In which the pond glances at Our Henry, groans along with Dame Groan, and takes to ancient Troy's bashing of the beefy boofhead ...

 

For some reason - second thoughts, the pond knows the reason, it's the Australian Daily Zionist News, so there must be a daily serve of Zionism - the reptiles decided to let Our Henry out of his box on a Tuesday with a big splash, and an amazing gif full of terrifying pop-ups ...

No need to go there, but the older archived version - which ran late last night, while the reptiles pretended it was brand, spanking new in the morning- featured Our Henry gazing into a camera in a haunting way. (Some people should never be allowed to stream).

It was a ten minute rant, and punters will be devastated to note an unseemly lack of classical references.

The best the pond could spot was "Manichean choice" and "Manicheanism" (a couple of times), but instead of Thucydides, Our Henry offered up Lenin, Stalin, the storming of the Winter Palace, Frantz Fanon, and a Voltaire cliché:

Voltaire put it best, in his entry on fanaticism in the Encyclopaedia: it is rogues, masquerading as thinkers, who guide fanatics and put murderous daggers in their hands.

Meanwhile, in Haaretz, The IDF Admits It Killed 70,000 Palestinians in Gaza. What Other Accusations Could Turn Out to Be True? The dispute over the number of fatalities may be approaching an end, but the debate on their identities is still expected to trudge on. The Israeli public must ask itself what this belated recognition indicates about the army and the government's credibility regarding Israel's conduct in Gaza

And with the Gaza killings and cleansing going on apace ...

IDF Blocks Palestinian Bedouins From Rebuilding Their West Bank Homes Burned by Israeli Settlers, Bedouin residents of Mukhmas arrived Sunday to rebuild homes torched by settlers but were stopped by Israeli soldiers, who said the area was a closed military zone. When asked about an Israeli man who photographed the houses, a soldier responded, 'He can do whatever he wants'

Back in your box, hole in bucket repair man, and the pond will see you on Friday.

On the upside, the outburst pushed the elephants in the room down the page ...

OPPOSITION CHAOS
Ley and Littleproud in first steps to seal Coalition rebirth
By Greg Brown

A rebirth! Thank the long absent lord, the navels are working again.

That cleared room for doing what the reptiles do best, raging at the government, with Dame Groan leading the way ...

After that bigly splash came chief villain himself, pointing in a nasty way ...

The header: Labor’s spending strategy is driving up inflation; Labor’s trillion-dollar debt disaster shows the government is robbing Peter to pay Peter while ordinary families suffer the consequences.

The caption for the snap of the gesticulating Jimbo, used so many times by the reptiles that if the pond scored a dollar each time, it would be a squillionaire: Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers says public service spending isn’t to blame for a rise in inflation. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Don't blame the pond, it was the reptiles that made Dame Groan first out of the gate, it was the reptiles intent on using demeaning snaps in hideous uncredited collages, and when they prated about "economists warn", of course they had to have an economist to hand, their very own in house biddy.

What followed was an incredibly dull raging at the Jimbo, seen a zillion times before, but the pond is mindful that Dame Groan has a cult following, and it's wise to feed the cultists what they have an insatiable appetite for ...

When Anthony Albanese was asked last week whether government spending was contributing to the uptick in inflation, he immediately rattled off a list of government handouts. He talked about cheaper medicine, Medicare bulkbilling, the guarantee of three days per week of subsidised childcare.
I wondered whether he had misheard the question, but the reality is that the Labor government thinks the solution to inflation is to go long on handouts. What he doesn’t seem to understand is that these handouts are part of the problem, not the solution.
They are contributing to the unsustainable growth in government spending which, in the context of inflexible supply in many parts of the economy, is simply adding to inflationary price ­pressures.
For a short time, Jim Chalmers thought he had discovered a new secret sauce. By introducing universal electricity rebates, he figured the headline rate of inflation would be lower – this is arithmetically correct – and the Reserve Bank would do the right thing by adjusting the cash rate based on this manipulated figure.

As usual there were a few AV distractions - got to plug Sky Noise - starting with this one, CommSec’s Ryan Felsman claims there are a lot of “rate hike jitters” around the Australian share market following the release of the latest inflation data. New data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has revealed inflation surged to 3.8 per cent in the year to December while the trimmed mean inflation lifted to 3.3 per cent. This means the chances of the Reserve Bank of Australia lifting interest rates next week have increased. “There’s a lot of rate hike jitters around the market at the moment on the back of that stronger than expected core inflation data yesterday,” Mr Felsman told Sky News Australia. Presented by CommSec.

Alas and alack, that only wound up the groaning to eleven:

Alas, the good folk down at the bank see through this sort of thing and concentrate on the trimmed mean figure of the CPI. But think about if Chalmers had been correct, he should have doubled, tripled or even quadrupled the rebates. He would have slain the inflation dragon while allowing the bank to cut the cash rate. How good would that have been?
But here’s the thing: it has become increasingly clear that Chalmers simply doesn’t understand how the economy works. When confronted with the unwelcome CPI release last week, the Treasurer pulled out all the talking points given to him by Treasury and attempted to tell us that black is white.
Evidently, inflation is now all about the evil workings of the private sector. It has nothing to do with government spending. After all, the RBA managed to cut the cash rate three times last year. In any case, the governor of the bank doesn’t attribute blame to excess government spending, at least explicitly. (There are quotes around from the governor that put a different spin on this story.)
Chalmers also has some weird analysis about the components of the CPI increase – housing and childcare were big-ticket items. But we are expected to believe that these changes have nothing to do with what the government has been up to.
The Treasurer is living on another planet if he thinks that the ramp-up in government spending is not making inflation worse. Just look at the figures. According to MYEFO, real government spending will increase by 4.5 per cent this financial year; it grew by 5.5 per cent last financial year. Government payments as percentage of GDP are close to 27 per cent, another record outside Covid and several years in the early 1980s.
His relocation to another planet is confirmed by his declaration that the budget is now in “better nick”. Someone should tell the Treasurer that no one cares about what was laid down in the 2022 pre-election and fiscal outlook statement which was written at a time of great economic uncertainty. Comparisons with the Coalition government voted out in 2022 are also becoming extremely stale.

Satan himself made an appearance, though he tried to surround himself with camouflage ... Australians have been told to expect to see 'a huge shift' this year towards the universal childcare system Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has long vowed to deliver

Dame Groan was terrified, or at least frightened enough, and never mind what meltdown or run on gold King Donald was provoking each day ...

The reality is that the four-year cumulative underlying cash balance provided in the MYEFO at the end of last year was negative $143bn, while the more meaningful headline cash balance which takes into account off-budget spending was negative $237bn.
But if these figures are not frightening enough, it turns out Treasury has become increasingly inept at forecasting spending. For example, there has been a close to $60bn deterioration in the overall budget position since May 2025, overwhelmingly because of higher payments. There is now no expectation that the budget will return to surplus within a decade given the very significant underestimate in payments.
There is not a sensible economist anywhere who would describe these developments as being consistent with the description of the budget being in better nick. In fact, the fiscal picture is grim and worsening, with the government either unwilling or incapable of restricting the growth of payments. Recall here that government debt is now over one trillion dollars and growing rapidly.
Take the case of childcare. The cost of the childcare subsidies has now crept into the six fastest growing government payment items – interest is the fastest, followed by the NDIS. It is hardly surprising that the cost of childcare services has grown by over 20 per cent since 2022, and by over 10 per cent in the last year, according to the CPI print. This is what happens when demand is pumped through government subsidies and supply is slow to react.
It’s now clear that the government will struggle to rein in the annual growth of NDIS payments below 8 per cent, having failed to seal an immediate deal with the state governments to hive off a separate program for children with mild autism and developmental delays.

How the reptiles love Joel - he's the new Jennie of finance - how the reptiles love rats in the ranks, so Joel made an appearance on Sky Noise... Former Labor cabinet minister Joel Fitzgibbon has warned the Albanese government to wind back public spending to take pressure off the economy as inflation soars and rate hikes loom. “Some economists today will be asking about the amount we’re spending on the NDIS in particular where you see a crowding out of the labour market, which is again putting pressure on inflation,” Mr Fitzgibbon told Sky News Australia. “At some point the government is going to have to become very very serious about winding government spending further back to take pressure of the economy more generally.”

And then it was on to the wrap up, and a final Groaning ...

In any case, it’s hard to get too enthusiastic about this because establishing another program with another name doesn’t necessarily alter the amount of government resources being devoted to disability services, with all its waste and inefficiency.
The fact is that the Labor government has taken the wrong fork in the road by stepping away from means-testing of social spending. Only by means-testing is spending targeted at those who cannot afford the services. Recall that this was the principal means former Labor finance minister Peter Walsh used to get the budget into better nick. Mind you, he saw it as both an economic and moral imperative.
For reasons that are not entirely clear, although the changing demographics of Labor voters is part of the explanation, the Albanese government has been rapidly walking away from means-testing, with the slight exception of aged care.
Why do high income earners require bulk-billed GP services? Why do families with combined incomes of more than half a million dollars require subsidies for childcare? Why should those on high incomes not contribute to the disability services needed by them or their family?

