The pond had been wondering what had happened to petulant Peta, but there she was today, in her familiar far right perch at the top in the lizard Oz digital edition, more unnerving than Poe's raven, and spewing familiar hate speech ...
Immediate, almost automatic red card.
The pond briefly had a fantasy or a reverie as to what petulant Peta's Sky audience would look like ...
Or perhaps more like this ...
Oh okay, the pond only dug those up in honour of its westerns-loving US correspondent, and Addams Tavern, and any way thoughts of having to deal with petulant Peta were swept away by wild-eyed excitement at the return of Lloydie of the Amazon, at the head of the commentary pack ...
How could the pond waste time on the Optus saga?
Joe O'Brien had done a great job on ABC News of mau mauing the flak catcher, and it was there for all to see on YouTube ... Optus CEO apologises for nation-wide outage.
Throw in a couple of Golding cartoons ...
... and there was a Rowe too ...
... and that job was done.
So trumpets please maestro, sound a blast for Lloydie of the Amazon, and don't forget the drum roll ... not to mention the obligatory snap of fiendish, threatening windmills churning away and killing whales ...
And so on and on, but what does Lloydie of the Amazon care when there's a chance to sow some more seeds of confusion and conflation ... and dress it all up with academic references, and never mind the incongruity of turning to the 'leets so hated at the lizard Oz ...
Now it's a luxury belief, and to prove Lloydie's point, the reptiles were offering at vast expense the luxury of an extra, given a huge splash right at the start of Lloydie's piece ...
Remarkable really. Do Marcus Dawe and Sophia Hamblin Wang have the slightest clue about the company they're keeping? Probably, because MCI Carbon looks and sounds like a mob of hustling hucksters ...
The board, management and staff are committed to a shared vision of building a leading solution to global decarbonization - avoiding CO2 emissions now, safely and permanently, to meet our Paris Climate Goals.
Following 15 years of research and development, the MCi team has emerged with a significant solution to decarbonization.
Currently, the growing team is actively connecting with global customers, advocates and forums, building partnerships and engaging with government and industry leaders to accelerate decarbonization pathways.
The team at MCi is committed to helping the world reach net zero emissions targets and address the challenges of climate change.
Oh yeah? And keeping company with the lizard Oz and posing down and being a feature, not a bug, in Lloydie's FUD is the way to do it?
Sorry, on with Lloydie explaining why nobody cares and none of it matters...
As for his revised energy policy, the cracking Crace had fun in If the king sounds bored by the king's speech, what hope have the rest of us?
Energy security. Chazza spat out the words. For the green king, this really hurt. Having to talk a load of bollocks about British fossil fuels for British homes while pretending he still gave a toss about the environment. Charles may not be the brightest royal, but this was an insult to his intelligence.
Rish!'s desperate move was covered long ago in the Graudian ... (sorry, no hot links, google or bing or whatever required) ...
...so naturally Lloydie of the Amazon was happy to keep on insulting intelligences wherever he could find them ... and implicit in his carry on was recognition that you could keep selling humbug to bird brains and they'd swallow it whole ... 'leet blather will always do the trick ... because it seems as well as a luxury good item, climate science is merely 'leet opinion ...
Almost inevitably this was the result ... a return to ancient days in the reptile hive mind ...
Dear sweet long absent lord, you really have to be a Lloydie of the Amazon to keep your eye on what's happening abroad.
At this point the reptiles slipped in a snap of the 'leets at work ...
Meanwhile the lizard Oz editorialist was at it too, defending sweet, dinkum, innocent, pure, virginal Oz coal against a fiendish horde of islanders worried that they might soon be lost to the waves ...
Luckily there was an infallible Pope to hand to help with the balancing act ...
Then it was back to the lizard Oz editorialist for a final plea for dinkum Oz coal ...
Ah, the climate establishment. That, as any reader of the fossilised lizard Oz, is not quite the same as the fossil fuel establishment dear to the heart of the reptiles ...
And so to a bonus, albeit just for the cartoons ...
Fearing that petulant Peta might be all that was on offer this day in the lizard Oz, the pond had wandered across to the Speccie mob, just in case, and was reminded of the splendid theatricals currently going down over in the US ...
