Astonishing. Appalling. Cowardly. Craven. Indefensible, both when caught coming and when going ...
No wonder that other place had a little fun ... The Australian does a U-turn on controversial Pentagon press rules (*archive link to the original version)
Just hours after The Australian was revealed to be one of just 11 global news outlets to have agreed to the new rules, a spokesperson told this masthead that it had “revoked our assent”, citing press freedom concerns.
“The Australian has reviewed the Pentagon’s new press rules and requirements. They raise serious concerns and place undue limits on press freedoms,” a spokesperson for The Australian said following questions from this masthead.
“Because of The Australian’s long-held position on independent journalism and press freedom, we have advised the Pentagon that we have revoked our assent.”
This masthead sent questions to The Australian’s Washington correspondent, Joe Kelly, about how the newspaper signed up to the Pentagon rules, but he did not respond. Nor did the paper’s editor-in-chief, Michelle Gunn.
The decision to sign up to the rules was out of step with the vast majority of major news organisations, including fellow News Corp outlets, who have handed in their passes.
Look at the company they initially decided to keep ...
The Australian was initially among global outlets, including the Turkish state-run Anadolu Agency, newspaper Aksam and The Federalist, along with far-right publications One America News Network and The Epoch Times, to agree to the new rules put forward by the Pentagon.
Pathetic. Weak-kneed. Clueless ... and what was the best counter-attack they could muster?
Dame Slap, come on down ...
The Sydney Morning Herald’s decision to make its Good Food Guide food tasters judge, jury and executioner on untested allegations is enough to make you gag.
By Janet Albrechtsen
Columnist
A Merivale restaurant ban is one thing, putting yourself, however briefly, in the company of the likes of OANN and The Epoch Times is entirely another.
What were they thinking? Sorry, it's the reptiles, thinking isn't in the business model ...
And so to doing the reptiles slowly this weekend ...
Setting out on the journey early on the weekend, there was much to avoid.
The pond can only stomach a couple of reptiles at a time, and there wasn't anything in the headlines to help distract the pond from the usual unpleasantries...
The contemptible Andrew suffered another blow, and TACO Donald reminded the world that delusion was the first requirement of anyone in his cult ...
AFP and staff writers
What a waste of space and time, but there were other shameless grifters on the scene.
There was no way that the pond could stomach ancient Troy at all, what with him busy flogging his book ...
This Gough routine is as bad as the relentless reptile obsession with Ming the Merciless ...
His leadership radically transformed Australia but a new biography reveals the former prime minister’s dramatic demise was fuelled by his own character traits.
By Troy Bramston
Kerr’s torture over Whitlam dismissal revealed from grave
Former governor-general Sir John Kerr poured out his heart in notes about his dismissal of Gough Whitlam, revealing him to be obsessed, troubled and utterly delusional.
By Troy Bramston
Oh go drunkenly stumble over a horse.
So over it, and the pond wonders if the relentless plugging will end even when ancient Troy's tome hits the stands at the end of the month ...
But are any of the alternatives to ancient Troy any better?
The pond will get through a few of them, slowly, ever so slowly, but the pond was always taught to swallow the brussels sprouts, the turnips and the beets first, before settling down to a serve of salt-laden, greasy chips ...
Oh no, not the Ughmann and another bout of climate science denialism, way down there with the brussels sprouts ...
The header: Climate activism clouds the science, A new frontier is opening in climate science: litigation-ready research. It should trouble everyone who still believes science should pursue facts, not verdicts.
There was no caption for the risible gif-style graphic, which consisted of the clouds parting to reveal another body and mock cop tape marked "climate crime scene".
It was deeply pathetic.
The pond wondered if even the worst AI could be that bad.
Perhaps some uncredited human agent was involved, and realising how bad it was, passed on the credit?
As for the Ughmann, why bother?
Well this is a 5 minute read, so the reptiles say, where all the pond has to do is present the noxious former seminarian weeds masquerading as a science nerd brain, and let others take the bait and the trolling, if they're so inclined...
It clearly bothers some academics. In a cautionary article written for the advocacy-adjacent journal : Climate Action, University of Cambridge environmental systems analysis professor Ulf Buntgen argues that “climate science and climate activism should be separated conceptually and practically”. Ironic, then, that the same journal this week published an Australian-led paper that leans unapologetically into activism.
The paper’s lead author is Australian National University climate scientist Nerilie Abram and the research was part-funded by iron ore billionaire Andrew Forrest’s philanthropic Minderoo Foundation.
