The pond was delighted to accept the nomination as best herpetology blog of 2023 and looks forward to being named the winner (full disclosure: the contest is being conducted by the pond, the pond is the sole judge, and all decisions by the judge are final and not open to appeal).
In the same spirit and thanks to a link in The Weekly Beast, always essential reading, and a contender for herpetology read of the year (full disclosure, the contest is being organised by the Graudian), the pond is pleased to advise of the lizard Oz nominees in the Chairman Emeritus contest ... and what a grand list it is ...
Splendid stuff - and the nomination of the Leak that didn't fall far from the tree truly took the pond's breath away - and how good it is to see simpleton Sharri and Dame Slap in the contenders list ...
Strangely there was no nomination, or even a category, for the most wretched and useless climate science denialism, assault on renewables or SMR boosterism, but the pond looks forward to the reptiles fixing that in next year's comp ...
Meanwhile, the pond wishes the reptiles as much success and navel gazing and fluff gathering as the pond will enjoy in its own competition ...
Also in the Beast there was this outing, already noted by an esteemed correspondent as an exceptional moment ...
A pity it was too late for this year's reptile awards, but perhaps next year ... and in the meantime, suggestions that Love is Hate is entirely wrong, and there's no need to wonder about his mental health ... he's just a reptile doing reptile things ...
Speaking of hate, the pond would have nominated the reptile lede this morning ...
The breathtaking cynicism that over a million people should pack up and ethnically cleanse themselves so their part of an open air prison can be reduced to rubble is sickening, and with the reptiles usual gusto, the lesser member of the Kelly gang and and another Joe showed how to misapply the word ...
Meanwhile, down below, the Caterist made a surprise return to gloat ...
The bromancer was demanding blood, blut und boden, if the pond might translate for him into an appropriate language for a ghetto or a gulag or an apartheid system, but the pond had no desire to go there, nor did it want to spend time with nattering "Ned", and so decided to spend quality time with the dog botherer, now that the reptile shouting is almost over ...
It will be a relief to the pond. The dog botherer has been neglecting his climate science denialist duties for far too long.
And so on, and meanwhile, the dog botherer had spent all his emotional energy standing apart from his tribe ...
...Just to be clear, Wong’s statement wasn’t accusatory. There was no incendiary contention about equivalence. The only person fully intent on kicking a hornet’s nest was Dutton. It is important to be clear-eyed about what is happening in our politics. Escalation by escalation, embellishment by embellishment, the Liberal leader is inhabiting the zone of the political fabulist. Like Trump, sans charisma, Dutton is the dancing bear of the engagement economy, dishing up provocations intended to capture the attention of readers and viewers.
This opposition leader makes things up regularly, sometimes several times a day, with growing confidence. He’s fully intent on shaping his own reality, and why wouldn’t he be? Dutton’s accusations and inventions are amplified much more often than they are factchecked, parsed or decoded, because there is so much bollocking and barracking in the public square, people can’t see the bullshit.
That’s the point. That’s the strategy.
Authoritarian populists like Dutton set the media truth-seeking tests we cannot afford to fail. And yet we fail them. Time after time. Much of the mainstream media doesn’t seem that engaged with the measurable reality that the alternative prime minister of Australia has set his vocational GPS to post-truth and is picking up speed. I’m not sure why. That development seems pretty important from where I sit.
The pond isn't certain about this. Growing up in Tamworth, we always had spuds planted in the back yard, and potatoes still have a certain charisma for the pond.
This week there have been two servings of wedgies, splendidly charismatic offerings ... and you'd think with a name like 'Murphy', the Graudian scribbler would have shared the pond's Irish heritage and love of spuds.... provided of course you make sure to take out the bits of green beneath the skin when the spud has grown too stale and old for human consumption ... (hint: take Love's word for it, Green can be a realy worry)
Apologies for that lengthy aside, though is there ever any real need to say 'sorry', when you can just turn your back?
And now back to the dog botherer ...
At this point, the pond thought it might resort to a cartoon ...
The pond knows that the dog botherer will always struggle to honour stiff-arming News Corp colleagues for their hive mind role in destroying the Voice ... and the notion that the mutton Dutton and the dog botherer's colleagues will resile from the pleasures of stiff arming is one of the quainter notions in the many quaint ideas infesting this piece ... what with the dog botherer resorting to an entirely different member of the Kelly gang, and somehow thinking that he's the unofficial troubadour laureate for lizard Oz reptiles ... (that might come as a surprise to this Kelly) ...
The pond understands the dog botherer's desire to keep stiff arming Albo, but credit where credit is due ... it was the mutton Dutton and News Corp lickspittle fellow travellers that did the hard yards with a splendid slogan celebrating ignorance and the absolute right to do nothing about said ignorance ...
Then there were just a couple of gobbets to go, and finally the dog botherer turned his attention to the deeds of the mighty spud...
The cases were simple enough ...
On the upside, the dog botherer can now leave the field with dignity and attend to the usual harebrained reptile obsessions ... including, but not limited to, the notion that voters always get it right, when patently and obviously, down the ages, the voters have sometimes got it wrong ...
A bipartisan way forward? If ever there was anyone wanting evidence the dog botherer was deeply delusional, the pond offers that last gobbet as compelling evidence ...
Meanwhile, the pond will be able to get back to tales of voters getting it wrong ... or perhaps just to cartoons by the immortal Rowe ...
