The pond is pleased to announce the results of its recent poll regarding the pond's popularity.
Some 87% of the readership voted that they were vastly entertained; of the remaining 13%, some were unable to vote due to unexpected poisoning, a surprise visit to the gulag or an accidental defenestraton from a high building.
A few attempted to throw ink on their computer screen, resulting in damage for which the pond admits no liability, and a few attempted dissent, and were shot out of hand. It's not for nothing that the pond wasted endless hours watching Justified.
As a result of this result, a reinvigorated pond intends to wage war on the reptiles, and if that results in the planet's destruction, rest assured that there has to be some reward for sociopathic megalomania and rampant narcissism, though the pond regrets that it hasn't yet worked out how to live in a style appropriate to its ambitions ...
Fawning comments will be accepted with a humble modesty only matched by a desire for bloodthirsty revenge on the few remaining dissidents ...
By golly, the pond is feeling a little lightheaded and in the mood for celebration, and then came a bum note, with a new reptile occupying the much desired far right position at the top of the digital edition ...
So bold, brave Ben, instead of packing up the tents and stealing into the night, has decided to take up the reptile cause and scored the plum far right position and yet ...
Keating – who has previously said the fate of democratically governed Taiwan was “not a vital Australian interest” – took aim at the News Corp broadsheet for its “distorted report”.
“The Australian proselytises that Australia either is or could be a Chinese military target,” Keating said.
“But the same newspaper urges Australia to sell the Chinese ever more tonnages of iron ore, presumably so that China would have no trouble putting together the armaments of scale necessary to actually attack and damage us.
This is all well and good for some, including the pond's correspondents. The pond has an abundance of contempt, but if the pond ignored the reptiles of the lizard Oz, where would the pond be in its quest for world domination?
Luckily the pond could contemptuously ignore Ben (and before him did nae ken Willy Glasgow giving the French clock lover the willies) and can instead endue the relentless ramblings of that old chook, Dame Groan, who this day took up arms to once again nuke the country to save the planet, and never mind that the said old chook has been astonishingly firm in her climate science denialism, making the move to nuke the country entirely moot and pointless and meaningless.
Never mind, let the nuking begin ...
With the groaning done and the country nuked and the planet saved from the climate science religious cult run by woke zealots, the pond realised it couldn't leave punters hanging.
Anyone wanting to have a good laugh will appreciate the end to that Brexit piece. The pond has left out a bit, but the conclusion is a ripper, all that you might expect from the reptiles' very own Delphic oracle ...
Strangely enough that snap of the hapless May, dressed in bright red, seemed to chime with the colour scheme in today's infallible Pope...
Talk about a splendid bum's rush ...
And with Boris and the May bot both out the revolving door, that leaves time for the bonus bro, and his never-ending war with China, currently scheduled for this Xmas, but facing an uphill battle ...Some might like to contemptuously ignore the offering, and it's true that the bromancer says nothing he hasn't already said umpteen times ...
Ah yes, we must all become Houthis if we're to have the bromancer's war with China by Xmas this year ... but alas and alack, woe is us, even the bromancer seems to have slumped a little, and given up the ghost, and there's nothing much to worry about here ... and that's good because the pond is intent on closing by celebrating its glorious victory ... have you not been entertained? And remember, there's only one correct response, or otherwise stand well clear of windows in tall buildings and be careful what you drink ...
It looks like a "no brainer" now means executing a con on those who have no brains, because the conservatives clearly imply one does not need any brains to accept the Coalition's phoney policy to reduce emissions.
ReplyDeleteAh well spotted, Anony; as an example of a 'no brain' con consider this from the Groan: "The completion of a (long-delayed) nuclear plant in Finland has led prices to fall dramatically". So, fall "dramatically" from what to what as documented by who, where ?
DeleteThen "...nuclear plants are expensive to build...but cheap to run. They also last a very long time." So how "cheap" is "cheap" ? And when they do come to their useful end, how expensive and how long is it to close them ? Or do we just lock the doors and concrete over the building and let it stand like that for a very long time ? Saves worrying about what do do with the 'spent fuel', I guess.
So, just the usual reptile 'brainless con' - no data from any named, reliable source and no worry about how feasible any of it is. Hence no more mention of "small modular reactors which don't exist" and back to good old-fashioned large-sized nuclear power 'factories' and just bury them when they end.
Bromancer: "Otherwise we would never have chased the car industry out of the country." Oh ? And just who exactly is the "we" who accomplished that ?
ReplyDeleteBut hey, some sense at last: "...defence technology, like medical technology, is becoming more capable and more expensive, except for drones and to some extent missiles...". Right on, Bro, and for the nation that gave the world the Jindivik, we should be as way out in front of the 'defence' technology as we are of the medical technology.
But Bromancer tells us: "For we still have not one single armed drone in our defence force and our holdings of missiles are miniscule." So, just think of all the tax money we've saved to spend on services and welfare, and especially on my Aged Pension.
Anyway, to end: "The Albanese government's defence strategy documents belong in the fantasy fiction section of the bookshop. Alas, the Chinese have nothing much to worry about here." What, was China worrying that we would invade it ? Or is the Bro saying that China has nothing much to worry about if it invades us ?
And if China does invade, and conquers our pitiful 'defence' - as the US won't have enough military to even begin to think of (not) rescuing us - what will it do with the place ? Repopulate it with pandas ?
But never mind, Bro, with a leader such as Spud Dutton, your lot will be back in power 'real soon now' to continue destroying Australian industry and running down our 'defence' just like it's been doing for most of the past three decades.
