loon pond

In which the flood water whisperer shows signs of fearing bottle red heads, while Killer Creighton cheerfully goes on nuking the country...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 22:04:10 +0000

Doom and gloom.

It's the daily diet the reptiles offer the hive mind.

Geoff was top of the digital doom machine this early morning, as he chambered yet another round ...

Thank the long absent lord the intermittent archive was working ...

EXCLUSIVE
Mining royalties, tax payments crash by $25bn
$25bn mining plunge leaves Labor and state governments in jeopardy
The figures revealed in new modelling come as Labor mulls a push to increase taxes on the resources sector at this week’s national conference.

And what a busy possum he is.

After Gina's pet's problematic overseas junket, palling around with felons and far right loons (not to mention exquisite fashions), Geoff did his best to restore faith in Pauline...

EXCLUSIVE
Newspoll: Hanson, Taylor climb as Labor’s support sinks
Newspoll: Pauline Hanson regains ground and Liberals rise, as Labor falls to equal lowest point since 2022
Core support for Labor fell to 30 per cent, which reflects the ALP’s lowest point since the Gillard government.

More EXCLUSIVES than a possum could shake a stick at.

It felt like Geoff was the primo reptile peddler of doom and gloom ...

COMMENTARY by Geoff Chambers
Reports of One Nation’s demise are greatly exaggerated
One Nation is not dead yet: Labor and the Coalition cannot write off Pauline Hanson
Senior Labor and Coalition sources say the idea One Nation’s support will drop off or fade quickly are wrong.

Hang on, hang on, hold Geoff's beer, because the Caterist is also in town and the header suggested he was smitten by the bottle red head ... what with Gina's puppet filling a gap in the political landscape, in much the same way as you might celebrate a mad King Donald or even a Mussolini...

The header: How Pauline Hanson fills the gap in our political landscape; A Hanson-led conservative government in which the Liberal and National parties are the junior partners is an absurd proposition.
The caption for the snap which suggests some reptiles spend too much time on social media with a screen capper: One Nation leader Senator Pauline Hanson speaks at the 2026 CPAC Conference in London. Picture: YouTube

Relax, the pond was just teasing, a little trolling, as a way of beguiling correspondents into suffering along with the Caterist.

The Caterist was alert, but also somewhat alarmed, as he began by reluctantly admitting it wasn't Gough wot done it ...

Some Australians will agree with Pauline Hanson that Australia’s immigration policy turned bad in 1973 when Gough Whitlam scrapped the White Australia policy and opened the doors to all comers. More informed readers know the policy was abolished six years earlier by the Liberal Party, but let’s not quibble on detail.

For a "let's not quibble" outing, the flood whispering Caterist had a lot of quivering quibbles, as he did his best to stand by the beefy boofhead:

Whether “some” voters constitute a majority of 50 per cent plus one is doubtful. Many may agree with Hanson that immigration is out of control but will reject her ugly allusions to skin colour and religion. They will be repelled by her clumsy attempts to scapegoat Muslims as the chief rorters of the National Disability Insurance Scheme and her refusal to distinguish the many patriotic Muslim Australians who like the country how it is and the radicalised few who want to change it.

Sheesh, it's like the reptile hive mind has turned full bizarro, compleat topsy turvy?

Has the pond wasted an entire clumsy lizard Oz lifetime learning how Islamics were ruining the country and lazy, uppity, difficult blacks didn't deserve a Voice?

Seems so, sounds like the quarry whisperer has gone a little bit woke ...

Which is why Angus Taylor was expressing the views of two-thirds of the country and possibly more when he told The Australian recently that One Nation is unfit to govern.
One Nation may one day eclipse the Liberal-National Coalition as the principal force on the centre right but it will never form government while Hanson remains its leader. Not while its internal structure remains nebulous and immature and the mechanism for the leader’s removal is entirely in her own hands. Not when the party’s future as a parliamentary force lies in the hands of inexperienced MPs and senators.

The reptiles didn't help by pumping up the visual volume, Pauline Hanson meets up with Nigel Farage. Picture: Facebook/ Pauline Hanson

Even Nige found her meeting up with felon Tommy a tad too far, though no doubt he otherwise agreed with Gina's pet, refused to apologise for being white, and thought Australians were stupid, and fell into line with the lizards of Oz and Pauline that the country was way too woke ...

The Caterist did his best to cope and suggest solutions ... (though the unfortunate reptile habit of blathering on about the woke wasn't one needing reform)...

Those home truths aside, however, it is a fantasy to suggest Hanson’s ill-considered decision to hang out with Tommy Robinson in London is the beginning of the end for One Nation. The groundswell of support for Hanson cannot be explained by reductionist this-leads-to-that explanations.
The populist wave overturning business-as-usual politics around the world is driven by demand, not supply. A gaping hole has opened up in the centre of the political landscape which, this being a democracy, would sooner or later be occupied.
Hanson’s One Nation didn’t create this space, nor did it appear to be the natural candidate to fill it after the last election, when it emerged with a primary vote of 6 per cent.
Yet One Nation has scooped up the none-of-the-above votes scattered like confetti in 2025 and pushed the boundaries still further by becoming the home for a substantial subsection of the disgruntled Liberal base as well as the working-class voters Anthony Albanese has shaken off as Labor reinvents itself as the party of the technocratic elite.
For Hanson’s accidental army, One Nation is as much an emotional home as a serious political choice. A survey of the comments on any article in The Australian remotely critical of One Nation (including most probably this one) reveals how passionately supportive they are. Former Liberal voters who switch allegiance to One Nation are not simply changing their votes. They are changing tribes. Their internal narrative changes from “I support the Liberal Party” to “I’m one of the people who finally woke up”.
If Hanson reveals her weaknesses as a prospective national leader, they can resolve any internal contradictions by (a) admitting they were wrong or (b) persuading themselves that Taylor is worse.

Sheesh, is the Caterist suggesting it's a cult? Is he also suggesting that the lizard Oz hive mind is a cult, but Gina's pet has attracted some of its cult membership to its very own cult tribe?

Whatever, it seems times are tough for the reptiles who've devoted so much time encouraging their cult, and the beefy boofhead they'd like their cult to love, if only he was remotely loveable, what with some not infatuated with one of the duller knives in the drawer, Opposition Leader Angus Taylor speaking at the LNP conference in Brisbane. Picture: John Gass

How the reptiles love the beefy boofhead, mouth open and in full gesticulation mode.

At last it was time to take down Gina's pet so that the beefy boofhead might shine like a 20 watt bulb ...

Option (b) is the psychologically cheaper choice since admitting error imposes a high cost on self-esteem. It requires acknowledging not only Hanson’s flaws, but also personal poor judgment, and in an era when one’s political opinions are broadcast on social media that is an awkward pill to swallow.
Politically engaged voters are inclined towards what social psychologists call motivated reasoning, selectively assimilating evidence that reinforces prior beliefs and discounting discordant evidence. Perversely, as Hanson reveals her imperfections, hostility towards Taylor – and by extension the Liberal Party – hardens.
Hanson need not become more impressive to retain these voters. She simply has to remain less unacceptable than the Liberal alternative. Taylor must overcome this asymmetry if the Liberal Party is to recover its position as an effective political force.
Taylor must also overcome the uniparty narrative that One Nation employs to great effect. When the political and philosophical divide between the Coalition and Labor is at its widest point for at least half a century, Liberal and National supporters feel an understandable sense of indignation at this slur, which was imported from the US.
Yet the uniparty slander remains powerful as an encapsulation of the new political divide between the governing establishment and those who feel their values are not respected by the graduate elite.
In his 2022 book Values, Voice and Virtue, British political scientist Matthew Goodwin makes a strong case that the exposure of this fault line in Britain predates the rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. The speed of Farage’s ascendancy, like the sudden rise of populist movements in other European democracies, owes less to his political attributes than the gap in the market for a movement that respects the view of the non-graduate majority.
Reform was the result rather than the cause of the populist mood, fuelled by resentment over the pursuit of pet projects such as multiculturalism and the mitigation of climate change that diverted government attention from the everyday problems of working families, small businesses and retirees.

And there in a nutshell is the Caterist and the reptile problem.

All Gina's pet has done is take on board the policies espoused by them - the climate science denialism, the fear of furriners, and so on - and the notion that a messiah might come along to save them.

Faux Noise and mad King Donald for example, though perhaps not the beefy boofhead or Kemi ...Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch delivers a speech on the economy at the Victory Services Club. Picture: Dan Kitwood / Getty Images

After all, the reptiles were dedicated to Brexit, and had a splendid time stripping the Voice of its capitalisation, and lathered themselves up into a fever pitch of outrage and indignation.

What could possibly have gone wrong with the rage machine?

In Britain, the populist revolt manifested itself most clearly in the Brexit vote. In Australia it was the voice referendum.

There you go, that's what the pond's talking about. The reptiles might offer a capital V for Goodwin's Values, Voice and Virtue, but damned if they'll offer a V for that pesky, difficult, uppity black Voice.

Why they created the policies Gina's pampered pet is promoting, but where's the respect, where's the acknowledgement, where's the capital V for their long standing voice for bigotry and prejudice?

In both countries the established conservative parties seemed at first to be on the right side of the argument. Peter Dutton’s Liberal Party appeared to gain ground, just as the Conservatives did in Boris Johnson’s landslide election win in 2019. In both cases, the alignment with anti-establishment voters was short-lived. Neither Johnson nor Dutton could overcome the tensions in their own party.
For Taylor and British Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, the solution is not as simple as many commentators suggest. The seemingly contradictory solutions of moving to the right or recovering the vacant centre ground understate the challenge.
The task is to relearn the language and recover the trust of the disillusioned voters attracted to Hanson or Farage simply because they represent the least imperfect candidates among the none-of-the-above.
Whether Hanson’s European misadventures put a ceiling on One Nation’s vote at about 30 per cent or, as is equally probable, it begins testing the high 30s hardly matters.
A Hanson-led conservative government in which the Liberal and National parties are the junior partners is an absurd proposition. Eighteen months out from an election, with Albanese’s support in some polls in the high 20s, arguments about whether Taylor or Hanson would make a better prime minister are entirely theoretical. Unless something breaks this stalemate, and breaks it quickly, neither will be given a chance.

Sheesh, the pond had promised doom and gloom, but somehow ended up with the Caterist prophesying doom and gloom for Gina's pet, all in aid of the struggling beefy boofhead?

The infallible Pope had just the cartoon to celebrate on the weekend ...

And so to send the Major to the intermittent archive, because some days the pond baulks at the relentless serves of Zionism offered up by the Australian Daily Zionist News ...

Social media the tool of Hamas spreading hatred about Jews
How Hamas’s disinformation campaign is fuelling a global surge in antisemitism
Content posted online found a community here and around the world already conditioned by Hamas’s propaganda from the day its fighters invaded Israel.
By Chris Mitchell
Columnist

The pond just didn't feel up to yapping about Zionism yet again.

Correspondents have read it all before, and are free to read it again - relax, things are going tremendously well in Gaza if you follow the Major - and for Benji too ...

Okay, apparently it might have been for the wrong reason, it might have been to get more barking mad fundamentalists into the IDF, but what the heck, enjoy the moment all the same ...

And have a 'toon to celebrate ...

But what to do for a bonus?

The pond was over AI, so sent simpleton Simon off to the cornfield, even though only the pond cared enough to do the saving...

We need to sort AI’s moral risks before it’s too late

The speed of the race appears to be overtaking the foundational rules that must accompany such a technology.

By Simon Benson

Political analyst

A 'toon would suffice for that ...

Luckily Killer Creighton was to hand, doing what the IPA does best ... fuming and fulminating about renewables, and matching AI at devising ways to do over the planet ...

The header: Fudging language of energy transition won’t stop its political reckoning; ‘Involuntary load shedding’ is the new blackout: the deliberate disconnection of customers to keep the grid functional.

The caption for the terrifying snap: Miners taking part in wind turbine operation training listen to an instructor next to one of the wind turbines at the Gorzyca Wind Farm. Picture: Wojtek Radwanski / AFP

Killer only took three minutes, but surely that shocking snap of a windmill dominating the landscape and ruining mad King Donald's day - not to mention the beefy boofhead's fear of the infernal machines down Goulburn way - as a tremendous kick starter for the standard serve of rage ...

Just as grandfathering has been rebranded as grandparenting by Jim Chalmers so as not to offend, blackouts appear to have been excised from the official vocabulary.

Absent an obvious replacement colour, the Australian Energy Market Operator’s latest grand plan for achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 comes up with a variety of obscure phrases to describe how to deal with insufficient electricity in our largely sun and wind-dependent grid.

It all sounds almost fun. Consumers will be playing “an increasingly active role” in ensuring the power system remains stable, AEMO chief executive Daniel Westerman writes in the foreword to the latest Integrated System Plan released on June 25. “First Nations” communities will be “empowered”.

“Involuntary load shedding” is the new blackout: the deliberate disconnection of customers to keep the grid functional. This may arise in times of “unserved energy”, when the power system simply cannot meet the electricity demanded.

About 1 per cent of the national electricity market is expected to depend on “demand-side participation” by 2050, where households or businesses agree in advance to have their power turned down or switched off in exchange for financial compensation. The old electricity grid once served households; now households and businesses increasingly serve the grid.

Consumers are supposed to be “virtual power plants”, handing control of their home batteries and electric vehicles to third parties that can draw on them when required. Rather than generating more reliable power, the system increasingly seeks to “reduce the total energy drawn” from the grid.

The pond smugly set its EV to trickle charge - it being a sunny day and the solar standing by to kick in - while the reptiles served up a snap of that diabolical wretch Jimbo, looking just as smug in a quizzical way, Jim Chalmers during Question Time at Parliament House. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

No doubt haunted by Jimbo, Killer was in a foul IPA mood ... though perhaps it was tinged with a fear of impending hellfire, with shades of a Canadian wildfire...

Nah, a cartoon wasn't going to stop Killer.

He had a Killer IPA job to do, and the lizard Oz was a perfect IPA propaganda machine, and dammit, he was going to do it ...

The huge strides in living standards across the past century have been predicated on using more energy, not less. In any case, none of this is likely to happen.

AEMO’s latest ISP is solving a problem created by unrealistic political targets.

Increasingly – and laughably – it continues to assume Australia will achieve an 82 per cent renewable electricity grid by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2050. The plan is described as the “least cost” pathway, but only in the sense that the genuinely low-cost alternatives have been ruled out.

The 36 per cent of suitable Australian dwellings that have installed rooftop solar did so largely because governments showered households with billions of dollars of taxpayer-funded subsidies across the past two decades.

Those subsidies, largely taken up by higher-income households, are barely acknowledged in the ISP’s cost estimates. The same applies to the nation’s roughly 600,000 household batteries.

Importantly, such subsidies are also unlikely to continue indefinitely given the rapidly deteriorating fiscal position of state and federal governments.

Does anyone seriously think Victoria’s Yallourn coal-fired power station, which still supplies about 15 per cent of the state’s electricity and helps insulate South Australia against disaster on cloudy, still days, will close in less than two years as the ISP assumes?

Moreover, about 120 gigawatts of additional large-scale wind and solar capacity must be constructed by 2050, roughly five times today’s installed level in less than 25 years.

Construction has not begun on even one of the 83 offshore wind projects slated for completion across coming decades, according to online tracker TGS, and investment has collapsed globally.

Another 6000km of transmission lines also must be built to connect remote wind and solar developments to existing cities, which is certain to invite fierce community opposition.

It's doom and gloom all the way, and yet there's a solution to all this, a way to save the planet, though everyone knows that the planet doesn't need saving, what with Killer having demolished many times all that nonsense that's scribbled about climate change by alleged climate scientists entirely lacking Killer's scientific credentials.

Correspondents will already know the solution, can chant it by heart.

If only we'd nuke the country ...

Curiously, nuclear energy is not mentioned once in the ISP’s 141 pages, despite the fact the Liberal Party, the Nationals and One Nation all support the one proven technology capable of delivering reliable, dispatchable, low-emissions electricity at scale.

Amazingly in response to this klarion Killer kall, the reptiles didn't deploy one of their much loved snaps of a nucklear plant nuking away, and instead settled for a man at a gabfest ...Daniel Westerman speaking at the Energy Nation 2025 forum in Sydney. Picture: Nikki Short

It was on to an impassioned Killer spiel for the urgent need to nuke the country, even if the planet didn't actually need saving ...

We’ll will happily dig up uranium, put it on a ship to India and congratulate itself when it produces reliable zero-emissions electricity there. The only place we apparently can’t use Australian uranium is, of course, Australia.

The Coalition should be making hay with the rank hypocrisy and absurdity of the targets but has barely said boo about dumping net zero since last year’s recantation through gritted teeth.

Countries such as South Korea and China have demonstrated that modern nuclear plants can be built relatively cheaply. A genuine planning exercise at least would model it alongside the alternatives rather than pretend it does not exist. More fundamentally, the whole exercise rests on an extraordinary assumption: that anyone can accurately map Australia’s electricity system a quarter of a century into the future.

A decade ago almost nobody foresaw the explosion of artificial intelligence and the demand for data centres, or the shale gas revolution. Who knows what technologies will emerge during the next 25 years? The ISP increasingly resembles less an engineering blueprint than a work of central planning, complete with heroic assumptions about consumer behaviour, technological progress, political consensus and construction timetables extending all the way to 2050.

At least the latest CSIRO GenCost report, released alongside the ISP, acknowledges what was once heresy, conceding that net zero costs 5 per cent to 39 per cent more than abandoning the target altogether.

Rebranding blackouts as “involuntary load shedding” and power shortages as “demand-side participation” may delay the political reckoning but it will not prevent it. Physics and economics have an inconvenient habit of ignoring government communications strategies.

Adam Creighton is chief economist at the Institute of Public Affairs.

Haven't had enough?

Perhaps you should visit the IPA and read Killer exposing the way that climate science is just a religion ...The moral imperative that doesn’t ring true ... and then you might want to nuke something ...

Just gotta love a little beneficial warming. Why there's nothing like a Canadian wildfire to gladden a Killer heart, not to mention splendid South American super charged El Niño inspired floods.

And so on and so forth and Killer fun and Killer times for all ...

Shouldn't that read "welcome to a white Australian climate science denying fear of furriners" reptile hive mind?

Never mind, what an inspiration little England is for bottle red heads and bin men ...

In which Polonius's prattle sets the pace, and bellyaching Bella joins in, but there's also much more by way of hive mind coverage ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 22:00:00 +0000

With the intermittent archive a headache, the pond looked elsewhere for entertainment, and fell like a famished wolf on Marina Hyde's The White House’s guide to manhood: pop some T, restart a war and do WHAT with a corn dog?

The pond could have done the Weekly Beast, and Tommy and Gina's pet living the reptile dream, and garrulous Gemma of the lizard Oz - a whole 10 minutes late - but some things are beyond satire.

The lizard Oz reptiles, and so the had studiously avoided Pete Kegsbreath's latest folly, but not the marinating Marina ...

...in a competitive field, the most eye-catching reaction to the new testosterone initiative came from Fox News anchor Jesse Watters. Do you know Jesse? He presents as the guy who missed out on the Cialis ad booking – he simply looks too beaten inside – but talks like a real man’s man of the world. “You know what’s going to happen?” chortled Watters of Hegseth’s military testosterone rollout. “The guys that DON’T need it are going to take it. Triple boost! And then they’re going to get out there, and, women on base – you guys better be careful!” Wow. OK. “Port calls, women in Asia – you better be careful. Because these guys are going to be WILD ANIMALS, and you better WATCH OUT!” Well now. I allow myself just one thousand-yard stare a day about the United States of America, and that clip has just produced today’s.

A reminder: that's the Emeritus Chairman's Faux Noise she's cracking jokes about, and who could resist her crack at JD, as the couch molester went full Freudian yet again ...

Yesterday’s came courtesy of JD Vance, who is out on the promo circuit pushing his latest memoir. This week he went on Joe Rogan’s show, where he explained that the thing he couldn’t get over about Joe Biden was the way the former president ate ice-cream. “It’s like they would get him eating ice-cream in the most ridiculous, suggestive way imaginable,” revealed Vance. Is it? Mate, I’m not sure it is. I’m looking at various clips of it and he seems to always use his teeth. I mean, I don’t mean to kink-shame, but … Biden’s a biter, JD. Do you … find that suggestive? Anyway, there was more. Vance also revealed he would never eat a corn dog in public. Rogan showily didn’t care about doing that for all to see; in fact, he thought it was sad people were “so afraid of anything that looks like a dick”. Over to you, Mr Vice -President. “I try, I try to eat my corn dogs …” floundered Vance. “That’s – that’s between me and my kitchen.” Oh, OK. JD Vance sucks off corn dogs in his kitchen. Tell your friends.

How could the pond resist? Of course it was going to remind its correspondent friends of the fun to be had marinating with Marina. There's nothing like JD 69, way better than than JD 6-7.

And now down to business with the local Murdochians, close kissing cousins with the Faux Noise mob, compliant munchers on their own kind of corn dogs.

The pond has already updated yesterday's post with intermittent archive links, and was determined to keep on ignoring them for today's Sunday meditation, but for those who missed the update ...

EXCLUSIVE
Islam ‘based on terror’: Hanson sparks concern inside One Nation
Pauline Hanson says a lot of Islam is ‘based on terrorism’ in one of her biggest attacks yet on the religion, prompting Barnaby Joyce to disagree with his leader
By Greg Brown

EXCLUSIVE
‘At what cost?’: Green energy project threatens 66 species
NSW renewable energy project could hasten 66 species to extinction, scientists warn
The agency tasked with delivering NSW’s renewable energy future has been accused of bulldozing the very ecosystems the clean energy transition is meant to protect.
By Christine Middap

DEFAMATION VOW
‘Demonisation’: JK Rowling hits back at Amnesty report
JK Rowling vows to fund lawsuits against Amnesty over trans ‘hate’ report
Even John Cleese has taken aim at Amnesty International which once pitted itself against tyrants over trans rights.
By Stephen Rice

Mr Williams, tear down this stonewalling partisanship
All credit to the ABC chairman for fronting up to my Sky News show but his denial of Aunty’s biased, error-ridden coverage was astonishing.
By Chris Kenny
Associate Editor (National Affairs)

And while on that theme, there was more Gawenda, an interminable six minutes ...

As campus life turned ‘hellish’ for Jewish students, uni leaders did nothing
Vice-chancellors facing the royal commission still could not agree on what antisemitism means, almost three years after October 7.
By Michael Gawenda

The Australian Daily Zionist News never rests, and sothere was this one to add to that list, which the pond personally archived because where would the lizard Oz be without a Islamic jihad to add to its taste for TG jihads?

SOCIAL COHESION
PM says no to ‘anti-Palestine’ probe in Islamophobia response
The Prime Minister’s response follows questions about the need for an Islamophobia envoy, with critics saying the issue is not as intense as the antisemitism surge that led to the Bondi massacre.
By Richard Ferguson and James Dowling

Want that decoded? You can never get social cohesion with difficult, uppity Islamics. And you can't mention Gaza or Palestine because they're "less intense".

Or so it seems so, if this teaser trailer is any guide ...

And snappy Tom, doing his ersatz Dame Groan impression, with relevant filmic reference:

Our budget delusions for a perilous odyssey
This post-budget season has been different because a handful of measures ran into a populist insurgency.
Tom Dusevic
Columnist

After all that reading, some herpetology students might want a break ...

And so to Polonius, still holding top dog pride of place - what with him being something of a furry - in the pond's Sunday meditation.

Such is the importance of the reptiles to stay in touch with Gina's pampered pet that Polonius took up the challenge with his prattle:

The header: One Nation’s most educated politician could become its weakest link; The more important One Nation becomes, the more of a problem Senator Malcolm Roberts will become.

The caption for the snap: Senator Malcolm Roberts has a history of making over-the-top statements. Picture: Martin Ollman

The pond doesn't mind Polonius spending a bigly four minutes taking down the barking mad Roberts, but before that unfolds, the pond confesses to having dipped back into the Graudian's The Australian's environment editor, Graham Lloyd, sued over Peruvian eco-retreat; A former partner in an Amazonian conservation project with Lloyd and his partner Vanessa Hunter is claiming more than $600,000 in damages and costs

It's an old yarn, sordid, unseemly but also funny, and incidentally therein you will find ...

...According to the Australian, Lloyd is a “fearless reporter of all sides of the environment debate”. He has had a long career with the Australian as an editorial writer, among other senior roles, and has been championed by the former editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell.
Mitchell called him the smartest environment writer in the country “by light years” and said he could “run rings around clowns like Tim Flannery in any forum on knowledge of the science”.
He has been named by the Queensland One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts as one of the journalists who “show the courage to research the evidence” for climate change, alongside Alan Jones, News Corp and the Sky News commentator Andrew Bolt, and his colleague Chris Kenny at the Australian.

Yes, in the old days, mad Malcolm and the reptiles of Oz were all a happy bunch of Vegemite climate science denialists ...

Sure enough if you head off to the aph.gov.au site (pdf), you discover a 2017 report put together by assorted Senate loons, including Roberts ...

The pond wanted to remind correspondents that these birds of a feather frequently flocked together, because you might otherwise read Polonius as doing a straightforward hatchet job, when really he's in two minds about one of the hive mind's own ...

It remains to be seen whether Pauline Hanson’s One Nation has peaked. In any event, it is still a long time to the next election.
But, clearly, One Nation is under some pressure that it did not experience before Christmas last year. And before the Bondi Beach massacre aimed at the Australian Jewish community on the Jewish festival of Hanukkah – which was also an attack on Australian society.
The small One Nation frontline is well known to those who follow Australian politics – Hanson, the MP for New England Barnaby Joyce (formerly of the Nationals) and James Ashby (who is one of the best-known staffers in Australian political history).
Then there is Queensland senator Malcolm Roberts, plus the new MP for Farrer, David Farley, who scored a significant victory at the by-election on May 9. One Nation senators Sean Bell (NSW) and Tyron Whitten (Western Australia) are not yet well-known public figures.
Writing in The Sydney Morning Herald on July 1, economics editor Ross Gittins asked readers whether anything struck them about the Hanson-Joyce pair. He added: “They’re not the sharpest tools in the drawer. It’s hard to imagine how anyone who’d completed high school could be stupid enough to just wave away all the scientific evidence that global warming is real.”

Read that sentence again ...

It’s hard to imagine how anyone who’d completed high school could be stupid enough to just wave away all the scientific evidence that global warming is real.”

Come on Ross. It's not hard to imagine at all, leastwise if you imagine the likes of the Bolter, the dog botherer, Lloydie of the Amazon, the Riddster, and many others who turn up regularly in the lizard Oz...

Spend years reading the reptiles and you get ... Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce enjoy a laugh at a June 12 fundraiser in South Melbourne. Picture: David Crosling

Naturally Polonius was indignant at Ross, targeting One Nation types and braying in intellectual snobby mode.

Polonius had to cede that when it came to climate science denialism, the One Nation mob were great climate scientists, and they were right on the money ...

This would suggest that, in recent weeks, Gittins must have come to regard at least some of his readers as dumb. After all, last Monday his newspaper published a Resolve Political Monitor poll. It revealed that 39 per cent of Australians agreed that “net zero should be dropped, with a focus on fossil fuels over renewables in the future”. Thirty three per cent were undecided or neutral and only 27 per cent disagreed.
What Gittins, in intellectual snobbery mode, declines to accept is that there is no direct correlation between education and intelligence. Moreover, any fair assessment of Hanson and Joyce would not regard either as unintelligent. By the way, Joyce has a degree in accounting.
Meanwhile, it has come to pass that many of One Nation’s current problems begin with Roberts. I met Roberts once when I was a panellist on the ABC TV Insiders program some years ago. He did not appear unintelligent.
Moreover, Roberts has tertiary degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of Queensland and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
On January 28 this year, Nine columnist Peter FitzSimons threw the switch to sneering. He posted on X: “Would you trust Malcolm Roberts to change a light bulb, let alone come up with a coherent energy policy?” Well, mechanical engineers can change light bulbs.
Moreover, what a coherent energy policy amounts to at a time of rising power bills affecting homes and businesses alike is very much in the eye of the beholder.

Yes, yes, he can change light bulbs and do mechanical engineering, and if that doesn't say "expert climate scientist", what on earth does?

Speaking of the eye of the beholder, at this point the reptiles flipped a switch and decided to go all personal in an attack on Gina's pet performing seals...

Polonius also flipped a switch.

While mad Malcolm might be right on the money when it came to climate science - you know a mechanical engineering degree makes for top notchc limate scientists - there were luckily a few other ways to have a go at him ... especially when he refused to accept the guidance of the Australian Daily Zionist News...

Despite his high-level education and training in the energy industry, Roberts expresses with confidence some untenable beliefs while occasionally going into denial about current and historical events. To rework a prevailing cliche, Roberts has seldom come across an extreme right-wing conspiracy theory that he did not embrace. Or at the very least consider it to be plausible. This is proving politically dangerous to One Nation now that there is talk that it could get close to, or even be in, government at some time.
Roberts has a history of making over-the-top statements. In recent times, they have been noticed increasingly as One Nation’s profile develops and extends beyond Hanson. Some recent examples illustrate the point.
I believe that (writing in these pages on May 9) I was the first to reveal that, in an interview with comedian Lisa Jane Spencer, Roberts said he did not have the evidence as to whether the Bondi Beach massacre was a false-flag event. My attention to this was drawn by a young friend.
The idea that Jewish agents were involved in murdering Jews and some others at Bondi Beach in December last year is preposterous. Yet Roberts told Spencer: “I haven’t got the evidence. I doubt whether it’s a false flag but it could be.” Not long after, Hanson had to clean up the mess and emphatically deny the false-flag fantasy.

So it's one thing to blather inanely about a global climate change conspiracy, and yet entirely insane to take up an anti-Semitic conspiracy?

And Gina's pet had to clean one of these messes, but not the other, the one that accorded with reptile thinking? The One Nation leader has had to clean up the mess. Picture: Martin Ollman

Polonius followed up with other examples of mad Malcolm's loonacy, but remember when it comes to climate science, in the Polonial universe, even a broken loon clock might be capable of getting it right:

On July 13, Nine newspapers journalist Rob Harris reported that Roberts had been interviewed by notorious extreme-right American conspiracist Alex Jones in October 2024. Roberts told Jones that his (Jones) credibility was “very, very high”. Jones is the man who claimed the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut was a false-flag event or staged by actors. The attacker murdered 20 children and six adults.
In the interview, Roberts referred to “globalists” who were “unelected parasites”. An apparent antisemitic slur, concerning which Roberts may or may not be aware.
Writing in The Australian on July 16, Jack Quail reported that Roberts had said in a video that it was “highly likely” the US Air Force was spraying chemtrails. This conspiracy maintains that the US military is releasing deadly toxins as a means of depopulating the planet. Really.
And there’s more. Roberts told Efrat Fenigson’s You’re the Voice podcast in May 2024 that the United States was “the world’s greatest terrorist organisation now”. He said the US government “has been hijacked by the global parasites since 1913, and probably before”. Another implied allegation that the Jews dominate the world. Despite the fact there is not a skerrick of evidence that the US was responsible for the two world wars – concerning which it was neutral when the guns started firing on both occasions.
Roberts has also praised Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, who graduated to President of Russia from the ranks of the Soviet Union’s secret police – the KGB. Roberts regards Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky as another “globalist”. Zelensky happens to be Jewish, you see.
Hanson has distanced herself from some of Roberts’ statements. What’s more, in an interview on Radio National Breakfast on Thursday, Joyce demonstrated evident unease when asked to discuss Roberts’ political views.
The more important One Nation becomes, the more of a One Nation problem Roberts will become. He is a real difficulty for the Hanson-Joyce duo – and for Australia if he ever gains a significant office. How ironic that One Nation’s most educated politician is its weakest link.
Gerard Henderson is executive director of The Sydney Institute.

Climate change right on, chemtrails, globalists of the lizard Oz kind, and Vlad the impaler a step too far!

How many times have how many reptiles moaned and whined about the way that Australia has gone woke? And yet there's Pauline in London rabbiting on to a small London audience, even smaller than the hive mind, about the woke.

As with Dame Slap and her kind, so with Gina's pet.

At a loose end, the pond noticed at the bottom of Polonius's offering a proposal for additional reading, and why not? The pond likes to set additional assignments for diligent herpetologists ... and some displayed canny reptile behaviour worth noting.

More Coverage

For once I agree with Pauline Hanson. I don’t want to live in Luton either
Pauline Hanson zeroes in on ‘super diverse’ UK town Luton for campaign to ‘protect’ Australia
Inside the ‘super diverse’ British town that the One Nation leader chose as the centrepiece of an anti-immigration campaign, the reality is more complicated.

The trick about this one is for the tinkling Trinca to make it all about the town of Luton, and not so much Gina's pampered pet spending time with a far right bigot ...

What a devoted follower the tinkling Trinka is ...

HANSON UK TOUR
Hanson speaks at London CPAC following controversial UK tour
The One Nation leader addressed the conservative conference amid domestic backlash over her comments on Islam and immigration.
By Helen Trinca

Oh that diversity rag, so insufferable ...

In a separate podcast recorded in April in Australia, Hanson declared that a lot of Islam is “based on terrorism”. It prompted Barnaby Joyce to disagree with his leader in an escalation of the chaos within One Nation.
Hanson has also courted controversy by breaking her tour and attending a Dolce & Gabbana fashion show in Sicily with billionaire backer Gina Rinehart. She also took a private tour of Blenheim Palace with former Neighbours actor Holly Vallance before visiting the satellite town of Luton with Robinson as part of a documentary to be shown on Australian TV on Sunday night. In the documentary, she says she was “gobsmacked” because Luton – which has a big population of British Asians and Blacks, did not look like Great Britain.

Also in that Polonial "more coverage" reading list?

Geoff chambering another shot ...

‘Do you slowly’: Labor’s plan to crush One Nation
Gearing up for a 2028 election, the PM takes a leaf from Paul Keating’s script in his plan to wrest votes from One Nation as support for Pauline Hanson’s party surges to a record high.

And the trick here is to pump up the perils provided by Gina's pampered pet by turning to crusader Joel, a man at the heart of the action...

Lessons our leaders must embrace to halt the One Nation juggernaut
One Nation won’t go away – here’s why that matters
Populism is not the problem. The real threat is much closer to home.

But the best trick in the "more coverage" read is to remind the hive mind just how much Polonius repeats himself these days.

Hop into the hive mind time machine:

Malcolm Roberts’ dangerous equivocation on Bondi conspiracy theory

A senator’s refusal to firmly reject a ‘false flag’ claim raises fresh concerns about antisemitism, political judgment and media failure.

That "more coverage" routine is a heck of away to keep punters deep inside the hive mind ...

Here, have a break.

After all that, the pond had neither the stomach nor the room for a bonus, but dammit, whenever the pond hears the siren song of Bella and the cry of Western Civilisation, room must be made ...

The header: Ramsay’s $35m to fund courses where students will be taught to resent the very civilisation the fund was created to celebrate; In a betrayal of legacy, tens of millions of dollars earmarked to champion a cultural inheritance under fire will now pay for courses that actively do the opposite.

The caption for the cheap as chips illustration from the archives, showing an astonishingly accurate and true portrait taken from real life: William Page's Shakespeare Reading (1873-74). In Melbourne University’s Shakespeare in Performance course, the Bard is framed through, among other things, ‘issues of cultural politics and power’. Picture: Smithsonian Art Museum

Crusader Bella spent a bigly four minutes in agonising, agonised turmoil ...and the pond suffered with her ...

This week, university academics began the final phase of appropriating a significantly large bequeathment intended to finance the study of Western civilisation and spending it on indoctrinating students with the usual leftist dogma instead.
The money is from the $3bn estate of health industry doyen Paul Ramsay, who died in 2014, part of which he wanted to be spent on studying and promoting Western civilisation, arts and humanities.
The Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation was created in 2016, promising solid financial support for any university that adopted courses focusing on the Western canon. For its first seven years, the centre flourished under chief executive Simon Haines, a genuine humanities scholar who had spent decades teaching and thinking about literature, culture and human values.
Haines established courses at three universities – Australian Catholic University, the University of Wollongong and the University of Queensland – where newly hired departments of largely early-career lecturers and their students followed a classic great books style liberal arts curriculum, in stark contrast to the “politically correct” mindset that increasingly had been consuming humanities faculties since the late 1960s.

There has to be a villain in any lizard Oz column, and here he is, Martin Fahy, formerly the CEO of Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia.

What a sinister sort, and as for that blue tie, here no Western Civilisation, no Western Civilisation here. Efstoons, whatever happened to a taste for pantaloons?

Then came the despair, the outrage ...

However, his successor, Martin Fahy, announced this week that $35m of the centre’s funds soon will be directed to the University of Melbourne in the form of scholarships. This appears to be a good thing until you read the fine print: “All elements of the scholarship program will be administered and delivered by the University of Melbourne and no new degrees or majors will be developed,” the university announced.
In other words, the money will go chiefly to the Ramsay scholars, who will be funnelled into courses run by the usual suspects, teaching all-too-familiar tendentious material such as: Decolonising Art and Its Histories; Race and Gender: Philosophical Issues; and Britain’s Empire: Power and Resistance.
Could any one of these staff possibly deliver a lecture about the timelessness of Homer, the power of Shakespeare’s language or the complexity of Dostoyevsky’s thought? Or will they simply see and present Western civilisation through the same lenses as everything else: white colonial guilt, First Nations nobility, identity politics and environmental catastrophism?

Indeed, indeed.

The pond knew what was going down here, thanks to Dr Emily Hauser in the Graudian ...

A classicist’s verdict on Nolan’s Odyssey: a soulful hero flatters our times as women and nuance pushed overboard; Matt Damon’s sensitive and repentant Odysseus might come as a surprise to Homer, likewise some significant omissions concerning the poem’s female characters

...Turning the Odyssey into Odysseus’s troubled journey to become an empathic leader of men and a reluctant agent of the onward march of history isn’t just a Hollywood reorientation to the kind of flawed genius we’ve seen in Oppenheimer – it fundamentally tells us what Nolan sees, and wants us to see, as a hero. For audiences who are looking for a box-office smash with stunning visual action, epic proportions and a hero at the heart of it all, they will get it. Every reworking of Homer says what it wants to the people it is speaking to.
In the gap between the sung verses of Homer and Matt Damon declaiming to an Imax camera, what this Odyssey offers us, by way of a hero and the grandiloquent experience of epic cinema, is a man who seeks redemption and solidarity among men, recognition from women, and absolution for a civilisation’s fall. Make of that, in the current climate, what you will.

Dammit, another serve of white imperial guilt coming from a minor king ...

The pond was reminded of other heroes, representing all that's decent, dinkum and right in Western Civilisation ...

Carry on bellyaching Bella ...

The English and theatre studies courses reveal the prevailing dogmatism of the university’s humanities curriculum. In Literary Canons: Then and Now, students are to “critically engage with the framework of the literary canon” and encouraged to understand the canon as a “hotly contested container for values, tastes, and traditions”, subject to “radical reorganisation and revaluation with time”.
Students expecting relief from critical theory will not find it in Romanticism, Feminism, Revolution, where they must read Byron, Blake, Bronte and Shelley through the prism of the “construction of modern notions of literature, culture, sexuality, emancipation and revolution”. In Shakespeare in Performance, the Bard is framed through, among other things, “issues of cultural politics and power”.

The pond was startled to learn that Melbourne University’s faculty of arts has long been dominated by an intellectual culture hostile to the West. Picture: University of Melbourne

This will surely come as a surprise to the Lynch mob, a noble member of Melbourne Uni's faculty of arts, but perhaps he is just an impotent wretch munching silently on corn dogs in some forgotten closet ...

And so to the final gobbet of despair ... the Anglosphere done down again, what with the Anglosphere full of contributions from the likes of Homer and Dostoyevsky, genuine Anglophiles, full of Anglish-ness ...

If this is the future that Fahy and his board are plotting for the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation then we must start preparing ourselves for its slow demise, at least in its current form. The consequences of this are profound. Any society that despises its own cultural heritage as much as our universities do, and as they teach their students to, is surely doomed.
Nothing in the Ramsay Centre’s published biography of Fahy suggests any scholarly background in Western civilisation, the Western canon, history, philosophy or the humanities in general.
Before Fahy took over the centre in 2024, his executive career was spent at Accenture, the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia and KPMG. His academic career was in accountancy-related fields far removed from the great books tradition the centre was established to defend. He may be exceptionally well qualified to oversee a technology transformation or implementation of an enterprise resource planning system, but it is difficult to see what in his background prepared him for the rather different task of inculcating in young Australians a love and understanding of their Western heritage.
No single student will walk away from Melbourne University’s Western civilisation scholarship program with a love or true understanding of Western civilisation.
What they will walk away with is a deep suspicion, resentment and even loathing of it. Like all humanities faculties across Australia, and indeed across the Anglosphere, the University of Melbourne’s faculty of arts has long been dominated by an intellectual culture hostile to the West, one that regards much of its legacy as oppressive and its inherited knowledge as illegitimate.
One of Ramsay’s major preoccupations, and the reason his executors allocated a portion of his $3bn endowment to establish the centre, was his belief that the humanities had been hijacked by academics who did not love the West.
And here we are, handing over tens of millions of dollars to the academic establishment that Ramsay understood to be part of the destructive apparatus eroding the civilisation he loved so much.
This is a betrayal of Ramsay’s legacy and of the spirit in which his extraordinary gift was made. But most tragically it is a betrayal of the young Australians for whom that gift was intended. They have already been deprived of so much of their cultural inheritance by an education system embarrassed by, or openly hostile to, the civilisation that formed them. Ramsay wanted to give some of that inheritance back. To take his fortune and use it to fund the intellectual culture he sought to counter would be the most bitter irony of all.

There came a reminder of Bella's taste for apocalyptic end times ...

Bella d’Abrera is the author of Mindless: How the Education System is Indoctrinating Children and Destroying Our Civilisation (Wyborn Press, 2026).

Lost, rooned and only the Murdochians to hand to save the planet, climate change excepted.

And so to a couple of bonuses to the bonus, because the pond contends that the lizard Oz editorialist is the best guide to the heart of the hive mind ...

Poor beefy boofhead, how the reptiles hound him. And if not him, mad King Donald remains a Faux Noise marvel ...

And with that time for a few final 'toons celebrating the very best in Western Civilisation, worthy of a course run by the Lynch mob ...

What a lark, what a grift ...

And again ...

In which there's just a serve of the Bjørn-again one, AI and nattering "Ned", but isn't that more than enough?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 22:31:46 +0000

A minor form of tragedy struck the pond's lizard Oz coverage this morning with the intermittent archive deciding to go fully intermittent, AWOL if you like, or MIA. (Sorry, it hadn't come good at the time the pond went live).

UPDATED: intermittent archive links added.

Usually the pond would assign dedicated students additional reading, safe in the knowledge that anyone wanting brain damage could follow the link to read Brownie's EXCLUSIVE about Gina's handsomely perked and pampered puppet, and poor Barners, Tamworth's endless shame:

EXCLUSIVE
Islam ‘based on terror’: Hanson sparks concern inside One Nation (*updated)
Pauline Hanson says a lot of Islam is ‘based on terrorism’ in one of her biggest attacks yet on the religion, prompting Barnaby Joyce to disagree with his leader
By Greg Brown

Moi, fearless medieval crusader?

The best the pond could do was offer the URL in the hope that the intermittent archive would come good, with the promise that the pond will check back in later in the day to see if the archive has returned to the fold:

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation%2Fpolitics%2Fislam-based-on-terror-pauline-hanson-sparks-concern-inside-one-nation%2Fnews-story%2Fc6beec346a3c5900e70f407026b295c5?amp

Ditto several more stories, what with the reptiles always ready to seize on any renewables angle to terrify the hive mind and always ready to give TG folk a hearty bashing:

EXCLUSIVE
‘At what cost?’: Green energy project threatens 66 species (*updated)
NSW renewable energy project could hasten 66 species to extinction, scientists warn
The agency tasked with delivering NSW’s renewable energy future has been accused of bulldozing the very ecosystems the clean energy transition is meant to protect.
By Christine Middap

Aw, look at the liddle frog, how cute, and how caring are these reptiles, such dedicated environmentalist, and nothing at all to do with their deep desire to do down renewables, net zero and the whole damn thing, but sorry, this is all the pond has by way of access:

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business%2Frenewable-energy-economy%2Fnsw-renewable-energy-project-could-hasten-66-species-to-extinction-scientists-warn%2Fnews-story%2F6e5205fc8f35d8466ed03ea1e1dc7c2d?amp

And the pond's refusal to indulge in TG bigotry means the latest example of Rice on the boil must go un-noted:

DEFAMATION VOW
‘Demonisation’: JK Rowling hits back at Amnesty report (*updated)
JK Rowling vows to fund lawsuits against Amnesty over trans ‘hate’ report

Even John Cleese has taken aim at Amnesty International which once pitted itself against tyrants over trans rights.
By Stephen Rice

Again apologies:

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world%2Fjk-rowling-vows-to-fund-lawsuits-against-amnesty-over-trans-hate-report%2Fnews-story%2F5a4cf587d181002a0fe549ed6e71ea1a?amp

There was one true thing noted in the story:

Amnesty International Australia also supports the Trans Justice Project, an organisation founded by campaigner Jackie Turner, who claims that The Australian, among other mainstream media outlets, is part of the “anti-trans lobby”.

Well yes, and so anyone who can't access that boiling Rice can relax, because there'll be another TG hit piece on the morrow. When you're deep into transphobia, one serve of the Kool-aid is never enough.

Unfortunately the pond also tends to refuse to go along with items fresh from the Australian Daily Zionist News, what with this dog botherer offering typical:

Mr Williams, tear down this stonewalling partisanship (*updated)
All credit to the ABC chairman for fronting up to my Sky News show but his denial of Aunty’s biased, error-ridden coverage was astonishing.
By Chris Kenny
Associate Editor (National Affairs)

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation%2Fpolitics%2Fmr-williams-tear-down-this-stonewalling-partisanship%2Fnews-story%2Faae4458e77c85223fb695ec80f195205?amp

Astonishing really, that blather about "stonewalling partisanship" from a rag full of reptiles who offer nothing but.

Sometimes just looking at the headlines revealing the lizard Oz's singular monoculture can be truly depressing.

One thing that was missing from the top of the digital edition?

King Donald going full conspiracy theory loopy:

Thank you immortal Rowe for that chance to singalong, and now to get down wit it ...

The pond supposes all those reptile hacks hacking away constitutes a form of projection, but now would like to turn to another old favourite singalong, the Bjørn-again one, and in the process, also have a bash at Google's AI:

The header: Climate change isn’t taking food off your table; The headlines say climate change is wiping out your coffee and olive oil. The long-term data says the opposite.
One thing's certain: that image shows that AI is coming for the lizard Oz graphics department: The message is unmistakeable: Global warming is coming for your family’s dinner table.

What's the trouble with this? Apart from it being only three minutes long, so the distilled essence of BS was such a small portion?

Well if you look at the opening two sentences of the Bjørn-again one's screed...

No morning ritual is safe from climate alarm. The journal Nature just declared that coffee is “critically threatened by climate change” and described scientists racing to save your espresso from “extinction”. The New York Times blames sky-high coffee prices on climate-driven supply crunches in Brazil and Vietnam.

... you might end up being immediately triggered, and embark on a search, and this is what you will score, or at least it was the AI swill served up to the pond ...

And down below that you'll get links, and pretty pictures taken straight from the lizard Oz, and reminders of just how the Bjørn-again one circulates through the intertubes like algae in a reflecting pool...

What you won't get is a link to the Nature article referenced by the Bjørn-again one.

The reptiles resolutely refuse to do links to the outside world, they don't want anyone to leave the hive mind, but here's a teaser trailer for those who do ...

And you certainly won't get a link to an earlier Nature story, which in the usual way would have been saved to the archive, but is currently MIA ...

NEWS
16 January 2019
Wild coffee species threatened by climate change and deforestation (*sorry, not intermittent archive friendly, but try this paper, High extinction risk for wild coffee species and implications for coffee sector sustainability, and this ABC summary)

The extinction of wild species could jeopardize the viability of commercial coffee varieties.

Now the pond could keep doing this all day, but decided not to bother with doing the same to the Bjørn-again one's "olive" angle.

The point is that both the Bjørn-again one, and little Sir Echo AI, are in the business of polluting the full to overflowing intertubes ...

And your olive oil? CNN and Bloomberg wail about a seemingly permanent “crisis”, with Mediterranean droughts foretelling a future in which an everyday staple vanishes for good.
The message is unmistakeable: Global warming is coming for your family’s dinner table, and only sweeping climate policy can save it. The message is also wrong.
Cut through the hype, and food is not only more plentiful but its inflation-adjusted cost also is near historic lows relative to any time since 1900.
Start with coffee, supposedly on its deathbed. This year, global coffee production is expected to set yet another record – more than double the world’s output of 50 years ago. Crops on the brink of extinction don’t deliver record harvests. And despite recent price bumps, the real price of coffee has trended downward since 1960. Adjusted for inflation, coffee this century has cost on average half of what it cost in the past century.

The reptiles compounded all this nonsense by reverting to the most banal stock images they could find admittedly a match for the nonsense being peddled by the Bjørn-again one, No morning ritual is safe from climate alarm. Picture: Getty Images

The Bjørn-again one kept on pushing the line of 'adaptation and improvement', as if that was the answer to it all, as if was the only way forward:

How do outlets such as The New York Times get it so wrong? By inexcusably ignoring inflation – comparing coffee prices from the 1970s, expressed in the dollars of that day, with prices expressed in today’s dollars.
By that standard, everything is at a record high, always.
Even Nature’s own reporting on coffee undercuts its ominous headline detailing “how scientists are fighting to save it from extinction”. Ethiopia keeps more than 12,000 arabica plants in living gene banks for breeding heat and drought-tolerant varieties.
“I believe we have enough gene pool to fight climate change,” the Ethiopian plant geneticist leading the effort says.
Farmers in hotter regions already are switching to hardier coffee species that professional tasters can’t distinguish from fine arabica. That isn’t extinction. It is what agriculture has always been: adaptation and improvement.
The supposed olive oil crisis collapses under the same scrutiny. According to UN food statistics, global olive oil production has tripled since 1961 and doubled since 1990. Last year and this year, together with the exceptional 2018 harvest, mark record highs for production of olive oil. Meanwhile, inflation-adjusted prices have not increased and have even slightly declined since 1990.

The reptiles decided that a banal cup of coffee wasn't enough ... so they flung in a banal snap of olives fresh from the cheapest of stock footage archives ... The supposed olive oil crisis collapses under scrutiny. Picture: Getty Images

And yet in an idle moment the pond asked AI about olive growing in Greece and Spain, and this is what came back ...

This is how the world will end, not with a bang, but an AI whimper serving whatever swill has struggled to the surface, aided by the Bjørn-again one and the lizard Oz flooding the zone with BS.

A nanosecond after getting back to the Bjørn-again one, the pond was again triggered ...

Again, better farming and expanded cultivation outweigh any climate effect.

In that line the reptiles provided a link, naturally to a yarn within the lizard Oz hive mind, which the pond can only provide a URL for ...

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business%2Ftechnology%2Fdata-centre-boom-puts-21bn-of-prime-australian-farmland-at-risk%2Fnews-story%2F0e5dfa6728eae3c86aa0f2678480f678?amp

The pond can at least provide a teaser trailer ... and it can now provide an intermittent archive link...

WTF?

How does that help the Bjørn-again one's case, or make a case for AI?

And so to more both siderism, and a standard billy goat butt:

Food scare stories follow a formula: Take an isolated weather event, attribute it to global warming, skip inflation adjustment and ignore the long-term data. Natural year-to-year swings driven by economics, trade policy and subsidies get repackaged as apocalyptic trends. Rarely mentioned: Much of the real price pressure on food comes from fertiliser and transport costs – inflated, ironically, by climate policies that raise fossil fuel energy bills for the essentials of farming.
Never mentioned: the ways climate change helps crops. Carbon dioxide is plant food, which is why commercial growers pump extra carbon dioxide into greenhouses to produce more tomatoes.
NASA satellites show that the planet has been greening for four decades, meaning the world has added additional leaves with an area equivalent to that of at least two times the Amazon rainforest.
Climate change, on balance, will hurt agriculture. But its impact is dwarfed by rising productivity. One highly cited study in Nature finds that without any climate change, global food-calorie production will increase 51 per cent between 2010 and 2050. With extreme, unrealistic warming, it still increases by 49 per cent.
Across all models and scenarios, the difference in calories available per person amounts to one-tenth of 1 per cent.
That’s because humanity keeps getting better at growing food. Cereal production has more than quintupled across the past century while real food prices have more than halved. The Green Revolution of the 1960s turned famine-prone nations into exporters through the widespread adoption of high-yield crop varieties, alongside expanded use of chemical fertilisers and improved irrigation.

The reptiles kept up their pathetic visuals ... Cereal production has more than quintupled across the past century. Picture: Getty Images

And the Bjørn-again one rounded off his denialist screed ...

India, once written off as a basket case dependent on food aid, quadrupled its rice production between 1961 and 2023 and is today the world’s largest rice exporter. Daily calorie availability per person has climbed from less than 2200 in 1961 to more than 2900 now. Global undernourishment has plummeted from roughly one in four people in the developing world in the early 1990s to fewer than 10 per cent today.
The task now is to finish the job. Innovation should extend to under-researched crops such as sorghum, cassava and millet – staples for two billion people in the developing world that have been largely ignored by commercial breeders. Investment in biotech, precision agriculture and drought-resistant crop varieties will do far more for the world’s poor – and for your grocery bill – than any emissions target.
We can keep feeding more people, better, by doubling down on what actually works: innovation.
Bjorn Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus, visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and author of False Alarm and Best Things First.

Not that old crap about innovation as the answer to it all.

The pond felt in the need of a bath, with that reading a bit like listening to mad King Donald ...

And so to the real reason the pond couldn't look at everything this day.

After a week of flogging his tome, there again came "Ned", and even dedicated herpetologists might well stick up their hand and ask to leave the room.

The pond knows the reptiles deemed it important, because early on the weekend, it was top of the digital world ma ...

But as soon as the pond clicked on it, there came that familiar feeling of nausea at having to endure an endless bout of "Ned's" natter...

The header: Liberals’ looming battle for nation’s future; Liberal leader Angus Taylor’s path back to government depends on a gamble that hasn’t been tried before: differentiation.
The caption for the credited truly feeble collage. Just stop it Emilia, stop it: Angus Taylor’s dilemma is that he cannot get clear political air to attack Anthony Albanese because the stage is dominated by Pauline Hanson – yet if he cannot win the battle with Hanson to dominate the centre-right of politics then his ability to criticise Albanese is ruined anyway. Artwork: Emilia Tortorella

This "Ned" Everest climb took at least 11 minutes to wade through and had some 12 visual distractions of some kind, and all because Gina's puppet Pauline had taken the lizard Oz agenda - climate science denialism, fear of furriners, dislike of uppity blacks, and assorted other forms of bigotry - and run with them, and now the reptiles and their pet, the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way, didn't know how to cope.

The next election should become a defining choice on what sort of economic and social model the Australian people want for their future. But this assumes the election will be a contest between the competing agendas of Anthony Albanese and Angus Taylor – a situation far from guaranteed.
Taylor’s dilemma is that he cannot get clear political air to attack the Albanese government because the stage is dominated by Pauline Hanson – yet if he cannot win the battle with Hanson to dominate the centre-right of politics then his ability to criticise Albanese is ruined anyway.

At this point in the saucy doubts and fears saga came the second of the visual interruptions: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has advised Opposition Leader Angus Taylor to stand up to One Nation during Question Time on Tuesday. “My job isn’t to give advice to this bloke,” Mr Albanese said. “But my advice is, how about you stand up to One Nation on something?”

It was like enduring a therapy session:

Virtually every public performance by Taylor is bedevilled by this dilemma. Taylor, marketing his economic policy, is fighting on two fronts – as the formal opposition against the Albanese government and against Hanson, whose polling support threatens the survival of the Liberals.
This raises the question: how much should Taylor attack Hanson’s party and its policies? Some Liberals worry that being more aggressive against One Nation just alienates Hanson’s voters and keeps them locked into her.
In reality, the Liberals cannot ignore Hanson’s policy incapacity to meet the challenges facing Australia and that means they must prosecute an aggressive line against One Nation – along with the freak show being exposed on the party’s fringes from the activities of One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts.

But, butt, gigantic butt, billy goat, Malcolm Roberts is just a logical extension of the Bjørn-again one, the Riddster, Lloydie of the Amazon and all the other climate science deniers featured over the past couple of decades in the lizard Oz ... Hanson was called to repudiate Malcolm Roberts – who has frequently espoused fringe views during his parliamentary career – after it was revealed this week that he promoted the works of a renowned Holocaust denier in an essay. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Those aren't fringe views, those are the sorts of views you'll encounter every day in the lizard Oz when the reptiles take on the task of being One Nation's official policy newspaper ...

Virtually every political commentator recognises Taylor’s cut-through problem with his messaging. But Taylor will be the beneficiary of two big trends shaping the next 12 months. The first is the more intense scrutiny being applied to Hanson’s policies and behaviour, with evidence of a degree of internal unravelling likely to result over time in a further fall in her party’s vote.
The second is the grim economic outlook, with the entrenched structural defects from Labor’s policies now far more apparent, leading to weak economic growth, declining real wages, subdued productivity and persistent inflation accentuated by the Middle East war that is exposing our vulnerabilities.
RedBridge director corporate affairs Tony Barry told Inquirer: “At present the Coalition is coming third. It needs to be coming second to be competitive. We are starting to see the contours shifting around the One Nation vote. I think we’ve seen the ceiling of her vote at 31 per cent but that the floor of her vote is going to be higher than people realise. I would think it is still in the teens and that it won’t collapse back to the 6 to 8 per cent levels.
“A recent poll we did showed 63 per cent saying Australia was heading in the wrong direction. The focus groups have people saying ‘my kids won’t have it as good as I did’ and that’s a statement about what’s happening now. There’s a protracted pessimism in the electorate. The key rule in politics is to differentiate from your opponent but the Liberals have still not sufficiently done this.”

If "Ned" cares so much, why do the reptiles always use a snap of the beefy boofhead that verges on the defamatory? Taylor is completely right to go bold on policy, but there are now signs of a tactical mistake by delaying rather than unveiling fresh initiatives. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Coach "Ned" thought the beefy boofhead had turned radical and far right, but really all he's doing is fitting in with the lizard Oz and its One Nation policies ...

Differentiation – this is now Taylor’s focus. Indeed, he is betting the future of the Liberal Party on his plan to build an economic, tax, immigration and climate policy that offers a dramatic structural difference from Labor’s ideology, possibly one of the sharpest policy differences for several decades.
This was apparent in Taylor’s recent speech to the Sydney Institute. It spanned four domains dominated by structural policy changes: lower personal income tax by indexing the rates – that’s an annual tax cut; smaller government driven by a Future Generations Fund that locks away 80 per cent of commodity revenue windfalls annually, which means they can’t be spent, with the proceeds going to debt reduction; tying lower immigration levels to housing construction; and dismantling Labor’s net-zero policies, its renewable energy targets, its EV tax rebate and its extensive bureaucracy, the Capacity Investment Scheme, the Rewiring the Nation Fund and its Net Zero Economy Authority.
This will develop as a comprehensive attack on the ideological foundations of Labor’s economic policy – the complete reversal of the Coalition’s 2025 election agenda. The strategy is to regain the lost Liberal Party strengths on the economy, tax and living standards. The purpose is to challenge Labor front-on and to marginalise Hanson’s party as irrelevant.
It is already obvious, this is a radical agenda with more to come. For instance, the combination of tax indexation and the Future Generations Fund means that fiscal drag is returned to individual taxpayers and commodity revenue surges are largely locked into debt reduction – eliminating the rivers of revenue gold that have financed Labor’s big government.
Like all radical agendas it comes with electoral risk. Taylor is completely right to go bold on policy, but there are now signs of a tactical mistake by delaying rather than unveiling fresh initiatives. Taylor, moreover, has made only limited progress with the public. He lacks skill and impact as a retail politician able to market the policy ideas his leadership has generated. The best policy agenda doesn’t work without communication cut-through.

Of course Gina's pandered pet and pawn makes for an easy target, as does Tamworth's eternal, never ending shame ... One Nation leader Pauline Hanson was this week spotted alongside Australian mining magnate Gina Rinehart at a $2500-a-night resort on the Sicilian coast; One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce in June. Mr Joyce has produced a party definition of an acceptable monoculture. Picture: Getty Images

But they're just doing what comes naturally to the mad King Donald, Nige and Emeritus Chairman class ... and "Ned's" cluck-clucking and tut-tutting won't change that ...

The past week has further exposed Hanson as unsuited to any role in executive government. Hopes that Hanson might change her behaviour to appeal to a wider public have been spectacularly trashed. There has always been a recklessness about Hanson, who has long traded on the shock value in her populism, and this is confirmed yet again.
Pity Barnaby Joyce in his quest to impose discipline and coherence on One Nation’s policies, a task even more forlorn.
In Britain, Hanson teamed up with convicted criminal, thug and racist Tommy Robinson in a campaign of mutual praise and support, provoking a devastating critique from Sky News host Andrew Bolt. It is past time Hanson was held to account for her behaviour. Can you imagine the calls for their resignation as leaders if Albanese or Taylor behaved like this? It prompts another question: For how long will a number of prominent Australians persist with their support or apologies for Hanson as an acceptable figure in a future government?

Sheesh, no rebrand yet for Sky Noise down under, and yet it's home to the weird sight of the far right Bolter berating Gina's pet for being far right? Sky News host Andrew Bolt accuses One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson of failing to effectively address the issues of multiculturalism and mass immigration. “Pauline Hanson has blown it, and I am so frustrated. Mass immigration and multiculturalism, we finally had a chance to discuss these important issues seriously,” Mr Bolt said. “What an opportunity is being thrown away. I mean, who seriously thinks the Liberals will now dare to talk about multiculturalism … I think the air is going out of the Hanson balloon. “Things may change … but they will change a lot unless Hanson drops the stunts and learns that for her to just be normal will now be mad enough.”

She's a failure because she doesn't know how to do Bolter bigotry the right way?

Only in lizard Oz la la land.

The reality is that the beefy boofhead, and the reptiles, don't know how to deal with a wild card who's taken the reptile agenda on board, and run with it ...

Hanson retreated from Britain to Sicily for a luxury break associating with her prime financial backer, Gina Rinehart, while lamenting the cost-of-living pressures on ordinary people. Hanson has become a cultural celebrity, revelling in its benefits but highly vulnerable to its risks. Above all Hanson, while politically clever, never changes her core character.
Don’t doubt, however, the obstacle she poses to the Liberal Party’s revival. Interviewed last Monday by Sarah Ferguson on the ABC’s 7.30, Taylor kept hesitating before finally ruling out any prospect the Liberals would consider a form of coalition government with One Nation. “There is no plan,” Taylor kept saying, “no plan for a deal with One Nation to form government”.
There is no more critical question for the Liberal Party’s future. Would the Liberals govern with One Nation, as many Hanson supporters delude themselves into believing? Taylor won’t even entertain such an idea. Finally, he told Ferguson: “I’m ruling it out.”

As if you could believe any ruler this man touched, let alone whether he's using the ruler to rule things in or out ... Opposition Leader Angus Taylor addresses his attack on Pauline Hanson’s policies, claiming a One Nation government would deliver an “eternity of pain” for Australians.

The pond doesn't blame the beefy boofhead, who isn't the sharpest long horn in the back paddock. The pond blames the festering far right culture the reptiles have fostered ...

