The pond realises now the abject futility of its "reptile a day" offer, and understands it must go cold turkey, so next weekend will see the last of the pond for the year ...
The pond will keep reading the reptiles and realises there might be temptations during the holyday season. Who could resist noting that bloated toad showing how to do denialism? Piers Morgan denies knowing of phone hacking after judge rules he did.
And there are novelty items turning up regularly, though the pond has been disappointed at the state of the war on Xmas this year ...
Meanwhile, say what you will about recovering reptile Tory, at least she explained to the pond why the reptiles have been snippy and snappy of late. It seems Xmas has been cancelled ...
After the year’s succession of big events at News Corp, it’s a shame the annual Christmas soiree at the Murdochs’ Bellevue Hill mansion in Sydney’s east has been called off, according to a report in the Australian Financial Review.
Lachlan Murdoch – who took over from his dad, Rupert, (sort of) this year – is apparently in the United States, so the usual conga line of the rich and powerful will not have to go through the rigamarole of ducking the press on the way in.
This time a year ago, Murdoch junior had just finished his deposition in the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit against Fox News when he chucked the knees-up at his Bellevue Hill mansion. (Rupert followed with his deposition on the 13 and 14 December).
The ritzy shindig is usually a roll call of the sort of elites who like to decry “elites”. Think plenty of News Corp bigwigs, shock jocks and conservative politicians. The sort of people who might also have gone to former prime minister John Howard’s Christmas party – which was also cancelled because Howard needs knee surgery.
Lachlan Murdoch – who took over from his dad, Rupert, (sort of) this year – is apparently in the United States, so the usual conga line of the rich and powerful will not have to go through the rigamarole of ducking the press on the way in.
This time a year ago, Murdoch junior had just finished his deposition in the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit against Fox News when he chucked the knees-up at his Bellevue Hill mansion. (Rupert followed with his deposition on the 13 and 14 December).
The ritzy shindig is usually a roll call of the sort of elites who like to decry “elites”. Think plenty of News Corp bigwigs, shock jocks and conservative politicians. The sort of people who might also have gone to former prime minister John Howard’s Christmas party – which was also cancelled because Howard needs knee surgery.
There was a link to the AFR story, which contained a crucial detail ...
Murdoch’s 92-year-old father, Rupert, stepped down from his roles as chairman of News and Fox, leaving the eldest son as executive chairman of Fox and chairman of News. Murdoch snr has been enjoying semi-retirement, gallivanting with his rumoured girlfriend and crates of wine.
And. therein was a link to another salivating story about the sex and grog lifestyle of the nonagenarian ...
Rupert Murdoch, the billionaire media mogul, has been spotted in public for the first time since he left News Corporation three weeks ago, photographed arriving at an airport to board a private jet with former Russian scientist Elena Zhukova.
Ms Zhukova, 66, is the mother of Dasha Zhukova, who was married to Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich until 2018. Ms Zhukova has long been rumoured to be in a relationship with Mr Murdoch, who handed the chairmanship of his media conglomerate to his son, Lachlan Murdoch, at the company’s annual meeting last month.
In some of the photos, Mr Murdoch, 92, is seen with assistants unloading eight crates marked Moraga Estate, the name of his Bel Air winery, and the only one in Los Angeles.
The old devil is kicking up his heels knowing that the devil is waiting, and meanwhile the reptiles at the lizard Oz are forced to carry on their petulant whining over a blazing hot summer key board, no party, no grog and the sex life of a nonagenarian more interesting than their scribbles ...
Once again the moving sounds of Moving Pictures' What about me? It isn't fair, I've had enough, now I want my share of Bel Air plonk wafted through the pond's mind as it reluctantly turned to the weekend's offerings ...
Dear sweet long absent lord, still bashing the blacks, and with a pathetic attempt at modernism with the use of a gif? And over in the far right perch was "Ned".
The pond will take a rain check on that one, and will hand out the usual red card for Dame Slap, still deep down the rabbit hole in relation to the Lehrmann matter ...
That left the commentary below the fold and the pond's worst fears were realised ...
