As soon as the mad king said that there was nothing to worry about, that it was full steam or chips ahead, the pond became instantly alarmed ...
The lizards of Oz were right on to it ...
OpenAI’s ultimatum to PM: dilute creatives’ rights or we won’t discuss renewables
The ChatGPT creator threatens to walk away from local training facilities unless Labor backs down on creative industry protections.
By Noah Yim, Greg Brown and Matthew Cranston
What a tag team, Noah, Brownie and the canny Cranston, getting it altogether ...
It was AI all the way from a prize doofus ...
“That opportunity is before us again, and we must capture the benefits of the AI investment boom while acting with sophistication to minimise the risks,” Dr Charlton said.
“AI is not just another technology. It is becoming a factor of production in its own right, amplifying the value of labour and capital and reshaping how economies create prosperity.”
While the economic output would rival the mining boom, Dr Charlton said the benefits of AI would “stretch further than mining”.
He said that, unlike the mining boom, the AI boom would compound.
“The mining boom was a one-off level shift that peaked and receded,” he said.
“AI productivity gains compound: at a point a year, AI exceeds the mining boom’s entire effect inside a decade and keeps going. With nine in ten businesses yet to adopt, the reorganisation of Australian business has barely begun.”
Dr Charlton said Australia needed to develop more local AI capability to take advantage of the boom.
“The mining boom came with an income engine attached: we owned the ore, the world paid us for it, and the money flowed in,” he said.
“The AI boom, so far, runs the other way: the chips are imported, the models are foreign-owned, and the equipment bill helped deliver our first goods deficit since 2017.
“Mining generated prosperity – but AI only pays the countries that adopt fastest, adopt deepest, and own a piece of the stack. The boom is guaranteed; the dividend is not.”
Additional reporting: Ben Packham
Well played team - AI has already ruined the lizard Oz's graphics department - as Geoff joined in, became the resident luddite, and took aim ...
Albanese banks on AI to save economy
The message is always similar: Don’t worry about dire productivity or economic growth because the AI miracle will save us.
Geoff seemed conflicted. On the one hand it was a massive bamboozle...
It is classic modern-day politics.
Bamboozle punters with talk of AI benefits and productivity gains and hope they believe it.
Voters are already wondering why Australia’s productivity growth is so bad given AI applications are already in operation across the economy.
But at the very end of his two minute font of wisdom, he dragged in Uncle Leon to bamboozle the hive mind...
“There really won’t be anything that AI can’t do better than humans, apart from being human perhaps,” he said. “The most likely outcome is an age of amazing abundance where anyone can have anything they can think of.
“Now, of course, there are things that could derail this, like a massive global thermonuclear war or something like that. But assuming that there’s no World War Three, I think we’re headed for an age of amazing abundance
Amen to that ... what Herr Adolf said about a thousand year Reich ...
It was silly for the pond to expect the reptiles to offer any meaningful insight.
Meanwhile Gina's pampered pet was in second spot in the "news" section ...
‘Appalling’: Price leads backlash against Hanson’s Indigenous slur
Liberal frontbencher Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has condemned Pauline Hanson’s podcast comments calling Indigenous Australians ‘the most primitive race on Earth’.
By Greg Brown and Elizabeth Pike
Perhaps for once, like that broken clock, the Price is right, and talk of her joining Pauline was a furphy.
The bouffant one chipped in with a note on the bleeding obvious ...
Hanson puts her trust in concerted rage to the bottom
Outrage over Hanson’s attacks on Indigenous Australians and Anthony Albanese’s family exposes how One Nation thrives on voter resentment.
The bouffant one saw it as a plus. After all, she was just following the strategies of the News Corp rage machine ...
One Nation feeds on rage and resentment. As well, electoral successes mean “shy” One Nation supporters are feeling more confident about voicing support and voting Orange.
The bouffant one concluded with a magnificent word salad designed to strike fear into Pauline's heart...
Hanson still draws criticism from those she identified in 1996 as “fat cats, bureaucrats and do-gooders” but feels justified as it may be that criticism has not yet turned off those loyal supporters who will forgive Hanson for anything and only entrench their support.
Take that Pauline.
How could a reptile take to task the complete embodiment of the lizard Oz?
But the pond was grateful because it had a couple of immortal Rowes to hand, and in need of a segue ...
Over on the extreme far right, assimilation was all the go...
Why has this separatist approach that emphasises difference continued?
By Anthony Dillon
Contributor
Anthony wrapped up this way ...
Anthony Dillon is a prominent Indigenous affairs commentator.
Just a minor quibble, a small sub-editorial note.
