The pond sees that the ABC has already begun its seasonal wind-down, with the Xmas holyday season starting earlier and earlier, such that the pond senses it might be best to leave up this year's trinkets for next year's celebrations, so life can be an eternity of Xmas present ... (or presents if you will) ...
The pond too is preparing to go into wind-down mode.
The pond senses a certain air of defeat, where even the best herpetology students admit that grappling with the reptiles can be extremely wearing and tedious ...
Still, Monday is always a bumper book day for reptiles ... just look at the line-up below the fold ...
The pond felt the need to match the offering with a bumper serve of reptile stew (reptile gruel if you've been Oliver slack), and as always the Caterist was there at the head of the denialist pack ...
As you might expect from the flood waters in quarries whisperer, things get truly weird, because there's an elective affinity at work here, and soon it will become clear that the Caterist, like many small boys, loves dinosaurs ...
An imagined far right? No imagination is needed and reptiles thoughtfully provided some snaps of the dinosaurs that the flood waters in quarries whisperer loves and identifies with ...
The pond thought it a tad unfair to include Luxon in the mix, but after all, he does have a Mussolini hair style ...
Meanwhile it's on with blather about the woke agenda, which is why the reptiles can be quite wearying and why the pond is looking forward to a holyday season break ...
And so on, but back to the small boy's mindless love of dinosaurs, and the more raptor the better ...
Did it even occur to the Caterist when he embarked on the dinosaur metaphor what he was actually saying.
Has he never seen any of the films? Does he understand what happens when you let dinosaurs loose?
The pond supposes it's much the same as "mindless moron celebrates the destruction of the planet by dinosaur infestation" ... well, if not by meteor strike, or climate science, then certainly by dinosaur ...
Fully sick, verging on the fascist psychotic, but an excellent way to start a Monday ... backed up by the lizard Oz editorialist peddling yet again more BOM conspiracy theories ...
You have to be an expert in herpetology to decode that last paragraph, but it's simple enough.
Climate science is a conspiracy produced by BOM tampering with the records.
What about all the other records done elsewhere, some might ask? Nah, it's a home-brewed dinky di Oz conspiracy ... the long-term records have been tampered with, and the world has fallen for a local conspiracy produced by the plucky BOMsters ...
Luckily the planet is in the best of hands ...
Meanwhile, in Killer's letter from America, the lad, still traumatised by the deeply Freudian experience of wearing a mask, returns to the Covid well yet again, and steers close to RFK Jr vaccine denialism ...
It's probably news to Killer, not in country, that there's been a recent surge in Covid, though you might have to
head off to the socialists to read about it, and if you're of a certain age, getting a booster shot with the vaccines rolling out this month is a wise precaution ...
Now to that RFK Jr bit the pond promised ...
Are the reptiles aware that they have a Killer in their midst? Never mind, time to downsize the illustrative snaps ...
What's remarkable is how the dinosaurs are intent on killing anyone wanting to have a quiet time enjoying a quality experience on the toilet ... because it turns out that if you're of an age, Killer is quite happy to see you head off to an early grave ...
The one problem that the pond can see with all this is a significant failure to mention the way that masks are singularly useless, and probably killed more people than they saved, adjusting for life years remaining those who maintain a healthy paranoid fixation on masks ...
The pond was shattered to do a word search, which failed to turn up a single mention of the ruination produced by mask-wearing. Is Killer over his mask fixation, or has it just been dropped for the moment for the glittering prize of vaccine-denialism?
What's shocking about all this is that someone of an age, who could use the protection of a booster shot, might actually take Killer's advice and end up another victim in Killer's killing fields ...
Speaking of killing, the pond had to save the worst for last, but there he was, sitting on the extreme far right of the digital lizard Oz, the wily old bird's favourite perch ...
The pond's weary reptile readers will have heard all this before, but the pond must insist that the hard yards be done before the Xmas wind down.
After all, it's not like anyone in the land of Oz is in Gaza, with death falling from the sky ...
First allow the pond to indulge in a little word analysis arising from the Major splash...