It's dog botherer day, and he's as mad as hell, and he's not just screwing the dog, he's screwing anything in sight ...
With a deep sigh, the pond pressed on ...
You'd think the dog botherer would be happy with the win, but he's rarely happy ...
Of course once he's feeling his oats, the dog botherer is ready to do a spray on any nearby power pole ...
Yep, this day the pond opted for a cartoon-led recovery, it being seasonal...
When the dog botherer gets in one of these moods, there's no point arguing. It just sets him haring off on another topic. It all comes back to that failure to bung on an Xmas do ...
When he gets like this, the only thing to note is how the dog botherer eerily starts to sound like that other mob ...
Why didn't the pond take the far right Benji mob bait? Well there was an even bigger mountain to climb, the bromancer going full barking mad fundamentalist Jewish loon ...
It came as something of a shock to hear that the bromancer was recognising the state of Palestine. It was, in the usual reptile way, just misleading nonsense. The bromancer did no such thing, though he did suggest that there were actual Palestinians, with his opener "Can there ever be peace between Israel and the Palestinians?" Palestinians? Que?
Discombobulated, the pond again decided to clear the snap deck ... and there were many to clear, because the reptiles had thrown a veritable kitchen sink of snaps at the bro piece to make it seem interminable and very important ...
Yigal Amir, a 25-year-old Israeli Jew, fervent in his faith and his nationalism, stepped out of the shadows and calmly shot the prime minister twice in quick succession. An hour and a half later, Rabin would be pronounced dead. Within a few months, his government would go the same way, taking the prospect of a lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis along with it.
To this day, the killing of Yitzhak Rabin by a man determined to halt the Middle East peace process remains that rare thing: an act of political violence that wholly achieved its aim. Judged by the goal it set itself, it is surely the most successful assassination in history.
Yep, and the way it ended was ominous ...
Rabin’s immediate successor was his decades-long rival, Shimon Peres. Sheves recalls going to see the new PM, urging him to call a snap election. The right was weak, shamed by its association with the incitement that had led to murder; the wave of public grief, embodied by the candlelit vigils of young people, would surely lead to a landslide victory and an immediate mandate to complete Rabin’s peacemaking work. But Peres said no. After years in Rabin’s shadow, he wanted to wait until the scheduled election the following summer rather than rely on a sympathy vote. “He wanted to be elected by himself. It was just his ego,” Sheves says.
As Sheves feared, Peres lost in May 1996. The winner was the man who had watched those crowds chanting “Death to Rabin”, the man accused of turning a blind eye to the incitement that led to murder: Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu remains prime minister today. For all but 20 months of the last 25 years, the right and centre-right have held power. At the last election, the once-dominant Israeli Labour party of Yitzhak Rabin garnered less than 6% of the vote, and just seven seats. For two and a half decades, Labour has struggled to find a leader who might offer what Rabin did – that almost unique combination of a willingness to compromise for peace, and the credibility and political skill to deliver it. A quarter of a century after that rally in Tel Aviv, the notion of making peace with the Palestinians is discussed only on the fringe left.
Soon after Rabin’s death, they found in one of his pockets the lyric sheet for Shir LaShalom, the Song For Peace. The words read differently now, especially the line lamenting the impossibility of bringing a dead man back to life, for no amount of “bitter tears” can wake him. But the words were also hard to make out: the piece of paper carrying Rabin’s song for peace was stained thick with blood.
But enough of actual history, on with fundamentalist bigoted history ...
There''s one major snag in this revisionist history. The cleansing and baptising of Saint Benji, which saw Jonathan Freedland reach for an impossible dream: There’s only one way out of this Gaza war and Netanyahu is blocking it. Joe Biden must force him from power.
Jolly Joe is up to organising a coup and doing a reverse Allende?
That's how mad the conflict is, that's why the pond reverts to the spirit of the season ...
Sheesh, another of those messages about content only available in the web version, but there was a mention of an assassination, and yet no mention of that other one ...