Shouldn't, on his own logic, have read Anthony Dillon is a prominent commentator? Wouldn't want him to be given special separatist mention that emphasises difference ...
But otherwise it's a solid assimilationist argument, and no doubt it will please the walking red ...
The always under direly threatened group of "privileged white boys" constantly needs defending and it was Zoe's turn this day ...
Chanel Contos is quick to criticise privileged white boys, but to suggest they represent the most dangerous men in Australia is remarkably myopic.
Zoe Sankey is content director and host of the Quillette Cetera podcast.
Science-based empathy?
Well done Zoe, and perhaps in due course, you can end up hitched up to a privileged white boy in Toorak, or perhaps Vaucluse, and produce a whole tribe of them.
The pond will stick with dinkum mum bashing ...
And at this point it became clear why the pond had covered almost everything else before turning to the pond's favourites...
The bromancer had a bee in his bonnet, and it was buzzing something fierce ...
The header: The war on terror isn’t over – it’s in Iran: The most appalling claim I’ve heard is that there has been no repeat of 9/11. The Hamas atrocities of October 7 were exactly a second 9/11.
The caption for the out of focus mad king and his consort Kegsbreath: President Donald Trump, left, speaks as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth listens during an observance ceremony on the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Picture: Mark Schiefelbein / AP Photo
The bromancer began by swallowing the line that the current war of choice was in fact just a continuation of an ancient crusade ...
When the planes hit, all other news finished. I spent the next several hours involved with The Australian’s coverage. Our newspaper worked all night, bringing out edition after edition, trying to understand what happened.
The bit about being a continuation of the war on terror was such a patent nonsense that the billy goat butts began to flow early ...
Trump has made many mistakes in Iran but it’s infinitely better if America wins rather than Iran.
If America wins? Looking pretty dire ...
As always happens with the bromancer, one butt always leads to another ...
Don't let that sort of detail get in the way.
On with the history lesson, in a way only a tyke fundamentalist can manage ...
However, Sunni and Shia theocratic, Islamist extremisms are remarkably similar. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran from 1989 until he was killed this year, translated foundational texts of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood into Persian.
A grim reminder that the trading off never ends ... The rubble of the twin towers of the World Trade Centre smoulders on September 11, 2001. Picture: AFP
What a gift bin Laden was to the jihadists ...
The 1979 Iranian revolution was the first time an avowedly revolutionary theocratic Islamist movement took state power. It inspired Islamists, including Sunni Islamists, everywhere. It also caused many previously non-Islamist Muslims to contemplate the possibility of inhabiting a theocratic state.
It goes without saying that most Muslims are not Islamists...
Russia and China, with their nuclear arsenals and powerful militaries, are potentially far worse enemies of the West than Islamist extremism and terrorism.
But the Islamist enemy is real and deadly. It attacked on 9/11. One part of the US-led response was to make sure terrorists never got nuclear weapons.
So Trump and Hegseth are right at two levels. Iranian Islamist extremism is ideologically close to Sunni Islamist extremism. And just as it was critical to stop al-Qa’ida and subsequent terrorist movements getting their hands on nuclear weapons, so it’s necessary to stop Iran from ever getting nukes.
And lordy, lordy, have they stuffed that up bigly, but never mind, inevitably there was a snap of the man himself ...Osama bin Laden. Picture: AP
Ready for another billy goat butt?
This doesn’t eliminate criticisms of Trump’s specific policies and actions over Iran.
Eek, quick, a refuting butt...
But he (and other Western leaders if any of them had the gumption) is right to link the two predominant strands of Islamist extremism.
After 9/11 I was one of countless journalists who spent much, if not most, of my professional effort trying to understand what was going on. I sought out Islamists and also Muslims who opposed Islamism, in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Europe.
Some Australian Muslim leaders can’t bear to have any terrorism connected in any way to words denoting the Muslim religion.
More trading off ... Friends, family and residents visit the graves for people killed on the first anniversary since Hamas attacked one year ago on October 07, 2024 at Kibbutz Nir Oz. Picture: Getty Images
The pond rarely strays into the offerings of the Australian Daily Zionist News.
There's genuine suffering and tragedy, often exploited so that the fear mongering can continue ...
Western intelligence and policing have improved exponentially in counter-terrorism. But the most appalling claim of all that I’ve heard, even from countless people I respect, is that there has been no repeat of 9/11. This is mistaken. The Hamas terror atrocities of October 7, 2023, were exactly a second 9/11. Some 1200 people, mostly Israelis, were murdered in vile, sadistic acts of terror that day. Israel is about 10 million people, the US about 340 million. So a proportionate loss of life due to one day of terrorism for the US would not be the 3000 killed at 9/11 but nearer to 40,000 dead.
