loon pond

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 ...

In which a certain Stroud redeems little England, and someone must discover the laws revealing the state of being Dame Groan ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 22:12:18 +0000

The pond woke to news that Europe was in the grip of a massive heat dome, and that France had endured its hottest day on record, and that many had drowned seeking to escape the heat, and was comforted that if the lizard Oz took any notice, it would be so far down the page that none of the climate denialists would be troubled or feel the need to trot out the usual bilge.

As for the regular group of bilge spouters, fermenting like algae in a badly lined pool, the pond came away disappointed.

Dame Slap is always hit and miss.

Too often she disappears up her fundament, or contemplates her navel, or spends endless column inches whining about some justice who fails to conform to her own peculiar ideas about the legal system.

So it was again today, and so the pond had no problem confining her to the intermittent archive cornfield. The pond had the tedious duty of saving it to the archive, but better that than dealing with Dame Slap at length.

Courting politics is more than an error of judgment
NSW Supreme Chief Justice Andrew Bell seems to have fallen for the rookie judicial mistake of thinking his black robes confer greater morality on his views.
By Janet Albrechtsen
Columnist

For those tempted to wade into that festering swamp, it was just more about an internecine struggle, with the justice in question having committed a thought crime ...

Bell has publicly criticised Tony Abbott for spreading misinformation when the former PM posted that “it should not be for a judge to decide when a political protest is justified. The decision to close the Sydney Harbour Bridge to facilitate this protest is a political decision and should be made by elected and accountable ministers – who, as it happens, think the march should not go ahead.”
Bell must have known full well that there is a legitimate political debate as to whether we should empower judges to make decisions of a political nature, especially when it concerns intelligence impacting the government’s first duty to keep people safe.

Ditto the pond decided to despatch the always anal meretricious Merritt...

Non-publication order leaves reasoning in dark
Justice is meant to be seen to be done – but a District Court judge has excluded key video evidence against two former nurses while hiding his reasoning from the public.
By Chris Merritt
Legal Affairs Contributor

The reasoning was obvious enough, but the meretricious Merritt didn't like it because it left the prosecution in a bind, and how he dearly wanted a result.

The pond also decided to let go another member of the Kelly gang ...

Why ignoring Holocaust education is the worst kind of teacher activism
It is shameful that the Australian Education Union is deflecting from teaching the Holocaust by using the excuse of the Middle East conflict.
By Mike Kelly

On any other day perhaps, but this was the day that the reptiles studiously ignored yet another UN report ...per the Graudian ...

Israel continues to commit genocide by targeting children in Gaza, UN inquiry finds
Independent report says by aiming at children Israel is undermining capacity of Palestinian people to exist

Inter alia ...

The pond looks forward to the day that the reptiles run a column deploring the way that they've ignored a current, ongoing form of ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Then the pond turned to another scything ...

At this civilisational moment, we must resist sliding into cultural amnesia
Australia is one of its great success stories. The institutions that formed in this country brought the best out of people. It’s time we restitch the social fabric.
By Philippa Stroud

But then the pond stayed its hand.

It turned out that this was a loon for the ages, celebrating a gathering of loons, featuring a wondrous collage of loons as a temptation to venture further ...

The header: At this civilisational moment, we must resist sliding into cultural amnesia; Australia is one of its great success stories. The institutions that formed in this country brought the best out of people. It’s time we restitch the social fabric.

The caption for the incredible collage that lured the pond in, shamefully with no credit for the artiste responsible for this meisterwerk: A montage of ARC speakers, including Jordan Peterson, Niall Ferguson, Douglas Murray, Philippa Stroud and Tony Abbott.

The pond had the incredible pleasure recently of watching Niall Ferguson and Douglas Murray say incredibly stupid things about mad King Donald's Iran folly (Ferguson appears in the Bulwark video c. 22'35" in, Murray follows at c. 29'20"). And the pond was delighted to discover that the always addled Jordan Peterson was still considered a thing.

So the pond was more than prepared for blather about ancient Greeks, Christ and the joys of Western Civilisation, and the baroness obliged ...

Last summer, my husband and I walked the sun-bleached streets of Athens in search of the sites that built this civilisation. We climbed Pnyx Hill, the birthplace of democracy. We sought out the ruins of Plato’s Academy. We climbed the Areopagus, where the Apostle Paul first spoke the Christian message to an unresponsive city.
At each point we felt humbled as we took in the history of places that, 3000 years on, still shape how we think and what we believe. And yet something was wrong. While some of the ancient temples were awash with tourists, these places were empty. Forgotten.
Their forgottenness reflects something about our civilisation today. We have lost touch with our foundations.
We can all feel that something is not quite right. We feel it in the mental health crisis among young people from cities like Melbourne to my home city of London. We feel it in the collapse of trust in our public institutions and the fracturing of our politics. We feel it in the way our societies have lost confidence in their history and unpicked many of their core foundations.

The pond was outraged. How dare she suggest there was a forgottenness which suggested an ability to forget the wonders of the English language.

Didn't we enjoy Our Henry each Friday?

Didn't we note the odd times that he failed to mention Thucydides or some other ancient Greek?

Doesn't he offer a parade of arcane references? Are we not made civilised and whole in consequence?

The reptiles decided to torment the pond further by showing a snap of the abuser of the English language... Executive chair of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship Baroness Philippa Stroud speaking at the Aspire conference in Sydney. Jane Dempster / The Australian

It turned out that the baroness liked a bit of a scrap ...

Recent YouGov polling for The Times found that only 11 per cent of Britons aged 18-27 would fight for their country. In Australia, the equivalent figures are barely better. A majority of young people across the West are fearful about the future they are about to inherit.

The pond noted the discreet age, which conveniently put the baroness outside a call to arms, though perhaps Ukraine could use her in some capacity.

The pond decided to take a squiz at her wiki, and was surprised to see that while she did many things, not once had she decided to serve her country in the military.

Never mind, she could always issue a different, but still rousing, call to arms ...

Philosopher Os Guinness puts it like this. He says we are at a civilisational moment – a defining moment for the West, in which we have a simple choice. Will we choose to renew our foundations, or will we drift into decline?
This week, at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London, a global gathering of leaders from across the free world is laying out a blueprint for reconstruction.
Some of the most important contributions are coming from Australians.

Oh dear, not the Viktor Orbán lover and not the sucker on the Hungarian taxpayer's teat, not the rustic from Gunnedah too much time on his hands, not Bid and Danny ... but so it came to pass:

Tony Abbott is speaking on why we must have confidence in our national stories; John Anderson is speaking on what it takes to lead with character in a time of fracture; Bridget McKenzie is speaking about the fundamental importance of the family to our flourishing, and; Danny Abdullah is bringing his powerful testimony of forgiveness in the darkest times.
What does reconstruction require? It begins with getting serious about our history and our philosophical foundations. For too long our young people have been told stories of decline, and we have neglected the golden threads that run from Athens, Rome and Jerusalem to our own day. The Western story is a good story. It grounds the belief that every life has dignity, that justice is found where there is the rule of law, and that free exchange is the greatest means of unlocking abundance.

Again the pond was outraged.

Had not mad King Donald continued the noble tradition of Roman emperors by bunging on that UFC do on the White House lawns?

Was that not a grand continuation of panem et circenses? And didn't he, each day, evoke memories of the ways of the emperors, whether Tiberius or Caligula? Or perhaps the mad Queen in Alice, shouting off with their heads?

At this point the reptiles flung in another snap ...Leila and Danny Abdallah. Picture: David Swift

The pond was more interested in what followed.

As Tony Abbott’s new book underlines, Australia is one of its great success stories. The institutions that formed in this country brought the best out of people and built a nation in shared prosperity. It is a story worth celebrating.

Say what? The onion muncher has got a new book out and the pond missed it? Wait, she's probably referring to the tome that came out last year ... and which the pond luckily managed to avoid.

And so to a message of despair and malaise...

With our foundations recovered, we must restitch the social fabric – strengthening families, communities, and the bonds of responsibility that hold a free society together. The decline of marriage, the collapse of the birthrate, the loneliness epidemic, all of these are symptoms of a deeper malaise in society that requires new vision.

Fear not, you just need to sup deep on the baroness's favourite form of koolaid...

We have to return to the foundational belief that the home is the primary site of moral formation, that the family is an indispensable institution for our flourishing, and that we will get nowhere if we do not intentionally seek to build bonds of family, community and nation once more.
From here we turn to the economy. Much of the West’s sense of decline is tied to economic stagnation and a social contract that no longer holds. We must back the builders again. That means throwing off the regulatory and ideological constraints choking enterprise. It means restoring the abundant, reliable, affordable energy on which industry, prosperity and modern life depend. It means an economy in which the young can once again hope to own a home, build a business and raise a family with confidence.
Finally, we are midway through a technological revolution that will define the coming decades. Artificial intelligence, robotics and biotechnology carry extraordinary promise. They also carry profound risks. The attention economy has already weakened the mental health of a generation. AI is concentrating power in ways that could deepen inequality, not reduce it.

Could the reptiles get through without featuring a snap of the onion muncher? Not likely: Liberal Party Federal President Tony Abbott. Picture: Asanka Ratnayake / Getty Images

Sure, he resembles a mouth-opened carp, but will the reptiles ever feature a more appealing snap?

And so to the final gobbet ...

The question that must govern every decision in this space is simple. Is the technology we are building serving human flourishing, or undermining it? The challenges we face in the West are not simple, they are multi-layered, impacting culture, society and our economies: we need a blueprint for reconstruction at every level if we are to turn the ship around.
We are called the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship because we have a fundamental conviction that the answer to our greatest challenges lies at our door.
The answer, on every front, depends on people. On leaders willing to think for the long term. On parents and teachers prepared to form character. On builders and entrepreneurs willing to take risks for things worth building. On citizens who remember that a civilisation is not a possession but an inheritance, held in trust for the generation that comes next.
The West is struggling but there is still real hope. But we cannot trust the government to solve our greatest challenges. The work of reconstruction will not begin by itself. It will begin when enough of us, on both sides of the world, decide the inheritance we have been given is worth fighting for.
Baroness Philippa Stroud is the executive chair of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship. ARC is holding its 2026 conference, themed The Age of Reconstruction, in London from June 23-25.

Nah ...the pond is too busy celebrating the triumph of standalone Brexiting little England ...

Again if you don't mind...

Thank you immortal Rowe ...

No wonder they're bleating about civilisational rot in little England.

And now the pond should at least give an honourable mention to a howl of despair, a cry of pain by the bouffant one, only two minutes long, and available in full at the archive ...

Could be worse.

Thank you Ms Wilcox.

Could Pauline be the only true reptile saviour in their desperate hour of need?

And so to a truly great bonus.

At the get go, the pond should note that it was struck mightily by a correspondent's notion that there should be a Dame Groan law, or laws, up there with the series of laws designed to codify Our highly esteemed Henry's contributions to western civilisation.

The pond wondered if some aspect of Murphy's assorted laws might be made to fit...

Left to Jimbo and Albo, things tend to go from bad to worse.

If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked Jimbo and Albo.

If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the Jimbo deed that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong. Corollary: If there is a worse time for Jimbo to go wrong, it will happen then.

Whatever, this requires greater minds than the pond's sludge pit.

See if this inspires ...

Sheesh, the pond got it wrong from the get go ...

The light at the end of the tunnel is only the light of an oncoming Jacinta.

The header: Budget verdict: Victoria and Tasmania named Australia’s worst economic managers;Victoria has already sold everything it owns, Tasmania is building a stadium no one needs, and Queensland is hosting an Olympics it cannot afford.

Sadly no caption or credit for the remarkable opening image, and so the pond assumes that AI must take the credit.

The pond did wonder if the old biddy was suggesting nationalisation, what with her deploring the deep southerners for selling off everything they owned, but no such luck.

Instead what followed was a remarkable compendium of charts and figures, and while the reptiles contend it's just a four minute read, you could start and get lost forever in the figuring, but rest assured, the message is the same, "we'll all be rooned, and before Xmas no doubt":

The final whistle has sounded. The state budget season is over for another year. It’s time for the wrap-up and the awarding of prizes.
Let me be clear that I have decided to rule out Western Australia from the competition. Blessed by the extraordinary flow of revenue from royalties as well as its sweetheart GST deal, the Sandgropers are playing in another league from the other states. Western Australia will simply get the label “DNQ”.
There was a time in the early 2010s when commenting on state budgets was like describing grass growing, slowly. Net operating surpluses were delivered, capital expenditure was relatively modest, state government debt was well controlled.
These days, it’s more like watching out-of-control bushfires that have been raging since Covid took hold and, in some cases, before then – Victoria being the obvious example.
All the states apart from Western Australia are in various states of fiscal distress. Not that the politicians in charge want to admit this; but it’s the reality. The total size of the states’ debt is approaching the level of the federal government’s debt.

Every state treasurer reassures their population that everything is under control, and things are about to improve. Sure, there have been successive net operating deficits and state debt is soaring, but over the next four years – or perhaps a little later – everything will be back on an even keel. Good try, Daniel Mookhey, NSW Treasurer, but I’m not convinced.
The messaging has a strong St Augustinian ring – fiscal rectitude, but just not now. Bung in some optimistic forecasts about state output growth in the out-years and suddenly that burgeoning state government debt as a percentage of the assumed output doesn’t look that bad.
So let me start the drum-roll and begin awarding the prizes.

But not before a snap, NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey delivers the state budget on Tuesday. Picture: NewsWire / Bianca De Marchi

Now on with the prizes:

Best quote from a state treasurer: South Australian Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis: “It would be lovely to give everyone free public transport and free carparking and a puppy”, in response to the plea for cost-of-living measures. (Forget the puppy, Tom, but a dozen Veuve would be great.)
Worst fiscal performance by a state: It’s a draw between Victoria and Tasmania. Because it’s small, Tasmania is often overlooked in these competitions; it’s basically the size of a handful of suburbs in Melbourne and Sydney.
State government debt in Tasmania goes from $6.82bn this year to nearly $10bn in 2029 – the speed of this deterioration sets a new sort of depressing benchmark for that state.

This state thinks it can’t live without a wildly expensive new stadium that will be used a few times each year because it must have an Aussie rules team. The difference between want and need obviously has escaped those living in the Apple Isle.
In the case of Victoria, were it not for creative accounting in its budget papers, it would be fiscal toast. Oh, that’s right, it’s already fiscal toast, with state debt easily sailing past $200bn when you include government agencies, and everything in the state that could be sold off already flogged.
But the rating agencies, perhaps not altogether naively, think that the federal government will bail out the state. There’s quite a bit going on under the table already – the funding of the biggest white elephant of them all, the Suburban Rail Loop, for example.

Worst capital expenditure item: Obviously the SRL mentioned above is the likely winner: it’s a massively expensive boondoggle taking people between suburbs in Melbourne that no one currently travels. It’s a gift to the CFMEU to keep the high-paid jobs flowing for years to come.
But there are other contenders. Virtually all large-scale projects being undertaken in every state are overpriced and badly delayed.
The new women’s and children’s hospital in Adelaide must be approaching Taj Mahal standards given its rising cost. The completely unjustified Copper String transmission line in Queensland also makes the short list as does the exorbitant cross-river rail project in Brisbane. The cost of the Metro project in Sydney is also way over budget.

Worst pre-election bribe: Again, another tie, this time between Victoria and NSW. Who wants to pay full price for car rego? Come to either of those two states to get a discount, with the cost going on the state debt tab.
Mind you, the ongoing 50c public transport fares in Queensland probably deserve a perpetual award. If the preposterous initiative wasn’t bad enough to begin with, making it permanent is unforgivable. Forget the puppy; it’s a litter of puppies.
The worst GST deal: All the states whinge about this, well apart from Western Australia, but it’s clear that at this point, NSW is coming off worse from the divvying up of the GST revenue, receiving just above 80 per cent of what they would get on a per-capita basis.
The bigger picture here is that federal financial relations are absolutely cactus; the case for reform is overwhelming. The federal treasurer would have spent his time much better trying to fix this problem, rather than imposing a massively complex series of tax assaults on business and capital accumulation.

The biggest threat to state budgets: At this stage, it’s the slump in stamp duty revenue that will almost certainly occur from the fallout of the government’s new tax package (as well as higher interest rates) on the housing market. Note here that stamp duty revenue is more sensitive to variations in the number of transactions than the price of those transactions but both variables matter.
The state that will be most affected is NSW – stamp duty as a proportion of total revenue is highest in that state. Some downgrades have been factored in, but they may not be enough.

A final snap, Queensland Premier David Crisafulli shakes hands with Treasurer David Janetzki after he tabled the 2026-27 budget in parliament. Picture: Newswire/ Tertius Pickard

And then a final serve of doom, garnished with despair:

The Olympics impact: One of the worst decisions made by the then Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk was to “bid” for the Olympic Games in 2032, not that there were any other bidders.
The truth is that Queensland is not well-placed to bear the fiscal costs of building the necessary infrastructure for the Games. The capex component of the budget will proportionately surpass anything we have seen in the overspending southern states and that’s saying something. The feds will have no choice but to chip in well beyond the current commitment.
Watching state budget bushfires might be more exciting than watching the grass grow, but I’d settle for the quiet life any day. At this rate, I’ll be waiting a while.

Did Dame Groan get her prizes right?

And why wasn't there a prize for most gloomy brooder about economics? Surely she would have won in a canter, but what modesty, what a self-effacing scribbler she is.

After all that the pond wondered if a law would truly fit, or could possibly replace poetic insights:

While round the lizard Oz in clothes genteel
Discoursed the Groan of mark,
And each reptile squatted on their heel,
And chewed their piece of bark.

"There'll be state debt and disaster for sure, me Murdochians,
There will, without a doubt;
We'll all be rooned," said Dame Groan,
"Before the year is out."

And speaking of gloom, let the infallible Pope provide a final note, with hints of little England and bird flu on the back palate ...

A little Thiel will fix what ails ya...(see Wired in the archive for the yarn)

In which the Brexit-loving Bromancer struts his stuff, and Dame Gran does her regular Tuesday groaning ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 21:59:10 +0000

This day the Australian Daily Zionist News was in full flight ...

As a coda, Col was on hand on the extreme far right to follow the Benji line ...

Trump’s peace deal leaves no winners except Tehran
Iran has long demonstrated it will never concede its uranium enrichment program regardless of military or economic pressure.
By Colin Rubenstein
Contributor
Colin Rubenstein is executive director of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council.

He would say that, wouldn't he?

Ironically a little further down the page came ...

LIVE Iran peace talks
Iran to let nuclear inspectors in, allowed to sell oil in dollars
JD Vance says IAEA inspectors may be back in Iran from as early as this week, the US clears the way for Tehran to sell oil in dollars, including to American buyers | FOLLOW LIVE
Staff writers and agencies.

Who knows what might happen with a couch lover in charge?

One thing seems likely ... Benji misplayed his hand.

None of this had any interest for the pond, except for noting Geoff chambering another round with the need to "stop the Left’s false equivocation between antisemitism and Islamophobia".

Really? In recent times, for an atheist observing from the outside who prefers to be called conservative rather than leftist, they seem more than a fair match.

Perhaps Geoff has forgotten that back in 2019 it was an Australian who conducted a massacre in a Christchurch mosque with a body count of 51 dead, 89 injured, 40 by gunfire, a total which shades the Bondi massacre, not that this is a competition to be celebrated.

And when you consider the current ethnic cleansing being conducted by the current government of Israel, it seems like a dedicated attempt to match the behaviour of the mad mullahs towards their own people in Iran, not that this is a competition to be celebrated.

But more than enough already, because the pond watched live the teary farewell of Sir Keir, and knew that the reptiles would pay some attention.

It's truly remarkable to be able to chew through so many PMs in so few years, and then to have a blow in from the north take on the job with no preliminaries, and no desire to call an election to confirm his legitimacy, despite having abused Rishi Sunak for his failure on that score.

The reptiles called on the malignant Magnay to have several says ...

UK leadership race
Starmer resigns as British PM, Burnham set to run unopposed
Sir Keir will remain in the job until a new Labour leader is chosen, with Wes Streeting withdrawing from the contest and backing hot favourite Andy Burnham.
By Jacquelin Magnay

Keir was a dud prime minister but the country’s pain will only continue
Keir Starmer will be remembered as one of the worst British prime ministers in recent history but his resignation will usher in a period of tumult.
By Jacquelin Magnay
Europe Correspondent

That was all very well, and Magnay conformed to the reptile agenda, but the pond was of course compelled by the bromancer's take, a man with an almost infinite, Boris-like capacity for getting it wrong.

The header: Brexit gave Britain the freedom to succeed. It’s bad government that’s let it down; Countless faux experts claim that Brexit has cost Britain millions, billions, trillions. Name your figure. It’s complete eyewash.
The caption for a shameless liar who shamelessly misled the country, and how satisfying he should set the tone for this bromancer outing: Boris Johnson wears boxing gloves emblazoned with “Get Brexit Done”. Picture: Frank Augstein / AFP

The bromancer spent a bigly four minutes peddling assorted big lies, dancing on sundry graves by peddling hogwash about the benefits of Brexit.

Say what you will, when the bromancer is wildly in error, he sticks to his gun with the rigid stupidity that would have made him a dead cert as an advisor to Boris, or perhaps these days, Nige ...

The 10th anniversary of the Brexit vote – when Britain left the EU – celebrates one of the most joyous, hopeful events in the modern history of Western civilisation. It was, and is, a mark of national and democratic maturity. It’s one of the most brilliant and inspiring moments of real democracy, by which I mean not only a decision arrived at by a majority vote but a people determined to regain and keep control, to exercise self-determination and accept all the responsibility that goes with that.
Of course, there’s a paradox. Britain has been very badly governed for the past 10 years, as Keir Starmer’s defenestration richly demonstrates. As I wrote last weekend, it’s appallingly governed now. But Brexit means when British politics finally gets around to tackling its problems, its institutions have the national freedom to do so effectively.

One of the key problems is that the bromancer routinely talks to the wrong people, and he seems to be doing that in spades in his current trip to Old Blighty.

The Moggster, long an irrelevance, will always take the time to talk to any passing colonial dropkick willing to listen, and so it came to pass with the bromancer's return to his spiritual home...

Jacob Rees-Mogg, one of the architects of Brexit and a senior minister in Boris Johnson’s government, does not remotely deny the failures of the last Conservative government. He lists them for me: too much Covid lockdown, too much legal immigration when people wanted it cut, too much illegal immigration, too much tax, not being conservative enough.
But he says of Johnson: “In Brexit, he delivered the most important constitutional reform in Britain in centuries. It was fundamentally important. It restored democratic control to parliament.”

All nonsense, drivel as pure as a heated English summer of course, and as a distraction, the reptiles slipped in a snap: Keir Starmer speaks to members of the media on the sidelines of the G7 summit. Picture: Isabel Infantes / Getty Images

The bromancer carried on like a pork chop just as the British government is trying to undo the Brexit damage and sidle up to the EU - what with mad King Donald on the loose - see the Beeb's A decade on from Brexit, the new PM has big calls to make on Europe

Europe might be a bit of a mess, but there isn't any joy across the Atlantic, as Keir discovered to his cost, but inevitably the bromancer wasn't having any of it ...

Countless faux experts claim that Brexit has cost Britain millions, billions, trillions. Name your figure. It’s complete eyewash. Folks who discount sovereignty and want Britain, as they want other nations, tightly bound in undemocratic rules of undemocratic internationalist Frankensteins such as the EU predicted instant economic collapse for Britain the minute it left the EU.
No such thing happened. All the claimed economic costs of Brexit are similarly fatuous.
Let’s subject the claims to the most elementary empirical test. How have comparable European economies such as France and Germany gone in the past 10 years? They had what the eurocrats would regard as the incomparable benefits of continued EU membership while Britain did not.
In fact, over the past 10 years, the French and German economies have fared worse than the British economy. Starmer, on most measures, is the most unpopular man to have been UK prime minister. Yet he was less unpopular than Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Germany and President Emmanuel Macron in France.

The pond realises that the bromancer has no head for figures, and so decided a little trolling wouldn't hurt, and so reverted to the Graudian's celebration of the tenth anniversary of the folly:

How Brexit has made Britain poorer – in charts
Forecasters were wrong about an immediate recession but right that we would be worse off outside the EU
Richard Partington Senior economics correspondent

There were many graphs and much data, including ...

There are none so deaf as those determined not to hear.

Strangely, looking at that graph was more appealing than looking at the interrupting snap of Jacob Rees-Mogg...

Rather than delve into the data, the bromancer preferred rhetoric of the bro kind:

So all these incomparable, unbearable, debilitating, self-inflicted, monstrous, illogical, populist, ruinous, self-destructive costs of Brexit have ended up with Britain amazingly doing better than France and Germany despite all their (substitute similar cliches, but positive) benefits of continuing EU membership.
Could the cause of success and failure over the past decade actually reside instead in the content of government policy?
Brexit didn’t guarantee good government, it provided the opportunity for good government. Some of that has come about for Britain, such as free trade agreements with the US, India and Australia. Freedom to manoeuvre on tariffs. A more flexible policy on artificial intelligence than the eurosclerotic behemoth could ever deliver.
But on the biggest things, of course, the British government is not delivering.

Dear sweet long absent lord of delusion, the free trade agreement with the US? The pond wants whatever the bromancer is on ...and hopes he doesn't do a search for the benefits, or it might depress him...

As for India and Australia, what a hoot. Freedom to manoeuvre with King Donald on tariffs? Good luck with that. And a chance to lie down and be screwed by AI? Wonders will never cease.

The reptiles next interrupted with a snap of a man who, having helped introduce the ruinous Brexit, is now making plans to ruin little England some more...Nigel Farage celebrates and poses for photographers at Brexit

The bromancer went on a big rhetorical jag, what with welfare wastrels and Covid, as if Boris didn't have anything to do with any of that ...

Famously, Andy Burnham just won a big victory for the Labour Party, and for himself, in the Makerfield by-election. On the same day, Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives took a House of Commons seat from the Scottish National Party, which was the Conservatives’ first big win under Badenoch. In yet another by-election, the SNP held a seat, with the Conservatives, not Labour or Reform, coming second. If Burnham actually believes some of the things he said in victory, Britain is in for years more of terrible government and deepening crisis. In courting popularity, Burnham is saying yes to everybody and promising everybody more goodies. But the simple reality is that Britain is broke.
Bizarrely, Burnham attributes this to 40 years of, allegedly, Thatcherism, neoliberalism, austerity, privatisation and deregulation. Frankly, that analysis is hallucinogenic.
More than half of all British households now receive more in welfare than they pay in tax. The welfare system is totally out of control. Far from being neoliberal, the budget is in vast, chronic deficit. In May, the government borrowed more than £23bn ($43.4bn), more than half of which was to service the interest on existing debt.
Under Covid lockdowns, the country squandered hundreds of billions of pounds. No one in politics opposed this and no one was prepared to tell the British people that at some stage it would all have to be paid back.

The reptiles decided to put up snaps of the two likely contenders, though really Kemi's party is working hard to be completely irrelevant ...Andy Burnham; Kemi Badenoch

The bromancer kept on resorting to the usual suspects ... uppity furriners, Covid and welfare wastrels, thereby suggesting a limited palate, but when you have a litany, best stick with it...

One reason for the huge immigration spike after Covid was that the government effectively thought the British people, or some millions of them anyway, had lost interest in working. There’s some empirical evidence for that dolorous reflection. Almost everyone you encounter working in London hotels and restaurants comes from overseas, while there are a million young Brits involved in neither employment nor education or training. That, surely, is social and policy failure.
The long and badly managed fallout of Covid, massive government expenditure, debt and transfer payments, net-zero policies producing the most expensive energy in the world – these are infinitely more the causes of Britain’s travails than the fictional “neoliberalism”, much less “austerity”, of Burnham’s imagination.
One aspect of the three by-elections was fascinating – the degree of tactical voting.
In Britain’s first-past-the-post system, if you vote for a candidate who doesn’t come first or second your vote is wasted. Under Australia’s preferential voting system you get a second chance.

Inevitably the Nige/Reform curious bromancer put in a good word for the habitual liar, who doesn't mind scoring the odd five million quid from a filthy rich donor, and then staying mum about it...
British voters are becoming adept at tactical voting. A habitual Liberal-Democrat voter might vote Labour to defeat the Conservative, a Conservative voter might vote Reform to defeat Labour. The demonisation of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK may well lead to tactical voting to keep it out in many electorates. (That may apply to One Nation in Australia.)
Overall it makes the next British election very hard to pick. More than ever before it will have the character of 650 by-elections.
Neo-liberalism is a ludicrously fictitious bogeyman. Brexit means any government has the policy power to fix the nation’s problems.
Will it have the courage, competence and grip to do so? That’s the question, just as it should be. The whole world can thank Brexit for that happy outcome.
Greg Sheridan is The Australian’s foreign editor.

Thank Brexit, thank that fraud Boris? Only in the bromancer's alternative bizarro world ...

Why was the pond reminded of the current state of play down under?

Reform, One Nation, King Donald, peas in a bromancer pod.

On the deregulation front, the departure of the man responsible for inspiring the 2008 financial disaster was well down the page...and then it had to be borrowed from the WSJ ...

Obituary
Former US Fed chairman Alan Greenspan dies at 100
Alan Greenspan, a rock-star Fed chairman whose legacy was dimmed by the financial crisis, dies at age 100
The ‘maestro’ rivalled the US president for global influence. But his faith in financial markets’ ability to police themselves became an Achilles’ heel.
By Nick Timiraos

Bizarrely Dame Slap was also on the regulatory case. It's a few days old, but better noted than never ...

Why did KPMG behave so recklessly? ‘Because it could’
A disastrous 30-year-old law shielded accounting firms from liability, creating the toxic moral hazard behind the KPMG scandal.
By Janet Albrechtsen

Relax, it's all about being woke, what with unreconstructed greed passing as woke these days in the hive mind, but what better way could be found to introduce Dame Groan's regular Tuesday rant about us all being rooned by Xmas?

The header: Treasury was once the premier agency for economic counsel. Not any longer; Was Jim Chalmers the principal villain or was it the faulty advice provided by inexperienced, bungling Treasury officials?

There was no caption for the snap, but that's because everyone in the hive mind knows who these downcast/grim looking villains are ...

Dame Groan was in feisty form, ready for a full four minutes of abuse, and didn't get past the first sentence before she rolled out "fiasco":

It’s hard to know who to blame for the rolling budget fiasco. Was Jim Chalmers the principal villain or was it the faulty advice provided by inexperienced, bungling Treasury officials? Probably the answer is a bit of both.
Treasury would be fully aware that Labor doesn’t like small businesses, which are incapable of being unionised. There are no downsides to recommending measures that harm them, if only inadvertently. Labor also distrusts most small business owners. Are they just doing what they’re doing to rip off the tax system? Do they treat their workers in the same way as big business?
So, when Treasury officials recommended that the capital gains tax changes be broadened beyond housing to include all capital gains, including those made by small business owners, the Treasurer would have seen this as an attractive option. The addition to revenue would be very welcome and he could crow about reducing tax for working Australians – OK, by only $250 in over a year’s time.
Treasury’s effective dismissal of the additional compliance costs of the indexation method – 14 steps are required to calculate liabilities – is one thing. But its support for what will become one of the highest CGT rates in the world is another thing altogether.

How to sooth the hive mind after rolling out those disasters? Show a snap of Petey boy: Peter Costello arrives at the 30th Anniversary of the Howard Government. Picture: The Australian / Nadir Kinani

Dame Groan was ropeable at sundry students who'd failed to absorb her teaching:

I’ve said it before, but let’s be clear – this new proposed method of CGT calculation is not a reversion to the Keating method. There was no 30 per cent minimum tax, a very onerous burden, and averaging over five years was allowed then but not now.
One important issue that a genuine economist would have picked up is the suitability of the consumer price index as the factor to be used for indexation. In fact, it is completely unsuitable, with a much more defensible index being the long-term government bond rate. It was used in Wayne Swan’s ill-fated mining tax calculation, the one aspect of that tax that the government of the day got right.
What a CGT should be trying to capture is the surplus above the risk-adjusted return given the nature of small business activity. The preferred route at this stage would be to stick with the CGT discount method, both because of its incredibly low compliance costs and the fact it is widely understood. Its bias towards high-growth assets is a good thing; it’s not a defect.
Let’s not forget that the discount method was introduced after thorough investigation by the 1999 business tax review commissioned by treasurer Peter Costello and led by John Ralph, culminating in a report of several hundred pages. Those were the days. Labor fully supported the change.
Now if the 50 per cent discount was deemed to be too high, there was always the option of reducing it, say to 40 per cent or 35 per cent. In fact, this is one of the proposals that had been widely floated by the busy advocates of tax reform, including MP Allegra Spender.

Oh dear, not Allegra, that'll send Dame Groan right off: Allegra Spender. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

It might be worse ...

Thank the long absent lord, Dame Groan never worries about the big picture.

Instead she was so exasperated she had to resort to dot points:

What is likely to emerge is a hotchpotch of different arrangements, including the immensely bureaucratic (proposed) Innovative Business CGT Concession. Businesses that meet the criteria for this scheme will be able to stick to the 50 per cent discount on CGT, although there is a lifetime cap on the benefit achievable.
But check out the ludicrous list to qualify.

The company must be genuinely focused on developing one or more new or significantly improved innovations for commercialisation.
The business relating to that innovation must have a high growth potential.
The company must demonstrate that it has the potential to be able to successfully scale up that business.
The company must demonstrate that it has the potential to be able to address a broader than local market, including global markets, through that business.
The company must demonstrate that it has the potential to be able to have competitive advantages for that business.

Shocking stuff and Dame Groan was in despair...

Companies must meet these criteria when equity is first raised, but the assessment by the Australian Taxation Office of whether the tests are met does not occur until the capital gain is realised. If this is the lauded carve-out for start-ups, it’s a joke. In the meantime, other small businesses can just put up with the onerous and costly new CGT rules, even with the enhanced concessions.
Chalmers also would be wise just to drop the changes to the taxation of trusts, having been forced to back away from his bizarre attack on discretionary testamentary trusts. It is estimated that about 400,000 small businesses are set up as trusts and the imposition of a minimum 30 per cent tax will force many of them to the wall. This is made worse by the double taxing of bucket companies that often are set up by businesses in association with discretionary trusts.
As for the naive advice offered up in the budget papers that small businesses currently set up as trusts should simply restructure as companies, the cost of doing so is basically overlooked. The payment of stamp duty to state governments alone will make this route impossible for many small businesses.

Just to compound Dame Groan's grief, the reptiles insisted on a snap of the Cold Chisel man, Labor Party President Wayne Swan

Dammit, enough of that working class nonsense, let's hear it for those rich enough to be able to construct a trust to hide their wealth:

It’s worth noting that many discretionary trusts distribute funds to charities and not-for-profit organisations. This option will be effectively destroyed by a 30 per cent minimum tax, to be initially collected by the trustee and distributed to beneficiaries on a non-refundable basis.
There’s no obvious solution to making charities tax-exempt from trust distributions, although a way out may have been found in respect of realised capital gains.
One of the most depressing aspects of the past several weeks has been the obvious decline in the professional capacity of the Treasury to offer well-informed and economically sensible advice.
Once upon a time, Treasury was the premier agency for excellent economic counsel; not any longer. Mind you, if you head to Treasury’s website, you will learn about the Inclusion and Diversity Strategy 2023-2028, “where difference is celebrated and used to activate innovative ideas, policies and practices”.
It doesn’t extend to ensuring that Treasury officials are fully prepared to answer questions from senators. But evidently within Treasury, “diversity, wellbeing and integrity are embedded in a supportive culture that enables people to thrive”.
It’s just a pity there is not more focus on having the most capable and experienced people providing the highest quality advice to the benefit of all Australians.

Oh dear, the pond knows who that is, and what a pity Dame Groan didn't make it clearer:

It’s just a pity there is not more focus on having the most capable and experienced people, like me, the most fair and experienced groaner in the land, providing the highest quality advice to the benefit of all Australians.

Fixed it.

The pond trusts that the usual suspects enjoyed this outing ... as David Rowe turned up to help celebrate the latest twist in the little England saga ...

Is there no end to entertaining circuses?

In which the pond celebrates the swishing Switzer celebrating mad King Donald, and the Major worshipping at the feet of Pauline ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 21 Jun 2026 21:59:38 +0000

King Donald's negotiating style resembles the Mafia ...

In short, if you don't agree to my deal, I'm gunna kill ya. Or nice country, pity I have to do some stuff to it again.

Of course there other mysteries arising from his crazed social media outings...

Trump baffles internet with picture of woman and message of ‘great daughter’ - but nobody is sure who she is; The 80-year-old president raised eyebrows after sharing an image of a mysterious blonde woman on Truth Social (The Independent)

And then there was this with Faux Noise ...

...In a 20-minute phone call with Fox News, which revealed his sensitivity to the criticism being directed at him by Republicans and Democrats alike, he said: “We may take over the strait, if we have to. If they don’t make a deal, we’ll collect tolls.”
Referring to the strait, he appeared to threaten to kidnap the Iranian negotiators, saying: “You close it and you won’t have a country. You won’t even make it back to your f*cking country.”
The US president’s threat led to a formal protest by the Iranians to the mediators, and a demand that what they described as his “bullying” was brought under control.
At the talks in Switzerland, Vance played down the impact of violence in Lebanon, saying progress had been made towards ending hostilities there. “These things are always a little bit messy,” he said. (Graudian).

Messy? Like a horse's head on the silk sheets?

Great stuff.

What the reptiles need is some brave soul, brimming with idiocy, to paint a noble picture of the mad King.

Who better than the swishing Switzer?

The header: Trump’s critics must ask: if not this peace deal, then what? Trump deserves credit not for starting this war but for recognising the costs of pressing on were likely to exceed the benefits.

The caption for a snap celebrating yet another remarkably corrupt deal: President Donald Trump speaks after touring the newly designated Air Force One presidential aircraft. Picture: Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP Photo

Trust the swishing Switzer to swim against the tide ...

Donald Trump’s decision to sign a memorandum of understanding ending hostilities with Iran has infuriated many of his strongest supporters. From Andrew Bolt on Sky News Australia to Israeli commentators, neo-conservative voices such as John Podhoretz and the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, the verdict is much the same: Trump has struck a bad deal that weakens US credibility, abandons Israel, unsettles America’s Sunni Gulf partners and allows the Islamic Republic to survive another day.
Whether the memorandum ultimately survives political opposition in Tehran, Washington and Jerusalem remains to be seen. Already, Iran says it has closed the Strait of Hormuz once again in response to Israel’s continued strikes on southern Lebanon. Whether those attacks constitute a breach of Tehran’s understanding with Washington is contested.

Actually whether the memorandum ultimately survives the mad King's interventions might be more to the point, but perhaps the swishing Switzer was scribbling before the latest folly. Even then, he should have known, what with the mad King's determination to keep his feud with Moroni bubbling along, and sundry other fits of madness:

What is clear is that the latest confrontation is a reminder of how fragile the situation remains in the Persian Gulf and how uncertain the prospects are for a durable peace.
Still, credit where it’s due: Trump is right to try to end a war he never should have launched. His angry critics insist the memorandum gives away too much. They may be right. But what, precisely, was the alternative?

What an expert bout of meaningless blather, and the reptiles interrupted with a snap to remind the hive mind of the winners, Iranians hold pictures of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Picture: Atta Kenare / AFP

What was the alternative? Wasn't it total surrender, regime change and freedumb for Iranians/

Nah, it was threaten to renew the bombing, as the swishing Switzer tried to sweep up the mess...

A renewed bombing campaign simply would have returned Washington to a strategy that already had fallen well short of its stated objectives. Iran’s regime remained in power. Its nuclear program had been damaged but not eliminated. Its ballistic missile capability survived and its regional proxy network, though weakened, remained intact.
Why should anyone believe another round of airstrikes would suddenly have produced a fundamentally different result? More to the point, how long would that campaign have continued before Washington concluded the costs outweighed the diminishing prospect of success?
Neither would the costs have been confined to the battlefield. Another sustained campaign would have consumed scarce American precision munitions when many strategists remain focused on the Indo-Pacific, where the region does face a genuine threat to US primacy – namely China.
More important, military escalation almost certainly would have invited another round of Iranian retaliation against Gulf energy infrastructure and commercial shipping. Tehran cannot conventionally match US military power. But the past several months have demonstrated that it retains the capacity to impose enormous economic costs by threatening the Strait of Hormuz and disrupting energy flows across the Gulf.
Give Trump credit for recognising this reality. His recent comments, however weird, suggest an appreciation that continued escalation carried unacceptable economic and strategic risks.
Critics argue the agreement leaves Iran free to threaten Israel’s existence. That overstates the case. Whatever one thinks of the Islamic Republic – and there is little to admire – its conduct generally has reflected strategic calculation rather than a desire for direct unconstrained war with the US or Israel.
Remember on three occasions in the past two years – October 2024, June last year and February this year – it was Israel or the US, or both, that attacked Iran, the last two occasions during negotiations.
Faced with overwhelming military superiority, Tehran typically has sought calibrated retaliation and deterrence rather than national suicide.
Some argue Washington should simply have tightened sanctions and waited for the regime to buckle. But economic coercion is rarely an instrument of rapid political change, especially against governments that regard the struggle as existential.
None of this diminishes the brutality of the Iranian regime or the threat posed by its regional proxies. The question is whether further military escalation would have advanced Western interests.

What a question, still being posed:

Sorry, the reptiles preferred to drag Obama and Joe into the mess ...Barack Obama, standing with Joe Biden, delivers remarks in the East Room of the White House, November 2015. Picture: Andrew Harnik / AFP

And so did Switzer:

Critics also argue that Trump’s agreement is little better than the Obama administration’s 2015 nuclear deal, which Trump abandoned three years later. Yet, with the benefit of hindsight, was the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action really such a failure?
Under that agreement, Iran broadly observed restrictions on uranium enrichment throughout the remainder of the Obama presidency and into Trump’s first term.
It was only after Washington withdrew from the accord in 2018 that Tehran progressively abandoned those constraints, enriching uranium to levels approaching weapons grade. Whatever the shortcomings of the original agreement, it had succeeded in imposing meaningful limits on Iran’s nuclear program. Those constraints steadily unravelled after Washington walked away.
Why be so coy? It wasn't "Washington" that withdrew and walked away. It was mad King Donald, in a fit of pique, envy and resentment, and in a style which routinely marks his narcissistic negotiating skills.

Somehow this malevolent stupidity gets transformed into a form of "statesmanship" by the swishing Switzer:

Statesmanship sometimes consists not in beginning wars but in recognising when their original objectives have become unattainable. Trump deserves credit not for starting this conflict but for recognising that the costs of pressing on were likely to exceed the benefits.
His harshest critics have yet to answer the most important question of all: if not this imperfect peace, then what?
The broader lesson extends well beyond Trump. From Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan, the US repeatedly has discovered that overwhelming military superiority does not necessarily translate into lasting political success. Iran may yet become another chapter in that long and sobering history.

Tom Switzer is presenter of the Switzerland podcast.

The pond looks forward to the swishing Switzer's next opus, wherein he explains that the real reason for the reflecting pool folly isn't King Donald hiring a corrupt, incompetent mate (and felon) for the job, but the work of treasonous conspirators.

The pond must pause to celebrate the feudin' and fussin' with the immortal Rowe ...

The lizard Oz editorialist also had a stab at the matter, preferring the use of "illusive" rather than "elusive"...

He mustn't give in to Tehran's tactics?

What else? Well the jihad on Jimbo and Albo continues...

EXCLUSIVE
Vanishing investors a steep price: warning as housing buckles
Labor should address business concerns on budget, CEDA declares
An early champion of Labor’s CGT package has joined industry groups warning the tax overhaul could destroy jobs and slow wage growth, as the housing market shows signs of falling.
By Greg Brown and Ben Wilmot

And the jihad on the ABC was also flourishing...

EXCLUSIVE
‘Ideological capture’: Despite praise, ABC rejects Sall Grover opinion piece
After 37 emails, three drafts and three weeks of negotiations, the ABC rejected Sall Grover’s opinion piece on sex-based rights – without ever revealing the ‘inaccuracies’ it cited.
By Rachel Baxendale

Luckily the intermittent archive was working, so the pond could move on and not indulge the transphobia ... only for the pond to decide that the quarry whisperer whining away could be given the same cornfield treatment ...

Jim’s budget retreat is just another ALP whiteboard disaster
Chalmers’ budget reforms are not an aberration. They are the product of a corrupted public policy process.
By Nick Cater
Columnist

A teaser trailer would suffice ...

It was the sight of the floodwater in quarries Caterist posing as a hands-on carpenter - as opposed to being a loon who makes his living sheltering in a lobby group and occasionally turning up in print - that made the pond seek other entertainment.

There's only so much carry on about the budget that anyone should be made to suffer and the pond is well over it ...

But then the pond couldn't even get excited by simpleton Simon indulging in a seance, and bringing back a ghost to haunt the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way ...

‘Good policy is nothing if you don’t win the politics’
Has the Liberal Party forgotten that it is in the business of politics?
By Simon Benson

A teaser trailer showing the haunted one, and the ghoulish spectre haunting him with advice - a spectre who in his time was a singularly incompetent, ABC-obsessed politician - was more than enough ...

Lordy, long absent lordy, they really do hate the beefy boofhead, but resorting to grave digging of this kind was a form of abuse that almost gave the pond some sympathy for the windmill hater. Almost ...

And that just left the Major, doing what he does best, celebrating Pauline's remarkably affinity with the policies of the lizard Oz ...

The header: How media attacks and establishment sneering are fuelling One Nation’s resurgence; Journalists attacking Hanson’s National Press Club speech on radical Islam and multiculturalism are fuelling the very One Nation surge they seek to stop.

The caption for the snap that suggested the Major would carry on his Zionist duties for the Australian Daily Zionist News: A mourner lights candles as people gather around floral tributes outside Bondi Pavilion in Sydney in December 2025 to honour victims of the Bondi Beach shooting. It’s clear the real spurt to Pauline Hanson’s political fortunes was the murder of 15 people at Bondi Beach. Picture: David Gray/AFP

The Major was fully on board at the outrageous suggestion that the media should take a look at Pauline's policies, and her routine, barely concealed dog-whistling racism.

Why such policies and poses were entirely lizard Oz approved and as pure as the driven snow ...

Oh Crikey's Wanning Sun might carp ...

A room of cowed journalists legitimised Pauline Hanson. It’s proof she’s muzzled the watchdog
Rather than challenge the premise of Pauline Hanson’s press club speech with questions about its contents, reporters looked the other way. It proved we’re dealing with a new type of journalism. (sorry, paywall, but the header says it all.

... but the Major would have none of it.

After all, Pauline was just doing right by the lizard Oz, and by golly the Major would do right by her...

Journalists who imagine One Nation supporters don’t understand politics and policy need to get out more.
This column has spent the past fortnight in a National Party seat on the NSW mid-north coast and has asked many people of different backgrounds about One Nation.
One woman explained why she and her husband had donated twice to the One Nation’s “Fire the Liar” ad campaign that raised $4m in less than a week.
Asked why she would support a party that had only two federal Lower House members, former Nationals leader and ex-deputy PM Barnaby Joyce and new MP for Farrer David Farley, the woman – who has always voted Coalition – said she wanted a party that reflected her views.
She spoke about immigration, multiculturalism, renewables and gender ideology – the main subjects of One Nation leader Pauline Hanson’s National Press club speech two days later last Wednesday.
“Listen, the Coalition are no better than Labor on these issues. Just look at renewables. John Howard introduced the RET in his last term and went to the Rudd election (in 2007) with an emissions trading scheme just like Rudd did,” the woman said.
“Tony Abbott ratified our commitment to the Paris agreement. Turnbull had us up for $40bn on Snowy 2.0, and Morrison committed to net zero by 2050. How are they better than (Climate Change Minister) Chris Bowen?”
The details of her assessment were correct.
This column reckons much of the activist media class misunderstands One Nation supporters. People moving to One Nation know exactly what they do and don’t want.
Like populist movements in the US and the UK, they are part of a backlash against the censorious sneering of the political establishment, freed by Donald Trump’s rejection of woke pieties on immigration, gender and climate.
In Australia, they may not approve of Trump’s handling of world affairs, but they feel they can now speak openly against foolish ideology in favour of common sense.
Journalists Sarah Ferguson on the ABC’s 7.30 on Wednesday and Sally Sara on Radio National breakfast on Thursday railed against Hanson’s words on radical Islam, multiculturalism, speaking English at home, criticism of late-term abortion and support for biological truth over gender ideology.
The pair is only helping One Nation – just as surely as GetUp!’s stunt of unfurling an anti-Hanson poster in the middle of her speech at the National Press Club in Canberra helped her.

The reptiles offered a brief moment of comedy ...A banner was unfurled behind Pauline Hanson during her National Press Club speech, and right GetUp media lead David Sharaz. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire

A reminder. How to discuss Islam in a meaningful way, aka reptile style...

That snap courtesy The Economist story ..

Australia’s hard right is resurgent
It includes actual Nazis

...Today, one in three people in Australia was born overseas—millions of them in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. So Ms Hanson’s dressing-up games do not reflect the concerns of middle Australia. Moreover, the country’s system of preferential voting would seem to present a big obstacle to the One Nation party ever forming a government, even if its fortunes continue to improve. That contrasts with Britain’s first-past-the-post system, whereby the prospect of a once fringe party such as Reform UK one day taking office is starting to look very real.
Yet it is becoming ever more clear that the ideology of “White Australia” still appeals to a sizeable number of Aussies. Officials sound worried about violence: the head of Australia’s spy agency says that the majority of terror threats it investigated last year involved racist or nationalist ideologies. This is hardly the time for Australia’s squabbling centrists to be needlessly giving up ground.

Sorry, the Major ain't a squabbling centrist.

He's a celebratory far right loon, and he intends to keep on playing that dog anxious to catch that Pauline car routine ...

A federal election is still two years away. Hanson’s ascendance may continue or falter, as it has many times over the 30 years since she entered politics.
Polling is not predictive. Most polling six months before last year’s May election had Peter Dutton in a winning position.
Hanson admitted her party would need to face media scrutiny as its support grew. But scrutiny is not the same as adversarial political activism by reporters.
Hanson, Joyce and One Nation campaign boss James Ashby are taking their operation to a new level. The production values and cut-through in One Nation’s latest two-minute ad, widely shared on Facebook, is better than any the major parties have put out.
And despite all the cogent economic analysis from pollsters and political editors about the effects of the cost-of-living crisis on working class Australians, it’s clear the real spurt to Hanson’s political fortunes was the murder of 15 people at Bondi Beach in December during a celebration of Hanukkah.
The massacre makes up the entire first part of the new One Nation ad, and it’s powerful. The implication is clear – this attack is the fruit of multiculturalism and high migration.
Australians, Hanson said, should be able to discuss radical Islamism. Yet such discussions are seldom had openly, even though they have been in Europe for more than a decade.
ABC global affairs editor Laura Tingle on December 16 told her colleague Patricia Karvelas on the Politics Now podcast that the actions of the Bondi gunmen had “nothing to do with religion”.

Ah, there comes the Zionism, even though it might be argued that a mass slaughter of anyone hardly conforms to a sensible reading of religious texts (except of course for the Crusades, which were entirely necessary and justified).

The reptiles followed up with two snaps contrasting distilled essence of ABC cardigan wearing evil, and distilled essence of bottled red-headed innocence: Laura Tingle, the ABC's global affairs editor. Picture: X; Pauline Hanson at the National Press Club. Picture: Hilary Wardhaugh/Getty Images

Why it's just like those tatts on Robert Mitchum's (and De Niro's) hands, "Love"and "Hate", sadly reduced to "Wait" and "Full" on Javier Bardem's hands in the latest Cape Fear.

The Major reverted to standard reptile fear and loathing of furriners ... one of the lizard Oz's favourite jihads, and with Pauline taking up their policy, what's not to like?

Months earlier ASIO boss Mike Burgess had warned that the war in Gaza was firing up Muslim anger online, especially among young males.
Many journalists have tried to deny the link between high immigration, high house prices and housing shortages. Common sense tells voters the link is obvious.
Hanson on Wednesday repeated figures this column published on April 26 – a third of Australians today are born overseas. In the US, the figure is 14 per cent.
Labor had promised to regain control of immigration but many in the media see the debate as code for right wing racism. Yet many on the left, including former NSW Labor premier Bob Car and the Greens political party, have long advocated for lower immigration.