Hang on, hang on, has Dame Groan gone all perfidious socialist, with an outrageous desire to tax the rich?

Steady, steady, it was only a momentary aberration ...

The irony now is that consideration is being given to taxing people on high incomes more, including through the removal of economically justified concessions. It’s the classic case of robbing Peter to pay Paul, except it is actually robbing Peter to pay Peter.
With the prospect of several interest rate hikes this year, the government is peddling hard to sell the likely economic developments in a positive light. Add in the prospect of falling real wages – the growth has been very weak in any case – and it’s an unattractive picture. Were it not for the complete ineffectiveness of an opposition in tatters, the government might be on the ropes.

And the pond trusts that the cultists are, albeit perhaps briefly, satiated...and please, no blaming the pond, it was the reptiles wot did it. The pond would much rather have had other topics to hand ...

As for over on the far right, the canny Cranston picked up where Dame Groan left off ...

Treasury, RBA too close or too far apart?
Australia’s government spending has hit levels not seen in decades, prompting economists to question whether the Reserve Bank should abandon Treasury’s consistently wrong forecasts.
By Matthew Cranston
Economics Correspondent

The only thing the pond will note is the uncanny way the reptiles continue to pick the most defamatory snap to hand ...see how they recycled that one of the Guv, featured in the collage above...

And pace Our Henry, the ADZN continued apace ...

PM’s chance to reset relations with Israel – will he take it?
Anthony Albanese should make it clear during Isaac Herzog’s visit that if someone denies Israel’s right to exist, there is no daylight between this position and antisemitism.
By Anthony Bergin

Ah, but what if you thought no theocratic state had the right to exist, Mr Bergin, what then? What if you thought religion had no business running a state, what then Mr Bergin, what then?

No way the pond was going there, but that meant the pond was left with an agonising choice.

Should the pond go with the bouffant one, doing his very best to see sunnyside up?

Best hour in weeks but it’s a long way back
Liberal leader Sussan Ley and Nationals leader David Littleproud have begun talks to heal their Coalition split, but the damage may already be done.
By Dennis Shanahan
National Editor

The archived version was an earlier edition, though it still featured snaps of Black Jack and the man who crashed a Spittie, but how could the pond resist ancient Troy trashing the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way?

The header: Liberal leadership infighting threatens to deepen party’s existential crisis; Liberal geniuses scheme to topple first female leader as the party desperately needs to win back women voters who have abandoned them in droves.

The caption for that oft repeated collage (another dollar in the pond's kit?): Andrew Hastie, Susan Ley, Angus Taylor. Picture: Newswire

Ancient Troy spend a goodly four minutes bagging the beefy boofhead and laying with Ley, what with him being something of a feminista, as much as a wet reptile can be ...

So a bunch of blokes in the right wing of the Liberal Party think the answer to the party’s problem of regaining the votes of women, who have deserted the party in droves at recent elections, is to terminate their first female leader, Sussan Ley, after serving less than a year in the top job.
They plotted Ley’s downfall in the hours before attending the funeral of former MP Katie Allen, a Liberal woman who was respected and admired across the political spectrum. Their backstabbing, plotting and sheer treachery took attention away from Allen’s funeral and dominated the media last week.
With firebrand Andrew Hastie bowing out of a leadership contest for now, preferring to bide his time, the path has seemingly been cleared for Angus Taylor to seize the Liberal leadership, despite failing to convince colleagues he should get the job last year after his woeful performance as shadow treasurer.
As the men scheme to topple Ley, have they considered how voters, especially women, will view this latest act of political sabotage? At the last election, just 28 per cent of women voted for the Liberal and National parties, barely a quarter, according to the Australian Election Study. Good luck lifting that vote share.

How the reptiles love that Mafia shot of the Dons out and about, and for once the pond can't blame them ... Angus Taylor, James Paterson, Matt O’Sullivan and Andrew Hastie leave the meeting in suburban Melbourne on Thursday. Picture: Liam Mendes

What a bunch of boofheads and thugs!

Of course ancient Troy could have selected the pastie Hastie for abuse, but whatever ...

Nor do they seem to have contemplated the transition costs of toppling a leader. Leadership contests create winners and losers. Rarely do the losers depart happy; they and their supporters are usually filled with resentment and bitterness, and many seek revenge. It was ever thus in politics but the lessons are frequently not learned.
While Ley clings to the Liberal leadership, stoic and defiant, the public watch on as a pantomime plays out in public and private, and knives are sharpened. Hastie went to social media affirming he would like to lead the party but did “not have the support needed to become leader” at this time, so would “not be contesting the leadership”.
Hello? Is there a ballot for leader scheduled? No. The naked ambition of the man is not disguised while the current leader gets on with the job. If this kabuki-style statement was not enough, then Taylor chimed in, offering a paean of praise for his “colleague and friend”, noting he shared “many of his views” and was “a great asset” to the party.
This is a not-so-subtle undermining of the leader of which we have seen far too much in the past 20 years. Recall Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard? Or Brendan Nelson and Malcolm Turnbull? Or Turnbull and Tony Abbott? Or the cunning Scott Morrison, who took the prime ministership when Turnbull fell. Hastie and Taylor are repeating the destabilisation formula.
It is surprising that some Liberals seem to be taking seriously the idea of Taylor as leader. His colleagues have told this column he has a reputation for not putting in the hard work and, as shadow treasurer, seemed not to be across details of his portfolio. Why did he not return from a European holiday when parliament considered new gun ownership and hate speech laws in response to the nation’s worst terrorist attack?

At this point, the reptiles retreated to safer visual turf, a reminder of other assassinations ... Former prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard attend the ALP campaign launch, South Brisbane, 2019. Picture: Liam Kidston

And at this point the pond should note others were gunning for the beefy boofhead.

This morning The Echidna popped into the pond's tray (no link, newsletter) with John Hanscombe in a whimsical mood ...

...From where I sit, it's more comedy gold than soapie or reality TV. Especially if Taylor gets the leader's gig, a prospect more likely now Andrew Hastie has removed himself from contention.
When it comes to pass - few are saying "if" any longer - the government will be chuffed. Since coming to office in 2022, it has relished every moment Taylor has risen to his feet in question time.
"The gift that keeps giving," Treasurer Jim Chalmers quipped in 2023 when Taylor muddled a question about the budget. It's hard to keep a straight face, Chalmers told the chamber, wearing a smile so bright it was reflected in the glasses of those sitting opposite. He then demolished the premise of Taylor's question.
Throughout the last term of Parliament, Chalmers ran rings around the then shadow treasurer. Every question asked would be met with ridicule, Taylor returning to his seat, shaking his head in frustration and looking as if comprehension was just beyond his grasp.
Taylor also ran rings around himself, even prompting the Coalition-friendly Sky News to list a "litany" of Taylor's errors on the floor of the House: the price of Vegemite rising by 8 per cent in month, which it hadn't; confusing monthly inflation with the annual rate; asserting half of Australia's mortgage holders were about to go from fixed to variable interest rates when they weren't: and saying he'd always supported the government's energy bill relief when he'd previously stood up calling it the worst legislation ever.
Even in government Taylor made spectacular errors. There was the smear job on Sydney's Lord Mayor Clover Moore, using bogus statistics, which prompted a police investigation. Oh, and don't forget the time he posted "Well done, Angus" on his own Facebook page.
You couldn't ask for a better leader of the parliamentary Liberal Party. If you were the Labor government, that is. We've seen less of Taylor this term. As shadow defence minister, there have been fewer opportunities to put his foot in his mouth. But as Liberal leader, he'd have to be first on his feet, to the delight of Labor.
All well and good if you enjoy easy laughs with your question time. If you believe the business of parliament should be more than comedy and canned laughter from the government benches, perhaps Taylor isn't such a good idea.

Oh come on Mr Hanscombe, gotta be able to laugh ...

Meanwhile ancient Troy kept on sounding like he wanted to be in The Canberra Times or even worse, a Nine rag, or perhaps don an ABC cardigan ...

During last year’s federal election campaign, as I noted at the time, Taylor struggled to communicate the Liberal Party’s values and policies, did little to prepare a detailed economic agenda to take to the election, and was comprehensively outgunned by Treasurer Jim Chalmers. Taylor looked weak and evasive, and his attacks fell flat.
This has been confirmed by the AES, which showed the most important issue for voters was cost of living at a time of high inflation and rising costs for households, yet Labor was judged the better party over the Coalition on nine of 10 policy areas, including economic management and taxation. That is the verdict on Taylor – surrendering the party’s long-held advantage on economic policy.
Taylor blew up the party’s economic and budget credentials at the last election with policies that betrayed the Howard-Costello model. He routinely expresses fidelity to their legacy, yet as shadow treasurer did not support Labor’s modest income tax cuts and planned to have bigger budget deficits if the Coalition returned to government.
Peter Costello, who as treasurer delivered 10 budget surpluses, paid off government debt and reformed the tax system, told me just six weeks ago that the Liberal Party surrendered its reputation on economic management at the last election. Guess who was the shadow treasurer?
“The Liberal Party walked away from that central commitment to economic security and I think it did enormous brand damage,” Costello told me. “At the last election, they got themselves into a position where they were proposing to increase income taxes, run bigger deficits, no real plan to reduce debt.”