The only plan is for a Liberal and National Coalition. Frankly, Taylor needs to keep ruling it out until everybody gets the point. The Liberals have an obligation to make clear to the Australian people who they are prepared to govern with and who they won’t govern with.
That means a veto on governing with Hanson. If that upsets some One Nation voters it can’t be helped. It also means rebutting Labor’s propaganda that the Liberals would only form a government in partnership with Hanson. Of course, having One Nation offer confidence to a Liberal-National Coalition government is a separate and understandable position; likewise preferences arrangements.
Nobody could doubt Taylor’s real attitude towards One Nation given his Sydney Institute speech. Having declared Australia is “in the grip of an economic crisis”, Taylor lumped Hanson with Labor and the Greens as leading a party that will “only make things worse”.
His message was defining and defiant – that One Nation is the problem, not the solution. Taylor listed One Nation’s policy sins: that the party “would send us broke”, that its real beliefs reside in “big government interventionism” (like Labor) and spending tantamount to an extra $1 trillion over 10 years, that its promises would trigger higher inflation, the jacking up of interest rates, punishing the household budgets of ordinary workers and provoking a financial crisis with an explosion of spending and debt. Taylor warned voters that “an eternity of pain” would follow a One Nation government. He invoked a truism: when governments cannot finance their policies it is the citizens “who ultimately suffered the consequences”.
Most reactions to Taylor’s speech missed the point. Many people seemed to think he was merely putting some tactical distance between himself and Hanson – and that this was most unwise. Yet his real point was obvious: the Liberals would not tolerate Hanson’s economic policies. This was a rejection of One Nation on policy and philosophical grounds.

Oh pull the other philosophical leg, as the reptiles visually defamed the beefy boofhead again ... The implication from Taylor’s remarks is that One Nation’s economics are worse than Labor’s. Picture: John Gass

How desperate did it get?

Comparing Gina's pet to the greenies? Even "Ned" had to come up with a distancing You can agree or disagree with Taylor...

Taylor said Hanson’s party was “a lot like the Greens” – they made irresponsible promises because they had no governing mentality. You can agree or disagree with Taylor, but there’s no dispute about what he meant. Casting One Nation as a problem for Australia meant any prospect of forming a coalition government with Hanson was inconceivable. While Taylor didn’t say this, the implication from his remarks is that One Nation’s economics are worse than Albanese’s.
In the moral and intellectual turmoil of centre-right culture, many people will no doubt conclude such sentiments mean Taylor should be ditched as Liberal leader. Yet the warning signs are flashing on Labor policies where it is trapped by its beliefs. Its commitment to bigger government has throttled productivity levels. The recent budget revealed Australia locked into slow economic growth fluctuating about 2 per cent but this weak performance now looks too optimistic.
The recent Deloitte Access Economics report predicted the longest stretch of sub 2 per cent growth since the 1990s recession and identified the vulnerabilities of rising inflation, weak living standards and the resurgent energy crisis from the Iranian war.
Deloitte partner Stephen Smith highlighted the nation’s structural weakness: “For too long, strong population growth has masked a weak underlying productivity performance and lifted aggregate growth while doing less to improve living standards. Years of insufficient investment in housing, infrastructure, energy and the economy’s productive capacity have left the supply side of the economy struggling to keep pace with demand. The result is an economy more prone to inflation pressures at lower rates of growth.”

Still the entirely meaningless visual distractions kept flowing, Australia’s consumer confidence has fallen. Picture: NewsWire / John Appleyard

Coach "Ned" did his best to help the beefy boofhead:

The OECD has recently found that since 2021 Australia’s post-Covid decline in real wages reached 5 per cent, one of the worst results among developed nations. Australia desperately needs a productivity boost, hence Albanese’s new commitment to artificial intelligence – yet the same risks are apparent: regulatory overkill that limits the benefits.
Pivotal to Labor’s entrenched legacy is its prioritisation of redistribution over growth, an instinct that seems embedded in contemporary Labor; witness the recent budget. Meanwhile the Parliamentary Budget Office has punched a hole in the budget’s credibility, warning that even the long wait to return to surplus in 2034-35 is unlikely and based on unrealistic assumptions.
All these are rich political targets for Taylor and the Liberals. How could they get this wrong? Well, we know the answer from past failures.
Taylor holds the Albanese government to account for initiating “a radical restructuring of Australian society”, its nexus being how much bigger government embeds low productivity and stagnant living standards.

And then came the explicit endorsement of the climate science denialism that Gina's pet has run with .. There has been a seismic shift in the electorate’s thinking about climate and energy policy since the second Trump administration and the conflict in the Strait of Hormuz.

You might think that "Ned" would want to talk about the way that mad King Donald has helped focus minds on EVs, just as assorted heat domes and climate disasters and wild fires in Canada have focussed minds on climate change, but no, Gina's pet has the policies that Dan "the man" Tehan also loves ...

Come on down, Dan "the man", help out "Ned":

The convoluted state of our politics seems to misread a truth about the Albanese government – that Albanese plays the long game. While the left and many progressives agitate about Albanese being too cautious and devoid of uplifting reforms that excite the true believers, his method is the steady, slow march to reorient the nation.
If Albanese serves three full terms, have no doubt that Australia at the end of this period will be a far different nation from 2022 and stamped with an indelible Labor brand.
Hence Taylor’s campaign to attack what he sees as the root cause of our malaise – the shift from free enterprise to a command-and-control model. He says the public wants change, but the key question is: What sort of change? Taylor identifies three options: sticking with the evolving Labor model; falling for the Hanson trap and blowing up the joint; or backing an aspirational Liberal agenda of lower tax, lower immigration, restrained spending and lower energy costs.
Opposition energy spokesman Dan Tehan told Inquirer the Liberals would engineer a sweeping new energy policy: “I believe energy sovereignty has become a key factor in the public’s attitude. There has been a seismic shift in the electorate’s thinking about climate and energy policy since the second Trump administration and the conflict in the Strait of Hormuz.
“Labor’s energy policy means higher prices and is making the nation poorer. Under our policy, the EV tax rebate (providing an FBT exemption for electric vehicles) will be abolished as well as the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard that is basically a carbon tax (to boost the supply of fuel-efficient and electric vehicles).
“We have oil, gas, coal and uranium reserves that we are more than happy to sell to the rest of the world but put serious limits on their use in Australia. This doesn’t make sense. We will lift the ban on nuclear and establish a commission to advise on a private sector led nuclear industry with strict government controls over safety and capital. We won’t pursue the policy from the last election of six nuclear power plants, government-funded and run.

Still with nuking the country to save the planet, except that in reptile bizarro world the planet doesn't need saving, and according to "Ned", it seems that mad King Donald hasn't been dissuaded from his latest bit of off-the-cuff policy making ... Economists warn Donald Trump's plan to charge a 20 per cent levy on cargo shipped through the Strait of Hormuz could increase the price of fuel by at least 10c per litre in Australia.

Luckily mad King Donald backed away from making liddle Marco, JD and all the rest blathering about international law sound like epic fools,

And luckily that was the last illustration, the last collage, and luckily it was uncredited, because it's likely AI, another way the reptiles are trying to ruin the planet ...

"Ned" left it with Dan "the man" Tehan, sounding like he was channeling Gina's pampered pet ...

“On coal, our policy is to sweat the existing plants as is being done by some state governments. We will let the market be the determinant on new coal, the point being our policy will be absolutely technologically neutral.
“We reject Labor’s ideological pursuit of 82 per cent of renewables by 2030 and net zero by 2050. Nobody believes the 82 per cent is achievable. While the Albanese government wants us to lead on emission reductions, our policy is to run emission reductions consistent with what OECD nations are doing. That means we will wait some time and only go into the details closer to the election since many nations are not meeting their targets.”
Tehan said the Capacity Investment Scheme would be abolished. He branded it “a secret fund set up by Labor where taxpayers had no knowledge and no understanding of the liabilities being incurred” given the scheme operated as a commercial-in-confidence support for selected projects.
Branding the scheme a “disgrace” Tehan said in office a Liberal government would make public its overall liabilities (not of individual projects). He said the opposition wanted a policy not just for wind and solar but that prioritised baseload power and technological neutrality.
He said the Net Zero Economy Authority and the Rewiring the Nation Fund would go. Tehan said the RTN providing low-cost finance to build new transmission lines operated “without any social licence and had governments riding roughshod over communities”.
“The bigger point here is that this government won’t put an estimate on the cost of getting to net zero by 2050,” Tehan said. “It pursues an ideological agenda, won’t reveal its cost to the economy and shows no concern about the cost.”

And so the spirit of Gina, Pauline, and the Bjørn-again one continues to run rampant through the lizard Oz ... as if the reptiles were taking their cues from mad King Donald and Faux Noise ...

And here's an oddity the pond's logarithms turned up ...

Dame Groan, the onion muncher and Our Henry all on a Friday? Are you not entertained? How could you possibly want more?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 22:24:57 +0000

This Friday the pond's cup overflowed, with a host of pond favourites on hand in the lizard Oz, but there are some outrages the pond simply won't tolerate, such as Jack the dropkick's attempt to downplay Count Binface, when the real joke candidate is Nige ...

Why joke candidates rarely win
Maybe it’s the ADHD talking but I find joke candidates get boring quickly. Binface has and will go the same way.
By Jack the Insider

Columnist

It took Jack until his final few lines to admit it ...

What is sustainably amusing is that Reform party leader Farage has played into the hands of his opponents. Win, lose or draw in Clacton, he will be forever diminished, a walking testament to the political axiom: When they’re screaming at you, you might be on to something, but when they’re laughing at you, you’re done.

There you go Jack, one way or another a joke candidate will win, the only question being which one has trousered five million pounds and counting ...

But what was Jack doing, hanging around on a Friday like a bad smell, cluttering up the far right of the digital Oz and distracting from the main attractions?

Why, the reptiles were in full fear of Jacinta, in carry on Jacinta Jihad mode ...

The snap featured an astonishing bit of cascading animation ...sadly not caught in the intermittent archive ...

EXCLUSIVE
Jacinda unlimited: taxpayers foot $80k tickets bill for Ardern gabfest
Top government agencies spend $80,000 on Jacinda Ardern summit amid calls to cut costs
Passes to hear Jacinda Ardern speak sell for up to $4499, almost triple that of Taylor Swift VIP Australian tickets. Months after being told to slash spending, mandarins have splashed out.
By Elizabeth Pike

Outrageous, and how right to be punked and piked by Pike. How the reptiles fear and loathe Jacinta and her insidious, invidious smile.

Why, those wretched cardigan wearers should be spending that money on advertising public service jobs in the lizard Oz, and thereby help keep the raft of reptiles afloat.

How else can they sustain attacks on the government?

Yes, there was another EXCLUSIVE, full of suffering ...

EXCLUSIVE
Labor’s budget ‘fix’ for the young makes them the biggest victims
Young investors face thousands in extra tax under new CGT rules
Baby Boomers and Generation X escape the worst of Labor’s tax overhaul, as new modelling shows the storm coming for younger adults.
By Anthony Keane and Will Seitam

And that variant on a keening Keane was immediately followed by Dame Groan, sent right off yet again by talk of Jimbo...

Commentary by Judith Sloan
It’s simply a mess when toddlers are set free in the fiscal candy shop
The reality is that the budget changes were badly thought-out and badly executed.

Correspondents know the form. Dame Groan will explain - this time in just a three minute groan - how we'll all be rooned by Xmas.

The reptiles will likely have to hand an incredibly funny snap of a woman looking particularly silly in a vacant, open-mouthed sort of way and sure enough there was a victim to hand: Treasury secretary Jenny Wilkinson says ‘revenue has to come from somewhere’. Picture: John. Feder

The situation was so dire that Dame Groan immediately ran with dot points ...

Economists are always keen to point out the unintended consequences of policies, those effects unrelated to the main objectives of policies being considered. Yet when it comes to the potpourri of tax changes announced in the recent budget, it was never clear what the intended consequences were.

Were they mainly about changing the distribution of home ownership away from investors?
Were they about punishing investors to raise the tax burden on capital while (perhaps) lowering the tax burden on workers?
Were they mainly about raising more dollars, as Treasury secretary Jenny Wilkinson admitted when she declared that “revenue has to come from somewhere.”

The reptiles quickly flung in an apocalyptic audio distraction:

The Money Puzzle
Why property investing will never be the same again

And Dame Groan didn't need that sort of prompting to go full end times "we'll all be rooned" ...

According to the budget papers, only 7500 extra homeowners are expected because of the tax changes. And 35,000 fewer homes will be constructed over a decade, the modelling says.
Pushing up the tax on capital will result in less investment, which is particularly a concern when it comes to start-ups and entrepreneurship. The carve-out from the CGT change now being proposed is a compliance-heavy joke, and the government probably knows this.

The reptiles helped out by a killer blow aimed directly at Jimbo ... (still no rebrand for Sky Noise down under?) ... Opposition Leader Angus Taylor reflects on his meeting with comedian Dave Hughes to discuss Labor’s taxes. “It was great to speak to Dave, and he is a great person who is very angry about the situation here in Victoria and the situation in Australia right now,” Mr Taylor told Sky News host Paul Murray. “I think he shares the view that so many Australians do that this country is heading in the wrong direction and they’re angry.”

If he's so bloody angry, why is the prize doofus smirking at the camera?

And why is the beefy boofhead doing the same?

And how could they afford to waste their time and their precious dollars on a chow down?

And how did a bloody drongo comedian become a bloody expert?

If the pond wants anger, irritation and a groaning, it will always turn to the Dame ...

An extra $17bn-odd over a decade is handy but needs to be considered in the context of the disaster of the revenue loss from the botched excise hikes on tobacco products, the out-of-control home battery and FBT exemption for electric vehicles programs and the distinct possibility claimed savings on the NDIS will never fully eventuate.
So without knowing what the precise objectives of the budget changes were – now legislated apart from the trust changes – it’s a tricky exercise to talk about unintended consequences. To be frank, most of them look unintended, or at least perverse.
Consider the impact of the loss of negative gearing for existing properties and changes to the CGT rules on both the level of activity in the real estate market and property prices. For state governments with a heavy reliance on stamp duty and land tax – often their main source of revenue – this impact is dire.
Within NSW, the state most dependent on property taxes, there was a writedown of expected revenue from this source in the recent state budget, it’s likely to be too little.
Lower levels of activity in the real estate market really carve into this source of revenue – more so than prices – and we are seeing this in the number of houses being put up for sale and particularly for auction.

For some reason, the reptiles decided Dame Groan needed back up, and they still hadn't managed a rebrand for Sky Noise ... GXO Strategies director Cameron Milner warns bracket creep is quietly costing Australians hundreds of billions of dollars, arguing governments cannot tax their way out of excessive spending. “The bracket creep that goes on because of inflation is hundreds of billions of dollars,” Mr Milner told Sky News host Caleb Bond. “The answer to out-of-control spending isn’t out-of-control taxing. “That’s a problem for the economy.”

The pond decided it should help out with an infallible Pope ...

There, reptiles, fixed it for you ... as Dame Groan delivered a final crushing blow to Jimbo ...

It is estimated that only 30 per cent of houses are now being put up for auction, down from around 45 per cent last year. In turn, this means homes take longer to sell.
It’s not as if any of the states, except for Western Australia, are well-placed to face a major reduction in this own source of revenue. With several states facing potential ratings downgrades – think Victoria, Tasmania and possibly Queensland – their fiscal problems will only become more difficult.
Will Jim Chalmers lend those states a hand? That’s unlikely, at least in the short term. But if things become calamitous enough, the Treasurer may have no choice.
We also can’t be sure how the distributional consequences of Chalmers’ cauldron of changes will play out.
Because negative gearing is grandfathered, existing investors have a distinct advantage relative to younger folk who might have been keen to copy the investment strategies of their parents.
We should not assume, as Jim was caught out doing, that young people are not investors, including in cryptocurrency and ETFs.
One estimate puts this proportion at close to 30 per cent for those in their 30s.
They will be particularly punished by the change to the CGT. For those who have held assets for a long time – older people – the impact is relatively muted.
The reality is that the budget changes were badly thought-out and badly executed.
The preferred approach was to start modestly – say, by eliminating negative gearing for existing properties – and assess the impact of this change.
Other changes could have been added to the mix in time.
Sadly, Jim preferred to act like a toddler set free in candy store.

What an incredibly witty put down by the old biddy! What sparkling form the Groaner is in!

As for housing, Wilcox was also to hand ...

And if all that wasn't enough, the reptiles also had that preening narcissist, the onion muncher, out and about, seeking another home away from home after his time with Viktor Orbán ran out ...

The header: Officialdom’s latest change-by-stealth: renaming seat of Franklin; Quite apart from the fact that important symbolic decisions should not be rushed, there are two key problems with renaming the seat of Franklin.
The caption for the illustration taken from a museum and so reptile dirt cheap: A pencil sketch of Tongerlongeter by Thomas Bock (1832). Picture: Queen Victoria Museum.

It wouldn't be an onion muncher outing without starting with a bald-faced lie.

It isn't a change-by-stealth.

There will be a public consultation, for what it's worth, not that the pond much minds, because Franklin was no great shakes, as a quick read of his bio in the ADB - with its talk of "petticoat domination" - and his futile death in a North-West expedition, also noted in his wiki, will suggest ...

The onion muncher avoided any discussion of this ancient colonial relic, or offer any argument as to why he should retain his name on a seat ...

One reason many Australians are uneasy about the direction of our country is officialdom’s rush to make key changes without meaningful public input, either from voters or their elected representatives.
For instance, when did any elected government make a formal decision to almost double Australia’s immigration intake, to fly three flags rather than one on all government buildings, or to begin all civic events with acknowledgments of “country”? The Australian people have never been asked for their views on any of these developments despite their immense significance for the future and how we see ourselves as a nation.
Effectively, these changes have been made by the administrative state and then treated as “done deals” that could be questioned only by cultural troglodytes. This sense that far-reaching change has been foisted on a public that’s been kept in the dark helps to explain the rise of conspiracy theories and increasing support for previously fringe political movements.
The latest example of officialdom’s tendency to push change-by-stealth that alters how we see ourselves as Australians is the sudden push to rename the Tasmanian federal electorate of Franklin, a Federation seat, so-called after an early governor, later the famed if ill-starred Arctic explorer, after the Aboriginal warrior Tongerlongeter. This change was announced on Wednesday, with the public given scarcely five working days to make submissions-in-response by midnight next Tuesday.

What a flagrant, blatant liar he is, what a tragedy a proud warrior has to end up in his company ... The Aboriginal warrior Tongerlongeter by Thomas Bock (1832).

Eventually the onion muncher noted that there'd be a day of consultation ...which put the onion muncher in odd company ...

...Faced with the violent dispossession of lands and people - with hundreds of Indigenous men murdered, and women and girls abducted - Dr Clements said Tongerlongeter led the most "effective frontier resistance campaign in Australian history".
Eventually, in 1831, his decimated tribe reached an armistice and was exiled to Flinders Island, along with many other Tasmanian Aboriginals, where Tongerlongeter again assumed a leadership role.
"This is a phenomenal individual, someone everybody can look up to - not just Aboriginals - but everyone as this is our shared history," Dr Clements said.
In its deliberations, the AEC essentially agreed.
"Tongerlongeter's leadership during the Black War, his role in defending Country, and his enduring significance in Tasmanian history provide strong grounds for recognising his contribution through the naming of an electorate," the AEC panel wrote.
However, the Liberal and Labor parties don't believe the seat should be renamed.
Both parties submitted to the AEC that Franklin, named after Sir John Franklin, a British polar explorer and early administrator of Van Dieman's Land, should be retained.
The Liberals argued keeping Franklin would "minimise voter confusion" while the Labor party submitted a change "lacks compelling justification" given its heritage of over a century of use.
Ms Collins confirmed to AAP Franklin remained her preferred title.
"I support the submission that the Labor Party made to the redistribution consultation process, including about a possible name change," she said.
Dr Clements said he was sympathetic to those viewpoints but the "chequered" history of the current namesake, who kept skeletal remains of Indigenous people, ought to be considered.
"To rename the electorate after this extraordinary resistance fighter, who has this unblemished and storied history, compared to someone like Sir John Franklin, it's wholly appropriate," he said. (here)

A fighter, frontier resistance? Please, none of that.

Nobody thought to consult the onion muncher ...

The Australian Electoral Commission will then hold one day of public consultation at the end of the month before finalising its decision.
Australians should indeed know more about Tongerlongeter and about what have become known as the “Black Wars” that took place in Tasmania in the 1820s. For the first decade or so after the establishment of the Tasmanian colony in 1804, while it largely remained a convict settlement and sealing station, relations between the settlers and the local Indigenous people were relatively peaceful. Indeed, another future warrior, Kickerterpoller, seems to have worked on a small farm owned by one of the colony’s first doctors, in one of the many instances of co-operation as well as conflict on the frontier of settlement. That changed once pastoral expansion pushed out beyond the Derwent Valley to settle what had previously been local peoples’ hunting grounds.
In Professor Henry Reynolds’ sympathetic and carefully researched account, Tongerlongeter was the main leader of the organised Aboriginal resistance, which was far more effective and sustained than anywhere else on the Australian frontier.
Exploiting Aboriginal peoples’ superior bushcraft and agility with spears and clubs, resistance steadily scaled up from the killing of isolated shepherds to raids on farmhouses that could readily be rushed while the defenders were reloading their weapons. By scouring contemporary records, Reynolds and his fellow researchers reckon that Tongerlongeter’s bands killed some 180 settlers and seriously wounded as many again. Understandably, this created uproar in a settler population then numbering scarcely 20,000.

The reptiles then flung in a snap of an ancient monument, Henry Reynolds.

Dear sweet long absent lord, is he still around?

The pond had expected to be wearing a black armband in some kind of remembrance, what with the lying rodent and every other racist and his dog attacking Reynolds for his role in the history wars, only for the onion muncher now to deem him 'sympathetic', and capable of producing a carefully researched account.

What is it with these dingbats? Do they think a zapping, Men in Black style, means we forget everything?

The reptiles even had the cheek to link to a Reynolds' piece, naturally in the lizard Oz ...

Yes, that great betrayal was actually begun by the onion muncher...and to be fair, he stays true to that form ...

In response, governor George Arthur declared martial law and organised the infamous “black line”: a force of 2000 soldiers, police and settlers that tried to emu-bob much of the island in an attempt to kill or apprehend the warriors terrorising the settlement. While this was a comprehensive failure, bands of settlers inflicted even heavier casualties when they came upon Aboriginal camps.
One of the more brutal participants was John Batman, later a founder of the new Port Phillip settlement across Bass Strait, who records in his diary killing two wounded Aboriginal prisoners no longer able to accompany his party. In yet another of the paradoxes of those much harsher times, Batman did take some Aboriginal orphans into his family.
Eventually, with the Tasmanian Aboriginal population vastly reduced, by disease, by starvation due to the loss of hunting grounds, and by fighting – sometimes internal as well as with settlers – from some thousands to some hundreds, in a parley arranged by Kickerterpoller, Tongerlongeter led some 30 of his remaining armed warriors in a parade through Hobart to meet with the governor to settle the war. While Arthur had some good intentions, the subsequent two-decade exile to “safety” on Flinders Island resulted in the deaths of hundreds more Aboriginal people from sickness and despair. The tragedy continued on their return, with Truganini, then said to be the last of the Tasmanian Aboriginals, dying in 1876.

At this point the onion muncher - always the dimmest bulb in the racist, colonial, ten pound Pom house - seemed to realise he might have gone too far, so he flung in a billy goat butt, dressed up as a "there's no doubt" ...with a bonus "doubtless" ...only to ruin the effect, by flinging in another "butt" for the invaders ...

There’s no doubt that Tongerlongeter and his warriors should be remembered and honoured as doughty fighters for their peoples and for the way of life they knew and cherished. Doubtless, this will soon take place in the new galleries to be dedicated to “frontier wars” at the expanded Australian War Memorial. But provided they fought by the reasonable standards of their day, so too should the settlers who prosecuted what they also saw as an existential conflict.

Cue a snap of William Crowther.

Crowther?

There's the ADB version, and then there's the story ... Why is William Crowther, whose statue was toppled in Hobart, such a divisive figure?

Nothing like a little skull snatching to gladden the colonial "scientific" heart.

What's funny is that some might have residual memories of the onion muncher in his prime, parading about and pretending to be at one with indigenous folk.

He even dressed himself up as Prime Minister for Aboriginal Affairs... and then gutted $500 million from vital Indigenous community service programs in his first Budget, despite a pre-election commitment to maintain funding that targeted Closing the Gap activities.

You can't expect that sort of leopard to change its Crowther-like spots ...

Quite apart from the fact that important symbolic decisions should not be rushed, there are two key problems with renaming the seat of Franklin after Tongerlongeter. First, it’s against the AEC’s standard procedure, which is to preserve the names of seats that have existed since the time of Federation. Second, and much more important, if Batman has been retired as the name of a federal parliamentary seat because of his unsavoury personal conduct, isn’t it a double standard now to commemorate in this way Tongerlongeter, whose many casualties (understandably enough under the circumstances) included women and children?
Quite properly, the names of parliamentary seats these days acknowledge significant Aboriginal people who have “rendered outstanding service to Australia”, such as William Cooper, Vincent Lingiari, Neville Bonner and Truganini herself, as well as Bennelong. But if it’s really necessary to have an Indigenous name from Tasmania, what about relocating the seat of Truganini from the ACT to there and finding another Indigenous person to honour in Canberra?
As for lionising Tongerlongeter, what about erecting a statue to him, with an explanation of the tragedy that was inevitable in the clash of two then very different and mutually misunderstood cultures, perhaps to stand alongside the restored statue of premier William Crowther, as a reminder of our shared flawed humanity. Better that than posthumously recruiting him into the culture wars that are dividing and demoralising our nation.
Tony Abbott is the federal president of the Liberal Party. He served as Australia’s 28th prime minister.

What a gigantic dropkick, and if that's helping the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way get elected, then the pond will make a bet on Pauline ...

Sadly that meant that there was no way the pond could segue to the infallible Pope of the day ...

Be real, comparing the onion muncher to Darth would be a defamation of that heroic galactic crusader, as C-3PALBO and his tin pot beeping sidekick face down his wrath...

Meanwhile, the Australian Daily Zionist News was at it again.

Those who want a warm up before tackling Our Henry - in astonishingly pompous and pretentious academic mode - could visit the intermittent archive to enjoy the meretricious Merritt ...

Islamophobia envoy wants power to tell pollies what to say
Special envoy pushing for religious motivation to be removed from terrorism’s definition
Australia’s Islamophobia envoy is championing political free speech but wants to create a commissioner who regulates what politicians can say. He can’t have it both ways.
By Chris Merritt
Legal Affairs Contributor

There was also a contribution from a certain Schwartz:

What the Royal Commission did not ask
The current malaise did not begin with antisemitism, and it did not happen overnight. It has been unfolding for decades.
By Steven Schwartz
Contributor

It goes without saying that the meretricious Merritt and the certain Schwartz are rank amateurs up against the hole in bucket man, who was in stupendous form ...

The header: Overpaid vice chancellors parade their ignorance; As if the facts about campus antisemitism were not bad enough, the world most highly paid vice-chancellors show no grasp of what academic freedom means or why it matters.
The caption for the standard snap designed to terrify the hive mind into submission: Pro-Palestine protesters gather at Melbourne University. Picture: Jason Edwards

Our Henry managed a full five minutes of rhetorical flight, dragging in all the requisite arcane references from medievalists and so on, and with the added bonus of shedding a specious tear for the Riddster ...

Rarely has the proposition that a fish rots from the head been more starkly confirmed than earlier this week, when the vice-chancellors of Australia’s most prestigious universities appeared before the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion.
There were the predictable claims of having been caught unprepared and struggling to respond: concessions cloaked in the sham humility of ritual self-criticism, whose purpose was to cast repeated failure as the inevitable imperfection of any large institution. Accompanying them were the equally predictable assurances of lessons learnt and improvements made.
None of it was remotely convincing. The Group of Eight’s performance has been so abject that not one of its members appears among the universities Greg Craven, in his report for Jillian Segal, identified as deserving special commendation for their response to antisemitism.
Yet that record understates the problem. The failures exposed by the commission’s hearings are merely symptomatic of something more fundamental, as the report of the Group of Eight’s Expert Advisory Committee on Combatting Antisemitism, released shortly before the hearings, makes abundantly clear. The report’s most revealing feature is not what it says about antisemitism but what it reveals about its authors’ profound misunderstanding of the very idea of academic freedom.
Explaining the concept’s history in full would take too long. What matters here is that it has always rested on two foundations: that universities govern themselves; and that the nature of that self-government, along with the obligations it entails, is determined by the university’s mission.

The pond understands that universities have problems. Just recently the pond read Stefan Collini's cry of pain in the LRB, Squadrons of Pigs, Stefan Collini on the university system. (*intermittent archive link).

But this is Our Henry, and so he makes it vindictive and personal, Vice-chancellors Mark Scott, Attila Brungs and Glyn Davis

And so to Our Henry parading his learning.

Want a little medievalism? Want arcane references? Want a serve of Weber, and a pretentious bit of Latin?

You've come to the right place ...

The Go8 itself defined that mission in 2018 as “the pursuit of truth, the advancement of learning and the acquisition, dissemination and preservation of knowledge for the common good”. Once that proposition is taken seriously, the implication is immediate. The maintenance of order on campus is not merely an administrative responsibility. It is a constitutive requirement of the university’s mission.
That understanding is as old as the university itself, embedded in the charters granted the ancient universities in the 13th century. When Wilhelm von Humboldt refounded the modern university on the premise that knowledge advances on an infinite frontier, he did not relax the demands of order – he intensified them. The unimpeded research, teaching and learning that are the substance of truth-seeking could flourish only in an environment that was, in his words, free from every form of disruption and leeres Geschwätz (“empty chatter”).
Max Weber put the point more firmly still. The university had to remain “the house of the intellect”, not “a nest for fanatical sects”, for a university that became the latter destroyed the open-minded inquiry and ongoing intellectual exchange on which its purpose depended. The university’s right to take all the measures it needed to insulate itself from those forces of chaos – thus ensuring the “tranquillitas scholarum” (scholarly peace) that made serious learning possible – was therefore an essential component of “academic freedom”.
Nothing in the Go8 report suggests the faintest appreciation of that tradition. For its authors, good order is merely a question of “wellbeing”, to be weighed against academic freedom rather than recognised as its indispensable condition. The report’s own language is unequivocal. It proposes to entrench “the duty to balance academic freedom against actual or potential harm”, and to strengthen “the duty to foster the wellbeing of staff and students”.

Then there came an AV distraction ... During the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, a Melbourne University student has broken down as she described having to strip herself of her Jewish identity to be safe on campus.

Our Henry kept on staying up his fundament ...

By reducing Humboldt’s tranquillitas scholarum and Weber’s “house of the intellect” to competing interests in a managerial balancing exercise, the report necessarily implies that some measure of harassment, intimidation and threat is compatible with the university’s mission. That trivialisation of a constitutive principle into a bureaucratic trade-off can only generate trivial remedies. Little wonder, then, that the report’s flagship recommendation is a one-word amendment to the Model Code set out in Robert French’s 2018 report on academic freedom.
Nor does the Go8 grasp the second obligation the university’s mission imposes. That mission does not merely bind university administrations; it places exacting obligations on academics too. The founding declaration of the American Association of University Professors, the canonical statement of academic freedom, made the logic explicit: because “there are no rights without corresponding duties”, the freedoms of academics “entail correlative obligations” – chief among them, the duty to “set forth justly, without suppression or innuendo, the divergent opinions of other investigators”.
Those correlative obligations distinguish academic freedom from ordinary freedom of expression. The distinction between them underpins Edward Shils’s 1967 report, which laid the intellectual foundations for the University of Chicago’s celebrated statement on academic freedom. As Shils observed, while “cranks and demagogues enjoy the right of freedom of expression”, academic freedom has never protected the right of scholars “to make arbitrary assertions without regard to the evidence, methodically and critically assessed”.
It is precisely that distinction Mark Scott recklessly obliterated when he declared: “We do not believe, nor understand, how our campus can be a place where people are less free to speak than they are in the wider world.” But universities are not the wider world. They are self-governing institutions constituted for a distinctive purpose, and academic freedom is the right to fulfil that purpose – not a licence to disregard the intellectual standards on which it relies.
Rather than being ancillary to the university’s purpose – as the Go8’s offhand recognition of the need for “balance” in teaching implies – holding academics rigorously to account for objectivity, seriousness and intellectual honesty is the means by which universities fulfil their social role of seeking the truth. Yet in a report of some 14,400 words on academic conduct, the word “truth” does not appear once, nor are the consequences of a commitment to truth-seeking accorded any weight in what is little more than a bureaucrat’s view of the world.

For no particular reason, the Riddster entered the scene... Drew Pavlou; Peter Ridd

Oh the suffering of climate science denialists, and devotees of Western Civilisation ... (the pond's Chinese-manufactured EV is remarkably efficient, getting around at a rate of 11kWh, way better than the 16kWh the pond's previous EV managed)...

Not that our universities have ignored these issues altogether. But their actions provide no comfort. The University of Queensland savaged Drew Pavlou for misconduct that pales beside the behaviour our elite institutions routinely tolerate from pro-Palestinian militants. James Cook University sacked Professor Peter Ridd for a breach of confidentiality far less serious than the doxxing of Jewish academics that the University of Sydney has brushed off with barely a murmur.
The inference is inescapable. Pavlou and Ridd paid the price for being on the wrong side. Calls, steeped in antisemitism, for Israel’s destruction are tolerated. So is unashamedly blending “research” with advocacy that celebrates Hamas. But peacefully opposing China’s murderous repression of dissidents, as Pavlou did, or questioning climate change orthodoxy, as Ridd did, are not.
The consequences of that approach are visible in the Go8’s response, if one can call it that, to the mayhem that has marred campuses since October 7, 2023: since then, intellectual confusion has become outright complicity. Flagrant outrages, such as the invasion of Professor Steven Prawer’s office at the University of Melbourne, have gone effectively unpunished; the rare disciplinary sanctions imposed have been far too trivial to deter; and – despite the Go8’s fine words – not a single academic has been disciplined for replacing teaching with antisemitic preaching.
If this is what taxpayers buy with the world’s highest academic salaries, they are paying Rolls-Royce prices for intellectual bankruptcy. And if the royal commission allows the scandal to continue, it will be a sure sign that the rot has spread far beyond the head.

Sssh, whatever you do, don't mention Gaza ...

And there you have it, and the pond thanks the long absent lord that Our Henry managed to avoid the urgent need to maintain a jihad on TG folk, not that there's anything wrong with cross-dressing, at least if you follow the immortal Rowe ...

The pond will treasure that image for a bigly time, what with that jam jar still in hand...

Now here's an Our Henry adjacent moment ...

Back with a succulent serve of reptile stew, at least if you can swallow the swishing Switzer and a Lowy institute rep ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 21:49:45 +0000

Back again, after a trip to Silverwater in search of a router (don't ask), only to discover that the Australian Daily Zionist News was at it again ...

Antisemitism inquiry
VCs in the dock: unis caught napping when hate came to campus
University vice-chancellors apologised for leaving Jewish students and staff exposed to antisemitic abuse on campus but refused to apologise for the concessions that ended pro-Palestine encampments.

Thank the long absent lord for the way the intermittent archive is currently working, because it could also take care of Jennifer, though it was the pond that had to send her there ... (does no one care about the lizard Oz?)

Royal Commission must mark clean break for our universities
Too many universities hid behind the veil of free speech and academic freedom as cover for tolerating the abhorrent.
By Jennifer Westacott
Columnist

That did give the pond an excuse to catch up with an old infallible Pope...

Continuing the winnowing, the pond, with some degree of joy, sent Sall's sally off to the cornfield, what with transphobia never the pond's flavour of the week ...

Sorry, Albo: We’re biological women, not culture warriors
Prime Minister has framed the issue as a ‘culture war’. Yet when a rally sign threatens a woman for defending her rights, that is not cultural debate.
By Sall Grover

How the reptiles love to bring in Giggling loons to conduct their culture wars.

Just to add that, some Rice was on the boil ...

DEFAMATION THREAT
Axed: Fury as nurse union pulls suicide article over ‘trans distress’
Nurses’ journal pulls suicide study over ‘trans distress’
Australia’s biggest nurses union retracted a journal article on transgender suicide research and accused its author of ‘hatred’. Now he’s threatening to sue.
By Stephen Rice

According to the ABS back in 2024, About 0.9% of Australians 16 years and over are trans and gender diverse, including trans men, trans women and non-binary people.

And this is what preoccupies the fear mongers in the lizard Oz hive mind?

Of course, because when the reptiles get their knickers in a knot and embark on a never-ending jihad, the fussing and the feuding and the fighting appears on a daily basis.

All that aside, is there anything happening by way of actual news? Some reptile on the extreme far right of the digital rag prepared to grapple with the world?

With all that winnowing away of reptile jihads, some might wonder, but fear not, the swishing Switzer was to hand to help ...

The header: Trump is now trapped in a conflict of his own making; Military power can destroy targets and even tyrants, but it cannot erase political realities.

The caption: The Strait of Hormuz and US President Donald Trump. Picture: AFP

Why did the pond bother?

After all, the swishing Switzer could only manage a three minute read, but all the same the pond found it piquant.

Please, a little scene setting, with the pond heading way back to May 21 2026 , with Matt Gertz at MSNow ...

Trump and Fox News are trapped in a doom loop on Iran
The network’s flattery has deepened Trump’s unwillingness to back down.

Sound familiar?

The swishing Switzer's blather about being 'trapped in a conflict of his own making' and 'doom loop' pretty well synch up...

President Donald Trump’s Iran war is a global strategic debacle and a domestic economic disaster that has taken his public support to new depths. With the president’s job approval hitting second-term lows, some Republicans are warning that he may hurt the party’s chances of retaining control of Congress in November’s midterm elections.
But even as some MAGA pundits are sounding the alarm about the war and its political implications, Fox News’ coverage of the Iran war remains consistently glowing. Trump is depicted on the network as a steely-eyed negotiator who had “the courage, the wisdom, the fortitude to confront this Nazi-like regime,” in the words of one host. He now “holds the cards” against Iranian officials who are “grasping at straws,” a Fox correspondent said. On rare occasions when Fox hosts buck that narrative and express concern about the war’s impact on the country and the GOP, they quickly pivot back to the pro-war propaganda Trump craves.
In 2020, Fox’s executives and stars faced a network near-death experience due to a rare moment of honesty.
Fox’s lockstep promotion of Trump’s war reflects two crucial factors: The influence of current and former Fox hosts on the Trump administration, and the network’s desperate desire to hold on to its MAGA viewership at all costs. And because Trump’s own worldview is shaped by the network telling him that he’s engaged in a globally historic victory that just needs more time — and perhaps further escalation — the result is a doom loop without a clear exit.
In Trump’s first term, his obsessive consumption of Fox’s programming turned the network’s hosts and correspondents into prominent participants in national politics. That pattern has intensified in his second term: Trump has selected more than two dozen former Fox personalities to fill top roles in his administration, leaned on current Fox stars for counsel and seemingly ordered policy changes like the deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to U.S. airports based on segments that caught his eye.
Network hosts like Sean Hannity, Mark Levin and Brian Kilmeade have long supported military strikes against Iran, and over the first few months of the year, they repeatedly used their programs to urge Trump to take action. But since their predictions of a quick and easy resolution gave way to a quagmire, they have been unable to respond coherently. Instead, when not praising Trump for his bravery in starting the war, they suggest risky escalations they say will end it — from a special ops mission to seize Iran’s uranium to the targeted assassinations of more Iranian leaders.

So how's the Emeritus Chairman's favourite war, conducted by his favourite leader, holding up? Are the Faux Noise ratings a sufficient reward?

The swishing Switzer has his doubts ...

The first rule of war strategy is simple: don’t make your own position worse. Yet that is precisely what Donald Trump has achieved in the Strait of Hormuz.
Before Trump ordered the assassination of supreme leader Ali Khamenei on February 28, freedom of navigation through the world’s most strategically important energy choke point was largely intact. Today Trump is attempting to restore a status quo that his own intervention helped to destroy. In soccer parlance, it is an extraordinary own goal.
Since his decision to launch war in Iran, the campaign has lurched through four distinct phases. First came the US and Israeli strategic bombing campaign (February 28-April 8), which failed to alter Tehran’s behaviour. It was followed by the US-led naval blockade (April 13-June 17), which likewise fell short of its political objectives. Then, confronted by rising oil, gas and fertiliser prices, growing economic uncertainty and the prospect of Republican losses in November’s midterm elections, Trump abruptly changed course.
On June 17, he signed a memorandum of understanding that, by any reasonable measure, represented a remarkable retreat. Washington agreed to substantial financial concessions even though Iran had emerged from the conflict more hard line than before, retaining its uranium enrichment program, ballistic missiles and regional proxy network.

The reptiles interrupted with an AV distraction featuring one of those classic lizard Oz thumb framings ... Donald Trump says he’ll replace the levy with trade and investment deals as the US launched new strikes minutes before the blockade on Iranian ports began

The pond paused to remember Media Matters ...

Right-wing media figures castigate Fox News for pushing “blatant propaganda” on the war in Iran
Former Fox hosts and other right-wing media figures have called out the network for “cheerleading” Trump’s war
Written by Reed McMaster & Isabella Sherk
Published 04/06/26

So how's that blatant propaganda and cheerleading worked out for the Emeritus Chairman?

Still the swishing Switzer couldn't get on board ...

The agreement proved short-lived. When Tehran asserted that it retained effective control over the Strait of Hormuz – a position it regards as central to its strategic leverage – Trump effectively abandoned the memorandum.
Now, frustrated by Iran’s defiance, the US President appears convinced that a campaign of tit-for-tat military retaliation can coerce Tehran into allowing commercial shipping to transit the Strait of Hormuz without Iranian permission.
That is a bold ambition. It’s also an unattainable one. Each step up the escalation ladder plays to Iran’s strengths, not America’s. Tehran repeatedly has demonstrated a willingness to absorb punishment in pursuit of political objectives it considers vital.
Trump’s Iran policy has now descended into a farce. Having declared that he, like the mullahs, would impose tolls on commercial traffic transiting the Strait of Hormuz, he flip-flopped overnight as if he never really meant to contradict his own administration’s objective to restore freedom of navigation through international waters. He is flailing about for a strategy.
Supporters of the Iran war may argue that the US is at last confronting the 47-year campaign the Islamic Republic has waged against its neighbours, America, the international community and, indeed, its own people.
But if that were the objective, the strategy so far has produced the opposite result. Iran’s leverage has increased, the credibility of US alliances has been tarnished, the risks to global energy markets have grown and the prospect of a wider economic downturn has become more acute.

It wouldn't be a lizard Oz yarn without a snap of boys splashing about, Boys play in the shallow waters of the Strait of Hormuz, as a plume of smoke rises from an explosion in the background. Picture: AP

On and on the swishing Switzer ranted, without mentioning the way that his kissing US cousins continue to host the most obnoxious members of King Donald's regime... so that they can do their hellfire, end of civilisation, war crimes in the offing routine

Quelle debacle ...

Only a fortnight or so ago, Trump declared that he had no desire to become a second Herbert Hoover, the US president (1929-33) whose economic policies are widely associated with the onset of the Depression. Today, however, his rhetoric increasingly echoes that of the late Republican senator Lindsey Graham, the last of the neo-cons, who never knew a war he did not support.
The reversal is remarkable. Having campaigned against America’s “forever wars”, Trump now appears determined to escalate the conflict with Iran, intensifying the air campaign and the naval pressure on the regime. Just one more heave, we are told, and the job will be done.
But does Iran yield to overwhelming pressure? The evidence so far suggests otherwise. Neither strategic bombing nor a naval blockade has persuaded Tehran to abandon what it regards as its vital interests. The argument that still greater pressure will somehow produce a different outcome is fanciful.
The mullahs represent a nasty, brutal Shia theocracy, but from their perspective they confront an existential threat.
Washington and Jerusalem have made little secret of their desire to see the regime blown up into smithereens. Under those circumstances, Iran’s leaders are prepared to endure extraordinary hardship before capitulating to Trump’s demands.
That is why Tehran is unlikely merely to survive this confrontation; it is seeking to exploit it. The regime’s objective is to emerge from the conflict with greater leverage, secure financial concessions to rebuild its economy and military capabilities, consolidate its influence over the Strait of Hormuz and strengthen what it sees as the foundations of a Pax Iranica across the Gulf. What a debacle.

Could this sort of yarn fail to mention the keenest of war mongers?A poster of Benjamin Netanyahu is paraded by mourners as they pay their respects to the late Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. Picture: Getty Images

Well played poster boy Benji, as the swishing Switzer realised he might be treading in dangerous waters, so he reverted to "dear readers" syndrome ...

I don’t like this outcome any more than dear readers. However, the uncomfortable reality is that Trump has miscalculated spectacularly: the US and Israel have emerged from this campaign in a markedly weaker strategic position than they anticipated.
The belief that a revived strategy of tit-for-tat coercion will now succeed where strategic bombing and a naval blockade both failed is as implausible as the original bombing and blockade strategies.
Put simply, Iran cannot be bombed or bullied into abandoning its principal source of leverage.
The lesson is clear: military power can destroy targets and even tyrants; it cannot erase political realities. Until Trump fully recognises that distinction, he will remain trapped in a conflict of his own making, pursuing an objective that recedes further with every escalation.
Tom Switzer is presenter of the Switzerland YouTube podcast and a contributor to The Australian and Sky News Australia.

Well dear readers, that's got to be worth an immortal Rowe, celebrating the much-plugged movie of the moment, with a peril as dire as Circe or the Sirens or even a one-eyed mad Cyclops ...

For a bonus, AI has been in the news much of late, so the pond turned to Charles ...

The header: Australia should become a hub for training US frontier AI models; Should Beijing also take a lead in frontier AI research, the risks of war in Asia would grow considerably.

The credit for the collage which frankly shouldn't have been credited for the sake of failing reputations: Anthony Albanese’s speech showed Chinese President Xi Jinping and Donald Trump Australia was behind America’s efforts to push artificial intelligence. Artwork: Frank Ling

How silly of the pond not to realise. The entire point of AI is preparation for the coming war with China, which, in the absence of the bromancer, the pond still expects to happen by Xmas.

This means that we should roll over and get behind mad King Donald, because who wouldn't love to support such a model of clarity, a devotee of peace-making, not to mention the many exceptional talents behind US AI, from Sam Altman to Uncle Elon ...

Carry on Charles Lyons-Jones, sell the hive mind a fine bill of goods ...

Anthony Albanese’s speech at the University of Sydney on Wednesday helped position Australia as a key ally behind American efforts to push the frontier of artificial intelligence research but stopped short of providing AI giants such as Anthropic everything they asked for, including exemptions to Australian copyright law.
Casting aside the economic arguments against providing these exemptions, there is a strong national security case for Australia becoming a hub for the training of America’s frontier AI models, especially when you consider the logic behind Australia’s alliance with the US.
Australia chooses to be an ally of the US not solely for shared democratic values but also because the alliance grants privileged access to technologies that provide the military and intelligence community a major strategic advantage. AI is arguably the most transformative technology in human history. Maintaining privileged access needs to be understood as Australia’s top national security priority because of the profound vulnerabilities that could emerge without it.

Shared democratic values?

Sorry, the reptiles decided that it was better to slip in a snap of Albo, Mr Albanese has a strong national security case to support AI.

Charles kept on plugging away, keen to sell AI, security, Albo and the joys of getting into bed with mad King Donald and the tech bros ...

Take cyber security. According to leading-edge research, some frontier AI models can now outperform humans in some complex scientific tasks. For Australia’s national security agencies, that represents a huge challenge, as most government networks are secured by traditional cryptography now at risk from quantum computing.
The date that quantum computers can break these systems is known as Q-Day. To prepare, the Australian Signals Directorate has required government agencies to include post-quantum computing considerations in all new procurements since 2024, with the aim of transitioning all systems to post-quantum networks by 2030.
But with frontier AI models accelerating research and development in quantum computing, there is a significant risk that adversaries such as China could bring forward Q-Day and penetrate government networks before the transition has fully taken place.
Training frontier models domestically will offer Australia a safer transition to post-quantum computing than alternative pathways, as it will provide assurance of continued access to these powerful AI systems during a period of heightened risk.
The modern battlefield is another area where training frontier AI models can help Australia maintain a strategic advantage. America’s use of AI in targeting for missile strikes against Iran offered insight into a world where the most powerful military capabilities are augmented by frontier models. Positioning Australia to take advantage of any future applications of frontier AI in air, surface and subsurface warfare needs to be front of mind, particularly as AUKUS Pillar II gathers steam.

The reptiles needed a villain ... Xi’s military ambitions require Australia to address its AI vulnerabilities. Picture: Getty Images

But does this barbarian know how to do a proper looting?

In deep fear of one dictator, Charles kept on pandering to the Americans, currently being run by a mad King...

Asia’s rapidly deteriorating strategic environment further strengthens the case for Australia making use of its continental geography, vast natural resources and abundant energy to help America maintain a lead in frontier AI research.
China’s President Xi Jinping has instructed the People’s Liberation Army to ready itself for a successful invasion of Taiwan by 2027. The extent of involvement by Australia, as an American ally, in any Taiwan contingency will be largely determined by decisions taken in the White House. Complaining about this supposed lack of sovereignty will hardly change the reality of it. Given that warning time for a PLA invasion of Taiwan will begin from next year, there is little that can be done to increase Australia’s freedom of action in the near term.
What Australia can do immediately is improve its resilience, which is best done with American expertise. Currently, Australia’s AI capability is overly reliant on undersea cables that would be highly vulnerable in wartime. Xi’s military ambitions require Australia to address that vulnerability soon. Developing sovereign AI infrastructure for US-based firms, which own the most powerful frontier models, will go some way to bolstering Australia’s wartime resilience in the near to medium term.
Longer term, Australia will face greater risks if it doesn’t help America to shore up its advantage on AI’s frontier. Despite the US military’s successful deployment of AI during the Iran war, China remains well positioned to lead in integrating AI models into robotics and military technologies. Should Beijing also take a lead in frontier AI research, the risks of war in Asia would grow considerably as China could assume that its technological edge will enable success in an invasion of Taiwan.

There came a final visual plug ... Developing sovereign AI infrastructure for US-based firms – as Donald Trump wishes – will go some way to bolstering Australia’s wartime resilience. Picture: Getty Images

All that did was make the pond reach for another 'toon ...

Charles, who had only managed a feeble three minute read, spluttered out in a final gobbet designed to sell his bill of AI goods, because China ...

China’s intelligence services understand the importance of AI to the PLA. In April China’s most senior spy chief, Chen Yixin, wrote an influential article in the Communist Party’s theoretical journal arguing that “technological competition (had) entered its most intense, strenuous and critical period of close-quarters combat” with the US.
Chen’s article was emblematic of Beijing’s view that it is embroiled in a new cold war. To stop this new cold war turning hot, both China and the US will need to maintain a balance of threat. But unlike the previous Cold War, both sides will be competing in an environment where credibility as a great power will hinge on the ability to augment military and intelligence capabilities with frontier AI models.
Stability is far from assured in this volatile strategic environment. For Australia, the costs of developing a truly sovereign frontier AI capability will be prohibitive and the chances of success slim. That’s why the best contribution that could be made to global stability by Australia, as an ally of the US, would be to back American leadership at AI’s frontier.
Charles Lyons-Jones is a research fellow at the Lowy Institute.

That's the best that the Lowy Institute could rustle up?

That pathetic needy brand of wheedling and whining and fear mongering and bending the knee and tugging the forelock?

Let the immortal Rowe have a final word on that ...

So many fine cameos, though the immortal Rowe felt the need to identify one nonentity ...

There was something about this pair that struck a chord, or at least a jam jar ...

And now, may Pod save America, because God doesn't seem up to the job, not if Her nominees are any guide ...

No reptile stew today!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 20:32:09 +0000

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.

In which the pond tastes all sorts of forbidden reptile fruit, but settles for ancient Troy doing Nige and Dame Groan doing those damned furrriners ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 22:03:12 +0000

There is no long absent lord offering sensible and thoughtful hope, because She would have taken mad King Donald together with his acolyte Miss Lindsey, and spared Sam Neill a little longer.

It's worth writing about what Neill gave the world, not so much Miss Lindsey, though the pond was irritated that it took two reptiles, Caroline Overington and Bianca Farmakis, to compose a tribute to Neill, Sam Neill, Jurassic Park actor and writer, dies aged 78, and yet these dimwits managed to omit any mention of one of his best roles, the short order chef in Death in Brunswick, where he and his Kiwi comedy mate John Clarke ran riot in a graveyard.

Always those bloody dinosaurs instead of Neill's rich sense of humour, which he shared with Clarke

Meanwhile, the madness of King Donald continues apace, with the latest example his Mafia type muscle move to impose a levy of 20% on goods moving through the Strait, thereby outdoing the mad Mullahs.

Sadly the reptiles of Oz don't have the bromancer around to tackle the latest sign of dementia.

With the greatest respect to Clive, he's simply not up to the job, as he offered the hive mind a statement of the bleeding obvious ...

Airstrikes alone will not deliver US victory in Mid-East

Iran still retains a range of asymmetric response options even as its conventional forces face attrition.
By Clive Williams

Not only did Clive offer a modest 3 minute read - where's "Ned" when he's needed? - he attempted to sound sensible, which is simply not playing the hive mind game...

Even worse, he was a little late to the party:

At the heart of the current flare-up lies a longstanding legal and strategic dispute over the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has asserted particular security interests in the waterway and has used threats of access restrictions as a means of exerting pressure. The US and most maritime nations maintain the strait is subject to international rules guaranteeing unimpeded transit passage.
These divergent interpretations complicate any resolution.

It turned out that they're not divergent at all, what with mad King Donald being at one with the mad Mullahs on the need to impose a surcharge, the only divergence being on who will collect the loot ...

The rest of Clive is in the intermittent archive, but for a moment the pond could have sworn it was reading a piece scribbled for the both siderist NY Times ...

How about this?

The US has framed its operations as legitimate self-defence and a necessary step to protect freedom of navigation and civilian mariners. US officials argue Iran’s attacks on commercial vessels posed a direct threat to international maritime security.
Iran, by contrast, portrays its actions as legitimate responses to ongoing US and Israeli military pressure, economic sanctions and earlier strikes that damaged Iranian territory and infrastructure.

Yes, on the one hand, but on the other hand, and Clive carried on like this to his conclusion ...

...US strikes have concentrated on military assets linked to threats against shipping. American statements emphasise precision targeting and efforts to limit civilian harm. Iranian authorities have reported casualties and damage extending beyond purely military sites, although comprehensive independent assessments remain limited at this stage.
It is too early to evaluate the military effectiveness of the US strikes. They are likely to impose meaningful costs on Iranian naval and missile capabilities and may temporarily constrain further attacks on shipping. But past experience in the region indicates that airstrikes alone seldom resolve deeper political and security grievances. Iran retains a range of asymmetric response options, including proxy operations, cyber activities and renewed maritime harassment, even as its conventional forces face attrition.
For the US and its partners, prolonged military engagement also entails risks. Operations consume resources, heighten the chances of miscalculation and contribute to oil market volatility. Donald Trump has paired warnings of stronger action with suggestions that negotiations remain possible. Proponents view this as effective coercive diplomacy; critics argue it creates uncertainty about US objectives and risks undermining diplomatic credibility.
The most probable short-term trajectory is continued managed confrontation rather than outright victory or comprehensive peace. Iran is unlikely to extract major concessions solely through military pressure. The US and its allies can maintain pressure through strikes and sanctions but face practical and political limits.
Regional actors such as Gulf States and Israel continue to prioritise containment, while external powers including Russia and China seek regional influence through varying degrees of engagement with Tehran. The conflict exemplifies a security dilemma. Defensive measures by one side are often perceived as aggression by the other, perpetuating cycles of retaliation. US strikes may safeguard immediate interests but risk entrenching hostility. Iranian disruption may signal resolve but invites further isolation.
Neither side appears intent on a full-scale regional war. Yet the assumption that escalation can remain controlled has repeatedly proved dangerous. Once military action begins, domestic pressures, miscalculation and unintended consequences can rapidly narrow the space for diplomacy.
Stability in the Gulf cannot rest on military force alone. It will require credible mechanisms for maritime security, renewed diplomatic channels and progress on the longstanding disputes surrounding Iran’s nuclear activities, regional role and relationship with the US. Until those issues are addressed, each round of strikes and counterstrikes risks becoming the prelude to the next.
Clive Williams is a former defence intelligence officer.

The reptiles of Oz will miss the bromancer ...

He knows how to celebrate the events of the day, with hopes of even bigger events to follow ...

That left ancient Troy, finally catching up with events in the UK ...

The header: Farage v Count Binface: the clash that perfectly sums up British politics; The intergalactic space warrior is now the anti-establishment candidate, not Nigel Farage.

The caption for the comedy duo, Count Binface and Nigel Farage

Ancient Troy spent a bigly four minutes on Nige and the bin man, though really he had nothing to say that hadn't been said by the cracking Crace in some fair style, in forays such as What a week for Daddy Nige and his dysfunctional Reform family:

...could it be that Nige is just the Messiah. We know he’s no Old Testament prophet because he doesn’t believe in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Otherwise he wouldn’t have complained about Sky News identifying one of his properties, having himself named hotels accommodating asylum seekers to his followers. Just for their information, naturally. The last thing he would want is for his supporters to protest outside.
Rather, Nige is the New Testament real deal. A man of compassion and tolerance. Someone sent down to Earth to fight for the poor and the oppressed. To round up the sinners who have erred and strayed from God’s ways like lost sheep.
Take Thursday’s Daily Mail, in which he said he was only practising “Christian forgiveness” in taking handouts from George Cottrell. He had looked deep into Posh George’s soul and seen someone who truly repented of offering to launder money for drug dealers. The fact that Posh was a multimillionaire prepared to bankroll Nige’s lifestyle never crossed his mind.

But the pond can Tootle only so much, and must deal its ancient Troy hand ...

Nothing could more perfectly sum up the state of British politics than the forthcoming by-election between far-right populist politician Nigel Farage and the satirical Count Binface – a comedic candidate who has contested previous elections with a garbage bin shaped helmet – in the seaside seat of Clacton, northeast of London.
Reform UK leader Farage has been dogged by parliamentary investigations into receiving a “gift” of £5m ($9.7m) from cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harborne, other gifts from convicted fraudster George Cottrell and not fully declaring property interests. He attacked The Times and The Sunday Times, and other media, for their investigations.
Rather than face the scrutiny that all MPs must and respond to these allegations, Farage resigned as an MP, insisting he’d done “nothing wrong”, and set up a phony standard: if re-elected that should be the end of the matter. It is straight from the Donald Trump playbook.
A by-election gives voters a chance to “stick two fingers up to the establishment”, Farage claims. But the stunt has backfired with his main opponent being a parody candidate wearing a garbage bin on his head. The Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Green and Restore Britain parties have decided not to contest the August 13 by-election.
The contest between Farage and Binface has gripped British politics. It is more serious than it looks. Binface has been interviewed by leading political journalists. The odds of Binface winning Clacton have been slashed and his support is growing in the polls.

At least ancient Troy is talking up the bin man's chances, even if the reptiles insisted on showing Nige playing at being dinkum, Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage drinks a pint of beer, 2024. Picture: Carl Court / Getty Images

Such a faux, filthy rich, always smirking creep...

And so to wild hopes that the bin man might just have the chops to do it...

Farage, the architect of Brexit, is widely disliked and he didn’t win a majority of votes in the seat when elected two years ago. Labourites, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats would be delighted if Farage is defeated. Andy Burnham, likely the next Labour prime minister, said: “Count Binface, you are carrying the hopes of the nation.” Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch ridiculed Farage’s claim that it is the people versus the establishment. “Well, if he’s the establishment here, then in this context Binface may be the people,” she said.
Comedian, writer and broadcaster Jon Harvey is the creator of Count Binface, who claims to be an intergalactic space warrior from planet Sigma IX who came to Earth in 2017. He wears a silver space suit with cape and garbage bin head. It sounds preposterous and utterly ridiculous, which it is, but it is also very funny and Binface is getting more people interested in politics.
This will be the seventh electoral contest for the space warrior. He stood in the December 2019 and July 2024 general elections, two by-elections and the May 2021 and May 2024 London mayoral elections. He won more than 24,000 votes in each mayoral contest. He stood beside victors Boris Johnson and Burnham on election night as the results were announced and shook their hands.
Binface is touching a chord with voters who believe politicians, including Farage, have not delivered what they promised. He exists as a kind of protest vote. A pox on their houses candidate. Voting for Binface is not a wasted vote but a democratic right to turn up and cast a ballot in protest against the system.
Binface is one in a long history of satirical candidates contesting British elections. He does indeed have policies, albeit in the British comedic style of Monty Python, Blackadder and The Young Ones.

The reptiles interrupted with a snap of Andy, whom the pond's partner finds attractive because he's something of a thugby league man, Andy Burnham addresses supporters outside the Labour party campaign office in Makerfield. Picture: Oli Scarff / AFP

On with the bin man's sensible policies and promises ...

He wants to nationalise singer Adele, rename London Bridge after actor-writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge, ban loud snacks from theatres and promises to build at least one affordable house.

Say what, at last the pond could go back to the movies, currently filled with younglings scoffing greasy salted popcorn as loudly as their choppers can manage?

But wait, there's much more ...

He wants to introduce a maximum voting age of 80, nationalise model railways, abolish video assistant referees in football, make cyclists who ignore road rules ride only unicycles, require people who use their speakerphones on public transport to watch the movie Cats every day for a year or be conscripted, and force water service managers to swim in rivers they pollute.
There is more: Provide free parking for electric vehicles between Vine Street and the Strand as it is in Monopoly; cap the price of a Flake ice-cream at 99p, a croissant at £1 and a Wigan kebab at £2; abolish auto renewal of online subscriptions; and move the hand dryer in the men’s toilet at the Crown & Treaty pub in Uxbridge to a more convenient location.
Farage’s Reform UK has been leading national polls. But with the electorate split, his party manages to attract only about 25 per cent nationwide support. Most Britons dislike Farage (62 per cent) and blame him for the post-Brexit mess. A recent YouGov poll found 73 per cent of Britons thought Farage was “sleazy” while 64 per cent said he was “untrustworthy” and 60 per cent said he had not been honest about his finances.

Say what, where's the bromancer when he's needed? What's this talk of a post-Brexit mess? That's not how the bromancer, and so the pond, remember it ...

It was a bloody triumph of reason ...

Brexit: Britons’ triumph of democratic reasoning
What a magnificent triumph of determined, peaceful, reasoned democracy the British people have pulled off.

That's more like it.

Of course the Brits could prosper outside the EU, and haven't they been doing a splendid job of prospering? Who has prospered more than Nige himself?

The pond reckons the bromancer's the lizard Oz's equivalent of the bin man, as the reptiles slipped in another snap of a has been, Keir Starmer. Picture: Carlos Jasso / Getty Images

And so to a final gobbet starring loser Nige, too clever for his obvious stupidity ...

Asked on radio last week what he offered the voters of Clacton, Binface said: “Well, I’m not Nigel Farage.”
Indeed. A decade ago, a majority of the voters in Clacton supported Brexit. But leaving the EU has had a significant adverse economic impact and many of the promised benefits, such as £350m a week more for the National Health Service, have not materialised. After David Cameron, five prime ministers have come and gone since Brexit – Theresa May (2016-19), Johnson (2019-22), Liz Truss (2022), Rishi Sunak (2022-24) and Keir Starmer (2024-26) – and next week it is likely Burnham will be the sixth to walk through the black door of 10 Downing Street.
The irony for Farage is that he too could be a casualty of this period of instability in British politics. An Ipsos poll found that more Britons preferred Binface to win Clacton than Farage. That is perhaps an unlikely outcome, but it shows how quickly politics can change. The intergalactic space warrior is now the anti-establishment candidate, not Farage.

On the upside, going with ancient Troy meant the pond could avoid yet another reptile rant about the budget ...

EXCLUSIVE
First-home buyers fall foul of Labor ‘fix’ as investors move in
Investors invade first-home buyer estates to avoid Labor tax penalty
Landlords are muscling into the one market where young Australians held the upper hand to avoid a $700 weekly penalty triggered by the budget tax changes.
By Anthony Keane and Noah Yim

The pond wanted to keep its powder dry.

Surely Dame Groan would want to have a word, and it wouldn't be the fault of those muscly landlords, it'd be the doings of those damned, deeply wicked furrriners ...

And the pond could duck and weave around a shocking, shameful attempt to do down Tamworth's pride and joy ... (such is its eternal, ineradicable shame) ...

