In which a sodden pond has an easy Friday with just the hole in the bucket man on the menu...

 

Square this if you will ...

The fascists are at the gates! They’re in the city! Are they? Well, yes… but also no. The desire to simply label Meloni and the FDI’s complex mix of politics as fascist is a desire to have a clear-cut enemy, and revive scattered and defeated liberal and progressive confidence. ..

Well the pond wouldn't want to simply label fascists as fascists. But now to the squaring ... because this followed ..

...look also at something like the Western Australian McGowan government. While the Andrews government can be described as merely “corporate authoritarian”, the McGowan government — with its Black kids in adult prisons, its new and distinctive indefinite detention laws aimed at defendants with a series of minor convictions in crimes that have a high Black perpetrator rate — is genuinely on the outer edge of fascistic ...

Ah, so the pond can talk of being genuinely on the edge of the fascistic and that's fine. Mustn't offend Meloni, but have a go at McGowan ...

It's a fine line, but how pleasing a complex mix of politics could never be called fascist ...

Talk about complexity ... especially if you throw in some refugee and gay bashing ...

The pond has always admired how populist fascists have managed to introduce a nuance, subtlety and complexity into their slogans ...

The rest of the grundling was half baked blather featuring third rate Gramsci and fourth rate history, and once again the pond had been grundled ...

And then down in the comments section came this pair of clowns...

Well the modern day versions of simple labeling is. – climate denier , racism , sexist, ageism can anyone think of others?
All the “-phobes” of the ever fearful pearl clutchers – daren’t name them for fear of the madbot.

And then the pond realised that there wasn't that much difference between Crikey and the lizard Oz, between a good grundling and the bromancer stepping out to defend Meloni, between the sort of nonsense spewed out by Glenn Greenwald and the statistics once offered up by Bob Ellis.

The pond did the right thing, left Crikey to feud with Lachy, clutched its pearls and headed over to the lizard Oz, where at least the hole in the bucket man could rail and rant without trying to confuse and conflate issues ...

By golly, he'll transport the pond back to the good old days of Arthur Miller and The Crucible, which the pond always understood to be a none too subtle parable about the Hollywood Ten, McCarthyism, and the sort of anti-Commie hysteria that littered the 1950s ...(the pond's current toilet reading is Diane Johnson's life of Dashiell Hammett, who copped six months in the clink, not to mention life as a raging alcoholic and a decline into abject poverty thanks to a remarkable case of writer's block).

But the pond digresses, on with the hole in the bucket man ...

Of course the hole in the bucket man might have noted some hysterical denunciations going down at the moment, with the mango Mussolini into full Q mode ...

But why let current events get in the way of railing at Xians ... though the pond seems to recall our Henry had a soft spot for fundamentalist bigots ...

That gem came from 9th December 2021 for anyone wondering ...

Deeply weird shit, but why does the pond find this hilarious in the usual hole in the bucket way? 

Well the pond ran this cartoon before but feels free to run it again because somehow it's relevant to Faux Noise, the GOP, the orange Jesus, assorted governors, the chairman and his hatchling, and News Corp ...

The pond can tell where our Henry is heading, a ranting and a righteous railing at social media, and never mind the ratbag company he scribbles for ...

Yet another rant at the Twittersphere, though the pond faults our Henry for not mentioning the Twitterati, or the role C. Wright Mills played in proposing in The Sociological Imagination the intersection between personal problems and public issues, personal biography and history (and there were other precedents - the pond had a blast chasing them down via portal from back when the internet was becoming a thing in 1998. Such quaint layout).

Meanwhile, on another planet and without much help from Twitter ...

And so to the final gobbet filled, it has to be said, with an unseemly hate and rage, and an unholy lust for vengeance ...

The fire next time! The flames of vengeance ...

God gave Noah the rainbow sign, no more water but fire next time ...

It reminded the pond that when it comes to a cussin' and a cursin' and a carry on, they knew how to do it in the old days, without benefit of Twitter ...

The Lord saw this and rejected them
because he was angered by his sons and daughters.
“I will hide my face from them,” he said,
“and see what their end will be;
for they are a perverse generation,
children who are unfaithful.
They made me jealous by what is no god
and angered me with their worthless idols.
I will make them envious by those who are not a people;
I will make them angry by a nation that has no understanding.
For a fire will be kindled by my wrath,
 one that burns down to the realm of the dead below.
It will devour the earth and its harvests
and set afire the foundations of the mountains.
“I will heap calamities on them
 and spend my arrows against them.
I will send wasting famine against them,
consuming pestilence and deadly plague;
I will send against them the fangs of wild beasts,
the venom of vipers that glide in the dust.
In the street the sword will make them childless;
in their homes terror will reign.
The young men and young women will perish,
the infants and those with grey hair...

