AI has left the building, normal intelligence never entered, as might be expected of a herpetology student, and the pond is unwell and is stepping out of the tent for a while ...if nothing else, our hole in the bucket man is a worthy placeholder ...
Saturday, September 21, 2024
Friday, September 20, 2024
In which nuking the country and the greenies brings out an apocalyptic Henry ...
Dammit, after all the fine work by shrieking Sharri (disrespect), Major Mitchell and many other fine reptiles, the pond was shocked to wake up to find that they still hadn't managed to drive a stake through the Covid creature origin story ...
The Beeb, as you'd expect of cardigan wearers, was full of it in Genetic ghosts suggest Covid’s market origins:
A team of scientists say it is “beyond reasonable doubt” the Covid pandemic started with infected animals sold at a market, rather than a laboratory leak.
They were analysing hundreds of samples collected from Wuhan, China, in January 2020.
The results identify a shortlist of animals – including racoon dogs, civets and bamboo rats – as potential sources of the pandemic.
Despite even highlighting one market stall as a hotspot of both animals and coronavirus, the study cannot provide definitive proof.
The samples were collected by Chinese officials in the early stages of Covid and are one of the most scientifically valuable sources of information on the origins of the pandemic.
An early link with the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market was established when patients appeared in hospitals in Wuhan with a mystery pneumonia.
The market was closed and teams swabbed locations including stalls, the inside of animal cages and equipment used to strip fur and feathers from slaughtered animals.
Their analysis was published last year and the raw data made available to other scientists. Now a team in the US and France says they have performed even more advanced genetic analyses to peer deeper into Covid’s early days.
It involved analysing millions of short fragments of genetic code – both DNA and RNA – to establish what animals and viruses were in the market in January 2020.
"We are seeing the DNA and RNA ghosts of these animals in the environmental samples, and some are in stalls where [the Covid virus] was found too," says Prof Florence Débarre, of the French National Centre for Scientific Research.
The results, published in the journal Cell, highlight a series of findings that come together to make their case.
It shows Covid virus and susceptible animals were detected in the same location, with some individual swabs collecting both animal and coronavirus genetic code. This is not evenly distributed across the market and points to very specific hotspots.
"We find a very consistent story in terms of this pointing - even at the level of a single stall - to the market as being the very likely origin of this particular pandemic," says Prof Kristian Andersen, from the Scripps Institute in the US.
They were analysing hundreds of samples collected from Wuhan, China, in January 2020.
The results identify a shortlist of animals – including racoon dogs, civets and bamboo rats – as potential sources of the pandemic.
Despite even highlighting one market stall as a hotspot of both animals and coronavirus, the study cannot provide definitive proof.
The samples were collected by Chinese officials in the early stages of Covid and are one of the most scientifically valuable sources of information on the origins of the pandemic.
An early link with the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market was established when patients appeared in hospitals in Wuhan with a mystery pneumonia.
The market was closed and teams swabbed locations including stalls, the inside of animal cages and equipment used to strip fur and feathers from slaughtered animals.
Their analysis was published last year and the raw data made available to other scientists. Now a team in the US and France says they have performed even more advanced genetic analyses to peer deeper into Covid’s early days.
It involved analysing millions of short fragments of genetic code – both DNA and RNA – to establish what animals and viruses were in the market in January 2020.
"We are seeing the DNA and RNA ghosts of these animals in the environmental samples, and some are in stalls where [the Covid virus] was found too," says Prof Florence Débarre, of the French National Centre for Scientific Research.
The results, published in the journal Cell, highlight a series of findings that come together to make their case.
It shows Covid virus and susceptible animals were detected in the same location, with some individual swabs collecting both animal and coronavirus genetic code. This is not evenly distributed across the market and points to very specific hotspots.
"We find a very consistent story in terms of this pointing - even at the level of a single stall - to the market as being the very likely origin of this particular pandemic," says Prof Kristian Andersen, from the Scripps Institute in the US.
And so on, but luckily the pond also checked out AP's version, A new genetic analysis of animals in the Wuhan market in 2019 may help find COVID-19’s origin.
Mark Woolhouse, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Edinburgh, said the new genetic analysis suggested that the pandemic “had its evolutionary roots in the market” and that it was very unlikely COVID-19 was infecting people before it was identified at the Huanan market.
“It’s a significant finding and this does shift the dial more in favor of an animal origin,” Woolhouse, who was not connected to the research, said. “But it is not conclusive.”
Exactly, and that's why the pond will always get its conclusive science from top notch scientists of the scintillating Sharri (disrespect) and Major "Order of Lenin medal" Mitchell kind, instead of rank also rans carrying out high falutin' genetic detective work and other forms of wankery ...
It just so happens that after that the pond could turn to other reptile science studies for the day, with nuking the country to save the planet high on the agenda ...
Some will note on the far right the ghost of Bill Kelty returning to haunt the lizard Oz, accompanied by Chris Bowen doing a piece about nuking the country.
But why would the pond bother with Bowen, when it can read the lizard Oz's very own EXCLUSIVE on proceedings?
Oh dear, the pond has already explained that the pond would rather pierce its ear drums than listen to the reptiles read out loud, and as for "take me there", why we're already here ...
Never mind, costings, schmucktings ...
Then with those correctives in place, the reptiles could continue the undermining, while regurgitating little chunks of Bowen, with the undermining a job well done ...
What an excellent warm-up act for our Henry.
The pond's main interest in any outing by the hole in the bucket man is whether it's a Thucydides day. Sad to say, the Greek master misses out this time, but there's still a satisfying amount of pompous and portentous references in the word salad ...
Speaking of word salad machines, has our Henry thought about this invention ...
