In which Moorice's super hero flies in to save the day ...

 

Shattered, gutted, ripped … and no, not by the reptiles magical conjuring of an alternative black-hole laden universe …

The Australian Electoral Commission has declared activist group GetUp! is not associated with any political party, defying conservatives who argued it should be treated as an arm of Labor and the Greens. The commission found GetUp!'s campaigns were primarily issue-based rather than linked to a particular party, and that its conduct on polling booths urging a vote for Labor or the Greens did not constitute a significant part of its overall activities.

Thanks Koziol, and there's more to read here ..

No, it's not really to do with GetUp, though in a way it is.

You see, the pond was hoping, hope against hope, that Moorice would be out and about today, boasting of his latest astonishing feat.

Moorice frequently stalks the lizard Oz on a Thursday or a Friday, but the pond couldn't stand it, it had to break, and so it cobbled together a couple of splashes just to link GetUp and the attention-seeking onion muncher doing it one more time with Malware …

You see, Moorice isn't just the greatest climate scientist doing the rounds, he's also chief prophet of the apocalypse, high priest of coal, and one of the greatest marketing minds the newly photographed black hole has ever witnessed.

Lo, look on his works and marvel …

You see how it comes together? Captain GetUp! flies in to zap villains and save the onion muncher from the devious Zali …(hmm, that name resonates almost as much as Terence Stamp's wicked General Zod).

This Captain is everywhere … not just at the Graudian here … but at Gizmodo here … and wherever superheroes battle evil …

 

As with all superheroes, there's an origin story, which began in timeless fashion in the lizard Oz …

Man, or even person, booths? Why it was just an idle dreaming, a glint in the eye at things to come ...

Like the IPA, but with stupid people? Say what? The world's greatest climate scientist, a lizard Oz regular, a stupid person?

It all sounded serious and policy driven, and Crikey confirmed that Moorice was at the heart of the storm …

And then came the result of getting the brightest minds in the universe together.

What a wondrous bunch, and how wonderful their inspirational marketing campaign …

Silly goose … Stephen is loving the help.

After all, Australians love dinkum dorks, and it's hard to imagine anyone being made to look more nerdish, unless they'd slipped in a shot of Clark Kent in a phone booth …

 

Alas and alack, the pond must leave the genius of Moorice for more serious analysis, but rest assured, the first moment he returns to the reptile bosom, the pond will be standing to attention and saluting his eternal genius …

Meanwhile, the reptiles decided to bury the savvy Savva … perhaps she wasn't sounding gung ho enough …

Spring? But isn't winter coming? Ah, wait, there'd been a little lizard Oz editorial intervention in the splash ...

Oh please, savvy Savva, there's a saviour to hand ... Moorice will cure what ails the government with a superhero leap and a bound …

Oh dear, how did that get into the mix?

There was the savvy Savva seeing the green shoots of spring, and Moorice was at his distracting best … by the way, how goes it with the pond's pride and joy, the onion muncher?

That Graudian story about the campaign offices being just doors apart is here, but the pond must attempt to restore some gravitas by reverting to the savvy Savva …

Ah, brave bold SloMo, always listening to the scientists …

Why, with the power of dinkum clean Oz true blue coal, and the help of Captain GetUp! the government will be invincible ...

SloMo was sounding like a slightly hysterical luddite?

At the weekend, Prime Minister Scott Morrison ramped up his attack on Labor’s plan, saying it would strip people of four-wheel drives and spell “the end of the weekend”. 
“The sort of vehicles that Bill Shorten wants you to drive, you can’t get one for less than $45,000 and it won’t tow that boat, it won’t tow that trailer,” Mr Morrison said. 
But the hurdle for the Coalition Government is their previous support for the electric vehicle industry and its own strategy forecasts that the cars would by 2030 represent 25 to 50 per cent of sales. 
And the Department of the Environment and Energy’s analysis on the future market share of electrics indicates it would be almost identical under Labor or the Liberals. (here, from the Murdochians no less)

The end of the weekend? Didn't they already arrange that by removing loadings?

