Every day the pond reads the lizard Oz, it departs knowing what's been offered has given rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias.
That's a polite way of saying that it's not so much a newspaper as a hive mind of barking mad propagandists of the far right kind, so it was inevitable that they'd put biased Dame Slap front and centre in this morning's edition, as a perverse kind of defiance of a recent finding ...
For a parlour game, the pond sometimes likes to run through a listicle rating the reptiles in order of nastiness, and invariably Dame Slap comes out on drop.
There's a really vicious mean streak in her, an obsessive compulsive quality, a savage desire to rip at throats and feast on the blood which few of the other reptiles can match ...
She's a thoroughly nasty person who knows how to nasty, and loves to nasty ...
Luckily the pond always red cards her - her reputation remains in tatters - and so can turn to Media Watch last night.
After watching the segment Rolfe's media 'friend', the pond was astonished that Kristin Shorten was still in the lizard Oz employ and still regarded herself as a journalist, and yet there she was, proud as punch and enormously pleased with herself ...
But then how could she be a reptile without giving rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias?
Down below the fold there was the usual Tuesday fare ...
Before getting on to the usual groaning, the pond can report with pleasure that Mein Gott remains a stunning new pond favourite ...
Using the pond's rating system, the pond proposes that each new Mein Gott offering puts your average groaning in the shade ...
Sure there's the usual hagiographic snap ... downsized by the pond ...
Would the Price is wrong have been able to explain the greatest policy initiative to hand?
Mein Gott, we need to nuke the country now. Is there an SMR in the house?
Mein Gott, all this Dutton and Price caper makes for some great comedy stylings...
The pond supposes the reason for Mein Gott's pain is that on some mornings he's out on his bike peddling fast and furious to deliver coffee for a dollar ... and grateful for a zac for a tip ...
Then there was an unfortunate visual interruption ...
And there you go, it turns out that the mutton Dutton doesn't even have the skill set of a drover's dog, though this really does defame working dogs.
The pond's brother-in-law shearer had a working dog that showed infinitely more intelligence and skill than your average coalition politician when it came to herding sheep ...
Still, everyone's a winner ...
And here the pond must calm a rising sense of panic and alarm.
Please, please, relax, keep knitted sock feet under academic table, the pond's sudden taste for Mein Gott's ramblings won't interfere with the pond's loyalty to a Tuesday groaning ...
Ah, the Groaner has got on the AI bandwagon, and how soon can she be replaced by a machine? Thanks to Crikey we know how adept machines are at sounding like a lizard Oz columnist, or vice versa ...
Truth to tell, all the pond could think in relation to all that was John Naughton's recent AI's craving for data is matched only by a runaway thirst for water and energy...
One of the most pernicious myths about digital technology is that it is somehow weightless or immaterial. Remember all that early talk about the “paperless” office and “frictionless” transactions? And of course, while our personal electronic devices do use some electricity, compared with the washing machine or the dishwasher, it’s trivial.
Belief in this comforting story, however, might not survive an encounter with Kate Crawford’s seminal book, Atlas of AI, or the striking Anatomy of an AI System graphic she composed with Vladan Joler. And it certainly wouldn’t survive a visit to a datacentre – one of those enormous metallic sheds housing tens or even hundreds of thousands of servers humming away, consuming massive amounts of electricity and needing lots of water for their cooling systems.
On the energy front, consider Ireland, a small country with an awful lot of datacentres. Its Central Statistics Office reports that in 2022 those sheds consumed more electricity (18%) than all the rural dwellings in the country, and as much as all Ireland’s urban dwellings. And as far as water consumption is concerned, a study by Imperial College London in 2021 estimated that one medium-sized datacentre used as much water as three average-sized hospitals. Which is a useful reminder that while these industrial sheds are the material embodiment of the metaphor of “cloud computing”, there is nothing misty or fleecy about them.
The pond confesses that it too clutters up the cloud with trivia. Remorse is all very well, but way off topic, and already the pond can hear a cry from the back row of the stalls, "what about the bloody difficult, pesky, uppity, invading furriners?"
