In which the reptiles do Jihad No. 1 - Jimbo and Albo - and Jihad No. 2 - Islamics! - and Dame Groan makes a very short appearance ...

 

The Jimbo jihad and the Albo angst was in full swing this day, with a tag team led by the canny Cranston and the echo Chambers both at it ...hard...

RATE RISE
Next year will feel like a recession, warns RBA
Inflation to take six months longer than expected to tackle, RBA warns amid interest rate rise
RBA governor Michele Bullock says Australians will feel like they are in a recession from next year
Despite avoiding an official recession, the Reserve Bank governor has warned Australians will feel poorer as the official interest rate hits an 18-year high.
By Matthew Cranston and Thomas Henry

The pond only needed the headlines ... doom, gloom, disaster, fear, as the echo Chambers evoked the nightmare ...

COMMENTARY by GEOFF CHAMBERS
PM’s dream of winning a third-term could turn into a nightmare
Recovery or bust for PM and Treasurer after latest RBA rate rise
Labor insiders fear Anthony Albanese has drunk too much of his own 94-seat-winning Kool-Aid by believing the economy will miraculously bounce back just in time for a May 2028 election.

It was a trifecta, with doubting Thomas coming up the rear ...

PROPERTY SLUMP
Chalmers’ tax changes pushing property market to new lows: RBA
Tax changes drive plunge in property investment as RBA slashes predictions for housing construction
The Reserve Bank have slashed its projections for dwelling investment, warning Labor’s budget tax changes had collapsed investment in the Australian property market.
By Thomas Henry

With all that safely parked in the intermittent archive, the pond could look around at its leisure, only to discover that on the extreme far right of the digital page, it was more of the same ... only weirder ...

Treasurer needs to stop channelling Jennifer Hawkins
Jim Chalmers is throwing us back to 2008 and the GFC but he will need more than pleading for world peace to get our economy out of this mess of his making.
By Jenna Clarke
Culture Writer

Even the "culture writer" got dragged into the jihad? (Whenever the pond hears "kultur" it reaches for its Glock).

It was so inane, so asinine, that the pond couldn't resist a little taste treat ...

WTF? Hemlines, the Birdcage, Lady Gaga and Jennifer Hawkins ... and Jimbo?

And there was more, but the pond had to cut Jenna off in her prime.

Deeply weird stuff - stick to kultur Jenna, it suits you - but wait, there were also pearls of wisdom on the same theme ...

RBA raises rates, but Chalmers is really to blame
Five rate rises, an 18-year high and a Treasurer who won’t face the music – Australians are paying for Canberra’s spending addiction.
By David Pearl

There was more - Jimbo, Jimbo, Jimbo, did anyone mention Jimbo? - but if the pond wants this sort of feeding of the chooks, it will always turn first to Dame Groan for a damn good groaning.

As for the pending US election? 

It was so far down the page it might have been invisible, a bit like the news of Faux Noise's ratings slump, what with the job of being state regime media difficult in these troubled times: Fox News ratings drop is due to ‘viewer fatigue,’ Murdoch says on eve of midterms

The pond had to turn to TT to get ready for the viewing fest later in the day ...

But the pond digresses. 

The lizard Oz is the pond's beat, and the pond should note a subsidiary jihad this day, what might be called Jihad No. 2:

It was the Australian Daily Zionist News at it again ... with Noah flooding the rag with an anxiety attack ...

EXCLUSIVE
Forget Islamic radicals, manosphere is main security threat: HRC
Despite spy chief Mike Burgess saying Islamic extremism is still the dominant terror threat, the Human Rights Commission says deradicalisation efforts should not focus so much on religion.
By Noah Yim

Any word on the white Xian nationalists who line up behind News Corp?

Never mind, Noah flooded the rag with outrage - remember the Islamics, forget the genocide and the ethnic cleansing and the bermb, berming of Iran ...

Predictably that sent Dame Slap right off ...

COMMENTARY by JANET ALBRECHTSEN
Another radical failure by the AHRC
AFP data shows religious extremism drives most radicalisation, but the $36m-funded Human Rights Commission has instead focused its inquiry submission on misogyny.

Okay, that's more than enough of that. The rest is in the archive for anyone who cares ...

Back to Jihad No. 1 for that groaning, and while it was a bit long in the tooth - it first turned up yesterday in the lizard Oz - it looked good, with a trifecta of grimacing villains at the head of the show ...

Imagine the pond's bitter disappointment when the entire groaning could be swallowed in a single gobbet.

