Ennui and a sense of existential despair are always at the door at anyone devoted to herpetology studies, and the quest for distraction from the numbing of the mind is endless, which is why the pond skipped the top of the digital edition, passed go, collected nothing, and arrived at the commentary section below the fold ...
Huzzah, Jimbo of the deep north railing at a woman... it meant cackling Claire could be avoided and so could the lizard Oz editorialist blathering how not paying taxes is good for profits ... (something News Corp is expert at) ...
It was straight into the bashing ...
Instead, after proposing that the GG has remarkably few powers, Jimbo of the deep north will explain why these should never be trusted to a woman, and why even the currish Kerr might be a better bet ...
Speaking of climate alarmism, the pond couldn't help but notice that the Nine rags were at it again, with Mike Foley's report Unprecedented spread of coral bleaching along Great Barrier Reef ..
At this point the reptiles slipped in a snap of a creature almost as terrifying as the creature sighted above, with the only redemption a matching snap of a reassuringly bald man ...
On the upside, thus far there's been no mention of Killer masks or the sort of RFK Jr anti-vax rhetoric that Killer loves ... though it would be nice to put this horrible flood waters in quarries whisperer behind us and move on ...
If you happen to be in the elderly category, you might want the government to understand that there's a price that was paid by the old, especially in Sweden ...
But the pond is stuck with the Major, doing his best for Benji and the war against humanity itself...
The best way to limit civilian casualties? Why do a Major and resort to disputing the numbers on the most specious grounds ... but first a few terrifying snaps ...
Bloody womyn, everywhere you look they're terrifying the aged white nationalists who make up the lizard Oz demographic ...
Now back to the Major, doing what he does best. Digging up a loon who hasn't actually been anywhere near Gaza, but who can allegedly count ... and for those who might not know, Tablet is a Jewish magazine, and to say that there's a remarkable bias and obtuseness in the piece is to make something of an understatement, as far removed from the fog of war and the killing fields as could be imagined, and naturally the yarn got a run in the likes of the Jerusalem Post, and so inevitably the Major, a parrot inclined to regurgitate without thinking ...
This is how it usually goes with climate science. Obsessing about alleged numbers is a convenient distraction from inconvenient truths ...
Meanwhile, the genocide carries on, with only a brief pause before the final allegedly safe zone is lined up for invasion ...
Al Jazeera has many issues, not least its financial backing, but at least it has reporters on the ground in Gaza, unlike wonky stats wonks doing wonky number counts ...
Naturally Jimbo of the deep north doesn't dwell on the nameless pretty bad monarchs ... the mission here is to bash a woman, so please focus ... and naturally her climate alarmism will get Jimbo of the deep north deeply agitated ...
Three quarters of the Great Barrier Reef has been hit in a widespread coral bleaching sparked by a marine heatwave, with aerial survey results revealing a major bleaching event is unfolding all the way along the 2300 kilometre ecosystem.
The world is now on the precipice of a global bleaching event, which is expected to be announced following these survey results.
Global warming is an existential threat to all coral reefs, driving more frequent and intense marine heatwaves.
“It’s alarming how extensive and severe this current coral bleaching event is,” said Australian Marine Conservation Society reef campaign manager Lissa Schindler.
Bleaching on the Reef was first detected a month ago, but aerial surveys conducted by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority – released on Friday night – show that 75 per cent of 1001 reefs inspected contain bleached corals, which means the organisms are struggling to survive.
The survey included reefs in the Torres Strait, where bleaching was not as widespread compared with mainland Australia’s coastline.
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said a global event was looming due to widespread bleaching on many of the northern hemisphere’s coral reefs over the past year, combined with the likelihood of widespread bleaching in the southern hemisphere.
Bleaching is categorised by the proportion of reefs in a region that display signs of distress.
Half of the Great Barrier Reef has been hit by high to very high bleaching, the new aerial surveys found, with and 10 per cent classed as extreme bleaching – when more than 90 per cent of corals are distressed.
Aerial surveys are conducted by sight from planes at 500 feet, giving the visibility of corals down to about five metres below the sea surface.
And so on, but naturally Jimbo wasn't terrified by any of that, he was terrified by a snap of a shockingly outrageous woman ...
Hmm, those terrifyingly large glasses are very 1990s.
What's that, it's the T-shirt that terrified poor Jimbo? After Jimbo of the north picked himself up from his fainting fit, it was time for a final gobbet ...
The pond is only a bush lawyer, the worst kind, but shouldn't there be some sort of disclaimer attached?
