The pond went to sleep thinking it would be the usual start to a Friday - a bit of Henry and a load of kant - but it turned out that there was a new clown in town, perched in the hotly contested far right perch atop the digital Oz, and the pond knew it had to go there ...
It was the use of "woke onslaught" that acted as the eye candy ... followed by that line "travelling to Australian from Britain", though it failed with the boom tish, with no joke along the lines of "like every convict, black sheep, Caterist and Vespey before me ..."
Still, the pond is always up for anything different, anything new, because in lizard Oz land, the incessant repetition of hack lines parroted by the hive mind quickly leads to a sense of numbness and ennui ...
The pond confesses that it didn't have the first clue about this kissing UK cousin to the reptile Mafia,
Konstantin Kisin, nor that he'd been in country a whole two weeks and thereby qualified as an expert, but that header did produce the pond's usual response ...
Apparently this cousin Kisin passes himself off as a satirist, though the pond wondered if doing an impression of a sulphur-crested cockatoo passed as satire these days ...
The snaps were no better, with this cuz Kis thinking that the onion muncher was still a significant figure, up there with the Price is wrong ...
The pond quickly realised that it had been conned. Why attend to a visiting parrot spouting the usual nonsense when we have locals at Sky News to do the job?
More talk of woke, and the pond felt the need for the full treatment ...
What amazed the pond was the banality, no better than a postcard back home ...
Nope, it still reads like hack talk, much like everything else in the screed.
Even the huge illustrations were beyond the usual vacuousness the pond associates with the reptiles ...including an attendant lord, one that will do to swell a progress, start a foreign policy or two, advise the Rish!, no doubt an easy tool, deferential, glad to be of use, politic, cautious, and Brexit meticulous, full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse, at times indeed, almost ridiculous, almost at times, the fool ...
And then it was over, almost before it began, living proof that furriners shouldn't be allowed to go anywhere and provide evidence that multiculturalism is a waste of space ...
He's a satirist? Why then the wench and satire are dead, but not before passing off as low comedy a migrant complaining about bloody migrants ...
Grifters gotta grift, and maybe that was the only way for a Ruski to make it in the UK, what with Vlad the sociopath and all, but if he decides to change countries again, he could fit right in ...
And so to below the lizard Oz fold in the hope of something better ...
There was the usual stuff. Jimbo going behind the paywall to help the Emeritus Chairman extract precious shekels to find out what Jimbo and his government were thinking, and the meretricious Merritt doing his best Michael Gove impression, and Col urging on the Gaza genocide - lots more killing to be done in the killing fields - and cackling Claire in the usual state of TG hysteria - is there a Potter in the house? - but what's this, say it ain't so, dear sweet long absent lord, it's lloydie of the amazon ...
the pond can't begin to reckon at how long it's been since the pond spotted lloydie out and about below the fold, but there he was ...
there will be others who get excited about lloydie doing his usual denialism, but the pond was more compelled by the header. where had all the caps gone?
the tangerine tyrant uses "all caps" mode all the time, but here they'd gone completely missing. was it some kind of nimbin-style protest at authoritarianism? was it some kind of of revolution in favour of the lower case?
do climate groups and government share an authoritarian bent, shown by the wicked use of caps?
The pond had been completely blind-sided and hornswoggled, and it took considerable strength to return to the world of woke caps.
Even worse, there were only two gobbets, what with Lloydie of the Amazon having turned into a compleat slacker ... he must be living near a windmill, and be suffering from all the noise emanating from Taiwan ...
Splendid stuff, peak Catch-22, full Dr Strangelove peace is our profession ...
... but while it's good to get a whiff of the old Lloydie, really Mein Gott did it so much better, though by this morning his latest offering had disappeared from the below the fold view ...
Mein Gott, what a master this Gott is, and the pond is like a foolish mouse with a suddenly developed taste for cheese.
There was one bummer, the reptiles felt the need to insert a cartoon ...
What ever happened to
Spooner? Perhaps a Melburnian could explain, but his pandering to the reptiles is beyond the valley of the pathetic.
Was it getting turfed from L'Age? Was it a peculiar desire to still stay relevant in dotage, even if that meant turning into a compleat reptile suck?
