In which the pond takes a road trip, but has time to catch up with Our Henry and prattling Polonius, dissing the Pope in mad King Donald war monger mode ...

 

The pond set out for Melbourne last Thursday, desperate to prove the reptiles wrong, determined to show that an EV could make the trip in a reasonable time.

Alas, things went wrong from the start. There was a five hour queue at Yass, and a slow charger, so add another two hours. The pond had so much time on its hands it attended a double bill at the restored Liberty theatre, and took in a service with Pastor Dave.

At Woodonga, things were so slow, an Islamic family got out the prayer mat and did their thing. Imagine the pond's terror - fancy proposing any reptile witness such proceedings in the fenced off exit to an expired burger store.

Then it was off to the mighty Wang for a top up, but everything was closed. The pond limped into Melbourne in the wee hours with all sense of time lost and a sense that the reptiles would be gloating for years at a nightmare 24 hour folly in a vehicle that cost somewhere north of the family home.

Hang on, hang on, for a real account of what happened, please see below.

In the interim, the pond must earn its keep and offer a message from the reptiles.

It being a disjointed weekend, the best the pond could do when near a computer was make an offering of ancient Henry, taken from the lizard Oz back on Friday.

As a blog of record, the pond doesn't like to miss the hole in bucket man, and this was a Zionist doozy, entirely fitting for the Australian Daily Zionist News:

The header: Pope Leo is guilty of repudiating the ‘just war’ doctrine; That our government has urged Israel to stand down confirms its moral evasiveness; that Pope Leo has done likewise is grievous.

The caption for the wayward Pope: Pope Leo XIV presides over the Easter vigil as part of the Holy Week celebrations, at St Peter's basilica in the Vatican. Picture: AFP

It should go without saying that Our Henry is up for the killing fields, especially when it's the current government of Israel doing the killing, and he was at it full bore in this outing ...

“Peace,” said Saint Augustine, “is so great a good that even in relation to the affairs of earth and our mortal state, nothing is desired with greater longing, nor can anything better be found.” Yet Augustine was no pacifist. He knew that in a fallen world, peace cannot be secured by permitting evil to go unchecked.
That hard truth was conspicuously absent from the Easter interventions of Pope Leo XIV on the wider war in the Middle East, and notably in Lebanon. Absent, too, was any serious engagement with one of Christianity’s greatest intellectual legacies: the doctrine of just war.
The doctrine did not emerge in a vacuum. Its roots lie in Hebrew scripture’s insistence that even war stands under judgment, and that those who wage it are accountable to a higher law.
The narrative of Jephthah in the Book of Judges makes the point: before war is joined, grievances are rehearsed, and an appeal is made to justice. War follows only – yet follows legitimately – when those claims fail, despite efforts to secure redress. Within that framework, wars of self-defence are not merely permitted; repelling an unjust attacker, or one who is imminently so, is a duty.
Complementing the biblical inheritance was the Greek tradition, which, finding its highest expression in Cicero, grounded the doctrine in ethics. War, Cicero argued in criticising conflicts “fought for conquest and glory”, is justified only as a last resort, engaged to correct a grievous wrong. Coining a formulation that would endure through the ages, he added that “the sole excuse for going to war is that we may live in peace” – that is, that the war’s aim must be to remove the adversary’s capacity and will to pursue aggression, allowing a measure of tranquillity to prevail.
Steeped in the Hebrew Bible and profoundly influenced by Cicero, Augustine joined these strands in his account of just war. It was on the foundations he laid that Thomas Aquinas later set out the doctrine’s canonical formulation. Aquinas did not pursue the utopian goal of abolishing war. He recognised that aggression has to be deterred and resisted; his aim was to subject that necessity to the discipline of Christian morality.
War, in the doctrine that would dominate Christian political theology for centuries, could only be legitimate if a properly constituted sovereign authority waged it – one capable of entering into credible peace settlements. There had to be a just cause: the enemy must have committed a wrong that warrants redress, whether through the violation of rights or the refusal to make restitution.
And those who wage war must have a right intention: they must aim to advance good or avert evil – that is, to thwart cruelty, criminality or the lust for domination. Where those conditions are met, the use of force is both sanctioned and morally justified.
Measured against those criteria, Pope Leo’s assessment of the conflict in Lebanon – and his scarcely veiled criticism of Israel – is seriously ill-considered. After all, none of the key facts is in dispute. Ever since the ceasefire came into effect on November 27, 2024, Hezbollah has systematically violated its conditions.

And there you have it. Cicero the Greek joining with Augustine and on with the killing fields, with Our Henry armed with a fierce lance of righteous blood lust.

This sort of blather could have put the pond in the awkward position of attempting to defend the Catholic church, but the church is more than capable of looking after itself, especially when placed up against the likes of mad King Donald and the genocidal Benji (though the pond did enjoy the late night show joke about the Pope and King Donald having a shared interest in hiding sex scandals).

The reptiles flung in a snap which in other times would have found favour in the Catholic Boys' Daily, Pope Leo XIV. Picture: AFP

Our Henry kept raging away ...

Now operating illegally – following the Lebanese government’s ban on its military activities – it has refused to comply with repeated instructions to disarm. Knowing the Lebanese armed forces are too weak and divided to act, Hezbollah’s vice-president, Mahmoud Comati, told Le Monde last month that were any attempt made to dismantle its arsenal, it stood ready to trigger – and triumph in – a devastating civil war.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah has sheltered the Iranian ambassador, whom the government had expelled, and – according to Lebanon’s Prime Minister, Nawaf Salam – has issued hundreds of false passports to foreign fighters associated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. And it has rained missiles and drones on Israel, overwhelmingly directed at purely civilian targets.
Hezbollah’s aim has never been to protect Lebanon – much less the Maronite community. It has instead dismissed the country as “one of the legacies of imperialism”, to be subsumed in the Islamic state it claims will emerge from “the great confrontation with the aggression of Zionists, Crusaders and world arrogance”. As Hassan Nasrallah put it in 2018, the organisation – far from owing loyalty to Lebanon – proudly sees itself as “an arm of the Iranian government and the Lebanese branch of the Guard Corps”.
Nor has it ever shown any interest in peace. Nasrallah repeatedly described Jews in gro-tesquely dehumanising terms as the “descendants of pigs and apes”, and Israelis as “a people of conquerors, occupiers and rapists of the land” who “must be killed”. Just this week, Hezbollah denounced Lebanon’s negotiations with Israel and declared it would not respect any agreement that might be reached.

Uh huh, and then Our Henry really took a sharp turn to the barking paranoid weird:

The moral implications are obvious. It is inconceivable that the Australian government would stand by were Papua New Guinea’s government unable – or unwilling – to act against an armed band launching missiles into Queensland and avowedly intent on exterminating the “settler colonialists” it denounces as “conquerors, occupiers and rapists of the land”. Deploying the ADF to eliminate the threat would be more than a right; it would be an obligation.

Dear sweet long absent lord, that's the best he could do in drumming up support for the outrageous ongoing behaviour of the current government of Israel? Seems so ...

Exactly the same principle applies here. Israel’s intervention is the surest, indeed only, means of forcing the Lebanese state to face the choice it has long evaded: either bring Hezbollah to heel or leave Israel to do so.

