Another dismal Thursday, with only the echo Chambers, the mad King and the lizard Oz editorialists as distractions ...

 

With sandpapergate preoccupying the reptiles this morning at the top of the "news"section - losers and cricket, who cares? - the pond had to move further down the page to discover the usual reptile jihads ...

OP31
Albanese, Bowen demand climate action as Paris goal perishes
Anthony Albanese delivered his maiden speech at a COP summit, followed by his energy minister Chris Bowen who warned of a cost of living crisis spreading around the globe.
By Perry Williams in Antalya

FREE FALL
No recovery in sight as housing collapse deepens
Housing collapse deepens as first-home buyers and investors flee falling marke
New ABS figures reveal home loans have collapsed 26 per cent this year, with a leading financier warning Australia faces its worst housing downturn in history.
By Thomas Henry and Matthew Cranston

EXCLUSIVE
PM says no to religion-free terror law
Anthony Albanese will stare down a push by a security watchdog to scrap religion as a motive for terrorism in federal law.
By Ben Packham, Elizabeth Pike and Geoff Chambers

That sent the echo Chambers right off ...

COMMENTARY by GEOF CHAMBERS
The 12 steps woke Labor took to break national security trust
It is time to remove wokeness and political bias from national security decisions, give our agencies the resources they need and change laws to lock-up terrorists, hate preachers and spies.

The pond regrets that in Chambering a round, this Geoff evoked "woke" from the get go, which immediately triggered a pond contractual requirement ...

With the contractual obligations honoured, the pond could move on...

Ah, the real aim of the echo Chambers - not so thinly veiled Islamophobia, with graphs to boot...

That word "woke" kept returning like a recurrent nightmare ...

The pond is well over the real aim of the echo Chambers - rampant Islamophobia - but will take up the issue of the woeful Segal.

Michael Bradley wrote an extended piece for Crikey back on 15th July 2026...

Jillian Segal’s circular logic on ‘modern-day antisemitism’ (possible paywall)
The antisemitism envoy’s appearance before the royal commission proved she remains — like all of us — confused as to what she believes constitutes antisemitic reporting by the public broadcasters. 

...I was keen to fully understand her case against the public broadcasters.
Segal maintains that the ABC needs an oversight committee imposed on it. She wanted it to include Jewish community members, but under questioning by the commissioner, she retreated to an insistence that the appointed members must have an understanding of “modern-day antisemitism”.
Segal repeated this term throughout her testimony, so I was intrigued as to what she thinks it is. A clue was her statement that “racism doesn’t pick up the important different aspects of antisemitism” and therefore “having an anti-racism policy doesn’t help with modern-day antisemitism”.

Oh heck, might as well go the full hog, there being no reptiles of distinction or interest to hand this Thursday ...

And that brought Bradley back to that wretched definition...

Throw in Jeff Sparrow, also at Crikey...

Jillian Segal’s report is a Trumpian plan to curtail free speech
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.

The pond has drunk at this well before, so inter alia ...

In that weird world, this cartoon might even count as antisemitic ...

The pond had to eventually get to the reptiles over on the extreme far right, with petulant Peta briefly top of the digital world ma ... and beyond the predictable... blathering about the failures of the Albo government in a way that only the architect of one of the worst governments in Australian history might manage ...

The PM is running down his goodwill account with voters
The Albanese government has over-promised and under-delivered. Voters are losing trust in an out-of-touch PM.
By Peta Credlin
Columnist

The pond never pays attention to this sort of jihad ... it's there in the archive for those who want it ...

Jack was doing a repeat of something the pond noted yesterday, with the headline pinning the blame on the Beeb, as if other UK media outlets hadn't been in on that game:

How the UK entertainment industry embraced Russell Brand’s predatory persona
Russell Brand, the BBC’s own remorseless predator, was protected by the industry
Russell Brand’s sentencing lays bare how television executives shielded a predator to keep the ratings machine turning.
By Jack the Insider
Columnist

Somehow Jack managed to evade the intermittent archive, but nothing he said added to what had already been said, so (spoiler alert), the pond just sampled the closer...

Bizarrely the reptiles always somehow manage to find space for Chairman Xi propaganda, which is odd given the way their many correspondents thirst for a war with China by Xmas ...