The reptiles were so startled they again reverted to ancient times, perhaps to forestall a hive mind panic, Tony Abbott (left) and Malcolm Turnbull at the conclusion of Question Time in the House of Representatives at Parliament House, in Canberra.

Soothed by the sight of the onion muncher and Malware and fond memories of destroying the NBN, the reptiles could allow a final bout of wet ancient Troy flinging mud and standing up for Susssan, to the wilting lettuce's despair ...

Ley is not perfect and has made mistakes, but deserves time. Her challenge is immense. The Liberal Party has lost many seats, its voter support is in decline and its members are walking away. The Coalition with the National Party has been severed. Ley needs to redefine the party, craft a viable electoral strategy, develop a policy agenda and repair the Coalition.
Australia needs an effective opposition to keep the government accountable. We get a better government when we have a better opposition. The opposition is now just the ever-shrinking Liberal Party, while the National Party sulks on the crossbench. The Liberal Party, self-indulgent, devoid of responsibility and utterly divided, is like a clown car at a circus that has seen better days.
Meanwhile, the government dominates the parliament with almost two-thirds of seats in the lower house. The Labor Party remains well ahead in the polls and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is dominant. The centre-right of politics is rupturing with the rise of the far-right One Nation, and neither the Liberal nor National parties have a clue what to do about it.
Albanese, whose prime ministership has been a study in determination, conviction, steadiness, resilience and luck, has his 2028 election slogan ready to go: “If you can’t govern yourselves, you can’t govern the country.”

At this point the pond would usually wrap things up.

Try to do a segue a cartoon for a closer, especially if it might inspire more ditties in the comments section, and that would be that ...

But damn it, having glanced at Our Henry, groaned through the groaning, and took to the Susssan battlements with ancient Troy, the pond needed a treat, and what better way than to see the Murdochians serving it up to Nosferatu himself...

That's not the pond's preferred snap, the pond always prefers the vanity snap ...

Sure the pond could have left it to an archive link,  but there's something fragrant about the panic in the WSJ air, as they took to Nosferatu, armed with garlic and righteous Murdochian holy water ...

Eek, it's all coming together in a nightmare of cross-pollination, at least if you trust the immortal Rowe ... (and the pond always does)

In which Monday turns into a dull outing with Pom migrant carousing Caterist and the denialist Major Mitchell ...

 

Boring. Deeply, deeply boring.

Is there anyone with enough ticker to give the lettuce hope, as it begins to wilt?

Even the reptiles couldn't get excited about the little to be proud of affair, with this second cab off the rank ...

EXCLUSIVE
Taylor opens arms to Hastie and his supporters in leadership bid
Ahead of a looming leadership spill, Angus Taylor has offered an olive branch to Andrew Hastie’s key backers amid a push for Mr Hastie to become Treasury spokesman in a Taylor-led Liberal Party.
By Greg Brown, Sarah Ison and Noah Yim

The only notable thing in the update on the archive version was the way the pasty Hastie dressed in double blue, like a refugee from the 1970s or a Marlboro ad ...

C'mon, we all remember the look ...

Nothing about Clive, Epstein and Steve? 

Nah, all Brownie could do was sob and sigh into the digital ether.

Commentary by Greg Brown
PM getting free ride amid the Coalition chaos
With the heat off Anthony Albanese’s agenda, Sussan Ley could face a challenge from Angus Taylor next week.

Could? Coulda. Woulda. Shouda.

Next week?

Always next week, King Donald style, while the lettuce fades and the pond sinks into an even deeper torpor.

How tedious and tiresome it all is, though the infallible Pope is always on hand to provide relief ...

There was nothing for it but to seek refuge on the extreme far right ... but alas ...

Coalition car crash an obvious win for PM – and a big snub to voters
Andrew Hastie’s retreat was less a reflection of his suitability for the top job than it was an indictment on the amateurish and frankly embarrassing nature of the internal manoeuvres that have been going on within the party.
By Simon Benson

Political analyst

The pond will leave simplistic Simon's "analysis" (the pond uses the word loosely when in reptile company), while it finds nothing to excite in the latest droppings of pearls of wisdom...

Bullock can restore lost credibility by calling out Chalmers
Credibility is the most important tool central bankers have at their disposal. It means that we believe their promises on inflation. Bullock has broken hers.
By David Pearl

The pond makes only one note - why no credit for the collage, which makes a Leak cartoon look subtle?

Go on, pick the lurking, glowering, truly terrifying baddies if you can  if it's too hard, try training on a 1950s western).

The pond also only notes this effort ...

Politics over facts is the chief problem in immigration debate
If policymakers and commentators want a more honest migration debate, they should stop pretending net migration can be ‘controlled’ like a thermostat.
By Alan Gamlen and Peter McDonald

... to get briefly to the conclusion ...

...The real policy question, then, is not whether NOM is “too high” or “too low” in any one year. It is whether the structure of Australia’s migration system is fit for purpose: whether the balance between temporary and permanent migration is right; whether pathways are clear and credible; whether the infrastructure for successful settlement is in place; whether institutions have the analytical capacity to understand system-wide dynamics, and; whether public debate focuses on substance rather than headline numbers.
On that score, there is room for improvement, but not for panic.
Australia’s post-pandemic migration experience is near identical to that of other high-income countries. The surge and fall were not uniquely Australian, nor uniquely political. They were the predictable aftershocks of a global shutdown.
The lesson is a simple one. Volatility after a shock is not evidence of failure. It is evidence of adjustment. If policymakers and commentators want a more honest migration debate, they should stop pretending net migration can be “controlled” like a thermostat and start paying attention to how the system actually works.

You want politics over facts?

Easy peasy ... because this day the Caterist went there and flung the pond into a panic about the way that the immigration system had let a dangerously radicalised, third rate sociology student into the country ...

The header: Migrants promised a dream, but sold into system of hostility; The immigration crisis, the one the political class is desperate not to discuss, is not going away. It is time we realised that promising the dream of Australia to millions denies the gift of becoming Australian to a qualified few.

The caption: International students at the University of Sydney.

A system of hostility? Isn't that the lizard Oz, and the spewings of the likes of Dame Groan?

The pond really didn't want to go there, an imported Pom whining yet again for four minutes, in a way designed to get Dame Groan agitated, but what other choice was there?

In July, an Indian woman posted a query on Facebook seeking advice on using a student visa as a pathway to permanent residency.
“My education agent is recommending that I study to become a painter,” she wrote. “Is physical labour really the only realistic option? I imagine it must be quite tough work.” A fellow participant replies: “You could look up chef pathway alternatively.”
Were this applicant to persist in moving to Australia, she would likely end up in the limbo of “permanent temporariness”, the ungainly official expression that describes the status of millions of migrants who live and work here with little hope of becoming an Australian. They are drawn here by loose visa rules, high wages, low unemployment and the expectation that getting a foot in the door is a step towards permanent residency and citizenship.
All the while, they are egged on by overseas migration agents and the Australian higher education sector with alluring promises that are unlikely to be met.
The number of temporary residents in Australia grew from 700,000 at the turn of the century to more than 2.2 million at the end of 2023. For most of its post-war history, settlement was permanent. They were encouraged to integrate and become Australian citizens, granting them an equal stake in the country’s future.
In recent decades, with almost no public discussion, our extraordinarily successful settlement program has been downgraded into a version of Germany’s Gastarbeiter system regulating the importation of labour units on time-limited permits.
Germany is hardly a good role model. What was conceived as a temporary labour solution for a booming post-war manufacturing sector quietly hardened into a structural fault line. A recent study found that around three-quarters of Germans worry that society is falling apart.
Whatever our concerns about the impact of temporary migrants on the housing market or the changing character of our cities, it is the fraying of the social fabric that should alarm us most after Bondi. Anthony Albanese’s quest to strengthen social cohesion is being undermined by weaknesses in an immigration system his government has only lightly addressed.

Naturally the reptiles dragged in the Bondi massacre, Thousands of flowers are laid at Bondi Pavilion to honour the 15 victims of last Sunday's attack. Picture: Tom Parrish

Last Sunday's attack?

Such lazy, shoddy journalism, what with the terror attack taking place back on the 14th December, more than a few Sundays ago.

Never mind,  back to the grind ...