That our own government has urged Israel to stand down simply confirms its moral evasiveness and electoral opportunism; that Pope Leo has done likewise amounts to a grievous repudiation of the just war tradition, which has always upheld the right of nations to defend themselves against aggressors, and to prevent them from striking again.
That tradition is no exultation of war. On the contrary, the Book of Isaiah’s great vision of universal peace – “they shall beat their swords into ploughshares … nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” – testifies to an enduring insight: that war, while sometimes necessary, remains a tragedy, to be constrained, justified, and ultimately transcended.
But the just war doctrine recognises that the lions show no intention of lying down with the lambs. Facing up to that reality, it refuses to assert a false moral equivalence between those who murder and those who seek to stop them. And while praying, as does the Pope, for peace, it knows the charnel house of history creates situations in which the only choice is between evils.
Yes, we must attempt to prevent such situations from arising. But when history thrusts them upon us, we cannot merely dismiss all the alternatives as equally bad and believe the gesture washes our hands clean.
The church’s refusal to condemn Hitler’s genocidal war of aggression indelibly stained its reputation. Now, as he addresses a world crying out for moral guidance, the Pope should remember the truth captured in the Midrash, and classically anchored in the story of King Saul: “Those who are merciful to the cruel will, in the end, be cruel to the merciful.” To believe otherwise is not to advance peace. It is to bury it.

Oh dear, he had to play the Hitler card.

So be it.

Our Henry's refusal to condemn the current government of Israel's genocidal war of aggression, its policy of ethnic cleansing, its lust for a greater Israel no matter the human cost, indelibly stains his reputation, but he's not the only Zionist to peddle a pile of righteous tosh in defence of crimes against humanity.

At this point the pond was determined to make a full sermon of it, and turned to that other pompous pedant, Polonius,  for a serve of his prattle ...

The header: ‘Our barbarian’: Why Christians back Donald Trump; From a controversial post to a widening rift with Pope Leo XIV, the US President’s rhetoric reignites debate over religion, war and political power.

The caption for a snap which allowed the reptiles to avoid running that infamous shot showing a doctoring King Donald curing Jon Stewart of what ailed him: US President Donald Trump’s social media post depicting himself as a Christ-like figure drew criticism and was later deleted. Picture: AFP

Who knew that Polonius would take up the Xian white nationalist cause, but stranger things have happened in the lizard Oz...and here we are, and what a broad minded chap he is all of a sudden ...

I was brought up a Catholic but I am by no means offended by President Donald J. Trump’s decision to post on Truth Social an image of himself as a Christ-like figure blessing a sick or dead man, while prayers are said in the presence of a Red Cross female nurse and a US serviceman with the Statue of Liberty in the background and a US Air Force jet and eagles in the sky overhead.
To me it was a joke, of the non-funny kind. In time Trump deleted the post, claiming he thought it depicted him as a doctor. A good try perhaps. 

A good try perhaps? Oh Polonius, Polonius, is there anything else you can add to your comedy stylings, aka an attempt at justifying the mad King's work?

However, at least the President did not blame a staffer.

Sheesh, but at least there then came a minor billy goat butt ...

The post was extraordinarily unwise since some Christians would view such an image as close to blasphemy. And many Christians voted for Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
Working as a political adviser is difficult enough without having to deal with an erratic president’s late night/early morning posts, which are at times explosive. But there is a bigger picture.
As cardinal George Pell wrote on March 30, 2019, in the first volume of his Prison Journal, “Unfortunately, President Trump is a bit of a barbarian, but in some important ways he is ‘our’ (Christian) barbarian.” Pell added that Trump’s “first two appointments to the Supreme Court will slow down the secular advance because the court there has immense power to shape society”.
Despite the fact, after he avoided assassination during a campaign rally at Butler, Pennsylvania in July 2024, Trump claimed to have been saved by God, he does not present as a devout Christian. But he has been supportive of Christians, in the US and elsewhere. Much more so than his predecessor, president Joe Biden, who presented as a Catholic.

Ah, of course the Pellists had to turn up. They always do when Polonius is in the room.

Naturally the reptiles lined up a Sky Noise after dark clown to add a MAGA message to Polonius beclowning himself (still no rebranding of the name?)...

Sky News Washington Analyst Annelise Nielsen believes if US President Donald Trump is strategic after public feud with Pope Leo, it will not have a large impact on votes. “I think it was a bit of a distraction tactic. I think he might have been doing this on purpose,” Ms Nielsen told Sky News Australia. “This isn’t the first time he’s had fights with the Pope. “He’s definitely got to manage the evangelical community.”

Naturally Polonius seized the opportunity to take a walk down Catholic memory lane ...

The current President Trump v Pope Leo XIV controversy would not come as a surprise to Australians who lived through, or are aware about, the first half of the 20th century.
When the Labor Party split in the mid-1950s, Daniel Mannix, the Catholic archbishop of Melbourne, was criticised for supporting those who split from/were expelled by the Labor Party and formed the Democratic Labor Party. However, little criticism was made by Norman Gilroy, the Catholic archbishop of Sydney, who urged Catholics to remain in the ALP. Both were involved in politics.
The fact is that Christian clergy have always been engaged in politics, to a greater or lesser extent, in a democratic society.
As Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who was born a Muslim and converted to Christianity, pointed out in a perceptive article in the Daily Mail on April 16, on April 9 Leo met US Democratic Party operative David Axelrod.

Ah, it's a conspiracy with the Democrats.

 And possibly with Marina Hyde, busy explaining Is the pope Catholic? JD Vance thinks he has the answer.

What a hoot of a read that was, and here the pond should note that it's spent some recent time with a Catholic priest who exudes some fair content for King Donald, as did many of the Catholics who attended the funeral which took the pond to Melbourne.

Polonius decided on a contrarian strategy, doing his best to take the side of mad King Donald, by explaining it was all just a "defensive" war:

A few day earlier, Leo issued his Easter message, which declared: “Let those who have weapons lay them down! Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace! Not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue! Not with the desire to dominate others, but to encounter them!”
Not surprisingly, those words were interpreted as a criticism of the defensive war waged by the US and Israel against the brutal theocracy Iran intent on crushing what the mullahs call “the Great Satan”, that is the United States, along with Israel.
On April 7, Leo spoke against Trump’s threat to destroy Iran. Again, the President used inappropriate language. It was yet more Trump hyperbole. Leo was reported as describing Trump’s threat as “truly unacceptable”.

Um, it happened to be a statement of genocidal intent, the wiping out of an entire tribe, a war crime of the first water, up there with the genocidal Xian god's eradication of all life on earth, but whatever:

On April 13, Trump fired back – even if he managed only two exclamation marks to Leo’s four. He declared “Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy”, going on to state that the Pope “thinks it’s ok for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon”. Trump also referred to Leo’s meeting with Axelrod and advised the Pope to “stop catering to the Radical Left”.
This is the familiar argument that the church should stay out of politics. However, Trump has a point. The Catholic Church is not a pacifist society. It has not always stood for peace as in unilateral disarmament.

Oh dear, here we go, here we go ...

For example, the Catholic Church has always accepted a “just war”.

