What joy, some old fashioned climate science denialism, as well as the usual "Ned" Everest challenge ...

 

The venerable Meade was particularly fruity yesterday and at time of writing had attracted a highly indignant 258 comments, some monstering Nine, some monstering the lizard Oz, some the Murdochians, but the pond found hope and solace, with the Bolter threatening to bolt if the Succession strategy went awry... 

If only ...

'We are not going back' is the chant of the moment and it's true that the pond will never return to reading or featuring the Bolter - those days are long gone - but the pond is borne ceaselessly back into the past by the gerontocracy at the lizard Oz.

The pond must beat on, if only for the pleasure of beating them up ... and much was afoot this day, including the sound of distant thunder (relax, it was just Sydney having a sodden moment) ...

Inevitably the USA was still dominating the scene, while the Ughmann took time out to give the CMFEU a dust-up.

The pond had to save a few treasures - such as prattling Polonius - for the usual meditative Sunday, and there was even bigger relief because there was a chance to avoid the Ughmann... 

The dog botherer had turned up to return the pond to the good old days, way back when, of reptile climate science denialism ...

Naturally to kick things off there was a terrifying snap of whale killers in action, allegedly near Glenmore, a handy warning to any passing whale ...

If only the pond had a dollar for each time it had read "virtue signalling" in a reptile piece. By now the pond would be a squillionare ...

The dog botherer's piece arrives at a most apposite time ...

As well as Monday was hottest recorded day on Earth: ‘Uncharted territory’ in the Graudian, you could also read World breaks hottest day record twice in a week.

Some correspondents might be wearied or gruntled by the sense of doing it all over again, but the pond promises that the dog botherer will deliver a billy goat butt of pure delight along the way ... 

But first the usual array of videos and snaps, with the reptiles thinking so little of the dog botherer's piece they included a distracting update on the Olympics, alongside a video featuring the nuking of the country by Captain Spud... 

 

...as well as the usual meaningless bits of visual nonsense featuring snaps of energy kit ...

Then it was on with a bog standard effort  by the dog botherer...

Oh no, not Covid again, and talk of mass delusion and alarmists and nuking the country to save the planet, and so on and so endlessly forth.

The pond likes, during one of these dog botherer hysterical fits, to note other news in the field, this one from WaPo ...Extreme heat is wilting and burning forests, making it harder to curb climate change (paywall)

The dog botherer worried? Not on your nelly, not when there's ranting to be done ...

The pond realises that it promised an epic billy goat butt, but first a little more of that WaPo piece ...

Cheery stuff ... and so comes the urgent cry from the dog botherer to do absolutely nothing ...

And so to the billy goat buttism of the day, proudly starting off the final DB gobbet ...

Yep, after all that the dog botherer can shamelessly begin "and before critics suggest I am arguing you for inaction, I am not."

Of course you are you doofus, be out and proud, don't bother with some feeble back pedalling, as if the alarmists might be on to something ...

Every fibre of your being, and your inane scribbling, cries out for inaction ...

There was just one line full of truth in that whole piece, and it only needed a minor rejig, a small tweak. 

"Clearly, I am not as clever as I think. And my son has wised up".

Take it away, child of dog botherer, way wised up:

Kenny is a staunchly neo-conservative, anti-progress, anti-worker defender of the status quo. He is an unrelenting apologist for the Liberal Party. He was one of Alexander Downer’s senior advisers at the time of the Iraq War. He’s been known to argue for stubborn, sightless inaction on climate change. He spits at anyone concerned with such trivialities as gender equality, environmental issues or labour rights from his Twitter account on a daily basis. Recently, he characterised criticism of the lack of women in Tony Abbott’s Cabinet as a continuation of the Left’s “gender wars”. He is a regular and fervent participant in The Australian’s numerous ongoing bully campaigns against those who question its editorial practices and ideological biases. The profoundly irresponsible, dishonest, hate-filled anti-multiculturalist Andrew Bolt has recently referred to Kenny on his blog as “a friend”.

