In which the Lynch mob opens the gig, followed by two sets of economic disaster porn ...

 

Here's a story about the ABC. After drifting off, the pond was woken by a fine sounding of tones on News Radio, followed by dead air, followed by static. At one point you could even faintly hear Frankie singing how he did it his way in amongst the static.

The station stayed off air for a good hour or so - an hour or more! - only returning at c. 4:11am to deliver bad news about Ukraine, the sociopathic Vlad the impaler and the ongoing genocide in Gaza, all courtesy the Beeb.

At no point was there an announcement or an apology, because likely there was no one within cooee of the studio, though the job's simple enough - keep the Beeb feed going. 

Eventually somebody pressed a button and the feed returned. Now it doesn't matter to the pond that the Beeb turned out to be in a frenzy about the possible return of Oasis - who cares? - but really if this is Kim's new ABC, they might as well kill it now, and kill it quickly. 

What was the pond doing awake to discover that singular level of indifference and incompetence? Never you mind, someone has to watch the watchers.

Luckily the news of Oasis chimed in with a story the pond missed yesterday, featuring the Lynch mob opining on music. 

If the pond had known it would have thrown out everything for the pleasure of the Lynch mob's company, especially as he was accompanied by a serve of Mein Gott's thinking.

The reptiles always play this tricky game with the pond, throwing up the best last, so the pond has to suffer through the likes of the Caterist, and misses the tastiest regurgitated pellets.

The pond can quickly dispense with today's offerings. Just as the pond really struggles to maintain any interest in the thoughts of Lord Downer and gorgeous George Brandis, so the sight of the bromancer regurgitating Little Johnny is truly pitiful.

The pond also found it remarkably easy to ignore Lana Collars bunging on a fine display of bigotry and prejudice - the pond refuses to acknowledge Collars - but does offer her an infallible Pope for the day, to encourage her in her legal work.

Similarly, simplistic "here no conflict of interest" Simon blathering about a Pyrrhic victory was an Ergas too far.

Luckily the reliable Dame Sloan was on hand to complete a pond triptych of pleasure, and for the record she could be seen front and centre in the digital edition.

So on to the Lynch mob, delayed but always invigorating...

Astonishing really, and incredibly revealing, and yet again the reptiles refuse to provide a link, though they're easy enough to find, here, and here and here.

What the Lynch mob does reveal in that astonishing opening gambit is a profound ignorance: "outside the American South, conservative popular music doesn't exist."

Leaving aside the enormous stupidity of judging music according to pathetic labels of the 'conservative' and 'progressive' kind, does the Lynch mob spend much time listening to music? Has he ever been to Tamworth?

What does he make of The Band? Has he ever heard of The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, an elegiac tribute to a lost cause which would be appreciated by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

Instead of some links to songs, the reptiles provided snaps that roamed from the dire to the banal ...

As for Bragg, the Lynch mob jumps off the deep end, but has he ever seen Bragg in concert? The pond recalls going to one concert where Bragg boasted about only ever flying first class, as a champagne socialist would ...

The pond gets it, it's a chance to bash unions and support genocides and rail against teh gays, in the way the pond expects of prize reptile maroons ...

Uh huh, and then it's on to that anti-trans bigot ...

The point of course is to use music as straw dogs so the Lynch mob can go woof woof in his usual way ...

J. K. Rowling is, by most accounts, beyond the valley of the pathetic, weirdly, deeply, obsessively compulsive on TG matters

It's a cult, with the shunnings and the bannings and the cuttings and the sulking, and inevitably the Lynch mob was all in on the cult ...

Tremendous stuff, down there with the usual Lynch mob stylings, and as well as avoiding music, perhaps the Lynch mob should also avoid attempts at comedy stylings. 

The long absent lord help the students attending the University of Melbourne...

And so to economic catastrophe, and here there are two serves of disaster porn, with Mein Gott setting the pace ...

Mein Gott really cranked up the hysteria, with talk of a day of infamy and a slow, catastrophic disaster...

There were snaps as usual, with one featuring the sort of gig that Mein Gott is thinking about in his retirement...

Some might wonder whether other disasters might have been worthy of Mein Gott's attention. This story by Kasha Patel ran in WaPo and featured vanishing glaciers ... (paywall)

For decades, scientists have been warning that glaciers are melting — one of the most identifiable consequences of a warming planet. But now, many have melted.

Venezuela is now glacier-free, losing its last one this year. New Zealand has lost at least 264 glaciers. The western United States has lost about 400 glaciers since the middle of the 20th century. Swiss researchers tallied more than 1,000 small ones lost. East Africa has less than 2 square kilometers of total glacial ice remaining.

