Last night's Media Watch reminded the pond of why it never bothered to watch the ABC any more - apart obviously Media Watch, a requirement of the pond's herpetology studies.
The yarn revolved around the former Chairman Rudd hysteria lathered up by lickspittle News Corp lackeys ...
...soon enough it was the dominant political story.
The ABC calling it a ‘withering attack’, crossing to its Washington correspondent shortly after Sky released its clip:
MICHAEL ROWLAND: Barbara, good morning. What did Donald Trump say? - News Breakfast, ABC, 20 March, 2024
The ABC even staking out the Australian Embassy to get footage of Rudd emerging in a car.
The ABC calling it a ‘withering attack’, crossing to its Washington correspondent shortly after Sky released its clip:
MICHAEL ROWLAND: Barbara, good morning. What did Donald Trump say? - News Breakfast, ABC, 20 March, 2024
The ABC even staking out the Australian Embassy to get footage of Rudd emerging in a car.
The tendency of the cardigan-wearers to act as a reptile echo chamber should be demeaning and dispiriting, but it's what happens when you're too lazy to get out of your News Corp spoon-fed bed.
Why not simply go for the reptiles, who always make their motivations plain?
..It was seven hours of pure delight.
But Sharri Markson then let the cat out of the bag:
SHARRI MARKSON: Well I can reveal that Rudd is furious about it and is blaming us here at Sky News for sending Nigel Farage that question …
Well Rudd can’t expect us not to ask Trump about these comments when Rudd spent years calling for a Royal Commission into our company and endlessly criticised our public interest journalism. - Sharri, Sky News Australia, 20 March, 2024
But Sharri Markson then let the cat out of the bag:
SHARRI MARKSON: Well I can reveal that Rudd is furious about it and is blaming us here at Sky News for sending Nigel Farage that question …
Well Rudd can’t expect us not to ask Trump about these comments when Rudd spent years calling for a Royal Commission into our company and endlessly criticised our public interest journalism. - Sharri, Sky News Australia, 20 March, 2024
Public interest journalism? Good old Sharri (disrespect), that's a new twist ... and there was the pond thinking it was just bog standard reptile payback, the murmuration of reptiles, offering the emeritus chairman the chance to put more shekels in the purse while deploying gutter press yellow tabloid hysteria, down there with the orange Jesus himself, who clearly didn't have a clue about the set-up.
In the interest of helping out the cardigan wearers, here's some more reptile stories they can bray about at breakfast ...
Dear sweet long absent lord, that's a rare sighting. The old biddie scored the top far right perch, the highly desired position in the lizard Oz. It meant the pond could ignore the current reptile war on EVs, which strangely reminded the pond of the good old days when little Timmie Bleagh and his comrades mounted a campaign to save tungsten bulbs ...
It probably will only last a little while, but Dame Groan's memories of the good old days of coal must have given her the inside running ...
It should go without saying that the pond only runs the Groaning for her cult devotees. The pond is usually more compelled by the remnants of the lizard Oz graphics department. It must take incredible skill for the intern to rustle up that shot of the skyline, apparently to reassure readers the lights are still on, but usually reserved for real estate ...
No wonder the pond can never understand hide nor hair of Dame Groan, it never makes a lick of sense, and so the pond must turn to the cultists to explain it all ...
Meanwhile, still aiming to help the cardigan wearers in their quest for topics to discuss over their muesli, the pond looked below the fold ...
Kate, Clive doing teaching points, the bouffant one mourning transparency?
Mein Gott, how could any of them stand a chance? Clearly, it was economics Tuesday at the pond, with a serve of the Billy Joel man as a bonus ...
Dame Groan cultists might take pleasure in the old biddie's scribblings, but the pond has developed a real taste for Mein Gott's riffs on the "we'll all be rooned" reptile routine ...
Who can forget Amazon Let Its Drivers' Urine Be Sold as an Energy Drink?
The drink had all the hallmarks of a beverage sensation. Striking design, bold font, and the punchy name Release. But inside, each bottle was filled with urine allegedly discarded by Amazon delivery drivers and collected from plastic bottles by the side of the road.