You've endured Our Henry explaining Catholic theology, you might even have endured the couch molesting JD, now stand by for Polonius...

As Gerald O’Collins SJ and Edward G. Farrugia SJ point out in A Concise Dictionary of Theology (Paulist Press), the just war teaching can be traced back to Augustine of Hippo (354-430). Namely, that war must be defensive and in response to unjust aggression, there must be a reasonable chance of success and deliberate attacks on civilians must be avoided and so on. Pope Pius XII never opposed the Allied forces’ war against Nazi Germany.

Hang on, hang on, shouldn't have Our Henry and Polonius compared notes on the matter of the second world war?

It is known that Leo is critical of the Trump administration’s response to unlawful immigration. However, Benedict XVI in October 2012 declared that “every state has the right to regulate migration”. Sure, the current Pope has his political left-of-centre beliefs. But that does not bind Catholics in what the church depicts as ex cathedra pronouncements.
On April 16, Leo called for an unarmed peace. To some, myself included, that sounds a bit like surrender to the likes of Iran, Vladimir Putin’s Russia, North Korea and so on. And then there is Leo’s silence. As Melanie Phillips pointed out in these pages on April 14, Leo “has chosen to ignore totally the deliberate and mass shedding of innocent blood by the Iranian regime, which earlier this year murdered around 40,000 innocent protesters and has spent the last 47 years waging war on America and the West through murderous terrorist atrocities”.
For her part, Ali made the point that “Pope Leo has been conspicuously silent about the systematic persecution of Christians at the hands of Muslims in majority-Muslim countries”. And added that Pope Francis did not explicitly condemn Hamas for its murderous attacks on Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023.
Jesus Christ declared that his kingdom was not of this world. But Christian leaders have rarely followed such a teaching. So, when a pope declares that a president has initiated an unjust war, it stands to reason that there is likely to be a secular response. From the White House and elsewhere.

But he did initiate a pointless, farcical, cruel war, from which he's since been desperately trying to escape, and all but the lunatics at News Corp would recognise it and call it out ...

Whatever happened to the notion of liberating the Iranian people? So much festering dung in the minds of these reptiles.

In short, strange days indeed, and strange company for the likes of Our Henry and Polonius to be keeping, but the pond always knew they had a good deal of war mongering and killing fields in them, and so they are just staying true to their nature ...

And so what really happened on that Melbourne EV trip.

Well it took about 11 hours. Left at 6 am and arrived at 5 pm. The pond could have cheated and said it saw the "welcome to Melbourne" sign at 4.30 pm, but the pond added  a little time to reach the now long gone Loaded Dog pub building, near where the pond once lived. 

Of course you could spend more hours getting to bits of Melbourne, which has now sprawled out everywhere, but current home to old Melbourne home seemed like a reasonable measure.

That compares to the early gas guzzling days when the pond did it in 10 hours, but in later gas guzzling days, what with Goulburn cops, Victorian speed cameras and the need for sensible breaks, the pond took about ... 11 hours. 

It so happens that EV breaks and sensible breaks sort of match up, and the time spent waiting to access an EV charger amounted to ... NIL. 

Of course charging takes longer than guzzling gas, but it makes for good breaks.

At Yass, there wasn't another EV in sight at the charger. The pond did a tour of the main drag, which is hurting badly because the Woollies/Aldi action is up the road - closed businesses, some for sale, a junk store taking up space, an evangelical church at the river end, and only a small K-hub as a mark of conventional retail. 

The pond had a coffee and a treat, and took a look at the restored theatre, which is littered with small shops, and also saw that Pastor Dave still hadn't got rid of his Easter decor.

At Wodonga, there were no EVs until an Islamic family turned up (leaving two other stands still empty) and they did indeed get out a prayer mat and perform their rituals while their indolent son looked on. The pond didn't take a snap - let them pray in peace - but did take a snap of the spot where they prayed.

At the mighty Wang, the pond had time to take in a message from the nearby church, and visit the Wangaratta Arts Centre for a relieving pee, and check out the entertainment on offer. 

It was a dull, tedious trip of the kind the Hume always offers - hence the need for breaks - relieved by a four part podcast about the Klu Klux Klan, which almost felt like readings from the lizard Oz.

And so to the pictorial record of the trip...

First up the desolate, alienated chargers at Yass, starved for company by the chargers up the road. The mighty Yass Soldiers club is in the b/g... (click on to enlarge)

Just time for a coffee and a check of the town, which has hit hard times and has just knocked down a grand old pub, while restoring the local theatre ...

To add insult to injury, the town had bunged on an EV do ...curses, missed it ...

And there really is a Pastor Dave at the river end of the main drag, replete with faux Easter rock scene, just visible through the reflections ...

While at the Wodonga chargers, the pond really did see an Islamic family get out the prayer mat, and set themselves up to do their thing where the white car is in this snap ...

 

It's not exactly an exciting location for anything, but after the ritual they did head off to the nearby servo for whatever, and so must be considered dinkum, because anybody wanting to buy servo junk at inflated prices is doing right by the reptiles' idea of the Oz way of life.

It was also an excellent demonstration that there are many ways to enjoy a charging break.

And for the brief top up at the mighty Wang, the pond did take in a mysterious church message and did visit the arts centre for a pee and for coming attractions in stunning "digitally orchestrated" format ...

In which it's all hands on the Catholic deck for the antiChrist, with the bromancer leading the way ...

 

First, a little housekeeping: the pond is heading down to Melbourne for a funeral and so will be off air for some time.

To get there, the pond will be driving by way of an EV down the Hume.

This is an incredibly dangerous, tedious and expensive business and so the pond will likely take some time to recover.

The pond has it on good authority that EVs cost between $60 and $150k - there's not a single car below that price point - and that Telsas can run to $150k, and so the pond has had to take out a huge loan just to be able to do the EV thing.

Second, EVs are notably unsuitable for going on extended trips. Think of them as toys running on clockwork, with the spring pretty useless and likely to give out at crucial times.

The pond also understands that such a lengthy trip might involve getting in a queue to get a charge, and that you can get stuck in the queue for five interminable hours!

As the pond will be doing three charges, it's likely that will add at least fifteen hours to the trip, meaning it probably can't be done in under a day, even by driving all day and night, and ditto the reverse leg will also waste more than a day.

Along the way, the pond will encounter baleful reminders of the complete uselessness of renewables - there are the whale-killing windmills down Goulburn way (how the beefy boofhead failed in his mission!) and the solar arrays roadside in rural Victoria. 

Pray for the pond in best King Donald style, and ruminate on what the world lost when tungsten light bulbs were cruelly tossed aside.

So sadly the rest of this week will be lost, and that means that this week's Our Henry must be rescued from the intermittent archive by dedicated correspondents.

(See below for the pond's expert sources on EVs).

And so to the day's reptile news, and hallelujah, the reptiles have had a come to Jesus moment...

Now the pond only showed that full array of the "news" section to show what the reptiles really thought of the beefy boofhead's talk on immigration.

Instead of following up with a reptile jihad, ye ancient cats and dogs they preferred featuring the absolute freedom of superyachts.

This was a supreme tragedy for the pond because there had been a number of cartoons lined up to greet the beefy boofhead ...

What a terrible waste ... and there was even more wastage to come ...

