The venerable Meade was particularly fruity yesterday and at time of writing had attracted a highly indignant 258 comments, some monstering Nine, some monstering the lizard Oz, some the Murdochians, but the pond found hope and solace, with the Bolter threatening to bolt if the Succession strategy went awry...
If only ...
'We are not going back' is the chant of the moment and it's true that the pond will never return to reading or featuring the Bolter - those days are long gone - but the pond is borne ceaselessly back into the past by the gerontocracy at the lizard Oz.
The pond must beat on, if only for the pleasure of beating them up ... and much was afoot this day, including the sound of distant thunder (relax, it was just Sydney having a sodden moment) ...
Inevitably the USA was still dominating the scene, while the Ughmann took time out to give the CMFEU a dust-up.
The pond had to save a few treasures - such as prattling Polonius - for the usual meditative Sunday, and there was even bigger relief because there was a chance to avoid the Ughmann...
The dog botherer had turned up to return the pond to the good old days, way back when, of reptile climate science denialism ...
Naturally to kick things off there was a terrifying snap of whale killers in action, allegedly near Glenmore, a handy warning to any passing whale ...
If only the pond had a dollar for each time it had read "virtue signalling" in a reptile piece. By now the pond would be a squillionare ...
The dog botherer's piece arrives at a most apposite time ...
As well as Monday was hottest recorded day on Earth: ‘Uncharted territory’ in the Graudian, you could also read World breaks hottest day record twice in a week.
Some correspondents might be wearied or gruntled by the sense of doing it all over again, but the pond promises that the dog botherer will deliver a billy goat butt of pure delight along the way ...
But first the usual array of videos and snaps, with the reptiles thinking so little of the dog botherer's piece they included a distracting update on the Olympics, alongside a video featuring the nuking of the country by Captain Spud...
...as well as the usual meaningless bits of visual nonsense featuring snaps of energy kit ...
Then it was on with a bog standard effort by the dog botherer...
Oh no, not Covid again, and talk of mass delusion and alarmists and nuking the country to save the planet, and so on and so endlessly forth.
The pond likes, during one of these dog botherer hysterical fits, to note other news in the field, this one from WaPo ...Extreme heat is wilting and burning forests, making it harder to curb climate change (paywall)
The dog botherer worried? Not on your nelly, not when there's ranting to be done ...
Cheery stuff ... and so comes the urgent cry from the dog botherer to do absolutely nothing ...
And so to the billy goat buttism of the day, proudly starting off the final DB gobbet ...
Yep, after all that the dog botherer can shamelessly begin "and before critics suggest I am arguing you for inaction, I am not."
Of course you are you doofus, be out and proud, don't bother with some feeble back pedalling, as if the alarmists might be on to something ...
Every fibre of your being, and your inane scribbling, cries out for inaction ...
There was just one line full of truth in that whole piece, and it only needed a minor rejig, a small tweak.
"Clearly, I am not as clever as I think. And my son has wised up".
Take it away, child of dog botherer, way wised up:
Kenny is a staunchly neo-conservative, anti-progress, anti-worker defender of the status quo. He is an unrelenting apologist for the Liberal Party. He was one of Alexander Downer’s senior advisers at the time of the Iraq War. He’s been known to argue for stubborn, sightless inaction on climate change. He spits at anyone concerned with such trivialities as gender equality, environmental issues or labour rights from his Twitter account on a daily basis. Recently, he characterised criticism of the lack of women in Tony Abbott’s Cabinet as a continuation of the Left’s “gender wars”. He is a regular and fervent participant in The Australian’s numerous ongoing bully campaigns against those who question its editorial practices and ideological biases. The profoundly irresponsible, dishonest, hate-filled anti-multiculturalist Andrew Bolt has recently referred to Kenny on his blog as “a friend”.
And it’s a jokey picture of a bestial embrace that I should be afraid of discovering online? (Junkee archives).
That never gets old for the pond, evoking as it does fond memories of how the dog botherer got his nickname.
And so to the bonus, and here the pond was disappointed. The bromancer was at the top of the digital edition with a yarn about the USA, but when the pond clicked on it, this was all that turned up ...
If you clicked on the bromancer's name, you got the same metaphorical void ...
No doubt the reptiles will fix things and in the meantime there was a piece on the same topic by Bari Weiss, standard blather about the 'leets, and headed Behind the double talk about Biden was a condescending logic now very familiar to Americans.
Desperate times at the lizard Oz.
Bari Weiss is a nasty piece of work, and picking up droppings from the AFP shows a willingness to ferret through a dung hill, yet there it was ...This article originally appeared in The Free Press. Read more: thefp.com.
The reptiles didn't even bother with a hot link to the dung hill, and having done that, the pond preferred to move on to the Everest known as nattering "Ned", because why go with a weasel import when you can have a fine Currency Lad effort and bore the socks off everyone with a home brew ...
A culture war? Time for a 'toon already ...
Sheesh, JAQ of the most hysterical kind ... put it another way ...
There was an array of snaps to go with "Ned" in full alarmist flight ...