A nuclear power plant in Doomadgee, Burketown or Gregory? On stilts, perhaps?
ReplyDeleteDame Groan. Has used the cut and paste with her contribution as all she has done is repeated most of what has been previously written in the Murdochracy and this is their way of keeping up the continued promotion of nuclear energy. Would be interesting to know if this is accepted as her work and will be paid three hundred thousand wage.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteIf I might start with an aside - our Dame Groan refers to minister Bowen getting into a ‘bun fight’ with his party. That expression has such a wide range of meanings as to be useless in this kind of writing -
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/351211/what-is-the-origin-of-bunfight-and-how-has-the-term-evolved
But we must get to the serious (?) content - that last refuge of the economics writer - the market. I doubt, in her time in Adelaide, our Dame acquainted herself with any of the talks or writings of Hugh Stretton. Stretton - initially an historian - delighted in taking up calls by various writers to allow ‘the market’ to resolve some question of policy, by setting out how mixed was the economy in which the writer claimed particular virtue for ‘the market’.
One of Stretton’s main interests was urban development - where he pointed out that the gripes by ‘developers’ about strictures of town planning, were more than countered by the outlay by three levels of government in providing roads, public transport on those roads, tram or train lines, water and drainage, electric power, telephone lines (yes, it was a few years back - but I have no doubt what his position in the full NBN would have been) - which the ‘developer’ then wished to capitalise as part of maximising personal profit from dividing land into housing blocks of a size and orientation of his choosing.
Our Dame rather reflects the ‘developer’ attitude of those times. Hinkley has been ‘beset by delays and cost overruns, partly caused by government actions.’ Well - Sharri (disrespect) is still running the ‘Covid was cooked up in that lab’ so, to reptiles, that is government action, and Brexit - yep, that qualifies. A little further on she refers to costs because of ‘over-regulation’. Yep - let the market sort out the public safety/liabiity aspects of these things - what is the discount rate for contamination that lasts for centuries?
She continues to label the Gencost report as ‘controversial’ - presumably because earlier she confused accounting principles with more general ways to calculate depreciation of assets. But the Dame infers an advantage for putting nuclear plants where coal generators are to be closed down, because of the existing transmission lines. Much of that was enabled and paid for by state and federal governments, long time back. We of the cult do not expect a longer article from the Dame, showing us how to dissect the effect of the market out of the long-mixed economy of electricity generation in our land.
Not just Sharri, Chad; yesterday’s Reptile output included an article by Natasha Somebody quoting a claim that Covid “probably“ originated from a lab leak. So they’re still shouting - but is anybody listening?
DeleteAh Chad: "an historian" ! Now ever since as a young lad I was introduced to "an hotel" I have added the 'n' when the following word began with an 'h' ("I'd put an 'h' as Menzies once declared). And you're the only one I can remember to do the same.
DeleteAnonymous - steadily accumulating research into that whole series of viruses is denying Sharri's claimed 'evidence' that that strain of SARS-CoV-2 included structural characteristics which did not occur 'naturally. Every such structural characteristic has now been found in at least one, often several, of the many viruses in that taxonomic group.
DeleteBut, of course, these are the reptiles, who are conditioned not so much even to examine the science, as to look for possible controversy in the science. And if that fits into the larger political divisions from which Rupert (and, we understand now, Lachlan) expect to glean personal benefit or advantage, so much the better.
These "existing transmission lines" have been there as long as the power stations, 60 years of slow corrosion, erosion of foundations, fatigue, etc. They will not be able to be used for any new facility.
DeleteYou can imagine the conversation with the cockies: "I've got good news, we are removing the towers from your propeerty and remediating the area."
"Great!"
"Then we are going to put new towers in the same place."
"Bugger."
horror: the texts' e-clairaudience irrevocably has been altered.
DeleteThanks for the 2019 flashback, DP; it’s nice to be reminded of Dame Groan’s analytical and predictive skills.
ReplyDeleteGB - I meant to come back to your comment about using 'an' before a word beginning with 'h'. I think I have mentioned here that I spent much of the year of the Polio Epidemic semi-invalid, not because I had polio, but because of another condition which could not be treated during the peak of the epidemic. That being years before TV - I simply read, all day, every day. Very soon I wanted more than the few books available for my then age - 8-9 years, so friends of my parents loaned books that they had had - 19th century classics, such as Dickens, and early 20th century books for what had been young adults. When I returned to school, I became aware that I had a much wider vocabulary than my age group, and more English forms of expression, because there were few books for that age group written by Australian writers with Australian idiom, We had been a captive market for English publishers. No bad thing overall, but an odd tangent to my early development.
ReplyDeleteI had the pleasure of dining once with Bob Gregory, significant economic adviser mainly from the Keating times. I found he had similar, but much longer, experience, because he actually contracted polio. He was put in an adult ward, and also filled in his days reading incessantly, which was how he discovered economics!
Oh, that does 'explain' a lot. However, considering vocabulary, given how many words inhabit English dictionaries, none of us truly possess a "wider" vocabulary - though I was fascinated to see that, according to Wikipedia, even Tamil, Korean, Portuguese and Finnish have more 'headwords' than English. English got to where it is by much 'borrowing', so I wonder how those other languages got to so many.
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dictionaries_by_number_of_words
There's also the difference between 'words I know the meaning of' and 'words I actually use in speaking and writing' - what counts as 'vocabulary'?