Like these are only the personal views of a toad from the deep north, rather than the views of the University of Queensland? Or is the University of Queensland fully on board with Jimbo of the deep north? Who knows, they do things differently in toad land ...
Then it was on to the Caterist of the day, and what a relief that he wasn't banging on about renewables and climate science, in a way that only the flood waters in quarries whisperer can manage. On any given day, the Caterist could be driven mad by talk of bleaching reefs, this day it was a womyn who set him off ...
The pond's brief sense of excitement at avoiding a dose of renewables bashing faded ...oh no, not Covid and Sweden again.
The only upside might be that the Caterist didn't launch into a Freudian fear of masks in the Killer way, or even worse do an anti-vax routine in an anti-woke way ... but sure enough there were masks in the first snap, enough to send Killer into a frothing, foaming frenzy ...
Ye ancient mind-numbed cats and dogs, it's déjà vu all over again, with the only novelty that this week it's the Graudian and WaPo that are the villains, and not the ABC ...
The pond doesn't propose to go over the whole damn thing yet again ... ennui lurks at the door, and besides, it helps take the Caterist mind off renewables and reef bleaching...
Unfortunately, as recently as January there was a Covid spike, and many are still suffering from long Covid symptoms, whatever the attempt to merge those with other symptoms might accomplish ...and the pond is suffering from what might be termed long Caterist syndrome ... too much exposure and you'll catch the disease, and it's horrendous ...
Despite the benefits of avoiding lockdown, the Swedish response was not flawless. In late 2020, the Corona Commission, an independent committee appointed by the government to evaluate the Swedish pandemic response, found the government and the Public Health Agency had largely failed in their ambition to protect the elderly.
At that time, almost 90% of those who had died with COVID in Sweden were 70 or older. Half of these people were living in a care home, and just under 30% were receiving home help services.
Indeed, numerous problems within elderly care in Sweden became evident during the pandemic. Structural shortcomings such as insufficient staffing levels left nursing homes unprepared and ill-equipped to handle the situation.
In its final report on the pandemic response, the Corona Commission concluded that tougher measures should have been taken early in the pandemic, such as quarantine for those returning from high-risk areas and a temporary ban on entry to Sweden. (here)
But enough already, the pond has been down this road too many times with the reptiles and it was a relief to be at the last gobbet ... though it could have been worse, it could have been a rehash yet again of Sharri (disrespect) and the Wuhan virus ...
Woke legacy? Usually at that point the pond would run it's Godwin's woke joke, but instead there was a fine burst of wokeness in the Graudian, thanks to Stewart Lee...
And at that point, the pond must leave the frenzied spawning toads - Queensland! - and return to the lizard Oz, because guess who was perched in the preferred, much desired, highly esteemed extreme far right spot in the digital edition?
It was the useless idiot Major and it was Gaza as a way for him to vent his useless idiocy, and so it was at last easy to understand why the pond had ducked the top of the page and went straight to Jimbo of the deep north ...
But duty must be done, and on Monday, that means suffering Major Mitchell's squawks, a parrot of limited range, entirely lacking the cleverness of crows ...
Meanwhile, on another planet, you might be reading ...
Indeed, indeed, perhaps a cartoon at this point?
Meanwhile, the genocide carries on, with only a brief pause before the final allegedly safe zone is lined up for invasion ...
Al Jazeera has many issues, not least its financial backing, but at least it has reporters on the ground in Gaza, unlike wonky stats wonks doing wonky number counts ...
To be fair, the Major is a little slow, and it takes time for news to travel to the antipodes, the sort of news featured in Nesrine Malik's piece, Six months in, the war in Gaza has dramatically shifted – and Israel is running out of road ... inter alia ...
...The incident has led to calls for the kind of action that, until this point, would have been condemned as constraining Israel’s right to defend itself. Nick Ferrari, conservative pundit and Daily Express columnist, has called for an arms boycott. “In most instances,” he wrote, “I can see the Israeli side,” but “sometimes it takes a friend to tell a friend where they’re going wrong.” The attack on aid workers was “indefensible”, he continued, because of the possibility that three UK citizens were killed by our own missiles by an army that “we’re meant to believe is one of the greatest on Earth”.
When the IDF is referenced with such contempt by a self-professed “friend of Israel”, something is changing. Similar calls are now being made by high-profile figures in Labour and the Conservative party, and civil servants involved in arms exports to Israel are considering legal action, worried that they may be personally culpable if it is found that Israel has broken the law. When the blood is shed closer to home, people can see it on their hands.