Alas, all wasted, and it was no better over on the extreme far right, where the beefy boofhead simply couldn't get a run, and early in the morning the bromancer was top of the world, ma ...

The header: For Christ’s sake, Donald Trump, just don’t go there; The US President’s blasphemous social media posts showing himself as Christ have prompted even his Catholic supporters to demand an apology.

The caption? No need for a caption when confronted by a vision of Jesus Christ on earth.

The bromancer could only summon up three minutes of ranting, and his favourite descriptor "nuts".

Is this what FAFO sounds like, bromancer style?

It would be going too far, and surely over-theologising mere personal weirdness, to suggest Donald Trump should call on the services of an exorcist.
But you have to wonder what wicked spirits got into the President’s mind to have him make a personal attack on Pope Leo XIV, and post an AI-generated image of himself as a Christ-like figure in biblical clothing, with divine light emanating from his hand as he cures a sick person by laying his hand on his head.
Mr President. Are you nuts?
Trump seems to have a special rule. He bears no personal accountability for the frequently ridiculous and offensive things he says, but anyone who criticises him has committed a mortal sin.
Thus Trump threatens to bomb Iran back to the stone age, to “end” a civilisation, to attack desalination plants that provide drinking water for civilians, then gets upset that the Pope argues for peace instead of war.
Trump has every right to disagree with the Pope on international politics, or anything else, but personal attacks on Leo and blasphemous self-glorifying social media images are nearly deranged.
Those who think Trump is always more clever than his interlocutors, playing 4-D chess, must believe there’s a giant vote of extreme right-wing Christian nationalists who hate the Pope and regard Trump as godlike. However big that vote is, Trump’s sure got it sewn up now.
I’m not sure it’s an election winning cohort.
It’s also the case, incidentally, that Leo, the first pope from the US, is no crypto-communist. When he lived in Chicago, Leo voted in Republican primaries. He has praised the NATO alliance, showing he’s not some lefty who demonises soldiers. He has also said nations have a right to secure borders, to decide who comes into their countries, but that they should treat all people with dignity and care.

The reptiles didn't provide any relief from the rant by way of stills so the pond decided to help out ...

The pond has rarely seen the bromancer so gloomy for such a prolonged stretch ...

What on earth would you expect the Pope to say? Leo is a thoughtful, cautious, sensible, prayerful Pope. Trump seems unable to understand, or even recognise, such a figure.
To descend to mere politics, these latest moves are self-destructive for Trump and Republicans.
Trump has always been a mixed grill. He does and says some good things which other presidents would not be bold enough to do. He also does and says some nearly insane things. And even when he does something defensible, he’s inclined to wreck it with hubris, spite and madness.
His supporters wildly overstate his political strength. Unlike George W. Bush, Trump never won a majority of the popular vote in a US election. At the last election, he won a majority of US Catholics. They are diverse, of course, but most are swing voters because while they tend to be patriotic and moderately socially conservative, they remember their recent working-class roots, they are universal rather than racial in their human outlook and have some concern for social justice and ethical standards.
Trump therefore presents to them the same contradictions as he does to other voters. Trump lost the Catholic vote to Joe Biden in 2020, but won it, fairly narrowly, against Kamala Harris, partly because Biden was such a bad president.
Catholics have not really bought on to the idea, popular in some fairly extreme evangelical circles, that Trump is somehow a specially chosen instrument of divine providence.
A majority of US Catholics now disapprove of Trump and recent incidents will make that much worse. Republicans are likely to suffer in the mid-term elections as a result.
Trump has mobilised even those mainstream figures who have striven to see the good in his administration into straightforward denunciation of him. On social media, he’s like an excited kid lacking parental supervision. He’s badly missing the adults of his first administration.
No mainstream European leader has striven harder to see the good in Trump than Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, yet she condemned his attack.

It was as if something had snapped ... as if he'd done a Melania ...

The bromancer even played the Orbán card, though the reptiles resolutely refused to deploy the acute accent over the á:

Even conservative American Catholics have now denounced Trump. Bishop Robert Barron, founder of the Word on Fire internet ministry, is the most popular Catholic churchman in America, who serves on Trump’s religious liberty commission and has taken flak for supporting him on some issues. He too condemned Trump’s remarks and called on him to apologise to the Pope. This is a very widespread reaction among those Christians who have tried hard to identify with the good in the Trump program.
It’s now damaging to any political figure to have been Trump’s friend. His Vice-President, JD Vance, was in Hungary, wholly inappropriately, campaigning for Trump’s friend Viktor Orban, just before the election.
John O’Sullivan, the shrewdest of analysts, thinks this was a factor in the anti-Orban landslide that ensued.
If this is 4-D chess, Trump should go back to checkers.
And start his nightly prayers with an act of contrition.

Checkers? The cheeky bromancer has taken to bearding the emperor with wit?

And yet the hapless bromancer still thinks that King Donald might be up for an act of contrition, might know how to say a Hail Mary, the Apostle's creed, an Our Father, and a Glory Be, while clutching at his rosary beads?

At least the bro's still delusional ...

What was once the Australian Daily Catholic Times (before becoming the Australian Daily Zionist News and cheering on bigly ethnic cleansing) was so alarmed that it wheeled out a tyke to wonder if it was all the Pope's fault. 

Unlike King Donald, a master of subtlety and nuance, the clunky Pope might well have sounded like an oafish boofhead:

The header: Pope v Trump reveals the complexity of ‘just war’ in our troubled times; Should Pope Leo have been more nuanced in his language on war?

The caption: Pope Leo XIV attends a meeting with the Algerian community in the Basilica of Our Lady of Africa, in Algiers on Monday. Picture: AFP

Now for that rap over the knuckles for that insensitive Pope addling his response to that extremely sensitive mad King Donald:

Given what has been reported in the media, there is an extra sentence that I would like Pope Leo to have added to his comments on the war in Iran: that he was “addressing all relevant political decision-makers”.
It is easy to see why, without this qualification, he seemed to be referring only to DonaldTrump, given that this war was the US President’s initiative.
Trump’s reactions have been predictably outrageous, though his AI-generated image as a healing religious figure exceeds even his own narcissistic standards.
But perhaps Pope Leo really was singling Trump out for special condemnation? Some commentators have asked why Leo has not likewise criticised leaders of Iran or Hezbollah. Leo has explained that his task is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, which commands us to be peacemakers.

It's outrageous that this wretched Pope should single out mad King Donald. What on earth was he thinking? Didn't he realise that the mad king was the recipient of the inaugural FIFA peace prize, and blessed are the cheesemakers?

And remember, this is a just war...

As an earlier pope, John Paul II, said: “War is always a failure of humanity” – a failure to resolve conflicts in a way that respects the life and dignity of all affected. Nonetheless, defensive wars are sometimes a legitimate, necessary evil, even if the failure is chiefly on one side. Leo would not deny this; he is not a pacifist.