It was more a single tictac than a pack of Allen's XXX extra strong mints (so hard to find for anyone with Germanic tastes):

That was it? That was all the old biddy could muster?

Sheesh, the pond should have stayed the course with Jenna and Jennifer Hawkins.

The pond felt enormous guilt, and reverted to Jihad No. 2, because the lizard Oz editorialist chipped in, with some splendid AI artwork to set the tone...

The rag's one time graphics department keeps degenerating in ways that were once unimaginable, and sorry Frank, the pond realises you took the credit, but that looks like pure AI slop, not helped by the Matrix humbug in the background ...

Must do better Frank, you look like the mad King's Truth Social postings.

As for the actual content, it read a bit like AI slop too ...

It's only Islamic fundamentalists that have it in for womyn and teh gays and TG folk?

Pull the other white nationalist barking mad fundamentalist GOP News Corp Faux Noise Xian leg.

Finally back to Jihad No. 1 for a little 'toon commentary, with both the infallible Pope and the immortal Rowe evoking a horse race ...

Before proceeding, the pond would like to note a few John Hanscombe thoughts in The Echnida (it's an easy subscription and you also get a 'toon a day)...

Let's begin with that race in Melbourne which despite the best efforts of its backers no longer stops the nation.
According to an Essential poll published on The Guardian website, only 9 per cent of Australians have a high interest in the race, 23 per cent are moderately interested, 29 per cent have a low interest and 39 per cent have no interest at all.
No matter how many times the TV networks try to reignite interest with silly hats, glimpses of the filthy rich quaffing Champagne in the Birdcage and bogans in spiv suits passing out on Flemington's Front Lawn, the evidence gets clearer every year. We've lost interest in the Melbourne Cup. It's a dead horse.
But it wasn't the only one enduring a whipping yesterday. The Reserve Bank took the riding crop to borrowers in its own forlorn race that's meant to stop inflation. Borrowers could be forgiven for feeling like dead horses after being flogged repeatedly with a very blunt instrument.

Well yes, but as the lizard Oz proves, there's a market for endlessly flogging dead horses.

And so to said 'toon whippings ...

And while the pond's in the mood, the pond should also note that it's completely over AI and Google, and the way that the search function has been completely ruined. (Google owns Blogger, just don't blame the pond).

The pond usually leaves First Dog alone in his Graudian kennel - the full version is here - but this really struck a chord ...

Okay, this is slightly long in the tooth too, but the old dog still has a few comedic tricks up his sleeve ...

In which the bromancer and Dame Groan sort everything out, but other reptiles are also keen to help ...

 

"O bliss! O poop-poop! O my! O my!", said the ecstatic toot-tooting Mr Toad, to which the pond might add, "oh frabjous joy", because the reptiles have discovered a "secret" black hole.

EXCLUSIVE
‘Money monster’: Labor’s secret $170bn budget black hole
The mystery missing billions in Labor’s federal budget have sparked serious concern about spending blowouts fuelling inflation ahead of Tuesday’s Reserve Bank rate decision.
By Matthew Cranston

And the canny Cranston inspired the lizard Oz editorialist to go right off the rails - dammit, somehow they managed to link it to the Melbourne Cup!

What astonishing skill, what relevance! How these "secret" black holes keep on giving...

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

Schools’ role a lesson in turning back tide of antisemitism
Teachers are already refusing to teach Muslim students about the Holocaust, so a new curriculum mandate is unlikely to repair Australia’s crumbling civic foundations.
By Alex McDermott

The pond won't go there - it's in the archive - but will mention Jeff Sparrow's outing in Crikey, which luckily can be found outside the paywall ...

Jillian Segal’s report is a Trumpian plan to curtail free speech (*intermittent archive link)
The new report by Anthony Albanese’s special envoy to combat antisemitism is as conspiratorial as it is a genuine threat to anyone expressing criticism of the state of Israel.