In a nutshell, the Major is a liar, and a liar of some fair prodigious proportion. Some might prefer to use words like dissembler, or disingenuous, because the Major cunningly uses weasel words to get himself out of the lying charge ...
"Much television and radio reporting here is informed by a clear view all Palestinians - but no Jews - are victims in the war in Gaza."
The first weasel word is that deploying of "much" with reference to television and radio reporting. The second use of weasel words comes with "clear view", and then comes the naked lie "but no Jews."
Where did the Major get his "much" from? Wet his finger and stuck it in the air?
From what the pond has observed mainstream media has noted that there have been Jewish victims in the war in Israel (it's not just going down in Gaza, Major).
To deny the deaths on October 7th would be roughly equivalent to the sort of delusional denialism that can be seen in the reptile approach to climate science and the efficacy of vaccines.
Now, having noted that you're in the copy of a professional liar and a shill, approach the rest with caution ...
Well yes, the conflict didn't start on October 7th. The conflict has raged for decades. What's more, the Israeli government knew about the planning for the current phase a year ago, per the
NY Times ...
Israel Knew Hamas's Attack Plan More Than a Year Ago ... (paywall)
Perhaps it's true that the current collection of ratbag far right fundamentalist theocrats had their eyes on taking more of the West Bank than protecting the left leaning liberals who congregated in the kibbutzim...
Never mind, back to the dissembler and professional liar ...
At this point there were a couple of illustrative snaps, downsized ...
The pond can sense why the Major is worried. After the devastating scenes from the initial terrorist attack, there have been devastating scenes and stories arising from the collective punishment subsequently being meted out ...
There's a capper to that story the pond couldn't fit into the screen cap ...
...Two weeks later, the pause in hostilities allowed a Gazan journalist to venture into the hospital. In the neonatal intensive care unit, Mohammed Balousha made the awful discovery.
The decomposing bodies of the four babies. Eaten by worms. Blackened by mold. Mauled, Balousha said, by stray dogs.
“A terrible and horrific scene,” he told The Post. He took video.
The grim discovery was a reminder of the harrowing civilian toll of Israel’s war to eradicate Hamas, a campaign that has spared neither hospitals nor children. Thousands have been killed.
Yes indeedy, thousands have been killed, but it's of no consequence to the Major ...
They get them coming and they get them going, and it seems the only plan the current Israeli government has is to reduce Gaza to rubble and herd Palestinians into gulags on the West Bank, and meanwhile, in the process, radicalise another generation ... or perhaps in the Irish manner, generation upon generation ...
Given all that, the lying Major's last gobbet is both pitiful and offensive ... something he manages to achieve on many occasions ...
The far right theocratic fundamentalist lobby is strong in this one, but the pond didn't want to end on a downer.
Usually the pond likes to end on a cartoon, but of late, speaking of the toilet, the pond has been reading Richard Cohen's Making History ...
Cohen might not pass as a professional historian, but it's an extremely entertaining read, and Cohen is in possession of a startling range of information ...
The pond has already got through the ancient Greeks and Romans - all the old favourites ranging from Herodotus through Thucydides and Suetonius, and now has reached the short chapter on the bible as history, or creation myth if you will ...
In the run-up to the summer holyday Xmas season, the pond thought it might be fun to note just how many cooks have been in the kitchen to produce this work ... and just how stupid literalists and fundamentalists of the Mike Johnson school must be not to appreciate how it all came together ...
Here's a dollop of the first few pages... click on to enlarge. There'll be more to follow, as the pond prepares for the war on Xmas and the usual celebration of Saturnalia ...
The Arab attack on Israel in 1967? Seriously?
ReplyDeleteAre you referring to this Anon?
Delete...In the months prior to the outbreak of the Six-Day War in June 1967, tensions again became dangerously heightened: Israel reiterated its post-1956 position that another Egyptian closure of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping would be a definite casus belli. In May 1967, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser announced that the Straits of Tiran would again be closed to Israeli vessels. He subsequently mobilized the Egyptian military into defensive lines along the border with Israel and ordered the immediate withdrawal of all UNEF personnel.