This newspaper and The Australian Financial Review have been almost alone in explaining why governments, Labor and Coalition, back high migration and why it hurts ordinary Australians.

Indeed, indeed ...

Federal Treasury uses migration to maintain the illusion of GDP growth. Neither the Coalition nor Labor have been able to lift productivity for a decade to ensure real growth in per capita terms. Australians feel poorer because in GDP per capita terms, they are.
The Albanese government uses huge federal spending, indiscriminate cash handouts and underwriting of private-sector wages in aged and child care to hide the fact. Australians sense this is only fuelling inflation and making workers poorer as interest rates rise.

In every reptile story of this kind, a comical picture of Albo is a necessity, and again the lizards of Oz graphics department carried out their duty ...Anthony Albanese. His government uses huge federal spending, indiscriminate cash handouts and underwriting of private-sector wages in aged and child care to hide the lack of real per capita growth. Picture: NewsWire / Nikki Short

The Major continued his unctuous celebration of pandering to Pauline...

Redbridge Group pollster Kos Samaras wrote before the last election and long before One Nation’s recent rise of the feeling among the working poor, especially Gen Xers, that government is not working for them.
This column on May 31 quoted former Labor senator, now political demographer, John Black, arguing Labor was no longer the party of the working class. Like the teals in former Coalition seats, Labor targets wealthy city voters. Hence childcare support for families earning up to $532,000.
All this opens the door for One Nation.
In The Australian on Thursday, former Treasury assistant secretary David Pearl wrote the best analysis of Hanson’s speech: “She said that just as ‘every attempt has been made to silence me in Australia’ people have been frightened to speak up.
“People have been ‘demeaned and condescended to’ and ‘civil debate has been paralysed’ Hanson said, with the media being complicit.”
History proves his point.
Discussing the media’s handling of Hanson, this column on February 8 examined that the previous One Nation high-water mark was in the Queensland state election in June 1998, when Hanson was the federal member for the seat of Oxley. One Nation won 24 per cent of the vote and 11 state seats – five from the Coalition and six from Labor.

Some day the reptiles will discover what it's like to catch the Pauline car ...

And if you find a comical picture of Albo, you must find an alluring picture of Pauline, dressed in a flag in a way that sends the adoring hive mind into a frenzy... Pauline Hanson launches her One Nation party in Ipswich in her Queensland electorate. Picture: Nathan Richter

The Major ended by celebrating "thoughtful journalists", aka reptiles, who'd give Pauline every break she wanted ...

The Courier-Mail was leaked the nightly Labor poll track in the final campaign week.
The tracking showed two enormous bumps in One Nation support after aggressive national interviews by Ray Martin and Maxine McKew. Labor won the election with the support of independents, ousting a first-term Coalition government.
The more thoughtful journalists at the Press Club seemed to sense that attack would only help One Nation.
Scrutiny is fair. Finger-pointing accusations of racism not so much.

Same as it ever was. She's been a racist on the public record since the day John Howard kicked her out, and she's still a racist, as are many Australians and as is the lizard Oz, with its relentless persecution of furriners, but the Major reckons we should stay shtoom about it?

Nah, that's how terrifying monsters (and bullies) work ...

Meanwhile, let confusion reign ...

In which the pond is bored by Polonius gone full Pauline and the Angelic One terrified of AI, but still has to send sundry alternative reptiles to the cornfield ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 20 Jun 2026 22:00:00 +0000

Regarding the bromancer outing yesterday, the pond deeply regrets not having got up early enough and so be able to slip in a reference to the great Hydeing doled out to Nige in the Graudian

Reform’s genius plan is finally coming into view: field terrible candidates then lose (the pond added an intermittent archive link because the Graudian is playing that 'give me your email game' again)

Every time the pond reads a Marina hatchet job, the pond wishes it had the skill, or at least that she'd turn her sights on the reptiles.

...The other increasingly noticeable thing about Farage is that he is incredibly thin-skinned and can’t help showing it. Remember, he spent the first part of this campaign in sulky seclusion after people found out about him taking a totally normal personal gift of £5m from a Thailand-based crypto billionaire. When he finally emerged to talk about it, he couldn’t keep his nuclear irritation and affront under wraps. This is very Nigel. The commentator Dominic Lawson recently recalled Farage’s reaction to a mild joke at some Spectator awards last winter, describing his face turning white before he shouted: “Why don’t you go f*ck yourself?” Why do you keep f*cking yourself, feels like the more salient question for Farage. (* the pond apologises for making the text googlebot safe)

The cracking Crace was also relevant ...

Burnham the mystic with a mission is all smiles after Makerfield coronation (again the pond added an intermittent archive link because the Graudian is playing that 'give me your email game' again)

It was mainly about Labor delusions but at the very end Nige got a mention as being election MIA ...

..One other person not much in evidence was Nigel Farage. This had been a terrible night for Reform. If Makerfield had voted as it had in the May local elections, Kenyon would have won with a majority of 8,000. Burnham’s victory showed the country was not hellbent on putting Reform in Downing Street. Still, at least Nige hadn’t spent any of his £5m handout on the campaign. So things weren’t all bad.
Instead, Farage made do with a sulky video, yet again made in a field. He’s always in a field these days. The only place he can be sure no one will ask him awkward questions about his slush funds. He had been expecting a disappointing night, he said. He really hadn’t. Not this disappointing. “Reform is still the leading party of the centre right,” he added. Except it isn’t. There is nothing centre-right about Reform. They are much further from the middle than that. Something more than half the Makerfield voters understood only too well.

Instead of those pleasures, the pond's dismal meditative Sunday duty was to spend time with prattling Polonius.

On the other hand, the pond overdid it yesterday, so at least it'd be a quiet time with Pauline and Polonius, as the tedious Mr Pooter clone was determined to carry on the One Nation-isation of the hive mind at the lizard Oz.

The header: GetUp’s anti-Hanson stunt another own goal; The organisation that spent $600,000 trying to stop One Nation in the Farrer by-election handed the party leader one of her best political moments yet, at the National Press Club.

The caption: A banner was unfurled behind Pauline Hanson during her National Press Club speech, and right GetUp media lead David Sharaz. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire

Polonius spent a bigly four minutes of his prattle conclusively proving he lacked a sensa huma, though whoever imagined he ever had one clearly hasn't read a word he's written.

That banner sliding down was mildly amusing and faintly diverting, and nothing to get excited about, but Polonius was determined to be outraged.

For the pond the moment had a faint whiff of that Banksy moment when the image slid down through a shredder at the auction, though with Pauline it was the minions doing the shredding and the tearing ...

For Polonius it was time to get hot and bothered, recant his criticism and embrace his inner One Nation ...

In World Cup football terminology, I would score the recent political contest at the National Press Club in Canberra as Leftist Sneerers 0, Pauline Hanson 3.
Ever since Hanson arrived on the political scene in the lead-up to the 1996 federal election, I have always taken the One Nation leader seriously. Sure, in her early years in politics, I was critical of Hanson on many (but not all) issues. I still am.
But it was always apparent that she stood for something and that, although at times inarticulate, she was a good communicator.
After a nervous stumbling start at the NPC, Hanson soon settled down. This occurred around the time the stunt by the leftist GetUp organisation went into operation. A poster critical of One Nation’s position on industrial relations was unravelled along with a reference to Hanson accepting an increase to her parliamentary salary.
The latter was the result of the fact, having won the Farrer by-election, One Nation was entitled to have minor party status, resulting in a pay increase for its leader. Most employees, if offered pay increases, accept them.
Hanson’s vote in the Senate will never affect the decisions of the Fair Work Commission, which determines pay and conditions for most workers. Moreover, there is a strong case that the labour market should be more flexible to facilitate employment and productivity, as was in the case in the final years of the Hawke-Keating government.
Hanson’s response to the GetUp stunt was controlled as she spoke about the cost of living in general and child poverty in particular. At the end of the lengthy speech and before the Q&A began, the following exchange took place between Hanson and NPC president Tom Connell: “Connell: Thank you, Senator. Just in case it needs clarifying, we had no knowledge of what happened here. Hanson: Just tell me, is this another first? Connell: It’s, I believe it is. I believe it is. Hanson: I’ve got a lot of firsts in my life.”

In keeping with Polonius's uxorious scribbling, the reptiles then jumped the shark and nuked the South Park fridge: Pauline Hanson’s Please Explain videos first aired in 2021 and the series is in its fourth season. Its animation style is sometimes compared to South Park.

Um, no, the animation style is nothing like that of South Park's, and Trey Parker and Matt Stone would have a good case for a defamation action.

The wretched Pauline efforts can be found on YouTube but damned if the pond will link to them for fear of provoking an action claiming damages for nausea.

The vague way the defamation is couched gives a clue to the nonsense behind it: Its animation style is sometimes compared to South Park.

Sometimes? By whom? Citation needed so that they can be enjoined in the action.

Oh no, you don't mean to suggest that further down the page Polonius will...say it ain't so ...

Meanwhile Polonius was still in the grip of uxorious yearnings and euphoria ...

The response demonstrates that Hanson can be quick and sharp. Quicker and sharper than some journalists in the room who were not contenders for best on the ground. Especially Sarah Martin of the leftist Guardian Australia who directed a question about Hanson’s daughter, Lee Hanson, who works for a NSW One Nation senator from her home in Tasmania. Apparently, Martin does not understand that some staff in national politics work from home.
As mentioned previously in this column, as recently as February, ABC TV’s Linton Besser referred to Hanson as a “one-time peddler of fish and chips from Ipswich”. In her NPC speech, Hanson chose to remind viewers/listeners that she “actually ran a small business”.
In The Saturday Paper on May 16, GetUp executive director Paul Ferris wrote: “Over the six weeks up to May 9, GetUp spent $600,000 campaigning against One Nation in the Farrer by-election. Then we lost, badly.” An own goal to be sure. Followed by another at the NPC on Wednesday.
One Nation can prevail over the smart-alecs in GetUp like David Sharaz, who is alleged to have activated the anti-Hanson poster. The party’s most difficult opponent will be the Labor Party.
On the morning after the NPC speech, Labor sent out perhaps its most talented headkicker – Queensland senator Murray Watt – to criticise Hanson.
Now that Hanson has laid down a range of political positions across several social and economic issues, the likes of Watt will have an increasing opportunity to challenge her in detail.
It’s a task more suited to Labor than the extremist Greens or some of the leading figures in the Coalition who do not resemble the likes of opposition figures such as Malcolm Fraser, John Howard and Tony Abbott.
Over the years, One Nation has experienced significant problems with poor candidate selection and staff appointments. Speaking to Paul Sakkal on Nine’s Inside Politics podcast recently, Hanson conceded she closed four branches because of the presence of what I termed, writing in The Australian in 1989, the Lunar Right.

Just to make sure that Pauline kept up her hive mind profile, the reptiles slipped in yet another snap... Hanson and her primary adviser and chief of staff James Ashby at the NPC. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Does she look like Martin Luther, or is it him? Please, Ughmann, help ...

And then came the big reveal ...

Hanson told Sakkal, “I’m being infiltrated by these extremists; so it’s all the time happening with One Nation, they set us up all the time.” That’s the downside. The upside is that Hanson’s chief of staff, James Ashby, who has a background in the LNP in Queensland, is one of the best political operatives going around.
One Nation’s social media by far outperforms its political rivals. Moreover, it can be quite funny. Pauline Hanson’s Please Explain videos first aired in 2021 and the series is in its fourth season. Its animation style is sometimes compared to South Park.

So it was Polonius doing that line ... Its animation style is sometimes compared to South Park.

And yet there was still no citation, no mention of the 'somebody' doing the 'sometimes' routine. (Could it have been 'anybody' talking about 'anytime'?)

Unless ... eerie music please maestro, perhaps it was Polonius trying to disguise himself as that somebody because it seems that Polonius liked the animation, as well as Gutfeld!'s comedy stylings ...

Hanson’s Please Explain is produced by Stepmates Studios in Melbourne – which is co-founded by Mark Nicholson and Sebastian Peart. Nicholson, who is a regular guest on Sky News’ The Kenny Report, has a fine sense of humour. What’s different about the Nicholson approach is that he laughs – not sneers – at his opponents. It’s much the same in the US where Fox News’ Gutfeld! program now has more viewers than any of the other late night talk shows.
The program sometimes errs with respect to taste, but it is invariably witty. Most of its targets are left-liberals (in the American sense of the term) but Greg Gutfeld and his guests sometimes laugh at conservatives.

Dear sweet long absent lord, is this what happens to elderly folk in their dotage, as they sit and watch Faux Noise and cackle about owning the libs?

Seems so, and it seems that Polonius thinks this is pretty sophisticated stuff ...

One Nation’s appeal is regarded by many media commentators as essentially attracting Australians in rural and regional areas, who do not have as many tertiary qualifications when compared with Australians in the city, particularly inner-city types. This is broadly true. But not entirely.
There is evidence that many professionals and well-educated Australians have become attracted to One Nation because they are disillusioned with the two-party political system.
After the South Australian and Farrer results, plus Hanson’s NPC appearance, One Nation’s performance will be subjected to greater scrutiny. Labor will be looking to take back lost supporters on social issues, while the Coalition will focus on economic matters where its strength lies. It’s a long way to go before Hanson is likely to return to the NPC and to the next election.
Gerard Henderson is executive director of The Sydney Institute.

The lizard Oz is now so far up Pauline's fundament, Polonius leading the way, that there's now no chance of sunlight.

Luckily the pond had saved an infallible Pope to celebrate Polonius's singalong ...

On the upside, thus far it hasn't been about the United States ...

And that thankfully was that, and all that was left to do was search for a bonus.

The pond won't have a bar of going off to Gondwana land with Gawenda...

COMMENTARY by Michael Gawenda
Jewish voters abandon Labor for Pauline Hanson's promised land
A constituency that once considered the One Nation leader unthinkable has become one of her most surprising sources of support.

If you're all in on ethic cleansing and a greater Israel, it sort of fits, as the Hansonofication of the rag rolls on apace.

And what to make of fools that seem to think that to defeat the Hansonites you must become one?

‘Wokeness is the enemy’: Labor’s Godfather fights to hold the centre
Senator Don Farrell has rebuilt himself into one of Anthony Albanese’s closest political protectors – and most powerful cabinet figures. Can he help Labor stem the rising tide of One Nation?
By Ben Packham

Sheesh, with this attempt to imitate the Swiss bank account man, the pond instantly achieved woke enlightenment ...

Here you go anti-woke Don ... swill on this ...

The pond ruled out Cameron on the basis that he was days late to the party where folks dissed the deal ...

DANGEROUS PEACE

Art of the bad deal: inside Trump’s ‘horrific’ surrender to Iran

How Trump's Iran ar ended in a weak pace deal for America

Critics from both sides of US politics have savaged President Trump’s peace deal as a surrender, granting key concessions before nuclear negotiations even begin.

By Cameron Stewart

Chief International Correspondent

Been there, done that ...

The pond also ruled out snappy Tom ...

Hanson’s Make Australia Monocultural Again sees migration fight shift from ‘how many’ to ‘who’
Unfortunately for Labor, the Coalition and reform advocates, the caravan has moved on – but are we ready to sort people by colour, creed and race?
By Tom Dusevic
Columnist

Sure, it was a valuable contribution to the Hansoning of the Daily One Nation Oz News, but there's only so much a bear can take.

The pond feared that snappy Tom might have provoked the pond into conducting a campaign to deport any and all of those currently working in any form for foreign owned News Corp, especially as all snappy Tom could come up with at the end was a fudge of the first water:

...Unfortunately for Labor, the Coalition and reform advocates it may be too late; the migration caravan has moved on. The conversation has shifted to questioning culture and values, while narrowing the definition of who can come to work, study and settle here. That ultimately leads to pulling apart decades of non-discriminatory policy, sorting people by colour, creed and race. Are we ready for that?

Okay, that's more than enough. Deport all workers beavering away for foreign owned News Corp!

The pond also ruled out the lizard Oz editorialist, providing a faint echo of the bromancer:

It's a funny old world when the reptiles are on the side of Sir Keir.

The pond left Sir Keir for reasons best explained by Owen Jones in The Graudian ...

This column does not express support for Palestine Action – here’s why
In Britain’s increasingly authoritarian society, any sort of protest can find itself at odds with the law. You might even go to jail

...Once a movement committed to non-violence has been designated as terrorists, then a Rubicon has been crossed. “Terrorism” has been emptied of any real meaning, and can be applied far more widely. Indeed, earlier this year, more than 70 peaceful protesters were arrested at a demonstration organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC). None of this was direct action: they were deemed to have breached arbitrary restrictions by marching down Whitehall clutching flowers commemorating Palestine’s dead. The PSC leader, Ben Jamal, is among those being put on trial.

For an expansion of this, check out Parker Molloy ...

One of my favorite comedy sketches of all time is 2007 bit from The Whitest Kids U’ Know called “It’s Illegal to Say…” If you’ve never seen it, do yourself a favor and watch it before you read the rest of this.
The whole thing is Trevor Moore, sitting on a stool in front of a blank backdrop, delivering the most deadpan public service announcement you’ve ever seen. “Did you know,” he asks, “that it’s illegal to say ‘I want to kill the president of the United States of America’? It’s a federal offense. One of the only sentences you’re not allowed to say.” And then, of course, he spends the next minute saying it, over and over, in increasingly elaborate forms, while insisting the entire time that he’s only informing you that it’s illegal, not actually saying it
By the end he’s talking about mortar launchers and the best vantage point for hitting the White House and an “illustrated diagram,” each one “extremely illegal,” “ridiculously, horribly felonious,” and he’s letting you know all of this purely as a public service. The comedy is in how straight he plays it. He’s not winking. He’s basically your local news anchor warning you about a scam...
...Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom
Moore’s sketch was a joke about a country that would throw you in prison for the shape of a sentence, no matter what you meant by it. Britain has spent the last year running the real version.
Last June, activists with a group called Palestine Action broke into RAF Brize Norton and sprayed red paint on two military aircraft. That’s the kind of thing the group does, mostly property damage aimed at weapons manufacturers and military sites tied to Israel’s war in Gaza. Broken windows, spray paint. Days later, the British government, under the control of the Labour Party, proscribed it under the Terrorism Act 2000, which made it a crime not only to belong to Palestine Action but to “invite or recklessly express support” for it. The ban took effect at one minute past midnight on July 5, 2025. It was the first time a direct-action protest group had ever been classed as a terrorist organization in the UK, which dropped it, legally, into the same bucket as ISIS and al-Qaeda.
You don’t have to like Palestine Action to see the problem. Spray-painting a plane is a crime, and Britain has laws against that already. What it didn’t have, until last summer, was a rule that made it a terrorism offense to say out loud that you back the people who did it. Even the UN’s human rights chief, Volker Türk, called the ban a “disturbing” misuse of counterterrorism law.
And look at the word in the statute: recklessly. The whole fight in Elonis was over how sure the government has to be about what’s in your head before it can punish you for your words, and the Court raised the bar. Britain set a very, very low one. Reckless is enough.
Here’s what that looks like in practice. People have been arrested for holding cardboard signs that read “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” One of the first taken in, on the day the ban took effect, was Rev. Sue Parfitt, an 83-year-old retired priest. At a single demonstration in Parliament Square last September, the Metropolitan Police arrested 890 people, 857 of them for supporting the banned group, the biggest mass arrest London had seen in decades. At an earlier protest, nearly half of the people arrested were 60 or older, and fifteen were in their 80s. More than 3,300 people have been arrested across the UK since the ban, according to Amnesty International. Terror-related arrests jumped 660% year over year, and 86% of them were tied to supporting Palestine Action. A law written for terrorists, used mostly on pensioners with poster board.

On the other hand, we're still not talking about King Donald ...

...and the pond decided to keep it that way by turning to the Angelic one, sounding very Catholic about AI ...

The header: Gen Z has become measurably ‘dumber’ than its predecessors across every cognitive domain; Alarming studies show AI may have already fatally corroded this generation’s ability to really think and, more important, to discern.

The caption: Pope Leo warns it’s necessary to ‘disarm’ AI but digital companies headed up by the likes of Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk have already softened up Gen Z’s brains for even more AI. Artwork: Emilia Tortorella

Each time the pond looks at an increasingly appalling reptile collage, the pond thinks that the case for AI gets stronger.

Well done, Emilia, you've provided a fine reason for a bot to replace you.

As for the Angelic one, she was all in with the Pope, as Catholics are wont to be ...

Everyone is talking about AI. Most commenters, including Pope Leo, are trying to discern the wider economic and social effects.
However, a lot of people in the scientific world, and perhaps a few in the education establishment, are worried about the already observed effects of the digital revolution on Gen Z (born about 1997-2010) and the obvious portents for the following generations when AI really takes over.

But then the reptiles slipped in a snap that conclusively proved that AI and stock images might not be the answer... A Deloitte report revealed Gen Zers spend more than 41 hours a week consuming digital entertainment and 61 per cent say they watch more user-generated content than traditional movies or TV shows.

Sheesh, just looking at that image, the pond went temporarily blind and felt its IQ drop a hundred points, in a way that even watching all series of Friends couldn't manage.

However, it got the Angelic one going...

Some alarming studies have surfaced showing AI has already had a disastrous effect.
Some neuroscientists have concluded Gen Z is measurably “dumber” than the previous generation. If true, it is the first time in human history this has happened.

Every generation seems to have one or more of someone coming along to wage war on the younglings, as Horvath did in his testimony, and the pond is inclined to believe him when it comes to the United
States of America, anyone dumb enough to elect King Donald not just once, but twice, is truly in the stupid zone.

The only problem is that you can't blame King Donald on the younglings ... but do go on ...

According to neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath, who recently testified before the US Senate, test scores seem to prove it, showing Gen Z underperforms Millennials (also known as Gen Y) and Gen X across almost every cognitive domain: attention, memory, literacy, reading comprehension, numeracy, executive function and general IQ. Horvath described it thus: “It’s not just one weak spot … that’s the whole dashboard blinking at once.”
According to Horvath, the reason for this cognitive and intellectual decline is over-reliance on AI, particularly in classrooms.
Horvath blames digital technology being embedded into American classrooms. But this is not just an American phenomenon, it is worldwide, and Australia is not far behind. Videos and quick summaries have replaced reading, ChatGPT has replaced extended research and writing, screens have replaced human-led learning, bullet points have often replaced essays.
What this research tells us is that modern learning environments may be weakening the deep-thinking “muscles” humans once built naturally through reading, struggle and slow thinking. Digital environments train the brain to skim, not to think deeply.
This affects kids’ ability to really think but, more important, to discern. Snicker if you will about the silly young ones, but ask yourself: Why is it that a whole generation has been so easily bamboozled into bizarre notions such as the trans movement, or to believe that some facts of history, like the Holocaust or the Hamas attack on October 7, might not have even happened?
We have already seen some of the negative emotional impacts of the digital revolution on this generation, and there is a worldwide scramble to do something. The favourite “something” is to ban smartphones and social media for under-16s.
But we have lost the battle because digital companies have already softened up Gen Z’s brains for even more AI, not just with dodgy digital content, which is bad enough, but the way they do it.

To get the pond onside and make sure that it had a bout of nerd nausea, the reptiles showed off their snap of the Zuck ... Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg leaves court after testifying in February. Picture: AFP

Don't get the pond wrong. The pond has never been on Facebook, and rarely uses a phone and has a sense of the younglings' plight ...

But the pond isn't sure that believing in mythical cults of the Catholic kind is a way to shore up opposition to the bots ...

A recent sensational case in the US has produced an important ruling. The court found Meta and YouTube liable for harms, not for content, which is what keeps parents up at night, but because of the product designs themselves: aggressive algorithms, infinite scroll, autoplay and so on. This distinction between content and product design is often missing from analysis.
At first there were all sorts of reasons to account for this cognitive decline: Covid, poor teaching, lack of discipline, migration and language problems. Most of these factors are real, and some of them are propelled by parents and teachers also hooked on AI.
But none of this can explain the worldwide phenomenon. Declining academic performance is not just in the English-speaking world.
However, on the bright side, some psychologists have theorised that the tests are no longer fit for Gen Z. Standardised tests measure only certain types of cognition, and Gen Z does have great strengths in digital fluency, the ability to grasp technical aspects of AI. So on one level they have skills that make them technically prepared for the new world of AI industry, even if by cognitive intellectual measurements Gen Z kids seem less smart than previous generations.
Amber Beynon, a research fellow at Curtin University’s school of allied health, did a study about AI and screens and childhood development that refutes the doomsday scenario because AI is already shaping how young children interact with technology, from apps to interactive toys. Beynon claims: “The learning capacity of these AI technologies is at the next level – it’s incredible how it can personalise interactions from one child to another and remember interactions … it can benefit child development.” The problem is: What “benefit to child development”? And is this really education?

At this point, the pond had a temporary seizure ... ‘The whole dashboard blinking at once’: Gen Z underperforms Millennials and Gen X across almost every cognitive domain: attention, memory, literacy, reading comprehension, numeracy, executive function and general IQ. Picture: Mario Tama/Getty Images/AFP

That's not helpful, that's meaningless.

At least up your visual game so you don't use AI or a stock image library to spank the bots...

And here's the real problem.

The Angelic one somehow thinks that Leo is going to be able to stem the Grot Gemini Chat GPT tide, divert that rogue Sam Altman Open AI tide, or grapple with Anthropic ... as they sidle up to Wall Street and the Pentagon...

The pernicious effect of AI on young people’s emotions and moral capacity is real, because they think AI is real. Sometimes it seems weirdly so. Chris Olah of Anthropic at the launch of Magnifica Humanitas said. “We keep finding things that are mysterious, even unsettling … structures that mirror results from human neuroscience … internal states that functionally mirror joy, satisfaction, fear, grief and unease.”

Uh huh, and some old codgers tell them Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny is real, and that there's a god who checks up on everything they do every moment of the day, and that masturbation will transport them straight to hell, without stopping on Go for a good time.

Olah’s address at the Vatican is the most important from within the tech world on the moral and cultural, not merely economic, implications of AI.
Gen Z’s thinking skills might be useful in many areas, but the type of thinking that can cultivate the ability to make moral decisions, deep thinking that lends itself to philosophy, might already be fatally corroded by the use of digital technology in this generation.
This is why Pope Leo has warned it is necessary to “disarm” AI, to separate the human from the machine. Current research into Gen Z’s thinking processes might indicate that we have already lost this battle.

Does the Angelic one know just how woke she sounds, how alarming she is to the likes of red wine-swilling Don?

And so to end with other pleasures ...

In which the bromancer Brexits on endlessly about Britain, and the Ughmann takes to the Catholic Freudian couch for endless confessions ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 22:23:54 +0000

By focussing on the lizards of Oz, the pond misses out on many moments of sublime stupidity.

There's Bret Stephens in the both siderist NY Times on 24th March ...

The War Is Going Better Than You Think (* intermittent archive link)

And there he is on 16th June 2026 ...

Iran Found Trump’s Bone Spur (*intermittent archive link)

Relax, it's still going better than you think, and Stephens is there to save the day. It was a right and just war, and the debacle had nothing to do with him, he and other neo cons were just betrayed.

Anyone wanting to find someone who wanted to make the bromancer look like a marvel of consistency and insight couldn't do better than evoking Stephens' wondrous ability to get it wrong.

Speaking of the bromancer, he was at the top of the far right world early in the weekend, safe in his retreat into battering the British, as if his celebration of Brexit had done no harm to that wasteland.

This was just as well, because the One Nationisation of the rag continued at an alarming rate ... and lordy, long absent lordy, the reptiles seemed to think that a Brexit down under might be a jolly good thing, though who we might Brexit from left the pond a tad bewildered.

It was a newbie to the pond, one Nicholas Jensen, allegedly the lizard Oz's commentary editor, and clearly a man of such infinite stupidity that he intended to leave Stephens and the bro in his wake ...

The pond wasted nine precious minutes of its life and still didn't discover who we were supposed to be Brexiting from ... so a teaser trailer will suffice ... and the intermittent archive can do the rest...

Here you go ...

The revolution that began with Brexit has arrived — and the establishment is powerless to stop it
One Nation has done what a decade of stagnant politics could not: made Australia’s body politic feel tremulous, urgent and dangerously alive.
By Nicholas Jensen

To get to the Hansonite meat, and a hint of what a Hansonist Brexit might mean, you had to endure a lot of Nick blathering about his time in England in Brexit days and when you finally arrived, it was simple-minded peak capitulation to One Nation and Pauline ... showing just how deep the One Nationisation rot has set in to the rag ...

...Like MAGA and Reform, One Nation is fuelled by similar laments for the loss of a certain kind of society. It is galvanised by animus and grievance, yet it is striking to observe, as many commentators have since the Farrer by-election, that these sentiments are often simultaneously expressed in an atmosphere of celebration and euphoria. As with most populist movements, the sense of loss exists in an intimate relationship with a spirit of hope and revival. That tension is vital to understanding One Nation’s rising support, and the appeal of its leader, Pauline Hanson.
Hanson is dismissed as having few skills beyond the virtues of plain speaking and authenticity, but that analysis misses a deeper, more salient point. Hanson understands the vernacular of patriotism intuitively; she speaks fluently in the language of values and culture in a way the vast majority of the political establishment cannot. This, perhaps more than anything else, is Hanson’s most formidable asset, her deadliest weapon. She has made it her own and wields it boldly, as evidenced in this week’s National Press Club address.
One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson calls out the Albanese government’s lies during her National Press Club address. “The government is not telling the truth; the Prime Minister and the Treasurer are desperate, and they keep saying that anyone who opposes the budget measures is opposing the opportunity for young people to get into housing,” Ms Hanson said. “Another lie, but how else do you describe it?”
Whenever Anthony Albanese and his colleagues talk earnestly of “progressive patriotism”, the public senses its superficiality. Deep down they suspect it is an ersatz version of patriotism. Increasingly, they see Hanson as offering the real thing. When the Prime Minister says, as he did last week, while attempting to explain the dramatic poll surge for One Nation, that “it’s the economy, stupid”, he wasn’t merely regurgitating a hackneyed political cliche. He was effectively surrendering the battlefield of culture and values to Hanson.
Just now, the shape and character of Australian politics is changing beneath our feet, perhaps forever. Like the populist ruptures that roiled and electrified Brexit Britain and Trump’s America a decade ago, One Nation has injected a new intensity and urgency into our body politic. A stagnant political culture, long starved of big ideas and obsessed with its own material abundance, suddenly feels tremulous and dangerously alive.
Nicholas Jensen is The Australian’s commentary editor.

That's not commentary, that's moronic adulation ...

If the reptiles keep this sort of nonsense up, they'll discover what it's like to be the dog that finally caught the car ...

As for the bromancer, it's always best to remember that he was there for the ruination of Britain by Boris and sundry other frauds, and so to begin the bromancer coverage with another flashback ...

Wait, there's more, even if the steak knives are stuck somewhere in customs...

Brexiteers fighting for liberty and the people’s will
This stoush symbolises a version of the clash of forces playing out in some measure in every main Western democracy.
By Greg Sheridan

And so on, and the pond apologises for dragging that mouldy old cat out of the grave.

Enough of these preliminaries, time to get down with it, with Count Binface, foxes, raving loonies, and the bromancer, and it helps to retain a sensa huma...

The header: The battle for Britain as civil wars rage on left and right; Even left-wing magazine The New Statesman has declared it a ‘failed state’.

The caption: British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, left, with Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham during Mental Health Awareness Week. Picture: Getty

If it's a failed state, where are the bromancing Brexiteers to take the credit for helping conjure up that failure?

Health warning: this is a nine minute read, and it's a real struggle.

The only upside is that it isn't about King Donald and his hapless dealings with Iran, or any of his internal ructions, or even about such follies as the greening and dissolution of the reflecting pool.

The bromancer has realised Faux Noise has made the disunited states a disaster zone, and so he's taken comfort and refuge in the disaster sometimes known as little Brexiting England ...

Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, has won a huge victory in the Makerfield by-election, winning more votes than Reform UK, Restore and the Conservatives all combined.
He will now march to Westminster and the prime ministership.
Keir Starmer is destroyed. Like Macbeth assassinated by Macduff, the march from Burnham Wood spells doom for Labour’s king.
Equally significant, and completely unforeshadowed, was the Conservatives’ win in the Aberdeen South by-election in Scotland, which they took from the Scottish Nationalists.
This is a heroic breakthrough for Kemi Badenoch. It’s the first electoral victory for the Conservatives under her. It’s the first time the Conservatives have won a by-election in five years.
It’s proof, in the only currency that really counts, that Badenoch’s leadership can deliver votes to the Conservatives. It’s a huge boost for the Opposition Leader.
Burnham will take the leadership and get a honeymoon, which may well be short-lived as the problems he will face are intractable if approached from the left, raising the prospect of an early election, though such an option is full of risks. Badenoch is back in the contest in a big way.
Nonetheless, the underlying contradictions remain.
Britain is a nation in terrible if hopefully temporary decline, while two fierce civil wars are being fought before the Great War of the two opposing trends of British society comes into full conflict.
Whatever the turbulence following this week’s by-elections, the structures of deep British division have been building for years and could well explode.
There’s a civil war on the left and a civil war on the right. Like all civil wars, it divides families. Jacob Rees-Mogg, the immensely urbane, courteous and decent former senior cabinet minister under Boris Johnson, the soul of the conservative Conservative, finds that his teenage daughter has joined Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

As the Moggster will later return, can the pond please borrow from John Crace, who described him as "the idiot's idea of a thinking man", as in Rees-Mogg breaks broken news to a horrified house:

...Next up was Jacob Rees-Mogg, the idiot’s idea of a thinking man, to provide details of the Commons’ business for the coming week. “The government is committed to leaving the EU on October 31st,” he smirked. And how was it planning to do this? By debating the environmentally friendly way to give a cockapoo a haircut and introducing legislation to force the French to drive on the left-hand side of the road. That way there might be fewer delays at Calais post Brexit.
Of the withdrawal agreement bill there was no sign. “They seek it here, they seek it there,” Rees-Mogg laughed, working himself up into a state of visible arousal at his own Divine Comedy. For a man who used to pride himself on his sincerity and probity, lying and S&M cosplay have become second nature. He must have a very accommodating arrangement with the priest at confession.
There’s civil war on the left side of politics too. The UK Greens are the most extreme left-wing green party in the democratic world. Their leader, Zack Polanski, one of the weirdest political leaders in captivity (he was previously a hypnotist who thought he could enlarge women’s breasts), is seriously challenged for the leadership because he’s too “pro-Zionist”. But these are bagatelles. Both civil wars involve the biggest political battalions.

Ancient history, and so it's back to the idiot thinking he's in the company of a thinking men ...

Keir Starmer and the fight on the left
On the left, Keir Starmer is a dead Prime Minister walking. His party, with a landslide majority, is in a mess. All the challengers, Andy Burnham and the others, have accommodated the idea of moving further to the left.
But there’s a raging civil war on the left. Labour’s primary vote is low, way behind the right-wing Reform. A strong challenge to Labour is being mounted by Polanski’s Green Party. The UK Greens are extreme and repellent. They differ from the Australian Greens in one key respect. They’ve become the quasi-Islamist party. The Greens are not only the party of inner-city middle-class white radicals, like most Green parties, they’ve become the party of Islamist solidarity and rage.

The reptiles flung in a snap ...Sir Keir Starmer and Andy Burnham at Old Trafford in May. Picture: Getty

Thank the long absent lord the English retain a sensa huma and that the second season of Ludwig is due in August ...

It can't be that bad. That furry suit must have cost a motza ... and as for the lavish expenditure on the dust bin and the silver cape, it's a country full of luxury items...

At the recent local elections the Greens won more than 440 new seats, to take them to more than 1350 in total. They could steal dozens of Labour seats at a parliamentary election.
The left’s third big force is the radical nationalists. In the devolved “home nations”, left-wing separatist nationalists rule – the Scottish Nationalist Party in Edinburgh, Plaid Cymru in Cardiff and Sinn Fein in Belfast. Each is committed to leaving the UK. Rees-Mogg fears the next election could deliver a “Frankenstein coalition of Labour, the Greens and the Nationalists”.
The SNP would have great leverage. Scotland could realistically break away from the UK. Vast social change, structural political and power transformations, could be enacted to make reversal of left hegemony extremely difficult. The stakes are astronomical.
Reform and the battle for the right
But equally there’s a life-and-death civil war on the right. Kemi Badenoch is doing a spectacularly good job leading the Conservatives. But the party is still a long way behind Reform, and in many polls Labour as well. It holds 116 of 650 House of Commons seats. Informal estimates suggest in an election today it could lose a third of them. And that’s with a popular leader.
People are re-examining the 1930s classic The Strange Death of Liberal England. The Liberals had been a giant political party – of legends William Gladstone, Herbert Asquith, David Lloyd George. Yet they were eclipsed and politics became primarily a fight between the new Labour Party and the Conservatives.
The party threatening to displace Tories today is Farage’s Reform, which is populist, dynamic, growing its membership rapidly (270,000 members now) and has been leading national polls for more than a year.
But Reform itself is being challenged on the right by the new upstart party Restore, led by Rupert Lowe, 68, a former businessman who was previously elected as a Reform MP. Many of Restore’s policies are much the same as those of Reform and the Conservatives but its rhetoric is frequently more extreme. There are reports that white supremacists and neo-Nazis donate to Restore.
Lowe and Farage fell out spectacularly and their personal enmity is an important dynamic of politics now. Restore could score enough votes to cost Reform dozens of parliamentary seats in Britain’s first-past-the-post voting system.
Nonetheless, some pundits believe an election today would make Reform the biggest party and the Conservatives the second largest, with the two forming a governing coalition. However, there’s every chance the right’s divisions, lack of a deep organisational base and supportive institutions, not least government institutions, could cost it government.

The reptiles added to the burden with AV distractions ... Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage claims the British public is increasingly aware of a “two-tier Britain”, adding that the country now faces a profound “trust issue” with its politicians. “You haven’t just got an economic crisis, you haven’t just got a social crisis … but you’ve also got now a trust issue,” Mr Farage told Sky News host Paul Murray. “People don’t trust politics, people don’t trust politicians. “After the awful cases, the attempted beheading in Belfast, the horrible death of that young student in Southampton, people now realise we’re living in two-tier Britain. “We’re now being judged by our ethnicity and some groups are treated with more favour than others. This is really, really serious; there couldn’t be anything more divisive in society.”

There couldn't be anything more divisive than Nige, which is why a sensa huma and a British appreciation of irony is essential ... (do Reform and Restore ever play the Monty Python splitters game?)

First, how fair is it to say the UK is a nation in decline if not crisis, and there’s every chance of things getting worse?
For a start, this is a judgment widely shared in Britain itself.
Consider left-wing magazine The New Statesman. It detests Tories, Reform and right-wingers, it typically backs Labour governments. It listed a cover story recently under the heading: “The failed state”. On its cover ran the strapline: “Everything is broken. Nothing changes. Voters are mad as hell.”
British welfare spending has run completely out of control. It now exceeds the total revenue generated by income tax. The unemployment rate fell this week by 0.1 per cent to 4.9 per cent. That seems modestly encouraging. But there are a million youngsters, aged 18 to 24, engaged in neither employment nor education or training. While unemployment dropped a tiny fraction, the actual number of people getting pay dropped by tens of thousands.
Britain has a national debt roughly equivalent to its gross national product. It pays nearly twice as much on interest as on its defence budget. This is partly because of the debilitating effects of a plainly insane welfare system. Two people living together can, if they shrewdly maximise their benefits, receive the equivalent of more than £70,000 ($131,700) a year in welfare, twice the average wage. That’s a huge disincentive to work. The welfare bill is projected at £400bn by decade’s end.
Sick and tired
Through the week a doctor recounted in the press serving for years on panels reviewing people’s claims to special benefits. One rule for a maximum benefit was not being able to walk independently for 20m. He would watch people park their cars 100m down the road, walk jauntily to their interview, state they were unable to walk 20m and receive maximum benefits. People can claim mental distress on Zoom interviews. Social media schools them well on what to say and typically they get the benefits. Much of this is an unresolved hangover from disastrous Covid measures.
The breakdown of the traditional family has fiscal consequences. On any given day there are 13,000 people, who are not sick enough to be in hospital but for whom there are inadequate care arrangements at home, occupying hospital beds in the UK. Almost everything the family once did, the state now does, but it does it at enormous cost and very badly.
Britain has been definitively unable to control illegal immigration. In the 12 months to March this year, 44,000 immigrants arrived illegally. Nearly 100,000 asylum-seekers are accommodated in hotels or group houses paid for by government. This greatly angers local residents. It also angers those trying to get social housing. It’s one of the main issues driving voters directly from Labour to Reform.
Britain has also gone backwards on defence capability. It had a full-time professional army of 170,000 under Margaret Thatcher, 100,000 under Gordon Brown and just 70,000 today. John Healey resigned as defence secretary last week because Starmer, having failed to make puny savings in the welfare budget, could not secure adequate funds for defence. Al Carns, the armed forces minister who also resigned, wrote: “Britain spent a decade choosing to be smaller in the world.”

And at this desperate moment the bromancer revealed he was part performing pundit, part tourist and part player, and not much of a journalist ...

I spent many hours this week in London’s clubland, around Mayfair and Piccadilly, exploring the civil war on the right. At Mark’s Club in Mayfair I met James Orr, the head of Reform’s policy unit. It’s extraordinary Reform can attract someone such as Orr. He is simultaneously associate professor of philosophy of religion at Cambridge University.
I find these London clubs full of mysterious narrow corridors, quaint and poky spaces, walls decorated with spectacular paintings and an atmosphere of remarkable good cheer. Whether for reasons of privacy, or to spare members witnessing an act of journalism, Orr and I speak in a small, curtained space.

At this point, the pond should note that Orr is barking mad, and a loon who move in the Peter Thiel/JD Vance circle of couch-molesting weirdness.

For some ore on the real Orr, try... James Orr and the Messianic Transatlantic MAGA Alliance Trying to ‘Save’ Britain
Peter Jukes and Nafeez Ahmed reveal how James Orr, Nigel Farage’s new head of policy is the key religious and ideological linkman for Palantir’s Peter Thiel and Sir Paul Marshall’s GB News

...the story of Dr James Orr, the lawyer turned theologian, sits at the centre of a clandestine transatlantic nexus of faith, finance, think tanks, seminars and seminaries, media companies and conference events — and an apparently catastrophic view of politics.

The reptiles then showed a revealing snap ...The writer Greg Sheridan with James Orr, head of Reform’s policy unit, at the Marks Club of Mayfair in London. Picture: Supplied

Was that the best they had?

The bromancer looks terrible, awful slumped over posture, eyes barely open, ragged and depleted, as if entering end times, making the pond wonder if any mockery was worth it, as nature ravaged the man...

Second thoughts, he's still poisoning the well ...

Orr is an immensely smart guy. Attracting folks like him is a big part of Reform’s momentum. He lists the five key issues driving support for Reform: immigration; rejecting net zero; crime and justice; the dispossession of the working class and of working Brits generally; and the need for (qualified) pride in Britain’s history and culture. He makes two devastating analytical points about these issues: “The trends are our friends. None of these problems is going to be solved by a Labour government.” His second point is even more devastating.
Much of the mess in these issues was caused by the Conservatives in their 14 years in government. Theresa May took the insane step of legislating a hard net-zero target by 2050, which has given Britain the highest domestic energy prices in the world.
Voters had been hugely motivated to take back control of immigration. This was a vital factor in the Brexit vote that saw Britain leave the EU. Yet in one year under Johnson, in the post-Covid rebound, just under a million immigrants arrived.

In the nick of time there came a relieving AV distraction ... Andy Burnham said Labour had a “final chance to change” after his decisive win in the Makerfield by-election set up a showdown with Sir Keir Starmer. Allies of Mr Burnham called on the Prime Minister to hand over power after he defied national trends to increase Labour’s share of the vote in a seat where Nigel Farage’s Reform UK made sweeping gains in last month’s local elections. The Prime Minister has insisted he will not quit and will fight any leadership challenge.

The bromancer kept mining this Orr for loony ore ...

All this leads Orr to emphatically reject any kind of deal with the Conservatives: “No. Not at all. We are doing at least as well in Wales, and in Labour heartlands, where the Tories have never had a presence. And I don’t think more than a handful of Tory MPs really believe in their hearts what we believe, policies like withdrawing from the European Court of Human Rights.”
Such European entanglements have prevented Britain from running the kind of border control policies that enjoy settled bipartisan support in Australia. Orr’s message on the Tories is simple. They had 14 years to deliver on these issues but they governed more like a moderate Labour Party than as Conservatives. Badenoch herself once said to me that the problem with the Tories in their last term in office was that they “talked right but governed left”.
Orr outlines a wide range of Reform’s proposed spending cuts, everything from civil service numbers to foreign aid and the whole vast panoply of net zero subsidies and expenditures.
If Reform does gain government, its vulnerabilities will be psychodramas, personality clashes and a general lack of people who know how government runs. But its intent is clear: the root-and-branch transformation of British government and society.
Tories still in the hunt
Yet the Tories are by no means out of the hunt. Badenoch is the most popular political leader in Britain. She is passionately committed to ending net zero, withdrawing from the ECHR, combating identity politics, restoring pride in British history – all the things Reform wants. And she pushed for these when she was a Conservative minister.
Rees-Mogg, one of the most impressive Conservative thinkers (who lost his seat at the last election), argues for a Conservative-Reform electoral alliance. He is the most charming and courteous of men and explains his thinking to me over lunch at the more staid Boodles Club near Piccadilly (though in accordance with club rules, our formal interview takes place off-site).
He points out that if you extrapolated the local elections to national results, you would see Reform on perhaps 27 per cent and Conservatives on 20 per cent. Aggregated, that’s potentially landslide territory for the right. He thinks the two parties should avoid running against each other, with each concentrating on their geographic zones of strength.

A most impressive thinker? Perhaps for the idiot's idiot ...

Cue another John Crace sketch from ancient times...

Rees-Mogg's dim brand of banter entertains no one but himself
Leader of the house’s unctuous insincerity fails to hide the fact he hasn’t a clue what’s going on

...Since joining the cabinet, lying has become second nature to the leader of the house. Power has corrupted him and what integrity he might once have had is now shot. Everyone knew that Saturday’s possible emergency session was entirely dependent on whether Johnson agreed to desperately negotiate himself back to a permanent Northern Ireland backstop with a customs border in the Irish Sea – the prime minister is one of the few people who could haggle the price up in a carpet shop – to give himself a deal on which the Commons could vote and save him the embarrassment of having to “die in a ditch” by writing an extension letter to the EU.
But time and again Rees-Mogg argued otherwise. “Oh, no, no, no, no,” he said, chuckling to himself while oozing unctuous insincerity. “The honourable member had referred to ‘running a bath’ when surely he meant ‘drawing a bath’.” Weirdly, Rees-Mogg labours under the impression that this kind of bantz is clever. One can only imagine he rewatches his greatest hits on the BBC’s Parliament channel alone at night in a state of mild sexual arousal. Whatever gets you off.

Ancient times, ancient Moggie follies.

Cue a snap of the Moggster lad with his squeeze, Jacob Rees-Mogg and wife Helena arrive as far right activist Tommy Robinson addresses the Oxford Union at the Oxford University on June 17. Picture: Getty

It was beyond time for the bromancer to wrap up proceedings, and to reveal that he was in fact a contra player and performer rather than a journalist ...

Something similar was done at the 1918 election, in an alliance of Liberals and Conservatives, in a successful bid to thwart Labour.
Why are people so ready to abandon the traditional parties?
Rees-Mogg: “People feel they haven’t had sensible governments, or governments that take notice of them. They feel that they’ve had governments which are more concerned with international agreements and which have not stood up for them (the British people).”
You get the sense that British politics can’t go on as it is because the nation is being governed so poorly. But there is a fundamental contradiction between the left-wing view of Britain and the conservative view of Britain. The clash will get more intense. Inevitably there will be some compromise and some qualified results. But I get the sense there is big political conflict ahead, and that over the next five to 10 years one side of this argument or the other will prevail convincingly.
Man the battle stations.

Man up? Junket up ...

Greg Sheridan is in London to appear as a panellist at next week’s ARC Conference. Flights were included in the invitation.

At least it was a different kind of swamp ...

What else?

Well for the sake of completeness, the pond should report that the dog botherer was this week performing Australian Daily Zionist News duties...

Bondi lit the fuse’: The massacre that turned middle Australia against the political class
The attack has reshaped the landscape, but major parties haven’t grasped what is coming.
By Chris Kenny
Associate Editor (National Affairs)

The pond suspects a greater Israel is coming, with the ADZN cheering on the ethnic cleansing.

It's there at the intermittent archive for those who want it, but the pond preferred as a bonus the alarming prospect of the Ughmann in a sadomasochistic fervour about a good caning ...

The header: Urge to correct the wicked and improve the good has moved from classroom to cabinet room

Smoking is merely one of a growing catalogue of habits, preferences and personal choices that governments have decided require official supervision.

The caption for the weird illustration: There are large and small campaigns against vaping, drinking, gambling, plastic bags, plastic straws, gas appliances, petrol and diesel cars, wood heaters and excessive air travel.

This Ughmann outing took a bigly six minutes, and indulged his tragic habit of dwelling in the past, so that the hive mind could play the role of shrink, and watch as he lay on the couch and unburdened himself of traumatic childhood memories.

The tedium of it all ...

Education was different in the 1960s and 70s. In some ways better and in some ways worse.
One of the ways it was worse was the routine flogging of children, sometimes for no apparent reason. All manner of weapons were deployed for this task, from sticks to canes to leather straps.
Being an army brat who moved every two years during primary school, I encountered all these tools of torment in the education systems of Queensland (Brisbane, then Townsville), the ACT (twice) and South Australia. Routine interstate moves also highlighted the foibles of federation because, much like rail gauges, each jurisdiction had decided to chart its own course on everything from school holidays to handwriting.
Each had its own cursive writing workbook where you had to carefully copy the local Platonic ideal of each upper and lower-case letter and were flogged for deviating too far from the norm.
There were some similarities between states but more than enough differences to make it easy to fall at the hurdles of running writing. A lot of the trouble revolved around the correct way to render the lower-case “r” and “f”, as there were three different takes in three different states. Arguing that you had just mastered the loop on the left of the “r” in Townsville was met with scorn in the Adelaide Hills hamlet of Woodside, where no such loop existed. There was no dispensation for delivering a perfect South Australian “f” in Canberra, where the NSW cursive bible ruled.
By the time our family arrived in the ACT in 1971, having passed through the education systems of Queensland and South Australia in the space of a single year, my handwriting had become an ecumenical litany of letters, some of my own invention.
A Catholic boys primary school in the early 70s was no place for innovation. I got an inkling of what was in store when Mum took my older brother and me shopping for the school uniform. The only good thing about the SA public school we had just left was the lax dress code, where students could wear civvies like jeans and T-shirts.

The pond trusts this Freudian indulgence has helped the Ughmann, as the pond bit its tongue about its time with the Dominican nuns, and a snap revealed where all this was heading ...The state’s determination to rid the nation of smoking has pitched excise duties so high they have spawned a thriving black market in contraband fags.

Smoking! Shades of the IPA's glory days.

As the Ughmann has set the Freudian pace, here's a few pond memories.

Smoking managed to kill off one grandfather with lung cancer, in a way that the Somme trenches hadn't managed. Lung cancer also killed off the other one.

Emphysema killed off the pond's father, and made his final years a living hell by way of an inability to breathe. The pond can still vividly remember another uncle dying of COPD, struggling, gasping, as he tried to suck in air, only to fail at that task a few days later.

Since then the pond has taken the view that the cost of tending to people doing themselves harm should always be factored in to the equation.

It's not about their health, it's about the cost they inflict on others, much the same as if you decide to drive on the wrong side of the road, take out assorted vehicles and people, and expect insurance will save you from any penalty.

Nah, many might be in the insurance pool, but we also have a duty to ding you for your naughty ways.

Meanwhile, there's still more personal stuff from the Ughmann to endure before we get there, as the pond idly wondered if the Ughmann still kept smoking, still kept doing himself self-harm, and had begun to be ravaged by all the diseases smoking can give you. Did he ever use public health care? Or did he have the decency to pay for private insurance and burden like-minded chums/

Never mind, he really is the perfect example of a mind ruined by Catholicism ...