And it’s a jokey picture of a bestial embrace that I should be afraid of discovering online? (Junkee archives).

That never gets old for the pond, evoking as it does fond memories of how the dog botherer got his nickname.

And so to the bonus, and here the pond was disappointed. The bromancer was at the top of the digital edition with a yarn about the USA, but when the pond clicked on it, this was all that turned up ...

If you clicked on the bromancer's name, you got the same metaphorical void ...

No doubt the reptiles will fix things and in the meantime there was a piece on the same topic by Bari Weiss, standard blather about the 'leets, and headed Behind the double talk about Biden was a condescending logic now very familiar to Americans.

Desperate times at the lizard Oz. 

Bari Weiss is a nasty piece of work, and picking up droppings from the AFP shows a willingness to ferret through a dung hill, yet there it was ...This article originally appeared in The Free Press. Read more: thefp.com.

The reptiles didn't even bother with a hot link to the dung hill, and having done that, the pond preferred to move on to the Everest known as nattering "Ned", because why go with a weasel import when you can have a fine Currency Lad effort and bore the socks off everyone with a home brew ...

A culture war? Time for a 'toon already ...

This was perhaps as fine an example of Chicken Little hysteria, and a clucking and a headless chook anxiety attack as "Ned" has managed in recent times...

Sheesh, JAQ of the most hysterical kind ... put it another way ...

There was an array of snaps to go with "Ned" in full alarmist flight ...

For a nanosecond the pond thought that sign read "Vote for Nige for President", but Nige is busy saving little England ...

Meanwhile, "Ned" was still just asking questions as a form of rhetorical discourse ...

Oh dear, did he just scribble "the appealing JD Vance"?

Only "Ned" ... oblivious to the entire world, with this the original cover for the book Vance blurbed and wrote the foreword to attracting the attention of Project 2025 devotees ...

What a hootin' and a hollerin' that story produced ... 

Per the Graudian's JD Vance writes foreword for Project 2025 leader’s upcoming book

..Vance recently told NBC: “What the media and the Democrats are trying to do is attach its most unpopular elements to the Trump administration. It’s a 900-page document. I guarantee there are things that Trump likes and dislikes … but he is the person who will determine the agenda of the next administration.”

Such protestations have been greeted with skepticism, particularly given extensive links between Trumpworld and Project 2025 authors.

According to publicity material, Roberts’ book will cover similar ground to Project 2025, “outlin[ing] a peaceful ‘Second American Revolution’ for voters looking to shift the power back into the hands of the people”.

But that only echoed controversial comments in which Roberts recently told the former Trump aide Steve Bannon: “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

Furthermore, as reported by the New Republic, Roberts’ book was previously advertised under a more dramatic subtitle: “Burning Down Washington to Save America”.

Such rhetoric is spreading. At a recent Trump-Vance rally in Ohio, a speaker warned of civil war if the Republican ticket is beaten. In promoting Roberts’ book, Vance uses violent imagery of his own.

“We are now all realising that it’s time to circle the wagons and load the muskets,” the senator says. “In the fights that lay ahead, these ideas are an essential weapon.”

Reed Galen, a Republican operative turned director of JoinTheUnion.us, a “coalition of pro-democracy organisations”, told the Guardian: “Project 2025 is Maga’s endorsed blueprint for turning America into an authoritarian state.

“That Trump’s running mate is introducing [Roberts’] book personally only proves that his protestations [of no links to Project 2025] are an indication of how unpopular they know the plan is.

But then "Ned" probably thinks it's appealing to have women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, with only a diet Mountain Dew for relief ...

Yep, he even manages to contemplate the mango Mussolini running a "disciplined" campaign ... and not disciplined in the sense of having your bum spanked with a magazine wielded by a porn star ...