The pond isn't in the business of telling someone born in 1946 (or so his wiki says) that he's a tad past his prime - he could be running for the presidency of the USA - but something went sadly awry, and he's about as funny as getting slapped in the face with a week-old haddock ...and Mein Gott, he's distracting the pond from Mein Gott ... and suddenly we're back to nuking the country to save the planet ...
Mein Gott, what a marvel he is, and it's only the illustrations that disappoint ...
What an exciting time to be alive, what with the war on the renewables and the Gaza genocide. This infallible Pope is for you Col ...
And after that celebration for Col, the pond had to tackle the inevitable.
At one time, the pond thought it might hold the hole in the bucket man over until late in the day, what with the excitement of Lloydie of the Amazon and Mein Gott and the visiting clown, but what the hell Archie, toujours gai, and there's no time like the present, and if Henry can carry on like a terminal bore aiming to induce ennui, so can the pond ...
The pond has no view on the Kerr matter. It once used to be that matters before a court were left to the court, no matter that it might be a supremely stupid court following sublimely silly English laws.
Dame Slap ended that caper with her carry on about the Lehrmann matter, but the pond sees no reason to follow the reptiles, even with an "allegedly" or pompous Henry's alternative way of offering a big billy goat butt, "That is not to say Kerr will necessarily be found guilty", even if then followed with another caveat that made the pond cringe.
What's interesting is how our Henry seizes on a trivial matter, and manages to make it part of his weekly cant ...
How weird does it get? Well as usual, the reptiles slipped in a free shot of Kant himself ...
Where does our Henry get his statistics from? Sorry, the pond can't say. Google his stats, and he's the first hit that comes up.
The second (pdf) offered a suggestion that likely he'd embrace ...
Calls for sentencing reform commenced in the mid-1880s. In his 1885 Annual Report, the Inspector-General of Prisons recommended the substitution of whipping for imprisonment for juvenile offenders in order to avoid the evils of imprisonment (VYB, 1886-87). That recommendation was given effect by the Juvenile Offenders Act 1887 which give magistrates power to impose corporal punishment upon boys aged under fifteen in addition to, or in lieu of, imprisonment The punishment could be inflicted by a cane or birch by a police constable.
A good whipping! Surely this is the best solution.
Any insolence shown to the police, especially by uppity, presumptuous black folk, and it's out the back with them for a good whipping...why restrict it to boys under fifteen, when we can all see the need to bring back the lash!
But the pond digresses, and must return to learn more by sitting at the feet of the master ...
At this point the pond almost had a fainting fit. No, not the Xian white nationalism exuding from the hole in the bucket man, but the way the reptiles dragged in yet another huge snap of their darling Clementine ... their favourite comical villainess of the moment ...
Sure enough, she turned up in the litany of Henry abuse in the final gobbet, with the pompous, portentous, preening pedant excelling himself by tossing around terms like half-educated and neo-stupid, in a way that only a condescending old gibbering goat of the first water might manage ...
Yep, satire is dead. There's a blathering, blithering idiot bemoaning the neo-stupid, while talking about a de-civilising process. How is it then that after reading this pompous old goat the pond routinely feels like standing outside News Corp in Surry Hills and throwing eggs at the front door?
Never mind, time to end the epic outing with a cartoon, and Jimbo, for helping out the Murdochian paywall, this immortal Rowe's for you ...
"The pond confesses that it didn't have the first clue about...Konstantin Kisin,
ReplyDeletenor that he'd been in country a whole two weeks".
As part of my ongoing Oz studies I thought I should look up the meaning
of Moomba after the annual parade Melbourne held in it's honor was
noted in yesterday's blog.
You never know, it could be part of the final exam along with Donald Horne's
musings and Konstantin Kisin's insights.
It turns out Moomba is a Aboriginal term meaning 'Up your ass'.
Far be it from me to question what the city fathers, GB and his fellow Victorians
get up to in their celebrations, but one can only imagine what the parade
floats look like.
Konstantin Kisin? I'll go with Wikipedia's sage advice re "a new clown in town, perched in the hotly contested far right perch atop the digital Oz":
Delete"This section may lend undue weight to certain ideas, incidents, or controversies. Please help improve it by rewriting it in a balanced fashion that contextualizes different points of view. (December 2023)"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Kisin
Perch determinism?
Top Far Right.
So you prefer the American 'ass' to the Aussie 'bum', JM.