By contrast, Marist Brothers Canberra had decided the primary school uniform had been perfected in Edwardian London and we were required to wear a ridiculous short-brimmed cap born on the cricket grounds of England. It served no useful purpose in an Australian summer beyond being a place to sport the metal badge bearing the school crest. The rest of the outfit was a shirt and tie, a blazer, shorts and long socks.
The blazer seemed to hail from Oxbridge rowing clubs, and the shorts and long socks were drawn from an age when exposing a boy’s knees to sub-zero winter days was deemed character-building.
In the 70s, Marist College enforced its dress code with military rigour. Floggings for uniform violations were routine. Punishments flowed if your cap was askew or missing a badge, if your tie was not straight, if you did not have elastic garters to hold up your socks, and all these fashion crimes were measured in blows counted from one to six of the best.
Uniform misdemeanours were just the tip of an iceberg of infractions for which the rod was liberally employed. If some anonymous crime was discovered, the culprits were told to out themselves or risk collective punishment being dispensed to the whole class.
At least one of the brothers understood that the punishment of the innocent with the guilty required an explanation and excused it with the aphorism that it “makes the good boys better and the bad boys good”.
Perhaps that was true for some. What it did for others, like me, was develop a kind of criminal genius for evading capture and a firm conviction that the burden of proving any alleged malfeasance rested with the prosecution.

And where did all this lead? Yes, to that pathetic delusion of boys that somehow smoking was exotic, and made them the summit of masculinity and charm, bad boys on the prowl, looking for bad times, or more likely, tragic nerds wondering if a smoke might end their incel days ...

One moment is etched on my memory. Being the 70s, some of us were committed smokers by early high school and engaged in this most illicit of pleasures wherever we could.
There were several places around the school grounds where you could smoke unseen, but taking risks was part of the fun of it.
One morning the PA crackled to life and there was a school-wide message from the principal.
“Yesterday on the bus to Rivett some boys were seen smoking,” he said. “We have your names. If you come down to the office now I will go easy on you. But if I have to come and get you then the consequences will be much worse.”
I watched in amazement as two boys stood and volunteered themselves for the gallows. I thought, “If you have got my name you can come and get me.”
No one ever came.
We now live in more enlightened times when it comes to the management of children. Though sparing the rod does seem to have spoiled more than the odd child, I would not endorse a return to the era when terror was considered an essential teaching aid.
The larger problem now is that state and federal governments have decided to infantilise us all, with all manner of legislative encouragement to ensure we make better choices and become better humans in service of the state.
The same urge to correct the wicked and improve the good has moved from the classroom to the cabinet room.
The state’s determination to rid the nation of smoking sprang from the laudable aim of preventing unnecessary deaths. But in pursuing that goal the federal government has pitched excise duties so high they have spawned a thriving black market in contraband fags that is hosing money into the coffers of organised crime.

The reptiles introduced a snap to remind the hive mind that this was an IPA/big tobacco view of the world ... Tobacco smugglers have been stripped of more than 2.5 billion cigarettes and thousands of tonnes of tobacco at the nation’s borders, costing the federal government more than $4 billion in lost duty.

How they've fought every step of the way, from labelling to availability, all so they can kill of their customers, but not before bleeding them dry ...

The Ughmann continued his crusade, with the pond wondering whether he might get on to crusading about the urgent need to liberalise the availability of crack and other forms of cocaine, with perhaps a little heroin and morphine for good measure (how unfair that the pond has to head to hospital to get a shot of morphine. And where are the soothing gummies?):

The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates that about 80 per cent of tobacco consumed in 2025 came from illicit sources, up from 12 per cent in 2017, which is a policy triumph only if the aim was to hand the market to criminals.
Any sensible government would recognise this error and correct it. But no, like a temperance crusader who mistakes every unintended consequence for proof that he has not gone far enough, the state remains committed to the cause.
Smoking is merely one of a growing catalogue of habits, preferences and personal choices that governments have decided require official supervision.
There are also large and small campaigns against vaping, drinking, gambling, plastic bags, plastic straws, gas appliances, petrol and diesel cars, wood heaters and excessive air travel.
The problem is not any individual measure. It is the cumulative effect. Everywhere you turn there is some government, regulator, department, authority, commission, agency or taxpayer-funded activist hectoring you about how you should live, what you should drive, what you should eat, how you should heat your home, how much water you should use and how often you should fly.

From the desire to kill everyone with lung cancer or other diseases related to smoking, the Ughmann manages to turn himself into a terrified fear monger, alarmed on many levels ...

The state is restlessly seeking new ways to intrude in our lives.
In the UK the Climate Change Committee, which advises the government, says to help achieve stringent new climate targets Britons will have to eat 25 per cent less meat. In a statement from the British Energy Minister’s office the public is assured these targets will succeed “without telling people how to live or behave”.
That, of course, is a lie. The state will find ways of making Britons comply in the task of saving the planet one vegan burger at a time. It is already succeeding by conjuring an economic environment in which many people can’t afford meat.
We are now living with the soft despotism Alexis de Tocqueville feared was the destination of democracies.

Hang on, hang on, it's the British government that's conjuring an economic environment simply to deny punters meat in their diets?

What does the Ughmann make of King Donald and his minions, devoted climate science denialists all, who nonetheless have managed to produce a spike in meat prices?

Soaring US beef prices likely to rise further thanks to trade tensions and disease outbreaks

You don't have to accept climate science to cause a rise in beef prices, but the reptiles carried on being alarmed ...In Australia, a Climate Change Authority report says shifting from red meat to other protein sources could help reduce emissions. Picture: Zoe Phillips

Eek, a meaningful snap of a moo cow, which might fit into the pond's thesis on the place of moo cows in cinema (cf Twister)

In the final gobbet, the Ughmann successfully managed to carry on like a pork chop ...

In Democracy in America, de Tocqueville warned of the risk of a system that could evolve into an “immense and tutelary power”, promising security, comfort and prosperity while gradually taking responsibility for more and more aspects of life.
“It would resemble paternal power if, like it, it had as a goal to prepare men for manhood; but on the contrary it seeks only to fix them irrevocably in childhood,” he wrote.
“After having thus taken each individual one by one into its powerful hands, and having molded him as it pleases, the sovereign power extends its arms over the entire society; it covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated, minute, and uniform rules, which the most original minds and the most vigorous souls cannot break through to go beyond the crowd; it does not break wills, but it softens them, bends them and directs them …
“Habitually it is moderate, benevolent, regular and humane; it rarely forces action, but it constantly opposes your acting; it does not destroy, it prevents birth; it does not tyrannise, it hinders, it represses, it enervates, it extinguishes, it stupifies, and finally it reduces each nation to being nothing more than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”
As CS Lewis wrote: “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.”

May be better to live under robber barons? But then CS Lewis was always a silly man, scribbling silly Xian fairy stories, full of moral busybody-ness and Xian triumphalism ...

The pond would rather have lived in the time of prohibition, and the attempts by omnipotent banners to take grog away from punters.

At least then you got Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemon in Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot, celebrating the joys of gay marriage.

And after a goodly time away from King Donald, trust the immortal Rowe to remind the pond of the madness that the reptiles have helped produce ...

Keep that sensa huma ...

In which Our Henry yearns for blut, Killer Creighton kills off EVs, and of course there's a Groaning ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 21:49:37 +0000

This morning the reptiles of Oz were wildly excited by the alleged death of the alleged "death tax" (remember to always use scare quotes when making things up), allegedly the result of an allegedly astonishing reptile jihad.

This wasn't the reason the pond rose with the cockies of the 'Gong to rush to the lizard Oz to gaze in awe on the rag, but for those who care, the whole platoon of reptiles assigned to the task could be found in the intermittent archive.\:

FLIPPIN' NOT ENOUGH
Brutal rejection of the Albanese-Chalmers budget backdown
Business groups, tech founders and a former Labor premier have united to dismiss the Albanese government’s capital gains tax concessions as a ‘patch-up job’ with ‘devastating consequences’.
By Greg Brown, Matthew Cranston and Jared Lynch

From ‘lies’ to ‘certainty’, Labor’s CGT change that makes no money
On June 4, Jim Chalmers described concerns expressed by business owners over proposed tax changes as ‘rubbish’. A fortnight later, he backed down.
By Matthew Cranston

EXCLUSIVE
Labor’s just put a ‘ceiling on ambition’
Capital gains tax changes promise small business relief but may starve mining companies of capital and disproportionately hit female founders.
By Julie-anne Sprague and James Dowling

Mining industry blasts government’s tax changes as a ‘kick in the guts’

Jim Chalmers has handed tech start-ups a tax lifeline while leaving the industry that ‘finds the mines of the future’ out in the cold – and critics say Australia will pay the price.
By Perry Williams, John Stensholt and Brad Thompson

Labor axes ‘death tax’ but the damage is done
The move always smacked of overreach. Now it’s official, raising tax on testamentary discretionary trusts was a mistake.
By James Kirby
Associate Editor – Wealth

What a line up, what a jihad.

When the reptiles go on a jihad, you can never accuse them of being half-hearted, with reptiles dragooned into the fray, shrieking at the hive mind.

Of course others of the Graudian kind tend to see things differently.

The CGT ‘backflip’ is more tweak than transformation. Labor hasn’t changed its mind on housing
Dan Jervis-Bardy
Do the concessions undermine the original objective of helping young Australians buy their own home? No.

But none of that was what got the pond going.

Even the revival of perhaps the most ancient and revered reptile jihad still doing the rounds - Higgins! - failed to move the pond, except to the intermittent archive.

EXCLUSIVE
Million dollar question: what happened to Brittany Higgins’ $2.4m payout?
More than $1m of the $2.4m Brittany Higgins received in her compensation payout is yet to be located by her appointed trustee in bankruptcy, with just $3000 remaining in the account.
By Stephen Rice

The boiling rice - just asking questions - didn't even need Dame Slap's help to get wildly overcooked about that one, but to be fair, it did feature an entirely irrelevant and astonishingly crude collage featuring a wedding snap.

Frankly Frank, you should give the game away and leave the graphics to AI ...

By this point regular correspondents will know the real reason for the pond's enthusiastic embrace of the lizard Oz.

How was Our Henry, esteemed hole in bucket repair man, coping?

How was the valiant Zionist, and noble crusader, dealing with everything?

Please, stand back, allow the pond a little indulgence:

The header: The West no longer wants to invest in real war with all its costs; We have substituted money for blood. Protecting our troops is entirely desirable; but as the fiscal costs soar, opposition to wars soars with them.

The caption for the depressing snap, which thankfully avoided the need to show dead Iranian schoolgirls: Flag-draped coffins of US war casualties aboard a cargo plane returning to the US.

Lordy, long absent lordy, Our Henry was deeply depressed about the will to fight, and sounded just like that German documentary Eine Symphonie des Kampfwillens , at least if you turned the symphony into a requiem for the will to fight:

While the full details of the agreement between the US and Iran remain to be seen, its broad outline confirms what has long been clear: the West has lost the will to fight. Seduced by the fantasy of wars that cost no lives, require no sacrifices and harm no civilians, it has condemned itself to premature capitulation.
We demand wars that resemble peace – or, at worst, a televised cage fight: never fatal for those who wage them, painless for those who watch them. But war is neither a spectacle nor a defective form of peace; it is the opposite of both. And it is precisely because it wreaks death and destruction that the credible threat of “the calamity of warre” can, in Hobbes’s famous phrase, act as life’s “most violent master”, teaching states and peoples alike to treasure peace and fear its loss.
Yet every element of the mindset in which we are trapped undermines that effect. The logic is inescapable. Convinced that war must be without victims, we have become willing to incur almost any financial cost to avoid bearing fatalities.

Poor valiant crusader, perhaps made even more depressed by the way that the reptiles stripped him of all snaps and AV distractions.

The pond felt the need to cheer him up with the odd 'toon ...

Being Henry, a little history celebrating "blut und boden" always comes in handy ...

In the Korean War, the United States spent roughly $16m, in today’s dollars, for each of the 36,500 lives it lost. By the war in Afghanistan, that figure had reached $1.4bn. In this year’s confrontation with Iran, it exceeded $3bn per American fatality – a 200-fold increase compared to Korea, capping a decades-long trend across the Western world.
We have, in other words, substituted money for blood. Protecting our troops is entirely desirable; but as the fiscal costs soar, opposition to wars soars with them.
Moreover, that bargain’s costs appear not merely in the ledger but in the conduct of war itself. Determined to minimise casualties, Western militaries increasingly rely on stand-off warfare through the massed application of air power. In reality, air power can destroy territory; it cannot secure it. Yes, adversaries can be bombed into submission. But that requires devastation on a scale that causes enormous civilian casualties.

Hey, sh*t happens, as noted in the both siderist NY Times ... (sorry, paywall):

Our Henry was hampered, constricted, by saucy doubts and fears. What a tragedy we can't do a dinkum sort of do like we use to do in world war days:

The only alternative is troops on the ground. Yet combat in densely populated areas, against enemies who regard civilian deaths as a propaganda tool, entails civilian-to-combatant fatality ratios on the order of those seen in Gaza – roughly two civilians for every enemy fighter killed – or even the four to five experienced in Iraq.
Both options – devastating air power and brutal urban combat – have become politically untenable. And nor are Western societies, which seek security without suffering, willing to bear the economic sacrifices major wars involve.
Nowhere are the consequences more evident than in Europe. Like the children of Peter Pan’s Neverland, Europeans have persuaded themselves that reality yields to desire. Germany stands out as the only major Western European country in which a majority appears willing to contemplate reductions in social expenditure to finance rearmament – and even that majority evaporates when specific cuts are proposed.
Elsewhere, resistance to explicit welfare-defence trade-offs predominates: 50 per cent in France, 53 per cent in Britain, 57 per cent in Spain and 61 per cent in Italy oppose reducing public services or other government spending in order to increase defence outlays.

Quelle catastrophe. What was it that bloody useless bible once said?

...they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.

O dammit, it's come to pass, the worst of the worst stalks the impotent land ...

Those preferences translate into budgetary choices: the four largest EU countries today spend eight dollars on pensions for every dollar they spend on defence – and pension spending becomes harder to curb as the population ages. The aversion to sacrifice extends beyond money: having wished away the realities of war, Europeans remain fiercely opposed to participation in serious military operations.
The American situation is more complex. Gallup finds that 64 per cent of Americans say it is important that the United States remain the world’s number one military power. Yet support for military predominance should not be confused with support for military intervention.
In February, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found that 63 per cent opposed sending US troops to defend Ukraine, despite majority support for military aid. Similarly, during the Iran crisis, only 14-28 per cent endorsed deploying US ground forces.
The result is a striking paradox. The United States, buoyed by public support for military predominance, accumulates an extraordinary military arsenal – but one that shines far more than it serves. Meanwhile, the gulf between American defence spending and that of its allies continues to widen.
In the 1950s, the spending asymmetry was large but it rested on a massive wealth gap. The United States spent far more because it was far richer; however, allies such as Britain – then devoting 7.6 per cent of GDP to defence – were exerting themselves almost as hard as the United States, where defence spending amounted to 8 to 10 per cent of GDP.
Today, the combined GDP of America’s allies exceeds that of the United States, yet the spending asymmetry remains stubbornly large. It now rests almost entirely on an effort gap, as high-income allies – Australia among them – devote a much smaller share of their national income to defence.
That only fuels Americans’ sense that – as George Washington observed in his Farewell Address, which is still read out in the Senate each February 22 – “there can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favours from nation to nation”. And the resentment the gap creates makes it harder still to persuade Americans to engage in complex, risky and potentially prolonged military operations that benefit the West as a whole.
The political consequence is that presidents, in trying to justify deploying American military force, promise vast outcomes from operations whose actual objectives are necessarily much narrower. Moreover, the character of the post-Cold War world aggravates that mismatch. For almost half a century, American strategic thinking was shaped by a concentrated, existential confrontation with the Soviet Union; the challenges that now demand military action are diffuse, localised and deeply entrenched.

Who or what to blame for this rampant sort of impotence? This gormless refusal to bung on a bloody do?

Our Henry knows ...

The grandiose, almost messianic, promises of painless success are therefore increasingly detached from the realities they are meant to address. When the easy triumph fails to materialise – as it invariably does – it reinforces what Louis Hartz identified in The Liberal Tradition in America (1955) as a characteristic American tendency: to “oscillate between fleeing from the rest of the world”, including the responsibilities it imposes, “and embracing it with too ardent a passion”.
Donald Trump has undoubtedly intensified that tendency. A politician who confuses showmanship with statesmanship and dresses vulgar opportunism in the language of high principle, he acts as a weathervane that amplifies, rather than just reflecting, the oscillation in public opinion. But can anyone believe the other “leaders” – such as Macron, Merz and Starmer, who relentlessly warned of the dangers Iran posed, merely to urge capitulation the moment crude oil prices started to rise – are, for all their greater polish, any better?

Why just for a moment there it sounded like Our Henry was channeling Pete Kegsbreath: Pete Hegseth blasts NATO members and announces review of US forces in Europe

Let's face it, only mad mullahs know how to do a jihad right...

The Iranians may be fanatics, but they are not fools. They may be Islamists, but they are also faithful Leninists, believing that “for a revolutionary, peace is only the continuation of war, waged by different means”. And above all, they know one big thing: there is no Neverland. It would be a tragedy if we discovered that only when it was too late.

Um, is it worth noting that the entire thing was a folly best stood clear of?

One that did nothing for Iranians, sensible dissidents or regime sheep, or the world economy, but instead has enabled the mad mullahs in ways they could only have dreamed of before King Donald got going...

And with that splendid bout of mourning for days of war mongering past, it's time for a 'toon.

While on the subject, the lizard Oz editorialist knew who to blame. He (or she) was at one with Our Henry, blaming those gutless wimps who blinked at the thought of a world depression or a middle east in meaningless flames ...

The header: EVs migh (sic, so and thus) feel right for the wealthy, but they will destroy our planet; Imagine the damage should net zero zealots replace two billion-odd, mostly internal combustion engines, with EVs.
The caption for a terrifying sight (at least to the hive mind): Robotic arms work on the assembly line of new electric vehicles at factory in China. Picture: Getty Images

Killer Creighton could only muster a three minute read, and he was also stripped of all AV distractions and snaps, but bear with him, because he was keen to give Pauline some tips on how to tackle climate change (which doesn't exist. Allegedly.)

As a user of EVs, the pond took particular pleasure in this shriek of pain, this howl of IPA anguish, and just let it roll ...

Pauline Hanson’s broadside against net-zero policies in her Press Club speech on Wednesday included a subtle dig at electric vehicles, products the government wants everyone to pay for – whether they want to or not.
The One Nation leader pointed out how their plastic interiors are still made from petroleum and other fossil fuels, putting the lie to the zero-emissions claim so beloved of their proponents.
She could have gone a lot harder on EVs, which are as dependent for production on subsidies and climate change fanaticism as solar panels and wind turbines.
They are also devastating – and vastly worse than ordinary combustion engine cars – for the environment. And by that, I mean the environment we actually live in, as opposed to the imaginary doomsday one decades hence that is projected by climate models unless we all buy EVs and slash emissions to zero.
High-income EV buyers, many of whom would honestly believe they are helping the planet, should be appalled that their shiny new BYD is in fact destroying the environment at a faster pace than their neighbour’s Ford Ranger.
The International Energy Agency itself says EVs require at least six times the mineral content of a conventional car during production, including graphite, nickel, lithium and cobalt.

You have to admire Killer's ability to cherry pick, and fling around the names of nasty minerals, while avoiding mentioning the way that lithium ion phosphate batteries (LFP) contain no cobalt and don't rely on high-nickel chemistries (see the actual report, for which the reptiles provided no link)

In this context, weight is an entirely meaningless measure, so naturally Killer deploys it ...

No wonder EVs weigh up to 500kg more than traditional cars.

Killer then does a reptile classic. Pick on a small consultancy which has pandered to its client base with scare stories of this kind...

EV myths, real numbers: driver misperceptions around EVs

Under the hood: The untold environmental impact of EVs (electric vehicles)

It's easy to see the cut of their jib, which is why Killer cut to them.

Sadly for the scare mongers, once you've tried an EV, it's hard to go back, unless you like feeding gas guzzlers from your hip pocket rather than from solar, and unless you like cars to match Harley Davidson sounds, what with the size of your exhaust pipe being a good indication of the size of your penis.

Roar away Killer, and perhaps attach a set of truck nuts ...

Melbourne-based Frontier Economics, an independent economics consultancy, is researching “whether Australian consumers should be protected from unknowingly supporting environmental damage through their purchase of EVs, especially from manufacturers who source raw minerals from suppliers who have poor environmental practices”.
In a 2025 research note titled Under the Hood, it wrote of the untold environmental impact of EVs, pointing out how the planned shift to EVs would “drive a massive increase in mining activity … along with other significant environmental impacts associated with mining”.
“Meeting this demand will require significantly more mining activity and place greater environmental pressure on mineral-rich locations – oftentimes in locations far away and out of sight of EV consumers,” Frontier Economics reported.
Indeed, imagine the damage to Earth should net-zero zealots actually try to replace the world’s two billion-odd vehicles (overwhelmingly powered by combustion engines) with EVs, and then update their batteries every few years. Literally hundreds of massive new mines that irreversibly destroy their surrounds will be required around the world.
Indeed, as Frontier points out, hundreds of thousands of hectares of Indonesian rainforests are set to be wiped out around Weda Bay, where China sources much of the nickel required to assemble EVs using electricity generated by coal-fired power stations.
“The government prohibits the importation of illegal, unsustainable logged timber to prevent Australian consumers from unintentionally contributing to environmental harm,” Frontier economists also point out. Yet the same government says nothing about the permanent destruction of pristine areas of Africa, Chile, The Philippines, Indonesia and even Papua New Guinea stemming from mindless EV boosting. Carbon dioxide isn’t the only thing worth conserving.

Now what could cap all this? Government intervention, and taxation, as only a free market IPA stooge could want ...

If One Nation were looking for a tax increase that would inject some industrial and environmental sanity into Australian policymaking, it should roll out a road user charge on electric vehicles, which would raise more than $300m a year by 2028, according to the Parliamentary Budget Office. As it stands, EV drivers don’t pay fuel excise, which is meant to contribute to the upkeep of roads.

Perhaps realising he'd gone too far, Killer hastily promised to help out the gas guzzlers by doing a DOGE ...

One Nation could also tear down a complex array of state and federal government tax credits, stamp duty exemptions and subsidies totalling thousands of dollars for vehicles that flow only to EVs, equalling rates of support per car that earlier governments provided Ford, Holden and Toyota to make cars here, according to a report in The Australian last October.
Inefficient no doubt those subsidies were, but at least we got some full-time well-paid jobs out of them. Quite aside from the accelerated, permanent environmental damage to poor nations that EV subsidies and tax breaks encourage, the benefits accrue mostly to China, a nation that arbitrarily slaps embargoes and quotas on our exports when it feels like it. The Albanese government has helped supercharge Chinese EV manufacturers’ share of the domestic EV market to almost 60 per cent last year from about half that in 2024. These are vehicles numerous experts across the US, UK and Australia have worried could be shut down by embedded kill switches from mainland China.

Throw in a bit of generalist climate science denialism ...

Science and economics are providing inevitable wake-up calls to the net-zero fantasies seemingly in every country except Australia, where governments are ploughing on with ludicrous, obscenely expensive and globally pointless emissions targets of which EV take-up is a critical part.
Just as climate change has fallen well down voters’ concerns compared to only a few years back, EVs will once again become a niche product for higher-income earners. Taxpayers will ultimately baulk at the absurd cost of providing charging infrastructure, just as they will quadrupling the nation’s transmission lines to make way for wind turbines that work only a fraction of the day.

...and bob's your equivocating Killer uncle...

Debate rages over whether greenhouse emissions from EVs or combustion engine vehicles are greater in total over their entire life cycle.
But there’s no debate over which type of car causes more environmental damage in the here and now. If buyers cared more about the planet they live in, the EV bubble will burst sooner.

Debate rages?

Professor of Economics at the University of Birmingham Robert Elliott acknowledge that while an EV initially had a higher manufacturing carbon footprint, “a long-lasting electric vehicle can quickly offset its carbon footprint, contributing to the fight against climate change – making them a more sustainable long-term option.

Nice alarmist, hysterical try Killer, just no carbon-producing cigar...

Perhaps you need to make bulldozer noises to attract Pauline's attention ...

And now some correspondents might be wondering if the pond had overlooked the latest Groaning from Dame Groan.

How could you think such heretical thoughts?

There'll always be room for Dame Groan in this inn, though it was so familiar the pond thought a few screen caps could do the job.

If anyone wants to catch the text for a cut and paste, it's at the intermittent archive ...

Sad to say, it's just the usual jihad jeremiad.

It's all such familiar stuff that Dame Slap really needs to find new components for her word salad.

Henry VIII provisions? Fiascos?

What happened to the good old days of "we'll all be rooned"?

The old biddie's now so hysterical she's running out of word puff ...

A better way? The pond knows what that means, it being code for the new era of One Nationisation at work in the lizard Oz.

It was time for the immortal Rowe celebrating the new and better way ...

So much winning, on so many fronts...

In which the perils of being Pauline and King Donald are bigly featured, being bigly birds of a like-minded bigoted feather ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 21:37:57 +0000

With One Nation having wholeheartedly embraced the policies, attitudes and positions promoted by the lizard Oz these past few decades, the mutual admiration society, and the One Nationisation of the hive mind continued apace early this morning.

The pond hopes that the frenzy will soon fade, because it's already well past the point of existential ennui.

Brownie emerged from the murk to lead with an alleged "news" item ...

ONE NATION
Hanson goes to war with Labor, Islam and trans agenda
Pauline Hanson has launched a battalion of policy wars with Labor and the Coalition by pledging massive cuts to government spending while ending the ‘transgender insurgency’ and Islamic fundamentalism in Australia.
By Greg Brown

Transphobia, Islamophobia, Laborphobia, and climate science denialism! What's not for a reptile to love wholeheartedly?

Brownie put forward an immortal sentence, presumably meaning we must all become reptiles:

“Under the failed policy of multiculturalism, all cultures are allowed equivalence to ours,” Senator Hanson said. “Surely opposing that is not racist, it’s common sense. We cannot be a multicultural society. We are a multiracial society, but we must be monocultural.”

The pond wasn't sure what it meant.

Did it mean monocultural like tykes v. proddies v. evangelicals v. deeply weird Xian nationalists, or did it mean the monocultural harmony of little England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland? Or was it just meaningless blather of a bigoted kind, and so at one with the reptiles?

Down below Brownie, Geoff chambered yet another round ...

COMMENTARY by Geoff Chambers
Taylor invisible as Hanson emerges as unofficial opposition leader
Angus Taylor struggling to be heard as Pauline Hanson takes on Anthony Albanese
Angus Taylor is struggling to be heard. At a press conference on Wednesday, he received just one question from the lone journalist present.

The poor old beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way was swatted to the curb ...

...While Taylor is trying his best, he is struggling to be heard. There is a handful of Liberal MPs led by Tim Wilson, Andrew Hastie and Garth Hamilton who are showing they are prepared to go head-to-head with One Nation. Speaking at a press conference in southern Sydney ahead of the ABS on Thursday releasing updated net overseas migration data, Taylor received one question from a sole journalist who asked him what he expected from Hanson’s address.
“Scrutiny matters, and, frankly, One Nation is yet to give this country a credible plan,” Taylor said. “Right now, I’m every day subjecting myself to the press, having press conferences like this, and answering those hard questions because they matter. But most importantly, laying out that credible plan for our country. A plan for lower taxes, for more aspiration, for an economy that grows and provides opportunity for hardworking Australians, for affordable and abundant energy, for housing ownership that is within reach for young Australians, for putting Australians first.”
Just four months into the job, Taylor is grappling with a rejuvenated Hanson who has mastered the art of opposition deflection and soundbites. When quizzed about One Nation policies and funding, it is easy for Hanson to shift focus back to the unpopular major parties.

Steady, they're on the job ...

Over on the extreme far right of the digital edition, Jenna did her best to show that her male colleagues were rank amateurs when it came to hagiography by invoking Maggie Thatcher.

Pauline Hanson is no longer the Karen in Chief, she’s Thatcher from Queensland
Maggie Thatcher said ‘the cocks may crow, but it’s the hen that lays the egg’. Having waited 30 years for credibility and poll success, Pauline Hanson isn’t counting her chickens yet.
By Jenna Clarke
Culture Writer

That's culture?

No, that's a gigantic suck ...

The pond could only swallow a bit of it, because Jenna didn't hold back with the gushing, a gigantic squirt of devotion ...

... Her oration wasn’t groundbreaking, it was refreshing.
Unlike the major party leaders, she actually knows her audience.
No fence-sitting like Angus Taylor and no talking out both sides of her mouth like Anthony Albanese.
It’s why her language, which some scoff at for its “bogan” simplicity, is so successful.
Oxley is a long way from Oxford.
As a single mother of four children, she’s used to vacuuming, not living in one.
The 72-year-old used phrases like “sick to the back teeth”, opted for the word “dear” instead of “expensive” and simplified — with varying levels of success — fraught topics like foreign aid and energy policy.
While every government representative appears to have been created in a petri dish on Sussex Street, Hanson sounds, according to various and successive polls, relatable to the majority of Australians right now.
Buried in her bluster and away from the pathetic protests, were some kernels of legitimate vote winning ideas, such as allowing pensioners, veterans and students to earn as much as they like without having their benefits impacted.
It’s wrong to say she is of the “extremist far right”, she’s extreme.
Always has, always will be.
If politics seems like a circus right now, and Australia is indeed going down the same path as other democracies like the US, maybe Pauline could be the ringmaster voters want in order to rein in the clowns of Canberra in two years time.

That abject devotion, that pitiable grovelling on bended knees, is the sound of reptile surrender.

Did any reptile attempt a fight back?

Not really.

The lizard Oz editorialist attempted a token gesture, but no one reads what the lizard Oz editorialist has to say, and the few no ones who do probably couldn't give a toss up against the gushing Jenna ...

Please, make room, bear with the pond ...

Put it another way ...

Now that's the way to treat reptiles.

Did the lizard Oz editorialist read gushing Jenna?

And why did the pond feature the editorialist and send most of gushing Jenna to the intermittent archive?

It's because the lizard Oz editorialist shows the schizophrenia that now saturates the rag, as the reptiles simultaneously cheer on the Hansonites, while at times remembering that once they used to blather about Ming the Merciless and picket fences...

The hapless reptile even tried to downplay the Paulinist embrace of reptile positions:

..Senator Hanson has diagnosed the full impact of the wayward energy transition on cost-of-living pressures and put her cards on the table in support of coal, oil, gas and nuclear as well as rooftop solar. Her mantra, with echoes of Donald Trump, is “Dig, baby, dig” but the details and reality of implementation can be frustrating.
The rise of One Nation reflects a trend towards populist leaders in other parts of the world. Senator Hanson credits the defeat of the voice to parliament referendum as a wake-up call where citizens rediscovered their own voice.

Uh huh...didn't she mean they discovered a reptile voice?

Pearls of wisdom also arrived to ask questions ...

The header: Pauline Hanson’s outsider status remains her precious superpower;Those at her speech hoping for more specifics on plans to ‘grow the pie’ and pay for her promises would have been disappointed.

The caption for the snap, a reminder of Pauline's uncanny resemblance to Martin Luther (thank you Ughmann): One Nation leader Pauline Hanson speaks at the National Press Club on Wednesday. Picture: Getty Images

The reptiles were, in their usual way, incredibly discreet. There was no snap of a rogue kind to start off the droppings of pearls of wisdom:

And the pearls of wisdom only managed to run for a measly three minutes.

They were polite in delivery, and while there was talk of mixed signals, there were clear indications that some of the signals were right and just ...

On Wednesday afternoon Pauline Hanson gave her first National Press Club address, a debut 30 years in the making.
Her speech was passionately argued and uncompromising. Hanson covered familiar policy ground: she spoke about immigration and housing, our national identity and values, the cost-of-living crisis and energy, the tax hits announced in the budget and even what she called “the transgender insurgency” in Canberra.
On immigration, she sent mixed signals. Pragmatically, she linked our high intake to the housing crisis, yet in an unscripted moment she commented bitterly about “floods” of people coming here; an echo of her maiden speech in 1996. She called for Islamic “hate preachers” to be deported and said people who weren’t willing to embrace our Judaeo-Christian traditions should not be allowed to settle in this country.
A little oddly, perhaps, she expressed disapproval for the fact that a quarter of Australians speak a language other than English in their homes (even though many of them, I suspect, would subscribe to the values she upholds).

He suspects? That's the sort of deeply researched point that makes the lizard Oz such a sociological marvel.

The reptiles then interrupted with an AV distraction, with the thumb again shorn of unseemly images ... Will Glasgow reports from Pauline Hanson's Press Club event in Canberra

The pearls of wisdom allowed the talk of the hoax of climate change to go unchallenged, which was right and proper considering that the lizard Oz has been climate science denial central these past couple of decades:

Hanson grew visibly angry when talking about the Australians forced to seek help from the Salvation Army and other charities, blaming “the hoax” of global warming and heavily subsidised wind and solar energy for our cost-of-living crisis.
She pledged to end every net-zero related grant, subsidy and mandate the government has on its books and build two coal-fired power stations and one nuclear one.
Hanson confined herself to motherhood statements on economic policy questions.
She said she had always argued against “escalating debt”, compared Jim Chalmers’ spending record unfavourably with Paul Keating’s and pointed out – correctly – that this was contributing to inflation and higher interest rates. In response to one question, she said she would not seek to interfere with the Reserve Bank.
Those hoping for more specifics on her plan to “grow the pie” and pay for her promises would have been disappointed.
Hanson’s political rise this year has been spectacular but remains poorly understood by many. We are told variously that it was prompted by the Bondi Beach terrorist attack, or economic pain people are feeling, or the progressive cultural assault on this country. All of these explanations have merit.

The reptiles interrupted with another AV distraction, this one generously offering to the hive mind an IN FULL viewing of the entire 48'06" minutes: One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson makes her first National Press Club address since entering politics over 30 years ago.

Talk about helping the Hansonites infiltrate the hive mind in a bigly way...

And then it was on to a billy goat butt from the pearls of wisdom and an explanation of the phenomenon.

It turned out that it was the hijacking elites, the Beijing-like Covid response to Covid (shades of Killer Kreighton!), the net-zero crusade, rampant furriners, and elite attacks on Australian values, there being no 'leet, none at all, in the lizard Oz.

In short, it was the pearls of wisdom showing he knew how to regurgitate Hansonism 101, as the reptiles of Oz have done over the years ...

But at the heart of this political upheaval – which we are seeing in the US, Britain and many other advanced countries – is something deeper and more disturbing. It is the hijacking of our politics by the political and bureaucratic establishment during the past decade or more.
This has given us numerous disastrous policies, including pandemic-era lockdowns modelled after Beijing’s, a net-zero crusade that is hurting our growth and living standards (with no discernible environmental benefit), an uncontrolled migration system (appropriated by money-hungry universities) and elite attacks on Australian values.
While each of these things is bad enough, what too few people – even today – acknowledge is that they were foisted on the electorate. They were not demanded by the community. They were not debated and voted for during election campaigns. Their costs and risks were not assessed by a competent and professional public service. They were not scrutinised by a sceptical media.
Instead, they were presented to us as unarguable moral and economic imperatives, sanctioned by experts, by science, by the direction of history or by all right-thinking people – take your pick. We were told by our leaders that if we so much as questioned them, we were mentally deficient or morally reprobate.
Hanson understands this anti-democratic malaise acutely. In the most powerful part of her speech, which much reporting seems to have missed, she drew a strong link between herself and everyday Australians. She said that just as “every attempt has been made to silence me”, in Australia “people have been frightened to speak up”.
People have been “demeaned and condescended to” and “civil debate has been paralysed”, Hanson said, with the media being complicit in this. I couldn’t agree more.
Hanson’s outsider status is her superpower. Not only has it given her an immunity from establishment criticism – about the way she talks and acts, the detail and credibility of her policies, and the quality of some One Nation candidates – but it has allowed her to gain strength from these attacks.
For many Australians, criticism of her National Press Club speech will be a further reason to rally to her cause.

And after that set of ringing endorsements by the pearls of wisdom, there came a last feeble billy goat butt, one likely to be entirely ignored by the hive mind:

But here is the problem. If Hanson is right to call out our political and bureaucratic leaders, it does not mean she has the answers or – if she finds herself in a position of power – the capacity to repair the deep economic and cultural damage they have caused.
This is not a question of competence. By any measure, Anthony Albanese and his Treasurer cannot claim this mantle. Neither can many of those in the Coalition, judging by their performance when last in government.
All the same, it is one thing to give voice to popular frustrations or hopes but quite another to meet these demands successfully in government or coalition. After all, if outsiders succeed in gaining the power they seek, they become the establishment.
David Pearl is a former Treasury assistant secretary.

The pond would have liked an invisible deity to exist so that it could offer a silent prayer for that "former".

Who cares about having the answers?

Did King Donald have any answers?

Do the reptiles think they have any answers?

They have bigotry and stupidity as their super powers ...

And speaking of King Donald, the reptiles were all over the Iran deal early in the morning.

But the analysis and commentary on offer was pitiful.

Instead of the bromancer, the reptiles sent in Jack ...

The header: Iran’s victory claims are a delusion amid the ruins; Iranian generals have declared triumph from the rubble as the regime prints its first-ever 10 million rial note – worth one Happy Meal.

The caption for the uncredited collage, featuring a snap and fatuous imagery: A giant billboard depicting the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his son, the supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, with Arabic writing that reads: ‘Thank you Iran.’ Picture: Anwar Amro/AFP

Jack spent four minutes celebrating the way, or perhaps clinging to the mad King Donald dream, that the mad Mullahs had been given a sound thrashing:

In the wake of almost any armed conflict it is unsurprising that the surviving combatants on either side will claim victory. They can both be wrong but they can’t both be right.
In the US, celebrations have been muted despite President Donald Trump’s buoyant social media posts. Of course, Trump would probably claim the Battle of Little Big Horn was a stunning US victory against the odds.
A lot of ink has been hurled on to the front pages of newspapers around the globe, claiming Trump’s objectives – which initially centred on regime change in Iran, then moved to wiping out the Iranian civilisation, such as it is, before finally resting on prohibiting the Iranian regime’s desire for nuclear weapons – have not been met and may never be met.

Celebrations muted?

That's one way of putting it. Other ways include ...

Trump in Defeat
The president went to war triumphant and will likely leave greatly weakened.
By Jonathan Lemire

Trump Does Not Understand the War He Lost
The president’s comments at the G7 summit revealed that he doesn’t understand the war he started—or the words that come out of his own mouth.
By Tom Nichols

Sssh, don't disturb Jack's dreaming, even as the reptiles flooded the Jacked up zone with assorted AV distractions, with the first backing up Jack: Deakin University Global Islamic Politics Chair Professor Greg Barton discusses the severe economic impact of the war in Iran on the Iranian people. “Iran has been devastated by this war; the economy is really on its knees, the 92 million citizens of Iran are really suffering, more than they have for decades,” Mr Barton told Sky News Digital Presenter Gabriella Power. “It’s a really tough situation; Iran doesn’t have a conventional air force or navy to speak of; it’s got small, fast boats … but it does have the capacity to project force through ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones, cheap drones. “The regime has not gone away; if anything, it’s in its current form perhaps even more hardline.”

Jack was keen to emphasise that the mad Mullahs were on their knees:

But if it’s full-blown delusions one is after, look no further than the Islamic Republic’s surviving leadership.
Speaking from a pile of debris that was Iran’s military operational headquarters at Khatam al-Anbiya and surveying the smouldering wreck that was once the Iranian military, a chipper Major General Ali Abdollahi claimed “the humiliated … enemies have no option but to accept defeat and surrender before a people inspired by God and the soldiers of the Almighty”.
Moments after emerging from his spider hole, the Speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf (also one of the leading Iranian figures in the peace talks), declared Iran had taken “a long step towards final victory”.
Summoning up the memory of Iraq’s propaganda minister, Comical Ali, predicting a fiery apocalypse for US troops while they sauntered into Baghdad unopposed, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi stated that Iran “defeated the US on the military battlefield”, adding: “Iran’s armed forces will always have their hand on the trigger to confront the conspiracies of the enemies.”
The regime’s state news agency, Mehr, also was in a celebratory mood, pointing to the cash and prizes as the spoils of war it thinks are headed the regime’s way. Reports quoted from a 14-point memorandum of understanding that seems to be a fiction of Mehr’s own making, claiming the regime would be the recipient of “the release of $US24bn ($34bn) in frozen Iranian assets during the 60-day negotiation period” that begins after the framework deal is signed.
The details of the MOA between the two nations have not been fully published and negotiations are expected to begin in Switzerland on Friday. That hasn’t stopped the predictable skiting, bluff and bullshit from this most appalling government.

MOA? Well it's probably no big deal to talk that way about the MOU, no more than King Donald talking about "nuclear dust".

The reptiles next rolled in JD, sans couch: US President Donald Trump is currently in Evian-les-Bains, where leaders are meeting for the annual G7 Summit. During remarks alongside French President Emmanuel Macron, Trump said that an agreement had been signed. In an interview with ABC's Good Morning America, US Vice President JD Vance commented on this. “On the one hand, if they continue to try to rebuild their nuclear program, this deal ensures they will never have the resources in order to do that,” Mr Vance said. “On the other hand, if the Iranians are willing to give a long-term commitment along with proper verification to giving up that nuclear weapon, we are willing to welcome them into the world economy, to lift some sanctions and to turn over a new leaf in that relationship.”

Being something of a couch lover, Jack followed up with more talk of mad Mullahdefeat:

According to US Vice-President JD Vance, that money has been set aside to pay for infrastructure reconstruction in the Gulf states caused by missile and drone strikes inflicted by Iraq during the four-month war.
In the Iranian capital, Mehr news agency also showed a gigantic mural – an advertising format much beloved of the mullahs – that claimed: “The US was forced to sign an agreement to end the war.”
It’s not all victory garlands, fist pumps and self-congratulation in Iran. One hardline MP, the deputy chairman of parliament’s national security committee, reportedly has described the draft peace deal as a document that would turn Iran into an American colony.

There came final AV distraction celebrating the way that the mad Mullahs had met their match, with an air about of state regime media, otherwise known as Faux Noise ... Iran's leaders are splashing propaganda posters across Tehran boasting of national unity and victory over a global superpower, just months after crushing protests with mass killings and as war worsens economic pain for their people. This report produced by Jillian Kitchener.

As for the poor hapless Iranian dissidents sold down the river by King Donald and his acolytes, Jack had a few consoling words. Not to worry. According to Jack, it'll be regime change by Xmas ...

Meanwhile, anti-regime Iranians continue to dwell in despair. One anonymous Iranian who despises the mullahs and their corrupt regime initially had supported US military action. He was left to ponder what the US attack had achieved since it did not lead to political change in Iran: “Our hope was that the ruling system would change. But apart from misery, inflation and further damage to the economy, what benefit did it have for people?”
Blanket propaganda and collective delusional disorder aside, the regime is overseeing an economy that had been mired in recession before February 28 and is now teetering on the brink of depression. GDP growth in the Islamic Republic has gone from a single negative point to negative 6.1 for the year to date.
Before the conflict the Iranian currency was hardly humming along but the war forced a 40 per cent reduction on the rial. Ten thousand rials will get you 10 Australian cents.
The flatlining currency shows no sign of any real recovery. To avoid grim scenes of Iranians pushing wheelbarrows full of almost worthless cash, the regime has printed a 10 million rial note for the first time. It’s worth the price of a Happy Meal in Australia.
Numismatists with a penchant for collecting worthless currency can add the freshly minted note to their collections alongside Iraq’s 10,000 dinar note issued by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 2002 before the world came to pay him a final visit and Zimbabwe’s $100 trillion note, featuring so many zeroes it was exhausting just to look at it.
The biggest challenge to Iran’s corrupt and bloody regime comes in the form of food security.
There already were profound hyper-inflationary pressures in Iran before the war. While these have worsened only marginally since the war began, the cost of basic staples in Iran has skyrocketed. The price of cooking oils, rice and flour has shot up by more than 200 per cent.
Regime change in Iran was always unlikely by sheer force of munitions. Bombing raids and missile strikes by the US and Israel even may have shored up the mullahs’ ugly dominance of the Iranian people.
Food security is another matter and it is at crisis level. Hungry people are angry people. The most recent and compelling example was in Sri Lanka in 2022, when president Gotabaya Rajapaksa resigned and fled the country amid critical shortages of fuel, food and medicine.
The Islamic Republic of Iran will be a tougher nut for its citizens to crack, but one certainty is that if enough hungry, angry people hit the streets, it’s time for the mullahs to grab their suitcases and flee, possibly to Russia where the best advice they can receive is to avoid standing in front of windows.
Clearly, the warring parties – one a military superpower, the other a regional middle power – have separate and distinct objectives, but mere survival is not triumph.

Mere survival?

That's what they're calling 300 billion dollars in the lizard Oz these days?

In an attempt to balance the simperings of Jack, the reptiles included a more lengthy analysis, borrowed from the WSJ.

It was a point by point breakdown, and the pond doesn't intend to add to the exegesis.

Rather, it is what it is, but at least it doesn't rely on the vagaries of the intermittent archive:

The header: Annotated analysis of Trump’s Iran deal; The official agreement envisages trade relief for opening the Strait of Hormuz and limits on Iran’s nuclear program.
The authors: Laurence Norman, Alexander Ward and Summer Said
The caption for the snap: A man wave an Iranian flag in front of a billboard displaying the flag. Picture: Getty Images.

This outing was liberally sprinkled with AV distractions, and took a bigly six minute read (according to the reptiles), but at least it isn't Jack sounding jacked-up:

A senior Trump administration official read out President Trump’s memorandum of understanding to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and wind down the war with Iran in exchange for financial incentives for Tehran that will begin immediately.
Another official, speaking at the same event Wednesday, said Iran had asked the US not to release the text itself. The Wall Street Journal produced this transcript, along with Journal analysis of the crucial points.
The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran have jointly agreed in good faith on such and such a date on the following:
Paragraph 1 The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran and their allies in the current war, by signing this memorandum of understanding, declare the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon, and undertake from now on not to initiate any war or any military operation against each other, and to refrain from the threat or use of force against each other, and ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon. The final deal will confirm the permanent termination of the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon, and other provisions of this paragraph.
WSJ analysis: The inclusion of Lebanon is highly controversial in Israel, which is fighting a war there with Hezbollah. This official version includes tougher language on Lebanon’s sovereignty.
Paragraph 2 The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran undertake to respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and to refrain from interfering in each other’s internal affairs.
WSJ analysis: President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began the war calling on Iranians to overthrow the regime, a goal that faded as the government in Tehran held firm.
Paragraph 3 The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran commit to negotiating and achieving the final deal in maximum 60 days extendable with mutual consent.
WSJ analysis:The tough questions around Iran’s nuclear program and funds for reconstruction will be tackled in this second phase.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday (June 17) that Iran can access a $300 billion private fund "only if they’re doing things right" and that the United States has taken a lot of Iran's money which will at "some point" have to be returned.

Paragraph 4 Immediately upon the signing of this memorandum of understanding, the United States of America will begin the removal of its naval blockade and any disturbances or impediments against the Islamic Republic of Iran, and end the naval blockade within 30 days. During this period, the traffic of vessels will be in proportion to the numbers of pre-war traffic being restored by the Islamic Republic of Iran. United States of America further undertakes to remove its forces from the proximity of the Islamic Republic of Iran within 30 days after the final deal.
WSJ analysis: This is the meat of the deal, reopening the strategic Strait of Hormuz and pausing the war. The administration official said the deadline for removal of forces is after any final deal on nuclear and other issues.
Paragraph 5: Upon the signing of this memorandum of understanding, 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 demining by the Islamic Republic of Iran, will be reinstated. 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 discussion with other Persian Gulf littoral states in line with the applicable international law and the sovereign rights of coastal states of the Strait of Hormuz.
WSJ analysis: Iran’s main obligation under the deal, lifting its chokehold on the strait. The updated version says Iran agrees not to charge fees for transit for 60 days and blesses an Iranian plan to work with Oman on the future administration of the strait, but says they must involve other Gulf states in the discussion.

President Trump issued a chilling warning to any country who would sell Iran a nuclear weapon, saying that they would "get nuked," themselves. Trump said that as part of the Iran p …

Paragraph 6: The United States of America undertakes with regional partners to develop a definitive, fully agreed plan with at least $300 billion for the reconstruction and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The mechanism for the implementation of this plan will be finalised as part of a final deal within 60 days. All required licenses, waivers, and permissions needed for the relevant financial transactions will be granted by the United States of America.
WSJ analysis: A new twist on the economic benefits Iran could expect if it delivers on US demands on the nuclear front. Mr Trump says there will be no US funding for this effort. The updated draft says the US will grant sanctions waivers needed for investors to participate.
Paragraph 7: The United States of America undertakes to terminate all types of sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the United Nations Security Council resolutions, i.e. IAEA Board of Governors resolutions, and all unilateral US sanctions, primary and secondary, in an agreed upon schedule as part of the final deal. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America acknowledge the critical importance of the sanctions termination issue above mentioned, and expressed their intentions to immediately address these issues in the negotiations in order to achieve mutual agreement on them.
WSJ analysis: The big carrot, an end to economically crippling sanctions if Iran meets American demands. In the updated version, the US recognises the urgency of the issue for Iran.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday (June 17) that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could use a "softer touch" in Lebanon in comments made at the close of a G7 summit in France.

Paragraph 8: The Islamic Republic of Iran reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons. The United States of America and Islamic Republic of Iran have agreed to resolve the disposition of stockpiled enriched material pursuant to a mechanism that will be mutually agreed upon in accordance with the schedule mentioned in Paragraph 7, with the minimum methodology to be downblending on site under the supervision of the IAEA. The two parties also agreed to discuss the issue of enrichment and other mutually agreed matters related to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear needs based on a satisfactory framework being agreed upon in the final deal. The final deal will confirm the provisions of this paragraph. The Islamic Republic of Iran acknowledge the critical importance of nuclear issues above mentioned, and express their intention to immediately address these issues in the negotiations in order to achieve mutual agreement on them.
WSJ analysis: Iran repeats its longstanding pledge not to develop a nuclear weapon. The updated version includes more specific language on the disposal of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, with the senior administration official saying Iran has committed to destroy it. This version also specifically mentions future nuclear enrichment, with Iran acknowledging the urgency of the issue for the US
Paragraph 9: Pending the final deal, the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran agree to maintain the status quo. The Islamic Republic of Iran will maintain the current status quo of its nuclear program, and the United States of America will not impose any new sanctions, and will not deploy additional forces in the region.
WSJ analysis: Freezes the nuclear standoff in place.
Paragraph 10: The United States of America undertakes that immediately upon the signing of this memorandum of understanding, and until the termination of sanctions, the US Department of Treasury will issue waivers for the export of Iranian crude oil, petroleum products, and derivatives, and all associated services, including banking transactions, insurances, transportation, etc.
WSJ analysis: A major up-front American concession freeing Iran to sell oil as it likes and reap the financial benefits.

In a speech at the G-7 summit in France, Trump said he was giving Iran 60 days to negotiate their agreement, or the U.S. would resume bombing.

Paragraph 11: The United States of America undertakes to make fully available for use the frozen or restricted funds and assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Upon the implementation of this memorandum of understanding, the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran will mutually agree on the procedures related to the release of these funds during the negotiations. Such funds, whether retained in the original account or transferred, shall be made fully usable for payment to any ultimate beneficiary designed by the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States of America undertakes to issue all necessary licenses and authorisations accordingly.
WSJ analysis: The US will let Iran access some of its estimated $100 billion in frozen assets depending on progress in talks.
Paragraph 12: The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran agree that an executive mechanism will be established to monitor the successful implementation of this memorandum of understanding and the future compliance of the final deal.
Paragraph 13: After signing this memorandum of understanding and subject to the beginning of the implementation of paragraphs 1, 4, 5, 10 and 11 of this memorandum of understanding, and the continuing implementation of these measures, the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran will start negotiations regarding the final deal exclusively on the other paragraphs.
WSJ analysis: Limits the scope of discussion in the second phase, leaving out Iran’s ballistic missile program and its network of regional militias. The updated version expands the list of paragraphs to include Paragraph 1, the cessation of hostilities including in Lebanon.
Paragraph 14: The final deal will be endorsed by a binding resolution of the UN Security Council.
The Wall St Journal

Put it another, algae-laden, American flag green way...

