The pond almost thought of giving the reptiles away this weekend ... what with the digital edition a complete bust ...
The pond would rather swallow decent dose of arsenic than contemplate Warren Mundine (the pond advisably strips him of other titles) blathering on about the Palestinians ... and the only other joy was to note the Australian Australian of the year ironically juxtaposed with the sinister news that comrade Dan ... gasp... has a Chinese Australian business partner.
But then the reptiles of Oz have never had any sense of iorny or self-awareness ...
Down below the fold, it was dullsville ...
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The pond almost thought of running with Polonial prattle on a Saturday, but some traditions have to be maintained, and he'd likely need back up, a wing man, and likely that had to be garrulous Gemma ... and so at least Sunday could be made safe.
It's not that there aren't interesting topics or reads ... Marina Hyde was out and about for a good Hydeing with It's the latest episode of The Tories - and it makes Squid Game look like the Brownies ...
Meanwhile, contra Mundine, the news continued grim ...Alarm as Israeli forces move closer to crowded areas in southern Gaza and ‘We cannot operate, we have no drugs’: Gaza’s indirect casualties mount as health service decimated
Health services in Gaza are “decimated”, with medical staff exhausted after three months of war forced to extract shrapnel without adequate pain relief, conduct amputations without anaesthetics and watch children die of cancers because of a lack of facilities and medicine.
Dozens of interviews with doctors and medical administrators in Gaza reveal a catastrophic and deteriorating situation as health services struggle to cope with tens of thousands of casualties of the continuing Israeli offensive in the territory and the effects of the acute humanitarian crisis.
Attention has focused on the direct casualties of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, but medical specialists are increasingly concerned about indirect victims of the war.
Tens of thousands in Gaza with chronic life-threatening illnesses have gone without treatment for months, and are now “without defences”, their bodies’ weakened by malnutrition, cold and fatigue, doctors say. In one incident described to the Guardian, a child with a brain condition died hours before a UN team arrived with vital medicine.
Dozens of interviews with doctors and medical administrators in Gaza reveal a catastrophic and deteriorating situation as health services struggle to cope with tens of thousands of casualties of the continuing Israeli offensive in the territory and the effects of the acute humanitarian crisis.
Attention has focused on the direct casualties of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, but medical specialists are increasingly concerned about indirect victims of the war.
Tens of thousands in Gaza with chronic life-threatening illnesses have gone without treatment for months, and are now “without defences”, their bodies’ weakened by malnutrition, cold and fatigue, doctors say. In one incident described to the Guardian, a child with a brain condition died hours before a UN team arrived with vital medicine.
And so on and on, as the ethnic cleansing and genocide picks up pace and the likes of Mundine blathers into the void ... and as for the US role in proceedings?
It's not as if there aren't interesting things happening. The pond understands the reptile desire to avoid jokes about the Emeritus Chairman and his mob ...
... but even there, interesting things were happening ...
Some treated it with comedy ...
Some noted that the intensity of red-pill swallowing and pandering never seemed to stop ... as goes Mundine, so does Tim ...
Some like Susan B. Glasser in The New Yorker were in a state of some alarm, with Trump Isn’t Even Hiding His Plans to Go “ROGUE”, On the week when the Republican nomination fight began—and just about ended. (possible paywall)
...Looking ahead to New Hampshire and whatever lies beyond, there remains a sort of comforting familiarity to the horse-race coverage. After all, the Republican nomination contest is not finally, officially, for real over; how can it be when New Hampshire hasn’t actually voted? Will Haley somehow pull out a victory or is it already preordained that “she’s gonna get smoked,” as Chris Christie predicted last week when he dropped out and then refused to endorse her? Is DeSantis toast? Will either of them make it out of January and on to South Carolina before bowing to the inevitable and dropping out? These are easier questions to contemplate than the one that 2024 is actually punching us in the face with: Will Trump, after everything, be returned to the White House?
