It was going to be another Monday ... how the pond hates Mondays ... with the Major perched in his favourite far right position atop the digital edition ...
There was some fair irony in that juxtaposition of the story about Benji's latest bout of fundamentalism below the Major's standard fulminations, while down below the Caterist was out and about, preening in his endlessly renewable way...
If the grid could summon as much energy as that energiser bunny Caterist expended on denialism, the entire grid could be saved ...
The pond decided it could bypass the craven Craven ...
... but was startled to see all this talk of the navy, with "small and lethal" and talk of a pivot at the top of the digital edition, and Cam out and about, yet no sign of the bromancer.
The reptiles had even hired in a jargon-laden imposter ...
The power of the probing pivot! Ever since the sitcom Silicon Valley and its Pied Pipers the pond has been in favour of the notion that when all else fails, we must pivot .. but where was the bromancer to give his seal of approval?
Jargon and acronyms abounded in abundance ...
Pathways, value propositions, mysticism. There was a lot more but the pond was befuddled and confused. Where had this new voice come from? Where was the bro when he was needed?
The reptiles are now so desperate they must scrounge pieces from the latest issue of
Australian Foreign Affairs?
Are they aware that the editor is the world editor of The Saturday Paper and had previously worked at the Nine rags?
How did Schwartz Media end up in the lizard Oz? Did the reptiles fall for the old honeypot routine?
What about Foreign Affairs? It's down under coverage is looking a tad aged. Couldn't the reptiles help out?
Still, the pond was pleased to discover the chief virtue of the country was that it was a pit stop.
Whenever the bromancer next bobs up, the pond can tell him just to change the tyres, check the oil and fill up the tank (charge the EV if you want to send the Caterist into a Kirribilli frenzy), and the pond will be on its way ... though unfortunately the next stop is at Caterist denialism central ... and naturally the reptiles began with a snap of a fierce ogre, likely the troll beneath the bridge ...
It takes some fair skill for a man whose main skill is deciphering the movement of flood waters in quarries to talk about "reality", but the Caterist is the man ...
Meanwhile, the reptiles interrupted the Caterist with snaps ... naturally there was a Satanic figure, and a celebration of a plant using dear sweet innocent virginal coal, and a man in possession of a suit...
The pond ignored them all to focus on the Caterist spinning finest weave of chaotic blather...
The pond trusts that its sandgroper correspondent is enjoying the warmth and hasn't fled to Tasmania like some ...
Meanwhile, the Caterist was still doing his usual schtick ...
The pond seems to recall a correspondent worried that the MRC might have fallen from its perch, lost its grant once the Caterist departed top dog position.
Fear not:
"Conduct research and other p"?
Some might wonder about the "p", but think of it as the Caterist peeing on climate science ...
Ain't it grand the way a sometime resident of Kirribilli can slag off Mosmanites, when everyone knows that Kirribilli is full of even bigger ponces (why the pond once lived in Kirribilli in the street of jacaranda blooms, before the age of tourists).
As for the rest, it's a fair explanation as to how you get to believe in unicorns, centaurs and mermaids...
Does all relentless carry-on have an effect? Well if the US is any guide, it can help keep the denialist religion alive ...
Of course it's not a matter of belief. It's about accepting the science and the evidence, but whatever, let's not keep troubling the Caterist belief system, which routinely relies on distorting or ignoring the evidence.
And so to the most dismal task of the day, dealing with the Major and the ongoing genocide ...
See how the Major quickly pivots from lamenting the suffering to blaming the victims ...
Well yes, it involves collective punishment, collective displacement, and when you get tired of your gulag or ghetto, you're allowed to wipe it off map, and annihilate the people within its walls ...
None of this troubles the Major... he's a devotee of fundamentalist Benji ...
Ah, the Quad ranters enter the picture. Would it be too much trouble to ask exactly how many reporters that the Murdoch empire has in Gaza, ones that aren't nobbled by the IDF, banned, constricted, or killed ...
Given that the pond is only observing from a distance, as is the Major, it would seem that there are very few independent reporters on the actual Gaza ground, because genocide, much like mushrooms, prefers the dark.
The reptiles interrupted with a snap of a Satanic figure ...
... but it was only a temporary distraction because the Major was hitting his conspiracy stride ...
A few samples ...
...Israel has launched a relentless assault on the Gaza Strip, killing more than 28,000 people. In the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, it arrested about 7,000 people, sometimes without charges, making the total number of Palestinian prisoners nearly 10,000, adding serious overcrowding to the challenges they face.
At least 250 of those taken are children.
More than half of these detainees are in administrative detention, meaning Israel will hold them for months without due process or charges.
...In Negev Prison, prisoner Thaer Abu Asab was killed simply for asking a guard if there was a ceasefire, a released prisoner, who requested anonymity, told Al Jazeera. He added that prisoners were beaten in their cells near-daily.
When Abu Asab asked his question, the response was an ominous “I’ll show you,” then the guard called a whole unit into Abu Asab’s cell. They beat him with iron rods all over, including his face, and left him lying there.
The prisoners were afraid to ask for medical attention, but eventually, unable to watch him suffer, they shouted until a nurse came to examine him. Two days later, they were told he had died.
