The gift that keeps on giving ... for those wanting to explain the Streisand effect to vulgar youff too young to remember Babs and her mansion ...
It's to the eternal glory of the IPA funder, now star of US late night comedy, and everyone wanted to get in with their own anecdote, as at Crikey, courtesy Daanyal Saeed (sorry paywall) ...
And that brings this study of memes to a close, and it's time to turn to the never-ending reptile nightmare, and sure enough, the new reptile star of the day, the Ughmann, is locked into the highly esteemed far right "top of the digital world ma" slot of the lizard Oz's weekend edition ...
The pond did its best to escape the nightmare, and raced to check out what was on offer down below ...
More nightmares, not least the thoroughly unscrupulous Dame Slap still blathering on about morality ...
The pond knew it could defer anyone of these reptiles rabbiting on in the echo chamber of moral narcissism known as the lizard Oz until the 'morrow, and only then after a good winnowing down of the contenders for attention ...
No, the pond knew what had to be done... it wouldn't be pleasant, it wouldn't be pretty, it would be downright ugly, but then herpetology students never sign on for fun ...
The pond was mildly astonished. Not at the shot of bots at work in a factory, but that the reptiles had forked over hard cash to Getty to get it.
They must really want the Ughmann to make a big impression ...
And so on, but back to the former seminarian deep in his nightmare ... lathering up hysteria in best 'new boy on the reptile block' form ...
A wicked dilemma? Surely not, surely if we just abandon notions cultivated by climate science cult, and stick to coal and nuking the country, and abandon all this idle talk of renewables, and EVs and all this modern nonsense, all will be well and we can return to the 1950s?
At this point, the reptiles interrupted the Ughmann with a clip announcing clear failure, downsized and rendered neutral by screen cap, but included for devotees of reptile layouts ...
Then it was on with the rest of the nightmare ...
Luckily to fill the silence, there was the Ughmann screeching into the void, perhaps urging on a tariff war to teach China a lesson, much like the last trade war taught China a lesson.
And so to the last gobbet and the pond finally had to mark down the Ughmann's effort ...
The pond doesn't know much about reptile memes, but it knows this ... that last line should have ended with a rousing "Build Your Own Orwellian Nightmare."
The Ughmann had done a tremendous job lathering up hysteria, and then for some reason failed at the last gate ...
Then it was on with the Bjorn-again one, doing what he's done a squillion times before, though the pond will scream if he suggests the solution is to fund more research and development.
The pond still recalls the sense of rebellion cultivated by the pointless recitation of the Catholic catechism each day ...and that whiff of nausea was quickly compounded ...
Sure, it's the same talking point as the Ughmann, but that's the way it goes in the hive mind ... more interesting to the pond is why this isn't coming from Lloydie of the Amazon...
The pond checked and his last contribution came over a month ago ...
Admittedly it was a fine outing, a tremendous argument for gassing the country to save the planet, what with nuking the country proving a bit tricky, but why must the argument be left to second rate imported climate science denialist hacks?
Why can't Lloydie of the Amazon join with the Ughmann? Why must the pond make do with the usual Bjorn-again dross?
Yes, yes, coal and gas, forget renewables, the pond has heard it a zillion times, and at this point it will become clear why it's worth keeping track of the video inserts, because they all work tirelessly to present hive mind talking points ...
Aaaarrrgh ...
Sorry, the pond just had to let out a scream, because everyone knows what is coming ... yes, patented Bjorn-again blather about a boost in R & D as the only way forward ...
The pond was reminded yet again of the various steps outlined in The Conversation ...
Stage 1: climate change is not happening (arsonists cause bushfires, not climate change)
Stage 2: climate change is happening but is not human-induced (solar activity causes climate change, not humans)
Stage 3: Australia’s emissions are too small to make a difference, so why should we try?
Stage 4: climate change is happening and human-induced but there are other more pressing priorities (the “coal is good for humanity” argument)
Stage 5: nuclear small modular reactors are the only viable path to net zero (these reactors are an example of a “burgeoning nuclear industry” in the US)
Stage 6: if small nuclear reactors turn out not to be viable, large nuclear reactors are the only path to net zero.