EXCLUSIVE
Joyce defection was ‘disgusting and his foibles will become clear’
In an extensive interview on how to manage One Nation, National Party federal president Andrew Fraser launches a blistering attack against Barnaby Joyce and his ‘disgusting’ defection.
By Rosie Lewis

The problem was that in his attack, this variant Fraser thought the man who had very little to be proud of had been given a raw deal ...

Funny that, Barners has been like that all along, as any Tamworth magpie would know, but it was only when he switched thugby league teams that the stench suddenly appeared ...

Never mind, the pond kept ducking ...

Australia’s anti-corruption commissions have gone too far
Who needs an anti-corruption commission to investigate scandals when they can create their own?
By Scott Prasser

It too was just a three minute read, but the pond switched off when it saw that Scott was a Connor Court man ...

...Who needs an anti-corruption commission to investigate scandals when they can create their own?
While these problems have since been addressed, it highlights that it is not easy operationalising these bodies in Westminster systems.
The South Australian ICAC had its powers so reduced in 2021 that its commissioner resigned in protest in 2024, leaving it to be our weakest anti-corruption body and of questionable value.
Some argue anti-corruption commissions serve a useful role and should be strengthened; others believe it has all gone too far and their collective cost and undermining of civil liberties are too great. Instead of strengthening trust in government, their reports and errant behaviour have undermined it. They are a “solution” that too often has become the problem. Nor can these bodies prevent poor politically driven policy decisions, as some naively expected, which are necessarily affected in a democracy by compromise, negotiation and governments necessarily seeking votes.
Australia is the only Westminster democracy with anti-corruption commissions. Perhaps after observing how they have operated in this country, Britain, Canada and New Zealand have wisely eschewed their adoption.
Scott Prasser co-edited Australia’s Anti-Corruption Commissions: Strengthening Trust? (Connor Court, 2026).

Roll on Nige and his five million and various other crony gifts, Scott's got your back...

You know how to show off the Westminster system right proper, don't you Nige?

All that glitters can be gold, and you're at one with your rorting, looting, epically grifting mate across the waters.

Let no one and no body, nor any one interested in dealing with corruption, get in the way of magpies with an eye on the glittering main prize ...

By golly, banana republics beckon for Scottie and his mates.

But wait, there's another important benefit in giving Scottie and his mates short shrift.

By clearing the decks, the pond created space for its most important Tuesday mission ... Dame Groan!

It's true that the old biddy was just blathering on about that aforementioned EXCLUSIVE, but the pond always needs the ancient duck to explain how we'll all be rooned long before Xmas arrives ...

The header: Labor’s housing ‘fix’ a case of bad policy made even worse; When the minister talks about fixing housing, what she should be saying is we’re going to stop meddling in the market.

The caption for that craftily uncredited collage, which really did make it seem that Clare and Jimbo were ruining a classic development by getting in the way: Housing Minister Clare O'Neil and Treasurer Jim Chalmers.

The aged Dame was clearly feeling her oats, because this day she embarked on an epic five minute groan ...

In the last week of parliament before the long winter break, Anthony Albanese took to quoting random regional real estate agents to tell us how well the housing market was going for first-home owners. Let’s face it, it was like quoting Al Capone on compliance with the law.
Discomfited by the information emerging about the slowing housing market – particularly falling house prices – the Albanese government is now keen to distance itself from responsibility for any adverse outcomes. You know the sort of thing: nothing to do with us, other factors beyond our control such as the Reserve Bank hiking interest rates.
This is an important topic because dwellings are the single largest source of household wealth by a country mile. Estimated at about $13 trillion, the wealth tied up in housing is greater than the combined wealth tied up in superannuation, shares and commercial property.
According to Housing Minister Clare O’Neil: “We’ve got a broken housing market. That’s why we are making real change for Australians.” It clearly doesn’t occur to her that government action – not just federal but also state and local – is the main culprit of our broken housing market.
It’s worth running through some of the government actions that have brought the housing market to its knees with a massive loss of affordability coupled with lower housing.
Housing prices as a ratio of household disposable income are currently one-third higher than they were pre-Covid.

Quick, a snap of the fiend who set the Groaner off, Anthony Albanese tours a future social and affordable housing development site in Belconnen, Canberra. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman.

Affordable housing? Not on Dame Groan's watch ...

The big picture is that every demand-side intervention is essentially counter-productive in helping people into home ownership. In the context of inflexible supply, all these policies do is drive up demand and therefore prices at certain price points. Think of the 5 per cent deposit scheme, the shared equity program, various state first-home buyer grants, concessions on stamp duties, and the list goes on.
While the recipients of these supports may regard themselves as lucky, they come at a cost to others in the housing market as well as to taxpayers. The net effect is almost certainly negative, but governments are always keen to be seen to be doing something – in this case, assisting first-home owners get into the market
Take the 5 per cent deposit scheme as an example. First-time home buyers can purchase a property with a 5 per cent deposit – some buyers have access to a lower figure – with the government picking up the tab for the lenders mortgage insurance. Buyers can bump up their borrowing, with the banks happy to play along knowing the government will meet any shortfall in the event of default.
The scheme was first introduced by the Morrison government but was targeted at those with the lowest incomes and at relatively low property prices. The Albanese government enlarged the scope of the scheme by removing the income limits, as well as increasing the locational maximum price points. It’s possible to buy a dwelling valued at up to $1.5m in parts of Sydney, for example. Those with permanent residence as well as Australian citizens are now eligible.
The scheme has proven very popular, even among those who could manage to assemble the normal 20 per cent deposit. More than 300,000 participants have taken out a loan under the scheme since 2020. It’s estimated 50,000 permanent residents are among the participants.
Unsurprisingly, the most recent cohort of participants has the highest incomes, even though it is the least in need.

Ah, the suffering of the rich, which thanks to her time at Santos, the Groaner knows all about, as the reptiles slipped in an AV distraction featuring another poor suffering reptile, the indigent dog botherer himself (still no Faux Noise rebrand?): Sky News host Chris Kenny says reports today highlight that rents in Sydney have skyrocketed over the past three months. Mr Kenny said median rents jumped by more than six per cent over that period. “There are many factors at play here, of course, but it’s hardly a surprise that you get this after increasing taxes on housing investment.”

Nothing like black rooftops to make the best of a Sydney summer.

Dame Groan stayed on the case.

So, what should be made of this scheme?
The first point to note is absent any growth in the supply of dwellings priced around the allowable price points, one clear effect is to increase the price of dwellings. The data confirms this effect.
The second point is the exposure this type of scheme creates for both the mortgage holders and the taxpayer. The reality is that a 95 per cent loan can be difficult to service and depends on circumstances not changing in a negative way. The loss of a job, for instance, could easily send a new homeowner to the wall given the lack of any cushion.
On the face of it, these loans have many similarities with the subprime mortgages that were being written at an alarming speed in the US leading up to the global financial crisis. It doesn’t bear thinking what taxpayers could be up for in the event of widespread default by participants in the 5 per cent scheme.
It’s not only the federal government that insists on meddling with the housing market. State governments have their own schemes, but the hypocrisy of their involvement is breathtaking.
As financial commentator Noel Whittaker has noted: “In 1976, taxes, fees and regulatory charges made up less than 10 per cent of the cost of a new house-and-land package. Today, depending on where you live, governments are taking somewhere between one-third and one-half of the total cost.”
It’s a case of give with one hand – first-home owner grants, concessions on stamp duty – while taking with the other in the form of exorbitant cost imposts on new builds. If O’Neil were serious about fixing the housing market, this would be a good place to start.
The fact is the combination of imposts and rapidly escalating construction costs spurred by the Labor government’s pro-union policies has increasingly priced more people out of the market for new dwellings.

Of course it's the unions, it almost goes without saying, but you can rely on the Groaner to say it.

You can also rely on Sydney developers to put together magnificent buildings which will last at least twenty years, with these environmentally sensitive projects featuring only barebones charges and incredibly modest fees, and what would Clare know about that? Clare O’Neil during Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Shed a tear for Sydney developers along with Dame Groan ... she's got a slightly used harbour bridge to sell you ..

It is now at the point that high-rise apartments in many suburbs are unaffordable for the average new homeowner. In turn, more developers are finding the economics of new apartment blocks simply don’t add up.

Oh and spare a thought for how furriners are ruining everything, as they always do in Dame Groan's world ...

Did I mention the role that immigration has played in messing up the housing market?

What? No never, you never ever mention how those bloody furriners are making a mess of the entire country.

Please, mention it for the umpteenth, or is that the squillionth time, explaining how we'll all be rooned ...

For most of its time in office, the Albanese government has denied this link. Nothing to see, evidently – just a post-Covid surge followed by much lower net migration figures around 225,000 eventually. (The latest figure was just over 300,000.)
At last, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has conceded “we need to keep doing what we can to increase housing supply, and we need to make sure migration is tailored to what we can do there”. It has taken four years to get to this point.
Why the Treasurer would suddenly decide to up-end the taxation arrangements that applied to housing – negative gearing, capital gains tax, banning self-managed superannuation funds from buying leveraged property – when it was plain as day that supply was overwhelmingly the main game is anyone’s guess.
When O’Neil talks about fixing the housing market, what she should be saying is we are going to cease meddling in the market and see where that leads.
This is the preferred route to allow the market to operate in the context of much lower imposts on construction and much lower migrant intakes.
The budget measures are high risk and there is a real possibility the housing market will crash, at least in certain parts of the country. This would be a bad outcome in both political and policy terms.

Why on earth did the old groaner feel the need to equivocate. What's this blather about a "real possibility", and the down sizing to "certain parts of the country", and that speculative framing of a conditional future, "this would be"?

Dammit, we'll all be rooned by Xmas! No wouda or couda about it.

And there you have it, the pond has done its time with Dame Groan and can take a rest, courtesy Wilcox and the immortal Rowe, both remembering Miss Lindsey in their own way ...

It's a conspiracy, dammit, a fine and noble suck struck down in his prime ...

In which the pond forgoes Major Mitchell, but offers Lord Downer in war monger mode, with Cameron not far behind, a smattering of "Ned", and the thoughts of the flood water-whispering Caterist ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 22:26:52 +0000

What a relief.

After endless tedious excursions into Major Mitchell's Zionist posts for the Australian Daily Zionist News, at last the pond found a reason not to exhibit him to devoted herpetologists.

Trans issues test media’s blind spot
Mainstream left-leaning media has failed to accurately report transgender issues in women’s sport and gender medicine, damaging public trust.
By Chris Mitchell
Columnist

Sorry, but the pond refuses to indulge the reptiles in transphobic mode. It gets the pond's TG friends agitated, and in any case the pond isn't much interested in the reptiles using TG people as a convenient distraction, down there with the Salem witch trials.

If you want an alternative read, you can always try Parker Molloy, whether on specific related trans topics, Reasonable Concerns, The wedge on trans people moved exactly where we said it would. The people who gave it cover are still quiet.

Or more generally, Go Ahead, Try and Tune Him Out, Nine years ago, The Onion wrote a fake Trump editorial about infecting every corner of your daily life. He’s since gotten a lot better at it.

But don't despair, the pond still has some reptile readings of relevant note, what with the war that mad King Donald won on the first day, and subsequently used to obliterate the Iranian over and over again - so much bigly obliteration - back for yet more obliteration, and mad King Donald, and better still, Lord Downer on a full war footing...

The header: Memo Trump: Drop the jaw-jaw and turn up heat on IRCG; Trump’s trouble is he talks too much. His messages are sometimes contradictory and they are replete with exaggeration.
The caption: US President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth step off Air Force One upon arrival at Dover Air Force Base. Picture: AFP

It was stunning stuff, with Lord Downer determined to put minor acolytes like Pete Kegsbreath and mad King Donald in his place.

His Lordship started by immediately ruling out King Donald...

Great leaders are readers. In particular, they have a deep understanding of history and bury themselves in the historical biographies of leaders who have gone before them. President Donald Trump should take a bit of time off golf and plough through the biographies of people such as Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Churchill, Thatcher and even Julius Caesar.

Even Julius Caesar? Big Julie is just an "even"?

Never mind, the real comedy was in inviting mad King Donald to do a little reading ...

The President Who Doesn’t Read
Trump’s allergy to the written word and his reliance on oral communication have proven liabilities in office.
By David A. Graham (*intermittent archive link)

Inter alia ...

Confronted by the reality that mad King Donald can never - definitionally - be a great reader or therefore a great leader, not even any of that additional recommended Atlantic reading, the ineffably stupid Lord Downer ploughed on ....

He will find that in wartime those leaders had some common characteristics. First, they had no fear. They knew that war was a bloody business and would cost lives. They were prepared for those sacrifices because they were unequivocal in their judgment that to wage war, brutal as it may be, was better than the alternatives. And their courage was exemplified by their calmness and sangfroid during reverses.
Second, they defined their wartime objectives not just with crystal clarity but with inspirational appeals to a public they well understood. To use a phrase, they knew how to ring the chimes in the hearts of the people. Indeed, by defining so crisply their objectives, they inspired the loyalty and support of most of the public. They all knew the loyalty and support of their populations was axiomatic in wartime.

How did the pond know that Lord Downer was in full mad war monger mode? By way of his splendid references, luckily requiring cheap snaps from the archives...Abraham Lincoln. Winston Churchill.

Why there might even be the need to do a barbershop Harry and nuke them back to the stone age, and what an inspiration for Vlad the Sociopath that would be ...

Third, successful wartime leaders have shown a streak of ruthlessness in pursuit of victory. Churchill and Roosevelt agreed to the bombing of Germany, which today is criticised by some as excessive and unnecessary. Truman agreed to the use of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If you go back earlier, then people such as Napoleon, Horatio Nelson and Margaret Thatcher could be brutal in their ruthlessness.

If you go back earlier? Maggie was in action around the same time as Napoleon and Horatio? Do go on...

As Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps again closed the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, Trump is clearly struggling in the war against the Iranian theocracy to achieve his objectives because he fails to meet some of these criteria. He certainly doesn’t lack courage. It was a courageous decision to set aside decades of equivocation and humiliation of Israel and the West to launch a war against Iran.
Equivocation and so-called diplomacy – which is a polite way of saying endless and meaningless talks with an ideologically driven extremist regime – have achieved nothing, as the recent closure of the Strait proves.
Iranian surrogates have continually attacked Israel. They’ve destroyed the stability of that once beautiful country, Lebanon. They’ve fomented civil war in Syria and near civil war in Iraq. They’ve murdered thousands of Americans. And here was an evil regime trying to develop nuclear weapons.
Imagine what such an ideologically driven extremist regime would do if it could strike its neighbours and near neighbours with such devastating force. For the Israelis, it risks another Holocaust.
This was always going to lead to war. War by the West against Iran’s regime was inevitable. American president after American president has not been prepared to do much about this. To his credit, Trump has had the courage to take on the Iranian regime. But he has so far not met the test of successful war leadership.

The reptiles flung in a snap to remind everyone that there was simply too much peace, and too much swimming ...Children wade in the water with cargo ships at anchor in the background at the Strait of Hormuz. Picture: ISNA

Lord Downer continued his brave chiding of mad King Donald ...

First and foremost, he has been unclear in articulating his war aims. He shouldn’t be. He should make it clear that he will destroy Iran’s capacity to arm and support proxy groups throughout the Middle East, destroy its capacity to project power, particularly in the Middle East, and to terminate forever its nuclear weapons program.
Iran is accountable for the grotesque attacks on Israelis by Hamas, triggering the Gaza war, which is just the latest of many. It is responsible for Hezbollah rocket attacks into northern Israel, leading to the evacuation of much of the population in that part of the country. So, Trump should make it clear that this should be brought to an end.
He has been clear in wanting to end any semblance of a nuclear weapons program by Iran. He should also make it clear that the mighty US military will force open the Strait of Hormuz and maintain a blockade of Iranian ports until the regime complies with US demands.
The President has boasted that the US military has destroyed Iran’s air defences, most of its navy, its air force, and its missile and drone production facilities. He needs to make sure the job is properly done.
The trouble with Trump’s style is that he talks too much. His messages are sometimes contradictory and they are replete with exaggeration. After a while, these messages lose their potency. What is more, they are not inspirational. Trump has failed to articulate clearly enough his war aims, and he has not done so in a way that inspires the American people.
Americans, on the whole, are confused as to why the war is taking place at all. They shouldn’t be. It’s the responsibility of Trump to explain it simply and clearly to them, and in an inspirational and patriotic way.

So much dreaming, and while His Lordship dreamed on, the reptiles slipped in a snap of a villain, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi has claimed Tehran would have sole authority over the Strait of Hormuz. Picture: AFP

Then there was a last bout of inspirational and patriotic dreaming ...

Then there’s the quality of, if you can call it that, ruthlessness. Trump is nervous about the increase in oil prices caused by the Iranians’ capacity to close the Strait of Hormuz as they did again at the weekend. Yet, if he were more ruthless, he would put up with that disadvantage in the short term and the controversy it would cause, ensuring the problem was solved by quick and decisive military victory.
Such victory requires the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, not through some unsustainable memorandum of understanding with an extremist regime such as Iran’s, but by the use of military might. Yet again, Trump is clearly reluctant to use ground forces to force that outcome, failing to employ every means necessary to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. He has appeared hesitant and has lacked that streak of ruthlessness that characterised great war leaders.
As the US launches new strikes on Iran, it is worth re-emphasising that this is a just and necessary war, but it must be prosecuted with clarity of objectives and ruthless implementation in order to achieve those objectives. Trotting off to Islamabad or Doha for negotiations with a regime such as this will never lead anywhere good; it will only leave the American public, and most of the West, with the view that this was a totally unnecessary, unsuccessful war.
If Trump had read more and posted on Truth Social less he’d prosecute the war with Iran with courage, inspire his public and be ruthless in dealing with the ghastly Iranian regime. Still, having said that, it’s in the interests of a safer world that America wins.

Sure, in much the same way as America had stunning victories in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, and hasn't that last one improved the lives of Afghani women, and no doubt this current effort will benefit Iranian citizens wanting to see the end of an oppressive regime in much the same way.

Put it another way ...

Trust Lord Downer as an expert war monger? Sure can ...

The pond doesn't mean to play down the offerings of other reptiles.

Cameron was also on a war footing ...

Commentary by Cameron Stewart
Trump accepts reality: Iranian radicals aren’t interested in peace (that's an intermittent archive link)
The US President has very few cards he can play. He can’t be seen to accept Iran’s outrageous and blatant disregard of the Memorandum of Understanding. He has to act.

The pond means no disrespect to Cameron, but sending him to the intermittent archives seemed more than enough ...especially as the AI bots that scrape the site for content wouldn't mind...

Go on bots, have a scrape of this too ...

Cameron ended up sounding - in a tentative, most unlike Lord Downer sort of way - like a reluctant boots on the grounds man, what with the recent intermittent bombing campaign clearly not working ...

This might prevent Iranian attacks on Gulf States and on US troops in the region. But ultimately it is difficult to see how such a ‘holding pattern’ approach will persuade the Iranian regime to surrender its control of the strait, much less persuade it to enter serious talks about its nuclear program.
Increasingly it looks like the US will need to consider a return to all-out conflict if it is to have any chance of persuading Iran to re-open the strait without tolls or other impediments.
There is absolutely no guarantee that the US would succeed in this mission without resorting to ground troops, a move that would risk American casualties in an already unpopular war.
But Trump has very few cards that he can play right now. He can’t be seen to accept Iran’s outrageous and blatant disregard of the Memorandum of Understanding. He has to act.
As the situation escalates, he has only two feasible options left – limited war, or a return to all-out war.

Here's the thing, especially that blather about the MOU ...

If you read the relevant clause carefully, it gave the mad Mullahs just what they wanted ...

5. Upon the signing of this MoU, the Islamic Republic of Iran will make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels, with no charge for 60 days only, from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman, and vice versa. The traffic of commercial vessels will immediately start, and considering the need for removing the technical and military obstacles, and de-mining by the Islamic Republic of Iran, will be instated within 30 days. The Islamic Republic of Iran will conduct dialogue with the Sultanate of Oman, to define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz, in discussions with other Persian Gulf Littoral States, in line with applicable international law and the sovereign rights of coastal states of the Strait of Hormuz. (the full text at NPR).

In short ...

Such stupid people, continually doing stupid things.

It was a relief to turn to note that the plugging of nattering "Ned's" opus had slipped well down the page ...

EXCLUSIVE by Paul Kelly
‘Political prostitution’: Morrison and Joyce’s net zero battle (another intermittent archive link)
Scott Morrison came within two votes of losing his government over net zero – now Barnaby Joyce has laid bare the extraordinary price paid to keep the Coalition together.

Those wanting to cut and paste "Ned" could head off to the intermittent archive ... because the pond decided to knock over "Ned" and the obligatory snap of the cover of the tome in a few screen caps ...

Bold, brave SloMo confronting the hysteria head on, and that book again?

Carry on plugging with astonishing insights ...

He's finally launched the tome? There might be an end in sight?

It's out tomorrow, and that'll be an end of it?

Dream on herpetology students, there'll never be an end to the "Ned" nightmare of natterings ...

Meanwhile, other nightmare dreamings carry on, thanks to the immortal Rowe...

The pond is glad however that "Ned" was blathering on about net zero, because it was a great segue to the flood waters in quarries whisperer ...

The header: The great green leap backwards is all about carbon credits, not prosperity; The Rushy Lagoon sale shows government has lost sight of the line between the proper role of the state and the role of private investment.

The caption for the snap of moo cows: Tasmanian farmland is ideal for dairy and beef. Picture Chris Kidd

The Caterist was furious ...

Australian taxpayers may or may not be pleased to know they are now part-owners of Tasmania’s largest beef and dairy farm, which is about to become something quite different.
The Collins Dictionary defines a farm as “an area of land on which crops are grown, and animals are kept”. Under its new owners, Rushy Lagoon will become a giant pine plantation and a harvester of carbon credits, with the prospect of a little grazing and wind farming on the side. To understand why Australia’s productivity has stalled, you could do worse than study what happened last week on 22,000 windswept hectares of prime agricultural land 140km northeast of Launceston.
On Wednesday, Jim Chalmers granted foreign investment approval for the sale. It is doubtful whether the $73m investment from the UK’s largest commercial forestry manager, Gresham House, would’ve succeeded on its own.
With a $69m co-investment from the commonwealth’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation, however, private agricultural bidders scarcely stood a chance.
One of Australia’s largest integrated agricultural enterprises – which at its peak was capable of producing around 25 million litres of milk a year and about 2500 tonnes of beef – is now being transformed into a forestry and carbon project underwritten by taxpayers.

Please a snap of Jimbo so that we can spot him in the street ... Jim Chalmers granted foreign investment approval for the sale. Picture: Martin Ollman

The Caterist was in full "won't someone think of the cows?" mode, but still had time for an example of his August wit...

The real question, however, is not whether pine trees and clean-energy certificates are more virtuous than dairy cows. It’s why the government of a country suffering a chronic productivity problem has chosen to use scarce public capital to repurpose one of the country’s most productive agricultural assets into an instrument of government climate policy.
That distinction goes to the heart of Australia’s economic malaise. The country’s problem is not simply too little investment, but that investment is going into all the wrong things.
The CEFC’s portrayal of Rushy Lagoon as a farming enterprise past its prime is disingenuous, to put it politely. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics’ 2026 annual snapshot of the agricultural sector shows farming has bucked the trend of collapsing productivity that is crippling much of the economy.
Productivity growth has been particularly strong in the dairy sector, where deregulation under the Howard government in 2000 drove a move towards larger farms and investment in modern equipment.
ABARE reports that the increase in productivity in Australian dairy has averaged more than 1 per cent for the past 20 years. In northern Tasmania it’s been more than 1.2 per cent. So there is little room to argue that dairying could not have been a going concern at Rushy Lagoon had the new owners been so-minded, capable of supplying the steady demand for milk products in Australia and winning a large share of the international trade currently dominated by New Zealand, Europe and the US.
A fraction of the $69m government investment spent on robotic dairies, smart irrigation systems, processing facilities and AI herd management would’ve produced more food from the same land, in a textbook example of lifting productivity by doing more with less.
Yet the Treasurer’s approach to Australia’s productivity crisis is akin to the Augustinian prayer: “Lord, make me chaste, but not yet.”

Or perhaps Lord, let me decipher the movement of flood waters in quarries, but not just yet.

Others were in the same Caterist pickle ... Liberal Senator for Tasmania Richard Colbeck has raised concerns about the sale of Rushy Lagoon.

It was time for a litany lite, what with all this nonsense about climate change going worse by the day, and heck, everyone knows that the wildfires in Spain don't stay mainly on the plain ...

Chalmers talks the productivity talk with little conviction.
Billions of dollars are being absorbed by transmission lines, Snowy Hydro 2.0, green hydrogen, renewable energy zones and a growing array of government guarantees. Whatever their environmental justification – if indeed there is any – these are capital-intensive projects whose economic returns are likely to be realised only over the very long term, while displacing investment that could lift productivity today.
At its heart, Australia’s productivity crisis reflects a shortage of investment and the chronic misallocation of capital driven by government green policy.
The CEFC’s business case is less compelling than the headlines suggest. It promises 190 green jobs over the 30-year life of the project. That’s an average of little more than six full-time jobs a year.
It claims to be converting “degraded farmland” to a new production model. Yet the solution for overworked pasture is to upgrade the soil using proven techniques such as rotational grazing to maximise ground cover and build organic soil carbon.
Many Australian farmers have transformed previously underperforming pasture through regenerative agriculture, improving drought resilience, reducing run-off, building soil carbon and lowering input costs. Hundreds of thousands of hectares of pasture have been improved through relatively modest investments in fencing and stock water.
Yet the government’s focus is not better agriculture but a different use of the land altogether, replacing an integrated farming enterprise with a plantation forestry and carbon project.
Slowly but surely, Australia’s natural strength of food security is being chiselled away by the great green leap backwards.

The pond has no idea why the reptiles should have seized on this snap of the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way as his preferred profile, but they seem to run it relentlessly ...Angus Taylor should be talking more about the shortage of investment and the chronic misallocation of capital driven by government green policy. Picture: John Gass

At least they didn't have the immortal Rowe, who also captured that feeling of fear ...

And so to a final doom-laden gobbet of terrified dreaming, but not, it goes without saying, from the devastating impact of global warming on land and in the sea ...what with the science of climate change banished from the reptile realm

Historians may come to identify the early 21st century as the years of peak farming in Australia. For two centuries, Australian farming had occupied a world of expanding horizons. Today it is in retreat.
ABS figures show that the area of agricultural land has fallen by around 70 million hectares since 2003. Not all of that reflects the loss of productive farmland, but it does mark a reversal of the long historical trend of expanding agricultural land.
The issue highlighted by Rushy Lagoon is the diversion of scarce taxpayer-backed capital and high-quality agricultural land away from expanding food production and towards other policy objectives. It is fed by the conceit that government is the solution to every problem under an administration intent on centralising and consolidating power in Canberra.
Labor is caught in what Angus Taylor last week called the economic death loop, covering the inefficiencies in government services with billions of dollars of government funds and billions more squandered in green energy policy.
The government has lost sight of the boundary between the proper role of the state and the proper role of private investment, blundering further down the ill-conceived path of green nationalisation by stealth.

He's at one with the beefy boofhead, who once worked at a private consultancy notorious for looting government?

Nationalisation by stealth? Golly gosh, have they been taking lessons from mad King Donald?

Trump knows his Freedom Fuel is kind of socialism, right?
Freedom Fuel? Trump Accounts? TrumpRX? Everything Trump is doing sounds like it would fit into a Democratic Socialist of America pamphlet on how to make socialism work in the United States.

And after all that, who missed Major Mitchell's transphobic bigotry?

Once again mad King Donald had set the pace, and no doubt the world is in a better place ...

Speaking of the Ruskis, they were at it again, saying farewell to Miss Lindsey, making it hard to work out who's worst ...

In which the pond makes it through Polonius's prattle, but can only stomach so much of the Australian Daily Zionist News, and so settles for the lizard Oz editorialist ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 22:00:00 +0000

Dear sweet long absent lord, does the pond have to?

Polonius yet again for the Sunday meditation? And even worse, blathering about the teals?

Isn't there something more interesting to hand?

Well yes ...the pond is of an age, and yet has to confess that it hadn't heard this form of heresy until it read Erin Maglaque in the NYRB ... (the pond has had to * certain words for fear the google bot might swoop):

Their Own Private Genesis
What if Augustine’s idea of original sin was wrong? Testimony from the Inquisition reveals freethinkers using their sexual experience to dispute the reign of shame and otherwise critique Church doctrine. (*intermittent archive link)

They were debating the nature of original sin in an apotheca in Naples. “We discussed a lot of things,” Giovanni Casaburo told the inquisitors in 1598 when they asked him what exactly was said in the apothecary’s shop. “Among them that if Adam hadn’t sinned, eating the forbidden fruit, we wouldn’t have sinned as well.” So far, so orthodox. But then the apothecary Marcello Impicciato joined in. “What apple?” he asked. “Adam and Eve f*cked in the ass, and that’s why they were rejected from Paradise.”
What apple? In 1588 Violante Scaglione testified: “Adam’s apple was Eve’s butt, not the pit of the fruit that got stuck in his throat when he was called by God.” They debated it in a tobacconist’s shop in Tuscany in 1702. Did Adam eat an apple, or was it a fig, or a pear? Giuseppe Cinatti said it was no fruit at all—Adam’s sin was “sticking it [his p*nis] into her *ss” instead of “putting it into her c*nt,” as God had commanded. One French philosopher phrased it more delicately: “The apple which tempted our first father was the symbol of the rear parts of woman, which very well represents an apple split in half.” An anonymous seventeenth-century student’s notebook records his lecturer’s conclusions: “There were two trees in paradise. Eve ate from one, i.e., was f*cked by it, i.e., by Adam’s d*ck, which was the forbidden fruit.” Italian peasants, apothecaries, friars; French libertines, Dutch philosophers—all believed that Adam sodomized Eve in the Garden of Eden.
This was the true act of original sin—anal sex not as a generic taboo but as an act so intensely pleasurable as to be literally divine. God jealously guarded sodomy, and Adam presumed that highest pleasure for his own. The friar Giovan Battista d’Antrodoco was put on trial in 1662 and declared anal sex so exquisite that God “wanted to keep [it] for himself.” When the inquisitors collected witness testimonies about the unorthodox beliefs of Marcello Impicciato, one remembered the apothecary recounting his own theology of original sin: “Christ was a b*gger, and he wanted to b*gger, and this was the reason why he put Adam in the terrestrial paradise, and that the fruit was the *ss, and Christ wanted to b*gger Adam.” According to some heretics, God created Adam in order to sodomize him.
It was Augustine, in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, who had first introduced sexuality into the story of original sin. As an adolescent, he had felt intense shame at his own arousal. “In the sixteenth year of the age of my flesh,” he recalled in his Confessions, “the madness of raging lust exercised its supreme dominion over me.” He was a slave to desire. “A very hard bondage had me enthralled.” Until Augustine, most early Christians held that Adam’s sin was disobeying God’s command not to eat the apple. There was nothing particularly sexual about it; the Genesis story, in the biblical scholar Elaine Pagels’s words, was for early Christians a parable “of moral freedom and moral responsibility.” But Augustine’s shame changed all of that. Adam and Eve had been disobedient, but in Augustine’s view, the punishment for disobedience was further disobedience—of the body: arousal, an erection, lust. The body defied the soul. The rest of us inherited this damaged nature from Adam (quite literally, Augustine thought: it was transmitted in sperm, which is why Christ, immaculately conceived, wasn’t stained by desire). This was concupiscentia, carnal desire, and it was the fate of all humans after the Fall to be enchained by it...

And so on, and dearie me, bless the pond five ways to sundown, is that why the pond has been enchained to the reptiles in the lizard Oz? A form of deeply weird and perverse concupiscentia?

Alternately, for distilled essence of entertainment, you could indulge in Marina marinating Nige ...

One thought on the Clacton contenders: the ‘establishment’ looks a bit different these days, doesn’t it? (The Graudian was doing its "email or register or else, with menaces" routine again, so that's an intermittent archive link)

...Wow. Girls, I hope it’s not getting you too hot when I tell you that the future of British politics is a load of public-school guys pointing at each other and going: “No, YOU’RE the establishment!” Personally, I’m breathless. After all, I spent a significant part of my teenage years in field observations of this tendency. I want you to think of me as the Jane Goodall of guys with Betty Blue posters and some ethnic drape that their housemaster’s going to get them to take down because it’s a fire risk. If anyone can solve the deep structural problems the UK faces, it’s definitely someone who thinks a picture of the pope smoking a spliff is funny and that the Led Zep Houses of the Holy album cover is cool. (Having said that, I do believe that there should be a special tribunal at The Hague solely dedicated to bringing to justice anyone who owned a Sting Englishman in New York poster. Those individuals simply cannot be allowed to have melted back into civilian life.)
But back to Farage. Hilarious that he seems to regard going to war with Rupert Murdoch as a strategic masterstroke, devoting whole sections of his mad diva address to attacking the Times and the Sunday Times and their editors and journalists. Definitely mug Rupert off a bit more, Nigel – no doubt it’s a genius move.

Okay, enough already, enough Tootling around, the pond knows its duty ...

The header: Teals discover path to power – it’s in the Senate; Despite choosing a forgettable party name, Community Strong Australia, Allegra Spender and Zali Steggall understand democratic politics.
The caption for a collage not credited to human hands, but to a corporation of dubious honour and hideous parentage: Allegra Spender and Zali Steggall are ‘out in front’. Picture montage: News Corp

Polonius started out lamely, and to his credit, he stayed determinedly lame throughout ...

There have been many small political parties in Australia over the years, a few of them of considerable significance. Despite this, the two-party system remains in place for the time being at least. But no party has had a name so hard to remember as the Community Strong Australia party.
Interviewed by Melissa Clarke on ABC Radio National Breakfast on June 29, the teal independent for Kooyong in Melbourne, Monique Ryan, was asked: “What do you think of the name Community Strong Australia?” She replied: “I thought Competent Australian Sheilas, which is what the Betoota Advocate suggested, was a great alternative.” Quite so – at least it can easily be remembered.

Quite indeed (said with prim, pursed lips).

It is a little known fact that "quite" is used some 79 times in The Diary of a Nobody ... available at Project Gutenberg... and brimming with good jokes ...

May 26.—Left the shirts to be repaired at Trillip’s. I said to him: “I’m ’fraid they are frayed.” He said, without a smile: “They’re bound to do that, sir.” Some people seem to be quite destitute of a sense of humour.
June 1.—The last week has been like old times, Carrie being back, and Gowing and Cummings calling every evening nearly. Twice we sat out in the garden quite late. This evening we were like a pack of children, and played “consequences.” It is a good game.
June 2.—“Consequences” again this evening. Not quite so successful as last night; Gowing having several times overstepped the limits of good taste.

Quite so, such a lovely word, as quite a line up of shameless hussies parading to shock the lizard Oz hive mind appeared in quite a row, From left, teals MPs Allegra Spender, Kate Chaney, Monique Ryan, Sophie Scamps, Nicolette Boele and Zali Steggall at the Midwinter Ball at Parliament House.

Polonius was quite beside himself at the notion that the Senate held the key ...

It was a clever point by Ryan, but no more than that. In terms of political awareness, Allegra Spender and Zali Steggall are out in front. For they have finally realised that independents have scant political clout or even influence unless they are in a balance-of-power position in the House of Representatives, where the prime minister sits. This rarely happens.
The likes of Spender and Steggall in Wentworth and Warringah, respectively – along with Kate Chaney (Curtin), Ryan and Sophie Scamps (Mackellar) – continue to receive favourable coverage on the ABC and in Nine Entertainment newspapers (The Australian Financial Review, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age).
But their high profiles have not resulted in policy outcomes, for the obvious reason that Labor, under Anthony Albanese’s leadership, has had comfortable majorities in the House of Representatives since being elected in May 2022.
The latest teal independent to win a seat – Nicolette Boele in Bradfield – has yet to make an impact. Zoe Daniel, who was defeated by the Liberal Party’s Tim Wilson at the May 2025 election, had a high profile but achieved little in terms of policy outcomes during her three years in parliament.
For the truth is that it is only when minor parties and independents have representatives in the Senate that they matter. In recent times this has been true of the Democratic Labor Party and the Australian Democrats – both now extinct. And now the Greens.
Currently the Labor Party has 30 out of 76 senators. It needs votes to get legislation through the upper house. Meaning it requires 39 votes from a combination of the Coalition (27), the Greens (10), One Nation (four) and others (five). Right now, all the non-government senators have influence on legislation to a greater or lesser extent. Not so the teals in the House of Representatives.

Then there came quite the AV interruption and distraction... Flinders University Associate Lecturer Josh Sunman says the formation of Community Strong Australia “comes with risk” for teal independents Zali Steggall and Allegra Spender.“It is really interesting, we have often seen the Teal independents described as having party-like structures, in that they are Independents, but at the same time they are affiliated,” Mr Sunman told Sky News Australia.“Part of their brand is that they're seen as staunchly independent advocates for their community, and by becoming a bit more party-like, I think it could potentially hurt their independent brand.”

Still no rebrand for Sky Noise down under? And worse still no understanding from this Josh that appearing on Sky Noise down under might hurt his academic brand?

Never mind, Polonius was to hand to refute his thinking, and show the Senate way forward ...

By forming the Community Strong Australia party, Spender and Steggall have recognised that the CSA will attain real importance if it achieves Senate representation. In a normal Senate election this will require a vote after preferences of 14.3 per cent
Chaney and Ryan seem determined to remain independent and to refrain from joining CSA. However, Chaney understood her problem shortly after she entered the House of Representatives. Interviewed on ABC Four Corners on August 15, 2022, the member for Curtin had this to say: “I certainly am copping it from people in my electorate who said: ‘And now you’re powerless … you didn’t hold the balance of power so therefore you can’t do anything.’ ”
Chaney added: “You can only nudge things in the right direction and it takes a lot of nudges to actually make any change.” That’s correct. And that’s why the excessive coverage of the teals on the ABC and Nine has been unwarranted.
One example illustrates the point. Chaney was interviewed by Clarke on RN Breakfast on July 2.

Groan. Not the ABC again. Why does Polonius keep watching and listening to them and referencing them? It's as if the cardigan wearers provided a different and informative take on the world.

Doesn't Polonius realise that there hasn't been a conservative voice on the ABC ever since they kicked him off The Insiders?

When asked about whether the eSafety Commissioner is “the right body” to oversee a digital duty of care, Chaney replied: “Look I think it can be.” That was the voice of a politician with limited influence.
It’s a long way to the next election. But it seems likely that Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party will have strong representation in the upper house, irrespective of the outcome of the House of Representatives election. Three of One Nation’s sitting senators are not due for re-election until 2031 and only Hanson goes to the polls in two years.

The reptiles made Polonius pause for a snap of Pauline, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Then it was on to slagging off Malware - the current national sport at the lizard Oz - and that bloody Senate thingie again ...

It is said by many, myself included, that the Liberal Party’s current problems began after Malcolm Turnbull replaced Tony Abbott in a partyroom ballot in September 2015.
Turnbull decided to call a double-dissolution election for July 2, 2016. The campaign was disastrously long – almost eight weeks – and Turnbull campaigned poorly. In the event, the Liberal Party lost 14 seats to Labor and scraped back into government with a one-seat majority. But there was more. The double dissolution meant the quota to win a Senate seat dropped from 14.3 per cent (after preferences) to 7.7 per cent in a double dissolution (after preferences).
Hanson took full advantage of Turnbull’s lack of political skills. In 2013 she had run for a Senate seat in NSW, obtaining a mere 1.2 per cent of the vote. However, One Nation revived itself as the Turnbull-led Liberal Party lost support.
In July 2016, One Nation obtained 9.2 per cent of the primary vote in Queensland, winning Hanson a six-year term and getting another One Nation senator across the line. Hanson’s party also won a Senate seat in NSW and Western Australia. One Nation became a significant minor party after its newly elected senators took their seats in July 2016.
The evidence suggests that Hanson’s revival – after many years in the political wilderness – took off after Turnbull’s poor performance in mid-2016. He was replaced, in a partyroom ballot in August 2018, by Scott Morrison, who led the Coalition to an unexpected election victory over the Bill Shorten-led Labor Party in May 2019.
Currently One Nation is leading Labor and the Coalition on the primary vote in some polls. This by no means suggests One Nation can attain government. But it is near certain that it will become more influential in the Senate after the next election and probably win seats in the House of Representatives. This is an example of a political party making an initial impact in the Senate.
The Community Strong Australia may have an unrelatable name but Spender and Steggall understand democratic politics.
Gerard Henderson is executive director of The Sydney Institute.

Splendidly tedious stuff, and it seems that the teals must ignore the other reptiles and follow Polonius's Senate advice.

Now here's a question for Polonius to ponder ...

Those bloody cartoonists always contrive to sound like filthy Commie swine...but the pond hadn't quite nodded off, and felt the need to look a little bit further for Sunday entertainment, only to discover that the Australian Daily Zionist News was at it again...

There was the dog botherer, given quite a big splash ...

How ABC spin captured the ‘narrative’ for Hamas
Anti-Israel propaganda is widespread, but with a little effort people can discover the facts, and with some critical thinking expose the lies.
By Chris Kenny
Associate Editor (National Affairs)

The pond is well and truly over lizard Oz Zionism, and palmed him off to the intermittent archive, because it was just the dog botherer in Zionist mode, mixed in with a standard lizard Oz jihad attacking the cardigan wearers...

A teaser trailer would surely suffice ...

Bile comes from a good place? Is that some kind of justification for your own patented brand of bilious abuse?

The pond will only note this bold claim:

...How do we push back against the false zeitgeist?
I tell you what, you can hand them this article and make them an offer. If they can correct any assertions or demonstrate errors of fact, I will update the record in a future column.

Here's a suggestion.

You truly have to be a dickhead of the first water to think that Palestinian children will get a future of freedom and prosperity, or their own state if the current government of Israel and its fundamentalist Greater Israel theocrats have anything to do with it.

And the notion that it's all the fault of the Palestinians is just regurgitating an old slur and lie.

And then there was this ...

Someone told me the other day, accusingly, that I was “taking sides”. If you do not take a side between the Islamist extremist terrorists who deliberately killed and defiled innocent men, women and children to trigger a war, and the targets of their aggression who fought back against this threat, then you must be incapable of rational or ethical thought.
This is not a mere matter of competing perspectives. This is civilisation versus barbaric intolerance.

You want some barbarism? An example of barbaric intolerance?

IDF accused of ‘field execution’ of Palestinian driver bringing aid into Gaza

Sadly it's just one example amongst many ... there'll be a promise of an investigation, another cover-up, and even if anything is confirmed, a slap on the wrist with a moist lettuce leaf.

And how's this for a lie?

How can Israel be involved in a genocide when the growth of the Palestinian population has outstripped Israel’s? Given the military might of Israel and the urban density of Gaza, how could the population in Gaza have fallen by only 100,000 people – equivalent to the number of people who have been able to flee the territory – during two years of intense warfare?

So many things to unpack, not least this variation on the Great Replacement Theory, whereby they all breed like rabbits and they're swamping the world.

And as for that blather about grow outstripping Israel's population, let's check the total on the tape.

Israel has an estimated population of c. 10 million, including two million Arab/Palestinian citizens. The Palestinian population in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem is c. 5.5 million. So at the moment they're some 2.5 million shy, meaning there's a lot more breeding to be done, or a lot more killing.

And by way of this contrived form of maths, it seems there's been no deaths at all in Gaza?

Perhaps you might check the maths, unless you want to sound like a stooge for theocratic fundamentalists of a different stripe...

Gaza population falls 6 percent since start of war, statistics agency says
Population has declined by about 160,000 since Israel’s assault on Gaza began, official Palestinian statistics agency says.

And that was at the start of 2025.

There's been more than a few deaths on the killing fields since then (see above), and in other places too, because you should remember, it was Benji who helped mad King Donald into that war on Iran, and what good did it do anybody, except the mad Mullahs that it empowered? (It certainly didn't help a bunch of butchered schoolgirls).

There was no relief for the pond, because the Australian Daily Zionist News also offered this ...

Labor dumps its support for Mid-East security
How Labor’s draft platform abandons key checks on Palestinian statehood
By dropping demands for Hamas and Palestinian, Labor’s national conference threatens to gut Australia’s regional foreign policy credibility.
By Colin Rubenstein
Contributor

Anybody who read the venerable Meade's most recent and most excellent Weekly Beast would realise they play it really hard ...

Australian Jewish News removes article criticising treatment of Jewish Council’s Sarah Schwartz (The Graudian was still doing its "email or register or else with menaces" routine again, so that's an intermittent archive link)

Why should the pond indulge players in that game?

Working it all out is very Monty Python, what with Col being executive director of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, which is different to the Jewish Council of Australia, though if you can tell the difference between the Judean People's Front and the People's Front of Judea, you should feel right at home.

Again the pond couldn't be bothered going all the way with Col and instead sent him to the intermittent archive, pausing only to do a spoiler by running the final gobbet ...

...How can there be a credible pathway to peace while Hamas remains armed and committed to Israel’s destruction and without major reforms to the PA, which is corrupt, still continues to fund pay-for-slay terror salaries, incites violence and remains incapable of asserting control even on the streets in some West Bank cities?
The draft platform also supports the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court. This is clearly a reference to the farcical South African ICJ case accusing Israel of genocide and the ICC’s equally farcical warrant against Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s former defence minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes. The genocide charge is ludicrous. Genocide is the intention to exterminate a people in whole or in part. Countries committing genocide don’t continually warn and evacuate the civilian population for their own safety or bring in millions of tonnes of food and other aid, as Israel did.
South Africa received an 18-month extension to respond to Israel’s detailed defence, meaning the case will be heard in 2029 or 2030 at the earliest. Surely the ICJ would be acting with more urgency if genocide was occurring?
If the ALP national conference adopts these paragraphs, and especially if it removes the essential preconditions for Palestinian statehood, which the government previously has affirmed repeatedly, it will not only undermine Australia’s longstanding bipartisan policy on the Middle East but also badly damage Australia’s national interests in seeking regional stability and security.
Colin Rubenstein is executive director of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council. Previously he taught Middle East politics at Monash University for many years.

Here's the thing Col, and the pond isn't talking about the way that Benji bolstered Hamas and keeps Hamas in play even now so he has boogeymen under the bed to help with his Greater Israel project.

Nor is the pond troubled by the convenient way that "genocide" can be used as a convenient talking point, what with definitional issues and the Holocaust producing a fine old filibuster.

It's the shameless ethnic cleansing, the tent cities and the dismal treatment of those living in Gaza and the West Bank that turns heads.

Think of all those displaced people as the land grab goes down ...

There's a lot more here Col, the physical destruction and the cost of fixing up the mess, not to mention the damage to the economy, nor to mention the current desire of fundamentalists to export Palestinians to Egypt, or to anywhere else they can be dumped.

The thing is Col, even the supine Democrats have had to do a bit of rethinking, as with Rahm Emanuel, doing a tour to Israel ...

He appeared in Haaretz in "remorseful ... just a little bit" mode...

Rahm Emanuel Wants to Save Israel. But Are Israelis Listening? (*intermittent archive link)
Rahm Emanuel, a potential Democratic presidential candidate and longtime defender of Israel speaks in Tel Aviv University on Wednesday.
Rahm Emanuel, making a strong play for being the kishkes U.S. presidential Democratic candidate, came to Israel with some home truths about the disaster that Netanyahu has led the country into. But his mission is for America's sake as much as Israel's
By Esther Solomon.

Inter alia ...

He really is trying to help in his own peculiar Democrat way, but you're not listening Col, you're not helping, and nor is the government of Israel ... but rest assured, they get the message, Gun-Toting Israeli Forces Detain Ro Khanna in Dramatic Video.

As for the "two state solution", not in the pond's lifetime, and not if it doesn't sustain the current apartheid system, and not because the Palestinians are dead against it.

That's called projection Col, or perhaps it's from too much imbibing during a hydration break ...

Or a loon wanting to spend a Weekend At Mitch's (Bernie went missing)...

In the end the pond gave up on the Zionist News, and decided it would instead feature the lizard Oz editorialist, and waddya kno, there was more relentless flogging of "Ned's" tome.

It only appeared incidentally in that one, what with the lizard Oz being a full time life coach for the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way, but in this outing it was full ABF (Always Be Flogging, a close cousin to Always Be Closing) ...

They want to turn this county into full exceptionalist, just like the United States. Go suck on a raw prawn, and then shove the shell up the *rse of News Corp, in the manner of ancient Xian heretics.

It was a relief to turn to the final outing, and see that the reptiles were once again blathering on about the urgent need to nuke the country to save the planet, except of course the planet doesn't need saving, at least if you've caught up with the lizard Oz in climate science denialist mode ...

Much will depend? And climate science is an ideology? And the economics better not consider, compare and contrast the cost of doing nothing as climate change ravages a heated-up planet?

Here, have a few 'toons, always a better guide to the insanity than the reptiles and the best way to wrap up a Sunday meditation ...

And doesn't this all seem so very long ago, but leaving so many memories to treasure?

Speaking of last week's fun ...

In which the pond does an epic "Ned" Everest climb, and yet still finds room for the Angelic one!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 22:02:31 +0000

The pond reacted with fear, alarm, despair.

The pond knew what this top of the page splash meant in a heartbeat, in a cosmic flash of fatigue ...

...and yet the pond couldn't look away. It was like stumbling on a car accident or an ancient mariner.

It might be the ruination of the pond for all time, as correspondents reeled away, a mingle of nausea and tedium jumbling in their agitated bowels, but it had to be done...

The header: Crisis of conviction: how the Liberal Party destroyed itself from within; three PMs in nine years had policy wins facing new challenges but Australia did not deliver its potential under a badly divided Liberal Party.

The caption for Sean's brave use of his digital finger: Liberal leaders, from left, Scott Morriosn (sic, so and thus, don't try to pin that one on the pond), Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull, with John Howard in the background. Digital illustration: Sean Callinan

A full 13 minutes of "Ned" ferreting through ancient remains, allegedly to provide insight, but really acting as a glorified extended book promo? So be it, if it had to be done, it must be done.

It wasn't as if there weren't alternatives. Diligent reptiles faithfully kept up familiar reptile jihads.

Relax, the pond just threw in that yarn about the horrific eggs, but won't bother linking.

Instead those who can't handle "Ned" can head off to the intermittent archive ...

EXCLUSIVE
Chalmers’ capital gains tax fix is a non-starter: start-ups
Jim Chalmers has been warned that Labor’s proposed capital gains tax exemption for start-ups has onerous hurdles that will make it too hard for most innovative companies to qualify.
By Greg Brown, James Kirby and Thomas Henry

It was way back on 12th May 2026 that the budget came down, and yet here the jihadist reptiles still are, jihadist egg beaters at the ready ...

BUDGET FALLOUT
‘Chasing their tail’: Renters caught in budget trap
Renters hit by soaring costs as federal budget housing reforms backfire
Weekly rents are outpacing savings, and house prices refuse to fall fast enough, economists warn.
By Mackenzie Scott and Marcus de Blonk Smith

Valiant snappy Tom stood in for the bromancer, and raged at the guvermint ...

Signs clear: we’re not match fit for perilous world
Labor’s approach to urgent challenges is bitsy; no wonder the simpletons are on the march
Our defence bill could hit $1 trillion, wages are shrinking and growth is stalling – yet the government’s answer is a tax tweak here and there.
By Tom Dusevic
Columnist

They were tempting in their own way, but the pond felt like King Lear ...

You do me wrong to take me out o' th' grave.
Thou art a soul in bliss, but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears
Do scald like molten lead.

It was past time to scald some ancient lead with "Ned" ...

The Australian project faltered in the early decades of the 21st century. This was not a singular Australian experience but part of the wider crisis of social and economic life conspicuous in Western democracies. A new phase of history was under way, shaped by stupendous global changes in economics, technology, energy and society.
The Liberal-National Coalition was in office over 2013-22 but its hold on power for much of that period was unconvincing. The grip the Liberal Party had long exercised on Australian psychology – exemplified by the success of Sir Robert Menzies, Malcolm Fraser and John Howard – began to fall apart during the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison era. The party of the established order lost its hold on the nation.
The great reform age that began with the 1983 Hawke-Keating election and continued under the Howard government had passed into history. This was the age of Australian Exceptionalism, when the nation was reshaped by bold governments and astute leaders.
The reform project spanning 20 years finally succumbed to generational change and mounting sclerosis in the political system. The Rudd-Gillard-Rudd era retreated from Hawke-Keating reformism, the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison era failed to capture the Liberal reformism of the Howard-Costello period, and the Albanese Labor government struggled to implement a convincing agenda in its first term.
Death knell for Exceptionalism
Australian Exceptionalism had entered the twilight zone.
By the early and mid-2020s the conclusion was obvious: Australia was no longer a global exemplar of reform, no longer leading the pack of industrialised nations in its performances.
Interviewed in late 2024, former treasurer Peter Costello argued that Australian Exceptionalism had terminated: “Australian Exceptionalism became a phrase used in the IMF (International Monetary Fund). We were considered a model by other Western nations. This process began with Hawke and Keating but the fiscal high point – 10 budget surpluses and the retirement of all commonwealth debt – was considered to be Australian Exceptionalism.
“What we have lost is the idea that Australia can be exceptional. The idea that Australia can lead the world has disappeared. I feel it is the end of an era, when Australia was exceptional but does not see itself as exceptional any more.”

Part of the process was to examine every little bit that the cat and "Ned" had dragged in ... In 2011, former Prime Minister Paul Keating implored Labor to ‘recognise what it has created’. Picture: News Corp

Sheesh, "Ned" and his cycles and his conundrums ...

Years earlier former treasurer and PM Paul Keating had told the author the meaning of the reform age had been the creation of a new idea of Australia. Looking back on the era, he said it was a time when the government and the public “strived to make Australia a first-rate country – a place with a powerful economic engine and a soul to match. What this added up to was the construction in Australia over these years of a socio-economic model which was unique in the world.”
History moves in cycles. In 2011 Keating implored Labor to “recognise what it has created”, saying Labor “has created a new society and it has to be the party of the new society” yet he was met with denial and incomprehension. The Hawke-Keating age was not reproduced; it was finished and consigned to history.
The conundrum of the 21st century was that the more successful nations became, the more problems they generated – expanding budgets, high debts, more carbon emissions, greater environmental damage, rising social divides, the loss of social mobility, the resentment of the disadvantaged, the greed of the elites, the decline in education standards and the relentless debasement of cultural life.

How soon before the reptiles did a bigly book cover plug? Pretty soon ... The Twilight of Exceptionalism by Paul Kelly.

The pond isn't exactly sure if this is the point the official extract began, not having read the original, nor ever likely to ... but in any case, the pond's feeble justification, yet again, is that it might have some interest for those refusing to part with their shekels, and those who realise the tome might take a while to hit a street book library ...

BOOK EXTRACT: THE LIBERAL CRISIS OF CONVICTION

‘The pervasive defect facing the Liberal Party in the 21st century was the demise of conviction – the party conducted three experiments under three different prime ministers, unable to agree among themselves about what they represented.
Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison had strong policy beliefs, but a party that cannot agree on its leader is a party that cannot summon conviction. Once the lack of conviction infects the party, recovery is slow and painful, at best.
The Liberal Party suffered a loss of conviction over much of its governing 2013-22 era. This culminated in opposition in 2025 when the Liberals endured the worst election defeat in their history – a defeat where the demise of Liberal conviction was the pivotal factor in the public’s rejection.
The warning pathway was brightly lit. The public detected a loss of party nerve after the 2014 Abbott-Hockey budget. Turnbull’s 2016 election campaign was devoid of persuasive Liberal values and beliefs. In 2022 the Morrison government was defeated because people were unsure of its beliefs – they saw a party conducting politics but confused about conviction.
The Liberal and Labor reviews of the 2022 election agreed on one point: Scott Morrison’s unpopularity drove the government’s debacle. But this missed the greater truth – the Liberals were years deep into an identity crisis.
Blaming Morrison was yesterday’s news. If Morrison had been the sole problem the solution would have been simple.
Over the nine years there were three decisive events with consequences for the conviction deficit.
The first was the September 2015 removal of Abbott, an elected PM in his first term, by a relatively narrow partyroom vote. The upshot was a permanently fractured partyroom with Turnbull, from the start, doomed in his effort to keep the Liberals fit for purpose.
The second event was Turnbull’s narrow re-election in 2016 after just the first term of office with a loss of 14 seats – the ruin of Turnbull’s claims as a vote winner or an exponent of Liberal faiths – setting a perilous second-term trajectory pointing to the government most likely facing termination in 2019.

Oh dear, not SloMo again ... Scott Morrison’s unpopularity missed a greater truth – the Liberals were years deep into an identity crisis. Picture: Getty Images

Apparently if you read "Ned", SloMo had "intellectual fuel", but ran out, a bit like the way the Russians are currently running short of petrol...

The third event was Morrison’s surprise 2019 election victory against virtually all predictions – a success only Morrison could have pulled off – that gave the government a belated chance to restructure and recover. The opportunity was there, but it proved beyond the capacity of the prime minister, with the 2022 defeat being a verdict not just on Morrison but on an unconvincing Coalition era.
After the loss of office, senior figures reflected on the malaise eroding the Liberal Party. John Howard said while longevity was a factor, the deeper issue in the 2022 defeat was “we had no plan for the future”. Elections are about the national direction. Yet, said Howard, “We had no manifesto. No statement of where we were going to take the country.”
After nine years of Liberal government the Morrison engine ran out of intellectual fuel.
But Howard saw a broader difficulty. Referring to the entire 2013-22 era, Howard said: “People lost sight of our enduring philosophy. This was obviously one of the reasons why we had changes of leader. Part of this was a lack of conviction over policy and identity.”

The lying rodent thought he had an enduring philosophy? There's no end to the capacity for delusion, and even worse, the reptiles decided to slip in a bunch of cracker barrel thoughts ...

Not the onion muncher again, as the downhill slide continued...

Howard believed the recent Coalition era had walked away from one of his strongest identity commitments as Liberal leader and PM: “Within the living memory of most people following politics, the Liberal Party had been identified with economic reform, in government and in opposition. Starting from the early 1980s, we turned ourselves into a party of economic reform. But that support for economic reform was missing in this most recent period.”
Former federal director of the Liberal Party and former minister Andrew Robb described the collapse of faith: “At the 2022 election defeat many of our people didn’t turn out. They had lost all confidence in the prime minister combined with the absence of any sense of future direction, rooted in policies people needed and expected from the Liberal Party.
“Since John Howard left, the party has been characterised by too much endless disruption, endless changes in its authority figures and the lack of consistency. The recent era has been characterised by the lack of consistency, unity and conviction.”
After the 2022 defeat, Abbott confronted the issue of conviction: “Our job is not to be a slightly less politically correct, slightly less fiscally irresponsible, and slightly less overbearing version of the Labor Party.”

Sheesh ... Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Picture: Getty Images

Why bother with this parade of dropkicks and losers contemplating their navels, while "Ned" busily gathered fluff?

Because it's there, and because that's what pro herpetologists do, no matter the pain ...

Abbott said that “we’re no longer sure quite what it is that Liberals believe and how that might translate into policy”. He said that “at the heart of our disquiet is the current difficulty distinguishing a Liberal government from a Labor one”. Referring to the party’s conservative/Liberal identity as a broad church, Abbott lamented that “too often, conservatives aren’t conservative and liberals aren’t liberal”.
The conviction malaise, in effect, was conceded in the official review of the 2022 Liberal election campaign conducted by Brian Loughnane and Jane Hume. It said: “The Coalition’s agenda for a fourth term appeared to be limited and unclear to the electorate. The sense the government had ‘run its race’ was allowed to develop as a result.”
Interviewed in 2023, opposition leader Peter Dutton tied the lack of conviction to the leadership eruptions: “It’s important to be honest with ourselves. From the time that Tony Abbott was deposed by Malcolm Turnbull the Liberal Party hasn’t stood for any substantive policy formulation. The Morrison government was defined by the response to Covid and by AUKUS and it did a sterling job in both areas. But there was no major policy offering at the 2022 election.”
The irony in these remarks is that Dutton was describing the central mistake he would make as Liberal leader before and during the 2025 election – this was a case of knowing the problem but being unable to avoid repeating it.
Asked about Howard’s critique that the party had no 2022 election manifesto to highlight Liberal–Labor differences, deputy leader and treasurer at the time Josh Frydenberg partly conceded the case: “There were points of difference. But it wasn’t enough just to say we had managed the pandemic as well as any other country in the world. We needed a couple of key battlelines with the opposition to highlight the differences between us and them. And that wasn’t present.”
From Frydenberg, it is a telling concession.

Then came three more from the cracker barrel ...

As Sartre notoriously said in his play Huit Clos (No Exit) ...

“So this is hell. I'd never have believed it. You remember all we were told about the torture-chambers, the fire and brimstone, the "burning marl." Old wives' tales! There's no need for red-hot pokers. Hell is ... either other people, or worse still, "Ned" blathering endlessly on about the Liberal party!”

Unsurprisingly, the most savage attack on the Liberal crisis of conviction came from Turnbull on the day of – and in the years after – his removal, his chief focus being climate change: “In terms of energy policy and climate policy, I think the truth is that the Coalition finds it very hard to get agreement on anything to do with emissions … (these) bitterly entrenched views are actually more ideological views than based in engineering and economics. It’s a bit like same-sex marriage used to be. Almost an insoluble problem.”
Turnbull approached the conviction issue from a different vantage point – as a progressive. The point is the Liberals were plagued not just by a lack of conviction but by differences over what constituted conviction. It was a double dilemma.
Turnbull said: “You get this madness that the party is being told by its media backers to move further and further to the right, focus on values issues, whether transgender kids or denying climate change, all of this craziness that had been infecting the party for years … it’s electoral catastrophe.”
Turnbull claimed that unless the Liberals found conviction on the climate issue, “it is difficult to see how the Liberal Party can ever win a majority in the House of Representatives”. This is a doom-laden statement about the party’s future. There was heavy irony surrounding these remarks given Turnbull’s leadership as PM was notable for its conviction malaise – witness the 2016 election. Indeed, the conservative wing typically assailed Turnbull as PM for the defect against which he was lecturing – a lack of conviction.

Not the mutton Dutton, anything but that ... Opposition Leader Peter Dutton concedes defeat during a Liberal Party election night event at W Hotel on May 3, 2025. Picture: Getty Images

By this time, some punters might be feeling a little Golding ...

There's a price to pay for that 'toon, a bigly gobbet of "Ned" ...

Dutton said: “Malcolm came in as a cult figure. He was rich, a quintessential liberal in the sense that he’d been financially successful, was a greater raconteur and one of the smartest people you’d ever meet. But the Liberal Party was just a party of convenience for his ambition.”
Abbott and Turnbull had conflicting beliefs on climate policy and fought over the issue for a decade. In this sense the conviction failure became an identity failure. The question became: conviction for what?
Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison – then Dutton as opposition leader – had different views on what the party should be convinced about. By the time of the 2025 election under Dutton the dilemma seemed to be solved – the party apparently settled on the absence of conviction.
In truth, Morrison’s defeat at the 2022 election transcended his personal deficiencies. The Loughnane-Hume review offered devastating conclusions, saying the result “is not comparable to any previous one in Australian political history”.
Losing control of the brand
The Liberal Party had been reduced to four out of 44 inner-metropolitan seats. The debacle had been years in the making. The party lost seats to the left and to the right – to Labor, the teal independents and to the Greens.
The review report said: “By the time of the election the Coalition had lost control of its brand.” The lack of policy projection meant the Liberals were “unable to frame the electoral contest” and the government was defined by its opponents.
A party that cannot define itself has no future. The problem was not just tactics and presentation but core belief.
The 2014 budget was a work of conviction. Abbott and Joe Hockey saw it as a statement of belief. But that budget became a turning point in the Coalition era, conceivably the turning point – by bringing down punitive savings for which a shocked public was unprepared.
Robb, a minister at the time, said of the first budget: “It killed Abbott, it killed Hockey, and it threw the government into disarray.”
Abbott and Hockey were believers. But their conviction in winding back the budget deficit triggered a collapse in government support and, unsurprisingly, a sustained retreat from conviction. Hockey said: “Turnbull weaponised the internal dissent and got away with it because of the lack of conviction in our ranks about the economic strategy.”
The lesson is that convictions can be dangerous. The wrong conviction can destroy a leader – witness Abbott with his first budget. Conviction can make a government but also ruin a government – recall Abbott again with his knighthood for Prince Philip.
Turnbull arrived with his new manifesto of cosmetic progressivism that would never be acceptable to the wider reaches of the party. He was exposed at the 2016 election when he ran a mediocre campaign.
The party’s internal review of that election, scathing and largely kept secret, criticised the government’s failure, saying there was no “clear plan with a clear narrative”. Decoded, there was no conviction. Turnbull demonstrated there was no necessary nexus between intelligence and conviction. He lost 14 seats and came to the brink of minority government. Turnbull survived but was permanently diminished.
Former federal president of the Liberal Party Richard Alston said, after Turnbull had left politics, that he should resign from the Liberal Party: “He should acknowledge the reality that he has no interest in party politics and no interest in the Liberal Party.”