The Speccie mob are still full-on MAGA cheerleaders.
Meanwhile, in the US, the GOP struck a snag, with much fun to be had, as in "Trying to scare women": Fox News stuggles to cope with brutal election night for GOP ...
The pond was mainly interested in the chance for a few cartoons ...
Freddy of the Speccie mob didn't have much else to say ...
That old saw? They're both too old, and the Donald is as mentally fragile as jolly Joe or perhaps more so, but in a pinch, there's a clear choice ...
And so to end with a few more vintage cartoons, just because they were there ...
Hi Dorothy,
ReplyDeleteBack in the early 2000’s British Petroleum hired the public relationship professionals Ogilvy & Mather to help foster the notion that climate change is due to the actions of individual consumers and is not the fault of the fossil fuel industry.
In 2004 BP unveiled its “Carbon Footprint Calculator” placing the onus for Global Warming on each persons actions and effectively freeing BP of any responsibility and any need to change their business model.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-oil-coined-carbon-footprints-to-blame-us-for-their-greed-keep-them-on-the-hook
A business model that allowed BP to rake in a record annual profit of $28 billion in 2022.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/bp-profits-soar-record-28-bln-dividend-increased-2023-02-07/#:~:text=LONDON%2C%20Feb%207%20(Reuters),reduce%20carbon%20emissions%20by%202030.
Lloydie of the Amazon is trying a similar trick today by conflating all actions to mitigate Climate Change must be at the expense of “ordinary people”. Indeed Anthropogenic Global Warming is merely a “luxury belief” foisted on the less well off by a bunch of “leets”.
Meanwhile the fossil fuel industry can carry on making out like bandits untroubled by any need to change their behaviour.
Mission accomplished Lloydie. Mission accomplished.
Ogilvie and Mather is a bit of a blast from the past - O&M were very big for a while - though I notice that Ogilvie (US based) without the Mather is still "flourishing".
DeleteBut just think: if the whole 'fossil fuel global warming' is accelerated, a lot of humans will start dying and being killed and so forth (lots of big, bad hurricanes etc), and if we can manage thereby to lop a billion or two off the human population, then our rate of pouring CO2 into the atmosphere will be slowed noticeably. Very definitely human flourishing will result, don't you agree ?
The estimated human population was 2 billion in 1927, and if it had only doubled to about 4 billion by now instead of quadrupling to 8+ billion, the climate, and us, wouldn't be in nearly such a bad way.
Maybe we should just have had a lot more big wars.
We are saved! The call went out - the tom-toms were heard in the Deep Woods of the Amazon - and Lloydie has returned! Unfortunately he’s still spouting the same old fossil fuel apologist bullshit, with a few minor changes of wording and the adoption of a new champion in the form of Rishi Sunak. Top marks to Lloydie for pretending that Sunak’s backflip was some sort of rejection of the dreaded ‘leets - after all, who could be less of a ‘leet than a billionaire politician? - rather than a desperate attempt to avoid political oblivion via wedge politics. His contribution may have been just more of the same old, but you have to admire (maybe…) Lloydie’s continued dedication to proving that an Environment Editor can wholeheartedly support fucking the environment.
ReplyDeleteAlso - many thanks for the Charles Addams cartoons, DP! I must admit that when it comes to macabre cartoons my personal favourite is the work of the late great Gahan Wilson, but there’s no denying Addams’ pioneering brilliance.
Sunak isn't actually a billionaire, Anony, though between him and his wife - daughter of the founder of Infosys - they may add up to over a £billion. But ask the question on the web and you'll get all sorts of answers from £500 million up to about £1.2 billion. In short, nobody really knows. A bit like Trump, really.
DeleteThere’s Llyodie claiming that those who have luxury beliefs (I gather these are people who live in luxury and are not directly affected by the beliefs they espouse) are ignoring the ordinary Australian’s situation, while the editorial, expressing, one must assume, the views of Lachlan Murdoch, a billionaire living in luxury, that the ordinary lives of the Pacific Island peoples and the existential threat to their economies and means of living – in fact, not just their cost of living, but the threat to their whole existence - is something about which the Australian Government should be “not make rash promises” and we should go on using fossil fuels, because that is the luxury belief of those who run the Australian. I guess an ordinary Pacific Islander is not on a par with an ordinary Australian in Murdoch land.