Meanwhile, on another planet ...
And so on and on and on, and then to a final rant ...
The world can only avoid calling it the second 9/11 if it believes that terrorism against Israelis is not really terrorism. That is indeed what Islamists, and much of the Western left, would have us believe. Israeli soldiers, then Israeli civilians, then Zionists, then just Jews – if you kill them, it’s not really terrorism, it’s resistance. That civilised people can reach this conclusion is a shocking achievement for the terrorists who hate all of us.
Greg Sheridan is The Australian’s foreign editor.
The pond had only one sub-editorial note, involving a little re-writing ...
The world can only avoid calling it the second 9/11 if it believes that terrorism against Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians is not really terrorism. That is indeed what Zionists and much of the Western far right, would have us believe. Islamist soldiers, then Islamic civilians, then followers of Islam, then just Palestinians – if you kill them, it’s not really terrorism, it’s a god given right to own all the land from the river to sea. That civilised people can reach this conclusion is a shocking achievement for the Zionists who don't give a toss about what people think about an ethnic cleansing unfolding before their eyes ...
And now for the moment all devoted herpetologists wait for every Tuesday ...
The header: Mali’s big migration pitch falls straight into Hanson’s hands; We should be thankful to Malinauskas for one thing: he demonstrated an audacious selfishness for his state.
The caption for the terrible graphic, which possibly could be blamed on AI: One Nation's Pauline Hanson accuses Premier Peter Malinauskas of favouring migrants over Australian children.
First a little background.
Expert followers of the hive mind will remember Polonius, founder and executive director of the Sydney Institute pumped up the volume on the weekend ...
The SA Labor leader Peter Malinauskas has warned against progressive sanctimony, which he says has fuelled the rise of far-right politics, and urged focus on the issues that mattered.
Polonius was on a high, ecstatic at having hosted a "major speech", at least one in his own and a wayward croweater's lunch ...
‘If politics becomes the principal determinant of migration policy and a numerical race to the bottom ensues, it is going to hurt every Australian economically,’ Mr Malinauskas said. Picture: John Feder
The Premier, whose focus was on immigration, said “people on the far left who are understandably horrified about the extraordinary rise of far-right politics in Australia would do well to engage in a moment of self-reflection”.
He added: “Maybe, just maybe, the intense self-righteousness, sanctimony and piety that underpinned the ‘great awokening’ may have tilled the soil for the inevitable countercultural movement on the far right. Now, of course, these countercultural anti-woke warriors have become no less belligerent or self-defeating as those on the far left.”
Earlier in his speech, Malinauskas argued that immigration had not become such a flashpoint this year because Australia was a racist country. He said: “There are bigots in any society, in any century. But that doesn’t explain what’s changed in politics and polls so dramatically over the last nine months.”
Talk about a red rag to a raging bull.
Dame Groan wasn't going to take any of that tripe lying down.
She simply hates furriners, and this is her turf ...
The contrast with the migration policy released by One Nation could not have been more stark. This party’s aim is to achieve negative net migration based on deep cuts to the student, graduate and skilled worker numbers, as well as securing the departure of many temporary visa holders.
There were two important background considerations to Malinauskas’s widely reported speech. The first is that the gloss on his premiership has begun to fade. Regarded as one of our most competent premiers, he nonetheless has stumbled on some issues.
The old biddy began a litany of woes ...
His support for the LIV Golf carnival has ended in tears. And his desecration of a large slab of Adelaide’s parklands to accommodate a motorcycle race has not gone down well with the previously sympathetic professional classes. More important, he has failed to fix the ambulance ramping problem that was a key factor in his original election victory. The fiscal position of the state is looking decidedly dodgy as the costs of two major infrastructure projects blow out spectacularly. Like most other states, South Australia’s debt position continues to deteriorate.
Sheesh, the old duck didn't even mention by name the failure to bring that Whyalla steelworks blast furnace back to life, even if it was just a 60 year old spring chicken...Whyalla steelworks cuts more than 500 jobs as major operations shut down
The litany of errors continued ...
He is also vulnerable because of his support and subsidisation of the ill-considered merger of the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia, now just Adelaide University. This mega institution now has an excessive number of students, a bloated bureaucracy and no face-to-face undergraduate lectures. The strategy was based squarely on attracting more international students to cross-subsidise the university’s other activities.
On such occasions, the reptiles always like to supply a snap of the offending, preening ponce ...Peter Malinauskas talks about the future of the Whyalla steel works. Picture: Eleni Tzanos
Then it was on to the real thought crimes.