In which the pond ignores the One Nationisation of the lizard Oz for the pleasures of "Ned's" natter and a short Groaning ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 21:46:57 +0000

The pond returned from the big smoke to find the One Nationisation of the lizard Oz in an advanced condition.

The reptiles were wildly excited by the vibe and the rebellion, with two yarns topping the "news" section early this morning ...

It's understandable.

The lizard Oz has always been a leader in devising and setting One Nation policies, and at last they can come out in a way that would make the average Pride party seem lightweight.

These days they're more than Pauline curious, they're happy piling on the Pauline bandwagon.

The pond doesn't usually bother with the lizard Oz "news", what with it being another word for propaganda in the alternative hive mind universe, but for those that care...

INSIDE ONE NATION
One Nation’s ‘Svengali’ taps Trump’s vibe to mastermind Hanson’s rise
James Ashby has built a Trump-style digital machine that has left Labor, Coalition and Greens strategists flat-footed.
By Geoff Chambers

Teaser trailer ...

EXCLUSIVE

Strategy of the rebellion: Joyce to take on Chalmers
Barnaby Joyce has emerged as One Nation’s Treasury spokesman as Pauline Hanson prepares to present an alternative vision for the country.
By Sarah Ison and Greg Brown

Teaser trailer ...

Hotly anticipated? Hacks gotta hack ...

Just to help pump up the volume, MAGA cap wearer Dame Slap was over on the extreme far right dong her thing...

In the Hanson era, institutional hubris is in the firing line
Soaring levels of support for One Nation suggests millions of Australians have had enough with institutionalised complacency.
By Janet Albrechtsen
Columnist

Teaser trailer ...

Why only a teaser trailer for Dame Slap?

Well, she seizes the chance to indulge in another bout of transphobia, and there's only so much of the lizard Oz transphobia jihad the pond can take in a month. (If you want to see where a Bud Lite bout of transphobia can lead, have a sip of Parker Molloy).

The intermittent archive is currently working, so why not send her and her bigotry to that particular cornfield, where she can parade in her MAGA hat to her eternal pleasure ...

As for why the reptiles are obsessed with Pauline, Barners and the rabble on the extreme far right?

Simple. Allow the pond to explain:

Pauline channels the reptiles, she makes them feel whole, and right.

They're in a mutually reinforcing echo chamber, united in a holy crusade, a jihad for the reptile ages.

And besides, all those teaser trailers clear space for "Ned" to natter, and as the pond is designed as a soporific, what better way to accomplish the mission?

The header: Iran deal proves one thing, Donald Trump is no wartime leader; There’s no question the Iran war has done the US President lasting damage.

Sadly there was no caption for the collage, and so the pond can't definitively say that it's a textbook example of how AI has completely degraded the lizard Oz, but the pond has its suspicions. Just look at how wretched it is ...

As for "Ned", he spent a remarkably short five minute read contemplating the current state of King Donald and his kingdom's war on Iran.

Who knows why the bromancer avoids the subject, leaving it all to "Ned", but it's a verifiable phenomenon.

The bromancer was seen yesterday offering this ...

Starmer, like Albo, talks big but is making a mess of his government
As the British Prime Minister stumbles and AUKUS doubts grow, the parallels with Canberra raise uncomfortable questions for Australia.

And before that it was this ...

Albanese government is using AUKUS to conceal shameful defence reality
Albanese and Marles dissemble and deceive over Australia’s military weakness. Labor’s security performance is pure spin mixed with moonshine.

It was a bigly ten days ago that the bromancer scribbled No winners as Iran war set to get even worse.

And that's how the hive mind and the pond got stuck with "Ned", desperately nattering away in a bid to mop up the damage...

A diminished Donald Trump, scrambling to evacuate his war against Iran, has secured a patched-up interim agreement that cannot disguise his ineptitude as a war leader and points to a likely failure on many of the initial goals when he launched military action against Iran.
Trump is a weakened president, at home and in the world. The irony of the major triumph in his 60-day ceasefire agreement with Iran is the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz – but that is merely a restoration of the status quo before the attack on Iran by Trump and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu.
The interim agreement, not yet released but to be signed on Friday, is a fragile compromise, with political forces in both Washington and Tehran unhappy with the outcome. Trump’s political salesmanship – casting a messy retreat as a magnificent victory – will be tested to the limit as both sides claim to be winners.

Not yet released? The pond has no idea if this leak is true, READ: Leaked Alleged Text of Trump-Iran Deal, but if it's true, it's a doozy and makes everything "Ned" have to say seem entirely beside the point.

But that generally applies to what "Ned" has to say, so whatever ...

At this point there are three big lessons. The Iranian regime proved far more resilient and effective under pressure than Trump realised; in today’s strategic rivalry all resources will be deployed, with Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz pivotal in exposing Trump and driving his concessions; and, in historical terms, the most astonishing aspect will be the chasm between Trump’s incredibly ambitious war aims and his inability to achieve them within the acceptable and deployable limits of US military, political and diplomatic powers.
Trump is exposed as an inept war leader, flawed in preparation, outsmarted in tactics, misjudging the extent of US power, too close to Netanyahu and too arrogant in dealings with traditional allies. Equally damaging is the domestic impact in America. Trump failed to persuade the American public – even his own MAGA loyalists – of his Iran campaign. Trump couldn’t muster domestic support for a foreign war unpopular from the start and couldn’t put troops on the ground.

The reptiles decided to fling in a snap of the man who could yet bring the entire edifice crashing to the ground... Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at a press conference in Jerusalem. Picture: Ronen Zvulun / AFP

Speaking of Benji, the pond usually doesn't link to the cesspit known as X (Media Watch took to the platform in style) but Benji's pivot to AI is something to see ...

There were only two mentions of Lebanon, including this:

...I wish to clarify: we will remain in the security zones for as long as it is required to defend our country. Because after October 7th, I established a simple principle: Israel will not allow terror organizations to encamp on our borders; to tunnel into our territory; to prepare for a massacre close to our citizens. Today, the heroic IDF fighters stand as barrier between the terrorists and our citizens.

Good luck with negotiating an all-embracing peace treaty in sixty days, as "Ned" blamed the citizenry for being gutless...

The US public has no stomach for a serious war policy. This is likely only to weaken US-led strategic deterrence against the dictators. Do you think Moscow and Beijing haven’t absorbed this conclusion? A related insight is Trump’s obvious obsession about Iran, surely influenced by Netanyahu. The risk Iran poses to the region and the world drove Trump’s actions yet future assessments may conclude the US President should have prioritised strategic deterrence against Russia and China.
Consider the agreement. It is a 60-day ceasefire extension, opening the strait for vessels, lifting the US naval blockade against Iran, decisions on the nuclear program are kicked down the road, reports from US officials suggest the future lifting of sanctions on Iran are tied to the progress on nuclear negotiations, and hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah are supposed to end, a provision that leaves Israel deeply upset. Neither Israel nor Hezbollah are parties to the agreement but further military exchanges between them could threaten the deal.
Given the lack of trust between America and Iran, many things can go wrong. While Trump said the reopened strait would be “toll-free”, Iranian officials said while there would not be “transit tolls” there could be fees in exchange for services. If the waterway is not completely free, Trump will be in trouble and the Iranians will face a global backlash.
Trump couldn’t let Iran impose an ongoing price on the world by closure of the strait. His military campaign had badly damaged Iran’s military forces and its state capability, but in the end Iran strangled the life out of Trump’s war: he had no option but to settle for a compromise peace over military escalation. It was a sound decision.

At this point the reptiles decided to slip in some PREMIUM content ...

PREMIUM
Iran deal proves one thing, Trump is no wartime leader
Become a member to access our premium video content

Pay for reptile AV content? In what known or alternative universe is that a good idea?

The long absent lord knows what that's all about, and the pond will leave it to the long absent lord to care, as the "Ned" blame game continued...

But Trump blamed the American people for their lack of fighting resolve, saying last week: “I don’t know that America has the appetite to do what I would really much prefer doing.”
The regional power equation seems unresolved – Iran’s quest for regional dominance and Trump’s quest, along with Israel, to thwart its aspirations and its ideological consequences. Walter Russell Mead, in assessing the agreement for The Wall Street Journal, highlighted the paradox of Trump – a master of political theatre who inevitably dominates the stage yet who “often fails to achieve the kind of concrete results that mark the difference between a PT Barnum and an Otto von Bismarck”.
Vice President JD Vance, expected to sign the agreement on Friday, talked up the nuclear angle, saying Iran “will never have a nuclear weapon”, a line reinforced by Mike Waltz, the US ambassador to the UN. Yet as far as is known, the agreement doesn’t involve any pledge to turn over stockpiles of enriched uranium with the nuclear negotiations deferred and the political nightmare for Trump being the need to secure a superior nuclear deal to Barack Obama’s in 2015, a deal Trump has denounced.
For Iran, the strategy logic seems unavoidable: this war will reinforce the regime’s determination to acquire a nuclear capability as the only guaranteed method to prevent a further resort to destructive US military action in coming years.
At the same time there appears to be no provision in the agreement for Iran to halt its support for regional terrorist groups, another issue kicked down the road. The Wall Street Journal, a supporter of Trump’s Iranian policy, significantly called the agreement “a strategic retreat short of achieving his war aims” but pointed out that Iran’s key nuclear facilities were in rubble and enrichment of uranium has been halted for the first time in 20 years.
The wider historical context is replete with Trump’s serial blunders. From the start he made clear his goal was regime change from air assault, encouraging the Iranian people to remove their government, always a forlorn prospect. This meant regime survival became an Iranian win and Trump’s own goal.

The reptiles offered a picture of the most forlorn and desperate member of the junta, with memories of his couch-molesting days hovering in the background (now that would make an interesting confession to his priest) ... JD Vance welcomed at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. Picture: Matt Rourke / AFP

Isn't JD busy doing a book tour and getting tangled with the likes of Megyn Kelly?

Contemptible as well as needy and pathetic, as "Ned" rolled out his final gobbet...

The war guaranteed the regime of the ayatollahs became totally hostage to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that, with its survival in the balance, played its tactical ace – closing the strait, forcing a global energy crisis and heaping Trump under pressure at home from rising fuel costs and higher inflation. The Iranians hurt home on his own terrain.
Incredibly, Trump had ignored earlier warnings from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, that Iran might close the strait to exert its leverage. Trump was dismissive, a disastrous mistake at the heart of how the war turned against him. The US national security system seemed partly dysfunctional, undermined by a president who overruled advice and believed his own propaganda. The Iranian war is like his tariffs – he acts without assessing the consequences.
Trump’s repeated declarations of victory, his calls for “unconditional surrender” and his conviction that killing senior regime figures would trigger an internal collapse exposed Trump as a war leader lacking judgment. He loves being the strongman, railing against Greenland, threatening Cuba and kidnapping the former Venezuelan dictator. But the longer Trump governs the more he resembles a phony tough.
Can Trump recover? Probably, but the war has still done him lasting damage. It has divided the Republicans, encouraged dissent among his advocates and suggests his unpredictable opportunism is a diminished currency.

For some reason that pond failed to understand - apart from the need to keep punters inside the hive mind - that last link led to Major Mitchell's Monday piece...

The pond has already covered it, but for those who can't be bothered reverting to yesterday's pond post or heading off to the archive, here's a reminder:

Utterly bemusing. What was that link all about?

The pond suspects it was a way to hide "Ned's" conclusion.

Can Trump recover? Probably ...

Probably?!?

Again we're in that alternative reptile universe known only to them.

That's worthy of state news media, otherwise known as Faux Noise, but in this stage of King Donald's reign, it suggests "Ned" is as completely delusional as the King and his sycophants ...

Take it away infallible Pope, spread that carcass like a patient etherised upon a table:

And so, as promised, to Dame Groan, who had in any case hung around like a bad smell and was still visible early in the morning, what with the lands not having swung around above the magic reptile faraway tree ...

The header: ‘Substandard’: Chalmers’ RBA revamp an abject failure; The Reserve Bank’s new-look board cut rates twice, then hiked three times – and now mortgage holders must wait until 2028 for inflation to be tamed.

Again there was no credit for the headlining collage, and again the pond suspects that's because AI is yet again ruining everything.

As for Dame Groan, she too was in her usual "we'll all be rooned" and "abject failure" mode, but the pond confesses that it was bitterly disappointed by her outing.

All she could manage for her diatribe was a measly two minutes!

As that disgraced comedian once said, sort of...

"Boy, the scribbles at this place are really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know; and such small portions."

And with that, on with the abject failure and the complete roonation ...

After three cash rate hikes this year, a pause, albeit possibly temporary, was the almost certain outcome of the June meeting of the Monetary Policy Board. Add in the chaos caused by the budget’s ill-considered assault on capital, including housing, and the members of the board really had no choice. All of them.
This doesn’t mean that the next move in the cash rate is down. More time is needed to see how the economic landscape develops, including the consequences of the end of the conflict in the Middle East.
Indeed, the board’s statement makes it clear that fighting inflation remains its main role at this stage and “it will do what it considers necessary to achieve that outcome, including increasing the cash rate target further if required”.
The MPB has now been in operation for over a year. Achieving the restructure of the Reserve Bank is seen by Jim Chalmers as one of his finest achievements. He was able to install his preferred candidates. But the performance of the board has been underwhelming to be kind, substandard to be accurate.
Let’s not forget here that the MPB doesn’t expect the target rate of inflation to be achieved until the middle of 2028 – fully two years away. No, that’s not a typo – that the board’s expectation.

The reptiles probably decided this feeble offering - such a small portion - needed a bolstering with an AV distraction...The Reserve Bank of Australia have voted to keep the cash rate on hold at 4.35 per cent in a unanimous decision from the Monetary Policy Board.

The pond understands the problem, the dilemma Dame Groan faced. How to lather up yet another storm in her teacup?

What with the Reserve doing nothing, it takes some kind of heroic strength to get wildly agitated and run screaming around the hive mind that we'll all be rooned, but Dame Groan does her best ...

Last year, the board jumped the gun by reducing the cash rate twice (the cash rate had been cut in February under the old bank structure) only to undertake a dramatic U-turn this year and put up the cash rate three times. That’s embarrassing stuff.
Blind Freddy could see that the inflation giant hadn’t been slayed last year, particularly as both the federal and some state governments were contributing to rising prices through their excessive spending. Not that the governor and chair of the MPB, Michele Bullock, could bring herself to issue an important warning to the respective treasurers. That would be too hard, if on point.
A part of the new arrangements is the media conference held by the governor after each MPB meeting. So much talking, so many questions, some of them silly. At first, it was a novelty and the performance of Bullock did improve. These media conferences now add very little apart from the governor making repetitive remarks and offering some general observations.
The regular statement put out by the board is equally vacuous, it having been carefully curated by the communications department of the bank. Why does the bank need a communications department? These statements are like reading the blurb on a box of cereal.
It’s hard not to side with the view of newly appointed chair of the US Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh, that less talk is better. This includes avoiding potentially misleading forecasts of future rate movements. Our governor should say something when something needs to be said, not at the end of every board meeting.
In the meantime, mortgage holders will need to hold onto their hats. If the cash rate is to be cut, it will probably not be until next year. A further hike cannot be ruled out for this year. For those being pushed into negative equity as property prices fall, it’s likely to be a worrying time.
While many countries were able to bring inflation down quickly by hiking interest rates, our bank decided to take the scenic route by keeping the cash rate too low and then cutting it when the justification was not clear-cut. We are now paying a high price for this faulty decision-making. As Bullock says, “inflation hurts everyone”.

Perhaps Dame Groan will do better next time.

After all, people will feel short-changed, if it takes just two minutes for us to all be rooned.

Being rooned should take a little longer, and would benefit from added spice.

Meanwhile the immortal Rowe brought it all together ...

The pond has to wonder if that portrait of Barners, Tamworth's eternal shame, which defames Henry Higgins (just you wait, Mr Rowe) ...

... owes anything to that ancient Tamworth power station, where the pond once played in the slag heap, good preparation for dealing with that old slag...

There's nothing like a rustic kitchen coated inch deep in coal gas scum, just as there's nothing like a Barners to make for a scum-laden country ...

Meanwhile, the "warning shot" Ruskis are as barking mad as ever, and in urgent need of a bromancer reprimand. Keir Starmer shouldn't have all the fun:

In which the Major outlines his Zionist war hawk credentials, but gets let down by mad King Donald ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 22:00:00 +0000

The pond regrets that this day it must get up at 5am, and head up to the big smoke.

The pond regrets even more that it selected Major Mitchell as the stale lump of reptile stew it would reheat and serve up as a standby until business can be resumed tomorrow.

One of the problems is that the Iran folly changes by the minute, the hour and the day, as King Donald desperately tries to escape and struggles to rein in Benji's desire for a greater Israel.

‘Why Did Bibi Have to Do a F*cking Attack?!’ Trump Rages at Netanyahu Over Israel Strikes On Beirut — Says He’s ‘So Pissed Off’

President Donald Trump said he was “pissed off” at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Israel’s strikes on Beirut Sunday.
In an interview with Axios’s Barak Ravid on Sunday, the president lashed out at Netanyahu following the Israel strike on a Hezbollah target on the outskirts of Beirut — a response to Hezbollah launching drones toward Galilee.
In a separate interview, Trump told Fox News’s Trey Yingst he called Netanyahu and said “What the f*ck are you doing?”

The president told Ravid that the signing of a peace deal with Iran was “delayed” as a result of the Israeli strikes, but said the deal remains on track.
“It shook it up,” Trump said. “It delayed the signing by a few hours. It was supposed to be now. Now it is scheduled for a few hours from now.”

“Why did Bibi have to do a f*cking attack?” Trump said. “I was so pissed off. I let him know. He has no f*cking judgement. I let him know that.”

It was diplomacy by tweet and Truth social post ...

That showed how desperate the mad King was to do a deal so he could celebrate as a UFC-loving birthday boy. Always a vulgarian at heart and always in search of sybaritic pleasures, and is there anything more comforting and sensuous than watching two men pummel each other in a cage?

Meanwhile, the Iranians kept playing the hapless glitter-gold and big Mac loving orange whale like an out of tune fiddle.

And now here we are, and here's the day-old, already wildly out of date Major:

The header: Media pressure for a ceasefire harms Donald Trump’s Iran mission; More than 100 days after the first strike, the stock and oil markets are even more skittish. A great victory may have been better than a great deal.

The caption for the snap of the decidedly aged warlord: President Donald Trump speaks before signing a proclamation in the Oval Office of the White House last week. Having taken out the top 40 Iranian leaders in the first strike on February 28, Trump might have been better advised to continue until Tehran’s surrender. Picture: AP

There must be a 'toon to hand to set the tone for what follows.

That'll do, that'll do ...

First up the pond just has to celebrate the way that the Major tries to blame "media pressure" for mad King Donald's ongoing folly.

If anyone wanted to talk about pressure, they'd talk about the pressure being exerted by Benji, king of ethnic cleansing, with his desire to keep on bombing his neighbours into oblivion, but as a Zionist of the first water, the Major can't go there.

Apparently it's all this talk in the lamestream media of putting a stop to the killing fields that's ruining things, as if the Major cared about the odd schoolgirl or three (or maybe 170 odd):

Media and diplomatic pressure for a ceasefire fed into Donald Trump’s love of a “powerful deal’’, but more than 80 days of a stop-start truce suggest a clear victory over Iran would have been better.
Trump’s social media assessments have played down the damage done to US allies in the Gulf and Israel since the April 7 ceasefire. He’s probably right in the short term but in the long term, US allies have been given cause to doubt Washington’s resolve, and that could be more damaging than any Iranian drones.
As far as Middle East wars go, the destruction wrought by US and Israeli attacks on Iran between February 28 and the ceasefire was insignificant compared with the damage Israel did in Gaza after October 7, 2023. Even that pales into insignificance compared with, say, the million deaths in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.
The death toll in this year’s attacks on Iran is estimated to be between 2000 and 6000. Compare that with the regime’s execution of up to 40,000 of its own protesters between January and May.
Having taken out the top 40 Iranian leaders in the first strike on February 28, Trump might have been better advised to allow his Operation Epic Fury and Israel’s Operation Roaring Lion to continue until Tehran’s surrender.
Instead, Trump feared rising oil prices and a skittish sharemarket in the run-up to the US midterm elections.

Yes, and if the Major had his way, and the mad King had the balls, they'd probably be blathering about nuking Tehran.

That would have put the mad mullahs in their place, and what an inspiration for Vlad the sociopath to nuke Kyiv, or perhaps London or Paris, as that Russian state TV Lord Haw-Haw Vladimir Rudolfovich Solovyov keeps suggesting.

Sorry, the pond really must stop channeling these crazies, but it's what happens when the pond's in the Major's company ... or is reminded of mad King Donald ... Donald Trump last week. He has again announced an imminent deal and claimed all the region’s governments had accepted the terms. Picture: AP

That's got to be worth a 'toon ...

That talk of "imminent deals" became something of a running joke beloved of late night comics looking for an easy collage... CNN: Trump claims at least 38 times peace deal with Iran near.

What's the chance of him delivering? What's the chance he can keep Benji on side, given the way that Benji, and apparently the Major, seem eager to keep on with the carnage and the killing fields ...

The trouble is that more than 100 days after the first strike – and after what CNN last Tuesday reported to have been 38 separate claims by Trump of an imminent peace deal – the stock and oil markets are even more skittish and the President’s personal polling is down.
A great victory may have been better than a great deal.
Trump again announced an imminent deal last Friday (AEST) and claimed all the region’s governments had accepted the terms. We shall see.
A military victory would have silenced our own government, the UK and the EU. It would have ended the carping of the left-wing US media, which would prefer a Trump humiliation to the defeat of the world’s No. 1 sponsor of terrorism.
Trump’s inconsistency in dealing with Tehran was on display last week when the US launched a series of strikes in retaliation for the shooting down of a US Apache helicopter.
Only three days earlier Trump had warned Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel would be on its own if it did not stop its retaliation against strikes first launched by Iran on Israel.
Iran’s motivation – protecting its Hezbollah client terror group in Lebanon – shows how emboldened the Iranian “B Team” leadership is. Dismantling Iran’s proxies was one of the initial war aims, yet Iran openly broke its ceasefire to protect a militia group the Lebanese government has publicly said should leave Lebanon.
This is a test for the media, often unable to report accurately on the reasons for Israel’s strikes in Lebanon. Most reporters have not given enough weight to calls by Lebanese President Joseph Aoun for Tehran to rid his country of Hezbollah.

Spoken like a Zionist of the first water, what with the Major never shows any signs of caring for the civilians being slaughtered in the carnage - if they happen to be in an Islamic country, or even in Lebanon - as the reptiles dragged in a snap, and used it to blame the ABC ... Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun, who has called for Tehran to rid his country of Hezbollah. ABC reporters are quick with tragic tales of the deaths of innocents in Israel’s bombardments in southern Lebanon. Yet the ABC seldom interviews the Israeli victims of Hezbollah strikes in northern Israel. Picture: AFP

It doesn't seem to occur to the Major that his ongoing war with the ABC is just a hill of beans up against what's going on in the middle east, but the Major is always willing to be outraged when he perceives a slight to Israel...

Lebanon wants peace with Israel as surely as Israel’s northern inhabitants do, after years of Hezbollah rocket fire over the border. Yet the ABC says little about Hezbollah’s refusal to sign on to the Washington-backed June 4 Israel-Lebanon ceasefire plan.
ABC reporters are quick with tragic tales of the deaths of innocents in Israel’s bombardments in southern Lebanon. Yet the ABC seldom interviews the Israeli victims of Hezbollah strikes in northern Israel.
It hardly mentioned 60,000 Israelis became internal refugees after October 7 when Hezbollah intensified rocket attacks in the north in support of Hamas in Gaza, and locals had to flee their homes to head south.
Many Western reporters took too long to realise Israel was correct when it said Hamas was using civilians as human shields and was hiding weapons under hospitals and schools.
Now journalists seldom acknowledge Hezbollah also hides behind civilians. It, too, has built a network of tunnels.
The Jerusalem Post on March 27 published photos of Hezbollah weapons in tunnels near a Christian church in the southern Lebanese village of El-Khiam. On March 31, it reported Hezbollah had taken over the Christian village of Qawzah to launch attacks on Israel. Viewers in Australia seldom see footage of such revelations.
The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday pointed out Iran, usually keen to let its proxies do the fighting, was now taking risks to support those proxies.
London based pro-Palestinian think tank Middle East Monitor summarised Tehran’s thinking about the ceasefire on April 30: “A pause that leaves Iran under maritime pressure in the Strait of Hormuz, under nuclear verification pressure from the International Atomic Energy Agency … and under regional pressure through Lebanon is not a neutral diplomatic interval. It is an attempt to convert military shock into political extraction.”
The regime has no qualms about sacrificing the lives of its own citizens so why not continue to test the ceasefire’s terms by attacking Israel and US bases in the Gulf, as it did last week? Especially after Trump’s demands that Israel not respond.

That last par is designed to establish that the Major's the sort of warhawk that produced the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan follies.

Then the Major turned to a plea-deal felon to make his case...

Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton was right on June 7 in the WSJ when he warned Trump’s hesitancy “may have laid the groundwork for more nuclear proliferation in the Middle East”.
Bolton wrote: “Gulf Arabs and other regional states have long contemplated whether to acquire nuclear capabilities to hedge against a fickle Washington.”

The reptiles flung in snap of the moustachioed one ... Former national security adviser John Bolton before a media interview at the White House in 2019. Recently he warned Donald Trump’s hesitancy ‘may have laid the groundwork for more nuclear proliferation in the Middle East’. Picture: AP

That's a 'stache that would make The Rest is History mob stop short and gasp in wonder.

What's happening with that lad?

Ouch, seems like he found himself under fire ... and now back to the war mongering with the Major...

Gulf allies that had not been consulted by the US before its attack on Tehran then found themselves under fire. They urged Trump to finish the terror regime, only to see him hesitate.
Many Trump critics claim this war will be like president George W. Bush’s Iraq war quagmire. They are wrong. There have been few US casualties because it has not sent ground troops.
Michael Rubin, of the US based Middle East Forum, says Trump could take a lesson from Bush’s surge in Iraq.
Rubin wrote on June 4: “An Iran surge would … not involve ground troops. Rather it would require demanding peace and continuing to target Iranian leaders until they agree.”
While Iran might think Trump is paralysed as a lame duck president, Trump “should flick the script” and embrace the idea that “never having to face another election can be liberating”.

The pond doesn't usually bother with links in the Major's pieces - they almost invariably stay within the hive mind - but this one should be noted because he drags the lesser member of the Kelly gang, a certain Joe, into his argument ...

The President should not pressure Netanyahu “but rather tell Tehran if you have a problem with Israel, negotiate with them”.

The Major thought that a return to full-blown hostilities might be a jolly good thing, eh wot?

“A diplomatic bargain that allows the Islamic Republic to rebuild will be as bad as a loss. There can be only one choice: win or lose. Trump’s best way forward is to realise there is no middle way,” Rubin wrote.
Iranian journalist Mardo Soghom, writing for the Middle East Forum on June 8, cited several media reports from inside Tehran suggesting Iran “has decided to escalate its conflict with Israel and, in doing so, place President Trump in an awkward position”.
“Escalation … may represent an attempt to alter the strategic equation, increase pressure on Washington and secure concessions that diplomacy has failed to deliver,” he wrote.
The strategy rested on the assumption that Washington “remains more interested in avoiding a wider war than … responding forcefully to renewed Iranian pressure”.

What a mess, which would only get worse if the Major's advice to respond forcefully was followed.

Thank the long absent lord that the Major has zero influence on events, or thinking, or policies, or pretty much anything else ... and we can keep on enjoying the brawl room, unless you happen to be a civilian in the way of deadly force ...

UPDATE:

The pond left it late in the day to check out mad King Donald's later clown car cavortings.

No doubt the Major, together with the likes of Mark Levin and Miss Lindsey, was left bitterly disappointed.

The desperately pathetic and needy King Donald folded like a tent and stole into the night, leaving Iran holding all the cards.

Oh for the long lost days when he demanded total surrender, only to offer his own.

It sounded grand, in the way that the pompous blowhard always does, but as Tim Miller said, the "herewith" provided echoes of the Book of Mormon, where if you have nothing real to say, you could always revert to a "herewith". (The real winner is "and it came to pass", which, with variations, by some counts makes up 2.5% of the total words. Okay, it's a Reddit, so for what it's worth).

What was actually announced?

Merely an MOU, which is a plan to turn the plan for a deal into an actual deal in the sweet bye and bye, peace achieved by way of murky time payments and endless haggling.

The alleged reason for the war, the nukes, has been tossed aside, except in the rich couch-molesting fantasy life of J.D. Vance.

The Strait of Homuz will allegedly be opened, but if that's what it was all about, there was no need for a war.

Oil will eventually flow, but it'll take months for the markets to adjust.

No doubt the market manipulations provoked by King Donald have handsomely rewarded some players.

And who's to say how much King Donald will slip the Iranians by way of compensation for giving him a birthday gift he can crow about, while keeping his cult oblivious to the details?

And how will Benji take to being forced to the sideline, while the mad mullahs are empowered and the shimmering hope of regime change disappears over the hills?

What could possibly go wrong? Per Haaretz, (*intermittent archive link):

And when it comes to negotiating the details, are either side capable of sticking a landing?

King Donald is being attacked from the left and the centre ...

‘Accomplished Nothing’: Critics Trash Trump’s Boasting About ‘Great’ Iran Deal

Inter alia ...

Oh dear ...

Trump Celebrates While America Capitulates (*intermittent archive link)
The peace deal with Tehran is an Iranian victory.
By Tom Nichols

...Trump has for weeks talked about getting rid of Iran’s “Nuclear Dust”—his odd term for the uranium now lying under the rubble produced by U.S. bombings—and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth claimed on Sunday morning that the United States has multiple plans for removing this material. The Iranians, however, are busily planting booby-traps around the uranium to ensure it stays where it is, and despite Hegseth’s blustering, America is not going to march into Iran and dig it out without Tehran’s consent. If anything, the Iranians now have every incentive to sprint to a bomb, and can do so with far less transparency than they had to endure under the JCPOA.

Meanwhile, the Strait of Hormuz will “open,” but it was already open, at least to those the Iranians allowed to pass. In his celebratory message, Trump said: “I hereby fully authorize the toll free opening of the Strait of Hormuz.” That’s terrific, but such a statement has about as much effect as if I or my wife or my cat declared the Strait open; only Iran can make that decision. Trump also declared the U.S. Navy’s blockade of Iranian ports is over, something that is indeed within his power, but that only means that America will withdraw while Iran remains.
Meanwhile—and again, these are the terms that so far have been leaked to the press, mostly from the Iranians—Iran claims that it will not only get some $12 billion up front, but another $12 billion within 60 days. Down the line, the Iranians are claiming they will get a $300 billion fund for reconstruction. (U.S. officials have insisted to reporters that any release of funds will be performance-based, a fuzzy condition that raises more questions and could invite the Iranians to dig in and haggle if the Americans balk at delivering the money.) The war leaves Iran battered, but more powerful and with more cash at its disposal, while it leaves America weaker, with important stocks of weapons depleted, and with its consumers paying the price for the war at the gas pump.

And then there's the barking mad war mongers on the far, ethnic cleansing, right ...

It's Hamas that's brutalising Gaza? What joy to live in a bizarro land of alternative reality.

What will happen to the ethnic cleansing, the genocide, or perhaps worst of all the Gwynocide? (Haaretz, *intermittent archive link)

And just like his boss, Miss Lindsey folded like a pack of cards in Alice in Wonderland...

As bravely spoken as Susan Collins at her best, what with Miss Lindsey being "somewhat concerned".

It's past time for the Zionist Major to give the middle east a rest, and hand the job of sorting it all out to the bromancer, who will surely work wonders so he can bung on his war with China by Xmas ...

Already out of date, and entirely lacking in a rosy, or even golden, hue...

In which Lord Downer and Killer Creighton keep the reptile rage machine raging ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 21:43:12 +0000

A housekeeping note: the pond will have to get up at an unseemly, obscenely early time tomorrow morning to travel up to the big smoke.

As a result, the pond won't be able to look at the lizard Oz's Tuesday offerings, and instead will provide a place marker to keep the blog ticking over.

The pond has decided Major Mitchell can do the job, on the basis that the Major's stupidity is eternal, and his stupidity will sound just as fresh when reheated tomorrow as it would have sounded today.

Unfortunately, this leaves the pond rather short on reptiles for this morning's outing.

Luckily Lord Downer was on hand to distract from mad King Donald's latest feud with Benji ....

Displaced by the onion muncher from the Liberal party gig, Lord Downer was feeling very One Nation, appropriate for the lizard Oz's new status as the go to One Nation rag of choice.

The header: Why the consensus on multiculturalism is now at breaking point; The political class has spent decades celebrating multiculturalism while a flood of public discontent quietly built beneath their feet.

The caption for the AV distraction the reptiles decided to put at the start of His Lordship's outing: Sky News host James Morrow says multiculturalism is a “failed experiment’ in Australia.

The pond has no idea why the reptiles decided to start with a 6'36" minute long AV distraction, except perhaps to suggest that Lord Downer was only offering his usual feeble, impotent cluckings - 'observations' is too kind a term - and so he needed beefing up with a Sky Noise loon who could declare multiculturalism a failed experiment, much like the ongoing failure to Sky News to come up with a decent rebranding.

The pond immediately knew what was coming, the sort of futtering and fumbling which marked Lord Downer's time as a politician ...

The dramatic rise of populist political parties over the past few years in just about all Western countries has a common thread running through it: immigration.
It’s not inequality, as leftist commentators so often claim. While it’s true that core economic issues like declines in real living standards, persistent inflation, as well as increasing energy prices, have all contributed to a growing sense of exasperation with the political class, nothing compares with the issue of immigration.
The public expects the government to be the guardian of social cohesion. Of course everyone recognises that in any country there is a multiplicity of opinions about everything under the sun but they do not expect the government of whatever complexion to pursue policies which contribute to societal breakdown. It’s a radical thing to say, but a sizeable percentage of Western populations think they have done just that.
Let’s just look at the two countries I know best: the UK and Australia. In both cases there has been substantial immigration including from countries that have very different cultural traditions from our own. In both cases, governments have vigorously defended immigration policies which do not discriminate against people on the basis of their religion, ethnicity, race, or even sexual preference.

And what would Lord Downer propose? Discrimination based on religion, or ethnicity, or race, or even sexual preference?

Set an example of bigotry, fear and loathing, of the kind patented by King Donald, so that prejudice could run rampant and ruin the body politic?

What if someone had proposed that there should be discrimination that saw the banning of loons from the Adelaide hills?

The pond would find it hard to argue against such a proposition, but there'd probably be a few squawks from the reptiles.

Meanwhile, to continue to give the piece the sort of One Nation "rage machine" gloss that the reptiles now take as a standard coating, there came an example of a ratbag who is clearly off the planet and faraway in some little England universe: The dramatic rise of populist political parties over the past few years in just about all Western countries has a common thread running through it: immigration. Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

That's where Lord Downer and the reptiles want to go?

Not to be distracted, His Lordship continued to wring his fingers, sigh at the sky and flutter his ankles.

Frankly the pond has nothing against those inclined to a little cross-dressing, it adds a little spicy ambiguity to the country ...

... but here we are, with Lord Downer blathering on about the dangers of being tolerant and accepting diversity.

It's the sort of thing that might score him a good bashing at a beat, or being tossed off a Sydney cliff ...

These principles have had widespread public support. So, too, has the concept of multiculturalism. The idea here, going back in Australia’s case to the 1970s, is that we encourage migrants to retain their historic cultural identities. Like all people, they value their timeworn traditions and conventions. They’re not going to be happy if those are diluted or taken away from them.
As a society, we tolerate and indeed, in many cases, celebrate the diversity of cultures that make up our country. This concept of multiculturalism has also been applied in the UK for many years.
In both countries, the consensus around non-discriminatory immigration policies and multiculturalism has now broken down. Elites in politics, the bureaucracy, and the professional classes don’t wish to accept this, and I can sympathise with their concerns, but it pays to face up to reality rather than dream of ideals.
The reason for that is quite clear: many people, though not all, think that immigration policies are now destroying our own cultural traditions and conventions and are destabilising society. This trend has been building for many years, but what was a trickle of concern has now become a flood.
Taking the UK, there has been a subliminal discomfort for decades about immigration. Immigrant groups are perceived to be taking over large sections of urban Britain. There are parts of Birmingham where English is barely spoken. Over 50 per cent of the population of the city of Leicester do not speak English at home.

In all that blather, the pond took exceptional pride in this Lord Downer sentence, as pure an example of distilled Adelaide Hills hogwash as anyone could hope to find ...

Elites in politics, the bureaucracy, and the professional classes don’t wish to accept this, and I can sympathise with their concerns, but it pays to face up to reality rather than dream of ideals.

The idea of Lord Downer as a grim realist, an adherent of realpolitiks, is so laughable a conceit, so risible that the pond had to bite down severely on thumb to prevent gales of hysterical laughter.

Only Lord Downer could swallow the notion that Lord Downer isn't a pampered member of the elite, a nepo baby born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and about as connected to reality as Bertie Wooster.

Inevitably the reptiles turned to the latest far right scandal to serve as meat for the hive mind... People attend a protest about the police's handling of the arrest of Henry Nowak at Southampton Central Police Station on June 2. The stabbing of Nowak by a Sikh was an instance of violence attributed to migrants. Picture: Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images

Lord Downer hastened to get there in a pale imitation of Tommy Robinson, but not before he performed a rhetorical trick worthy of his Victorian ancestors:

It’s not just the fact that immigrants are bringing different traditions and values to England; it is the fact that they have clustered in Bantustans, separating themselves from the mainstream of British society.

Did you notice that? That word ...

A Bantustan (also known as a Bantu homeland, a black homeland, a black state or simply known as a homeland; Afrikaans: Bantoestan or tuisland) was a territory that the National Party administration of the Union of South Africa (1910–1961) and later the Republic of South Africa (1961–1994) set aside for black inhabitants of South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia), as a part of its policy of apartheid.
The term, first used in the late 1940s, was coined from Bantu (meaning "people" in some of the Bantu languages) and -stan (a suffix meaning "land" in Persian and other Persian-influenced languages). It subsequently came to be regarded as a disparaging term by some critics of the apartheid-era government's homelands. (Wiki and footnotes here).

It says everything you need to know about Lord Downer's colonial mindset and his ability to mangle apartheid into a new meaning.

Did he really need to go there, and do that? Of course he did ...

The British public have grumbled about this, but it hasn’t been a fierce political issue. On the whole, they are a pretty tolerant people, and having had an empire covering a third of the globe, they are very familiar with different races and cultures.
But this tolerance has recently been stretched to breaking point. First, since October 7, 2023, there have been almost weekly demonstrations against Israel in major British cities. The demonstrators have been aggressive. There have sometimes been acts of violence, and there have been frequent expressions of antisemitism. This has triggered a more widespread antisemitism in a country renowned for its liberal tolerance.
What has this got to do with immigration? Well, for many, there is a perception that these demonstrations and the rise of antisemitism have been driven by migrants. While that may not be entirely true, there are, after all, many from the far left of the political spectrum who share those antisemitic sentiments. There is a sense in the UK that migrants have brought their historic grievances to the streets of British cities.
Then there have been instances of violence and, in some cases, murder attributed to migrants. Most recently, there was the stabbing by a Sikh of Henry Nowak in Southampton, and as he lay dying, being handcuffed by the police for a false claim of racist language. A couple of weeks ago, there was the attempted murder of a young man in Belfast allegedly by a Sudanese refugee.
These are just two very recent incidents, but there are many more, including the notorious story of Pakistani grooming gangs in Yorkshire sexually assaulting and raping young white girls.

What the pond finds remarkable when the Lord Downers of the world begin their immigrant litanies is that they never ever note stories of other stories of sexual assault and misogynist abuse, of a kind which has reached up to the White House.

The pond recently noted Heidi Blake's coverage of Andrew Tate in The New Yorker in Andrew Tate’s Empire of Abuse; How the defining figure of the manosphere built a fortune—and became a political force—by systematically exploiting women. (*intermittent archive link)

And what's Tate's background?

Let Blake start with the father ...

...Emory was brilliant, charismatic, and mercurial. In 1992, he was discharged from the Air Force after being diagnosed as having conditions that “interfere with military service,” including narcissistic personality disorder. Back in civilian life, he was convinced that he was being monitored by the C.I.A., that the family car was being tailed, and that he was under attack by assailants from Eastern Europe. “The world he lived in was a scary world,” Andrew has said. He remembered Emory telling him, “You’re a Tate. They’re going to come for you like they came for me.”
The family relocated to Elkhart, Indiana, to be close to Emory’s mother. The brothers spent hours playing around their grandmother’s house—climbing trees, building forts, and racing through cornfields—but their home life was fraught. Emory drank heavily and was prone to terrifying rages. Tristan told me that if he stepped out of line his father beat him with a belt, sometimes whipping him until his skin was striped red. Andrew has described lying awake at night in terror. “I must have been the most awake child on earth,” he said in one video. “I was so afraid of the beatdown.” In his telling, this violence was an essential part of becoming a man. “I can’t wait to kick my kid’s ass if he gets fresh,” he has said.
In Indiana, Emory worked low-wage jobs—at McDonald’s, a car wash, a park—but funnelled his ferocious intellect into chess, often staying up all night drinking and practicing variations. He started leaving the family to play in tournaments around the country. He would arrive by bus, wearing his trademark trilby, and hustle for spare dollars in chess parks. A dazzling attacking player, he became a folk hero on the circuit—bringing “the flair and swagger to chess often seen on the basketball courts,” the chess writer Daaim Shabazz noted—but he lacked the discipline to reach grandmaster level, where serious winnings kick in. “As smart as my father was, chess doesn’t pay,” Andrew has said. “He also loved gambling, women, and booze. So you add all that up, we were very, very poor.”
When Emory returned to the family after an eight-week absence, Eileen confronted him over an infidelity, and he walked out again. “When you’re older, you’ll understand,” he told Andrew. “Your mother won’t shut up.” As the marriage broke down, Andrew rationalized his father’s abandonment. “You’re a better role model to your son if you barely see him and live life on your own terms,” he later wrote. “A dad is a super hero. Not a full time carer. Don’t sit and become a Bitch like the woman wants.”
In 1997, the year Andrew turned eleven, Eileen moved the children to her home town of Luton, an impoverished and overcrowded municipality north of London. They stayed in a hostel for homeless women and children. “It was a horrible place to live,” Tristan told me. Eileen got a job washing dishes in a school cafeteria, and he remembered that “her hands were always bleeding and cracked.”
Eventually, they moved to the Marsh Farm estate, a housing project plagued by crime and violent riots. The Tates went to a failing school, where they were bullied for their American accents and shabby clothes. Emory occasionally sent money, and the brothers would walk to a pay phone to call him. “My father raised me over the phone,” Andrew has written. “I was STILL AFRAID of him, 3000 miles away.”
As a teen-ager, Andrew was dogged by a feeling of unease. “I always had this sense that something wasn’t quite right about the way the world functioned,” he has said. He thought of himself like the character Neo in “The Matrix,” restlessly searching without knowing what for. When the brothers walked to school together, they sometimes saw a Ferrari drive by, and Andrew became furious. “He’s hacked the Matrix!” he said. “How does he have four hundred grand for a car? He knows something we don’t know!”

So there's migrants and migration in that seedy, wretched mix, but not exactly the sort that Lord Downer is blathering about ...

And at this point the reptiles decided to drag in their standard bout of Zionism ...A Rally For A Free Palestine protest saw the burning of the Israeli flag on the forecourt of the Sydney Opera House on October 9, 2023. Picture: NewsWire/Jeremy Piper

The pond should note that it's not just Islamics that are disturbed by the Zionist project, the attempts at a greater Israel, and the accompanying ethnic cleansing. There are Jews of the Haaretz kind who happen to find it disturbing, and there are many others.

The pond happens to be of Celtic origin, and can see something of the barbarity being doled out to the Palestinians as roughly equivalent to the sort of barbarity inflicted on the Irish by the English in the nineteenth century (the pond won't mention Cromwell).

And that's why the pond finds this next bit of Downerism contemptible:

In Australia, we have likewise seen demonstrations against Israel and Jews, most notoriously on October 9, 2023, at the Sydney Opera House.
These persistent demonstrations and the spread of antisemitism have, in the minds of many, been attributed to migrants bringing their hatreds from the other side of the world to our own streets. Then there was the Bondi massacre of the Jews on December 14 last year. I think for many Australians, this was pretty much the last straw.
For a migrant and his Australian-born son to massacre people on an iconic Australian beach had a deeper impact on Australian society than commentators who flip from issue to issue, day by day, realise. For many Australians, for right or for wrong (and I’m not debating that), they just think enough is enough.
There’s one other thing to say about the public. They feel they cannot talk about these things without being condemned in the most vicious and vigorous of ways as being racist or fascist.
If you abuse people often enough and if those claims against them are false, then that too is going to generate a very negative reaction. People do not, in the main, regard themselves as racist; rather, those who are concerned about immigration take pride in our way of life, in our traditions, and in our values. They do not want people coming into our country to undermine those things.
There is very much the same sentiment in continental Europe and parts of the United States.
Of course, populist political parties are dangerous because in government they would create chaos but nevertheless the challenge for traditional parties is to make sure they address the issue of immigration and the integration of migrants with vigour and not worry too much about the rock throwing from elements of the media.

Here's a starting point. Send people from the Adelaide hills back to where they came from. Only then can this country know peace ...

Have a break, but not a Kit-kat, to celebrate the birthday boy ...

The pond realises that - should Dame Groan arrive tomorrow to announce that the end is nigh, and we'll all be rooned long before Xmas - the pond will miss the chance to provide a fresh baked, hot out of the oven report to correspondents.

The pond promises it will at least manage to reheat it and serve it up on the Wednesday, no matter how stale it sounds, or how long it makes the day's post.

In the interim, please have a serve of simpleton Simon ...who offers his own version of "we'll all be rooned":

Productivity neglect means generations of crisis and decline
Considering productivity is a key to rising living standards, it would appear to lie at the heart of the intergenerational inequity problem the government says it is trying to solve.
By Simon Benson
Political analyst

The pond offered that link - personally saved by the pond - because it thinks a teaser trailer will be enough to send correspondents scuttling off to the intermittent archive to finish the read, so that they can spend the rest of the day in a gloomy reptile fog of despair...

And so to the bonus, but first a little nipplegate mood and scene setting ... because treatment of women seems to start at the top in the disunited states ...

The pond confesses that Killer Creighton only makes this appearance because it's been yonks since Killer has graced these pages, and not because Killer was doing his own impression of the manosphere ...

The header: Do we really need a women’s budget statement? If any large group warranted a special budget ‘statement’, wouldn’t you think it might be young men and boys, whose socio-economic circumstances have been reversing at a rapid rate.

The caption for a woman who looks decidedly bossy and who should have known her place: Finance Minister Katy Gallagher holds a pre-Budget press conference in the Blue Room at Parliament House. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman.

Killer got stuck straight into a little womyn bashing, mixed with "poor pitiful me" rhetoric:

For evidence federal budgets have become little more than rhetorical spin, look no further than the Women’s Budget Statement that now accompanies the four traditional budget papers pertaining to federal revenue expenses and economic projections.
Because the policy changes in the government’s latest budget have been so bad, the latest WBS, almost 80 pages of divisive, ideological nonsense, has been spared the ridicule it deserves.
After decades of improving socio-economic circumstances relative to men – which had nothing to do with the federal government – it’s far from clear that 51 per cent of the population should be insulted with taxpayer-funded programs that cast them as virtuous, downtrodden victims requiring special assistance. Indeed, if any large group warranted a special budget “statement” each year, wouldn’t you think it might be young men and boys, whose socio-economic circumstances have been reversing at a rapid rate?
“Young men are disengaging from mainstream Australia, from work, from education, and from relationships,” the Page Research Centre said in a recent research paper. They make up a shrinking minority, 40 per cent in 2024, of university graduates, which points to declining fortunes later.
The share of male youth, aged 20 to 24, not in education, employment or training was 13.7 per cent in 2021, according to the OECD, more than three percentage points higher than for similarly aged women. Moreover, women increasingly out earn men too, especially at younger ages as the female-dominated “care economy”, professional services, health, education and the bureaucracy boom, while traditionally male occupations shrivel.
Yes, men are more likely to fill the tiny absolute number of lucrative, top leadership roles in the private sector; but this is such a vanishingly small figure. Really, who cares? As the statement itself shows, women make up almost 55 per cent of the similarly well remunerated senior executive roles in the public sector, and more than half of all Australian government board positions.
“The 48th parliament is the most gender-balanced on record, with women comprising 49.6 per cent of parliamentarians at its opening,” the government trumpets. “When women are involved in decision making and policy design, outcomes are better for everyone,” the statement added – perhaps its most ridiculous, unsubstantiated claim. Finance and Women’s Minister Katy Gallagher didn’t inspire much confidence in this claim when she didn’t appear to care for the difference between gross and net savings at a recent Senate estimates hearing.

Killer then flung in a line finely attuned to the rabble rousing the hive mind requires ...

Seriously, though, women have intellects, talents and personalities everywhere near as diverse as men.

That was followed by a snap reminding the hive mind of what was wrong with the world: Anthony Albanese, Jim Chalmers, and Katy Gallagher. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman.

Killer then delivered his killer blow. It turns out that women can be just as corrupt as men:

Only last, week a large new statistical study by French and American economists concluded female leadership didn’t make a jot of difference in Brazil. “Over the 2000-2020 and across six corruption measures (and thousands of municipalities), electing a woman mayor ha(d) no detectable effect on corruption,” the two authors wrote in a study that is unlikely to be referenced in next year’s Women’s Statement.

Don't cry for me Argentina.

And then Killer got his knickers in a knot ...

“For too long, women’s health policy wasn’t taken seriously. The government has changed that,” the statement also claimed, ludicrously.

It's ludicrous that women's health policy wasn't taken seriously for a long time? Or is it just the notion that the government has changed that, and instead it still wasn't being taken seriously?

Whatever, what about men, Killer cried, it isn't fair, as he stood in the corner store, and a little girl snatched all the lollies before he could get his share ...

Last time I checked, men still die on average a full four years earlier than women – a gap that has narrowed slightly in recently years after male smoking rates collapsed, a factor perhaps likely to reverse as the government’s tobacco excise policy supercharges smoking across the nation.
I couldn’t find any policies to encourage women to become truck drivers, garbage collectors, miners or general labourers.
Males account for almost all workplace fatalities, are twice as likely to be murdered, commit suicide at in far greater numbers, and are more likely to be called on to die in war. They dominate the prison population too. No doubt almost all of them deserve to be there, but other men don’t deserve blame for sharing their sex.
Yet in the statement we read how “men’s violence against women remains a distressing and unacceptable reality”. Shouldn’t that be “some men’s violence”, or is every mother’s son part of the problem?

What a cunning riff, up there with that disarming of "black lives matter" with "white lives matter" and "all lives matter".

Perhaps recognising he'd gone a little too far, Killer tried to walk back a little, flinging in a billy goat butt in the form of an "obviously" ...

Obviously, domestic violence, committed overwhelmingly by a tiny sliver of men, is pathetic, contemptible and should be punished.

A tiny sliver?

(Here for more data)

Some sliver!

Such a sublime form of reductionism, and so much for violence against women (and men for that matter), and Killer had an even better follow up, a generality that made sure that violence specifically directed against women disappeared into a generalist void:

All violence is wrong and illegal and has been for a very long time.

The lad has a genuine talent for self-serving platitudes ... as the wailing and the litany of grievances continued, worthy of an incel or Clavicular himself ...

Throughout the document, men appear largely as perpetrators, potential perpetrators, or subjects of behavioural correction. Boys only get a mention four times in the document that casts them as problems in need of “education and awareness programs”, such as The Healthy Masculinities Trial and Evaluation (Healthy MaTE) scheme to “encourage healthy expressions of masculinity among school-aged boys and young men”.
“Gender responsive budgeting was reintroduced in the 2022-23 October budget to put gender equality at the centre of budget decision-making,” the statement reminds readers, without explaining how such a method is appropriate, possible or justified.
Pity the smart Treasury graduate who thought joining what was once a rigorous, respected institution might entail actual economics and public policy, rather than contributing to an absurd annual document replete with selective outrage and cherry-picked statistics.
If such a highly political, contestable document ever warranted routine inclusion in the federal budget, it was decades ago when women faced significant discrimination in the workplace, were a minority at university and female politicians were a rarity. These days, it simply highlights how unserious and simplistic a federal government we have.
Adam Creighton is chief economist at the Institute of Public Affairs.