Yes, stick that in your Twitter feed and smoke it - that smokin' Jesus, he knew about the hole in the bucket man's righteous search for vengeance, for the dispensation of those righteous flames ...

“Have I not kept this in reserve
 and sealed it in my vaults?
In due time their foot will slip;
their day of disaster is near
and their doom rushes upon them.”

It is mine to avenge; I will repay.

And that final bit of prevarication is because the pond isn't going to tackle the bubble-headed booby this day, because she unleashed a cunning ploy whereby the pond, always the contrarian when there's a reptile in the vicinity, would have had to defend the mad mullahs ...

Sorry, the pond can't play that game. It can chortle at the idle fantasies of a vengeful Henry, it can laugh at talk of shame sanctions, when the reptiles are on a daily basis, completely and utterly shameless, and routinely dispense shame sanctions, but all the pond can do for the bubble-headed booby is add a coda and remind her that it's not just in the Islamic world ... it's also in the world of Faux Noise and the GOP and News Corp ...

Why, they're down there with angry Sydney Anglicans in search of complimentary women...

... or perhaps they're with the US Supreme Court ...

And so to the infallible Pope, reminding the world what the hole in the bucket man might more fruitfully have raged about ...

In which the pond travels to plucky little England, before settling on some Killer science ...

 

The pond vividly remembers the time it was told as a child to stop hitting its head with a hammer ... the sense of relief was matched by the temptation to pick up the hammer again, on seeing petulant Peta back at the lizard Oz...

The pond hadn't even noticed her absence, yet on checking it was way back on August 4th that she scribbled a piece for the reptiles headed Dutton's Liberals must have guts to speak out against Indigenous voice ...

No longer having need of a hammer, the pond ignored her then, and so feels free to ignore her now, especially as "guts" seems to have transformed into "tensions" in "voice debate."

What a pathetic, wretched, wannabe shit-stirrer she is, but what then for the pond on a sodden Thursday?

The pond notes that Killer is out and about, but will save that as a treat for further down the page. Got to have something to keep the avid devotees of lizard Oz climate science scrolling down the page ...

In the interim, the pond thought it might turn to Carling and the current UK crisis. 

Last night the pond's logarithms went into a meltdown, with Sky News popping up at regular intervals with alarming news of the state of the pound - at one point it had hit an all time low of  US$1.03 - the IMF writing a note as if to a third world country, and a general sense of gloom and crisis and despair ... as a couple of rabid ideologues went about the business of wrecking everything still standing ...

What a relief to find not a whisper of all that in Carling ...

Meanwhile, on an entirely different planet ...

It wasn't just the Graudian, the Murdochians also seemed to realise something was afoot ...

And there was an added comical touch, which should have excited all those Brexit types with their feral fear of furriners ...

So much for plucky little England, pressing on alone against the cheese eating surrender monkeys, the rest of Europe and the world ...

Meanwhile, on planet Carling ...

Did the dear lad mention trickle down? We all know that warm feeling on the back of the neck, and the pleasure to be found in a Rowson cartoon taking the piss...

Meanwhile, the pond's logarithms continue to go wild, with Sky News - no longer a Murdochian brand - in wild-eyed meltdown ...

Tory backbenchers fuming as ministers deny economic turmoil ...

They weren't the only ones fuming ... Marina Hyde was positively smoking in The markets are in meltdown - but at least Kwasi Kwarteng's doomsday cult isn't to blame ...

And the punsters were out and about ...

Meanwhile, a last gasp from Carling, reporting from another planet ...

Ah, there's no way of knowing, a gamble with every chance of success, if you happen to be in the 1%, a bold experiment, wonders to be worked ...

And then there was Crace, crashing through in his usual way ...

Librium Liz and Kamikwasi couldn’t believe their eyes. First the IMF had morphed into a dangerous leftwing terrorist organisation. Worse than that, a woke, dangerous leftwing terrorist organisation. One that embraced Starmer’s touchy-feely fiscal rules. That’s the last time the Tories would be going to Davos – the Cuba of central Europe.

As for the bond markets, they were obviously crashing because financial traders were terrified of an IMF-backed Labour party. Er … Let’s think that one through. No one had heard of Labour before the Tories’ not-so-mini budget last week. Maybe not. Let’s try this. The markets were scared that Labour would crash the economy. Unlike the Conservatives who had already done that. Perhaps not again. Maybe, then, the traders were also secret socialists and had only increased bond yields to 4.5% just to topple Librium Liz. Nuts, but these are the mad excuses that were passing off as rational explanations in government circles.

