The pond came across a message of hope in Politico some days ago...
Because laughter can’t be put on trial. [19th century Russian novelist and political satirist Nikolai] Gogol said that even those who fear nothing fear laughter. Because in a totalitarian state, you can crush the courts, you can crush elections; you can crush everything. But you can’t crush laughter.
If a caricature cracks people up, it’s because it rings true. It means the truth is hidden inside the joke. And it is absolutely irrefutable, laughter is a verdict. Laughter is public and obvious evidence that you are wrong, that you are ridiculous.
Satire is the sharpest instrument of free speech. And the first thing all dictators do is crack down on freedom of speech.
There's a lot more at the link, including the puppet saga ...
As one of his first acts as president, Putin pressured an independent TV network to shut down the show, which mercilessly mocked Russia’s leading political players using grotesque puppets that caricatured both their features and their dirty dealings. For a few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russians could tune into Kukly and laugh at their leaders. In one memorable episode, Boris Yeltsin rocks a cradle containing a demonic baby Putin and laments his role in putting him in power. Tens of millions of Russians were watching.
The comedic genius behind “Kukly” was Viktor Shenderovich, who helmed the show from 1994-2002 and gained a following akin to that of Jon Stewart — that is, if Jon Stewart also ran “The Muppet Show.” Even after the show’s cancellation (and the subsequent shuttering of the NTV network that screened it), Shenderovich continued to live and work in Russia, becoming a prominent anti-Putin critic on the radio station Ekho Moskvy. He only fled the country in December 2021, shortly before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, after the Kremlin designated him a “foreign agent” and he faced libel charges from a Putin ally.
Sure The Simpsons has long been a waste of space ... but other jokesters in other places arise to take its place.
It's not like the pond spends time with the reptiles for the money, not like some others ...
One comedian, Tim Dillon, was upfront about how money had been a motivating factor to perform. Mr. Dillon — who was later dropped by organizers after making slavery jokes about migrant workers in the kingdom — said he was offered $375,000 and that others had received up to $1.6 million.
There goes the pond's atheism again, already being hounded by King Donald and his minions
The pond is just doing it for the lolz, and that's why the pond continues to take its medicine... on the basis that laughter, no matter that it's a Reader's Digest cliché, remains the best medicine, and that's why the pond plunges back into the hive mind on a daily basis ...
What are the yoicks this day?
Tally-ho, the pond cried, but no sooner had the hounds began to howl than the scales fell from the pond's eyes ...
Sad to say, the reptiles have become a caricature of themselves, and this day's caricatures already carried the stench of too much familiarity.
The breaking Hamas news pushed some items down the page, which is just as well.
What to make of this wife-beating (why do they like it? why won't they stop?) story with all the prejudice naked in the headline?
Larissa Waters appears to be resisting a push, including within her own party, for Greens to ‘call out’ renewables projects that damage biodiversity. Some of her senators are not so shy.
By Matthew Denholm
Dame Slap could be seen, banging on her usual self-hating, gender-bigoted way ...
The campus gender crisis no one wants to talk about
They’re losing ground by degrees. The disparity in male university enrolments relative to girls marks a dramatic reversal in educational equality that should ring alarm bells.
The pond didn't want to talk about it, and left her in that strange land Planet Janet - to be found, some say, above the faraway tree - to sound the gender alarums in her usual way.
With Dame Slap out of the way, the pond realised it was cutting off nose to spite face, this being cliché day.
The alternatives were truly dismal ...
There was the pasty Hastie story ...
Andrew Hastie quits Sussan Ley’s team over migration freeze-out
After months of tensions between the Opposition Leader and the former senior soldier, Mr Hastie called Ms Ley on Friday morning to tell her he was resigning from the frontbench and that he could not be tied to her expectations.
By Richard Ferguson and Geoff Chambers
Migrant bashing? The pond had thought it was about the urgent need to nuke the country ... Shadow minister Andrew Hastie says he will be 'without a job' if Liberals don't abandon net zero
So hard to keep up and to what avail, because everybody knows where this is heading, with the onion muncher no doubt a heady inspiration ...
Never mind, all that meant was that the pond's backing of the lettuce was looking like a sound investment ...
Speaking of the onion muncher, the narcissistic mad monk lurched out of the waters in Colonel Kurtz style to demand attention be paid ...
