Wow. 52.9°C, or 126.1°F if you will ... the pond woke to the news with a start as the Beeb blared out the figures.
The pond knew at once that it would be front and centre at the lizard Oz, further proof that climate science was a hoax, and that renewables were a complete waste of time ...
Hang on, hang on, no mention of world records?!
Was it all a fever dream? Had the pond been led astray yet again by the cardigan wearers at the Beeb? The pond consulted The Times of India ...
It had actually happened, and once again the bubble-wrapped hive mind had triumphed by resolutely staying inside the bubble ... and instead of records the reptiles featured at the top of the page simplistic Simon - here every conflict of interest imaginable - and more blather about Tingle ...
It's probably wrong of the pond to draw attention to a story in another place ...
Gad sir, enough of that, the reptiles are devoted to their racism ...
And the pond rarely features First Dog, but sometimes it has to be done ...even if it takes up a lot of space ...because News Corpse features, as only it can ...
Impeccable logic, and with the top of the hive mind covered, the pond turned to the commentary section below the fold ...
Oh sheesh, the onion muncher's back ... and there's Killer ...and the pond knew what had to be done ...
At once the pond had to abandon dreams of the UK election and the splendid comedy on offer ...
That big splash has been downsized already but the Hydeing is still there, and there's a cracking Crace too ...
The pond also had to abandon its plans for a Gina joke, what with the Graudian's Comedian drops plan for a billboard of Gina Rinehart portrait in Times Square ... but there was an upside, Picture that: Visitors flock to gallery after Rinehart portrait row ... (L'Age paywall)
And all the pond had left from all this talk in the AFR ...(likely paywall) ...
...Mr Dutton declined to be drawn following a report in the Nine Newspapers that he would soon announce seven nuclear power sites across mainland Australia.
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan told Mr Dutton to look elsewhere.
“I take the opportunity to make it absolutely clear that nuclear energy will never be part of the mix here under a Victorian Labor government,” she said.
“I want to send this message to the communities of Anglesea and the La Trobe Valley – me and my government will stand with those communities against a federal Coalition who want to bring toxic, risky, expensive nuclear power plants into their backyard.”
State Liberal leader John Pesutto was lukewarm.
“We have no plans to introduce nuclear power into Victoria,” he said.
WA Premier Roger Cook said his government would “absolutely” oppose a federal Coalition government moving to build a nuclear power station at Collie, in the state’s south.
“No one in Collie wants to see a nuclear power station constructed in their community. Don’t forget that a nuclear power station is the most expensive form of power and won’t be able to be realised for 20 to 40 years,” Mr Cook said.
... was a bloody useless souvenir, not the SMR the pond had ordered for the back yard ...
The pond would settle for a nuke snow dome for the bedside table if it can't have that SMR ...
Okay, okay, time to get serious, or at least as serious as the onion muncher, climate denialist in chief, allows ...
The usual bro twaddle, but for once the pond can agree on one thing.
This summer is going to be an exceptionally difficult fighting season for Ukraine, which is going to face an existential crisis ... and it hasn't been helped in its fight against Vlad the sociopath by the behaviour of the orange Jesus, the GOP and certain European folk ... including but not limited to ...
The pond wasn't to be distracted by a few video clips inserted into the onion muncher's piece ...
The pond was waiting for a vicious, full throated assault on Orban and his lickspittle fellow travellers fellow travelling with Vlad the sociopath...
Sadly the onion muncher has the attention span of a gnat, and so wandered off into other pastures ...
There was still time in the onion muncher's long march through infinite stupidity for him to berate assorted loons,
including Peter Pellegrini ... and others ...
Nah, that'd be too hard for a mindless gnat ... how about some useless blather about the Anglosphere instead ...
Still stuck in 1947?
Actually the 1950s is probably more the go, you can take a lad out of the DLP but you can't take the DLP out of the lad, but then came the punchline ... and devoted followers of the onion muncher will know what's coming ...