Sad to say, Dame Groan is too busy bagging unis to get on to her favourite topic ...and there's always the English language to mangle, by deploying truly ugly words of the "credentialism" kind ...
Professor Judith Sloan is Honorary Professorial Fellow at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research at the University of Melbourne. She holds a first class Honours degree in Economics and a Master of Arts in Economics, specialising in Industrial Relations, from the university of Melbourne and a Master of Science in Economics from. the London School of Economics.
Just so you can keep the pecking order in mind ... oh and there was a snap of an under-qualified person looking serious...
The pond will leave commentary to anyone so inclined - there's something so deadening about the Groaner's groaning that all the pond can do is groan in unison - because room must be made for the bromancer.
Sad to report, the bromancer is back to his war on China.
The pond much prefers the bromancer when he's extolling the virtues of Billy Joel, Supertramp and Elton John, or even better when he lets the inner persecuted, deeply paranoid Xian loose, but such is the pond's loyalty, it tries to never miss a bro piece.
Sure the US might be sliding into authoritarian dictatorship, but attention must be paid to the bro's war on China.
There's just one preliminary warning. These days when the bromancer gets on to any of his hobby horses, he tends to waffle on like nattering "Ned". He can't seem to shut up ...
Come now, let's not be a Charlie, let's be Frank ...
... but the bro wasn't lost for words. He was busy rounding up allies for his war with China no later than Xmas this year ...
Might his war with China by Xmas be better replaced by the war on fire ants?
As a materialist philosophy, Marxist dialectics emphasizes the importance of real-world conditions and the presence of functional contradictions within and among social relations, which derive from, but are not limited to, the contradictions that occur in social class, labour economics, and socioeconomic interactions.
Or something like that, but once again the pond had filibustered it's way to the final gobbet ...
Like a king without a castle
Like a queen without a throne
I'm an early morning lover
And I must be moving on
From the war with China ...
Trust the bro to get it completely wrong in the usual bro way. What Burgess achieved was a desire to know who was the mystery guest ...
Maybe we'll get to find out under privilege.
And what poor form in that closer ...
A final bashing of the fush and chup folk across the dutch, and meanwhile, there's a crisis going down in an alternative real world, and the bromancer apparently doesn't have the first clue about it, though his kissing cousins at Faux Noise across the dutch have had a lot to do with it ...
"...grateful for a zac for a tip". Oh my, memories, memories ...
ReplyDeleteThe Groaner-
ReplyDelete>>I once taught economic statistics to university students with low entry scores - it was a nightmare. Most of them struggled, many lost self-confidence and a reasonable chunk failed. >>
To what extent were these students complete nongs, and how effective was the Dame and her teaching methods? Is it remotely possible that however brilliant she may be as an economist (*cough*cough*), the Dame was less than effective as an educator? Nah, can’t be - look how well she’s done the job in her columns all these years! Obviously she was only given students who were complete thickheads!
>>My advice to many of them was to consider alternative opportunities, such as becoming a tradie.>>
The Groaner could have done wonders as a Career Adviser. Can’t pass my course? Go and dig holes, change fuses or bang in nails. No, I’ve no idea if you’ll be any good at any of those things, but clearly that’s your only option.
It would be fascinating to read the testimonial of a few of the Dame’s former students.
Dame Groan - ‘I once taught economic statistics to university students with low entry scores. . . . .’a reasonable chunk failed. My advice to many of them was to consider alternative opportunities, such as becoming a tradie.’
DeleteNope - in none of the accepted meanings of ‘taught’, did you ‘teach’. You stood in front of a group of students, probably did some ‘talk and chalk’, and manifestly failed to instil the elements of the subject.
There are various sayings along the lines of ‘If you cannot explain what you are doing to 8-year olds, you probably do not understand it yourself.’
Anonymous (above) - for a younger Dame, it was an introduction to turning up, taking the money, and not delivering. Productivity Commission, anyone?
In keeping with adding verse to comments here - some Chaucer is appropriate -
A CLERK ther was of Oxenford also,
That unto logyk hadde longe ygo.
As leene was his hors as is a rake,
And he nas nat right fat, I undertake,
But looked holwe, and therto sobrely...