The reptiles reminded us of the humble king by turning to a snap:

US President Donald Trump speaks to the press outside the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, on Monday. Picture: AFP

As for all that bloody peace business, why are the bloody popes always yammering on about peace when they should be applauding the likes of Vlad the Sociopath and Benji the greater Israel man in their quest for a piece of this and a piece of that:

It is true that several recent popes have been reluctant to apply traditional “just war” criteria and have sounded more and more pacifist. The criteria were developed centuries ago when wars were waged by standing armies on defined battlefields away from civilians. While the principle that non-combatants must not be directly harmed remains sacrosanct, it is not clear how just war criteria can be applied in contexts where an enemy uses human shields, installs weapons in hospitals and schools, and wages a grey war through terrorist proxies.
Perhaps it is the nature of contemporary warfare that has led popes to simply urge peacemaking in all circumstances.
In Leo’s words, war today is “senseless and inhuman violence” even if it is defensive.
Given the longstanding conduct of Iran and its proxies, it can be argued that Trump’s chosen war against Iran is in truth defensive. Many will dispute this, but a reasoned argument is needed in either case instead of the bald assertions on both sides.
But even if Trump’s war is defensive, there is always a further ethical question to be faced about strategy and means. On this point, those who defend Trump’s pre-emptive action must by now be having their doubts. Was there real­ly no other way of dealing with the Iran threat? Is the chosen and ever evolving strategy proportionate to the noble goal?

Here we must pause to contemplate the wretch himself: the Pope addresses Algerian authorities, members of the civil society, and diplomatic corps at the Djamaa el Djazair Conference Center in Algiers, on Monday. Picture: AP

So to a little more both siderist thinking and cluck clucking and tut-tutting in a way worthy of any pious prelate:

It is worth recalling John Paul II’s condemnation of the war in Iraq and his prediction about its consequences. Likewise, Leo’s longstanding warning that the Middle East faces an “irreparable abyss” has become all too prophetic. In truth, many nations share responsibility for what has occurred – for they have stood by and allowed the violence and instability of the region to fester.
For better or (probably ) worse, the US and Israel have intervened – and both the surrounding nations and other influential nations are discovering too late that they should have taken responsibility sooner. There is a “failure of humanity” in every direction.
Even when a war has a legitimate defensive goal and is pursued by effective and proportionate strategies, this should never be an occasion for religious triumphalism.
Unlike US “secretary for war” Peter Hegseth, a Christian should wage war with profound and humble regret about the loss of innocent life, the destruction of cities and the economic harm to millions more. There is nothing to celebrate here; there will be blood on our hands, and the inevitable post-traumatic stress disorder for those closely involved.
Of course, religious leaders are likely to be criticised whether they do or do not speak out against aggression. When the Dutch Catholic bishops publicly condemned Nazism in 1942 the Gestapo began a new round-up of Jews, especially those such as philosopher and Carmelite nun Edith Stein (and her still Jewish sister), who had become Christians. They died in Auschwitz. Subsequently, The Netherlands had one of the highest mortality rates for Jews in Western Europe.
This does not necessarily mean the bishops should have remained silent; it does highlight the complexity of prudential judgments during wartime.
Pope Leo’s words could be more nuanced, even though he cannot purport to offer an ethical evaluation of the many facets of the current conflict. He is reminding us of the higher Christian perspective within which to view our actions. We must never cease from pursuing peaceful resolutions through dialogue and recognition of our common humanity. And if we must go to war, it should not be with an arrogant confidence in God’s blessing; at best, we can but trust that the defensive actions we need to take will be justified in the circumstances, and that God will bring good out of the evil we do.

And just who was that wanker?

Gerald Gleeson is a deputy vice-chancellor at the Australian Catholic University. He is a former vicar-general of the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney.

He would have served ably in the church in Spain in the times of Franco ...

Glory unto King Donald ... hosannah in the highest ...

And here the pond clapped out though the finest reptile minds were out and about on parade, not least Dame Slap ... but after those sermons it was a bit of a downer for the pond to see that Dame Slap was blathering about "Civilisation":

Federal judge: Civilisation relies on us; don’t let the show down
A lecture from Federal Court judge Ian Jackman shows why character, not identity, should be the focus of citizenship.
By Janet Albrechtsen

The pond personally supervised her placement in the intermittent archive and will only offer this teaser trailer ...as she attempted to do a little bit of Our Henry in her opening flourish:

Given that Dame Slap was borrowing from a judge, one of that despicable bunch that Dame Slap routinely reviles, there was a hint of stolen valour in the way that Dame Slap pillaged his words and recycled them to her own glory.

And spoiler alert, here's the closer, a true measure of the extent of the meaningless blather ...

Say that again:

"Not letting the show down".

I say, gadzooks, wot wot, old chaps, there'll always be an England, must take the Spittie out for an early morning lap ...

...and what a chance to run the pond's favourite primary school poem, running deep with the thoughts of empire, doing the right thing, and conforming to the rigid teachings of Dame Slap ...

Vitaï Lampada

There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night —
Ten to make and the match to win —
A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play and the last man in.
And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat,
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,
But his Captain's hand on his shoulder smote
"Play up! play up! and play the game!"

The sand of the desert is sodden red, —
Red with the wreck of a square that broke; —
The Gatling's jammed and the colonel dead,
And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.
The river of death has brimmed his banks,
And England's far, and Honour a name,
But the voice of schoolboy rallies the ranks,
"Play up! play up! and play the game!"

This is the word that year by year
While in her place the School is set
Every one of her sons must hear,
And none that hears it dare forget.
This they all with a joyful mind
Bear through life like a torch in flame,
And falling fling to the host behind —
"Play up! play up! and play the game!"

Wouldn't want to let the show down by not playing the game. Provided the pond can serve by way of keyboard.

And that's about that.

The pond decided to send warrior Liz to the intermittent archive cornfield ...

Ditch the talk, the best defence is innovation
Anything other than the two existential threats in Australia’s defence conversation is pretty much noise.
By Elizabeth Buchanan

The intermittent archive is working this morning, so a teaser trailer is more than enough ...

Splendid stuff, demanding an end to idle, meaningless talk, by bursting into action ... by writing a column for the lizard Oz.

Why that must mean the pond is action central.

Ditto Martin ...

The NDIS was a promise – now it’s a broken market
I hardly recognise what the National Disability Insurance Scheme has become; today the NDIS is hardly meeting anyone’s expectations.
By Martin Laverty

The only thing the pond will note about Martin is that the reptiles unfortunately started his piece with a snap of him looking like a smirking Cheshire cat ...

And so as promised to the source of the ancient reptile EV lore with which the pond began the day.

The pond never watches Sky Noise down under (still no rebrand?) and so was startled when the pond's logarithms unearthed this clip.

It featured dazzling blonde Danica De Giorgio, who is so thick she makes a piece of 4 be 2 look like a toothpick ...

It was titled Sky News Is Still Lying About EVs and Batteries - Here's what they just said... and so it caught the pond's eye.

It came as no surprise that the reptiles lied on Sky Noise - they lie every day in the lizard Oz, and the dog botherer was also featured, so naturally there'd be lies, but even the pond wasn't prepared for this level of inanity.

The pond only mentions it for those opening precious few moments of Sky Noise down under drivel ...

And speaking of war criminals deserving a papal lashing...

In which a gloomy bromancer tries to cope, and cultists should be appeased by a Dame Groan sighting ...

 

The pond's partner has a thing for JD, and while the pond tries to argue against it, the arguments in favour of the couch molester are hard to refute.

