The pond regrets to advise that it is currently offline and so there will be no succulent reptile stew served today.
The pond’s router has died, a sudden and unexpected death, in the spirit of Miss Lindsey.
This post is being composed by a digital thumb hooked up to digital tar, which is to say iPhone hooked up to iPad, which is like trying to sound sensible while undergoing a root canal.
The pond’s router hopes that correspondents can find some other form of reptile gruel, while it heads off to find a replacement router, with a deep, seething resentment of Apple products bubbling away like mad Kind Donald’s demented brain.
Ah, and don't we all remember how Apple was the revolution, and Microsoft would go broke 'real soon now'.
ReplyDelete
DeleteThe Microsoft song:
Every breath you take
And every move you make
Every bond you break, every step you take
I'll be watching you.
(see Windows GDID Raises Privacy Concerns Over Persistent Device Tracking)
Actually, Democracy Dies in H.R.
DeleteNew research sheds light on how mediocre employees help would-be authoritarians maintain power.
...
In the absence of real data, researchers have tended to assume that they cooperate because of ideological extremism, fear of persecution or some combination of the two.
New research, drawing on an extraordinary data set from Argentina’s Dirty War in the 1970s and ’80s, suggests a very different explanation. It turns out that the kinds of career pressures familiar to employees everywhere — the desire to revive a stalled career or obtain a minor promotion — can be enough to incentivize lower- and midlevel officials to violate professional obligations, fundamental norms and even basic morality. The people who make those decisions, the research suggests, are neither extremists nor victims. They are often just middling workers looking for a way to get ahead.
“Making a Career in Dictatorship,” a new book by two German political scientists, Adam Scharpf and Christian Glassel, reads like what you might get if you crossed Hannah Arendt’s ideas about the “banality of evil” with a business school guide on how to get the most out of low performers.
Their in-depth study of Argentina’s military during that country’s era of coups and forced disappearances found that low performers — whom they refer to as “career-pressured” individuals — filled the ranks of the secret police. That service allowed them to “detour” around the ordinary military hierarchy, the book shows, achieving promotions and career success they could never have managed otherwise.
It turns out that would-be authoritarians don’t need to staff their regimes with ideological true believers, offer extreme enticements or impose draconian punishments in order to make successful power grabs. They just need to figure out how to target their ideal labor pool: the frustrated and mediocre.
Their conclusions have implications for countries around the world grappling with the stability of their democracies — including the United States.
...
http://amediadragon.blogspot.com/2026/07/actually-democracy-dies-in-hr.html
Oh, and while we're waiting for DP to find a router, here's some wise words about that man who wanted to impose a 20% 'fee' for using the Strait of Hormuz:
ReplyDelete"Donald Trump's ability to avoid accountability for the many previously inconceivable actions he's taken as president often seemed premised on two essential elements: First, his every scandal was in the open for the world to see; if the coverup is always worse than the crime, don't bother covering anything up, which fed the second premise: Create so many scandals such that the public couldn't keep up with any one egregious abuse of the system. New revelations regarding new issues hit on a weekly basis, quickly rendering last week's outrage history."
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/a-trump-scandal-finally-has-the-teeth-to-put-him-in-real-danger-opinion/ar-AA27SwGh?
And that 20% impost has now disappeared like the mirage it always was, in yet another TACO Tuesday. It would have been interesting to see the remaining faithful Reptiles’ attempts to rationalise the Mad King’s latest brain fart.
DeleteAnd that's the other thing about Trump: nothing he ever says can be believed because he never thinks before he speaks and afterwards he never remembers anything he's said.
DeleteHow appropriate...
ReplyDelete"Originated centuries ago during the Era of Warring States,"
Make succulant reptile stew... a pinch of Polonius, a bit of Bro, a dash of Dame & Donner's, and a Slappy stoch of of Lach... ewwww. Accompanied by a shot - or 3 hundred - of venom.
"Snake soup or stew ... is a popular Cantonese delicacy and health supplement in Hong Kong, which contains the meats of at least two types of snakes as the main ingredients. The soup tastes slightly sweet because of the addition of chrysanthemum leaves and spices, while the snake meat in the soup is said to resemble the texture and taste of chicken meat.[1][2] Snake soup is usually served in specialised stores known as "Snake King" or "Shea Wang", mostly located in Shum Shui Po and Kowloon City, in fall or winter season for approximately $60 HKD (US$7.75) per bowl.[2] Originated centuries ago during the Era of Warring States, snake soup has been lauded in Chinese culture for its alleged medicinal benefits and high nutritional value. However, there are concerns in recent years that the snake soup industry in Hong Kong is on the decline because soup makers have few people to pass on their skills.[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_soup
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/09/telstras-triple-zero-failure-is-a-result-of-prioritising-neoliberal-competition-and-reaping-none-of-its-benefits
ReplyDeleteMay as well read JQ then...
Reptile inoculation information.
"Telstra’s triple-zero failure is a result of prioritising neoliberal ‘competition’ and reaping none of its benefits
Jul 10, 2026
https://johnquigginblog.substack.com/p/telstras-triple-zero-failure-is-a
That's the point of 'private enterprise': all of the rewards and benefits are 'private' and none are public.
Delete