It wasn’t just the economy that was crashing. It was people’s neural networks. Seldom has so much stupidity been concentrated in such a small area. Kamikwasi could be heard begging bankers not to make money by betting against the pound. Fool. Hadn’t he heard they had uncapped bonuses to make?

But enough of the splendid English sensa huma, which the pond has always enjoyed, as it marched across the Andes by frog ... it's on to the usual Thursday Killer ... and lordy lordy he really kills with this outing ...

The pond was exceptionally pleased that Killer raised Koonin, a physicist - why are they always physicists? - because it allows the pond to link to a story in the Scientific American ... it was by Gary Yohe, and not so long ago, in May 2021, and headed A New Book Manages to Get Climate Science Badly Wrong, and it began ...

Steven Koonin, a former undersecretary for science of the Department of Energy in the Obama administration, but more recently considered for an advisory post to Scott Pruitt when he was administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, has published a new book. Released on May 4 and entitled Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters, its major theme is that the science about the Earth’s climate is anything but settled. He argues that pundits and politicians and most of the population who feel otherwise are victims of what he has publicly called “consensus science.”

Koonin is wrong on both counts. The science is stronger than ever around findings that speak to the likelihood and consequences of climate impacts, and has been growing stronger for decades. In the early days of research, the uncertainty was wide; but with each subsequent step that uncertainty has narrowed or become better understood. This is how science works, and in the case of climate, the early indications detected and attributed in the 1980s and 1990s, have come true, over and over again and sooner than anticipated.

This is not to say that uncertainty is being eliminated, but decision makers have become more comfortable dealing with the inevitable residuals. They are using the best and most honest science to inform prospective investments in abatement (reducing greenhouse gas emissions to diminish the estimated likelihoods of dangerous climate change impacts) and adaptation (reducing vulnerabilities to diminish their current and projected consequences).

Koonin’s intervention into the debate about what to do about climate risks seems to be designed to subvert this progress in all respects by making distracting, irrelevant, misguided, misleading and unqualified statements about supposed uncertainties that he thinks scientists have buried under the rug. 

Here, I consider a few early statements in his own words. They are taken verbatim from his introductory pages so he must want the reader to see them as relevant take-home findings from the entire book. They are evaluated briefly in their proper context, supported by findings documented in the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It is important to note that Koonin recognizes this source in his discussion of assessments, and even covers the foundations of the confidence and likelihood language embedded in its findings (specific references from the IPCC report are presented in brackets).

Two such statements by Koonin followed the simple preamble “For example, both the literature and government reports that summarize and assess the state of climate science say clearly that…”:

• “Heat waves in the US are now no more common than they were in 1900, and that the warmest temperatures in the US have not risen in the past fifty years.” (Italics in the original.) This is a questionable statement depending on the definition of “heat wave”, and so it is really uninformative. Heat waves are poor indicators of heat stress. Whether or not they are becoming more frequent, they have clearly become hotter and longer over the past few decades while populations have grown more vulnerable in large measure because they are, on average, older [Section 19.6.2.1]. Moreover, during these longer extreme heat events, it is nighttime temperatures that are increasing most. As a result, people never get relief from insufferable heat and more of them are at risk of dying.

• “The warmest temperatures in the US have not risen in the past fifty years.” According to what measure? Highest annual global averages? Absolutely not. That the planet is has warmed since the industrial revolution is unequivocal with more than 30 percent of that warming having occurred over the last 25 years, and the hottest annual temperatures in that history have followed suit [Section SPM.1].

And so on and so endlessly forth, and that's the delight with Killer, because he unfailingly tuns to terrible sources, and so the pond gets to learn things ...

With What's on base, Who's up next?

Ah, he had to lead off that gobbet with an old faithful, the gushing geyser known as Shellenberger ...

A casual googler would be overwhelmed by the references to this lad, but the pond will select just one ... a bunch of wild-eyed scientists going a little feral ... about an article promoting his tome (the pond prefers the pretentiousness of tome because of that echo of tomb ...

Zeke Hausfather, Director of Climate and Energy, The Breakthrough Institute:

Shellenberger’s article promoting his new book “Apocalypse Never” includes a mix of accurate, misleading, and patently false statements. While it is useful to push back against claims that climate change will lead to the end of the world or human extinction, to do so by inaccurately downplaying real climate risks is deeply problematic and counterproductive.

Shellenberger’s claims that climate plays no role in natural disasters and wildfires fly in the face of a large peer-reviewed scientific literature showing clear links between climate change and extreme heat events, drought, and extreme rainfall as well as links between hotter and drier conditions and wildfire areas burned in many regions of the world[1-4].