But Israel may also be running out of road simply because of the sheer duration of the assault. Six months is a long time for this kind of military action to continue at the pace it has, with the range of horror and escalation that it has involved. Dead babies, bombed-out hospitals, refugee camps, civilians (and indeed Israeli hostages) shot by snipers while walking unarmed to safety, and now famine – all of it broadcast to the world and punctuated by the relish of Israeli soldiers and the sneers of politicians and spokesmen.
Six months is a long time for such an intense conflict – which has drawn in cultural institutions, Hollywood, universities and schools, and dominated the airwaves – to continue in such an open-ended way. It is a long time for Arab governments to continue treading the fine line between maintaining good relations with the US and worrying about regional stability as the war spreads, as well as growing domestic anger regarding Gaza, and how disruptive that may be to the plans of unelected governments that don’t need more discontent to manage. In all sorts of ways, because of Gaza, the global political machine has been running hot.
But at least this is the last misleading gobbet from the misleading Major, running out of road ...
Yep, the genocide will continue, up next the slaughter in Rafah, and the Major is all in, and no doubt will write another piece explaining how all the death and destruction is just a mirage, nothing to see here folks, thereby becoming another egg in the sociopath carton ...
SMH: "Unprecedented spread of coral bleaching along Great Barrier Reef .." Don't you worry 'bout that, the Riddster will be along real soon now to assure us all that The Reef, and indeed all reefs, are in the very best of eternal health.
ReplyDeletePS: https://youtu.be/6IH46a0sESc
It's fine. The surface ice extent is greater, the sheet thinner, the mass lesser. It's fine. Fewer trees and more weeds simply means the grass is greener. It's fine. Soft coral, hard coral, it's all colourless, odourless, trace coral to a Reefer.
Delete"shouldn't there be some sort of disclaimer attached?"
ReplyDeleteYes.
James Allen needs a warnimg label.
Anybody who is a bill of rights attacker, election denier and says "Kanye is a brave man." needs a disclaimer.
"James Allan (born 1960) ...
"As a legal scholar, Allan is well-known for his opposition to bills of rights.[2][3][4]
"Allan writes opinion pieces in The Australian newspaper. He is author of Democracy in Decline: Steps in the Wrong Direction, occasional contributor to Quadrant magazine and The Spectator and editor of the University of Queensland Law Journal.[1] As a columnist for The Spectator Australia, he has supported the view that Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 US presidential election was marked by voting irregularities; that the election was potentially flawed because of extensive mail-in voting and a lack of ballot security.[5][6][7] Allan has spoken at CPAC.[8] Allan believes that Indigenous Australians are overrepresented in the Parliament of Australia.[9] He has also said that "Kanye is a brave man. He and his girlfriend were wearing shirts that say white lives matter, and he's taken a bit of heat for that." [10]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Allan_(law_professor)
James Allan joins the list of Reptile-scribbling academics whose students deserve our deep sympathy.
ReplyDeleteDoes holding a position at an institution of higher learning automatically ensure publication of any old rubbish that you churn out? I can’t see anything in this condescending concoction of pompous personal opinions that draws upon any legal expertise.
She's this, she's that, and if she isn't the cat's mother, she's at least the sort who might suppose that even a cat may look at a queen, so off with her tongue.
DeleteI thought the reptiles saw the Garrick Professor as sinking into irrelevance. For some time his public profile has been in the Speccie (a small readership, but its devotees would claim it to be highly select) or, more recently, being interviewed(?) on ADH tv, to an audience that often struggles into the low hundreds. His high ‘you know’ quotient probably doesn’t improve his drawing power there, and when the supposed interlocutor is our old friend Flinty, it becomes an experience of time standing still.
DeleteHowever, it seems he has been back in his chair at UofQ, between a remarkable run of sabbaticals, long enough to instruct us from his area of study. Which is a bit light on for relevance to the land that now pays him.
He tells us ‘the G-G in Australia . . virtually always does what he or she is told by the elected politicians who command the majority of votes in the lower house of parliament.’ and ‘The G-G takes the advice of the elected PM. . . ‘.
Now this Garrick was born in 1960, so likely was living in his country of birth - Canada - in 1975, when a particular G-G did not take the advice of the PM, nominated another to that position, declined to follow other convention in not meeting with the Speaker of the House, to be advised that his new nominee had lost a vote in that chamber, so could not claim to command a majority of votes.
The point being that one who professes to know all that is worth knowing about the conventions of our parliamentary system, simply ignores that rather significant exception to his neat piece of conservative cant.