The Migration Strategy, which two of his ministers signed off on in December 2023, implicitly states the problem: “Australians don’t want a nation of ‘permanently temporary’ residents. This is not a recipe for building stronger communities or maintaining social cohesion, and it is not a pathway to strengthening the confidence Australians have in our migration system.”
It is hardly gratuitous to draw a link to the Bondi atrocity. The elder of the two alleged gunmen arrived from India on a student visa a quarter of a century ago and never went home. He fathered a son who appears to have followed the familiar path for second-generation radicalisation, growing up among people he had learned to resent.
Like other bad policy decisions, no one designed this system of institutionalised impermanence. It just happened when educating overseas students expanded from a highly successful aid program devised by Robert Menzies into an export industry under Labor’s Bob Hawke. Successive governments have fallen for the argument that reform would jeopardise a $50bn export industry. But framing higher learning as an export commodity like iron ore or wool is highly misleading.
Unlike shipments of minerals or agricultural products, gross spending on education does not equal value added. Servicing overseas student demand consumes scarce resources that could be used for other purposes, such as housing, transport, infrastructure, and university desks. Heavy reliance on international fees alters universities’ incentives toward volume, downgrading the higher education experience for domestic students.
Policy failure is inevitable when there has been little attention to clearer distinctions between temporary labour, genuine study and permanent settlement. No government has been willing to resolve the central contradiction of linking a demand-driven market in higher education and a supply-constrained market for permanent residency.
The subclass 189 skilled independent visa is one part of the system that remains intact. It provides a pure, federal, points-tested pathway to permanent residency in which a fixed number of places are auctioned to the most highly skilled applicants.
So, while you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to apply for a 189, a degree in an astronautical engineering would boost your chances of getting one, while a grade 3 certificate in painting and decorating wouldn’t.
Hence the growth of permanently temporary migrants, drawn by false expectations, who live and work in Australia for years, often cycling through student, graduate, bridging and provisional visas, yet never securing permanent residency or citizenship. We allow them to live among us without inviting them to be one of us.

And then here we go again ... Anthony Albanese arriving to the national Day of Reflection on Sunday to honour the victims of the December 14th Bondi Beach terror attack and to stand in solidarity with the Jewish community. Picture NewsWire / Monique Harmer

The Day of Reflection vigil was back in December, the National Day of Mourning was on 22nd January ...

On the upside, the pond was completely distracted, and so missed the Caterist doing his best to politicise immigration matters...

The system limits their goals to surviving week to week and keeping one step ahead of an overcomplicated system. They are not inspired by freedom that offers the chance to build a better life.
They find themselves in a queue without an exit. They are encouraged to invest time, money and identity in Australia without any clear line of sight to permanence. They become economically embedded and socially present, yet civically excluded. Permanent temporary residents pay tax and follow the law, but lack political voice and long-term security. Uncertainty about belonging discourages commitment. People delay family formation, avoid deep civic engagement, and cluster socially with others in similar positions.
It is not necessarily hostility, but rational detachment. Why plant roots in soil you may be asked to leave? Why make the effort to assimilate to a society from which you have been excluded? A system that normalises exclusion creates blind spots as ambiguity hardens into resentment over time. It is the inversion of a settlement arrangement that has offered redemption to millions since 1788. A land of freedom and opportunity has become a Kafkaesque nightmare that forces migrants into a bureaucratic purgatory, wrestling with nonsensical rules.
The immigration crisis, the one the political class is desperate not to discuss, is not going away. Indeed, it has intensified after Bondi, prompting a fresh exodus from the legacy parties to One Nation, which is at least prepared to name the problem, even if it lacks a well-developed policy solution to fix a devilishly complicated system riddled with unintended consequences. Reform should begin from first principles: a student visa grants permission to study, not full entry to the workforce before or after completing a degree.
It is time we realised that promising the dream of Australia to millions denies the gift of becoming Australian to a qualified few.

The qualified few? How on earth did he qualify?

Phew, the pond is pleased that's over. Sometimes the careening Caterist pushes the pond to the outer limits of tolerance for migrants, which is deeply unfair to the many newcomers who make positive contributions to the country.

As for the rest of the reptile rabble, the pond discovered that the Major was back on his favourite climate science denialist hobby horse, this time with a new angle, blaming the bloody Canadians ...

The header: Insurance premiums rising again? Carney ignited climate risk industry; Australians unhappy with high home insurance premiums can blame a Canadian for his move in 2015 to make global businesses account for climate change risks.

The caption: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney started the push for greater corporate accountability when he was Bank of England governor. Picture: The Canadian Press via AP

Astonishing really that one Canuck has been responsible for trends in the global insurance industry, suggesting that perhaps the Major has been talking to a few too many treasonous Albertans.

Elbows up Canucks, it's going to be a rough ride ...

Australians unhappy with high home insurance premiums can blame a Canadian. Canada’s Prime Minister, Mark Carney, a hero to the local left for his speech in Davos a fortnight ago criticising US President Donald Trump, is a bogey man to Canada’s green left.
Carney has flipped his rhetoric on climate change since 2015 when, as governor of the Bank of England, he began a push to make global businesses account for climate change risks.
That speech kicked off a whole new consulting industry that has allowed bankers and large accountancy firms to make even more money from green politics: As if just investing in government-guaranteed renewables schemes underwritten by taxpayers with annual rates of return fixed by law was not enough already.
After the 2008-10 global financial crisis triggered by the collapse in September 2008 of US-based investment bank Lehman Brothers, G20 leaders turned their attention to other potential threats to the global financial system.
The international media was already focused on the potential for disasters triggered by global warming in the wake of former US vice-president Al Gore’s climate change hysteria film, An Inconvenient Truth.

The reptiles slipped in a couple of dull snaps for those who missed the current feud ... Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney; US President Donald Trump.

The sight of King Donald could have inspired a cartoon about his latest folly, but instead the pond turned to the Graudian ...

How climate risks are driving up insurance premiums around the US – visualized
‘Tight correlation’ between premium rises and counties deemed most at risk from climate crisis, experts say
Oliver Milman with graphics by Andrew Witherspoon

Concern over the climate crisis may evaporate in the White House from January, but its financial costs are now starkly apparent to Americans in the form of soaring home insurance premiums – with those in the riskiest areas for floods, storms and wildfires suffering the steepest rises of all.
A mounting toll of severe hurricanes, floods, fires and other extreme events has caused average premiums to leap since 2020, with parts of the US most prone to disasters bearing the brunt. A climate crisis is starting to stir an insurance crisis.
Across all US counties, those in the top fifth for climate-driven disaster risk saw home premiums leap by 22% in just three years to 2023, compared to an overall average of a 13% rise in real terms, research of mortgage payment data has found. The Guardian has analyzed the study’s data to illustrate the places in the US at highest risk from disasters and insurance hikes.

Sure 'nuff, there was a graph for those who like that sort of thing ...

There were more graphs, but the pond had to get back to the Major blaming the Canuck for the whole damn thing ...

Now, as Canadian PM, Carney has approved new oil and gas operations, encouraged nuclear power investment, supported channelling funds into small modular nuclear reactors that the ALP here says do not exist, and underwritten carbon sequestration schemes that provide a lifeline to fossil fuel industries.
He has paused electric vehicle mandates and reduced carbon taxes. Canada already has huge reserves of non-emitting hydro-electric power generation that provide half its electricity.
While our government commits all-out to renewables, Carney has signed off on a new private sector oil pipeline from Alberta to the British Columbia coast and a uranium deal with India. He wants Canada to be an energy superpower to defend itself against new US tariffs.
While Carney’s pragmatism should be a signal to governments here and in Europe, perhaps more interesting for Australian consumers is new analysis showing how the climate risk financial services sector has allowed global insurance businesses to keep ramping up premiums while receiving sympathetic coverage from activist environment journalists who have fed into a false narrative about natural disasters.
This column on December 11 recommended readers who want to understand how predictions of global warming had become overheated since the original Paris accord of 2015 check Roger Pielke Jr’s The Honest Broker site on Substack.
Pielke, often criticised by activists as a climate sceptic, is also a respected political scientist, a professor at the University of Colorado, a former staff scientist at the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research and a believer in climate science.
He published a three-part series in December looking at how the insurance industry has used false claims about individual climate events to ramp up premiums and profitability.
Part one, on December 9, is titled “The Climate Risk Industrial Complex and the Manufactured Insurance Crisis”.

Credit where credit is due, Roger A. Pielke Sr. also made an appearance in DeSmog, while Pielke Jr. has a long and sordid DeSmog CV ...

The reptiles wanted to put Jr in the frame,  Roger Pielke Jr. Picture: Getty Images

Now don't get the pond wrong.

Climate change, climate science and insurance are big issues, as explained by the infallible Pope ...

Just don't expect any enlightenment from the Major ...