The pond needed a break, a Rowe and a deep breath before turning to the return of the Caterist, seemingly with the Caterist giving up his usual Monday slot so the Caterist could indulge in a Saturday gloat ...
Soon enough the Caterist will be able to get back to doing what he does best ... deploring renewables, working out the path of floodwaters in quarries with unerring inaccuracy, celebrating SMRs as the way of the future, and taking up the thoughts of whatever loon he comes across scribbling away in the United States ...
Naturally the Caterist loves tidbits of received wisdom ...
A Black scholar who has lived through many civil rights struggles, Sowell is also a follower of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, who insisted that free market solutions are available for every social problem. This short book begins with what amounts to an impatient declaration that life isn’t fair. Some nations are wealthy because of geographical advantages, and some people are wealthy because they’re smarter than others. “Some social justice advocates may implicitly assume that various groups have similar developed capabilities, so that different outcomes appear puzzling,” he writes. In doing so, he argues, they fail to distinguish between equal opportunity and equal capability. Sowell is dismissive of claims that Black Americans and other minorities are systematically denied a level playing field: Put non-white kids in charter schools, he urges, and presto, their math scores will zoom northward as compared to those in public schools. “These are huge disparities within the same groups, so that neither race nor racism can account for these huge differences,” he writes, clearly at pains to distance himself from the faintest suggestion that race has anything to do with success or failure in America. At the same time, he isn’t exactly comfortable with the idea that economic inequalities exist, and he tries to finesse definitions to suit his convictions: “The terms ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ are misleading in another and more fundamental sense. These terms apply to people’s stock of wealth, not their flows of income.” As for crime? Give criminals more rights, he asserts, as with Miranda v. Arizona, and crime rates go up—an assertion that overlooks numerous other variables but fits Sowell’s ideological slant.
For those satisfied with blame-the-victim tidbits of received wisdom.
Here, have a cartoon to celebrate, though the Caterist can't even be bothered doing a dangle ...
The pond can now return to the Caterist for a final gobbet of received Caterism ...
Um, was Johnson writing about glib and implausible assumptions about the movement of flood waters in quarries, or perhaps the chance of an SMR starting up in Sydney by Xmas? Probably not ... but stay tuned for the next set of glib assumptions from a master of the art ...
And so to the infallible Pope of the day, knowing that in a short time all this can be forgotten, and things can get back to day to day reptile ignorance, neglect and indifference, punctuated by the occasional scandal, and perhaps even the occasional futile expression of remorse ...
It’s difficult not to feel a sort of dull relief today, realising that the Reptile carpet-bombing of the Voice is almost over. Sure, the landscape is a smoking ruin, and Australian society will be more fucked-up then ever, and several previously-unknown fruitcakes have received a huge boost in their profiles - Sky After Dark will have had a recruitment bonanza - but at least the shock and noise will have ceased.
ReplyDeleteThere’ll doubtless be some smug commentary early next week, with Reptiles again trotting out their pious hypocrisies, but then they’ll once again drop any interest in Indigenous rights and get back to their traditional obsessions. I never thought I’d look forward to a renewed flood of climate change disinformation and China warmongering…….
".. he's just a reptile doing reptile things ...". So sadly true, here, there and everywhere. It seems that all of the wingnuts, not only the reptiles, have worked out that with a world full of the likes of Musk they can get away with anything. And they do.
ReplyDeleteThe Boverer's effort today was quite typical: how to criticise his own side without really criticisng them. So he delivers this kind of bullshat: "The campaign has been ugly and divisive, generating more heat than light. Both major parties must share the blame." Yeah, right the assorted wingnuts are to blame for all the shat that's been poured into the "campaign" and Albanese et al are to blame for not foreseeing just how appalling the wingnuts - under the gentle guidance of 'Mutts Dutts' - would be. The silly little innocent was probably expecting the Duttonese to be moderately civilised; instead they were bloody, in mind and on hands.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's how a Dutton "opposition" runs, now and for the rest of his time. But don't ever expect a single reptile to admit that - it'll always be Albanese's fault for failing to surrender to their superior evil.
Ah, the Caterist is such an ebullient wonder, isn't he. And now he's starting to emulate somebody named Thomas Sowell. The thing to keep in mind is that with a human population of 8+ billion of which the majority has had some level of modern education and of which a very considerable number can communicate at least adequately in the world's default lingua franca - English - you can always find somebody, and often many bodies, who have already been printed - book, magazine or blog - saying anything you want said. So even Thucydides is quite passe now and Sowell is just a total nonentity.
ReplyDeleteAnd we get, from Sowell: "If black family poverty is caused by 'systemic racism' do racists make an exception for blacks who are married?". Yeah, do they ? Anyway, here's something that NickC will never read or comment on:
"Your nine-year-old has a right to be nurtured but her dreams are being stifled by a system that underestimates Indigenous people. It is deeply unfair."
My Indigenous daughter is very intelligent but her school can’t – or won’t – see it. What do I do?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/14/my-indigenous-daughter-is-very-intelligent-but-her-school-cant-or-wont-see-it-what-do-i-do
Only in the dickhead mind of the likes of the Caterist would the theories of an elderly, obscure African-American economist be of relevance to Indigenous Australians. Because… well, they’re all blackfellers, aren’t they?
Delete