Budapest?! That's the capital of Hungary if the pond remembers it's geography lessons ... yet another reminder of just how mindlessly stupid the onion muncher is ... there he is kowtowing to the tribe that's actively kowtowing to Vlad the impaler, while blathering about rediscovering our better selves.
Making himself a useless tool for the Danube Institute ... but then he's always been a useless fool, and he's been that way for some considerable time ...
And so to a serve of Killer thinking as the bonus ...
Huzzah, there's nothing like a really cheap serve of third rate Machiavelli from a member of the Murdochian 'leet (yes, 'leets will be mentioned in the usual 'leet way) ...
Deeply cynical and full of illustrations to disguise the paucity of the mind ...
Stripped of the snaps, Killer was reduced to mindless short gobbets best joined together ...
Confronted with this level of cynicism, the pond decided to do what it's been doing and turn to
Haaretz for a little relief ...
The sights from the explosion of the displaced persons camp in Rafah this week were horrifying, even for a war that is providing more and more unbearable pictures. Beheaded toddlers, scorched bodies and a huge fire that destroyed the rickety tents in which civilians were sheltering, in an area that Israel had declared "safe."
"This is one of the most horrifying things I've seen in all the weeks I've been working in Gaza," a British doctor told the New York Times, and a foreign journalist described it as "a real vision of hell."
And meanwhile in Israel, in another vision of hell, there are some who enjoy seeing dismembered children and charred civilians. For example, the frenetic troll Yinon Magal, who shared a photo of the burning tents alongside the caption "The main bonfire this year in Rafah"; the security chief of the settlement of Kfar Adumim, Avihai Shorshan, who is known for harassing his Palestinian neighbors, expressed his enjoyment at the disaster with the words "Lag Ba'omer, Rafah version," and my former colleague in the opinion section of Haaretz, Naveh Dromi, who shared Shorshan's post and added: "Happy Holiday."
In the State of Israel, the sheol (dark underworld) that is being built for us by insane, hard-hearted people like Magal, Shorshan and Dromi, happy holidays are days when dozens of innocents are killed and all the jokes are made about other people's dead babies.
But as in Dante's Inferno, even the hell to which Israeli society has sunk consists of different circles. Surrounding the heart of darkness, where people dance on the blood, resides a circle of self-declared or implicit deniers. From there comes the yelling and growling of all those who, at the sight of the bodies and the fire, could immediately say that these are fake propaganda videos, that it wasn't a bombing by the Israel Air Force but "the launching of a failed rocket" (as invented by Channel 14 reporter Hallel Bitton-Rosen), that the numbers of dead are inflated, and why were Hamas terrorists in the displaced persons compound anyway?
The tweet was featured ...
...and then Gonen returned to hell ...
In this circle, there are no monsters who are happy about dead children, only chatterboxes and fabulists who find sophisticated ways of erasing the suffering of others. As it is said: It didn't happen, and if it did happen, so what?
In an adjacent circle, the verbal jugglers are jumping about: members of the government and the army who operate the euphemism mechanism that whitewashes the killing of civilians. "The attack was carried out in accordance with international law, using precise ammunition," the Israel Defense Forces quickly reassured us. That doesn't make dozens of people any less dead, but it may convince The Hague to refrain from issuing injunctions.
Alongside them, sitting on upholstered chairs, are all the submissive journalists, who refrain from reporting on Israel's actions in Gaza. According to them, the horror that took place in Rafah really is a somewhat unpleasant matter, but not because of the children who lost their limbs, but because it harms public diplomacy efforts and photographs badly on the TV screens of the goyim.
And all these are surrounded by the largest circle of sheol, the place where the blind, deaf and simply bored sit. Here the silent majority proclaims its innocence, the people who don't celebrate soot-covered civilians and don't deny the terrifying sights – but are completely indifferent.
In 2002, after the assassination of Salah Shehadeh, commander of the military wing of Hamas in Gaza (who was far more senior that the duo who were assassinated this week in Gaza), the country was in an uproar and dozens of pilots declared that they would refuse to bomb concentrations of civilian population, because along with him 15 children and adult civilians were killed.
