Tuesday, June 25, 2013

A delusional frolic with the delusional ...



So yesterday Crikey decided to call the pond delusional.

Oh it wasn't personal, it was generic, addressed to anyone who took exception to The Age and its bold front-page intervention in the ALP leadership.

The piece was headed Crikey says: Rudd a reality if you really care, and it took a swipe at the hundreds of commenters on The Age website and hundreds more across the social media:

Which makes them almost as delusional as Labor MPs. Almost.

Which is to say we're now arguing about the degree, the extent, the nature of the pond's delusion.

Given that the pond's inbox has almost imploded, been swamped and inundated - almost as bad as a Sydney winter rain - with begging letters from Crikey proposing that the pond renew its membership, this is a courageous position, up there with the courage on display in Yes, Minister.

Especially when the closing words were a major guilt trip:

Those who care about a progressive political agenda - Labor MPs, say - should face up to reality.

Indeed. So the pond faced up to reality, and came to understand that there was no finer example of delusionalism than the delusional request for 199 delusionals, or 174 delusionals a year for a vanilla subscription, so that the recipient of an email might experience the pleasure of being called delusional.

So it's farewell Keane and Rundle and - sob - the one that really hurts, First Dog - if only because this kind of indolent insult shouldn't go unrewarded.

The pond was/is a terrible parent, but it did learn one thing from the terrible twos. If you reward an egomaniacal, narcissist, me me vision of the world, it doesn't go away, it just intensifies. We've already seen a Rudd-led government, and it wasn't a pretty sight, and there's been nothing in his extraordinary, selfish, petty behaviour over the last three years - a three year run of a minority government that wasn't supposed to happen - that has redeemed him. It's been all about personal animosity and revenge, and in recent days, the clutching at straws of the fearful, who know they've blown it and now await the wrath of judgement day.

It isn't delusional to come to the conclusion that Rudd isn't the messiah, more a naughty boy, and that if he were to gain power and lead the Labor party to the election, it would remain a divided, embittered, hopelessly riven party, with a substantial swapping of chairs, and no amount of delusional proposing of Rudd's alternative cabinet by Crikey would alter that reality ...

Meanwhile, it seems that the ABC has at last woken up to the need for the examination of things outside their navel, and the world of the lizard Oz and the IPA.

Someone on the ABC news last night dared to show Telstra copper pits full of water, and a mess and a tangle of wires, with plastic billowing all over the place. Strange, the pond didn't notice them filming outside the pond's house, but at last after two years of moaning and whining about the stupidity of Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, the copper pits from hell, and the lack of broadband, somebody noticed.

Yes, you can see the footage at Unions raise doubts over Telstra's copper network; workers using plastic bags to waterproof cables, no doubt a response to the shocking, shameless, pathetic nonsense trotted out by David Thodey in Telstra's copper could last 100 more years: Thodey.

Sure, if you spend a bucketload on a completely inferior product.

Naturally Malcolm Turnbull stayed invisible, and left it to Thodey to suck up to a bizarre alternative reality.

Then Media Watch dared to note that The Australian was profoundly biased and frequently in error when it came to the coverage of climate science.

Perhaps this was inspired by the nonsense trotted out in pieces like Marc Hendrickz's ABC lacks balance in its climate coverage (behind the paywall so you can avoid a fatal mental infection), but the pond was pleased that someone in the mainstream media had at last noted it one more time.

Jonathan Holmes rather spoiled the party in Hot air stoking the climate change 'debate' by advising that  it was the show's 21st episode for 2013 and the first time this year the show has dealt with the reporting of climate change.

This is something to boast about?

What an astonishing and pathetic admission, and meanwhile, the reptiles at the lizard Oz have been roaming around out in the open peddling all sorts of snake oil medicine and fake nostrums. That's how Graham Lloyd and Chris Mitchell and the other lizards have won, by a process of devious, relentless exhaustion.

All the same, the show ended with a neat and wry little touch, noting Lloyd's pathetic, plaintive whinge:

The Australian has unwaveringly supported global action to combat climate change based on the science... — The Australian online, 4th December, 2012 

And responding:

If The Australian bases its views on the science it chooses to report, you have to wonder why it supports any action at all.

Indeed, and what a shameless flock of reptiles, no doubt going about their business strong in the knowledge that while the dinosaurs didn't make the cut, the reptiles have been going strong for millennia ...

It almost made the pond forgive Holmes getting agitated at the way the usually pathetic, feeble and hopeless ACMA had dared to take a look at Southern Cross Austereo for pretending the terms and conditions of its license could be flaunted or broken, and that such potential criminality was absolutely nothing to do with the industry regulator.

Almost.

Meanwhile, speaking of delusionalism, the pond pauses to note that Gerard "prattling Polonius" Henderson is at it again in Best of enemies: Labor relives its great depression.

Henderson spends his entire column trawling through the past of the ALP to produce a harvest of hate, culminating in the current Rudd v Gillard feud, an exercise that reveals in alarming detail how he loves and lives on the hate.

Of course it would be possible to do exactly the same for the Liberal party - was it so long ago that funky Pete lacked the ticker to take down the man who would lead the Liberal party to a political eclipse?