There really should have been room for "wokerati" on that final wheel- as in "Taylor Swift is grilling the wokerati" - but never mind, time to give our Henry a spin ...
The latest to hog the news cycle featured Boris once again wreaking Europe (NY Times paywall).
At this point the pond is forced to note that our Henry copped the same inserted click bait video as seen above ... but the whole point inside the hive mind is to keep repeating the same thing over and over...
Denouncing the doom sayers, our Henry, robust climate scientist, was hurt to be categorised as a denier ...
The weather system was fueled by a blast of Arctic air that moved in from the north, causing temperatures to plummet within 24 hours. While it’s not unprecedented for a polar blast to hit Europe in late summer, it could become more likely to happen in the future under a changing climate, said Richard Rood, a climatologist at the University of Michigan.
That cold air collided with warmer air from the south that was dense with water vapor. The overloaded moisture came from an unusually warm Mediterranean Sea that hit the highest temperature ever recorded last month.
“The climate is so warm that every storm or weather event is influenced by a warming climate,” Dr. Rood said. “It’s impossible to have an event, especially an extreme event, that doesn’t have some relation to climate change.”
While flooding has always been a natural occurrence, heavier rains are arriving more often as greenhouse gas emissions, largely caused by the burning of fossil fuels, continue to rise. Higher temperatures on both land and sea mean more moisture is held in the atmosphere. And a hotter planet creates more energy that can cause storms to more efficiently rain out that moisture, potentially leading to a more violent storm.
“To prevent such catastrophic outcomes in the future, we as Europe have to accelerate our flood adaptation,” Dr. Knispel de Acosta said. Those adaptations could include improved storm water management systems, better urban planning, more accessible early warning systems and growing investments in green infrastructure, like replacing concrete surfaces with more permeable materials or planting more trees.
“Our infrastructure was built for a climate that no longer exists,” said Diana Urge-Vorsatz, a professor at Central European University and vice chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But while these storms become more common, even experts can forget how pervasive they have become.
Before Storm Boris hit Central Europe, Dr. Urge-Vorsatz was warned by another climate scientist to stock up on enough food and emergency supplies to last at least three days. It’s going to be really bad, she said he had told her. She didn’t listen. Then floodwaters and strong winds threatened her home just outside Vienna.
“We know that with climate change, the rain is getting more intense and frequent, but no one really believes it when it’s coming,” Dr. Urge-Vorsatz said. “We always think it’s happening to others, and that it can’t happen to me.”
Winds pummeled her neighborhood, knocking down big trees. Schools closed, roadways and transit lines were submerged, power outages flickered across the region, affecting tens of thousands of homes.
Bloody useless apocalyptic fanatical fear mongeringManicheans.
What they need is a decent serve of medievalism instead of all this blather about floods in Europe ...
Instead both times the pond was transferred to Samantha McCulloch, the Chief Executive of Australian Energy Producers, proposing Greens’ gas ban would devastate the economy,It’s imperative that Australians understand the consequences of these irresponsible demands.
... with the punchline ...
The Greens are the outliers.
Their sloganeering would smash Australia’s economic and energy security and increase emissions, derailing the national pathway to a net zero economy.
The pond simply can't understand why everybody keeps rabbiting on about a "net zero economy".
That's just the result of some modern religious weirdos devising an apocalyptic Anabaptist fever dream ...
Luckily our Henry was on hand to provide guidance on the correct moral position ... fuck the planet, who cares?
True. Embarking on a rant about ancient ways to demolish current science takes exceptional will and skill, and most of all the moral courage to shout loudly, "I'm as barking mad as hell, and fuck the planet".
And with that the pond regrets that there was no good way to segue to the infallible Pope, the immortal Rowe and Wilcox of the day, so here they are, clustered together at the end ...
Thursday, September 19, 2024
In which the pond draws a short reptile straw, and has to settle for a heroic hive mind worker and a Jack of the empire ...
In the dead of night, it occurred to the pond that JD Vance might well be just one too many burgers and a heart attack away from the presidency in the very near future.
It also occurred to the pond, over actively conjuring nightmare scenarios, that given the senile dementia currently on view - who else could confuse an airbase in Afghanistan with the Alaskan wilderness? - that a palace coup and a cunning deployment of the 25th Amendment might see the deeply weird cat fabulist, couch lover and fundamentalist bigot be given the chance to realise all the Heritage Foundation's deepest, deeply weird desires.
It also occurred to the pond that it might be time to retire its "Puff Daddy" (so nicknamed) jacket, acquired in New York way back in 2000 and handy in a NY winter, and a Melbourne one too. While the tag is almost invisible, the look is beyond worn.
It also occurred to the pond that it might be time to give up on French village mayors, what with one assuring the world that at least no one died, as if that was some sort of consolation for an extraordinary case of truly ugly mass rape.
It also occurred to the pond, as it woke from various nightmares, that it was very much over the reptiles at the lizard Oz, that things had reached a breaking point, and that Thursdays formed some kind of nadir.
Naturally the reptiles were wildly excited by events in what's dubbed, in honour of British empire days, the middle east, but the pond couldn't see the point, except to see that it helped Benji stay out of the clink a little bit longer, and never mind the genocide or the killing fields.
Over on the far right all that stood out was petulant Peta having a bog standard go at the teals. There was also Geoff, chambering another volley in the name of bosses, but the pond was over it ...
Still there had to be something, and it wouldn't be Gina crowing about mining approvals and whining about regulations, it had to be a diligent reptile worker, a solid member of the hive mind, beavering away, tilling the soil so that imperious Peta could petulantly stride the stage.
Come on down Alexi, stick it to the teals, give her something to work with ...
And the sight of those pitches about the yarn only carrying matters available in the web version always makes the pond feel "take me anywhere that's not there" ... but strangely a click on the "take me there" always takes the pond back to here ...