Today, about 45 incinerated refugees fill the role of "collateral damage" – and the country is silent before the sight of Rafah's red sky. Toddlers go up in flames, and the Israeli public celebrates, erases, chatters or yawns – that's what our hell looks like. When you embark on a campaign of vengeance, as the saying goes, dig two graves; Israel has such a strong desire for revenge that it is slowly sinking in a dark abyss, hand in hand with the ruins of Gaza.
If there were any justice, instead of cheap cynicism and third rate Machiavelli, Killer himself would endure a little hell, but instead he inflicts hell on his readers with that promised 'leet blather about 'leets ...
SCOTUS? Was this the right time to mention SCOTUS? What with the fixes and the flag waving being in ...
Sheesh, so much SCOTUS fun the pond almost forgot the Wilcox ...
That's an easy question to answer. The pond's tragic mistake was giving space to Killer ... doing Carl von Clausewitz lite with 'leet jokes... but on the upside, there's just one gobbet to go ... full of the usual Murdochian projection, as you'd expect of a card-carrying member of that tribe ...
Allegedly killing and starving? The pond can say, without benefit of an "allegedly", that Killer is a clown of the first water ... and as for that last line about the nineteenth century being relatively peaceful, tell that to all the victims of empires straddling the world ...
The pond did like this one from 1886, beyond the valley of a Killer karicature...
And what about this one from 1910 showing a world ready for world war ...
And speaking of empire, nary a thought in the hive mind for those up north.
That's best left to a closing cartoon from the infallible Pope ...
I had thought that by now the Reptiles would be defending the proud history of Melbourne University, particularly its contributions to eugenics, denigration of Indigenous culture and support for fascism. Instead all we get is the usual King / Queen, God and Empire guff from the Onion Muncher - how many times has he delivered this speech with only slight variations? Perhaps Henry will spring to the defence of our Great Institutions tomorrow.
ReplyDelete800m Indian voters soon will have to rely on instinct, not reality. (^1.)
ReplyDeleteDP quotes Yoana Gonen with a telling Orwell tinge showing the Ministry of Truth has done it's work; "at the sight of the bodies and the fire, could immediately say that these are fake propaganda videos".
"WAR IS PEACE",
"FREEDOM IS SLAVERY",
"IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH"
These deep fake videos are where the dog whistle is heard loudest...
"..."Our instinct is better than any detection algorithm that is out there," Mr Jadoun said." ^1. - until it is swapped by propaganda
And they'll pay India's richest for the privelege of being shown fake election material. Great for capitalists, GDP & data business owner: "Mukesh Ambani at $83.4 billion, owns Reliance Industries Petrochemicals, telecom, retail".
The atidote though is mere speculation "... speculations regarding how this oligopolistic future might be averted." ... "Ironically, the best hopes for a vibrant open source AI ecosystem might rest on the presence of a “rogue” technology giant, who might choose openness and engagement " ^2. LMFAO!.
And the Abbott has 1984ish travellers;
"... Other politicians who have spoken at Danube Institute meetings include the Australian politicians Tony Abbott and Kevin Andrews, and Václav Havel, the former president of Czechoslovakia and then of the Czech Republic. In 2021, the French politician Éric Zemmour gave an interview to the institute.[7]" Wikipedia
Éric Zemmour is a dangerous man;
"During the debate, he said that the #MeToo is a movement of "eradication of men".[75]
"In March 2010, with Mélancolie française ("French Melancholy") which won the Prix du livre incorrect(lit. 'Inappropriate Book Award'), he considers alternate histories of France, if some events had not happened.[45]" Wikipedia.
^1.
"Deepfakes take just minutes to make with artificial intelligence. Here’s how Indian political parties use them against opponents
"...and estimates over the next five years, 80 per cent of campaigns will be driven by AI.
"Eight-hundred million people are connected to the internet and the data rates are so cheap," he said.
