How goes the war in Ukraine, what news from stricken Morocco, was there a catastrophic event in Libya, is Google in court, is the Israeli Supreme Court considering legislation to neuter it, did the abject McCarthy under pressure from the bizarre far right - secede now with MTG - launch a faux impeachment stunt, is Qantas in the High Court for sacking workers, having lost twice in the Federal Court, heck on a parochial level, is Sydney draped in smog in a desperate attempt to avoid a summer bushfire hell ...?
Sorry, that's all happening in an alternative reality. The pond dwells in the reptile bubble, and this is what you get ...
Dame Slap on the extreme far right of the digital edition still rabbiting on about the Lehrmann matter? Not for this little duck, automatic red card, but at least Killer was on hand, but as his job was to dress the McCarthy carry on as "credible allegations", the pond red carded him too ...
As for simpleton "here no conflict of interest" Simon talking seminal, the pond always misreads that word and thinks of bull semen.
Meanwhile, the extent of loony tunes in the lizard Oz was revealed by this outing yesterday ... yes, they really did revive Hillary as a bête noire for down under mad uncles in the attic (mad aunts too) ...
The only sign of an outside world in that lot came from Hugo Rifkind, a British journalist, paying attention to the deeds of the musk rat ...
Meanwhile, down below in the reptile dross and the wreckage this day ...
And all that elaborate headline dance was done simply to explain how the pond got to here from there, with good news for Vlad the impaler.
You see dictatorships have always been fashionable, think Adolf, think Uncle Joe, so he's just doing what comes naturally, and we certainly shouldn't judge him or his predecessors, history is what it is, and we certainly shouldn't worry what might have gone down ... or so Kempian logic goes ...
What a remarkable pile of tosh ... perhaps the pond might help. "No one can disagree that the racial sentiments of 1930s German politicians are unacceptable today. Still, it is odd to condemn German leaders for acting on overwhelming majority opinion." Or perhaps "No one can disagree that slavery is unacceptable today. Still, it is odd to condemn Southern Confederate leaders for acting on overwhelming majority opinion."
And so on and so forth ...
And there in brazen print is the bold lie "This is not to exculpate past wrong doings." The entire point of proceedings to this point has been to exculpate past wrongdoings and past racism, and past whatever, on the basis that everyone was doing it and everyone was thinking it, so where's the harm?
Rest safe Vlad the impaler. Dictators have been doing it for a long time, all you need to do is point to historical precedents, and you'll get an approving nod ...
Back when Adolf was having a go at the Jews? Why it was widely accepted at the time and popular with the German public, and who are we to judge?
The pond hasn't the first clue who this Kemp is, but he makes a splendid apologist, and to celebrate the pond offers him an immortal Rowe in tribute ...
No need to apologise to Disraeli Mr Rowe. Some reckon it was Mark Twain that said it ...
Meanwhile, the lizard Oz editorialist decided to double down on the bigotry, envy and racism that has littered the lizard Oz these last few days ...
Really? If you want a rush ticket to assorted events, there are plenty of ways to get them, and the pond once did, until it decided to settle for watching bands do music on
YouTube ... you can waste many an hour checking out bands like the
Frankfurt Radio Symphony ...
It's a marketing gimmick, and not worth all the huffing and puffing and faux reptile indignation and persecution complex and sense of grievance.
What a bunch of crybaby snowflakes.
The real problem here of course is the unsettling notion that a difficult, uppity black might decide to head off to the opera. Imagine a hapless resident of Toorak or Vaucluse forced to spend an uncomfortable time next to a person of indeterminate origin and colour for any number of Wagnerian hours.
Certainly if it was Warren Mundine they'd recognise a spiritual affinity, but it's even worse than having some callow vulgar youff on a student rush ticket sitting next to you ... why the next thing you know it will stimulate resentment, and not just in the lizard Oz anonymous editorial hack, and the barking mad bigoted and deeply unhappy and resentful Oz readership, down from the attic to give a Puccini howl at the moon, but also Pauline ...
After that splendid effort from "full price" Mundine (mug punters pay to attend the Sydney Institute), the pond had no hesitation awarding the lizard Oz editorial hack a cartoon ...
And they certainly don't need cheap tickets to cultural events. Everyone knows they're living the life of Riley on the taxpayer dime. Correction, readers of News Corp publications and Sky after dark watchers know ...
And so to the Everest known as nattering "Ned".
