Dear diary, today Dame Slap moved beyond a squillion or a kadgillion columns about the Lehrmann matter, and the pond's fragile soul can't cope and must scream to the heavens ...
Automatic red card, but there was some relief and distraction in the form of the return of nattering "Ned" to the fray ...
No news of Ukraine or Gaza or such like, but at least "Ned" was determined to diss the Donald...
There were some snaps to go with the dissing, albeit of a never no mind kind...
"Ned" was in full patrician Ronnie Raygun mode ...
"Ned" is apparently unaware of the heroic efforts of his kissing cousins at Faux Noise, and brave attempts to stop the election from being stolen ...
Meanwhile, the brave Donald has agreed to debate radical left komrade Kamala while embracing radical left loonie RFK Jr.
For some weird reason, "Ned" seems to think that the mango Mussolini borders on the lunatic ... but Faux Noise and the Donald have trained the pond in spotting ...fake news ...
Not once in his endless rambling does "Ned" acknowledge Faux Noise and all it has done, is doing and will keep on doing ... frankly, it seems beyond him ... and instead he settles for his old ploy of quoting others as a way of adding to the verbiage...
And so to the final gobbet.
Here, have a cartoon to celebrate ...
And now your mission, should you chose to accept it, is to explain the urgent need to gas the country, while failing to mention how this might save the planet ... step up Mr Watson, no friend to Sherlock ...
But, billy goat butt, isn't gas just another variant on fossil fuels? Forget it Jake, it's gas town, with impressive kit and Mr Watson himself featured in the illustrative snaps ...
Forget all those sooks and cry babies...
Natural gas is a fossil fuel. The global warming emissions from burning natural gas are lower than those from coal or oil, but much higher than clean energy sources like wind or solar.
Emissions from smokestacks and tailpipes, however, do not tell the full story.
The drilling and extraction of gas from wells and its transportation in pipelines results in the leakage of methane, the primary component of natural gas. Methane is 34 times stronger than CO2 at trapping heat over a 100-year period and 86 times stronger over 20 years. Studies as well as field and aerial measurements have shown that high rates of methane leakage can be found throughout the natural gas system.
Whether gas has lower life cycle greenhouse gas emissions than coal and oil depends on the leakage rate, the time frame employed for evaluating global warming potential, the energy conversion efficiency, and other factors. One study found that methane losses must be kept below 3.2 percent for natural gas power plants to have lower life cycle emissions than new coal plants over short time frames of 20 years or fewer [6]. And if burning natural gas in vehicles is to deliver even marginal benefits, methane losses must be kept below 1 percent and 1.6 percent compared with diesel fuel and gasoline, respectively. Technologies are available to reduce much of the leaking methane, but deploying such technology would require new policies and investments. (here)
Oh never mind, the pond is sure it's in safe hands, and everything is for the best in the best of possible heating worlds ...
Now there's a cunning ploy. What might be featured in other publications as an advertorial is presented by the reptiles with a straight face ...
Now there's a cunning ploy. Don't compare gas with other forms of energy, compare gas with more wastrel forms of gas, and all will be well ...
And so to the final cunning ploy and at last an indication of skin in the game ...
You have to hand it to the reptiles, and next week, several stunning pieces on the virtues of renewable energy from friendly solar and wind representatives.
The pond keeds, it keeds, the reptiles would rather chop off their advertorial hand.
Instead it's time to cut to Dame Groan, who is on something of a productivity binge, and so turned up in the digital Oz today to scourge and lash her favourite current enemy ...
Dame Groan is correct of course. If anyone's going to descend into idle abuse, worthy of a lizard Oz columnist, it's going to be her, and this deeply insulting wannabe philosopher king and epic server of twaddle should stand by for a serve ...
Just to show the level of the reptile obsession with the philosopher king, they featured two video clips, both featuring the same snap ...
Now there's nothing unsurprising or remarkable about the rest of it. Dame Groan gets really agitated by this divisive twaddle peddling philosopher king up against the uniter in chief, so the pond could easily take time out for a 'toon ...
Then it's on with the abuse ...
Indeed, indeed, if only Jimbo had turned to Dame Groan for advice - he wouldn't have been so disconnected ...
And so to the final gobbet of the day, and here Dame Groan let out a reflexive line which delighted the pond ...
"Pause to groan."
At last recognition that the pond's nickname was entirely correct and appropriate, because Dame Groan is always pausing to Groan ...
As for divisive, Dame Groan seems to have overlooked that Wilcox cartoon, and seems also to have overlooked the current divisiveness..
If we must suffer multiple Groans in a week, the Cult feels some obligation to take up her more repetitive sallies.
ReplyDeleteFor this day, the Dame attempts what she regards as humour (‘I might get a laugh from some readers’) by, yet again, conditioning her mention of Mariana Mazzucato with the reptile qualifier of ‘controversial’. OK - that might sit oddly with mass media following the Rupert guidance that their function is not to sell news, but to find controversy around the news. But the common use of ‘controversial’, on the Flagship, is of the form that Sir Humphrey Appleby would appreciate.
But our Dame has to offer us her own guidance on Prof. Mazzucato, with ‘Let’s be clear here, her views are not widely accepted within the economics profession.’
Prof. Mazzucato’s primary position is with the University College of London. Which has the largest postgraduate enrolment in the UK. One might have thought that our Dame might be mildly impressed by UCL, because it was founded, just under 2 centuries back, as a joint stock company. Not a lot of universities can claim that, and fewer that started that way had become so significant after two centuries.