"Political parties have such good network and distribution channels within themselves, that they can reach out to more masses."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-30/how-ai-is-disrupting-india-election-campaign/103899138
^2.
"Old Moats for New Models: Openness, Control, and Competition in Generative AI
"... we argue that tight control over complementary assets will likely result in a concentrated market structure, as in past episodes of technological upheaval. We suggest the likely paths through which incumbent firms may restrict entry, confining newcomers to subordinate roles and stifling broad sectoral innovation.
"We conclude with speculations regarding how this oligopolistic future might be averted. Policy interventions aimed at fractionalizing or facilitating shared access to complementary assets might help preserve competition and incentives for extending the generative AI frontier. Ironically, the best hopes for a vibrant open source AI ecosystem might rest on the presence of a “rogue” technology giant, who might choose openness and engagement with smaller firms as a strategic weapon wielded against other incumbents."
https://www.nber.org/papers/w32474#fromrss
"They’re free — free not to be who they are."
Delete"Utopian Realism"
"a speech by Bruce Sterling
https://bruces.medium.com/utopian-realism-a-speech-by-bruce-sterling-c315be2b0f44
Ok, Golding has let the cat out of the bag. The investment opportunity of a lifetime (actually several lifetimes), and a way to revive Australia's manufacturing industry: a nuclear Dutton Dome.
ReplyDeleteIt will be the product of the year, an instant iconic collectors' item. The snowflakes are made of granulated enriched uranium (genuine Ozzie U). It comes in a lead box, and you can purchase additional merch, such as anti-radiation goggles to look at it, not to mention lead lined gloves in assorted colours. And its useful - not just for the mantelpiece; a hand warmer during cold weather; pop it in the compost to break down your plastic waste, actually, to break down everything; place it on the ground - instant hole - no digging (do not leave for more than a day, else it will bore itself all the way to China, and you'll never get it back); irradiate any unsanitary items - very handy during Covid outbreaks; countless other uses. Virtually indestructible.
Everyone will want one for Christmas. Put one on the boss's desk to show there are no hard feelings if he/she has been a bit mean with the annual bonus. Buy one for the relatives as a peace offering.
And it will kick start the next mining boom.
Potential investors should their submit details and will be required to transfer $500k to NuDuttonDomesAustralia. AG.
New crypt(o) coins "NuDuttonDomesAustralia"
DeleteWestern democracies have industrially and culturally disarmed? Tony Abbott even sees industry and culture as some form of weapon to be used against others.
ReplyDeleteIf only Tony Abbott had had the courage to shirt-front Putin way back when he was PM. Western democracies may have been saved!
Clearly, immigration was far too "permissive" when Abbott's family emigrated here. Now we are stuck with him.
And there he was at the Danube Institute pontificating about the common good, but apparently the common good does not apply to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, because they have the audacity to suggest that Western democracy has failed to deliver for them in practical terms.
In sustaining Trumpism in the USA, Julian Baggini discusses the significance of what he calls the ‘dark side of pragmatism’. Looking at how Trump, his press secretaries (Sean Spicer rates special mention) and, by implication, Fox and other Murdoch media sustain and repeat their ‘alternative facts’, against all evidence that these are simple lies, Baggini writes ‘Part of the explanation must be a deep-seated, small-p pragmatism in America, that places greater value on efficacy and solidarity than on more objective measures of truth.’
ReplyDeleteBaggini sets out how Charles Sanders Peirce established a recognisable philosophy of pragmatism in the USA, in the late 19th, early 20th, centuries. The nub of Peirce’s writings was that, whatever your idea (‘conception’) might be - the real test lies in its effects.
Peirce wrote extensively, but only a small proportion of his work has been published, in part because, in his lifetime (he died in 1914) he, gasp - lived and travelled with a woman who was not his wife.
For GB - as early as 1886, one of his publications demonstrated how those new-fangled electric circuits could carry out logical operations.
But Peirce had a good understanding of how his theoretical discussions could be taken by the ‘dark side of pragmatism’. In his publication ‘How to Make Our Ideas Clear’ he wrote ‘Really valuable ideas can only be had at the price of close attention, but I know that in the matter of ideas, the public prefer the cheap and nasty.’