Sensible folk will probably immediately depart to read Marina giving her usual good Hydeing in High-octane, sexy, glamorous? Sorry, in this Sunak era even the ‘spy’ scandals are dull, but there are some that are up for the challenge.
The pond is continually astonished at the way learned correspondents manage to make something out of the likes of Dame Groan's incessant groaning ...
It's way tougher to get anything that's remotely edible from "Ned's" natter, but the pond is happy to perform a community service ... because there's nothing like being bored to insensibility to provide a comfortable numbness ...
Nobody cares of course, that's the beauty of chooks turned into irrelevant feather dusters. You might as well be reading "Ned" regurgitating Alan Joyce's thoughts on airline management ...
All Lowe is doing is providing a low bar for "Ned" to do his usual job, berating the usual politicians, in the usual berating reptile way ...
Did Lowe just mention climate change? Did "Ned" just let that go through to the keeper? Has "Ned" completely forgot the reptile position of resolute climate science denialism?
With four months of 2023 still left, the US has set a record for the most natural disasters in a single year that have cost $1bn or more, as fires, floods and ferocious winds were among deadly events experts warn are being turbo-charged by the climate crisis.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) announced on Monday that there have already been 23 extreme weather events in the US this year that have cost at least $1bn. The current figure surpasses the record of 22 such events set in 2020.
So far, the total cost of disasters in 2023 is more than $57.6bn, according to Noaa.
The record figure does not include major disasters such Tropical Storm Hilary last month, as the cost of damage is still being totaled, Adam Smith, the Noaa applied climatologist and economist who tracks the billion-dollar disasters, told the Associated Press. Hilary brought life-threatening flooding and rainfall to the US south-west, leaving thousands of people without power.
Smith said the increase in expensive weather events was caused by a rise in the number of natural disasters and more communities being built in risk-prone locations.
“Exposure plus vulnerability plus climate change is supercharging more of these into billion-dollar disasters,” Smith said...
And so on, and the pond apologises for pausing at base camp.
Meanwhile back to that Everest "Ned" climb, with only an ancient chook turned feather duster for a prop...
Oh just go away, go away now, and forget all those bloody memos. Just as Chamberlain will be remembered for one line, so will you ...
What's that? This is the final gobbet? Way past time ...
Another bloody memo, and a postscript, and the blunt instrument did sterling service by acting as a parrot rehearsing all "Ned's" usual grievances ...
That effort deserves a cartoon award, and it just so happens that there's an infallible Pope to hand ...
The pond felt an enormous pity for the suffering, with not even a caravan for a home, and certainly no tickets to the opera ...
Memo to Labor - indeed, to any political party - take no notice of Anything that Ned has to say. You’d get better advice from literally reading chook entrails.
ReplyDeleteWell they could try the old way: take notice of what he says and always do the opposite.
DeleteDorothy - if I might offer a ‘first clue who this Kemp is’ - our favourite publishers, Connor Court, have this listing -
ReplyDelete‘100 Great Books of Liberty: The essential introduction to the world's greatest idea -- Edited Chris Berg and John Roskam, with Andrew Kemp.’
Note - ‘with’, not ‘and’ Andrew Kemp; that is how it appears on the image of the cover.
But that leads back to - yep, IPA. Andrew Kemp has been a steady contributor to IPA blather, not always with a title. He is not on the current list of staff on the IPA website, and I could not find any further clues such as - is he the next generation of Kemps who have been attached to the IPA since it first congealed?
Excellent research Chadders, always ahead of the pond. Inspired, the pond dropped in on the IPA and discovered only a few mentions. There was this, in the IPA Review ...
Deletehttps://ipa.org.au/ipa-review-articles/our-election-campaign-was-stolen
Andrew Kemp, on page 48, writes about a century-old conflict within Australian liberalism, and sees in the teals echoes of the tradition of Alfred Deakin. But he also presents the intriguing argument that lockdowns under COVID were the perfect incubators for a movement which with flint-hearted determination enlisted the power of the State to enforce its preferences on the rest of the community. That the ‘Voices of Kooyong’ chose a doctor (Monique Ryan) to be their representative was, in this light, almost inevitable.
The pond believes that this was the actual thing, 30th August 2022
https://ipa.org.au/ipa-review-articles/teal-we-meet-again
It's sublime nonsense of a Deakanite kind, which explained much and suggested this Kemp actually aspired to be an Ergas. At the end there was this note ... This article from the Winter 2022 edition of the IPA Review is written by IPA Research Fellow Andrew Kemp.