Sorry Alexi, you were saying about those wicked people who thought climate science was a thing?
Matt Cross? Never heard of him.
In fact the pond had to dig a bit and came across this item in the Nine papers, including inter alia ...
The man whose preselection victory has derailed a female minister’s ambitions to be a future premier helped secure his shock win by pushing for small-scale nuclear reactors in every community as an alternative energy source.
Former Mike Baird staffer Matt Cross sensationally beat Roads Minister Natalie Ward in the preselection for the Liberal Party’s safest north shore seat on Monday night, despite Ward having the backing of Premier Dominic Perrottet and moderate powerbroker and Treasurer Matt Kean.
Ah, he's just a party hack, an apparatchik apprentice spear carrier who's one of them ...
...Cross, who used his speech to preselectors to push for the Liberals to support nuclear power, has been working on replacing outgoing Davidson MP and Speaker Jonathan O’Dea for years. Sources with knowledge of his speech said Cross suggested reactors could be in every suburb to lower energy prices.
He cited federal Liberal leader Peter Dutton, who has called for a debate on nuclear energy as a way to provide reliable power with no carbon emissions.
One senior party source not permitted to comment on the preselection said pushing nuclear power could leave the party open to a scare campaign from teal candidates in Sydney’s north. Cross, who also name-checked former prime minister Tony Abbott, is aligned with the moderate faction.
The source said: “This preselection result highlights how out of touch the membership is with the community.” Another said: “I wonder what the voters in Lindfield would think about a nuclear reactor in their community.”
That's what passes for the moderate faction these days? The onion muncher and Captain Spud? What's more, despite placing an order some time ago, the pond still without an SMR in its back yard ... to hell with leafy Lindfield, what about the inner west?
Strangely the reptiles didn't feature the heroic Cross, grinning like an inane loon as he nuked the 'burbs ...
Instead the reptiles went with a snap of the demonic import, bringing his furrin' Marxist ways in country;.
Dear sweet long absent lord, not Rory too, though the pond did enjoy that last "alienated some" from Alexi.
That's in the special line of reptile reporting, "some people say", "some people suggest", "some people get alienated", "some people love the idea of an SMR in every suburb."
Kudos to a diligent worker in the bee hive, doing his best to give petulant Peta food for a rant.
And so to the filler, and here the pond can only offer its 'stripped of snaps' version, old school text only, especially because the pond never bothers with Jack the Insider, and all this does is remind the pond why ...
First came the header and the pitch ...
Liberalism enjoyed a golden age before it fell from favour, Centrism and Liberalism may have become dirty words in the contemporary political lexicon, yet these Liberals did not lapse into stifling political conversation.
Then begin with a snap of former prime minister John Howard, heroically poised against what seems to be a British flag, as a lizard Oz graphics person would do, because he was a great Australian liberal, as any lizard Oz reader wud kno, and it sets the right visual tone for what's to follow.
The pond will do the same and begin by inserting a cartoon featuring a current great American liberal, also given to flag clutching and flag posing ...
Pictorial preliminaries out of the way, we can begin yearning for the trappings of empire ...
Mindful of Groucho Marx’s words on club membership, I entered the Italianate finery of London’s Reform Club with trepidation. For an old Reservoir boy, it felt like being pushed down and held mouth agape while fed strawberries, not by the punnet but by the shovel-load with a smattering of pearls cast into the sluice for good measure.
Yet, as I crossed the threshold bells did not ring, alarms did not sound and when they came, instructions from the attendants were whispered gently and helpfully, not barked.
The Reform Club sits at 100 Pall Mall, London; a street name I had gleaned from playing Monopoly but mispronounced “Paul Maul” to the grimace of anyone in earshot. It is now more a library that serves fine food and wine than the hub of classical liberalism its founders intended.
The club counts William Gladstone, Sir Winston Churchill, David Lloyd George, HG Wells, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Lord Palmerston and Andrew Carnegie as its asterisked members while those who remain in the vertical include Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Sir David Attenborough and Queen Camilla.
Yet, as I crossed the threshold bells did not ring, alarms did not sound and when they came, instructions from the attendants were whispered gently and helpfully, not barked.
The Reform Club sits at 100 Pall Mall, London; a street name I had gleaned from playing Monopoly but mispronounced “Paul Maul” to the grimace of anyone in earshot. It is now more a library that serves fine food and wine than the hub of classical liberalism its founders intended.
The club counts William Gladstone, Sir Winston Churchill, David Lloyd George, HG Wells, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Lord Palmerston and Andrew Carnegie as its asterisked members while those who remain in the vertical include Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Sir David Attenborough and Queen Camilla.
Ah, god save the queen, but is this the right time to recall that HG Wells turned into a top notch eugenicist?
Always fond of gazing into the future, HG Wells pictured a caste of all-powerful super-talented Ubermenschen, who would wear Samurai-style dress, and order the affairs of the planet.
Probably not, probably no need to name check the name dropping.
Just the list alone is enough to make the pond feel grand ... (by the way, the pond's father knew Lloyd George, or perhaps he knew the pond's father).
Probably best just to insert snap of Groucho Marx because quoting Groucho deserves a cheap snap from the archives, as a penny pinching lizard Oz graphics person would do.
The pond should respond in kind and keep on celebrating that famous American liberal ...
Then it was on with the history lesson
The Reform Club was founded almost two centuries ago, in the heart of the largest empire the world has ever seen, to promote “social discourse for reformers in the United Kingdom”. The club was, and largely remains, the heart of big ‘L’ Liberalism.
While its political influence waned in the 20th century, it was the inspiration for the party of Menzies in Australia.
