The pond was delighted to see correspondents greet the new year with verve, vivacity and verse.
Meanwhile, the pond continues its peregrinations, this time taking in the origin story for the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way.
You see, before going on his valiant mission to help destroy the planet, the humble lad first attended the Nimmitabel Public School (still perched on a hillock in the hamlet).
The village has fallen on hard times since that golden age, but the pond was pleased to see the old Sundowners movie pub had been given a refuge for coffee swillers, and that the abandoned railway station had been turned into a men’s shed. (The hamlet’s never been the same since the night they drove the old line down and the bells were ringing).
Sad to say, some have forgotten the beefy boofhead’s noble battle against satanic windmills in his early days, putting him on a similar career path to that of King Donald.
Angus did his best, but the pond was startled and appalled to see a wind farm lurking not far from the village which had groomed the child.
Once again the WCRS (whale corpse removal squad) had done a tremendous job cleansing all traces of the carcasses of the creatures daily killed by those infernal machines (handily, they’d also removed the corpses of all the Oz critters routinely mashed to a pulp), but it was mortifying to see some farm animals loitering nearby, apparently unaware of the dire peril surrounding them. As for the landscape, how they ruined the vision of bleached, parched tundra:
In related news, the pond was shocked to see Wired recently recycling ancient warming myths:
How long before this fear mongering ends?
How long before Nimmitabel’s shame vanishes in the wind?
How long must the pond wait until returning to the sweet, climate-science denying bosom of the lizard Oz, the IPA, and the likes of the Riddster?
The link?
Handy further reading:
Bonus extra +, "Handy further reading"...
ReplyDeleteJames, describing his opinion of Rupert texting his barrister questions, during James' deposition...
“How fucking twisted is that?”
~ James Murdoch
Looong read.... and a suck-session... "For nearly five hours, Rupert’s attorney asked James a series of withering questions.
- Have you ever done anything successful on your own?
- Why were you too busy to say “Happy birthday” to your father when he turned 90?
- Does it strike you that, in your account, everything that goes wrong is always somebody else’s fault?
"At one point, the attorney referred to James and his sisters as “white, privileged, multibillionaire trust-fund babies.” At another, he read an unsourced passage from a book about the Murdochs to suggest that James was a conniving saboteur."
From;
"GROWING UP MURDOCH
James Murdoch on mind games, sibling rivalry, and the war for the family media empire
By McKay Coppins
...
"During our first meeting, he [James] told me about a document that one of his father’s lawyers had written, which included a quote from King Lear: “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.”
... "James and Kathryn found it darkly amusing. Did Rupert and his lawyers not realize that the line is uttered by a mad king who disowns his only honest daughter?
“The whole point is that the crazy old man doesn’t know that Cordelia is telling him the truth,” Kathryn told me.
...
"Rupert sat slouched and silent throughout the deposition, staring inscrutably at his younger son. Every so often, though, he would pick up his phone and type. Finally, James realized why. “He was texting the lawyer questions to ask,” James told me. “How fucking twisted is that?”
...
"James hated the books and articles written by professional Murdoch chroniclers, which he mockingly referred to as “the canon.”
...
http://amediadragon.blogspot.com/2026/01/growing-up-murdoch.html
https://archive.md/ZwrEj
“but imitations thrice removed from the truth, and could easily be made without any knowledge of the truth, because they are appearances only and not realities” (Republic, Book III).
And a rhymes with, follow on...
"The insider is trapped with his own recollections, which we are privy to. How he got trapped with these painful memories, and his way out, are the purpose of this theater piece. He is in the process of remembering and reliving his interrogation by a prosecutor, and other aspects of his life relevant to the
Cum-Ex financial scandal he came forward to expose to the German authorities.
"Cum‑Ex was a European‑wide tax fraud scheme, carried out from the early 2000s until its exposure in the late 2010s, in which bankers and investors exploited dividend tax loopholes to siphon off billions of euros. Some investigative journalists and researchers estimate that the scheme cost European treasuries up to €55 billion in total, with losses to Germany alone estimated at more than €30 billion.