ReplyDeleteI can’t explain why the Speccie caught my eye today, maybe I was trying to ignore our very own Amazon entrepreneur. Take it away, Freddy Gray.
ReplyDelete‘Nobody can control, or stop, the 45th President - least of all, it seems, the legal system.’
Well, I wonder; if the charges are upheld, Donald is going to be poorer and possibly incarcerated (as Marina paraphrased, Make Gaol Great Again), and I suggest will be ‘under a cloud’ with many voters. Afterall, if the majority of sentiment in England is now against Brexit (as many polls indicate), then surely Donald is also susceptible to falling popularity. Donald’s current ascendancy derives from a hard core of closed-mind supporters, but is he actually garnering more votes? I have serious doubts about the good old US of A, but a couple more states recently upheld some abortion rights, so it is not all flowing the way of the hard right.
‘ “This is not a political rally”, said Engoron, … “This is a courtroom”. But we all know, in our hearts even if we can’t admit it, that the manifold prosecutions and judgments against Trump are political.’
Well, no. The prosecutions are for real crimes, this is not a ‘political stitch-up’ as The Onion Muncher would say; if upheld, they almost certainly have political ramifications. Assuming Donald is not banged-up (and hence presumably unable to run for Pres, though anything is possible in the US), then the prosecutions will have an impact; which voters are likely to change sides to support a convicted felon? Some previous electoral ‘no-shows’ may be incensed enough to turn up if their TV idol is facing cancellation due to convictions or prison, but 2020 suggests that the other side has been far more successful in recruiting the ‘no-shows’.
It is neat how the paragraph above was presented - a first quick read made me think that the judge was saying that this prosecution is a political stunt. Hmmm, still, if a few readers get the wrong idea, where’s the harm in that.
‘The Trump family “systematically inflated” - systematically is an inflationary word - …’
An inflationary word?; perhaps ‘inflammatory’ - though I am not sure that ‘systematically’ is inflammatory - perhaps ‘deliberately inflated’ is most accurate, as it is hard to credit Trump with any sort of system. AG.
Donald doesn't have to garner any additional votes, AG, Biden just has to seriously avoid losing them. The US presidency is a voluntary vote first past the post system, so to win it is necessary to GOTV (Get Out The Vote) and to have everybody vote for Biden.
DeleteAnd that - either or both of those things - doesn't always happen. So any vote cast for RFK who won't win, won't be passed on to Biden via non-existent 'preferences'. And besides, as Hillary's loss showed, it is possible to win the popular vote by a significant margin (nearly 2.9 million) and still lose the Electoral College.
Trump was known mainly a a serial bankrupt until The Apprentice came along, and then, instant business genius. Now you have to ask yourself if a campaign run from gaol (jail if you prefer) isn’t the best reality TV of all time.
DeleteAm I being unkind to America?
No, but you might be being kind to Trump.
DeleteAh - Lloydie has not been supplanted by the Riddster, and he shows much the same dedication to seeking hard statistics, with, of course, independent audit and quality control. Oh - wait - he is citing Dynata.
ReplyDeleteIt is three years since IPA told us it was going to Dynata, to draw on its ‘first-party, commissioned, dataset’. A dataset compiled largely from persons who respond to invitations to ‘test’ new flavours of toothpaste or formulations of wrinkle-cream incorporating vogue-word organic chemistry terms.
In this case, Dynata has polled a list of countries. I tabulated the population of those countries at 2 273 000 000. The Dynata ‘sample’, was 11 000. With careful attention to the number of zeros, and decimal placement, I find that to be 0.00048%
Yep - that is a serious sample size. If the population of Australia was sampled at that rate, we have the responses of 125 persons to represent current opinion in Australia.
Oh - in other cases where I have been able to glean a little information about Dynata’s methods, I have found that they do not ask questions so much as present single statements asserting a position, and requiring a response from a range provided. Lloydie has not troubled us with such trivia this time, but his reference to Australians being ‘unwilling’ or ‘slightly unwilling’ suggest appreciably more options than ‘yes or no’.
It is quite consistent with this level of sampling for Lloydie to leap to the opinion of Rishi Sunak to represent the entire Untied Kingdom.