Never mind, it's going to be a marvellous month of foolish follies …more boring than a bunch of Marvel movies ... just trust Moorice, and trust the slightly hysterical luddite SloMo ...

Kyle? How did Kyle sneak into the pond?

Thanks Koziol, but the pond is more of a Rowe person, with more Rowe here ...

In which the pond risks time with Ned's ancient mariner ...

First a note of alarm, and some follow-up business thanks to the meritorious Merritt …

Where's the infallible Pope gone? The Canberra Times has disabled all old links to his gallery, and at a time of peak political madness, the Pope has fallen silent. Is he just recharging his batteries or has some dastardly deed been done?

And so to the meritorious Merritt doing a follow-up:

Just how is it that a notoriously corrupt and devious lobby group - their love of tobacco and coal and climate science denialism and white nationalist culture wars deep and enduring - became so respectable? 

Well we have the Murdochian reptiles to thank for that, but also the lazy, supine ABC, which faithfully regurgitates the reptiles and so the IPA, even though the IPA would privatise the public broadcaster in a nanosecond if ever given the chance.

As for the French report, Honi Soit shows how to do a completely different reading of the result, under the header Campus freedom of speech not under threat, French Review finds …

Bizarre. Clearly Sydney Uni students are captive to the long march … and the IPA has fallen on barren soil … but see how the meritorious Merritt still manages to slip in a kind word by giving the lobbyists their usual generous serve of reptile space ...

Yes, it's a bizarre sight to see a lobby group deeply opposed to government interventions urge on government intervention, but that's just standard operating procedure for the IPA, because hypocrisy is the name of the game when you set hounds loose to run down assorted hares …

And so to the pond's main duties for the day, and what tedium the next few weeks promises, with the unofficial election campaign by the reptiles well under way … and with nattering "Ned" on hand to pretend that he's delivering a fair and balanced assessment, as if nobody will notice the large thumb on the scale …

Here's the pond's theory, and what a clever strategy it is. The reptiles will keep running nattering "Ned" on the basis that he will drive the readership into a deep somnambulistic state. Zombie like, the comatose readership will stumble in to vote, and will put an X against the coalition in a process akin to automatic writing. Never underestimate what anyone made numb by reading nattering "Ned" will do …

We've all been there, we know how it works… 

It is an ancient Neddy Mariner, 
And he stoppeth one of thee. 
'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, 
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me? 

The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, 
And I am next of kin; 
The guests are met, the feast is set: 
May'st hear the merry din.' 

He holds the pond with his skinny hand, 
'There was a comrade Bill,' quoth he. 
'Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!' 
Eftsoons his hand dropt he. 

He holds the pond with his glittering eye— 
The Wedding-Guest stood still, 
And listens like a three years' child: 
The Mariner hath the pond's will. 

The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone: 
The pond cannot choose but hear; 
And thus spake on that ancient man, 
The bright-eyed Neddy Mariner…

You have been warned ...

Already the pond's eyes had begun to glaze, and was grateful for the small print arising from the new reptile online format … but making it more readable only made the result even more deadly dull and dire ...

The reptiles explaining comrade Bill and his policies? But where's the dire warnings, the threats of an apocalypse and an impending rapture? Don't worry, they'll come, after the mind-numbing foreplay ...

Yes, it's true that comrade Bill is a far left union thug, but any reptile reader knows that, where's the real warning, the dire ancient mariner talk of an apocalypse?

You see? The reptiles and "Ned" can't help themselves. They never talk about the significant economic damage and dislocation that might arise from climate change.

By definition, climate change is just a hoax, a new religion, a false theology, and so they flip their talk, so that any response to climate science will surely produce significant, perhaps fatal, economic damage and dislocation. Pity the poor tradies and their utes, driven mad by the need to go electric … and don't you worry about the changing climate and its impact on the world ...

Questions, questions, seemingly in pursuit of an objective understanding, but in reality a lethal form of mind manipulation, up there with the Manchurian candidate as "Ned" warns of the havoc to come, and sends the sheep in to mark their X in the sweet spot …

And so to an area of the pond reserved for ultra-marathoners, mountain climbers, deep sea divers and others able to endure ...