It seemed to miss the most obvious point ...
Stage 4a: climate change isn't happening, but if it is, blame China and renewables and keep on with coal, and invest in R & D, and it'll all be sorted by 2090, or thereabouts ...
And now, because the Everest was there, it was time for another serve of apocalyptic nattering "Ned", once again in inimitable fashion running about headless to announce that the sky was falling ...
Only in the Catholic Boys' Daily would you see a debate framed as a battle for a country's political "soul".
It's such a stupid concept, and yet so typical of "Ned" and his assorted pompous alarums ...
At times the pond has to pinch itself. Why is the pond attempting yet another Everest climb? Why not just let the old loon ramble off into the distance, muttering to himself about blowtorches and such like ...
The reptiles obviously felt the need for a break because they slipped in a couple of huge snaps ...
If the pond had wanted a break, the pond would have
turned to the Weekly Beast to remind the pond why the venerable Meade remains an essential read.
It lands too late for the pond on a Friday, but such are the marvels that the stench lasts well into the Saturday.
How else would the pond have noticed the presence of the oscillating fan at the Daily Slime? And true to form he was blathering about a woman's dress.
It was real, it had happened, the oscillating fan had become the lowest form of tabloid life ...
Since he's such a keen frock man, can't they find a place for him in the
school of design? Or are the sandgropers happy to be mocked? Are they that desperate for eastern stater attention?
At least he's found his level, so low that the pond wouldn't want to go into a limbo contest with him.
Only one thing would be better... "Ned" deciding that all this endless scribbling about the political apocalypse was too much, and deciding he should write about frocks ...
No such luck. Instead there's more apocalypse, endless sturm und drang ...
At this point the reptiles' video clip strategy becomes really obvious.
Just when you think you can't stand the incoherence ... you know, the blather about people power, and vested interests and the 'leets mentioned in the first gobbet, only to be replaced by a "for the record" that celebrates the way Captain Spud has a lot of professional economic support from the 'leets ... the reptiles, realising the impatience, the sense of ennui and tedium is getting too high, slip in a video clip, re-enforcing talk of a global preoccupation of an elite class ...
At this point, a cynic might note that the clip is being presented by a global corporation based in the United States, run by a 'leet family for its own enrichment and power, and without any inclination to pay their way locally by paying a decent share of taxes, but cynicism isn't allowed in the hive mind.
Instead there's a relentless battering, an endless parade of pomposity, designed to shrivel the spirit to the size of a walnut ... (which incidentally was a favourite metaphor for Tamworth Dominican nuns when talking about the salvation of souls).
Who reads this mindless verbosity? Who cares about this guff? Everyone knows that migrant bashing is the first refuge of the scoundrel, though it's true we have a lot to learn from the old country learning from us ...
Sorry, the pond just had to go the 'toon. The pond's ability to make to the end of any "Ned" Everest climb is now so frayed that the chance of being a corpse trapped in the snow and ice increases exponentially with each climb ...
Three bloody unendurable gobbets to go. Who could blame anyone for wanting to get off the mountain? Why does "Ned" keep regurgitating the thoughts of others and dressing them up as a column?
The danger for "Ned" is that reader disillusionment set in at the first paragraph, and hasn't been lifted since. There is no "least-worst" option, there's just an endless stew of monotonous verbiage, not elevated by the occasional hint of the apocalypse ...
Here, have a another 'toon ...
And then there were just two gobbets to go, an avalanche of verbiage, which will finally reach an end ... trust the pond, everything must end ...
Ah, so the people power mantra way back when has now turned into 'leet economists for boutique banks ...
Never mind, there's at last just one gobbet to go ... and sure enough, it begins with a billy goat butt, and by the finish, the end of the world is nigh ...
The most far-reaching economic program ever put to the people?
Oh FFS, just give it a rest, you tiresome loon, given the pond a break.
The pond isn't sure how long it can keep doing these climbs. The wear of the verbiage on the eyeballs and the knee joints is relentless, and when you reach what passes for an apocalyptic summit, a peak of enlightenment, the view is invariably terrible. "
Ned" long ago became a portentous, pompous, tedious bore ...but he is in so deep, he's incapable of recognising the suffering he inflicts on stray readers ...