The purpose of the research is explicit. The paper notes that “Scientific progress in quantifying and attributing climate change consequences is underpinning litigation claims worldwide” but identifies a gap, the need to link individual fossil fuel projects directly to human and planetary harm to put pressure on decision-makers.
The researchers’ solution looks simple and elegant. The paper uses a method that links how much the planet warms to how much carbon dioxide we release.
In geekspeak this is called Transient Climate Response to CO2 Emissions (TCRE). It attributes about 0.45C of planetary warming for every 1000 billion tonnes of carbon released, with a likely range between 0.27C and 0.63C. The method does not define a lower limit because the greenhouse effect runs all the way down to the molecular level.
So simply wind the numbers down to any known quantity of carbon dioxide and every fossil fuel project is in the gun.
Then came a snap of something that excites the reptiles no end, Woodside Energy’s Scarborough energy project has been labelled by some as “Australia’s biggest carbon dioxide bomb”.
On with the Ughmann, and note the pond's stoic refusal to take the bait, to respond to the troll, despite all the flourishing of ersatz stats...
Here, let’s note that Forrest has called Scarborough “Australia’s biggest carbon dioxide bomb”. “This project is going to last at least 50 years and it will destroy the environment around us,” Forrest said. “This death race to the finish of oil and gas is a death race for humanity if we let them get away with it.”
A Minderoo Foundation spokesman said the paper formed part of its Lethal Humidity research program but stressed the proposal had been developed independently by the ANU and that the foundation had no role in shaping or reviewing the work.
Meanwhile, back at the research, the authors have run the sums on Scarborough’s emissions through to 2100. “The best estimate is that the 876 million tonnes of CO2 emissions from this project will cause 0.00039C of additional global warming, with a 66-100 per cent likelihood of causing between 0.00024C and 0.00055C,” the paper says.
This is a vanishingly small number. Natural temperature swings are hundreds of times larger each year. And the paper doesn’t mention that if any of this gas replaces coal, global emissions would fall.
Never mind. Now we need to fill some body bags. Here the authors pluck one study on heat and cold-related deaths in Europe and another that defines the so-called human climate niche to make the leap into epidemiology.
The second paper says pre-industrial humans thrived where the mean annual temperature was around 11C to 15C, with regions above 29C representing the extreme upper limit of habitability.
The human climate niche paper relies on the most extreme emissions scenario, now widely regarded by modellers as unrealistic. And it ignores the reality that burning fossil fuels has allowed people to flourish in every climate on Earth, from the Arctic Circle to Singapore. In the pre-industrial world, inside or outside the so-called niche, life was mostly nasty, brutish and short.
It's true that the pond had begun to grind teeth, in a way that will bring a visit to the dentist closer, as the reptiles showed outrageous activists at work, Members of Greenpeace demand action in Brasilia to save the forests, before the pre-COP30 opening ceremony. Picture: AFP
Why does the pond bother? Because the Ughmann is there, and one reptile is as bad as another in their own way, and to do any of them is as tedious as to go o'er ...
The Graudian possibly might take the bait, but they should remember that this is a mob that is inclined to rush in like The Epoch Times ...
The paper got the headlines it was hunting, as most of the media typically regurgitated it enthusiastically and without question. “Emissions linked to Woodside’s Scarborough gas project could lead to at least 480 deaths, research suggests” was The Guardian’s take.
The Guardian is right about the deaths being only a suggestion, because dig deeper into the report and the numbers change once those people not being killed by cold weather are counted.
That’s significant, because the paper on European climate-related deaths notes “we estimated an annual excess of 130,228 deaths attributed to cold and 13,589 attributed to heat”. Scientists call a tenfold difference an order of magnitude.
In the swings and roundabouts of temperature, Abram et al calculate a net loss of 118 additional lives by 2100. In fact, by the authors’ own model, it’s possible that more people will live than die – up to 161 fewer deaths – depending on how reduced cold-related mortality offsets heat-related deaths. And most will be over the age of 80.
So, Scarborough is about to kill, or save, about two elderly Europeans each year from the time it kicks off until 2100. Seriously.
Seriously, the pond struggled to keep going, and it was only the arcana in the snaps that provided some relief, Nigerian agronomist Mercy Diebiru-Ojo clears the cassava crops of weeds at Ibadan. She hopes her work can increase Nigerian yam and cassava yields by 500 per cent, fight hunger and raise her country's position on the agricultural value chain from a mere grower to a processor. Picture: AFP
What a tedious man he is ...