...Ostensibly, the report lays out priorities to combat antisemitism. Yet Segal pays only the most cursory attention to the rapid growth of the far right, even as genuine neo-Nazis like Thomas Sewell and his White Australia friends reach audiences (online and IRL) unthinkable even a decade ago. She pledges instead to combat what she calls “modern”, “progressive” antisemitism, which, she claims, manifests “through the language of social justice and human rights”.
To that end, Segal wants, among other things, a special ombudsman to monitor the ABC and SBS; new codes of conduct for cultural organisations; restrictions on the use of grants for arts, sports or research; the operationalisation in higher education of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)’s definition of antisemitism; a review of the school curriculum; and “continual review and reform by … governments of gaps in the legislative framework”.
All this is warranted, she says, because “the language of human rights and its greatest crimes — apartheid, ethnic cleansing, genocide, etc. — has increasingly been appropriated” against Israel. On that basis, Segal seeks the institutional adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, explaining that “criticism of the Israeli government” should only be considered legitimate if “the level and standard of scrutiny applied is equivalent to the standards to which one would hold other governments in similar circumstances”.
There is a roll call of experts accusing Tel Aviv of genocide: a partial list includes Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, Genocide Watch, the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights, the Middle East Studies Association, Oxfam, Médecins Sans Frontières, Physicians for Human Rights Israel and the International Association of Genocide Scholars.
In the name of Segal’s vaunted equivalency, we might expect to find Israel listed alongside the other regimes Australia currently sanctions for human rights violations (beyond individual ones directed at Ben-Gvir and Smotrich). You’ll be shocked to learn that this is not what Segal seeks. The scrutiny she considers appropriate was demonstrated back in 2023, when Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong had the temerity to suggest Israel might “cease the attacking of hospitals”.
In response, Segal, then president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, cosigned a statement condemning Wong’s remarks that said they “only serve to demonise the state of Israel and its supporters”. The same logic dominates her report. Segal argues that claims Israel has committed genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid “allow for the depiction of anyone who associates or aligns with Israel as complicit in its purported evil”. But when confronted by genocide, most of us do not worry that our condemnations might upset those who “associate or align” with the perpetrators.
In Segal’s report — a document in which the word “Gaza” appears only once — the feelings of Israel’s supporters take precedence over all else. For her, “the Palestinian cause” represents a “gateway issue, of sorts … used by far-left activists to magnify their appeal and prominence and to attempt to introduce traditionally moderate Australians to radical and anti-Jewish propaganda”.
It’s crazy, conspiratorial stuff.
The report warns that “references to “Zionists” can function as a proxy for Jews, particularly where Jews in Australia are treated as collectively responsible for the actions of Israel (acts of conflation)”. That’s certainly true, which is why organisations like the Jewish Council of Australia (JCA) make the distinction between Judaism (a religion and ethnic identity) and Zionism, urging the recognition of “the political and religious diversity of the Australian Jewish community”...

And so on, and the pond guarantees you won't be reading any of that sort of stuff in the lizard Oz until at least the twelfth of never (and that's a very ...)

What you will be reading is the pond's very favourite reptile, the bromancer, skipping right past the current electoral action...

Luckily the bromancer wasn't in to Tucker and his theory about the mad King wanting to nuke the mad Mullahs ...

Unearthed Clips Show Carlson Repeatedly Claim Trump is Weighing Iran Nuke Strike

... but the pond did enjoy the way he managed to articulate three war aims, as if the aims of the mad King and minions were remotely coherent and comprehensible, as opposed to being roughly equivalent to Melbourne's weather, ever changing ...

The bro's insights were bolstered by a beaming blonde of the kind beloved by Faux Noise...

How the bromancer loves the drumbeat of war, how he loves to pound the skins, but then he wasn't appointed Reichsmarschall des GroßAustralisch Reiches so he could practise his knitting skills.

Has it though? The pond supposes it's a matter as to whether it's AIS-visible tanker tonnage, or black ships running dark ...(who knew there were sites dedicated to tracking the traffic?).

In conclusion, how about a shot of crazed jihadists, designed to terrify the lizard Oz hive mind, and send them on their own jihad? Sure thing...

Curiously, Luckovich had another figure in a similar pose ...

Meanwhile, it was left to the echo Chambers to propose a solution to what might ail the country.

While the pallid, wan bromancer ran up the white flag of despair, the echo Chambers knew what had to be done...

Albanese must get in Trump’s ear
Anthony Albanese faces pressure to use upcoming Trump summits to end wars the government blames for devastating Australia’s economy.
By Geoff Chambers
Political editor

Get in his ear! How easy is that, what a quick fix ...

Yes, forget all that blather fest with King Chuck and the remnants of empire, and as for taking climate change seriously, in what alternative universe are we living?

What needs to happen is that Albo needs to sort out mad King Donald, and maybe get on board with him, and as for what might happen in the mid-terms and what that might produce in the United States? Fergeddit...