Ambassador: Closer China ties are a boost to Australia in region
APEC a plus for more co-operation with Beijing
China and Australia are important economies in the Asia-Pacific, and Beijing’s representative in Canberra says they are natural partners with complementary economic strengths.
By Liu Jinsong

The pond supposes that this is easier than looking at the failing, flailing world of mad King Donald and his minions ...

That reptile winnowing left just one guest reptile standing, with that Horsey predicting the topic.

The pond was immediately suspicious because of the use of "Anglosphere", a curious term at best, often down there with "woke" or "western civilisation" in reptile speak...

The "Anglosphere" hive mind wasn't happy, with the few who'd bothered to comment deeply concerned about the "woke left wing agenda" ...

When the pond checked back, a lizard Oz editorial berating "Bowen's power play" had replaced this blather on the extreme far right of the digital page, but the pond pressed on ...

Oh dear, what a tragic, pitiful attempt to sell the notion of the "Anglosphere", but on the other hand, should the pond be celebrating? Does this mean the end of News Corporation, the complete failure of Faux Noise?

They're still doing it ... dissembling, downplaying, distracting and coddling ...

Fox News’ Hannity Tries to Downplay GOP’s Midterms Disaster: ‘Kind of More Normal Than Not’

...he predicted that Trump would ultimately be vindicated, arguing that voters would have a more favorable view of his presidency by the next election.

Does the author have the first clue about the rag he's scribbling for?

Apparently not ...

Sorry Mr Easson this is the sort of stuff the hive mind wants to read ...

That's more like it, isn't it Mr Easson? A full throated assault on renewables, and a deep yearning for a return to the days of sweet, innocent, virginal, exceptionally clean Oz coal ...

If only you'd understood the hive mind and the lizard Oz devotion to jihads.

And why didn't you mention Benji in your outing Mr Easson? 

Was it deliberate that you left it to the lizard Oz editorialist to take care of everything?

And with that cunning ploy to save Benji done, it was time for the immortal Rowe of the day ...

The pond is devoted to art, though Kimmel was possibly right in saying that the portrait looked more like him than the mad King ...

In which "Ned" goes Luddite, Dame Slap goes 18C, and the climate of reptile discourse goes to hell ...

 

Margaret Sullivan was writing about the US when she deployed the words "Sane-washing, sanitizing, pussy-footing and soft-pedaling", but they pretty much apply to the lizard Oz scribblers down under. (‘Reborn in the USA’)

And Parker Molloy thought "everyone’s doing a fair bit of cherry-picking to get to the conclusions they want to reach" in relation to the recent US elections (Everybody Wants Credit for the Blue Wave, Just a friendly reminder that the people pumping out post-election analysis pieces usually have their own agendas and vested interests - paywall)

And speaking of weird agendas, naturally "Ned" of the Everest climb brought his own interpretation to the results:

The pond suspects there was more to the midterms than Musk and AI, but whatever, the pond will accept this shift in reptile thinking, perhaps part of a general News Corporation realignment as they realise they backed a bunch of dropkick losers ... and Faux Noise itself has found itself in the category of a dropkick loser.

Even as the reptiles keep offering a totally useless version of AI, "Ned" decided big tech and the bros were a nice, safe, juicy target, and even invoked an alleged veygan ...

How could the pond resist asking the caps hating hive mind AI?

Glad that's sorted, on to the final "Ned" gobbet, more a base camp than an Everest climb this day, as somehow the Pope got dragged into the mix ...

Hang on a tic, wait a sec, half a mo, the pond had to check on that ...

Right ho, soul brother AI.

Now, what else?

The reptiles were at it again when it came to the climate.

Three reptiles were tag teamed to produce the usual doom and gloom scenario at the top of the digital "news", ma (all the usual abuse that's unfit to print):

EXCLUSIVE
Wholesale hell: power prices to double by 2029, modelling shows
The startling forecasts lump further pressure on Climate Minister Chris Bowen after he conceded Labor had ‘more work to do’ to deliver household bill relief while at COP31 this week.
By Perry Williams, Ben Packham and Jacquelin Magnay

When will the reptiles assemble a team to scribble about planetary hell as the worst impacts of climate change unfold around us?