DeleteAnyway, all we do is get together and have fun ... when the weather is good. Though actually I can't recall ever having seen a Moomba float - not my scene. One of the few things I did enjoy was the Herald Sun Outdoor Art Show in the Treasury Gardens - the art of the common people. But I don't think that's still a part of it in these desultory days.
GB - "So you prefer the American 'ass' to the Aussie 'bum', JM."
DeleteWell, I understand Kylie Minouge sweeps the world in such competitions
so I will defer to the Aussie 'bum'.
Actually your Moomba fest as you described it is something I would attend.
A major city throwing a party, the excitement, crowds, kids all agog, strangers
far more friendly, art exhibits/food courts, why not go, it's one of the benefits
of living in/by the big smoke.
Big smoke, that's strine for city. I am making strides in my Oz studies.
Yeah, Moomba has its attractions and not the least is the parade on the 4th day - the 'Labour Day' public holiday on the Monday. But now we have a public holiday on the last Friday before the AFL Grand Final too, so things are looking up.
DeleteBut as to terms for derrieres, well the toilet paper rolls I buy has this on its packs: "Quilton loves your bum". Gotta love it don't we.
The pond much prefers arse to ass, but believes that on the evidence to date, the sillier the reptile column to hand, the better the read of the comments below. This could be mathematically quantified in the manner of a Godwin's law ...
DeleteYeah, one being a four-legged donkey type creature and the other being something we sit upon.
Delete"It pains me to point this out but if I have been invited to give a series of talks in your country, all is not well."
ReplyDeleteGeez is this guy Kisen up himself or what?
And as for Tony Abbott's ability to 'stare down' a resistant civil service and legal challenges, spare me! This was the man who vowed to shirtfront Putin ('You bet you are' being the words Credlin used in her coaching speech, only hours before, unfortunately repeated verbatim by Abbott to the media, which casued him to hastily add 'You bet I am!') and ended up giving him a koala to cuddle.
DeleteSo that’s how you score a fortnight’s holiday in Oz, courtesy of Gina and the IPA; just do a quick cut and paste from a stack of old Reptile opinion pieces.
ReplyDeleteTop performance from our Henry today; loads of pompous pontificating and lofty lecturing, peppered with Latin phrases, lectures on legal history and a few notable name-drops, along with a couple of superfluous side-swipes at causes and people disliked by the Hole In the Bucket Man. The only thing lacking was a Classical reference or two. I wonder if Henry ever realises that he comes across as a complete wanker?
ReplyDeleteKisin: "...the No campaign overturned a one-sided onslaught from the country's media, corporate and political elite." Ah well it's good to know that he doesn't reckon that the Murdochians are part of "the country's media" and that Spud Dutton isn't part of the country's "political elite."
ReplyDeleteAnd he really does "understand" Australia: "...all that was needed was for then prime minister Tony [Muncher] Abbott to stare down a resistant civil service and legal challenges to deliver Operation Sovereign Borders in 2013." Yep, that's all: no mention of the geography - it's a lot further from anywhere to Australia than it is across the Channel to Britain and landing pretty much anywhere but a major city is likely to turn out to be fatal (if your boat will stay afloat long enough to let you try) - and no mention that the majority of 'illegal' entrants simply flew in on commercial airliners. And still are.
But hey, despite being "the most successful multicultural country in the world" we'll just have to bow to the wisdom of Cameron and Merkel that "/i>multiculturalism doesn't work". And that's why a Russian-born like Kisin is a failure in Britain. Note though, that Australia's population was roughly 7 million in 1945 and is now just a bit over 27 million - a 386 per cent increase in just under 75 years, and given the Australian birthrate over that period, about 30 per cent were born overseas. How does that compare with any other nation on the planet ? For comparison, America's population was about 140 million in 1945 and is nearly 342 million now - about a 244 per cent increase. And in 2021 about 45 million Americans were born overseas. But nobody would call America a successful multicultural nation, would they.
Mein Gott is right about one thing: incredible technologies are being developed. CCS, SMR, you name it, they're incredible.
ReplyDeleteJust show me an artist’s impression of one of those molten salt reactors and I’ll bea believer.