Credit where credit is due. Killer is not so far apart from the world infested by influencers and Andrew Tates ...

And speaking of prize misogynists, the lizard Oz editorialist had a tribute to King Donald on his birthday, and the pond found it irresistible, what with its UFC themes fitting Killer's mood exactly ...

That deserves an immortal Rowe ...

And speaking of manly men, this turned up on The Bulwark's channel to celebrate Pete Kegsbreath.

Generally speaking, the pond and the gym have been two for a very long time, but the pond knows enough to know that what Hogsbreath is doing here is pathetic and performative, and injurious to health.

He seems to know as little about weight training as he does about everything else, and the result is as comical as that diminutive weight lifter who dresses as a cleaner and takes down beefy boofheads in YouTube videos which seem to haunt the pond's logarithms ...

In which prattling Polonius and the bromancer provide the soporifics for a meditative Sunday ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 22:00:00 +0000

The pond doesn't like constantly featuring the reptiles' obsession with elevating the Hansonite tribe in the hive mind, but must live with the cards that are being dealt.

The pond had been hoping it would be just another meditative Sunday, and that spot has been reserved for prattling Polonius for quite some time, so it was his turn, and wouldn't you know... Hansonite alert, as Polonius fantasised that Pauline would help in his endless jihad to take down the ABC ...

The header: Pauline Hanson’s surge puts the ABC on notice; Pauline Hanson may succeed where five Coalition prime ministers failed in forcing the ABC to change its editorial culture.

The caption, containing a cunning dog whistle: Pauline Hanson ... no one should be surprised that One Nation’s popularity increased markedly after the Bondi Beach massacre. Picture: supplied

The Polonial take wasn't that surprising, deploying the Hansonites as a boogeyperson to threaten the ABC, make them see the errors of their ways, and turn to the righteous Polonial path.

Those familiar with Polonius might wonder when his favourite term, "conservative-free zone" turns up, and the pond promises they won't have to wait long ...

Does increasing support for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party, evident in the opinion polls, present long-term problems for the ABC? Obviously, it’s too early to say. But there is reason for uncritical supporters of the taxpayer-funded public broadcaster to be concerned.
In the past, some opponents of the lack of viewpoint diversity on the ABC have wondered why Coalition governments, led by Malcolm Fraser, John Howard, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison, have not been able to encourage the ABC board to break the left’s domination of what is a conservative-free zone.
Sure, in various ways, Fraser, Howard, Abbott and Morrison tried. Not so Turnbull, who has been almost an uncritical ABC supporter. Especially nowadays when he has ready access to ABC studios to attack the Liberal Party in the capacity of one of its former leaders. ABC journalists just love this. And they rarely if ever ask him about losing 14 seats to Labor in the 2016 election or the blowout in costs to his fave Snowy Hydro 2.0 project.
As to the others, there was never the determination to do so. Traditionally, there has been strong support for the ABC from Nationals parliamentarians and regional and rural Liberal Party MPs. The ABC is more politically balanced in rural and regional areas. Moreover, Coalition MPs outside the major cities can get ready access to the ABC in their electorates.
Hanson is of a different stock. She appears to detest the ABC in the Melbourne-Canberra-Sydney axis and could act against it. This, after all, is where the ABC most readily demonstrates its support for left-wing causes.

At this point, the reptiles interrupted with extremely large photos displayed in linear order of ABC people the hive mind must hate.

It reminded the pond of this poster for enemies of the five year plan.

The reptiles hadn't organised this vile bunch in the proper way, so the pond took the opportunity to make the images and show the reptiles how to do it ... Laura Tingle. Picture: X; John Lyons. Picture: supplied; David Marr. Picture: supplied; Sarah Ferguson. Picture: ABC

Put that in a poster and those rogues would grace a Stalinist "most wanted" list.

Polonius naturally deemed this unruly crew "controversial", which surely is a bit of a stretch, but then it's likely that Polonius would find an overcooked egg "controversial" ...

A One Nation government could reduce funding for that part of the ABC public broadcaster where its most controversial “stars” are based. Namely, Linton Besser, Melissa Clarke, Raf Epstein, Sarah Ferguson, Patricia Karvelas, Fran Kelly, John Lyons, Hamish Macdonald, David Marr, Louise Milligan, Sally Sara, David Speers and Laura Tingle.
Needless to say, a government cannot, and should not, run a public broadcaster. Nor can a board. That’s the role of the ABC’s managing director and editor-in-chief (currently Hugh Marks). The role of the board – under its chairman (currently Kim Williams) – is to ensure that the functions of the corporation are performed effectively with the maximum benefit to the people of Australia.
It is sometimes said that ABC journalists must abide by the corporation’s charter. That’s a somewhat benign document. What’s important is section eight of the Australian Broadcasting Act 1983. It sets out the duties of the board including ensuring “that the gathering and presentation” by the ABC “of news and information is accurate and impartial according to the recognised standards of objective journalism”.
The federal government appoints the ABC board, including the ABC chair, except for the staff-elected board member (currently Tingle). And the board appoints the managing director. A One Nation government could appoint as many board members as it would be legally entitled to.

Speak loudly and carry a big One Nation stick, but Polonius realised he might have gone too far, he might have joined the reptile bandwagon, hooked up with the craze for Pauline...

I am not advocating a vote for One Nation.

He is, he is!

The lust for revenge, the chance to dish it out to those wretched cardigan-wearers, got too much for him, and he jumped the shark so he could nuke the ABC fridge ...

However, I am saying that such an administration could affect the ABC by financial cuts and the like.

Yes, take that cardigan-wearers and remember, whatever the "however", keep in mind that a vote for Pauline could wreak righteous havoc on the miscreants.

Now back to that disgraceful mob, with not one of them worthy of being employed on Sky Noise down under (still no rebrand?)

Followers of the ABC are getting a clearer view of the organisation under new management. It appears that Williams was influential in the appointment of Marks. Recent public appearances by the pair suggest that the ABC is likely to remain a conservative-free zone under their watch.
On May 24, on a visit to Tasmania, Williams appeared on the Poll Position podcast where he was interviewed by Brad Stansfield and Alex Johnston. The following exchange took place. Williams: “The ABC is not an especially left-wing or right-wing organisation and, in fact, the majority of ABC journalists – I would defy anyone to know how they vote.” Stansfield: “Oh, I reckon I could guess.”
Quite so. Clearly, Williams is in denial. ABC management cannot name one conservative among the television, radio or online outlets who are presenters, producers or editors. Little wonder that Stansfield queried Williams. The public broadcaster is replete with apparent Greens and teal supporters in prominent positions.

And after that litany of failures, it was time to tame any hint of an inner Tame: Shadow Home Affairs Minister Jonathon Duniam claims the ABC has made a “terrible error of Judgement” in selecting Grace Tame for a new podcast.

That sent Polonius right off ...

Interviewed on Radio National Breakfast on June 10, Marks was asked about the ABC’s decision to appoint Grace Tame, who presents as a functioning adult, to present a four-part podcast on autism. In a soft and content-light interview, Marks declared, with respect to Tame, that “everybody can relate to what she really believes in”.
Really? Does “everybody” believe in Tame’s comment, as told to Hamish Macdonald on ABC Radio Sydney on March 16, that the evidence that Hamas murdered Israeli women and children and raped women was mere “propaganda”?

And what did the Ombudsman say about that interview?

Whilst the Ombudsman appreciates that some members of the audience consider this reference antisemitic, the Ombudsman does not consider the way in which it was presented condoned or encouraged prejudice.
Taking into account what was said in the program during the interview, and the continuing references to the interview from callers ringing in and providing their views and perspectives, the Ombudsman considers that the interview was conducted professionally, claims were appropriately challenged and in keeping with the editorial standards for a live radio program. (In full here)

Bloody ABC, the fix is always in ...

Also, under questioning from Liberal Party senator Sarah Henderson in Senate estimates on May 28, Marks refused to engage with the fact that Simon Robinson (the ABC’s soon to be head of news) had reposted a lengthy article titled “The Shoah after Gaza” by Pankaj Mishra. This was profoundly hostile to Israel. There is no evidence that Robinson has reposted an article supportive of contemporary Israel.

Supportive of ethnic cleansing, and a plan to make good a greater Israel? Only in the world of Benji lovers ...

It’s early days. However, Williams and Marks do not seem to be conscious of the validity of the critique that the ABC is replete with left-of-centre individuals who regard themselves as “progressives”. Until they and other board members cease being in denial on this issue, hostility towards the ABC within sections of Australia is likely to remain.

The real problem? Polonial pique.

Polonius has always fancied himself as the inventor of the real Media Watch, and considers it an outrage and a tragedy that the ABC never gave him any sort of gig, except for sparring on a couch with Marr, until tedium forced him off the air.

Now poseurs and preening pretenders hold his ordained spot, and it's just so unfair. Polonius was made for the ABC, not to play some dogsbody on Sky Noise.

But now he turns up like a soporific on Sky Noise down under (still no rebrand?), dressed up as a "Media Watch Dog", wherein he imagines he's some sort of furry ... (do they have doggy stuff in the studio?) Sky News Media Watch Dog Columnist Gerard Henderson says ABC Media Watch host Linton Besser has conceded Pauline Hanson must be taken seriously after One Nation’s surge in the polls.

They didn't even feature Polonius doing his thing?

Pauline must be taken seriously?

Actually no matter what happens the pond reserves the right to treat her and Barners, Tamworth's eternal disgrace, as clowns in a clown car heading for a cliff, in much the same way as the pond finds King Donald first class entertainment.

It might be serious for those living under the King, but surely they can enjoy the comedy ... the late Roman empire specrtacle.

It's never boring ... provided you know how to baa along ...

And so to Polonius 'fessing up that the Hansonites are beloved by Murdochian media ...

It may be that some ABC journalists are more alert to a possibility of a future government that wants the ABC Act implemented by management. Last Monday on Media Watch, Besser dropped his previous sneering of Hanson.
Besser believes that One Nation’s evident increasing support has come despite shunning sections of the media. This is true in part. But other sections of the media have effectively “cancelled” Hanson in recent times.
Meanwhile, Hanson appears frequently on Sky News and One Nation has run a very effective social media campaign. Besser and the like should not be surprised that One Nation’s popularity increased markedly after the Bondi Beach massacre.
It will be interesting to see what case the ABC will put about its Middle East coverage when it and other outlets appear before the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion in the coming weeks.
Gerard Henderson is executive director of The Sydney Institute.

And it will be interesting to see if the Jewish lobby manages to hide the ethnic cleansing currently going down in Gaza and the West Bank:

And so to the bromancer.

The pond didn't mean to offend by putting him in second spot.

Rather, think of him as the glorious conclusion to the parade of reptiles, down there with an elephant attending a Texas GOP convention.

The header: Albanese government is using AUKUS to conceal shameful defence reality; Albanese and Marles dissemble and deceive over Australia’s military weakness. Labor’s security performance is pure spin mixed with moonshine.

The caption for a frankly appalling collage, the only upside being that it can't be blamed on AI: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Defence Minister Richard Marles, and other cabinet ministers, have not rid the broader Labor movement of its anti-nuclear superstitions. Artwork: Frank Ling.

The bromancer spent five minutes indulging in his usual emotional display of rage and impotence.

What was behind it this time?

Most likely the sinking realisation that AUKUS was turning into a compleat dud, and so his war with China by Xmas would have to be postponed for yet another year, especially as King Donald had shown all the skills of a wet lettuce in his war on Iran.
Britain’s Defence Secretary, John Healey, resigned because he couldn’t get his Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, to spend anything like what’s necessary for Britain’s defence. Healey, no show pony, showed his guest at the time, Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles, what an honourable man does in circumstances Healey and Marles both face.
If Marles were a serious figure, he’d secure a much bigger defence budget or resign to demonstrate the seriousness of our situation. Britain is a much bigger military power than Australia, with a much bigger defence budget. Healey was offered between £10bn ($19bn) and £13bn extra over the next four years, vastly more than the puny increase Canberra’s planning.

Cue a shot of the pair Defence Minister Richard Marles with British Defence Secretary John Healey. Picture: Getty Images

That led the bromancer in to his usual state of panic, paranoia and hysteria. Yes, he seems to fancy himself as a "serious person"...

Healey and Marles recently agreed at a joint press conference that the global strategic environment has become more dangerous in the past year. For years the Albanese government has described the strategic outlook as the worst since World War II. It’s now even worse than that, yet still we do almost nothing.
Healey wrote to Starmer: “You have been unable, and the Treasury has been unwilling, to commit the resources the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats.”
The same is true, 10 times over, of Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers. Unlike Healey, our politicians are not, essentially, serious people.
The Albanese government routinely refuses to disclose basic information or tell the truth about national security, especially what it’s doing in defence. This feeds Australia’s version of the disillusionment, cynicism and alienation people across Western societies increasingly feel towards mainstream politics.
The government apparently believes voters are now so fractured, and follow policy debates so little, that it can say almost anything and get away with it, so long as it repeats it often enough, loud enough, backs it with allied lobby groups and runs a good social media campaign. Sadly, sometimes that’s true. But reality has a way of ultimately seeping into public consciousness.
Those commentators who dismiss the significance of broken promises – a different category of deception, I acknowledge – have effectively lost faith in democracy. The Albanese government would have us believe it seriously intended to implement stage three tax cuts last term, then seriously intended not to change capital and property taxes this term, but was forced by circumstances to reverse itself before going to an election first. Who are they kidding?
The government routinely misleads on defence, but also does more than any government in our history to conceal basic facts. It also embodies contradictions it neither addresses nor resolves.

Contradictions? This from the bromancer, who routinely contains so many contradictions he sounds like Walt Whitman.

Who was all in on Japanese subs?

Buy your submarines from Japan, says US

Who once thought AUKUS was a flop?

This from a man who, way back when, knew it was a turkey ...

Bitter truth is we will likely never get any nuclear subs

And for those who read beyond that teaser trailer in the intermittent archive, they'll come across this dismissal of the Brits by the bromancer ...

...It is impossible to understand why the Brits are in the mix, apart from PR. If we choose the British Astute sub and don’t modify it, that means ditching the jewel of our defence technology, the US combat system that we have on the Collins, as well as most of the US weapons we use on the Collins. So the US, at the end of all this, would be getting billions of dollars less work from us and our navies would be less integrated.
Alternatively, there is talk of choosing the Astute but putting a US combat system, US weapons and even US propulsion system into it. Dear God in heaven, if we embrace the insanity of designing a new nuclear sub just for Australia, even 2060 will be optimistic for the first boat.
Or if we choose the Virginia, as we must, the Brits get nothing, yet Boris Johnson was assuring the British public that AUKUS meant hundreds and hundreds of well-paid jobs in Britain’s north. We made a mistake choosing the British Type 26 frigate, which still is not in service even in Britain and is two years behind schedule and counting. Just imagine a Brit submarine saga.
A cynical interpretation might be that the Liberals never explained, championed or campaigned for their own choice of the French sub. Choosing Marise Payne and then Linda Reynolds as defence ministers was grotesque, by Turnbull and Morrison respectively, as neither could carry the debate or the portfolio
So the government has solved only the problem that its own incompetent, lazy and inexplicable failure to champion its own defence programs brought about, but so far has substituted nothing concrete for it.
The result is likely no submarine capability for us at all, except museum piece Collins boats and whatever submarine visits the Americans or Brits send along. We should have kept the French subs going, perhaps at a reduced number of six or even three, then gone nuclear in an orderly way.

So it's impossibly quaint and impossible to understand why the British have returned in this bro outing, British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper and Richard Marles at Lancaster House for AUKMIN meetings. Picture: Jacquelin Magnay

The bromancer decided to get emotional, perhaps because he's scribbled about it over the years in a way that manages to make even completely incoherent government policies sound rational:

The AUKUS debate drives me mad at times because it comprehensively ensures we don’t debate our wretched defence unpreparedness over the coming two decades. As so often in Australia, the nation is obsessed with performative, ritualised symbols that have little bearing on reality in any timeframe we can actually affect.
We won’t have our fleet of eight nuclear-powered submarines until the 2050s, assuming by some astonishing miracle the ever-changing plan proceeds flawlessly. By then our worst nightmares with China will have been realised or disappeared. I suspect the government is delighted with this because it means, without increasing the actual defence budget, it can pretend it’s doing something while actually doing nothing.
It’s happy doing nothing because, underneath, it doesn’t want a serious defence capability. If push comes to shove the Americans will deal with China, or not, so this view goes, and if we have no real capability we’ll have no real responsibility. And we won’t have any capability to speak of for decades.
The government is riddled with contradictions. Albanese, Marles and other cabinet ministers have not rid the broader Labor movement of its anti-nuclear superstitions. The government validates those superstitions by maintaining its commitment to keeping nuclear energy illegal in Australia.
This means Labor can’t embrace AUKUS emotionally. So nuclear reactors under the ocean surface, manoeuvring at high speed, surrounded by weapons, seeking out combat, are perfectly safe, yet reactors stationary on dry land in the most geologically stable continent on Earth are a menace to life.

As for being geologically stable, given the pond a craton every day of the week ...

And why on earth would anyone want to embrace defence policies or defence strategies emotionally?

Did Sir John Monash wander through the first world war in an emotional dither, plucking hankies out of pocket to hide his tears?

Famously ...

...He held the view that warfare was essentially a problem in engineering, of mobilizing resources, like the conduct of a large industrial undertaking; in 1918 the men in the line knew that all was right behind them. He eagerly made use of the most recent innovations. He took the view that an energetic offensive policy, 'feeding the troops on victory', was the short way to end the slaughter and misery. He was of the new scientific breed of generals, did not attempt to hob-nob with the troops and seek their popularity, and so was often criticized by the traditional 'inspirational' school of thought. (ADB)

Better to serve under Monash than an emotional Sheridan.

But the pond digresses.

Shouldn't matters of defence be dealt with in a calm, logical, rational and rigorous way, while recognising that there are always black swans on the horizon coming to upset the applecart, especially for generals wanting to fight the next war like the last one. Or bromancers inclined to emotion and madness ...

The pond should forgive the bromancer, he's always been emotionally unstable, always willing to hurl a petulant "that's nuts" at anyone or anything he finds disagreeable, and of course he's going to be driven mad ...

Defence Minister Richard Marles has played down concerns from Labor MPs over AUKUS, declaring the government remains “unambiguously supportive” of the landmark defence pact with the US and UK. Speaking at The Australian’s 2026 Defending Australia summit, Mr Marles said Australia had always preferred to receive in-service Virginia-class submarines rather than newly built boats, arguing the revised plan would simplify the transition, reduce costs and deliver a “really good outcome” for the nation’s military capability.

Instead of going his beloved "it's nuts", this time the bromancer's hysteria led to "bonkers".

Almost everything the government says about defence is misleading, preposterous or bonkers. Marles says that as an island nation dependent on trade of course Australia will have cutting-edge submarine capability. How come that’s urgent in the 2050s but not urgent today? No one could claim we have any naval cutting-edge capability now. The public ultimately registers the bulldust.

As a seller of prime BS, the bromancer knows a lot about bulldust, and perhaps recognising that he'd gone too far, he decided to throw in a billy goat butt ...

Don’t get me wrong. I’m in favour of AUKUS in principle, and nuclear subs.

But that "butt" was just a nonsense. He's not, really he's not ..."in principle" is just another classic bromancer fudge.

In principle he's as despondent as ever ...

The program as constructed has little chance of delivering its promise but, more important, it’s being used to avoid taking serious decisions now. Nuclear subs, even distant, pretend ones, cost a lot of money. You must fund both a conventional force and nuclear subs simultaneously. Pretending to do both, the government does neither.
Marles often claims he’s making record defence expenditure increases. This is moonshine. Despite our per capita living standard declining, population increase means GDP rises in dollar terms each year. Also, we’ve had sustained bouts of inflation. That means virtually every government activity is spending record amounts of dollars. It’s an utterly meaningless boast. As a percentage of national effort, the Marles boast is, even more transparently, pure baloney. In this coming financial year, 2026-27, the defence budget will decline, absolutely, in dollar terms and as a percentage of GDP. In 2026-27 the government will spend 2.02 per cent of GDP on defence, almost exactly the same as the level it inherited more than four years ago.
Last year the government breathlessly announced that, if measured by NATO standards, Australia actually already spends 2.8 per cent of GDP on defence. But in a telling sign of the government’s abiding arrogance, its absolute disinclination to allow debate or furnish even the most basic information, it didn’t tell us what this 2.8 per cent consisted of. There’s nothing classified in that information. Refusing to release it revealed Marles as an inferior Joh Bjelke-Petersen of a defence minister – “Don’t you worry about that!”

It's usual for reptiles to slip in a snap of something tantalising in these stories, and here it comes ...The Virginia-class fast-attack submarine USS Vermont (SSN 792) arrives at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia for a scheduled Submarine Maintenance Period (SMP). Picture: Department of Defence

Sob, and all we got is a snap ...

And so to a final unhappy gobbet ...

What actually made up the 2.8 per cent came to light only because of sustained Freedom of Information requests by my colleague, Ben Packham. What kind of government keeps such basic information secret? What possible justification is there for it? It turned out, of course, that to get to the ropy 2.8 per cent figure, the government included numerous expenditures NATO nations don’t normally include.
Marles claims he’s got $14bn extra for defence over the next four years. Again, a misleading claim. It turns out only $6bn is new government money. The rest is a heroic assumption about “novel finance” methods, basically private money, and even more heroic estimates of the proceeds of selling Defence property. It’s worse even than that. Defence also has to make various economies. The real extra money is vanishingly small.
The government is doing everything it can to conceal information. At Senate defence estimates, the opposition’s James Paterson asked the Vice Chief of the Defence Force, Air Marshal Robert Chipman, what were the 22 defence programs the government had said would be cut, delayed or reprioritised over the forward estimates. Chipman, a good man forced to look stupid by government diktat, claimed he didn’t know.
The government is working hard to prevent Senate estimates undertaking meaningful scrutiny of the defence budget. This is an affront to democracy. When a government announces it has cut or changed $5bn worth of 22 programs but won’t say what they are, it treats voters with contempt.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute in its book-length analysis of the defence budget concludes it goes nowhere near meeting even the (extremely) modest ambitions in the government’s own National Defence Strategy.
Given this stark, unyielding reality, I think the government’s happy to have the nation’s attention misdirected, debating nuclear subs in the 2050s. The dereliction and dishonesty in our national security policy are ruinous. And shameful.

Might not it be better to declare AUKUS a dead turkey?

Cut losses and run? Explore the sort of technologies currently making life difficult for Vlad the Sociopath?

Sadly the Murdochians wouldn't wear it and would kick up an unholy fuss, and so this dead carcass will litter the lizard Oz for years to come, its only benefit and use being that the bromancer can get a goodly amount of column inches out of it.

It would be so much easier if we just enjoyed these assorted follies as a kind of entertainment ... especially as it's been a long time between drinks at the pond for the two Toms ...

Now about that astonishingly rich loon ready to head off to Mars (how soon can it happen?)

In which "Ned" and the Ughmann show how to bore the socks off the weekend ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 22:05:44 +0000

Anyone doubting that the Murdochians are more than One Nation curious, and are in fact swinging behind the party that supports the reptile agenda, should take a refresher course with the venerable Meade's outing yesterday ... As One Nation seeks donations to ‘fire the liar’, News Corp gives it front-page billing.

...Full-page coverage of the fundraising continued throughout the week, with headlines including: “Orange flood of cash as Pauline’s People rise up.”
The prime minister had the same reaction to the tabloid’s front page as we did, saying on Thursday that One Nation “had an ad for their fundraising campaign, effectively, free ad in one of the mainstream publications”.

That might have been in the Daily Terror, with the terrorists notorious for their wayward far right ways, but take a squiz at the celebratory tone in the lizard Oz, top of the world ma, splash this weekend ...

That header is meaningless nonsense.

We're still in Canberra, and the entire point is that it's politics as usual, what with Hanson having been at the politics game since she first became an MP for Oxley way back in 1996.

What it does do is show how determined the reptiles are to celebrate the way that the Hansonists are on a triumphal march ... because what other party embraces the reptile agenda in such a comprehensive, devoted way?

Of course it's also an alarmist, hysterical troll, with nattering "Ned" sent in to numb the senses with an interminable ten minute bout of blather ...

The header: A nation divided as Hanson splits the right, harries the left; Anthony Albanese and Angus Taylor are scrambling to halt One Nation’s rise. It’s the relics versus the unconventional.

And sorry, the reptiles didn't provide a caption or a credit for that evocative piece of artwork, which featured Pauline clutching what might have been a pizza while "Ned" hit the highway to lightning central, so AI should probably take the blame.

It means about as much as "Ned's" seemingly endless tosh.

"Ned" spends his time posing as a non-Hansonite, but at the same time he spends a bigly amount of time dressing up the perils that Pauline poses...

Even that phrasing, that talk of "relics", is remarkable for a full-blown, card-carrying relic who seems to think he might have some understanding of the "unconventional"...
‘It’s the economy, stupid, it’s always the economy,” Anthony Albanese declared this week when One Nation sailed past Labor in the polls. But who is stupid? The voters defecting to One Nation or the Albanese government whose unconvincing economic policies have facilitated the flight?
The Albanese government and Australia have entered a new zone where a once marginal and renegade party under Pauline Hanson now heads both Labor and the Coalition as the most popular party.
Explaining the rot, Albanese said: “Many people feel the system isn’t working for them. They’re working hard, struggling to save, can’t get their own roof over their head.” Reverting to a diagnosis he has used since the 2022 election, Albanese said people felt “they’re working for the economy, not the economy working for them”.
This leads to his main pitch, virtually the essence of his leadership: that his job as Prime Minister is to improve the lot of people, to make life better. It’s mundane, nothing heroic, nothing inspiring, just getting the job done. But are his policies working?
Same message, same agenda
This is a conventional pitch. But it comes in an unconventional time. In his fifth year as Prime Minister, Albanese, while championing his reform budget, essentially has the same message selling the same agenda. Sitting on a massive 94 parliamentary seats, Albanese isn’t panicking about Hanson, who has two seats, but presents himself as the only centrist leader still left, calling Labor “the only mainstream party” in Australia. “I’m convinced that we will continue to be successful,” he told the ABC. The message: stick with Mr Reliable and Mr Conventional.

At this point, "Ned" decided to prove his relic status, by turning to a narcissist of the first water ... celebrated by John Crace a little time ago ...

Have I mentioned that I am the only Labour prime minister to have won a full second term? Not that I am in any way needy.

I am deeply honoured to be a member of Trump’s Board of Peace along with many others from the world’s most eminent list. Keir made a huge mistake by not joining the US in bombing Iran, because it can never be wrong not to go to war along with the US. Can it? There were weapons of mass destruction. I’m sure of it. There has to have been, we just haven’t found them yet.

And so on, and it's always fun to discover someone else who harbours even greater contempt for Tony Bleagh than the pond does... but not "Ned", not on your nelly ...

Listen, however, to Tony Blair in his recent manifesto to the beleaguered Keir Starmer government in Britain, delivering a big message: the conventional doesn’t work any more: “The people don’t want politics as usual. The real reason behind the rise of the leaders from Donald Trump to Giorgia Meloni to Javier Milei is that they answered this call. You can like them or dislike them, but their chief characteristic is they appear to be unbound, not constrained by conventional thinking.”
People in Western democracies these days think “anything is better than the agonising irritation of incremental change that never seems to deliver real change”.
Blair said the unconventional leaders “appear to have the ballast many conventional politicians lack – they have an attitude, a tribe and a project. They’re prepared to raise the middle finger to the part of the media which opposes them. And for protection they build a tribe – a core of support which will follow them, sometimes almost blindly.”

At this point the reptiles flung in a snap of the relic Bleagh...Former British prime minister Tony Blair. Picture: Getty Images

The pond much prefers this version ...

Now that captures the sinister malevolence... and now back to relic "Ned", managing to mangle Bleagh and Starmer, as if somehow all that fits down under ...

Unconventional versus relics
It’s easy to translate this diagnosis to Australia. Albanese and Angus Taylor are conventional leaders while Hanson is unconventional. This is the vital difference. The unconventional leader assails the status quo as discredited and attacks the conventional leaders tied to a conventional system. Albanese and Taylor are depicted as relics to be cast aside.
Blair says the unconventional leader must have a project – this vests them with “strength and purpose”. Hanson’s project is not defined. But its essence, grasped by many people, lies in the pledge: I’ll give you back the country you love that is being stolen from you.
That’s powerful. It resonates and it’s inclusive because most people will focus on something they think their country and their life is losing. What is Albanese’s project? He calls it improving the lives of Australians – it’s what prime ministers mostly say. But it doesn’t resonate much these days.
What is Taylor’s project? It has many dimensions: making life affordable, cheap and abundant energy, restoring aspiration, lower taxes, rejecting net zero and an immigration intake that puts Australians first. Yet these messages haven’t cut through; the Taylor project still awaits ultimate definition.
Blair says Starmer’s mistake before his victory was refusing to clarify Labour’s identity: was it New Labour, Old Labour, Blue Labour? The upshot is his government drifted and defaulted into the “party’s comfort zone”. It looks old-fashioned and leftist, unable to renew Britain. Blair warns that in these unconventional times the party that wins the next British election will run on a radical agenda.

Bleagh is the answer to it all?

Then we're doomed, as the reptiles resorted to a reminder that the graphics department wasn't entirely dead, and that Emilia could stick it to AI ... As the One Nation wave gathers force, Anthony Albanese, left, and Jim Chalmers risk being seen as political relics. Artwork: Emilia Tortorella

Classic, Emilia, you could take that to the bank.

Now note how "Ned" manages to gloss over Pauline's flaws, and those of womanising drunk Barners, Tamworth's eternal shame, and the absence of useful policies, to portray the Hansonists as big winners, and even biglier dangers...

Boldness is the order of the day in Western politics – the culture of the unconventional translates into radical policy prescriptions. The people who criticise Taylor for moving right are clueless, totally uncomprehending what is happening to our politics.
Hanson’s rise constitutes a historic challenge to contemporary Labor’s successful electoral model – its three-way synthesis of tertiary educated, progressive-oriented, high-income earners; female and young voters; and traditional lower-income ALP voters with a class consciousness.
As Labor’s primary vote sinks to 30 per cent the critical question becomes: can Albanese hold this voting alliance together for the 2028 election? He probably can, but it is eroding and Hanson will erode it further. So expect more class consciousness messages from Albanese and Jim Chalmers.
Give Albanese his due. He decided six months before the budget that status quo politics in Australia wasn’t working. He saw that events were moving fast, that his government had to embrace new policies to keep setting the agenda for 2028. Hence the budget’s initiatives restricting future negative gearing to new builds, imposing an inflation indexation system for capital gains tax along with a 30 per cent minimum rate on assets and trusts, justified by economic theory and equity.
The big danger for PM
Albanese presents himself as a reformer for the times, taking the tough decisions and recruiting intergenerational equity as his sell. “Hard decisions cannot be put on hold for easier times,” he says. “The challenges confronting Australia are too urgent to hang back.”
But the danger is obvious: that Albanese called the politics right but has got the economics wrong. Can his government deliver the economic gains for people to keep the One Nation wolf from the door?
It isn’t going well. The tax changes – a point of Labor conviction – are attacked as anti-aspirational, anti-investment and anti-entrepreneurial, enabling critics to brand Labor not as a government of renewal but as a redistributional, high tax, high spending, deficit obsessed, workplace regulation, weak productivity government presiding over weak economic growth.
At this point Albanese’s economic and social vision comes together. He wants to fight One Nation on “the economy, stupid” but the risk is that Labor’s grand economic vision is misconceived, that it looks a study in old-fashioned Labor convention, an ideology from the past, not a Hawke-Keating growth agenda but a return to big government and state intervention.
Polls show Hanson is the big winner from an unpopular budget. She will exploit every economic grievance for the next two years. And if the economy enters a further economic growth and living standards slump this will only prolong Hanson’s momentum.
How much of Blair’s critique of Starmer applies to Australia? He says Starmer won office not by election acclaim but as the “default option” to a discredited conservative government. He says British Labour came to office without any proper plan to address how the world was being transformed. He says Starmer is governing “from an essentially traditional Labour ‘soft left’ position” that gravely misjudges the times.

Still harping on Bleagh, still implying that Pauline is Nige down under? No wonder the reptiles felt the need for an audio break ...

Does relic "Ned" have the first clue how his framing, how his ponderous, pompous discourse elevates Pauline?

Probably not. In the manner of Tony Bleagh, these relics aren't inclined to self-examination ...

Albanese and Chalmers may yet be vindicated with their budget and economic policies – and Albanese is a far superior political leader to Starmer – yet the economic omens aren’t looking too good at present.
While One Nation’s rise reflects mainly on the failures of the Coalition, Albanese cannot escape any responsibility. The Hanson eruption occurred on his watch, under his government and his government’s economic policies. The risk Labor faces with its current rhetoric – there’s plenty of good economic news from low unemployment, stronger living standards than in most OECD nations, the success of renewables driving 43 per cent of our electricity and tax reform to address the housing crisis – is that such assurances are not heard or only anger potential One Nation voters.
Have no doubt, the culture is changing. Policy debates seem less important. Our society is split into competing bubbles, separate tribes though sometimes overlapping, each morally convinced about its version of truth, possessing its own view of the world – the Hanson tribe, the progressive tribe, the conservative tribe, the climate change tribe, the disenfranchised tribe, then feeding into chaotic voting patterns. The broad-based, widely shared Australian culture is eroding – and that’s the opening for a substantial campaign from the right.
Fed up voters
The torment of our age is obvious: people want change, they’re fed up, they want relief and improvement, but there’s no consensus, no agreement, no shared understanding of what sort of change. The gulf between voters in the up-market urban teal seats and voters in regional Australia has never been greater. Growing tribalism means a fractured community but a community that cannot resolve its way forward. This is Australia’s dilemma.
Albanese’s approach to One Nation is to avoid personal criticism of Hanson, avoid criticism of One Nation voters but hammer the idea that Hanson’s policies don’t help the battlers, that she is tied to Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, and that his opposition now comprises “three right-wing parties” increasingly bound together and fatally compromised by Hanson.
But Albanese and Taylor are jointly handicapped by the personalisation of our politics. The more politics is shaped by culture, the deeper are the divisions and the more difficult to find common ground. The rise of social media reinforces the cultural fracture.
People these days are expected to speak their minds. The old days of personal restraint and self-discipline as a virtue are fading. Politics is being driven more by emotion and sentiment, it’s about how you feel, what you like and what you don’t like, what makes you angry and how the political class has let you down. Venting your views often makes the individual feel good, gives them standing and is often seen as justified morality.

Say what? Isn't that exactly what Faux Noise has done, and the News Corp tabloids down under do, and so do the reptiles at the lizard Oz?

Isn't the entire point of the reptiles to make readers angry and generate a venting rage machine?

Now pause for another pumping up of the Pauline volume ...Having turned up the heat on the Coalition, Pauline Hanson is now taking the blowtorch to the Albanese government. Picture: Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman.

Must they keep reminding the pond of her uncanny resemblance to Martin Luther?

Uncanny.

Thank you Ughmann, the pond will treasure that comparison for all eternity ...

And now, exhausted by "Ned", a final humungous gobbet ...

The Hanson voters are invariably presented in terms of what they oppose. But what does Hanson really represent? That seems mired in confusion. Does One Nation actually aspire to form a government under Hanson, a remote possibility for a political movement with a set of disconnected policy positions that in no way constitutes a viable governing agenda?
The more likely meaning of One Nation is obvious from the polls – it wages a revolutionary culture war within the right, its real purpose being to expose and replace the Coalition parties that it dismisses as historic failures. The polls document this reality, the latest Newspoll showing One Nation on 31 per cent and the Coalition on 18 per cent. The internal voting transfer within the right is massive. Unless the Liberals can reverse this trend and claw back voters, One Nation will become the official opposition at the 2028 election.
In this sense, the eruption of Hanson’s party remains a winning ace for Albanese.
Last week Hanson turned her blowtorch on the Albanese government, anxious to deflect the truth about her spectacular explosion – that One Nation will damage the Coalition far more than it will damage Labor. The creation of division and chaos on the centre-right becomes a permanent gift to the Albanese government. Indeed, Albanese pointed out that despite One Nation leading the field, Labor would still win an election on these polling numbers.
The tragedy of the right is apparent from Newspoll. The total right vote (One Nation plus Coalition) is 49 per cent while the total left vote (Labor and Greens) is 41 per cent. In theory that means the right can win. In practice it means the opposite since the right is locked into two wars – trying to defeat Labor and an internal survival war over which party will dominate the centre-right of politics. Remember: “Disunity is death.”
Pains big call
This situation creates panic among Coalition MPs; witness the statement this week from frontbencher and South Australian Tony Pasin, who broke ranks to say the Liberals should sit down with Hanson to negotiate the seats in which Liberals and One Nation should run so they didn’t compete against each other. This was a declaration of Liberal surrender: giving up its claim on seats to Hanson’s party.
An exasperated Taylor dismissed it: “We’re not going to be doing that.” Frontbencher James Paterson was equally emphatic. If such defeatism penetrates the Liberals, their future as a governing party is finished. Albanese didn’t miss, saying the Liberals were becoming “a fringe party”.
Yet many deluded commentators on the right are filled with “surrender” plans, usually taking the form of the Coalition and One Nation working together. It’s truly weird: asking to Liberals to co-operate with the party that openly seeks the destruction of their entire purpose over the past 80 years and ambition to govern the country.
Paterson also warned that talk of preference deals was premature. Who on earth would be the One Nation candidates? However, recent comments by the new federal president of the Liberals, Tony Abbott, about preferences have raised concerns; namely, that Abbott is learning too far towards an accommodation with One Nation. This is treacherous political terrain.
The conundrum on the centre right is whether policy matters anymore. Consider Taylor: he has supported the radical reform of tax indexation, denounces Labor’s higher taxes on assets, promises lower immigration by tying the intake to built houses, opposes net zero, supports more fossil fuels and will end tax breaks for electric vehicles, rejects Labor’s big government, pledges to reserve future welfare for Australian citizens, will savagely cut the National Construction Code, abolish the safeguard mechanism, reform migration to fit Australian values and lift defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP. None of this so far has made the slightest difference to One Nation’s momentum.
Taylor cannot be cast as a sellout or running a Labor-lite agenda. Those days are over. The policy differences between Albanese and Taylor are immense and growing. The battlelines over a conviction-based Labor-Coalition policy contest reflecting radically different visions of Australia are now being drawn. Nobody following politics could doubt this.
What is the problem? Maybe it’s Taylor’s lack of media cut-through and weak electoral impact. Are One Nation voters aware of such Liberal policies or do they even care? Perhaps they don’t. Maybe the cultural Zeitgeist has prevailed over policy assessment in today’s world. Maybe Blair was right saying the conventional political leader gets no traction in our longing for the unconventional leader. If so, Western democracies are heading into big trouble.

What's the problem with the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way?

He's a dropkick, and now he has the onion muncher roaming around, determined to make sure that he's the biggest relic on the block ...

Meanwhile, Snappy Tom was also present pumping up the joys of rage ...

Fed-up Aussies are embracing the joy of rage
Voters feeling held back or left behind swing to populists
Politicians are copping it right now, but big business shouldn’t be let off the hook — corporate Australia has been missing in action, too.
By Tom Dusevic
Columnist

Given that the intermittent archive is currently working, the pond thought that a teaser trailer would suffice ...

They really won't stop until they lodge Pauline in the Lodge ...

Some reptiles apparently aren't aware of the ways that they're pumping up the volume, but it seems the ones held back and left behind are swinging to populists, hence snappy Tom's rousing closing line ...

...consenting adults will swing with the joy of rage.

And the reptiles know all about the joy of rage, what with it having been their business model for decades.

Speaking of consenting adults, the pond then went looking for a closing contribution, but the ongoing transphobia jihad ruled out several contenders ...

Court redefines what ‘woman’ means
In the highly contentious Giggle vs Tickle case, it is regrettable that judges adopted the terms used by one side.
By Catherine Carew

The always boiling Rice joined in with an EXCLUSIVE ...

EXCLUSIVE
Court ‘overreach’ in ruling on ‘a woman’
‘Extraordinary overreach’: Former judge slams gender ruling as case set for High Court
Sall Grover was punished for saying a man cannot become a woman. Now she’s appealing to the High Court — and a top former judge says she might just win.
By Stephen Rice

And Dame Slap, being a standard MAGA-cap-donning ravager of the law, decided to expand on failing judges with a piece proposing a pox on the lot of them:

Commentary by Janet Albrechtsen
‘Ashamed’: lifting the veil on the conduct of our judges
Federal Court judge Ian Jackman just lifted the veil on the conduct of judges
We are all too familiar with Australian judges falling for the cheap smell of their own self-importance. This week, we got a glimpse at something far darker.

But where was a reptile truly out there, like the Ughmann last week comparing Pauline to Martin Luther?

Where was the Ughmann?

Sadly the reptiles had allowed him to slip out a day earlier, and all he offered was a standard bit of renewables bashing, not nearly up to his eccentric seminarian-wrecked standards, but wotthehell wotthehell, Archy, i m toujours gai toujours gai, i know that i am bound for a journey down the sound with the bromancer and prattling Polonius tomorrow, so the Ughmann will have to do ...

The header: Australia’s renewables push creates a new China dependency and fails to cut costs; Labor promised cuts to power bills but Chris Bowen’s latest slogan masks the same broken pledge.

The caption for the two villains designed to ruin a reptile day: COP 31 President-Designate Murat Kurum of Türkiye, greets COP 31 President-Designate of Negotiations Chris Bowen in Bonn, Germany. Picture: X

A new China dependency? As opposed to the old China dependency that made Gina great again?

The Ughmann spent a bigly six minutes denouncing renewables and celebrating ongoing hydrocarbon sovereignty - where would the hive mind be without sweet, virginal, dinkum, decent clean Oz coal? - but it was standard reptile jihad fare, entirely lacking the flair of his last outing.

Perhaps he should have compared devotion to renewables to the Spanish Jesuits devotion to the Inquisition?

On with the torture ...

A new term has entered the political lexicon: sovereign renewables.
It may not have been manufactured in the slogan factory that is the office of Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen but he is its chief salesman.
“We’ve got the best sun and wind in the world, and we’re using sovereign renewables to shield our grid from global energy volatility and bring down your energy bills,” the minister said in a statement in early June.
At the time of writing, Bowen was in the German city of Bonn, filling his role as president of negotiations in the run-up to this year’s global climate jamboree. For those who came in late, this job is a recent innovation. It was given to Australia as a consolation prize for the tragedy of missing out on hosting the event to Turkey.
Bowen has confirmed this role will cost taxpayers $50m and likes to make spurious comparisons to massive international events Australia actually hosted to pitch it as a bargain. Only someone marinated in the culture of waste that is Canberra could find this argument compelling.
For the benefit of delegates in Bonn, Bowen deployed his rhetorical gifts to create a verbal tableau of how renewables deliver electricity sovereignty.
“Solar energy must travel 150 million kilometres from the sun to the Earth, but it does not have to travel the 150km through the Strait of Hormuz,” he said. “The wind cannot be sanctioned.”
The observant will have already noted that the rotation of the Earth interrupts sunshine every single night. Doldrums still the wind. You could cover the continent in solar panels, and several trillion of them harvesting zero sunshine at midnight still would add up to zero power.
And wind and sunlight do not gather themselves into electricity. That requires solar panels, wind turbines, inverters, batteries, transformers and synchronous condensers. Calling that sovereign energy is akin to declaring a Chinese warship Australian because it is bobbing around off our coast.

You see? He's clearly struggling. When the seminary doesn't give him the right sort of Martin Luther metaphor, he's forced into blather about Chinese warships.

It was past time already for a visual interruption, and in these outings, it's always the job of the graphics department to come up with an outlandish shot of renewables at work, designed to terrify the hive mind. Come on down A partial view of a molten salt tower solar thermal power station in China, where spending on green energy has soared. Picture: Getty

It was so terrifying that the pond thought it should be shown in a bigly way ...

Meanwhile, the Ughmann was getting worried by the way that China had stolen a march on the world, and especially on that prize maroon, King Donald ...

China’s grip on solar power
We are all now familiar with the numbers that describe the choke point that is the Strait of Hormuz. Roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas trade is locked behind that narrow passage. But that pales beside the lock Beijing has on the machinery that turns the weather into sometimes-there electricity.
China controls more than 80 per cent of every stage of solar panel manufacturing, from polysilicon to wafers, cells and modules. It also dominates battery manufacturing, rare earth processing and critical minerals refining.
Beijing also dominates the global wind industry, with its manufacturers accounting for around three-quarters of new turbine installations worldwide. But the real choke point is the specialised magnets buried inside the generators. China manufactures around 90 per cent of the world’s rare-earth magnets, giving it an extraordinary degree of control over one of the most critical components in the renewable energy supply chain.
So how sovereign is a system whose construction depends almost entirely on factories controlled by a strategic rival? What might a regional war do to this supply chain? And when all this kit is assembled here, how sovereign do you think it will be when its brains are coded offshore and can be updated at will, with the now not entirely academic possibility of an effective off switch in Beijing?
Where are the electric planes, Minister?

Poor Ughmann. He probably thought that was a killer question.

Why didn't he ask where the methane is Minister? Don't worry, it's here ...

Beyond that, Bowen’s recent role as diesel diplomat has clearly not sharpened his world view into the central role liquid fuel plays in driving our economy. Despite the hype about electrifying everything, we are a short way down a very long road. Electric vehicle numbers will rise, but even if every new car sold from today were electric it would take more than a decade for the national fleet to turn over.
Then you have to work out how to electrify heavy transport, agriculture, aviation and mining. Norway is often offered as an example of success. Two points. You can fit two Norways in NSW and diesel trucks still make up well over 90 per cent of that country’s heavy vehicle fleet. Where are the electric intercontinental passenger planes?
Hard to abate means what it says on the tin. If it were easy, someone would have done it.
Then there are the more than 6000 products that flow from a barrel of oil, from plastics to the petrochemicals that are the base for most of our medicines.
There is no energy sovereignty without hydrocarbon sovereignty.
Bowen also believes that endlessly chanting the claim that wind and solar generation delivers cheap electricity will make it true. If it were, the federal government would not have needed to spend billions of taxpayer dollars on energy bill relief to hide the bill shock.
Unpicking Labor’s broken power bill promise
Since Labor promised to deliver a $275-a-year cut to power bills relative to December 2021 prices, costs have marched ever upward. Every time a model hints at a future cut to electricity prices, Bowen claims it as vindication, despite the growing chasm between what he pledged and what actually happened.
Let’s underscore this point. Models do not pay electricity bills. Australians do. And consumers do not pay the wholesale cost of power; they pay the total system cost. We are conducting a real-world, real-time experiment on the eastern electricity grid and the only metric that counts is the retail power bill.
This is not a debate about forecasts. It is an audit of outcomes against Labor’s promise. So far, the verdict is clear: it is an abject failure.
Bowen’s latest victory dance had a tiny bit more substance than usual as it came after the Australian Energy Regulator handed down a determination that will result in the safety-net price of electricity falling in some jurisdictions in July.

Actually it's the solar panels on the pond's new digs that helps pay the electricity bills, and how the pond is enjoying that novelty.

Meanwhile, the reptiles resorted to an old gripe ... Former Snowy Hydro CEO Paul Broad claims Energy Minister Chris Bowen wanted to blame the project’s massive cost and timeline blowouts on the Morrison government. “When the [Albanese] government came in, and Chris Bowen became the Energy Minister, he was hellbent on knocking me over and rewriting history,” Mr Broad told Sky News Australia. “He wanted me to go out and bag [Morrison-era energy minister] Angus [Taylor] and make all the problems his.”

Um ...

And with that it was time to wrap up the Ughmann ...

It should be noted that the same regulator now has warned twice that a wall of capital expenditure is coming at consumers in the form of higher transmission and distribution charges, which could swamp any falls in wholesale costs and be baked into bills for years. And a close reading of the latest default market offer seems to be bearing that out.
The biggest price cut was in coal-heavy Queensland while the retail price for some residential customers rose in South Australia, the most wind and solar-dependent jurisdiction in the land. That was driven by rising system security costs. Unfortunately, when you dismantle old coal-fired plants, you also remove the essential frequency-control services they delivered as a by-product of the big spinning machines at the heart of their steam-driven generators.
Elsewhere, the ACT’s independent regulator approved a hike in power bills because a fall in wholesale electricity costs was trumped by rising network costs and the expense of the territory’s green policies.
Power retailers absorbing the risk
It also seems clear that retailers are being forced to absorb more risk by the regulator. AGL has objected to its wholesale price calculations, arguing that retailer exposure under a fixed price cap is asymmetric: losses during price spikes are immediate and unrecoverable, while gains in lower-price periods are competed away. It warns of the possibility of retailers going broke.
Origin has attacked the regulator’s treatment of network charges, arguing it is not supported by any logical, analytical or legal basis and risks undermining the credibility of the default market offer process.
Victoria has its own regulator and it also has lowered the safety-net price of electricity. But the default prices there and in the federally regulated states apply to only about one in seven or eight customers. It will be intriguing to see what happens to the cost of electricity when the other 90 per cent get their market offers.
And one swallow does not make a spring; the trajectory of electricity prices is up.
Is it too much to ask the evangelists of the so-called energy transition that they be honest about the costs, trade-offs and risks? That includes not just the politicians but the vast ecosystem of bureaucrats, subsidy hunters, billionaire energy hobbyists, activists and carpetbaggers who swarm around this debate. People can read the results in their power bills, and the blizzard of shopworn slogans about cheap wind and solar is just another reason there is a revolt against politics as usual.
We need real energy sovereignty, not bumper sticker slogans.

Feeble stuff, more bumper sticker rant than insight, a rote parade of standard reptile renewables coverage, what with their lust to see climate change wreak havoc on the planet.

After all that, the pond wondered if it had missed something, and then it dawned on the pond that certain matters had gone AWOL.

Amazingly early on the Saturday, the reptiles didn't find any top of the page space for news of King Donald, Iran, the latest talk of peace, and the whole damn thing.

The pond hadn't expected nipplegate to reach their august pages, but surely they should have been down with the war, or at least the latest in US cultural events?

Must the pond always rely on the cartoonists?

A mid-morning Mad Hatter's tea party, but the pond didn't invite Our Henry or the Lynch mob ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:50:01 +0000

Shattered.

Here was the pond expecting to spend a pleasnt Friday dalliance with Our Henry, enjoying a dash of Zionism or abuse of the ABC, or a denunciation of Al Gore, and "climatism", but instead the old rogue decided to unleash his inner transphobe.

This entirely suits one form of reptile jihad ... but the pond rarely goes there, not least because it gets the pond's TG friends agitated. (Have any of these reptile bigots ever met a TG person, or spent some time in their company?)

On the other hand, there's no reason to deny the hole in bucket man's foray into the arena ...wherein he invokes Julia Gillard, Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, JL Austin, Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, and Tickle v. Google.

So here's the intermittent archive link ...

Self-defined gender fantasy is flawed theory and law
A fatally flawed theory has become a part of Australian law. Tickle v Giggle is, unfortunately, not its last word. It is its first.
By Henry Ergas
Columnist

The pond tends to take a more Sam Rockwell view of life ...

Apologies, anyone who bothers to watch might find that a little out there, but the pond had decided to run Sam the next time the pond saw the transphobia jihad reared its ugly head in the lizard Oz, and Our Henry just happened to be the next cab off the rank.

Ditto the pond decided not to invite the Lynch mob to this morning's late breaking tea party.

The pond is always to defame the University of Melbourne's long ago faded reputation by featuring the Lynch mob ... but this day he proudly strode into Tommy Robinson turf ...

Still, there's no reason to hold back an intermittent archive link for the benefit of those with stronger stomachs ...

Will multiculturalism and migration end the Irish Troubles?
These gruesome episodes in Southampton and Belfast reveal, in different ways, new faultlines in Western multiculturalism.
By Timothy Lynch
Contributor

Spoiler alert. As a teaser trailer, this is how the Lunch mob wrapped up his outing ...