Pielke says that since 2019, The New York Times, “the primary driver” of the insurance collapse idea, “has published more that 1250 articles on climate change and insurance”. This crisis narrative has allowed the industry to hide behind claims, not supported by UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change analysis, that say individual disasters cannot be attributed to man-made climate change.
In the wake of last year’s Los Angeles fires, he quotes the US National Association of Insurance Commissions: “Despite heavy catastrophe losses, including the costliest wildfires on record, the US Property and Casualty industry recorded its best mid-year underwriting gain in nearly 20 years.” Here the picture is much the same: industry analysts say Australian insurance profitability is at or near record levels.
Releasing figures that show total US P&C insurance profits rising from just under $US40bn ($57.5bn) in 2017 to $US170bn in 2024, the NAIC said: “Strong premium growth, driven largely by rate increases, coupled with abating economic inflation … (has seen) net income nearly doubled from last year.”
Pielke links this rise in profitability directly to Carney’s Bank of England speech.
He says climate risk assessment companies that have grown since then depend almost entirely on the vagaries of economic modelling that effectively compounds the vagaries of the climate science modelling.

Of course when peddling a vast international conspiracy, there are a few other suspects ... Simon Holmes a Court. Picture: Martin Ollman

Meanwhile, the Major is intent on proving that a little reading can be a dangerous thing ...

Pielke’s part two, published on December 16, “How the Financial System Invented ‘Climate Risk’ Untethered from Climate Science”, focuses on the technical responses of the Financial Security Board, created by the G20 after the GFC, and the Bank of International Settlements, to the finance industry’s climate task outlined by Carney.
This essay ends with a devastating quote from global climate risk assessment firm Verisk: “We estimate about 1 per cent year-on-year average annual losses are attributable to climate change. Such small shifts can easily get lost behind other sources of systemic loss … such as inflation … The random volatility from internal climate variability also dwarfs the small positive climate change signal.”
In part three, published December 22, “The Invention of Climate Risk – Politically Brilliant but Fatally Flawed”, Pielke shows how the climate risk business was targeted “at compelling the outcomes of the 2015 Paris Agreement”.
“Extreme weather became the focal point but the real world did not play along.
“Efforts to connect climate change and extreme weather really took off” after Al Gore’s movie, mentioned above. The problem with this as a strategy to bring the dangers of climate change home to ordinary people was that “Mother Nature was not co-operating with detectable trends” in extreme weather.

Time for another suspect,  Mike Cannon-Brookes. Picture: Martin Ollman

The pond supposes that a bout of climate science denialism, dressed up as a form of paranoid Canuck bashing, is a variation on the Major's usual Zionism, but the pond regrets it, because the pond had saved up a cartoon for the Major, a way of celebrating the ongoing carnage in Gaza...

Never mind, almost done ...

As regular readers of this column will know, it has been clear in many IPCC reviews that most climate scientists assign a very low probability to links between man-made climate change and individual climate events. Trends in tropical storms here, in the US and Asia have been down.

Clear? Only in the Major's truly bizarre world ...

Amazingly, King Donald's minions left this NASA page up ...

Extreme Weather and Climate Change
As the climate changes, the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events are increasing.

... including these immortal words ...

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Sixth Assessment Report released in 2021, the human-caused rise in greenhouse gases has increased the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. NASA’s satellite missions, including the upcoming Earth System Observatory, provide vital data for monitoring and responding to extreme weather events

Vital data? Surely it won't be long before King Donald's minions scrub that page ... as the Major wrapped up ...

Pielke’s series concludes with an observation that could describe Malcolm Turnbull, Simon Holmes a Court or Mike Cannon-Brookes: One “aspect of the political brilliance of ‘climate risk’ is that the global financial community, because of its power and access to wealth and capital, brought along with it an ability to convince or compel businesses and governments to join the campaign … one reason why ESG governance centred on climate swept through the business world”.
Lest readers imagine Pielke is alone in this, Jessica Weinkle, on the EcoModernist site on Substack last February, traced the insurance industry’s reactions to major US disasters since Hurricane Andrew in Florida in August 1992, only months after the creation the previous June of the UN Convention on Climate Change.
Her central conclusion about disasters and insurance industry risk: it is the lifestyle decisions of millions of people moving to warmer sea-change areas or fire-prone tree-change areas that is driving the cost of individual natural disasters.
That and inflation in the building industry. Sound familiar?

Yes, the denialism is tedious and way beyond familiar,  and despite the endless provocations, the pond is pleased at the discipline shown in not going the 'toon ...

Well if the reptiles can slip in visual irrelevancies ...

And now, as the Major mentioned the NY Times, the pond seized on the chance to note that David Brooks has left its hallowed two siderest halls...

He left a trace of his taint in Time to Say Goodbye ... (archive link)

Sadly it wasn't goodbye and good riddance, and the pond only notes this to draw attention to a farewell offered by Chris Lehmann in The Nation ...

The Smug and Vacuous David Brooks Is Perfect for The Atlantic
The former New York Times columnist is a one-man cottage industry of lazy cultural stereotyping. (*archive link)

Just a whiff, a taster, a teasing trailer ... go on Chris, tell us what you really think ...

Through an unlikely set of circumstances, in the early aughts, I was at the media party where longtime New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd approached David Brooks about coming on board. I’ve long thought in retrospect that I should have put my body on the line to prevent the ensuing intellectual catastrophe from happening.
Brooks, who has occupied the prestigious (if mythical) “reasonable conservative” perch at the opinion section of the Paper of Record for nearly a quarter century, is now decamping for The Atlantic, another inert organ of elite consensus politics, to serve as a staff writer and host of a video podcast. For Brooks to be forsaking his role as the nation’s Times-branded civic scold while US democracy swoons further into the abyss amid Donald Trump’s second authoritarian term drives home how ineffectual-to-untenable he has been as a trollish Never Trumper. Still, his failure bears a closer look, if only to size up the vacuity of a particular strain of culture-calibrating punditry from the US right that has bent over backward to avoid acknowledging a clear and present mobilization of blood-and-soil reaction.
For in the moral universe that David Brooks presides over, there is never a sustained ideological threat to democracy and civic culture from an insurgent right; instead, the great hazard before us is the failure of liberal and left elites to strike just the right Goldilocks posture of sympathy with the conservative grievance-industrial complex. Across successive revanchist right takeovers of the GOP, Brooks’s columnizing output hewed to this message with the unshakable conviction of a Soviet apparatchik, and he also reliably plied it from his role as a reasonable right solon on the PBS News Hour—which, alas, shares the same editorial instincts as Maureen Dowd.
During a post-2016 election colloquy of pundits debating the laughably irrelevant proposition, “Do liberals hold the moral high ground?,” Brooks, who was of course arguing the negative claim, disclosed the formula behind all his sober diagnoses of what ails our body politic. “A lot of people voted for Donald Trump because they thought a lot of tenured radicals along the coasts thought they were morally superior to them,” he proclaimed. “So if you want the kind of politics we have today, think you’re morally superior to the other side.”
That smug, counter-empirical refrain has fueled countless Brooks columns, to say nothing of a torrent of ponderous and unenlightening books, harking back to his reputation-making work of “comic sociology” Bobos in Paradise. In Brooks’s foreshortened social vision—which, for the record, is neither comic nor sociological—myopically privileged if provisionally well-meaning liberal elites have broken faith with the American civic tradition by putting themselves indelicately forward as role models for everyone else. The ensuing backlash is thus entirely their doing, in just the way that abusive spouses declare that their inattentive mates have left them no choice but to assault them.
This just-so fable of terminal social haughtiness from the left was, despite its rough plausibility for certain neighborhoods in Berkeley or Cambridge, always a lie. Back when Brooks, then a staff writer at The Weekly Standard, was burnishing his mainstream comic-sociological bona fides in the pages of—you guessed it—The Atlantic, he published a suburban safari dispatch from Montgomery County, Maryland, outside DC and the Franklin County exurbs of Philadelphia professing to document the insular lifestyle politics in strongholds of “blue state” liberalism and “red state” cultural revolt on the right. The resulting Mad Libs–style account was classic Brooks; riding mowers and NASCAR viewing were duly name-checked as badges of conservative belonging, while NPR listening and (irony of ironies, given his subsequent career arc) a subscription to The New York Times were telltale signs of opportunistic liberal secession from the broader polis.
The only problem, as then–Philadelphia magazine writer Sasha Issenberg documented, is that the whole thing was a fairy tale. Three of the country’s top five NASCAR TV markets were in blue states, Issenberg found, and the QVC home-shopping network—another sign of red-state habitation in Brooks’s account—also drew most of its revenue from blue states. Brooks’s claim that he was unable to spend more than $20 on a meal in Franklin County was likewise easily exposed bullshit. When Issenberg interviewed Brooks about this barrage of falsehoods, he retreated to his “comic sociology” shtick, and argued that he was trafficking in broad generalizations that “ring true” to the worrisome cultural divides overtaking the country.