On the upside, Malware was the last snap in the parade of dropkicks and losers... Former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull. The party’s internal review of the 2013 election, scathing and largely kept secret, said there was no “clear plan with a clear narrative”. Picture: AFP

That seemed to inspire "Ned" to get even more prolix, in his ponderous, portentous, pedantic way ... as if mere words could turn SloMo into some weird down-to-earth pragmatic, rather than the clap happy clown he was ...

When Turnbull fell, Morrison arrived with his down-to-earth pragmatism. He was also a believer – witness his determination in fighting Covid-19, his resolution in resisting China’s coercion and his drive to launch the nuclear submarine program.
In 2019 Morrison won a narrow victory, a tribute to his tenacity, yet much of the victory reflected a negative campaign on Labor’s tax agenda while retaining just enough confidence in the Coalition to get across the line. Morrison’s win secured three parliamentary terms for this Coalition era, but defeat – when it came in 2022 – was devastating.
During the Coalition era the Liberals won three elections but lost the battle of ideas with the Labor-led progressive alliance on a range of economic, social and cultural issues.
Howard said competence is vital in politics. But he added that competence “does not really inspire people” – they “bank it and say ‘OK, that’s good, what’s next?’ and this was Morrison’s failure.” Howard said: “After a long time in government people wanted more and Morrison didn’t have that.”
Howard was astonished at the absence of resolve – that Morrison did not take a stand against identity politics, did not back economic reform, prosecute the religious discrimination bill far earlier or push the anti-corruption commission bill to a parliamentary vote. You can agree or disagree with Howard’s comments – the point is he was searching for signs of Liberal Party conviction.
Killing ground of conviction
Internal division is the killing ground of conviction. The list of Liberal and Coalition policy divisions over nine years was a litany: climate change, same-sex marriage, fiscal policy, tax policy, free speech, religious freedom and LGBTIQ rights.
In truth, Howard’s record as PM only highlighted the subsequent Liberal loss of conviction. He was far more defined by what he did than what he denied – sponsoring gun law reform, waterfront reform, the GST-led tax reform, budget surpluses, industrial relations deregulation, Work Choices, income tax cuts, private school funding, border protection, offshore processing, support for East Timor’s independence, deepening the US alliance, anti-terrorism laws, war commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq, and backing the constitutional monarchy.
Some of these stands succeeded and some failed – Work Choices set the Liberals back many years. The point is Howard, even more than Menzies, saw the Liberals as a party of political attack. By presenting the Liberal Party as a “broad church” embodying conservatism and liberalism, Howard widened his scope for political initiatives and attack based on conviction

principles. (sic, reptile layout, reproduced with uxorious pond fidelity)

The reptiles repeated yet again an AV distraction, yet somehow this time it ended up on YouTube as a freebie, as the reptiles tried to repair the damage of decades of intractable iron curtain paywall...

No apology: Howard fires up over Brittany Higgins in new Paul Kelly book
The Front
presented by Claire Harvey
Nation Loses

Its Magic

Damned if the pond would link to something the reptiles were trying to give away for free, because by this point, the pond had begun to feel even more Learish ...

Where have I been? Where am I? Fair daylight?
I am mightily abused. I should ev'n die with pity
To see another thus. I know not what to say.
I will not swear these are my hands. Let’s see.
I feel this pinprick. Would I were assured
Of my condition.

At last the final gobbet arrived, the last extract a reminder sundry dental extractions...

Howard said: “We are a party that must care for both of those traditions.” Yet as the 2020s advanced, Liberal factions, disguised in these traditions, were largely at war with each other.
Former Institute of Public Affairs executive director John Roskam said: “The broad church has fractured. Conservatives have become more assertive and more defensive of their positions. At the same time progressives or moderates have formed a different view of society and are appealing to an entirely different demographic. The Liberal Party is lacking confidence. It hasn’t renewed ideologically or philosophically, and it doesn’t know how to achieve this.”
The Liberal Party over the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison era became an institution prone to identity experimentation. It embraced and discarded leaders but, in the process, undermined the concept of a party in control of its brand or political values. This defect evolved into a full-scale conviction and existence crisis in the following four years.
Howard had departed politics in 2007 – yet he remained ever-present. Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison sought his advice and invoked his name while seeking to promote their own vision for the party. They aspired to reinterpret Howard to fit the second decade of the 21st century. Each tried and each failed in his separate, distinctive way.
In the process, the sense of Liberal abiding conviction all but disappeared.’

Yes, yes, it's profoundly amusing to see the IPA blathering about the fracturing of the broad church, but the pond was more startled to be reminded that this was yet another step in the destruction of the reputation of the University of Melbourne ...

– This is an edited extract from Paul Kelly’s The Twilight of Exceptionalism: The Liberal and Conservative Era, published by Melbourne University Press, out on July 14.

Only three days to go before the book hits the stands, but will that put an end to this nonsense?

The pond couldn't help but wonder if the lizard Oz might keep on promoting the book for an eternity of suffering ...

Be comforted, good madam. The great rage,
You see, is killed in him. And yet it is danger
To make him even o'er the time he has lost.
Desire him to go in. Trouble him no more
Till further settling.

Speaking of time lost, and lost times...

The pond just had enough strength left to deal with a most heartbreaking tale from the Angelic one...

The header: Tax changes mean it’s closing time for the bank of mum and dad; We had nothing from our own parents except good advice, which basically counselled frugality, to buy whatever you can and work your way up.

The caption for the incredibly moving snap: Sisters Isabella and Olivia Maxwell received a monetary gift from their family to help them get a joint property under the 5 per cent deposit scheme in September. Picture: Aaron Francis

The pond has saved a few reptiles for its Sunday meditation, but felt compelled to add this harrowing account by the Angelic one to "Ned's" Everest climb.

See if you are so insensible, so insensitive as to not suffer along with her ...

There has been a lot of talk about the government’s tax changes and how it affects investors. However, the most common type of investment and the most useful for ordinary families is the “bank of mum and dad”.
My husband and I are founding members of that bank.
We have been married for 50 years and have nine adult children. We had nothing from our own parents except good advice, which basically counselled frugality, to buy whatever you can and work your way up. We did. We bought and sold, and eventually in the fifth year of our marriage we bought a good three-bedroom house in a non-gentrified inner suburb of Sydney. Then over time we have been able to acquire some older investment properties and so have progressed to become the bank.
But it was difficult. We didn’t set out to be owners of more than one house. We had to move several times, which was when we discovered negative gearing. However, we almost lost our one family house in the 1980s when our interest rates went up to 18 per cent. My husband changed jobs and we moved to a regional town, I worked part-time and we lived on the family allowance while hanging on grimly to our Sydney house.

Oh the gruesome lot of being a landlord, the endless boot strap suffering, worthy of a stock footage snap... Unintentionally becoming the bank of mum and dad was far from easy. Picture: iStock

That banal image just about said it all ... yet for some reason, the pond was reminded of Mr Krook in Bleak House, notorious illiterate rag-and-bottle merchant and landlord, given to spontaneous combustion ... just the sort of chap who'd love to pick up a few more shabby old flats...

After things eased we moved to Canberra, where we rented cheaply, but did not sell our Sydney house. In Canberra, where property was cheaper, an opportunity arose to buy a couple of shabby old flats. We did using the equity in the house in Sydney, where prices had soared, so we weren’t afraid of debt. We stayed in Canberra and eventually bought a holiday shack with two advantages: proximity to the beach and an inside toilet.
We had our ninth child by this time and needed more accommodation, especially for the two eldest who were 18 and 19. It was cheaper and a better investment to buy two old flats than to put on an extension. The two eldest were at university and had part-time jobs, so instead of renting a flat to them we put one in their names. Ten years later, when our daughter married, they sold the flat and had a good return that enabled them to buy their own family houses.
I don’t understand the resentment towards people who can do this. After all, why do people think we struggle, save and buy other property? Just so we can sit around and tell ourselves how successful we are? No, we do it for our children and our possible future grandchildren. As for the young who buy and sell for a profit, so what? Like us, several of our children for whom we have been guarantor have bought, sold and renovated their way into very good houses.
What is more, they have housed going on nine grandchildren between them. So, our older children have all profited by our ability to go guarantor for them.

To help out those who wanted to join the landlord class, the reptiles provided these numbered points to summarise landlord despair.

Damn you Jimbo, damn you to reptile hell...

The Angelic one carried on, and the real point became even clearer ...

This wasn't just a tale of personal suffering and despair, this was a jihad ...

To acquire property, you need to be unafraid of debt. However, the tax changes mean younger children who have yet to buy may end up having the property ladder pulled away from under them.
Today’s young people are very mobile. Many who would have used negative gearing to buy and build equity in an old cheaper place they didn’t live in as a way to offset their mortgage repayments, increase their equity and use that investment as a means to buy a better, larger place to live, perhaps something in a better area where they could eventually have a family, now are almost denied that opportunity. Worse, with prices falling, many young people who bought to live in their place with a 5 per cent deposit, like the two sisters featured in The Australian (“Bank of Mum and Dad cuts funding”, 8/7) who were able to buy with a guarantee from their mum and dad, will end up stuck in negative equity.
Another aspect of all this is that since the advent of compulsory superannuation, older people have been encouraged to invest and prepare for their own retirement. Some may invest purely for their own retirement. However, every parent has an idea of what they can do to help their children while they are alive, or what they can leave their children after their death, as my parents eventually did. Hence the importance of the family home, which is also the basis of the bank of mum and dad.

The Angelic one was simply joining in the obligatory reptile jihad about the budget ... Anthony Albanese claims to be promoting generational equity. Picture: Getty Images

Oh the suffering, the endless reptile suffering, oh the horror, the lizard Oz jihadist horror ...

However, the Albanese government, using its often-repeated claim of promoting generational equity to squeeze the older owners of the family home and change rules for the younger family members, has all but made the striving to create some investment for one’s children too difficult for ordinary Australians. By abolishing negative gearing and changing capital gains tax for new young investors, the government has made investment in property not really a viable option any more for intergenerational help for ordinary families such as ours.
So, despite Labor’s mantra, by almost destroying mum and dad investment, it has torn out the heart of generational equity.
Anthony Albanese is the child of a single mother who lived in a housing commission home. As a good mother she had her son’s future welfare on her mind when, as the Prime Minister once told us in parliament, she gave him a salient piece of advice: “As soon as you can, buy a house.” He did. Doubtless he was able to benefit from negative gearing as property values soared in Marrickville. But it is a pity he didn’t think about the rest of us who were using those same legal mechanisms to help their own children, many now stuck with negative equity in a property with a mortgage they can’t afford.

Cry the pond a river.

The pond gave up an early morning Saturday for "Ned" and the Angelic one?

Now that's almost like mad King Donald's speech on a stormy night being up there with doing a landing on a Normandy beach under Nazi fire ...

But at least mentioning mad King Donald allows the pond to close by doing a segue to the immortal Rowe ...

What a splendid tea party.

By golly, did he take the original and make something even richer out of it, or Tommy wot, and that sentiment comes from someone who lives their Tenniel and their Alice ...(and has just finished another toilet reading thereof, this time the centenary Penguin edition). See how the look on mad King Donald matches the look of the mad rabbit ...

And finally the pond knows all about the suffering of the rich, or at least the tempered olive class, and wants to share that knowledge ...

In which the narcissist onion muncher, encouraged by "Ned" barely leaves room for the beefy boofhead, Killer Creighton and Our Henry ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 21:58:29 +0000

With the Islamic Republic of Japan posing a dire, terrifying threat to security, the lizards of Oz showed a stoic indifference this day, and instead did what they do best - put the preening narcissist known as the onion muncher at the top of the digital edition ...

That left the poor old beefy boofhead well down the page, and more of that anon, but first the pond must go with the flow of "Ned's" natter, a relentless promo for his latest tome (the only word to properly evoke his propensity for ponderous pomposity) ...

The header, which somehow managed to suggest that the onion muncher wanted to be sociopathic genocidal ethnic cleanser with a taste for giving South Africa some nukes: ‘Sometimes you’ve got to be a bit Mossad’: Tony Abbott’s bureaucracy battle over borders, MH17 and Barack Obama; The former PM has reveals explosive clashes with Barack Obama over MH17 and defence officials, with his Border Force chief telling him he had to go a ‘bit Mossad’ in his boat turnarounds policy.

The caption for a thankfully uncredited collage, because even AI would struggle if blamed for it: Tony Abbott has revealed his biggest conflicts while prime minister.

The pond has no idea how long this nauseating series of "Ned" book promotions will go on, but offers it as a way of pandering to those who will never fling a shekel in the tome's direction.

Speaking of pandering, this set of insights seems to spend an enormous amount of time contemplating the overweening pride, and self-acknowledged greatness of the onion muncher:

Tony Abbott has revealed a series of conflicts he faced as prime minister including with public servants over his efforts to “stop the boats”, US president Barack Obama after the Russian downing of flight MH17, and the defence hierarchy over his proposal to deploy our troops to Ukraine.
In his interviews for my book, The Twilight of Exceptionalism – the Liberal and Conservative Era 2013-2022, Mr Abbott said the first task facing his government was stopping asylum-seeker boats, but some senior officials were “completely defeatist” and alarmed that Australia would risk conflict with Indonesia.
Mr Abbott said: “At numerous stages, Operation Sovereign Borders could have floundered. The message was, you know, this risks conflict with Indonesia. And I said: ‘Well, so what? That is just the risk we have to run.’ But if that’s your concern, avoiding conflict, you can’t do anything.

Inevitably there had to be a huge shot of the tome's cover, here downsized, The Twilight of Exceptionalism by Paul Kelly.

The pond would have made it smaller if it could have. Won't someone think of the eyeballs!

Now on with the self-congratulations ...

“I mean, this is the problem, you know. Most government policy fails because there are red lines that different people put around it that means it cannot succeed. The red line the officials put around this operation – around this whole desire to stop the boats – meant that you couldn’t actually do it.”
Mr Abbott didn’t want war with Indonesia but he wanted the official mindset to shift in order to commit to his radical military-orientated policy, devised by Scott Morrison as shadow minister. Mr Abbott’s national security adviser, Andrew Shearer, said: “I think there was widespread scepticism whether the policy would work. In parts of the bureaucracy there was a more active level of resistance particularly among some of the government lawyers. For Abbott, this was an existential policy problem, nationally and politically.”

Once again the reptiles interrupted with the very same promotional video, as they kept up the job of separating punters from shekels ...

PREMIUM
No apology: Howard fires up over Brittany Higgins in new Paul Kelly book
Become a member to access our premium video content

Nah, not really, it's more than enough to endure this portion, as the sucker on the teat of Viktor Orbán continued his idle boasting, and "Ned" indulged him ...

Mr Abbott said: “I thought to myself, what would Indonesia do if the boats were coming from Australia to Indonesia illegally? They would just sink them. We just turned them around. But, by hook or by crook, we were going to stop this damn thing. If you don’t have a border, you don’t have a country.”
As PM, Mr Abbott saw OSB as a test of his government’s viability. He wanted all organs of government – civilian, military and intelligence – active participants to achieve the goal. This is what Mr Morrison delivered as minister for immigration and border protection. It was an unorthodox policy with a military commander in charge – Lieutenant-General Angus Campbell – reporting direct to Mr Morrison with strict operational secrecy about events on the water and the boat turnarounds.
Mr Morrison said: “Operation Sovereign Borders was arguably the most compelling aspect of the change of government in 2013.”
In Mr Abbott’s view, he was faced with varying advice from senior officials. The chief of the Defence Force, General David Hurley, later governor-general, felt obliged to tell Mr Abbott the operation must be consistent with international law, provide for safety at sea and ensure that asylum-seeker boats could be safely turned on the water, as well as warning about ties with Indonesia.
“PM, we can do this, but it is not cost-free,” Mr Hurley said. “I cannot guarantee this can be done in a risk-free way.” That was responsible and prudent advice but frustrating for a PM determined to reverse the existing order.

Then came this startling confession ...

But the official who made the greatest positive impact on Mr Abbott was then Customs and Border Protection Force head Mike Pezzullo, who told Mr Abbott the policy could work, saying “sometimes you’ve got to be a bit Mossad”.

For those who came in late to the story, the disgraced Pezzullo was, in his hey day, a shocking piece of work.

Powerful Home Affairs boss Mike Pezzullo sacked after investigation into backchannel lobbying

Here, have a snap of the miscreant ... Former Customs and Border Protection Force head Mike Pezzullo. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Apparently under the Pezzullo "positive impact" and influence, the onion muncher stomped around like an ill-tempered loon...as "Ned's" final gobbet ran on at great length, and the pond decided it would be best left uninterrupted, so other business might eventually get a look in ...

Mr Abbott said: “At one stage we were advised by some sections of the bureaucracy that something we were doing was illegal. I just said to (attorney-general) Brandis, ‘Well, go and get better advice, simple as that’.”
Recalling his visit to Indonesia and meeting with president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Mr Abbott said: “I said to him ‘you know, we are going to turn boats around’, and he didn’t respond one way or the other. He just gave me a benign look, as if to say ‘Well, you do what you must’.” Obviously, Indonesia’s president did not give Australia the green light.
Referring to the boat turnbacks, Mr Morrison said: “Angus Campbell’s advice had been, ‘Once you start this, you can’t stop and you need to get it right; if the first test doesn’t work, it’s over.”
Insiders told the author the covert operations by the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, headed by Nick Warner, involving the disruption of the people-smugglers in Indonesia were as effective as the boat turnarounds in halting the trade. In June 2013, before the change of government, Mr Abbott met Mr Warner and raised the issue of what he called “the black arts” – with Mr Warner explaining ASIS did not do assassinations since such activity was outside its defined scope. ASIS was not Mossad. As PM, Mr Abbott raised with officials the capability for final resort action to “take out” the people-smugglers if policy on the water had failed and this was the only means left. Such discussion became academic once the boats were stopped, but Mr Abbott had been interested in a power that ASIS did not possess.
Our intelligence agencies monitored the Indonesian military closely. An official said: “We watched the Indonesian military. At no stage did Indonesia take any military action to counter what we were doing. They never came near the drop-offs for boat turnbacks.” By February 2014 the asylum-seeker boat trade had ended.
But Mr Abbott’s most intense clash with defence and security advisers came after the shooting down over Ukraine of a Malaysia Airlines plane by pro-Russian rebels, with the loss of everyone on board including 38 Australian citizens or residents. Mr Abbott was determined to recover the bodies and soon demanded that Australian troops be sent to the crash site in a joint mission with the Dutch, given a majority of passengers were from the Netherlands.
Three days after the attack Mr Abbott said: “The site is chaotic, it’s absolutely chaotic. The Ukrainian government does not control the location.” During his head of government phone calls, Mr Abbott was frustrated by President Obama, who gave him a briefing.
Mr Abbott said: “I said: ‘Well that is great, Barack, but what is going to happen? A Russian missile has shot down a civilian plane.’ And he said they were following it closely. I couldn’t accept this. I said: ‘This is not good enough, this is an atrocity and what you’re giving me is a whole lot of excuses.’ He got quite miffed and said: ‘No, no, we are doing stuff.’ And I said: ‘Well come on, you know this is just outrageous.’ ”
The bodies were being treated with indifference. Mr Abbott regarded the defiance of the pro-Russian rebels as intolerable: “I kept saying to the National Security Committee: ‘You know, if they were American what would be happening? And they would say: ‘Oh well, the 82nd Airborne would be there by now’.”
When Mr Abbott made his case in the NSC for a Dutch and Australian troop commitment, he met strong resistance from both the new defence force chief, Mark Binskin, and veteran Defence boss Dennis Richardson. Mr Abbott said: “But to me these bureaucrats in uniform, they are not warriors. He (Binskin) was very, very unhappy about the whole thing.”
Air Chief Marshall Binskin had reason to be unhappy since NATO was telling him: “Don’t do anything silly and don’t escalate.” Yet he was facing a PM determined to escalate, saying: “I need a military plan and a military option.” Mr Abbott found it intolerable being told by the defence chiefs there was little Australia could do. An impatient Mr Abbott challenged Air Chief Marshall Binskin directly. Mr Abbott said: “If hostile forces are preventing the recovery of your dead, you have got to go and take them back by force.” Mr Abbott complained in his office about spending $30bn annually on a military budget for no impact when it mattered. At the heart of this dispute was Mr Abbott’s conviction that the defence force must be used more readily and more effectively when faced with a strategic or moral crisis. Describing Mr Abbott, Mr Richardson said: “Tony Abbott was very much a person of action. His first instinct was: What can I do? He was not inclined to stand on the sidelines. That sometimes led him to jumping to a conclusion that was unrealistic.”
Air Chief Marshall Binskin’s caution was warranted. The crash site was controlled by pro-Russian forces located near the border and Mr Abbott was proposing a military intervention in a potentially hostile situation. Mr Shearer said: “There was one meeting where Abbott made it clear he felt he was being stonewalled and was not taken seriously by the defence and military chiefs.”
The proposal was for an Australian-Dutch light armoured brigade to enter the conflict zone and secure the site for the removal of the bodies. The debate within the NSC extended over three days.
But Mr Abbott faced resistance from virtually all defence and military advisers. Throughout the process Mr Richardson systematically outlined the problems with the military option and provided sustained advocacy for Mr Abbott to pull back. At the peak of the debate Mr Abbott rang former defence force chief Angus Houston, whom he had appointed as the government’s envoy in Ukraine. As dawn was breaking over Kyiv, Air Chief Marshall Houston strongly advised Mr Abbott against a troop commitment: “I said a better option is a police commitment – it would be acceptable to all parties and would be able to recover the bodies. I said it was important to eliminate the risk of a miscalculation. We had a long discussion; it was robust but respectable. I was very concerned the Russians would see it as provocative by Australia while a police contingent would be non-threatening. At the end of a long conversation, Tony said ‘okay, Angus, we’ll go with the police option’.”
Mr Abbott was relieved. He said the trauma led to his “most difficult night” as PM. He said: “I kept thinking: Do I really want 1000 Australians to be within 25 miles of the Russian artillery? Thank God, the bodies started moving the next day.”

Sheesh, that's way more than enough, that ensures the pond won't even bother to pick it up at a street library ...

The Twilight of Exceptionalism – The Liberal and Conservative Era, published by Melbourne University Press, is out on July 14.

The pond felt its strength failing ...

Onwards and upwards, but as noted at the start, where did all that onion muncher narcissism leave the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way?

Almost as a lizard Oz side note, a curiosity, what with his toothless attack on Pauline not nearly as grand as the onion muncher demolishing of Indonesia and the Kenyan socialist ...

COALITION
‘Eternity of pain’: Taylor takes on Hanson in major speech
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor says One Nation is a ‘column of smoke’ that will send the country broke, in his biggest attack yet on Pauline Hanson.
By Greg Brown

Oh they tried to make up to him by giving him a slot on the extreme far right, but even here he was at the bottom of the page, what with Killer Creighton top dog...

One Nation wants to fix our country by blowing it up
If you’re considering supporting One Nation, there are at least three reasons to think again.
By Angus Taylor
Contributor

It was just a rehash of a gig at Polonius's palace ...

Angus Taylor is Leader of the Opposition. This is an edited extract from a speech he delivered at The Sydney Institute on Thursday evening.

The speech was constructed in the manner of a school essay, with the beefy boofhead plodding his way through three key points.

As it's in the intermittent archive, the pond contented itself with a teaser trailer ...

By golly, it's not just a hatred of windmills, he's keen to let horses f*ck up the country (*google bot sentient).

No wonder that lettuce is keen to get back in the game ...

What else? Well there was a bog standard contribution to the never ending jihad against the ABC...

Aunty’s man Gavin Fang plays ‘word bingo’ at royal commission
ABC editorial director Gavin Fang dropped every buzzword in the book at the royal commission into antisemitism – but one candid admission cut through the corporate spin.
By James Madden
Media Editor

And Ben was packing it in his usual way, with Albo at last scoring a reptile nod for doing the dance with an authoritarian Hindu nationalist ...

PM’s all the way with Mr India
Anthony Albanese is all the way with Narendra Modi, as the PM puts faith in Indian leader
Australia needs all the friends it can get right now in a more uncertain and dangerous world. The same goes for India.
By Ben Packham
Foreign affairs and defence correspondent

The immortal Rowe had some thoughts on that one ...

But the pond didn't have the time for any of that because Killer was on the loose, and he wasn't having any of that furriner nonsense, whether curry eater or otherwise ...

The header: How Labor exploits the economic myth of skilled migrants; The greatest mystery is why this economically damaging system, built on the myth of skills, has carried on for so long.
The caption: Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Killer could only manage three minutes but he was at his devastating IPA best.

All the current talk of the joys of having an Indian diaspora in the country clearly sent Killer right off, and he went full nativist, as if born to become member of the Know Nothing party ...

When Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan greeted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Melbourne Airport on Wednesday night, she probably felt a little more confident about her chances at the ballot box in November.
No doubt her confidence was also boosted by the sight of some 40,000 Indian-Australians – a lot of potential and actual marginal seat voters – who packed into Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium on Thursday evening. As one of Labor’s most prominent political strategists, Kos Samaras, pointed out this week, in Victoria “birthplace has become one of the sharpest predictors of the Labor vote”.
“Among Australian-born voters, Labor sits on 24 (per cent). Among voters born overseas, it’s 35. That 11-point gap is Labor’s firewall. Note, that’s 35 with the UK included, which means it’s higher within non-English-speaking background cohorts,” he explained.
It’s no wonder the Premier boasted of how proud she was that Victoria is home to the largest Indian diaspora in the country, at 370,000 strong. Last September she spent a week in China reportedly to demonstrate her solidarity with the similarly electorally powerful Chinese community.

Damn you, you bloody furriners, don't imagine you're welcome, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan's original post welcoming the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi misspelled his name.

Killer decided he'd offer a nativist cold shower, an IPA braying of the first water ...

Perhaps our leaders would be justified if Australia’s immigration program were delivering the economic benefits repeatedly promised by governments of both persuasions. The evidence increasingly suggests otherwise.
“Economically, we need immigration. We need the skills,” Immigration Minister Tony Burke said in May, while extolling the nation’s “well-targeted immigration program”. It turns out this oft-repeated claim has been a gigantic misconception for years.
Of 2.4 million permanent visas issued between the 2012 and 2025 financial years, fewer than 779,000 (32 per cent) were actually allocated to skilled migrants, according to new Institute of Public Affairs research, published this week.
That’s because around half of the so-called “skilled” intake – which is around two-thirds of the total – is made up of the spouses, partners and children of the skilled immigrants themselves. In other words, the vast bulk of immigrants coming to Australia were never chosen for their skills beyond choosing dependency wisely.
Job vacancies were 45 per cent higher in May than before the pandemic, according to ABS data out earlier this week, suggesting the massive influx of non-skilled labour over the past few years has done little to plug alleged shortages. Vacancies were 90 per cent higher in healthcare and social assistance than before the pandemic, making a mockery of South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas’s claim immigrants were necessary to “wipe your bum”. That logic would be news to Japan, of course, whose elderly population is doing just fine.

Say what, the elderly in the Islamic Republic of Japan are doing just fine?

The pond had to reach back some considerable time for Norimitsu Onishi's poignant, award-winning story in the both siderest NY Times ... A Generation in Japan Faces a Lonely Death (*intermittent archive link)

Talk about bleak ...

Sheesh, the pond would settle for a foreign born carer every day of the week, in much the same way that the pond's mother discovered that an Islamic from the Philippines came in mighty handy, and was a nice person to boot, in her hour of need.

Quick, a distracting snap ... Immigration Minister Tony Burke addresses the House of Representatives. Picture: Hilary Wardhaugh / Getty Images

Killer carried on with the No Nothing vibe ...

“The end result was that you had a lot of people coming in who there was no way you could describe as highly skilled,” conceded former Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet head Martin Parkinson earlier this year.
Is it any wonder, then, that Australian living standards have begun to rapidly decline? It’s entirely possible a significant chunk of Australia’s non-skilled immigration is a net drain on local taxpayers.
The OECD’s International Migration Outlook from 2021, which included Australia, found the economic contribution of immigrants was “persistently small during the 2006‑18 period … for most countries” and could be negative.
About half a dozen European nations, including Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland, have introduced voluntary financial incentives for some migrants to return home.
“It would be highly unlikely” Australians would ever have agreed to an immigration system that’s led to more than 10 per cent of the population living here indefinitely on temporary visas, Parkinson added.
The idea bureaucrats in Canberra can determine “shortages” of various occupations at all let alone in a timely manner is ludicrous. Auctioneers are on the current immigration “skilled occupation” list, while home building trades are not, despite the supposed housing supply crisis. Only half of skilled immigrants were still working in the occupation they nominated one year after they applied for their visa, according to 2024 Grattan Institute research.

The reptiles slipped in a snap of said Martin Parkinson ...

...but the pond would have much preferred something visual in line with the Killer's No Nothing vibe, such as an 1854 Boston poster found here...

That's more like it, and it was downhill for the Killer after that, with those bloody pesky, difficult, uppity furriners sent packing...

The greatest mystery is why this economically damaging system built on the myth of skills has carried on for so long. Housing costs have increased and the quality of university education has eroded significantly. Polls show large majorities of Australians want a major reduction in immigration numbers.
To borrow from outgoing British Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer, native-born Australians, especially in the capital cities, appear to feel increasingly like strangers in their own country at the same time as record inflation saps their purchasing power.
The interests of big business and the higher education sector (which profit from ever larger immigration) appear to have overwhelmed the national interest. But mass immigration changes political incentives too.
Brisbane City Council, the largest in the country, has come under pressure from Canberra in recent months to speed up citizenship ceremonies, according to a very well-placed source. Let’s hope that has nothing remotely to do with locking in votes.
Adam Creighton is chief economist at the Institute of Public Affairs.

Exactly so ...

Shouldn't that be "in the marinade in which they come"?

That left the pond with just one final duty, it being, as every herpetology student and Molesworth knos, Our Henry day.

Unfortunately this day the hole in bucket man went for Jew v. Jew action, which while entirely suited to the Australian Daily Zionist News, left the pond indifferent, with the chance of references to Thucydides much reduced ...

The header: Louise Adler distorts history and betrays the Jewish cause; Adler recycles Soviet lies, misrepresents her own father’s work and replaces historical truth with crude left wing ideology.

The caption: Louise Adler appearing on 7.30 following her resignation from Adelaide Writers' Week. Picture: ABC

Ah, it's the old Commie swine Soviet slur ...

Our Henry indulged in a furious five minute fulmination, which might well have pleased Benji and the far right fundamentalists currently in charge of the government of Israel, and which served as a most excellent distraction from the ethnic cleansing currently going down ...

Two days ago, Louise Adler posted to Instagram a 1997 Shoah Foundation clip of her late father, historian Jacques Adler, recalling his participation, aged 15, in the Communist resistance in occupied Paris. The clip, she declared, “testifies to the long history of Zionist collaboration and collusion with Nazis; and the always closely-related tendency to distort and exploit holocaust history”.
Adler clearly believes she is dealing with ignorant fools. But historical reality is less accommodating. For what Adler advances is not a stray remark; it is a categorical claim, stated as settled fact – one serious historians of the Holocaust have spent decades investigating. Their conclusion is unequivocal: Adler’s assertions of “Zionist collaboration and collusion with Nazis” are demonstrably false.
It is undoubtedly true that Jewish organisations, including those of the Zionist movement, had contacts with the German authorities throughout the 1930s, and even during the war, some of which produced formal agreements.
The best known is the 1933 Haavara Agreement, under which German Jews emigrating to Palestine could transfer part of their assets in the form of German export goods.

The reptiles stirred up Our Henry ... A social media post by Louise Adler. Picture: Instagram

The hole in bucket man went historical, but as for Thucydides, forget it, not this time ...

But none of that can be understood outside its historical context. Those who dealt with the German authorities in the 1930s – Zionist and non-Zionist alike – did so believing the Nazis’ objective was to dispossess Germany’s Jews and drive them out of Germany, not to exterminate them. As Frank Nicosia, the leading historian of these pre-war contacts, has shown, Nazi Jewish policy before 1941 was one of “emigration and expulsion”; and given that policy, the Zionists’ aim was to help Jews escape, if possible to the land of Israel.
The alternative was to leave them in a situation where all of their rights were being removed, their livelihoods shattered and their magnificent cultural heritage demolished.
Those negotiations always took place under conditions of overwhelming coercion. The Jewish organisations had no bargaining power: they confronted a regime that could confiscate their property, imprison their leaders and destroy their communities at will. As Nicosia puts it, “to suppose that any Jewish organisation in Hitler’s Germany prior to the ‘final solution’ had the option of refusing to work on some level with the state is fantasy”.
That is why Adler’s language of “collaboration” is not simply inflammatory but analytically incorrect. As historians have repeatedly argued, accommodation – concessions extracted under duress, in the hope of limiting catastrophe – is one thing; collaboration, which presupposes a measure of freedom, a shared objective, or an anticipated benefit, entirely another.
The arrangements Jewish organisations reached were “an avoidance response to threat”, wrote Helen Fein in her classic study of the determinants of Jewish survival during the Holocaust; they were, in that sense, quite different from collaboration, which requires “reward, incentive, or mutuality of goals”. To negotiate with a gunman threatening your life is not to be his accomplice.
Whatever moral anguish those negotiations entailed – and the Zionists involved repeatedly recorded the torment of bargaining with their persecutors – the plain historical fact is that they saved lives. The Haavara Agreement enabled some 60,000 German Jews to leave the Reich, taking with them at least part of their assets, in the years before escape became all but impossible. Likewise, the Kasztner-Becher negotiations, Raoul Wallenberg’s protective passports and the international pressure that halted the Budapest deportations in July 1944 are widely credited with saving tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews.

The reptiles slipped in an AV distraction which continued Our Henry's pogrom (and which offered another chance to add to the reptiles' never ending ABC jihad): Former ambassador to Israel Dave Sharma says he thought the ABC’s interview with Adelaide Writers’ Week Director Louise Adler was “one-sided”. Ms Adler – a Jewish woman herself – discussed Israel’s military operation against Hamas in Gaza on the ABC, saying it is “incumbent upon humanity” to look at what’s happening in Gaza and to say, “we will not accept this, we will say no, not in our name”. “It didn’t present different perspectives on this conflict,” Mr Sharma told Sky News host Sharri Markson. “I thought the analogy of the Holocaust was incredibly distasteful and entirely wrong, factually. “There is one party to this conflict who does want to commit genocide, and that is Hamas.”

Actually Hamas is too inept, too incapable to put together a decent genocide.

For that you need a proper theocratic state apparatus of the kind available to the current fundamentalist government of Israel, and are they doing it in style, or what?

As for the highly esteemed, full disrespect Sharri?

Isn't she better off peddling nonsense in relation to restaurant stings?

What to say? All the pond can note is that Jew on Jew action is much more virulent than the average bout of anti-Semitism ...

None of this resembles the “collusion” Adler alleges. It is instead the history of desperate people, stripped of every real source of power, extracting what little safety they could from murderers who relished their absolute control over life and death.
So where does the accusation of “a long history of Zionist collaboration and collusion with Nazis” come from, if not from the historical record? It comes from the Soviet campaign to delegitimise Zionism.
That campaign began in the early 1950s, but, as William Korey and Izabella Tabarovsky each meticulously documented, it gained fresh momentum as the 40th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany approached. It had a clear purpose: to neutralise the inconvenient fact of Stalin’s pact with Hitler, divert attention from Soviet antisemitism and strengthen the Soviet links with the violently antisemitic Arab states.
Spearheaded by the USSR’s Anti-Zionist Committee, the campaign – which featured pamphlets with titles such as The Criminal Alliance of Zionism and Nazism – was conceived, financed and exported by Moscow through allied organisations across the West, including Australia. Robert Wistrich described the resulting propaganda for what it was: “grotesque Soviet libels”.
It is no accident that one of the campaign’s most prominent advocates was Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority. His 1983 doctoral thesis, submitted in Moscow under Soviet auspices, advanced the claim that Zionist leaders had encouraged the Holocaust for their own political ends – a central theme of Soviet propaganda that he helped transform into an integral part of Palestinian rhetoric.
Adler is therefore once again repeating falsehoods manufactured by the Kremlin, transmitted internationally through the Soviet anti-Zionist apparatus and, from there, infused into the zeitgeist of contemporary leftism.
What makes this grotesque, however, is that Adler’s claims are contradicted by her own father. Jacques Adler’s scholarly account of the Jews of wartime Paris shows that Zionist responses to the Nazi occupation ranged from Hashomer Hatzair’s determination to fight alongside the Resistance to Kadmi Cohen’s attempt to secure legal recognition from the Germans.

Cue a distracting snap, A picture taken just after the liberation by the Soviet army in January, 1945 shows a group of children wearing concentration camp uniforms. Picture: AP Photo

Cue a final blast ...

But he is equally clear that Cohen represented a minute fringe wholly disconnected from the major Zionist organisations. And he states, without ambiguity, “no Jewish organisation ever tried to justify ideological ‘collaboration’ with the Germans, nor were they tempted by the rewards promised for such ‘collaboration’â€Š”. (sic)
That Adler would misrepresent her father’s overall finding – which bears no relationship to the sweeping indictment of Zionism that his daughter now advances in his name – is truly extraordinary.
Yet it is no accident. For what this charade exposes is not Zionism. It is a habit of mind. Adler accuses others of distorting Holocaust history. But she does precisely that herself. She flattens those trapped in the machinery of destruction into ideological caricatures, instead of recognising them as human beings desperately improvising under a gun. Hers is judgment delivered from an armchair upon people in a furnace, by someone who will never have to discover, as Conrad’s Lord Jim puts it, what “can be wrung out of us only by some cruel catastrophe”.
Nor is this an isolated lapse. It is a recurring feature of the left-wing political culture Adler epitomises: the reduction of history to moral theatre, in which what actually happened matters only insofar as it can be mobilised in today’s ideological struggles. History, in this mindset, ceases to be a factual inquiry into the past and becomes a weapon in the politics of the present.
The Holocaust – the greatest catastrophe ever to befall the Jewish people – deserves better. Its realities must be confronted, not conscripted, remembered, not rewritten. That is the obligation its horrors impose on us all. In choosing to ignore it, Louise Adler has not merely devalued her own father’s lifework; she has betrayed the ideals she so loudly purports to embrace.

The pond realises that once Our Henry, a devoted Zionist, gets on his hobby horse for the Australian Daily Zionist News, there's no stopping him.

Sure, it makes risible his blather about being keen on factual inquiry, but whatever ...

Meanwhile, the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the West Bank goes on, a new genocide is being conducted, and the Greater Israel project continues unmolested, and Our Henry shows an almost infinite taste for the sort of splintering schismatics that made for a great Monty Python sketch ... and all the pond can do is mourn the way that yet another chance for genuine entertainment has gone missing in the lizard Oz:

And now, in the search for mindless, meaningless entertainment, this ...

In which only "Ned" makes the cut, but there's plenty of fish heads for those wanting to ferret in the intermittent archive bin ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 22:00:38 +0000

The pond on its return from the big smoke discovered that the lizard Oz had turned itself into a book publicity campaign, with nattering "Ned" imagining that he was some kind of Haberman/Swan down under, worthy of being top of the digital hive mind, ma ...

...except that it concerned that epic dropkick and clap happy loser, Slo Mo, in his Covid days (waiter, put on Miles Davis's Kind of Blue).

The pond gave a deep, wearied sigh...

The header: Scott Morrison’s mea culpa on Covid error that contributed to election rout; Scott Morrison concedes his legal fight against WA’s border closure contributed to the Coalition’s 2022 election loss, adding he now believes the policy was the right call.

The caption for the tedious uncredited collage, heralding a tedious foray into the past: Former prime minister Scott Morrison concedes his legal challenge against former WA premier Mark McGowan’s border closure was a political ‘disaster’.

Who cares? Who gives a FF?

Why did the pond bother?

Well perhaps someone is curious about the book, and wants just the lowlights as a way of avoiding an actual inspection of the tedious tome itself...

Former prime minister Scott Morrison concedes his mistake in the Covid crisis, saying his legal campaign against the closure of the West Australian border was a political “disaster” and reveals he has changed his mind about the border policy of WA’s then Labor premier Mark McGowan.
In his interviews for my book The Twilight of Exceptionalism – The Liberal and Conservative Era 2013-22, Mr Morrison said he now believed closing the WA border was a sensible move – although his opposition at the time was critical in Labor winning four seats in WA, allowing the West to underpin the Albanese majority at the 2022 federal election.

This is what the reptiles are hoping will make punters unleash their precious shekels? Seems so ...

PREMIUM
No apology: Howard fires up over Brittany Higgins in new Paul Kelly book
Become a member to access our premium video content

In typical clap happy fashion, SloMo cunningly explained it wasn't his fault, it wasn't really anything to do with him, he just went along with the mob ...

Mr Morrison initially supported Clive Palmer’s High Court action that claimed Mr McGowan’s closed borders – which lasted 697 days – were in breach of section 92 of the Constitution guaranteeing free movement between states.
The former PM said he had been encouraged to take action by two WA colleagues, Mathias Cormann and Christian Porter. “It was a massive mistake. But Mathias and Christian advised me to do it,” he said. “Greg (Hunt) said to exercise caution, but he was a lone voice. At the start there was no pushback from any Western Australians in our cabinet.
“But I knew within a short time it was a disaster. I went to work with Mark (McGowan) to fix it. I can’t blame the Labor Party for using that against me. I mean, why wouldn’t they? And I don’t hold it against Mark either. So yes, it was a disaster. I don’t think we would have lost as many seats in WA as we did.”

This morose, maundering wander through the past is what the reptiles hope will trigger sales? Seems so, because they slipped in a massive snap of the cover, The Twilight of Exceptionalism by Paul Kelly is out on Tuesday July 14

The pond shrank it to the right size ...

The pond is supposed to give a flying fig about all this? (Use your own curse words, but beware the google bot):

The then Assistant Minister to the PM, Ben Morton, a West Australian, said: “The impression left was that the prime minister was saying that Western Australia had got it wrong. The people were never going to accept that. I went to work to get the decision reversed but it was too late. The issue was being presented as Palmer versus the entire state with Morrison on Palmer’s side.”
While Mr Morrison later withdrew, the damage had been done. It was Mr Morrison’s worst mistake in the politics of Covid because it had the most lethal direct impact – turning WA from a Liberal stronghold into a Labor on at the election that destroyed the Morrison government.
But Mr Morrison’s reassessment goes far beyond the High Court case. He now agrees with Mr McGowan’s decision on the border, an extraordinary rethink.
“I have a different view now. In the first few weeks and months of the pandemic we didn’t really talk about borders,” he said. “We had closed the international border, but what did that mean internally?
“We didn’t give that enough thought because, ultimately, I think the West Australian border made a lot of sense. It didn’t disrupt the national economy. The border was in a remote area. The borders between Victoria and NSW and between NSW and Queensland were a completely different issue.”
Mr McGowan ensured his state remained remarkably Covid-free and without most of the restrictions imposed on other states. At the 2021 state poll he turned the West into a de facto one-party state and for a long time enjoyed an approval rating above 90 per cent, a success unmatched anywhere in our political history.

Could it get any more tedious? Of course it could, bring in comrade Dan, though some might get a snort, a giggle or a laugh out loud moment at the thought of SloMo being "a professional" ...

As a professional, Mr Morrison respected the political skill of both Mr McGowan and Victorian premier Daniel Andrews but his treatment of Mr Andrews was seen as too soft by both his treasurer Josh Frydenberg and health minister Mr Hunt.
Mr Frydenberg said: “The problem was that he (Morrison) thought he could work with Daniel Andrews, but every time Andrews saw an opportunity to whack Morrison, he did. There was no quid pro quo. You saw that whether it was on the vaccine rollout, social restrictions, or funding programs where Victoria always wanted more money. The premiers whacked the federal government if it suited their domestic politics.”

What an astonishing revelation, worth repeating ...

The premiers whacked the federal government if it suited their domestic politics.

Who'd have thunk it?

Why the pond will have to do an extraordinary rethink of the relationship between the states and the feds, as the reptiles slipped in a snap ... Police officers and Royal Australian Navy personnel stop drivers on the West Australian border during the pandemic. Picture: AAP

Want further evidence that "Ned's" tome (the pond uses the word advisedly) isn't up to snuff?

Attacking Mr Andrews’ policies that put Victoria in a massive cumulative lockdown, Mr Hunt said: “There was no explanation for the curfew. There was no explanation for the 5km rule. There was no real explanation for a children’s playground being taped off. No medical advice was ever provided on these measures.
“We accepted that Victoria went into hard lockdown because they completely lost control of their contact tracing, but we didn’t accept individual measures which were at odds with our medical advice. It was clear many of these were (the) premier’s decisions or Victorian cabinet decisions taken without medical advice but for control or other purposes.
“We need to put in place protocols to make it difficult for premiers to do this again.”

Hunt? The name is vaguely familiar, perhaps we need to put protocols in place to ensure he never appears again.

The next caption repeated what had already been written, Scott Morrison, right, was accused by some in his cabinet of being too soft on then Victorian premier Daniel Andrews, left. Picture: Getty Images

Woulda, coulda, shoulda ...

Mr Morrison believed one of the worst instances of premiers acting for political, not health, reasons was their compulsion to close schools as there was no advice to this effect from chief medical officer Brendan Murphy.
“Our very strong view was that schools should not be shut. There was no medical evidence to support it. This was being driven by the state teachers’ federations – it was about teachers’ health, not children’s health. I said in national cabinet, ‘Brendan (Murphy) is here. He’s telling you there’s no medical reason to shut schools, so why are you doing it?’ I said: ‘You have every right as premiers to make the decisions you want, but you don’t get to go out and make up health advice. Don’t pretend that’s why you’re doing this’.”
Claims by many conservatives that Mr Morrison should have waged a political campaign against the premiers and brought them under control are fatuous. Mr Morrison’s former chief of staff, John Kunkel, said: “The federation did not permit that. Yet the media encouraged this thinking and the populist conservatives encouraged it. They promoted themselves. They weren’t serious commentators on Morrison.”
The Twilight of Exceptionalism – The Liberal and Conservative Era, published by Melbourne University Press, is out on July 14.

The pond apologises. That's not the glorious big splash the pond was hoping to make on its return ...

On the upside, at least "Ned" helped the pond avoid yet another sampling of the Australian Daily Zionist News...

I’ve seen less Jew-hatred in Muslim countries
After almost three decades as an Israeli diplomat, I’ve never seen such levels of antisemitism as I’ve witnessed in Australia.
By Hillel Newman

Well he would say that, wouldn't he, and so would the lizard Oz echo chamber, with a patented EXCLUSIVE that simply regurgitates Newman's piece ... two for the price of one ...

EXCLUSIVE
Australia the worst country I’ve seen for antisemitism, says Israeli envoy
Australian antisemitism worse than in Muslim nations, declares Israel’s top diplomat
Hillel Newman has called the nation’s antisemitism scourge significantly worse than the two Muslim countries where he was previously ambassador.
By Richard Ferguson

Just a way of making a living, eh Fergo?

That old saw came out for another dance ...

“When people march and chant ‘From the river to the sea’, they are calling for the annihilation of the state of Israel. That is a sign.”

The problem?

If even Benji is deeply anti-Semitic, if he's calling for the annihilation of Israel, then Israel has a real problem ...

As for the rest of the rabble, Dame Slap was still hanging around like a bad smell ...

Shag, marry, kill?’ Sorry folks, I’m with Albo on this one
Let’s play an experiment, ladies: Keating, Hawke, Rudd. If I were to say to you ‘shag, marry, kill’ you’d probably have an answer straight off the bat. I certainly do.
By Janet Albrechtsen
Columnist

Spoiler alert. She isn't really with Albo, she slags him off every which way, but the pond will leave yesterday's droppings to the intermittent archive.

If the pond wanted fun with Albo, it'd settle for the infallible Pope ...

And if it wanted a female columnist being witty, it would settle for a serve of Marina Hyde. Mad King Donald's World Cup follies, Taylor getting hitched, and so on, and what's not to like?

Heck while the pond is at it, cutting reptiles dead like a Becky Sharp, why not send Miles off to the cornfield ...

The real reason the CCP hates America
The CCP does not fear America itself, but the ideals it represents – ideals capable of inspiring the very people the party seeks to control.
By Miles Yu

American ideals? On what mad King Donald part of the planet is Miles living?

The pond was titillated enough to sample Miles and see how he dealt with mad King Donald's reinvention of "American ideals", and could only come up with this ...

Donald Trump flies over the 60-foot high faces of (from left to right) Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln carved into the granite in Marine One at Mount Rushmore National Memorial. Picture: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

That's it? That's the sole mention of mad King Donald in a treatise on newly minted American ideals?

A mention in a caption for a snap?

And it got worse, ending with this blather, entirely out of sorts with the currently disunited States, ruled by a grifter and a con artist ...

...It is the idea that free societies flourish through openness, liberty, equality and consent of the governed, while dictatorships survive only through coercion, censorship and fear.

You guessed it. Mr Yu was inside the Bezos tent, a rag much reduced by a billionaire's whims ...

Miles Yu is director of the China Centre at the Hudson Institute. This article was first published in The Washington Post

Sorry, you must do much better, Mr Yu, before the pond pays any attention to you ...

Desperate stuff, and the pond also ruled out Alex...

Australia needs to stop snubbing TAFE for universities
Employers are crying out for occupational skills that are taught in a TAFE classroom rather than a university lecture theatre.
By Alex White

Why?

Alex White is chief executive of the Victorian TAFE Association.

Well he would scribble that, wouldn't he?

Lastly the pond had to rule out Eric ...

Defining moment’: Telstra outage a bigger problem for CEO
Cracks in the network have put Telstra’s high-cost, premium reputation on the line.
By Eric Johnston
Associate Editor

Why? The notion that Telstra has a premium reputation was too bizarre to contemplate...

Did Eric entirely miss that recent yarn, Telstra, Optus and TPG forced to publish new mobile coverage maps?

Despite living barely 10 minutes west of the largest inland city in New South Wales, Uranquinty residents have long struggled to get the major telcos to understand just how bad their mobile reception is.
"We had a telco executive come out once to discuss the issues we were having with reception and he was sitting on the back verandah of one of our homes and was challenged to call the owner of the home," Deb Bewick recalled.
She said he was "surprised" when he could not make the call so close to Wagga Wagga.

Tell the pond about it. Sitting in the Sydney-Melbourne train is like being in a Faraday cage, at its most effective at blocking all signals around Wagga Wagga.

So being in Sydney with no phone yesterday was just more of the same.

Again the pond apologies for the dismal crock of reptiles on parade this day.

If the pond had had its druthers, it would have been featuring a version of le stylo-plume, courtesy the immortal Rowe ...

Or better still, Nige and Pauline...

The pond is looking forward to Nige v. Count Binface, with little England making a great attempt to upstage mad King Donald in the entertainment stakes ...

A postscript:

Speaking of Pauline and monoculture, as some do, the pond was vastly relieved yesterday at the chance to drop in to Sydney's Chinatown, which has had some bigly changes since the pond last made a visit ...

There were inexplicable visual mysteries, with this sighting in Kimber Lane ...

There were also signs that 'monoculture' never had a chance.

The pond and partner attended a Thai restaurant, and discovered we were of totally unique origins ... of some 50 or so in the diner, we were the only visible signs of a non-Asian heritage, at least until another couple turned up, and we became only slightly unique.

Elsewhere on our wanderings we reverted to being totally unique.

Strolling around the markets felt like being in an Asian outpost, and nothing wrong with that, because it was invigorating, if at times disconcerting when seeing the sort of games that distracted the younglings.

And if you happen to be wandering around the markets (a long way from ancient Paddy's markets times) and you need a script filled at 8 pm, there was a franchise pharmacy open, with an adept, attentive pharmacist at hand. The pond suspects she might have been of Vietnamese descent, but only because she was a parishioner at St Josephs, a Catholic church just up the road from the pond's old digs.

In short, it's too late for the monoculture brigade, unless they happen to plan mass deportations of an ICE kind, and the pond can't imagine the country standing for it, because the Thai meal was good, and the markets a great place to acquire a lucky cat, and we all need a bit of luck sometimes...

Now back to that entertainment, free for all to enjoy ...

Is it wrong to also enjoy the suffering?

In which ancient Troy sets the pace, there's yet another nuking of the country, "Ned" flogs a tome, and Dame Groan embarks on a snake-bashing day ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 20:50:50 +0000

A little housekeeping: the pond will be in the big smoke tomorrow morning, so the pond will not be keeping company with the reptiles, but given the way the pond's penultimate post attracted a measly two comments, it's likely nobody will much care.

Those who do can head off to the intermittent archive for their reptile fix, and hopefully the pond will be back in business on Thursday.

Meanwhile, on with the entertainment ... with ancient Troy coming at ya ...

The header: Taylor’s lurch to the right will lead Liberal Party to extinction; At a time of existential crisis for the Liberals, Angus Taylor has taken the party backward since he became leader in February.
The caption for the collage, as Emilia strikes again: Pauline Hanson, Anthony Albanese and Angus Taylor. Artwork by Emilia Tortorella. Sources: iStock

The only reason the pond decided to spend quality time with ancient Troy - a bigly four minutes - was to settle the vexed question of the lettuce.

Would the lettuce have to come out of retirement to stage yet another gladiatorial contest with an incumbent?

It took ancient Troy a long time to get there, but eventually he did...

Invitations for the Conservative Political Action Conference in October have gone out. They feature Liberal leader Angus Taylor flanked by Nationals leader Matt Canavan and One Nation leader Pauline Hanson. There it is, the image suggests, the future three-party coalition of conservatives seeking to govern Australia.
“Angus Taylor. Pauline Hanson. Matt Canavan,” the invitation from the far-right CPAC says, enticing supporters to come to Brisbane. “Different lanes of the same movement, in the same room, pointed at the same goal: changing the government and getting Australia back on course.”
This association is toxic for the Coalition. To be linked with the far-right xenophobic, nativist, populist Hanson as part of her movement at the same place with an identical purpose is ruinous branding for the once mainstream centre-right party. What on earth is Taylor thinking? There is good reason Sussan Ley avoided CPAC like the plague.
The Liberal Party risks being devoured by One Nation if it does not seek to defeat the Hanson party. Taylor seems to miss this fundamental point even though the evidence is blindingly obvious. The rise in support for One Nation has come mostly at the expense of the Liberal and National parties. Unless the Coalition fights One Nation, it will be replaced by One Nation.
At a time of existential crisis for the Liberals, Taylor has taken the party backward since he became leader in February. His MPs are openly questioning the party’s strategy, philosophy, policies and image. He lost a safe seat – Farrer – and thus presides over a smaller party than the one he inherited. He’s losing Jonno Duniam from the frontbench. And the Liberal Party is tanking in the polls.

Sheesh, that doesn't sound at all positive for the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way ...Angus Taylor atthe (sic) LNP Conference in Brisbane. Picture: John Gass

Rowing against the tide and conventional reptile wisdom - hadn't Polonius himself blessed the beefy boofhead as the right sort of chap as recently as Sunday?- ancient Troy carried on with his litany of despair ...

The Coalition primary vote has fallen to another diabolical record low of 17 per cent, according to Newspoll. This is a political party in its death throes. Labor, for all its ups and downs in and out of government, has never reached that low in more than 40 years of Newspoll. The Liberal Party resembles a minor party, on the fringes, polling not much higher than the far-left Greens.
The political circumstances, however, could not have been more favourable for Taylor. He was given the gift of Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers breaking iron-clad election promises on negative gearing, capital gains tax and trusts, facing a huge public backlash and forced to retreat, yet the Liberal leader could not capitalise on it.
When Taylor toppled Ley, his promise was that he would do better than her. Approaching six months on, Taylor is floundering and performing worse than his predecessor. Nobody knows what the party stands for under his leadership: he has failed to define the party’s purpose or craft new policies. He is a terrible communicator. That was evident when he could not state that he supported multiculturalism.
His colleagues, including deputy Jane Hume, had no problem supporting a multicultural Australia. Queensland Premier David Crisafulli said at the weekend his LNP government supports multiculturalism. What message does Taylor’s stumbling equivocation send to migrant communities that have deserted the Liberal Party at recent elections?

Cue a snap of malevolent Melissa ...Melissa McIntosh holds a press conference in the Mural Hall at Parliament House. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman.

Ancient Troy continued, inconsolable ...

The party’s dire position prompted calls for a “rebrand” from Liberal frontbencher Melissa McIntosh. This cannot be interpreted any other way than a critique of the party and its leader. But McIntosh is right.
The party does need to rediscover what it stands for, what its purpose is and who it wants to represent. As she said, it goes beyond image to values, policy and strategy.
The party seems to have given up on reclaiming previously safe seats in Liberal heartlands from the teals. Tim Wilson had luck on his side when he regained Goldstein at the last election but winning back other seats held by teals seems to be a low priority. Yet this is where the party’s shrinking membership and donors still predominantly live.
While it is highly unlikely the Liberal Party can return to government without winning back seats lost to independents in multiple states, it is unlikely to survive as a major political force unless it takes on One Nation strongly.
Yet senior Liberals are refusing to rule out preference deals with One Nation or power sharing in a coalition government. So rattled is the Liberal Party that MP Tony Pasin, a close colleague of Taylor, went public urging a deal with One Nation to carve up the seats they will target and “work hand-in-glove” to defeat Labor. This is the three-way conservative coalition in all but name.

At this point the pond became confused, because the reptiles introduced a snap of ...NSW Minister for Transport David Elliott

... while ancient Troy dubbed him a "former NSW minister".

Whatever, it led to a gloomy conclusion:

If Taylor does not have enough problems or know how to deal with them, another has lobbed in his inbox: the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption’s Operation Rosny, an inquiry that will, among other things, examine electoral donations and branch stacking in the already dysfunctional NSW division of the Liberal Party.
Former NSW minister David Elliott said Taylor should resign over his relationship with Catholic Schools NSW chief executive Dallas McInerney, a close ally and fundraiser for Taylor, who has stepped aside during the investigation. Taylor dismissed Elliott’s allegations as “nonsense”. Senior Liberals say they are worried what will be uncovered and who will be implicated.
Meanwhile, Andrew Hastie stands in the wings. The Liberal leader-in-waiting has signalled he is up for the fight against One Nation. He has the cut-through Taylor lacks and says he will not be intimidated by “a relentless campaign of personal attacks” over possibly being called as a witness in the war crimes trial of Ben Roberts-Smith. Taylor was never going to be the messiah for the Liberals. The party has started to consider alternatives. The clock is ticking on his leadership.

Not a ticking clock, ancient Troy, it sounds like the lettuce must come out of retirement. Say the word, and it's ready to do battle ...

What's remarkable is that this dirge of despair comes as the government does its best to give the beefy boofhead a break.

Not to worry, Tuesdays at the lizard Oz always feature stale offerings from aged hacks, and the pond is keen to freshen up the algae-laden waters with fresh insights.

Come on down a certain Cristina Talacko, who has never appeared in the pond before.

A little reheating is necessary, because she was out and about yesterday in the hive mind, but hey, she's one of those "we need to nuke the country to save the planet" types, and the pond is always keen to celebrate the genre.

First a word of introduction.

Christine can be found at the Mothers for Nuclear site - no, the pond didn't invent that name, it really does exist - with this her pitch.

Nuclear energy is one of the safest, most heavily regulated technologies in existence. Its carbon footprint is as low as wind and lower than solar. And the next generation of reactors, smaller, faster to build, and even safer, is already on the horizon.

Ah, the horizon.

And she could be found furiously scribbling for the AFR on a couple of occasions, both saved by the pond to the intermittent archive.

Australia toys with its own ‘Why Nations Fail’ moment on energy
It’s dangerous when institutions are captured by their own storyline. Faith in renewables has become an identity, and that’s a lot harder to tweak than policy.

There tended to be a certain sameness to the offerings and the rhetoric.

Inter alia ...

A decade ago, leaders might have claimed ignorance. Today, globalisation and real-time information remove that excuse. Around the world, advanced economies treat energy as strategic infrastructure – the foundation of economic competitiveness and national sovereignty. Crucially, they are adjusting course where reality demands it.
Germany is the most striking example. Once the global champion of renewables-first strategy, Germany now faces some of the highest electricity prices in the OECD and is being forced to strengthen gas and capacity mechanisms to stabilise the grid. Germany is the future Australia is walking toward – only Australia still has time to change direction.
Other countries have already shifted. France is investing €52 billion ($92 billion) to expand nuclear capacity and secure long-term competitiveness. South Korea reinstated nuclear expansion after its phase-out weakened energy security and threatened heavy industry. Japan is restarting reactors and locking in long-term LNG supply because its economy cannot function without firm power. The United Kingdom is investing in both large reactors and small modular reactors to ensure future baseload. The United States is approving record LNG export infrastructure to support allies and domestic industry, while revitalising nuclear through production tax credits.
The pattern is clear: nations that secure affordable, firm, reliable energy prosper; nations that treat energy as ideology decline.

And again ...

Net zero is the right destination, but the road we’re on is broken
Australia must learn from the global reset already underway. We need an all-technologies approach that prioritises performance over ideology.

...Australia is phasing out coal, but what is replacing it? Intermittent renewables cannot run a modern economy alone. And so, gas is filling the gap. The Australian Energy Market Operator projects gas generation will need to increase by 14 per cent by 2030 to maintain grid reliability as coal retires. Gas peaked plants, gas capacity investments, gas purchase contracts – not temporary, but structural. That is not an energy transition; that is greenwashing fossil dependence.
At the same time, we continue to ban nuclear energy, the only zero-emissions technology capable of providing reliable baseload power at scale. Australia is the only G20 nation with a ban on nuclear energy.
Yet while we block nuclear, the rest of the world is shifting.
In June 2023, Sweden’s parliament changed its energy target from “100 per cent renewable electricity” to “100 per cent fossil-free electricity”, explicitly reintroducing nuclear as central to achieving industrial competitiveness and energy security. The UK is doubling down on nuclear with its £20 billion ($40.3 billion) Great British Nuclear program. The US passed the ADVANCE Act in July 2024 with overwhelming bipartisan support, accelerating advanced reactor development and unlocking over US$100 billion in private capital for next-generation nuclear projects.
Japan has restarted nuclear reactors. Canada is building modular reactors. Poland is transitioning directly from coal to nuclear. The Philippines, Ghana and Kenya are preparing nuclear programs as part of their decarbonisation strategy.
France, which already generates approximately 70 per cent of its electricity from nuclear, announced a program to build six new EPR2 reactors with an estimated investment of €52-67 billion ($92-$118 billion), affirming nuclear as essential to its climate and energy independence goals. South Korea reversed its nuclear phase-out policy in 2022, returning nuclear to the centre of its energy strategy.
These are not reckless nations. These are pragmatists who understand physics.
It’s time for Australia to do the same, to design a transition that is real.
That means putting people, nature, and national security back at the heart of climate policy. It means embracing every technology that works, instead of clinging to a single narrative. It means measuring success by outcomes: lower emissions, lower bills, stronger ecosystems; not by construction targets or political slogans. Above all, it means restoring integrity to a debate that has drifted dangerously far from evidence.
Net zero is still the right destination. But the road we’re on is broken.
Australia must learn from the global reset already underway. We need an all-technologies approach that prioritises performance over ideology. We need to stop confusing megawatts built with emissions reduced. And we need to stop sacrificing nature in the name of saving it.