There are televised debates? Maybe ... ABC News still ‘full steam ahead’ with presidential debate, despite Trump backing off commitment.

Or maybe he'll hold out for kid glove treatment at Faux Noise, or do his own version of Chicken Little ...

And then it was back to JD worship ...

The pond's already done JD's set of weird fundamentalist Catholic beliefs - including hanging around in a marriage for a good bashing or three - and it's a measure of "Ned's" lack of awareness that he'd swallow this pick of the sons of the orange Jesus whole ... 

If "Ned" thinks JD is the saviour of the working man, the pond has a venture capitalist to sell him, and the pond will throw in the harbour bridge for free.

Luckily this was the end of this day's "Ned" Everest climb, with just one more short gobbet to go ...

The pond hates to say it, but the pond might have been better off suffering with Bari Weiss ...

If you're going to do the cesspit of saucy doubts and fears, why not go the whole hog?

And so to wrap things up with an immortal Rowe celebrating cat ladies ...

Oh no, not Jennifer ...

So much fun passing clueless "Ned" by, but sadly hings might get a little short-on when it comes to local 'toons for a few days, with the immortal Rowe also tweeting this ...

Sadly, they torched it long ago ...

It being Friday, there will be Cicero and a Groaning ...

 

Ain't the Streisand effect a bloody marvel? 

There it was, back again in the Graudian: How Gina Rinehart and her backers pressured the NGA to remove her portrait.

You could also find it in the Nine papers as Inside the campaign to take down Gina Rinehart’s portraits (soft paywall).

Naturally Golding in the Nine papers found it irresistible.

So how could the pond resist? The entire point of the Streisand effect is that everyone must keep talking about it.

This was some of the Graudian version, quoting the Nine rags because that's what you do:

...Namatjira’s portrait of Australia’s richest woman was one of many works unveiled at the Canberra gallery as part of the Archibald prize-winning artist’s first major survey exhibition, Australia in Colour. It hung alongside images of Queen Elizabeth II, football player Adam Goodes, Ned Kelly, and a self-portrait of the artist himself.
The exhibition ended on 21 July, but attracted global attention in mid-May after reports Rinehart had lobbied the gallery to remove her image.
Nine newspapers reported Olympic champion Kyle Chalmers and the Swimming Queensland CEO, Kevin Hasemann, had also campaigned for its removal.
Rinehart, an avid swimming fan, had contributed millions in support to some of Australia’s elite swim stars.
Mitzevich told a Senate estimates hearing in May that visitors to the NGA had grown 24% since the story broke.
The story was covered in the New York Post, CNN, Daily Mirror, the BBC, South China Morning Post and US talkshow The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
Mitzevich told estimates the gallery had received 125 articles of correspondence about Rinehart’s portrait; 47 were negative and eight requested the painting be removed from the exhibition.

Yes, indeed, the pond did catch it on Colbert ... (warning, News Corp link)

Here, have another cartoon to celebrate:

Oh, that's a harsh comparison to a scene the pond still finds hard to watch ...

Now to return to the doings of the reptiles at the lizard Oz, with only one thought uppermost in the pond's mind. 

Was it going to be a Thucydides day, or perhaps even a double Thucydides?

Nah, it was a Lachy day, and all the old geezers and codgers were there to kiss the ring of the new Don ... including but not limited to snaps of ...

 

That reminded the pond of the restraint shown by Michael Bradley in his coverage of the Succession saga, noted yesterday by the pond in its late arvo post...

Not once did Bradley mention the madness and hubris and shattered pride of King Lear in his Crikey piece ... Rupert’s legal argument finally drops the facade that News was ever a news business at all, 'In the end, Rupert Murdoch is just another king, on a lonely throne, ruling an empire of cards, scheming, ever scheming, to keep doing so even from the grave.' (paywall)

Inter alia ...

...In proceedings in a Nevada probate court (which deals with estate disputes), Rupert is seeking to change the terms of the trust deed, removing the current four-way power split to replace it with a structure under which Lachlan will have unchallengeable control.