That didn’t stop Amazon from listing it for sale, though. Release even attained number one bestseller status in the “Bitter Lemon” category. It was created by Oobah Butler for a new documentary, The Great Amazon Heist, which airs on Channel 4 in the UK today.
Butler is a journalist, presenter, and renowned puller of stunts—he’s probably most famous for turning his shed in a London garden into the number one ranked restaurant on Tripadvisor. The Great Amazon Heist begins with him infiltrating an Amazon distribution center in Coventry with a hidden camera and speaking to workers who complain of foot and back pain, potentially dangerous working conditions, and near-constant surveillance. Butler spends his first day unloading a baking hot truck with no working fan or air conditioning.
Mein Gott that sounds like the perfect drink for Mein Gott as he peddles the Amazon Solution, featuring the Amazon Clause, which the pond understands is closely related to the Mein Gott Ultimatum or perhaps the Mein Gott Identity or the Mein Gott Supremacy or the Mein Gott Legacy ...
If there’s a theme to the documentary, it’s that it’s remarkably simple to outwit one of the world’s biggest companies. For his next trick, Butler gets his nieces—aged 4 and 6—to purchase products that are only intended to be sold to adults. In at least four cases, legally required age verification measures were not in place at either the point of sale or delivery. By placing orders with voice control through Alexa, the girls were able to order knives, saws, and rat poison to their front door. Some of these packages were delivered to Amazon lockers, making it physically impossible for the delivery driver to check whether the person receiving the item was an adult.
And so to a final Mein Gott gobbet, and don't forget to place that urine order through Alexa ...
After those top notch offerings, what better way to finish off the day with a bang than a serve from the piano man himself, the bromancer, in fine 'war with China by Xmas' fettle ...
Still bitter about Gough? You can take the bro out of the DLP, but you can never take the DLP out of the bro ... and so to the snaps, albeit in reduced form ...
His obsession with his war on China means mentions of the genocide in Gaza or the butchery in Ukraine aren't that common, and so the pond must go the 'toon as a reminder of world events...
.
.. but it's a small price to pay if it means exposing the fiendish deviant leftists intent on ruining the bromancer's day ... because no one else has the instinctive feel for the issues like the piano man ...
Ah, he mentioned AUKUS, and luckily there was a Wilcox to hand ...
By golly, it's amazing how time with the bromancer flies when you're having fun with the 'toons.
Amazingly the bromancer even thinks climate change is important, as if offering some sort of weak-kneed sop or throwaway line would suggest he's a progressive up against Dame Groan and the rest of the bubble-wrapped hive mind ...
Meanwhile, the pond must turn to the infallible Pope for news of the latest reptile culture war ...
How can public debate be impoverished when the lizard Oz has the Billy Joel man always standing by, ready to be outraged at the drop of a hat or a bottle of urine?
Sure the pond has missed all the bigly news of the mango Mussolini's latest great escape, or the weirdness of Marge, or the young earth speaker or the GOP ...
... but that's what the 'toons are for, though the immortal Rowe tested the pond's limits by suggesting that Tasmania was still an interesting topic.
The pond had turned off the ABC's election coverage the moment it started ... and as for the title of the immortal Rowe's 'toon, the pond wondered if he was referencing one of the most obscure Australian movies ever made, Chasing Parked Cars, also here ...
So essentially Mein Gott wants to shift completely over to the gig economy? Yeah, that will go down well. At least he gives some indication of what he believes to be increased productivity, instead of just throwing the term around, as do Ned and other Reptiles. Unfortunately Gott defines it as “individuals working like dogs for minimum rates, zero protection and entitlements, while corporate profits soar”.
ReplyDeleteGotta love the way that the Gottster appears to have read the minds of big biz types to ascertain their reactions to Jimbo’s comments to the Business Council; he gives no indication of having actually spoken to any of the attendees. The man certainly enjoys a rich fantasy life.