There's more on the full to overflowing intertubes, but the pond will consider the introduction compleat, because with that track record, it was almost inevitable that Cristina would find a natural home amongst the reptiles, and so it came to pass:

The header: Australia’s energy policy is living in its own private Idaho; Australia is the energy outlier: an isolated continental grid, no neighbour to lean on and a legal ban on the one firm zero-carbon technology the rest of the world is racing to deploy.

The caption for the snap of the renewables heel, who clearly needs to think a lot harder (sorry, no human credit for that remarkable collage, so perhaps it was AI, devouring resources with the enthusiasm of a raptor): Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen.

Cristina spent a bigly 4 minutes explaining why she wanted to nuke the country to save the planet:

Which advanced economy plans to power itself by 2050 overwhelmingly with variable wind and solar – no nuclear, no interconnection to a neighbour’s grid, no great rivers left to dam?
Yes, Australia.
I spend much of my time inside other countries’ energy transitions, and every flight home arrives with a 1980s soundtrack: the B-52s’ Private Idaho – “living in your own private Idaho, underground, like a wild potato”. A state of sealed windows, where the echo passes for the world. It is an apt description of Australian energy policy in 2026.

Actually, if the pond might briefly interrupt, sealed windows are now all the go.

A remarkable number of the pond's relatives and acquaintances are investing in the design and building of their own private Passivhaus (passive house if you insist).

The concept has a detailed wiki listing, and the Australian government produced a site dedicated to the notion.

This was the pitch for insulation and sealing doors and windows and so on ...

The Passive House concept initially met some resistance in Australia because some people believed that it was only suited to a cold northern European climate. This idea was dispelled by the rapid uptake of Passive House ideas in China, where entire precincts are being built to Passive House standard in all climates, from cold to hot and humid.

Sorry, the pond didn't mean to interrupt, and perhaps it's too bold to suggest that maybe a different metaphor might have been used, for fear of otherwise sounding like a serve of half-baked musical rhetorical chips.

Do go on, open the window, ruin the seal, and spend a bucketload more on your energy ...

Now open the window. The world has changed. Denmark, the poster child with renewables above 80 per cent of its electricity – a fifth of it from burning biomass – is wired into Norwegian hydro and Swedish nuclear, and last year ended a 40-year ban on nuclear power. Germany spent roughly €500bn on the Energiewende, continued to burn coal, imported French nuclear electricity through the winter, and is openly rethinking its approach. Finland gets 40 per cent of its electricity from nuclear and in 2022 its Green Party became the first in the world to formally back the technology.
Norway and Iceland run on hydro and geothermal. Spain and Portugal discovered in April last year, in Europe’s largest blackout, what a stressed grid can do in 15 seconds. The United Arab Emirates built four nuclear reactors from a standing start in just over a decade. Every other G20 economy – the US, China, Japan, South Korea, Canada, France, Britain, India – is building or restoring nuclear alongside renewables.

Of course this will be extremely familiar to students of the reptiles, who love to feature snaps of nuked countries, because it makes them shiver with delight at their naughtiness ... The cooling towers of the nuclear power plant in Grafenrheinfeld, Germany, on August 16, 2024, shortly before their controlled demolition. Picture: Daniel Peter / AFP

Apart from breaking assorted seals, Cristina has a concrete propensity for banal words, perhaps because necessity isn't always the mother of invention:

Necessity is the mover. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine turned energy policy into security policy overnight; AI rewrote the demand curve, with the International Energy Agency expecting data centre consumption to roughly double to 945 terawatt hours by 2030.
The response has been concrete. Thirty-one countries have pledged to triple nuclear capacity by 2050. The World Bank lifted its decades-old financing ban; the Asian Development Bank followed. About 70 reactors are under construction. Italy legislated its return four decades after walking away; Belgium repealed its phase-out. And the most data-driven companies did their own maths: Microsoft is restarting Three Mile Island, Google has contracted small modular reactors and Amazon is targeting five gigawatts of new nuclear.
Against this trend, the outlier is Australia: an isolated continental grid, no neighbour to lean on and a legal ban on the one firm zero-carbon technology the rest of the world is racing to deploy.

Then came another unfortunate metaphor:

The psychology of the Australian cocoon is worth understanding.

Actually if the pond might be so bold, cocoons are actually a jolly good idea.

As well as being protective, nature uses these structures to maintain a constant, regulated microclimate, buffering external temperature shifts and retaining moisture.

We should all be so lucky:

Silkworm cocoons are important biological materials that protect silkworms from environmental threat and predator attacks. Silkworm cocoons are able to provide significant buffer against temperature changes outside of the cocoon structure. We present our investigation of the thermal insulation properties of both domestic and wild silkworm cocoons under warm conditions. Wild cocoons show stronger thermal buffer function over the domestic cocoon types. Both the cocoon walls and the volume of inner cocoon space contribute to the thermal damping behaviour of cocoons. Wild silkworm cocoons also have lower thermal diffusivity than domestic ones. Calcium oxalate crystals affects the thermal behaviour of wild silkworm cocoons, by trapping still air inside the cocoon structure and enhancing the thermal stability of the cocoon assembly. The research findings are of relevance to the bio-inspired design of new thermo-regulating materials and structures.

The pond shrugged its way out of its cocoon as Crista continued:

Politicians committed so fully to one pathway that questioning it means questioning themselves. A heavily subsidised industry depends on the pathway continuing. Consultants are paid to make the chosen path look workable, not to challenge whether it should be chosen at all. Inside such a room, consensus feels like evidence. The cocoon is warm because everyone inside is paid to keep it warm.
Consider where our own pathway is taking us. Snowy 2.0 was sold by Malcolm Turnbull in 2017 as a $2bn project before a completed business case had tested the claim. At the 2023 reset, it became a $12bn project. Last month, the Auditor-General found “significant deficiencies” in its management, while independent estimates put the direct cost closer to $20bn and the all-in cost, including transmission and financing, as high as $42bn.

At this point, the reptiles introduced a favourite whipping boy, Malware, and never mind that he was the sort of doofus who set out to destroy the internet on the onion muncher's orders, Malcolm Turnbull during a visit to Snowy Hydro in Cooma. Source: Alex Ellinghausen /Fairfax

It's all familiar stuff, and it's a fair bet that with this outing Cristina would find a home with the beefy boofhead and Ted:

The hydrogen and the wind stories are no better. The flagship Queensland hydrogen project, once valued at more than $12bn, has collapsed. Origin, Fortescue and Woodside have all walked away from major hydrogen ambitions. And this year’s budget quietly redirected $1.3bn from clean-energy programs it once trumpeted, including $1bn from Hydrogen Headstart. The Illawarra offshore wind zone has no feasibility licence. A Hunter offshore wind proposal, the 2GW Novocastrian project off Newcastle and Port Stephens, failed to proceed after Equinor withdrew and the developers declined the federal feasibility licence. Moonlight Range was refused. Proserpine was shelved. The transition is being slowed by finance, approvals, transmission and communities who don’t want to host turbines.
Meanwhile, the Capacity Investment Scheme has taxpayers underwriting 40GW of renewable and storage capacity, supporting about $73bn of investment, with the key contract terms largely hidden from public view. Frontier Economics puts comparable transition costs above $600bn, while the Australian Energy Market Operator’s headline figures remain a planning estimate, not a single audited national bill. No government has yet put a clear, whole-of-system cost in front of the Australian people.
Security tells the same story. AEMO’s final 2026 blueprint concedes under “constrained delivery” Australia reaches 75 per cent renewables by 2030, not 82 per cent. Project costs are assumed to rise by 30 per cent, transmission is delayed and coal remains in the system until nearly 2050.

How did the pond know that Cristina was a winner?

Why the reptiles interrupted with Lloydie of the Amazon, dedicated climate science fudger, explaining to petulant Peta how we'll all be rooned (and still no rebrand!).... The Australian’s Environment Editor Graham Lloyd says the cost of Australia’s energy transition will be ‘much larger’ than the AEMO estimated $128 billion. “The real figure on what it’s going to cost is much, much larger than 128 billion,” Mr Lloyd told Sky News host Peta Credlin. “Modelling that was done by Frontier Economics has put it at about $650 billion.”

Eeek, windmills, eeek ravaging solar, and the coins, oh the despairing coins, heaped and scattered..

Cristina insisted that she must keep up with her song metaphor:

Then there are people. Households were promised power bills $275 lower. Instead, more than $5bn in rebates has been used to hold bills down temporarily, and once those rebates were exhausted the Australian Bureau of Statistics recorded out-of-pocket electricity costs rising 37 per cent in the year to February. Governments are negotiating rescue packages for smelters. Industrial leaders warn that Australian energy costs are far above those in competitor countries and manufacturers are leaving, taking sovereign capability with them.
The song Private Idaho carries its own warning – a deadly radium clock ticking at the bottom of the pool. Ours ticks in plain sight: coal retiring on a fixed schedule, the energy demand wave arriving on someone else’s, capital allocating now to jurisdictions that kept their options open. None of this requires betting the house on nuclear; renewables, storage and grid modernisation remain essential. It requires something more modest and more radical: lift the ban, commission a genuine full-system cost study and let the options compete on evidence, in public, with the numbers on the table.
“Get out of that state you’re in” is no longer a lyric. It is a deadline.
Cristina Talacko is co-founder and chief executive of GLOW Strategies.

Is it wrong for the pond to want to stay in a Passivhaus or snuggle into a cocoon? At least that way the pond could avoid all the reptile braying about the weevils of renewables and the joys of nuking the country to save the planet.

Apparently Cristina has yet to catch up with a favourite reptile ploy, explaining why doing anything was useless and much too expensive ... and anyway, was there much wrong with the world, apart from the odd record heat wave?

Trust Lloydie of the Amazon blathering away on Sky Noise down under to explain it to her in a few choice words ...

Sure can. The Australian’s Environment Editor Graham Lloyd says Australia’s emission reduction targets will do “absolutely nothing” to reduce global emissions. (Sorry, the pond doesn't usually link to News Corp, but it's easy enough to find).

So according to ancient reptile lore, there's absolutely no point in nuking the country, or doing much of anything else, and we may as well keep on with clean, dinkum, pure, innocent virginal Oz coal, because it's all existentially pointless. Enjoy your coming summer...

As for the alternatives this day, the reptiles made a big fuss at the top of the page early in the morning.

Naturally the pond went there, because these days the reptiles are increasingly obsessed with the past, what with current realities not offering much joy ...

Imagine the pond's despair to discover it was just "Ned" nattering away ... and there were only two minutes of natter.

Such a wretched offering and in such small portions...

It turned out it was just a book promo, and best despatched in three gobbets ...

Oh no, not the Lehrmann matter yet again. (Hadn't he failed yet again?)

Will the pond be lining up for a copy, to hear a tired, old, irrelevant fart blather to another tired, old, irrelevant fart? Not likely, hopefully a street library will provide, and in the meantime, the cover will suffice...

There were a few alternatives this day ...

How Australia became NIMBY capital of the world
When the NIMBY reflex can stop a family’s extension and a piece of infrastructure, it’s stopped being about genuine grievance and become sport.
By Julianna Burgess
Contributor

Ben, in lieu of the bromancer, was packing it in his usual way ...

China says missile test was routine. Pull the other one
Australia’s run of security agreements with Pacific nations are closing off China’s options to establish a military base in the region.
By Ben Packham
Foreign affairs and defence correspondent

All that's well and good, but how could the pond forget it's Dame Groan Tuesday? Holding her back until last was just a tease, a playful troll.

On with the groaning ...

The header: Why Labor’s pro-union IR agenda is a productivity killer; How the PM can keep a straight face telling us he doesn’t condone the behaviour of the CFMEU is anyone’s guess.
The caption for the snap of two heels: Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers on the campaign trail. Picture: Mark Stewart / NewsWire

Dame Slap spent a bigly four minutes announcing we'll all be rooned by Xmas, for the squillionth time, but she introduced something of a variation.

She went back to union bashing roots, taking to the task like Homer Simpson on snake-bashing day.

As well as being all the fault of Jimbo, there were other flies in the pudding...

Over the years, I’ve written a great deal about industrial relations. But in recent times it’s simply become too depressing to spend time on the subject.
The retrograde changes that have been made since Labor secured office in 2022 have been entirely politically motivated, rewarding its trade union partners – some would say masters. They are completely unrelated to increasing productivity, improving employee-employer relations or securing win-win outcomes.
Like a covetous teenager, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and several other influential trade unions have set down a “must have” list of gifts. The Labor government has worked through the list, ticking each one off as they are made law or delivered through the tribunal system.
By right, Jim Chalmers should have raised strenuous objections to these productivity-sapping initiatives, which now mean any annual GDP growth above 2 per cent is essentially impossible, lest the rate of inflation accelerate. But the Treasurer has a very skewed view of the workings of the labour market.
He was happy to be convinced that labour’s share of national output had been artificially suppressed under the Coalition government and measures to increase it were both justified and economically harmless. For this reason, he’s fully supported higher mandated wages set by the Fair Work Commission.

Naturally the reptiles flung in an AV distraction from Sky Noise down under - still no rebrand! - but the pond finds it hard to get past that spelling of "Jaimee" ...Sky News host Jaimee Rogers criticises Labor’s alleged plan to amend industrial relations laws to favour unions. “It creates an exemption under discrimination law, allowing the Commonwealth to give preference to businesses with union enterprise agreements when awarding government support,” Ms Rogers said.“Why should a company's relationship with a union have anything to do with whether it receives taxpayer-funded support?“Shouldn't the best project win?“If these decisions will genuinely deliver better value for taxpayers, then publish the criteria.“Let the public see who benefits and why.“Because if there is nothing to hide, there should be nothing to fear from transparency.”

Dame Groan continued to rage, and the pond let her, in the hope that it might at last winkle out a comment or three ...

If he had done his homework – or been properly advised – Chalmers would have learnt that the fall in the observed labour share is a worldwide phenomenon that is about changes to technology and forms of employment, including the shift to independent contracting.
He would’ve also learnt that the forces of supply and demand apply no less in the labour market, and the key to higher real wages is growth in productivity.
Let’s run through some of the economically damaging changes the Albanese government has made to the law and regulation of industrial relations. The first cab off the rank is the abolition of the Australian Building and Construction Commission, a key demand of the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union and other unions.
Notwithstanding the assertion of the then minister, Tony Burke, that the ABCC had been ineffective in dealing with the industrial relations problems in the construction industry, the fact that the unions were so keen to see it gone is telling. At the margin, the ABCC constrained the most egregious union behaviour, partly because of its powers to compel witnesses to testify.
This was payback. Big time. How the PM can keep a straight face telling us he doesn’t condone the behaviour of the CFMEU is anyone’s guess. Sure, the union has been put into administration. But reading the ongoing revelations, it’s clear the union continues to operate in a largely unconstrained fashion. The infiltration of criminal elements into the industry is probably irreversible.

Time for another heel, Tony Burke addresses the House of Representatives before the winter recess. Picture: Hilary Wardhaugh / Getty Images

And so to wander back in time, because - amazing scenes - Juliar is going to be trotted out by the groaner...

Having ruled out any return to multi-employer bargaining prior to the 2022 election, Labor quickly broke this promise by introducing several changes to the Fair Work Act that made agreements between several employers in the same industry entirely possible.
Clearly, the aim of the unions is to pick off the easiest target within an industry sector, gain concessions and then spread them across as many employers as possible.
It’s the antithesis of the model of enterprise bargaining envisaged by Paul Keating all those years ago, but also by Julia Gillard when she was the minister for workplace relations.
The same job, same pay was another example of payback, this time for unions operating in the mining industry. To achieve what flexibility was possible under Gillard’s legislation, several companies developed a model of having a core workforce covered by an enterprise agreement and a secondary workforce sourced from labour hire companies or internally.
The result of the new provisions on same job, same pay has been very significant increases in the remuneration for some workers, particularly in mining. The change has imperilled the viability of some operations, but the high commodity prices have cushioned the short-term effects.
Over the longer term, there is no doubt it has made Australia a much less desirable place to invest in the resource industry. This has been made clear by the leaders of some of our biggest mining companies. The US and South America are now seen as preferable investment locations.
We have also seen small businesses caught up in a new definition of casual work as well as being swamped by claims for unfair dismissal. They have also been impacted by very generous increases awarded each year in the national wage case.

The pond distinctly remembers that in Juliar's day, she was rooning the country by Xmas, and a chaff bag was urgently needed, but it now seems like she's living rent free in the hive mind, and provides a handy club for the present ... as Dame Groan relentlessly returned to the past, like some aged mariner in an old folks' home, Julia Gillard addresses the parliament

That led Dame Groan to a final gobbet of ruination and damnation, and the pond wondered if this might be a new template for fulminations and foamings ...

Just as mad King Donald had dragged commie swine back from the 1950s, might not fear of all powerful, all conquering unions rooning the country become a new reptile meme? (And never mind that unions are pretty toothless, remember, they're in league with the guvmint!):

The needs of workers have dominated as a criterion over employers’ capacity to pay, a position egged on by the submissions lodged by the federal government. Under the most recent decision, award wages were increased by 4.75 per cent, with even higher increases for the lowest-paid workers. The Reserve Bank is now expressing some unease about the growth in wages, although the Treasurer doesn’t see the dangers.
In the meantime, the FWC has simply been mandating higher rates of pay for aged care and childcare workers, which are way beyond the scope of employers to fund short of massively increasing fees. The government is now using taxpayer funds to co-fund these wage rises, which is a complete fiscal folly.
Having failed twice to persuade the FWC to eliminate junior rates of pay in key awards, a stacked panel finally decided this year in favour of the unions. This decision will again hit small businesses particularly hard as junior rates of pay are phased out for workers aged between 18 and 20 in retail, fast food and pharmacy.
Just recently, a new clause in the legislation was slipped through without any serious parliamentary scrutiny to allow government procurement to discriminate in favour of companies with union enterprise bargaining. This government simply shows no shame in handing out favours to the unions. Let’s not forget union membership is less than 10 per cent in the private sector. What can’t be won through recruiting members can always be obtained from tame politicians.
As the Productivity Commission notes: “Australia’s labour productivity growth is going from bad to worse. Labour productivity fell by 0.6 per cent in the March quarter and over the year to March has grown by only 0.3 per cent. Australia’s labour productivity appears stuck at the levels we settled into after the Covid pandemic.”
There’s no doubt that the backward slide in the regulations in industrial relations is a major contributor. Just don’t expect any remedial action from this government.

But could we at least have a 'toon in our despair?

And this to set the scene ...

... because mad King Donald has done it again ...

In which the pond proposes nasho for correspondents, and shows what active service is like by getting into the trenches with the Caterist and the Major ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 22:01:29 +0000

So soon? Just one comment on the Saturday, suggesting an unhealthy torpor, a lassitude, a lackadaisical approach to herpetology studies has set in, and the pond hasn't even yet conducted mid-term exams.

Correspondents have gone MIA, the desultory responses suggesting that they need a good lashing, a shaking into life.

What they need is a return to nasho, a way get them doing pond community service, and it wouldn't hurt vulgar youff either ... or so says a Bergin, brimming with plans to give the younglings a newfound purpose...

How a new youth corps could rebuild our social capital
Australia should be bringing our young people together for a common national purpose. National service could do just that.
By Anthony Bergin

It was such a Westfield billionaire vision splendid that - while the full text could be found at the intermittent archive - the pond couldn't resist the rest of the spiel, the pitch to bring back nasho ...

...Lowy’s national service push could be achieved if we established an emergency management corps modelled on the Australian Defence Force Gap Year program. The ADF program enables 17 to 24-year-olds with a year 12 education to experience segments of defence force training and employment for up to 12 months. There’s no obligation to continue their service beyond the year.
An infantry soldier in the Gap Year program is paid about $82,000 a year. The program is now established as a key avenue of entry to the ADF. There were 825 young people enrolled in the program last year. A high proportion of entrants elect to remain in the permanent defence or part-time reserve workforces.
The EMC should be a two-year program, during which participants work with emergency management organisations in the states, gaining and practising skills applicable in emergencies without demanding a long-term, full-time commitment from them. They would be paid like defence reservists and would be required to maintain their participation in the EMC when conditions demanded it until the age of 40.
The EMC would introduce a common national approach to the training of emergency workers that would enable them to be used cross-jurisdictionally.
Under the EMC, the main roles for corps members would include severe flooding response and post-impact recovery and clean-up, bushfire and severe storm and cyclone response. Once they’ve completed their training, they’d be kept at a high state of readiness, available for immediate deployment within the state or nationally. Resources would need to be provided to the states to train, direct and deploy EMC members.
Defence might be able to assist in some aspects of training in the EMC. Civil defence roles could be part of the work of the EMC: our strategic environment has changed and warning times may be very short. Long-range missile strikes on this country are a possibility. We need some planning on how and what civil defence measures are needed to protect the civilian population during conflict and recover from any hostilities.
The EMC could be trained in civil defence roles such as assisting in evacuation, management of protective shelters, rescue and emergency accommodation and supplies. Most young people would consider counter disaster and rescue work more appealing than military service, although that would be included as a choice.
There is some element of danger in countering disasters that might worry parents, but much less so compared with the military. A manageable element of danger (in a good cause) would be an attraction to many young people.
Mixing at an early-stage EMC member will bring subsequent benefits of greater mutual understanding and co-operation.
Lowy should be applauded for advancing the idea of national service to help Australia get ambitious again about its values, giving young Australians an outlet to contribute to our pluralism.
Anthony Bergin is an expert associate at the Australian National University’s National Security College.

Well played - the pond just loves reptile 1950s and 1960s dreamings - and good luck with all that ... as the conscripted reptiles went about the right and proper jihad for the day, giving Albo a bloody good hiding at the top of the digital edition this morning ...

If you want to be shocked, startled and appalled by that line up of reptile EXCLUSIVES, the sudden transformative reptile approval of feminists can be found here, with the shocked, newly feminist Shanners tit-titting and clucking here. (Only 3 minutes worth, mind).

Sheesh, and there was the pond thinking it was just another sample of bro influencer culture, but it turned out that there was nothing to laugh about, as the reptiles went full feminist pious apoplectic.

As for the reptiles desire that AI should roam wild and free, that could be found here - please, no heavy-handed regulation of AI - while the conventional, "we'll all be rooned"- gotta make gas run wild and free warm up for tomorrow's Dame Groan - could be found here ...

What a pity that they couldn't save all the verbiage by running an immortal Rowe ...

The pond regrets it couldn't spend more time in a state of alarm and panic, just as it couldn't find the time to spend with simplistic Simon, sounding an apocalypse now alarm ...

16pc state primary vote signals Libs wipeout
The path once trodden by the Coalition through NSW on its way to government in Canberra is now looking more like an overgrown goat track.
By Simon Benson
Political analyst

The pond saved it to the intermittent archive, but does commend the reptiles for coming up with a most excellent opening illustration, featuring a deer caught in the headlights ...

Speaking of the windmill-fearing beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way, the quarry whispering Caterist was also on the case:

The header: Taylor’s TikTok challenge: complex policy in 45 seconds; The TikToxicisation of politics is spreading infection across the broader civic landscape.

The caption, with exceptional Emilia credit, for a most moving collage: Pauline Hanson, Anthony Albanese and Angus Taylor. Art: Emilia Tortorella. Sources: iStock

The pond couldn't see a problem - it usually only takes 45 seconds to understand the Caterist at his most complex is a form of drivel - but the flood waters decipherer was determined to show he was down with the exotic and arcane ways of vulgar youff:

In August 2018, Australian politics quietly entered a new age. Almost nobody noticed.
The trigger was the creation of an exceptionally addictive digital platform by Chinese technology company ByteDance. ByteDance’s new supercharged TikTok algorithm used artificial intelligence to process mountains of information containing clues to an individual’s appetite for, say, performances by dancing cockatoos compared to acrobatic cats.
If that makes TikTok sound trivial, it is because, at one level, it is. It prefers attention-grabbing stunts and smart-alec comments to lectures on quantum physics or reasoned discussions about tax policy. The algorithm craves attention above everything, which explains why the federal Disability Minister was caught on camera in his office last week behaving like a jackass, waving his arms around theatrically and gyrating in his suit. Mark Butler, 55, wasn’t drunk or amusing a restless infant. He was trying to grab your attention to tell you the great news about Labor’s tax cut, the one so small you’d otherwise miss it.
The TikToxicisation of politics is spreading infection across the broader civic landscape. Time senior ministers once spent poring over policy documents or crafting cabinet briefs is now spent crafting clever one-liners.

What to do, what to do? Turn to a man with the charisma of a wet and rather smelly sock? Angus Taylor reacts to a speech in the House of Representatives. Picture: Getty Images

Just the man to deliver a most engaging leer... as the Caterist stayed on the case...

Indeed, some younger backbenchers newly arrived in politics seem to think entertaining social media audiences is all they have been elected to do.
One Nation has adapted quickly to this brave new world. Pauline Hanson’s Please Explain cartoon series was tailor-made for the algorithm. Facebook-era social media helped One Nation build a network of supporters in a limited older demographic. The TikTok era has broadened the party’s geographic and demographic appeal.
The good news for Angus Taylor is that the algorithm doesn’t much care about partisan politics. Previous Liberal leaders have struggled with the proliferation of pro-Labor and Green bias in what we now call the legacy media.
All the algorithm cares about is engagement. Taylor understands the need for strong digital content better than most. Lifting the opposition’s digital technology game was one of his top priorities when he was elected leader.
The challenge for Taylor, however, is not form but content. The reforming policies the national interest demands from grown-up governments are not easily explained in 45 seconds. Platforms that prioritise engagement respond less well to complex arguments for fiscal reform than to emotionally compelling narratives spiced with crude ad hominem attacks.
The bias Taylor faces is not partisan but structural. The serious debate on economic reforms he knows he can win will struggle to survive a hard fight for attention when Labor ministers are prancing around like performing seals. The relationship between politics and the fourth estate has survived other technological revolutions. The introduction of rotary presses in the 19th century vastly increased the circulation and influence of newspapers.

Quick, a snap of a villain devoted to the superficial, Health Minister Mark Butler has gone to great lengths to grab your attention.

And how does the Caterist cope with all this new-fangled stuff?

Why, by reverting to Ming the Merciless and little Johnny and Arthur Calwell, because nothing signals contemporary relevance better than trotting out the names of politicians that vulgar youff wouldn't have a clue about ...

Robert Menzies adapted quickly to the radio era, recognising the potential for politicians to talk directly to voters sitting comfortably in their own homes. His Forgotten People radio essays in 1942 were not just a forum for political communication but also a platform to assemble a coherent statement of philosophical intent.
The end of Labor leader Arthur Calwell’s career was hastened by his inability to perform on television. John Howard bypassed the hostile press gallery by mastering talkback radio. Taylor’s challenge, however, will be considerably harder in the era of media abundance, which accelerated with the arrival of smartphones and ubiquitous high-speed internet. In the analog era, consumer choice was constrained by technological and commercial limitations. Today, market choice is effectively infinite. The scarce resource the algorithms allocate is time.
Watch time, rewatches, comments, shares and likes, and similar behavioural metrics provide the price signals that inform the market. Like Adam Smith’s invisible hand allocating capital, the algorithm apportions the scarce resource of human attention to the highest bidder.
Structural biases are inevitable. Nuance is cognitively costly. Outrage is cognitively cheap. Engagement systems value moral-emotional and conflict-oriented content, discounting subtlety and reason. Ad hominem attacks triumph over substance.
Content expressed with certainty typically outperforms content that acknowledges complexity and uncertainty. That may suit populist parties advocating simple solutions but it is inimical to politicians who recognise the need for trade-offs. A video that argues for and against in the hope of arriving at an acceptable middle would sink without a trace on TikTok.

By golly, this day he's up there with his insights on the movement of floodwaters in quarries, as the reptiles flung in the real reason the lizard Oz is still in an abject panic ... Pauline Hanson and One Nation have adapted quickly to the brave new world Picture: Martin Ollman

From the wreckage, the Caterist managed to produce signs of hope, because he was down wit it...

Instead, the algorithm creates feedback loops that reduce exposure to competing perspectives. There’s little to be gained in challenging a mind that is already made up.
It is tempting to look back at the quarter-century that began in the early 1980s and expired in the late 2000s as the golden era of reform, presided over not by mere politicians but by leaders blessed with a sagacity that transformed them into gods.
Yet it is a moot question if Howard would have survived four elections in the era of social media.
Would the GST have become law if its second-reading speech had been delayed for 25 years and been subjected to the mockery, smears and distortions that drive engagement on TikTok?
In his reply to the budget in May, Taylor outlined the most substantial economic reform proposal from an opposition leader this century. The arguments for abolishing bracket creep might not be particularly engaging to the algorithm. Yet Taylor is determined to persist.
Taylor did not abandon a successful career as a business consultant to become a social media content provider. He did not withdraw from running his family’s farming business to grow clickbait. His objective is not to accumulate Facebook friends to gain power, fame and influence for their own sake.
Taylor remains true to the spirit of his party’s founder who, when the party faced a low ebb in the early 1960s, delivered a counterintuitive line that may well have gone viral, framed in contemporary rhetoric.
“We are not here just to win elections,” Menzies told a party gathering at Hawthorn Town Hall in the heart of his Kooyong electorate. “We are here to win something for the country.”

Say no more, the Caterist and the beefy boofhead are going to score by staying true to the spirit of the 1950s and Ming, and that'll larn them vulgar youffs ...

Aside from this form of low comedy, do the reptiles even begin to realise that the current government has vulnerabilities?

The pond thought that as yet another ad for gambling flashed across the pond's screen, despite the pond's very best attempts to block such advertising ...

And yet the hive mind is clueless ...

Meanwhile, the Australian Daily Zionist News strand of the hive mind featured yet another piece by Major Mitchell ...

The header: How Israel’s reality of happy coexistence shatters the narrative of global hate; The Israel of social media hate bears no resemblance to everyday life in the country.

The caption for the snap of one of the Major's enemies: Former Adelaide Writers Festival director Louise Adler appearing on the ABC’s 7.30. Picture: ABC

The pond only runs the Major so that it can provide the odd alternative, like this one...

And so on, and it goes without saying that the Major's portrait of the current state of Israel under the current far right government bears no actual connection to the rabid, extremist reality ...

The Israel of social media hate and look-at-me public protesters globally bears no resemblance to the actual country.
This column is being filed from Tel Aviv and the country’s north where Israelis seem back to their best after a pall of sadness was lifted with the return of Hamas’s hostages last October.
A year ago, again visiting my daughter, grandson and son-in-law who live in central Tel Aviv, the usual boisterous Israeli mood had given way to a feeling of national mourning after October 7 and the hostage crisis.
Huge “bring them home banners” – some many storeys high – were draped down the outsides of buildings and on people’s verandas and car windows.
The faces of the hostages were plastered in adhesive stickers across lamp posts, bus stops and park benches in towns across Israel from the north to the Negev.
The country’s national purpose, to provide a home for Jews who for thousands of years have known this is their homeland, was – as this column wrote in October 2023 – always going to be challenged by the taking of hundreds of hostages.
That piece said Israel’s psyche demanded every Israeli everywhere be rescued no matter the cost. Israel, after the loss of six million Jews in the Holocaust, is where Jews must always find safety.

The reptiles flung in a snap ...Rachel Goldberg and Jonathan Polin, parents of Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, attend a demonstration calling for the hostages’ release. Picture: AFP

And now before proceeding with the Major's Benji worship, try this in Haaretz, A Thousand Days of Netanyahu's Repulsive Revisionism About October 7; Building on his long record of Holocaust revisionism, Netanyahu now needs Israelis to swallow obvious, and often contradictory, lies about the biggest disaster in the country's history to win the elections (*intermittent archive link)

And so on, but carry on Majoring if you must ...

This is a country that sent the late brother of its present Prime Minister as a 30-year-old soldier to rescue the Entebbe hijack hostages in 1976.
Lieutenant Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu was killed leading the successful rescue of 100 hostages in a daring mission on the tarmac at a Ugandan airport.
This is the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who in 2011 traded 1027 Palestinian prisoners for a single soldier captured by Hamas, Gilad Shalit. Among those freed prisoners was Yahya Sinwar, who would go on to plan the October 7 pogrom that killed 1200 innocents on a Sabbath morning in their homes, in their beds and at a music festival for peace.
Western protesters who understand nothing about Israel or the Middle East love to hate Bibi, but he came to the latest conflicts with Iran and its proxies with a far deeper understanding of Palestinian terror than any politician alive anywhere.
Last Saturday, the Sabbath, we went to a local beach. Thousands were on the white sand and in the water – Jews picnicking on the grass by the sand alongside Palestinian families.
On Tuesday morning at the same beach, a young Palestinian mum in what Australians might call a burkini was swimming with her two young sons next to a small group of Israeli mums.
I accompanied my daughter to an indoor swimming lesson for the 18-month-old in northern Tel Aviv. Two Palestinian mums in similar swim attire were in the heated pool with their toddlers singing along in a Hebrew version of Eensy Weensy Spider.
This is not the Israel the West’s foreign correspondents report, always keen for an easy line on Palestinians and their Jewish “oppressors”.
Nor would the keffiyeh-wearing crowd at an Australian pro-Palestine march find a European settler coloniser society were they to visit. Even among the Jewish population, 60 per cent are of Middle Eastern background.
My grandson’s paternal grandfather left Iraq in 1950 and the Iraqi government confiscated all his property. He had lived in Erbil so dodged the June 1941 anti-Jewish pogrom in Baghdad.
Known as Farhud, Nazi-aligned forces killed 500 Jews and injured 1000 in two days. Like much of the Middle East, including Palestinian Grand Mufti Haj Amin Al-Husseini, the Iraqis were Hitler’s allies.

That Haaretz piece opened with a few words relating to a few of the Major's notions...

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a long record of historical revisionism. Take, for example, the Holocaust.
Over the last decade, he has claimed that the (pro-Nazi) Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, invented the Final Solution, not Hitler; whitewashed Nazi collaborators in Poland and Hungary; and declined to push back at Russian President Vladimir Putin's claim that his army was "denazifying" Ukraine. Netanyahu's habit of calling the Iranian regime, Hamas and U.S. college encampments the "new Nazis" is not only analytically substandard, but legitimizes the flattening of the Holocaust in global public rhetoric to become a cheap and ubiquitous slur.
But Netanyahu's campaign of revisionism regarding the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023 is not only blatant and egregious, but its success or failure will determine the results of Israel's imminent elections – and the fate of millions of Israelis and Palestinians.

As for Benji, so the Major, as the object of the Major's worship intruded, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Picture: AFP

Then came a gross defamation, a profound distortion of what actually happened during the 1948 Nakba ...

My daughter’s mother-in-law migrated from Algeria.
While 700,000 Palestinians left the newly formed, United Nations-backed state of Israel after independence in 1948, more than a million Jews from around the Middle East fled the other way.

They just upped and left? Appalling, but not if you want to act as Benji's Lord Haw-Haw:

Many had lived in places like Baghdad, Tehran, Cairo and Damascus since long before the Prophet Mohammad was born.
As Sabine Sterk wrote in The Times of Israel on August 7 last year: “Israel absorbed its refugees, often from hostile lands, building housing, jobs and education. Arab countries weaponised their refugees, refusing them citizenship, confining them to camps and using their suffering to demonise Israel.
“These Jews didn’t have to be expelled by war, they were expelled by hate.”
And yet people in this country are happy.
The global World Happiness Report released in March rated Israel eighth worldwide. Most of its Middle Eastern neighbours rank near the bottom of the index.
Israel’s under-25s are even more happy. They rank third, while the youth of the US plummeted to 60th, according to the Times of Israel.
The study said the young in Israel benefited from strong “family ties, community faith, a sense of belonging and strong social bonds”. Precisely the attributes young Australians seem to be missing.
Researcher Anat Fanti from the Bar-Ilan University said young Israelis did military service while their foreign peers were still in college.

Somehow the reptiles think this sort of snap works, People enjoy a day at the beach along the Mediterranean at Tel Aviv, Israel. Picture: AP

As if it is a counter to the ugly reality of the ethnic cleansing, and the rampant destruction, which the UN has estimated will cost US$70 billion to make good ... what a mess ...

And there's other stories that never enter the hive mind orbit ...

UN commission of inquiry says Israel committing genocide in Gaza by deliberately targeting children

As for the rest, it's predictable, a kind of ongoing Major set of thought crimes in support of a far right government intent on producing a greater Israel ...

“They make decisions between 18 and 21 that are far beyond their years,” she wrote.
It’s a country the Western left once lauded for its working class socialism in action on Kibbutzes, in the government-subsidised healthcare sector, and the fact education is available to all citizens, whether Jewish, Bedouin, Muslim or Christian.
Yet to hear the likes of former Adelaide Writers Festival director Louise Adler describe it, Zionism – which is no more than the acceptance of the reality of Israel’s legal existence – is a kind of racist thought crime.
Adler wrote on Deepcut News on June 29 – the day Steven Lowy, son of Westfield founder and Holocaust survivor Frank Lowy told the antisemitism royal commission his family had received 1500 online threats a month – that the inquiry should really be looking at the Israel lobby to find the cause of Australia’s rising antisemitism.
She argued much of the evidence presented to the commission was about the hurt feelings of Jewish Australians before and after the December 14 massacre of 15 people during a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach.
Adler’s piece ends with a defence of the idea that ordinary diaspora Jews “should be held responsible for Israel’s conduct”. Why? Because the “Israel lobby” conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism”.
A more cogent assessment of the “guilt by association” thinking of modern leftists was presented in The Australian by Nick Dyrenfurth on Wednesday, critiquing a push by academics to force a Melbourne University scholar to hand back a prize linked to a Jewish institution.
An open letter published in Overland called for historian Matthew Champion not to accept the Dan David prize for a work on medieval concepts of time because of the Dan David Foundation’s links to Israel.
“Totalitarian regimes of both the left and the right perfected the technique of guilt by association dressed up as virtue,” Dyrenfurth wrote.
People in Israel understand the moral and historical inversions being framed against their country – the deliberately warped use of words such as genocide or apartheid that could never apply to Israel in their ordinary meaning.
Palestinians have been offered a two-state solution many times since the 1930s. They have rejected these offers.
Today, sadly, Israel and Jews globally have few friends, even in the US, UK and Australia.

And why is that? Because genocide and apartheid can be applied to Israel in their ordinary meanings, and all the denialism in the world won't alter that reality.

In earlier times, the pond was relatively neutral on the matter of Israel, especially as the behaviour of radical Islamic extremists wasn't appealing, and never mind the Israeli government's desire to fit up South Africa's apartheid regime with nukes.

But there are some things that are impossible to ignore, unless you happen to have a pair of the Major's rose-tinted glasses to hand.

It's a bit like trying to deny other current realities, ones for which Faux Noise and News Corp must shoulder a bigly amount of blame...

On the other hand, there's always Vladimir Rudolfovich Solovyov, the crème de la crème of contemptible Lord Haw-Haws, to provide a little light relief ...

In which there's the usual prattling Polonius, and Joe, lesser member of the Kelly gang, and a bonus of garrulous Gemma

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 22:00:00 +0000

The pond would like to begin this Sunday meditation by way of a detour, though it's eventually relevant to the Polonial matter at hand.

Back on Thursday, the savvy Savva did a beat up ...

Bending the knee: Why Andrew Hastie is on the brink of abandoning the Liberal Party (*intermittent archive link) The Coalition has been crushingly ineffectual. They need Hastie now more than ever

...Angus Taylor’s leadership hangs by a thread. Without dramatic changes, including a concerted corporate effort to cut down One Nation, he invites rebellion or defections or both.
Taylor’s obvious replacement, Andrew Hastie, a conservative who can be both cerebral and cut-through, has pledged to destroy Hanson before she destroys him. Hastie’s rationale is that Liberals have to fight on all fronts. If they can’t convince voters they can stand up to Hanson, they will never convince them they can stand up to Labor.
Despicable threats to Hastie’s family incited by his opposition to One Nation and his appearance in court against accused war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith have understandably had a profound impact on Hastie’s thinking and approach.
Those two issues have won him admirers outside the Liberal Party, however they have undoubtedly cost him support internally, to the point where if he feels abandoned by the Liberal Party in this fight to the death, he will abandon the Liberal Party.
The departure of Senator Jonno Duniam for family reasons was bad enough; the departure of Hastie would be devastating.

That was immediately followed by a hasty, somewhat pastie, refutation ...

Hastie rules out leaving Liberal Party, says he’ll contest next election (*intermittent archive link)

Inter alia ...

...Andrew Hastie has vowed to recontest the next election as a Liberal, denying he was reconsidering his future amid competing views within the party about how best to tackle the surge of One Nation and despite being forced to ramp up personal security.
Political commentator Niki Savva suggested on Thursday that Hastie could leave the party if he felt abandoned in his fight with One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and her supporters.
Hastie said on Thursday that was “not at all” on the cards. “I intend to contest the next election as a Liberal,” he said.
...Hastie last week told his colleagues he would rather be “taken out in a box than bend the knee to One Nation”, while Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has avoided taking on the minor party so directly.
Hastie said he was “more than happy with the support that I’ve received, and a happy member of the Liberal Party”.

What did it suggest?

That the Liberal party continues to decline under the beefy boofhead, that all sorts of speculation is the go, and that the leadership isn't settled, and that there might be a need to bring the lettuce out of retirement.

What to do? as John Oliver often asks.

Easy, bring out Polonius to sort it out by boring everyone into submission...

The header: Taylor-made recovery? Focus on economy the ‘slow boring’ path ahead for Libs; Angus Taylor and Matt Canavan are well suited to tackle the Albanese government’s economic performance and One Nation’s inability to produce a coherent economic policy.

The caption for an uncredited work of art featuring the beefy boofhead in what must have seemed to the reptiles as a flattering pose: Angus Taylor’s economic policy agenda will make or break Liberals.

Well suited? In Polonius's alternative bizarro world they are ...

Michael Costa, the former NSW Labor Party minister, gave good advice to Liberal leader Angus Taylor in particular and the Coalition in general on Sky News this week. Namely, all that the likes of Taylor and Nationals leader Matt Canavan can do over the next year or so is to work hard while focusing on the economy.
Taylor and Canavan are well suited to doing so. They are diligent doers and highly qualified in economics. After all, the key issue in the lead-up to the next election is likely to be the cost of living – including inflation, interest rates, energy prices and home affordability.
The leaders are well equipped to tackle the Albanese Labor government’s economic performance and the inability (so far, at least) of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party to produce a coherent economic policy.
The task of the Opposition Leader is one of the toughest in politics. Taylor came to lead the Liberals not long after the tragedy of the Bondi Beach massacre on December 14 last year aimed at the Australian Jewish community and killing and injuring some others as well. Support for One Nation surged between the beginning of December last year and the beginning of February this year.
Then Sussan Ley, who was deposed as Liberal leader on February 12, decided to quit politics immediately. Her disappointment at losing the leadership is understandable. But Ley owed her success in politics, including ministerial appointments, to the Liberal Party – for which she did not campaign in the resultant Farrer by-election.

Bloody fickle women, they're all the same ... and it's all her fault this rowdy mob turned up to party, Pauline Hanson, Malcolm Roberts, Barnaby Joyce and David Farley celebrate the Farrer win with One Nation supporters in Albury. Picture: NewsWire / Simon Dallinger

Polonius then indulged in some tedious regurgitation in a way only Polonius and Mr Pooter can do ...

Hanson grasped the opportunity and One Nation won its first House of Representatives seat with a two-candidate-preferred vote of 57.6 per cent. After which One Nation increased its support in Newspoll.
Without question, One Nation will achieve better results in the next federal election than it did in 2025 when its primary vote was 6.4 per cent. The task of the Coalition is to get its primary vote (currently at 17 per cent in Newspoll) above that of One Nation (29 per cent) and/or Labor (33 per cent). A difficult task to be sure. But not impossible.
According to a Liberal Party spokesperson, at the partyroom meeting in Canberra last Wednesday Taylor said: “There is no silver bullet but we just need to be focused on one thing: the interest of the country and the Australian people.”
Later, Canavan was reported as saying there had been too much talking about polling and parties within the non-Labor and Greens side of politics. Quite so.
The Nationals have a good sense of their own history. The same cannot be said of some Liberals. Early this week, Melissa McIntosh, an opposition frontbencher and the Liberal MP for Lindsay in western Sydney, suggested the Liberal Party should change its name. This overlooks one central fact. The Liberal Party is essentially a federation, not a centralised organisation like Labor.
There is a Liberal government in Tasmania (albeit of the minority kind). Also the Liberal National Party government in Queensland is constitutionally part of the Liberal Party of Australia. What would happen to these entities if the Liberal Party changed its name? Moreover, creating a new national party is a huge task.
The Liberal Party was founded by Robert Menzies in Canberra (not Albury as some claim – that was the second meeting) in October 1944 out of the old United Australia Party (no relation to Clive Palmer’s party of the same name). Menzies brought together 19 political parties and like-minded non-party organisations.

Oh dear, the Liberal party site said it was 18 parties, but what would they know about their history? They're pretty clueless about most things.

Trust Polonius, and stand by for a pair of visual distractions ... Andrew Hastie’s interview ‘sounded like a tract produced by the leftist Greens-adjacent Australia Institute’; Melissa McIntosh’s suggested the Liberal Party change. but the party is ‘essentially a federation, not a centralised organisation like Labor’. Pictures: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

And so to Polonius dealing with the pasty Hastie, and that Savva matter ...

Even so, the Menzies-led Liberal Party lost the 1946 election to Labor in a comprehensive defeat. Menzies contemplated retiring from politics but stayed on. He won in December 1949 after Labor, led by Ben Chifley, unsuccessfully attempted to nationalise private trading banks.
There are some commentators who see Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie, the MP for Canning in Western Australia, as a future Liberal leader. This may be the case; he has a strong personality and is a good communicator. But so far Hastie has not demonstrated competence in economics, a requisite for prevailing over both Labor and One Nation.
Interviewed on ABC TV’s Insiders program in March, Hastie declared: “I think multinationals and big business in this country have lost their social licence.” He also supported changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing, and declared himself open to a windfall profits tax on gas exports.
It sounded like a tract produced by the leftist Greens-adjacent Australia Institute, and not far from the anti-business attitude that can be found among some One Nation supporters.
Hastie, who served in Afghanistan, is close to former Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull – who has been a constant critic of the party since he was replaced by Scott Morrison as prime minister. Hastie is a fierce opponent of One Nation, which is campaigning against him primarily because he gave evidence against Victoria Cross winner Ben Roberts-Smith in a defamation case.
Hanson is a strong supporter of Roberts-Smith, as is Coalition frontbencher and fellow Afghanistan veteran Phillip Thompson. In April, election analyst John Black wrote that in the current polls “the low-income outer urban seat of Canning would be one of the first lost to One Nation”.
Obviously, it is in Hastie’s interest to bring about a situation whereby the Coalition vote is as strong as possible. In an election, Labor would probably preference Hastie over One Nation – but this would work for him only if Labor came third behind One Nation and the Liberals in Canning.
Writing in Nine newspapers on Thursday, Niki Savva – a vehement critic of the contemporary Liberal Party and a fan of Turnbull – suggested if Hastie “feels abandoned by the Liberal Party in this fight to the death” against One Nation “he will abandon them”.
The Liberal Party would want Hastie to win Canning. The only point at issue turns on whether this is best achieved by the Liberal Party attacking Hanson or by producing a significantly better economic policy than that of One Nation and Labor.
As German sociologist Max Weber once remarked, successful democratic politics is akin to slow boring through hard boards. That’s the immediate task for Taylor, Canavan and the Coalition team.

Splendid Polonial stuff, and worthy of a 'toon ...

And so to Joe, lesser member of the Kelly gang ...

The header: On its 250th birthday, focus on America questions whether it needed the Trumpian revolution – or a more careful recalibration Can the American experiment survive the consequences of Donald Trump’s pursuit of his promised ‘golden age’?

The caption for a frankly terrible collage, and credit where credit is due ...Donald Trump taps real grievances to convince Americans the system is broken. His appeal was powerful enough to return him to the White House in 2024, even after he refused to accept his 2020 defeat and roused supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Artwork: Frank Ling

The reptiles seem to be grooming Joe, lesser member of the Kelly gang, as a substitute for the bromancer and "Ned", and so they allowed him an interminable 12 minute read, as ponderous and as stultifying as anything "Ned" might offer ...

The pond allowed it because the chances of being around for the 300th birthday party seemed remote...

In the outing, Joe showed that he could both siderist mad King Donald in a way that the both siderist NY Times might envy ...

America is a nation in turmoil and the world – and Americans – know it. The great American experiment in self-government, born 250 years ago when the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, has reached one of its most dangerous moments.
Critics of Donald Trump point to the US President and his MAGA revolution as the central problem, but this is a one-dimensional picture. Trump sees himself not as the destroyer of the American experiment but as its saviour – a historic figure reviving a republic he believed was already failing.

How the reptiles love cheap archive visual distractions... Declaration of Independence, painting by John Trumbull. The optimistic vision of the United States’ founding fathers is colliding with a darker belief on both sides of politics that the American experiment is fraying Picture: Universal History Archive

Knowing this was going to be a long haul, the reptiles provided plenty of snaps and AV distractions ...

America finds itself at a crossroads over its identity and founding mission. Trump correctly has identified many of the problems the nation faces – which explains why he was elected twice, in 2016 and 2024 – but he has proposed radical and damaging solutions to these problems that have undermined America’s reputation as the standard bearer for global democracy and freedom.
A quarter of a millennium after the 13 Atlantic coast colonies’ rupture with Britain, Trump proposes an alternative interpretation of where the nation’s founding values should lead the American experiment – into a new revolution that threatens to reshape the US economy, foreign policy and society.

Cue an AV distraction for the hive mind ... Sky News contributor Kosha Gada believes there is a “dark cloud” over America’s 250th birthday, but the “best days can still be ahead". “It is, I believe, the most exceptional country in modern history,” Ms Gada told Sky News Senior Reporter Caroline Marcus. “Hopefully it will be a good moment for the country to come together despite the country being very divided."

Still no Sky Noise rebrand?

Joe had some kind words for mad King Donald ...

For years Trump has warned the American experiment is broken. He said the old orthodoxies no longer worked, out-of-touch elites had betrayed ordinary Americans and the nation needed to adapt to a changing world – themes culminating in his bleak 2017 inaugural vision of “American carnage”.
Trump’s appeal has been his ability to tap real grievances to convince Americans the system is broken; that ordinary people in the heartland were losers of a liberal international order that prioritised free trade over national industry, open borders over sovereignty, foreign wars over domestic security and politicians who had forgotten the people who elected them.
It was a vision forged in pessimism but promised a better future. And it proved powerful enough to return Trump to the White House in 2024, even after he refused to accept his 2020 defeat by Democrat Joe Biden and roused supporters who, believing the election had been stolen, stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in an attempt to prevent certification of the result – a low point in US history.

Oh it was a powerful vision alright ...

Sorry, bit early for a 'toon, especially as the reptiles preferred the mad King himself ... Revealing the depth of his paranoia about free trade, Donald Trump cast America as the victim of the trade system. Picture: Saul Loeb/AFP

Stand clear former Olympians, as Joe finally got on to the matter of a darker consensus forming, and what better way than turning to the head of the America250 committee, made completely irrelevant, redundant and out of funds by the mad King and his Freedom 250 cronies and minions ...and didn't they perform miracles.

Uh oh ...that danged climate change again ...just choose your poison, heat stroke or hail ...

Dang it, the weather's not going to get in the way of mad King Donald, or Joe ...

Now, as the US and the world celebrate the nation’s semiquincentennial, the optimistic vision of the founding fathers is colliding with a darker consensus: a belief on both sides of politics that the American experiment is fraying, its institutions are not working as they should and the nation must change in radical ways if it is to repair itself.
Rosie Rios, chairwoman of America250 – the congressionally approved bipartisan body charged with co-ordinating semiquincentennial commemorations – tells Inquirer she wants the anniversary to “renew our belief in the possibilities ahead”.
Rios hopes it will be a moment for the nation to “educate, engage and unite” while assessing how Americans’ own experiences and contributions “connect to the broader American story, one that includes many perspectives, experiences and contributions”.
Echoing Thomas Jefferson’s belief that every generation needs to make the Declaration of Independence’s ideals its own – applying them to the challenges of their times – Rios says America’s story has always been one of “continuous reinvention anchored by enduring values”.
“The semiquincentennial is not simply about looking back at 250 years of history. It is about helping shape the next chapter of the American story,” she says.
This is precisely what Trump is doing. Yet the US President – who has portrayed himself as the modern-day inheritor and defender of Jefferson’s historical legacy – has not been successful in unifying the country around his bold vision.
Instead, Trump is leaning into the partisan divide as he moves to dismantle the status quo and recast American power in pursuit of his promised “golden age”, while Democrats rage at the direction his revolution is taking the country – a cycle pushing politics to the extremes. Trump’s strategy has been to leverage division to energise his own base and amplify the scale, personal nature and intensity of the political contest, all while communicating directly to Americans in a constant stream of messages on social media.

And such strong messages ...

Sorry, this was the official reptile AV interruption, celebrating astonishing corruption.

Remember the fuss about slick Willie's blow job? Hold mad King Donald's beer ...

US President Donald Trump's earnings for last year have been unveiled, which include some surprising investments. The nearly 1,000-page financial disclosure report shows that Mr Trump earned more than $1 billion from cryptocurrency trading. The President also made almost $2 million from merchandise sales, including his coffee table book, Save America. Mr Trump continues to receive healthy royalties from appearances in Hollywood films, including the 1992 hit Home Alone 2.

Joe turned to something of a litany of follies ...

He has done so while greatly enhancing his personal wealth; his 2025 financial disclosure shows he has raked in about $US2.2bn ($3.2bn), including $US1.4bn from his family’s cryptocurrency businesses. Even as ethical questions mounted this week, Trump took his first flight aboard the new Air Force One – a retrofitted Boeing 747, a gift from the Qatari royal family – and praised it as “maybe the greatest commercial plane ever built”.
Already, Trump has shifted Washington’s historic mission in world affairs away from curating the liberal international order and towards the promotion of an alternative vision that upholds national culture, sovereignty and character against globalist forces.
In an astonishing speech at the UN in September last year, Trump said he would always “defend our national sovereignty” as he railed against globalist climate and migration agendas, branding climate change as the “greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world”.
The US has returned to a modern version of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine as the foundation of its foreign policy, seeking to dominate its own hemisphere through coercion and gunboat diplomacy, while Trump has revived the notion of territorial expansion through his verbal attacks on Canada and Greenland.
On the first day of his second term, Trump gave blanket pardons to 1500 January 6 defendants – including those who attacked police – in a move that went further than even his closest aides expected.

Up came a snap of a loyalist ... Proud Boys leader Henry 'Enrique' Tarrio was among those prisoners pardoned by Trump. Picture: AFP

Haven't we moved past all that ugliness to much better judicial times?

Joe carried on ...

His former adviser Steve Bannon hailed the move as evidence that “you’re getting pure Trump now”, with the President defending the Capitol rioters as patriots who had been unfairly prosecuted.
Trump swiftly set about up-ending the global trading system through tariffs found unlawful by the courts and that strained relations with friends and foes alike, instilling grave doubts over Washington’s reliability as an ally.
NATO has been gravely undermined and the 2025 National Security Strategy warned Europe faced the “stark prospect of civilisational erasure” through its embrace of transnationalism and lax migration policies. The document’s defining statement declared “the days of the US propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over”.
Yet emboldened by the successful military extraction of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro from Caracas in January this year, Trump plunged the US into a war with Iran – igniting one of the biggest energy shocks in history.
He has continued to reshape the Republican Party in his own image, sought to bend congress to his will and embarked on a radical experiment to expand the frontiers of executive power, testing whether the judiciary will defy him.

And there was that sublimely successful war, with Pete Kegsbreath and Captain Bonespurs leading the way ...President Trump has discussed resuming full-scale war with Iran, but is opting to stay the course with diplomacy for now.

The pond will concede that Joe has learned a trick or two from "Ned", not least the art of turning to others to provide thoughts and ideas to fill up the word salad bowl ...

Critics have warned the constitutional system of checks and balances is collapsing, pointing to Trump’s tariffs, domestic military deployments, immigration crackdown, prosecutions of political enemies, pressure on critical media outlets, freezing of federal funds, tighter control over the organs of the state and attempts to influence the Federal Reserve.
Harvard political scientist Steven Levitsky, co-author of How Democracies Die, warned in March that the US was effectively a “highly personalistic autocratic government” and pointed to the war in Iran as evidence it was making “reckless” and “incredibly damaging decisions”.
In September 2025, Trump used a speech to senior military leaders at Quantico, Virginia, to suggest using “dangerous cities” as “training grounds” for the military and National Guard. He later faced a national backlash after two US citizens were shot dead by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis in January.

There came a reminder of murder in the streets, reduced to a still so that the actual nature of the murder might remain opaque, A still from the video of a witness who filmed ICE killing a 37-year-old American mother Renee Nicole Good in the city of Minneapolis.

Amidst all this, Joe had a kind word for mad King Donald's "intuition", if that's what you call the frothings emerging from dementia ...

Last year Trump fired the starter’s gun on a gerrymandering arms race designed to give the GOP an advantage in the midterms, while hand-picking MAGA candidates in Senate and House of Representatives primaries to preserve the conservative movement he built.
Now the Democratic Party faces its own brewing revolt, contending with a slate of socialist candidates driven by a new left-wing populism and demanding a more combative response to Trumpism. The poster boy for this new progressivism, New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani, told ABC News “a democratic socialist can get elected anywhere across this country for any position”.
The US is going through a period of deep cultural and political upheaval, beset by bitter divisions and torn between conflicting views about how to solve its problems – a crisis exacerbated by social media, declining trust in institutions and weakening faith in democracy. It is a picture the founding fathers could never have imagined, although the struggle to ensure the survival of the republic remains the same.
New York University ethical leadership professor Jonathan Haidt, a leading advocate for tougher social media safeguards, warned in 2019 that there was a “very good chance” US democracy would fail within 30 years.
However, Trump’s intuition that the US needs to change is not unfounded. It is grounded in real challenges in the global economy and emerging problems in the international order that need to be addressed.
Speaking at The Economic Club of New York’s America 250 gala dinner, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the milestone anniversary required a deep reflection “on the creation of our country, of course, but no less, on its condition”. He said Americans had watched their strategic industries migrate abroad and their critical supply chains concentrate in jurisdictions that did not share US interests while foreign subsidies and non-market practices had distorted competition.

Speaking of minions, acolytes and lickspittle lackeys ... US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Picture: Mark Schiefelbein/AP

Joe kept on regurgitating correct, proper talking points ...

The goal of the Trump administration was to remake America and write the rules for a new global economy, a project imbued with fresh urgency given that economics and security could no longer be treated as separate spheres.
“Our founders scarcely could have foreseen the world we inhabit today,” Bessent said. “It now falls on us to preserve that inheritance … by insisting on fair competition. By ensuring that our openness serves to strengthen America.”
In September last year, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer branded decades of US free trade policy as a “quixotic misadventure” for trying to bring democracy to Beijing, arguing it was necessary for the US to create a “production economy” again.
“We voluntarily dismantled our defences and outsourced the rules of trade to a system overseen by a World Trade Organisation in Switzerland,” Greer said. “During that process we lost five million manufacturing jobs, over 60,000 factories as cheap goods flooded our markets from countries like China who were completely misaligned with our own goals.”
Speaking in May this year at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth warned that too many US allies and partners were free riding on the American security umbrella. Too many nations now lacked the capacity to enforce the international order they believed in. “You can have all the rules you want, and rules are great, but if you can’t back them up with hard power, the rules are not worth the paper they are written on,” he said.
The “old toothless, utopian, and globalist course of foreign policy was headed for a disaster”.
Instead of retreating from the world, these critiques show the Trump administration trying to remake the global order in a manner that better serves the interests of the American people.

Because the pond approves of reptiles quoting themselves, it decided to save one of Joe's links to the intermittent archive, featuring Joe's thoughts on remarking the global order, even though it seemed to contradict what he was now suggesting...

Donald Trump has no road map for remaking the global order
In his first 100 days in power Donald Trump has set about dismantling the post-WWII global order, but the President no longer believes it is America’s job to offer an alternative.

So he has no road map for remaking the world order, except he's trying to remake the global order in a manner that better serves the interests of the American people.

Excellent, do carry on ...perhaps with an AV distraction...

US President Donald Trump has claimed his tariff decisions are policies of “common sense and genius” after being in the White House for 100 days. “Every single day of my administration will continue to live by the motto promises made, and you’ve seen it before, promises kept,” Mr Trump said. “After 100 days back in the white house, America is a free, proud, and sovereign nation once more, and our magnificent destiny is closer than ever before. “We will never give in, we will never give up, we will never back down, we will never ever surrender. “Together we will make America powerful again, we will make America wealthy again, we will make America healthy again, we will make America strong again, we will make America proud again, we will make America safe again.”

As for the country being filled with furriners, Joe was entirely on board ...

For instance, Trump’s instinct to crack down on illegal immigration was a needed corrective to a damning failure. Official US Customs and Border Protection figures show there were about 8.7 million southwest border encounters during the four years of the Biden administration. This was an intolerable situation, and Trump’s belief that Western nations must ensure immigration consistent with their values presciently signposted the dilemma facing many liberal democracies today.

Indeed, indeed ... what an instinct, how helpful ...

And so, like many reptiles trying to do the both siderist rag, on to Joe's inevitable billy goat butt ...

But Trump’s MAGA revolution also shows the danger of meeting problems with disruption alone. His rebuild is haphazard, lacks a broad consensus at home or abroad and has yet to deliver better outcomes for Americans.
The solution may yet prove worse than the disease, raising the question of whether America needed the Trumpian revolution – or a more careful recalibration.
Ira Shapiro, a former senior Democrat Senate aide, US trade official and historian of the Senate, has convened a bipartisan and nonpartisan “Common Sense Coalition” comprising dozens of experts including former government officials, former military officers and scholars. He tells Inquirer the American experiment “faces its greatest challenge since the civil war”.
“Our country has had a very bad 21st century, starting with the 9/11 attack, followed by the terribly misguided invasion of Iraq and the subprime mortgage crisis triggering the Great Recession,” he says.
This had weakened US institutions and “opened the door to a celebrity, outsider demagogue to become president”.
“America has come through difficult periods before … but in the past our crises involved attacks by external enemies – Pearl Harbor and 9/11 – or economic chaos never seen before, the 1929 market crash and the Great Depression,” he says.

The reptiles kept currying favour and delusion by showing what a perfect fit mad King Donald's head made ... President Trump at Mount Rushmore on July 3. Picture: Saul Loeb / AFP

Joe began to indulge in dire "we'll all be rooned" thoughts ...

“The second Trump presidency poses a much different and more threatening crisis. For the first time, we have an administration making a concerted effort to dismantle our government and replace our checks and balances system.”
Betrayed: America Didn’t Vote for This, authored by the Common Sense Coalition in May, delivers a damning report card on the Trump 2.0 era. It finds the US President’s policy revolution is not working.
So far, Trump’s sweeping tariffs have failed to rectify the trade imbalances deemed so problematic by the administration. In 2025, China notched up a record $US1 trillion trade surplus while the US posted its own record trade deficit of $US1.2 trillion.
Data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis shows manufacturing employment fell by 91,000 jobs last year, declining from 12.673 million workers to 12.582 million.
The slide in labour force participation by white men has continued and, despite Trump’s deportation campaign, the unemployment rate for American-born men was the same in March this year as in January 2024 at 4.3 per cent.
After unlawfully raising about $US166bn in revenue from tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1973, the administration had refunded only $US23bn by early June – less than 15 per cent.
America’s long-term fiscal position was becoming increasingly unsustainable, a trend that has been exacerbated by Trump’s policies. A Congressional Budget Office analysis of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act – which signed huge tax cuts into law last year – found it would add $US3.4 trillion to the federal deficit across the next decade. The Yale Budget Lab forecast that national debt would lift to 194 per cent of GDP by 2054.