Meanwhile, on another planet ...
So the Ughman happily informs us - as many of his co-reptiles have informed us many times already - China "...was issuing permits for coal-fired power stations at the rate of two a week in 2022". But neither he nor they tell us how many coal fired-power stations China was, and is, actually building and commissioning every week. Nor where China would get all the coal to fire them up and fuel them every week. Could Australia supply that much ?
ReplyDeleteBut wait: "So, perhaps, someone in government should stick out an arm and coathanger Beijing over its manufacturing subsidies when its Premier tours here in June." Oh but of course, that will work an absolute treat, won't it, just like 'coathangering' Beijing has worked every single time.
And don't we remember the triumphalism of those happy economic libertarians who brought China out into a rules-based econo-rational world and don't we recognise how pleased and proud they are now:
China joined rules-based trading system — then broke the rules
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/09/china-wto-20-years-524050
But have no concerns, a "future made in Australia" will fix it - we'll supply China with mega-tonnes of ammonia/hydrogen to burn instead of that filthy old, world changing, coal.
Because he is still relatively new, so not utterly predictable, I did go through the words from the Owl-man. That left me trying to figure out why it was a bad thing for a nation that no longer makes motor vehicles in any significant way (set aside the boosterism of the 'motoring journalists' promoting our odd trade of pretty much dismantling huge 'pickups' from across the waters to put the steering wheel on the other side) - anyway, for a nation in our position, having a major supplier of motor vehicles to us, pushing down the price of those vehicles, most of which are fully electric. Cheaper vehicles (becoming cheaper than the internal combustion equivalents for which the manufacturers have generated long waits for delivery, so people will more readily pay a fat premium to get a new one) virtually no emissions in our too-large cities so the air improves steadily, lower noise - what's not to like?
DeleteOr does the Owl-man see virtue in Brexit mentality? - which James O'Brien despairingly reminds us is the only example he can think of where a major trading nation voluntarily put severe trade restrictions on itself; and many of its citizens still believe that has been good for them.
"virtue in Brexit mentality"? I think there's plenty still with us - and many still in the British 'halls of power' - who seem to think there's outright saintliness in 'Brexit mentality'.
DeleteIt is quite interesting to observe, in the case of (progressively less) Great Britain, the final stages of collapse of a once "mighty" empire. The whole situation with the total collapse of the ruling Party - especially over its most recent period of reign - and how even being right up close and suffering all of the plainly obvious negatives still hasn't gotten into the minds, and votes, of a substantial percentage of the population.
But then the incompetence of the Coalition in its recent near decade of rule hasn't got much into the minds, and votes, of a very substantial percentage of the Australian population either. Possibly due to the certainty that the major Labor and Labour 'opposition" aren't much chop either.
Grrrr Ulhmann is bashing everyone not just shouting at clouds! His seminary supplied fossil hair shirt must be hurting.
ReplyDeleteThe Ughmann's article is one of, if not the best political and activist hammers against nuclear I have ever read.
Ulmann won't mention "Critics say Aussies can’t make cheap solar panels. This start-up says they’re wrong" ... "The brains behind SunDrive say Australia has the material, the best resources, and even national security reasons, for keeping solar panel expertise here." May 17, 2024
afr policy energy-and-climate critics-say-aussies-can-t-make-cheap-solar-panels-this-start-up-says-they-re-wrong
And "Mr Allen’s company SunDrive has broken a world record for solar cell efficiency and attracted Rich Listers like Mike Cannon-Brookes to its share register. "By the end of this decade, Mr Allen wants SunDrive to be a “gigawatt scale” manufacturer of solar panels. At a time when China supplies about 80 per cent of Australia’s solar panels, he believes an emerging set of factors will allow Australian solar manufacturers to be cost competitive in the decade ahead."