JD visits the pope, who promptly dies, and a new liberal - or at least King Donald incurious - pope is installed. A real win for a Catholic convert anxious to see the church get ahead.

JD flies off to Hungary to support Viktor Orbán. He loses, so JC can take credit for saving Europe. What a winner.

JD heads off to the middle east to lead the negotiations, and produces an incredible negotiated settlement that sees both sides blockade the strait, plunging the world into chaos. So much winning.

Is it any wonder that couches want to lie with him, so that their beastly cushions can do the two backs thingie with him?

Others think he deserves our deepest thanks ...

But in the rush to praise JD for his legendary work, let's not forget that each day there's the same sort of incredible winning on display by the reptiles parading in the lizard Oz ...

Come on down bromancer, do the winning thingie for News Corpse and Faux Noise ...

The header: Iran knows it has Donald Trump politically snookered; This will probably be for Trump as damaging as the withdrawal from Kabul was for Joe Biden, possibly much worse.

The caption for the demented mad King: President Donald Trump speaks with reporters at Joint Base Andrews. Picture: Julia Demaree Nikhinson / AP Photo

Watching the bromancer spend a bigly four minutes or so trying to cope with the doings of the mad King has become a peculiar pleasure for the pond of late.

Sure, the world is going to hell in a handbasket, in no small part due to the role played by the bro's kissing cousins at Faux Noise and to American-owned News Corp, but you must take your pleasures where you find them...

See how he struggles to discern some kind of sanity, marvel at the way he decodes the entrails ...

Australians should prepare for severe disruption for months, for shortages of fuel and other essentials, and the strong chance of recession, as a result of conflict in the Strait of Hormuz.
The military logic of what’s unfolding in the strait offers no reason to imagine a return to normal soon. Things will certainly get worse before they get better. They may get much, much worse.
One security insider put it to me this way: “The law of diminishing returns now applies to Trump. He wants to get out as quickly as possible. The law of increasing returns applies to Iran. It wants to keep using its new leverage.”
The case for taking action against Iran was very strong, because of its nuclear, ballistic missile, proxy and terrorist capabilities.
However, the way the Trump administration has handled this has in many ways played into Iran’s long-term strategic strengths. Mike Pezzullo argues that Trump should have involved allies much earlier. Failing to prepare de-mining capabilities or to get allies to help Gulf Arab states in counter-drone defences betrays poor planning.
The Americans say peace talks with Iran failed because they couldn’t get sufficient reassurance on nuclear enrichment. I think that’s misleading. The key today is Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz.

The disgraced Pezzullo still being quoted as a reliable expert? 

Only in bromancer land, as the reptiles featured that heroic winner, Vice President JD Vance speaks during a news conference in Islamabad. Picture: Jacquelyn Martin / AP Photo

On and on the bromancer rambled, with the possibility that China might be dragged into proceedings surely a cause for celebration, because at last he might get his much desired war with China well before Xmas ...

Washington has achieved degradation of Iranian military capabilities. But Iran uses drones, sea mines, missiles and even artillery to make the Strait of Hormuz impassable without its permission. If the US walks away leaving Iran controlling who gets through the strait, and charging each ship a toll, that’s a massive defeat.
Here’s a weird thing. Until now the US has allowed Iran to keep trading its own oil on shadow fleets. Because of the spike in oil prices, this meant Iran was making twice as much money from its oil as it was before the war.
The US blockade is designed to cut all that money off and therefore make it harder for Tehran to keep on resisting. This will in the short term remove more oil from the international system.
It’s unclear how the US will enforce the blockade. Presumably it won’t actually sink any oil tanker that refuses its order to stop and be inspected. Instead it would have to board such a ship with US Navy SEALs and the like, then determine whether the ship’s cargo carried was loaded in Iran, then take custody of the ship or turn it back.
Iran has been allowing ships from friendly nations such as China to get through. Will the US enforce its blockade against Chinese ships, or ships with other nations’ flags carrying oil for China?

On the basis that you can never have enough bro, the reptiles introduced an AV distraction featuring him blathering to petulant Peta in his usual gloomy way, and luckily the pond could reduce it to an indicative screen cap ... The Australian Foreign Editor Greg Sheridan says if the Iranians control the Strait of Hormuz, they have “won an enormous victory”. “They have withstood the worst that Trump can give, and they haven’t buckled,” Mr Sheridan told Sky News host Peta Credlin. “The Islamic Revolutionary Guard is still in control in Iran. “That is a big victory.”

What a defeatist, as the bromancer kept showing signs of blinking ...

Here is where my friend’s laws of diminishing returns for the US and increasing returns for Iran come in. Iranians can read US poll numbers. This is an exceptionally unpopular war with the American public, about one-third of whom support it. Trump’s statements have swung wildly throughout the war, creating much confusion and ill will. He alternates between trying to influence oil and stock markets by telling them the war is almost over, virtually over, about to be over. He follows with wild threats to destroy Iranian civilisation or attack every Iranian electricity plant etc.
The Iranians aren’t scared by these threats. They know Trump can’t, politically, carry them out. They interpret them as signs of Trump’s frustration, even some political desperation. All this gives Iranian policymakers an incentive to try to wait Trump out, confident that domestic US politics will force him to quit before he opens the strait. Alternatively, the Iranians believe that to get agreement on the strait, Trump could make huge concessions to them that he would try to disguise in presentation.
This will probably be for Trump as damaging as the withdrawal from Kabul was for Joe Biden, possibly much worse.
What about Australia? The three factors that will help us avoid technical recession are the huge rise in commodity prices (as usual, the Green-demonised mining industry could save us), immigration, which tends to make the overall economy bigger, and inflation.
But there’s every chance we’ll get inflation combined with massive disruption because of the energy crisis. That’s inflation plus recession – stagflation. In such circumstances the Albanese government will spend wildly, at home to cushion recession, abroad to bid for scarce resources.
Dangerous paths of escalation for this conflict are obvious, though not inevitable. If the Americans are serious about opening the strait against Iranian opposition they probably need to occupy a number of Iranian islands. That means renewed war, boots on the ground and probably US casualties.

Glorious days, as the reptiles tried to distract with a snap of other news, Anthony Albanese and Richard Marles announce senior leadership changes within the Australian Defence Force at Parliament House. The government has appointed Vice Admiral Mark Hammond as the Chief of the Defence Force. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Then there came a final plunge into bromancer gloomsville...

Iran would respond by attacking Gulf nations’ energy infrastructure. It may be able to get its Houthi clients to attack energy shipping in the Red Sea, meaning even bigger disruption.
Incoming chief of the defence force Mark Hammond claimed Australia could send our navy to the Strait of Hormuz if asked. Hammond is a distinguished, capable and honourable man who would never knowingly lie. His statement is technically true but substantially meaningless.
Our seven Anzac frigates are among the world’s least capable warships. They are old and have just eight vertical launch cells each. You could fit them with limited extra counter-drone systems but we have no serious capabilities in that area.
Of course, within a US air and sea defence bubble, even an Anzac frigate could survive. If the Americans protect civilian vessels, they will survive too. That’s the point of such operations. Our frigate couldn’t reliably defend itself. The Albanese government decided not to upgrade Anzac frigate capabilities. We could send an air warfare destroyer, of which we have just two in service, as a marginal contribution. You have to see Hammond’s comments as part of official propaganda to convince Australians we have a much more capable defence force than we really do.
The US is now retrofitting solutions to problems it should have anticipated. We have almost no influence in all this and are doing not much to prepare for an increasingly dangerous future.