A punch in the face it is. Trump has never been one for subtlety. Hence, perhaps, the most notable statement to emerge in this Iowa caucus week. Not Trump’s pretend-nice victory speech on Monday night, or even his oh-so-predictable sneer at Haley’s given first name, Nimarata—which the former President misspelled, naturally. But his 1:57 a.m. screed on Thursday announced in the clearest terms possible for a man who is ranting in all caps on social media in the middle of the night what kind of President he aims to be—a leader unfettered by law, free to “CROSS THE LINE” and even to act as a “ROGUE COP” if that is what he wants to do. “ALL PRESIDENTS MUST HAVE COMPLETE & TOTAL PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY, OR THE AUTHORITY & DECISIVENESS OF A PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES WILL BE STRIPPED & GONE FOREVER,” he declared. Turns out that his lawyer’s response last week in a federal appeals court was not just an overly zealous answer to an insane hypothetical about how far Trump’s assertion of Presidential immunity should reach: Trump really does seem to believe that the President of the United States is entitled to order Navy seal Team 6 to assassinate his political rivals.
Take comfort, if you will, that the Supreme Court, with its three Trump-appointed Justices, will no doubt soon have its say on this question and that few are expecting it to agree with Trump’s demand for “FULL IMMUNITY” from prosecution for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, or anything else. In the meantime, let the hundred and fifty words of Trump’s posting be a warning, as powerful an antidote imaginable for the feeling that, perhaps, everything is going to be O.K.
A punch in the face it is. Trump has never been one for subtlety. Hence, perhaps, the most notable statement to emerge in this Iowa caucus week. Not Trump’s pretend-nice victory speech on Monday night, or even his oh-so-predictable sneer at Haley’s given first name, Nimarata—which the former President misspelled, naturally. But his 1:57 a.m. screed on Thursday announced in the clearest terms possible for a man who is ranting in all caps on social media in the middle of the night what kind of President he aims to be—a leader unfettered by law, free to “CROSS THE LINE” and even to act as a “ROGUE COP” if that is what he wants to do. “ALL PRESIDENTS MUST HAVE COMPLETE & TOTAL PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY, OR THE AUTHORITY & DECISIVENESS OF A PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES WILL BE STRIPPED & GONE FOREVER,” he declared. Turns out that his lawyer’s response last week in a federal appeals court was not just an overly zealous answer to an insane hypothetical about how far Trump’s assertion of Presidential immunity should reach: Trump really does seem to believe that the President of the United States is entitled to order Navy seal Team 6 to assassinate his political rivals.
Take comfort, if you will, that the Supreme Court, with its three Trump-appointed Justices, will no doubt soon have its say on this question and that few are expecting it to agree with Trump’s demand for “FULL IMMUNITY” from prosecution for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, or anything else. In the meantime, let the hundred and fifty words of Trump’s posting be a warning, as powerful an antidote imaginable for the feeling that, perhaps, everything is going to be O.K.
The current US desire for a dictator, an authoritarian criminal, a leader of a banana republic, perhaps after all a king or a queen who could rule by fascist whim and absolute immunity is a compelling sight ...
But enough of Tenniel jokes ... and back to the reptiles and their singular lack of awareness of what's happening in the world, compounded by a notable absence of old favourites, which will probably continue right up to Oz day, as the reptiles keep ABC hours ... while there's only Polonius to hand to crack jokes about the ABC ...
All this is by way of lengthy explanation - there can be no justification - of how the pond ended up keeping company with the oscillating fan.
Such blind dates never end well, and this one went as badly as might be expected ....
The pond can already hear the rage rising in the few that had the strength to reach for their keyboards ...
And then it got worse, because the lizard Oz graphics department decided to reach for Maggie as their illustration.
Usually the pond would shrink this sort of interstitial, but how to convey the full horror?
With convictions like those ...
And then back to a blithely unaware and deeply boring oscillating fan, determined to keep on wading beyond the valley of the bland ... as if populism and angertainment wasn't the business model of the corporation for whom he scribbled...
