In which the pond mourns a lack of mojo in Killer and the mutton Dutton ...

 

The pond has said it before, but at the risk of sounding like a tediously repetitive "Ned", will say it again. 

The reptiles have lost their mojo, they've lost their way, and as a result interest in herpetological studies is at an all time low. The pond's numbers are way down, as people can ignore the reptiles and run wild and free ... so the long absent lord alone knows how the reptile finances are panning out, especially as there's no longer any Kash from Klive in the reptile Klaw ...

There's a sullen funereal air to the lizard Oz. A listlessness, a lifeless lack of purpose ...

Sure there was petulant Peta still trying to bung ono a culture war in today's lizard Oz ...

But she's such a fuckwit, only the true believers could possibly care ...

The pond can't even do a compare and contrast with the long lost Niki Savva, missing this past fortnight, probably gone off to write a book about the complete uselessness of the liar from the Shire.

That mention of maintaining the climate war by the petulant one did produce the usual from Killer Creighton, responding to her early morning cuckoo call.

Sadly, as a climate science denialist, Killer's really good at denying the utility of masks ... top of the digital page early this morning, but to what avail?

Well he danced on the graves of victims of Covid, so naturally Killer would dance at the death of the planet ... but as a correspondent has noted, the reptile solution - nuke the world - is a bit like unicorn-hunting season ...

Chasing unicorns has been fashionable for some time now in certain quarters...

Yet the hunt still goes on, and Killer is one of the more intrepid hunters, down there with Don Jr. ...

Oh indeed indeed ...

Wait for it, fat cat, wait just a little longer. There's a long game being played here, and Killer won't show his hand until the very end, when the unicorn is safely in Killer's trap ...

And there you go, Killer has caught his unicorn: "without a significant increase in nuclear power..." 

But what happens if you've caught your unicorn? Could the buggers be really expensive to feed? Does the cost of a unicorn zoo make unicorn hunting that profitable? 

The call is coming from inside the house ... and the pond got ready to scream ...

…amid a reduction in new nuclear projects globally, Kean poured cold water on the push by his Coalition colleagues in Canberra on Wednesday, saying pursuing nuclear energy generation in Australia was currently a “fantasy”.

While conceding nuclear “may have a role to play in our energy system in the future”, Kean said he hoped for a role for emerging nuclear technologies – such as small modular reactors – but that they would not help address rising energy costs in the short to medium term.

Kean referred to the UK government’s underwriting of the construction of the Hinkley Point C station to the tune of about $300 a megawatt-hour, which he said was “three times more expensive than the current electricity bills at the height that we’re paying right now”.

He said the cost and timeline of new nuclear energy meant it was not realistic to consider it as an option.

“Not only that, they started the build of [Hinkley Point C station] in around 2008,” he said. “It’s now 2022 and it still hasn’t been turned on, so we can’t wait 20 years to chase some fantasy, which is large-scale nuclear.

“What we need to do is focus on things that are going to lower household bills today and set us up for more prosperity in the future.”

In 2019 the former federal Coalition government held a parliamentary inquiry into the role of nuclear. Chaired by the new shadow climate change and energy minister, Ted O’Brien, it recommended the government consider small modular reactors, which produce less energy but, proponents say, would be easier to keep safe.

But many small nuclear reactor proposals overseas have been beset by problems , and Kean said that two of the firms pushing the use of the technology – Rolls-Royce and US firm NuScale – wouldn’t have prototypes ready for construction until the next decade.

“So people talking about nuclear as an asset to our energy challenges right now are literally chasing unicorns,” Kean said.

“This is a fantasy, which is not ready at the moment. But who knows, at some time in the future, we may crack the code of small nuclear reactors and that could play a role in our energy mix.

“But right now, we are focusing on the things that we know work [and] that we know are going to drive down household bills and that’s why we’ve got our energy roadmap here in NSW to roll out solar, wind [and] pumped hydro storage with transmission lines. Because we know that that’s the best way to lower household bills to keep the lights on and to deliver clean, reliable electricity.”

Phew, what a relief that the unicorn slayer is inside the house ... where there's always a kitchen knife handy.

There was another reminder of how dire things are in the reptile world these days, the sense of pointlessness, existential ennui and déjà vu ... 

Look at this array, and look who's been promoted to head of the pack ...

Sheesh, it's come to a pretty pass when the mutton Dutton must himself do all the leg work. Where are the fawning reptiles?

To be fair,  they did their best, devoting their tree killer edition to a "secret plan" ...