Say what? Isn't AUKUS going to save us?

Maybe not ... (*intermittent archive link)

No wonder he's gloomy, but perhaps that's because he missed the story about mad King Donald the redeemer, which is pretty much everywhere, but which also appeared early in the morning in the lizard Oz just below the bromancer's piece ... though no reptile could be found to attach his name to it, and it was left to agencies...

Donald Trump deletes Jesus post of himself after outcry
Even among conservative-leaning bishops, there was dismay over the President’s unprecedented assault on Pope Leo and his Truth Social post. Trump heard them.
By AFP and AP

The nub of it was that photo ... how could the pond resist a dose of sacrilege and blasphemy early in the morning?

The likes of Marge took a view ...

Apparently many are asking these days if He's the Antichrist (Wired link), and it's on for young and old ...

But the explanation was perfectly reasonable and sensible, at least for anyone in their dotage ...

Asked about the post, Mr Trump denied that he was trying to look like Jesus Christ. “I did post it, and I thought it was me as a doctor and had to do Red Cross,” he told journalists. “It’s supposed to be me as a doctor, making people better. And I do make people better. I make people a lot better.”

Talk about senility in plain sight ...

It isn't easy for local reptiles to match that level of comedy, and Geoff, as he chambered a round for the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way, didn't even try ...

Taylor learns from Dutton errors
Angus Taylor has released the Coalition’s first immigration policy phase, learning from Peter Dutton’s past mistakes while targeting One Nation voters with detailed measures.
By Geoff Chambers
Political editor

The pond decided that a teaser trailer would do, with the intermittent archive hopefully doing the rest ...

Why do the reptiles think they're helping when they start with a snap of prime Angus grinning inanely and looking sunstruck, like a prize loon cherry red tomato in a hothouse?

So long ago, the days when talk of migrants eating cats and dogs was an election winner.

The pond didn't even bother to offer a teaser trailer for Jennings of the fifth form, delivering a standard whine ...

New ADF leaders, but no extra money
Australia’s military has appointed new leaders to senior positions, yet they inherit an under-resourced Defence Force struggling with rapidly escalating regional security threats.
By Peter Jennings

Come now, Jennings of the fifth form, surely putting a woman in charge of something is the real problem. Why, Pete Kegsbreath wouldn't stand for it ...

But at least that clearing of the reptile deck allowed space for Dame Groan's Tuesday outing.

It too was a standard whine, but the pond must pay attention to her cult following and their insatiable lust for hanging on every one of her words ...

The header: National fuel gauge is on empty – and no one is refilling; The government needs to take note as the global energy market, particularly for liquid fuels, is transformed, possibly forever.

The caption? Sadly there was no caption but that's possibly because everyone knew who he was ... Satan's little helper.

In fact Satan's little helper had probably set Dame Groan off ...

In this oil crisis, no one is calling for more fossil fuels: Bowen
Chris Bowen made the declaration as he leads the response to the fuel shock while balancing his duties as president of the COP31 UN summit.
By Rosie Lewis

Outrageous.

No one is calling for more fossil fuels?

Hold Dame Groan's beer ...

I have had my petrol car for some time. It is just fine apart from one minor defect. The fuel gauge moves from quarter to empty in the blink of an eye. I have learnt to deal with this by filling up the tank when the quarter mark approaches. It’s just a pity the federal government hasn’t adopted this cautious approach when it comes to the supply of liquid fuels – petrol, diesel, aviation fuel – that the country holds.
It came as a shock to many people that the country’s reserves of these critical fuels are around 30 days, a third of the level recommended by the International Energy Agency. We are at the bottom of the pack among advanced economies.
Even our cousins over the ditch have more than 50 days of reserve fuel. Italy has 90, France has 108 and Japan has 250 days.
There’s no need to rush out to fill up the tank if there are 200 days in reserve; 30 days is a different matter. It is not surprising therefore that the increase in the retail price of fuel has been higher in countries with relatively low reserves, leaving aside the impact of excise adjustment.
Successive governments have known about this problem for years but have dithered. Senator Jim Molan had loudly belled the cat on the issue. There was an earlier important report written by John Blackburn for the NRMA alerting us to the problem of our inadequate fuel reserves.
One option is to set up a government company that would purchase fuel reserves over several years to meet the IEA standard of 90 days. There would be a need for more storage, but over time this problem could be sorted.

It was everything her cult following expected, neigh demanded, and the next snap was also sure to send her off the deep end ... Anthony Albanese addresses the media at Parliament House. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Dame Groan offered an incredible solution ...

To be sure, the fuels couldn’t just be left in the tanks – the quality deteriorates – but this turnover also could be sorted. In the short term, we could store some fuel reserves with allies – an example of “friendshoring”.
There would be a cost to the taxpayer – perhaps as much as $20bn a year initially – but the reserves would sit as an asset in the books of the government company. An additional excise on fuel – say 10c a litre – could defray some of these costs, including for storage. Over time, it’s not clear that motorists would notice.

"Friendshoring"?

 Hadn't that been tried with the US?

Oh dear, another beefy boofhead triumph, at least until we discovered that the friend had fallen under the baleful rule of a demented mad King ...

Perhaps Dame Groan was thinking of New Zealand? Or at a pinch Tasmania?

Apparently this talk of "friendshoring" is completely wrong in reptile la la land if it happens to involve people of the wrong skin colour.

But do carry on ...

A contribution also would be expected from those operators currently in receipt of the diesel fuel rebate because the revenue would be used to add to reserves that would benefit them as well.
A similar contribution would be expected from the aviation indus­try.
An ideal outcome would be if the addition to the national supplies of fuel could be sourced locally. But over the past two decades the proportion of liquid fuels from domestic wells has fallen sharply.
The almost complete absence of exploration and new developments has ensured this outcome as well as the closure of most of our refineries.
The broader context of this trend is the hostility to fossil fuel developments on the part of both the federal and state governments. Driven by an obsession with net zero and meeting arbitrary emissions reduction targets, potential investments in fossil fuel-based developments have fled the country.
It’s not as though our consumption of liquid fuels has fallen; we have simply exported the associated emissions to the countries from which we import the fuels, both crude and refined.
A crossroad has now been reached. There is broad recognition of the inadequacy of our liquid fuel reserves and the consequences that potential shortages and higher prices are having well beyond servo bowsers.

It couldn't be fully fossilised foolishness about fossil fuels without an appearance by fossil Jimbo, and so it came to pass ... Jim Molan

Of late it seems that the pond should spend some time introducing the dramatis personae to be found in reptile texts.

Come on down Vaclav Smil ...alleged "noted environmental scientist" ...