He is relying on a loophole in the original deed, which says that changes can be made if they are done “in good faith” and “with the sole purpose of benefiting all of” the beneficiaries.

Prudence, Elisabeth and James have combined forces (answering another question) and are opposing Rupert’s application. The first round went to him, in that the probate commissioner has ruled that his case isn’t hopeless. It will now go to a full trial, to determine the two key issues: is Rupert acting in good faith, and is the change he wants for the benefit of all six children?

One might argue that the first question has already been answered; the public record of Rupert’s conduct, since before we were all born, speaks for itself. I don’t know if one can introduce tendency evidence (evidence that shows a person has a propensity for acting in a particular way) in a Nevada probate court, but I’d be backing a very large truck up to the court’s door with the literal tonnes of proof that Rupert’s sole conception of any form of faith is his faith that what Rupert wants, Rupert gets.

His argument on the second question provides a fascinating insight into how his brain works: according to court documents, as reported by the NYT, Rupert is arguing “that he is trying to protect James, Elisabeth and Prudence by ensuring that they won’t be able to moderate Fox’s politics or disrupt its operations with constant fights over leadership”. Apparently, their “lack of consensus … would impact the strategic direction at both companies including a potential reorientation of editorial policy”. That is, they don’t know what’s best for them; but Rupert does.

Gotta stop you there, old mate. Here we were all these years thinking you were just an old-school newspaper guy, ferociously protective of the traditions of independent journalism, never dictating to your editors, apolitical, letting the stories go wherever the facts took them, respecting your readers’ desire for the unvarnished truth.

Turns out you have — in your own words — been running a political operation all along, where “strategic direction” means “in line with my beliefs”. Shock, horreur.

What is utterly fascinating about this situation, apart from the spectacle of a family whose sole shared values are power and money, playing out their tragedy to whatever grubby ending the court’s verdict decides, is Rupert’s willingness to finally drop the façade that News was ever a news business at all.

It turns out that there is something more important to Rupert than maintaining that big lie, even after it was graphically exposed by the revelations in the Dominion defamation case. He will sacrifice News’ claim to integrity, even at risk of its commercial viability, on the altar of something far more dear to him: control.

In the end, Rupert Murdoch is just another king, on a lonely throne, ruling an empire of cards, scheming, ever scheming, to keep doing so even from the grave. This litigation — against his own children — confirms the worst anyone ever said of him.

Such restraint. In the end, a mention of a king on a lonely throne and the lear in "clearly" was as close as Bradley got, though almost any verse would have done, especially given the Learian overtones nakedly on parade in Succession ...

Where have I been? Where am I? Fair daylight?

I am mightily abused; I should e’en die with pity

To see another thus. I know not what to say.

I will not swear these are my hands. Let’s see.

I feel this pinprick. Would I were assured

Of my condition!

Or

Pray do not mock:

I am a very foolish fond old man,

Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less,

And to deal plainly,

I fear I am not in my perfect mind.

Methinks I should know you and know this man,

Yet I am doubtful, for I am mainly ignorant

What place this is, and all the skill I have

Remembers not these garments; nor I know not

Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me,

For, as I am a man, I think this lad

To be my child, far right power hungry Lachy ...

Or

Be your tears wet? Yes, faith. I pray, weep not.

If you have poison for me, I will drink it.

I know you do not love me, for your siblings

Have, as I do remember, done me wrong.

You have some cause; they have not.

Or

You won't see any of that in the lizard Oz hive mind, busy celebrating the new king ...

Never mind, time to totter off to ancient times with our Henry, though given that the Google bot puts the old dodderer at 71, he might be expected to be a tad sensitive about the age thingie ...

What learning and what sublime lack of relevance have we here, almost Learian in its intensity. 