To this day, the killing of Yitzhak Rabin by a man determined to halt the Middle East peace process remains that rare thing: an act of political violence that wholly achieved its aim. Judged by the goal it set itself, it is surely the most successful assassination in history.
The pond went back to the online bro version just to check that there was no more additional content the pond had missed out on.
Nope, Rabin had been erased from the bro account, as surely as an assassin's bullet ...
Have an ethnic cleansing cartoon to celebrate ...
Luckily winnowing out the snaps led to some shorter bro gobbets ...
WaPo picked it up too (sorry, paywall)...
And so on and on, but back to the bro, keen to blame the victims...
To this day, the killing of Yitzhak Rabin by a man determined to halt the Middle East peace process remains that rare thing: an act of political violence that wholly achieved its aim. Judged by the goal it set itself, it is surely the most successful assassination in history.
Here, have a humanitarian disaster to celebrate ...
This cartoon strategy seems to be wearing the bro down. Just two lengthy gobbets of misrepresentations, barking mad distortions, egregious errors and fundamentalist claptrap to go ...
And yet ... and yet ... speaking of offers you might like to refuse ...
As Sheves feared, Peres lost in May 1996. The winner was the man who had watched those crowds chanting “Death to Rabin”, the man accused of turning a blind eye to the incitement that led to murder: Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu remains prime minister today. For all but 20 months of the last 25 years, the right and centre-right have held power. At the last election, the once-dominant Israeli Labour party of Yitzhak Rabin garnered less than 6% of the vote, and just seven seats. For two and a half decades, Labour has struggled to find a leader who might offer what Rabin did – that almost unique combination of a willingness to compromise for peace, and the credibility and political skill to deliver it. A quarter of a century after that rally in Tel Aviv, the notion of making peace with the Palestinians is discussed only on the fringe left.
Meanwhile, LeLievre was suggesting a few additions to good old Shoe, whether in irony or despair it's hard to say ...
To this day, the killing of Yitzhak Rabin by a man determined to halt the Middle East peace process remains that rare thing: an act of political violence that wholly achieved its aim. Judged by the goal it set itself, it is surely the most successful assassination in history.
And then there's the corollary ...
As Sheves feared, Peres lost in May 1996. The winner was the man who had watched those crowds chanting “Death to Rabin”, the man accused of turning a blind eye to the incitement that led to murder: Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu remains prime minister today. For all but 20 months of the last 25 years, the right and centre-right have held power.
And all that's left is good old Shoe, and an infallible Pope ...
Good old shoes, good old shoes
Whatever road you're walking he will get you through
Good old shoes, good old shoes
Stand up straight and proud to way he talked to do
And you might even get to heaven so like that good old shoes
Or maybe this one, dedicated to the Texas Taliban, and also featuring shoes ...
Ah! Peace on Earth and Goodwill to all - Kenny’s rabbling end of year summary of all that is wrong with Australia in 2023. Like Abbott, Kenny must hark back to the last 9 years the Coalition was in government with the line from that song - now used at funerals and memorials - “when we walked in fields of gold”, humming in the background.
ReplyDeleteAs I looked down the Bovverer's column this day, I had much the feeling that comes to me when I scan down 'QuadRant'. On the Rant, still undeveloped intellects rage at - whatever, in the same way as undeveloped bodies - babies - do, and the old instinct kicks in - to metaphorically pick them up, put them gently across one's shoulder and pat their back until they burp what is making them uncomfortable. With babies, one knows that one probably will have to do the same thing tomorrow, until they acquire better control of their processes. Our Bovverer has been a long time developing, without having acquired sufficient control of his intellectual processes.
DeleteOh - and one specific; when he tosses in the dismissive 'climate and sea levels will vary over time thanks to natural variations', it is incumbent upon him to explain how it is that when one of the predictable sources of natural climate change - the cycle of planetary alignment - should have taken us into a demonstrable cooling phase, our planet is warming.
Talking about "what is making them uncomfortable" Chad, what about this gem from the Doggy Bov:
Delete"Labor failed to negotiate a bipartisan consensus, insulted the public by refusing to share or discuss details, ran a classically elitist and emotional campaign, and turned a historic opportunity for national unity into a divisive defeat that set back reconciliation, possibly for a generation."