Fortunately, we still have John Allen Paulos to guide us towards actual numeracy.
Oh, now there's a name I haven't encountered in quite a while: John Allen Paulos. I still have his 'A Mathematician Plays the Market' sitting in one of my bookshelves. With the delightful subtitle 'He Figured the Odds. And They Still Beat Him'.
Delete:)³ Great fun Chadders. Amidst all the cartoon distractions, it was possible that the real comedy might have been missed.
DeleteThe pond regrets not providing a link to What does a Jordan Peterson conference say about the future of climate change? Apparently we’re headed towards ‘human flourishing’ ...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/09/what-does-a-jordan-peterson-conference-say-about-the-future-of-climate-change-apparently-were-headed-towards-human-flourishing
... and will keep it up its sleeve in case it comes in handy. There was also this from the UK 'net zero' minister ...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/08/oil-and-gas-not-the-problem-for-climate-says-uks-net-zero-minister
...Stuart’s comments to the committee raised questions over whether the UK would take such a strong position this year.
He told MPs: “There is nothing fundamentally wrong with oil and gas, it’s emissions from oil and gas that are the problem and that we must focus on.”
Focusing on emissions rather than fossil fuels is regarded as a distraction by many campaigners, or as cover for relying on technology for carbon capture and storage, which is not yet used at scale and may never be.
Jamie Peters, climate coordinator at Friends of the Earth, said: “Thank goodness Graham Stuart has enlightened us that there are no fundamental problems with continuing to back oil and gas, because it’s only the government’s own climate advisers, the International Energy Agency and the world’s top scientists who’ve strongly stated otherwise.”
Ami McCarthy, political campaigner at Greenpeace UK, called Stuart’s remarks “laughable”.
She said: “This government is completely failing on both supply and demand. It scrapped its own energy efficiency taskforce that was established to reduce demand through schemes like insulating our heat-leaking homes and upgrading boilers.
“To put the blame on demand from consumers, who have been left unsupported by this government, is a new low for a Conservative party who are hell-bent on attempting to weaponise climate action to sow division.”
Human flourishing via processed sewage:
DeleteLondon’s hidden energy source: recovering heat from sewage
https://www.cibsejournal.com/general/londons-hidden-energy-source-recovering-heat-from-sewage/
Thank you for the nod, DP. It inspired a minion to do a little research and it turns out
ReplyDeletethere are 2,700 Aussies in Jersey, 123 in Westfield, a veritable Fifth column.
And because "we are one, but we are many" it's hard to tell just who might actually be an 'Aussie'.
Delete“When you are everywhere, you are nowhere. When you are somewhere, you are everywhere.” ― Rumi
DeleteJersey Mike - always good to have your perspective. In this case - there are enough Aussies in Westfield alone to give Lloydie the numbers for a national survey of - Aussies.
DeleteGB, DP and Chadwick,
DeleteAs for identifying the Aussies amongst us, we are hard at work.
South Australians can readily be identified when they order crow at Addams Tavern, whilst the Tassies order bags of apples to go.
It will be tough to weed out the Victorians here from the Jerseyites as both hail
from lands dubbed the "Garden State".
Hence the population of both states boasts nothing but beautiful women and
strikingly handsome men, as GB can attest.
Poor smitten Kylie Minogue is still pestering him.
There is an iffy area on the south side dubbed Tamworth Town that hasn't
been vetted as nobody is bold enough to check it out.
As the chief of police said,
"It's Tamworth Town, Jake. Forget it."
Well, well:
ReplyDeleteBarnaby Joyce among politicians gifted trips to Jordan Peterson-led conservative conference
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/10/barnaby-joyce-among-politicians-gifted-trips-to-jordan-peterson-led-conservative-conference
Well, well, well:
ReplyDelete"The only company to have a small modular nuclear power plant approved in the US – cited by the Australian opposition as evidence of a “burgeoning” global nuclear industry – has cancelled its first project due to rising costs."
Small modular nuclear reactor that was hailed by Coalition as future cancelled due to rising costs
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/09/small-modular-nuclear-reactor-that-was-hailed-by-coalition-as-future-cancelled-due-to-rising-costs