Like its Australian counterpart, its influence has declined in favour of conservatism. Whigs, radicals and Liberals combined to legislate the Reform Act of 1832, lifting middle class men to a seat at the political table (female suffrage was explicitly prohibited in the Act) while shunning the working classes. The Whig-turned-Liberal William Gladstone, whose bust peers down in the central atrium at the Reform Club, served as prime minister on three non-consecutive occasions. He supported a form of universal male suffrage but only if the working classes “showed more interest in politics”.
It is too easy to condemn the Reform Act by today’s standards. It was at worst a stuttering step towards the democratisation of England and Wales, diminishing the influence of the aristocracy by ridding the country of its crude and obvious gerrymanders.
In doing so, the Liberal reformers arguably spared Great Britain political unrest in evidence across Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Karl Marx and a smorgasbord of radicals actively promoted proletarian revolution. Marx, who spent the last three decades of his life in London squabbling with anarchists, had called on England’s working classes to join the bourgeoisie and other agitators in a revolution in Great Britain that never eventuated, largely because the Reform Act provided the middle classes with political representation.
Roughly contextualised by the attitudes of the early 21st century, the Whigs who created the Liberal Party were a French emmental of contradictions. For all Gladstone’s magnanimity, his father, Sir John Gladstone was one of the largest slave owners in the British Empire.
While its political influence waned in the 20th century, it was the inspiration for the party of Menzies in Australia.
Like its Australian counterpart, its influence has declined in favour of conservatism. Whigs, radicals and Liberals combined to legislate the Reform Act of 1832, lifting middle class men to a seat at the political table (female suffrage was explicitly prohibited in the Act) while shunning the working classes. The Whig-turned-Liberal William Gladstone, whose bust peers down in the central atrium at the Reform Club, served as prime minister on three non-consecutive occasions. He supported a form of universal male suffrage but only if the working classes “showed more interest in politics”.
It is too easy to condemn the Reform Act by today’s standards. It was at worst a stuttering step towards the democratisation of England and Wales, diminishing the influence of the aristocracy by ridding the country of its crude and obvious gerrymanders.
In doing so, the Liberal reformers arguably spared Great Britain political unrest in evidence across Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Karl Marx and a smorgasbord of radicals actively promoted proletarian revolution. Marx, who spent the last three decades of his life in London squabbling with anarchists, had called on England’s working classes to join the bourgeoisie and other agitators in a revolution in Great Britain that never eventuated, largely because the Reform Act provided the middle classes with political representation.
Roughly contextualised by the attitudes of the early 21st century, the Whigs who created the Liberal Party were a French emmental of contradictions. For all Gladstone’s magnanimity, his father, Sir John Gladstone was one of the largest slave owners in the British Empire.
Splendid stuff. It's probably not the right time to dwell on Bill Gladstone's foreign police, and in any case there's a lengthy wiki about it here, with this gem:
...His term saw the end of the Second Anglo-Afghan War in 1880, the First Boer War of 1880–1881 and outbreak of the war (1881–1899) against the Mahdi in Sudan.
Paul Hayes says it "provides one of the most intriguing and perplexing tales of muddle and incompetence in foreign affairs, unsurpassed in modern political history until the days of Grey and, later, Neville Chamberlain."
Paul Hayes says it "provides one of the most intriguing and perplexing tales of muddle and incompetence in foreign affairs, unsurpassed in modern political history until the days of Grey and, later, Neville Chamberlain."
The pond could moan about being made to study Gladstone and the rest of the tossers, but it's probably best just to insert snaps of inside the Reform Club, London and Lord Asquith’s chair inside The Reform Club, as a deeply bored lizard Oz graphics person would do.
Or perhaps go housing 'toons, what with the matter a sensitive subject for some ...
His Liberal son opted for a meek form of abolition known as manumission – the gradual prohibition of slavery provided slaves as free men and women maintained a solid work ethic driven more by desire than the threat of the lash.
When slavery was abolished, Gladstone oversaw a compensation scheme that delivered approximately $60,000 in today’s money to his father for the loss of his slaves. Today’s political careers, on average, might span a parliamentary term or two, Gladstone’s career spanned 50 years. Lord Palmerston’s influence over the parliament extended for more than three decades.
In a corner of a vast library on the Reform Club’s second floor, sits a slightly dishevelled red velvet desk chair, known as Asquith’s chair. Asquith was the last Liberal prime minister in the UK. His political ambitions, and his party as a political force, would not survive the sorrow of World War I. In peacetime he established the first old age pension in 1909. Australia followed suit the same year.
The Great War was a war that would end social liberalism as a political force in the UK. Not just any war but a war, it was said, that would end all wars.
Eschewing Downing Street and parliament, Asquith conducted planning and operations for the first two years of the Great War from the Reform Club.
From that uncomfortable red seat, Asquith dispatched the six divisions of the British Expeditionary Force to France in the northern autumn of 1914, stopping the German advance at the First Battle of the Marne and establishing the conditions for attritional trench warfare.
The war was little more than a month old when it fell into bloody stasis. Asquith’s cabinet split in two – the Westerners of which Asquith was one and the Easterners led by Churchill and Lloyd George who pressed for an invasion of Turkey at the Gallipoli Peninsula. Asquith’s secretary of state for war, Lord Kitchener, and the admiral of the British Fleet, John Fisher, rejected the plan.
When slavery was abolished, Gladstone oversaw a compensation scheme that delivered approximately $60,000 in today’s money to his father for the loss of his slaves. Today’s political careers, on average, might span a parliamentary term or two, Gladstone’s career spanned 50 years. Lord Palmerston’s influence over the parliament extended for more than three decades.