What a terrifying, deeply disturbing sight. It makes the shark in Jaws look like a pretty amiable feller.
What a complete turn off ...
In a new history of Australia, the former prime minister has written a fresh perspective on the story of our great nation. Even his harshest critics are impressed.
By Nicholas Jensen
Even his harshest critics, you spineless lickspittle?
The hagiographic tone was to much for the pond, but the pond does wish those who embark on the journey a strong stomach and the ability to cope with the stench of onion eating.
The pond did a quick search to discover who these "harshest critics" but none hovered into view. It was just a cheap rhetorical device, and nstead there was a wasteland of supine devotees ...
The pond even baulked at "Ned's" Everest climb ...
Labor could embrace Noel Pearson’s national story – ‘powerful because it is true, inclusive and easily understood’ – but it fears any change on multiculturalism will hurt its migrant vote.
By Paul Kelly
Using Aboriginal voices to carry on the campaign against migrants, diversity and such like is a new, deeply contemptible low, and it's remarkable that "Ned" should use his alleged gravitas as a senior reptile to honour the smear ...
And that was just over in the "news" section ...
Over on the far right was just as exhausting ...
The bromancer did reappear as expected, but only to ignore King Donald's and tat Pete's antics, and instead to blather on about his favourite topic ...
There are only 16 million Jews in the world, so why are they so important to the West? It’s an insanity of our education system that so many don’t know the answer.
By Greg Sheridan
The bromancer did take a brief trip out to the far right reefs ...
Now there’s a new and dangerous outbreak of anti-Semitism on the American Right. It’s born of the interaction of several factors. A number of figures on the right, such as Carlson and Owens, have had tremendous success on social media. On social media the algorithms promote and reward novelty, extremism, intensity of opinion and transgression.
This, plus the collapse in authority of traditional institutions, creates an environment ready-made for conspiracy theories. Join this to the blind, almost mad, extreme isolationism of some parts of the Trump coalition, which is radically different from the simple distaste for needless foreign entanglements involved in the rational version of Trump’s America First, and you get endless new conspiracy theories involving Israel and Jews.
Israel keeps manipulating Washington into costly Middle East engagements, in this view. Beyond all this, the critique of liberal America among some right-wingers has become so intense it’s almost a hatred of modern America itself. And American Jews are an essential part of the story of modern America, which some on the right now hate.
And then the left having made such a grotesque fetish of race, some on the right are embracing the idea of a persecuted white race. So Jews once more are abused on racial grounds.
Trump himself shows no sign of being influenced by this madness. He is solidly pro-Israel. But he and Vice-President JD Vance don’t smack it down. Carlson, some of whose broadcasts lie somewhere between mad and disgusting, is still a valued part of the MAGA coalition even as he espouses policies directly opposed to Trump.
But likely the pond will never hear from the bro on that other matter ...
The dog botherer took a different angle, but was in the same turf ...
It’s the footage our own Prime Minister once admitted he had not viewed. The Islamists’ barbaric strategy has delivered what they wanted at an unconscionable cost.
By Chris Kenny
Some might cut the dog botherer some slack because the breaking Hamas news caught him on the wrong foot, but the fool is always on the wrong foot... so the pond was inclined to tiptoe by ...
And then there was gormless gherkin Nick who seems in recent times to have decided that the way to beat the reptiles is to join them with some flag-waving ...
If centre-left politicians and activists appear embarrassed by expressions of national pride, they gift patriotism to the ugliest causes: bigotry, greed or authoritarianism.
By Nick Dyrenfurth
The pond thought about giving him a go but the sight of all those Union Jacks in the opening snap put the pond right off ...
So how's the republic push going Nick?
Yeah nah ... you can have King Chuck, and the pond will go flag wave elsewhere.
But then the pond suddenly realised it had boxed itself into a corner.
Sure there was plenty of nonsense for correspondents to feast on in the archive cornfield, but the only story left standing early in the morning was the Ughmann doing some bog standard renewables bashing.
With a deep sigh and heavy reluctance, the pond went down that wretched path ...
The header: Information campaign really a war on dissent, The campaign against climate and energy ‘misinformation and disinformation’ is really a war on dissent. If the alarmists win, it will be your freedom that goes out with the lights.