Tellingly, when Issenberg cited another unfounded claim in the Atlantic piece—the proto-Trumpian fable that “blue America” was awash with undocumented immigrants—the pundit’s genial comic mask slipped. “This is dishonest research,” the dishonest researcher announced. “You’re not approaching the piece in the spirit of an honest reporter. Is this how you’re going to start your career? I mean, really, doing this sort of piece? I used to do ’em, I know ’em, how one starts, but it’s just something you’ll mature beyond.”

There's more at the link, but already the pond was howling with delight ...and now the pond will do its best to ignore Brooks at The Atlantic in the way it ignores the NY Times - the pond is stuck on its hive mind lizard Oz track - despite the many pleasures and temptations that path would offer...

In much the same way the pond is likely to miss the movie of the year, despite the immortal Rowe's best ticket selling devices...

In which prattling Polonius leads the way, and denialist Jennie and the Bjørn-again one arrive to save the day (but mebbe not the planet)...

 

The pond would like to have begun this day by reporting on the reptile review of the Melania movie, but alas, the pond couldn't find hide nor hair of it in the lizard Oz.

Sadly this means some will likely end up at the one star review by Xan Brooks for The Graudian ...Trump film is a gilded trash remake of The Zone of Interest or at the Beast, Trust Me, ‘Melania’ Is an Unbelievable Abomination of Filmmaking or perhaps Marina giving the red carpet and Bezos a Hyding ...From ICE to Melania’s black carpet, are Trump’s techlords getting pangs of buyer’s remorse? Not to forget Sophie Gilbert in The Atlantic. (And why did it take over a month and a half for the venerable Meade's Weekly Beast to return? Them's ABC holyday hours).

On the upside, prattling Polonius turned his gimlet eye on King Donald this weekend and he turned out to be charmingly irrelevant, out of touch and useless, even allowing for having to file before the latest follies, like the arrest of Don Lemon and yet another Epstein files dump designed to conceal whatever really went down...but with immense amounts of titillation that's sent everyone into a frenzy.

Never mind, it's meditative Sunday, so no reason to get knickers in a knot...

The header: FDR Democrat presidency shows how Republican Trump administration is part of one tradition – America First; It’s important for Australians to recall that Donald Trump is part of a deep tradition in the US whereby a commitment to isolation is superseded on occasions by international commitments. (The pond added an intermittent archive link for those who wanted to try Polonius's links).

The caption featuring King Donald and a movie which can only be mentioned in passing: Donald Trump – this week at the premiere of movie Melania – projects strength and unpredictability but the reality of US failures in South Vietnam and Afghanistan makes it clear US allies shouldn’t rely too much on alliances with Washington DC. Picture: Allison Robbert/AP

This week Polonius indulged in a four minute ramble which showed he wasn't up to the task at hand, namely dealing with a flailing, failing authoritarian government led by a man clearly in physical and mental decline ...

How did Polonius cope?

By heading back to the safety and the comfort of the past ..

There are about three years left of President Donald J. Trump’s time in the White House. But it is unlikely that he will repeat such an egregious error as the comment he made to Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo at Davos in Switzerland late last week.
Asked about the NATO alliance, Trump said the United States has “never needed” NATO. He added “they’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan, or this or that, and they did – they stayed a little back, a little off the frontlines”.
This was profoundly wrong. Such NATO nations as Britain and Denmark suffered considerable fatalities and casualties on the frontline. As did Australia, a NATO partner, which suffered 47 deaths and over 260 wounded. The Australian Defence Force’s involvement is well depicted in Aaron Patrick’s recently released book, The Last Battle (Macmillan Australia, 2025).
In time, Britain and Denmark made strong objections to the President’s comments. And Trump made what is probably best depicted as a non-apology apology. He described the 457 British servicemen and women who died in the Afghanistan campaign “as among the greatest of all warriors” – and left it at that. Well, it was better than nothing.
Trump is invariably abrasive and self-centred. But, as an America First nationalist, he is not unusual.
It’s important for Australians to recall that Trump is part of a deep tradition in the US whereby a commitment to isolation is superseded on occasions by international commitments.
I was reminded of this on January 24 when listening to ABC Radio National’s Saturday Extra presented by Nick Bryant. It being the summer break, an interview was replayed that took place with Lowy Institute director Michael Fullilove, who comments widely on Australian-American relations.

He's still hate listening to the ABC? The reptiles didn't help by forking over a couple of stills to help Polonius wander back down mammary road, Franklin D. Roosevelt; Michael Fullilove

 

It's not as if Polonius didn't have recent events he could have scribbled about ...

But Polonius, always an expert at avoidance, was determined to escape into ancient times ...

On February 15 last year, Fullilove compared Trump unfavourably with the Democratic Party’s president Franklin D. Roosevelt. He stated: “Franklin Roosevelt took America out of that period in the 1930s of isolationism and nativism and, of course, one of the groups that he fought against was called America First.”
Fullilove said that FDR had a broad interest in the forces of democracy succeeding and was interested in what happened in Europe and Asia. He added that “many of those impulses … President Trump clearly does not share”.
This overlooked the fact that, speaking in Boston in October 1940, FDR declared that “American boys are not going to be sent to any foreign wars”. At that time the foreign war was between Britain and its dominions (eg, Canada and Australia) and the Nazi-Fascist Axis. At the time, the US was neutral, Germany and the Soviet Union were allies due to the Nazi Soviet Pact (of 1939-41), and France had been defeated.
The US entered the Pacific War against Japan after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. As it turned out, Germany and Italy declared war on the US on December 11, 1941 and the US responded the same day.
By the time the US entered the European/African theatre, the war could have been lost were it not for the courage of the Allies led by British prime minister Winston Churchill and with important contributions made by Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders and some others.
It was much the same with World War I when Democrat Woodrow Wilson was in the White House. The US declared war on Imperial Germany in April 1917 and US forces did not see battle until the end of October.
Germany surrendered on November 11, 1918. The war could have been lost in 1914, 1915 or 1916.

Could have?

What lust for weird alternative history is this?

It's the sort of stuff you might turn into a movie like It Happened Here, but what's it got to do with the giddy fascists currently in charge of the disunited States?

The reptiles kept insisting that Polonius stay stuck in the past, like the ancient desiccated coconut fuddy-duddy he is, From left, British prime minister Winston Churchill, American president Franklin D. Roosevelt and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin seated together during the Yalta Conference, 1945.

The pond felt the urge to liven up proceedings with a toon ...

That's better, a little rage, as Polonius kept wandering back in time ...

During World War II, US forces played an important role in defeating Germany’s forces on the western front, with Soviet forces succeeding on the eastern front. But, as with WWI, Germany could have prevailed while FDR led an officially neutral nation.
Certainly, the US preserved the peace in Western Europe after 1945. But not before FDR essentially caved in to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in the negotiation leading to Germany’s surrender.
As Adam B. Ulam wrote in his 1968 book, Expansion and Coexistence: “World War II had begun as an attempt by the West to prevent Germany’s goals of domination of Eastern Europe and the consequent destruction of European balance of power; within two years of the war’s end, those aims had been achieved by the USSR (Soviet Union).”
US forces protected Western Europe during the Cold War until the collapse of the Soviet Union. But FDR’s diplomatic weakness prevailed over Churchill’s warnings about Stalin’s iron curtain up to then.
Trump projects strength – along with an unpredictability – not exhibited by the Democratic Obama and Biden administrations. But the reality of US failures in South Vietnam and Afghanistan sends a clear message that it is foolish for US allies to rely too much on alliances with Washington DC. Even though the US has supported the likes of South Korea since 1951 and Taiwan – up to now, at least.

The reptiles interrupted again, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney distanced himself from Trump without mentioning his name. Picture: Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press/AP

Elbows up, Canada, things could be worse ...

And so to a bone to pick with the reptiles.

This was Polonius's next par, with link ...

Prime Minister Mark Carney, of the left-of-centre Canadian Liberal Party, won plaudits from Trump Derangement Syndrome types for his speech at the World Economic Forum – where he distanced himself from the US President without mentioning his name. Carney warned about the great powers, but soon after signed off on a new strategic partnership with China.

It reminded the pond of why the pond so loathes the "keep them inside the hive mind" tactics the reptiles deploy with their links.

If you followed that link, you landed on a Dow Jones story. 

Dow Jones?! The home for TDS types?

The best the pond could find in reference to DTS types was this ...

...Traders have largely shrugged off Trump’s threats about a 100 per cent tariff on Canadian imports over trade dealings with China, said David Rosenberg, head of Toronto-based market strategy firm Rosenberg Research. 
Nevertheless, Trump’s tone matters, Rosenberg said, noting that Trump referred to Carney on Truth Social as “governor” as opposed to prime minister. Rosenberg said this doesn’t bode well as the US launches a formal review later this year of the US-Mexico-Canada trade treaty, or USMCA, at which time trade analysts expect the Trump administration to push for further concessions from Canada.
“The fresh round of name calling signals a clear deterioration in goodwill and an early preview of how the USMCA renewal talks may unfold,” Rosenberg said. “The message is that Ottawa should not expect a conciliatory process.”
Dow Jones

It was just a bait and switch tactic, anything to keep mug punters inside the hive.