In a corner of a vast library on the Reform Club’s second floor, sits a slightly dishevelled red velvet desk chair, known as Asquith’s chair. Asquith was the last Liberal prime minister in the UK. His political ambitions, and his party as a political force, would not survive the sorrow of World War I. In peacetime he established the first old age pension in 1909. Australia followed suit the same year.
The Great War was a war that would end social liberalism as a political force in the UK. Not just any war but a war, it was said, that would end all wars.
Eschewing Downing Street and parliament, Asquith conducted planning and operations for the first two years of the Great War from the Reform Club.
From that uncomfortable red seat, Asquith dispatched the six divisions of the British Expeditionary Force to France in the northern autumn of 1914, stopping the German advance at the First Battle of the Marne and establishing the conditions for attritional trench warfare.
The war was little more than a month old when it fell into bloody stasis. Asquith’s cabinet split in two – the Westerners of which Asquith was one and the Easterners led by Churchill and Lloyd George who pressed for an invasion of Turkey at the Gallipoli Peninsula. Asquith’s secretary of state for war, Lord Kitchener, and the admiral of the British Fleet, John Fisher, rejected the plan.
No need to dwell on the glories of the first world war, though the pond would like to honour the confusion in the minds of the likes of Siegfried Sassoon ...
In May 1915, Sassoon was commissioned into the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and went to France. He impressed many with his bravery in the front line and was given the nickname 'Mad Jack' for his near-suicidal exploits. He was decorated twice. His brother Hamo was killed in November 1915 at Gallipoli.
In the summer of 1916, Sassoon was sent to England to recover from fever. He went back to the front, but was wounded in April 1917 and returned home. Meetings with several prominent pacifists, including Bertrand Russell, had reinforced his growing disillusionment with the war and in June 1917 he wrote a letter that was published in the Times in which he said that the war was being deliberately and unnecessarily prolonged by the government. As a decorated war hero and published poet, this caused public outrage. It was only his friend and fellow poet, Robert Graves, who prevented him from being court-martialled by convincing the authorities that Sassoon had shell-shock. He was sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh for treatment. Here he met, and greatly influenced, Wilfred Owen. Both men returned to the front where Owen was killed in 1918. Sassoon was posted to Palestine and then returned to France, where he was again wounded, spending the remainder of the war in England.
In the summer of 1916, Sassoon was sent to England to recover from fever. He went back to the front, but was wounded in April 1917 and returned home. Meetings with several prominent pacifists, including Bertrand Russell, had reinforced his growing disillusionment with the war and in June 1917 he wrote a letter that was published in the Times in which he said that the war was being deliberately and unnecessarily prolonged by the government. As a decorated war hero and published poet, this caused public outrage. It was only his friend and fellow poet, Robert Graves, who prevented him from being court-martialled by convincing the authorities that Sassoon had shell-shock. He was sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh for treatment. Here he met, and greatly influenced, Wilfred Owen. Both men returned to the front where Owen was killed in 1918. Sassoon was posted to Palestine and then returned to France, where he was again wounded, spending the remainder of the war in England.
No need to dwell on his poetry.
Instead insert a snap of Sir Winston Churchill, as a reptile graphics person would do. Or perhaps a cat and dog or a Haitian immigrant 'toon, as the pond would do ...
And so to a final short gobbet ...
Asquith dithered while the Russians telegraphed the attempted invasion of the peninsula with naval artillery bombardment. Ultimately almost half a million men were hurled into a maelstrom at Gallipoli; 56,000 died, 8607 of them Australians. Churchill and Lloyd George left the club over the blackballing of a Jewish MP. Churchill’s politics would turn towards conservatism. The Liberals quietly moved on to minor party status and later political oblivion.
In today’s often twisted political thinking, Liberals like Gladstone, Palmerston and Asquith are seen as colonial oppressors, despots in the cloistered safety at the Reform Club, sipping gin and tonics. Centrism and Liberalism may have become dirty words in the contemporary political lexicon, yet these Liberals did not lapse into stifling political conversation. They encouraged it while turning their minds to social inclusion, taxation and electoral reform. Without them, the UK would be a very different place, as would Australia today.
In today’s often twisted political thinking, Liberals like Gladstone, Palmerston and Asquith are seen as colonial oppressors, despots in the cloistered safety at the Reform Club, sipping gin and tonics. Centrism and Liberalism may have become dirty words in the contemporary political lexicon, yet these Liberals did not lapse into stifling political conversation. They encouraged it while turning their minds to social inclusion, taxation and electoral reform. Without them, the UK would be a very different place, as would Australia today.
Today's often twisted political thinking?
Nah, the pond is too Irish for all that glories of empire crap ... because they really did enjoy a gin and tonic, and in their own complacent self-indulgent, self-regarding way, they stuffed up monumentally.
The pond slipped in the bit about Sassoon as a way of reminding Jack that his blather about stifling political conversation is just the tired old mantra of the Faux Noise crowd.
Truly they were a bunch of mugs and privileged loons, and when it came to the crunch, completely useless ... they died out because they deserved to. Explain it it Jack, please, Dr Michael Lynch ...
...The demands of the four-year struggle against Germany drove the party to adopt policies that would have been unthinkable in peacetime. Liberalism had never been wholly pacifist but it had developed a strong aversion to jingoism. The Liberals had vigorously opposed the Conservative government's conduct of the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) as brutalising and degrading. But, in 1914, the Liberal government accepted the necessity of declaring war on Germany. This meant that in order to sustain Britain's war effort, they were now obliged to appeal to that same spirit of nationalism that they had formerly found so distasteful.
Thus began a process that, over the next four years, was to undermine many of the ideals to which the Liberals had previously held dear. The decision to enter the war against Germany was an obvious abandonment of the policy of seeking peaceful solutions to international problems. The soaring costs occasioned by war made it impossible to control government expenditure. Most telling of all, the concept of personal freedom was rapidly eroded by the growing encroachment of the State upon the rights of its citizens.