What a beautiful piece of politicising, flipping and projecting: no matter whatever happens, it's never a reptile's doings, is it.
Do have an absolutely splendid Saturnalia, DP, starting tomorrow and going through to Saturday 23rd. Then we can turn and laugh at all those poor people who only get one day of celebration per annum.
ReplyDeleteBromancered: "Yigal Amir, a 25-year-old Israeli Jew, fervent in his faith and his nationalism"
ReplyDeleteDivide and Concur: A Radical Plan for Peace in Europe (1920)
..." “Does anyone really seriously believe that the current peace agreements have put an end to the idea of revenge [Revancheidee] of individual tribes?” asked the anonymous author, who wrote this twenty-four-page pamphlet under the initials P. A. M."...
https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/unionization-of-central-europe/
"....on with fundamentalist bigoted history ..." newscorpse "...is surely the most successful union assassination in history".
Back atcha. See article for links.
Delete"15: In 1968, supporters of a one world government met in Switzerland to write a World Constitution, backed by luminaries like Bertrand Russell, Linus Pauling, and Martin Luther King. The result was The Earth Constitution, which detailed both how a final world government would work, and how the would-be-world-governors would conduct themselves while waiting for countries to sign on. None ever did, of course, but there’s still a World Parliament that holds conferences and elects officers, waiting for the day when the rest of us agree to join them." https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/links-for-november-2023
DP: "The old devil is kicking up his heels knowing that the devil is waiting"
ReplyDeleteThe Ol' Devil Rupe's Hell of a Plan - A Heroic Act of Charity News.
And rhe congas too "Think plenty of News Corp bigwigs, shock jocks and conservative politicians".
Apologies to Maccabees.
"Rupert then took up a collection among all his soldiers, amounting to two thousand silver drachmas, which he sent to Jerusalem to provide for an expiatory sacrifice. In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection of the dead in view; for if he were not expecting the fallen to rise again, it would have been useless and foolish to pray for them in death. But if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be freed from this sin.[3]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroic_Act_of_Charity
Here we go, from the Boverer: "...an explanation that was so insane it could have come from Gret Thunberg..." Yep, once you're on a reptile hit-list you're on it for life. Congratulations, Greta, you're still getting into the Doggy Bov's small brain in a very big way.
ReplyDeleteSo, for instance, we're told that "...studies show Pacific Islands are growing in area rather than disappearing..." Of course, we're never given any information about which studies conducted by who and when, are we. But anyway, the fact that some small 'islands' and atolls have actually increased in size by up to 8% (oh 8% - wau !) might be attributed to some idea that the level of the Pacific Ocean was actually falling, not rising. Except for one small thing: if the level of the ocean was falling, then all Pacific Islands would be getting bigger, not just a few coral islets and atolls.
But here, have a read:
"All the islands that we're looking at, and the atoll systems, comprise predominantly of the broken up corals, shells and skeletons of organisms on the coral reef, which waves then sweep up and deposit on the island"
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-08/why-are-hundreds-of-pacific-islands-getting-bigger/13038430
And there's always this gem: "...climate and sea levels will vary over time thanks to natural variation, whatever humans do." There we have it: it's all just 'natural variation' which explains exactly why it's happening so consistently and so rapidly all over the planet. But we can't expect a reptile to take any notice whatsoever of what's happening in the world around them.
However, "China continues to enrich itself...". Yep, China has finally made it to No. 1 in the world for exporting motor cars having just recently overtaken Germany. Fortunately, a lot of the cars China is exporting are cheap EVs so we might even see a few of them out here. We once had a car manufacturing and exporting industry in Australia until the Boverer's political mates killed it off in 2017.
And also "Inflation and the resultant dozen interest rate rises under Labor also should be sheeted home to the Albanese government given Labor blamed the Coalition when these trends first emerged before the election." Que ? Oh, I get it: the Coalition government had no understanding of economics or of what to do about inflation, but Labor blamed them for screwing things up anyway. So now the Coalition should blame Labor for being unable to fix the Coalition's stuffups quickly. Yep, that's the message that the Mutton Dutton has been giving us: it's all Labor's fault anyhow.