Austrian-Chicago Schools' neoclassical-neoliberal-laissez-faire-corporate-fascistic-feudalism: doppelgood. Frankfurt-Freiburg Schools' social-market-codeterministic-ordoliberal-capitalism: überbad. Geh schneller, Untermensch!
DeleteAn enquiry into Federal funding for “think tanks”?
ReplyDelete*gasp* What could this mean for the likes of the Menzies Institute?
More money ?
DeleteDP, I consider myself a loyal reader, but 'the Billy Joel man' has me stumped. (I'm going to kick myself, aren't I?)
ReplyDeletehttps://loonpond.blogspot.com/2024/02/in-which-pond-endures-groan-but-bro.html
DeleteTwo things from Mein Gott (getting to like that moniker). He fires off ‘Naturally, such a basic change in enterprise control reduces productivity and increases costs over a wide area’ - as if that were axiomatic, in part because it starts with ‘Naturally.’
ReplyDeleteI would readily nominate people like Ricardo Semler, with SEMCO Partners, and Spedan Lewis, who set up the John Lewis Trust, as principals of businesses who rather saw a staff co-operative structure as conducive to productivity and reduction in costs - oh, and as nurturing a sense of well-being and identity across staff.
When it comes to a room full of Australian CEOs, it may well be better to preach the supposed benefits of top down command and control. That room will readily agree with you, but do not seek confirmation in management literature.
The treasurer also suggested that his roomfull should consider investment, and, apparently, declared himself prepared to look at appropriate policies to foster such an attitude. I suppose that was better than pointing out that during the period of laughably cheap money, under the previous administration, many of those same CEOs did not direct that manna into developing the enterprises they were supposed to be guiding, for the benefit of shareholders, but used much of it for various tricks to consolidate (?) shares, or take-over pesky competitors, who were ruinin’ good industries by making them competitive.
But, if you are ‘contributing’ to the flagship - best to write what those who claim to be managers say. They are always more likely to read if they see themselves reflected in the print.
"a sense of well-being and identity" ? No, sorry, that'll never catch on.
Deleteand the Dame Groan - We may have to get the elders of the cult together to work out what was ‘the derivatives market within the NEM’, and, more to the point, why derivatives would be ‘a necessary feature of efficient markets.’
ReplyDeletePerhaps that must be sought in many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore.
I recall that when Donald Rumsfeld made his well-known pronouncement about 'known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns' he omitted the class of unknown knowns - ie, the things we know but have forgotten. There's a lot of that in the writing of the reptiles, and especially the Groaner because she seems to attempt to incorporate some actual knowings into her meanderings.
DeleteThere are known Groans and unknown Groans (I’ll get my coat…)
Delete... speaking of reptilian Mutter Hari sheddings ...
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johari_window#See_also
https://kevan.org/nohari
Orwell and Andrew Gelman agree with DP...
ReplyDelete"No wonder the pond can never understand hide nor hair of Dame Groan, it never makes a lick of sense, and so the pond must turn to the cultists to explain it all ..."
"Amazingly the bromancer even thinks climate change is important, as if offering some sort of weak-kneed sop or throwaway line would suggest he's a progressive up against Dame Groan and the rest of the bubble-wrapped hive mind ... "
"Mein Gott that sounds like the perfect drink for Mein Gott as he peddles the Amazon Solution, featuring the Amazon Clause, which the pond understands is closely related to the Mein Gott Ultimatum or perhaps the Mein Gott Identity or the Mein Gott Supremacy or the Mein Gott Legacy ..."
Gelman: "Conversely, consistently cloudy writing can be an indication that the writer ultimately doesn’t want to be understood.
"In Orwell’s words:
[The English language] becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.
"He continues: [insert topic du jour]
"In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness."
https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/03/25/the-contrapositive-of-politics-and-the-english-language-one-reason-writing-is-hard/
"One reason writing is hard is that we use writing to cover the gaps in our reasoning." Yep, there's a whole bunch of reptiles out there who can vigorously attest to that.
Delete