Meanwhile, Polonius was wrapping things up, pretending that it was just business as usual ...

Half a century ago in Australia, anti-communist Catholic BA Santamaria and anti-communist Jew Frank Knopfelmacher were strong supporters of the Australian-US alliance.
But they also maintained that Australia could not rely on the US and advocated a substantial increase in defence spending.
At the moment there are mutual benefits in the Australia-US alliance. But a US president might not see it this way in the future.
The Republican Trump administration has not changed the US in any permanent way with respect to foreign policy. Rather, it is part of one tradition – America First. This prevails and then wanes over time – even within presidencies. FDR demonstrates the point.
It’s important that the US’s allies stand up within their respective alliances. In this sense, the leaders of Britain and Denmark, among others, were correct in reminding Trump what their military had done in Afghanistan. It might diminish his America First commitment, for a while at least.
Gerard Henderson is executive director of The Sydney Institute.

How gormless, how insipid, how dull, but the pond must accept the blame attached to the delusion that Polonius might attempt to deal with the here and now ...

Say that again?

The Republican Trump administration has not changed the US in any permanent way with respect to foreign policy. Rather, it is part of one tradition – America First. This prevails and then wanes over time – even within presidencies. FDR demonstrates the point.

Tell him Marge ...

Now there's a difference. Foreign policy conducted on the basis of having your c*ck bitten? (Allegedly, *google bot aware).

Maybe JFK? Slick Willy? Pity Polonius filed too late to answer that one.

And now for a few visual distractions ...

Well it's Sunday, why not a 'toon or three, and as for the rest of the reptile pack, talk about a complete waste of time.

Dame Slap still had Linda buzzing around in her noggin ...

She got her AO. Now Kristina Keneally owes two women an apology
Kristina Keneally has been awarded an AO but refuses to apologise to Linda Reynolds and Fiona Brown, whose careers and health were destroyed by false allegations she helped weaponise.
By Janet Albrechtsen
Columnist

Will this deeply weird obsession never end?

It means Dame Slap is beyond the valley of the incredibly tiresome and completely unreadable.

And the pond found it incredibly easy to send Dimitri off to the cornfield archive as he tried to do a pale Dame Groan-lite imitation ...

Labor ‘vision’ blind to harsh reality of debt/deficit disaster
As federal debt approaches $1 trillion, the commonwealth has quietly amassed more than $400bn in off-budget investment funds, borrowing heavily to intervene in markets while productivity stalls, living standards fall and interest costs surge.
By Dimitri Burshtein

The bouffant one got caught up in the current fuss, but the lettuce had had more than enough of that yesterday ...

It’s Christmas for Albanese: How One Nation became the ‘unofficial’ opposition
The Liberals and Nationals are not only in complete disarray, they’re delusional if they think simply changing leader will dig them out of a political abyss of their own making.
By Dennis Shanahan
National Editor

These days the poor lad is forced to go beyond his usual 2 minute spurt up to an amazing virile 6 minutes, but the pond will only note one thing ... the way the illustration showed just how much the PhotoShop skills at the lizard Oz need a refresher course ...

No wonder there was no credit for that snap of that hastily pasted on ill-fitting Santa headgear... as if things weren't bad enough reading about the pastie hastie ...

The pond realises that grating Gemma has something of a cult following, but the pond simply couldn't go there ...

Why Labor wants your baby with strangers, not grandma
The parent trap: Labor must restore choice of childcare
Labor claims institutionalised childcare gives babies a better start. No data supports it. A parent-led revolution is demanding subsidies that let families care for their own children.
By Gemma Tognini

Granted, the irony is rich, what with the rag every other day of the week deploring taxpayer subsidies for bludgers and ne'er do well scroungers, but garrulous Gemma probably loves the trad wife thing, as a way to get filthy rich on a "right for thee, if not for me" basis ...

But all those dismissals left the pond short of a column, or even a Whitlam government.

Luckily denialist Jennie was on hand ...

The header: Energy security must be treated as national security; It’s not clear how the Albanese government will tackle gas shortages in a few years’ time, even though LNG remains an indispensable part of our energy mix for households and industry.

The caption for the snap of a grim-looking Satan's little helper: It’s ironic that Labor’s change of heart was announced by Energy Minister Chris Bowen, who opposes gas as a transition fuel. Picture: Martin Ollman / NewsWire

That allowed the pond to note other stories, such as this one in the Graudian ...

All so we could grok some deep fake porn ... 

Now take it away Jennie ...

Labor’s decision to implement a gas reservation scheme in 2027 is a welcome commitment. It’s been a long time in the making, having been rejected by the Gillard government and after years of campaigning by the Australian Workers Union. As it was an in-principle commitment, final judgments will depend on the outcome of negotiations and the details of the proposed scheme.
It’s ironic that Labor’s change of heart was announced by Energy Minister Chris Bowen, who opposes gas as a transition fuel, excluded it from Labor’s capacity investment scheme, and told international audiences at COP that fossil fuels had no future in Australia. Are we to believe that reality has ­finally dawned?
Australia is the second-largest exporter of LNG, yet forecasts warn of structural east coast gas shortages on peak demand days in 2028 and more broadly from 2029. Our regulation of gas markets is dysfunctional and has failed to protect our national interest.
A prospective gas reservation of between 15 and 25 per cent will apply only to contracts struck after Bowen’s announcement. Current contracts, under which 75 per cent of our gas production is exported as LNG, are excluded on the grounds of “sovereign risk”. These contracts start to expire from 2031, but in the meantime gas shortages threaten.
It suits Bowen’s agenda to focus on “sovereign risk” to avoid dealing with uncontracted gas sold on international spot markets. In 2024, these sales comprised around 25 per cent of our exports, enough to cover forecast shortages. It’s in our national interest for uncontracted gas to be redirected to meet domestic needs by the use of export controls and/or export levies.
Gas supply has to be affordable as well as reliable. Since LNG was exported from Queensland in 2015, domestic prices have tripled. They need to be decoupled from international prices. The benefits are obvious when comparing prices with Western Australia, where reservation applies.
In 2025, export gas was produced for around $6.50 per gigajoule and exported at an average of $17.00. Before 2015, average domestic spot prices were under $5, they were around $10 from 2017 to 2021, and are currently around $14. By comparison, the average contract price in WA is just over $7.

The reptiles helpfully slipped in a meaningless visual distraction, Workers say they are ‘going to have a future’ under a federal government plan to keep Tomago smelter open, but details remain scarce.

The pond's only complaint was that there were no snaps of whale-killing windmills ...

Cutting the domestic price of gas is a must, as manufacturing industry remains at risk. It would also reduce the overall cost of energy and ease inflationary pressures in the economy. The declining competitiveness of our trade-exposed industries saw Qenos and Oceania Glass join the companies that closed their doors. Many others, like the Tomago smelter, are struggling to remain operational.
It’s not clear how the Albanese government intends to tackle gas shortages in a few years’ time. The energy ministers at their December meeting agreed to draft legislation “to provide AEMO with last resort powers in the east coast gas market to help prevent the realisation of structural shortfalls”.
This followed recent criticism by the Victorian Auditor-General of the Energy Department’s failure “to have fully considered risks in its planning, nor to have factored in contingencies should risks arise”.
It begs the question as to whether, behind closed doors, there’s another plan in the making. Was it just a coincidence that the Victorian government recently gave the go-ahead for Viva Energy’s gas terminal at Corio Bay, which includes a floating LNG ­terminal with regasification and storage facilities?
At his press conference, when asked if the construction of import terminals was now redundant, Bowen’s response was curious: “There’s no state building an import terminal at the moment, I’m afraid. There’s been some talk of LNG import terminals in Port Kembla and Geelong but they are not under construction.”

The reptiles could, along with Jennie, spot tankers all over the shop, An LNG tanker arriving in Gladstone Harbour. A report says navigating the 31km shipping channel into Geelong’s Corio Bay could be ‘challenging’. Picture: Mike Richards

In her final gobbet, Jennie remained determined to gas the country ...

Was the minister unaware that Squadron Energy had completed the construction of Port Kembla terminal in December 2024 and that the Corio Bay terminal is awaiting federal environmental approval? It’s listed on the EPBC’s portal, deferred until September 30, and now under “active ­consideration”, pending a final ­decision.
Until the Albanese government rules out importing LNG, that door remains wide open. Importing refined fuel has exposed our vulnerability to potential disruption of supply chains. This mustn’t be repeated with gas. It remains an indispensable part of our energy mix for households and industry, meeting the needs of power-­hungry growth industries like data centres and to firm renewables.
The times require the incorporation of strategic risk in energy planning, and a coherent integration of energy with industry policy. The Perdaman Urea Plant, under construction near Karratha, shows the benefits of this approach, combined with WA’s gas reservation. Gas will be used as both a feedstock and the main energy source for producing urea fertiliser. Our reliance on imports will be reversed as new export markets open. It shows the importance of gas in sustaining manufacturing.
Importing LNG would make a mockery of Labor’s recent commitment to gas reservation. In troubled times we need to be mindful that energy security is ­national security.
Jennie George is a former ACTU president and Labor member for Throsby.