Right from the get go, Dame Slap knows how to offend, by importing the notion of "first lady" from American politics.

The wiki on the subject favours 'spouse' and notes the American origins of the term, but it's just another example of the Trumpian direction the Murdochians want to move the nation …

Of course Dame Slap has satirical or at least post-ironical intent. But because this is just a standard outing, a routine bit of union bashing, a getting out of the baseball bat in the SloMo cause, the pond has decided on an unusual strategy - no commentary, just a cartoon between each gobbet.

The reasoning will become clear enough as the last Dame Slap gobbet lands ...

Yes, Dame Slap got separated from her humanity, and all she got to do was don a lousy hat and slip out at night in the streets of New York … and so to the punchline the pond promised ...

And there it came, thar she blowed:

"Find your inner Trump, Scott Morrison."

So that the Murdochians might finally have fucked Australian politics in the way that they've managed to fuck the United States …

Well, it's good work for cartoonists, and if the mid-terms are any guide, if Morrison actually followed his inner coal-loving, speaking in tongues Trump, he'd be up for a shellacking in the next few weeks …

And that's why the pond abandoned Dame Slap, didn't bother to argue or nitpick and instead fellow-travelled with the cartoonists ...and here's a few more to go, remembering there's nothing more healthy than a diet of fast food and hambergers …

In which the pond inflicts the cut and paste test on the Caterist and Mitch ...

The pond likes to dip a toe in reptile waters ginger-like before the main game, so it can relish sights such as the "tale of two polls." 

Poor, hapless reptiles … it must be hard working for Pravda down under, and discover that outside the bubble many don't see journalists at work, but rather cheerleading, forelock-tugging hacks, always standing by to put the best gloss on things. After all, in the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed hack reptile journalist is king.

How silly will it get in the coming weeks? Well this sighting at Media Watch was an apocalyptic, end times, rapture ripper …

Take a chill pill dude, but even the oscillating fan was on hand to tug the forelock, do some cheerleading, and raise hopes and dreams and desires …

Then there are the distilled essence of comedy efforts, as offered by the bromancer this day ...

Why such a rich laugh? Well the reptiles do persist in the notion that scribbling for the lizard Oz is a form of work involving productivity. Pravda down under involves productivity?

Really it would have read better if the bromancer had furiously scribbled "Like many Melbourne workers, my wanking in public was diminished because of vegan militants' attitude to pounding meat."

Too far, as Colbert might say? Never mind, as a devoted meat eater, the pond didn't want to dally, and instead decided to revert to day-old Caterist. Unfortunately an aged Caterist isn't quite the same as a well-hung aged steak …

Bob Dylan? Did the Caterist pause for a nanosecond to remember that this metaphor put him in the company of ancient luddite folkies of the Pete Seeger kind, allegedly wanting to cut the cables with an axe? That's the company he wants to keep, old sociology student, folkie, greenie, hippie, cash in the paw federal government dole bludging man that he is?

Yes, the reptiles have found another deep cause for unsettling alarm, as the future looms in the future …

They're always in a panic, the reptiles, the future terrifies them, with the Caterist a master of reductionist ludditism ...

When the pond is feeling lazy it likes to do a cut and paste, so it thought it might be poignant to put the Caterist up against another column that recently landed in the lizard Oz …

Hang on, hang on, the Caterist is determined to stay acoustic, hassled by his electric-phobia ...

Uh huh … accuracy and the Caterist? Now there's an oxymoron.

How long's a piece of string, or perhaps a custom gauge nickel wound guitar string, since the Caterist answer is as moronic as that of comrade Bill's, there being all sorts of ways to charge an electric vehicle involving assorted times …depending on your car and if it's at home or in a fast charge public outlet …

Publicly accessible ‘fast charger’ or ‘super charger’ outlets provide power to the battery at a faster rate. The rate of charge is usually from 25 kW to 135 kW and can recharge an EV battery in around 30 minutes.  (here). Or overnight if at home ...