DeleteHolely Henry: "With even the premiers'granting that process their blessing, it is not just cops on the beat who will pay its price." Now I have this vague memory that back a century or two ago, before there was an established police force, that "watchmen" used to guard the streets from their watch boxes and that a hobby of the upper class louts of the time was to "roll the watch" by overturning their boxes and rolling them down - watchmen still inside - any nearby hills or gradients on the pathways. I reckon that might have qualified as a 'scandalum magnatum'.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, "Sam Kerr may not have contravened the law..." Well that's good to know; thanks for enlightening us about such recondite matters, Holely. But now tell us, have "cops" ever misbehaved with the public ? Like they were the very epitome of courteous decency at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, weren't they. And what price did they pay for that again ?
Mein Gott refers to a “badly prepared” CSIRO report on energy provision. In media appearances today, Captain Spud has described the same CSIRO report as “discredited”. Sheer coincidence, of course. Detail provided by either of them - nil. Scientific credentials of either of them - nil. Spud later claimed he was referring to the economic credibility of the report. Spud’s economic qualifications - nil. I assume that Mein Gott has some sort of economic qualifications, given his career as a business journalist, but I’m starting to wonder.
ReplyDeleteWell from what I can see, Mein Gott has about the same level of credibility as Terry McCrann.
DeleteOne heartily appreciates the editor noting that Komrade Kisin is a satirist. That does explain the notions here shares today.
ReplyDeleteOne wonders why they do not do the same for Holey Henry.
ReplyDeleteApologies for my tardiness (Yoga called this morning, and Yoga cannot be denied), but the "conventional economics" that Gott was talking about yesterday, is analysed by Bill Mitchell at https://billmitchell.org/blog/?p=61604
It's the idea that
" Spiralling US public debt risks action from bond vigilantes – falsely marketed as “Markets Insight”, which would imply that there was knowledge being imparted, claims that:
Bond vigilantism is resurgent in the market for sovereign debt. That emerged with remorseless clarity from the brutal sell-off of UK gilts that toppled hapless British prime minister Liz Truss. Could the fiscal disciplinarians of the global investment community now turn their disruptive talents to the US Treasury market? "
and Mitchell shows that it is rubbish.
Let no reptile stand in the way of yoga (or yoghurt for lunch for that matter), but ta, a tidy link, and the pond is pleased as punch that Mein Gott is becoming a pond crowd pleaser ...
DeleteCould the lack of caps in the header to lloydie of the amazon’s article be intended as a distraction from the lack of substance in his contribution? There’s not much new in it, is there; as DP notes, just more of the usual denialism plus a bit of speculative “what if the planning process is altered?” guff. These days lloydie seems to coast along on the novelty of his rare appearances; he’s become a bit of a slacker, leaving it to the likes of the Caterist, the Dog Botherer and the Petulant One to put in the hard (well, soft really…) yards of regular weekly instalments of repetitive, tedious climate denialism. Must do better, lloydie; you can’t use the Amazon’s remoteness as an excuse forever!
ReplyDeleteit was a major mystery anon, until it dawned on the pond that it might be the reptiles reliving the french revolution and adopting the cry of égalité for letters ...
DeleteAs for lloydie of the amazon, it's true, he's become the slacker mumblecore of scribblers ...no budget, no plot, and repetitious dialogue ...
He always was just a bit like that, I reckon. He's the one with stuff all of his own to contribute. Now maybe that's a goodness, he is always at least a quick read.
Delete"Dr Greg Jericho, Chief Economist at the Australia Institute, spoke to renowned economist Stephanie Kelton, former chief economist to the US Senate Budget Committee, for a webinar about Modern Monetary Theory and her new film Finding the Money." https://youtu.be/l2mL2XquYBE
ReplyDeleteColes pay offer labelled ‘insulting’ as staff say they can’t afford to shop at own workplace
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/mar/15/coles-pay-offer-labelled-insulting-as-staff-say-they-cant-afford-to-shop-at-own-workplace
Why on Earth do they think they should be able to ?
Did all of those interest rate rises have any effect upon inflation at all ? Or did they just make lots of peoples' lives worse for no good, or in fact any, reason ?
ReplyDeleteAnd will we ever abandon voodoo economics ?
Higher interest rates are meant to lower inflation. US economist John Cochrane says there's only 'shaky' evidence it works
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-15/interest-rates-cannot-fix-inflation-by-themselves-economist/103587562