The change of direction forced on the Liberals was evident in the very first government measure of the war, the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA), rushed through Parliament in August 1914. DORA, which was re-enacted a number of times during the course of the war, conferred on the State and its agencies' unprecedented authority to control the lives of ordinary persons. A whole range of restrictions followed. The Press was subject to censorship and the government dictated what war news could be made public. Men were conscripted into the armed services. British travellers overseas had to apply for passports and identity cards had to be carried by ordinary citizens. Income tax rose from sixpence (2.5p) to six shillings (30p) in the pound. Food was rationed, alcohol and tobacco were heavily taxed, and strict licensing laws were imposed on public houses. Trade was directed, and controls were imposed on the use of currency. Employers in key industries were told what to produce, what wages to pay, and whom to take on the payroll. Employees were forbidden to strike or demand higher wages and could be made to move home and change jobs.
The irony was that it was a Liberal government that did all this, for, although Britain after 1915 was formally led by coalitions, the key ministers continued to be drawn from the Liberal party. The truth was that the longer the war lasted, the more Britain's struggle became a matter of survival. In such grim circumstances, the traditional peacetime values of freedom of speech and assembly came to be regarded as a risk to national security. Lloyd George, Prime Minister from December 1916, justified the Liberal shift by claiming that a democratic government in time of war had 'the right to commandeer every resource, every power, life, limb, wealth, and everything else for the interest of the State'.
Thus began a process that, over the next four years, was to undermine many of the ideals to which the Liberals had previously held dear. The decision to enter the war against Germany was an obvious abandonment of the policy of seeking peaceful solutions to international problems. The soaring costs occasioned by war made it impossible to control government expenditure. Most telling of all, the concept of personal freedom was rapidly eroded by the growing encroachment of the State upon the rights of its citizens.
The change of direction forced on the Liberals was evident in the very first government measure of the war, the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA), rushed through Parliament in August 1914. DORA, which was re-enacted a number of times during the course of the war, conferred on the State and its agencies' unprecedented authority to control the lives of ordinary persons. A whole range of restrictions followed. The Press was subject to censorship and the government dictated what war news could be made public. Men were conscripted into the armed services. British travellers overseas had to apply for passports and identity cards had to be carried by ordinary citizens. Income tax rose from sixpence (2.5p) to six shillings (30p) in the pound. Food was rationed, alcohol and tobacco were heavily taxed, and strict licensing laws were imposed on public houses. Trade was directed, and controls were imposed on the use of currency. Employers in key industries were told what to produce, what wages to pay, and whom to take on the payroll. Employees were forbidden to strike or demand higher wages and could be made to move home and change jobs.
The irony was that it was a Liberal government that did all this, for, although Britain after 1915 was formally led by coalitions, the key ministers continued to be drawn from the Liberal party. The truth was that the longer the war lasted, the more Britain's struggle became a matter of survival. In such grim circumstances, the traditional peacetime values of freedom of speech and assembly came to be regarded as a risk to national security. Lloyd George, Prime Minister from December 1916, justified the Liberal shift by claiming that a democratic government in time of war had 'the right to commandeer every resource, every power, life, limb, wealth, and everything else for the interest of the State'.
Ah, yes, that'd be the old 'stifling of the political conversation' rag. Sorry Jack, have another gin and tonic on the pond, and enjoy the magnificent benefits of the first world war. No doubt the world would have been a very different place without it...
And speaking of that, time please, for a few final 'toons ...
Wednesday, September 18, 2024
Oops, header required to advise Mein Gott, a dinkum Groaning and "Ned" lurk therein ...
The pond was disappointed by the lack of interest expressed by esteemed correspondents in Mein Gott's revolution ... instead it was just the usual about the bro losing his mind (lost long ago), and a push into the Sydney Push ...
When it comes to the bro, the pond always assumes that pond readers will have done some alternative reading, such as the Bulwark's You're Allowed to Call Trump a Threat to Democracy, or Vance, Trump, and The Politics of Hate.
As for the Gott's dismal showing, never mind, after a quick survey of today's lizard Oz offerings, the pond knew what had to be done ...
Dame Slap bashing the blacks again? Pshaw, show the pond something new.
Snaps from the BCA's annual dinner on high rotation? That's not what the pond had in mind as new ...
No, Mein Gott had to have the floor with his revolutionary proposals ...things need to be fixed, and preferably quik stix ...
It's merely an unfortunate oversight that he didn't mention a few jolly good examples, like this story in Crikey ...News Corp, climate criminals again top in tax dodging stakes.
There was even a splendid accompanying table ...
... with this note on News Corp's contribution to Australia ...
News Corp, for example, saw an increase in declared profits from $140 million in 2020-21 to $180 million in 2021-22 but the foreign-owned political player continued its long history of paying virtually no tax in Australia: since 2015, the company’s entire operations in Australia, including its once-profitable pay-TV holdings, have paid just $8 million in tax (that was way back in 2015), off many billions of dollars in revenue. It paid no tax this financial year.
Sadly, when the pond went to the ATO to see if there'd been an update, the cardigan wearers had left the 2024 cupboard bare ... but the pond is sure that the Emeritus Chairman and his Nevada court spawn have maintained the faith.
Meanwhile, Mein Gott was on fire with inspiration ...
Ah, a Melbourne Mining Club function... what was that other Crikey note?
Woodside paid $176 million in tax on nearly $2 billion in profit — a tax rate of less than 10%. But its efforts were Herculean compared to fellow climate criminal Santos: that company claimed to have earned just $74 million in profit on $4.7 billion in revenue, and paid zero tax. Another four Santos holding companies earned around $1.1 billion in revenue but paid no tax. Global fossil fuel giant ExxonMobil reckoned it only made a little over $1 million in profit off over $15 billion in revenue from its oil and gas holdings.