He was decades ahead of those who developed electronic computers, and a century ahead of Rupert Murdoch in assessing the public appetite for ‘information’.
Ah but let us also remember the great Ada Lovelace:
Delete"Ada Lovelace was a mathematician known for her work on the Analytical Engine, a mechanical general-purpose computer proposed by Charles Babbage. Many believe that Lovelace was the first to recognize the potential of computers. It is also believed that she published the first algorithm after realizing that the algorithm could be carried out by a machine like the Analytical Engine."
https://www.thefamouspeople.com/british-women-mathematicians.php
Timing is everything.
Knowingly, Facebook puts the cheap into nasty... "the public prefer the cheap and nasty.’
Delete"Horwitz notes that in April 2016, Meta analyzed Facebook’s most successful political groups, finding that a third of them “routinely featured content that was racist and conspiracy-minded,” with their growth heavily-driven by Facebook’s “Groups You Should Join” and “Discover” features, algorithmic tools that Facebook used to recommend content. The researcher in question added that “sixty-four percent of all extremist group joins are due to our recommendation tools.”
https://www.wheresyoured.at/were-watching-facebook-die/
GB - I certainly share your respect for Ada Lovelace.
DeleteThe several maps given as illustrations by our esteemed hostess this day reminds me that Pierce also produced the 'Peirce quincuncial projection'. It has its own 'Wiki' entry, and is a better proportional representation of land masses than, say, Mercator. I delved into such projections when I was trying to resolve demands from my masters, when aquaculture was supposedly booming, to be able to continue existing land survey out into the seas. This probably is bedevilling some hapless advisor who is looking at ocean wind farms right now.
Essentially - positioning places on land follows a convention that Earth is flat. Positioning at sea knows that Earth is spheroidal. This causes some amusing(?) anomalies around the world - for example, in primary school I used to look at the map of Canada, and think how easy it would be to draw the boundaries of Saskatchewan. Later I learned that its eastern border followed the Dominion Land Survey, which laid out land to suit likely agricultural tenure, while trying to align with meridians. Canadian colleagues have speculated that the only people who really understood how that was done were the original surveyors; and maybe they were not sure either.
Ah Tony, where do we start?
ReplyDelete'And thanks to a generation of permissive immigration, there are now Islamist sub-cultures within Western countries for whom sectarian solidarity is what matters most'
What about the generations of permissive immigration that created the christian sub-cultures that seem to think they are above the sectarian law?
What is sad about all of this is that there are lots of good people who are will willing to do what is in the best interests of all, including our future generations (whether they be permissive or not), but that they are led astray (read preyed upon) by self-seeking and short-term profiteering people like Tony, propped up by those who are also self-seeking short-term profiteers (News Corp comes to mind, but so do many others). And so it is left up to those who are prepared to call out BS when they see it, amidst the propaganda and dog whistling. [Thank you Pond.]
Anyway, the question is - what is Tony's long game? Is a political comeback brewing? Pehaps not, as he is doing well financially serving his News Corp masters, but if the Libs are all but wiped out at the next election, well, how about ReformOz? Afterall, Tony's legacy remains little more than a portrait hung on a wall; and there are colleagues to pay back for past disloyalty.
It's a long range scenario, but definitely Tony has backers, most importantly at News Corp. Cataclysmic change does occur even in the most established sectors of society. Afterall, Fox was not on the horizon during the good old days of CBS/NBC/ABC. Tesla and BYD are breaking into the large auto empires. I remember when Honda just made motorbikes. As for tech companies, we have already seen several generations of empires come and go. As my better half keeps reminding me, Tony is still a thing. AG.
Tony the Muncher has a long game ? Wau; how would anybody know ?
DeleteIt seems the reptiles propaganda push to get rid of the International Criminal Court is on.