The malignant Magnay doubled down with her own entry:

COP31
Bowen defends green push amid soaring power bills

COP31: Chris Bowen defends renewables as energy prices soar
Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen has conceded Australia is ‘not declaring victory’ on electricity prices while urging the world to rapidly increase electrification at COP31.
By Jacquelin Magnay

For no particular reason the echo Chambers tagged along ...

COMMENTARY by GEOFF CHAMBERS
Voters hot under the collar over a frosty Albo
The PM is seeking to justify successive trips by linking them to efforts to ease the financial burden of those Australian families who can only dream of overseas travel right now.

Was "frosty" enough reason to include the echo Chambers in the climate action?

Nah, he was just helping out with the familiar reptile litany ...

...Global uncertainty is fuelled by the threat of China reclaiming Taiwan by force, trade wars, instability in the White House, conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, and soaring oil prices.
Closer to home, the slow rollout of renewables, accelerated shutdown of coal-fired power stations, failure to build-up adequate gas infrastructure and refusal to consider nuclear has put Australia on course for skyrocketing energy prices by 2029.

Ah, the suffering of poor old innocent, virginal, clean, dinkum coal.

What about climate science? Don't you worry about that ...

If Albanese and his besieged Treasurer Jim Chalmers weren’t under so much pressure, the Labor leader may have got away with ­attending his first COP summit since becoming Prime Minister.
Albanese would argue his government is proud champions of climate action and that Labor and Greens voters who put them in ­office would expect strong ­advocacy. That thinking ignores millions of Australians who are more worried about the cost of living and housing crises than global climate change summits.

Yeah, don't you worry about all those tall stories of catastrophes and disasters related to climate change.

The pond stuck figures in ears and consigned them all to the archive so that it could find the space to run the infallible Pope's response.

What else?

Well Jennifer went west ...

By Jennifer Westacott
The new airport is open – now comes the difficult par

Stop right there, that exceeded the pond's capacity for boredom in a bigly way. Off to the archive with you.

Perforce, the pond reluctantly turned to Dame Slap for its filler, as the Dame valiantly battled for the faux, bottle styled ranga ...

Uh oh, when Dame Slap writes about "good news", bad news is as sure to follow as a ceremonial MAGA cap-donning ritual.

You guessed it, we're back with the Bolter and 18C ...

"This is untenable"?

Is that in reference to the Dame Slap logic that sees her reverting to a "judicial invention dreamt up by the court" as the first line of defence?

Whatever, as the immortal George once remarked, bigots gotta do what bigots gotta do ... (I will always defend the right to be a bigot. It’s hypocrisy that annoys me more, *intermittent archive link)

Inter alia:

By golly, he and Dame Slap are on the same team.

Sorry, the pond hadn't meant to distract from Dame Slap's closing thoughts, aka the rage machine raging away ...

But will Dame Slap put herself back in her MAGA cap donning box? Will she ever reconsider her folly and repent?

Will she ever be brave enough to ask herself whey she frequently ends up sounding incredibly stupid, and holding the wrong end of the donkey?

The pond has been waiting a terribly long time for that moment, as the consequences of being a MAGAt continue to unfold ...

As a bonus to that bonus, Jack was on hand, wondering ...

By Jack Butler
Who’s responsible for Russell Brand’s right-wash?

Now there's a thought, what with Brand having insinuated himself into the fundie Xian evangelical circuit, and just as deeply into RFK Jr and the GOP ...

That's the snap they went with? 

The dumb as a stick piss drinking Bear Grylls?

This was a WSJ pick up, and the pond wondered by Jack simply didn't assemble a few different, much more revealing snaps ...

Dear sweet long absent lord, what a way to defame a hapless lizard, and how they all like being jacked, eh Jack?

They were all at it ...

And what about these?

Would Jack ping all those lickspittle fellow travellers?

He did give a dishonourable mention to DT Jr, but managed to deflect from all the GOP and US Xian devotion by dragging in that silly Pom Bear, the equally silly Tucker, and the deeply weird Musk ...

Credit where credit is also due ...

Take it away Jack ...