Shell paid no tax on a profit of $777 million. The Japanese-owned Ichthys gas project claimed no profit off $7.3 billion in revenue and paid no tax.
Energy company AGL recorded a monster surge in revenue over the previous year, from $10 billion to $15 billion, but made no profit and paid nothing. Competitor EnergyAustralia claimed its $400+ million profit of the year before vanished and it too paid nothing. Origin Energy made $316 million in profit and paid nearly 30% tax on it.
And so to Mein Gott's final thoughts ...
Excellent advice, and Mein Gott will no doubt work to transform News Corp from rogue foreign-owned ratbag company to dinkum respected local citizen ... though the pond kept thinking he had about as much chance as Stephen Dillane's Prometheus saving his liver from the nibbling bird in Kaos.
More good news. Having lost out on a decent Groaning yesterday, the pond is pleased to report that Dame Groan was out and about today.
Sadly the pond's "guess the topic" prize was awarded aeons ago, and is now lost in the mysts of mythical time, and anyway, everybody and his or her favourite canine or cat meal knows that it's going to be about those bloody difficult, uppity, intransigent furriners, always ruining the country and Dame Groan's lunch ... (and don't get her started on those furrin students).
There were some outrageously good visual distractions to illustrate the crisis in Dame Groan's mind ...
... and then it was on with the usual hysteria, and shouting at clouds and furriners, though the pond has to admit it's become somewhat impervious to the ranting ...
Ah, the students, yet again, and the solution? Why you only have to read Gina's IPA ...
It goes without saying that Dame Groan herself lives in Woop Woop, some way past the black stump on a ten acre block, and remember, when citing Gina's IPA, it's important not to bring ideology into the mix ... just the Groaning facts ...
Won't someone think of the children? And with that the pond had a splendid vision ... the entire Sydney basin occupied by McMansions on small blocks, while in Melbourne the McMansions stretched from Sunshine to Ballarat ... and with that it was time for the last gobbet of Groaning ...
The pond wishes it could have paused longer to admire Dame Groan's incredible solutions - kick out all the furriners and the students and all will be well - but was pleased that some had bothered to read the bro, even though he'd been stripped of rank, entitlements, screen caps and distracting snaps ... and so the pond thought it might do the same again, with "Ned's" outing this day stripped of snaps and caps.
Don't get the pond wrong. If the pond wants a generalist note on tech, it usually avoids dens of geeks and turns to the likes of John Naughton scribbling By showing Musk's X the red card, has Brazil cored a goal for all democracies, or Telegram chief's arrest sends a clear message: tech titans are not above the law. ... and there's usually some tasty links at the bottom of his pieces.
But the idea of "Ned" scribbling about tech is entirely commendable. As Dr Johnson once said on another misogynist matter, "Ned's" preaching about tech is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all ... just the header and the hook should be enough of a warning ...
Political war on Big Tech filled with policy hazards, The Australian political system is drawing the battle lines for a multi-front assault on Big Tech – confident public opinion has turned against the digital giants.
Now up on hind legs...
The Australian political system is drawing the battle lines for a multi-front assault on Big Tech – confident public opinion has turned against the digital giants, yet struggling with the problem of how to frame policies that actually work and deliver on their objectives.
There is broad bipartisanship in the approaches of Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton. But the populism of the politics conceals the scope for conflict between Labor and the Coalition over Australia’s resolution, tactics and details as it strives to preserve its sovereignty.
The core issue is the ability of governments to safeguard the citizen interest and regulate the most powerful corporates operating in their jurisdiction. Ultimately, it is a contest over institutional power and democratic accountability. The outcome will affect every Australian in one form or another. Big Tech has penetrated our lives and minds, creating psychological and economic dependencies that are difficult to modify through public policy solutions.
The federal government's crackdown on social media age restrictions is facing delays as big tech companies fight the plan. The Department of Communications will hold a briefing on Wednesday to lock in a trial for Labor's plan. Delays have been exacerbated due to conflict within the Labor Party over the optimal minimum age at which the ban should be enforced. Should they win the election, the Coalition has vowed to solve the age restriction debacle in its first 100 days.
Politicians must address the immediate tests: the need to safeguard young people via an age ban, probably between 14 and 16 years, for social media and digital platform access; the need to hold digital platforms to account for misinformation and disinformation when they refuse to accept responsibility, and; the need to ensure, in the teeth of resistance, that the platforms pay for the news content they use from established media and journalism outlets.
Dutton has signalled his brand. He wants to confront Big Tech and believes Albanese will fight with a wet lettuce. The Big Tech issue has destroyed the usual political alignments. Earlier this year Commonwealth Bank chief executive Matt Comyn, outlining a reform agenda, included a levy on Big Tech raising $5bn a year. So Big Finance wants a tax levy on Big Tech. After all, former treasurer Scott Morrison imposed a levy on the banks.
News Corporation chief executive Michael Miller says Big Tech has changed our lives but “refuses to play by our rules”, while Meta, TikTok and X “operate outside our legal systems” doing damage to our people, to our “businesses, big and small, to our democracy and to our economy”. Traditional media is at war with Big Tech.
But Big Tech’s fatal weakness is the evidence-based harm its platforms and social media have done to a generation of children and youth across the English-speaking world. This argument became a clinching event in the recent book, The Anxious Generation, by American social psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, Professor of Ethical Leadership at the New York University Stern School of Business, with Haidt saying Big Tech had presided over “the rewiring of childhood”, the consequence being recent decisions about how to raise children were “the biggest blunder we have ever made”.