ReplyDeleteNo global rules-based order because there may be no enforcement? Here's a piece on the Nuremberg trials:
"At the London Conference, held from 26 June to 2 August 1945, representatives of France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States negotiated the form that the trial would take. Until the end of the negotiations, it was not clear that any trial would be held at all."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_trials#Nuremberg_charter
By the way, the Nuremberg Charter was based on international law, even if it was not global, so there has been a rules-based order enforced, even before the ICC:
"2. CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY OF INDIVIDUALS UNDER
INTERNATIONAL LAW. ACTS OF STATE.
SUPERIOR ORDERS
The most important provisions of the Charter are laid down in its
section 11 and especially in article 6. This article gives to the Tribunal
the power to try and punish persons who, acting in the interests of the
European Axis countries, had committed any of the following crimes,
as defined in the article: crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes
against humanity. The application of these provisions led the Court
to important pronouncements concerning the fundamental principle
involved: the criminal responsibility of individuals under international law."
https://legal.un.org/ilc/documentation/english/a_cn4_5.pdf
There was also The Concert of Europe which was made up of major powers: Great Britain, Russia, Austria, Prussia (later succeeded by Germany) and France. Italy also joined later.
"The Concert of Europe was a particular expression of an international system founded on balance. It was established in Vienna in 1815, and collapsed a century later with the beginning of the Great War."
https://ehne.fr/en/encyclopedia/themes/international-relations/organizing-international-system/concert-europe
But Creighton's knowledge of history seems pitiful and so he scribbles on mendaciously: "The 100 years to 1914, for instance, were the most peaceful in history, without a single international organisation."
Let's see, here's a short list, omitting the civil wars, such as the American Civil War 1861-65:
War of Greek Independence 1821-32 (Turks, Greeks and Egyptians were involved and Great Britain, France and Russia also became involved.)
Crimean War 1853-1856 (Russians, British, French and Ottoman Turkish)
War of the Triple Alliance 1864/65-70 (Paraguay ,Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay)
Franco- German War 1870-1871 (German states led by Prussia and France)
Serbo-Turkish War 1876-78 Serbia, Montenegro, Ottoman Turks)
War of the Pacific 1879-83 (Chile, Bolivia and Peru)
Sino-French War 1883-1885 (Over Vietnam)
Serbo-Bulgarian War 1885-86
Sino-Japanese War 1894-95
Philippine-American War 1899-1902
Boxer Rebellion 1900-01 (China and Britain)
Russo-Japanese War 1904-05
Italo-Turkish War 1911-12
Seems hardly a decade went by without a war in those so peaceful one hundred years to 1914!
C'mon Anony, did any of those amount to even a million dead ? They were just live training exercises that were hardly even noticeable.
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion
Delete20-30 million
It ranks as one of the bloodiest wars in human history, the bloodiest civil war, and the largest conflict of the 19th century. In terms of deaths, it is comparable to World War I.
DeleteYeah but that's just a bunch of Chinks, Anony, you can't expect a wingnut or reptile people like Onion Munchers or KillerCs to notice something as unimportant as that. Besides on the standard ratio of 1000 Chinks to 1 Anglo, that only counts as 20,000 to 30,000 dead.
DeleteI’m currently reading Cassandra Pybus’ recent book “A Very Secret Trade”, which focuses on the 19th-early 20th Century trade in Tasmanian Indigenous human remains. It includes a description of the positive reception given to a notable German collector of remains during a 1914 visit to Australia -
ReplyDelete“In Sydney, von Luschan was invited to address the Eugenics Education Society, where he stressed the critical importance of eugenics in the effort to ‘ward off the spectre of degeneration’. In early August, von Luschan was the keynote speaker for a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at the University of Melbourne, where he presented a paper on ‘Culture and Degeneration’ “.
It all seems very similar to the sorts of noises that the Onion Muncher has been making a century. The Muncher may have sufficient sense to avoid direct references to “inferior races”, but the distaste for “lesser societies”, and the attitude that Western European civilisation is intrinsically superior to those more “primitive” nations that it has overwhelmed, appears essentially the same.