On 5 June 1967, as the UNEF was in the process of leaving the zone, Israel launched a series of preemptive airstrikes against Egyptian airfields and other facilities, launching its war effort. Egyptian forces were caught by surprise, and nearly all of Egypt's military aerial assets were destroyed, giving Israel air supremacy. Simultaneously, the Israeli military launched a ground offensive into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula as well as the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip. After some initial resistance, Nasser ordered an evacuation of the Sinai Peninsula; by the sixth day of the conflict, Israel had occupied the entire Sinai Peninsula.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War
Could the pond recommend to you Major Mitchell's tome, How to re-write history and tell lies for a living ...
Yep, the famous pre-emptive strike. I'm sure the Major's esteemed colleague Sharri will be able to explain how this was actually an attack on Israel, just like the 1956 invasion of Sinai and Gaza as well.
DeleteJust in passing, I wouldn't give much credence to Ioannidis or especially Levitt, and I'm not sold on QALY based arguments, but when Ioannidis trots out this: "...in hindsight lockdown measures were 'tremendously damaging (and) the benefits in terms of containing the spread of the virus very limited, if any'". one wonders if he ever gets to read things such as this:
ReplyDeleteNearly 2 million excess deaths followed China's sudden end of COVID curbs, study says
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/nearly-2-million-excess-deaths-followed-chinas-sudden-end-covid-curbs-study-2023-08-25/
Is this Mitchell related to the one on 3AW because he was up himself as also.
ReplyDeleteSo if you tell lies often enough you be conned into believing them but it is not just this creature from Murdoch swamp there is a whole host them that keep repeating lies and because they live in a swamp they are all washed with the same shit.
"Here's a dollop of the first few pages..." Isn't it marvellous how the folks way back then already had mastery of the techniques that now dominate the web. Or is it just that even after millennia nothing has grown, nothing has changed and nothing has improved in human reasoning ? Perhaps humanity is basically all and only about furphys and trivias (and maybe 'backyard gossip'), but it is sad to think that the old "what I thrice repeat ..." is an exaggeration by at least two.
ReplyDeleteWhat is even worse to grasp is that it doesn't even need to be said once and that whatever 'nature' is about, humans must make up stuff to fill the 'vacuum' even if it is only for themselves to believe.
And the very worst is that even after multiple millennia, millions still literally believe that stuff.
The reptiles must be the only organization which has yet to wake up to the simple conclusion of the 'study' they virtually commissioned about air temperatures taken at different intervals. Essentially, if you take a reading with the resistance detector every second, and read the mercury-in-glass instrument every half hour, guess what? - the resistance detector will give readings that differ from that single mercury-in-glass reading, particularly when both are placed behind a Stevenson screen, which (gentle reminder) is designed to keep the instruments out of direct sunlight, but does expose them to local air currents.
ReplyDeleteBy the old test of any actual scientist - if you cannot explain what you are doing to a 7-year-old, you probably do not understand what you are doing - I think I could readily demonstrate that to a class of 7-year-olds. I suspect the reptiles, and the IPA 'science' group (Marohasy, Riddster et. al.) do understand why there is a difference - they just show their dedication to 'science' by disregarding it to make a squalid political point. They are not alone in denying what they should know from their professional life, when they realise they must write what the editors (such as there are) think that Rupert wants to see in his vanity project.
I think I might just retain my disbelief that the Riddsters, Marohasys et al really do know what they're doing. But maybe it's a left-hand/right-hand thing: the left hand doesn't know what the right hand believes and vice versa (I'd say left brain-right brain but I'm not sure that much brain really enters into it).
DeleteAfter all, there's a vast array of scientists whose left hand believes in Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and whose right hand believes in an Earth (and solar system) that's billions of years old and a species - homo-sapiens-sapiens - that has simply come into evolutionary existence just a couple of hundred thousand years ago after a billion or two of life on this planet.
Now how can such situations be resolved ? They can't be, they just have to be kept in denial. In much the way that those couple of 'bible' pages show is the normal way of our species.
Cater: "Anti-elitism has gone mainstream."