Surely it isn’t too much to ask that such an intelligent group reflect on how they came to live in the most privileged niche in human history.
Every comfort they enjoy depends on the concentrated energy of fossil fuels. The dirty little secret is they condemn the source of their prosperity while devouring it, a moral vanity made possible only by the abundance they feign to reject. It is time they lived their faith and spent just one day without anything derived from coal, oil or gas.
But let’s stay in the model land of make-believe, and run the scientists’ numbers over their benefactor’s businesses. Using the paper’s own arithmetic and assumptions, if Fortescue’s reported Scope 3 emissions of roughly 269 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2024 continue unchanged to 2100, its cumulative total would be more than 23 times larger than Scarborough’s. That translates to about 2750 net European deaths by 2100. No wonder its owner lies awake at night dreaming of green hydrogen.
At last a final snap ... Squadron Energy chief executive Rob Wheals at the Clarke Creek Wind Farm, 150km northwest of Rockhampton. Picture: Charlie Peel
And so to a final bout of Twiggy bashing ...
Both of Forrest’s companies danced around the questions this column asked.
A Fortescue spokesman explained all the many things the company was doing to cut emissions and ended: “We encourage Woodside to do the same: stop expanding fossil fuel production and start investing in solutions that drive emissions down, not up.”
Expanding fossil fuel production is exactly what Squadron Energy is doing.
A Squadron spokeswoman said gas was essential to support the grid when the wind dropped or sun set and added the Port Kembla terminal would “provide an immediate, flexible supply of LNG to ensure Australia’s east coast has reliable energy during the transition”.
On the west coast the Forrest empire ignores its own sins and demands chastity from others. On the east it screams “but not yet”. The good doctor preaches salvation through decarbonisation, but his credibility is nudging towards net zero.
If hypocrisy were a fuel, Forrest could power the nation.
For this sort of relentless guff, the reptiles want your shekels?
Trusted source? Three trusted sources?
Pull the other one ...
And so to finish off the brussels sprouts with a bonus.
Second thoughts, this is more like learning to love a serve of durian ...you have to work really hard to get past the smell.
Wouldn't you know, there's a double bunger "Ned" natter to hand this day ...sort of an Everest and K2 climb all on the one day.
This EXCLUSIVE can be left to the archives for those wanting to do K2 ...
‘Core values pathway’ to revive Liberals: Taylor
Liberal heavyweight Angus Taylor has warned his party must embrace both conservative and classical liberal traditions to survive its current crisis.
by Paul Kelly.
Really? The beefy, windmill hating boofhead from down Goulburn way is the best the reptiles have got?
A sample from the archive, as much as would fit on the pond's screen for the cap, just in case the fragile archive explodes yet again under the weight of all the nonsense it holds ...
There was a little more, including this Ughmann-style gem...
On energy, he said: “We cannot set climate targets that are unreachable and destructive across any time frame. We must back technologies that deliver affordability and reliability – gas, hydro, coal and nuclear – while reducing emissions through efficiency and innovation.”
That was just a four minute read, so the reptiles said, and out of that cloth, "Ned" managed to weave nine tedious minutes...
It started at the beginning, with header sounding like a cracked record on steroids: Angus Taylor and James Paterson have emerged as voices of clarity amid Liberal Party turmoil, delivering a unified vision; Angus Taylor and James Paterson have emerged as voices of reason amid Liberal Party turmoil, delivering a unified vision that could determine whether the party lives, or extinguishes itself.
The tragic collage had a name attached to it in the caption: Angus Taylor, left, and James Paterson, right Angus Taylor, left, have done what Sussan Ley, centre, has failed to do: as senior conservatives they have outlined a strategic vision for the Liberal Party’s future. Artwork: Sean Callinan
Sean, sometimes a 'no credit' is all the credit that's needed, or better still, blame it on AI ...
As for "Ned", the climb is the thing, and just getting to the end is the sole achievement that matters...
The vandals did more bloodletting but it didn’t matter.
The big story of the week was that the true conservatives stood up – the ever impressive James Paterson and the likely alternative leader, Angus Taylor.
They engaged in the big ideas that will determine whether the Liberal Party lives or extinguishes itself.
In separate contributions Taylor and Paterson injected some intellectual steel, common sense and political nous into a third-rate shambles about the future of the Liberal Party that was inviting the possibility that it didn’t have a future.