The trips that do matter are the ones where Albanese crosses paths with Trump. The Quad meeting in the Philippines is critical. Albanese also cannot miss the opportunity to visit Trump’s home state of Florida for the G20 summit. Albanese, who briefly encountered Trump in New York during UN General Assembly week, had a lengthy phone call with the US President in mid-August. The pair spoke about the conflict in the Middle East, Chinese aggression in the South Pacific, the 75th anniversary of the ANZUS treaty, the AUKUS defence pact, critical minerals, and artificial intelligence.
With the US ambassador to Australia David Brat and the Australian ambassador to the US Greg Moriarty both in place, the relationship between the White House and Albanese government should be strengthened.
As Australians tighten their belts, Albanese must prove the summit season is value for money and secure outcomes that are critical to the nation’s economy and security.

How easy it is to wrangle a mad King and fix what needs fixing.

And now always better late than never for the infallible Pope ...

And that serves as an introduction to the real Tuesday treat, a rampant Dame Groan, revived by the prospect of disaster, and the hope that we'll all be rooned, if not by the end of the week, then certainly by Xmas ...

Please begin with one of those astonishing reptile collages for which there's no credit ...

The pond was shattered to discover that the Groaner hadn't discovered the black hole featured by the canny Cranston and the lizard Oz editorialist, but perhaps that was because it was too "secret".

On the other hand, the Dame didn't need cheap tricks like that to arrive at totally rooned gloom ...

Eyes wide shut now ...

Potent points, and Dame Groan wasn't done yet ... it was time for the cardigan wearers to cop a pounding, together with Jimbo ...

Not Petey boy again. Will the reptiles ever tire of their desire to return to the ancient days of Petey boy and the lying rodent?

And then all too soon the pond had arrived at the final gobbet of despair, what with all this talk of EVs and batteries and renewables, when the world is in tip top shape, and if there was just more coal and more emissions, what a fine prospect for the younglings ...

The pond has laid out the Dame Groan banquet, and expects correspondents to enjoy the feast ... with the important message from the Dame that there's no need to worry about all those other horses in the race aiming to make life miserable ...

And with the immortal Rowe setting the tone, so to a final thought from the reptiles, actually talking about the current election campaign, and hoping against hope that maybe the GOP might yet survive ... at least in the Senate, what with it all being really hard to turn the Titanic around ...

And with that a couple of 'toons ...

Old news now, but the pond can watch train wrecks over and over again ...

In which the echo Chambers scores top jihad spot, the Major is Majorly tedious, Lord Downer goes nihilist, simpleton Simon tries to swim agains the tide, and the hive mind and the Caterist rush to correct him. Phew!

 

The reptile Jimbo jihad, accompanied by the always active Albo ambush, swung into even higher gear early this morning.

Some might have thought that the reptiles couldn't crank it up beyond eleven, but little did they know ... with the echo Chambers the jihadist in chief ...

EXCLUSIVE
Newspoll: Labor slumps as Jim ranks worst among ministers
aka Newspoll: Labor slumps as voters mark down Jim Chalmers
Jim Chalmers has claimed the mantle of the worst-performing senior minister, as Labor’s primary vote falls.
By Geoff Chambers

EXCLUSIVE
$3bn trusts tax raid looms as PM steps in to plot cost-of-living relief
Trusts tax to rip most $3bn from business in first year of Jim Chalmers’ revenue crackdown
Anthony Albanese has ordered rolling cabinet meetings with his Treasurer to finalise a savings package and non-inflationary cost-of-living measures in the mid-year budget update.
By Geoff Chambers and Richard Ferguson

COMMENTARY by GEOFF CHAMBERS
This could end badly for Albanese’s successor-in-waiting
Some inside Labor are now contemplating a scenario where both Albanese and Chalmers are forced to flee from an angry posse.

This echo Chambers is a one man threshing jihad machine, tilting at Jimbo windmills, with Fergo as his plucky Pancho.  

It was a hive mind wet dream start to the week ... but remarkably the reptiles seem to have, at least temporarily, abandoned the search for golfballs ...

Over on the extreme far right, the Major was doing his level best for the Australian Daily Zionist News ...

Israel’s election result proves it is no apartheid state(dodgy but readable link)
When the Middle East was at the forefront of Cold War hostilities, the focus on Israel was understandable. But why do global media outlets still stack Jerusalem bureaus?
By Chris Mitchell
Columnist

The Arab parties? Aren't they just a bunch of terrorists?