...
https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2025/12/if-the-poor-die-the-rich-die-too-a-review-of-the-insider-by-teater-katapult-in-hong-kong.html#more-294444
As luck would have it DP, I spoke with an old friend down Goulburn way on the weekend. The boofhead was redistricted out by the AEC. Said friend owns a hobby farm of 150acres. He offered the satanic windmill makers his plot for whale killers but alas, a moratorium... "and your block is too small anyway".
ReplyDeleteSo he's taken up the "if your rich enough to afford batteries we'll subsidise them for you" Albo affluence type vote grab pork barrel.
So trickle up, but my leg is wet!
He is going "off grid" as soon as batteries installed to remove poles & wires daily charge of $800 /yr before an electron delivered.
Further diluting the pool of public power, ala private health. Ha! And we've been HAAS'd.
Off grid by subsidy.
A sinking of polity opportunity cost.
Chortle, how the pond did chortle, and clap hands with glee! (As Anon because that’s how it rolls on the road).
DeleteThanks for the latest postcard from the road, DP. I’ve been thinking through Nimmitabel a few times and it is indeed a dump. Nothing wrong with that - I like dumps - but any hamlet whose most notable produce is Well Done Angus clearly has problems.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile over in the so called real world of legacy media, the Great Crusade continues unabated. Not only does the Lizard Oz continue to act as the Likud Bugle, it’s facing increasing competition from the Sydney Morning Property Speculator (which has taken a generally reactionary turn under its new editor) in that regard. For all I know they’re just rerunning old articles by now - the tone and content is unchanging.
And if one is unwise enough to scan Sky Noise on da Toob (y'r h'mbl does, so others who come here do not have to) you can still encounter Sharri (Ms Dsrespect) and Ray Hadley, wooing each other. In a part of the clip that cannot be unseen, Ms Marx-son strokes Hadley's shoulder, as he sprays the 'c' word ('coward', in this case) over the Prime Minister's character. And stroking Hadley? Has she not read his Wiki entry, to be reminded how perilous that sort of thing could be - even in front of cameras? Anyway, Sky has been running it for weeks now, and it still gleans a watch or two. Of course, some might think, given his history in shock jockery, that having Hadley run you down is a badge of honour. Sky do seem to have dropped the Bronny Bishop version, of the PM as 'snivelling coward'. Perhaps word has gone out that Bronny is kinda losing it, these days, and could say something truly embarrassing, if videod direct.
DeleteChadwick, I'll ask you as you are brave (reckless?) enough to... "And if one is unwise enough to scan Sky Noise on da Toob (y'r h'mbl does, so others who come here do not have to) you can still encounter"...
DeleteAt this very moment in Sky N Regional...
Trump’s Inauguration!!!
Brain seized, need explanation please.
Anonymous - my best conjecture for Sky Regional running Trump Inauguration would be along the lines of - things are not looking good for King Don within the actual Untied States, so Rupert has suggested a version of Groundhog Day for reptile media, to try to boost the Don's standing (or stooping/shuffling in reality).
DeleteOr we could just go back to a Rupert principle of longer-standing - whatever is cheap, is sufficient.
But the spelling DP!... "and when we
ReplyDeletewere getting near Nimmitabel I said, " How
do you spell it?" The driver was a good
man, but spelling wasn't his forte." ... "Even Nimitti Bel failed to save Babylon."
Bairnsdale Advertiser and Tambo and Omeo Chronicle (Vic. : 1882 - 1946) Thu 20 Dec 1900 Page 4
NIMMITABEL.
" Gossip" in the " Stock and Station
Journal" says :-That's the name of a
town about 23 miles south of Cooma, on
the Monaro. The railway line ends at
Cooma, but if the capital is going to be
on the monaro it wouldn't end there
long. I went to see te site of the pro
posed capital the other day, and when we
were getting near Nimmitabel I said, " How
do you spell it?" The driver was a good
man, but spelling wasn't his forte. One
man said it was Nimitybelle; another
said it was Nimytehele, but the railway
guide says " Nimmitabel ;" but they're all
wrong! The proper way to spell it is
Nimitti-Bel. That's the real, original
way of spelling it. A stock inspector
down that way told me that it was a
Babylonish name, and that was good
enough for me. 1'll tell you his story.
He said that there was a land surveyor
in the olden times, who was well up in
Babylonish lore, and when he found that
the place where he was laying out a town
was very high, he called it after the high
town of Babylon-Nimitti-Bel.