Nought o word spak he moore than was neede,
And that was seyd in forme and reverence,
And short and quyk and ful of hy sentence;
Sownynge in moral vertu was his speche,
And gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche.
Due recognition to 8yos, Chad: at least two of them are beating Grandmasters at chess nowadays. Says something about human reasoning, doesn't it: I don't know what, but something (and what would FIDE say about that ?).
DeleteBut yeah, what has the Groany ever done that would qualify as "teaching"?
shortenk@theaustralian.com.au So should we send a few destructive missiles Ms Shorten's way? Will it do any good?
ReplyDeleteMein Gott: "Yet there is no person in tthe parliament that understands poverty better than the Alice Springs based jacinta price." Well she would, wouldn't she. Everybody knows that Alice Springs is the poverty centre of the Asia Pacific and that Jacinta has lived her whole life begging for a zac.
ReplyDelete"...the entrenched 'fair go' belief among ordinary Australia would have delivered for the Drover's Dog." Ok, so either there is no such 'fair go belief' or Dutton really isn't even up to the standard of a drover's dog. What a choice of explanations.
But either (or both) way, no mutton for the Dutton Doggy.
Robert Gottliebsen's article gives the impression there are moves afoot to replace Ley with Price.
ReplyDeleteHmm: "Ah, the Groaner has got on the AI bandwagon, and how soon can she be replaced by a machine?" Can anybody assure us that she hasn't been already ? Only that AI does have some I, but does the Groaner ?
ReplyDeleteSo: "The government would be ill-advised to spend even more money on a bloated, poorly performing sector based on made-up targets." Yair, spot on Groany: universities were created for the scions of the privileged to have something to do between their Matric year and taking up a senior position in their parent's company.
I do wonder though, whether retaining both the CAE and the 'tech school' system wouldn't have been a lot better. I can remember when Brighton Technical School did a great job for less privileged boys and girls before it became 'Brighton Bay Secondary College' in 1989 and then was closed in 1991. And the Caulfield Technical School became the Monash University, Caulfield Campus. Has that really improved anything ?
Mein Gott’s gobbledygook “explanation” of how the Libs could have won Dunkley demonstrates that he would make a completely incompetent political strategist.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of the good folk of Dunkley - I wonder how they would feel about being patronised by the likes of Mein Gott, or The Caterist in yesterday’s edition?
Mein Gott!
ReplyDeleteNot "Something about a dialectical political culture, which sounded dangerously Marxist?"
Not Marxism Mein Gott!
Nuclear COALition Communism!
For Small Managerial Reactionaries.
"They were national strategic programs. The strategic programs were aligned with nuclear weapons programs. The government picked and enforced a single design for all of the reactors. The reactors were GW-scale due to thermal efficiencies required for cost effectiveness. The government ran human resourcing. The programs ran for 20 or 30 years. They built dozens of nuclear reactors to maintain the teams and momentum and to share lessons learned."
...
"This is obvious stuff looking backward from 2023. As I noted recently, nuclear energy and free markets aren’t compatible. Nuclear programs are state programs with subordinate corporate partnerships."
"What Drives This Madness On Small Modular Nuclear Reactors?
"So the SMR crowd decided to ignore most of history’s lessons about both the scale of reactors for commercial success and the conditions for success and lean into tiny reactors and lots of numbers. The hope was that Wright’s Law — where every doubling of the number of manufactured items once in production manufacturing would bring cost per item down by 20% to 27% — would enable them to be manufactured and deployed cheaply. However, the doubling requires an awful lot of reactors, and only under the most unrealistically optimistic of scenariosare they in the price range of wind and solar today by 2040."
https://cleantechnica.com/2023/11/30/what-drives-this-madness-on-small-modular-nuclear-reactors/
Like the pillow with pto in both sides, it keeps in turning up.
What a bitch slap is she has hitout at Drumgold because she has been outed as being in cahoots with Sofronoff and they have destroyed themselves and it will be their reputation that will remain in tatters as the Canberra government should have Sofronoff up for releasing his findings to Journalists before handing it to the government.
ReplyDelete