ReplyDeleteClearly the aspirationals have turned; all those mainstream people who aspired to better themselves by rising into the elite classes have now turned on the likes of Lachlan Murdoch in his luxury homes and Judith Sloan scribbling on her six-figure wage, although she hardly could be said to work for it, so perhaps it's just a handout. Surely elitism is in the DNA of dinosaur, who once again wish to rule the earth.
Sloan = 'wingnut welfare'. And there's a few of them on that gravy train.
DeleteYikes! Farmers, especially those of them who read / watch the Murdoch media, have actually been taking notice of the BOM. Every reader of the reptiles knows that the BOM has turned full Green Left and is full of woke and none of its data can be trusted. Haven't those rural people been listening to the Nationals, The Australian and Sky? Surely all the serious scientific analyses by Ridd, Lloydie, Kenny, Cater and others have not fallen on deaf ears in the regions? Heck! All those years of work gone to waste!
ReplyDeleteOf course they don't take any notice of the BOM - that's why they have their own 'layman' weather predictors as Mr Ed said: "Timothy Burvill - who relied on his own forecaster".
DeleteRelying on 'lay forecasters' is kinda well established in Australia - I can recall a chap who fairly famously did his own 'forecasts' back in the 60s and 70s - entirely unheard of and unremembered now (sadly, my alzheimered brain won't let me remember his name and Bing won't find him for me, but Chad might recall). He had quite a following in his day - a bit like those "influencers" that now seem to inhabit the web in droves.
Anyway, here's a good read:
How the history of weather forecasting went from reading clouds to supercomputers
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-07/the-history-of-weather-forecasting/101181492
I might have been misremembering Inigo Owen Jones though I note he died in 1954 when I was still quite young. Or maybe it was his nominated successor, Lennox Walker.
Deletehttps://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/jones-inigo-owen-539
Anonymous and GB - Letters still appear in the print newspapers of country towns in Queensland claiming that Inigo Jones predicted events like - the rain we had here last week.
DeleteI suppose that fits a mindset that still listens to evangelist broadcasts late in the evening, from across the waters, that explain how two lines in Habakkuk Chapter 2 can now be seen to have predicted the attack of 11 September 2001.
Even after Lennox Walker took over the business, for business it was - brides paying significant money to help their search for a wedding day with no rain - people still thought of it as just consulting supposed charts that Inigo Jones had drawn up and secreted somewhere.
There is still an element of his influence in attempts by notable nutjobs to claim that carbon dioxide has nothing to do with our climate, it is all down to sunspots. 'QuadRant' published such a 'scholarly' treatise only last month. At least now even the nutjobs seem to accept a more scientific explanation for what causes sunspots. As I recall, Inigo Jones proposed that they correlated with movements of the planets.
At one time, the state Department of Primary Industry was directed to prove Jones' method. My recollection is that, not only could the minions not find correlations of any real use, but that, in retrospect, Jones' predictions had been wrong a statistically improbably number of times. That is, he was on to something, but almost exactly the wrong thing.
For all that, the full seal of approval came with Joh Bjelke, who had Inigo Jones up there in his own scientific pantheon with the man who claimed to have invented a gadget that allowed you to fill the petrol tank in your car with water, then run the water past his gadget, which split the water into hydrogen and oxygen gas, which then burned in the car's engine. Long before his time. Alas - the one very public demonstration ended, not with a bang, but - well, you know the line. Joh was a sucker for every kind of pseudo-scientific 'miracle'; was big promoter of the 'Tronado' treatment (which still rates a 'Wiki' entry) and wanted them installed in hospitals in Queensland; but life is too short to track down all the others. At one time he wanted to see the world's tallest building on the site of the former 'Canberra' hotel in Brisbane. It fell to a member of my extended family to try to break the news to him that, however you looked at the geology of that immediate area, there was a measurable chance that when the structure approached the 50th level, it could spread itself down Edward Street. I think that idea failed more for lack of investors prepared to put up money than for any change in Joh's mind.
Could almost add that in as an addendum to DP's bible excerpts. Makes about the same amount and kind of sense.
Delete