Ok, Doomer: What Vaclav Smil and the disinformation echo chamber get wrong about the climate crisis

After reading the fawning coverage of Vaclav Smil’s 41st, and hopefully final, book How the World Really Works (2022) — the latest edition of an old white dude mansplaining to future generations why a just, sustainable society is impossible — I got riled up and started to write a detailed rebuttal. There are so many problems with Smil’s book.. and the man himself.
A Professor Emeritus of Geography (retired) at the University of Manitoba, Smil is sort of the high priest of naysaying, who has a long history with the American Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think tank that has received millions of dollars from fossil fuel interests, including oil giant ExxonMobil. He is the master of a particular form of climate denial that I call climate action denial.
He doesn’t believe a world powered by 100% clean, renewable energy is feasible, and he has published literature sowing doubt about the significance of human-caused climate change. Unsurprisingly, he thinks fracking is awesome and that the public is far too worried about the risks posed by extractive industries. He characterized the idea of transitioning to electric vehicles as a “myth” and sustainability in general as a “laugh.”

And so on and on, and he sounds perfect for a walk-on role.

It's unlikely that Central Casting could have found anyone better suited to Dame Groan's needs ...

The impact is hitting agriculture, particularly in terms of diesel and urea availability and prices, mining, construction, healthcare as well as what’s left of manufacturing. There are still true believers who regard recent events as a signal to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels and push for higher rates of electrification, particularly of road transport.
But note here that road transport accounts for less than 20 per cent of total emissions.
We are still a long way off long-haul trucks converting to battery power at any scale and the costs of the conversion are extremely high. In the short to medium term, excavators, cranes, bulldozers, tractors, combine harvesters, irrigation pumps, marine equipment and the like are overwhelmingly powered by diesel.
It is worth noting here the finding of Vaclav Smil, the noted environmental scientist, that there are currently no practical and cost-effective alternatives to fossil fuel for primary iron, cement, ammonia (fertilisers) and plastics.
According to Smil’s calculation, the best we can expect from electrification is a decline in emissions of between 20 and 25 per cent. The recent demise of the green hydrogen dream as a zero-emissions liquid fuel has reinforced his conclusion.
It is alarming our political leaders are failing to comprehend the magnitude of the threat to our economy and way of life of our low fuel reserves. The Prime Minister has announced that “Singapore is a major supplier of fuel to Australia”, without realising that a great deal of the fuel that Singapore refines is sourced through the Strait of Hormuz.

At  this point, the reptiles decided to crank up the volume by inserting an AV distraction featuring the mad King, who also serves these days as climate science denialist in chief, doing more to wreck the world than a hundred Groanings could manage ...

US President Donald Trump has vowed to end Iran’s “world extortion” in the Strait of Hormuz. He accused Tehran of exploiting global oil routes by demanding tolls from passing tankers. Trump warned that the US would take decisive action to reopen the critical shipping lane. “THIS IS WORLD EXTORTION, and Leaders of Countries, especially the United States of America, will never be extorted,” Trump wrote to Truth Social. The threat came after peace talks collapsed following 21 hours of negotiations.

And so at last to the final bleat, with nuking the country and coal also ready for walk-on roles, with special thanks to the mad King...

The Treasurer has been prattling on about the need for “cleaner and cheaper energy, more diverse sources and more reliable and robust supply chains”. Apart from the possibility of adding biofuels to our reserves it’s not even clear what he is talking about.
In muted terms, the Productivity Commission had warned the government about some of these problems, finding that “the main supply chain risks lie in the use of vulnerable chemical imports in health (human medicine manufacturing), energy (petrol and coal product refining) and water treatment industries”. It was just easier to ignore the warning.
The leaders of several countries are now explicitly declaring the primacy of energy security over other objectives. Japan is returning to nuclear power; Germany is prolonging the life of coal-fired electricity plants and is considering the reintroduction of nuclear; and the EU is walking away from rigid adherence to climate neutrality. The US, of course, has ditched its commitment to net zero and has exited the Paris Agreement.
The Australian government needs to take note of these developments as the global energy market, particularly for liquid fuels, is transformed, possibly forever.

Finally, the pond couldn't resist a gloat after spotting this in The Graudian ... 

Tony Abbott labels Viktor Orbán ‘Trump with brains’ as future of Budapest thinktank linked to former PM in doubt
Former Australian PM, who has been associated with pro-Orbán Danube Institute since 2023, praises ousted Hungarian leader

What a deeply corrupt man he is, selling his narcissistic preening soul for a mess of authoritarian pottage...

Tony Abbott has likened Viktor Orbán to “[Donald] Trump with brains” and labelled him Hungary’s “greatest modern leader”, as the future of his work for the ousted leader’s pet thinktank hangs in the balance.
Orbán’s 16-year grip on power in Hungary has ended after the rightwing populist leader conceded his Fidesz party had lost to the opposition Tisza party led by Péter Magyar, which won at least 138 of the 199 seats in the country’s parliament.
Abbott has been connected to the conservative Danube Institute as a senior visiting fellow since 2023, according to Australia’s foreign influence transparency scheme. Orbán’s ousting puts the future of pro-Fidesz thinktanks like the Danube Institute, which rely heavily on his former government’s funding, in doubt.
Abbott, Australia’s 28th prime minister, praised Orbán on social media for making Budapest “something of a haven for conservative intellectuals”, saying he did not “expect the new government will want that to change”.
“The economy has strengthened, the city of Budapest has been transformed, and Hungary’s family policies and determination to keep its culture have been studied around the world,” Abbott said.
“[Orbán] and I differed on Ukraine but I thought he was dead right to defy the EU, on illegal immigration especially. Why should a sovereign nation be bullied by Brussels into policies that would jeopardise its future as a distinct people?”

If the new Hungarian government has a whit or jot of sense they'll kick this craven lickspittle and fellow traveller out so fast his budgie smugglers will be forced to wander a north shore beach desolate and alone.

The pond these days finds itself routinely astonished at being found quoting Anne Applebaum, and yet here we are in The Atlantic ...

Illiberalism Is Not Inevitable
If Viktor Orbán can lose, then his Russian and American admirers can lose too. (*intermittent archive link)

In the end, the defeat of Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s autocratic prime minister, required not just an ordinary election campaign or new messaging but rather the construction of a broad, diverse, and patriotic grassroots social movement. And by building exactly that, Hungary’s opposition changed politics around the world.
Orbán’s loss brings to an end the assumption of inevitability that has pervaded the MAGA movement, as well as the belief—also present in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric—that illiberal parties are somehow destined not just to win but to hold power forever, because they have the support of the “real” people. As it turns out, history doesn’t work like that. “Real” people grow tired of their rulers. Old ideas become stale. Younger people question orthodoxy. Illiberalism leads to corruption. And if Orbán can lose, then his Russian and American admirers can lose too.

So it was with the onion muncher, so surely it will hopefully be with mad king Donald.

And again ...

...whatever happens next, this election represents a real turning point. For most European governments, this result is a relief: We can’t know yet what kind of government Tisza will create, but it won’t be one that functions as Russia’s puppet in Europe, blocking EU funding for Ukraine or European sanctions on Russia. Nor will it be a regime that serves as a model for Americans or Europeans who want to capture their own states, or take apart their own checks and balances, or impose their own illiberal ideologies on people who don’t accept them.

It might be a frying pan v. fire situation, but at least there's a change of scenery.

And so ends another day ...