The great capital city of the kingdom
of old was taken, in spite of Nimitti Bel,
and the soldiers of Darius, the Median,
sacked the city of the Hanging Gardens
and put the citizens thereof to the sward.
For, when the fate of a city is sealed in
the urns of the gods,, no man and no
measures can save it. Even Nimitti
Bel failed to save Babylon. And now, a
learned surveyor has given the old name
to a new little town in the far south of
New South Wales. And Nebuchadnezzar
has heen dead so long a time that the in
habitants of the new town know naught
concerning the old wall. These new
men live amid pleasant pastures, in a fat
land, and afar off the mountains were
capped with snow-even at the end of
November-and the air was sweet and
pure. And the men of the modern
Nimitti-bel are crying for a rail
road and for the capital city of
thie new Commonwealth to be es
tablished in their midst, and they are a
new people, with a new cry ! Alas and
slack! Babylon has fallin, and the
Babylonians called their capital city " the
gate of God," and they were a mighty
people. Their temples and tombs and
hanging gardens have passed from the
land of sunshine, and are buried beneath
the desert sands. And we, a young people,
thousands of years later, are talking
about a new capital for our Commonwealth,
as if we were the first race to try an ex
periment in government. We quarrel
and snarl, and say evil things about the
site, but it would be well for us to think
about the Nimitti-bel of the olden time,
and to be very kind to the folk: of the
modern Nimmitobel."
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/84795365
As more and more groups issue public demands for a Commonwealth Royal Commission to do with events at Bondi, but most do not match their peremptory language with clear terms of reference. The outstanding example was the group of self-proclaimed leading legal persons, who offered remarkably little in the way of guidance towards terms of reference.
ReplyDeleteSo, y'r h'mbl wonders if we are moving towards what Douglas Adams cautioned us about - that such commission might take - a long time, not necessarily millions of years, but some years - and hand down the 'answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, Israel, and everything', as 42.
Those who take up the innate mysticism of Judaism, (provide your own names, from reptile media) might read more into that, because, as the Wiki tells us 'by some traditions, the Torah scroll is written with no fewer than 42 lines per column, based on the journeys of Israel.'
Or, if you wish to delve into Kabbalistic tradition, 42 is the number with which God creates the Universe, and a few other links, set out in the Wiki.
But Adams was firm, always, that 42 had no special significance to his writings - the point was that by time Deep Thought provided its answer - nobody could recall what the actual question was. Yet those making the stentorian 'demands' seem to feel no obligation to draft terms that would promote emotional healing, ease of grief, better understanding between groups that have been recording battles for millennia, and other outcomes that the demanding class seem to think would come automatically from public hearings. Perhaps some of those leading legals see themselves as 'Counsel assisting'; people who largely carry out an initial inquiry, not in the public gaze, to decide what they might direct each public inquiry towards.
What do you get when you multiply 6 by 9 ?
DeleteScary...
ReplyDelete"Links 1/3/2026
Posted on January 3, 2026 by Yves Smith
"South of the Border:
"US Coup in Caracas
"Trump says US has ‘captured’ Venezuelan President Maduro and his wife in ‘large-scale strike’ BBC. [link below, for those with an itch which may never be scratched]
"Larry Wilkerson did say it could be done with as little as a brigade some time ago. This is so so bad. Among other things, China and Russia will go on full war footings. A contact who taught Global South diplomats said right after the strikes began:
“One of my ex students is there. Armed mobs are hunting down Americans.” He added later: “The riots in Iran seem to be petering out as counter protestors are taking to the streets to hunt down the armed provocateurs. 30+ caught so far plus a factory full of women making petrol bombs. It would suck to be them.”
"And: “I’m not sure what kidnapping Maduro achieved, they have a VP who will step into his shoes. Does Marchado think she’ll be greeted with rose petals? And on what grounds will she be installed, she wasn’t even in the presidential race. So much for democracy.”
And will the militia blow up the oil wells?
...
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/01/links-1-3-2026.html
LIVE. 37,629 viewing37629 viewingLive pageUpdated 1 minute ago
Captured Venezuelan leader Maduro arrives in New York after US strikes
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c5yqygxe41pt