Suddenly it all sounded gloomy... Americans are getting squeezed financially. Picture: Getty Images

Other voices added to the sense of chaos ...

Inflation was running at 4.2 per cent in the 12 months to the end of May, its highest rate in three years, because of the disruption caused by the Iran war.
American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Stan Veuger tells Inquirer there has been “no rebirth of manufacturing in the heartland; how could there be, with extreme uncertainty over future policy and tariffs on industrial inputs? The main consequences of Trump’s second-term tariff policies have been chaos and disruption. American households have faced higher prices and businesses have seen their supply chains upended.”
While Washington needs to respond to Beijing’s export-driven economic model and deliberate industrial overcapacity, this hardly justified the imposition of tariffs across the board – a step that has strained ties with its closest allies.
Shapiro says Trump’s presidency is a “boon to America’s adversaries. In their fondest dreams, Putin and Xi could not have imagined an American president who would do so much damage to our country.”
Trump’s policies have accelerated a process of hedging against Washington, with Canada’s Mark Carney moving to expand trade relations with China and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz declaring in December last year that Europe needed to become “much more independent” from the US.
Trump has heightened the confusion by sending conflicting signals about whether he views China and Russia as great-power partners with which he can cut deals or strategic rivals. His inability to end the Ukraine war – despite claiming he could do so within 24 hours – and berating of Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House in February last year stand as deep failures.
Similarly, his decision to allow Nvidia to sell its more powerful H200 artificial intelligence chips to China and place a $US14bn Taiwan arms package under review following his Beijing meeting with Xi Jinping have raised doubts over the extent to which transactional improvisation is the guiding force driving Indo-Pacific policy.

For some reason, at this point the reptiles decided to make Joe bold ...and what could the pond do but follow?

Defenders of the US President can point to his Hamas-Israel peace plan and the return of hostages as evidence his disruptive style can still deliver major breakthroughs, although the promised reconstruction of Gaza under Trump’s Board of Peace has not yet materialised.
But it is his intervention in Iran that may well emerge as the defining event of Trump’s second term.

There came a final snap ... Oil tankers and cargo vessels remain anchored off Oman. Picture: Getty Images.

And even more bold ...

Apart from dividing his own political constituency, the signing of a 14-point memorandum of understanding to end the conflict is being widely seen as a hobbling of US power that has delivered upfront benefits to Tehran – an admission that American battlefield victories have failed to deliver a strategic victory.

Joe ended on a suitably both sidest NY Times note ...

This combination of damage to Washington’s international stature, the fallout from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, building pressure on the US economy, deepening political polarisation and attempt to expand presidential power casts a long shadow over the nation’s 250th birthday.
Shapiro says it will “take many years” to recover. “The term generational harm is frequently seen and it is by no means an exaggeration,” he says.
“Trump’s return to the presidency, even after leading an attack on our Capitol, is a shattering experience, not only for America but for our allies. We have proven our unreliability. In the past 18 months, Trump has decimated our foundational institutions and destabilised the world.”
There is no doubt that Trump’s political ascendancy is emblematic of a nation searching for a new chapter in its history. The US President has presented himself as the author of its revival and one of the nation’s most important leaders since 1776.
On its 250th birthday, whether Trump is the saviour of the American experiment or a false prophet leading it deeper into crisis is the defining question of the age.

After all that, it's still a defining question? There haven't been any answers to it?

Then let the celebrations continue ...

And so to garrulous Gemma, and after all that, some might wonder why the pond bothered with a reptile determined to fill up space with another rant, all five minutes of it, but suffice to say that on a meditative Sunday the pond can be a glutton for punishment ...

The header: Smoke, no fire: Why the new teal party is entirely irrelevant; Community Strong Australia is electorally powerless and a wasted vote for constituents. They talk a big game, they get airtime, but that’s it.

The caption for the collage, featuring Gemma quoting an indignant Gemma: They talk a big game, they get airtime, but that’s it.

Be fair, she's not a journalist, she's a weekly blatherer ... or commentator, or lickspittle fellow traveller, or some other adjective of choice ...

Have you heard the news? Australia finally has a new political party. I say finally because the teals have been a party on the sly all along.
Oh, they denied it, but come on. If it walks like duck … They wear the same colour, for heaven’s sake. They are known as the teals, they’re co-branded, they share almost identical funding sources. And wait until you get to their voting patterns.
For those not paying attention, a recently published analysis that interrogated how the teals voted and who they voted with, dating back to May 2022, shows a true affinity for the shade green. They sided with the Greens, overwhelmingly and within cooee of each other, in terms of percentages.
Mackellar MP Sophie Scamps has voted with the Greens 74.8 per cent of the time. Wentworth’s Allegra Spender has voted with the Greens 66.8 per cent of the time. So far Bradfield MP Nicolette Boele, who was elected in May last year, has voted with the Greens 74.7 per cent of the time. Which leads me to my local member of parliament, Warringah MP Zali Steggall. Her record? A 72.2 per cent track record of siding with the Greens.
That’s the recent past; let’s talk about the here and now.

Naturally there had to be a snap of the collection of deviants that had turned Gemma even more outraged than usual ... From left, teals MPs Allegra Spender, Kate Chaney, Monique Ryan, Sophie Scamps, Nicolette Boele Zali Steggall at this week’s Midwinter Ball at Parliament House.

Bloody womyn ... but that's why the pond was compelled. Is there any better attraction than a cat fight with girlie on girlie action?

After what seems like an insufferably long period of denying they’re a party, and scoffing at anyone suggesting they might become one, two of the teal MPs have finally teamed up. Spender and Steggall have relaunched themselves to the world as Community Strong Australia.
It’s the party nobody asked for and nobody needs. It brings to the table all the energy and gravitas of two authoritarian school prefects, ready to conquer year 12 and beyond. They embody a head girl and her erstwhile deputy, ready to hand out detentions at will.

You see? You thought the pond was being reductive by talking of "girlies", but the pond's got nothing on a Gemma when she chooses to grate ...

Why these girlies are no better than authoritarian school prefects, which might explain why the reptiles decided to slip in an academic to give the freshers a good talking to, Flinders University Associate Lecturer Josh Sunman says the formation of Community Strong Australia “comes with risk” for Teal independents Zali Steggall and Allegra Spender.“It is really interesting, we have often seen the Teal independents described as having party-like structures, in that they are Independents, but at the same time they are affiliated,” Mr Sunman told Sky News Australia.“Part of their brand is that they're seen as staunchly independent advocates for their community, and by becoming a bit more party-like, I think it could potentially hurt their independent brand.”

Still no rebrand for Sky Noise down under?

Gemma asked for a little humour, so the pond offered it with a condescending flourish ...

Humour me, will you, as I take a moment to comment on the branding of this new entity. This is the territory of my day job and the visual identity of this party immediately caught my eye. I’d love to see the creative brief behind this one. If it was a hand held out to receive a large soft stool sample, then congrats to the designers – you nailed it.
Now to the name. “Community”: small, insular, local. “Strong”: low-key union vibes.
Local is totally fine if you’re the mayor of your local government area. Local is fine if you’re dealing with micro issues that have no bearing on, or connection to, matters of national importance. Community Strong Australia says cake stalls and local markets. It doesn’t say geopolitical strategy, energy security or sovereign risk.
This new party, like the teal party before it, is a rolled-gold example of when perception trumps reality.

If only she'd expended her energy on fixing up the Liberal party, suffering under a kind of terminal decline by being forced to pretend that the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way has a shred of charisma.

Up against him almost anything, even the most vacuous of logos might seem compelling... Community Strong Australia Logo

And here's the real rub. One of the teals dared to have a go at garrulous, grating Gemma, and damned if she was going to stand for that sort of cheek, fancy a pollie daring to snap back at her, why it was worse than that night she had trying to sleep on forty mattresses that simply couldn't handle that problematic pea ...

The teal MPs are electorally irrelevant. What that means is this government, with its whopping majority in the lower house, doesn’t need their votes as a group or as individuals. No teal MP has the ability to influence anything, let alone in their own electorate. They talk a big game, they get airtime, but that’s it. Smoke, no fire.
This is a point I have made publicly many times over. Which leads me to something I previously had decided to let slide because of the inanity, pettiness and smallness of it.
However, as the saying du jour goes, I changed my position. Why? These are serious times. We are in times that require cohesion, servant leadership and maturity. We are getting none of that.
So, a couple of weeks ago, I reiterated the point about lack of electoral influence when commenting on a social media post about the government’s attempt to flog off prime defence land assets such as HMAS Penguin in Mosman on Sydney’s lower north shore. It is bang in the middle of the seat of Warringah. We have a government drunk on spending and wanting to pawn the family jewels, and a local member impotent in the face of it.
I commented on a community post about a pending protest meeting, simply to the effect that this situation is an excellent example of how voting teal is a wasted vote because they lack influence.
Soon after, I had a response from Steggall’s verified account. It was sarcastic, dismissive and came complete with a rolling-eye emoji: “So says a journalist at the Australian …” Like I said, all the late-teen energy and gravitas of a school prefect. I responded politely, reminding my local MP that as I’m a constituent, she works for me, and pointing out that what I said was not personal but an incontestable fact. If she had any influence over what happened in her electorate, HMAS Penguin wouldn’t be on the chopping block. Attacking me, rather than addressing my point? It’s the hallmark of the person with no point to make.
I don’t know if Steggall runs her own social media account or if that post was made by a staff member. I suspect it’s the latter; one would presume an MP has more to do.
Either way, it indicates two things: the first, an obscene level of entitlement. Even if it was a staff member responding, the fact they did so without any shame says it all. Piss off, minion. The message was clear and others noticed. And the second thing this interaction delivered was validation for my point, though unintended I’m sure. A vote for the teals or any other independent in the lower house is a wasted vote.
Perhaps you voted teal here or in other electorates, and I’m sure you have your reasons, but let me spell it out logically.
You voted teal to punish the Coalition, perhaps to feel as if your vote might count. What you did, though, is help elect a Labor government that is there only because of Greens preferences. You directly elected local MPs who are just a different shade of green and who are powerless to do anything at a local or a national level other than squawk from the sidelines and take shots at constituents and, while you’re at it, the national newspaper.

Um, does that mean the beefy boofhead stays in the wilderness?

Sounds like a good, compelling deal, no matter what turgid AUKUS-loving mess is the alternative ... as the reptiles kept on trying to pretend that there was a real alternative oppositon at work, blathering away on Sky Noise down under with someone boasting of an unfortunate Jaimee as a first name ... Shadow Health Minister Anne Ruston reacts to the formation of Community Strong Australia by two Teal independents. “Well, you’ve only got to have a look at the track record of the so-called Teals, I mean, they usually vote together,” Ms Ruston told Sky News host Jaimee Rogers. “Their main funding source is the same, so I think they have been acting as a semi-party for some time,” she said.“It is a party of two. I’m not sure that many Australians would think that two people joining together is really a party.“Just look at the track record of their voting, look where their funding comes from, and I think it tells the whole story.”

Garrulous Gemma was determined to keep on grieving ...

Oh, the irony of the socialist march across the nation being facilitated by the wealthiest Australians in the most enviable addresses in the country: Wentworth, Curtin, Warringah.
Here we have it, people, a Pyrrhic victory writ large. You have enabled Labor to make us a weaker, less secure, less prosperous country. The party is doing its best to drive Australia off a cliff and the teals are filling their tank up at the servo. Wait, sorry. The teals are manning the charging stations along the way because, of course, they’re driving electric vehicles. The Greens are laughing all the way to the communal bank.
This political shaking, this fracturing of the traditional order, it’s painful but needed. Why? Something had to wake us up. The party I vote for has much work to do, a herculean amount. The party in government has betrayed Australians, has a dangerous socialist agenda. Our Treasurer is economically illiterate. Jim Chalmers and Anthony Albanese delivered a so-called widow’s tax in this budget and their response to our outrage? Stop your fussing. We’ll fix it later. In a domestic or romantic relationship, this behaviour would be called financial coercive control.
We are in nation-shaking days. I see in my own circle of friends and clients people who previously were politically disengaged but now awakened from a lengthy slumber and driven by the rage of betrayal. It is quite something to behold.
As always, I’m the tragic optimist. Perhaps these are not just nation-shaking days. Perhaps they’ll prove in time to be nation forming, or re-forming. That’s my hope. That all of this will be worth it. A lot depends on us. I’m game if you are.

A socialist march across the nation? If only ...

A closing question: if the teals and their kind are completely pointless and useless, how useless and pointless is it to rail with wild-eyed rage and fury at the pointless and the useless? You'd have to be pretty pointless to do it...

Waiter, the pond wants a serve of whatever garrulous Gemma is drinking. If she's game, it's likely a form of Dutch courage (no shade on the Dutch, it's just the colonial English being Pommy).

Some days the pond wants to live in Gemma's nirvana of socialist delusions...

And so to end with the usual fun, with bonus luxury US snacking while talking on a telephone while driving a car ...

In which a bunch of reptile second stringers hit the couch, including the swishing Switzer, the Bjørn-again one, and the lizard Oz editorialist ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 22:05:43 +0000

Some days the pond feels like a psychiatrist, required to listen to the saucy doubts and fears of the reptiles, with weekends a special time for clamouring alarm.

Take Dame Slap, please, someone take her.

She's settled on her latest jihad, and so she's at Juliar again, albeit just a way to have yet another burst of transphobic bigotry ... and not being a caring shrink, the pond decided to evict her from the couch and send her to the intermittent archive ...

Julia Knew. She owes Australian women an apology
Women are women, and Julia Gillard owes them all an apology
What does Julia Gillard know now that she didn’t in 2013: that a woman is a woman? That women are entitled to their own spaces?
By Janet Albrechtsen
Columnist

How the reptiles hate TG folk, and the pond is aware that sometimes, confronted by gender uncertainty in the wild, have had a nervous breakdown in the presence of a hermaphrodite. Stay away from tunicates, mollusks and especially earthworms...

What else? Well there was more fear and alarm with a bit of Bita ...

EXCLUSIVE
Explorer’s journals censored at top university
Journals of explorer Edward Eyre censored at University of Sydney
An Oxford historian has compared Australia’s cancel culture to the Soviet Union and the Third Reich, after a university library redacted freely available 181-year-old explorer journals on ‘cultural safety’ grounds.
By Natasha Bita

What a howling and gnashing of teeth and stern words about "virtue signalling".

The pond finally reached the end and thought it was a bit of a storm in a shrink's teacup...

...The University of Sydney spokeswoman said on Friday that Professor Goldman was given “full access to digitised versions for research, and the physical items remain intact and available for scholarly use under appropriate conditions.’’
She said online redaction was used in “limited case-by-case situations’’ for cultural, ethical or privacy reasons.
“It’s not a judgment on the historical value of the material and doesn’t limit access to the original works for legitimate research,’’ the spokeswoman said.

Steady on, all them tribal secrets belong us white folk...

And so to the first patient pouring out his heart and his devotion...

The header: Why this proud Australian will always believe in the American experiment;Yes, there’s a gulf between the nation’s ideals and its conduct, yet the country’s capacity for self-correction still remains unmatched.

The caption for the weird collage, sans any credit, suggesting no human hand was involved in the production of this monstrosity: My affection for America runs deeper than nostalgia and popular culture.

Wonder Woman as the central focus? A woman who is notoriously the biological daughter of the Greek god Zeus, and so who's actual gender identity must be uncertain. Some think she might be the daughter of Hades, who is said to have helped Hippolyta mould her from clay. Can she be called a woman at all, though it might well be a wonder? Careful, Dame Slap is on the prowl, and might well take a view.

Not to worry, the trick here is to avoid mentioning mad King Donald and the current state of the disunited states, and the swishing Switzer shows a singular ability at this task.

I’m a proud Australian. But I also love America. I was born in Dallas and remain a diehard Cowboys NFL fan. My Texan father served as a marine in Vietnam and, while on R&R in Sydney, met my Australian mother at a Kings Cross pub.
My favourite beer is Samuel Adams Boston Lager and I have a congenital weakness for American fast food.
For more than three decades I’ve scarcely missed a day reading The Wall Street Journal editorial pages. For my sins, I also read – gasp! – the more left-liberal New York Times.
My favourite job (apart, of course, from editing The Australian’s opinion pages) was at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute. My dream getaway is lovely, misty little Annapolis, Maryland, with its cobbled streets, cosy bars and home of the US Naval Academy (where my Australian father-in-law once served on exchange).
I proudly wear Richard Nixon ties, and my office and home are decorated with presidential busts and 40 framed American political cartoons. Crikey, my first crush was Wonder Woman, Lynda Carter: “in your satin tights, fighting for your rights and the old red, white and blue”. And I never miss a Super Bowl!

Dear sweet long absent lord, he wears tricky Dick ties? While the reptiles paused for snap of a form of football largely ignored by the rest of the world, shades of Black Sunday ...The Seattle Seahawks celebrate their 29-13 victory over the New England Patriots at Super Bowl LX.

...the pond headed off to relive some favourite tricky Dick/peace prize winner moments...

That felt better and now for the swishing Switzer running deep, but not so silent ...

But my affection for America runs deeper than nostalgia and popular culture. It is also philosophical.
I have long agreed with Ronald Reagan’s observation that the American Revolution was “the only true philosophical revolution in all history”. Writing about Independence Day in 1981, the Gipper argued that while other revolutions merely replaced one ruling class with another, the American Revolution transformed the very idea of government itself.
That is why the 250th anniversary of the Fourth of July is such a remarkable celebration. Americans commemorate not merely their independence but also the principles expressed in the Declaration of Independence, principally drafted by that great man of the Enlightenment Thomas Jefferson: liberty, equality of opportunity and government deriving its legitimacy from the consent of the governed. They celebrate those ideals not simply to honour the past but to recommit themselves to them.

Philosophy? The pond thinks it might be psychological. It certainly involves memory loss about the way things are at the moment.

The reptiles were also careful to ignore mad King Donald in their selection of cheap snaps, John Trumbull’s Declaration of Independence (1817–1819) depicts the presentation of the draft document to the Continental Congress on June 28, 1776.

That inspired the swishing Switzer to more celebration and more avoidance ...

No serious observer would deny the gulf that has often existed between America’s ideals and its conduct. Slavery and segregation all testify to that. Yet the significance of the Fourth of July is precisely that it reminds Americans that their founding principles remain standards by which they judge themselves, and aspirations that remain unfinished.
None of this is to disguise or excuse America’s shortcomings. The foreign policy setbacks in Iraq, Afghanistan and, more recently, Iran, mounting public debt and chronic deficits, growing political polarisation and an increasingly more multipolar world have all dented American confidence.
We’ve been here before. With the end of the Cold War nearly four decades ago, there were, as the godfather of American neoconservatism, Irving Kristol, warned, “clear signs of rot and decay germinating in American society”. And distinguished British historian Paul Kennedy wrote his thesis on American decline that made him famous among the elites.
Yet 35 years since the collapse of Soviet communism, America remains globally dominant in technology and artificial intelligence, the world’s largest producer of oil and gas, and the leader of global growth: whereas in 1990, at the height of the unipolar moment, the US economy accounted for 40 per cent of the G7 GDP, today it’s nearly 60 per cent.
Jefferson understood that liberty begins in the mind. Once governments acquire the power to police opinion or punish dissent, every other freedom is placed at risk. That insight, central to the American founding, deserves to be remembered on this Fourth of July as much as any other.

The pond began to develop a diagnosis of latent schizophrenia ... I keep returning to Martin Luther King’s enduring appeal that America should be judged not by the standards of others but by its own magnificent promises.

Uh huh...

...Many black leaders, including Martin Luther King, Sr., and Jackie Robinson, initially supported Nixon’s 1960 bid for the presidency. Blacks believed Nixon to be more committed to civil rights reform than President Eisenhower had been, but the attitudes of black voters shifted during the final days of the 1960 presidential campaign. In October 1960 King was sentenced to four months in jail for violating his probation after participating in an Atlanta sit-in. After encouragement from Harris Wofford and other advisors, Nixon’s opponent, John F. Kennedy, phoned Coretta Scott King to convey his sympathy. King expressed disappointment that, despite his previously warm relationship with Nixon, “When this moment came, it was like he had never heard of me.” King believed Nixon’s inaction made him appear as “a moral coward and one who was really unwilling to take a courageous step and take a risk” (King, 9 March 1964). Kennedy’s phone call and his campaign’s discreet publicity promoting his role in releasing King from jail gained him the support of many black voters, and he defeated Nixon by less than one percent of the popular vote.

Give that man a moral coward tricky Dick neck tie, for the lynching thereof ...

There are times when America seems to fall short of that ideal. Last year, for example, an Australian writer was detained and ultimately deported after arriving at Los Angeles International Airport. US officials reportedly questioned him at length about articles he had written on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and protests at Columbia University before refusing him entry. Whatever the merits of his views, the episode raised uncomfortable questions about freedom of expression in a nation that has long presented itself as the world’s foremost defender of free speech.
Yet I keep returning to Martin Luther King’s enduring appeal that America should be judged not by the standards of others but by its own magnificent promises, set out in the Declaration of Independence. In that same spirit, Bill Clinton declared on his first day as president: “There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.”

Slick Willie, is there a blow job in the house? America recovered from the civil war, the Depression and, eventually, the trauma of Vietnam and Watergate.

Sssh, don't mention Iran or those pesky straits.

The swishing Switzer quickly wound down, with not one mention of the heroics of mad King Donald's fair, nor the way that former Olympians had ravaged and ruined a reflecting pool designed to be a central part of the celebrations ...
One of the most remarkable features of American history has been the nation’s extraordinary capacity for self-correction. It recovered from the civil war, the Depression and, eventually, the trauma of Vietnam and Watergate with a resilience unmatched by other great powers.
Whether it can do so again in the face of a rising China and toxic political polarisation at home may be the defining political question of our age.
America has never been perfect. It never will be. But few nations have shown a greater capacity to acknowledge their failures, renew themselves and strive, however imperfectly, towards their founding ideals. That is why, despite everything, this proud Australian will always have a soft spot for the American experiment.
Happy Fourth of July!
Tom Switzer hosts the podcast Switzerland.

That's got to be worth a 'toon or two ...

Meanwhile, as the official paper for One Nation and Pauline, the reptiles were wildly excited by their latest poll...

Labor and Anthony Albanese on the slide in three states, Newspoll finds
Prime Minister’s net approval rating has collapsed in every key state as One Nation’s record surge rewrites Australian political allegiances.
By Geoff Chambers

In fact Geoff chambered several rounds at the top of the digital edition ...

Do you slowly’: Labor’s old plan to defeat new enemy One Nation
‘Do you slowly’: Labor’s plan to crush One Nation
Gearing up for a 2028 election, the PM takes a leaf from Paul Keating’s script in his plan to wrest votes from One Nation as support for Pauline Hanson’s party surges to a record high.
By Geoff Chambers
Political editor

That seemed to be the motto for the dog botherer.

You see, the reptiles have been doing the government quickly for the way it has allegedly produced a slump in real estate prices, a key way to introduce some affordability into the market.

But the dog botherer has discovered a weird kind of affinity with long-suffering vulgar youff ...no, strike that, with the already entitled doomed to suffer ...

Debt trap: the crushing reality of trying to buy your first home
Crushing reality of buying a home: dream traps young in a debt nightmare
Labor has subsidised hundreds of thousands of Australians into homes it is now helping make less valuable, with experts warning a property crash is not out of the question.
By Chris Kenny
Associate Editor (National Affairs)

Enough already, given the recent heat in Europe and the current heat in the disunited States, the pond wanted to sit a patient in the couch and discuss climate change, and who better than the Bjørn-again one?

The header: WHO misleads public with cherrypicked climate data; The world’s peak health body has used European heat death figures that exaggerate the true risk more than 50-fold.

The caption for the poetic image of the sun beating down: European heat death risk has risen 82 per cent since 1990. But heat mortality risk rises sharply with age and Europe has aged dramatically. Picture: AFP

Indeed, indeed, who cares if some oldies shuffle off in the heat, they were going to die anyway, so let them wilt.

Unfortunately the Bjørn-again one is only willing to spend three or so minutes on the couch, but that was more than enough time for him to lather himself into a frenzy ...

At the start of the FIFA World Cup in North America, sensationalist headlines suggested climate change could make the games “the most dangerous ever” because of the heat. Of course the claim is absurd given that the previous tournament was played in much hotter conditions in Qatar, but it is an excellent example of the activist-driven climate alarm stories we see every summer.
Riding this wave, the World Health Organisation is again blurring the line between evidence-based public health and climate advocacy. A WHO commission made up of politicians and green advocates has urged the organisation to declare climate change a “public health emergency of international concern”.

Dammit, as if a few deaths made any difference to the joys of experiencing climate change ... cue an aV distraction, The World Health Organisation has attributed 1300 unexpected deaths across Europe to its record heatwave. National temperature records in Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic were set on Sunday. France's Health Ministry says there have been 1000 more deaths than expected in the country since Wednesday.

And after that AV distraction, the Bjørn-again one was left to his own data-mangling devices, wherein all is well, and all will be well ...

This is a flashback to the 2010s when WHO’s director-general named climate change the most important health issue of the 21st century. Not long after, Covid arrived – and WHO’s preparedness and early response were found deeply wanting.
The lesson clearly was not learned. The WHO commission’s headline claim is that climate change poses a “catastrophic threat to human health”. Its key evidence comes from a Lancet study showing heat deaths in Europe are rising rapidly, reaching 63,000 a year. Even setting aside the peculiarity of a global health emergency built primarily on European data, the argument collapses under scrutiny.
European heat death risk has risen 82 per cent since 1990. But heat mortality risk rises sharply with age and Europe has aged dramatically. Since 1990, the share of the European population over 70 has increased by 78 per cent. Ageing alone explains virtually all of the observed increase in heat deaths. The study and the commission simply ignore this.
Any honest analysis of mortality would use age-standardised death rates that make figures comparable over time. The WHO report makes no such adjustment.
The Global Burden of Disease, the leading mortality database, does. It shows that Europe’s age-standardised heat death risk has changed only marginally since 1990. Adjusted to reflect today’s population size and age distribution, the increase amounts to fewer than 850 additional heat deaths. The WHO commission’s figures exaggerate the problem more than 50-fold.
The deeper dishonesty lies in what the report omits. As temperatures rise, heat deaths increase but cold deaths fall. Cold deaths far outnumber heat deaths on every continent. Using the age-standardised methodology that reveals minimal heat death increases, cold death rates in Europe have nearly halved since 1990. At today’s population levels, that translates to about 210,000 fewer cold deaths each year. The WHO commission conceals the fact cold deaths have declined by about 250 times as much as heat deaths have risen.
The report’s second big claim is that climate change in Europe has made more Europeans food insecure. This strains credulity. Real food insecurity lies in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The claim also ignores UN projections showing the world on track for record cereal production. If the WHO commission were genuinely concerned about the world’s hungry, it would lead with those facts.
There is a cruel irony in the commission’s prescription. Climate policies have already made electricity three to four times costlier for consumers in Europe than in the US and China, and more than a third of all Europeans now say they can’t afford airconditioning. Making even more aggressive emissions cuts would raise energy costs further, making heatwaves even deadlier for those who cannot afford airconditioning and prolonged cold deadlier for those who cannot afford heating.
Higher energy prices also raise the cost of fertiliser and mechanised farming, pushing more people in developing countries into hunger. The prescribed cure is worse than the disease.
The WHO director who convened the commission writes that “our citizens expect urgency from us” as though he were an elected politician rather than a health official. What global citizens expect from doctors is honest, evidence-based counsel. They do not expect clinical authority to be borrowed for political purposes or public alarm to be manufactured by omitting data that would defuse it.
WHO exists to prevent disease and protect human health. Declaring a climate emergency on the basis of cherrypicked, misleading statistics will not protect the most vulnerable. It will erode the organisation’s credibility further, divert attention and resources from real threats and lend political cover to costly policies that harm the people WHO claims to champion.
Bjorn Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus, visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and author of False Alarm and Best Things First.

Yes, air-conditioning is the way forward, and while Bjørn-again one is coy about it - he doesn't once mention the life-giving power of coal - it's clear to many reptiles that these A/Cs should be run on dinkum, virginal, clean Oz coal.

Now that'll fix the planet and what ails it ...

And so to a special treat.

After consigning a few reptiles to fill up the pond's meditative Sunday, the pond decided to use the lizard Oz editorialist as couch filler.

Here you will find the distilled essence of darkness, the sort of analysis that defies treatment by any form of psychiatry ...

With the lizard Oz editorialist simpering like a swishing Switzer, that's got to be worth a few more 'toons ...

And there was also this ...

And yet ...he really did think he was a great man ...urging punters to judge him soberly and fairly ...

And lastly the lizard Oz editorialist was inevitably indignant, and it took quite a bit to get the anon scribbler from pacing about in an agitated manner, and head back to the couch for a bleat ...

Third Reich?

But surely Adolf was a great man, who needed to be judged fairly and soberly?

What an excellent set of distractions, while the looting and the rorting goes on apace ...

All's well, and will continue to be well ...

Our Henry, the Lynch Mob and Killer Creighton, and lots of links ... are you not Friday entertained?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 21:52:02 +0000

How could the pond resist starting with the venerable Meade's pitch for "getting Murdoched"?

‘This is the dark art’: new book claims pattern of personal attacks by Murdoch media empire
In a book dedicated to ‘the bullied’, two former News Corp journalists outline a behaviour pattern they call ‘getting Murdoched’, which they say harms individuals and public debate

Inter alia ...

...“Murdoched”, a term Dodd and Ricketson coin for the book, means to be “editorially attacked when one’s ideas or deeds do not accord with the media proprietor’s programs or publications”.
The book examines “murdoching” across the US, the UK and Australia, including dozens of interviews with prominent people and ordinary citizens about the way they were treated in newspapers, such as the Sun and the New York Post, and cable television network Fox News.
Dedicated to “the bullied”, the book focuses squarely on Murdoch’s “way of doing journalism”, Dodd and Ricketson write. The techniques include unleashing a torrent of articles against particular targets “contesting even the tiniest of points, so as to wipe the critic’s original ideas from everyone’s mind”. Another is to attack the critic personally, “pitilessly and repeatedly”. When all else fails, “murdoching” is “simply continuing to assert something as true as if no one has ever shown it was false”, they write.
“Murdoch perverted the fourth estate function of journalism,” Dodd and Ricketson write. “Instead of it being a way to hold power to account, Murdoch saw it as a means of holding individuals to account, especially those who held views contrary to his own.”
The consequences, they argue, are severe: these tactics have a chilling effect on democracy and seriously harm those who are targeted. And across the US, the UK and Australia, the three markets where Murdoch’s outlets are dominant, they write, the techniques employed by the company’s journalists are similar.

Well yes, over the years of closely observing the reptiles at work in the lizard Oz, the pond has lost count of the endless amounts of invective and abuse directed at hapless victims, not to mention ideas or observations that don't accord with hive mind expectations.

Getting Murdoched is as good a term as any for these relentless jihads.

Put it another way, as the infallible Pope did ...

Well it's Foxy in a way ...

So who or what is getting Murdoched today?

Almost by way of caricature, an ancient jihad, dedicated to relentless assaults on Juliar - is there a chaff bag handy? - resurfaced today thanks to Dame Slap ...

First there was the set up, by way of an EXCLUSIVE ...

EXCLUSIVE
‘It was a different time’: Gillard remark ignites push on gender law
A women’s sex-based rights campaigner says ‘history will judge’ Anthony Albanese following Julia Gillard’s claims her 2013 gender reforms were not designed for the world they now govern.
By Rachel Baxendale, Jacquelin Magnay and Elizabeth Pike

Just below came Dame Slap, eager to keep the jihad flowing ...

Commentary by Janet Albrechtsen
The buck stops with our first female and feminist PM
I have always admired Julia Gillard’s life after politics. But alas, she deserves no credit for her public attempts to wheedle her way out of what her government did to Australian women in 2012.

Juliar and the chance to excoriate TG folk all in one bilious, indigestible assault!

Luckily the pond had other fish to fry this day and so could step around that particular jihad, by spending quality time with Our Henry ...

The header: A nation born to ‘save the world’ fights to save itself; The Declaration of Independence fuelled the aspiration to commit great deeds and ensured an immense gap between ambition and achievement.

The caption for the painting, perfect for the reptiles because it comes cheap from the archives: Declaration of Independence, painting by John Trumbull. Picture: Universal History Archive

The hole in bucket man decided he'd spend a bigly five minutes brooding about the state of the disunited states.

Would he mention Emeritus Chairman Rupert's role in degrading discourse to a point of insensibility, by way of Faux Noise? Would he note that mad King Donald is the final, perfect flowering of that degradation?

Of course not, Our Henry will stay resolutely shtum about all that, and wander back into the sheltering past in his usual way, though this day without the comfort of Thucydides ...

As Americans celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the meaning they place on that founding document bears little relation to its meaning in 1776. That has been its fate since its earliest years – and it is precisely that capacity for reinterpretation that has enabled it to remain both relevant and revered.
The recasting of a document that answered the needs of one era to address those of another is hardly unusual. Magna Carta, which entrenched the privileges of the barons, was reimagined in the 16th and 17th centuries as the pillar of the liberties of freeborn Englishmen. So it has been, too, with the Declaration’s most famous proposition: the “self-evident” truth that “all men are created equal”.
Understanding that proposition requires a grasp of what made the Declaration truly revolutionary. There had been previous declarations of independence: the Declaration of Arbroath (1320), which asserted the freedom of the Scots nation, is one example among many. But the American Declaration broke new ground.
Whereas its predecessors had claimed independence on the basis of historical continuity, the American Declaration proclaimed its aim “to dissolve the political bands” that had connected “one people with another”, thereby bringing into existence an entirely new political community. Moreover, it rested that claim not on an imagined past but on “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”– that is, on natural rights.

And what of the white Xian nationalism currently rampant, and wanting to turn the nation literal creationist? Not to worry, pause for another cheap image from the archive, featuring dudes in their period glory, much like Our Henry, Drafting of the Declaration of Independence by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris.

The pond much prefers the conversation and insights offered by the two "the rest is history" dudes that came as an AV distraction at the end of yesterday's post, but that's yesterday, and now we're stuck here...

And finally, it announced that the new community was entitled to “assume among the powers of the earth” a “separate and equal station”, possessing, as a “Free and Independent State”, the “full Power to do all (the) Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do”.
Far from being central, the “self-evident” truth was instrumental to the Declaration’s main purpose. Deployed primarily to rebut the contention that the increasingly assertive colonial elites did not merit the same level of parliamentary representation as their British counterparts, it underpinned the colonists’ entitlement to control a polity of their own. It was therefore as the first act of collective self-determination, in which a nation willed itself into being and proclaimed its equality with states founded on centuries of dynastic succession, that the Declaration acquired immense historical significance.
Little wonder then that when Britain recognised the new polity at the end of the war in 1783, Edmond Burke remarked, with considerable astonishment, that “A great revolution has happened – a revolution made, not by chopping and changing of power in any one of the existing states, but by the appearance of a new state, of a new species, in a new part of the globe”. This was, he concluded, as momentous “as the appearance of a new planet would (be) in the system of the solar world”.
However, another feature of the Declaration’s intellectual context ensured that the “self-evident” truth did not remain confined to the sovereign equality of peoples, becoming instead what Martin Luther King referred to as the revolution’s great “promissory note” to generations of Americans.
For the new nation was by no means ordinary. Its birth, John Adams wrote in his diary, was “the opening of a grand design in Providence for the emancipation of mankind”. America was more than a state; it was a redeemer. The “infinite privilege” of the United States, Woodrow Wilson later claimed, was that of “saving the world”.

If you encourage this rampant form of exceptionalism, get ready to beat a path to mad Kind Donald, as the reptiles again resorted to an easy and cheap visual distraction... Leaders of March on Washington for Jobs & (sic) Freedom marching from right to left Rabbi Joachim Prinz, Eugene Carson Blake, Martin Luther King, Floyd McKissick, Matthew Ahmann and John Lewis in a scene from the TV documentary The Sixties. Picture: Robert W Kelley / Time Life Pictures

Our Henry eventually gets around to noting that maybe all is not well in the American dream, but safely insulates himself from the current awkward reality...

That sense of divine mission proved a two-edged sword. It inspired extraordinary confidence in the nation’s capacity for moral purpose. It was in the character of Americans, said Ronald Reagan in his first inaugural address, to “believe in ourselves and in our capacity to perform great deeds”.
And among the greatest of those deeds was the commitment, first clearly articulated by Abraham Lincoln, “to afford” every American “an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life”: that is, to realise in practice the “self-evident” equality announced at the republic’s birth.
Yet the vaulting ambition also imposed a burden of expectation so enormous as to ensure perpetual disappointment – and gave that disappointment an uncompromising moralism that could readily shade into fanaticism.
Never was that tendency more evident than during the fiery religious revivals – the “Great Awakenings” – that periodically swept the nation. Convinced that “God had shed further light upon his revelation” as a sign of “the coming Kingdom of God on earth”, movements sprang up that hailed the moment as the cusp of salvation. But as the boundary between this world and the next seemed to dissolve, so the power of Satan – and of his desperate attempts to thwart the divine plan – became ever more immediate.
With so much at stake, opposition was no longer a political disagreement to be accommodated or overcome; it was a demonic force, acting to undermine the millennial nation from within, that had to be decisively defeated.
The capacity of these movements to fracture the republic was all the greater because they drew together two powerful currents in American Protestantism whose influence long outlasted Protestantism’s cultural predominance: an Arminian conviction that individuals and societies alike could choose salvation, and an antinomian tendency to regard those acting under divine inspiration as released from ordinary moral and institutional restraints.
Whenever the social fabric weakened, the combination of those currents with the conviction that an evil conspiracy had gained control of the republic transformed political contention into moral warfare, driving the nation ever deeper into civil discord.

Instead of offering a snap of mad King Donald, the reptiles sought refuge in a safe archival
harbour, Abraham Lincoln.

And Our Henry stayed stuck in the past, keen to offer little beyond bland generalities and ancient authors ...

The danger was not lost on contemporary observers. Having travelled through the United States in the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville concluded that, while there were many fragilities, the republic’s survival depended less on its commendable constitutional arrangements than on “the habits of heart and mind” of its citizens – habits that leaned towards civility and restraint.
But those habits were precisely what the new moral politics threatened to dissolve. As rhetorical and physical violence mounted in the lead-up to the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln warned that the fading memory of the sacrifices on which the republic had been founded, together with the erosion of faith in its ideals, was removing the bulwarks that held it together.
With what he termed the “mobocratic spirit” – which recognised no limits to political conflict – on the rise, and the excesses of “the lawless in spirit” acquiring an alarming degree of legitimacy, “depend on it, this government cannot last”.
The redemptive fervour that had helped inspire the republic was now turning against it, transforming partisan rivalry into a fratricidal struggle. Unless a “political religion”, devoted to reverence for law and the orderly functioning of civil institutions, could once again bind Americans, Lincoln prophesied, the warring factions would not merely render those institutions ineffective; they would ensure their “total annihilation”.
Has Lincoln’s premonition ever rung truer? And are the dangers of the politics of raging self-righteousness not as great for us as they are for the United States? The enduring glory of the Declaration was that it gave the highest political expression to the Enlightenment ideals of reason, progress and ordered liberty. The question, on its 250th anniversary, is no longer whether those ideals can found free societies; it is whether they retain the moral force to preserve them.

Oh come on, just mention Faux Noise and its acme achievement, to which it remains American Fair devoted (and how many turned up to that state fair? Why squillions if you watched Faux Noise)...

And with that done, the pond's cup overflowed, because the Lynch mob was also out and about this day ... determined as always to defame and sully the reputation of the University of Melbourne:

The header: We need more in the academy to speak up against ideological bullying; When disagreement takes the form of co-ordinated ideological pressure aimed at shaming an individual into refusing a scholarly honour, it crosses a line.

The caption for a fuss in the ranks: Pro-Israel and Pro-Palestine demonstrators at the University of Melbourne. Picture: Jason Edwards

This will be another familiar jihad for students of the lizard Oz's hive mind: a passionate plea for the right for the current government of Israel to continue with its ethnic cleansing and genocide, without let, hindrance or protest:

It is ironic that at a moment when we celebrate the most important open letter in the history of the world – the Declaration of Independence – a slither of Australia’s university class writes its own, demonising a democracy.
How Western civilisation has declined. And how much the signatories of this Israelophobic letter would love that to be true. There is no sacred honour being pledged here. Instead, Associate Professor Matthew Champion must give up a prize, worth $US300,000 ($434,000), because 150 (or so) “academics, writers, activists, and students” claim it “normalises the colonial occupation of Palestine, and Israel’s apartheid regime” to accept it.
“We the undersigned believe that acceptance of the award, in the context of ongoing Israeli genocide, war crimes, human rights abuses … is unconscionable”. All this because the prize giver, the Dan David Foundation, is insufficiently onside with this anti-Israel position of the activists. It is, of course, merely coincidental that the prize giver is Jewish.
Their text is bog-standard identity politics: define Israel as a “white settler” project, ignore Palestinian agency, treat Hamas voters in Gaza as a uniquely oppressed group (which they are not), and then chide any behaviour Israel takes in its own defence – and indeed anyone seen as complicit in that self-defence.
The clear implication is that Champion will be added to that list unless he turns down his prize – for work, get this, on medieval concepts of time.
Despite the ability of anti-Zionists to make campus life hard for their Jewish colleagues and students, I do not seek their silencing. I do not demand they repay their ARC grants – funded by an Australian government allied to the Zionist entity.
If we cancelled every professor that believes a crazy idea, the higher education sector would be in trouble. Better they find expression (and challenge) at a university than spilling over into the general population, though they do that too.
We are wrong to inflate the significance of this latest intercession. Note that the petitioners are a minority within a minority. Unless more coverage unlocks even more signatures, we are dealing with less than 0.01 per cent of university staff in Australia. My conversations with some of the other 99.99 per cent reveal colleagues delighted (read: very jealous) that Champion has won the historians’ jackpot.
Tiny factions can, of course, become powerful. Didn’t the Christians and the Bolsheviks start small?

The Lynch mob is of course faithfully following in the footsteps of the lizard Oz's jihad.

In the past days, there's been this ...

Top scholars leap to defence of University of Melbourne historian in academic ‘double standards’ row
High-profile scholars have accused more than 100 academics of double standards over demands that historian Matthew Champion return his Dan David Prize.

And this ...

Melbourne academic Matthew Champion rejects boycotters’ demands to return $435,000 history prize
Matthew Champion vows to keep the $435,000 Dan David Prize despite a campaign by more than 100 academics, including Randa Abdel-Fattah.

Ah that name, redolent of another reptile jihad.

The reptiles love soft Israeli power and are no doubt hoping to collect a prize for "best jihadists for ethnic cleansing" in the next year or so.

Meanwhile, the reptiles slipped in a snap ... Interim vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne Professor Glyn Davis. Picture: Aaron Francis / The Australian

The Lynch mob carried on exuding smug complacency, as is his wont ...

But I reckon those represented here are not the vanguard of a new revolutionary movement. They carry along too few comrades. I think even students are starting to twig that the jig is up. Stan Grant said, “identity is a cage in search of a bird”. After a three-year degree, some students are desperate to escape the group identities activist academics have put them in.
The signatories are thus neither a representative sample of Australian academics nor even of humanities and social science (HASS) scholars, where anti-Israel sentiment runs higher than in other disciplines. There is a special tragedy in that, which I will leave for another day.
Remember also that universities have a dual role: as asylums and as interfaces. We enable the brilliant work of researchers to inform and improve society. But we also have high walls that protect society from our activist obsessions. This open letter has not managed to clamber over that wall.
I’d be confident that everyone who has signed it considers himself an “antiracist” and likely a champion of that modish cause. We are then in the bizarre situation of having an official campus culture dedicated to antiracism seemingly unable to staunch the outbreak of one of the most ancient of hatreds: antisemitism.
My own university, to its credit, has congratulated Champion for his success and encouraged him to accept the prize. That sort of institutional resistance to ideological bullying matters. We need to see more of it in higher education.
This does, though, mask a deeper problem. This fixation with concepts of race, mostly imported from the American campus, has created a sea in which antisemites swim.
What if antiracism turns out to be an essential precursor of antisemitism? Its simple binaries lend themselves to the oppressor-versus-oppressed narrative that so distorts our understanding of Israel’s predicament.
The letter derides Israel as an apartheid state; the end of white rule in South Africa remains an enduring model for antiracists. But if Israel is an apartheid regime, it must have no right to exist. This open letter pretends to want one man to give up his history prize; its actual goal is the eradication of a nation.
The letter targets the Israeli government, Israeli state institutions, Israeli universities, the Dan David Foundation, and Zionism as a political project. Would a letter, demanding justice for the Uighurs, that targeted the Chinese government, Chinese state institutions, Chinese universities, and Chinese communism as a political project escape the accusation of Sinophobia? Wouldn’t such a campaign against Beijing inevitably invite racists to join it?
Champion is right to accept his prize. His colleagues are entitled to disagree and to challenge that decision. But when disagreement takes the form of co-ordinated ideological pressure aimed at shaming an individual into refusing a scholarly honour, it crosses an important line.
The far larger – and too often silent – majority of academics have a responsibility to speak up when public pressure campaigns like this become a form of ideological bullying.
Timothy J. Lynch is professor of American politics at the University of Melbourne.

Talking of ideological bullies, it takes one to know one, and once again, the University of Melbourne stands in the vanguard of ethnic cleansing as a natural, neigh inevitable way forward, the perfect resolution to the situation of Gaza and the West Bank ...

For further reading, see Haaretz's In His Own Words: Naftali Bennett Is Committed to Annexing the West Bank

And so on, and so much for alternatives to Benji, as the dissembling Lynch mob enthusiastically celebrates the cause ... joining that cosmic circus of clowns that helped Benji out with a war on Iran, and hasn't that turned out fine and dandy ...

Meanwhile, at the top of this day's early morning digital page, the reptiles were sparing a thought for Moira and carrying on their perennial jihad about taxes...

Just for the record, as the pond wouldn't want to tease without an intermittent archive link ...

EXCLUSIVE
Go harder on taxes: Labor’s wishlist for PM
NSW Labor pushes Anthony Albanese to go further on tax reforms
Following a controversial budget, NSW Labor’s grassroots branches now want a billionaires tax and an end to negative gearing grandfathering.
By Matthew Cranston

Urgent Hearing
Deeming launches last ditch court bid to stop Libs dumping her
Moira Deeming is suing Victorian Liberal president Brian Loughnane on Friday to block her disendorsement, as Pauline Hanson declares One Nation doesn’t want the MP either.

By Rachel Baxendale and Lily McCaffrey

Seems she's put herself in some kind of headlock, and won't someone think of the squillionaires!

The pond must trip past all this to celebrate Killer Creighton's solution to climate change, and assorted recent, happening heat waves across Europe and the Unites States.

Just bung in A/C and watch it all fade away ...

The header: Why it’s time Europe embraced the magic of airconditioning; The unnecessary deaths triggered by the latest heatwave are a reminder of how arrogant climate change fanatics have become.

The caption for the collage, apparently put together without the help of human hands: Could Chris Bowen's big coup at COP be introducing heatwave-hit Europe to airconditioning? Pictures: News Corp / iStock

This was a peak Killer outing, epic climate science denialism, and all done in just three minutes ...

Energy Minister Chris Bowen is apparently pushing for a global electrification target of 35 per cent by 2035 – up from around 20 per cent – as part of his $150m Australian taxpayer-funded presidency of the COP31 summit, which will be hosted in Turkey later this year.
If only adapting to climate change was part of the brief, he could make a last-minute change by ditching electrification and replacing it with a more modest, achievable and far more helpful goal: 35 per cent airconditioning penetration in Europe by 2035.
The thousands of unnecessary deaths likely triggered by the latest heatwave in Europe are a reminder of how dangerous, unscientific and arrogant climate change fanatics have become, even as the rest of the world realises “net zero by 2050” is a costly fraud. Despite economic stagnation, European nations remain among the richest in the world and yet airconditioning penetration is not even 20 per cent, thanks to the elite’s hypocritical aversion to one of the greatest innovations of all time.
When the mercury hit high 30s in Brussels last week, the European Commission switched off the airconditioning on the first seven floors, where most of the building’s 3000 staff work, but exempted floors eight to 13, where Her Majesty Ursula von der Leyen, the EC’s president, and her staff were no doubt mulling new ways to save the planet. Let them stay cool!

Maestro, a snap of the villainess, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen talks to journalists during a media conference at the EU summit in Brussels. Picture: Geert Vanden Wijngaert / AP Photo

As is always the case with Killer, nihilism is at the core of the argument. Let the world fry, so long as you've got A/C:

Cutting back on airconditioning for others in Europe is more about virtue-signalling than reducing emissions. About half of Belgium’s electricity – and around three-quarters of France’s – is generated by nuclear energy, for instance, which produces zero greenhouse gas emissions.
Even American’s supposedly gauche predilection for airconditioning is a rounding error on the global emissions pie chart. Airconditioning globally contributes around 3 per cent of global emissions and the US share isn’t more than a third of that – in other words negligible.
But following the logic of Europe’s climate change zealots can be challenging. Warming the planet is bad, but not the home. Global carbon dioxide emissions from heating are at least four times greater than those for cooling, according to Our World in Data. So, it’s OK to keep your food cool, but not yourself.
In 2024, according to Eurostat data, space cooling made up 0.8 per cent of European household’s energy usage, compared to 77 per cent for space and water heating.
“OMG, this is so rich!” wrote Paris deputy mayor Audrey Pulvar on social media in a comical attempt to hit back at Americans poking fun at Europe’s lack of airconditioning – something 90 per cent of American households have taken for granted for a long time.
“As the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, you bear a significant amount of responsibility for global warming and the consequences,” she fumed earlier this week.
At least here we can observe some degree of understanding that the climate doesn’t care where greenhouse emissions come from. European countries can flaunt their greenhouse emissions statistics all they want, but the global total is still increasing every year as Europe – and Australia – offshore their manufacturing (and jobs) to the rest of the world.

There followed a rare acknowledgement by the reptiles that large parts of the world have been a tad warm of late, and with any luck we'll be joining them later in the year with a sooper dooper hot summer, A man sits out in the sun in a park in Leicester Square in central London. Picture: Brook Mitchell / AFP

Killer followed up with a final flourish of Killer logic ...

Indeed, if she were serious about pointing the finger over emissions, Pulvar should’ve directed her criticism elsewhere. China, which still insists it is a developing country, has almost 990 million airconditioning units installed, according to Our World in Data. That’s more than four times as many as Europe, resulting in a penetration ratio three times that of Europe.
Its greenhouse emissions footprint is about four times that of the US and growing. Chinese officials no doubt understand what should be obvious: airconditioning not only massively improves the wellbeing of ordinary people but also increases economic growth and productivity, and promotes better learning outcomes too.
If the Europeans were serious about reducing emissions, they would encourage take-up of airconditioning. The amount of carbon emitted for every dollar of economic output has been falling steadily across advanced economies for decades, as innovation makes energy cleaner and more productive. Indeed, airconditioners themselves are a good example of this: quieter, cheaper, cleaner and dramatically more efficient than those of a generation ago.
In drumming up support in Europe for his last-minute change to his COP31 target, Bowen could cite an insightful economic paper from 2013 entitled The Remarkable Decline in US Temperature Mortality Relationship over the 20th Century.
“Residential AC appears to be both the most promising technology to help poor countries mitigate the temperature-related mortality impacts of climate change and, because fossil fuels are the least expensive source of energy, a technology whose proliferation will speed up the rate of climate change,” the report concluded.
No doubt it will be hard for European leaders to read that fossil fuels were – and still are, measured correctly – the cheapest source of energy. But it will be much harder to face being lumped in with “poor countries”, which is almost certainly where they’ll end up if they maintain their mindless obsession with reducing emissions.
Adam Creighton is chief economist at the Institute of Public Affairs.

What a delightful load of Killer Krap, a perfect summation of the IPA view of the world, citing a paper without providing a link, without pausing to contemplate what it might mean to attempt to air condition the entire world as a way of avoiding the consequences of climate change, and with the aid of fossil fuels no less!

In view of the cartoon to follow, the pond joyously quotes Google's AI on the implications of the paper ...

... in the context of climate denialism or skepticism, this paper is sometimes selectively cited by contrarians to argue that temperature-related mortality is no longer a threat, or to suggest that climate change is inherently benign because humans can easily adapt. Climate scientists and public health experts counter this argument by emphasizing several key points:
The Cost of Adaptation: While air conditioning protects wealthier populations in developed countries, it is energy-intensive and highlights systemic inequalities. Poorer populations and developing nations often lack access to these technologies, leaving them acutely vulnerable.
Energy Vulnerability: Increased air conditioning usage dramatically strains the electrical grid during peak heatwaves, which can lead to blackouts that exacerbate the very crisis they are meant to solve.
Broader Climate Impacts: The paper's findings on heat adaptation do not negate the other severe impacts of climate change, such as extreme weather, agricultural disruptions, or rising sea levels.

Luckily Wilcox came up with an equally Killer idea, which Killer will probably embrace wholeheartedly ...

And here's a little backgrounder for a man who reports frequently on what's going down in Vlad the Sociopath's world ...

In which the pond returns, only to be confronted by a dire triptych of "Ned's" natter, Switzer's swishes and and Dame Groan's yearning for disaster...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 21:54:59 +0000

The pond regrets missing any number of key events while sojourning in the deep south, not least Kez's ditties, and not least Paul Hogan calling Pauline Hanson a pelican, and the pelican invoking the ghost of Norman Gunston as the spirit of dinkum Australia.

The pond doesn't expect Hanson to share the pond's meta, post-ironic, post-reflexive, post-modern understanding of Gunston and the Aunty Jack show, which led decades later to the pond taking up residence in the mighty 'Gong, sharing space with hordes of cackling cockies.

Suffice to say that she's much thicker than the average house brick, deeply dumb and deplorable, though you're not supposed to say such things for fear of a raid by the thought police.

If the little Aussie bleeder, voice of the Illawarra, is the new standard bearer for dinkum men, then it's time for them to get out a big box of tissues and a cutthroat razor: Paul Hogan has reportedly called Pauline Hanson a ‘pelican’. Please explain?

The pond also missed out definitive proof that Jewish activists can be even more problematic and irritating than Islamic activists: Cairo Takeaway secures court win over pro-Israel activist who claimed he was ‘completely vindicated’ after settlement

Talk about a desperate attempt to distract from an ongoing genocide, a bit like reptiles sticking heads in sand about assorted heat domes.

On the upside, while down south, the pond did finally learn the meaning of a headlock, an insight that apparently escaped barking mad Moira: Moira Deeming misunderstood meaning of ‘headlock’ but won’t apologise to Matthew Guy for assault allegation, Victorian Liberal MP says interaction with her colleague left her fearful and confused

How long before she finds her true home amongst the gum trees and One Nation?

And damned if she was the only one fearful and confused, because the pond did its best to dig up some Commie swines and socialist preverts down south, but came up short.

As for the reptiles, the pond cared not one whit or jot ... but the pond is pleased to note that over the past month google alleges that the pond went way past a million views ...

It's all nonsense of course, just a bot counting bots in an inane way typical of AI - the real number is in the thousands - but the pond does appreciate those who hung in for the tabloid trash filler. The numbers fell away, but some showed remarkable intestinal fortitude, no doubt boosted by the chance of sighting a Kez contribution, or some other offering from a lark-inclined correspondent.

Speaking of regrets, the pond also apologises for returning on a Thursday, always low rent day at the hive mind, but wot the hell, time to resume the dance.

Sheesh, did the reptiles have to offer "Ned's" natter as the first chance to do the lobster quadrille?

The header: Can Anthony Albanese win where Keir Starmer failed? Albanese is not Starmer and probably won’t resemble Andy Burnham either. But the shared policy overlap between these parties of the left cannot be missed.

The caption and the unfortunate credit for the wretched collage: Can Anthony Albanese, left, succeed where Keir Starmer, right, failed so spectacularly? Pictures: News Corp / AFP. Artwork: Debbie Schipp For that banality, the reptiles offered a credit?

As for "Ned's" dance card number, it's an entirely specious comparison between two different parties in two different countries, but it's an easy layup for the ponderously pompous pedant, and as a bonus, it's so wretched the eternal natterer could only manage a five minute read.

The tone was set by the gigantic billy goat butt in the sub-header: Albanese is not Starmer and probably won’t resemble Andy Burnham either.

So what's the point?

Well the natterer has to fill up those column inches, and the pond silently endured:

When a two-year-old government with a parliamentary majority of more than 160 seats has its prime minister forced to resign, the conclusion is irresistible – British Labour and its left-wing ideology have confronted a crisis of electoral support and political relevance.
The Albanese government, elected in 2022, has been a superior political performer to its British counterpart under the failed leadership of Sir Keir Starmer – but the British experience contains lessons in Australia both for the progressive left and for Albanese Labor.
Starmer ran a far more left-wing government than Albanese with much less political acumen. It was marked by two ideas above all – the assumption that a sustained greater role for state power was the key to a better economy and society, and that a steady transition to progressive cultural values would promote human flourishing.
These assumptions faced a virulent backlash from the parties of the right – Reform UK and the Tories – but they also provoked alarm and concern from the left itself. Albanese shares many of Starmer’s policy assumptions but he has been far more pragmatic for far longer. Yet, like every Labor prime minister, Albanese ultimately will be defined and judged by the quality of his Labor reformism and this raises the question: can Albanese devise a successful centre-left agenda that works in the current age of disruption?
Can Albanese succeed where Starmer failed so spectacularly?

Just to add to the idle speculation, the reptiles dragged in a snap of the man fitted up as being a Sir Keir clone, Anthony Albanese and speaks at the CME breakfast at The Westin. Picture: NewsWire / Colin Murty

The pond found it hard to take, especially as "Ned" resorted to his old trick of quoting the thoughts of others:

Starmer’s dilemma was captured by a senior Labour figure who told The Times: “We’ve passed the two most left-wing budgets in more than half a century and then bled votes to the Greens. We should probably reflect about why that is, before lurching off to the left again.”
Starmer faced a political assault on two fronts – by the right-wing populist party of Nigel Farage, still leading in the polls, and by the extreme left Green Party under Zack Polanski, campaigning against climate delay and timid politics and espousing quasi socialism. Starmer was the wrong man for the times – in an age of super-polarised, ideological politics he operated as a political bureaucrat, making his removal probably inevitable.
In their account of the Starmer era, Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund capture his immobility: “The prime minister liked to work alone in the upstairs room they called the Thatcher study. The Iron Lady stared down at him over the first weeks of his premiership; disturbed, he had the picture taken away. If she could have spoken, she would have told them that the prime minister was reading. That, as much as the deathly hush, was the biggest mystery of the new No. 10. For hours, Starmer sat alone, rigid with monastic intensity.”
Andy Burnham will not be sitting alone. He is a social creature. Britain’s new prime minister likes people and people, so far, like him. Virtually every profile of Burnham reports that his skill lies in pleasing people and that he adjusts his message to the audience.
While being popular after Starmer is an imperative, Burnham’s mission is to confront the nation’s economic crisis. There is a favourite and disrespectful joke told about Burnham: A Blairite, a Brownite and a Corbynite walk into a bar and the bartender asks: “What will you be having, Mr Burnham?”

The next caption featured a stunning insight, down there with "Ned's": Keir Starmer was forced to resign as the Prime Minister.

It's true it's a devastating insight into the paucity of "Ned's" insights, but is that any reason to keep on reading?

Burnham’s elevation, unchallenged to this point, is a devastating insight into the paucity of Labour politics. The party was unable to find a successor from within its own cabinet. Every sign is that Burnham, previously mayor of Greater Manchester, will be accorded a “coronation” despite offering no comprehensive manifesto for his prime ministership and having no mandate from the British people for what he might do. This is hardly a recipe for success. A few voices have suggested he go to the people, but that would be a high-stakes gamble.
He inherits a government relieved but in disarray. Its centre-left governing ideology hasn’t worked. Under Labour, Britain is a high tax, high spending, redistributionist government with weak economic growth, poor productivity and struggling living standards. It is undermined by high energy prices arising from its successful decarbonisation, a flawed and unpopular immigration policy, suffers from an inflated welfare sector, a highly regulated labour market, and a culture of identity politics embedded across many institutions.
What was the problem? Was it Starmer’s ineffective leadership or Labour’s social democratic model?
In truth it was both.
The lesson of the past two years is writ large. British Labour is a strange blend of economic nostalgia, revived faith in state power, net-zero rigidity and a divisive culture based on identity characteristics. Burnham arrives having previously been a Westminster MP and with strong ideas about devolution, winding back Whitehall’s power and strengthening the regions.
Perhaps he will benefit from low expectations. The Economist magazine wrote: “Mr Burnham’s instincts do not appear to lean towards a convincing program either. One reason is his chameleon-like nature. Britain’s next prime minister twists with the wind and panders to the people in the room. At a time of extraordinary technological and geopolitical change, Mr Burnham tells voters that he can turn back the clock on 40 years of neoliberalism.”
Burnham will surely begin with a message of dramatic change – but change based on the future or the past?
Much of Britain’s problems lie in the system of government itself. The structure is ill-suited to the economic, technological and knowledge-based explosions of the coming decade. Too much policy is about protecting the public from change and its consequences, not maximising the opportunity and community benefits from change.

This from a rag that has studiously attempted to resist both climate science and the digital revolution, and still carries on with a tree killer edition? You could get a coffee for the price of the weekend rag if you were mug enough to pay full price for the folly.

Hang on, must show off Andy, Andy Burnham delivers a speech at The People’s Museum in Manchester, England. Picture: Jeff J Mitchell / Getty Images

And that was that, a grim final gobbet from "Ned" in his usual Chicken Little, the sky is falling, doomsayer mode ...and wouldn't ya kno it, he resorted to Tony Bleagh as a truth teller ...

The grim conclusion from British Labour is that its current policy settings and ideological faiths aren’t working for the public as a whole. Is Labour in the 2020s the party of British decline? That question needs to be confronted. Indeed, the Albanese government should cast its eye on the UK and also reflect upon that question. If the idea takes hold that British Labour is presiding over national decline then the combined forces of the right will surely prevail at the next British election.
Maybe Burnham will provide the ultimate answer. Of course, Britain’s problems are deep-seated with the previous long-serving Tory government bearing much of the responsibility.
But Labour is now politically ascendant and purports to put its stamp on the country.
Albanese is not Starmer and probably won’t resemble Burnham either. But the shared policy overlap between these parties of the left cannot be missed. In this age of disruption and populism, centre-left politics in the West is moving further left. Britain demonstrates this and Australia seems to be moving in that direction.
In his recent essay Tony Blair got it right – the times are calling for bold policies from the radical centre, not the extremes of the left or right. Incrementalism won’t do the job. The public is after change and that puts the ideological beliefs of the left and right under searching pressure.
Albanese won’t be going the way of Starmer’s forced resignation. Indeed, his political position remains stronger than many of his opponents realise. But the parallel issue for Australian Labor cannot be missed: does Labor’s policy model and ideology still work for Australia in the 2020s?

Oh just go suck on a Board of Peace, and have a European heat wave just at the time Bleagh pretended climate change wasn't a thing, and dammit the pond refuses to miss out on the infallible Pope that turned up during the pond's away time...

Oh dear, he mentioned the unmentionable.

As for the rest of the reptile pack, the pond refused to add this to its dance card, but at least the pond could add it to the intermittent archive for those who cared:

China is not simply exporting influence. It’s expanding jurisdiction
Beijing has not enacted another domestic law. It has asserted a right to judge conduct occurring inside other sovereign states.
By John Coyne and Geoff Wade

What did they expect from a dictator running a one party state, but at least the archive seems to be continuing to work...

Unfortunately, that made room for the swishing Switzer, a man who could make the tango seem like a serve of rhubarb crumble (once a staple of UNE college kitchens back in the day).

The header: How Malcolm Turnbull’s 2016 election disaster started Liberal fragmentation. This was the moment many Liberal supporters began to conclude that Howard and Costello no longer represented their interests or values.