Everyone in Abu Asab’s cell, the anonymous prisoner said, was beaten with iron rods after that.
The PPS has recorded thousands of injuries – fractures, bruises and worse – among imprisoned Palestinians who get no treatment. Eight prisoners have died in the last four months after being beaten and not treated, like Mohammed al-Sabar, who died in Ofer prison on February 8.
...PPS also documented attacks in which special units entered prisoner’s cells to assault prisoners and trample on their heads. In one instance, prisoners were forced to the ground and female recruits were told to step on their heads.
Former prisoner Kamal Abu Arab said, “The occupation does not respect our humanity, and the prisoners feel forgotten. No one mentions them; no visits from lawyers, no visits from the Red Cross.
“News is prohibited, prayers and the call to prayer are prohibited, medical treatments are prohibited, and requests are prohibited. According to the administration of the prison service, we have no rights as humans.
“Does anyone remember us in this world?”
Since October 7, prison visits by the Red Cross to prisons in Israel have been stopped, suspending accountability.
The organisation would visit each prison at least once a month, and used to be officially notified by Israel’s prison service of all arrests. This allowed the Red Cross to inform the detainees’ families, but that is no longer possible.
Al-Zaghari says the Red Cross has not exerted enough pressure to ensure Israeli compliance with international standards.
For his part, Ziyad Abu Laban, official spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross, confirmed that there had been no prison visits since October 7 and that resuming the visits is a top priority.
Today, many Palestinians wonder why Israel escapes accountability and question the effectiveness of conventions and international agreements.
Why? Because they have willing quislings, lickspittle lackeys and useful idiots of the Major kind ... always willing to do a Tuckyo and ignore the Navalny in the wilderness ... or the
screams in the hospital ....
It's a pity that the pond has to dwell on mass murder, torture porn and genocide, but you won't find any of it in the Major ... or at least only one side of it, though the proportion of the collective punishment and displacement and the lust for vengeance now far outweighs the original outrage, accompanied of late with delusional tales and notions of total victory, when ongoing catastrophe seems much more likely ...
The pond's guess is that what we'll find in "the taking of Rafah" is more evidence of genocide, and its unfolding will be gruesome to behold, and Israel will find itself stained as the victim of bullying that became the regional sociopathic bully ...
Never mind, it's all far away and only lurks on a television screen, making occasional guest appearances ...
Sorry DP,, but when I read Lizard Oz reporting on defence and foreign affairs issues I expect breathless “big Boys’ Toys” excitement, semi-hysterical jingoism, rampant paranoia and disdainful contempt for any person or organisation that doesn’t share the author’s views. This Elizabeth Buchanan may be chock full of hardware-speak and acronyms but she comes across as far too level-headed and sane (albeit a mite dull) to ever be a serious rival for the Bro. She’s not even calling for war with China! As you note though, how come the Reptiles are now scrounging content from “Australian Foreign Affairs”? What next - “The New York Review of Books”? Mother Jones”?
ReplyDeleteNo apology required Anon, that's the point. The basic mistake was not warning of a war with China by Xmas, and everything went wrong from there. There's simply no excuse for writing about defence without a smothering layer of bro hysteria, and the source is beyond inexcusable. The reptiles must be really feeling the budgetary pinch;.
DeleteAs for the next step, the pond would love to see the reptiles reprinting material from The Conversation ... it's all they want and need. It's free ...
A free and open flow of information is central to The Conversation’s Charter.
All content is available free for republication via Creative Commons.
Why there might even be some climate science in there ripe for the free taking, though the pond does admit the NYRB, Mother Jones and the like would be a bold move. And what about Mediaite, which has all the best stories about the best people?
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/lawrence-odonnell-stunned-to-learn-trump-once-sold-urine-tests-as-part-of-business-empire/
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/fake-phony-feigned-outrage-hannity-sets-fire-to-media-mob-for-frenzy-over-biden-bribe-informant-lying-to-fbi/
I do have a vague recall of having seen a 'Conversation' article in a Murdoch rag (might even have been The Australian) via the MickeySoft Edge/Bing combo, but details unrecorded seem to have faded.
DeleteThe Conversation doesn't acknowledge any such possibility, though:
"You’ve probably read a Conversation article elsewhere – on the ABC, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Guardian, CNN, The New Zealand Herald or Australian Geographic ..."
https://theconversation.com/our-articles-are-free-to-republish-to-ensure-quality-information-is-available-for-all-141199
Jargon and acronyms abounded in abundance ... JAAAIA-ing. Who?
DeleteNot a reassuring snap... to me.
https://ces.cass.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/styles/cass_profile_pic_164_205/public/image/person/2021-05/Elizabeth_Buchanan_0.JPG
"Dr Buchanan is a Research Fellow at the ANU Centre for European Studies where her areas of expertise are Russian foreign energy strategy and Russian polar geopolitics.