Jonathan Haidt? Oh dear ...
It's easy to see why Meta might be disappointed. The dear possums trotted out their latest attempt at deflection, and it flew right past "Ned" and went straight to the Graudian keeper ...
The pond, which has never used any form of social media - Blogger is such an ancient relic it hardly counts - suspects that "Ned's" familiarity with the likes of Instagram and TikTok might be down there with the pond's ... but he does his best to rise to the challenge ...
The alliance of parents, health experts, educators and, yes, children as well, represents a health-driven compassion industry that will not be denied. Feeling the heat, Mark Zuckerberg said earlier this year there was no established link between social media and young people having worse mental health – useful proof he will lie to protect his corporate interest.
Albanese, under attack for looking unconvincing, badly needs a cause to show his conviction. Enter Big Tech. It is as friendless as it is powerful; its platforms are as irresistible as they are ubiquitous. But fighting with Big Tech comes with big consequences – it may be more safely done from opposition than government.
The most high-profile and difficult assault on Big Tech will be the age limit for social media access. No country in the world has successfully delivered this. Haidt listed his prescription: no smartphones before high school, no social media before age 16, and phone-free schools.
The access ban was highlighted last week by ALP South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas with his path-breaking proposal to ban children under 14 years from social media and require parental consent for those aged 14 and 15 years, with the Premier insisting the legal onus would fall on the tech companies.
“We want to create a big, massive deterrent against these giant companies where they do harm to our children,” Malinauskas said. But how can an effective age-based enforcing responsibility be imposed on the companies? Former High Court chief justice Robert French, advising the Premier, said some users will dodge the system but “the perfect should not be the enemy of the good”.
Having the national government take the lead with uniform national laws makes sense – provided the laws are tough enough. Albanese said he wants kids off devices and on to footy fields and tennis courts and into swimming pools. Sounds great. But that’s a cultural issue, not just a tech issue.
Speaking of cultural issues, the pond was pleased to see that Uncle Leon and the bromancer are both on the same page ...
The full story was at Leaked Records Detail Vast Russian Influence Campaign Targeting Ukraine, EU ...
But tackling Uncle Leon's a bridge too far for "Ned" - his name isn't invoked once ...
"Ned" is much more comfortable talking about the domestic politics of it all than talking about the way that News Corp is roughly equivalent to the sort of lies you find daily in social media ... (what with Faux Noise cheerfully helping "create" those dog and cat stories with JD).
With Dutton saying last June that he would implement a ban up to age 16 years during the first 100 days of a Coalition government, Australia is heading into world-first territory against Big Tech but confronts the still unresolvable problem: the mechanism to ensure an age verification test for social media. We await Albanese’s answer before the end of 2024 on how this will work.
At the same time, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland last week introduced Labor’s revised crackdown on digital platforms that engage in harmful misinformation and disinformation. Rowland said a “very high threshold” will be set for what constitutes serious harm, giving the example of disinformation being spread after the Bondi stabbing attack earlier this year.
Labor’s draft bill, released last year, was widely attacked and was unacceptable, with shadow minister David Coleman branding as “grotesque” its scope for undermining freedom of speech and capacity to be manipulated for political purposes. Whether Labor’s second effort will satisfy remains doubtful.
Yet the central point cannot be denied – curbing platform and social media abuse is an imperative. Internet abuse is now a massive industry, with huge profits being made from child sex abuse, porn, misogyny, financial cons, fakes and any form of bad behaviour. It needs to be combated. Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones said: “We don’t think the rules of the jungle should apply on social media platforms.”
A civilised society cannot tolerate the debased free-for-any evil that Big Tech tolerates. It must be held to the same standards as the rest of society. In opposing this corrective, populist conservatives are kicking back, but in the list of their doomed and dumb campaigns this is close to the worst. Nobody says this task is easy. But there is no gainsaying the parliament must find a balance between minimising limits on free speeches while moving against rampant abuses on the internet.
Say what? A civilised society cannot tolerate the debased free-for-any-evil that News Corp and Faux Noise tolerates?
The pond is always misreading "Ned's" words, but does recollects that when it presented the bromancer unplugged, the pond took the chance to break up the text with a few 'toons ... so here we go ...
Then there was just one gobbet of text to go, and here "Ned" discreetly avoids mentioning the intense suffering of News Corp, which has always loved a subsidy or a grant as a fine part of its business model ...
Finally, Meta has defiantly boasted it will not renew the media bargaining code deals under which it pays media companies for their content – following the 2021 decision by parliament that Meta should pay. If challenged, Meta says it will terminate news from its platforms. It has already done so in Canada – and, ultimately, it could even walk away from Australia.
Who would lose in that final resort? Indeed, many would say “Good riddance”. But governments cannot think like that. It’s not the sort of confrontation Labor wants pre-election.
Minister Rowland pledged earlier to take the steps necessary to uphold the media bargaining code. But there is now a split between Labor and some of the media companies – Labor fears the bargaining code, while important, is losing its leverage while Miller, speaking for News Corporation, said it is vital the government uphold the principle at stake: payment by Big Tech for use of news content.
Meanwhile, Treasury officials confirm the government is considering the option of a levy on Big Tech. That has an appeal for Labor but it is tricky. It would mean the government, having collected the revenue, would then distribute the revenue to media companies on some agreed formula. That’s problematic.
What’s not problematic is that Big Tech won’t compromise in good faith. Albanese can’t afford to look weak but needs policies that deliver.
Is there a hint of irony in "Ned's" talk of "good faith", coming as it does from an organisation which conspicuously refuses to offer good faith in its commentary and reporting?
Perhaps, but the pond is just here to report so that others can decide, and it's time to wrap up proceedings with the immortal Rowe and infallible Pope of the day ...
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