Here, have a break ...

And now there's just room to slip in a serve of Bjørn-again mania ...

Here the pond would like to start by noting the inane, incessant repetition that the Bjørn-again one indulges in ...

This is from February 2020 and We don’t have money to burn on green mania; The costs alone make the drastic ‘solution’ to climate change wishful thinking. Taxpayers just won’t cop it in the lizard Oz. (*archive link).

The pond had to archive it, but the effort was worth it, so one line could be seen in context:

... By far the most practical policy, with the most impact, is a dramatic increase in investment in low and zero-carbon energy innovation.
That’s because, for decades to come, solar and wind energy will be neither cheap enough nor effective enough to replace fossil fuels. Today, they make up only 1.1 per cent of global energy use and the International Energy Agency estimates that even after we spend $US3 trillion ($4.47 trillion) more on subsidies, they will not even reach 5 per cent by 2040. Innovation is needed to bring down the price of green energy. We need to find breakthroughs for batteries, nuclear, carbon capture and a plethora of other promising technologies. Innovation can solve our climate challenge.

Familiar to the point of nausea?

Back to the future ...

The header: Net-zero revolt has begun: We need to pivot from making energy more expensive to innovation that will make green energy cheaper; Britain’s slide from energy powerhouse to price pariah emphasises the losing argument that climate action justifies exorbitant costs and making power unaffordable for millions.

The caption for the truly terrifying snap of whale killing windmills, with a warning to anyone travelling the Hume to watch out for their carcasses: Today, wind is the primary source of electricity generation in the UK, contributing roughly a third of the country’s total supply. But many wind farms are in Scotland, meaning the region generates far more power than it requires and needs to transmit some south, where most of the demand is. The current infrastructure isn’t sufficient to transport all that power. Picture: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg News

It was only the standard very short 3 minute read, but what a good excuse to swerve to the Graudian... 

 Now to begin the Bjørning, roughly equivalent to a shining ...

A new pragmatism is infusing the climate debate in the West, driven by voters weary of soaring energy bills and annoyed by increasingly hysterical and patronising climate rhetoric. From Washington to Westminster, Berlin to Canberra, the political class is confronting a simple truth: aggressive net-zero mandates are delivering present economic pain for unmeasurable and far-off climate gain.
The starting shot might have been the US election of Donald Trump, but the clearest warning comes from the United Kingdom. The UK’s net-zero law, enacted in 2019, committed the country to zero emissions by 2050. It was hailed as bold leadership, but the reality has been economic sabotage. Industrial electricity prices surged 124 per cent between 2019 and 2024 – quadruple the US increase – leaving the UK with the highest rates in the Western world at 26.63 pence ($0.53) per kilowatt-hour.

The reptiles naturally rolled out expert climate scientist Danica to help the Bjørn-again one ... Sky News host Danica De Giorgio says UK Labour’s green energy plan is an “ominous sign” for Australia. Ms De Giorgio said the UK’s green energy plan could cost £350 billion. “Looks like the UK is going broke and backwards as well in its race to renewables.”

Ominous sign? Haven't we had enough of them already?

Back to the coal mine with Bjørn...

And the Labour government’s renewable-heavy plans will only inflate costs further. At a recent parliamentary hearing, top energy executives laid bare the facts. Chris Norbury, CEO of E.On UK, testified that even if wholesale prices were to plummet to zero, consumer bills would remain just as high as today, due to escalating policy-driven expenses.
Reform UK, now leading national polls and poised to form the next government, first demanded an end to net-zero targets, condemning their design and cost. The Conservatives, staring at electoral oblivion, hastily followed suit, pledging to repeal the Climate Change Act. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is reportedly preparing to delay or dilute key green commitments to curb voter revolt.
Even the Tony Blair Institute, hardly known for climate scepticism, now urges suspending carbon taxes on gas to slash energy prices through 2030, prioritising cheap power over emission cuts like the US and China do.
The UK’s plight is no isolated incident – it’s a harbinger of a retreat from the global net-zero experiment recently championed by politicians even in blue US states and across Europe, as well as further abroad.
In Australia, the conservative Liberal Party has abandoned the promise of net zero in 2050, and will instead prioritise lower energy prices. Germany’s far-right AfD is now leading national polls, railing against “elitist” green burdens and vowing to halt decarbonisation. Japan’s new Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, prioritises nuclear revival for energy security over aggressive renewables.

What's interesting here is how limited the Bjørn-again one has become.

Away from the lizard Oz, search for this post and you'll find it in Facebook, on X and in LinkedIn, and six days ago in the Zambian Sunday Times ...luckily hidden behind a paywall so it didn't pollute the environment too much ...

He really has been sent into the provinces, but what a silly rag - apparently they haven't woken up to the terrifying power of whale-killing windmills.

The reptiles showed how to do it when they interrupted with another snap, one of those entirely useless collages for which Emilia shamelessly took credit, featuring ... you guessed it, not just a bunch of denialists, but also ... windmills! Increasingly, Western leaders are realigning on net-zero commitments. From left, US President Donald Trump, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, former British PM Tony Blair, Liberals leader Sussan Ley and WAS Liberal MP Andrew Hastie. Artwork by Emilia Tortorella

Brownie reports for recognising the terrifying impact of whale-killing windmills Emilia. Ever thought of heading to Zambia to share your skills? 

Even the EU is rolling back environmental laws, watering down sustainable finance rules amid farmer protests and deregulation pushes. Its climate promises for 2040 were watered down and, crucially, the promises can be further loosened if it – inevitably – ends up having a negative impact on the EU’s economy.
Corporations who sold the world on their green credentials are retreating too: Wells Fargo abandoned its net-zero promise in March 2025, while BlackRock exited the Net Zero Alliance in January, citing political backlash against ESG investing.
This broadening dissent mostly doesn’t dismiss the reality of the climate issue, but insists that we shouldn’t deny the climate policy costs either: net zero will cost hundreds of trillions of dollars and deliver benefits much smaller. Moreover, even if all rich countries were to cut to zero emissions by mid-century, the climate models clearly show the impact would avert less than 0.1C of the projected warming by the end of the century, while imposing 8-18 per cent hits to GDP already by mid-century.
It is now becoming clear that the rosy claims of green growth or just modest costs from a forced green transition are no longer plausible.
Instead, if green politicians truly do believe climate action justifies exorbitant costs and making power unaffordable for millions, they now have to make that argument openly. And this is a losing argument. The UK’s slide from energy powerhouse to price pariah emphasises this.
Enter philanthropist Bill Gates, whose recent memo ahead of the COP30 climate summit calls for a strategic pivot. He lays out three tough truths: climate change is serious but “will not lead to humanity’s demise” or the end of civilisation; temperature is not the best progress metric, and; health and prosperity are our best defences against it.

There was one final interruption ...Journal Editorial Report: Saving the planet falls back to earth.

Amen to that, well-played Bill the talking Mr "STD" Clippy (allegedly), Tony Bleagh, Nige and King Donald ...

And so to the final gobbet and that always present sense of déjà vu.

See if you can spot the incessantly repeated mantra ...(the pond has done its best to help)

This means shifting from obsessive emission cuts, which have shaped climate and energy policy across the UK, Europe, and other Western countries. Instead, Gates highlights, we need to focus on what boosts human welfare most. For the world’s poor, that means tackling hunger, poverty and disease directly. This will help people live much better lives and improve their resiliency in a warmer climate. For rich nations, it means addressing jobs, education, immigration, defence and energy head-on.
To respond to climate change smartly, we need to pivot from making energy more expensive to innovation that will eventually make green energy cheaper: investing in R&D to achieve breakthroughs like more advanced nuclear, carbon capture and geoengineering, and far more efficient green energy generation and storage, rather than driving up all energy prices while subsidising today’s intermittent and uncompetitive renewables.
Politicians still peddling painless green transitions must now defend the indefensible: unaffordable energy for negligible impact. The net-zero era is fracturing. It is time for honesty, innovation and policies that serve people the best.
Bjorn Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus, Visiting Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and author of False Alarm and Best Things First.

And that, thank the long absent lord, was that. 

What a disgrace the rag is, how shamelessly, nauseatingly repetitive the Bjørn-again one is ...

A few last 'toons ... and the pond encourages you to think of the lizard Oz as an executioner, amazingly full of narcissistic self-pitying creatures ...

And now for the weekly update ...even as fresh follies emerge on an hourly basis from this fascist regime ...