That explains why the fan next batters away on the tin drum of a republic, doing a Die Blechtrommel if you will, as if the reptiles, with their cavortings during the last referendum, hadn't done much to seal its fate ... and consigned us to an abiding love for talking tampons ... as designed and executed by their hero, the lying rodent ...
Here's the oscillating fan scribbling about populism in News Corp, the home of populism in Australia and the United States ...
Does a pathetic attempt to do a Henry by referencing Edmund Burke reveal anything except a blindness to Sky News after dark and all the oscillating fan's reptile comrades doing their best to be populist each day?
The dullard can't even get to that first base ...
...On Thursday the prime minister urged peers to pass his asylum bill as soon as possible after its approval by the Commons on Wednesday night, telling them that it reflected the “will of the people”.
By Thursday evening, however, his comments appeared to have backfired, with members of the Lords calling them “bizarre”, “vacuous” and “weird” and then approving a two-month timetable to scrutinise the bill.
Angela Smith, Labour’s leader in the Lords, told the Guardian: “Sunak’s press conference was bizarre. I don’t think he has a clue how the Lords works. We will stick to our normal processes for approving this bill.”
Alex Carlile, a crossbench peer and lawyer, said: “The prime minister’s press conference was vacuous and banal, and he repeated the same statement around 20 times. It has caused some annoyance in the Lords.”
Jonathan Marland, a Conservative peer, suggested there would be a protracted debate in the Lords over the details of the bill.
“What are the protections [the Rwandans] have in the courts there?” he said to GB News. “What is the legal procedure when they get there? What rights of appeal do they have?
“All those sorts of things, which the government has volunteered already that are going to be fundamental to this bill, but have done nothing about it.”
He added: “That is the job of the Lords, to ensure that the loose ends of the bill are tightened up, so I suspect there’ll be a lot of debate around that.”
And so on, and all that to deport some 200 in an angertainment show in time for the election, when the current legal flow is some 600k++ a year ...
The pond only mentions this because it's deeply bored with the oscillating fan, for some reason the reptiles next interrupted his scribbling with a snap of a parleyment ...
In the fervent dream world of the reptiles perhaps, where angertainment is the only way to sustain a fading business model ...
The alternative is the likes of the oscillating fan, and if he were allowed to carry on, no one would bother to kick the red backs out of the wallet or purse and take up a subscription to the reptiles ...
Well, the pond has learned its lesson, and this will be the last gobbet from the oscillating fan for the month, and hopefully for the year ... though correspondents might have a little fun with his tortured defence of Captain Spud ...
If the oscillating fan is the answer, then the pond is grateful to have forgotten the question.
Has there ever been a better example of shallow, useless rhetoric, with that populist rhetoric about leading rather than following a fitting conclusion to a tedious serve of word salad, accompanied by verbal diarrhoea ...
Such was the sublime irrelevance that the pond thought it could safely end with a celebratory TT ... what with the divine right of kings now a thing in the good old USA ...
Seven exclusives just on the front page! No wonder the pond nearly decided to give the reptiles away. But I particularly was drawn to the exclusive about “Director Dan” (no longer can they use the alliterative “Dictator Dan”) because there was that use of “Chinese Australian” with a snap of Andrews in China as though a Chinese Australian is actually a resident of Beijing. Looking forward to these bigots referring to Rupert Murdoch as an American Australian or Tony Abbott as a British Australian. Let’s face it, if someone is an Australian citizen, then they are Australian and their ethnicity is an irrelevance – except in the world of bigots.
ReplyDeleteI've made an error. Let's correct that: Rupert's no longer Australian at all.
ReplyDeleteHe may be no longer Australian but his underlings can still be our greatest danger for the
Deleteour future safety. When we recall the conflicts that they have incited Australia to be a party to illegal wars.Korea,Veitnam,Iraq.
A right and proper correction, and sadly the Caterist can also use that escape clause, but still the principle is a good one, and is citizenship enough for the reptiles? If Swift's horses turned up and settled, wouldn't they routinely be referred to as Houyhnhnm Australians?