While they used different language and have different styles, Taylor and Paterson delivered a remarkably similar series of messages – to the party as a whole, to its conservatives, to its moderates and, ultimately, to its leader, Sussan Ley.
On display was a quality in short supply since the May election – true conservatism as opposed to the recent outbreak of cheapjack populist conservatism.
Paterson’s Tom Hughes Oration on Tuesday night exposed the maze of illusions that have tormented the party since its defeat.
In the finest speech so far on the Liberal trauma, Paterson was constructive, unifying and avoided aggravating the colleagues. He provided the clarity that has been in desperately short supply as he punctured a series of false choices.
Taylor’s exclusive interview and oped in this paper on Saturday constitute a strategic vision for the future of the party coming from its senior conservative and still the likeliest candidate to replace Ley if she succumbs under pressure.
Taylor, who lost the leadership 29-25 votes to Ley in May, has addressed the Liberal trauma and offered a way forward.
If the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way is the way forward, which way to the door so that the pond can collect its big plunge on the lettuce?
Sorry, at this point the reptiles offered up a snap of a man who makes the lettuce seem suffused with energy, James Paterson’s speech on Tuesday night was a showstopper. Picture: Jason Edwards / NewsWire
Sheesh, stunned mullets should take out a class action for that breach of copyright on their look ...
Okay, the pond gets it. These are troubled times, and all that's left is navel-gazing and fluff-gathering and perhaps a bit of teeth flossing, but knowing that doesn't get around the quiet desperation and the ennui and the terminal boredom, as "Ned" and the pond slogged on, one tedious step after another ...
They emphatically repudiated recent wild, highly publicised, comments from inside and outside the party that unity was now impossible, that the Liberals should split into two parties or Liberal MPs should defect to the Nationals.
Such talk is the guaranteed road to doom.
Both Taylor and Paterson said they supported Ley’s leadership. That assurance is vital.
Yet Taylor and Paterson have done what Ley has failed to do: as senior conservatives they have outlined a strategic vision for the Liberal Party’s future, the basis for unity and the core principles that should constitute their attack on Labor.
They are saying what the leader should be saying.
In this sense their remarks – not about leadership as such – pose a direct test for Ley.
Is Ley up to the job? Can Ley successfully navigate a way out of the current Liberal crisis?
The Taylor and Paterson efforts represent powerful realities around four themes.
First, abandon the collective nonsense that the current crisis should lead to a restructuring of centre-right politics and a split or fracture in the Liberal Party.
Taylor warns this would consign Australia to the Labor Party for the duration. Paterson made the devastating comment that a split would represent a Liberal version of the disastrous Labor split of the 1950s.
Second, in ideological terms, speaking as conservatives, they warn the only future for the Liberal Party is to maintain its fusion of two traditions, classic liberalism and conservative faiths.
It reminded the pond of being in a mass, with ritual incantations, and ritual visual offerings, Taylor, who lost the leadership to Sussan Ley in May, has addressed the Liberal trauma and offered a way forward. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman
If the beefy windmill-hating boofhead is the way forward, then all is lost, as "Ned" kept adding to his tedious listicle ...
They see these traditions not as some weak-kneed centrist compromise but as instruments to weaponise their sharp policy differences from Labor.
Taylor warned of the consequences, saying: “If we don’t get this right, we lose the real contest, which is for the Australian people.” He made clear the issue at stake was Liberal Party identity. Asked how important it was for the Liberals to retain its two traditions, Taylor said: “It’s not the Liberal Party if we don’t.”
Forget Farage and Trump
Third, Taylor and Paterson came with wise advice for their conservative friends, particularly those on the populist fringe: forget your false prescriptions about reinventing the Liberals as a populist conservative party influenced by Nigel Farage and Donald Trump, understand Australia’s uniqueness, appreciate that such a reinvention will never be embraced by the party and will never fly with the Australian public.
Both denied their remarks were directed to prominent conservative Andrew Hastie, who has resigned to the backbench.
They are friends with Hastie and want to play down personality tensions.
Yet their comments are an obvious rejection of the speculation rife among a section of conservatives who call for an untenable shift to the right that would only marginalise the party.
Bring on the pastie Hastie, Andrew Hastie, who now sits on the backbench. Picture: NewsWire/Philip Gostelow
"Ned" carried on his listicle, as the pond realised the Everest climb had been abandoned, and in its place, there was mindless wandering in the wilderness ...