The reptiles are getting desperate for stuff to fill their pages.
Oh c'mon Chad, Cur Jonker was just the exception that proves the rule, doncha know.
DeleteThe pond just knew that Jimbo of the deep north would be much treasured this day ...
DeleteWell Dorothy, Jimbo has been away almost long enough to be something of a novelty, when the two eminent Dames have drifted further into tedium as they try to deliver what they think Rupert might want of them.
DeleteRemember, role-players and key-holders, 'not all women' are (un)questionably (il)legitimate...
Deletehttps://www.mamamia.com.au/adam-creighton-q-and-a/
James of The North: "...going first can be an advantage." What does that mean ? Does that mean that not going first also can be an advantage ? Or that going first can be a disadvantage ? Or both of the above but probably not at exactly the same time ?
ReplyDeleteBut anyhow, JM, now we know exactly what's wrong with the USA: you benighted folks have an elected, powerful president instead of a G-G selected by an elected, powerful Prime Minister. Unlike we 'come laters' (Aus, NZ, Canada) who all just fell into line.
So I guess we can see that indeed going first can be a disadvantage.
Catering Nick: "Winston Peter's Australia First [Party]" Que ? Did the silly flood waterer really mean "Winston Peter's New Zealand First Party" ? That being the one that Winston actually heads.
ReplyDeleteCater: "Sweden's death toll is on a par with or even lower than that in comparable European countries that pursued a lockdown strategy."
Lemme see: There's a reasonably 'balanced' account here:
https://theconversation.com/did-swedens-controversial-covid-strategy-pay-off-in-many-ways-it-did-but-it-let-the-elderly-down-188338
which states: "Did Sweden’s controversial COVID strategy pay off? In many ways it did – but it let the elderly down." But then, the elderly were going to die anyway sooner or later, weren't they - just not enough QALY for a reptile to be concerned with.
And this: "During spring 2020, the reported COVID death rate in Sweden was among the highest in the world. Neighbouring countries that implemented rapid lockdown measures, such as Norway and Denmark, were faring much better, and Sweden received harsh criticism for its lax approach."
So, just the usual 'mixed bag' in human affairs, I guess.
Hah - well done in spotting that “Australia First” reference, GB! I admit that I missed it - but even though I try to speedRead the Caterist’s offering, it’s still a stupefying experience, making it difficult to pay much attention. Perhaps the editors realise that’s a common reaction, and so simply never bother proofing his stuff before publication?
DeleteYou could almost feel sorry for the reptiles, both in print and on Sky, for what isn't happening in New Zealand. That dreadful soft, woke Jacinda person departs, in comes someone saying all the 'Right' things, with promise of golden age of freedom and prosperity, and the economy didn't get the memo. So - it cannot, in any way, be the responsibility of 'Right' thinking. In the absence of a strong reptile print presence over there, Rupert's deputies here have to scrape about for excuses for why it isn't working, and, while they are at it, to predict that it will take a loooooong time, if ever, to pick up. In the meantime, the voters there can enjoy all those new freedoms.
DeleteOh, and GB- perhaps the cunning Winston (Peters) is trying to revive the idea of those islands becoming states of our commonwealth? If so, hopefully they could continue as one state, as their wise founding fathers arranged, and not get caught up on the inter-state rivalry that, amongst other evils, has put great impediments in the way of discussion on tax reform in Australia.
Many, many years ago (about 66 of them), I recall my year8 history teacher (yes, the same one who taught us about the Tasmanian 'black line) asked me why NZ hadn't joined our nascent Commonwealth and I couldn't quite think of why, until he said "roughly 2500 reasons".
DeleteNot such a problem now though, I guess, though even WA reckoned it had roughly 2070 reasons for not being enthusiastic about joining 'Australia' - but at least they were overland.
PS: that was me. Fingers still too quick for my old brain.
DeleteA major win, an actual reader of the gobbets with an eye for detail and an iron constitution, able to make it to the final gobbet and checklist the Caterist, at which point pond's eyes had glazed over and so missed the point, which is surely that New Zealand is just a minor state, ripe for the mocking that's wrongly reserved for Tasmania ...
DeleteThere were economic (i.e. Free Trade vs Protectionism) reasons that NZ did not join the Commonwealth, but another was 'racial'. The Maori Wars were a recent memory in the 1890s, and NZers did not want a dispossession-genocidal-minded Australian-dominated Federal government in place that could restart them. NZ planters in Fiji in the 19th century were similarly worried about the actions of their Australian counterparts.