...The political realignment that began in the US, but has echoes in Australia and the UK, saw the parties of the left abandon the workers and embrace the wokers. The Democrats have become a party of the American campus, of the managerial elite.
Parties of the right, not least Donald Trump’s Republicans, saw an opportunity in this. “I will be your voice.” With that simple pitch, he tempted working-class men and women into his camp. He adopted, in short, a new vocabulary of class.
The divided right, in Australia and the UK, can take encouragement from this. Rather than construe the murders in Southampton and Belfast as evidence of DEI failure, they need to amplify the impacts of illegal immigration on working-class people.
The left has lost the language of class. As Southampton and Belfast roil, it will insist on better racial diversity training and more hospitals. The centre-right needs to revitalise that class-based vocabulary and speak for workers and their interests.
Timothy J. Lynch is professor of American politics at the University of Melbourne. His first book was Turf War: the Clinton Administration and Northern Ireland (Routledge, 2004).

No doubt so that workers can riot against twats of the campus Lynch mob kind.

Enough already with the defamation and the promotion of an ancient tome of the campus kind.

Some might suspect banning the jihadi bigots might have limited the pond's options.

But the reptiles are always full of jihads ... and this morning the war on renewables jihad was top of the "news" section ...

The canny Cranston's piece was full of graphs and charts and despair at the way that the reptiles' most beloved - clean, virginal, dinkum Oz coal - had been treated ..

Renewables and green spending drag down productivity, PC warns
Australia’s falling productivity levels have been driven down by the replacement of coal plants with billions of dollars in renewable energy projects, the Productivity Commission says.
By Matthew Cranston

It was too tedious to indulge, but the lizard Oz editorialist chimed in ...sounding like a little Sir Echo, as the editorialist is inclined to do...and that provided more than enough renewables bashing for the day:

At least there were no graphs or any other signs of the canny Cranston's dressing up of the timeless anti-renewables jihad.

This gave the pond a great excuse to do a segue, or a pivot if you will ...

A few might recall that last Monday, Major Mitchell was in his usual climate science denialist funk, and the pond would just like to place on record Graham Readfearn's response in the Graudian ...

When is rare good news on climate science actually bad? When News Corp misrepresents it

The entirety is delicious, but the wrap up in the final gobbet was particularly appealing ...

Now the pond is standing by to see if the Major takes the bait next Monday.

And in turn all that led the pond to Dan 'the man' Tehan ...

The header: Nuclear is still the answer if we want to power the future; Nuclear has advantages no other energy source can match. Instead of recognising this, Chris Bowen and his merry band of technological Luddites put our nation at risk of losing the AI race

The caption: Energy Minister Chris Bowen at the COP31 presidency press conference in Bonn. Picture: Lara Murillo

The reptiles had treated Dan in a shocking way.

He'd been quickly flung aside like a used rag, the layout was all askew, and he'd only been given one snap, the one of his mortal enemy.

Not even one of Dan himself, perhaps standing next to some kind of nuke thingie! Perhaps even some kind of SMS, of the sort the pond is planning to instal in the mighty 'Gong, cockies permitting...

Never mind, on with the nuking of the country to save the world, if only the planet needed saving from anything other than renewables, or so the reptiles say.

To be fair, Dan 'the man' largely avoided saving the world this day, he was more anxious to save the country for AI:

Necessity, they say, is the mother of all invention. The gargantuan energy needs of AI has created a race for energy so fierce that America built a functioning nuclear microreactor in less than a year. Last week, America announced that the Antares Mark-0 microreactor achieved criticality at Idaho National Laboratory.
This is the first advanced reactor to reach this milestone under a Department of Energy program designed specifically to accelerate nuclear technologies.
This announcement is fresh off the heels of news that Kairos Power broke ground on the first small modular reactor in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to supply Google.
The significance of these events is grasped by industry, although I suspect it is lost on Energy Minister Chris Bowen, whose renewables-only obsession has left our grid unstable and our future precarious.
Before ChatGPT burst into mainstream consciousness, achievements like these would have been impossible to imagine. Now they feel inevitable, everywhere except here.
I visited Idaho National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory on a study tour last year. Both act as incubators for advanced nuclear technologies in partnership with the private sector. The scale of what I saw was remarkable.
The Americans are incubating dozens of reactor configurations, exotic coolants like liquid sodium instead of water, and designs built for speed and replication. They have a clear, overarching philosophy: more energy is better. They understand that whoever secures the most abundant energy resources secures technological dominance, and they are clear-eyed about what is at stake.
I departed convinced that Australia is dangerously behind the curve. Energy is to AI what shovels were to the gold rush of the 1850s, and Chris Bowen’s renewables-only approach is the policy equivalent of Kodak doubling down on film rolls just as the digital camera was invented.
There is a myopia among the renewables-only crowd that simply refuses to acknowledge that technology, along with the world, is changing, and that we have natural resources that allow us to leapfrog ahead of others and capitalise on this fourth industrial revolution.
When I was in America, the scientists I met were confident the first commercial technologies would be deployed by 2027, and with the recent announcements being only the first of what is to come, they are on track.
What makes this so powerful is that these new reactors can be built using standard production-line techniques, the same methods we use to manufacture cars and trucks. Costs fall rapidly when you industrialise production.
The familiar objections around nuclear’ s cost are fast becoming obsolete, and CSIRO’s GenCost modelling, repeatedly cited by Chris Bowen to kill the conversation, is so systematically biased that it cannot be considered a valid source of information.
Here is what American officials told me, repeatedly, when I visited. They are worried about securing enough uranium to fuel their nuclear ambitions. Every time they raised it, I found myself thinking about the natural synergy between what Australia can offer – our abundant uranium reserves, and what America can offer us in return: the cutting-edge technologies we need to join the AI race on our terms.
But this is bigger than AI, or even quantum if that comes next. It is about diversifying our energy supply chains, restoring affordability and abundance, and building resilience against international energy shocks such as those we are seeing with the conflict in the Middle East.
From a bird’s-eye view, the standard antinuclear objections do not survive scrutiny. “Nuclear would have been great twenty years ago; it is too late now.”
The best time to plant a tree was yesterday. The next best time is today. “It is too expensive.”
Standardised mass production will take care of that, as it always does.
“It is dangerous.”
Nuclear energy is statistically the safest form of large-scale energy generation. We keep invoking Fukushima despite there being no deaths from a commercial nuclear accident since1986.
“We lack the expertise.”
Well, let us build it, then.
When I spoke with Singapore’s energy architects, who also visited Idaho and Oak Ridge, they told me they have a dedicated team inside their energy market operator to evaluate new nuclear technologies. They have formal agreements with both laboratories to train their staff.
Singapore, a city-state with no natural resources, is preparing seriously. What exactly is ourexcuse?
Do we not want high-skilled jobs?
Do we not want to power our datacentres?
Do we not want to give Australian entrepreneurs a fighting chance in the AI race?
Nuclear’ s extraordinary energy density and ability to power facilities entirely off the grid give it advantages no other energy source can match at scale. Instead of recognising this, we have Chris Bowen and his merry band of technological Luddites, with their profound lack of vision, putting our nation at risk of losing the AI race before it has properly begun.
Dan Tehan is the Opposition’s Climate Change and Energy Spokesman.

What need of the Lynch mob or Our Henry's transphobia when you can have that kind of ecstatic futurism?

The pond trembled at the notion of American scientists transfixed by a lack of uranium.

The pond clapped hands with joy at Dan 'the man' smiting the CSIRO.

Oh there was laughter, there were tears.

The almost wept at the way Dan 'the man' Tehan had made the country safe for AI.

Whether the country can be saved from AI is perhaps best let for another time.

What else?

Well Nick was also out and about but the pond only mentions that to keep John Curtin revolving in his grave.

One Nation’s rise should exhilarate Labor – not terrify it
Hansonism should force Labor to confront the question it has avoided for too long: who exactly is it for?
By Nick Dyrenfurth
Contributor

And so to Golding celebrating the way forward.

In which the craven Craven dominates the day with many fine One Nation policy proposals ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 22:30:00 +0000

Donald Trump does nipple torture?

Not in the discreet world of the lizard Oz reptiles!

The both siderist NY Times certainly stirred the possum and belled the cat in the Haberman/Swan outing, Inside the White House Freakout Over the Epstein Files, The president’s top advisers gathered in a series of Situation Room meetings as they struggled to contain a scandal engulfing Donald Trump himself. (sorry, no intermittent archive link to hand)

And it seems King Donald and a lot of others are willing to hang out with a brutal thug and pimp, at least if you read read Heidi Blake's truly disturbing and appalling report in The New Yorker, Andrew Tate’s Empire of Abuse, How the defining figure of the manosphere built a fortune—and became a political force—by systematically exploiting women. (* intermittent archive link).

Instead of all this, the pond was attracted to the ongoing One Nationification of the lizard Oz, which continued apace for the hive mind this Thursday.

The day was also distinguished by petulant Peta going MIA, with her most recent appearance a week ago in Labor’s AUKUS revolt should come as no surprise, There’s already disquiet about AUKUS and with the Left faction now in control, Ed Husic’s push is ominous.

Ah, AUKUS.

A certain Ms. Moloney was also haunted this day by the sub folly ...

Right now, AUKUS needs public confidence, not political drift
As AUKUS shifts from strategy to delivery, public trust may prove as important as submarines.
By Cathy Moloney

The only notable feature of this outing was the canny recycling of a sub collage at the start of the piece...

Splendid stuff.

Waste not, want not, in a manner worthy of Uncle Ebenezer, followed by a blather fest ...

The piece wrapped up with a strident plea for understanding, which made the pond doubt even more the entire venture ...

...The central questions are no longer theoretical. Do we have the workforce? Can suppliers qualify at pace? Are communities confident? Is government aligning regulation, skills, infrastructure and industry participation with enough discipline? These are the questions that determine whether strategy becomes capability. They are also the questions ministers should be answering more consistently in public if they want confidence to grow rather than drift.
Of course, Australians should expect, and demand, transparency about risk, opportunity cost, and delivery. But there is a difference between informing the public and cultivating a climate in which each development is treated as evidence of failure or bad faith.
That does not deepen understanding. It diminishes it. And it distracts from the more necessary work of explaining why AUKUS matters, what its success will require, and what it offers to a broader Australian industrial uplift project; AUKUS is about more than just submarines.
What is needed now is not less scrutiny, but steadier leadership doing their best to avoid the slipstream of politicisation and partisanship.
Government, opposition, industry and national security leaders need to explain more clearly why the strategic environment has changed, why deterrence and undersea capability matter, why sovereign industrial uplift matters, and why this project must be understood as a national undertaking, not just a defence one.
That conversation should be sustained, open and mature, not triggered only by controversy or reduced to slogans.
Leaders cannot assume that the public will have an innate acceptance just because they have been told this is the only way to secure our nation. There is already good work under way to build workforce pathways, strengthen supplier readiness and improve infrastructure planning. That foundation matters and should be acknowledged. But because AUKUS is a whole-of-nation enterprise, the conversation cannot remain confined to geographic epicentres.
Discussions need to occur with experts and with communities, from local stakeholders to the most senior national leadership, and with everyone in between. Social licence is therefore not only geographic; it is also demographic. It must be built across age groups, sectors, regions and communities, including those that may never see a submarine but will still be asked to support the strategic, industrial and fiscal choices behind the enterprise.
AUKUS will secure its place in Australian public life only if Australians understand what is at stake, why it matters, and how the country will share both the responsibilities and the benefits of making it real. This is not call to place Australia on a war footing, but it is a recognition that the era of strategic complacency has passed. If social licence is the basis of long-term national security delivery, then the task now is not to weaponise it, but to lead it.

Credit please ...

Cathy Moloney is vice-president, Australia, of The Asia Group.

Clearly it's doomed. Deeply, deeply doomed ...

Meanwhile, the reptiles were busy discovering that a cease fire actually means ceaseless firing, and that the war that had ended had also continued on its merry way.

Naturally it was all the fault of the Iranians, as Cameron obligingly tugged his forelock in ...

Commentary by Cameron Stewart
Middle East at a tipping point as defiant Iran goads Trump
The so called-ceasefire is fast crumbling as a belligerent Iran flexes its muscles across the region and thumbs its nose at peace.

Actually, as Cameron eventually gets around to noting, Netanyahu is the one who has kept on goading the Iranians, not to mention hapless Palestinians and Lebanese people, and King Donald ...

...This has created a rift between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump, with the US President demanding that Israel stop its attacks in Lebanon to give the peace process a chance.
Trump maintains that he “calls the shots” with Netanyahu and that the Israeli leader eventually ended the retaliatory attacks on Iran this week at his request. Trump has warned that if Israel ignores his demands, then it may have to go it “alone” against Iran.
But Netanyahu may not be as pliable as Trump claims. Netanyahu is facing an election and is under enormous domestic political pressure to continue the fight against Hezbollah regardless of what Trump or Iran are demanding.

But never let that get in the way of a reptile headline, because the Oz Daily Zionist News must maintain its standards.

So it goes ...

But the pond has other fish to fry this day, namely the increasing One Nationification of the One Nation rag of choice.

Early in the day came this yarn, given a big EXCLUSIVE splash ...

EXCLUSIVE
Non-compete clause: Angus Taylor confidant Tony Pasin’s shock call on One Nation
Angus Taylor’s close confidant and numbers man, Tony Pasin, has urged the Liberals to divide seats with One Nation.
By Rosie Lewis, Greg Brown and Paul Garvey

Angus Taylor’s close confidant and numbers man, Tony Pasin, has urged the Liberal Party to sit down with Pauline Hanson to identify the seats in which Liberal and One Nation candidates should run so they’re not competing against each other, in an attempt to oust Labor without cannibalising the Coalition.
Mr Pasin, a Liberal frontbencher and member for the South Australian seat of Barker, in which One Nation came third at the last election, broke ranks to say an agreement must be considered if there is to be a conservative government elected.
The controversial intervention comes as a major split emerges among Liberal MPs on whether to preference One Nation, after new Liberal Party president Tony Abbott and the Opposition Leader left the option open.
“We should work hand-in-glove to defeat Labor. We should work together to identify which seats are more appropriately targeted by a One Nation candidate or a Liberal candidate,” Mr Pasin, who is the opposition scrutiny of government waste and accountability spokesman, told The Australian.
“(The Liberal Party could say to One Nation) ‘We’ll support you in Spence, we currently hold the seat of Sturt. We could both spend our money in a Liberal v One Nation contest in Sturt or we could take the lead in Sturt and support One Nation to pick up the seat of Spence’. Conservatives then get two seats for the price of one.

And so on and on, bargain basement thinking, worthy of Uncle Ebenezer.

By golly, by hook or by crook, they're determined to make Pauline grate again ...

Over on the extreme far right the craven Craven heard the call, and that's when the pond really perked up ...

The header: Can the Coalition counter One Nation’s ‘joy rage’? As One Nation gains support, the Coalition faces a choice: chase populism or reclaim a broader, more inclusive Australian nationalism.

The caption for the snap, which once again reminded the pond of the unnerving resemblance of Martin Luther to Pauline (thank you Ughmann, for helping the pond understand): One Nation’s rise continues to challenge both major parties’ electoral strategies.

The craven Craven spent his entire four minutes of verbiage attempting to rescue the beefy boofhead and his brand of onion munching Liberal party ...

Australian conservatives have traditionally looked at One Nation as a cross between a cockroach and a scorpion. It is dirty and unseemly, but it also stings. The best way to deal with it is to avoid touching it lest you become befouled yourself. Better still, crush it before it stings you.
But now the scorpi-roach commands a historic 31 per cent of the primary vote in Newspoll. For the Coalition, a great many of them are your former supporters.
For Labor, this has been a dream come true. If the Coalition reviles One Nation, it sheds votes from the right. If it so much as talks to it, let alone preferences its candidates, genuine Liberals will desert in droves.
In theory, Labor should have the same problem with the Greens, some of whose positions are truly repulsive. But the vast majority of Green voters automatically preference Labor, so it does not have to defile itself by touching pitch. But now Labor also is shedding traditional supporters to One Nation. Pauline Hanson is the hand grenade that just keeps on giving.
As the polls show, she authorises all Australians, regardless of class, political background, age or economic circumstances, to imbibe the ultimate political elixir. She sells The Joy of Rage. The Coalition remains her chief victim.

Hang on, hang on, selling The Joy of Rage (lizard Oz ™) is the entire lizard Oz business model, and all Pauline is doing is following the reptile way.

Is it any wonder that the lizard Oz is the favourite rag for MAusGA and One Nation types?

Is it any wonder that the dullard from down south struggles to match the rage? Though it does look like he might be able to do a good shouty shout, Leader of the Liberal Party Angus Taylor. Picture: Asanka Ratnayake / Getty Images

The hapless craven Craven seemed not to understand that abusing minorities and waving patriotic flags was apple pie lizard Oz hive mind stuff ...

One Nation will actually be helped by an economy undermined by oil shortages and the free spending of the Albanese government. As interest and unemployment rates rise – the Whitlam syndrome – so does Hanson’s vote. What the Coalition desperately needs is a viable strategy to deal with One Nation. Realistically, it cannot kill it. Demands it should become a watered-down One Nation itself are inane. Liberal conservatism is ideologically opposed to Hansonism’s race obsessions and poisonous sectional hatreds. Besides, it would be electoral suicide for a classic centre-right party.
The way forward is a bit more sophisticated. It would recognise that many of the vote-garnering stances of One Nation are merely the bastard, lunatic offspring of respectable centre-right thinking. These positions have been abandoned by fastidious Liberals as just too populist. But the thing about populist positions is they tend to be popular.
The central point is that the Coalition has ceded the high ground of being the party of Australian nationalism and handed the space to One Nation.
Labor is far too addicted to fashionable internationalism and academic critiques to compete. If anything, it is ashamed of Australian nationalism.
There is huge potential for the Coalition to offer an attractive platform of moderate, humane and thoroughly enjoyable nationalism against the shrill stunts of One Nation and a censorious Labor. Take One Nation’s obsession with the Australian flag. It seems to have been copyrighted by Hanson. It dominates her rallies. Why does the Coalition not wrap itself in the flag? Why not promote Howard-style positions protecting it from desecration, requiring it be flown at schools, and mandating that its history and symbolism be taught to the kids?
Of course, the genteel left would hate it, which is part of the attraction. But the common people would love it, as evidenced by the improbable flag orgy every Australia Day. One Nation would be outflanked, not by even crazier rightism, but by a strongly conservative, perfectly rational package of patriotic policy.
Speaking of Australia Day, most Australians love it, too. They celebrate in a very Australian way by going to the beach or having a picnic, and in either case drinking the local brewery dry. They have no interest in changing its date.

There, you see, even the craven Craven can't help but indulge the One Nation agenda, especially when that fiend, Satan's helper, is hovering and getting the reptiles agitated... Anthony Albanese addresses a press conference. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Sharon Smith

The craven Craven doubled down on One Nation thinking ...

If they ever found out about the postmodern race theory that underlies the rationale for changing the date – that Australia was founded as an invalid racist settler state and that we all remain invalid racist settlers – they would be burning academics on their barbecues.

Why Pauline herself couldn't have put it better, though perhaps she might have needed a briefing on "postmodern race theory".

Second thoughts, postmodern would have immediately triggered alarms... and that mention of "race" would have immediately evoked difficult, uppity blacks, the bane of lizard Oz journalists, and the subject of a reptile jihad which has run for decades ...

Now carry on with the One Nation agenda ... spouting patriotism and doing some flag-clutching and waving ...

Why wouldn’t a flailing Coalition demand comprehensive entrenchment of Australia Day? Why not politely impose it on every self-righteous, nourish bowel-munching local council that refuses to let its citizens celebrate? Why not support humungous Australia Day community street parties? Our thoroughly nationalist immigrant populations would be first to arrive.
The great opportunity for the Coalition is to embrace the force that drove everything from Federation and Anzac to AFL and Sam Kerr – and own it. It would subvert the mean, ersatz nationalism of One Nation with a deep, genuine national commitment, which just happened to be a very attractive political offer.
Think of education. Many Australian parents are dimly aware their kids are being force-fed a correct-thought version of history where every white male from Arthur Phillip to John Howard is a war criminal. They look nervily at mentions in the popular media – never read by leftist education tsars – of teaching practices that could not be right, and gender education that seems biologically implausible.
This is a policy swamp that Hanson infests. A tough, hard but principled Coalition assault on the current politics of Australian education would outmanoeuvre Hanson, win votes and improve outcomes. Labor would be pinned to the wall by its allegiance to radical teacher unions. Yes, there would be challenges flanking Hanson on issues like migration, where One Nation’s visceral dislike for foreigners will always attract backers. But grabbing the Tony Abbott trifecta of Indigenous heritage, British constitutional government and migrant enrichment is a formula that resonates with most Australians.

Dear sweet long absent lord, he actually went the onion muncher as the solution ...Tony Abbott

So we're now officially back to the days of Knights and Dames ...

The craven Craven expanded on a great set of One Nation policies ...

Endorsing moderate skilled migration, excluding plausible terrorists, maintaining our borders, and not enticing ISIS brides appeals as much to Vietnamese and Chinese Australians as to Anglo-Celts.

Yes, yes, it's Pauline approved!

But wait, it's also very frank, friendly and exceptionally moderate, in the Pauline way ...

This type of frank but friendly nationalism easily embraces, for example, our immensely successful Indian immigration, that has given Australia citizens of hard work, democratic principles and family values. Rational nationalism can do this. One Nation’s politics of dislike cannot.
If the Coalition can recover its historic position as a political force that overtly loves and celebrates our country, but without rancour, it can out-patriot One Nation on the right and leave Labor flat-footed on the left. For a party that is generally regarded at the point of death, there might even be life in the old nag yet.

Most excellent stuff, and it turned out that the craven Craven hadn't done anything credit worthy since his days at the ACU, Greg Craven is former Vice Chancellor of the Australian Catholic University

So there's the craven Craven's solution.

Carry on carrying on, deplore migration but politely, embrace "rational nationalism", whatever that means.

Make sure to keep on the right side of certain ethnic groups, a handy way of demonising certain other ethic groups, by way of omission.

Pauline and the reptiles know who the craven Craven means.

What else? Well, keep on with climate science denialism, celebrate coal, help in the ongoing ruination of the planet, and soon enough, Gina will be on board.

Off to the knackery with the lot of them.

If that's the best these oldnags can do, better to do a Boxer on them, and turn them into something useful, like dog food or glue...

And don't forget to take King Donald and his Faux Noise flock while you're at it...

And that was about it for the pond this day.

Sure the war on China continued, albeit imported from WaPo ...

China is a slave to history – and the Indo-Pacific is paying the price
The CCP offers perhaps the most cynical example of weaponised history in modern geopolitics.
By Miles Yu

But as always the pond will await the bromancer's scintillating insights ...

And Jack the Insider went full Jacinta...

Roll up for the very worst job in politics. No takers? Not one?
Victorian Labor’s dominant Socialist Left faction has turned on Jacinta Allan, with polling pointing to a catastrophic 30-seat wipeout.
By Jack the Insider
Columnist

But they were just providing a little additional reading and policy proposals for their devoted One Nation followers...

Not to worry, the pond isn't that fussed by talk state governments.

After all, if you voted Chris Minns, you ended up with a splendidly Liberal party government...

Premier Chris Minns won't face legal action as two charged over campaign donations

He's not even LNP lite these days, he's the full quid.

And so to wrap up proceedings with the infallible Pope for the day ... with a great policy proposal for the craven Craven.

A bit of Nasho is just what he needs ...

You are invited to a sedate late One Nation breakfast with two Dames and a Geoff, with spicy hot climate science denialism served in a tureen ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 23:00:00 +0000

What a relief.

The pond's big smoke escapade didn't result in any significant losses, as the One Nation rage machine, aka the lizard Oz, was quite sedate yesterday.

And there's not much action today.

Instead it was left to the Press Council to take up the Zionist cause with this mindless adjudication about a Wilcox cartoon .

The gormless Nine rags couldn't even dare to show the thing, instead resorting to a contorted description ... when it's clear enough...

The original fuss about the cartoon came way back in January, with the MEAA then defending Wilcox...

So it's taken the Press Council some five months to arrive at its wretched condemnation.

Never underestimate the contempt which the pond holds for that appallingly incompetent body.

Meanwhile, the greater Israel project continues apace, and some governments decided to lash out with a wet lettuce leaf in the form of sanctions against the Israeli finance minister and others.

As if that in any way will halt the ethnic cleansing currently going down in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon.

Speaking of the lizard Oz turning into the One Nation paper of choice, Dame Slap was at it again today, urging on Hansonism, as you'd expect of a MAGA cap wearer...

The header: Memo, Mr Albanese: serious money talks – and listens – to Hanson; Could it be that the groundswell of support for One Nation from people across different demographics signals not just grievance, but a love of country too?

The caption for the snap that made a mockery of the headline: Angus Aitken and Gina Rinehart are proud Pauline Hanson supporters. Pictures: News Corp

Gotta love the filthy rich the way a reptile does, as Dame Slap spent a bigly five minutes pumping up the volume for the Hansonite cause.

Before getting down with it, the pond should note you won't find Dame Slap going deep. Nor giving much of a toss about policies, as you can find elsewhere ...

One Nation defence plan could blow out budget by $400b and require conscription (*intermittent archive link)

We'll have none of that sort of talk in the lizard Oz, especially that suggestion in that last line that Pauline's meekly following her mistress's echo. Ginah, Ginahhh ...

Instead, admire how Dame Slap ignores such grovelling and joins the bandwagon ...

Critics who claim Pauline Hanson is in the pockets of big business are tone deaf. And they can’t count either.
Voters would once participate in democracy by joining one of the big political movements of the 20th century. More than a hip pocket-fuelled tick of the ballot paper, membership likely signalled a belief that the party they joined is not just good for them, but good for the country.
For years now, membership of the Australian Labor Party and the Liberal Party has tanked. By contrast, One Nation’s membership is booming, attracting between 60,000 and 70,000 members, well ahead of the two major parties. Pursing one’s lips offers no insight into the continuing rise of One Nation. Listening to why Hanson is attracting support and money is the starting point to taking Australian voters – and her – seriously.
Could it be that the groundswell of support for Hanson from people across different demographics signals not just grievance, but a love of country too?
Later this week, a group of big business leaders will meet the firebrand One Nation leader at a dinner hosted by Gina Rinehart in Perth. This is not a one-off. On the east coast, too, Hanson’s One Nation party is attracting support – and money – from scions of business who have had enough of the two major parties.

Just to remind the pond of the dickheads who've joined the cause, the reptiles slipped in a snap, Angus Aitken.

Dame Slap was mightily impressed, what with her being tone deaf about being in the pockets of big business ...

Well-known Sydney stockbroker and businessman Angus Aitken, founder of Aitken Mount Capital Partners, makes no bones about why he switched to One Nation. The former lifelong Liberal supporter says: “Albo is the worst prime minister in my memory and it’s hard to believe anyone could be worse than Malcolm Turnbull as PM, but he is. He has absolutely ruined Australia to the point where flying an Australian flag is in some way bad.”
Aitken and his wife Sarah have donated $1m to One Nation. Given this week’s poll, showing One Nation’s primary vote ahead of the two major parties, Aitken believes a minor change is not enough. He told this column this week: “The country needs a massive reset. It’s cultural and it’s economic.”
A businessman who attended a recent private dinner with Hanson at Aitken’s Sydney home says there was close to $90bn of wealth around the table. They were some of the largest employers in the land. Serious people taking Hanson seriously. What brought them there, says the businessman, was a shared frustration with the constantly changing policies of the two major parties and a growing belief that Hanson is a street-smart realist with a real focus on fixing Australia.
Aitken is known for calling a spade a “f..king” shovel. His grievances with the state of Australian politics are likely shared by millions of other Australians. “The bureaucrats are setting the agenda, and most of them have never worked in the real world,” he says. “When all of those pro-Palestine rallies were happening you could feel people going, ‘what the **##!! has Australia turned into?’. Then you have the Bondi terror attack, and letting in ISIS brides, the shocking treatment of veterans – and you add a budget that will hurt every hardworking Australian.”
The businessman says Albanese has changed the Australian spirit of self-sufficiency to a narrative of welfare and lack of productivity. “If you are a self-starter running a small business, you’re penalised. That is a massive problem where hardworking people see themselves subsidising people who never want to work hard,” he says.

Want further confirmation of the big business syndrome that so appeals to Dame Slap?

Cue another snap, Billionaire Gina Rinehart has gifted One Nation leader Pauline Hanson a plane. Picture: Facebook

Is there anything more nauseating than seeing a politician deep into the grift, while pretending to be for the people?

Is there anything more nauseating than the sight of rich folk pretending that they're dinkum and down wit it?

Yes, it's the nauseating sight of Dame Slap pumping up the volume ...

Aitken says the most common question he is asked is whether the party will cannibalise the conservative vote. He predicts a huge swing to One Nation in traditional Labor seats, “from people who just want to work hard, a tradie, a miner or whatever, people who want to get ahead from their own steam, without relying on government handouts”.
“Labor is not the party their mum and dad voted for,” Aitken says. “This is the party of green inner-city woke losers who love wind farms, just not in their backyards.” Aitken is happy to be quoted but other businessmen, who would prefer to remain nameless for fear of retribution, are equally scathing. They come back to the budget as a sign of Labor’s cluelessness and arrogance. They say a big parliamentary majority has infected Albo and the ALP with hubris, which could well cause them to lose government.
But they agree that the conservative side of politics needs to work together, and recognise that the political enemies are Labor, the Greens and the teals. Not One Nation. In the same vein, many readers of this column have expressed what one reader, David, wrote on the weekend: “I’m no fan of Hanson and ON. But I will support them if it makes the Liberal Party liberal again.”

After all this hagiography, Dame Slap finally decided to slip in a truly feeble billy goat butt ...

Notwithstanding the shift to One Nation, two big question marks hang over the party’s ability to turn today’s impressive popular momentum into power: the quality of its people, and the quality of its policies.

But, if the pond can do a butt of its own, before Dame Slap could actually consider any policies, the reptiles inserted an AV distraction ...

One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson fires back at Andrew Hastie, arguing the Coalition's collapsing poll numbers show voters are rejecting its approach. “I thought he meant make Australia great again,” Ms Hanson told Sky News host Caleb Bond. “Of course I do want to make Australia great again; I’m not going to back away from that. “Clearly his party’s not been accepted by the Australian people, which keeps going down in the polls, so he still hasn’t got it right.”

You go Caleb, but still no rebrand?

The pond anxiously waited with baited breath (Yates brand) for Dame Slap to get on with that in depth policy analysis ... and instead copped this final gobbet:

On one view, battlers such as Hanson and bombasts such as Barnaby Joyce are quintessential Australian characters. And attractive to voters, it would seem. But the turnover in Hanson’s party over the years prompts questions about how cohesive and dedicated her team is, and will be in the future. Hanson’s big personality may explain some of that instability. But the party’s poor infrastructure and less professional style don’t help either.
The nagging question is whether One Nation can attract, and keep, first-rate people. Being a Rhodes Scholar is definitely a mixed blessing – indeed in some cases it can be a clear contraindication of political skill, and the last qualification Hanson would want in her people. While One Nation probably doesn’t need to worry about Rhodes Scholars joining her party, and may not want them to, the question remains: Can it attract serious candidates?
Questions linger too over the quality of One Nation policies. What it is against is tolerably obvious, but what is its core underpinning philosophy? And translating that into day-to-day policies requires a level of economic, legal and policy skill that One Nation may not yet possess. If the heat of an election exposes economic black holes or policy absurdities, the wheels just may come off mid-campaign.
Hanson’s attraction to some of Australia’s leading business leaders signals that One Nation may be listening to people who understand the economy. The question is whether the media and political elites are listening to why Australia’s most enduring political leader has reportedly attracted 60,000 members to the party and is out-polling both major parties.

It's a nagging question, but there's nothing for the old nag to actually nag about?

Sorry, we might be waiting until the end of time (a long, long time) for Dame Slap to get around to doing some serious policy analysis.

She seems to prefer to grovel at the feet of the filthy rich, count mug punters and polls, and pump up the volume.

There's more depth of analysis in your immortal Rowe cartoon ...

And so to the catch up, and it so happens that Dame Groan was also obsessed with One Nation in her outing yesterday ...

The header: One Nation, two parties, big problem: A slow build has become a sudden, undeniable force; One Nation’s rapid ascent, marked by parliamentary gains in South Australia, transcends local factors to mirror a global fragmentation of the centre-right.

The caption: One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, with party MPs Barnaby Joyce and David Farley. Their growing presence reflects a global political realignment. Picture: Getty

No one could possibly expect Dame Groan to match the astonishing understanding of the Ughmann that Pauline Hanson and Martin Luther are two peas in the same deep pod ... which perhaps explains why the Old Groaner turned to a man who stuck a shotgun in his mouth for her theme ...

“Gradually and then suddenly.” That’s Hemingway’s unforgettable description about going broke. It applies no less to the rise of One Nation as an electoral force.
At last year’s federal election, ON received 6.4 per cent of the vote, a swing of 1.5 per cent from the previous election. It was a creditable performance without being spectacular.
From July, there were four ON senators. With the defection of Barnaby Joyce and the victory in Farrer, there are now six ON federal parliamentarians.
Fast-forward to now, ON is polling about 30 per cent of the total vote, above Labor and well above the Coalition. The two major parties – perhaps they should be called legacy parties – command less than half of the total vote according to the latest Newspoll. This is an extraordinary outcome.
Of course, polls and election outcomes are not the same. But the recent election in South Australia indicates that the rising popularity of ON can translate into parliamentary representation.

At this point, Dame Groan's narrative broke down, as the lizard Oz thrust in a welter of snaps designed to promote their newly adopted One Nation brand.

Bear with the pond and the hapless old biddy as we wade through this torrent ...

Celebrating at The Bended Elbow Pub in Albury, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson with newly elected One Nation member for Farrer David Farley. Picture: Richard Dobson

The pond was kept busy sorting out the captions from Dame Groan's one liners ...

After SA’s recent election, there are now seven ON members of parliament, four in the lower house. Bear in mind that ON did not have a strong presence in the state before the election this year.

One Nation SA Leader Cory Bernardi with MPs David Paton (Ngadjuri), Jason Virgo (MacKillop), Chantelle Thomas (Narungga), Robert Roylance (Hammond), and MLCs Rebecca Hewett and Carlos Quaremba. Picture: News Corp

This fragmentation of the political centre-right has strong parallels overseas. We see it in the UK with the rapid rise in the popularity of Reform under Nigel Farage. We see it in the rise of Alternative für Deutschland in Germany. We see it in the rise of the National Rally party in France.
The point is that the reasons for the surging popularity of ON cannot just be explained by local factors. It is part of a major realignment happening in other parts of the world. The reaction of the legacy parties has been to denigrate the “interlopers” and to gang up against them where possible. Arguably, this simply serves to bolster support for the new competitors.

One Nation Senators Pauline Hanson, Sean Bell, Malcolm Roberts, and Tyron Whitten in the House of Representatives chamber at Parliament House, Canberra. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Fundamental to this shift is the collapse in trust in the traditional parties to deliver sound policies and to reflect the values of ordinary folk. The system looks to be rigged, with the emphasis on identity politics clearly enraging some voters. Close to open-borders immigration has left many voters wondering where they fit in terms of the government’s pecking order.

Nigel Farage and Reform candidates reflect a global trend: the fragmentation of the centre-right, mirroring similar shifts seen in Australia’s political landscape. Picture: Getty

The pond began to understand what was the real intent of the lizard Oz editorial team.

Flood the zone with images of barking mad far right loons, and see how the hive mind salivated, such that it didn't much matter what Dame Groan said.

After all that, there was just a little clear water for Dame Groan to make a stand, but in conformity with the new reptile tone, instead she found the bashing of pesky furriners pleasing to her ears...

One issue thrown up by the clear snowballing of the ON vote is the implication for the quality of public policy in this country.
The leaders of the legacy party will wail about the lack of policy detail provided by ON, even though their own policies and policy positions are proving to be defective. Moreover, their policy promises made during election campaigns are often ignored or broken – see the recent budget changes as a significant case in point.
The accusation that ON is not a party of government assumes that people believe Labor and the Coalition are effective parties of government. It’s clear that many don’t sign up to this distinction. It’s one of the reasons the “uniparty” meme has gained traction: they are as bad as each other.
In fact, the ON policy cupboard is not as bare as many assume. The party has even been prepared to put numbers to its policy of reducing the number of new migrants. The figure cited is 140,000 visas to be granted each year.
Asking for more detail suggests Labor and the Coalition have everything worked out when it comes to immigration. This is simply not the case.
Labor has sat on its hands, hoping the excessive number of net migrants would self-correct even when this won’t be the case. Some tweaks have been made with visa numbers but the distinct impression for voters is that Labor favours high migrant intakes and saying anything negative about migrants is an abomination.
The Coalition has placed much store about removing some government benefits and income support from permanent residents, albeit on a grandfathered basis. Putting numbers on a lower migrant intake is seen as a bridge too far at this stage.

Then came yet another AV distraction, and from the dismal illustration, it can be assumed that "He" is actually referring to Barners, Tamworth's eternal shame ... He issued an on-air backflip over plans to evict migrants from their homes in a Sky News interview, prompting host Andrew Bolt to say One Nation is "making up policy as it goes"

If the Bolter can manage to suggest that that One Nation simply makes stuff up, might the old biddy attempt some sort of serious policy analysis, with that field having been left blank by Dame Slap?

Sorry, all she does is forgive errors and omissions, and note good points ...

ON is supporting family income splitting when it comes to the collection of income tax. Instead of income tax being calculated solely at an individual level, couples will be given the choice of filing jointly and thus lowering the amount of tax payable in most cases.
In fact, many advanced countries have income splitting – the US, for instance. It is seen as relatively uncontroversial. And because many more women now work, and work on a full-time basis, the fiscal cost of shifting to an income splitting arrangement is not as punitive as it once was. The shift would also create an opportunity to rethink the role of Family Tax Benefits A and B, and whether it would be better to replace them.
Perhaps more controversially is ON’s policy on the gas industry and the need to replace the petroleum resource rent tax with different imposts collected earlier and at different points along the production chain. In theory, the left should be embracing ON’s policy – or the discussion of alternative ways of taxing the industry, at the very least – because one aim is to bring in a great deal of revenue sooner than the PRRT.
As for the accusation that ON is not a professional outfit because it has not submitted policy proposals to the Parliamentary Budget Office, this is real insider stuff. Do you really think ON voters, both actual and potential, are fretting about this oversight? Let’s face it, most of them would never have heard of the PBO.
And ON leader Pauline Hanson makes a good point when she highlights the massive costing errors the PBO had made about certain policy initiatives – think tobacco excise tax, home batteries, fringe benefit tax exemption for electric vehicles.
Up to this point, Labor has shown a certain indifference to the rise of ON, apart from making occasional abusive remarks. With compulsory preferential voting, the Coalition probably has more to lose from the fragmentation of centre-right.
But it’s also clear that ON is on the march in certain Labor strongholds where voters don’t have post-secondary education and work in blue-collar or low-level service jobs. The election result in the seat of Elizabeth in Adelaide – a Labor-held working-class electorate – was telling of what could happen in the future.
ON has been around for 30 years, so the “gradual” bit has been lengthy. But it’s clear we are now in the “suddenly” part, and it’s probably not going away. The Victorian election at the end of the year will be one to watch.

So even Dame Groan is onboard, with the transformation of the lizard Oz into the One Nation paper of choice suddenly everywhere. She too is at one with the rage machine ...

All that aside, the pond should note that there were a few outliers brooding about foreign affairs.

The pond didn't bother with them, but these intermittent archive links might appeal ...

Why a rogue North Korea could be Xi’s weakest link
The more aggressive and militarily capable North Korea becomes, the more likely Japan, South Korea and the US threaten China.
By John Lee

Why was it left to this Lee to carry on the war with China? Where's the bromancer?

...The nightmare scenario for Xi is that the US, Japan and South Korea form an integrated military network of sensors, weapons and command systems against North Korea, which can also be used against China in the event of a Taiwan contingency.
The more aggressive and militarily capable North Korea becomes, the more likely this integrated allied military network will emerge.
An even worse scenario for China – which maintains a mutual defence treaty with North Korea – is that Kim’s aggression inadvertently drags Xi into an Asian war that would be as disastrous for China as for every other participant.
There is also the matter of loss of Chinese leverage and therefore control over North Korean activities. In return for sending troops and weapons to help Russia’s war efforts against Ukraine, it is likely that Moscow has shared military technology with Pyongyang. This might well include Russian missile and nuclear secrets. This will not only intensify military co-operation between Asian allies but also reduces North Korea’s dependency on China as the latter appeared to be caught unawares by the Pyongyang-Moscow arrangement.
What does this mean for Australia as we slowly progress AUKUS? Geography provides only temporary relief. As the saying goes: We might not be interested in the geopolitics of Asia, but the latter is, and will be, increasingly interested in us.

John Lee is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

Quick, bring on that war by Xmas!

And the lesser member of the Kelly gang was full of gloom ...

Iran war could trigger Middle East nuclear arms race
Donald Trump is facing warnings that his Iran war has weakened US deterrence, hardened Tehran’s nuclear ambitions and increased the risk of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East.
By Joe Kelly
Washington correspondent

Relax, Joe, Israel can nuke 'em all, as Joe turned to the plea deal warrior for a final word ...

...In his Wall Street Journal piece, Bolton said the best way to forestall a Middle East nuclear-arms race was to re-establish confidence in Washington’s resolve and reliability.
But this means tough choices for Trump – decisive action to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and the use of military force to protect commerce.
“Tehran is counting on Mr Trump’s reluctance to resume military activity, which is exactly what worries Israel and many Gulf Arabs,” Bolton said. “If Iran is left able to dominate the strait, the Gulf Arabs’ economic future is endangered, along with regional peace and security.”

Sorry, if it ain't the bromancer, it must be reptile lite ...

For some reason, the pond was also determined to catch up with Geoff, who chambered another round yesterday...

The header: Angus Taylor needs to start showing up if the Liberals are to survive Pauline Hanson; Angus Taylor’s claim the existential crisis confronting the Liberals is because of an unpopular Labor budget is illogical and desperate. Meanwhile, it’s Tony Abbott out rallying the troops.

There was no caption, or credit for the collage, but perhaps just think Martin Luther, as the Ughmann does.

Geoff was in a state of panic, apparently unaware that the fix was already in at the lizard Oz, and it was time for all reptiles to go full One Nation ...

Angus Taylor blaming Anthony Albanese’s budget for the Coalition’s diabolic polling performance is akin to a dog ate my homework excuse.
Taylor’s claim that the existential crisis confronting the Liberals and Nationals is because of an unpopular Labor budget is illogical and desperate.

Well yes, but he's a beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way, you can't expect logic or sense ... all you can do is just hate windmills, and blow into the wind.

It is the Opposition Leader’s job to show up every day, and make their case.
If the budget is as bad as Taylor says it is, why can’t he lay a blow? Why can’t he cut through? Why can’t he can’t lift the Coalition vote?
Labor’s big taxing budget was a gift for Taylor. Oppositions should do well out of “bad budgets” and governments struggling to keep their heads above water, with leaders whose popularity has taken a hit.
Taylor and his senior team, who have led the Coalition’s primary vote back to the 18 per cent nadir in February that triggered the leadership challenge against Sussan Ley, need to stop chasing shadows and searching for excuses. Taylor says voters are “swinging the bat” but they should be swinging the bat at Labor not the Coalition.
The final remnants of the Liberal Party’s base is close to joining the masses in abandoning the party of Robert Menzies and John Howard for One Nation.
In ousting Ley from the leadership, Taylor declared: “It’s on us to regain that trust and earn it but the choice is simple for the Liberal Party … change or die, and I choose change”.
Taylor needs to follow the example of Tony Abbott, his former prime minister and new Liberal Party federal president, who was relentless and unforgiving as opposition leader.
Any sign of blame-shifting or weakness from Taylor and Coalition MPs will be ruthlessly dispatched by Albanese and Pauline Hanson.

The reptiles decided to compound the misery by slipping in a snap of the beefy boofhead alongside that ancient monument to endless follies, the onion muncher ... Angus Taylor and recently elected Liberal Party president Tony Abbott. Picture: Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images

It'll get worse according to Grattan, View from The Hill: Tony Abbott to tour the country, trying to energise Liberals.

So the beefy boofhead is now just a sock puppet for the new regent, who's going to embark on his usual narcissistic grandstanding tour?

How pleased Hungary must be to be rid of him, and no wonder Geoff was in a state of despair at the new drivel emanating from the mad monk ...

Abbott on Tuesday e-mailed Liberal Party members to rally the troops.
The former PM said: “Like you, I can read the polls. While the majority of Australians now would like a change of government, there’s an unprecedented split on what’s the best alternative. And while many of you have noticed Angus Taylor’s determination to stop the toxic taxes, end mass migration, abolish Net Zero, and put Australia first, some are sceptical about the extent of the party’s change of heart or its willingness to do much about it in government.”
“While it’s the parliamentary party’s job to set and to implement policy, and to provide strong political leadership, you can be confident that the new federal executive will support Angus and his team to continue to be bold and resolute. We certainly won’t win the next election as slaves to focus groups and being a little bit less ‘woke’ than Labor.”
“For my part, I’m keen to arrange a series of meetings around the country to give Liberal members and supporters the chance to gather, to learn from each other, and to recommit to giving our country the better government a great people deserve. I hope you might consider coming to one of these and perhaps bringing along any friends and family members equally keen to see Australia develop its full potential.”
It is true the Coalition breached faith with voters and is viewed by many voters as part of a uniparty system with Labor.
Families struggling to pay the bills in a worsening cost-of-living crisis are sick of politicians.
Taylor’s budget-in-reply speech was one of the most ambitious delivered by an Opposition Leader.
But you’ve got to be able to sell your key measures and explain the Coalition’s plan to reform bracket creep and lower income tax cuts.
Taylor, Abbott and new Liberal federal director Lincoln Folo, who is understood not to have been the first choice to replace Andrew Hirst, will have to rebuild the party from the ground up. But time is running out.
Some Coalition and Labor strategists still believe support for Hanson and One Nation will fizzle out. They believe Australians are protesting and parking with One Nation.
With 23-months to go until the next election, it’s a massive gamble to assume that One Nation will fade into the background.

It's even a bigger gamble to assume that the onion muncher is the cure, rather than the disease ...

But relax Geoff, the lizard Oz editor is busy outlining more policies for One Nation...

Sure The Conversation might carry yarns of the climate change kind ...

Climate change has already made Australians in one state much poorer, and more’s to come

But this is the real One Nation deal ...

Sorted. It's all a hoax, renewables are a joke (forget that solar rebate), and remember to vote Pauline for a sunny future. Expect extreme temperatures and general mayhem.

And with that it's time for the infallible Pope to toss in his own kind of distraction this day...

You are invited to enjoy "Ned" as a leftover Tuesday placeholder, as engaging as reheated pizza ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 22:00:00 +0000

Unfortunately the pond must return to the big smoke this day, and very early in the morning at that, in a way that precludes the pond catching up with Dame Groan for the first time in weeks.

The pond realises this will disappoint her many fans, but maybe she can be held over until tomorrow.

Meantime, having just returned to the fray and herpetology studies, the pond doesn't want to leave an empty space so soon ...

So the pond reverted to the weekend and the current fuss about AUKUS and to "Ned's" natter, which should ensure anyone turning up will be able to sink back into a satisfying slumber ...

Before proceeding with "Ned", the pond would like to draw attention to Albert Palazzo writing on the UNSW site: Australia has been the victim of an AUKUS ‘bait and switch’

Call it a preliminary reconnoitre of a remarkable waste of money, the sort of thing only a clap happy Xian fundamentalist without the first clue about defence could devise.

The change in the submarine delivery plan should come as no surprise – this deal has been unequal from the start.
At a security conference in Singapore over the weekend, the three AUKUS partners – the United States, United Kingdom and Australia – announced a tweak to their partnership that has generated quite a lot of attention in Canberra.
Australia will now receive three second-hand Virginia-class, nuclear-powered submarines in the coming years, instead of the original deal of two used vessels and one brand new sub.
Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles spun this as a welcome streamlining of the fleet that would simplify its supply chain, as well as the management and sustainment of these complex warships.
What Marles seems not to have noticed is that not all Virginia-class submarines are the same.
The new boat the US had promised would have been from Block 6, the most recent design. Instead, all of Australia’s submarines will now likely come from Block 4, which carry a much smaller weapon payload. Firepower is a measure of a fighting ship’s utility. Having the largest weapon capacity is a key ingredient for battle success.
It seems Australia has been a willing – not to say eager – victim of what is essentially a “bait and switch”.
The unilateral change of plans should not have come as a surprise to anyone in the Australian government.
AUKUS has always been a one-sided deal in which the US reaps the benefits while Australia accepts the risks. The agreement Australia entered into provides the US with numerous opportunities to cancel or modify the deal. Washington simply acted on what was permitted.
In addition, the AUKUS agreement allows the US president to cancel the submarine transfer at his or her whim, while Australia has no right to challenge or lobby against the decision. The current president, Donald Trump, is not known for loyalty to his allies. The fact the AUKUS deal was signed by his predecessor, Joe Biden, is likely to further reduce Trump’s level of commitment.
To make the US decision more of an affront, Australia has already contributed at least US$2 billion (A$2.8 billion) to the American submarine manufacturing pipeline.
The US is not building enough submarines to meet its own requirements, let alone the additional boats it has promised to Australia. The Australian cash contribution was meant to improve the US rate of production so Canberra would be able to get one or two of the latest boats. Australia’s investment has turned out to be a very poor one, and there are no refunds.
The Australian government has also misinterpreted what the US hopes to get out of the deal.
For the Americans, selling Australia any subs at all makes little sense in the contest with China for supremacy in the Western Pacific. It just reduces America’s own military capability.
The key element in AUKUS for the US has always been the submarine base that Australia is building at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia. This is where the US Navy plans to operate its submarines. The US has already announced the establishment of the support elements that will administer and sustain these warships.
As we can see now, Australia has virtually no leverage to make the submarine deal more equitable.
The Americans know that Australian strategic policy since before the Vietnam War has been to demonstrate relevance to the US. Australia has not hesitated to rush into US-led wars – even those of dubious legality – in order to show loyalty. If this was a poker game, the Australians would be playing with most of their cards face-up...

Palazzo provided a link to a press release which unleashed this particular kraken...

Put it another way ...

Now on with "Ned" trying to make sense and justify this epic boondoggle ...

The header: Inside the futile push to sink the AUKUS pact; Our most vital strategic defence program will succeed only if Labor proves it is committed to delivering it by seeing off the doubters. But the division is deep.

There was no caption nor credit for the gif marvel at the head of the piece.

The pond can only provide a pale imitation, showing the snap without the subs and then the subs after they've stormed into the image ...

Bloody marvellous, a true visual wonder, though some might think that no one has bothered to improve the lizard Oz graphics department while the pond was on its break.

As for "Ned" it was a full ten minutes of tedium, familiar to those who value existential ennui...

The political discontent is now rising over the nation’s unprecedented venture – the high-cost, extended timetable AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine and industrial project, the message being that the Albanese government from the Prime Minister down needs to fight for this venture and its purpose.
The rumblings against AUKUS are getting louder despite their absence of logic or persuasion. Yet the project holds a strange place in our political firmament – the biggest defence and industrial endeavour in Australia’s history with a PM who shuns making the strategic case for this venture.
The revelation that the US will sell Australia three “in service” Virginia-class submarines, instead of the third boat being new off the production line, has been exploited this week by AUKUS critics to demand, variously, a sinking, a revision, a review or an inquiry into AUKUS. Take your pick.
The reality, however, is that the US decision, welcomed by Australia, in no way threatens or undermines AUKUS. This was merely a hook for an anti-AUKUS campaign weak on energy yet reflecting a suppressed sentiment in the Labor Party.
The most significant criticism came from former minister Ed Husic, now alienated from Anthony Albanese and deputy PM Richard Marles, who asked Albanese in caucus if the party’s previous resolution of support for AUKUS still stood, given the change on the Virginia-class submarines. This was an important event – the first direct assault on the authority of Albanese and Marles over AUKUS.
Husic told the media: “The reality is this deal has changed. It’s not the deal that we agreed to way back when.” He resurrected virtually every negative about AUKUS: because of the US production delays there were doubts about whether the subs would ever arrive, and even if they did, there would be a “sovereignty question” about Australia’s control. Lurking in the background is Labor’s loathing of US President Donald Trump and its distrust of getting far closer to Trump’s America.

Only "Ned" could really believe that AUKUS offered a solution to Australia's defence needs, or that war would be conducted in the way that the U-boats attempted (and failed) to win the second world war.