And what's this ? "Meanwhile a dozen asylum seekers made it to the mainland by boat, the first to do so in a decade." Yeah ? what about this then:
Suspected asylum seekers found in Queensland spark warnings of exodus from Vietnam
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-29/fears-suspected-asylum-seekers-part-of-flood-from-vietnam/10179322
That was in August 2018 which is less than 10 years ago.
But the reality is this:
"The media attention on boat arrivals largely misses the real challenges facing the Albanese government.
There are almost 130,000 asylum seekers living in Australia – something no previous federal government has ever inherited.
The 130,000 is in two parts. There are more than 31,000 asylum seekers associated with the legacy boat arrival caseload and another 100,000 who have subsequently arrived by aeroplane."
Boats are not the problem, it’s the 130,000 asylum seekers living here
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/boats-are-not-the-problem-it-s-the-130-000-asylum-seekers-living-here-20220617-p5aufm.html
Oh gosh; don't tell the Doggy Bov (but then, he won't believe you anyway):
Delete"More than a dozen of Australia’s coral islands that help to extend the country’s maritime jurisdiction are at high risk of disappearing because of climate change, according to a study.
The fate of the low-lying islands now “hangs in the balance”, said the scientist who led the study, with rising sea levels, marine heatwaves, intensifying weather systems and ocean acidification compounding the risk."
Some of Australia’s strategically important coral islands at great risk of vanishing, study finds
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/dec/16/some-of-australias-strategically-important-coral-islands-at-great-risk-of-vanishing-study-finds
"Count 'em, that's eight snaps, and yet the pond bets that the one big story won't make the cut ..."
ReplyDeleteThe assassination of Yitzhak Rabin
"If I never mention it, then it never really happened." Yes ?
Just another day in the killing fields...
DeleteIsraeli military says its troops shot and killed three hostages by mistake
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/15/israeli-military-says-its-troops-shot-and-killed-three-hostages-by-mistake
Hi GB,
DeleteVery difficult to believe that this sort of indiscriminate killing could have been perpetrated by the “most moral army in the world”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purity_of_arms
"Rabbis associated with the Israeli settlement movement in the West Bank and Gaza demanded in 2004 that terrorism must be fought without regard for the safety of the enemy civilian population."
DeleteThey've certainly lived up to that, haven't they.
I’ve no idea of the quality of the products of Chateau Rupert, but what’s the bet that the old tightwad is taking those cases of wine as freebies? It’s good to be the king.
ReplyDeleteJust a diversion tacked on for those who like to review yesterday. All about being (small-l) liberal in the USA:
ReplyDelete"The plain fact is that being a liberal is hard. You have to care about poor people and homeless people and Palestinians and trans people and the environment and Black people and the disabled and Hispanics and the neurodivergent and fast food workers and animals and undocumented immigrants and indigenous people and plastic straws and public transit and mass incarceration and DEI and white privilege and child workers and wage theft and lead pipes and educational equality and systemic racism and bullying and climate change and screen time and maternal mortality and social justice and fat phobia and antisemitic tropes and voter suppression and bank fees and racial stereotyping and income inequality and safe spaces and unconscious bias and football concussions and Black Lives Matter and eugenics and atoning for the past and food deserts and gender affirming care and neoliberalism and health equity and flying and the unbanked and restorative justice and toxic masculinity and biodiversity and colonialism and intersectionality and the global south and malaria and sexual harassment and microaggressions and dolphin-safe tuna and power relations and factory farming and stereotype threat and Davos and cultural appropriation and habitat loss and #OscarsSoWhite and gender identity and pronouns and whale hunting and police brutality and prosecutorial misconduct and Twitter and ableism and deeply problematic and heteronormativity and colony collapse and forever chemicals and body shaming and white saviors and mansplaining and gentrification and hate speech and plastic water bottles and the Bechdel test."
https://jabberwocking.com/are-progressives-really-turning-to-the-right/