DeleteSection 44 applied to reptiles?
DeleteFor the reptiles, politicians are always pillars of society when their preferred party is in power (apparently for people like Abbott and Thatcher it was a “calling”, as in called by god to serve perhaps?), but when the Left assume the reins of government, Van Onselen decides politicians are simply people looking for the next pay packet.
ReplyDeletePerhaps he could enunciate what he thinks is bad about professionalism. Perhaps it’s that contributing populists like himself lack any professionalism. Like the reptiles generally, he’s still rabbiting on about the Voice defeat, because the reptiles think it was a great victory to put Australia’s First Nation peoples in their place.
Given that the republic failed at the referendum on the matter, that is, the will of the people was against a republic, how is it populism or lack of leadership to put it forward again? Surely, it shows the very trait of shaping the will of the community rather than reflecting it which Van Onselen claims to laud. But inconsistency in argument is no doubt expected in an oscillating fan.
As usual with the reptiles, we get the references to some long dead philosopher whose relevance to to twenty-first century political issues is dubious at best, but as the 1700s are so important to Van Onselen, sometime soon I expect him to appear in knee breeches, a full-skirted frock-coat, silk stockings and a linen shirt with frills. Sure, it’s no longer popular, but he could show some leadership in the fashion stakes. Even more out of tune with the present, Van Onselen’s references Thatcher’s harsh medicine analogy. Actually, modern medicine aims to heal patients with as little harshness as possible. But in the world of Thatcherism if others were suffering, it was doing them good.
And what would Van Onselen say about the Tory leader, Rish!, claiming that his Rwanda bill was simply reflecting the will of the people?
By the end, Van Onselen is still rabbiting on about necessary but unpopular reforms claiming the Australian federation is structurally broken, which is rubbish, and instituting tax reform which Labor attempted to do but the Coalition opposed.
The question is, who in mainstream media can give us a decent analysis of politics and policy or even ask an intelligent question. As Paul Keating’s last Press Club address showed, very few.
If only the pond had read before writing, because that peculiar notion of harsh medicine being good for you always takes the pond back to the days of a dose of cod liver oil. The more you spluttered, the more on the road to recovery you allegedly were.
DeleteThe pond thinks the trend started in the UK in private schools, where school bullies and whippings, floggings if you will, were a way of life, and doing things with pig's heads and such were considered jolly good japes and a whiz ...
On the other hand, the Catholics started it long before that, with stigmata and piercings and whippings and blood worship and all the rest of it. Whatever, a nail through the hand will apparently do wonders for your outlook on life, and also help improve your living standards ...
Van Onselen is credited with being professor at Western Australia university and Griffiths of politics and public policy. My question is how did he get to be a professor and what are his qualifications to be appointed and has lectured on these topics. The challenge I would make for him is if he is contributing to the Murdoch liberal party how could he claim to be independent with genuine intent to give lectures without political bias to conservatism.
DeleteIf that vacuous waste of space is a typical example of van Onselen’s “analysis”, I now see why the Pond has studiously ignored his past contributions. A wise choice DP, and an arrangement that I hope will be reimposed.
DeleteThe Fan at provides mild entertainment towards the end of his piece with the massive porky that John Howard displayed a bipartisan approach to politics. WTF?
DeleteYep - the digital is a bust, and the visual - 'Sky' - offers little in the way of light relief. Last night, Ms Ton-yee-nee was up with the permanently sour Steve Price, and Prue McSween (who I have almost convinced myself is an actual person, not a character left over from a comedy show of a decade back). They were trying to beat up further froth about 'flags'. Price asserting that we need only one flag, inviting the Ton-yee-nee to support that contention from her recent travels in Europe - except that she did remark that people in Europe might still fly that blue flag with the circle of stars as well as their national rag. They got themselves wholly confused with the UK, seeming to think that the same flag flaps from public buildings in Scotland, Wales and all of England. Prue was firm that our only flag should be the one that 'our men and women fought under' - take your pick Prue, I have lost count of how many flags that includes since federation. Last time I tried to count, we had 6 persons of admiral rank in our navy, each entitled to a personal flag for when they can find a vessel to take them to sea, and equivalent rank in army and in the air have similar privileges of office. Surely she was not hinting that there was any significance in the several campaigns when Aussies have gone into the field under the United Nations flag - surely?