It's a bit like the magical 1950s thinking behind mad King Donald's reversion to the grand days of the Bismarck and the Tirpitz, and that too is producing another issue ... cue the ABC...

Trump's 'Golden Fleet' battleships could delay submarines needed for AUKUS, committee says
By Brad Ryan in Washington DC

Donald Trump's planned "Golden Fleet" of battleships will put more strain on the US Navy's shipbuilding program and could further delay the submarines needed for AUKUS, according to a committee of Congress.
The House Armed Services Committee wants the US Navy to provide reassurances that building the "Trump-class" battleships will not delay other nuclear-powered boats.
The US's submarine-building program is already plagued by construction delays, which pose a threat to Australia's hopes of buying at least three Virginia-class submarines under the AUKUS pact.
Committee members fear the Navy's new plan to build at least 15 Trump-class battleships — also known as BBG(X) — will cause further delays in America's shipyards.
"The committee is concerned about the possibility of strain on US nuclear shipyards and maritime industrial base posed by the aggressive schedule proposed for producing a nuclear powered BBG(X) platform," an amendment to a defence budget bill, passed by the committee this week, says.

"Ned" seems to have retained faith in mad King Donald and Pete Kegsbreath's ability to deliver, which is perhaps why the reptiles flung in an audio distraction to help bolster his presentation:

The Front
Nobody hates like the Labor Party – and their brawling could sink our submarines

It's the Labor party that could sink the subs? Have the reptiles no faith in King Donald and Pete Kegsbreath?

Carry on Nedding ...

While Albanese repudiated Husic, it was Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy who demolished Husic’s core claim. “AUKUS is full steam ahead,” Conroy said. “It’s been confirmed by the caucus in 2021, it’s been confirmed by the shadow cabinet in ’21, the actual cabinet in ’23.”
Conroy pointed out the initial Labor support in opposition was over the principle of nuclear-powered, conventionally-armed subs, not the specifics of the Virginia class. That Virginia-class decision only came much later. Pretending the initial caucus vote was about the Virginia-class and that now constituted a broken deal was an obviously false assertion.
Labor did not initiate AUKUS; that came from Scott Morrison’s remarkable diplomacy. But Labor now has full political ownership and responsibility for AUKUS in its nominated $368bn cost, its strategic purpose, and its nuclear power character.

And then came a snap which reminded the pond of Godard's Les Carabineers, in which a couple of soldiers return home from a war with a suitcase full of postcards which serve in lieu of real war booty.

So here's your equivalent, here's your AUKUS subs for the next decade or so ...A rendering of the SSN-AUKUS submarine. Picture: BAE Systems

Treasure that rendering, it might be all we get for the billions ...

"Ned" is as devoted to the notion of the subs as those carabineers...

AUKUS is a multi-decade three-nation venture which means Australia is always hostage to events in the US and UK and altered working arrangements will be an inevitable feature. Everything depends on the trust of the partners. Australia cannot afford a sustained Labor Party brawl over AUKUS if that undermines trust in the US and UK.
There are serious challenges for AUKUS but they are rarely identified by the critics who focus on Virginia-class delivery when the main doubts are elsewhere – they arise within the shipbuilding capacity of the UK and whether it can proceed successfully with the heart of the concept, the UK-Australia submarine SSN-AUKUS to be built in Britain and Adelaide.
The UK needs to revamp its shipbuilding capacity, with a recent House of Commons report warning that the political resolution for the project had “faded.”
In his recent visit to the UK, this paper’s international correspondent, Cameron Stewart, interviewed the UK government’s special representative, Sir Stephen Lovegrove – a strong AUKUS advocate – who said: “There’s no point in pretending that standing up a nuclear endeavour of this type is not really difficult, a colossal task. I mean, there have certainly been teething troubles on the way, but we are working very well … at the moment.”
For Australia, the paradox at the heart of AUKUS goes to Labor conviction. Does the caucus and the rank and file have faith in AUKUS? Let’s be frank: you can’t see this venture through without belief.
Not for turning
Richard Marles has that belief in spades and, have no doubt, Albanese and Marles remain in control of the internal Labor politics around AUKUS. The government isn’t for turning. It is too far down the track.
Yet the reservations cannot be overlooked. They are fuelled in part by the originating mythology, notably that Morrison before the 2022 election conned Albanese and the Labor leadership into endorsing the project by confronting them with a short timetable for decision.
Albanese and Marles repudiate accusations they were conned. The reality, however, is that Labor had to take a firm position and support what was the only viable electoral option.
The upshot is that the ongoing AUKUS faith of the Albanese government sits uneasily with a party periodically worried by the litany of problems: Is the cost justified? Is such strategic intimacy with the US a wise option? Will the submarines ever be delivered and be built? Are nuclear-powered boats the right procurement for Australia?
Under pressure this week, Marles launched his most sustained, passionate and revealing defence of AUKUS at a “Defending Australia” dinner sponsored by this newspaper. He said of AUKUS: “This is the biggest single leap in our military capability, I think, since the foundation of the navy. It’s also the biggest single industrial project that our country’s ever engaged in.”
Marles is proud of this Labor achievement: “That we were able to negotiate with the United States to have them transfer Virginia-class submarines to us is extraordinary. I mean, there is no precedent for that ever before, in terms of how America has handled this technology. There were challenges with the industrial base as I said. It’s why we did the extraordinary step of actually contributing money, financially, significantly billions, to the American industrial base to increase their rate of production. On this day, there are 200 Australian tradespeople in Pearl Harbor helping to get Virginia-class submarines out to sea for the US navy.”

As well as confronting the madness of King Donald and the former Faux Noise presenter Hogsbreath, there's a question about the ability of the local pollies to wrangle the USA as it sinks into a sea of incompetence...Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Richard Marles speaking at the Defending Australia summit at the Australian War Memorial this week Picture: Jane Dempster/The Australian.

"Ned" knows how to do the natter, but pardon the pond for doubting what the verbiage is proposing:

Referring to Rotation Force-West – the rotation of US and UK nuclear-powered submarines at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia from 2027 – Marles described this as the opportunity to get closer to the US navy and its sustainment schedule.
“We are a three-ocean nation,” he said. “A cursory glance of the map makes it unthinkable that we would not have a cutting-edge long-range submarine capability. There is only one choice here and that is that we stick and that’s what we are going to do.”
Marles points to history as proof that Labor cannot be deflected. He said when the Coalition was in office, the first submarine play was Japan; that was Plan A. The Attack-class submarines with France were Plan B. Next came AUKUS – Plan C. But the government would not divert to any Plan D.
“That’s just deciding you’re not doing to do it,” Marles said of the critics. “If you keep chopping and changing what is a multi-decade project every three or four years, then by definition you’re not doing it.”

Thank the long absent lord at least one pollie decided to talk truth to power. Again cue Tom Lowery in the ABC ...

Vocal Labor backbencher calls for AUKUS renegotiation

Labor MP Ed Husic says Australia needs to look at renegotiating the AUKUS pact with the United States and the United Kingdom and start contemplating alternative options following the changes.
The remarks followed a Labor MP questioning the prime minister during Labor's caucus meeting earlier today, arguing the changed deal should prompt a reconsideration of the party's commitment to AUKUS.
While not confirming he was the MP who raised the issue, Mr Husic said there was clearly a need to question whether AUKUS could be delivered as promised.
"This deal has changed, and as a result, we need to recognise — is there anything that is going to improve this outcome or alter it? I don't think so," he said.
"There's obviously been — this is a great understatement — but you've seen within the broader [Labor] movement a general disquiet about the nature of the deal itself.
"But putting all that aside, there's an issue about reality, and that is confronting us about whether or not we will even get the new deal that has been put to us based on what's happening in the US."
Mr Husic has pointed to challenges in American shipyards struggling to lift their rate of production of Virginia-class submarines as one clear issue in the deal, and says it is what likely provoked the change announced over the weekend.
The United States is trying to double its production rate from just over one submarine a year to more than two a year, aiming to sell submarines to Australia without setting back the growth of its own fleet.
He said the AUKUS deal needed to be renegotiated and alternative options explored.
"I think the reality on the ground will force a renegotiation. It won't be a renegotiation, it's a reality about the production rates and whether or not we'll get them," Mr Husic said.

Well yes, but that sent "Ned" into a remarkable defence of what's going down now ...and "Ned" was joined by that barking mad clap happy ...

Howling down Husic
He dismissed Husic’s claim that a new caucus resolution was required because of the Virginia-class readjustment. This was not a “huge” change; it didn’t affect the basis of AUKUS. Marles said Australia welcomed the decision and, indeed, its preference had actually been to have the Virginias in service anyway – that made crewing and maintenance easier and was less costly. With a touch of contempt, Albanese and Marles kicked Husic’s demand out of the park.
It probably won’t help Labor politically that Morrison went public this week supporting Marles and telling Inquirer: “I don’t have a problem with the Virginia-class decision. Frankly, it helps not to have two different types of Virginias.”
Morrison offered wise advice on how AUKUS will evolve: “AUKUS is a dynamic process. We started this as an arrangement based on trust with the UK and US. It is an endless process, it’s all about constantly working out the best way to achieve the objectives, and that’s about trust. What we’re seeing at the moment is what we’ve known for a long time – the Labor left don’t like it.”

The remnants of the lizard Oz graphics department decided that we needed to be reminded of the clap happy who got us into this folly ... Scott Morrison says he can “see the logic” behind the new plan for Australia to get three in-service Virginia-class submarines from the US in the 2030s, rather than a mix of old and new. Picture: Supplied.

He can see the logic, perhaps through his third eye?

About as logical as believing in a pending rapture (it seems August is the revised date for gravity to be suspended for a moment or seven).

"Ned" seized on SloMo like a seagull sniffing a chip at a fish market ...

Morrison repeats his frequent warning to Albanese: the government’s responsibility is to explain the strategic foundation of AUKUS to the Australian people – that means contributing to deterrence in the region and working with allies at a time when China is expanding both its military capacity and regional assertion: “AUKUS is not just about jobs. It is about strategic deterrence, and if this is not explained and to the public then the selling task gets harder.”
Herein lies a pivotal point: while Marles is open and forthright about the purpose of AUKUS, Albanese seems permanently resistant to explaining why his government is spending $368bn on an unprecedented industrial project that is the most transforming event in the navy’s history. What is the purpose? Some Labor figures say the reason Albanese won’t explain it is because elevating deterrence against China only creates more trouble than its worth.
Yet this plays into the hands of the critics. There are many lines of attack, and this week saw a breakout from the opponents. In a blast from the past, Labor luminaries Peter Garrett (of anti-nuclear fame) and Carmen Lawrence united with former defence force chief Chris Barrie to initiate a national inquiry into AUKUS, while sections of Labor’s left warned the issue would be raised at the coming ALP National Conference.

And then "Ned" had a nervous nellie, chicken ducking falling clouds moment ...

Uncertainty abounds
Sensing an opportunity, the teal-dominated crossbench came together with demands for transparency, highlighting the changed circumstances, the risks, the costs and the over-reliance on AUKUS in defence spending.
While the results of the public inquiry into AUKUS will be predictable, the Albanese government would be unwise to ignore the criticism. The nature of AUKUS, as a three-nation venture, is loaded with uncertainty, not just from the US and UK sides.
There are concerns that Australia lacks the expertise for a project it has never remotely entertained – building and servicing nuclear-powered submarines as a nation that has no civil nuclear power industry and upholds laws against domestic nuclear power.
Opposition defence spokesman James Paterson warned that AUKUS was at risk because of Labor politics: “We now have a full-on Labor revolt when it comes to Australia’s signature defence policy. It’s Ed Husic, it’s Josh Wilson, it’s prominent former Labor figures like former cabinet ministers Peter Garrett, Carmen Lawrence, it is former Labor prime ministers like Paul Keating, it’s key Labor unions, it’s Labor branches.
“It’s very clear that the Labor grassroots is questioning this government’s ability to deliver AUKUS and even going as far as to question whether or not we should proceed with AUKUS at all.
“How will that be interpreted in foreign capitals, in Washington DC, in London, in Beijing? We do not need any questions at all about the government’s commitment to the delivery of AUKUS. Frankly, maybe they should allow a vote in caucus so they can demonstrate how much support it actually has.”

Jimbo was then given a snap ... Senator James Paterson says AUKUS is at rick (sic, so and thus) because of Labor politics, Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman.

It's a delicate line that must be trodden by the current crop of Liberal pollies... criticising the Labor government and wringing hands, while trying to avoid taking any responsibility for the the dire situation that arose because of their original folly ...

At the same time, Paterson asked about contingencies arising from capability gaps in submarine delivery timetables. Warning that Australia could be exposed, he said: “We need to look at supplementary capabilities that could help fill that gap.” The point being: uncertainties abound.
In his defence of AUKUS, Marles recognised the inherent political nature of the beast, saying: “I get that people are going to be consistently asking me questions: Is AUKUS going to happen? Are our other partners, our countries, still supportive? Are they meeting insurmountable challenges? Do you have division in your own ranks? We’ll get all of those questions. That’s fine. I totally expect those questions to be asked of me for as long as I’m doing this job. But just also remember every milestone that we have needed to meet, we’re meeting.”
AUKUS was the brainchild of Scott Morrison who persuaded both British PM Boris Johnson and US president Joe Biden to sign up – but the project now looms as one of the decisive tests of Labor’s strategic belief, its organisational ability, its defence budget management, and its national vision in the party’s history. Unless Albanese has a conviction agenda for AUKUS, its future is problematic.

Some might be wondering at what point the pond thought "Ned" truly jumped the shark and nuked the fridge instead of the sub, and it came when he turned to Lord Downer for a comment ...

If you have any doubt about the complexities of this scheme, just listen to former Liberal foreign minister Alexander Downer, a native South Australian. Downer told Inquirer this week he champions AUKUS but believes the joint UK-Australian submarine will never be built.
“I am very much in favour of AUKUS,” Downer said. “First, it is right to invite British and American submarines to move through Australia. Second, they are right to buy three second-hand Virginia-class submarines. I think they should be buying more, five or six Virginia-class. It doesn’t matter if they’re second hand.
“But the idea of building nuclear-powered submarines in Adelaide is heroic. There will be huge cost blowouts, enormous problems, since we have never built submarines like this before, and shortages of skilled labour. It will become a nightmare for us. This is a mirage. It’s just not going to happen.
“The Labor and Liberal parties think if they move away from the Adelaide build and just bought the next generation of nuclear submarines, that would be unpopular. But I’m not sure as a South Australian that this is an unsaleable political proposition. I think people would understand that $368bn – just the bill at the moment – means we won’t be able to afford it. The sooner we face up to the fact that it won’t happen, the better.
“We need to focus on getting nuclear-powered submarines with the British and the Americans – buying the AUKUS-class sub.

Indeed, indeed ...

A further note:

Yet another note:

Can one optimal pathway have two lanes? When it comes to AUKUS submarines, apparently yes
By acting defence and national security correspondent Tom Lowrey

...Settling the AUKUS caucus

When AUKUS was first announced in 2021 by the Coalition, Australia's first nuclear-powered submarine wasn't expected for more than a decade and a half.
The changes made in 2023 under the current government to acquire the Virginia class submarines means the first Australian-flagged nuclear-powered sub is now a little over five years away.
It's getting more real. It's costing much more money, up to $96 billion between now and 2036, shipyards are being built, and sailors are being trained.
AUKUS is also going to attract much more scrutiny.
AUKUS partners unveil plan to develop underwater drones
Three men in suits stand for a press conference in front of the US, Australian and British flags
The US, Australia and United Kingdom have unveiled a new "signature" project to develop cutting edge weapons systems and sensors for underwater drones.
Labor MP Ed Husic's intervention this week when questioning if Labor should take the chance to reconsider AUKUS wasn't totally shocking, given he's recently been much more inclined to rock the boat.
But the messaging was at least partly targeted at a very real group of Labor supporters with a lot of questions about the government tying itself ever closer to a more unpredictable US administration.
Ministers often point out that AUKUS is the largest industrial project Australia has ever attempted, and the nuclear-powered submarines will be the most potent military asset Australia has ever acquired.
It's not just challenging here. Billions of dollars, a lot of them Australian, are being poured into US shipyards to try and get them producing submarines faster.
And the UK is grappling with its own shipbuilding challenges as it works to have its first AUKUS-class submarine in the water by the late 2030s.
The overriding message this week has been that this change was about making things as simple as possible.
If the government wants to keep Australians on side through a decades-long journey, that lesson applies to the messaging too.

Go Ed ...

And on the principle that one reptile is never good enough for a solid meal full of nutritious silliness, come on down the Lynch mob, who also made an appearance in the weekend edition ...

The header: No whitewashing Henry Nowak’s death: DEI is deadly; From Southampton to Sydney, controversies over race and identity politics rarely weaken progressives. More often, they divide their opponents.

There was no caption for the image, so that the hive mind could plunge into a particularly unsavoury and unpleasant read, a full eight minutes intended to defame even more the reputation of the University of Melbourne.

The pond would usually avoid this sort of carry on, down there with transphobia and other reptile fugly moments, but needs must, as the Lynch mob went there, despite the request of the family ...

...On Tuesday (2 June), Nigel Farage made what he called an “emergency address” to the nation. It was no such thing. It was a cynical act that used the death of a young man to sow division. The police, he said, were more concerned about being accused of racism than of helping a dying man. “An accusation of a racial slur was treated more seriously than an act of murder.”
The Reform leader argued that Nowak’s words – “I can’t breathe” – had echoes of the murder of George Floyd in the US in May 2020. Back then, “Keir Starmer was taking the knee. Black Lives Matter exploded all over the country,” Farage hissed. This time, there was “silence” from politicians and “much of the media”. Proof of a “two-tier culture… where the rights and privileges of white people matter less than those of ethnic minorities”.
This is nonsense. Every broadcaster, newspaper and radio station in the country is leading on the story. Politicians of all stripes have commented on the awful footage. There is unanimity in the belief that something has gone horrendously wrong. It is utterly irresponsible to whip up hatred and encourage people to respond with “pure cold rage”.
Not to be outdone by his former colleague, Rupert Lowe – who now leads Restore Britain – went further. In an incoherent, baseless rage, he asked in a post on X, “How many more young British men and women are going to die?” God willing, none. It is simply not true, as Lowe claimed, that “it’s happening right now, in every city across the country.” Yet, within 11 hours of his post, Lowe’s words had been viewed by 16.5 million people. Many may well believe that “children have been sacrificed to death in order to appease foreign cultures.”
This vile rhetoric has consequences. The Sikh community fears reprisals. Death threats have been issued against police. One misidentified officer has been forced to relocate to protect himself and his family. “Misinformation and inflammatory commentary is making a dreadful situation even worse,” the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has said.
This is not what Henry’s family wanted. “We do not want his death to be used to create further division, hatred or tension,” Mark Nowak told reporters outside court. “We want his story to make our streets safer for everyone.” (New Statesman)

Time now for the Lynch mob to join the rage machine ...

Did police DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) training kill the British teenager Henry Nowak? The legal answer is, of course, no. His convicted killer was Vickrum Digwa. The British Sikh got a life sentence for stabbing the student.
The increasingly politicised answer is yes. Hampshire Police officers have spent so much time in racial literacy classes that, when confronted with the chaotic scenes in a dark Southampton street, they prioritised antiracism over first aid. They handcuffed a dying white man accused of racism and sympathised with his killer of colour who made the false accusation.
So-called “antiracism” has been oversold as a cure for racism in Australian public institutions. Universities are big fans. This American campus approach to race has been thoroughly imbibed on ours. Training in antiracism is becoming ubiquitous in our private corporations, too. Its compulsory enforcement causes more discontent, across all races than it does racial reconciliation.

The Lynch mob compounded matters by dragging MLK into his proceedings...Martin Luther King became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the Civil Rights Movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968.

Martin Luther King longed for the “day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands … at the table of brotherhood”. He would be bemused by his contemporary DEI interpreters. Most reject his approach as a form of “colour-blind racism”. Many prefer the latent violence of a Malcolm X or a Frantz Fanon – but deploy little of their fiery rhetoric.
Take, for example, this academic gobbledygook. In a classroom, it would probably, as it intends, browbeat young white men into a surly silence. It might even be enough to spin out the entire career of their lecturer – where the stakes are low. But how would a pressured beat cop factor it into his decision-making? It is the advice from an antiracist HR consultant, commissioned by the London Metropolitan Police:

Naturally there were images proffered that were designed to shock the hive mind ... A police officer takes a knee in front of protesters near Downing Street during a "Black Lives Matter" protest following the death of George Floyd in the US. Picture: Reuters

Shocking, at least to the Lynch mob.

And before proceeding to the next Lynch mob gobbet, consider this in the Graudian ...

... Within hours of the bodycam footage being released, Reform’s leader, Nigel Farage, said the incident demonstrated a “two-tier Britain … where the rights of white people matter less than ethnic minorities”. What should the response be from those concerned? “Pure cold rage,” Farage said.
Rage did indeed come, in the form of riots in Southampton, complete with Nazi salutes and neo-fascists present. This is all despite the explicit wishes of Nowak’s family that “we do not want [Henry’s] death to be used to create further division, hatred or tension. We want his story to make our streets safer for everyone.” But, weakened by scandals, outflanked on the right by Restore Britain and anxious about its chances in the upcoming Makerfield byelection, Reform is clearly desperate for any kind of culture-war flashpoint to stir up anger in service of its populist project. Do these men know no shame?
It feels perverse that such a tragedy being recast in racial terms makes it necessary to restate the facts of policing in this country. And yet this is necessary because the right has been allowed to seize the narrative around Nowak’s death to construct an inverted reality.
Inequality in policing plainly does exist, and it has been borne out over decades by collected data. Black people in Britain are seven times more likely than white people to die after police restraint. Black children in England and Wales are almost eight times more likely to be strip-searched and are also overrepresented in the use of force through tasers and handcuffs. The disparity in these issues has been campaigned against for decades. And yet, as in the case of UFFC and other campaigns, campaigners have always recognised how bad policing makes all of us unsafe. Nowak’s case could be pulled into this long history of policing failures; instead it has been spun as a nativist tale that represents the threat that immigrant and minority communities present to white British people.

Now marvel at the way that the Lynch mob manages to do a Nigel, and rage on ...

“Neutrality is often presented as a position of fairness, balance, or objectivity. But in practice, especially in institutions like the Met, neutrality is not neutral. It reflects dominant norms, particularly whiteness, in how risk, credibility, professionalism, and even ‘evidence’ are defined. To claim neutrality is to claim distance from bias. But that distance is not real. It is structurally coded. It hides power while appearing impartial.”
Unlike professors and their students, when police officers are subject to DEI admonitions, when they are trained to view every encounter through a racial justice lens, the consequences can be catastrophic. So, I’m sympathetic to the claim that an overly left-wing police culture provided an enabling context for Nowak’s mistreatment. I’ll address this first.
My larger question, flowing from it, is why obvious failures of DEI, antiracism and identity politics, like this, don’t damage their political champions. Why does the right fracture in the wake of these failures and the left’s political dominion endure?
‘Two-tier’ approach
Was a DEI regime in the Hampshire police complicit in this sad episode? The UK media is awash with answers to this question. The country has experienced racially charged murders before. This one feels different; it highlights a cure that made the disease worse. In 1993, a black teenager was murdered at a London bus stop by a gang of white racists. The inadequate police investigation of Stephen Lawrence’s killing was the spur for significant reform, possibly an overcorrection.
An infrastructure that assumed “institutional racism” and the prosecution of “non-crime hate incidents” (of remarks overheard in a post office, for example, or posted online) got a priority in British policing in the decades after Lawrence’s murder. The killing of George Floyd in 2020, 6400km away, catalysed this “two-tier” approach, that policing was contingent on the race and ethnicity of the alleged victim and perpetrator.
According to Alison Heydari, the former head of the UK policing’s national diversity plan, “We are looking at reversing racism that exists not just in policing but around society”. Educators will be familiar with this assertion: that their institutions exist not to expose students to “the best that has been thought and said in the world” (the point of education according to Matthew Arnold in 1869), but to make their young charges the agents of progressive social justice, to be warriors for historical reconciliation.

As if to provide a feeble counter-balance, the reptiles slipped in a couple of snaps showing other matters ... George Floyd repeatedly said he could not breathe as he was pinned to the ground by an officer with his knee on Floyd's neck. He died on the street. Picture: via AFP; London teen Stephen Lawrence who was the victim of racist attack by white youths who stabbed him to death at a bus stop in southeast London in 1993.

And while we're at it, what about that story in the Graudian?

Thousands march for French schoolgirl murdered after police failed to question suspect
Local man had been accused of rape in months before murder but series of delays meant police had failed to summon him for questioning

Sorry, doesn't conform to the lizard Oz, Lynch mob rage machine model, as the Lynch mob rampaged on ...

In 2022, Olivia Pinkney, Hampshire’s chief constable, proudly stated: “Being anti-racist, ethical and inclusive is top of our agenda”. Note, not fighting crime and criminals. It is hard not to conclude that when her officers catered to the interests of Vickrum Digwa over those of his victim, that night in December 2025, they were following her orders.
The Nowak killing represents the clearest sign of a reversal in that cultural turn. In the wake of George Floyd’s gruesome murder, the left attempted to renew their experiment in racial engineering. But the populist right are making similar hay post-Nowak. Progressives have been naive to assume that their exploitation of identity politics would not be mimicked by the right.
What killed Nowak was less a Sikh ceremonial knife (a kirpan) than his white identity. Or, put differently, a DEI policing culture made his whiteness suspect and denied him (possibly) lifesaving treatment. The equivalent claim is made about George Floyd. A bad cop did not kill Floyd; the legacy of slavery did. Ipso facto, America (but also every other white majority nation) must dedicate its public policy to the eradication of that legacy.

The reptiles flung in an audio distraction ...

The Front
Pure, cold rage: are politicians exploiting white teen's murder?

A more interesting question would have been whether the lizard Oz and the Lynch mob were exploiting the murder, but never mind ...

What goes around comes around. As with Floyd, Nowak’s death has been speedily politicised. Nigel Farage, leader of Reform, said the student was “killed by DEI”. He condemned “a two-tier culture where some groups receive greater protection than others”. There is not a fag paper’s worth of difference between this populist framing of the Southampton murder and the progressive framing of the one in Minneapolis.
If we add an Australian case study, the commonalities become even starker. Kumanjayi Walker was a 19-year-old Warlpiri man from a remote Northern Territory community. On November 9, 2019, NT police officers attempted to arrest him. During the ensuing struggle, Walker stabbed Constable Zachary Rolfe with (non-ceremonial) scissors. Rolfe then fired three shots, fatally wounding Walker.
The pattern of interpretation and outrage that we see in Floyd and Nowak was set in the Walker case. “Institutional racism,” claimed the left; “A bad dude,” claimed the right. Left: “White Australia must atone for its racist crimes across history.” Right: “Indigenous communities must work with police to remove criminals.”

And here we come to the usual tediousness ...

Woke versus broke
Lawrence-Walker-Floyd-Nowak: their deaths have a large structural cause depending on the political interests of those making that claim. Justice is in the eye of the beholding politician. This invites the question: Who prospers? Which side of politics extracts the greatest advantage from how it exploits these policing scandals? I think, with one important caveat, the answer is the progressive left.
The re-election of Donald Trump, on an explicitly anti-woke, DEI-repeal agenda, is some evidence that the cultural hegemony of progressives is not an inevitable electoral asset to them. I’m not so sure. America and Trump may be the exception here. In Australia and the UK, the political and populist right consistently fails to turn outrage at purported woke excess into electoral gains. The right-wing fracture over Henry Novak is increasingly clear. Farage insisted that “white lives matter”. Kemi Bedenoch, the Conservative leader, was quick to dismiss him: “I don’t want to hear about black lives matter. I don’t want to hear about white lives matter. We all matter. Enough of this nonsense.”

At this point, the pond was reminded that way back, being "woke" was something that even fundamentalist Xians had no problem with.

In the 1950s, the Jehovah's Witnesses published a magazine with the title Awake!, citing Romans 13:11 as the source of inspiration for the title, "Now it is high time to awake".

The January 1957 issue began by asking "Are you really awake?"

"Some people look at the title of this magazine and indignantly reply 'I'm awake; why offer it to me?' But are they really awake? Are you? Many people are awake to the latest neighborhood gossip or to the newspapers' latest scandals, but are you awake to the urgency of our times and to the fulfillment of vital prophecies."

Yes, wake from your slumber, get fully woke (Now there's a bit of woke arcana).

Suffice to say that the Lynch mob is fully awake to the power of demented rage machines of the Nige kind... Reform UK leader Nigel Farage was quick to lay the blame for Nowak’s death squarely at the feet of DEI. Picture: Getty Images

On and on the rage machine raged ...

From the Labour government? Beyond condemning knife crime – crickets. Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, observed with satisfaction how his opponents across the aisle were rupturing over a tragic situation made possible by his progressive politics. He is threatened by his “allies” on the left, less his enemies on the right.
Anthony Albanese failed a fundamental test of leadership over the Bondi attack on Jewish Australians in December. But what political price has he paid? The fracturing of his opponents on the right. The competition between Liberals, Nationals and One Nation to articulate the problems of multiculturalism and mass migration has been a positive boon to his government, which never quite has to deal with the social consequences of either Labor nostrum.
In these Anglophone parliamentary systems, DEI has produced a fracturing of the right resulting in large progressive majorities. DEI Labor has led to a possible Liberal electoral extinction and no real chance of a Pauline Hanson ministry. DEI Labour has led to Tory collapse and the prospect of Reform and Restore parties filling the vacuum.
DEI Canada, a “woke dystopia”, according to podcaster Steven Crowder, re-elected the government that had led this progressive transformation under Justin Trudeau. He passed the keys to Rideau Cottage not to a Conservative alternative, but to the progressive technocrat, Mark Carney.
Why did the DEI Democrats in the United States not prosper as did their ideological brethren in Australia, Britain and Canada? Joe Biden did, of course, win his election in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder. The Covid crisis compounded Trump’s woes in 2020. But the ensuing progressive agenda and woke overreach that accompanied much of Biden’s term seems only to have helped Donald Trump’s revival.
American exception
His success, given the cultural dominion of his left-wing opponents, shows how a presidential system, where popular anger gets channelled through a president can be electorally effective. None of the centre-right parties in the English-speaking parliamentary democracies has turned the left’s DEI agenda into an electoral asset.
The British Tories have for years been abetting it. A decade and a half of Conservative government (2010-25) left the nation more subject to identity politics. The police, the civil service, the universities all became bastions of woke under a nominally right-of-centre government.

Just to remind the hive mind of the urgent need to politicise and demonise exceptionally bad policing of the kind that makes up the content of many YouTube channels, the reptiles flung in a snap of the victim, Henry Nowak death has brought DEI into brutally sharp focus. Picture: Supplied

It's brought DEI into brutally sharp focus? How about it's brought right wing sharks and the lizard Oz rage machine into brutally sharp focus?

That final image confirmed and completed the exploitation circle, and so to the last gobbet from this Lynch mob version of the rage machine ...

The Liberal National Coalition enjoyed power for almost as long (2013-22). Australian public life, like Britain’s, became more progressive not less. The belated return of Tony Abbott to national politics is a reminder that his party gave up on fighting a culture war when it replaced him with Malcolm Turnbull.
Abbott’s enforced absence played some part in the neutering of any LNP response to the Labor-Green cultural hegemony. Losing his own seat to a teal in 2019 did not help either. Pauline Hanson filled that vacuum. Angus Taylor’s necessary rebirth as a culture warrior reveals the fractured right-side of our politics. Albo must be laughing at his good fortune.
Indeed, the greater the centre-right outrage over some failure of progressive multiculturalism, from Kumanjayi Walker and Little Baby to the Bondi massacre and Henry Novak, the more dissonant the centre-right becomes. We are left not with a conspiracy. Rather, we have a progressive political class and cultural elite, across the English-speaking parliamentary democracies of the West, who have an inadvertent interest in the failure of their DEI project. Why? Because the angry reaction to these failures divides their opponents.
In America, with its presidential system, and an incumbent effective at the channelling of popular discontent through it, progressive weakness faces exposure and the right prospers. In Australia’s multiparty system that effect is reversed. A blustering and fracturing right looks set to guarantee a large Labor majority well into the 2030s. The same could well be true of the United Kingdom.
Diversity, equity and inclusion, it turns out, works for its political champions even when its excesses are at their most grotesque – as on that dark Southampton driveway.

And now to the credit, because the pond must ensure that the defamation of the University of Melbourne is made known as far and as wide as possible:

— Timothy J. Lynch is professor of American politics at the University of Melbourne.

Next week the Lynch mob raging at the ethnic cleansing of Gaza?

Don't hold your breath ...likely it's too DEI ...

What a dismal bit of exploitative, bilious thinking that was.

How much more joyous to contemplate the AUKUS debacle ...

And remember that infallible Pope, wasted yesterday, and now in its right and proper place ...

You are invited to a Monday morning brunch with a reptile ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The pond realises that the concept of a brunch is hopelessly middle class, but in the revised schedule the pond is operating on, needs must, and the only dilemma is whether to chose a hearty heart attack meal laden with breakfast bacon or focus on a rabbit food lunch menu.

Naturally the pond chose the saturated bacon suitable for a reptile feast, with the swishing Switzer showing how to serve up a splendid pile of tosh.

The pond has made some sacrifices to go there.

The reptiles were cock a hoop this morning at the One Nation-isation of the country and the lizard Oz, with Geoff chambering an exclusive round.

EXCLUSIVE
Newspoll: Pauline Hanson’s One Nation in front of Labor, Anthony Albanese gets worst ever rating
In a watershed moment for Australian politics, core support for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is ahead of Labor as Anthony Albanese hits a record low.
By Geoff Chambers

Geoff chambered a double barrelled serve...

Commentary by Geoff Chambers
Mad as hell voters not going to take it anymore
Newspoll: Pauline Hanson’s One Nation revolution has exploded far beyond the populist’s dreams
Pauline Hanson has led an uprising many of her detractors believed was impossible.

The pond scurried past like a white rabbit, leaving it to the intermittent archive, pausing only to note that the reptiles' new heroine was on the march, and more importantly, that the swishing Switzer heard the call, ran up the white flag, and rallied to the cause ...

The header: Libs’ political reality means deal with Hanson only pragmatic; The longstanding sentiment that One Nation should be resisted could be outdated.

The caption for the bottled redhead supporting an alleged war criminal in a birds of a feather moment: Pauline Hanson attends event in support for Ben Roberts-Smith, Seventeen Mile Rocks, Brisbane. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen / The Australian

Before proceeding, the pond couldn't help noticing once again the astonishing similarities between Pauline and Martin, as identified on the weekend by the Ughmann.

How could the pond have missed it?

Thank the long absent lord for the astonishing insights available to the hive mind.

And now on with the ongoing One Nation-isation of the lizard Oz and the hive mind, with the swishing Switzer showing the way ...

Former Victorian Liberal premier Denis Napthine is hardly alone in harbouring doubts about closer electoral co-operation with One Nation.
His intervention reflects a longstanding sentiment within sections of the Liberal establishment that Pauline Hanson’s party should be resisted even on a seat-by-seat basis.
Yet as One Nation’s support continues to grow, an increasing number of conservatives are beginning to ask whether that debate belongs more to the political circumstances of the late 1990s than to those of today.
True, preference co-operation is not cost-free politically or reputationally, especially in metropolitan electorates. But politics in preferential voting systems is ultimately about addition, not subtraction. Unless the broader centre-right learns to coexist electorally, it risks Labor remaining in office because its opponents are divided against themselves.
This is hardly an unfamiliar lesson in Australian history. After the Labor split of the mid-1950s, the fractured centre-left materially assisted Coalition dominance federally until the early 1970s. Robert Menzies was probably our nation’s greatest prime minister, but he and the Coalition undoubtedly benefited from a divided Labor movement and Democratic Labor Party preferences.
The same dynamic assisted long-serving Liberal premiers such as Thomas Playford in South Australia, Henry Bolte in Victoria, David Brand in Western Australia and Robert Askin in New South Wales. Today, there is a growing risk of the inverse occurring on the Australian centre-right.

What a wondrous sell-out and quisling this Vichy lad is, as the reptiles interrupted with a snap of Malware: Malcolm Turnbull has been vocal in bagging his old party. Picture: Martin Ollman

It's all Malware's fault! Now back to the apologetics, worthy of a Jesuit defending the Inquisition:

Hanson voters are not extremists.

Of course they aren't. They're just climate science denying bigots afraid of furriners and pesky, uppity blacks, and therefore entirely in accord with the lizard Oz.

Most are former Coalition voters who increasingly believe the Liberal Party stopped listening to them years ago. They saw Malcolm Turnbull – today an almost daily presence on the ABC bagging his old party – as embodying a breathtaking born-to-rule leadership style detached from the instincts of the Liberal grassroots.
No wonder he squandered the political capital won under Tony Abbott’s landslide in 2013. Coalition voters were later disappointed by Scott Morrison’s embrace of net zero and by the significant expansion of state authority during the Covid years.
Andrew Neil, the distinguished British journalist, has argued that centre-right parties across the democratic world cannot renew themselves until they acknowledge how deeply many traditional supporters feel they were let down while conservatives were last in power.
There is an uncomfortable truth in that observation; and it helps explain why so many former Coalition supporters have utter contempt for the likes of Turnbull.
The challenge facing Angus Taylor is therefore larger than simply refining the Coalition’s budget message or sharpening parliamentary tactics. It is whether the Liberal Party can rebuild trust with voters who increasingly see One Nation not as an aberration, but as a vehicle for frustrations they believe the Coalition ignored for too long.

Poor old beefy windmill fearing boofhead from down Goulburn way. Fancy dragging him into this mess ... Opposition Leader Angus Taylor must convince voters the Liberal Party can rebuild trust with them. Picture: Martin Ollman

The pond had wondered whether a "billy goat butt" would come and what form it might take, and at last the question was answered.

The swishing Switzer dressed it up as a "none of this means" but quickly followed that billy goat with another butt about "recognising political reality", as any sell-out king would do:

None of this means the Liberals should become One Nation. But it does mean recognising a political reality that sections of the Liberal establishment still appear reluctant to confront: a divided centre-right may simply entrench Labor dominance for another generation.
To say the stakes are high is an understatement. After four years of Anthony Albanese’s government, a clear majority of Australians fear the country is moving in the wrong direction. Australia has experienced weak productivity growth, stagnant living standards, housing unaffordability, persistently high migration and still-high energy costs.
Canberra’s fiscal approach has also fuelled unease among middle-income voters. Having already targeted successive pools of private savings – from superannuation to investment assets – there is growing concern that the family home itself may eventually come within the reach of an increasingly revenue-hungry government.
At the state level, the long Andrews-Allan era has similarly left many Victorians deeply disillusioned. The government’s record has been marked by repeated financial blowouts, mounting debt and costly infrastructure mismanagement.
Many Victorians also remain troubled by the severity and duration of the state’s lockdown regime during Covid, which became the longest anywhere in the democratic world.
Then there’s energy policy: Labor’s lengthy restrictions on onshore gas exploration reflected an ideological certainty that increasingly collided with the practical realities of tightening energy supply and rising prices across eastern Australia. Add to this the astonishing explosion in crime in Victoria, and it is no wonder the Garden State is widely seen as a national embarrassment.

Of all the wretches and miscreants to enlist in this blather ... Former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett says a divided centre-right risks entrenching the left by default. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

And then came a remarkable assertion, to which the pond could only think "pig's bum":

Jeff Kennett is right: One Nation should be part of a broader electoral effort to defeat both the Allan government later this year and the Albanese government within the next two years. The Coalition parties have yet to decide whether to pursue a preference arrangement with One Nation but, if the goal is to defeat Labor, the strategic logic is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore: a divided centre-right risks entrenching the left by default.
After all, Labor has never hesitated to co-operate electorally with the Greens, a radical left-wing party, in pursuit of power. It is becoming harder to argue that different rules should apply to parties on the conservative side of politics.

At the very end, there came a forlorn credit for the quisling hack.

Tom Switzer is presenter of the Switzerland podcast.

Never listened to it, never will.

The pond now must pause to celebrate Pauline's dream, one long shared by the reptiles at Faux Noise ...

The Caterist was also on hand to help...

The header: Labor’s productivity neglect like rocket fuel for One Nation; The scene is set for a three-cornered contest. It would be a brave person to predict who has the last laugh.

There was no caption for the snap, so it was on with the quarry whispering Caterist spending four minutes doing his best to pump up the volume for One Nation:

Day 22 of the operation to salvage Jim Chalmers’ budget gave Katy Gallagher her chance to prove her worth as Finance Minister.
She squandered it, stonewalling the Senate Economics Committee with the weaponised indifference of a surly teenager. Like Pauline Hanson, a serial absentee from Senate committees, she clearly didn’t want to be there. Unlike Hanson, however, she had no choice.
Matt Canavan began with an easy question: “What elements in your budget help increase productivity?” Gallagher rolled her eyes dismissively. “There is a glossy A4 there,” she said. “There are 14, ah, 16 different measures. I was wondering whether or not you had read it?”
Labor’s best hope is that no one cares about productivity anymore, that the TikTokification of the policy debate has robbed the word of any meaning it once had. Reform is anything you say it is, neither more nor less.
A 15-minute exchange before the morning break on Thursday revealed the structural weaknesses in Labor’s economic management. A politicised Treasury and an uninterested Finance Minister have robbed the government of the institutional backstops every Treasurer and PM needs, leaving its economic policy exposed to groupthink and whimsy.

The reptiles flung in an AV distraction ... Finance Minister Katy Gallagher and Nationals Leader Matt Canavan have traded barbs in a fiery Senate Estimates clash over whether Labor's tax reforms will improve productivity.

Then it was on with the flood waters whispering Caterist channeling the Canavan caravan, because black coal matters ...

Canavan gave the Treasury secretary every opportunity to give a fearless and frank assessment of Chalmers’ budget when he asked whether the department had modelled the productivity impact of changes to capital gains tax, negative gearing and the tax treatment of trusts.
“Our assessment,” Jenny Wilkinson began cautiously, “is that, taken together, the reforms announced in the budget should help Australia move towards the long-run productivity assumptions that we have in the medium-term forecasts.”
How so? Until this government took office, the minimum requirement for economic reform was to reduce the overall tax take or spend it more efficiently.
Chalmers’ budget does the opposite, diverting an additional $80bn from the productive private economy into general review in the unproductive public sector.
The Finance Minister’s glossy brochure fails to explain this basic inconsistency. At least four of its 12 points (not 14 or 16) are basic housekeeping, reducing red tape and streamlining compliance. Others, such as accelerating foreign investment and environmental approvals, are pure wishful thinking.

Cue a snap of the man himself ...Nationals leader Matt Canavan.

The clueless Caterist didn't seem to understand, or care, that his celebration of the potency of Pauline might have some implications for the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way and Freedumb boy. It was enough that Jimbo was under the reptile hammer ...

Productivity figures reported in the National Accounts last week confirm the dismal trend in productivity that has accelerated under the Albanese government. Opposition Treasury spokesman Tim Wilson issued a press release pointing out that productivity had declined by 5 per cent since Labor came to power.
Chalmers saw the opportunity for a gotcha. “I checked out that number,” he told parliament. Wilson’s figure had included the March quarter of 2022 when productivity had fallen 2.3 per cent, he said. Labor wasn’t elected until May. In fact, productivity rose in the March 2022 quarter to a record high. The 2.3 per cent fall was in the June quarter. It is a moot point how much of the fall occurred in the first 10 days of April, before the Morrison government entered caretaker mode, or in the 40 days of the quarter from May 22, when Labor was in office. The substantive point is the same.
The four years of productivity decline under Labor are deeply alarming. Three decades of steady jobs growth and an almost unbroken rise in GDP have masked the structural declines in an economy that is running on the fumes of the genuine economic reforms in the 80s and 90s.

Quick, a snap of the villains, as a reminder that Pauline and the lizard Oz know who the real enemies are ...Anthony Albanese, Jim Chalmers and Katy Gallagher in Canberra on budget day. Picture: Martin Ollman

The quarry whispering Caterist continued to make the case for One Nation ...

Productivity data offers a reading on what has been happening under the bonnet. Between 1995 and 2005, productivity growth averaged 2.2 per cent, comfortably above the 1.6 per cent 60-year average. Between 2005 and 2015, average productivity growth fell to 1.3 per cent. Over the past decade, the average is 0.3 per cent.
Much of this has been attributed to the relative growth of the service sector, where productivity tends to be lower. The growth of government, however, particularly over the past five years, has put a significant drag on the productive economy.
The compounding effects of inflation have increased government tax revenue through bracket creep. Strong commodity prices have delivered an unexpected windfall, much of which has been foolishly frittered away. The budget measures are an ill-disguised tax grab, framed as reform solely for the sake of the narrative. Their practical effect will be the very opposite of the economically liberalising, pro-competition measures introduced at the end of the last century.
While Paul Keating continues to bask in the glory of those reforms, he was greatly assisted by independent, economically literate advice from Treasury and by finance minister Peter Walsh, who belonged to a generation of reformers who believed productivity was earned through competition, investment and efficiency. Their focus was on removing barriers, reducing protection and restraining spending. Today’s policy debate starts from the opposite end: how government can redistribute the proceeds of growth before asking where the growth itself will come from.

Finally there came a snap of the reptiles' new heroine herself ...Pauline Hanson.

The pond expects everyone will immediately spot the resemblance to Martin Luther, as the Caterist wrapped up proceedings with a sudden realisation that he was helping Pauline and selling his old comrades down the river...

The Coalition and Labor face opposite challenges. Angus Taylor must turn a dry reform agenda into an appealing political narrative. Albanese and Chalmers must adapt a social equity narrative to something approximating genuine reform. All the while, the party ahead of both is banking on the idea that no one cares about this stuff anyway and that Labor’s casual broken promises are symptomatic of the political class as a whole. There is little sign that Pauline Hanson’s studied absence from Senate committee hearings has damaged her standing. Indeed, it may have enhanced it.
The scene is set for a three-cornered contest between a Labor Party on the populist left, the economically conservative Coalition and One Nation, with its rudimentary policy development but devilishly good satirical cartoons.
It would be a brave person to predict who has the last laugh.

Hopefully we'll all have the same Gina laugh they're currently having in those disunited States ...

And now to continue the One Nation-isation of the lizard Oz and the hive mind with the help of Major Mitchell:

The header: Climate activists lose their voice in the face of facts; Australia’s climate media has ignored a landmark IPCC shift scrapping the doomsday warming scenarios that underpinned decades of costly government policy and public scaremongering.

The caption for one of Satan's renewables loving minions: Federal Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen. Picture: Martin Ollman

Major Mitchell helpfully prepared a position paper for One Nation on the matter of climate science.

One Nation has long been saturated with climate science denialists and so has the lizard Oz, and so it was inevitable that the two would join forces.

(The pond understands that Major Mitchell's scribbles might well become part of One Nation's platform on climate change).

The Major began by citing that well-known and reliable in-house resource, Lloydie of the Amazon:

Being a climate activist – whether scientist or journalist – means never having to say you’re sorry.
On May 14, The Australian’s Graham Lloyd reported on a new scientific paper that challenges worst-case scenarios on possible future climate change, and dramatically cuts the forecast warming of the planet by the end of this century.
The new pathways put forward by the scientific paper will feed into the upcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change AR7 assessment, due in stages by 2029.
Incredibly, more than five weeks after the new pathways were accepted by the IPCC, most climate writers and government-backed climate bodies in Australia have not even mentioned the changes, which eliminate the doomsday scenarios many have been pushing for decades.

Sorry, the pond must interrupt here to note a brazen lie, a distortion and a fraud.

The Major's headline blathered about "a landmark IPCC shift", but on a closer reading, the Major modified this to blather about one scientific paper "feeding into" the IPCC.

Contemptible really, but entirely fitting for One Nation and the Major:

Lloyd wrote: “It does not suggest that climate change is not happening but it is a reality check for how climate science has allowed itself to be hijacked by what has resembled a death cult of catastrophe.”
A couple of scientists in Australia, including one who wrote a piece on The Conversation website, tried to spin the scrapping of the most extreme pathways – known to scientists as RCP8.5, SSP5-8.5 and SSP3-7.0 – as a sign that actions taken globally, especially the rise of renewable energy, were working. It was self-serving rot.
The truth is that most people who closely follow the arcane world of the IPCC and its feed-in science groups knew the extreme warming scenarios were always a fantasy.
The so-called business-as-usual scenario, RCP 8.5, involved an eight-fold increase in coal burning for power, which at the time the pathway was accepted was five times proven global coal reserves.
Nor did this scenario take account of the rise in gas globally as a cheaper, less carbon-intensive source of power than coal, especially after the rise of fracking for shale gas in the US in the early 2000s.
The scenario was based on the population increasing from the present eight billion to 12 billion by 2100. It now seems global population will hit 10 billion mid-century and fall to as low as seven to nine billion by 2100.
So why is all this important?
Most scaremongering by global warming catastrophists such as King Charles, Greta Thunberg and our own Energy Minister Chris Bowen was built on predictions drawn from RCP8.5. This includes predicted sea level rises of 1.1m and a rise in average global temperatures by 5C by 2100. Results from the latest scenario modelling suggest about 2.5C of warming since pre-industrial times.

The reptiles decided to fling in a snap of King Chuck, because everyone knows talking tampons don't do science: King Charles has been vocal about global warming. Picture: Getty Images

Before proceeding to the next Major gobbet, the pond would like to drop a few notes on the Major's sources.

First there's this ...

Article by Michael Shellenberger mixes accurate and inaccurate claims in support of a misleading and overly simplistic argumentation about climate change

And way back when Damian Carrington wrote The four types of climate denier, and why you should ignore them all for the Graudian, which began this way ...

A new book, described as “deeply and fatally flawed” by an expert reviewer, recently reached the top of Amazon’s bestseller list for environmental science and made it into a weekly top 10 list for all nonfiction titles.
How did this happen? Because, as Brendan Behan put it, “there’s no such thing as bad publicity”. In an article promoting his book, Michael Shellenberger – with jaw-dropping hubris – apologises on behalf of all environmentalists for the “climate scare we created over the last 30 years”.
Shellenberger was named a hero of the environment by Time magazine in 2008 and is a loud advocate of nuclear power, but the article was described by six leading scientists as “cherry-picking”, “misleading” and containing “outright falsehoods”.
The article was widely republished, even after being removed from its first home, Forbes, for violating the title’s editorial guidelines on self-promotion, adding further heat to the storm. And this is why all those who deny the reality or danger of the climate emergency should be ignored. Obviously, I have broken my own rule here, but only to make this vital point once and for all.
The science is clear, the severity understood at the highest levels everywhere, and serious debates about what to do are turning into action. The deniers have nothing to contribute to this.

Hopefully that helps decontaminate what follows from the Major ...

As American author Mike Shellenberger wrote on the Public website on May 27, “the worst-case scenario that has anchored climate science for 15 years describes a world that cannot exist. Scenario RCP8.5 and its successor SSP-8.5 generated more than half of the references in the 2018 US Fourth National Climate Assessment.
“They accounted for 60 per cent of the references in the IPCC’s Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere.”
The hysteria generated by a scenario many people argued was impossible when it was adopted has made many countries poorer. The UK and Europe have committed to net zero by 2050 on the basis of predictions the IPCC now accepts are way off kilter.
Europe has lost much of its industrial base to China. Much manufacturing in Australia has also moved to China, and taxpayers are forking out billions to keep metal smelting operators open because they are unviable with high power prices driven by the renewables transition.

Regarding the next Major source, he's been around for a long time. See this recommendation in Grist back in 2009 ...

The fantastical falsehoods of Roger Pielke, Jr.

Now that they’ve shut down his original blog, Roger Pielke, Jr., is desperately trying to remain relevant in the blogosphere. Pielke’s preferred strategy – as it has always been – is to utterly misrepresent what people say and then attack that misrepresentation in the hopes of garnering media attention. Baselessly smearing the professional reputation of hundreds of leading U.S. scientists means nothing whatsoever to him – if it gets him press coverage (see details here).
These days, the main “media” paying attention to Pielke, Jr. (as with Pielke, Sr.) are the global warming deniers (see “Uber-denier Inhofe gives big wet Valentine’s kiss to Pielke – go figure!“). So it’s no surprise that Pielke Jr.’s latest distortion was immediately picked up by Swift Boat smearer Marc Morano, much as the main person pushing Pielke Sr.’s climate disinformation is anti-science blogger Anthony Watts (see “Like father, like son: Roger Pielke Sr. also doesn’t understand the science of global warming – or just chooses to willfully misrepresent it“)...