Oct 10, 2022
afr dot com companies energy dropping-out-of-uni-was-the-best-thing-this-solar-pioneer-ever-did-
Udhmann doesn't mention "Annual growth in the People’s Republic of China’s (hereafter, “China”) renewables market will decelerate following the exceptional expansion that resulted from developers rushing to complete projects before subsidy phase-outs. However, the rest of the world compensates for China’s slowdown and maintains the pace of renewables expansion." IEA**
Ulmann doesn't mention coal 25-50% efficient and 20% of gas used to produce the 80% available. See text a base of sankey diagram graphic here: "Australian Energy Flows 2021-22 (petajoules)
Primary Energy Supply 5,762PJ
Own use and losses 1,608PJ
= Final Energy Consumption 4,164PJ
"Australian Energy Update 2023"
energy dot gov dot au publications australian-energy-update-2023
If fossils ceased "own use and losses" - gas, coal, production, gas compression, then aren't losses goneski?
IRENA dot org says;
"The fossil fuel price crisis of 2022 was a telling reminder of the powerful economic benefits that renewable power can provide in terms of energy security. In 2022, the renewable power deployed globally since 2000 saved an estimated USD 521 billion in fuel costs in the electricity sector."
"Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2022" 5 August 2023
Ughmann's has a point about Albo throwing a billion away as a sop to jobs n groaf to support votes within anti china rhetoric crowd.
See this graph: - the green line at top is everyone but china...
https://www.bernreuter.com/files/data/polysilicon/price-trend/polysilicon-spot-price-2024.jpg
From - read the long list of astounding market share numbers! - "POLYSILICON PRICE TREND"
"What is driving the roller-coaster ride of the polysilicon price?
bernreuter dot com polysilicon price-trend
Hence Time saying;
(also think of the Uhrigur's and coal!)
"Ending China’s dominant position in the global solar market is not possible." From "The True Cost of Chinese Solar Panels"
JANUARY 18, 2024
time chinese-solar-panels-cost/
Ughmann's rant though is relish for PV Renewables.
So many memes against dumbo dutton nuclear fantasy.
Australia to China: "we'll take a PJ of PV please, and swap you coal and iron ore" and still throw a billion at onshoring to make us feel good - jobs n graof after all - and still be assisting "in transition" if global heating, sea level rise and climate disasters. Inefficient yes. Realpolitic also yes. Thanks China.
** 'Renewable Energy Market Update 2021" "Outlook for 2021 and 2022"
iea - reports renewable-energy-market-update-2021
There's only one thing that's a cheaper worker than a Chinese coolie, and that's an (AI controlled ?) machine. Yep, gotta power them, but don't have to pay them.
DeleteHere we go again with the Bjornagain: he tells us that "...intermittent solar and wind bring large, often hidden costs." Yeah, right, so we have to develop large scale energy storage capabilities and that's just what we're doing with significant amounts of the technology research money that Lomborg is always telling us to spend.
ReplyDeleteBut as always, there's no analysis or recognition or anything of the already huge and growing, and very unhidden costs, that accompany continuing the burning of bulk fossil fuels for world-wide power generation. And we are already beginning to experience those costs in climate change consequences from higher (and frequently life-threatening) daily, and nightly temperatures to the consequences of ocean-level rise, more and worse cyclones, significantly disrupted weather cycles etc etc. No, never any mention whatsoever of the not-so-hidden costs associated with all that.
The pond is pleased you still have the strength to argue with the Bjorn-again one GB. The pond can remember reading exactly the same sort of gibberish from the fossilised Danish fop a decade ago, and repeated at intervals ever since. It's just so tiresome and wearing, pounding head with hammer. What to do? Silence only encourages them, rational notes only seem to encourage them to indulge in a frenzy of scribbling. Always the lose-lose thingie ...
DeleteAntidote to Bjorn Lomburg and newscorpse - Andri Snær Magnason's "On Time and Water".
DeleteParting the Red Sea pales to insignificance compared to what us humans have wrought on our water. Our grandkids will be waist deep.
"On Time and Water by Andri Snær Magnason is one of the most original & thought-provoking books about the climate crisis – or any subject – in ages. (…) I recommend the book, it’s mind-expanding"
Johann Hari – author of Stolen Focus
"... The fundamental problem, as this book elucidates, is time. Climate change is a disaster in slow motion, and yet “slow” is a great deal faster than many people seem able to comprehend.”
