tezza McCrann - so we can't expect any economic wisdom from them. Ahh, but turning to the ABC: will we, should we, get more rate rises ?
ReplyDelete"Inflation is still outpacing the RBA target of between 2 and 3 per cent. According to the textbooks, and the rigid thinking that accompanies them, that means rates must rise.
In the process, they are prepared to ignore that inflation is rapidly falling, that there are critical signs of a spending slowdown, that more than a million households are about to be hit with a massive increase in mortgage payments and that most of this year's rate increases are yet to be felt."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-01/why-economists-always-get-it-wrong-interest-rates-reserve-bank/102668538
Love that bit: "most of this year's rate increases are yet to be felt. So when they are felt, and the rate of inflation drops below 2 per cent, what then ? Start lowering interest rates till we're back to 0.1 per cent again ? And then what ?