Given the topic, the prospect of a Thucydides reference dropped a little, but the pond has every hope ancient Rome will add a touch of glamour to the proceedings. In the meantime, the reptiles offered sundry former Prezzies as visual distractions, including a saluting Ronnie Raygun, possibly already in militaristic dementia...

Now, because the present is possibly too painful for the old codger to contemplate, the hole in the bucket man's history lesson for the day begins in earnest ...

Thar he blows, and even though it's just a reference to Cicero, still in the context of the mango Mussolini's cavortings, the pond considers it more than passingly delusional. 

With the pond having once read Cicero (in Penguin translation), the pond will allow the rhetorical flourish ...

And then it was on with more irrelevancy ...

The "inflexibility" of the American constitution? No wonder our Henry used scare quotes, what with assorted Supreme Courts showing remarkable flexibility of interpretation, not least that of the current deeply corrupt bunch of judicial activists, at work to promote the very best causes, in aid of ancient references ...

Truth to tell, the "inflexible" US constitution might flex enough to allow anything, including the staging of a coup, or the stealing of state secrets. It's not Jason Bourne that does that sort of thing...

Then it was on to the final, all too brief, gobbet ...

All that, and he's Just Asking Questions? 

Waiter, bring the pond some of the finest diet Mountain Dew, and we'll all jawbone a few more JAQs ...

And so to Dame Groan as a bonus, though it's more of a relief, because the pond hasn't the slightest interest in a bout of union bashing from the old biddie, but is ever so pleased to see her back at her post. 

She too is of an age in the reptile columnist gerontocracy - the Google bot puts her at 69 - and the pond was incredibly anxious about her failure to appear on the Tuesday in her regular slot.

What joy to see the old biddie back and firing on her usual one cylinder, and with a few astonishing reveals ...

The reptiles interrupted the rant with a copious array of illustrations... with a furtive looking comrade Dan the new Jack Lang ...

The reptiles can never get enough of a scowling comrade Dan, he could last for another decade as an object of ire, perhaps even longer ... but back to the reveals ...

That's the real reason? The pond headed off to Dr Matthew Mitchell railing at the link back in 2014, with the fuss even earning its own wiki ...and you could read L'Age back in April 2015, Victorian government settles East West Link claim for $339m.

The pond regards it as a form of low Victorian comedy, down there with the alleged rail line to the airport, which will be completed long after the pond has gone. 

But how can Emerald City pundits laugh and mock? After all the Parramatta Road light rail proposal (SMH) has been disinterred yet again, with splendid snaps ...

Outrageous ... the pond is thinking of writing to council demanding that the concrete slab currently in place here ...

... be kept as a heritage item.

You don't see majestic concrete slabs covering a block every day of the week.

That said, to blame all these follies on just a union? 

Surely that's pushing the envelope just a little, even for Dame Groan doing a splendid groaning.

Still, there were even bigger reveals ...

They're all men?

Who knew that Dame Groan was a raging feminist? Next thing you know she might develop a soft spot for climate change and renewables and turn activist...

Best not to push the window too far, but as regular readers will know, as well as endless rants about renewables, Dame Groan can be relied on to groan on endlessly about pesky, difficult, uppity furriners ruining everything.

Whaddayahno? We should put 'em to work building endless motorways ...

Who knew Dame Slap was pro-woman and pro-migrant?

With this new spirit, is it too much to imagine that Dame Groan might soon clear the renewables bar?

Nah, it's surely a bridge too far ... especially as there was just a gobbet to go, and the Dame reverted to her usual grumpiness ...

The pond must take its pleasures where it finds them, and that rich Groaning in favour of women and migrants are gems to be plucked from the diatribe ...

What next? If not renewables, perhaps ...

Meanwhile, the genocide goes on, and the infallible Pope was to hand ...

Not being sporty, the pond didn't have an excuse to link to the immortal Rowe, though it did enjoy the merde in the water...

As always, it's in the detail and surely C’est de la merde ce truc...