—The Economist
“Orwell, Vonnegut, and Douglas Adams are felt on every page, though Magnason is never derivative. His satire and insightful social commentary sweeten the pot and the sheer wackiness of Magnason’s oversized imagination is invigorating.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Lovestar
“Strange and refreshing—a lushly imagined future that reminded me of Vonnegut and Brautigan.”
—Ed Park, author of Personal Days on Lovestar
“The love child of Chomsky and Lewis Carroll.”
—Rebecca Solnit on The Casket of Time
https://www.openletterbooks.org/products/on-time-and-water
"Andri wrote an obituary for the first glacier Iceland lost to climate change, Ok-glacier in 2019 with these words:
“Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as a glacier. In the next 200 years all our glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done, only you know if we did it."
"His book, On Time and Water from 2019 is a work of narrative non fiction,..."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andri_Snær_Magnason
On Time and Water
An Interview with Andri Snær Magnason
https://emergencemagazine.org/interview/on-time-and-water/
Small correction, DP; for "repeated at intervals ever since"" substitute "repeated continuously ever since." But it's true that the reptiles, and particularly Bjornagain, are on an inspiration free, non truthful repetition cycle.
DeleteI just try to fondly imagine that now and then an innocent sojourner picks up the Pond and maybe even reads my contribution. Which I truly confess is very much on a repetition cycle.
So on to Ned: "But Dutton has yet to show the Coalition and the Liberal Party is ready or fit to govern or, when the details come, whether it has a credible policy." Oh pish tush and whiffle piffle, expecting the Coalition to have "a credible policy". And to explain, perhaps, why it didn't have one, nor any pretension to competent government, in the near decade of time for which it was in power quite recently. And why Dutton, who was there and spreading the policy-free misgovernment for the entire time, has any capability to change that.
ReplyDeleteFrom a quick search, it appears Lloydie of the Amazon has gone digital. There was an article which I think is by him, dated Monday, May 13, 2024, which was entitled "Environment action is looking like a luxury belief". It begins: "It might be tempting to look down from on high in the renewable energy transition on the protests of ordinary people worried about the cost and discomfort of change, but..."
ReplyDelete"... worried about the cost and discomfort of change, but..." need another antidote?
Delete"How Much is a Planet Worth?"
"Read all the way through for some truly staggering numbers
BILL MCKIBBEN
MAY 15, 2024
...
"On May 8, evening demand was climbing and conventional power plants totaling nearly 22 gigawatts of capacity were offline. Just before 8 p.m., the batteries surged more than 3 gigawatts onto the wires, beating the April 28 record by 50 percent.
"+Fascinating graph, courtesy of the data mavens at Ember, shows that 51 countries have now seen their fossil fuel emissions from power generation drop dramatically. It’s a sign that renewables aren’t just adding to the power sector, but beginning to substitute for fossil fuels"
[Graph compliation]
...
https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/how-much-is-a-planet-worth
Won't stop the dynamics already baked in though. Sorry grandkids.
It's been very wet in the Amazon recently - his internet probably dropping out as the rain drops in. But he is living his environmental dream - one of a more reliable, power hungry life of convenience, and it will likely arrive pretty soon in the Amazon. AG.
DeleteTalk about the worry and cost and discomfort of change, just how much worry and cost and discomfort will they have fairly shortly (already well under way since we won't stop at +1.5°C) if we don't initiate some considerable change.
DeleteYeah, Anony, "sorry kids (and grandkids and ...)".
I did enjoy the laughs from seeing Kelly's pitching for Dutton, including: "the failed voice still sighted in the rear-view mirror". As Keating once pointed out about Howard, the reptiles and the Coalition spend all their time with the car in reverse, looking in the rear-view mirror, because travelling backwards is their prime objective.
ReplyDeletePerhaps Kelly, Uhlmann and Lomborg might be taken more seriously if they protested on the concourse outside Parliament House wearing sandwich boards emblazoned with "the end is nigh". They could try holding blue buckets to fund-raise for the Coalition at the next election, although I suspect people would just pitch rubbish into the buckets, if only to show Dutton that his pitching is not as good as their pitching is.