His presentation trots out the various half-truths about the economics of immigration. Immigration slows the ageing of the population, he argues, even though migrants themselves age. In fact, the effect is marginal and if we really wanted to alter the demographic profile of the population we would need to ramp up the migrant intake year after year.
Then there is the fiscal benefit of having more skilled migrants. Using Treasury estimates, he rattles off impressively large figures about the lifetime fiscal impact of skilled permanent migrants. Note here that these estimates are very sensitive to the discount factor used; other much lower estimates are also plausible. What the Premier fails to mention is that most skilled permanent migrants come with secondary applicants (spouse and children) and these secondary applicants provide no fiscal benefit at all. Family migrants inflict a fiscal drain.
But why just talk about permanent migrants when we have about three million temporary migrants living in the country, most of whom are working in unskilled or semi-skilled jobs? The skilled permanent intake is only about 15 per cent of the total.
An AV distraction could only add to the Groaner's rage ... South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas has raised concerns over the heightened politicisation of the migration debate. This comes after Mr Malinauskas launched an emphatic economic defence of skilled migration, warning the nation’s living standards will decline if numbers are slashed. “Don’t let politics inform our migration policy. I think what should inform our migration policy is what is in our national economic interest, but also our social interest as well,” Mr Malinauskas told News24.
Dammit, if anyone is going to set out the rationale for Pauline's bigotry, it's going to be the Dame ...
Now most serious commentators do not accept the proposition that international student education is really an export activity. But Malinauskas is not having a bar of this, claiming that any attempt to reduce the number of international students is simply a self-destructive “export restriction”. Is he being serious? Does he really think there should be no limit on the number of international student visas granted given that many of these visa holders don’t come to the country to obtain an education but to work and seek permanent residence?
The Premier sees the current anti-immigration sentiment as the result of the rise of populist parties. The reality is that the voting public has been begging the government to significantly lower the migrant intake for many years, well before the recent rise in the popularity of One Nation.
The Premier would be well-advised to check his facts. His idea that we don’t have an immigration problem, we have a housing problem is platitudinous.
Migrants add to population growth – Australia has one of the highest rates of population growth among advanced economies – and population growth causes pressure on resources. It is expensive and slow to deal with these pressures and there is understandable reluctance on the part of long-term residents to foot the bill for this expansion.
My advice to the premier is to get out more and to talk to the people who are affected by the impact of excessive migration. People understand that the visa system is being widely rorted and that more temporary migrants are extending their stay by any means. The impact on social cohesion is palpable. This is particularly the case given the geographic concentration of certain migrant groups and the increasing proportion of the population who don’t speak English.
There came a snap of two of Dame Groan's biggest fans ... Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce during a press conference in the Senate courtyard in Canberra. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman
What wise words, and Barners, Tamworth's never-ending shame echoed them...
Business and the university sector have warned One Nation's proposal to cut migration by about 750,000 places over three years would devastate the economy.
Speaking on ABC National Forum, Mr Joyce said voter concerns on migration had to be respected.
"The will of the Australian people is so pronounced, this has to be dealt with, we will deal with it," Mr Joyce said. (ABC)
That's fair, it's hard to think of Dame Groan as an economist these days, she's more a voice for the bigoted hard right peeple ...
Dame Groan is pleased to have Gina, Pauline and Barners listening to her.
But can we infer that Jim Chalmers is baulking at any significant reduction in the rate of immigration flowing into population growth? At this stage, the only factor holding up the growth of GDP is population growth.
Without it, it’s entirely possible that a recession could be recorded, and that is something the Treasurer wants to avoid at almost any cost. He also will have been warned about the loss of tax revenue associated with a lower NOM; tax revenue is highly sensitive to the growth of nominal GDP. But this calculation is essentially a fiction because many of the costs of migration are borne by state governments. Nonetheless, headline figures matter a great deal to this Treasurer.
We should be thankful to Malinauskas for one thing: he demonstrated an audacious selfishness for his state. This is part of a wider problem: the winners from high immigration have managed to get their way at the expense of ordinary folk, who simply plead for a more modest and balanced migration program.
It’s the inevitable route to the increasing popularity of those populist parties that Malinauskas so derides. One Nation is picking up on the electorate’s unease with having large migrant intakes and excessive numbers of temporary visa holders in the country. It’s a level of disquiet the Prime Minister cannot afford to ignore.
Never mind all that talk by economists ... Dame Groan has spoken:
One Nation is picking up on Judith Sloan's unease with having large migrant intakes and excessive numbers of temporary visa holders in the country. It's a level of disquiet any concerned bigot cannot afford to ignore.
And so to a couple of 'toons the pond couldn't fit in ...