ReplyDeleteSo - mild amusement that what claims to be a 'news' service blunders into areas in which they have opinions, supported by no readily confirmable facts - but that is essentially the ethos of the whole of 'limited News' anyway, isn't it?
Steve Price has thoroughly reverted from his days of self-reflection in the jungle to an ugly, ugly man.
DeleteHaving comprehensively failed to secure a political career for himself with more than one major Party, Warren Mundine now appears to be lending his support to any reactionary cause that will have him. It could at least be argued that he had every right to engage in the Voice debate (though describing him as an “Indigenous leader” was always a bit suss, as leaders generally need followers), but his authority and expertise on the Israel-Palestine conflict is roughly equivalent to my own - ie, bugger-all. I wonder whether his father-in-law had any input?
ReplyDeleteToF (The oscillating Fan) failed "Fallacies and a Few Fun Techniques" in the "Building Critical Thinking" course.
ReplyDeleteToF showed early signs of oscillating when his oscillating opinions prevented him from reading and acting on the final sentence in the course which read:
"These should be used for the forces of good rather than the forces of evil."
ToF exclaimed "Ce la viè. Ce la garre. Ce la pomme de terre!" upon reading of his failure at PondU.
ChairInclusivehuman at PondU Dame Dorothy Parker said "sometimes ToF, when your evidence or inferences aren’t as strong as you would like," leave off. F. And remember that last sentence!"
ToF was already furiously fanning his oscillating ego too hard to hear.
Hence - today.
Course: "Building Critical Thinking"
"Overview: The goal of rhetoric is to amplify the emotional impact of your argument – sometimes when your evidence or inferences aren’t as strong as you would like. The following fallacies and techniques are powerful tricks, and understanding their names and how they function will help you win arguments, both by employing them to your advantage and by pointing them out if your opponent tries to use them on you, thus rendering them ineffective. If you are a student please remember: These should be used for the forces of good rather than the forces of evil."
https://buildingcriticalthinking.com/rhetoric/fallacies-and-a-few-fun-techniques/
Ah, but what exactly are the "forces of good" and how does one recognise them ?
DeleteLeave now.
ReplyDeleteAlternate lede for the Pond.
Just switch substack for subNews.
"All the garbage I found on Substack in 1 hour
"Substack has a huge role in the active promotion of disinformation
https://badnewsletter.substack.com/p/all-the-garbage-i-found-on-substack
Thats disturbing.
DeleteAnd what does all this tell us about the state of education ? Presumably all of the authors that Josh Drummond writes about have been through the 'standard' process of primary and secondary schooling, and even through university education. And this rubbish is the result ?
DeleteSo we get all worked up over PISA and other such pointless 'tests', but nobody is telling us what the PISA scores of those Substack 'bloggers' was. Nobody is telling us why they 'graduated' from their educational institutions whilst apparently believing rampant nonsense and falsehoods.
So when will 'compulsory education' actually work ? They can't all have been 'home taught'.
The Oscillator: "Finding ways to secure three more years in office rather than putting policy passion first is now the key performance indicator Australian mainstream politicians judge themselves by. Which is why I'm not entirely critical of Anthony Albanese's decision to seek a voice [small 'v'] to parliament via constitutional reform."
ReplyDeleteSo very condescending, isn't he. Go on, Aussie politicos, judge yourself by your "policy passion" and tell us how often it gets you elected - just like it got Shorten elected when he opposed the "years in office" drive of Morrison. Yep, very successful wasn't he, because he ran into that perpetual problem: you have to actually get elected before you can exercise your policy passion.