Ah, Anony, I don't think it's possible for "Kelly, Uhlmann and Lomborg"(plus the rest of the cast) to "be taken more seriously" than they currently are. At least I really do hope not.
DeleteSo, as advised by Ned, Dutton has precious little policy to throw at Labor so he’s hoping that Labor will just kill itself, and the unthinking simple folk from the burbs (outer burbs?) will vote for the safety and security (read inertness) of Dutton. Laura Tingle also had a bit of a shock for Dutton,
ReplyDeletehttps://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-18/federal-budget-reply-peter-dutton-simple-dangerous-politics/103862262
- she too thinks, in an ABC balanced way (else she will get into trouble), that it is a very dangerous time for Dutton who is playing the migration card (as we have already been warned he would).
You have to wonder who is reading/listening to Dutton and his promoters, and how else he can win a few votes without a policy. It appears to me that Ned is already at the point of despair.
There is little sign that women will return to the Coalition, nor the inner and middle suburbs, and certainly not low paid workers in child care and aged care, and despite the grumbles, not all those groups who actually received some funding from Jim this week, and then there is $300 for everyone, and none of the above have anything to look forward to from Dutton.
What I find interesting is the way in which Albanese plays the long game. He receives lots of pressure to do this, that and everything, but prefers to take his time and then deliver things. He was smart to run the referendum early in his term - despite what Ned says the Voice is ancient history and everyone has moved on - it is unlikely to cost any votes in a year’s time. He took his time but doctored the stage three tax cuts (to general applause), eventually got some more wages for low paid workers, he’s sitting out the cost-of-living crisis and providing some relief, and so it goes. He will have a legacy after three years, and that is better than the Coalition had after nine. Few people down south have forgotten the glorious four years of the Coalition in Victoria (2010-2014), and Campbell Newman gifted a decade of Labor in Queensland. It is little wonder that Ned is wetting himself, why would anyone want to vote for someone who is offering nothing. AG.
Yeah but the very same could, should, and at least in some places probably was, said about the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison era, but they still won three elections in a row.
DeleteSo what is it ? Just that maybe most people really don't pay much attention to politics and will vote for "their party" anyway ? Kinda like all those folks in the USA - maybe nearly 50% of the vote-able population - who will vote for Trump regardless of everything.
And how did Menzies hang on in there for 17 years and John Howard for 11 ?
GB - there is the broader theory that having mass media telling its consumers that 'things is bad' as a constant in doing business, with 'sell the controversy, not the information', keeps that part of the population in a state of mild fear, looking for a 'strong' government, that will protect them from - the current list of terrors, all of which originate in 'the others'.
DeleteSo, in spite of the interesting circumstances in which he left the force, Capt. Spud is now presented as a 'former copper', who knows what evil lurks in the heart of man, and will - again - expunge it for you.
Not only ... but also, Chad ? Perhaps people's devotion to the 'evil stalks the world' idea is at least partly based on their continued ignorance of the world ? Or maybe it's just because much evil really does stalk the world as they are informed daily by "the press" - if they bother to pay any attention to it.
DeleteBut Capt. Spud as the shining saviour ? That really does require some serious ignorance.
Re Ned: "Who reads this mindless verbosity? Who cares about this guff?" Yeah, very good, but essentially unanswerable, questions; I personally don't know anybody who would confess to either, much less both.
ReplyDeleteBut Neddles has his formula (who said AI ?) and it sticks to him like glue.
"... trust the pond, everything must end ..." Well maybe, but is the heat death of the universe an end, or just a very long, drawn-out eternity ? And how many souls will still be singing the Trinity's glories and praises when it comes ?
ReplyDeleteHmmm:
ReplyDelete"Tyler Cowen [qv] points today to a new paper that investigates whether economists tend to talk their own book. That is, do they generally come to conclusions that fit their political leanings?
The answer, unsurprisingly, is yes, and I doubt that we need to bother with any more research on this subject."
https://jabberwocking.com/even-conservative-economists-agree-we-should-have-higher-taxes-on-the-rich/
Yeah, well, that says it all about those "professional economists" who disagree with Chalmers.