But your Caterist isn't interested in subtlety, nuance or the truth. His real expertise is in the movement of flood waters in quarries, not electric vehicles, so there's more cut-and-pasting to be done ...

But what need of electric guitars, when every old folkie knows that the only right and true way to twang away with the Caterists is to cut the cord ...

Okay,  the pond will pass over the NBN nonsense because there's more on that to follow, and settle for a last cut and paste ...

Sorry Paul Sernia, clearly you're part of the cult of the electric guitar, and the Caterist must have the last luddite word …

The pond has no idea why the Caterist insists on making remarkably stupid comparisons, when his real expertise is in predicting the movement of flood waters in quarries, or perhaps indulging in climate science denialism, or filling out the forms for another Department of Finance grant …

Uh huh, quarter of a mill, respectable enough, but here ...

Strangely, unless you went to Trump university, a quarter mill doesn't trump two mill, and why would anyone expect it to be different? And then, et tu Porsche, here …

It says something about the Caterist that Porsche's large electrified penis doesn't appeal to him, and he'd rather yowl along to a battered, ancient deplugged guitar … what a complete folkie doofus, as even the lizard Oz resident cartoonist might joke …

The pond suspects it was the vegans that damaged the Caterist ability to hunt out data and increase his productivity ...

And so to the next cut and paste, as the reptiles fulfil their duties as Pravda down under and publish the latest ministerial thoughts under protection of a paywall, so that actual citizens and constituents can only access them by paying a handsome stipend to Chairman Rupert …

Poor Mitch, the dummy left holding the cat in the bag, the man who didn't score a chair in that game of musical chairs…

And what do you know, the very same day the reptiles had been running this piece, they were also running headlines showing various states of reptile alarm …

So take it away Mitch, and please excuse the lazy pond for doing a cut and paste …

Wait, the pond doesn't need the cut and paste for that one, the pond knows the answer.

The onion muncher could tell Malware to destroy the NBN, and Malware could set about destroying the NBN, achieving it in a way beyond his wildest dreams, because of the deluded belief that he knew what he was doing, though he'd had no experience in building networks and he proceeded to tell the NBN to use a polyglot mixed bag of multiple technologies which produced a network that will take decades and much expenditure to fix, and might never actually be made to work as it should have …

Never mind, time for that good old cut and paste ...

The pond understands that poor old Mitch inherited the wrong end of the pineapple, and now has to squirm away as best he can.

The pond even feels a twinge of sympathy for his attempts to put lipstick on a FTTN green box pig … and isn't the opening line in the next gobbet a beauty?

Commonsense? Malware? By golly it's a feast of oxymorons this day.

A repository of commonsense? That's what they're calling the foolish fop these days, even as they shuffled his common sense out the door?

Ah pricing, and the ACCC, and the pond can feel the next cut and paste coming on …

The result's such a dog, such a technological turkey, that even the old government dream of flogging it off to the private sector so that their mates could make a killing has taken something of a battering ...

Never mind, Mitch has only got a little splutter left in him, the little NBN rocket that took to the sky and then fell in the mud ...

Um, perhaps quoting the ACCC this day wasn't the wisest move, but as always the reptiles were standing by to help clean up the mess.

Having run the ACCC comments, they naturally spent the last bit of the ACCC gobbet reassuring everyone that everything was for the best in copper world … because copper can do it better than fibre, in much the same way that electric guitars make a hideous wail up against that sweet sound generated by ancient folkies of the Caterist kind ...

See how the reptiles manage to regurgitate the government word, and deny the heretics at the ACCC? What a noble calling it is to be a hack at the lizard Oz ...

Oh, the pond could be cruel, the pond could compare the remarkable speed of the roll-out by the Chinese government, albeit so that they could construct the first state up there with George Orwell's vision of the future …

But the pond felt the need to close with a laugh rather than a dystopian vision, and what better way than a Rowe, with more Rowe here, and electric guitars and cars somehow still the go ...