And yet if you clicked on his name, https://ipa.org.au/author/andrewkemp, there was only this piece. What happened? Is he an IPA refugee who has found a new home at the lizard Oz? Is he connected to Rod Kemp, celebrated as chair, cruelly replaced by Dame Slap? Who knows, but he inspired GB, so let us hope he passes this way again ...
Bravo, Chadwick, for that apt image of the IPA coming into being by congealing.
Delete"...dictatorships have always been fashionable, think Adolf, think Uncle Joe...". Think the divine right of kings and the holy power of priests ... And you can add Franco and Salazar to that lot, not to forget also Orban and De Sanctus.
ReplyDeleteAh so today we have Andrew Kemp, whomsoever he may be, and the 'justification' of past evil as being democratic, namely, the dictatorship of public opinion. But then, if everybody is in agreement with and supportive of some evil sayings and doings, how does anything ever change ?
ReplyDeleteAt some point, some number of citizens must reject the current beliefs and push for new ones. How do they arise ? How do they form their 'deviant' opinions ? How do they ever become 'the majority' who now must be obeyed ?
And how after all this time do we still end up with the likes of Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison - and maybe Spudda Dutton some day - elected by citizens of a democracy ?
So, Noodlenuts Neddy does his usual performance of reproducing the thoughts and words of others to overcome the total lack of any of his own. Hence: "Productivity growth is essential to deliver Labor's core promise of sustainable real wage gains." Oh no it isn't, we just have to go on as we have been: raising the price of things and then compensating by raising wages - in short, the way of perpetual inflation. Yes 'productivity growth' is possible in some cases - usually by significant investment in mechanisation, then automation, then computerisation, and maybe eventually even AI (how much salary does an AI need and desire ?).
ReplyDeleteBut that can only work in certain 'physical product' industries, like motor vehicle manufacture for instance. There are very distinct limits to how much 'productivity' can be improved in service industries. And especially in that central 'service industry' of politics and government. So when Ned intones: "Memo to Labor: lift your performance on economic reform and productivity." what exactly does that entail ?
And if it is at all possible, why wasn't it done during the almost 9 years of Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government ? And where was Ned when he should have been out in full cry getting that message across to the Coalition ?
GB you cannot be the leader for the opposition if you're not critical of the Labor government if you are employed by Murdochracy that is their main function life is to detract from labor and poor scorn and ridicule.
DeleteReading Ned you might think that Lowe is a prime doofus but (of course) it's Ned who is the doofus, not providing proper context, particularly on Lowe's remarks about "Monetary and fiscal policy coordination" - see the speech at https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2023/sp-gov-2023-09-07.html
ReplyDeleteLowe does have a huge blind spot as regards companies, he remarks that "Given that the distribution of national income between wages and profits can and does vary" but does not go on to note that for the last 10 years or so the variation has been that the share to profits has gone up pretty much monotonically.
Whole different theory as to why there is high inflation: nothing to do with price or wage rises, it's all to do with how much money was poured into the economy - largely by state and federal governments but also the RBA (yeah, by Phil who really, really understands economics) to counter the effects of the pandemic. And it's sort of been bleeding away and taking inflation with it. Nothing at all to do with RBA increases to the interest rate. Though I'm glad he did: my term deposit is actually paying some interest again
ReplyDeleteIf you can access The Age (I can't) check this Stephen Bartholemeusz article out:
The fat cat myth: Who should we really blame for high inflation?
"The argument that companies took advantage of the pandemic to drive up their prices has been popular. But we may need to point the finger elsewhere."
Pardon my rant but K. Murphy in the Guardian today demonstrates the problem with the 'other' side:
ReplyDelete"There are people at large in professional politics – in Australia, around the world – who seek to divide the citizens of democracies as a matter of core strategy.
Rancorous, cancerous, polarisation "
Yes, it's just "people" who are "at large". Not a certain kind of "person", of the Dutto or Bromancer or Ley or Killer kind. Just a general type of ... "Person". I wasted my time to get to that pathetic passage of avoidance. It's feckin obvious to anyone that the certain type is of the rightwing kind. Christ on a bike, Dutton has verballed Langton, lied in parliament and via the Australian and Ley has backed him and repeated the lie. These are the certain people that marshmallow Murphy, hiding behind her press card, can't bring herself to name. Pass the sick bag.