... the Institute of the North, Alaska, and is a Polar Analyst for The Moscow Times. Elizabeth has been a Visiting Scholar with The Brookings Institution and has work experience in the global oil sector. In 2018, she was an Australian Institute of International Affairs (AIIA) Early Career Research Awardee and in 2019 Dr Buchanan was listed as a ‘Young Woman to Watch in International Affairs’."
https://ces.cass.anu.edu.au/people/dr-elizabeth-buchanan
Oh dear, that explains a lot ...
DeleteJonathon Conricus via the Maj. Mitch.: "As both Egypt and the US are ratcheting up pressure on Israel not to take Rafah..." Funny, I thought they were merely insisting that whatever Israel does in Rafa, it should do it without killing and wounding quite so many Palestinian civilians, especially those of the female and childhood varieties.
ReplyDeleteFascinating, isn't it how "if you're not with me unswervingly, then obviously you must be against me". So anyway, on we go: "...it makes you wonder what embarrassing evidence Israeli combat engineers may find in the tunnels from Egypt to Gaza." "Embarrassing evidence" ? Of what and of whom ? Is he saying that a whole bunch of American stuff will be found, or what ?
The Cater citing Robert May (actually, given that reptiles are impressed by this kind of thing - Baron May of Oxford) had me close to rolling on the floor, laughing. Clearly he (and ‘Speccie’) could have benefited from Robert May’s wisdom before committing himself on the movement of stormwaters in quarries. He, and every other reptile commentator, would also have taken useful guidance from May’s writings on how simple expansions of the logistic readily demonstrated the characteristics of epidemics of hitherto unknown infectious agents. Instead they - Cater and Killer in particular, but Gigi is in there too - shied away from ‘the math’, and lectured us on ‘freedumb’ - as the best epidemiologists have always done.
ReplyDeleteI suspect the Cater found his quote from May (I cannot trace it) but has not read any of his major works. If Cater had, I suspect he would not have written that ‘energy grids are chaotic systems where fixed laws govern complex interactions and feedback loops but lead to seemingly random outcomes.’ Robert May was, initially, a chemical engineer/physicist, and the Cater statement is just a jumble of jargon. Energy grids are not inherently chaotic (lay people, including sociologists, are not readily persuaded that there is an actual science of chaos); ‘interactions’ include feedback; outcomes may not be convenient, but neither are they ‘random’. The Newcastle earthquake of 1989 put a massive, but unexpected, pulse into the electricity grid. The grid actually handled that quite well, although folk with kitchen clocks supplied from mains - a common appliance then - noticed a difference in the time indicated on those clocks, but otherwise there were few effects in power supply outside the earthquake zone.
But this is the Cater, isn’t it, and he wraps up with further feeble attempt at a bit of class distinction - Teslas in Mosman, Utes in ‘the bush’. Well, in this bit of genuine bush, producing a lot of food and wine - the lady on the machine next to me in the gym this morning drove in from her vineyard in her Tesla. There is a Tesla charging station 200 metres up the road from our front gate, and I see several other brands of EV parked in the street when I treat myself to a good coffee in town.
Memo Cater, and local member Littleproud - on our road is depot for one of the transport companies that delivers fruit and veggies daily to the markets in Brisbane. From about 4 pm each day, local producers chug up the hill to get their produce on the 8 pm service to the city. Utes do not have wnough capacity for the average days pick of capsicums, or whatever - those farmers maintain 3- and 5- tonners, some half a century old, to get their produce to the depot. But the exercise is about the myths, and we had Spud on Sky earlier today, talking about the dreadful imposition on utes from the feds.
Nothing much to add to that, Chad, other than the bleedin' bloody obvious that should they ever actually read what you've written, they will barely understand a word of it.
DeleteGB - Robert May believed it was important that those in the general populace who actually wanted to know stuff (and not hope to absorb it easily from mass media) should be able to understand what he was writing about, so he put great care into his writing for more popular press - the better magazines, and suchlike. The average graduate from provincial red-brick uni should have had no trouble understanding what he wrote. Early on, he included routines for programmable calculators, which would deliver co-ordinates on graph paper to reproduce the effects he wrote about. That was in the days when getting many desktops to produce a graph was difficult. I recall that the Commodore 64 was actually quite good at that, but it took a long time for Microsoft to catch up.
DeletePoint being - the Cater, and Killer, and even Gigi, should have had no problem whatever going through May's work. They might even have found some pleasure in it - if they were of genuinely inquiring mind.
Just a few major qualifications there, Chad, like "if they were of genuinely inquiring mind". And if they were do you reckon they'd be what they are ?
DeleteA balmy 49.0c in the west DP.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-19/wa-weather-heatwave-continues-as-flood-warning-issued-kimberley/103485184?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web
I remember driving on the Great Northern Highway one summer afternoon about 20 years ago when Perth hit a then record of 47.6 which meant it was at least 2 or 3 degrees hotter where I was! I saw a bird fall out of a tree as I was driving. My air con died so I had the windows open but had to close them within minutes because the outside temperature was like a furnace. Not long after that we moved to Tassie!
DeleteHow long before we all have to move to Antarctica, d'you reckon ?
DeleteNow that's hot, that even puts Tamworth on one of its bad days in the shade ... but don't worry, the Caterist has got it sorted, with a little help from federal government cash in the paw ...
Delete