Oh dear, did he just scribble "the appealing JD Vance"?
What a hootin' and a hollerin' that story produced ...
There are televised debates? Maybe ... ABC News still ‘full steam ahead’ with presidential debate, despite Trump backing off commitment.
Or maybe he'll hold out for kid glove treatment at Faux Noise, or do his own version of Chicken Little ...
And then it was back to JD worship ...
The pond's already done JD's set of weird fundamentalist Catholic beliefs - including hanging around in a marriage for a good bashing or three - and it's a measure of "Ned's" lack of awareness that he'd swallow this pick of the sons of the orange Jesus whole ...
If "Ned" thinks JD is the saviour of the working man, the pond has a venture capitalist to sell him, and the pond will throw in the harbour bridge for free.
Luckily this was the end of this day's "Ned" Everest climb, with just one more short gobbet to go ...
The pond hates to say it, but the pond might have been better off suffering with Bari Weiss ...
If you're going to do the cesspit of saucy doubts and fears, why not go the whole hog?
And so to wrap things up with an immortal Rowe celebrating cat ladies ...
Oh no, not Jennifer ...
So much fun passing clueless "Ned" by, but sadly hings might get a little short-on when it comes to local 'toons for a few days, with the immortal Rowe also tweeting this ...
Sadly, they torched it long ago ...
Neddy: "...the US presidential contest between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris looms as an acrimonious, deeply negative and divisive contest for America." Now from where I'm sitting, any contest that includes Trump is "deeply negative and divisive", yes ? No matter who else is involved, but now with Trump and JD Vance, well that says it all, doesn't it.
ReplyDeleteSo, "Trump and Harris are complete opposites in every sense." Indeed so; Harris is basically a normal human female, and Trump is Trump.
Anyway: "Despite the seismic shake-ups and dramas of recent weeks the hard truth is that a flawed US political system is on display." And wau, that's never happened before, has it. Nixon was great, Ronny Raygun was wondrous and George W Bush was just terrific. Modern godly saints, every one of them.
Oh: "Trump survived the attempt on his life" - yes, but was it a bullet or shrapnel ? Sense would suggest the latter. And JD ? "...the appealing JD Vance" ? Oh sure, but to what or to whom ?
"A culture war? Time for a 'toon already ...". Don't they know!... "Sadly, they torched it long ago ..."
ReplyDelete"Era of culture wars is over, pledges new culture secretary Lisa Nandy
"Nandy says her department will prioritise celebrating British culture and a less divisive vision of the UK
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/09/era-of-culture-wars-is-over-pledges-new-culture-secretary-lisa-nandy
"And then it was back to JD worship ..."
Let's hope JD (disrespect) gets a stern idea from Nial's mea culpa musket...
ReplyDelete"Niall Ferguson, J. D. Vance, George Washington, and Jesus
Posted on July 26, 2024 9:40 AM by Andrew
...
"Back in 2013, Ferguson gave a speech at a conference of financial advisors, where he “explained that Keynes had [no chidren] because he was a homosexual and was married to a ballerina, with whom he likely talked of ‘poetry’ rather than procreated. . . . Ferguson . . . says it’s only logical that Keynes would take this selfish worldview because he was an ‘effete’ member of society. . . .”
"After it was pointed out to him that non-parents can still contribute in useful ways to society—a couple of famous examples from the political realm are George Washington and Jesus—, Ferguson took it all back, saying his remarks were “doubly stupid. First, it is obvious that people who do not have children also care about future generations. Second, I had forgotten that Keynes’s wife Lydia miscarried.”
...
https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/07/26/niall-ferguson-and-j-d-vance/
For those who believe it's all God's wonderful creation surely some should wonder why so many embryos and fetuses die long before making it to any prospect of a life.
DeleteAnd why so many God created souls are utterly wasted on them. I wonder how do they all spend eternity singing God's praises when they haven't got functioning lungs.
Very droll and a fun link ...
DeleteThis also all made me wonder what Ferguson thinks of Vance?
On one hand, Vance would seem like the sort of politician who Ferguson would love: an Ivy-educated economic and social conservative, a book author with interests and geopolitics, also with multiple children and a wife who is not a ballerina. Vance shares with Ferguson a concern about deindustrialization, cultural and political crises, the decline of western civilization, and so on. Vance is hard-line anti-abortion and Ferguson appears to hold some anti-abortion views as well.
On the other hand, Ferguson is a strong supporter of Ukraine and an opponent of Putin, whereas Vance takes the Trump line and has said, “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.” Also, Ferguson wrote, “I shall never condone Trump’s conduct on January 6 last year, when he incited violent attacks on the Capitol Building,” whereas Vance has promoted election denialism and has said that Mike Pence should not have certified the election results on that day.
So I could see Ferguson going either way on this, depending on the relative weights he puts on various issues such as economic policy, abortion, Ukraine, and certification of elections. From one perspective, it’s all about stopping the West’s long-term economic and moral decline, and the most important thing is that Vance supports lower taxes, less business regulation, restrictions on abortion, and policies to encourage more childbearing. From another perspective, it’s all about the immediate threats of foreign aggression and the loss of democracy at home, in which case Vance’s views on Ukraine and elections would be dealbreakers. It’s a tough call.