The Wiki gives extensive detail of Prof. Mazzucato’s other appointments, particularly to international advisory boards. It also lists the books she has published, several of which are considered significant enough to rate their own Wiki page. Of course, some day we might see our Dame’s distillation of economic wisdom in book form, perhaps even from a recognised publisher, with which the Dame can sweep the Mazzucato tomes from best-seller lists.
If this acolyte in the cult might rephrase the Dame’s wording - Prof Mazzucato’s views are largely ignored by those who write supposed ‘economic’ comment for any part of Rupert’s media, because those commenters must feed the myth that there is a glorious golden future, called the ‘free enterprise economy’, which will happen, one day, and in which everyone will have a surfeit of goods and services, while being utterly free of any fear of foreigners; without paying one cent in taxes.
The actual economics profession, and many, many individuals, seek an explanation for how the recent worldwide economy, and particularly the manipulators of finance, have concentrated what we regard as wealth, further and further up the distribution curve. Prof. Mazzucato is one of those offering explanations, from a wider perspective, for how that has happened.
This review Profits Now, Costs Later gives you an idea of Mazzucato's approach.
DeleteThank you Joe - good review, and the kind of discussion that actually contributes to better understanding. I note from his LSE entry that Woodruff does not churn out weekly pap for mass media, but there are some enticing other titles there.
DeleteI don't think that Groany quite grasps that she 'gets a laugh from many readers' every single day that she's published. The thing is though, that if she tried to be laughable by intent, it just wouldn't happen, it only works because she, in her own mind, is being very serious.
DeleteBut then I suppose that's true of all the reptiles. Anyway, thanks for your continuing efforts in the pursuit of audience enlightenment, Chad.
Ned writes "Trump has been reeling from a trio of inconceivable blows". Inconceivable? Nah. After it became clear that Biden was too old, it probably went like this:
ReplyDeleteA few of the Democrat hard men say to Joe, 'Do you want to go down in history as the man who didn't stop America becoming a fascist state?'
'No.'
'Then you have to announce that you will not run for re-election. You will still be President until next year."
'OK. Who will be the candidate?'
'Kamala, of course. She's young, she's a woman, and she's black. Trump will not be able to cope. By mid-October Trump will be a gibbering idiot.'
'OK. When do I make the announcement?'
'After the Republican Convention. Trump will go crazy because his campaign is built on having you as candidate.'
'OK, let's do it.'
With a bit of polishing it would make a great one-act play at the New Theatre
Behind every loon...
ReplyDelete"As RFK Jr. Backs Trump, Here's the Secretive Billionaire Plutocrat Funding Them Both"
...
"Robert Reich, the former U.S. labor secretary, wrote Friday that "it's no surprise" Kennedy dropped out of the 2024 race and endorsed Trump.
"He and Trump both shared the same major donor—billionaire nepo baby Timothy Mellon," Reich added. "RFK Jr.'s campaign was always a MAGA spoiler."
"Mellon is a member of a powerful group known as "guardian angels," a label "for big donors who supply 40% or more of a committee's funds and are a political group's top contributor," OpenSecrets explained.
"Spending from super PACs and other outside groups has topped $1 billion this election cycle, and the largest spender to date has been MAGA, Inc."
...
https://www.commondreams.org/news/timothy-mellon-trump-rfk-jr
Add Australia to...
ReplyDelete"Hub Exclusive: U.S. Ambassador says Canadians are consuming an ‘unhealthy’ amount of American news"
...
A Canadian fixation with America
...
As previously reported by The Hub, Canada’s politics are growing more and more Americanized.
...
Slanted news
Ambassador Cohen said even American outlets themselves have what he considers to be “an unhealthy preoccupation with American politics.”
“You’re getting an unfiltered and 24/7 perspective on the political structure from all of these cable television news outlets, without the balancing perspective of lots of people around you who have different opinions and who can balance a little bit what you’re seeing on a cable television news show,” he explained.
“I do think it’s unhealthy,” said Cohen, admitting that for his own mental health he took an intentional break from his country’s political news channels this summer.
According to media analysts, America’s “Big Three” news channels—Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC—all have political biases.
The AllSides bias checker rates Fox News as having a right-wing bias, CNN as having a bias that leans Left, and MSNBC as having a left-wingbias.
Meanwhile, many American newsrooms are lacking ideological diversity. According to a 2022 Syracuse University study, just 3.4 percent of American journalists now describe themselves as Republicans, while 36.4 percent describe themselves as Democrats.
https://thehub.ca/2024/08/27/hub-exclusive-u-s-ambassador-says-canadians-are-consuming-an-unhealthy-amount-of-american-news/
"...there was never any rigour shown in relation to Dame Groan's generous stipend..." Generous indeed, though one wonders just how it might compare with Dame Slap's stipend.
ReplyDeleteBut hey, now that the reptiles have taken over ideological ownership of Hawke and Keating, she has to get generously rewarded or people might think that Groany just isn't quite 'first rank' any more.
Oh my:
ReplyDelete"Annual CPI rise down in July after the federal government’s energy subsidy cut electricity bills by 5%"
Electricity bills have fallen ? And that's dragged inflation down too ? No, surely Groany will explain that it just isn't so to us tomorrow.
Australia’s inflation rate falls to 3.5% for the year to July as energy bills shrink
https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/aug/28/australia-inflation-rate-falls-today-cpi-interest-rates-rba