The caption for the snap of the self-regarding wondrous gesticulator with crooked lip: Malcolm Turnbull announces his victory in the 2016 Federal election. Picture: Braden Fastier

Look, the pond is always up for a bout of Malware bashing, but unfortunately when it's done by a dickhead the size of the swishing Switzer, there's a danger that the pond might be made to feel a trace of sympathy for Malware.

The opening line in this version of the blame game perfectly posed the problem.

Ten years after squandering Tony Abbott’s commanding electoral majority, Malcolm Turnbull still has the chutzpah to rant and rail about the Liberal Party.

Qué? The short lived onion muncher's reign did much to squander any regard for the Liberal party, and the loons that followed him didn't help, and not just Malware.

Currently it's a carnival of clowns, with the latest dropkick loser, the beefy boofhead, casting around to blame his predecessors: Liberal frontbencher calls for party ‘rebrand’ after drop in polls, prompting ridicule from Labor; Melissa McIntosh’s comment comes after Angus Taylor’s claim Morrison government ‘breached trust

So why shouldn't Malware join in the fun?

The swishing Switzer has to reach far back into time to drag up Ted Heath, and remind the pond that it still has a CD of Ted conducting classical music. (Please, call the maestro Edward, and it's not that bad).

Never mind, the swishing Switzer has an extraordinary talent for making himself unlovable, so the pond endured:

He has become something of Australia’s Ted Heath, the wet British Tory prime minister dubbed “The Incredible Sulk” for devoting his post-political life to undermining the Conservatives after Margaret Thatcher toppled him as party leader in 1975.
Like Heath, Turnbull possesses an extraordinary talent for making himself unlovable, sustained by the conviction that he has been right about almost everything and his successors wrong about almost everything.
Never mind that Turnbull’s prime ministership, from 2015 to 2018, marked the beginning of the Coalition’s long electoral fragmentation. The disappointing 2016 election, a decade ago on Thursday, was more than a poor result. It was the moment many traditional Liberal supporters began to conclude that the party of John Howard and Peter Costello no longer represented their interests or values.

The party of little Johnny and the man who didn't have the ticker?

The man who managed to lose his own seat as well as government?

What bizarro world does this Switzer live in, as the reptiles interrupted with a snap... Malcolm Turnbull with members of his ministry. Picture: Andrew Taylor / AAP Image

If you want a re-write of political history, the swishing Switzer is your man:

The irony is that Turnbull now dispenses regular advice on how the Liberal Party should rebuild itself, even though many of the fractures that now threaten the party first opened under his own leadership. Turnbull led the Coalition into the July 2 election as the overwhelming favourite but it lost 14 seats and clung to office by the narrowest of margins.
The most significant legacy of the election lay elsewhere. Nearly a third of Australians voted for minor parties and independents, foreshadowing the fragmentation that has since transformed Australian politics. Pauline Hanson returned to the Australian political theatre and One Nation, widely dismissed as a spent force, secured four Senate seats. This was on Turnbull’s watch.
How did Turnbull, a sophisticated, highly intelligent and self-made man who had seemed so assured when he deposed a first-term prime minister only nine months earlier, come so close to defeat?
Much of the answer lay with Turnbull himself. His justification for replacing Abbott in September 2015 – a case oddly echoed at the time by influential conservative commentators, such as Miranda Devine – was that he would broaden the Coalition’s electoral appeal and restore stability after years of leadership turmoil.

By this time the pond has so many bruises on its toes from doing the dance with this clumsy clodhopper that the snap of Ted merely felt like another elephant treading on foot: Sir Edward Heath at No. 10 Downing Street

Sheesh, instead of that distraction, the pond could have been celebrating the deep south with the immortal Rowe ...

Can someone put that creature in a headlock?

In the next gobbet, the swishing Switzer tried to pretend there's some weird brand of liberalism that embraces Ming the Merciless and the madness of the onion muncher:

The argument was simple: only Turnbull could win back centrist voters while retaining the Liberal base. The strategy failed. Rather than broadening the Coalition’s support, Turnbull’s leadership began to alienate many of the party’s traditional voters without winning enough new ones to compensate.
The deeper problem was that Turnbull himself was not, in Thatcher’s parlance, “one of us”. Long regarded as what Robert Menzies would have dismissed as a “little-L liberal”, he was viewed by the conservative grassroots as aloof, patrician and disconnected from mainstream Australia.
His enthusiasm for more ambitious climate policies and changes to superannuation unsettled many traditional Liberal voters who had expected something very different from a Coalition government. His positions on tax reform also shifted repeatedly, leaving an impression of hesitation rather than conviction.
No wonder the election campaign became a debacle. Having triggered the first double-dissolution election in nearly three decades over legislation to rein in corrupt unions, Turnbull scarcely campaigned on workplace reform.
Labor performed far better than expected, though the result was hardly a ringing endorsement of Bill Shorten. Henry Kissinger’s famous observation during the Iran-Iraq war – “It is a pity both sides can’t lose” – neatly captured the public mood. Britain had just voted for Brexit, Americans would soon elect Donald Trump, and many Australian voters had likewise grown disillusioned with both major parties.

The reptiles interrupted with the man who, so it seems, so it's alleged, ruined everything: Malcolm Turnbull meets locals on July 7, 2016 in Brisbane. Picture: Tertius Pickard / Getty Images

Malware did much that was wrong - destroying the NBN at the whim of the onion muncher for starters - but this is just a silly form of specious revisionism, a casting about for a victim in the blame game (as if the pond would lift a finger to argue in Malware's defence).

Turnbull’s decision to call a double dissolution proved a costly political miscalculation. The Coalition’s commanding House of Representatives majority was reduced to the barest parliamentary margin, while an increasingly fragmented Senate left the government dependent on a disparate crossbench to pass legislation.
The election fatally weakened Turnbull’s prime ministership. Although he remained in office for another two years, he did so as a diminished leader, increasingly constrained by colleagues who had lost confidence in his political judgment. Within two years, they did to him precisely what he had done to Abbott. It was a reminder of one of politics’ oldest laws: those who seize power by the sword should never assume they will not perish by it.
Looking back, the 2016 election was less an aberration than a warning. It was not simply a disappointing Liberal result; it marked an inflection point in Australian politics. The Coalition retained office but the election exposed a growing disconnect between the Liberal Party and many of its traditional supporters.
A school of thought holds that Turnbull, as a progressive Liberal, helped preserve the party’s affluent metropolitan seats in Sydney and Melbourne. That’s a fair point, although that trend became far more pronounced after the 2019 election.

Luckily dragging the wooden Sir Keir into the blame game heralded the final gobbet, Keir Starmer resigned as the British Prime Minister in June

And inevitably the final gobbet proved the ineffable stupidity of the swishing Switzer ...

The more important point, however, is this: had Turnbull moved further towards progressive positions on climate, border protection and constitutional change, he would almost certainly have deepened the estrangement already felt by many traditional Coalition voters. The Liberal Party today is bleeding far more votes on its right than on its left.
Turnbull will be remembered as an inconsequential prime minister who invites comparison with another British prime minister.
No, not the aforementioned Heath but Keir Starmer. Both entered office amid enormous expectations before leaving behind little in the way of lasting achievement or reform. Both also left office to the relief of much of the electorate.
Yet even the outgoing Labour prime minister has one distinction Turnbull can never claim. He won a landslide. Turnbull inherited one and nearly squandered it.
Tom Switzer is presenter of the Switzerland podcast.

That's the best distraction the reptiles can offer for the current woeful state of the Liberal party under the beefy boofhead?

Not bloody Starmer again!

What limited imaginations and references this antediluvian hive mind has.

Please allow the immortal Rowe to celebrate the way forward:

And so to a great relief, because Dame Groan was out and about this day, and as usual, we're about to be entirely rooned:

The header: Albanese government faces real estate downturn as new tax policies begin. While Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers will assume everyone will move on from their tax changes, one danger looms large.

Sadly there was no credit for the truly hideous collage, so AI can take the blame: A major downturn in the housing market would be a huge hit to the Albanese government.

As usual, Dame Groan was determined to find disaster at every turn, which perhaps explains why she drags Houdini into her wriggle and squirm escape act:

Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers think they have pulled off a budget Houdini act. The incoherent and compliance-heavy package of tax increases designed to attack owners of capital was rushed through parliament, with a few embarrassing tweaks made on the way.
The wrinkle of the “widow’s tax” still hasn’t been sorted, but the Treasurer assures us that he’s on to it. It’s a bit like his assurance that the capital gains tax and negative gearing wouldn’t be changed – not convincing, in other words.
What happens to anyone affected in the meantime through a death or divorce is anyone’s guess.
But the changes to the capital gains tax and negative gearing are now law, and so Albo and Jimbo assume that nearly everyone will just move on. For Labor, it’s a numbers game. There are not many voters directly affected by the new tax imposts, so the politics are auspicious. Let’s not forget here that the Albanese government is diabolically bad at policy but good at politics.
But here’s the thing: there is one major stumbling block that could really disrupt the best-laid plans of the two men. And this is a major correction in the real estate market – dare I even use the word “crash”. (A correction is usually defined as a price decline of about 10 per cent; anything significantly above that is a crash and is also associated with much lower numbers of transactions in the market.)

The reptiles decided to share the odium: Housing Minister Clare O'Neil says collapsing auction clearance rates are “a market correction”.

Here's the thing, and the pond says this as someone who actually owns a property in the inner west of Sydney.

In what universe is a block of land containing an aged Victorian era structure worth squillions, or at least a couple of million? How can anyone afford to get into that market, unless they happen to be a lawyer or a doctor, and even then not your average solicitor or GP?

Yet in Dame Groan land, this is all perfectly natural and to be expected, and must be maintained or the sky will fall, and clouds will hit the ground:
It’s clear that a major downturn in housing prices has begun. In June alone, home prices nationwide fell by 0.4 per cent, the biggest fall since 2022. In Sydney, prices fell by 1.2 per cent and in Melbourne, by 1 per cent. Even in some of the better-performing smaller capitals, house prices are beginning to soften.
Now the Prime Minister declares that this is “great news” because it favours young first-home buyers. He may want to think this one through.
If house prices are falling, who wants to rush in to buy if prices will be a whole lot lower in six or 12 months? And what happens to the supply of suitable homes for purchase when property prices are falling? They simply dry up as owners hold off on putting their properties up for sale.
We see this in recent house auction data. Not only has the auction clearance rate fallen below the magic 50 per cent mark, but the number of auctions is also far fewer than just 12 months ago.
The figures for housing approvals in May are also worrying. Total dwelling approvals fell 1.1 per cent, the third month in a row. Approvals for private sector dwellings excluding houses – that’s higher-density housing – fell by 10.4 per cent. Note here there is a considerable time lag between approval and completion of new homes. Not all approvals lead to construction.
The widely held view now is that the Albanese government’s target of 1.2 million extra homes by 2029 will not be met, with a shortfall of at least 200,000.

Only a shortfall of 200k? In the pond's view, that would be a miracle. And what of all the wretched apartments into which the rats are being packed, or the hasty "innovative construction" being backed by loons of the Minns' kind, structures that will be lucky to last twenty years before they need major overhauls?

Minns Labor Government backing innovative construction to build more homes faster

As Minns hoes into inner city public housing for a quick fiscal fix, he's determined to make replacement housing in the donga look like the sort of ticky-tack to be found everywhere in the United States, preferably in the path of a tornado.

Don't get the pond started, as the reptiles flung in an anodyne snap that didn't prove anything: Total dwelling approvals, fuelling developments such as Armstrong Creek in Victoria, fell for the third consecutive month. Picture: Getty Images

And so to the final gobbet, wherein Dame Groan came to a prospect that set her salivating, an economic crash, and the country flung into a depression.

What joy for the old biddy ...

Naively, the Prime Minister is placing great store by Treasury modelling that indicates the combined impact of the changes to CGT and negative gearing will simply reduce the rate of growth of property prices by 2 per cent.
Let’s be clear here: this figure is not quite made up, but it’s close. Assumption upon assumption drives the outcome. Change the assumptions and the result looks very different. And let’s not overlook the fact here that Treasury is also suggesting that the combined impact of the tax package will lift the rate of home ownership by only 7500, on average, per year – that’s trivial – and there will be 35,000 fewer homes built as a result.
You think Albanese might have learnt his lesson about the folly of relying on modelling. It was Reputex modelling that told us all that electricity bills would fall by $275 per year. Yeah, right. He was happy to turn his back on that when it suited him.
He might end up doing the same thing with the Treasury modelling when he is dealing with the economic fallout of a real estate market crash.

Oh please, just wipe away the "we'll all be rooned" disaster drool, so we can settle down to a breakfast of tar and cement ...

And now, just to prove that the pond went on a trip, this from beefy boofhead central, otherwise known as the mighty town of Goulburn, which fancies itself as a down south Tamworth, but doesn't quite make it ...

How they love and care for their pose dogs ...

And now as the pond had to endure this pair blathering on about Lord Nelson for endless episodes during the trip down there, roughly equivalent to a constant repeat playing of Sir Edward Elgar's greatest patriotic hits, this for those interested in their take on the American War of Independence.

It might be too long for whatever this blog is being viewed on, but a search of The New Yorker YouTube channel will turn it up ...

In which little Timmie Bleagh holds the fort, and a tungsten light bulb ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 22:00:00 +0000

The pond really began to scrape the bottom of the reptile barrel as it attempted to find a little reptile-related cover for its Melbourne junket.

With coverage of the lizard Oz impossible, the pond was forced to revert to little Timmie Bleagh, but anything's better than offering up the Bolter.

The pond banned the Bolter long ago, and nothing has happened which would lift the ban.

On the other hand, the pond hadn't thought of Tim Blair for a long time. He was such a lightweight that he only occasionally turned up in the pre-lizard Oz specialisation pond era.

The pond remembers that little Timmie had a terrible time at the ABC ...

In 2001, he and Imre Salusinszky hosted a shortlived weekly one-hour radio program, The Continuing Crisis, that was intended to respond to conservative Australian Prime Minister John Howard's plea for a right wing answer to the Late Night Live program of Philip Adams on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's (ABC) Radio National. (The ABC is the government funded public broadcaster, the equivalent of the BBC).
The program - an initiative of the then Managing Director Jonathan Shier - ran from June to September 2001, when it was scrapped due to low ratings. Salusinszky subsequently complained that "we were given a tiny office, containing one desk and one phone". (Their office space was no worse than is provided to other specialist programs). (here)

Much as early exposure to fur, leather or plastics can result in fetishes, this left a deep Freudian scar in little Timmie's psyche, and thereafter he became a Don Quixote, forever tilting at ABC windmills.

He also became devoted to lost causes ...

For years little Timmie fought a rear guard action against those dreadful bulbs that threatened his cherished tungsten pets.

This is the result of a quick search, a reminder of his light bulb jihad at its peak ...

Deeply weird, but how he struggled and fought, and who knows, he might still have a supply of 60w and 100w bulbs lurking under his bed, so he'll never have to bother with saving electricity.

Back in the day, little Timmie made his name as a blogger when blogging was still a thing, and every reptile had to have one, and News Corp even financed a few.

Little Bleagh was infamous for routinely getting it wrong.

One moment came when he decided to do battle with Media Watch and David Marr, with a flag the basis for the feud.

Luckily the transcript can still be found in full at Trove here, with this the end piece the culmination of a yarn about a flag allegedly buried in Iraq...

It was part of that tormented quest by Bleagh to punish the ABC wicked ...

Flags, light bulbs, what a dedicated crusader he was...

These days he's just a dutiful hack, hacking it out for the Daily Terrorist, and you guessed it - deep sigh or groan - in the pond's curated examples, it's more Pauline.

The pond thinks that it's gone way above the odds to prove that the Hansonification of News Corp is real.

In this outing, Bleagh (so unfortunate to share the name with that sexed-up dossier rat) explained why Pauline was all the go:

The header: Tim Blair: Left sees common sense as a conspiracy; Besides shaking up the major parties, Pauline also causes leftist paranoia; my own explanation for One Nation’s rise is a little simpler. It’s that Australians are tired of being lied to by the major parties and Australia’s political class

The caption for the AV distraction:

PREMIUM
High Steaks with Pauline Hanson
Become a member to access our premium video content

Not more PREMIUM content and the alternative illustration saved in the intermittent archive didn't inspire the pond to reach for its shekels-laden purse.

Eek, she turned chef, as Bleagh turned effusive ...

One Nation’s primary vote in the 2025 federal election, barely more than a year ago, was just 6.4 per cent. Even the Greens, who took a hammering in 2025, racked up more than 12 per cent.
Then something changed. It’s still changing now.
By mid-October, just five or so months after the election, One Nation’s polling had leapt to double figures.
That number, Macquarie University’s Professor Shaun Wilson wrote at the time, was “high enough to challenge the Greens as Australia’s third-largest party in polling terms”.
“If this result was replicated at an election, it would put One Nation in a position to win House of Representative seats.”
Astonishing. But why not aim higher?

The reptiles then slipped in a cartoon, not the sort the pond usually features ... Warren Brown cartoon for June 2, 2026. One National Pauline Hanson

Luckily Timmie did the right thing and kept the outing to a tabloid short 3 minute read, as he marvelled at Pauline being the future:

Skip ahead another seven months to the present day, and the latest Redbridge poll puts Pauline Hanson’s party on 31 per cent – ahead of Labor’s primary vote and within reach of government.
This is all proving too much for ex-Labor strategist turned Redbridge director Kos Samaras. Even before the latest One Nation approval spike, Samaras and his nervous colleagues deduced that an old-fashioned global conspiracy was afoot.
“What’s actually happening,” wrote Samaras last month, is that “a sophisticated, transnationally-networked information operation has spent years cementing Pauline Hanson as ‘one of us’.”

He's such a wag, and so there was a waggish visual moment ...Behind the scenes as Redbridge's pollsters try and figure out One Nation's appeal, or a scene from the cult TV classic, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia?

Brilliant, and Pauline's brilliant too, and giving lefties paranoia, and isn't it all about owning the libs and that bloody ABC which was so cruel to him way back when, leaving scars that can never be erased ...

Hanson’s Please Explain YouTube cartoons, created by my Sky News mate Mark Nicholson’s Stepmates crew, are all part of this sinister plot.
“Cartoons don’t get scrutinised the way normal political ads do,” Samaras darkly explained. “They get shared. Laughed at. Quoted at the pub. They become the in-joke and once you’re in on the joke, you’re in the tribe. That’s the trick.”
Kos Samaras needs a holiday.
Redbridge researcher Alex Fein seems similarly jittery, claiming of Hanson: “The depth of the parasocial relationships that voters have now formed with her cannot be overstated. This is an authoritarian-style influence apparatuses of a kind we know well from overseas.”
A transnationally-networked information operation! An authoritarian-style influence apparatuses! Besides shaking up the major parties, Pauline also causes leftist paranoia.

Time for a worshipful snap of the new reptile heroine and "warrior queen" (thank you Joe): One Nation leader Pauline Hanson. Picture: Richard Dobson

Little Timmie sometimes purports to be a deep thinker, and he knows the reptile litany, and he chanted it in the same way that one might chant the responses in a Latin mass ...

My own explanation for One Nation’s rise is a little simpler. It’s that Australians are tired of being lied to by the major parties and Australia’s political class.
It’s not just the little lies, of the sort you expect from all politicians. It’s big lies, massive ones, such as:
Coal is expensive. Renewable energy is cheap. Jihadists are our friends. Australians aren’t taxed enough. Blokes can have babies. The UN knows what is best. Nuclear energy is dangerous. Diversity makes us stronger. Wages should always be set above demand. Housing regulations are a touch on the light side. Questioning immigration is racist. Colonisation is bad and multiculturalism is good – although you can’t have the latter without the former. Climate change is our problem to fix. And so on.
Concerns about these issues weren’t implanted by any transnationally-networked information operation. Australians have been rightfully worried about all of them for decades. Yet our political class has scorned those Australians. The Coalition signed us up to net zero, and even now, with One Nation consuming its core vote, the Coalition won’t withdraw from the Paris Agreement. Turnbull’s ghost haunts his party still.
Meanwhile, Labor is led by someone unable to make any decision at all without self-interested political analysis. Fifteen people were slaughtered on Bondi Beach, and the PM actually dithered over a royal commission.
The man views mass murder through a political prism. He does the same with basic biology. Albanese was asked last week by the ABC’s Patricia Karvelas if he supported reintroducing women to the Sex Discrimination Act. The stonewalling began. “I’m not engaging in culture wars here,” the PM said. Albanese dodged and ducked three follow-up questions before offering this telling line: “I haven’t seen the Coalition stuff.” Because that’s what he needs in order to compose a response. He needs a political framework.
Finally, softly, Albanese said this: “It’s important that women’s spaces be available for women.”
He got there at last.
Yet One Nation got there a lifetime ago.
In Albo-land, Labor would always succeed by taking down the Liberals. But if Australians can’t find a fit-for-purpose opposition that is ready-made and waiting to go, it turns out they’ll build one themselves.
One Nation may not yet be a finished product, but all the raw materials are there.

Yes, all that remains is for it to be fashioned into shape by News Corp and what a fine party they and Gina will have.

Have a break, because the pond reckons this will be still going down while the pond's away:

Now on with bonus Timmie, though regrettably the bonus was also about Pauline.

By this time, the pond was completely over the reptile infatuation with her, but summoning up what remaining strength the pond had, it was time to dive in.

The header: Tim Blair: Here’s to Hanson’s ever-helpful hater mates; Unable to see that the things they hate about One Nation are the same things that many Australians love, cranky leftists have turned their anti-One Nation movement into a great big Elect Pauline Project, writes Tim Blair.

The caption: Pauline Hanson creates history as support for One Nation now leads Labor for the first time in Newspoll, Anthony Albanese criticises Barnaby Joyce and the opposition parties. Plus, Donald Trump storms out of a sit-down interview with NBC.

Again the intermittent archive had an alternative illustration ...

...but the pond found it hard to get excited, especially as little Timmie trawled over the same ground as all the other reptiles.

The pond began to wonder if Pauline might just become a tungsten light bulb, another little Timmie enthusiasm:

Another poll, another spectacular win for One Nation. The latest Newspoll confirms that Pauline Hanson’s party is the most popular political organisation in Australia.
One Nation has achieved this in the most cost-effective way possible. Rather than spending huge sums itself on promotions and campaigns, One Nation is relying on its leftist enemies to get the word out and drum up support.
They’re doing this for free, God bless ‘em. Unable to see that the things they hate about One Nation are the same things that many Australians love, cranky leftists have turned their anti-One Nation movement into a great big Elect Pauline Project.
Here, for example, is eternal ABC activist and current X commentator Quentin Dempster’s fever-dream version of One Nation’s platform: “Frack, drill, open cut coal; deport/ban Muslims; restore landlords’ neg-gear/CGT slush; open slather gambling; paywall for ABC; axe Family Court; ‘work choices’ 2.0, burn Aboriginal flag.”

How little Timmie loves to hate the haters, being not too shabby a hater himself.

How the ABC must regret inflicting that scar on him so early in his career, leaving him shattered and bitter... Pauline Hanson is detested and sneered at the by the left, but their hatred only fuels her support. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen/The Australian

Those memories of the evil ABC came bubbling back to the surface like the witches' brew in Macbeth:

Put aside Dempster’s misrepresentations, exaggerations and fearmongering, particularly about Aboriginals and Muslims, and you’ve got a pretty workable nation-rebuilding strategy there. As my mate Fred Pawle responded: “You had me at ‘frack, drill and open cut’. But a paywall for the ABC as well? Bring it on!”
Many similarly embraced One Nation’s opposition to an increased minimum wage – a stance characterised by Employment Minister Amanda Rishworth as horribly anti-worker.

A paywall? How noble he is. So deeply scarred, he might have called for its privatisation or defunding, but a paywall would put it in the same situation as News Corp, desperately scrabbling for punters, and not succeeding that well.

The next caption took on Timmie's words... Dopey Employment Minister Amanda Rishworth is unable to comprehend that the lowest paid workers in the country will earn even less if employers can’t afford to hire them, which is why Pauline Hanson has opposed increasing the minimum wage. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Oh yes, she's a worker's dream, and Gina loves her for it ...

Straight out of the Uncle Elon playbook, what a fine time will be had Dogeing the ABC and SBS ... fulfilling little Timmie's lifelong dream (and maybe tungsten bulbs can make a comeback).

“Senator Hanson’s comments about the minimum wage were deeply disappointing,” Rishworth whined on the weekend. “She says that she’s on the side of working people but can’t bring herself to back in a minimum wage increase for the lowest paid workers in this country.”
That’s because Hanson knows the lowest paid workers in the country will earn even less if employers can’t afford to hire them. She also knows that attacking average Australian employers runs counter to working class ambition.
Modern Labor is increasingly class-bound and ideologically rigid. By comparison, Hanson is reviving the spirit of Bob Hawke’s Accords. “There’s a give and take in employment,” Hanson told Sky News a week or so ago, “and people have a right to employ who they want to.”
Again, bring it on. And bring on more of the left’s elitist sneering, which just keeps driving Middle Australia towards One Nation.
Another ex-ABC chap, Barrie Cassidy, lately portrayed inner-city voters as too sophisticated for Pauline’s team. “They’re young, they’re better educated, they’re multicultural,” Cassidy said. “That is not fertile ground for One Nation.”

Dammit, not another ABC chappie, and even worse an Ex one, and never mind that little Timmie Bleagh was something of an Ex himself, Ex-ABC journalist Barrie Cassidy (with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, right) is a fervent Hanson hater. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Little Timmie was - surprisingly - pleased that vulgar educated youff might be rallying to the cause (other reptiles held their noses at such a notion):

When a party is running at more than 30 per cent on primary votes, it is inevitable that quite a few of those votes are coming from the young, educated and multicultural.
(Cassidy is of course a famously inaccurate analyst of non-traditional political shifts. Back in November 2016, as counting began in that year’s US presidential election, Cassidy grandly declared: “Trump cannot win. The nightmare is over.”)
Hanson is definitely a nightmare for ex-Department of Immigration file sorter Abul Rizvi. Referring sarcastically to One Nation’s call for locally trained medicos, Rizvi wrote in February: “All those One Nation types who left school at 15 could easily have become doctors and nurses. Everyone knows that!”
As it happens, my mother left school at 15 and became a nurse. She’s now a One Nation type – and a figure of scorn for tax-enriched Canberra ponces. An X reply nailed it: “Telling people they’re stupid for wanting to vote for Hanson will work really well I’m sure.”
And then after berating the ponces, little Timmie Bleagh broke into the satirical wit for which he's justly famous:
But the contest isn’t done yet, not with the next federal election so far away. If One Nation wishes to further increase their polling advantage, they need to activate the arts warriors.
An announcement along these lines might do the trick:
“Australian art is too vital and too beautiful to be administered by government. One Nation will liberate artists from government’s choking grip and allow them to create visions, sounds and spectacles worthy of awe and admiration.
“The arts funding machine in Australia, inflicted on us for decades by all the major parties, has generated masses of expensive rubbish but very little actual art. It has turned artists into bureaucrats whose talent is not expressed through image or song but via grant applications, paperwork, required criteria and approved politics.
“One Nation will abolish arts funding and erase the arts ministry. Those calling themselves artists may protest. In time, however, art itself will thank us.”
That’ll get them going. Let the crazy-framed arts administration glasses glow with indignation and the big dangly earrings rattle with rage. One Nation’s got some votes to harvest.

Big dangly earrings? The pond supposes it's a variation on Joe's derisive yowl about pearl-clutching, but not by much.

The final extended y'artz metaphor left the pond wondering what might be the sort of big-selling art that little Timmie cherished.

There came a tungsten light bulb moment:

Say no more, a perfect encapsulation of the sort of philosophically deep art that's at one with Gina, little Timmie and the thugby league-infested minds of the Daily Terrorist readership ...

And now, as John Oliver might say, this ...because the pond reckons this will also be still hanging around like a bad smell ...

In which the pond starts to get desperate, and turns to Joe to provide holiday filler...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 22:00:00 +0000

The pond began to get a little desperate in its attempts to find a little tabloid filler while junketing in Melbourne (and so unable to fulfil the usual lizard Oz studies).

Eventually the pond had to land on Joe Hildebrand, who, to put it kindly, is not the sharpest reptile in the swamp.

He's always smirking (in lieu of a smile) and always wants to be liked, and is about as shallow as a algae-saturated reflecting pool.

This is how the reptiles pitched him to the Daily Terrorist readership ...

Joe Hildebrand is a columnist for news.com.au and The Daily Telegraph and the host of Summer Afternoons on Radio 2GB. He is also a commentator on the Seven Network, Sky News, 2GB, 3AW and 2CC Canberra. Prior to this, he was co-host of the Channel Ten morning show Studio 10, co-host of the Triple M drive show The One Percenters, and the presenter of two ABC documentary series: Dumb, Drunk & Racist and Sh*tsville Express. He is also the author of the memoir An Average Joe: My Horribly Abnormal Life.

Sheesh, yet another reason not to watch the ABC.

With gritted teeth, the pond plunged in ...

The header: Hildebrand: Labor risks losing its blue-collar base in a two-front war on ‘wokeness’; Labor is losing its working-class base to Pauline Hanson while also fighting off inner-city elites, in a two-front battle that could remake the party, writes Joe Hildebrand.

The caption for the AV distraction which seems to start off all these tabloid outings:

PREMIUM
Hanson says Australia can't be 'multicultural' in National press club address
Become a member to access our premium video content

Premium? Nah, and what followed suggested that as far as telling English history, Joe might have been better off studying rocket science.

The biggest turning point in English history came in the year 1066.
A bunch of Frenchy former Vikings led by William the Conqueror – the spoiler alert is in the name – did not entirely destroy the Anglo-Saxons but they so violently hollowed out their power structures and replaced their culture that England was never the same again.
Today the Labor Party is facing its own Battle of Hastings, and like the one King Harold had to fight it is a war on two fronts.
Harold famously marched north to Stamford Bridge to fight off an invasion by some proper Vikings led by Harald Harvard. Having disposed of the legendary warrior king he then marched south to face William of Normandy.
That travesty was all in the name of supporting the new reptile fixation with Pauline, demonstrating yet again how the reptiles are more than Hanson curious, and are now well into the Hansonifcation of News Corp.

This made the pond think that Joe learned his history from 1066 and All That, which can be found at Project Gutenberg ...

CHAPTER XI

WILLIAM I. A CONQUERING KING

In the year 1066 occurred the other memorable date in English History,
viz. William the Conqueror, Ten Sixty-six. This is also called The
Battle of Hastings, and was when William I (1066) conquered England at
the Battle of Senlac (Ten Sixty-six).
When William the Conqueror landed he lay down on the beach and
swallowed two mouthfuls of sand. This was his first conquering action
and was in the South; later he ravaged the North as well.
The Norman Conquest was a Good Thing, as from this time onwards England
stopped being conquered and thus was able to become top nation.

DOOMSDAY BOOK AND THE FORESTS

William next invented a system according to which everybody had to
belong to somebody else, and everybody else to the King. This was
called the Feutile System, and in order to prove that it was true he
wrote a book called the Doomsday Book, which contained an inventory
of all the Possessions of all his subjects; after reading the book
through carefully William agreed with it and signed it, indicating to
everybody that the Possessions mentioned in it were now his.
William the Conqueror (1066) is memorable for having loved an old stag
as if it was his father, and was in general very fond of animals: he
therefore made some very just and conquering laws about the Forests.
One of these laws said that all the forests and places which were not
already Possessions belonged to the King and that anyone found in them
should have his ears and legs cut off -- (these belonged to somebody
else under the Feutile System, anyway) -- and (if this had not already
been done) should have his eyes put out with red-hot irons; after
this the offender was allowed to fly the country.
Another very conquering law made by William I said that everyone had
to go to bed at eight o’clock. This was called the Curfew and was a
Good Thing in the end since it was the cause of Gray’s Energy in the
country churchyard (at Stoke Penge).
Although in all these ways William the Conqueror (1066) was a very
strong king he was eventually stumbled to death by a horse and was
succeeded by his son Rufus.

Questions will be asked:

1. Give the dates of at least two of the following:
(1) William the Conqueror.
(2) 1066.

Quite so, and a goodly break from Joe.

Joe used polling to celebrate the one-time fish and chip shop owner as an "almighty warrior queen", which means that the pond could possibly claim the title of being the new Virginia Woolf: New polling has confirmed One Nation, led by the almighty warrior queen that is Pauline Hanson, has become the party of choice for blue-collar voters, as Labor faces a ‘two-front war’ threatening its working-class base.

Dear sweet long absent lord, the Daily Terrorists do even worse AI memes than the lizards of Oz. What on earth possessed them to do this, with bonus lightning ...

What did she do to deserve this kind of humiliation? Even the pond thought it went too far ...

Joe kept on with the metaphor, and whatta you kno, being a reptile, or possibly a bear of little brain, the pond began to think of Molesworth:

There he met his end with the apocryphal arrow in the eye. England’s government fell and its ruling class was quickly overrun by people speaking French.
Labor’s current dilemma is the same. It needs to defeat the almighty warrior queen that is Pauline Hanson coming at it straight from the heartland of its working-class base.
But even if it wins that victory it still needs to fight off an army of Frenchified show ponies in its rear.
Today we call them “Teals” or “Greens” but they are every bit as elitist and dangerous as the Francophile Scandinavians that hollowed out the power structures of England a millennia ago.
So let’s cut straight to the modern day. It is now beyond doubt – it has been quantified, analysed and verified – that working class people are fleeing Labor for One Nation.

Read that line again and weep at the idiocy of it:

Today we call them “Teals” or “Greens” but they are every bit as elitist and dangerous as the Francophile Scandinavians that hollowed out the power structures of England a millennia ago.

The pond did warn that Joe wasn't the shiniest penny in the jar, especially as he decided to go off on a crow eater jag ... South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas just won a record majority but his most working-class electorate swung heavily towards Pauline Hanson. Picture: Eleni Tzanos

The only thing the pond noted recently about the crow eaters is that they have a considerable number of loons in the upper house ... Sarah Game's bill restricting late-term abortion access voted down in lower house

And who supported the bill in the lower house?

Only three lower house Labor MPs — Mr Malinauskas, Mr Koutsantonis and Michael Brown — supported the legislation. From the Liberal Party, Ms Hurn and Sam Telfer voted in support.

Say no more, or more to the point, sayeth on Joe:

Polling shows that One Nation is now the party of choice for a majority of blue-collar voters.
Even at the South Australian state election, where the mighty Peter Malinauskas just won a record majority, voters in Adelaide’s most working-class electorate swung heavily towards Pauline Hanson.
Malinauskas, a former supermarket shelf-stacker, is the epitome of a working-class boy made good, unabashedly mainstream and – as the rest of the result showed – overwhelmingly popular with everybody else.
So why not with blue collar voters? In fact it’s not Mali at all. It’s ordinary battlers sticking their finger up at the establishment because they feel they are not being listened to or getting a fair deal.
We know because we have seen it before. In Trump. In Brexit. In SA.
In fact Pauline Hanson’s policies would be terrible for workers but that doesn’t matter – any more than it matters that immigration isn’t even a state issue. It is simply an up yours to the elites.

The reptiles kept on trying to persuade the pond to pay a PREMIUM:

PREMIUM
James Morrow’s take on Hanson’s press club address
Become a member to access our premium video content

Nah, not if that meant a cent going towards Joe blathering on about 'leets ...

And that is not even the supposed “top end of town” – they clearly have no problem with Gina Rinehart – it is the cultural elites that they feel are determining the nation’s priorities and governing for themselves as well as the activist elite who dominate political debate with ideological crusades to the exclusion of bread-and-butter issues. Just look at the self-appointed standard-bearers of progressive politics and you are instantly drowned by an endless sea of grievances that are incomprehensible to the average wage earner just trying to stay afloat.
Pauline Hanson and One Nation have launched a new attack ad aimed at Anthony Albanese and the Labor party.
Now it might not be the ALP actually saying these things, but if Angus Taylor reckons the Libs are being punished by association with Labor, just imagine how much Labor is being punished by its association with the left.
That is why, as Right faction supremo Don Farrell warned in The Australian on the weekend, wokeness is death.

Okay, the pond resisted earlier iterations of Joe's "woke" salad, but finally the pond could take no more ...

And then Joe ended by pretending the reptiles cared about the workers ...

It is not enough for Labor to simply ignore the toxic tropes driving workers away, it must actively condemn them and cast them out of its own ranks.
In the end the English lost and the Normans not just invaded England but remade it politically, culturally and economically.
Labor cannot allow the same thing to happen. It cannot allow its blue-collar base to be effaced by woke white-collar whingers and become a Labor party in name only. Not for its sake, and not for the workers’.

Pull the other one Joe.

Now please enjoy a Python moment ...

It wasn't much of a break, but it'll have to do, as this Joe double bill unfortunately doubled down on Pauline ... so much Hansonification, so little time...

Joe Hildebrand: How the ‘stupid’ GetUp stunt is driving voters to Pauline Hanson; GetUp’s anti-Hanson stunt at the National Press Club has backfired, casting her as a victim and accelerating blue-collar voters’ historic shift toward One Nation, writes Joe Hildebrand.

The caption for the AV distraction, of a kind that apparently is used at the start of all Daily Terrorist "think" pieces (the pond realises that's an abuse of the English language): Sky News host James Macpherson believes activists gaining covert access and remotely triggering a device near One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson exposed alarming security vulnerabilities. “GetUp were able to gain prior access to a venue where a well-known right-wing speaker was to give an address, then used a remote control to activate a device within metres of the podium,” Mr Macpherson told Sky News host Andrew Bolt. “Thank God it was only a banner, but it just goes to show the more Pauline grows … the more seriously they’re going to need to take security.”

Still no rebrand for the home of hysterical nonsense?

The pond realises that it's already been down this path with lovely Rita, meter maid, and sundry other reptiles, but to drive the metaphor home, this is yet another reminder of how the reptiles resemble a murmuration of starlings, or perhaps a chattering of cockatoos.

By golly, they've learned their lines, and they're all going to write them down:

The stupidest thing about GetUp’s Pauline Hanson stunt – from an outfit that specialises in stupid – is that it was a real-time, real-world display of exactly why voters are deserting the left for One Nation.
The best that can be said about it was that instead of just calling her a racist, the banner highlighted Hanson’s hypocrisy on better wages for working people.
But of course that didn’t matter because, instead of getting people talking about One Nation’s non-existent record in helping workers – which Labor has been valiantly attempting to prosecute – everyone was suddenly just obsessed with the fact of the stunt itself and the subsequent whodunnit as to the person behind it.
Thus the first cardinal rule of PR was broken: Never let yourself become the story.
It was also the first time Hanson had addressed the National Press Club, leaving her wide open to lengthy and long-awaited scrutiny of her party’s paper-thin policies.
Instead, all of that interrogation was buried by GetUp’s undergraduate attention seeking, thus breaking the first cardinal rule of warfare: Never interrupt your enemy when he – or she – is making a mistake.

Pauline was making a mistake?

In all the reptile coverage of the press club event, Joe was the first to introduce this as a variant, but it didn't last long, with the caption for the next image righting the ship, The best that can be said about it was that instead of just calling her a racist, the banner highlighted Pauline Hanson’s hypocrisy on better wages for working people – but it instantly once more cast Hanson as the victim of the angry activist left. Picture: Hilary Wardhaugh/Getty Images

Way to go Joe, way to remove all memory of Gina from the hive mind.

Joe was all in on Pauline, a veritable Hansonite of the first water:

But the dumbest thing by a country mile is that it instantly once more cast Hanson as the victim of the angry activist left that is driving traditional blue-collar voters into her arms.
It is not GetUp’s banner that the working class is flocking to, it’s One Nation’s. And why wouldn’t they? For decades now the loud and trendy left has been obsessed with almost everything but the economic advancement of working people.
If Angus Taylor can blame voters’ desertion of the Coalition on Labor, then Labor can surely blame workers’ desertion of them on the shouty overprivileged tosspots who dominate debate on the left.
The toxic scourge of identity politics, with its twin obsessions of race and gender cooked up on university campuses where blue hair outnumbers blue collars, has become the modern left’s fundamental cornerstone. Little wonder working-class people think the left has nothing to offer and a majority back One Nation for the first time in history.
Meanwhile, Palestine has replaced Vietnam as the cause du jour to such a white hot extent that anti-Semitism – trussed up as anti-Zionism – runs rampant, while the radical Islamism that ended 15 lives in Bondi is wholly ignored.
Little wonder Barnaby Joyce recorded the slaughter that day as the moment when One Nation’s vote exploded. This is the tectonic shift causing the political earthquake we are now experiencing, and yet still the oh-so educated smart arses of the inner-city activist class are too stupid to see it and too far removed from ordinary people to feel it.

Trust Joe to celebrate Barners, Tamworth's eternal shame, and for some reason, after that rhetorical flourish, the pond felt some sympathy for a loon berating the oh-so educated smart arses of the inner-city activist class as too stupid, while imagining Barners as some kind of rustic rocket scientist.

The pond takes it back, what a comfortable way to make a phone call ...

The next Daily Terrorist snap had the pond thinking it was seeing double, or perhaps somehow Pauline Pantsdown had made it into the picture, We are now experiencing a political earthquake, and yet still the oh-so educated smart arses of the inner-city activist class are too stupid to see it and too far removed from ordinary people to feel it. Picture: NewsWire/Martin Ollman

At last Joe wrapped up his uxorious paean of praise for Pauline:

Labor, however, is feeling it like a punch to the guts. It may well survive the One Nation juggernaut but if it does not counter this shift it will be left as a party unrecognisable from the noble working-class origins that forged it, formed it and should be its most fundamental foundation.
Ironically, the Budget was meant to be a step in the right direction: Giving more money to workers while launching a populist tax grab from the supposed “top end of town”.
In fact it was two steps back, as anyone with any memory of Bill Shorten’s infamous 2019 campaign – with the exact same policies and the exact same rhetoric – should have known in their bones.
Instead, they should have borrowed the playbook of the great Neville Wran, who famously said: “Everyone aspires to do a little better. That’s what being in the working class is all about: how to get out of it.”
He should know. The Boy from Balmain became a lawyer and a statesman. And that is what every worker wants, to get ahead and provide a better life for their family than the one they had.
Anything that stands in the way of that aspiration is anathema to the wants and needs of ordinary people. They do not want wealth redistribution that keeps them on life support, they want pathways to the life they aspire to.
Thus to his credit, and as predicted by yours truly, the PM has now reversed some of his Treasurer’s most contentious Budget measures and reinstated more tax relief for small businesses and start-ups.
Tellingly, Albo also rightly condemned GetUp’s dumb stunt as “counter-productive”.
His next task must be to divorce himself from the pretentious whims and pearl-clutching protests of the activist class and focus entirely on the everyday needs and dreams of ordinary mainstream Australians.

Really Joe, the best you've got as idle abuse is blathering about pearl-clutching by the activist class?

You really are keen to make 1066 and All That and Molesworth sound like a deeply intellectual read. Get serious Joe, “a red-headed chiz is a swiz or swindle as any fule kno.”

Hey, Joe
Where you going with that devastating wit in your hand?
Hey, Joe
I said, where you going with that devastating wit in your hand?

I'm going down to bring the ladies down
You know, ain't be gunna clutch them pearls
Once they hear the line I lay down
You know, ain't gunna be messin' with other men
Huh, not with me being so cool...

Never mind, as the pond mentioned the pool at the start, the pond bets this remains an ongoing joke, days into the saga ...

In lieu of a reptile update, lovely Rita, meter maid, fills the pond's Monday slot ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 22:00:00 +0000

The pond has a confession to make - Benedic mihi, Pater, quia peccavi.

In all the time the pond has been tracking assorted Murdochian reptiles, and that's now a long, long time, the pond has paid absolutely no attention to lovely Rita, meter maid for the HUN.

As the pond is currently in Melbourne, and in absentia padding the pond with tabloid nonsense to keep up the hits, it seemed only right and proper to pay some attention to Rita ... and to her HUN outings (the pond realises that she's also a big player for Sky Noise - still no rebrand? - but best to start slowly).

What a disappointment. In a recent outing, Rita was just a part of the murmuration of reptiles, dedicated to the perils of Pauline, and in the way of the tabloids, just a three minute read. Such drivel, and in such small portions.

The pond realises that the dismal press club fuss is now well in the past, but expert herpetologists will find a couple of things of interest:

(a) yet more proof of how widespread the Hansonifcation of the Murdoch press has become, with every Murdochian reptile rallying to the cause;

and (b) how inclined Rita is inclined to hysteria. It was just a press club outing, not a trip around a Florida swamp surrounded by 'gators:

The header: Rita Panahi: GetUp responsible for biggest own goal in Australian politics, The left-wing activist group’s stunt at Pauline Hanson’s Press Club address must be one of the dumbest acts of political sabotage imaginable.

As usual, being a tabloid, Rita was only required to drum up a feeble three minutes, the maximum length that the AFL infested hive mind could attempt to swallow at a sitting.

The reptiles started with a AV distraction, featuring the IPA, which tells you as much about Rita and her attempt to pump up the Pauline volume as you need to know:

IPA Deputy Executive Director Daniel Wild is impressed by One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson tackling the issues shaping Australia's future and challenging topics many politicians are too afraid to discuss. “I thought Senator Hanson’s performance was very strong at the Press Club,” Mr Wild told Sky News host Rita Panahi. “The issues that she was discussing are the issues that matter to Australia’s future. “I think her assessment of multiculturalism was spot on, as was her assessment of net zero and various other issues, including gender ideology. “What I think is very exciting about this time in our country is that the strictures of debate are being blown open. “You’re not supposed to debate these things.”

Rita proceeded to show how she was more than just Pauline curious or IPA supportive:

Pauline Hanson nailed her address at the National Press Club on Wednesday as a new poll revealed the majority of Australians believe One Nation is ready to govern.
Facing a hostile audience, Hanson articulated her party’s vision for Australia, outlining policy positions on housing, immigration and productivity, alongside key cultural issues ranging from radical trans- activism to the Islamist threat.
It was ideologically clear and unapologetic – the sort of speech conservative voters have for years wanted to hear from a Liberal leader.

Farcically Rita presented the docile press club as a hostile audience, when they mostly - with a few honourable exceptions - acted like sheep baaing a homage: Facing a hostile audience, Pauline Hanson articulated her party’s vision for Australia. Picture: Martin Ollman

How many times have you read in the Murdoch press a devotion to Pauline because she wants to take down their media enemies? Add to your count now:

This wasn’t a leader worried about offending the political or media class, indeed she declared war on both, announcing any government she leads would abolish SBS and make dramatic cuts to the bloated ABC.
Her message to the media was clear: you can criticise and scrutinise but activism masquerading as journalism would be called out. “I’m an elected representative and I should be scrutinised, that doesn’t give you the licence to pile on … (and) delegitimise my party,” she said. “It doesn’t give you the licence to continue to repeat the lie that we are a racist party – because that is untrue. The Australian people can make up their own mind and they are.
“Rest assured, there will be big changes if One Nation is given the chance. SBS will be gone, there’s no need for it anymore; the internet has overtaken the need for it.”
Hanson also hit back at Leftist activist reporter Sarah Martin who she labelled “trashy”, accusing the Guardian writer of publishing “lies”.

It's not just the pond that has made the observation that Hanson has made a career out of demonising the media and making herself a poor pitiful me victim.

See the Malcolm Farr in the Graudian:

Pauline Hanson’s media attacks are not just Trump-inspired. For 30 years she has sought to control the press
The One Nation leader’s anger at reporters reflects an intolerance towards anyone who challenges her preferred, self-crafted reality

Well yes, it's the authoritarian way, but the reptiles also live in their preferred self-crafted reality, and so, together with another snap came another tribute, Hanson nailed her address at the National Press Club. Picture: Martin Ollman

It's funny to see a migrant, one whom Pauline would have liked to stop at the border - right origin, wrong surname - carry on this way, but consider it a variation on the Stockholm syndrome or a form of appeasement or perhaps learned helplessness:

Similarly, her exchange with SBS reporter Anna Henderson was robust, with Hanson telling the network’s chief political correspondent: “You’re going to be without a job.” When Henderson claimed that SBS’s foreign language services were needed to help migrants “integrate into Australia”, Hanson responded with “I want them to be able to learn English … that will help them assimilate into our society.”
It’s a sound argument that will have widespread appeal.
Hanson understands that most of the media, whether taxpayer funded or not, are not her friends. Nor do they understand why she has surged in the polls. They have contempt for her, her party and her supporters. It’s the same disdain the political establishment has for much of the population, a theme Hanson touched on in her speech.
“Two years ago, I tried to secure a national plebiscite on immigration numbers. As usual, most of the Senate dismissed the notion of giving Australians a direct say on policy and voted it down,” she said. “During the debate I … remember Coalition senator Paul Scarr saying the issue was too complex to put to the Australian people.
“That disgusting comment says all you need to know about the political establishment’s contempt for the Australian people: contempt for their intelligence, and contempt for the very concept of actually listening to them. I’m always listening, and that’s why my policy to slash immigration reflects what most Australians want.”
What was most impressive was the manner in which Hanson handled media questioning.
It’s little wonder the latest Sky News Pulse/YouGov survey found that 50 per cent of voters believe One Nation is ready to govern today with 33 per cent saying the party will be ready by 2028.
One of the dumbest acts of political sabotage imaginable
GetUp has serious questions to answer after a stunt designed to damage Pauline Hanson ended up embarrassing the National Press Club and led to the Leftist activist group being referred for investigation by the Australian Federal Police.
During Hanson’s speech, a large banner was unfurled behind her in a shocking security breach.

Note the generous dollops of praise, another indication that Rita and the rest of the reptiles are way beyond being Pauline curious.

Naturally, keeping up with this new lizard Oz tradition, the reptiles flung in an AV distraction featuring the dog botherer, celebrating the "political juggernaut":

Sky News host Chris Kenny questioned why a protester was able to disrupt One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson’s National Press Club address. “She [Pauline Hanson] turned up today as the political juggernaut upending politics around the country, outpolling both Liberal and Labor nationally,” Mr Kenny said. “An anti-Hanson poster was unfurled early in her speech; the National Press Club claimed no knowledge. “How could this be allowed to happen? How could the Press Club be so slack about security at such a highly anticipated event? “It was an appalling lapse. Still, Hanson was unfazed, and she wasn't afraid to get a little bit prickly inside the Canberra bubble.”

That was enough for Rita, the verdict was in, and the stunt was unimaginably bad (do the reptiles have the first clue about the sorts of tricks that happen elsewhere in the world?)

In a statement, the Press Club apologised to Hanson and confirmed it would explore legal options to seek damages from GetUp once the AFP investigation is concluded.
“We have referred the relevant footage and other evidence to the AFP for further investigation,” the statement read.
“The organisation GetUp is claiming credit for the stunt. The GetUp representative at the address was David Sharaz. At time of writing, we understand he is yet to be interviewed by the AFP.”
Barnaby Joyce also condemned the stunt: “It’s so dangerous when you think about it, they got in there and managed to rig up a sign and had the capacity to lower it. What if it was a bomb?”
The incident must be one of the dumbest acts of political sabotage imaginable – GetUp only succeeded in making Hanson look calm under pressure while exposing the organisation to criminal investigation.

And so to establish the mood for the next Rita moment:

The pond supposes this outing is still slightly relevant, what with the World Cup still going down.

The header: Rita Panahi: To suggest that those against mass migration are anti-refugee or anti-migrant is a fallacy; Before the final whistle blew, blowhards swarmed social media with claims that those who are anti-mass migration or pro-Australian values, specifically anyone who supports One Nation, could not celebrate the Socceroos’ victory. It’s typically asinine and unintentionally racist commentary.

As seems to be the form, the reptiles started with an AV distraction, 'Won't be at Watford much longer': Irankunda draws global headlines in World Cup debut; After a performance that drew global headlines, Julian Linden expects Nestory Irankunda...

The reptiles proposed that what Rita was offering was "less than 2 min read", which seems to be short serve even by tabloid standards.

What with the pond boycotting the World Cup - hardly surprising as the pond routinely boycotts most sport - the pond doesn't have much to offer, especially as Rita drew herself up and took umbrage.

Australia’s race-obsessed Lefties are trying to politicise our World Cup triumph.
Before the final whistle blew, blowhards swarmed social media with claims that those who are anti-mass migration or pro-Australian values, specifically anyone who supports One Nation, could not celebrate the victory.

The activist class never misses an opportunity to inject their poisonous brand of politics into every facet of life, even a famous World Cup victory against the odds.

There was a specially selected stock footage snap to go with the outrage: Race-obsessed Lefties are trying to politicise our World Cup triumph. Getty

The pond knows what the AFL mob would make of it, because they're so sports obsessed they'd watch a couple of flies race up a window.

Rita carried on ranting ...

Their reasoning was typically asinine and unintentionally racist, but nevertheless, almost every post about Australia’s win or the heroics of Player of the Match and opening goal scorer Nestory Irankunda was soiled with political commentary.
Our youngest ever World Cup scorer’s refugee status was weaponised to turn a unifying moment for Australia into another partisan fight.
To suggest that those against mass migration – incidentally, that’s the majority of Australians according to polls – are anti-refugee or anti-migrant is a fallacy.

Actually the pond has noted in the short summaries of matches offered by SBS (and insisted on by the pond's partner) that there are a remarkable number of players in teams with what might be called "different characteristics".

This is clear enough in teams from Scandinavian countries, but also in other European teams.

Is it wrong to draw attention to the benefits of migration, and the stacking of teams with those who have the right skill sets?

Not really.

The pond did a little digging and came across this in The Conversation ...How migration became a key to World Cup success

Then there was this one, with "expatriates" standing in for those who move around... Origins and destinations of football expatriates (2020-2024)

And so on, and Vox came up with this graphic for the previous World Cup ...

The reptiles instead decided to fling in a snap with a caption evoking the toilet: Almost every post about Australia’s win or Nestory Irankunda was soiled with political commentary. Picture: Getty

Don't get the pond wrong. The pond is all in favour of migrants moving about, making the best of their skills, and benefiting the clubs and the countries that will have them, something which shouldn't be restricted to sport, whatever the first world guilt involved in depriving some countries of skilled medical workers or other urgently needed specialists.

Gosh darn it ...

Trust Rita to get the wrong end of this stick:

Why, in a sane world, it should be possible for a migrant to move countries, and turn into a barking mad far right columnist for the HUN, getting down with migration basher Pauline ...
As is the notion that those who support One Nation must be white and Australian-born.
Those tired old narratives look pretty silly when One Nation is leading the polls as the most popular political party.
On Monday, we saw Pauline Hanson overtake Anthony Albanese to become the nation’s preferred prime minister, according to the latest Resolve Political Monitor poll.
The polling also shows that One Nation’s level of support is almost identical between those born here (29 per cent) and first generation migrants born overseas (28 per cent).
When looking at ethnicity, 31 per cent of Anglo-Saxon Australians support the party as do 24 per cent with a non-Anglo background.
Efforts to divide the nation and rob the joy out of this unifying World Cup moment must be rejected.
Those who support policies to lower migration, stop illegal immigration and deport non-citizen criminals are not fringe dwellers; they are very much in the mainstream.
None of those policy positions are at odds with backing a national team that has multiple refugees from Africa, and one from Europe.
As a fellow refugee, I see our national team as a shining example of what a uniquely welcoming and egalitarian country this is, where anyone with talent or work ethic can achieve enormous success.

She's a fellow refugee?

Fleeing Arkansas, USA, and then Iran, is the same as moving from Tanzania and Watford?

Uh huh. Go tell Pauline's mob that and see if they care.

The reptiles attached a thumb bio, and the pond thought, given the way it had ignored Rita, that it should be included for those as ignorant of her as the pond has been ...

Columnist and Sky News host
Rita is a senior columnist at Herald Sun, and Sky News Australia anchor of The Rita Panahi Show and co-anchor of top-rating Sunday morning discussion program Outsiders. Born in America, Rita spent much of her childhood in Iran before her family moved to Australia as refugees. She holds a Master of Business, with a career spanning more than two decades, first within the banking sector and the past ten years as a journalist and columnist.

Born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, USA?

Now there's a tidy balance to the brain drain that saw the Murdoch family abandon their Australian citizenship for filthy lucre and head off to the States. You're welcome America.

Just because this is all filler, the pond decided to throw in some Rita comments, to see the level of intellect the hive mind readership could show ...

And so on, but that's more than enough, and now you can hazard a guess as to the nature of the HUN's readership ...

Akker Dakker on a Sunday? The pond relives ancient hits with the fat owl of the Terrorist remove ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 27 Jun 2026 22:00:00 +0000

Continuing the pond's visit to ancient tabloid wonders - placeholders while the pond visits the deep south - the pond thought that Akker Dakker could hold the fort.

Sure, it's old, stale beer, but back in the day, Akker Dakker - dubbed the fat owl of the remove by the politically incorrect, anti-woke pond - was once a regular, celebrated guest at the pond.

He even had his own evocative artwork ...

Ah memories. Smug and arrogant, as he was, is and will be ...

Even better, Akker Dakker only manages short two minute bursts (the pond understands this is typical of Australian men and scribblers for the Daily Terror), so the pond could indulge in a number of trips down memory lane ...

First up, Akker Dakker reveals his inner war monger ...

The header: Piers Akerman: Trump’s peace deal nothing of the sort as Iran is given free rein to prepare for next conflict; America ended two world wars with unconditional surrender – but the US-Iran deal has taken just 107 days to hand Tehran $425bn and dominion over a vital global waterway, writes Piers Akerman.

The caption for the AV distraction at the start, so that punters could save themselves the trouble of reading on ... Former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney believes significant pressure from the private sector about the war’s impact on the global economy made US President Donald Trump cut a deal with Iran. “Trump did make a comment about how he didn't want to drive the world into a recession or depression,” Mr Mulvaney told Sky News host James Morrow. “I think it was about the captains of American and Western industry coming to him and saying that the world is going to end economically unless you end this war.”

Mick? Now there's a memory as ancient as Akker Dakker ...

Iran’s evil ayatollahs and its proxies – Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis – are celebrating their victory over the US.
The Strait of Hormuz has reopened, oil revenues are flowing to Iran, plus it’s been handed $425bn.
America has been humiliated; Israel, its only substantial ally in the Middle East, remains at risk.
In defending the US surrender, American Vice President JD Vance made the absurd claim that “if you go back to World War II, if you go back to World War I, you go back to every major conflict in human history, they all ended with some kind of negotiation”.
Nonsense. In World War II, Japan surrendered unconditionally on September 2, 1945, barely a fortnight after Emperor Hirohito broadcast Japan’s acceptance of the Allies’ terms of surrender.
On August 15, 1945, the Melbourne Herald ran two small boxed paragraphs under the headline Nearly Six Years of War.

Who knows what's happened to the MOU negotiations as Akker Dakker took the couch lover at his word and reverted to WWII (what, no memories of signing treaties and MOU's at Versailles?)

Just to confirm the historical flourish, and the read's remarkable irrelevance, the Daily Terrorist slipped in a snap...Supreme Allied Commander General Douglas MacArthur signs the formal Japanese surrender documents on September 3, 1945, in a ceremony to mark the end of World War II aboard the battleship USS Missouri docked in Tokyo Bay.

Akker Dakker kept on reliving the glory days ...

“Australia has been at war five years, 11 months and 11 days since war was declared on Germany on September 3, 1939. The war with Japan began at Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941, and lasted three years, eight months and seven days,” the breakout read.
Germany was crushed by Russian forces from the east and Allied forces from the south and west. Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki finished Japan.
The US capitulated to Iran after just 107 days of war.

As if to rub it in, the reptiles provided a snap of mad King Donald trying to match Dugout Doug ...US President Donald Trump signs a deal with Iran to end the Middle East war before France's President Emmanuel Macron inside Chateau de Versailles on June 17. Picture: @Scavino47/AFP

It wouldn't do for any reptile to have a bash at the Islamics, with Akker Dakker apparently forgetting that Germany in the 1930s was allegedly an Xian nation, while good old Italy managed to contain both a pope and Mussolini, but never mind, it's all the fault of the Islamics ...

President Trump signed off on MOU at the Palace of Versailles (the Iranians didn’t bother attending) a few days ago. The glittering gold-leafed Versailles was where the Allied powers and Germany signed the fateful peace agreement to end World War I.
Dictator Adolf Hitler ignored it. On June 22, 1940, he accepted France’s surrender in the same railway carriage Germany had surrendered to France on November 11, 1918.
Support for Hitler’s insane Third Reich came from the Islamic world.
The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, lived in luxury in Berlin from late 1941 until 1945.
He had fled to Germany to seek refuge and collaborate with the Nazi leadership.
He was provided with a generous stipend and made regular radio broadcasts to the Middle East, urging Muslims to revolt against the Allies.
Trump has lashed out at those critical of his deal, saying on his social media: “These fools, who think I haven’t been tough enough on Iran, when the Stock Market Just Hit A RECORD HIGH, and Oil prices are ‘tumbling’ down, are either jealous, bad people, or stupid.”
No, his critics are just more attuned to reality. The unconditional surrender by Germany and Japan saw both nations effectively demilitarised, then get assistance to rebuild their economies. US troops stationed in both nations stabilised them.

One down, another to go ...

Next up was a fairly standard bit of Labor bashing, what you might call lizard Oz lite ... as Akker Dakker took a hearty swipe at those pesky, difficult uppity furriners who are ruining everything ...

The header: Piers Akerman: Lucky Country to Stagnant Continent as Labor’s immigration accelerates decay; The prosperity Australians enjoyed when Sydney hosted the Olympics has “evaporated” as youth crime, gang warfare and Labor’s immigration policies tear at the nation’s fabric, writes Piers Akerman. (The reptiles like to get into the heads of their thugby league-addled hive mind who they're actually reading).

The caption for the AV offering, thoughtfully provided for those who don't want to read on: The funeral service for slain Sydney gangster Lorenzi Lemalu has been hit by a hail of bullets. No injuries have been reported.

This is a variant on Dame Groan's routine "we'll all be rooned" shriek to the heavens, and Akker Dakker carried out his task in style ...

Labor’s policies, particularly relating to immigration, have led to the institutional decay of the fabric of our society.
Australia is on edge of the abyss. Internationally, we just don’t rate as an admired nation any longer. This is the not the Lucky Country, it is the Stagnant Continent.
Confidence has tanked, businesses, large and small, are collapsing. The aspirations of young people have been trashed by Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ budget.
The prosperity we enjoyed when Sydney hosted the Olympic Games just 26 years ago has evaporated and, with it, our way of life.
To see the future, look no further than the dystopian condition of Victoria after decades of the same extreme hard Left Green/Labor ideology that drives Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s socialist government.

Yes, our way of life has disappeared into a void, and it's possible that it's all the fault of those from the deep south ... should the pond have taken weapons to keep this chilling world of Mad Max clones at bay? Victoria Premier Jacinta Allan’s highly politicised public service is all-but dysfunctional. Picture: Jason Edwards

Oh dear, the pond will be meeting up with one of those highly politicised public servants, and regrets not having packed garlic, holy water, a silver bullet and a stake ...

The situation is incredibly dire ...

The unelected Labor Premier Jacinta Allan’s highly politicised public service is all-but dysfunctional.
The civil structure is on its knees. Melbourne is dangerous. Defecation on public streets is not uncommon, and criminal acts are ignored. Even the worst recidivists are granted bail. Last year, Victorian Police arrested 1223 children a combined 6997 times, with minors committing 57.6 per cent of carjackings in Victoria and 52.6 per cent of home invasions.

To reinforce Akker Dakker's point, the reptiles flung in a snap which made the lizard Oz graphics department look lackadaisical ...More than 32,000 cars were stolen in Victoria last year, the most since 2001. Picture: Victoria Police

Hang on, hang on, did the reptiles get that snap from Victoria's highly politicised, all-but dysfunctional public service? How on earth did they get their act together enough to supply a snap which is remarkably meaningless?

Never mind, Akker Dakker was in his Laura Norder mode...

More than 32,000 cars were stolen, the most since 2001, an increase of 96.9 per cent over the past three years. Victoria’s total car-theft bill –$243m across more than 12,500 claims – was higher than the combined sum of all other mainland states.
Magistrate Gail Hubble achieved some notoriety a year ago when she ordered the immediate release of a teenager who had accumulated more than 400 charges over 663 days.
At the time, the 15-year-old, a refugee visa-holder, had already spent 419 days in pre-sentence detention. In 2024, he admitted guilt to six aggravated burglaries, 14 car thefts, four robberies, three shop break-ins, along with multiple offences including dangerous driving, trespass, and handling stolen goods.
Despite having absconded 23 times in the preceding six months, he remains under the supervision of child protection services in a residential care setting.