See the original for links, see Skeptical Science for "Climate Misinformation by Source", and now see the Major...

Roger Pielke Jnr, a former professor of environmental science at the University of Colorado and a controversial analyst of the economics of climate action, explains the impact of RCP8.5 in a Substack post of April 29. The abandoned scenarios “are not just academic constructs”, he writes. “They are embedded in the policies and regulations of most of the word’s largest economies, found across the world’s most important multilateral institutions, and used in climate stress tests that govern hundreds of billions of dollars of bank capital.”
Yet from our alarmist climate writers in mainstream media, this column could find not a single word. After years of overheated forecasts in their news and opinion pages, only crickets when the scenario on which those scares were based fell over.
Pielke published the new climate pathways on The Honest Broker site on April 29. On May 9 he surveyed the global media’s response.
The Dutch and German media were out front, not unexpectedly given Dutch scientist Detlef van Vuuren was lead author of the paper that announced the new scenarios. But nothing in The New York Times, Guardian or BBC.
The Conversation published an op-ed by Andrew King, associate professor of Climate Science at the University of Melbourne, on May 27.
He noted President Trump had taken an interest in the scrapping of RCP8.5.

Mad King Donald is also enrolled in the Major's science team? US President Donald Trump has taken an interest in the scrapping of RCP8.5. Picture: Getty Images

That's got to be worth a climate 'toon...

What else to say, except to suggest that this will suit the Major's position paper for One Nation, so that we might make Australia grovel to the mad king yet again ...

“But the removal of this high-emissions scenario isn’t, as Trump and other climate sceptics have claimed, a sign of failed modelling.” Rather it was testament to the success of the policies already introduced to mitigate against climate change, King argued.
It was the line Van Vuuren et al used in the paper to explain the dumping of the extreme scenarios.
Never mind Pielke and others had published papers pointing to the overblown assumptions that underpinned the high emissions scenarios.
Never mind fossil fuels still dominate global power, and never mind emissions of CO2 from those fossil fuels are still rising globally.
Anticipating the blowback from the lowered climate scenarios, Van Vuuren et al wrote: “High emission levels (quantified by SSP5-8.5) have become implausible, based on trends in the costs of renewables, the emergence of climate policy and recent emissions trends.”
Journalists have been talking about the need for governments to act against “misinformation” and “disinformation”. Yet they say nothing about the stream of false prophesies trotted out by climate scientists.

And now those familiar with the pond knew it was coming.

How could the Major resist quoting the Bjørn-again one, a legend in his own lunchtime but otherwise largely irrelevant, unless you happen to be reading the lizard Oz:

Danish political scientist Bjorn Lomborg last month showed how the latest European statistics on heat-related deaths in the elderly represented no more than the increase in the numbers of elderly as life expectancy rose. Lomborg has showed many times that cold weather remains a bigger threat to life than heat.

The reptiles thought so highly of this reference that they threw in a snap ...Bjorn Lomborg is a Danish political scientist, author, and the president of the think tank Copenhagen Consensus Centre.

The pond has already covered the Bjørn-again so many times that ennui would ensue if the pond contemplated his irrelevance again, and so to the Major's denialist wrap.

The Major can say with some pride that it's a perfect summary for One Nation, a Major position paper for the ages ... or at least until next week, when the Major will either by Zionist Central, or continue as the Klimate King ...

Shellenberger said the IPCC now needs to correct the record on other climate scare campaigns, namely “sea level rise, hurricanes, fires, polar bears and extreme weather”.
Yet reporters happily quote politicians or the UN attributing every fire, flood or tropical storm to climate change.
Lomborg has shown how the historical evidence proves land lost to fires has fallen since the start of the 20th century. Tropical storm numbers are declining even if there is some evidence some are becoming more intense. Much flooding is linked to changed land use near coastlines and rivers.
There is no evidence polar bear numbers are falling.
And let’s never forget we were told by the UN Environment Program in 2005 that sea level rises would create 50 million climate refugees by 2020. An Auckland University study in 2018 found many South Pacific atolls were in fact growing.
But climate activists – journalists and scientists – are never accountable. It’s about their good intentions, not the facts.

The facts? As always, the Major and facts aren't one, but rather two ... and never the twain shall meet.

And so to wrap up by catching up with the immortal Pope, who happens to be foreshadowing the pond's post tomorrow ...

You are invited to a Sunday morning tea with a reptile ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Now where were we?

Colbert? Long gone, though some say they saw him in Monroe. Whatever, CBS and Paramount were dead to to the pond in 60 seconds, made easy by the intertubes being dead to the pond for some time.

Gaza? The pond felt the urgent need to shriek about well-meaning activists, which in terms of Australian media produced a new formula: one maltreated activist equals 10,000 Palestinians (and Lebanese people) displaced, brutalised, starved, murdered people, subject to ethnic cleansing and life under apartheid rule. White phosphorus anyone?

Benji's government and King Donald's war on Iran? Think that song lyric, same as it ever was.

The United States under mad King Donald? Just a long slide into dementia, surrounded by sycophants, dropkicks and losers.

Ukraine? Vlad the Sociopath also scored himself a never ending war.

While away, the pond didn't take a single squiz at the lizard Oz, and what a relief that was.

Instead the pond spent its days moving as far south as it could before getting nosebleed, which is to say to the mighty 'Gong, home of awesome Aunty Jack, plucky bleeder Norman Gunston and other luminaries (younglings, ask your elders).

As a result, the pond has gone full rustic. How rustic? Consider this: on signing the lease, the real estate agent gave the pond a box of Cadbury Roses Chocolate.

The real estate agent! A box of chocolates! (cue Forrest Gump).

The pond was swept back to its earliest days, growing up in Tamworth, once the centre of the known universe.

In those ancient times, men would rock up with beers, while the women always had the fallback of a box of chocolates, Roses of course. The size of the box was carefully determined by the occasion and the status and relevance of the recipients (the pond was given a twenty buck box!) The pond's married maiden aunt would swoon at the sight of a box, and always kept one handy for the guests who arrived, at least one a decade.

What else?

Well while the pond was away, several Tonys came out to play.

The pond was particularly drawn to the savvy Savva's assessment in the Nine rags Abbott’s ineptitude meant he didn’t last two years as PM. Now he’s back, with four new slogans (*intermittent archive link).

Inter alia:

...Abbott came prepared with four new slogans. Stripped to the bare bones, or down to the budgie smugglers if you prefer, they were: stop taxes, demonise migrants, wreck the planet and only ever wave one flag.
OK, so he didn’t say that exactly. That’s my interpretation of what he said, given 75 per cent of his plan is built on culture wars over patriotism, welcomes to Country, migration and climate change, and the other 25 per cent is a scare campaign on tax, a formula unlikely to regain old heartland seats including the one he lost in 2019.

Indeed ...

And Tony Bleagh hovered back into view, as the pond squinted at its phone and read a cracking Crace:

‘Worry no longer, I am back’ – Tony Blair’s Why I Have Always Been Right About Everything, digested by John Crace

Inter alia:

...Politics is about power. And since I left No 10, the UK has become a second-class global power. So we need to stick close to the US. We need to be partners, not in opposition. Donald Trump is a great guy when you get to know him. Probably the best president since George W Bush. Someone who will be fully worthy of his Nobel peace prize. Just as I treasure the replica one I awarded myself. No one has done more to stop the wars he started.
Have I mentioned that I am the only Labour prime minister to have won a full second term? Not that I am in any way needy
I am deeply honoured to be a member of Trump’s Board of Peace along with many others from the world’s most eminent list. Keir made a huge mistake by not joining the US in bombing Iran, because it can never be wrong not to go to war along with the US. Can it? There were weapons of mass destruction. I’m sure of it. There has to have been, we just haven’t found them yet.
It is also time to rethink our relationship with Europe. Now is not the time to relitigate Brexit. That ship has long since sailed. Instead, what we should do is become much more powerful than Europe and then get the EU to come to us begging to join the UK. And we can only do this if we deregulate everything I once regulated, and grasp the benefits of AI. I won’t say here what the benefits of AI are, mainly because I don’t know what they are, but all my tech bro pals are making shedloads of money, so it has to be a good thing.
We also need to rethink the way we do politics at home. Voters want politicians who are prepared to crash into brick walls. To challenge the very orthodoxies for conventional. Have I mentioned before that I am the only Labour prime minister to have won a full second term? Not that I am in any way needy. Or condemned to the purgatory of all yesterday’s men. Just that I feel obliged to answer the call when the country I quite like, though not as much as the US and China, is in need.
The change needed will be radical. First we have to get rid of all workers’ rights. No country ever achieved economic growth by worrying about them. We have to accept that if some people are broke then that is a price worth paying. Likewise, Labour needs to realise the welfare bill is far too high. There must be an end to a culture of state support. And maybe we should think about getting rid of pensions altogether. If people don’t have the capability to set up their own global institute then they deserve every misfortune that comes their way.

Indeed, and what a hoot from a man doing his best to resemble the Joker...

And so on, and what is it with Tonys, how do they always end up sounding like prize loons of the first water?

'Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!'
Eftsoons his hand dropt he. (in full here).

And so to another note on life in the 'Gong surrounded by raucous cockies, perhaps chortling at the two Tonys ...

The pond has undergone a lifestyle change, what with the escarpment looking like the Tamworth hills on steroids.

As a result, with unpacking still to be done, and order restored to the world, (fat chance), the pond isn't that keen on getting up early to check out the reptiles and do a full survey of their follies.

Instead the pond thought it might step gingerly back into the swamp by inviting people to enjoy a morning tea with just one reptile: Kinkara (if only you could find it - perhaps Bushells or Griffiths, née Robur, as subs?), scones with blackberry jam and cream fresh from the cow, just like the 1950s ... which approximates the picket fence times of the reptile hive mind.

But when the pond dived back in, it was appalled and astonished to see that somehow the reptiles had managed to get even worse over a few short weeks.

It was a veritable den of disrepute, a swamp of mugwumps...

How could the pond stick to just one reptile, when the rag had transformed into the the perfect embodiment the One Nation paper of choice, what with Pauline filching all her best forms of bigotry from their insightful analyses? (Climate change isn't real, it's all the fault of migrants, and what's this vax crap?)

Of course, the reptiles still performed the duties required to be the Australian Daily Zionist News (henceforth ADZN).

This weekend Julie held up that flag for all to see ...

Blaming and vilifying Jews – it’s as easy as ABC
A week full of strange and hypocritical cultural moments shows how institutions have applied a dangerous double standard when Jewish people are targeted.
By Julie Szego

But the real marvel was the way the reptiles had lurched towards One Nation, what with Pauline being the perfect embodiment of everything the Murdochians had campaigned for over the years.

Unsurprisingly, the MAGA-cap-donning Dame Slap was front and centre with the shift ...

No wonder voters want Hanson when AHRC spouts such lunacy
Our institutions are now so infested with the radical ideology once seen only at university orientation weeks that One Nation seems like the logical answer to many.
By Janet Albrechtsen
Columnist

Dame Slap spent many words explaining why Pauline was right about everything, before concluding ...

...The Coalition failed completely, over many terms, to do anything about the ABC thumbing its nose at mainstream Australia. Hanson’s rise in the polls suggests a desperate yearning among voters for someone who will at least try to put the cleaners through the taxpayer-funded mess of government bodies who seem to regard mainstream Australia with contempt. Nobody knows if Hanson will have any more success than the Coalition at hosing out the radicals feasting on the public teat. But increasing numbers seem to think she can’t do any worse, and she just might do better. “Worth a shot?” they ask.

Indeed ...

But the most astonishing effort was performed by the Ughmann, with a truly bizarre comparison, a descent into mugwumpery of the first water, such that even the pond's partner noticed ...

The header: Australia’s new reformation is a growing revolt against a detached governing elite; Australia’s woke elites have sparked a backlash, just as the Catholic Church’s Curia did in 1517.

The remarkable caption featuring that uncanny likeness: The rise of One Nation is not simply a rebellion against the political class. It is a revolt against the permanent governing caste of progressive elites that inhabits the state and federal bureaucracies, universities, courts, commissions, NGOs and much of the media. Like the Curia of old, this clerisy sees itself as the arbiter of modern morality.

Talk about an exact match. How could the pond have missed it?

The died orange hair, the glowering black eyes, the whimsical, mischievous look dancing on the lips.

There's even a hint of black in both their garbs, though Pauline has updated her gear to reflect a Manichean dance between black and white, good and evil, without any shades of grey. (Possibly they also share similar thoughts on international banking conspiracies).

Best to slip in that reference to a heresy, so the pond could get down and dirty with the Ughmann in full blown stupid Xian fundamentalist mode.

What a irresistible theological marvel he is ...

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
The question was probably never seriously debated by 15th-century Catholic theologians, but it neatly satirises a Church that is so absorbed in Byzantine theological and legal disputes that it lost the trust of the people it claimed to serve.
An institution-wide infection of legalism, self-interest and intellectual arrogance had spread through what is known as the Curia, the vast permanent bureaucracy that advises popes, interprets doctrine and enforces orthodoxy to this day.
But alas, as the century turned, it was a dangerous time for a complacent clerisy.
Europe had been brutalised by famine, plague and the Hundred Years’ War. The Church had endured a schism that produced three popes. Labour shortages and heavy taxation weighed down societies struggling to recover from generations of turmoil.
The symbolic nadir of the Church’s decline was the sale of indulgences, a cash-for-salvation racket run by clerics more intent on filling their coffers than tending their flocks.
Rage grew in the hearts of a people who lacked the language to describe their plight and the means to escape the suffocating atmosphere of oppression.
Into this cocktail of discontent, the dissident Augustinian theologian Martin Luther hurled his Ninety-Five Theses, demolishing the notion that forgiveness could be bought and damning a Church that had abused its spiritual authority.
Luther also harnessed a new technology, the printing press, spreading his ideas at unprecedented speed, giving voice to a rage that had brewed for generations and unleashing the revolution that was the Protestant Reformation.

Lordy lordy, did that seminary get into his head, and screw his mind forever, or what?

The reptiles decided to compound the madness with another snap celebrating the WASP way of life... Martin Luther, the original rebel against institutional repression. Picture: News Corp

As for the actual scribbling, there's no need to comment.

It's simply too bizarre, too surreal, and is the sort of drivel that would have André Breton or Jean Cocteau rolling Jaffas down the aisle. ("L'oiseau chante avec ses doigts.")

Luther’s true genius was as a master communicator. His pamphlets were laced with coarse language and dripped with sarcasm, ridicule and fury. He mocked popes, humiliated bishops and treated scholars with contempt. He translated elite failure into the language of ordinary people, and they loved him for it.
The Church’s response was to declare its unimpeachable authority in the slogan Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus: outside the Church there is no salvation. Luther’s revolutionary riposte was: Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide, Scripture alone, faith alone.
Luther argued that the institution held no monopoly on truth. The people did not need the clergy to interpret the Bible when they could read it for themselves.
The Reformation was not a revolt against a single pope, bishop or king. It was a decision to demolish institutional repression. It was a rage against the machine.
There are echoes of that revolt in what looms as the reformation of Australian politics. The rise of One Nation is not simply a rebellion against the political class. It is a revolt against the permanent governing caste of progressive elites that inhabits the state and federal bureaucracies, universities, courts, commissions, NGOs and much of the media. Like the Curia of old, this clerisy sees itself as the arbiter of modern morality.

Now what did the pond say about going full Hansonite, or full Killer Creighton of the IPA? You know, vax, masks, and how to cultivate a plague (waiter, a little hantavirus if you please):

In a deep irony, Covid unmasked the secular Curia. For more than two years Australians were exposed to the unfiltered instincts of the governing caste and the experience left a vivid mental scar on many. Experts, bureaucrats and regulators authorised absurd interference in daily life while insisting every decision, no matter how draconian or irrational, was based on “science” and for our own good. Choice was not an option.
The Curia spits out orders. It is impervious to argument because there is no one to argue with. It never pays for its mistakes. It rarely explains itself and never apologises. Dissent is evidence of ignorance or bigotry and there are objective punishments for subjective crimes.
It decides. You comply.

Oh dear, it's that seminary thing all over again, as the reptiles did their best to join RFK Jr. in the hunt for a racoon penis ... Covid testing at Sydney airport in 2021: an example of the secular Curia’s unmasked interference in daily life. Picture: Getty

Measles, polio, whatever? Just live with it. What matter if a few of the herd are culled?

Even better, what if we cull the entire planet?

For a long time, the Curia pursued the impossible goal of Covid Zero. Now it demands Net Zero. As the energy analysts at Doomberg like to say, zero is an emotional number. Our secular Curia is deeply attached to a zero-sum game that will deliver zero jobs, zero growth and zero measurable benefit for the planet. It also has zero chance of becoming a genuinely global policy, which is the only way it can materially affect the climate.
No matter. Decarbonisation targets are set and pursued with bloody-minded determination as ends in themselves because they are a faith. The assumptions are never revisited, the premises are never challenged and every agency of government exists to reinforce the creed in a profound institutional betrayal of the people.
But there is a revolution stirring in the regions, where vast wind farms, transmission lines and the bureaucratic contempt shown to local communities are breeding a fierce resentment. When the suburbs eventually draw the link between wind and solar and higher power prices, the politics of this transition will turn toxic.

The pond should note a conflict of interest here.

The pond's new (hopefully temporary) residence had, to the pond's surprise, solar installed, and so the very first bill showed the pond handsomely in the black.

But none of that for coal-loving reptiles, as yet again the reptiles trotted out a snap designed to instil fear and terror in the hive mind... Rural Australia’s landscape reshaped by the secular Curia’s Net Zero agenda. Picture: Supplied

All that did was remind the pond of a conversation with a cocky who explained that sheep actually enjoyed the shelter solar panels provided.

Enough of the destruction of the planet, it's time for a little transphobia, as only a reptile bigot of the narrow-minded kind can do.

Usually the pond would trim this sort of bigotry, but hey, it's the Ughmann, so let the bigotry flow...

Elsewhere, the Curia pursues its other passions in decisions that mock reason.
Reading Sex Discrimination Commissioner Dr Anna Cody’s defence of her role in relegating biology to a technicality conjured images of a cabal of scholastic theologians counting angels on the head of a pin.
Cody could have mounted the perfectly respectable argument that no one should be discriminated against because they identify as transgender. Instead, she makes a more radical leap. She argues that a change of gender on a government document overturns the biological reality of sex written into every cell of the human body.
Cody concedes that a trans woman cannot become pregnant because she is biologically male but, in perfect legalese, argues that an employer might mistakenly attribute a uterus to the job applicant, perceive the possibility of pregnancy and deny that person a job. That would constitute discrimination.
The problem with Cody’s argument is not that it is simplistic. It is that it is so legalistic that it elevates classification above reality.
This is not a minor matter. It strikes at the roots of reason itself. If sex is erased, if a legal designation can outweigh a biological reality, then words no longer describe the world as it is. They become instruments for reshaping it. Many ordinary people instinctively understand that something has gone wrong. They know reality is being bent to fit an ideology but are powerless to change it. This breeds frustration and resentment.
It is a symptom of a wider institutional pathology. Increasingly, our bureaucracies, universities, courts and commissions begin with an ideological objective and then construct baroque intellectual frameworks to justify it. The debate is no longer about what is true. It is about constructing arguments to support what the clerisy has deemed to be true.
Anyone who objects is gaslit as starting a culture war when they are simply returning fire. The war began when institutions set about redefining long-settled understandings of sex, identity and nation without seeking public consent.
No one was asked. No one got a vote. One day, Australians were told that a man could become a woman, that three flags were better than one, that our history was shameful, and that disagreement was a hate crime.
But the culture wars are only one front in a far larger war. The deeper problem is a state that grows relentlessly while the private economy that sustains it struggles under its weight. More taxes beget more officials and more agencies that impose more rules, regulations and interference.
Eventually people begin to ask a dangerous question: who exactly is serving whom? If the purpose of government is to serve the people, why does it increasingly feel as though the people exist to serve the government?
And if the only way to get change is to start a revolution, then dangerous choices begin to look rational.

You see? It's exactly the same conclusion as Dame Slap ...

...increasing numbers seem to think she can’t do any worse, and she just might do better. “Worth a shot?” they ask.

Rational? Worth a shot? The reptiles are going all in ...they're more than Pauline curious, they're ready to celebrate a woman who espouses their notions on epidemics, climate science, transphobia and other splendid policies...

How could the pond stop there?

Have another scone. (The best meal the pond can recall ever having was having fresh baked bread, with nicely blackened crust, hot straight from a bush wood-fired oven, with hand-picked, home-made blackberry jam, and cream straight from the cow, separated out and nicely thickened. Not likely with Barners in the kitchen).

In the before times, Sunday was always prattling Polonius day, and he too was deep into the perils of Pauline ...

The header: Pauline Hanson’s surge in polls makes fools of sneering lefties; The ABC’s sneering dismissal of Sky News meant it completely missed the historic wave of voter anger driving One Nation’s rise.

No need for a caption for that snap. The parallels were simply too obvious, the identity already established by the Ughmann ...

The pond has always fancied itself as a Polonial whisperer and just knew that by the end, Polonius would establish that it was all the fault of the ABC (though to be fair, the old dotard gave that game away in the header):

It’s a time of advancing polls and retreating sneers.
Writing in the Australian Financial Review on June 2, election analyst John Black, a former Labor senator for Queensland, had this to say: “On Monday’s Redbridge Poll, taken after a federal budget which has slugged small business and investors, the Coalition parties would lose every House of Representatives seat they now hold – but their preferences could elect Pauline Hanson as prime minister.”
There would be an almighty shock if the Liberal Party and the Nationals held no seats in the House of Representatives after the next election. But perhaps a bigger shock would be if a second-term Labor government were replaced by One Nation. With, possibly, Pauline Hanson as prime minister and Barnaby Joyce as her deputy.
Sure, the next election is not due until May 2028. However, on primary votes, One Nation is scoring 31 per cent on Redbridge, 27 per cent on Fox & Hedgehog, and 29 per cent on Sky News Pulse/YouGov. This compares with Labor at 28, 29 and 26 per cent and the Coalition at 20, 25, and 20 per cent respectively.
The authoritative Newspoll is awaited with interest when it next appears in The Australian. For the moment it is clear that, unlike a year ago, One Nation is likely to be a key player in determining which party will prevail in a couple of years’ time.
And that’s why members of the left intelligentsia, who self-indulgently regard themselves as “progressive”, have had to desist from sneering at Hanson and her team. With support for One Nation at about a third of Australians, Hanson has to be taken seriously by critics and supporters alike.

Taken seriously? Like mad King Donald?

Nah. If the country wants to go to hell in a handbasket, the pond reserves the right to keep laughing all the way.

So instead of this sort of snap of a toad in action... Election analyst John Black, a former Labor senator for Queensland.

... the pond will always go the 'toon ...

Unlike the Lutheran Ughmann and the MAGA-cap-donning Dame Slap, there was a little tremulous fear in Polonius's scribbling, as he looked around for others to blame ...

There are exceptions, to be sure. For example, Nine newspapers columnist Peter FitzSimons posted on June 2: “I repeat: One Nation is a circus, Senator Hanson is the ringmaster, and Barnaby Joyce the clown. #Discuss.” This is undergraduate hyperbole. Whether you agree with them or not, Hanson and Joyce are among the best communicators in Australian politics.
As I wrote in these pages on May 30, the surge in support for One Nation occurred over the Christmas holiday period. In mid-November Newspoll registered the One Nation primary vote at 15 per cent. By early February, it had risen to 27 per cent.
In between, the terrorist attack took place at Bondi, aimed at the Jewish Australian community, a part of Australian society. This was the worst terrorist attack on Australian soil. And it was followed by the return of what have been called the “ISIS brides”. Reminding all Australians that there are some radical Islamist individuals in our midst who do not – or perhaps did not – accept the values of democratic Australia.

Actually there are plenty of reptiles around who'd settle for an authoritarian government, just like the Murdochians at Faux Noise ... Australia’s worst terrorist attack at Bondi preceded the return of ‘ISIS brides’.

Now note how, in the following litany, how Polonius conveniently leaves out the onion muncher's one true love and provider of funds, Hungary ...

It’s true that the increase in support for the populist One Nation is consistent with what is happening in such Western democracies as Britain, France, Germany, Italy and more. A large number of citizens of such nations, especially those outside the inner city, believe their standard of living is declining and that their elected leaders are not interested in their plight. In part, they maintain, this reflects too large an immigration intake.
John Howard’s memoir, Lazarus Rising (HarperCollins, 2010), contains a perceptive chapter titled “Pauline Hanson”. He recounts how, in 1996, Hanson won the former Labor seat of Oxley in Queensland with a massive swing. She benefited from being on the Liberal Party ticket – despite the fact that shortly before the election, Hanson had been disendorsed for inaccurate comments she made about Australian Aboriginals.
On September 10, 1996, Hanson made her first speech in the House of Representatives. This contained the infamous statement: “I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians” who, Hanson said, do not assimilate. She also claimed that Indigenous Australians were not the nation’s most disadvantaged group. Howard was critical of Hanson with respect to both statements. But he acknowledged that she “echoed community sentiment” on many issues such as multiculturalism.

Or is that reptile sentiment, as the reptiles flung in a snap of one villain for the hive mind to hiss and boo ... Nine newspapers columnist Peter FitzSimons.

And so the chastened Polonius admits to an error.

Perhaps he too should get on the Pauline gravy train...

At the time, I wrote that, in his capacity as prime minister, Howard could have been more confrontational in this approach to Hanson. However, with hindsight, I believe his approach was essentially correct.
Hanson’s instant success was followed by total failure. As the editors of The Rise and Fall of One Nation (QUP, 2000) wrote: “Pauline Hanson’s One Nation was a shooting star that blazed spectacularly across Australia’s political skies during 1997 and 1998 before crashing to Earth in 1999.”
But Hanson came back and she learnt a lot along the way. In Lazarus Rising, Howard spoke respectfully of Hanson as an “Aussie battler who had run a fish-and-chip shop in Ipswich”. He mentioned her “faltering manner” when speaking on occasions. But Howard saw this as part of Hanson’s popular appeal. These days Hanson’s faltering manner when speaking is a thing of the past.
On February 23, ABC TV Media Watch presenter Linton Besser referred to Hanson as a “one-time peddler of fish and chips from Ipswich”. It’s unlikely that he will continue with such intellectual snobbery.

Why? If listening to Pauline sometimes feels like being in a fish and chips shop in Tamworth in the 1950s, why not remark on the phenomenon? Barnaby Joyce and Pauline Hanson. Picture: Tom Parrish

And so to establishing that it's all the fault of the ABC, while celebrating Sky Noise down under (still no re-brand?)

ABC types at the taxpayer-funded public broadcaster are also known to sneer at what they call “Sky News After Dark”. Meaning when the subscription television’s opinion programs commence at 5pm (AEST).
If ABC journalists got out more (as the saying goes), they would understand the impact of Sky News – before and after dark – within Australian society. Over recent years, Hanson has appeared regularly on Sky News and spoken directly to Sky subscribers, as well as Sky News Regional (which is free to air) viewers.
Unlike the ABC, Sky News presents contesting views. On the voice referendum, Chris Kenny (for Yes) disagreed with Andrew Bolt (for No). Currently, Paul Murray is in One Nation’s corner while Peta Credlin is in the Coalition’s corner.
The tendency of the ABC to dismiss Sky News led to a situation whereby it missed a big story in Australian politics. Namely, the growing disenchantment of many Australians with politics – particularly after the Bondi massacre on December 14.
On the current figures, the short-term political outcome will turn on the distribution of preferences – which all parties will take seriously. One Nation may, or may not, falter.

What a bold prediction to end on ...

May, or may not, whatever the future may be, que sera, sera ...

The pond was so enchanted that it plunged a week back in time, because the ancient dodderer had taken up the same topic ...

The header: Polls, preferences unseat traditional political prophecies; Redbridge’s bombshell poll predicts One Nation as Australia’s opposition, yet the pollster’s own track record raises serious doubts about the prediction’s reliability.

The caption: Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is benefiting from the support of voters who are disappointed with the major parties. Picture: Richard Dobson

The pond was still haunted by that uncanny resemblance spotted by the Ughmann. How had the pond missed it?

Spitting images ... as Polonius turned to that vexatious poll that turned the reptile universe on its head:

A problem with insightful sayings is that they soon become cliches due to overuse. I was reminded of this last Saturday when the front page of the AFR Weekend ran a story titled “Is This Our Political Future?”. At least there was a question, I suppose.
The reference was to a Redbridge Group/Accent Research MRP poll that declared what the House of Representatives would most likely look like if an election were to be held now. An MRP poll occurs when a national survey is combined with demographic data from previous elections on a seat-by-seat basis.
The Labor Party was ahead on 76 seats, followed by One Nation on 53 seats, the Coalition on 12 and Others on nine. The poll of some 6015 voters was held between April 29 and May 14, with most of the research being undertaken before the May 12 budget.
In itself, the timing should have alerted some of the crystal-ball gazers in our midst. The Newspoll conducted on May 13-15 revealed that the 2026 budget was rated worst for the economy in recent Australian history – exceeded only by Labor’s 1993 budget.
No one knows how a similar poll would look if it were held in the two weeks after Jim Chalmers’ budget. Kos Samaras, director of the Redbridge Group, was interviewed by ABC TV 7.30’s presenter Sarah Ferguson last Monday.
Asked to describe the scale of the result the Redbridge poll had picked up, Samaras replied: “We’re clearly seeing a collapse of the Coalition. The medium result for them in terms of seat count is about 12. And One Nation’s clearly snatching up the bulk of the seats from the Coalition and a portion of the Labor base as well.”
Ferguson put it to Samaras that he was talking about One Nation becoming the official opposition. To which the reply was “that’s right”. He went on to suggest that Liberal Party leader Angus Taylor would lose his seat of Hume in NSW and frontbencher Andrew Hastie would be defeated in his Perth seat of Canning.

Is it all the fault of the ABC?

They're clearly guilty, but strangely Polonius didn't drive the point home. So the ploughed past the next illustration in a state of nervous anxiety, wondering what Polonius might do with this ABC perfidy, interviewing a heretic ... Asked to describe the scale of the result the Redbridge poll had picked up, Kos Samaras replied: ‘We’re clearly seeing a collapse of the Coalition.’ Picture NCA NewsWire / Aaron Francis

Luckily Polonius was not for turning, and this is where another 'maybe' or 'maybe not' construction came in terribly handy, as it has done for seers and prophets down the ages...

Well, maybe they will. Or maybe not. For Samaras was asked another question. Namely, what would happen if the Liberals and the Nationals increased their primary vote by a few points? The Redbridge pollster responded: “That’s right, if they improve their primary vote by about 3 or 4 per cent or 5 per cent they would save them a lot of these seats … well in excess of 20 seats if the figure is 5 per cent.”
The special post-budget Newspoll, commissioned by The Australian, has the primary vote as follows: Labor 31 per cent, One Nation 27 per cent, the Coalition 20 per cent, Greens 12 per cent and Others 10 per cent.
If the Coalition were to win back votes from One Nation to the extent that if its candidates get ahead of Pauline Hanson’s party, then its candidates can win seats off the back of One Nation’s preferences – presuming that One Nation preferences the Coalition ahead of Labor, the Greens and independents.
When preferential voting was introduced in the House of Representatives before the 1919 election, it favoured the non-Labor parties. This was the case into the 1950s and 1960s, when the Coalition benefited from preferences from the Democratic Labor Party, the members of which had broken away from, or been expelled from, the Labor Party.
However, since the emergence in more recent times of the Democrats for a while and then the Greens, preferential voting has primarily benefited Labor. Now, the Greens will always put Labor ahead of the Coalition and One Nation. But if the latter two parties can arrange a preference deal, preferential voting will benefit both.
The task of the Coalition – under the leadership of Angus Taylor and the Nationals’ Matt Canavan – is to build up its primary vote. It’s a difficult task since One Nation is benefiting from the support of voters who are disappointed with the major parties.

Still no major carry-on about the ABC, but the reptiles managed to dig up a snap of that Orbán tragic, the onion muncher ... Newly elected Liberal Party federal president Tony Abbott. Picture: Getty Images

He's baaack ...

Polonius kept on brooding, and amazingly managed to forget about the ABC...

Writing in Nine newspapers last Monday, George Brandis (who, once upon a time, was associated with those Liberals who presented as moderates) commented: “Taylor’s budget reply speech could have been given by John Howard or Peter Costello, steeped as it was with the Liberal Party’s core values.”
The appointment of Tony Abbott as Liberal Party federal president puts the organisation’s best communicator in a prominent role and is likely to assist with fundraising. And Canavan is the best-equipped National to challenge One Nation’s Hanson and Barnaby Joyce.
It’s not impossible for the Liberals to win back a seat or two from the teals – particularly Bradfield on Sydney’s north shore. After all, a lot of teal voters will not be all that impressed with Labor’s broken promises on capital gains tax and negative gearing.
Allegra Spender is a fine, intelligent politician. But the teal member for Wentworth in Sydney’s eastern suburbs has had scant input with her taxation policies. After all, the teals have only six seats in a 150-seat parliament.
Minor parties and independents usually only have real influence in the Senate. Hence the proposal by some teals to form a political party of sorts – seemingly with the encouragement of Malcolm Turnbull.
The former Liberal Party prime minister enjoyed his occasional (soft) interview on ABC Radio National last Monday and, once again, used the occasion to criticise the Liberal Party. But he advanced no proposal to revive the teals or establish a new party.
In any event, the next election is a long way off. It’s possible that One Nation will continue to surge. It’s possible that the Coalition parties will hold on. It’s possible that Labor will continue as the dominant party despite its low primary vote. No one knows.
It’s much the same with Redbridge. In 2024, Redbridge-Accent conducted an MRP poll between October 29 and November 20 – around six months before the May 2025 election. It estimated the Coalition would win between 64 and 78 seats, Labor between 59 and 71 seats and the Greens between three and five seats. The final result was Labor 94, Coalition 43 and Greens just one. Enough said about political prophecy.

Oh the onion muncher will help in so many ways ...

And here's what the pond really missed while being off air.

The 'toons, there should have been 'toons. Looking at the 'toons on a phone is like looking at the world through the wrong end of a telescope with the Ughmann ...

Take it away infallible Pope and immortal Rowe. Celebrate the return of the onion muncher ...

And now, as the pond mangled a couple of infallible Popes, the originals in full as a reminder of great times... sure to come again...

In which the bromancer and Dame Groan feature in the pond's placeholder ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 18 May 2026 21:41:20 +0000

A few housekeeping notes.

The pond regrets it can't keep the comments section open in the immediate future, and so the moderation bar will kick in after a few more days. That's because the pond has to take steps to moderate the content, or risk upsetting the google bot.

Unfortunately the pond will be offline in every way bar the phone, and won't be able to moderate the moderation in the near future.

Blogger wasn't really set up with mobile phones in mind (huzzah) and the pond never bothered configuring it as an operating system.

The pond will try to extend the moderation curfew with the odd post, but that will be tricky until the pond has made the shift and set up online shop in its new location.

Hopefully the pond will be back (the pond has been told some intruders are shot on sight at its new southern location), though if so, it'll likely be in modified form.

The pond's hours derived from the need to do the blog, then get on with work, but in the pond's new iteration work isn't an issue, so maybe the pond will set a more genteel and leisurely schedule.

Given the way that most correspondents seem to access the site, no one's that keen to get up early in the morning to enjoy freshly baked, piping hot reptiles served up for breakfast.

The pond might also limit exposure to the reptiles ... there are any number of wastrels and time wasters at the lizard Oz, and one reptile can be as amusing as three can, especially if the intermittent archive is available to offer samples of the others.

The pond would like to thank all the cartoonists for being unwittingly dragooned into the pond. The pond never attempted to score revenue out of the blog, and one of the reasons is that it didn't wish to trade off on the hard work of others. Rather the pond wanted to draw attention to the glories of local cartoonists plying their trade for the enjoyment of all.

And lastly the pond would like to thank all the pond's correspondents, a small, but trusty, hardy band who long ago graduated as doctors of herpetology studies, and who kept the pond slogging on simply to read the comments section.

Hopefully we'll all resume play, but for the moment, it's time for the last placeholder for a while.

Unfortunately, as expected, the lizard Oz didn't deliver a dream team of reptiles as the placeholder.

There's no Our Henry ... there's just this motley crue ... and yes, the budget jihad, the mother of lizard Oz jihads, was still in full swing.

In no particular order ...

COMMENTARY by Dennis Shanahan
Labor falls into tax trap in the valley of death
The desperation and vehemence of the denials and claims from the PM and Treasurer about scare campaigns are proof in themselves that the death tax debate is getting away from Labor.

The bouffant one took a trip back in time ...

Ye ancient cats and hounds, the reptiles are running really hard on the death and taxes routine, and there's a 'toon for that ...

The canny Cranston lined up for a crack ...

EXCLUSIVE
Surprise stamp duty bill looms after trust crackdown
Labor’s trust issues extend to a looming fight on stamp duty
As businesses and families across the country face the prospect of a tax bill if they are forced to restructure their trusts, the states prepare for a multi-billion-dollar fight over the revenue.
By Matthew Cranston

There was much wailing and quailing ..

BUDGET 2026
Why Labor’s capital gains overhaul became an internet meme
‘Albo owns 47 per cent of my business’: Why Labor’s CGT overhaul became an internet meme
Small business owners are venting anger over reforms they say could deter investment and hit start-ups hard.
By Jack Quail

Rosie and Julie-Anne were suffused with fear, and happy to spread the fear mongering wide ...

FEARS FOR VULNERABLE
Strike at wealthy hits low-income families
Jim Chalmers has defended Labor’s trust tax raid as targeting wealthy tax avoiders, but estate planners warn everyday families will suffer most.
By Rosie Lewis and Julie-Anne Sprague

Even Ancient Troy chimed in over on the extreme far right ...

A taxing problem: major parties fail test of our future
The real intergenerational problem ALP, Libs missed: paying off debt bomb
Labor and the Coalition have condemned future generations to pay for record spending and debt.
By Troy Bramston
Senior Writer

What a pity none of them tackled the alternative ... a brave, bold back to the future ...

To be fair the reptiles also found space for an essential contribution to the Australian Daily Zionist News... with Frank top of the world ma over on the extreme far right ...

ROYAL COMMISSION
‘Change can happen’: Lowy’s soccer blueprint to tackle antisemitism
Frank Lowy’s powerful antisemitism submission: we changed soccer, and we can also extinguish smouldering racism
In a powerful submission to the antisemitism royal commission, Frank Lowy says change will require the same cultural shifts that saw ethnic divisions in soccer transformed into loyalty.
By Frank Lowy

Frank was also top of the "news" with a "love it or leave it" angle ...

EXCLUSIVE
‘If you don’t like Australia, leave,’ says Lowy
Frank Lowy tells Bondi inquiry his soccer fix could help cure hate
Sir Frank Lowy says the same approach that ended ethnic conflict in Australian soccer could solve the antisemitism crisis – but those who won’t accept our values should face deportation.
By Stephen Rice

But what if soccer bores you senseless?

What if you've seen endless, inane stories of fans feuding and rioting in the streets?

What if you think that the only way to respond to the astonishing grift at work in the World Cup is to participate in a boycott?

Forget it Jake, that grift, that form of madness, is going to go on forever.

The reptiles did gratify the pond by featuring one of the pond's favourites.

It's lesser, minor bromancer, but the pond would have settled for any reptile writing about anything other than the budget, so this'll do reptiles, this'll do:

The header: Can anyone govern UK effectively – a question also for similar democracies, especially Australia; The UK faces having six prime ministers in seven years as Keir Starmer’s leadership crumbles amid a crisis that mirrors Australia’s own policy failures.

The caption: Protesters at a rally organised by Tommy Robinson pose in front of a banner featuring Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Picture: Carl Court/Getty Images

The bromancer spent a bigly four minutes diagnosing Britain's ills, beginning with a cornball joke that says a lot about his sensa huma ...

When I first visited Britain way back in the 1970s, before Margaret Thatcher transformed the place, it was a terrible mess, its economy notoriously the sick man of Europe. (It was nonetheless fun to be there – the Brits made great jokes out of their misfortunes and an Australian with even a few dollars in his pocket felt rich). Britain’s economic performance was dismal and it was riven by strikes and bitter ideological division.
I remember in a country pub one fellow wanting a smoke and having trouble getting his match to light. In exasperation, he declared: “This match is the only thing in Britain that doesn’t strike!”
Britain’s problems are a bit different today but essentially they throw up the same questions as the 1970s. Can anyone govern Britain effectively?
This question, acute in Britain, can be asked with increasing pertinence about similar democracies, and especially Australia.
Long term, I remain a solid optimist about the Brits – their institutional and cultural inheritance is so great, although modern culture is trying to cut them off from their own legacy. Keir Starmer, in office less than two years, is a very poor prime minister. It now seems he has little chance of surviving more than a month or two.

The reptiles flung in snaps of Keir's rivals, Andy Burnham. Picture: Getty Images; Wes Streeting. Picture: AFP

The bromancer was in his element, dissing Labour ...

The campaign to push him out is a mixture of light opera and musical farce, with a strong dash of Dynasty/Dallas-style soap opera centred on sibling hatreds that have no logical explanation. The two main challengers are Wes Streeting, the former health secretary, and Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester. They and Starmer all appear to share rich mutual detestation while always speaking publicly of each other with saccharine emollience.
Streeting notionally comes from the Labour right, though that’s a long way left of normal voters. Burnham has no ideological fixed address. The joke is: a Blairite, a Brownite (follower of Gordon Brown) and a Corbynista (admirer of loony left Jeremy Corbyn) walk into a pub together and the barman asks: Mr Burnham, what would you like to drink?
To return to parliament, Burnham had to get a Labour MP to resign so he could stand at a by-election. The seat in question is Makerfield. In recent local elections, Nigel Farage’s Reform swept to victory there. Ten years ago, the electorate voted overwhelmingly for Brexit.
So Streeting declared Labour must seek to rejoin the EU. This is the conventional view among Labour lefties but the public hates the idea, even those people who think successive governments have made a mess of Brexit.
It’s also, mutedly, more or less official Labour policy.

There came an AV distraction ...

UK Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has dismissed speculation about a potential leadership challenge against Prime Minister Keir Starmer as "froth and nonsense." Political tensions within the Labour Party have continued following significant losses in local elections nearly two weeks ago. The issue of Brexit may become significant in any future leadership contest, as UK MP Wes Streeting and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham have both expressed support for Britain rejoining the European Union.

The bromancer finally turned his keen mind to what ails Britain ...

Burnham thus can’t really denounce it, but having it front of mind increases the chance Burnham loses the by-election. One up to Streeting. But the party rank and file don’t like Streeting. So, sans Burnham, the left would have to put someone else up.
It’s even barely conceivable Starmer could hang on for more tortured months of paralysis if Burnham loses in Makerfield.
Burnham is the only national Labour politician with a positive approval rating. That’s partly because as mayor he doesn’t have to take tough decisions and has no responsibility for issues ripping Britain apart, and for which he has offered no solutions.
Assuming Starmer goes, Britain will have had six PMs in seven years – Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak, Starmer and Starmer’s replacement. Add in David Cameron before May and it’s seven in 10 years. That’s a sign of deeply dysfunctional politics, of a political system, and a society that can’t resolve its public policy contradictions.
People talk, justifiably, of the crisis on the centre right in many democracies. There’s an equal crisis on the centre left. Only three EU governments are left of centre, and they’re in trouble.
Britain’s problems are not mysterious.
They include: massive public debt; uncontrolled welfare spending; the desperate need to increase defence spending; massive disguised unemployment through huge welfare rolls; a loss of social morale and self-confidence; persistent Islamist violence; an education system dedicated to the idea that Britain is evil; a complete loss of trust in institutions, including the mainstream political parties; wildly expensive energy prices arising from net-zero commitments; and the separate but related problems of uncontrolled mass immigration and illegal immigration.

Strange, no mention of Brexit?

Could it be that the bromancer was all in on that ruinous strategy?

Is it true that the bromancer was something of a Boris and Brexit man?

Indeed he was, and the pond felt the need to send this to the intermittent archive, just for the fun of it...

Brexiteers fighting for liberty and the people’s will

Here you go, a little teaser trailer ...

Meanwhile, the reptiles were featuring a riot ... Anti-migration protesters riot outside Holiday Inn Express in Manvers, South Yorkshire, 2024.

And then the bromancer seamlessly shifted from Labour bashing to Labor bashing, so he too could join in the lizard Oz budget jihad, the mother of all reptile jihads ...

Australia has similar problems. Although the Albanese government is politically dominant, its policy responses are essentially the same as Starmer’s and equally ineffective, indeed destructive in the medium and long term. But we start richer, so will take longer to bankrupt.
A columnist in The Times argued recently that the British people were at fault because they wanted a vast welfare state but didn’t want to pay the taxes to fund it. That seems wise but is actually quite mistaken. Britain, like Australia, is already a very high-tax society. The problem is that putting on even more taxes, especially at the level that would be needed to wipe out deficit spending, is just about impossible because it cripples the economy.
None of the new Albanese/Chalmers taxes will help the economy in any way. They just hinder growth. Britain is at an even worse point in this continuum. Governments have gone down the road of electoral bribery so far they have reached a dead end, where a flimsy but important safety sign warns there is no road ahead, only a cliff.
The Makerfield by-election has quickly become a two-horse race, Labour versus Reform. That’s bad news for the Conservative Party, whose leader, Kemi Badenoch, is immensely likeable and plainly doing a good job, but not yet registering big gains in the polls.
Have the voters deserted the Conservatives forever? Farage has welcomed a number of senior Tory defectors into Reform, and this has slightly reduced his outsider appeal and greatly increased the credibility of Reform as potentially a party of government.
Barnaby Joyce joining One Nation is a similar, though weaker, manifestation of the same dynamic.
Britain will muddle through, but what a mess. Mind you, the 1970s did give us Fawlty Towers.
Greg Sheridan is The Australian’s foreign editor

Please, a little 'toon balance...

The pond suspects that in a month or a year's time the reptiles will still be in the throes of their budget jihad, and the pond is pleased to be shod of it...

And so to the mother of all budget bashers, the old biddy herself ...

The header: Effects of budget shemozzle likely to get worse for Labor; It’s one thing to break a promise delivered 50 times; it’s another thing altogether to deliver a set of policies that can best be described as bungled.

The caption? None, and no credit for the crappy collage, because the graphic is as familiar and as aged as a pair of lizard Oz slippers.

Dame Groan spent a bigly four minutes ranting and railing in a way designed to produce a warm glow in her cult following:

It’s one thing to break a promise delivered 50 times; it’s another thing altogether to deliver a set of policies that can best be described as bungled.
Replete with high compliance costs and unintended consequences, the budget announcements demonstrate both the ineffectiveness and naivety of Treasury to provide advice of an adequate standard. It’s already a shemozzle and it’s likely to get worse in the coming weeks as the flaws and inconsistencies of the announced policy changes emerge.
Rather than representing some sort of gift to the younger generation, the way in which the changes will be grandfathered confers an ongoing gift on anyone who has negatively geared property or a testamentary trust, to give two examples, that will not be available to newcomers.
This facet of the policy may create a lock-in effect whereby those with negatively geared properties simply hold on to them and re-leverage over time. But because of the new capital gains tax arrangements, there will be a strong disincentive to improve the property lest the gains be eaten up in tax. While both Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers talk about improving the rate of home ownership for young people – “getting a fair crack” and all that – the CGT changes apply to all asset classes. You can just imagine the Treasury officials warning about uneven treatment of asset classes.
This is notwithstanding the acknowledgment by the Treasurer that the simple 50 per cent discount method being replaced favours property over shares. But by lumping them into the same method going forward, clear biases remain – particularly against high-growth assets held over relatively short periods of time. Let’s be clear here: what is being proposed is not a return to the Keating system of indexation. Under that arrangement, there was no 30 per cent minimum tax. Moreover, capital gains could be averaged over five years. What was announced in the budget is another beast altogether. It will also be costly to administer.

Of course there had to be a snap of the chief villain: Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen/Courier Mail

It was classic "we'll all be rooned, and well before Xmas" territory for the old groaner, as she contemplated the dire suffering of the rich:

The impact of the CGT changes on start-ups was quickly identified as a major issue because the new system will impose punitive rates of tax on owners and the staff who generally forgo years of income to achieve success. It is common overseas for there to be specific carve-outs for start-ups – in the US and the UK, for example – but Chalmers’ lame response is that he will consult more on the topic. And what’s with the bizarre proposal of roping in pre-1985 assets that have been CGT-exempt? Surely, this is just a desperate tax grab, reneging on a promise made a long time ago and kept – until now. Again, the compliance costs are substantial.
The fact neither the Treasurer nor Treasury understand the role trusts play in the commercial world has been on full display. Many small businesses are set up as trusts, often in association with bucket companies, because this is the most effective and least costly arrangement for them. There are several reasons for this choice, including asset protection as well as managing tax. But evidently Treasury thinks it knows better.
There is a section in the budget papers that comes close to providing commercial advice to business owners, telling them companies are better than trusts. There is no acknowledgment of the hefty costs associated with restructuring, including the payment of stamp duty to state governments. This impost alone will deter many business owners from considering any change.
There is also the complication of franking credits, which arguably was the issue that determined the outcome of the 2019 election. Where a bucket company is attached to a discretionary trust, the franking credits will not be transferable, implying very high rates of effective tax. This may become an issue the government has to deal with. And why would Chalmers opt to include discretionary testamentary trusts within the scope of the new taxation arrangements for trusts? Again, this is completely bizarre.
These trusts are incorporated in wills often to protect young children in the unhappy event of both parents dying at the same time. They are also a form of asset protection to ensure disgruntled creditors or ex-partners cannot access the proceeds of an estate. As for noting that fixed testamentary trusts will not be affected, this advice is again naive in the extreme. Fixed trusts are, by definition, inflexible and unable to accommodate changing circumstances, and are rarely used.

Trust the pond, the pond's trust is suffering almighty.

Is there a timetable for things to get better?

The pond can't imagine Dame Groan following that prescription, not when there's groaning to be done:

The government is also on thin ground when it comes to the carve-out for new properties from the ban on negative gearing. Again, this is coming close to offering uninformed and slipshod advice to investors.
The reality is that investment in new apartments in Melbourne and Sydney over recent years have been complete duds. The capital gains have been minimal – 10 times less than the capital growth of stand-alone houses – and many new apartments have defects that must be remedied, often at the expense of the owner. There are also significant problems with the body corporate arrangements a new owner has to deal with.
Of course, anyone who understands basic economics could have predicted this outcome.
A great deal of the gains from investment in property is the return on the land on which it is built. In the case of apartments, there is very little land and there are often few restrictions on new apartment buildings being built close by. It’s a case of buyer beware when it comes to buying new housing stock, something not being mentioned by the government. Evidently, negatively geared owners of new residential real estate will feel a warm inner glow because they are doing something for the nation. It just won’t show up in personal bank statements.
The government is also on thin ground when it boasts about the uptick in home ownership predicted to result from the tax changes – 75,000 over a decade. That’s a mere 7500 a year, which hardly shifts the dial for what is a major shake-up of tax arrangements.
There is also only one direction for rents – and that’s up. The fact is universal negative gearing effectively subsidises renters by shifting some of the costs on to the taxpayer. This impact will be largely lost with the changes, save for new properties and grandfathered investments. There is a lot of water to go under the bridge. The fiasco of the 2014 budget played out over time; this is likely to be repeated in this case. The government will have to tweak several of the settings in response to the information it is given and the likely perverse outcomes.
In the meantime, the only sure winners are accountants, lawyers and valuers.

Is there any upside?

Well for once Dame Groan identified some winners, though surely she should have included herself and the rest of the reptile jihadists and the lizard Oz as a sure winner.

Endless columns are now guaranteed, much shrieking, moaning and whining and groaning about budget chaos, and well beyond Xmas, with Dame Groan's "we'll all be rooned" taken up by the rest of the reptile jihadists, her gracious legacy to all...

And that, preserved in gelatinous aspic and the dubious functioning of the intermittent archive, is the reptiles this day, and it will have to serve as a placeholder for anyone turning up to marvel at this weird blog... and the even weirder world of the lizard Oz hive mind.

All that remains to do is to wish everyone well, and turn to the immortal Rowe - alas too early in the week for the infallible Pope to join him - for a farewell 'toon ...

Why they can play that game up until Halloween ...