Mountainous glaciers have vanished here and there throughout history, but the number of disappearances has skyrocketed in recent decades — when periods of unprecedented warmth melted many small, sometimes nameless, glaciers. As scientists grapple with the question of when a glacier loses its label, the change signals the long-dreaded progression of the next phase of global warming: glacial collapse.

Much like documenting an extinct species, scientists are for the first time mapping vanished glaciers worldwide brought on by climate change. It’s a living list of dead glaciers...

...For the past 41 years, glaciologist Mauri Pelto has visited Ice Worm Glacier in Mount Daniel-Mount Hinman complex in Washington every year and seen its decline firsthand.

The small glacier lost mass slowly until around 2015, marked by a warm summer with relatively low snowfall. Then, starting in 2021, an unprecedented string of ice loss finally pushed the glacier over the edge. Pelto started seeing rock at the bottom, with holes in the pattern of Swiss cheese. In 2023, he declared it was no longer a glacier.

Just a year earlier, he saw the disappearance of the bigger Hinman Glacier — after thousands of years, all that remained were a few patches of snow and ice.

“The end happened so fast,” said Pelto, a professor at Nichols College. “Whether it’s a pet or a person, they get near the end, a lot of things can happen really fast.”

Pelto has personally seen the disappearance of 31 glaciers in the Pacific Northwest, although he’s sure there are many more undocumented. He expects another one in the Mount Daniel-Mount Hinman complex, the Foss Glacier, to lose its status this year or next.

For scientists, documenting extinct glaciers can often feel existential.

“A thought occurred to me that in a few decades’ time, nobody will read my papers because why bother? There are no glaciers,” said Fountain, likening glacier inventory to documenting dinosaurs. “I’m documenting what was.”

Theoretically, extinct glaciers can grow back. Realistically, that doesn’t seem likely.

In the Pacific Northwest, Pelto said snowfall would need to increase by at least more than 20 percent on average for many years, as well as cooler summers. Considering Earth has been on a record hot streak for more than a year, that doesn’t seem in the cards.

“The ongoing disappearance of the smallest glaciers is not something we can just turn around, even if we stop [carbon dioxide] emissions today,” Huss said. “It’s too late for the small glaciers.”

But, he said, it might not be too late for the bigger ones.

Nah, none of that, Mein Gott is on a union jag, just like the Lynch mob ...

Perhaps some note on the way it's been unusually warm of late? 40°C in August? A climate expert explains why Australia is ridiculously hot right now.

It’s winter in Australia, but as you’ve probably noticed, the weather is unusually warm. The top temperatures over large parts of the country this weekend were well above average for this time of year.

The outback town of Oodnadatta in South Australia recorded 38.5°C on Friday and 39.4°C on Saturday – about 16°C above average. Both days were well above the state’s previous winter temperature record. In large parts of Australia, the heat is expected to persist into the coming week ...

Meanwhile, on another planet ...

...The consequences of humanity’s continued greenhouse gas emissions are clear. Australia’s winters are getting warmer overall. And winter “heatwaves” are becoming warmer.

Australia’s three warmest Augusts on record have all occurred since 2000 – and last August was the second-warmest since 1910. When the right weather conditions occur for winter warmth across Australia, the temperatures are higher than a century ago.

The warmth we are experiencing now comes off the back of a recent run of global temperature records and extreme heat events across the Northern Hemisphere.

This warm spell is set to continue, with temperatures above 30°C forecast from Wednesday through to Sunday in Brisbane. The outlook for spring points to continued above-normal temperatures across the continent, but as always we will likely see both warm and cold spells at times.

Such winter warmth is exceptional and already breaking records. Climate change is already increasing the frequency and intensity of this kind of winter heat – and future warm spells will be hotter still, if humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions continue.

A graph came with that one ...

Sorry, the pond couldn't get Mein Gott to bite, he was worried about a different sort of Amazon ...

Qantas? The pond admires Mein Gott's willingness to stand up for the suffering underdog, but that's a bit like being all in on a Boeing Starliner ...

And so to wrap up with Mein Gott deeply anxious about his ability to join the gig economy and tootle about on a bike delivering meals ... though the pond couldn't help turning to a story in the lizard Oz some time ago ...

Of course not getting super and becoming a burden on the economy in old age is an incredibly complex issue if you happen to want to screw workers and socialise your losses while banking your profits...

Splendid stuff, and Mein Gott paved the way for Dame Groan to have a completely hysterical breakdown ...

At this point the reptiles slipped in a snap of Petey boy in visionary, have a bub for the country, mode ...