Woulda, coulda, shoulda, and all the pond could think of was that Enid Blyton tosh about secrets ...

Two subs for the price of ten! Could sub hunting be a bit like unicorn hunting?

The most gigantic clusterfuck, and epic failure of all the coalition's policies, and this is the petard on which the mutton Dutton wants to hang his hat?

On the other hand, it seems that these days you can't lie to the FBI or congress, so you probably shouldn't lie to parliament, the nation or yourself ... unless you think that BoJo is the inspirational way ahead ...

Scrub that, Barners is always one step ahead of the pond when it comes to rorting or snorting - yes, the pond admired the mutton Dutton's adept way with the "snorting" jargon, because nothing shows how adept the coalition has been at paddling hard below the surface than its glorious submariner ways ...

Tragic really. He's even taken on the onion muncher's verbal tics and aggrandisements ... "as the former defence minister, I want to point out to our partners my complete irrelevance, especially to our French partners, who have been simply splendid", followed by the usual "it became obvious to me", and "I believed it possible," and "I had formed a judgement ..."

Down there with unicorn hunting the way this brave warrior wins through and pokes at straw dogs ... or stuffed scarecrows ... 

Yep, with two subs in hand, and eight subs in the bush, it's time for the details of the "secret" plan ...

The pond thought it was joking with that coulda, shoulda, woulda line, but there it was in black and white: "could have been built," "could have accompanied", "wouldn't have" ...

All hat and no cattle (that's so Barners can understand).

As for the rest of the blather, speak loudly and carry two subs as our big stick? Talk about  déjà vu ...

...Could the same not be true of China? Is it not foolish to talk up threats of war and make inevitable what is avoidable? Or were Defence Minister Peter Dutton’s extraordinary comments – on Anzac Day, of all days – about the need to prepare for war with China, however distasteful and reckless, founded on reasonable assessment?

Wishful thinking would have it that talk of war involving China is a confected threat manufactured by vested interests and hawkish assessments. There is far too much at stake, however, to fall back on wishful thinking. “Peace in our time” is exactly what we should be working for, but we can’t achieve it simply by proclaiming it.

The problem with Dutton’s comments lies not in the assessment of the risk, but in how the government responds to it. In the midst of a tightly contested federal election campaign, with the Coalition on the back foot, there is a great temptation to resort to fearmongering in the name of national security to shore up votes.

In the words of former US President Theodore Roosevelt, we need to “speak softly and carry a big stick”. The concern with what Dutton is doing is not that his analysis is wrong, but that his response to the threat is reckless and counterproductive. We are neither carrying a big stick nor speaking softly... (The Conversation)

And yet here he is, still blathering on, speaking loudly, and still completely clueless, not a stick in sight, as if two subs is going to make any difference should a Chinese fighter decide to drop a little chaff in his eyes ...or the Secret Seven decided to storm the palace ...

What a relief to turn to the immortal Rowe and discover that greed knows no bounds, and there is no sense of shame ...

Blood? Did someone mention blood and cold, dead shark eyes filled with greed?

“Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into her side, Chief. We was comin’ back from the island of Tinian to Leyte. We’d just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes.

Didn’t see the first shark for about a half-hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that in the water, Chief? You can tell by lookin’ from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn’t know, was that our bomb mission was so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn’t even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin’ by, so we formed ourselves into tight groups. It was sorta like you see in the calendars, you know the infantry squares in the old calendars like the Battle of Waterloo and the idea was the shark come to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin’ and hollerin’ and sometimes that shark he go away… but sometimes he wouldn’t go away.

Sometimes that shark looks right at ya. Right into your eyes. And the thing about a shark is he’s got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll’s eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn’t even seem to be livin’… ’til he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then… ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin’. The ocean turns red, and despite all your poundin’ and your hollerin’ those sharks come in and… they rip you to pieces.

You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don’t know how many sharks there were, maybe a thousand. I do know how many men, they averaged six an hour. Thursday mornin’, Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boson’s mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. He bobbed up, down in the water, he was like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he’d been bitten in half below the waist.

At noon on the fifth day, a Lockheed Ventura swung in low and he spotted us, a young pilot, lot younger than Mr. Hooper here, anyway he spotted us and a few hours later a big ol’ fat PBY come down and started to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened. Waitin’ for my turn. I’ll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945.

Anyway, we delivered the bomb.”

Or perhaps it's enough to sell your soul by delivering a golf tournament ...