The caption: Protesters outside the Federal Court in Melbourne in 2022. Santos was appealing to restart drilling in the Barossa gas project, located near the Tiwi Islands off the northern coast of Australia. The court found the Environmental Defenders Office’s cultural mapping of Tiwi Islanders’ underwater cultural heritage lacking in integrity. Picture: Tamati Smith/Getty Images
The pond has pounded the herpetology 101 books pretty heavily this week, and felt disinclined to conduct any argument with the Ughmann.
He's been here before many times, and the pond has been with him.
Not in spirit, but in regurgitating his spewing ...
The best that could be hoped is that Graham Readfearn might have a read in due course, and have a go, in the way that Readfearn had a go at the Daily Terror in News Corp embraces fantasy genre by turning climate crisis into 'laughable' science fiction.
The Ughmann started with a feeble attempt at word invention, but it was so pathetic the pond felt suddenly proud to call him an Ughmann ....
The chairman, Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson, made it clear at his committee’s birth that he would be trawling for echoes of his own opinions to back a conclusion he already has written.
“Aggressive and co-ordinated disinformation campaigns are increasingly spreading false information designed to deliberately mislead and influence public opinion on climate change,” Whish-Wilson’s press release says. “In the last parliament, evidence was provided to the Senate inquiry into the offshore wind industry that strategies such as establishing fake community groups – otherwise known as astroturfing – were being used in Australia to spread lies about renewable energy.”
Naturally the reptiles had a shot of the offending man, Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson speaks to the media in Hobart on Thursday, May 12, 2022.
The pond realises there's always other reading, such as Readfearn's Wildfires are getting deadlier and costing more. Experts warn they're becoming unstoppable.
But this is the pond's lot ...
Politicians were deceivers ever. As Hannah Arendt noted in a 1967 New Yorker article: “No one has ever doubted that truth and politics are on rather bad terms with each other and no one, as far as I know, has ever counted truthfulness among the political virtues.”
Like so many Senate committees this is a virtue-signalling exercise in shampiring.
It will curate “evidence” to find fossil fuel interests are pouring money into Australia with the aim of derailing wind, solar and transmission projects through misinformation and disinformation campaigns fronted by local stooges. Then it will argue for laws to silence dissent.
Still with the deeply pathetic "shampiring"?
Give it a rest. The pond was perhaps a tad optimistic that the reptiles, especially an unreformed former seminarian, could ever demonstrate a sensa huma, but this is too feeble for words.
Also too feeble is the way that, whenever climate science denialism is on the agenda, the reptiles always wheel in petulant Peta to have a say ... Sky News host Peta Credlin discusses Labor’s now-defeated “appalling” misinformation legislation. “Over the weekend the government admitting defeat on its proposed misinformation, disinformation legislation,” Ms Credlin said. “It should be dead; it is an appalling piece of legislation.”
On with the disinformation and misinformation ...
The Page Research Centre’s submission shows the anti-fossil fuel lobby is groaning with cash. In 2023-24, its leading organisations pulled in more than $170m. The Sunrise Project topped the list with $76.8m, followed by Greenpeace ($25.6m), the Environmental Defenders Office ($17.8m), the Australia Institute ($10.6m), Climate Action Network Australia ($6.8m), GetUp ($6.4m), Environment Victoria ($4.1m), the Nature Conservation Council ($3.6m), Market Forces ($3.4m) and Friends of the Earth ($2.9m). A big chunk of this money is raised offshore.
When it comes to voices demanding regulations to police discordant voices there is a publicly funded manufacturing industry in that, too. Human Rights Commissioner Lorraine Finlay made an important contribution in these pages when she wrote: “Misinformation in the climate space is not confined to one side of the debate. It can stem from both climate denial and overly alarmist narratives, each contributing to confusion and polarisation.”
Amen to that. Alas, when you scour the commission’s actual submission you will find its concerns are entirely confined to one side of the debate. “False narratives distort public understanding, erode trust in science and institutions and delay urgent climate action,” it says. The commission claims “regulation is necessary” but then, typically, ties itself in knots as it tries to balance its innate authoritarianism with the awkward truth that rights belong to individuals and that free speech is important in a democracy. This is something it has always found annoying.
The Page Research Centre?
It sounds impressive until you look it up and see who's the chairman of the bored ...