For reasons to do with the innate perversity of the pond, the pond couldn't resist visiting Jason Murphy in Crikey in a 2020 story, Australia’s budget surplus obsession has gone too far:

...Costello’s achievement changed Australian political discourse — but it must be seen in context.

Australian government revenues increased violently on his watch. He was able to run consecutive surpluses without little political cost, especially towards the end of his term as treasurer. Nevertheless surpluses were then transformed into the yardstick by which subsequent treasurers had to be judged.

If we look back at history we can see the Costello budget myth developing in real time.

The Howard government took office in March 1996 and Costello — in his first budget speech that August — spoke of reducing the deficit but gave no hint he intended to reduce national debt to zero. His rhetoric was indistinguishable from that of his predecessors. That year he ran a budget deficit. 

In 1997-98 he edged the budget a bit closer to balance, and used the proceeds of the sale of Telstra to retire national debt, which had previously peaked at $96 billion, or 19% of GDP.

By 1998-99 the budget speech began to draw sharp distinctions between the old Labor approach and the new approach.

“Looking out to the next century there was just a haze of deficit upon deficit and climbing ranges of debt which hemmed us in and closed off our future opportunities,” Costello said of the debt built up under Keating.

But remember: Costello was sitting on booming tax revenues. Tax receipts rose 7.5% that year, adjusted for inflation. 

It was not until the next year, 1999-2000, that he began to speak of eliminating net national debt. 

He eventually did, in 2006-07. Of course, annual tax revenue had doubled compared with when he took over the treasurer’s office. Tax had risen from 22.7% of GDP in 1997-98 to 24.9% in 2005-06, even as the government gave out repeated tax cuts.

By the end the Howard government was gasping for breath under a gushing hose of unexpected revenue. They funded multiple wars, huge tax cuts, a vast increase in middle-class welfare — including the baby bonus — upgraded our defence forces enormously and still had enough spare to pay back debt.

Budget surpluses were hard to avoid by the end. Paying down debt was easy. I was working in Treasury at the time and I saw scant political will to say no to a spending idea. 

Petey boy and Dame Groan have been using that club now for decades ...

At this point, perhaps because of that talk of Friedman, the reptiles slipped in a video click bait distraction...

The pond was more beguiled by Wilcox ...

La la, and then it was on with more of the wonders of Petey boy ...

At that point the reptiles slipped in a snap of the mango Mussolini ...

... and the pond seized the chance to slip in a 'toon, just so the pond could sound relevant and up to date...

There's no doubt we're all on the road to ruin, though the pond sometimes wonders why there was never any rigour shown in relation to Dame Groan's generous stipend ...An email leak in November 2018 revealed that Sloan earns A$357,000 for her work as contributing economics editor at The Australian. (wiki)

Why won't anyone listen to her?

Panellist Judith Sloan yelled out a protest during ABC TV’s Q&A post-Budget discussion that she wasn’t being heard “because I’m a woman”.

In a hilarious exchange on Monday night with fellow panellist Ben Oquist, economist and columnist Sloan tried to interrupt the Australia Institute Director’s description of what he said was an “unfair” Federal Budget.

Oquist said the Budget was unfair and its plans tor tax cuts in seven years’ time made it “unfairer” and he said that 65 per cent of the Federal Government’s tax benefits went to men. But when Tony Jones asked Sloan’s opinion of the Budget, she was continually interrupted by Oquist.

During Sloan’s description of how “fiscal drag” worst affected women, he interrupted again.

After being interrupted by Oquist seven times, as he tried to say the Budget was “less progressive”, Sloan had had enough.

“No, no, no, Ben, just listen ...,” Sloan said, with Oquist interrupting again and host Tony Jones saying, “You’re talking over each other”.

“I haven’t had much of a go,” Sloan said, with Oquist interrupting again.

“I guess because I’m a woman,” she finished. (Apologies, News Corp link)

So much persecution, so little time, and really the Lynch mob should have pointed her in the direction of Helen Reddy.

And so to the final bout of catastrophe porn ...

Ah, identity politics ...

Sloan cut in, telling Bowen his policy was “good for rich people, because if you pay tax, you get the full benefit of the franking credit.

“That’s fantastic,” she said. “I’m glad you like those really rich people ...

“That’s great, because those struggling self-funded retirees are just a bit above the aged pension entitlement and miss out.”

Yes, always identify with those struggling self-funded retirees.

There's never any end to the suffering, and so to disconnect by ending with the Rowe of the day ...

As always it's in the detail. Forget all the bunny stuff, the PJs and the slippers, and never mind the spectre hovering at the window with fingers under the sill, fun though it all is - those grotesque gargoyles at the end of the bed are seriously disturbing ...