There's more, with this was the start of a series of updates ...
P.S. OK, I was wrong in 2011 when I said I was writing my absolutely last Niall Ferguson post ever. The guy just provides too much material for me to quit: he’s right there at the intersection of politics and social science.
Spoiler alert, they ended this way ...
...Ferguson seems to have made his peace with Vance, I guess making the call that opposition to abortion and business regulation and a concern about the decline of the west, is more important than indifference to Ukraine and promotion of nutty conspiracy theories.
Fair enough. No candidate is perfect, and it makes sense that Ferguson went with the guy who shares his strong distaste for childless influencers like Keynes, George Washington, and Jesus.
If you don't want the meat, here is the potato; "He's better qualified than Kamala Harris."
Delete"Goodfellows" - I kid you not, is the name of the "Conversations from the Hoover Institute". They obviously don't do irony and are chummy - like kid boys in the back woods:
"I want to start a Niall versus HR fight because I haven't seen you guys in too long. And the fight is over Ukraine. Niall had a very good New York Post op ed yesterday. Niall's op ed said that what you can expect from Trump advance is not retreat, but what Niall called realism, basically let Russia have what it has."
The transcript is not parsed with named sections. From the video. Oh how they must feel sated at their high grasp of - well everything.
Kevin Munger is right to say the text generation is past it.... "We’re stuck, this group which I had mentally been referring to as “words-style people,” in a technosocial context that has collapsed in a span of less than two decades."
https://kevinmunger.substack.com/p/sympathy-for-the-wordcel
I nearly closed Hoover tab at... "And there was a great Barry Weiss column on this recently. This was the last, the most recent of a series of lies. And the average American knows they're being lied to." ... but I persevered.
Dorothy et all, I won't sully us here with further sucking from Nial and his mate's play fighting in future, except at this unique juncture,so here is a clip. We need to see the wordcels to know them. I'll just add JQ is also an appeaser preferring Ukraine give up everything instead of continued war. Hmmm...
"Unburdened By What Has Been
"An already surreal political year becomes all the more quizzical as former president Donald Trump literally dodges an assassin’s bullet soon before making a surprise pick of Ohio senator J. D. Vance as his running mate."
Thursday, July 25, 2024 61 min watch interview with John H. Cochrane, Niall Ferguson, H.R. McMaster, Bill Whalen
...
"... J. D. Vance is qualified to be president of the United States?
"He's better qualified than Kamala Harris. Let's just put it that way. One of the things about J. D. Vance that most impressed me when I first met him was his intellectual firepower. Hillbilly Elegy is an important book. If you haven't read it, go ahead.
"I urge you to read it. He has been on quite an interesting political journey since he came out of the services came out of college and wrote that book. And it began with him as a critic of Donald Trump and his evolution to something of a Trumpist has, I think, been a genuine political education So I'm impressed by him. I've been impressed by him since I first met him And I think there's no doubt about his capability and the passion he feels For the people in the parts of america. He is closest to, and that's what, that's the importance of Hillbilly Elegy. It was a kind of biographical version, autobiographical version, of Charles Murray's coming apart."
End clip.
I can't be bothered to parse whole article for single attribution. 3 names. All said it... Goodfellows.
Antidote? Via astralcodexten.
"Socialism And The Shape Rotators
"What happened to reason in revolt?"
JUL 04, 2024
https://homosum.substack.com/p/socialism-and-the-shape-rotators
Speaking of dreadfully sane thoroughly useless people who do not have children "catholic" popes, cardinals, bishops and priests come to mind!
ReplyDeleteIs there enough of them to matter ?
DeleteI wasn't going to say anything about the Doggy Bov yesterday, but after a cold night shivering in Melbourne's antarctic freeze, I got a bit motivated.
ReplyDeleteBut only a small bit because of how mind-freezingly often the Boverer comes up with this:
"Our national contribution to global emissions is now just over 1 per cent and shrinking." Oh wau, does that mean we're already significantly reducing our emissions, or does that mean the rest of the world is still increasing their emissions faster than we're increasing ours. Whaddaya reckon. Hold on: "Australia's annual emissions total less than 400 megatonnes while China's are rising by more than that total each year and are now at 17,100M or about 30 times Australia's." And China's population at about 1400 million is nearly 54 times Australia's at around 26 million.
Is Australia's 'contribution' so negligible as to be able to be ignored ? Or would that be like claiming that because some people rob banks, nothing should be done to curb persistent shoplifting. Which would indeed be the way the Boverer looks at things.
The thing is though, that if every nation completely ended all of its CO2 emissions except Australia, anthropogenic climate change would still be happening because CO2 persists in the atmosphere for millennia. So it would still accumulate, though it might take a few centuries to really screw things instead of just a few decades like now.
Some good comes out of the deep freeze then GB. The old ruse, "we don't count, we don't amount to a hill of polluting beans", has lone been a favourite of the deniers ... (big egg endians if you will)
Delete