DeleteMaj. Mitch.: "...Israel could have flattened Gaza in a week." Is that with or without shipments of additional USA bombs and missiles ?
ReplyDeleteHmmm "He [Khaled Barakat] says the only solution to the Palestinian problem is the end of Israel." As opposed to, say, Netanyahu, who appears to believe that the only solution to the Palestinian problem is the end of Palestine.
Anyway: "David Kilcullen ... argued - as many others have - that Israel has in fact done its best to limit civilian casualties given Hamas, 'fighters are embedded with civilians'." Oh right "done its best". Is there anybody who could explain to us just what this "best" comprises ? I don't think it can comprise throwing bombs and missiles indiscriminately into civilian locations - especially hospitals - and I don't think it comprises preventing aid workers, and yes, killing them, from providing aid to prevent mass civilian starvation.
Oh my, so Mitch. wants to assure us that WCK has delivered "millions of meals" "in Gaza and Israel throughout the war" and "These meals were delivered without aid workers being targeted." Right, so there's about two million Palestinians in Gaza and more in Israel, so "millions of meals" would amount to less than one meal per Palestinian. And lots of aid worker have been killed, so who's saying that none of them were targeted ?
I thought all those 'millions of meals' were being hijacked by Hamas?
DeleteThe Major makes a lot of assertions which he presents as facts. Who needs evidence? Such a request would be churlish, calling into question the Major’s infallible expertise in any subject on which he pontificates.
ReplyDeleteRe Cater and NZ, I hope we all saw Alan Kohler's article https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/finance/2024/04/01/alan-kohler-monetary-theory
ReplyDelete"A few years ago everybody was talking about Modern Monetary Theory, both ardently for and scornfully against, but nobody was doing it.
Now everybody is doing it but hardly anybody is talking about it, apart from American economist Stephanie Kelton, promoting a film on the subject.
Doing what, exactly? Governments are showing by their deeds that deficits and debt don’t matter."
That's the way with homo saps saps ennit. Either shout if from the rooftops or barely whisper it in the basement: just like the reptiles do: shout their latest bullcrap, then go silent as soon as they are rumbled for lying yet again.
DeleteOh mea culpa, WCK claim that in 5 months it has delivered 21 million meals which would amount to an average of (21/2) 10.5 meals per Gazan - that's men, women and children. I do wonder what the calorific and general nutritional value of all those meals were, though.
DeleteIt nonetheless seems to be a very large number, larger than the IDF allowed truck traffic would have supported, and I wonder who was counting them.
ReplyDeleteAllan: "it would be hard to come up with a CV less likely to inspire confidence than Mostyn." He must have come down in the last shower, don't you think? Previous GGs were Casey, former Government minister; Hasluck, ditto: Hayden, ditto: Kerr, Labor Lawyer (!!!).
Nay, confidentially, what Australia really needed in a G-G-next is another leading order-follower; an unpicky-yet-distinguished chap who would take virtually any advice from an Attorney-General, and so exercise his conventionally-constituted power, without once thinking to seek a second-opinion from a Solicitor-General, not even if a Prime Minister repeatedly advised that he wished to be sworn into a portfolio of ministerial portfolios, and their not inconsiderable powers, without notice to Executive Council, or Ministers, or Parliament, or Populace, as a CV-enhancer.
DeleteNot to mention, Joe, that other recent occupants were an Anglican bishop who came with sufficient baggage to require his early departure and several blokes who spent their entire careers working their way up the ranks of the military, where they were mainly notable for… well, not fucking up badly. You couldn’t say that any of them had very extensive or varied CVs.
DeleteWell, well: "Big business in Australia faces less competition than almost anywhere in the world and likes it that way." So says John Quiggin.
ReplyDeleteHe also says: "The era of privatisation and “light-handed” regulation has only made matters worse. Turning the situation around will require a full set of policy tools, including conduct measures, divestiture and, in some cases, a return to public ownership." A return to "public ownership"? Who's he kidding ? That'd be much too 'Soviet' for Albo.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/08/big-business-in-australia-faces-less-competition-than-almost-anywhere-else-and-likes-it-that-way
The worth of fame: "Former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann will be a headline speaker at an event organised by men’s right activist Bettina Arndt, it has been revealed.
ReplyDeleteTickets to hear Lehrmann speak at the Restoring the Presumption of Innocence Conference in Sydney are expected to cost $80-$100."
https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/news/people/2024/04/08/bruce-lehrmann-bettina-arndt