In a series of posts on X on Tuesday, Netanyahu attacked Arab voters, describing them as “Muslim Brotherhood supporters” and accusing them of “raiding the polling stations and stealing the elections”.
In a separate post, Netanyahu referred to a picture of a large queue that appeared to show Palestinian citizens in Israel at a polling station, and called on right-wing Israelis to “go out and vote for Likud”, referring to his political party and describing the situation as a “matter of life and death for us”.
Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, said on Tuesday that it had received numerous reports from Arab voters of attempts to discourage them from casting their ballots. Adalah said it had also been told that queues at polling stations in Arab-majority towns were moving very slowly and, in some instances, had stopped altogether. It also reported a lack of ballot slips printed in Arabic. (Here)

And the spawn didn't fall far from the racist tree (only as far as draft-dodging Miami)... per The Jerusalem Post (just to take a break from Haaretz)

PM's son Yair Netanyahu deems Israeli Arabs 'greatest danger' to Israel besides Iran
The Prime Minister's son, Yair Netanyahu, claimed Israel "cannot survive long-term when 20% of its population identifies with its enemies and wants its destruction."

The pond is well over these jihads, and what a relief that Lord Downer arrived to seize his natural place in the firmament, in the nick of time to save the pond from them ...

Did the pond say what a relief?

What a relief to have Lord Downer arrive on the scene, and with his infinite experience and skill prove that he was a nihilist and that voting was largely a complete waste of time...

What even-handedness, what skilled discernment, up there with the Major himself. 

Did the pond mention His Lordship's hard won infinite experience and skill?

The pond was entranced yet again by His Lordship's sage advice to do nothing, and all would be well, and sameness and a lack of change would calm the universe ...

It's business as usual in Israel, and never mind the ethnic cleansing and the genocide, and it's business as usual in the States.

As His Lordship turned to eye off the mad King's kingdom, the reptiles were so excited by a little MAGA hat-tossing that they featured it bigly ...

Excellent. The mad King can dabble in a demented way in foreign affairs, while indulging every so often in a little show biz hat tossing.

What joy for Buddy Holly,  as His Lordship did a final hat toss of his own ...

Indeed, indeed, it all fits His Lordship's motto: voting is a waste of time, why bother, everything stays the same ...

Every so often there's a reptile who tries to pander to the pond, and swim against the hive mind tide. 

So it was with simplistic Simon this day ...

Slashing migration will cause more harm than good

Forget the Uber driver stereotype: new data shows recent migrants are nearly twice as likely as Australian-born workers to hold a university degree.
By Simon Benson
Political analyst

The hive mind wasn't having any of that claptrap and nonsense. 

Who cares about doctors and nurses? What geriatrics need are plumbers, tradies who can plug up a fractured artery, or pour some Drano into a blocked heart...

Oh the hive mind went wild with anger ...

The pond suspects that simpleton Simon only trolled the hive mind to make sure they were alive, and so in a position to receive the correct and proper message from the Caterist.

It takes a black sheep migrant to know the dark and sinister ways of black sheep migrants ...

Dammit, there are wretched trouble makers amongst us, but more of this anon, as the flood water whispering Caterist foamed on ...

The quarry whispering Caterist maintained the rage through a third gobbet ...

That culminated in a fiery denunciation, an inquisitorial denunciation ripe for the ages ...

...These people are non-citizens, owed nothing by Australia other than the civility we extend to visitors. There is no reason, other than naivety, why they should be allowed such a convoluted form of due process.
Once a court finds a non-citizen guilty of anything more serious than an unpaid parking fine, they should be out on their ear. We don’t need the tribunal to re-litigate the character question when a check of their criminal ­history tells us everything we need to know.
A successful migration program requires tough rules that are unflinchingly enforced. We must not allow it to be weakened by misguided sentimentalism or misplaced pity.

And what about those wretched sorts who act in a way that produces a massive defamation payout?

What good are these black sheep to the body politic?

Strip them of their citizenship, the pond says, having been lathered up into a righteous Caterist frenzy.

Send them back to where they came from ...

Does the pond have any candidates who come to mind?

One does seem like a jolly good candidate ...

Nine and Nick Cater ordered to pay Wagner family $3.6m in 60 Minutes defamation case (*intermittent archive link)
Justice Peter Applegarth says report defamed family and was ‘recklessly indifferent’ to the truth

How does a journalist who was recklessly indifferent to the truth, and indeed concealed information which might have led to an alternative understanding of events, still scribble for the lizard Oz? 

Ah, that's the delightfully different way that migration has contributed to the hive mind...

Deport, deport, deport ...

And now, to take up Lord Downer's theme, what could possibly go wrong after the mid-terms?

And now this from Vlad the sociopath land ...