Paterson offered a deadly and correct diagnosis of the argument put by some moderates – that the Liberals must abandon the “culture wars”, a line beloved by much of the press gallery.
He made clear that selling out to the left’s campaign to remake Australian values would render the Liberals soulless, hollow and unelectable.
Any such step by the Liberals would corrupt their identity as a party of liberalism that opposes identity politics (witness the voice campaign) and that believes in the flag, anthem, the constitution, the Anzac tradition and Australia Day. This is tied to a rising sense of Australian patriotism.
If the Liberals are selective and smarter in culture war campaigns inevitably triggered by the left, they can expect to win since such campaigns are usually at odds with mainstream opinion.
In his summary, Paterson nailed the two false choices for the party: succumbing to a pro-market economic agenda while selling out to the progressive cultural Zeitgeist and, on the other side, retreating to a populist, economic nationalism, state power version of Reform UK that would ditch the party’s economic tradition.
Australian solutions to Australian problems
Both Taylor and Paterson insist the party must avoid the Labor-lite trap. Taylor said: “We must reject a Labor-lite approach but equally reject becoming a pale imitation of any other political brands.”
They repudiate possibly the most ludicrous claim of the far right – that the Liberals must become populist conservatives as the only way to avoid the Labor-lite trap. This is the worst form of propaganda.
Taylor and Paterson want Australian solutions to Australian problems – this nation should have no role as a pathetic mimic of Farage from Britain or Trump from the US.
Mindless blather?
You betcha, in spades. How else to describe all that talk of identity, culture wars and the progressive cultural Zeitgeist?
Nige would make plans to have this mob for breakfast, Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage. James Paterson is unconvinced Farage-style politics will fly in Australia. Picture: Getty Images
On with the soul searching, or end it if only to save yourself from this sort of "Ned"coronial investigation ...
He said: “The Liberal Party is different from the Tory party and the Republican Party. Our political cultures and political environments are different across these countries. So we have to find our own way, and do it in a way that reflects our own history. Obviously, US politics is very different from Australia, I think just cloning one or another of those countries is a really serious error.”
Paterson said: “We are told that our future lies in a Farage-lite populist conservative party which abandons our traditions on free markets and fiscal discipline in favour of a new nationalism of picking winners and turning our backs on free trade. But I am personally unconvinced a platform of significantly increasing government spending in a country where it is already 44 per cent of GDP and has a large budget deficit is fiscally sustainable. Or, for that matter, particularly conservative.
“But even if it would work politically in the UK, that does not mean it would work in Australia. Reform is currently averaging about 30 per cent in the polls. But it’s less than the primary vote we just secured in our worst ever election defeat.”
End the soul-searching
Both Taylor and Patterson recognise that after the worst defeat in Liberal history there had to be period of soul-searching. But they argue it is time to get to the main game. Taylor said the focus had to become an agenda to run “against a bad Labor government”. Patterson said “we must call time on the apology tour.”
What is required is the enunciation of core policy principles as the instruments against Labor. It is too early to outline detailed policies for the 2028 election.
But the principles are vital and it seems the party, under Ley, doesn’t yet have them. That’s damaging for the Liberals and for her leadership.
It doesn’t make sense. In the interim the media is having a field day with repeated questions: “What is your policy?”
“I can understand the frustration and anger people are feeling,” Taylor said in the interview. “There are always people who have a contrary point of view, at a time when we’ve had a cathartic loss. It’s understandable that people want to explore alternatives. But I am very confident that the vast majority of the party room believes in the importance of these two traditions and the importance of a policy agenda that reflects that.”
There was much common ground in the actual policy agendas that Taylor and Paterson put forward. Taylor said the priority must be economic growth to fund opportunity.
That meant competitive, enterprise-driven investment, lower personal income taxes and less regulation along with lower deficits and less debt to reduce the burden on future generations. Taylor said he was “dead against” automated personal tax increases via bracket creep – signalling support for a Liberal policy of tax indexation during the current term.
He said Australians wanted “affordable, reliable power”.
Nothing to see in all that, and the pond remarkably began to feel some sympathy for Susssan, what with the lettuce gaining more and more strength the longer that "Ned" blathered on, In a speech this week recognising the 81st anniversary of the formation of the Liberal Party, leader Sussan Ley said: “We are the party that built modern Australia and we must be a party for modern Australia.” Picture: NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw
They built modern Australia?
That's a startling level of hubris and silliness, only matched by "Ned's" usual bout of 'Chicken Little, the sky is falling, rushing around headless' routines...