We want to nurture our nation’s Western intellectual and cultural heritage so that successive generations can appreciate and enjoy the benefits of those traditions, while giving careful consideration to proposals for change and improvement. Our culture is the most prosperous and free in human history, and we believe that is good reason to continue to cultivate it.
Meanwhile the reptiles dropped in another snap, Human Rights Commissioner Lorraine Finlay, above at a Parliament House hearing, made an important contribution in these pages. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman
At least the commission has the wit to soft-pedal its authoritarian impulses. There are no such constraints on UN special rapporteur on climate change and human rights Elisa Morgera. Her submission is a masterpiece of totalitarian cant that demands dissenters go to jail.
“States should criminalise misinformation and misrepresentation (greenwashing) by fossil fuel companies and criminalise media and advertising firms accountable for amplifying disinformation and misinformation,” Morgera says.
The reptiles then followed with an AV distraction featuring one of their chief visual delights ... burn, baby, burn ... Energy company Santos and Australia has a desperate need to find more gas. The federal court ruled in favour of Santos, allowing it to continue work on its $5.3 billion Barossa LNG project. The Santos-operated Barossa gas project is on track for its gas to processed next year. In partnership with Santos.
“Disinformation campaigns promoting misleading and false solutions – such as on the use of natural gas …”
Shocking, though the pond will concede that a better example would have been the reptile desire to nuke the country to save the planet ...
Fear not, they're still at it ...
And so on, Dan is still the man, but back to the Ughmann explaining the urgent need to gas the country to save the planet (if only global warming happened to be real, as if you'd fall for that hoax peddled by cultish religious zealots) ...
But the prize for audacity surely goes to the Environmental Defenders Office submission. It endorses the Morgera rant before demanding “that the commonwealth government enact national fossil fuel advertising bans to ensure there is less ability to spread misinformation. Political advertising should be the subject to similar provisions as contained in the Australian Consumer Law for misleading or deceptive conduct.”
Would this be the same organisation excoriated by the Federal Court when it lost its case against Santos’ Barossa gas pipeline? The court found the office’s cultural mapping of Tiwi Islanders’ underwater cultural heritage “so lacking in integrity that no weight can be placed on them”. It bore the hallmarks of “confection or construction.” The group now faces a $9m costs order.
I do not want the folk at the EDO to go to jail but a sense of shame and an appreciation of irony would not go astray. Any rational politician should assess everything it produces in the cold, hard light of its proven form in misleading and deceptive conduct.
The commonwealth doesn’t seem bothered as it has kicked in more than $8.2m taxpayer dollars into the enterprise.
Given all state and federal governments and a galaxy of cashed-up businesses and activist groups are lined up behind building a weather-dependent grid, why is it necessary to silence the dissenters? What little faith they have in their own case. If their preferred form of generation were truly cheap, green and reliable, every argument against it would evaporate like water on a solar panel. What are they so afraid of?
Perhaps it is that the truth is simply unpalatable and they recognise that to deliver their nirvana will demand permanent Covid-level interventions in people’s lives.
Be warned. The energy transition will trample more than just your right to disagree. For it to happen at pace demands the compulsory acquisition of land.
Ah the old Covid ploy, straight out of Killer Creighton's playbook, as Sarah rolled into view with a final dog bothering AV distraction ... Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson says there is “huge distress” concerning the Labor government’s renewables plans. “There is huge distress about the renewables rollout across western Victoria,” Ms Henderson told Sky News host Chris Kenny. “The high voltage transmission towers, which, of course, is all about furthering Labor’s renewables reckless scheme.”
Then it was on to a final short Ughmann gobbet ...
With a court order, those officers can even use “reasonable force” such as cutting locks or gates, and you can be prosecuted simply for getting in the way.
The campaign against climate and energy “misinformation and disinformation” is really a war on dissent. It is a struggle over power in all its forms, and if the alarmists win it will be your freedom that goes out with the lights.
The pond apologises for this outing, which was less than impressive.
Just the Ughmann? And just an Ughmann in exceptionally feeble form?
It's like that Woody Allen joke about the food being terrible and in such small portions, which now can't be told because Allen trotting off to Moscow is beyond the valley of the pitiful ...
The pond is feeling burnt out, and can only hope to do better on the morrow.
Perhaps the pond can summon the strength to indulge in some migrant-bashing, or onion muncher worship, or perhaps it's all best left to a cartoon ...