And the pond could go on and on, because there's nothing like the refined hate of an assortment of Toorak and eastern suburbs and north shore and Adelaide Hills (and so on and so forth) ponces jostling each other for power and most of all, for perks ... and by golly, if there is an Abbott government, it's going to be a hum dinger ... a real set of zingers ...

But of course Henderson is merely setting the tone for Fairfax, though it seems that the lizards at the rag are finally stirring.

Arriving late at the scene of the accident, Tim Colebatch finally got it together to write Climate change: Abbott must get off the fence.

No he doesn't Mr Colebatch, with the greatest respect.

The Fairfax media has allowed Abbott to get off scot free in the matters of climate science, the NBN, copper networks, education, "head north pilgrims with a crack of the whip", and sundry other peculiar policies, while spending an extraordinary amount of time brooding about the Labor leadership and agitating for the return of Chairman Rudd.

He cannot put out another policy, as in 2010, that relies on ridiculously optimistic estimates of how much carbon could be stored cheaply in the soil.

Yes he can.

The real solutions for real Australians - hope, reward, opportunity - still peddle the "magic soil" routine. The ludicrous 15,000-strong Green Army is still the key proposal, a preposterous "solution", as is the chatter about putting carbon back in the soil, producing a "once in a generation replenishment of our farmlands".

No link, you can find your own rat poison by googling for it, but the pond refuses to accept responsibility for ruining any stray reader's mental health.

It's all there, rarely noted and rarely challenged, while the reptiles have jumped around shouting "squirrel" about the Labor party leadership.

And meanwhile Gerard "prattling Polonius" will keep on trotting out the tired old memes and tropes of hate ...

And Crikey calls the pond delusional, and somehow Fairfax thinks its complete failure to focus on policy will somehow tickle a digital sub from the pond?

Talk about delusions ...

Meanwhile, just for the comedy, the pond went to look up the Liberal party's policies on climate science.

Oh dear ... click on the top two google suggestions and here's what you get.

Either the whirling circle of death familiar to Mac users or ...





8 comments:

  1. When the David Brents of this world are given political power we are all in a very bad place.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Could not agree more regarding the begging letters from Crikey(sub.due Oct.!!)Seems to be one every 4th.day.Crikey can be a bit hit and miss for mine and I don't think I'll be coughing up the $199 for what is sometimes pretty weak vanilla,although totally agree that First dog will be missed big time.
    If the Mad Monk gets up and we are all wacked with the rod of austerity and the dear Pond falls on hard times I would rather throw my 174 beans your way if it comes to the crunch.I could live without Crickey but not without the Loon Pond.Plus your up and running before Crickey is even out of bed.Cheers.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I agree somewhat about Crikey but offer the suggestion that while the editorial team is way off centre with some of its ideas, this one about Rudd being the epitome of their delusion, the rest of Crikey isn't too bad, especially as you note, Keane, Rundle and the Dog. It is also one of the few places that is mildly left of centre in main (with exception of the deluded editorial staff) that one can frequent. Therefore I take the good with the bad in Crikey knowing that least there is some good there unlike the ferals of the main stream media who would dearly love to have us living in fear in a plutocracy and can only peddle hate in their daily outpourings.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Just in case people are not familiar with it here is a link to Tim lambert's "The Australian's War on Science" currently up to episode #81.

    http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/category/the_war_on_science/


    fred

    ReplyDelete
  5. Dorothy
    I do not contribute to Crikey financially and never will but if Loon Pond has a need to place a contribution to assist with running a blog I would be willing to contribute because of her incisive commentary on the political discussion.
    An I say again my thanks to Dorothy you are very special to my day and please keep up your work in giving others in the community that do not have the ability to be so articulate as you.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Dorothy, i agree with all you have written about Kevin Rudd. What a very strange person. I listened to Question Time yesterday. JG was completely in control as she answered most of the questions. Her responses to Greg Hunt and Tony Abbott exposed both as complete hypocrites when it came to climate change. What a disgraceful pair. They are almost as disgraceful as the media who have allowed the the Opposition to treat the public as gullible fools. Alas I am afraid they are right on the money with many of us.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Ahh .. even the pond has been sucked in by the IPA/Murdock led commentators about (un)important matters like she said/he said, what's she knitting, Rudd's a spoiler, plus all other non-sense from the neo-conservatives. Looks like they succeeded in driving a wedge between left of centre commentators, which has always being their intent. I can just see Chris Mitchell with a smirk on his face because in his world he's succeeded in keeping important issues, like LNP policies, of the agenda. No doubt if any investigative journo was to expose their policies, or lack of, it would no doubt be a game changer.

    ReplyDelete
  8. "If you reward an egomaniacal, narcissist, me me vision of the world, it doesn't go away, it just intensifies." Yes, given an inch... from out the popular Premier's office in Qld we saw Rudd the psychopath dud run every-little-thing in Qld. Run a popular government down and out the door: internal government failure, inflexible stalinic paternalism and that in the face of evident falling popularity, then major electoral catastrophic shock. But the dudsterpath already had sidled on up to Canberra...

    ReplyDelete

Comments older than two days are moderated and there will be a delay in publishing them.