So it goes Jack, what with the mad King already pedalling his pet "stolen election" lies ...and Kegsbreath valiantly invoking the Nuremberg defence.

And so to close with the immortal Rowe, and imagine the pond's surprise and pleasure to see that he too went the cricket ball/sandpaper riff ...

How are the reptiles not pleased? In their eyes the planet could do with a little more roughing up ...

And now, recorded as it happened ...

 

In which the bromancer goes pious, Dame Groan reverts to a snake day union bashing jihad, and the swishing Switzer goes full Dr. Jim ...

 

Great news for students of News Corporation ...

Fox News Suffers Stunning Wipeout in Election Ratings (*intermittent archive link)

Could that have something to do with the bromancer sounding morose this day, reverting in the end to the power of prayer as his only hope?

And not just all those luminaries ... Faux Noise too ...

... Fox suffered another blow, with viewership significantly down from the 2022 midterm election. Back then, Fox News averaged 7.422 million viewers; four years later, its viewership dipped by 41 percent.

But even at the depths of despair, the bromancer couldn't let go of the notion that mad King Donald had done some very good things ... a form of both siderism gone mad ...

His contempt for institutions? Is that another way of saying contempt for Murdochians?

At midnight, as the election results clearly pointed out the magnitude of MAGA’s loss, Trump called hosts Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum to tell them that Fox polls are “terrible,” prompting the MAGA-friendly hosts to fact-check the president on air.
Trump also took his ire online. “FoxNews Ratings are way down (27%!) because they’re spending too much time covering the Trump Deranged Dumocrats!” he wrote on Truth Social. “All of those people who used to watch Fox, and no longer do, get it. It’s them, not me—My numbers are better than they have ever been.
He continued, “No wonder FoxNews Ratings are collapsing, and they’re going to go down a lot further. They’re way down, not because of me, but because they are AGAINST me! This happened once before, and Fox almost collapsed. It’s happening again!”
Trump ultimately said, “Fox News bears responsibility for these losses by constantly and consistently putting on the Dumocrat opposition, and worse.”

What to do? Well in company with the sacred Ross Douthat, what choice did the bromancer have but to go all religious?

Fundie ratbag Xians made a big, but understandable, mistake? 

They're not the only ones ...

...Last Monday, Fox Corp CEO Lachlan Murdoch attributed the decline to “viewer fatigue.”
CNN’s media analyst, Brian Stelter, pointed out the flaw in this theory about its rival network: “If that’s the diagnosis, it’s unique to Fox, since other news networks are seeing viewership growth.”
The CEO of MSNOW’s parent company, Mark Lazarus, also clapped back, saying on Versant’s third-quarter earnings call, “We’re not seeing currently...not seeing any fatigue with our audiences.”
Murdoch’s explanation came after Fox’s October total day audience within the 25-to-54 demographic fell to its lowest monthly level in 25 years.

And so to a final suck on the fundie sausage in a way only the bromancer can do ...

Thanks to an attempt at Catholic indoctrination early in life, the pond became an atheist for life. 

Let's hope the bromancer's prescription gives new life to the trend away from magical beliefs in not so magical beings.

And now to the obligatory Tuesday offering, and again good news, because Dame Groan has moved away from her usual Snake Day Jimbo jihad bashing, and has selected a new target ... unions.

Talk about reviving the good old days and ancient lizard Oz jihads ...

Sure there's a minor revival of the Jimbo jihad in that last par, but Jimbo plays just a small role in this day's "we've all been rooned, and we'll all be rooned some more ere Xmas day" ...

Bloody unions, small and useless, but amazingly potent, and with a heartless harridan calling the shots...

Come on down HR Nicholls Society:

Sorry, the pond only just noticed that use of "woke", which always triggers a contractual requirement ...

Perhaps that helps explain why Dame Groan is seemingly incapable of reading an award and applying its terms. 

It's not so hard, it's something the pond once had to do on a daily basis, as a kind of pleasant warfare, but hey the pond isn't bitter about once being blackbanned as an alleged "scab" ... nor is the pond inclined to think that unions are the end of the world ...but you know what happens when Dame Groan gets a bone to chew (or should the metaphor invoke a cow with cud?) ...