Taylor said Australia had been enriched by migration but the rate needed to be lowered, with a renewed focus on skills and migrants who could adopt our values. Childcare policy, contrary to Labor’s mindset, “must give parents confidence and choice” as opposed to undervaluing early family life, given Labor’s strong resistance to choice in types of childcare.
He highlighted education, calling for a return of “rigour to the curriculum” lifting literacy and numeracy, stronger vocational pathways and removing “ideological indoctrination”.
Paterson reminded that the party’s economic debates in the 1970s and 80s between the “wets” and the “dries” had been “won comprehensively by the right of the party in favour of free markets”.
That debate had been part of a wider national debate settled to Australia’s immense benefit but opposed by the left as part of its assault on so-called neo-liberalism.
A Liberal Party that abandoned free markets “would consign Australia to a poorer future”. The way forward was limited government, free markets and lower taxes.
Social fragmentation had now become a problem in the West.
The alarm some conservatives felt about the issues of family, faith, nation and community were “sincere” and “legitimate”. Paterson said Australia’s social cohesion was being tested and “at times has failed us” during the past two years.
But some events, like the decline in religious observance, “are simply out of reach of politicians and the state”.
On climate, Paterson said “our energy market is utterly broken by the pursuit of unrealistic targets, and it is hurting families and businesses”.
Post-pandemic migration has been “unplanned, uncontrolled and too high”, a major contributor to the housing crisis, and must be reduced to sustainable levels.
While manufacturing had been in decline, false arguments needed to be avoided: there was no threat to national security because the nation no longer made fridges, washing machines or TVs.
Paterson said the biggest recent problem facing the party was the voter perception it had abandoned its values. Too often in the past Liberals had adopted policies inconsistent with its publicly stated values.
Nah, actually it was immensely stupid policies, such as nuking the country to save the planet, which were entirely consistent with its publicly stated climate science denialist values, but the pond must resist engaging, what with The Price is Wrong turning up as the final snap ... Jacinta Nampijinpa Price sits with Andrew Hastie, senator Jane Hume and senator Sarah Henderson on the Liberal Party backbench. Picture: News Corp
By now the worst was out of the way and "Ned" had only a little drivel, a minor dribbling, left.
The pond promised itself a Ginsbergian Howl of Pain if Ming the Merciless once again returned from the grave to haunt the reptiles ... ...
Menzies talked about the Forgotten People, we need to talk about a Forgotten Generation.” She invoked the history of the party, saying the Liberals had dismantled the White Australia policy, fought racism, championed immigration and multiculturalism, an obvious reminder to the conservative wing.
Ley has already delivered a strong economic speech consistent with party tradition.
But Ley leads a divided party.
Her backbench includes Hastie, senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, senator Jane Hume and senator Sarah Henderson – all of whom are able and willing to speak up.
Ley’s future depends on her securing internal unity around core principles and, unless she achieves that, a polling recovery is a daunting task.
Comedy Fold from Reptile Central -
ReplyDelete>>“Because of The Australian’s long-held position on independent journalism and press freedom, we have advised the Pentagon that we have revoked our assent.”>>
I think we’re all pretty clear on their long held positions…..
So who made the decision to backflip? Wonder if it was the Emeritus Chair himself, still keen, even in his dotage, to maintain his life-long delusion of being an anti-Establishment maverick?
Sometimes you just have to gaze at the tedium on display at the Lizard Oz and laugh at the absurdity of it all.
ReplyDeleteNed trying to play king-maker by pumping up Well Done Angus, droning on about classical liberalism as if the Beefy One was some periwigged philosopher sitting around in an 18th Century London coffee-house expounding on lofty principles; the Bro, jumping on the rare earths bandwagon to bore us all silly; the Ughmann, using his qualifications as a failed seminarian and former security guard to lecture us on science; the Dog Botherer, tag-teaming with Polonius to find yet another excuse to bag the ABC; and to top things off the ever-charming Dame Slap, assuming any of us give a fuck about a Liberal Party donor being snubbed by a guide for wanky Sydney foodies.
Predictable, repetitive and so, so dull. And yet - so terribly mesmerising. I wonder what Hannah Arendt might have said about the banality of evil if she’d encountered the work of the Reptiles?
Sheesh, you should be writing the pond. Such a comprehensive summary, and yet so pithy and brief, saying all that needs to be said ...and still finding the space to conjure up the banality of weevils!
Delete