There came final, conclusive visual proof of chaos in the land, though sadly it involved a shift from those southern wretches to the streets of Sydney ... Police and forensics on the scene after a man died and four others went to hospital following a shooting in Sydney last month. Picture: Gaye Gerard/NewsWire

Akker Dakker was too canny to fall for the Minns Liberal-lite routines, and went into outright hysteria mode for his climax ...

Under the Minns Labor government in NSW, violent gang warfare has reached unprecedented levels. Today’s criminals control international trade through highly organised, multimillion-dollar syndicates such as the Alameddine network, the Hamzy clan, outlaw motorcycle gangs, and the Lone Wolves. Gang bosses routinely co-ordinate hits and drug shipments via encrypted communication apps from hiding places in Lebanon, Turkey, or Dubai.
The modern toolkit consists of high-powered automatic and semi-automatic firearms, military-grade explosives, tracked “kill cars”, routinely firebombed to destroy DNA, and sophisticated counter-surveillance tracking devices.

Talk about Mad Max. Child's play in the Akker Dakker universe.

Two down, and only one to go ...

Akker Dakker also knows how to cheer on the Hansonites.

It's not just the lizards of Oz that love her willingness to peddle their policies, it's the entire bunch of Murdochians ...

The header: Piers Akerman: Strong case for Hanson – and the case against Albanese, Chalmers, Bowen, Wong and O’Neil; Australians will fight back against the class warfare Labor is waging – they want their nation back, writes Piers Akerman.

The caption for the AV distraction, a rousing celebration of Hansonism (still no rebrand for Sky Noise?): One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson discusses One Nation’s surge among working class Australians. “The Labor Party hasn’t been loyal to them; they haven’t supported them; they’ve made their life harder,” Ms Hanson told Sky News host Steve Price. “Our job is to ensure that we give people out there a quality of life, a standard of living, and to look after their best interests. “Our governments have failed the people.”

How the reptiles love the redhead, how could Akker Dakker fail to succumb to her charms?

The unsurprising rise of One Nation is a natural response to the white-hot anger with Green-Left Labor governments, federally and in the majority of states.
The Albanese government’s socialist policies created legitimate grievances but people have been ignored, or worse, sneered at by the Left and self-anointed university -educated elites in Teal electorates.
Pauline Hanson has been around for 30 years. She hasn’t changed her politics – the nation has.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese learnt nothing when the Voice to Parliament he championed was smashed by voters 60-40.
Despite this humiliating defeat, versions of the divisive policy have been introduced in Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and are being examined in NSW.

Oh dear, while it's good that the Voice lives on in the minds of the Terrorists, surely there's a typographical error.

No way would the lizards of Oz contemplate it being capitalised. It's "the voice" in lizard Oz land, and the pond was startled to see the Terrorists make such a basic error...

On the other hand, the reptiles stayed true to the edict of always running a funny looking snap of Albo ...Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his government’s socialist policies have created legitimate grievances. Picture: Dan Peled/NewsWire

Akker Dakker was outraged in his usual way...

On Friday, a Sydney police officer was held criminally responsible for an Aboriginal death after a 16-year-old boy riding a stolen motorbike at 68km/h in a 40km/h zone slammed into an unmarked police car.
District Court Judge Jane Culver said the officer should have known he was creating an obstacle which posed a real risk of collision with the bike.

And then came a snap of Pauline surrounded by flags, designed to relieve Akker Dakker's tension ... One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has been around for 30 years. She hasn’t changed her politics – the nation has. Picture: NewsWire/John Gass

Hah, as if even a snap of Pauline could soften Akker Dakker' fury ...

He should have guessed someone disobeying road rules and showing no signs of slowing would not stop at the end of a bike lane.
The unfortunate officer has avoided jail but was sentenced to 500 hours community service.
A death of any Australian is painful to family and community, but this offender died trying to escape the law.
Race should not enter the equation just as police officers can’t be expected to second guess the actions of criminals fleeing from justice.
This is just one example of the many incidents contributing to the anger evident across the nation with the actions of the Left and the sluggish response of the traditional conservative parties.

Hang 'em all, the long, the short and the tall, and will someone finally get around to casting Akker Dakker as the lead in a remake of Dirty Harry?

As this has been a trip down memory lane for the pond - already out of date, because this very Sunday there will be a new Akker Dakker - for a closing cartoon, the pond needed something timeless, something that evoked the classics ...

Why not James Latham's Reimagining Seurat’s “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte”

What a vision, though perhaps not pure Seurat ...

In which dashing Donners is called in to cover for the pond's deep south junket ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 22:00:00 +0000

As previously advised, the pond is off to Melbourne for a few days, and so daily updates on the doings of the reptiles at the lizard Oz aren't feasible.

But this month, the pond's clicks have reached c. 990k, and the pond wondered whether it might be able to reach a cool million.

Relax, they aren't real. The Google bot counter is delusional and fastidiously tracks all the other bots, as well as the AI harvesters dropping into scrape the site, and the only comfort in the figure is that it means assorted AI bots are being eternally corrupted by being exposed to the reptiles.

The real pond traffic runs in the hundreds, and the site is known only to expert herpetologists.

All the same, how to keep the site alive to keep the bots and punters entertained, while not being able to look at the reptiles, as the pond risks life and limb to move amongst the pinko prevert socialists and commie swine of the south?

A casual, passing remark by a correspondent reminded the pond of the existence of dashing Donners.

Once upon a time, he was reliably present on the lizard Oz, and so on the pond, but then he reverted to a trashy tabloid existence at the Daily Terror and other Murdochian tabloids.

The pond decided it would be entertaining to look him up, inspired by Matt McManus's observation in The Bulwark ...

This Far-Right Thought Leader Is Embarrassingly Vacuous
Auron MacIntyre’s world of resentment, decline, and perpetual emergency.
Matt McManus

...It's a curious time to be watching the far right. In days gone by, the far-right milieu produced intellectuals of the caliber of Carl Schmitt or Martin Heidegger. These intense critics of liberalism argued that the inauthentic nullity brought about by liberal metaphysics could only end in civilizational collapse. By contrast, the best that today’s far-right provocateurs seem to be able to muster is tirelessly repeating how casting black and gay people in Disney remakes can only end in civilizational collapse.

Could dashing Donners live down to that call?

Of course he could ...

You want someone to get agitated about Disney? Hold dashing Donners beer ...

The header: Kevin Donnelly: Woke re-write of Snow White is a Dopey move; The controversy surrounding Disney’s latest rendition of the film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs highlights how cultural-left woke ideology is still all pervasive., writes Kevin Donnelly. (The Daily Terror's style is to repeat the name of the scribbler several times so that it can sink in to the noggins of the thugby league-addled hive mind).

The caption for the AV distraction conveniently provided for Terrorists who don't want to read on:

Disney’s live-action remake of ‘Snow White’ has been brutally roasted online amid its weak opening weekend box office. Earning $US43 million on its opening weekend, the film's budget cost Disney $US209 million. Critic reviews have been mixed to negative, with many citing the live-action film fails to live up to the animated classic. The film had received vast criticism regarding its lead, Rachel Zegler, who had touted the film would have a more woke approach. Zegler’s continuous comments bashing the original 1937 animated movie sparked outrage online, with her politics also dividing viewers. Following US President Donald Trump’s 2024 election win, the actress went on a tirade against those who voted for him. Rachel Zegler has since backflipped on many comments surrounding the film.

Truth to tell, the pond had almost completely forgotten the fuss surrounding this outing - there have been any number of turkeys since then - but bear with the pond because this is a parade, neigh a cavalcade of dashing Donners' hits ...

The controversy surrounding Disney’s latest rendition of the film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs highlights how cultural-left woke ideology is still all pervasive.

Oh dear, the woke word not just in the header, but at the very start, and with much more woke to come, and so the pond had best slip in its reminder whenever the word slips on ...

Now on with dashing Donners, frothing and foaming in an anti-woke fit ...

The actor playing Snow White, Rachel Zegler, describes the original 1937 version as “weird” and in a 2022 interview said the new version would give women a more assertive role.
Unlike the original film, Zegler states: “She’s not going to be saved by the prince and she’s not going to be dreaming about true love … She’s dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be and the leader that her late father told her that she could be if she was fearless, fair, brave and true.”

Bloody feministas! Enough to make a Donners faint, but it gets worse ...

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is not alone in being rewritten by woke activists.
Classic myths, fairy tales and childhood stories have long been targeted by the cultural-left. Sleeping Beauty is condemned as the sleeping princess fails to give consent when kissed by the prince.
Woke activists argue Thomas the Tank Engine reinforces capitalism as there is a hierarchy starting with the Fat Controller.

Not Thomas, anyone but Thomas...

Everyone knows that Thomas was a libertarian anarchist who refused to work for the Man ...

But it didn't stop there ...

Classic myths, fairy tales and childhood stories have long been targeted by the cultural-left. Sleeping Beauty is condemned as the sleeping princess fails to give consent when kissed by the prince.
Woke activists argue Thomas the Tank Engine reinforces capitalism as there is a hierarchy starting with the Fat Controller.

How could that be? He just wants to be a Really Useful Engine and run over any woke loon in his way ...

Just to make sure everyone knew the topic at hand ... Rachel Zegler attends the World Premiere of Disney's Snow White at El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood. Picture: Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images for Disney

Dashing Donners was now in full litany of horrors mode, with poor old Shakspere among the victims...

According to one American academic the children’s story unfairly prioritises hard work.

Even Shakespeare is not immune. The trust responsible for overseeing the Bard’s manuscripts and memorabilia is working to “ensure that stories of trans people are recorded, celebrated and preserved as contributions to achieving gender equality”.
On the basis visitors “may encounter language or depictions that are racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise harmful”, the trust is also committed to “explore the process of decolonising our collections and our organisational practice, helping to create a more inclusive museum experience”.
Underlying the concept of decolonisation is the belief the reason why Shakespeare’s works are held in such high esteem, instead of being inherently significant and worthwhile, is because they are the products of British imperialism and white supremacy.
So much for acknowledging and celebrating Shakespeare as a universally admired playwright and poet whose works are considered the most insightful, profound, superbly crafted and enduring among the greats of the English language.

Damn you Baz. How dare you slip firearms into the text.

And why didn't you show Juliet's real age, fit and proper for the times of King Donald and his friend Epstein ...

Come Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen.
Susan and she, God rest all Christian souls
Were of an age

The reptiles slipped in a snap to evoke the full horror...Andrew Burnap, left, and Rachel Zegler in a scene from "Snow White." (Disney via AP)

At last dashing Donners was in his Harold Bloom element, and could rant and rage long into the night...

Also, so much for valuing plays like King Lear and The Tempest that reveal so much about the dangers of hubris, the trauma associated with loss and suffering, the importance of forgiveness and redemption and what constitutes truth, fulfilment and human flourishing.
Decolonising Shakespeare to rid his works of white privilege and Eurocentrism is not the only example of how Western culture’s literary heritage is being redefined in terms of woke mind control and group think.
In America classics like Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn are cancelled and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird because it promotes a white saviour narrative.
One American academic goes as far as justifying a “queer gender reading” of Jane Austen’s novels by arguing the author “promotes the progressive notion of homosexuality as a universal state through her subtle depictions of same-sex intimacies in her famously heteronormative novels”.
Judging children’s stories and classic novels and plays written and performed countless years ago by today’s misplaced woke standards might make activists feel morally superior but it is wrong to judge the past in light of today’s beliefs. It’s also wrong to criticise films and literature in terms of power relationships involving gender, sexuality, race and class. To reduce everything to such a nihilistic and bleak interpretation ignores what is most vital about literature that has stood the test of time.
As argued by English poet William Blake, literature at its best, as well as being aesthetically pleasing, transcends the mundane everyday world to reveal a wondrous, inspiring and spiritual reality that gives pleasure and understanding.
Appreciating and valuing literature is also critical to the health and wellbeing of society. Stories, plays, novels, poems and narratives are an ongoing gift that passes from one generation to the next and that gives culture its richness and meaning.
There’s no doubt, as a result of US president Donald Trump signing executive orders stopping Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs, stating that there are two sexes, male and female, and banning transwomen from female sports, that woke ideology in America is on the retreat.
Unfortunately, judged by how the West’s literary classics and films are being destroyed woke ideology is still all powerful and it’s too early to say common sense, sanity and reason will prevail. Those hoping the tide has turned against cultural-left mind control need to think again.
Dr Kevin Donnelly is a conservative author and commentator, his latest book is Wake Up To Woke: It’s Time, Australia

Are you not entertained?

That was ancient, but in its own way, timeless dashing Donners.

Those wondering about the book and where they could rush to buy the tome, please be advised that it's self-published and so you have to head off to dashing Donners' website to plunk your thirty bucks down... or pick it up second hand or for free in a street library, should you happen to find someone careless with their cash ...

Moving right along, just to round out this outing with Donners, it's important to note that he's not just a one trick woke pony.

He's also on top of political trends ...

As Matt McManus contended ...

..Historically, the far right has been described as the ideological playground of the “lesser intelligentsia.” Today’s far right seems determined to prove that their standards can be lower still—or even that their standards can be broken faster than they can be lowered.
One far-right staple is to fantasize that the world runs on mystical cycles. In the late 1910s and early 1920s, Oswald Spengler hypothesized that civilizations went through life cycles much as biological organisms do. He fretted that the Western world was entering a winter in which it would be overtaken by a vengeful Global South. A decade later, the Italian reactionary mystic Julius Evola hypothesized that egalitarian modernity was a regression from a deeper aristocratic tradition, and augured a vital return to the latter in the form of a super-fascist SS. This cyclical thinking is celebrated by some of those on the far right who call themselves “traditionalists,” including, supposedly, Steve Bannon.

Speaking of lower still standards, how about devotion to Pauline?

Please allow the pond to cheat a little by moving past the AV distraction, and the splendid uncredited collage which suggests that the lizard Oz graphics department might be moonlighting for the Daily Terrorists ...

You see?

Pauline is a roll call of all the policies favoured by the lizard Oz and the Daily Terrorists, as they watched the once proud party of Robert Menzies mirroring centre-left policies, including climate alarmism, indiscriminate immigration, multiculturalism and government statism.

Who could stop this slump, this blight?

Why a redhead devoted to Gina, climate science denialism, incessant racist furriner bashing, monotone multiculturalism and chaotic, incompetent anarchy ...

Please, infallible Pope, a little visual inspiration to set Donners on firer.

No wonder dashing Donners was infatuated ...

Unlike the previous leader of the Liberal Party, Sussan Ley, who failed to realise being Labor-Lite spelt political doom, her replacement Angus Taylor and the newly elected Liberal Party president Tony Abbott understand what must be done to regain voters’ confidence. Taylor’s budget reply speech, in addition to denouncing the ALP’s deceit by misleading voters about negative gearing and capital gains tax, promises to stop unrestricted mass immigration and scrap the Albanese government’s destructive and senseless drive to net zero.
In his speech at the Liberal Party’s federal conference, Tony Abbott, in opposition to cultural-left activists condemning the nation’s institutions and history, said: “We are the freedom party, the tradition party, but above all else we are the patriot party, which is why, at our best, we should be absolutely unbeatable.”
After years of the Liberal Party being dominated by the likes of the former prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, it’s clear the party is now being led by those committed to centre-right political beliefs and values.

The feisty redhead brought out the warrior in Donners and how excited was he and the Terrorists.. Pauline Hanson and One Nation have launched a new attack ad aimed at Anthony Albanese and the Labor party.

Then there came a remarkable typo, which skilled pond correspondents will note immediately ...

Taylor and Abbott embracing conservative policies should not surprise. Whether the UK’s decision to leave the European Union, President Trump’s return to power, the rise of centre-right parties in Europe or the overwhelming vote against the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, the political pendulum is moving to the centre-right.

Dammit, the reptiles in the lizard Oz wouldn't stand for it. They know there's no capital "V' in voice.

Never mind, dashing Donners turned to the inscrutable Scruton for help in his cause ...

As to why this is happening, look no further than what the English philosopher Roger Scruton describes as the inherently conservative nature of most people. Scruton says “the conservative attitude is instinctive” and “being conservative is a distinct way of being human, and in every sphere of life the conservative temperament has staked its claim”. For the majority of people, their lives and aspirations centre on family, kinship, community and a sense of place and patriotism.

At this point, the pond went in to a state of toxic shock.

The Daily Terror wants to charge a premium for their AV distractions?

PREMIUM
Inside One Nation's Hunter branch meeting
Become a member to access our premium video content

Tell 'em they're dreaming.The pond is perfectly content for dashing Donners to show how he's Our Henry lite...

In his book Where We Are, Scruton uses the Greek term oikophilia to describe this love and affection for what Robert Menzies terms in his Forgotten People speech hearth and home. In opposition to oikophilia, Scruton uses the word oikophobia to describe those embracing a “culture of repudiation”.
Instead of identifying with family, community and nation, those committed to oikophobia are globalist in perspective, dismissive of the traditional family and critical of those expressing patriotism and valuing what is best about the past.

Those committed to oikophobia are also committed to grandiose, utopian causes such as stopping global warming and unrestricted immigration and multiculturalism.

Hang on, hang on, in amongst those ponce words,did the inscrutable Scruton and Donners (Our Henry lite) deploy the word "globalist"?

They did, they did ...and what fine company they keep ...

Globalist has been used as a pejorative in right-wing and far-right politics, and in various conspiracy theories, notably antisemitic tropes. In a 2014 YouTube video, far-right radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones described the concept of globalism as a "global digital panopticon control system" which he considered to be "the total form of slavery".
Among the Christian right, particularly the Protestant right, globalism is an umbrella term which includes perceived secular aspects such as environmentalism, feminism, and socialism; globalism is believed to underlie the expansion of the New World Order – a prophesied enemy attempting to thwart Christianity – through organizations such as the European Union, United Nations, and World Trade Organization. Globalist values, promoted by the UN as a whole and the World Health Organization, among others, are perceived to be at odds with Christian values. UN conventions on discrimination against women and children's rights have thus been fiercely opposed by organizations and leading figures on the Christian right, such as Concerned Women for America, as methods to weaken parental rights, destroy the traditional family, and separate children from their religious and familial settings. The UN as satanic enemy is a theme in apocalyptic Christian media, such as the 1990s–2000s series Left Behind, in which the UN is run by the Antichrist, as well as Pat Robertson's 1991 New World Order and Hal Lindsey's 1994 book Planet Earth 2000 A.D.: Will Mankind Survive?.
During the 2016 US election and presidency of United States president Donald Trump, he and members of his administration used the term globalist on multiple occasions. The administration was accused of using the term as an antisemitic dog whistle, and to associate their critics with a Jewish conspiracy.
Followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory refer to what they term "the Cabal" as a secret worldwide elite organisation who wish to undermine democracy and freedom, and implement their own globalist agendas. Hungary's former prime minister Viktor Orbán has used antisemitic tropes in accusations against globalists, espousing a conspiracy theory of a world network controlled by Hungarian-American philanthropist George Soros. (wiki for the footnotes and much more)

Dashing Donners didn't quite get into the Jewish banker 'leets, but what joy that Pauline had risen and would smite and smote them ...

Such elites also condemn any who disagree as racist, xenophobic, ignorant and guilty of supporting populist political parties.
While commentators dismiss One Nation as a party of opposition and explain its success by arguing that voters are reacting against Australia’s Uniparty system, the reality proves otherwise.
Hanson is welcomed as authentic and One Nation is seen as the antidote to those undermining social cohesion and stability, bankrupting the nation and turning Australia into what the eminent historian Geoffrey Blainey describes as a nation of tribes.
Dr Kevin Donnelly is the author of Wake Up To Woke Why Pauline Hanson’s Party Is So Popular.

Splendid stuff, and the pond does hope that correspondents enjoyed this wander down memory lane with dashing Donners.

In keeping with his spirit, the pond dug up a few old cartoons to help in the celebrations...

In which the onion muncher, Our Henry, and Killer Creighton compete for your attention and pleasure, and the winner is ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 21:04:23 +0000

A housekeeping note.

The pond is off to the deep south for about a week. This is an incredibly dangerous mission - from what the pond understands from reading the lizard Oz, Melbourne is full of commie swine and weird socialistic pinko leftie preverts, who pose a constant danger to everyone.

The pond hopes to survive, and in the meantime, rather than let the site wither entirely, has arranged for a tour of News Corp tabloid trash.

Perforce this will feature tediously out of date stuff, but the pond hopes it provides a few distractions. In any case, it will ensure that correspondents will be able to post thoughts and opinions on the real reptile news of the day.

Now read on for your Friday herpetology studies treats ...

Hold on, before beginning, the pond feels an obligation to mention a few things which are routinely "disappeared" from reptile coverage.

The poor old Poms, and Europe (Brexit!) continue to experience record hot days, cf the Graudian's UK and Switzerland record hottest ever June day as health emergencies surge in Europe

There's nary a peep out of the climate science denying reptiles about this phenomenon, but El Nino's coming to get you baby, so let's see how the ostrich routine works this Oz summer.

And the reptiles have been blathering endlessly about the need to study the Holocaust, but there's a genocide happening right now that's equally instructive, and again not a peep about it.

Again you have to turn to the Graudian to read Israeli former leaders and security chiefs threaten legal action over ‘Jewish terrorism’, Israeli former leaders and security chiefs threaten legal action over ‘Jewish terrorism’

... featuring a letter signed by, amongst others, two former prime ministers, former heads of all the Israeli security services, former judges, a Nobel laureate and the country’s most revered living novelist.

Inter alia ...

The letter accused Netanyahu and his far-right coalition partners, who are expected to seek another term in power together, of enabling attacks on Palestinians to further an extremist agenda of ethnic cleansing and annexation.
“This is not solely a military and police failure, but the implementation of an overt policy by the Israeli government and its prime minister in general, and by the relevant ministers in particular,” the letter said.
“[They] order the military, the police, and Shin Bet [the internal security agency] to enable the terrorism of Jewish criminals, because this horrendous phenomenon serves well the current government’s ideology of carrying out ‘ethnic cleansing’ in the territories of Judea and Samaria to facilitate their future annexation.”
The letter also drew parallels with historic attacks on Jewish communities in Europe. “The crimes of Jewish terrorism in the territories are reminiscent of similar crimes and pogroms committed against our people by other nations in eastern Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries.”
Israel’s military was complicit in this campaign of terror, through a failure to intervene and active participation in violence, the letter said.
Attackers have included members of regional defence units, men in part-uniform, and men who were not in active service but carried weapons they got from the Israeli military or national security ministry.
“The IDF [Israel Defense Forces] has clear policy of ignoring the crimes of Jewish terrorism, and in many incidents soldiers from the regional defense units and [settlement] security squads are themselves involved in the crimes of Jewish terrorism,” the letter said.

Cf Ehud Olmert in Haaretz, Israel Is Conducting a Systematic Campaign of Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes Against Humanity in the West Bank (*intermittent archive link)

And there's a relevant Wilcox cartoon ...

By way of contrast, what do the reptiles offer?

A triptych of drivel, and the pond will be naming a winner of its suddenly invented "best reptile drivel of the day" competition.

First up, a fairly standard serve of drivel from the onion muncher.

The pond realises that at this moment, a catatonic silence descends on correspondents, accompanied by an intense desire to immediately stop reading, but this site is only for the most hardened herpetologists, willing to swallow any garbage ...

Sad to say, ever since his Viktor Orbán junkets have dried up the relentless narcissist has been restless, and so this ...

The header: Let’s reject shame and defeatism – and share in national pride; Blackening a country’s history is one of the most effective ways to undermine the morale of its people.
The caption for a painting which will begin the usual bout of triumphalism: The Founding of Australia, an oil sketch by Algernon Talmage. Picture: Supplied by the State Library of NSW

The pond must issue a couple of warnings.

First the reptiles claim this is a six minute read.

Secondly that means a full six minutes of nausea.

Thirdly don't expect anything other than the rote, mindless repetition of nauseating blather about the monarchy (O noble King Chuck), the glossing over of the treatment doled out to Aboriginal people, blather about the "Anglo-Celtic core culture and the Judaeo-Christian foundational ethos" and so on and so forth.

In other words, it's more than enough to induce a Technicolor yawn.

The history of nations, how it’s presented and how it’s thought of, matters to countries and their citizens, no less than our own personal history matters to us as individuals. Because just as it’s hard for individuals to think well of themselves if they’re ashamed of their past, likewise, it’s hard for countries to be strong and self-confident if they’re constantly self-flagellating over their alleged historical crimes. This is what Orwell was driving at when he said that he who controls the past controls the future.
And there’s no doubt that the past of countries like Britain, the United States, and Australia too, is now being comprehensively recast as a story of shame. Americans are expected to angst over slavery, even though they fought their bloodiest war to be rid of it. Britons are expected to angst over the empire, even though it was actually the Royal Navy that stamped out the transatlantic slave trade. And Australians are expected to fret over the dispossession of the original inhabitants, even though British settlement marked the arrival on an ancient continent of science, technology, the rule of law and the notions of human rights that have eventually given Aboriginal people a vastly better life.
Mind you, no country’s history is without blemish. Edmund Burke characterised the American Revolution as a revolution for the traditional rights of Englishmen in the New World; but, personally, I reckon Americans might sometimes miss the Crown. There’s been no better illustration of the magic of the monarchy than the fact that the King is the only western leader that Donald Trump hasn’t been rude about!

The reptiles tried to dress up this blather with cheap archival moments, as if that would add gravitas to the blather, U.S. Capitol paintings. Declaration of Independence, painting by John Trumbull. Picture: Getty Images

But this is the onion muncher, peddling for the umpteenth time blather about the black arm band notion of history:

Blackening a country’s history is one of the most effective ways to undermine the morale of its people. That’s why it’s been so prevalent over the past few decades, as the left’s long march through the institutions has intensified.
For instance, the most recent academic history of Australia, published last November, opens by declaring that the traditional notion of settlement, as a largely peaceful expansion, is no less than the “founding lie” of modern Australia, masking what the author claims was a brutal conquest. Even though it was always official policy – albeit imperfectly observed – that the Aboriginal peoples of Australia should enjoy all the rights and protections of British subjects.
Far from being the tale of near-genocidal oppression, the better story of Australia is how a convict colony, within a century, not only had the world’s highest standard of living but was actually the world’s leading pioneer of liberal democracy. By 1860, the then-self-governing Australian colonies had universal male suffrage – some 60 years before Britain. By the 1890s, in South Australia, people of both sexes and all races could not only vote, but run for office too. And in one of its very first acts, in 1902, the new Australian commonwealth granted all women the right to vote, almost 30 years before Britain.
And yes, there was conflict on the frontiers of settlement. At Myall Creek, for instance, in northern NSW, a group of stockmen brutally murdered up to 30 Aboriginal men, women and children. But there was a sequel. Eventually, seven white men were hanged for the murder of black people – in Australia in 1838 – at that time almost unparalleled in any settler society.
So here’s the problem: countries supposedly tainted by original sin, whether slavery, imperialism, or dispossession of the original inhabitants, fundamentally lack legitimacy. And a country so tainted can hardly have the right to defend itself or to keep its culture, even if the country in question has actually been so colour-blind that it attracts migrants from all over the world. And even if it’s actually the long Anglo-American ascendancy, and the post-war Pax Americana that’s created the world that, despite everything, remains more free, more fair, more safe, and more rich, for more people, than at any time in history.
What, then, might those persuaded that their country’s history is shameful do by way of atonement?

What to do by way of atonement? Might not the onion muncher retire to a seminary and contemplate his many sins, or at least his navel, and in the process make the world a more tolerant and tolerable place?

Nah, to satiate the incessant narcissism, an unquenchable thirst, the reptiles obliged with a snap, Liberal Party Federal President Tony Abbott. Picture: Asanka Ratnayake / Getty Images

At this point the pond should note that the reptiles this morning seized on something designed to terrify the hive mind, manna from racist reptile heaven, and made it top of the "news", ma ...

EXCLUSIVE
Peak union’s demand to Labor: try again for an Indigenous voice
The ACTU has broken with Anthony Albanese by calling for a new Indigenous voice body and demanding Australia Day be moved.
By Noah Yim and Paige Taylor

Shock, horror, panic and sound the alarums, and fainting fits for months to come for the lizards of Oz, and sprinkle some 4711 Eau de Cologne on a hankie, and... send in the onion muncher...

Well, in Australia, they could seek to amend the constitution to give people with some Aboriginal descent more say than others over the government of the country. They could delegitimise the national flag by flying it co-equally with indigenous flags on all government buildings and at all civic occasions. They could begin all public speeches by acknowledging the traditional owners of “what always was and always will be” un-ceded land. They could change the school curriculum so that every subject, from maths to Latin, is taught from an indigenous perspective. They could invoke a climate crisis to close down our main exports and to hobble heavy industry. They could defund the armed forces now, while claiming to boost them in the far distant future. They could insist that gender is a social construct, rather than a function of biology, to confuse and subvert troubled adolescents.
But for those with a grudge against their own country, it’s sustained mass migration, especially from countries with quite different cultures, that’s the surest and swiftest way to change and punish a place that’s irredeemably tainted by unforgivable sin; in order to dilute and eventually to extinguish the Anglo-Celtic core culture and the Judaeo-Christian foundational ethos, that’s actually what attracts migrants to the Anglosphere, but that today’s left-establishment finds so suffocating and judgmental; and it’s to encourage migrants to “other” themselves by funding ethnic activism under Orwellian slogans like “our diversity is our unity” or “our diversity is our strength”.
In this regard, migrants from Islamic countries are especially useful, because belief in a global caliphate, and the conviction that it’s the Koran rather than the legislature that validates law, starts to make pluralist democracy unworkable. To green-left, cultural-Marxist governments, mass migration from the “global south” is not a problem; it’s the plan. It’s the way for supposedly unjustly rich countries to atone for their white privilege and to apologise to poorer ones by becoming more like them.

Uh oh, time now for a billy goat butt, what with him being a bloody furriner himself ...

I stress, this is not an attack on immigrants, nearly all of whom come to countries like Australia to join us, not to change us. But in enough numbers, change us they do, and not always for the better.
Australia’s post-war migration was a wonderful new chapter in our history. As well as more people from Britain, migrants came from southern and Eastern Europe, and increasingly from all over the world. As “new Australians” – so they were dubbed – they were expected to integrate from day one and to assimilate as quickly as possible, mainly by working hard, playing sport and using local schools. Which they gladly did, because the vast majority of them wanted to become as Australian as possible as quickly as possible.

How the pond loathes this man, with a visceral loathing that transcends talk of the 1950s primary school understanding of history that he offers ...James Cook landed at Botany Bay in 1770 on the HMAS Endeavour.

And at last came a final gobbet of bigotry ...

More recent migration – the million migrants in a single year that recently entered Britain, the half a million in a single year that recently entered Australia, and the 10 million, perhaps, that flooded into the US during the Biden presidency – has been more problematic, though rarely through lack of goodwill on migrants’ part. It’s because misguided governments have celebrated every culture but our own; and because cheap travel and the internet have made it easier for people to live in two countries at once.
And for some, like the migrant father and his Australian-born son, who recently turned Bondi Beach into a shooting gallery, to nurture the ancient hatreds that weak-willed governments have been too cowardly to name lest they be accused of racism.
Still, there’s nothing better than to have people visibly not of Anglo-Celtic ancestry, speaking with a broad accent, Australian, British or American, palpably proud of their country. There’s no better testimony to the gravitational pull of the Western way of life and – in Australia – the universal appeal of a country that extends a “fair go” to all, especially to those who “have a go” too.
Modern Australia has an Indigenous heritage, a British foundation and an immigrant character, starting with the settlers, who were then joined by people from almost every land. How a convict colony became such a “shining city on a hill” is a great story, but we do migrants no favours by deliberately making our country more like the ones they left.
So let’s stop distorting our past, let’s stop thinking small about what our countries can do, let’s reject the defeatism and declinism that’s characterised Western elites, and above all, let’s remind all our migrants that they are joining the best countries on earth.
Tony Abbott is the federal president of the Liberal Party. He served as Australia’s 28th prime minister. He delivered this speech to the Alliance of Responsible Citizenship in London.

If the Liberal party thinks this sort of carry on is the way to win the centre, then the long absent lord help the centre.

Do they really think that this sort of bigotry can beat the experts at the game?

The pond apologises for the onion muncher displacing Our Henry, especially as the onion muncher offered the sort of childish history lesson the hole in bucket man would disdain.

When it comes to history, Our Henry is more a nice china cup and decent historical aged tea sort of chap.

Never mind, there's a time for everything and now is his time; please, let Our Henry enter the competition with a Shaksperian flourish...

The header: Keir Starmer’s fall a sign of our ‘time of troubles’; Andy Burnham’s policies are only likely to worsen the structural forces that overwhelmed Starmer.

There was no caption for the snap, which is surprising because surely the reptiles could at least have noted that Larry the cat is missing from the shot.

There must be something in the water cooler this morning because Our Henry rabbited on for a bigly five minutes.

But the pond forgives him because this day he went full Shakspere, and what's more indulged in the fancy that Shakspere's view of British history can be taken straight, rather than as a reflection of Elizabethan times, with the plays a way of discussing matters of state that the authorities would have regarded as seditious without the benefit of theatrical fiction (cf this blog)

Lay on, McHenry ...

As vultures circled above 10 Downing Street, Shakespeare’s famous line in Henry IV, Part 2 – “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown” – must have rung painfully true for Keir Starmer. The irony was that few British prime ministers had greater reason to feel secure: in the 2024 election, Labour won 411 of the House of Commons’ 650 seats, second only to Tony Blair’s majority in 1997.
Yet appearances were deceptive. Starmer’s victory had been secured on just 33.7 per cent of the vote, the lowest vote share ever recorded by a majority-winning party. This was a textbook “loveless landslide”, reflecting no surge of enthusiasm for either Starmer or Labour. What little love there was then dissipated at lightning speed: within six weeks, Starmer’s net satisfaction rating had turned negative.
Not that it would have been much comfort, but Starmer is hardly the only recent British prime minister to suffer so precipitous a decline. Political leaders, it seems, now reach the summit only to be hurled from it.
It took 22 months for John Major’s net popularity rating to turn negative; remarkably, Tony Blair’s remained positive for nearly six years. The contrast with more recent experience could scarcely be greater: on average, the past seven British prime ministers have fallen into net negative territory in less than five months. Worse, the pace of political collapse has accelerated. Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson all enjoyed a honeymoon period. Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak had none, while Starmer’s was over in a flash.
The result is a story in three acts. Tony Blair spent 60 per cent of his prime ministership in positive territory. Excluding Johnson, whose ratings were distorted by Covid, that figure fell to just 32 per cent for Brown, Cameron and May. With Truss, Sunak and Starmer, it shrank to a mere 3 per cent.

Poor Keir, now just part of an Our Henry listicle, Keir Starmer. Picture: Peter Macdiarmid / Getty Images

Sadly this focus on the Poms and Shakspere meant Our Henry had to abandon Thucydides for the nonce and for the pleasures of regicide

But he did try a little contemporary Oz relevance ...

The parallel with Australia is obvious. Both John Howard and Kevin Rudd enjoyed 26 months in positive territory. For Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison that moment of sunshine lasted, on average, just six months. Anthony Albanese did better, but he too is now in the doldrums. Between 2000 and 2013, Australian prime ministers spent 63 per cent of their time in positive territory; after 2013, that share fell by a third.
In both Britain and Australia, as the descent into unpopularity accelerated, so did the rate of defenestration. The spiral, though, is far older than the opinion poll: and if there is a lesson of history, it is that regicide feeds on itself, unleashing a cycle of tumultuous instability.
It was that world of repeated usurpations Shakespeare dramatised in the Henriad, where Henry IV, having deposed Richard II, feared so grievously for his own fate. His anxiety was well-founded: of the six English monarchs who met violent deaths, five died in near succession across the century and a half to 1485.
What was true in England prevailed more broadly. Across European monarchies between 1000 and 1800, usurpers were roughly three times more likely to suffer a violent or involuntary end than legitimate rulers. The repercussions did not stop with them: even the legitimate successors of usurpers were twice as likely to be deposed as the direct heirs of legitimate monarchs. Once the spiral of deposition and counter-deposition was unleashed, regaining stability took, on average, six or seven turbulent successions.
That one regicide led to another is unsurprising. Whoever obtained the throne by regicide lacked legitimacy; the demonstration effect of the original regicide invited encores, and; living in fear of the sword, both the regicide king and his immediate successors focused on self-preservation rather than effective rule, provoking the very fate they sought to avoid.
Kingdoms in which monarchs were deposed therefore suffered what the Russians called a “Time of Troubles”: scarred by regicide, they reeled under punishments denounced from the pulpit as signs of divine wrath, until an extraordinarily capable leader finally seized control.
That was the lesson Shakespeare placed at the heart of the Henriad. Richard II’s title was beyond dispute, and he believed its sacred character sheltered him from challenge: “Not all the water in the rough rude sea / Can wash the balm off from an anointed king”. But Richard mistook legitimacy for immunity. It is not lawful title alone that sustains kingship, Shakespeare suggested; it is the prudence, judgment and stewardship that convert legitimacy into enduring authority.

What a strong ploy, and perhaps a commentary on the onion muncher himself, something of a put down, as prudence, judgment and stewardship that convert legitimacy into enduring authority was never a feature of the onion muncher's brief reign.

It might have put Our Henry ahead in the competition, but then the reptiles ruined things by abandoning the Shakspere motif.

The reptiles were simply unable to resist featuring former chairman Rudd, and Juliar, who still live rent free in the hive mind, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard arrive at the 45th National Labor Conference on July 30, 2009. Picture: Lisa Maree Williams / Getty Images

Talk about a bummer, from Shakspere to a reminder of ancient reptile obsessions.

Our Henry at last got around to admitting that perhaps Shakspere was on about his times as much as, or more than, the past ...

Lacking those qualities, Richard discovered too late that even an anointed king can lose his crown. “I wasted time,” he reflects in prison, “and now doth time waste me.” Shakespeare’s Henry IV answers that fate by displaying the very qualities whose absence had undone Richard: true to his word, careful with his allies, resolute against England’s enemies – above all, mindful of the people.
Yet none of that spared Henry the upheavals that convulsed his reign. For he ruled in a society undergoing profound social and political transformation, where shifting patterns of wealth, power and allegiance had already weakened traditional bonds of authority and increased the demands on the monarchy far beyond the resources available to meet them.
Shakespeare’s England was also wrecked by a far-reaching disruption; and so is today’s Britain. The electorate has fragmented, shattering the social and economic coalitions on which the major parties once depended, and making it increasingly difficult to assemble mass constituencies. In turn, that fragmentation has been mirrored within the parties, weakening internal alliances while intensifying the jockeying for position. As the major parties seem ever more caught up in their internal dramas, the political fringe has expanded but has not found a stable base.

And yet no mention of Brexit? And the Brexit follies?

Et tu, Our Henry?

Not a single mention of the caper that has cascaded down through little England's history for the past decade?

At the same time, Britain is mired in its most acute and prolonged productivity slump since the Industrial Revolution, slowing the growth of living standards and of public revenues. Having been assured that governments can nonetheless sate every thirst, soothe every pain and solve every woe, voters inevitably swing between unrealistic hope and bitter disappointment, perpetuating the cycle of instability.
And with Britain’s cast of recent prime ministers recalling Shakespeare’s magnificent, hyphenated adjectives – dog-hearted, milk-livered, shrill-gorged, lust-dieted, which all appear within a few pages of that tragedy of hubris and betrayal, King Lear – no Henry V has emerged to tame the Time of Troubles.

Time now to nip the future heir apparent in the bud ...Andy Burnham greets supporters at the Labour campaign HQ at Stubshaw Cross Community and Sports Club. Picture: Christopher Furlong / Getty Images

And so Our Henry, taking on the role of vulture, circles, was ready to swoop...

Andy Burnham is hardly a plausible candidate for that role. His policies seem designed to deepen the productivity crisis rather than solve it. Unwilling to remove the constraints on growing the pie, his only solution is to rob one group to appease another. As that runs into its limits, hope will once again curdle into disappointment, disappointment into fury – and fury into the search for yet another saviour.
That is territory we know all too well. Nor have we truly left it. For the moment the regicides have receded; the structural conditions that fuelled them have not. They are, on the contrary, growing more acute. Alarm bells should therefore be blaring, both here and in the UK. If all you hear is smugness and complacency, that is merely the sound a kingdom makes, in the hush, as the circling vultures prepare to descend.

Splendid stuff, especially as Our Henry, together with the rest of the hive mind, managed to avoid mad King Donald's three ring circus ...

But had the Onion Muncher and Our Henry done enough to win, what with Killer Creighton offering incredibly strong competition, albeit with only a modest three minute IPA-inflected read?

The header: Alan Greenspan: the economics visionary who paved the way to financial crisis; Like the influence of John Maynard Keynes in the postwar era,

The caption: Alan Greenspan testifies before the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee in Washington, July 1990. Picture: Luke Frazza / AFP

There is of course a profound irony here, what with Greenspan very IPA in outlook, and yet clearly responsible for disaster.

And so Killer has to propose that Greenspan came to resemble Keynes, neigh, was a kindred, kissing cousin Keynesian, and so that damned ruinous interventionist way could take a Killer rap over the knuckles yet again.

It's nonsense of course, but sublime in a Killer IPA way ...

If Alan Greenspan had died at age 80, obituaries would’ve lauded the former Federal Reserve chair as one of the greatest-ever economics practitioners. Instead, history will record Greenspan, who died aged 100 earlier this week, as a brilliant, contradictory figure whose self-admitted flaws paved the way for the global financial crisis of 2008 and the ongoing collapse in credibility central banks everywhere continue to suffer.
An acolyte of libertarian Ayn Rand in his younger years, Greenspan became more like John Maynard Keynes, whose interventionist ideas most shaped postwar economic policy. Like Keynes, Greenspan was a polymath who became very rich as a shrewd investor before bursting into public life as chair of the Federal Reserve – an institution he’d earlier called “one of the historic disasters in American history”, courtesy of Ronald Reagan in 1987.
Both men’s careers were buoyed by stockmarket crashes whose impacts on the broader economy were vastly different. Correlation is not causation, yet the minimal impact of the Black Monday crash on the broader economy was put down to Greenspan’s wise provision of liquidity. It was a playbook he returned to repeatedly after the collapse of the massive hedge fund Long Term Capital Management in 1998 and the dotcom collapse in 2001, when Greenspan slashed the official Fed funds rate to 1 per cent.

The reptiles flung in a snap, suggesting it might be slick Willy's fault, Alan Greenspan looks on as President Clinton speaks in the Oval Office, where the president nominated Greenspan to serve a fourth term as Fed chairman.

Now there might be some correspondents who remember the WSJ take, covered by the pond and saved to the intermittent archive, with the heading including "his faith in financial markets’ ability to police themselves became an Achilles’ heel".

Former colleagues and Nobel laureate Milton Friedman hailed Greenspan as the greatest central banker of all time when he finished 18 1/2 years as Federal Reserve chairman in 2006. Just two years later, the financial crisis triggered an austere reappraisal of his record. His view that markets could effectively police themselves became a driving force of regulatory policy in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Inter alia ...

None of that for Killer ...

It's not because in this Killer version of Greenspan he didn't intervene; somehow magically it's because he was an interventionist, the famous Killer IPA ploy of "black is white", and facts are always alternative...

The infamous “Greenspan put” was born: the risk of economic collapse and severe financial losses that most – especially small businesses – faced wouldn’t apply in financial markets, at least for the big players.
The powerful Wall Street elite who happened to be the Fed’s clients would be rescued collectively by ultra-low interest rates and behind-the-scenes pro bono co-ordination. But the “long and variable lags” of monetary policy taught to economics students at university had been forgotten by his admirers by the time Greenspan retired after 19 years, in 2006.
His tenure had overlapped with arguably the most halcyon period of US economic history: booming productivity growth alongside relatively low inflation without any of the severe economic downturns that blotted earlier periods. But as US economist Rudiger Dornbusch once remarked, “things take longer to happen than you think they will and then they happen faster than you thought they could”.
Artificially easy money and the Greenspan put combined to trigger a massive financial crisis and recession from late 2007, which put millions out of work, destroyed trillions of dollars of household wealth, and prompted a litany of execrable bailouts of financial institutions.
His successors, Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen, took Greenspan’s interventionist bent to new heights, launching successive rounds of “quantitative easing” that encouraged governments to rack up massive public debts that would’ve made Keynes blush.
The Covid pandemic brought still more radical interventions that finally shattered what remained of central banks’ hard-won reputation for maintaining price stability. Perhaps it was Greenspan’s famous love of Delphic utterances that has aged less well. “I’ve learned to mumble with great incoherence. If I seem unduly clear to you, you must have misunderstood what I said,” he once joked before congress. It was the kind of colourful behaviour you wouldn’t expect from central bankers today. He even refused to bind the Federal Reserve to an explicit numerical inflation target after most other central banks had, arguing judgment was superior to mechanical rules. Again like Keynes, he placed greater faith in the discretion of exceptional policymakers than the rigours of the free market.

Oh yes, he was a devout Keynesian, and remember, you are entitled to your alternative reality, Alan Greenspan on the front of Time Magazine, February 1999.

And so to a final warning about the dangers of intervention, as only an IPA loon could scribble:

Yet old habits – despite all the obvious economic destruction caused since 2008 – die hard. Even free-market economists who would condemn government interference in any other part of the economy still assume it’s perfectly natural for bureaucrats to set the rate of interest. The Reserve Bank of Australia also operates in this world bestowed by Greenspan, whose “put” will prove very difficult to unwind without a major economic collapse. No financial institution in Australia, even a small one, would be allowed to wobble, let alone fail. Indeed, for all the talk of the need to reduce inflation, the RBA’s real target appears to be keeping dwelling prices high, credit flowing and the banking system profitable. Underlying inflation is headed to 4 per cent yet analysts are already pencilling in cuts in the knowledge inflation is in fact a secondary consideration.
“In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value,” Greenspan wrote in a 1966 essay.
After the GFC he had “found a flaw” in the worldview he had trusted for four decades. Perhaps in his twilight years watching central banks struggle to achieve any mandate, Greenspan came to return to his earlier views.
Adam Creighton is chief economist at the Institute of Public Affairs.

If the pond had to pick a winner for the day, it would be Killer.

Every correspondent will have their own favourite, and will likely dispute the pond's choice.

But here's the reasoning.

The onion munch is old and tired and repetitious, and reading him felt like watching a Tamworth dog return to his vomit in the noonday sun.

Our Henry showed ingenuity in dragging Shakspere back into the little English mess, but failed the Brexit test, not mentioning it once, though it haunts the country in much the same way that those ghosts haunted Hamlet and Macbeth.

Up against this feeble competition, Killer had a Killer ploy, because transforming Greenspan into Keynes is surely the work of an IPA genius ...

And now this ...

And now reptiles, time to watch the Beeb, so you'll be ready for the coming Australian summer...

In which Karl goes, the beefy boofhead is confused, Ted refuses to take on Malware, and the ARC of history is sublimely Jordan-silly ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 21:56:31 +0000

Again the pond woke to news of unprecedented temperatures in Europe and again it magically disappeared from the climate science-denying world of the lizard Oz hive mind.

Again the pond woke to depressing news about Gaza (which can also be found on YouTube here), and again there wasn't a peep from the Australian Daily Zionist News.

Instead there was more of the same...

Stories about how Jews are killed won’t stop antisemitism
We need a rethink of Holocaust education. Teaching about Jewish identity and culture is essential to fighting antisemitism.
By Julian Leeser

The pond would have to rate today's lizard Oz digital front page tediously familiar and boring, apart from one bright spot ...

Karl Stefanovic dumped by Nine over explosive podcast interview
The network’s top executives have decided to cut ties with their high-profile star, after his Tommy Robinson interview was pulled and Pauline Hanson leapt to his defence.
By Steve Jackson

Having long ago determined that he was a dickhead, the pond had in the past needed to expend small amounts of energy avoiding him, but now won't have to bother.

The reptiles kept on doing their own version of Karl, with more celebrations of Pauline, along the way dumping on both the pastie Hastie and the windmill-hating beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way.

EXCLUSIVE
‘Declaration of war’: Roberts-Smith case triggers Coalition rift
Ben Roberts-Smith case triggers Coalition rift as MP parades Andrew Hastie critic
Defence personnel spokesman Phillip Thompson has paraded a prominent critic of Liberal colleague Andrew Hastie around parliament.
By Ben Packham

EXCLUSIVE
Libs question Taylor’s leadership after multiculturalism fumble
Growing number of Liberal MPs believe Angus Taylor will be on borrowed time if he can’t turn the party’s fortunes around
By Rosie Lewis and Greg Brown

Already? That drivel, that meaningless blather about "monoculture", means we have to get out the lettuce again, and see if it can stay a winner?

Possibly ... the lettuce might be able to handle the beached whale own goal scorer lovingly portrayedby the infallible Pope ...

Meanwhile, the reptiles were doing their best to lather up fear, high anxiety, and paranoia in the hive mind, with wild-eyed tales of Iranian assassins rampant, and terror stalking the continent (island if you insist).

There was an echo of this over on the extreme far right with Geoff chambering another round...

ASIO chief Mike Burgess leaves the shadows to make a salient post-Bondi massacre warning
An expectation that people applying for visas should adhere to the Australian principle of a ‘fair go for all’ is common sense and a welcome intervention.
By Geoff Chambers
Political editor

Somehow the cockies in the mighty 'Gong managed to stay calm.

It was with relief that the pond abandoned all that to watch as Ted ravaged Snowy 2.0, a proud Malware and Liberal party initiative, begun back in the heady days of 2017.

Take it away Ted ...but keep it short, say no longer than a 3 minute read according to reptile timings ...

The header: How Snowy 2.0’s latest audit confirms its shambolic progress; As a nation, we should be prioritising cost-effective projects that advance renewable energy, not a shambolic $40bn-plus battery.

The splendidly effusive and informative caption for the snap: Snowy Hydro 2.0 project.

The pond wondered if Ted might pause to mention that Malware (and his Liberal colleagues) was the proud auteur of the project, the man who devised the mise-en-scène, and was disappointed to discover that Malware had vanished, in much the same way as a European heat wave can be made to vanish.

The pond was forced to do a word search and check, but Malware didn't even have the presence of a lingering Cheshire cat smile...though less than a year ago, he could be discovered in the AFR, proudly defiant, still remarkably pleased by the cinematic triumph he'd produced.

Okay, take it away Ted ...

Has there ever been a more shambolic infrastructure project than the Snowy 2.0 pumped-hydro battery? That was reconfirmed last week in a damning performance audit by the federal Auditor-General that found “significant deficiencies in project governance arrangements have impacted value for money”.
The 11-month investigation concluded that Snowy Hydro’s project management had been only “partly effective”. Even that seems generous: there are few findings of appropriate, let alone good, management. Indisputably, the project has been ineffectively managed since its launch nine years ago.
The audit’s 98 pages are replete with management deficiencies. To quote just a few: “not effectively holding the contractors to account; not having access to quality data that would allow appropriate monitoring of the project; no agreed baseline schedule; the incentive framework (for the new contract) not working as intended; a reliable cost forecasting system is still not developed; risk management arrangements are still being established”.
Snowy Hydro agreed with four of the audit’s five recommendations, covering project management, performance measures, risk management and contractor payments – all basic governance practices that should have been embedded from the outset.

The reptiles trotted out the latest villain, Snowy Hydro chief executive Dennis Barnes concedes the Snowy 2.0 project may miss its 2028 deadline.

But the pond felt the need to walk the Cannes red carpet, and cry out for the auteur. Qui est l'auteur? Auteur, s'il vous plaît!

Sadly Ted wasn't listening and ploughed on ...

However, true to form, Snowy Hydro only “partly agreed” with the fifth recommendation, “to develop regular public reporting on project schedule”.
Clearly, Snowy Hydro intends to remain unaccountable and limit exposure of its inept performance, contravening the government’s commitment to “transparency and honesty”.
The audit states “the project is currently behind schedule and is undertaking a cost reassessment that is likely to result in a further cost increase. This is despite the reset in 2023 which extended the commercial operation date for the project from May 2026 to December 2028, and almost doubled the delivery cost (of the main works to $12bn, six times the original $2bn estimate)”.
The audit’s most damning finding is that Snowy Hydro “does not have a robust understanding of the cost to complete the project” – this is after nine years.
Even more perturbing, last October Snowy Hydro asked its contractor “to undertake a comprehensive line-by-line reassessment of its costs to deliver Snowy 2.0”.
How is it that the owner of a multibillion-dollar project does not know its completion cost and needs to ask its cost-plus contractor to find out? Incredibly, the reassessment “is expected to take up to nine months” (that is, by June 2026).
But, as with everything associated with Snowy 2.0, even that exceptionally lengthy timeframe has slipped. Shareholder minister Chris Bowen has “pledged to reveal the cost hike by the end of 2026”.
It now appears that Snowy 2.0’s updated main works cost will be about $20bn. That figure doubles to more than $40bn once financing costs and Snowy 2.0’s equitable share of 1100km of new transmission connections to Sydney and Melbourne are included. This is an absurd cost for a 2200-megawatt battery – five times Snowy Hydro’s $7.8bn market value and about $1500 for every Australian.
Looking back, it is most unfortunate that the previous June 2022 Auditor-General audit failed to uncover any governance deficiencies, instead “assuring parliament that Snowy Hydro has appropriate arrangements in place to effectively deliver Snowy 2.0”.
Snowy 2.0 was portrayed as a model project for other government entities to emulate. Not one improvement was recommended – almost unprecedented for an Auditor-General audit.
If only the then Auditor-General had not been snowed by Snowy Hydro’s spin and had uncovered the ineffective governance and pending cost blowout that were disclosed a year later in the 2023 project “reset”. Had those deficiencies been uncovered when just $3bn had been sunk, the incoming Labor government might not have blindly locked itself into supporting the project.

The trouble of course is that this happens all the time with infrastructure projects.

The original bright spark, the incredible initiating auteur, has long left the stage, and instead assorted bunnies are required to front up to deal with the turkey, and speaking of a bunny, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen during Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Ted stayed rigorously true to his mission, and nowhere in the last gobbet could there be found a mention of Malware ...

The latest audit makes a two-sentence mention of the 2022 audit, offering no explanation for why it was so wrong.
So, how will the government respond to this latest audit? Will it ignore the findings and squander further billions, regardless, on the premise of 73 per cent completion and $12bn already sunk?
But that claimed completion percentage looks exaggerated: only two-thirds of the tunnels have been excavated, the power station caverns are incomplete and no electromechanical equipment has been installed. And the remaining costs are still likely to exceed the benefits, with no assurance the forthcoming cost reassessment will not again prove understated.
Snowy 2.0 is not only a financial and project management disaster but also an environmental disaster. Vast areas of pristine Kosciuszko National Park have been destroyed across 35km, with massive earthworks, huge spoil dumps, roads and tracks, transmission lines and easements, introduced weeds, depressed water tables, reduced stream flows and forthcoming pest fish transfers.
For years, industry experts have been urging the government not to rely solely on Snowy Hydro’s repeatedly flawed advice and impossibly optimistic estimates.
Will this latest audit finally prompt a rigorous independent expert review, so the least-worst option can be determined? If not, Snowy 2.0 will continue down the shambolic path of the past nine years – at the cost of taxpayers, electricity consumers and the Kosciuszko environment.
As a nation, we should be prioritising cost-effective projects that advance renewable energy, not a shambolic $40bn-plus battery.
Ted Woodley is former managing director of PowerNet, GasNet and EnergyAustralia. He is a board member of the NSW National Parks Association.

Well at least it took the pond's mind off other issues of the day ...

The pond also woke to news from Vlad the Sociopath's Russia ...

Russian anti-war politician jailed for seven years over social media posts

How lucky that Russia is developing a compleat monoculture.

And so to the bonus, and for this the reptiles arranged yet another despatch from that bizarre concoction known as ARC ...

The header: Why the West must relearn true meaning of liberty; I refuse to accept the future in which our daughters vote for Zohran Mamdani and Zach Polanski, while our sons spend their days watching Bonnie Blue and Nick Fuentes.

The slack-jawed local yokel reptiles repeated the same collage as seen before, and again without any credit for the monstrosity: Some of ARC’s leading speakers, including Jordan Peterson, Niall Ferguson, Douglas Murray, Philippa Stroud, Bari Weiss, Ayaan, Hirsi Ali, Tony Abbott, Kemi Badenoch, John Anderson, Erica Komisar, Kostantin Kisin and Michael Shellenberger.

As can be judged from the collage, this is prime fruit loon territory and Konstantin didn't disappoint for an exhausting five minutes ...what with an endless cry for freedumb ...

Many today argue that the pursuit of liberty is what has given us a society of disconnected, disassociated, atomised individuals. Liberty, they say, contains the seeds of its own destruction.
Liberty is becoming a dirty word on both left and right because many mistakenly associate liberty with the grotesque excesses of liberalism, which has mutated from the pursuit of freedom from tyranny to the pursuit of freedom from reality.
The consequences are all around us. Our public finances are a Ponzi scheme. Our energy policy seems to be set by the moronically possessed. Our societies openly discriminate in favour of some groups and against others while calling that equality. And Britain, a country that once famously and somewhat controversially ruled the waves, can’t stop a few rubber boats.
Like it or not, the heart of our civilisation today lies not here in London but in Washington.
We like to make fun of Americans for not speaking English the way we do; you know, properly. That joke is based on a thing most people don’t know, which is American English is much closer to the way our ancestors spoke than the way we speak now. Americans preserved the language of their ancestors while we, as its originators, continued to experiment with it.

WTF? They say fall, and we say autumn, and somehow we're the fallen?

What a stupid man, and what a silly point to make, as the reptiles slipped in a snap of a man who turned out to be not the solution, but part of the problem ... Nobel prize-winning author and critic of Soviet regimes Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn sitting on low stone wall outside his home. Picture: Steve Liss / Getty Images

The pond doesn't have the time to go into the damage he did, but try on ...

Solzhenitsyn, Putin and the historical myth-making that drives Russian imperialism
March 18, 2022
Tomiwa Owolade
Undeniably there are deep cultural and political ties between Russia and Ukraine. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a hero in much of the West, but he helped inspire in Putin a destructive scepticism about Ukraine's status as a nation.

Meanwhile, back to the gathering of the loons ...

This is true of more than language, and it’s time to concede that not all of our experiments have been for the better. When friends across the pond say we in Europe have become authoritarian, that we’ve weakened ourselves militarily, destroyed our economies in the name of ideology, we have to have the courage to admit they’re right. They’re not saying anything new.
Here’s what Alexander Solzhenitsyn said in his Harvard address in 1978: “Europe … has of its own accord abandoned its strength and its influence on world affairs, and not just its physical influence but its intellectual influence as well. Potentially important decisions, major movements, have now begun to mature beyond the borders of Europe. How strange it all is! Since when has mighty Europe needed outside help to defend herself? At one moment she had such a surplus of strength that, while waging wars within her own boundaries and destroying herself, she was still able to seize colonies. A moment later, she suddenly found herself hopelessly weak without having lost a single major war.”

See above, and cue an endless, and endlessly destructive war on Ukraine by Vlad the sociopath.

On the pond trudged ...

There is no shame in learning from America. We’d only be learning from ourselves. Remember, the American founding fathers were born and bred in Britain, educated in British law and political philosophy, and steeped in British constitutional tradition. The arguments they used to justify independence were British arguments. They believed the British crown was violating British principles, which they fought a war to defend.

We should learn from the USA?

It seems that Konstantin didn't mind a crazy old geezer running the show ...

Many today worry about the strength of the trans-Atlantic relationship. I do not because I know that what holds us together is not just a shared history. We’re bound together by a shared destiny. The job of America is to spread the ideas of England. Liberty is one of them, but let’s be precise about what liberty actually is.

At this point the reptiles slipped in an AV distraction:

Konstantin Kisin's Opening Speech at ARC
"THE TIME IS NOW"

For once the reptiles were linking to a YouTube video, but the pond didn't feel the need, what with this already a sumptuous feast of the silly ...

Liberty matters not because it maximises individual pleasure; that is liberalism’s mistake. Liberty matters because you cannot be a responsible citizen if you’re not free. A man who does the right thing because the state compels him to is not virtuous, he’s compliant, and because of that dangerous. When the state compels him to do the wrong thing, he will comply as well.
Virtue requires choice, responsibility requires freedom and freedom requires responsibility. They’re not opposites, as the left and the new right suggest, they’re the same thing seen from different angles. The free market without moral responsibility gives you the financialisation of everything.
Freedom of speech without the courage to tell the truth gives you a cacophony of noise and no signal, and personal liberty without the understanding that freedom is for something is how you get the atomisation. We’ve kept the freedom and discarded the purpose. We must not compound the mistake by discarding freedom too.

Indeed, indeed, freedumb...

And so to the "what's it all about Alfie?" moment ...

Why are we here at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship? We did not come together because we had a clear, rigid vision of how we wanted the future to look. We came together because all of us, in our own ways, saw that our societies and our civilisation were drifting. Wherever we looked, we saw demoralisation, decline and despair.
Because we observe that we are not a society of responsible citizens. It will take decades to change that because generations of Westerners have been taught to hate their civilisation. They’ve been taught up is down and good is evil.
Everyone is by now familiar with the saying that hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men and weak men create hard times. The weak men have done their bit and the hard times are here. If you pay attention, you can hear the clamour for strength rising. It will get only louder. It is possible that we here are the strong men and women reacting to hard times and fighting back. But it is possible that our generations are the weak men and the hard times are just beginning.

The reptiles made it clear where they stood by bringing together two civilisational threats ... Tia Billinger aka Bonnie Blue; New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Those images seemed to trigger Konstantin bigly ...

If that is true our children are the ones who are going to have to do the heavy lifting. Saddled with huge debts by their irresponsible parents and grandparents, facing the most disruptive technological transformation in human history, in a deteriorating geopolitical environment, our children will face hard times. Our job, then, is to prepare them to be the strong men and women who can rebuild our civilisation. That is why we must teach them that most difficult thing: how to be radical without being extreme.
I refuse to accept the future in which our daughters vote for Zohran Mamdani and Zach Polanski, while our sons spend their days watching Bonnie Blue and Nick Fuentes. We must teach our children that the gravitational pull of the digital world is towards a society of atomised individuals.
Human connection, family and community are what sustain our humanness, and no technology will ever replace it. We must teach them that people who disagree with you about politics are human. Zoomers are seven times likelier than Boomers to believe political violence is sometimes justified. Above all, we must teach our children to separate the comforting lie from the unpleasant truth and give them the courage to want to do it.
None of these things can be taught, they can be instilled only by example, and so in the final analysis a society of responsible citizens will be brought into existence only by individuals who decide to do that thing that Jordan Peterson was brought into the world to remind us all to do: to take responsibility. Not by government diktat, not through the use of force, but by a voluntary choice exercised for the sake of not only your family and your community but that of your own soul. The fact we can do that is the beauty of our civilisation.
Konstantin Kisin is a satirist, author and co-host of the podcast Triggernometry. This is an edited extract from the speech he delivered at the Alliance of Responsible Citizenship conference.

He passes as a satirist?

But there was one sublime satirical moment.

When the pond checked the archive for the piece, there were two concluding links about Jordan that didn't work.

The pond fixed them, so that so long as the intermittent archive kept working, they could be found.

The reason?

Some blackly humorous lizard Oz sub-editor had decided to mess with Konstantin.

The first link led to a story about Jordan's breakdown ... and lordy, long absent lordy, it was a breakdown for the ages...

The second link, allegedly about taking responsibility, led to a review of his latest pile of drivel, which to say the least wasn't laudatory ...

What a sublime touch of genius on the part of some reptile determined to undercut Konstantin!

A potent satirical thrust.

And now, as the pond has mentioned Vlad the Sociopath's Russia, this from Wilcox ...

And now reptiles, please pay a little attention ... it'll only take a couple of minutes ...