And now to a flag that terrifies the reptiles, and the final "we've all been rooned, and we'll all keep on being rooned" shout from the lizard Oz rooftops ...

Take that, you wretches, and what joy for Jimbo, being given an early mark from Dame Groan's usual jihad...

And so to an apology. 

The pond can't hope to cover every reptile doing or saying, and perhaps just as well, given the Major failure yesterday, what with there not being a single comment on the pond's late breaking Major outing.

All the pond can do is offer pointers to the intermittent archive, and teaser trailers for the best of the rest, like plucky Linda...

Scrapping AUKUS deal would threaten national security

The pond hopes that serious herpetology students get to the very end (spoiler alert), where plucky Linda advises ...

We must crack on at pace. That starts with speaking plainly to Australians about the threats we face and what it will take to meet them. Australians must then hold the government to account.

Crack on at pace? Blimey cobber, jolly good, put a little sandpaper on that six stitcher.

Better still, waiter, the pond would like a serve of Linda's gummies...

The pond took the trouble to check out the "pathway to Australia's nuclear-powered submarine capability" (pdf), and it showed "Planned delivery of UK's First SSN-AUKUS" in the late 2030s and the "Planned delivery of Australian's First SNN-AUKUS" in the early 2040s.

The first locally (part) made sub in the early 2040s. Why it's about as good as waiting for a fast rail connection between Sydney and Melbourne.

Good luck with all that future younglings, because the pond will be long dead and gone, but does venture to suggest that warfare will be very different from what these lumbering behemoths will be expecting...

Plucky, resolute Linda was over on the extreme far right.

Leading the reptile "news" across the way from her were a couple of stories...

Has there ever been a far right party the reptiles haven't learned to love?

EXCLUSIVE
Coalition and One Nation to align for maximum damage on Labor
Such a move will likely deepen losses for Ben Carroll’s government at the November 28 Victorian election.
By Anthony Galloway

Giving the fake ranga a break, what could possibly go wrong with that?

Damn you AI, you think you're so bloody clever ...

The pond finds it hard to pay attention to the deep south's doings, and as for the canny Cranston, he was just doing the usual reptile Jimbo jihad ...

EXCLUSIVE
Labor’s cabinet denied key Treasury advice on tax proposals
Treasury advice excluded from tax changes provided to Anthony Albanese’s cabinet minister
Australia’s most powerful economic department has been silenced in the room where tax policy is decided – leaving only ministers within Jim Chalmers’ portfolio privy to Treasury’s true views.
By Matthew Cranston

It's all reptile noise, and it's designed to serve a greater purpose ...

By cutting off antagonistic Anthony and the canny Cranston, the pond had just enough room for the swishing Switzer, especially as he only took up two gobbets.

In this outing, the swishing Switzer took the Jimbo jihad to a whole new level, by invoking Dr. Jim, a move which surely has a limited appeal to younglings, what with Dr Jim's wiki telling the pond that he was treasurer of Australia up to 6th June 1975!

1975! Even with the pond's uselessness at maths, and allowing for a little rounding, that's 51 years ago, though it does give the pond some idea of the lizard Oz's demographics ...

As if the naked absurdity of all this blather wasn't enough, the swishing Switzer attempted a little both siderism in his final gobbet, namely "In fairness, Chalmers has not sought to emulate Cairns".

In fairness?

What's the point about resurrecting boogeyman Gough and ogre Dr. Jim if not to be completely unfair?

And to what avail? How many - apart from the aged pond and similar - can recall the tragic sight of Dr. Jim attempting to flog his tomes just outside an entrance to the Prahan markets?

Sheesh, even Joyce Evans' photos of him in situ are buried in the National Archive and all the pond could find was this snap of him and Junie at Roselands on 24th November 1975, flogging "Sex, Prejudice and Politics" and "The Quiet Revolution" ...

What a desperate, pathetic sod this swishing Switzer is ...

Such a stupid, irrelevant man ... and so desperate too, and so for relief the pond turned to the immortal Rowe ...

The pond finally understood the purpose of the immortal Rowe showing off his skeletal structures.

 Proof that there was no AI here, here NO bloody AI!

Now for some real Faux Noise entertainment, as state regime media keeps on giving ...

And the entertainment never seems to end ...