Shellenberger also falls into the trap of seeing a single technology (nuclear) as the one true solution to climate change, and mistakenly sees denigrating other clean energy technologies as the best way to promote it. The real world involves messy trade-offs and uncertainties, and decarbonization will involve a range of different technological solutions across industries and geographies rather than a single panacea.

Stefan Doerr, Professor, Swansea University:

The article argues that society has been misled about causes and consequences of climate change, which has led to “climate alarmism.” The author advocates that we should be less concerned about climate change than many environmentalists argue. Whilst the latter is relative depending on how concerned an individual is and which specific (and perhaps extreme) view this aligns with, some of the supporting statements in the article related to wildfire are (i) inaccurate for key facts supporting argumentation, or (ii) omit important information that leads to flaws in the conclusions.

“Climate change is not making natural disasters worse”.

This is incorrect for wildfires. Several global climate trends promote fire: increased temperature, frequency, intensity and/or extent of heatwaves, droughts and extreme winds. This is very well established and summarised in the IPCC (2014) report[1,2].

“Fires have declined 25% around the world since 2003″.

It is correct that the total global area burned has OVERALL declined over the last decades, BUT this is incorrectly used to argue that climate change is not affecting wildfires. The overall decrease is largely due a substantial reduction in flammable vegetation in African grasslands arising from human land use changes. Climate change has led to an increase in area burned in regions where fires burn more intensely and have a greater impact (e.g. western USA and Canada)[18,19]. This is omitted, leading to a false perception.

“The build-up of wood fuel and more houses near forests, not climate change, explain why there are more, and more dangerous, fires in Australia and California”.

Partially correct[17], but the assertion that the climate change related factors outlined above do not also contribute to increasingly “dangerous fires” is fundamentally flawed. It is comparable to suggesting that smoking alone and not obesity is responsible for an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Both factors are clearly important.

Daniel Swain, Climate Scientist, University of California, Los Angeles:

The article presents a mix of out-of-context facts and outright falsehoods to reach conclusions that are, collectively, fundamentally misleading. The author claims to reference specific sources, including “the IPCC, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), [and] the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).” However, the author’s claims are broadly unsupported by any of these authoritative bodies[1].

Gerardo Ceballos, Professor, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico:

This is not a scientific paper. It is intended, I guess, to be an article for the general public. Unfortunately, it is neither. It does not have a logical structure that allows the reader to understand what he would like to address, aside from a very general and misleading idea that environmentalists and climate scientists have been alarmist in relation to climate change. He lists a series of eclectic environmental problems like the Sixth Mass Extinction, green energy, and climate disruption. And without any data nor any proof, he discredits the idea that those are human-caused, severe environmental problems. He just mentions loose ideas about why he is right and the rest of the scientists, environmentalists, and general public are wrong. Being objective, this is a really bad article. It will cause confusion among the public—perhaps that is his idea.

And so on and so endlessly forth, but the pond must now turn to expert killer climate scientist Killer for a last gobbet ...

The pond was reminded that only a few days ago it began with ...

Is this the silliest 'wondering why' of the year?

...we asked Graham Lloyd and his editor Chris Dore why they did not highlight any of those studies or conclusions, or mention them in the article. And why they failed to tell readers of some of the authors’ history of climate scepticism. 

They did not respond. 

But you have to wonder why The Australian lets its Environment Editor cherry-pick claims from climate sceptics and deniers and publish them without challenge from the vast majority of climate scientists who say they are wrong.

You have to wonder why? 

Why? What's with the wondering? After all these years, isn't it apparent? As the scorpion said to the frog, it's in my nature. 

The pond would be startled, shocked, if they changed their nature. It's a tricky, hard thing to do at the best of times and the lizard Oz's entire business model has depended on climate science denialism for decades.

Scorpion, say hello to Media Watch frog ... yet again and for at least the umpteenth time ...

And so to cartoonists ably keeping the pond in touch and entertained by the local issues of the day ...

In which Dame Slap savages trial by media, something of a trial by Slapping, with the Killer as a bonus thought ...

 

For some reason, the pond was reminded this day of the old joke of the unhappy dictator demanding to catch up with the 2% that hadn't voted for him ...

While looking up the old joke, the pond came across this February 2012 piece by Joshua Keating in Foreign Policy, The dicator's dilemma: To win with 95 percent or 99?

Inter alia ...

In today’s world, even the most blatantly undemocratic governments feel the need to hold periodic elections to reaffirm their legitimacy. But I’m always interested by the final numbers in elections where there’s absolutely no question of who will win. The 90 percent mark seems to be a useful line to distinguish between the authoritarian governments that care about the international perception of their elections and want to present the appearance of having an  opposition, and those that care only about demonstrating their absolute control to their own citizens.

While neither is a democratic contest, there is a difference — in intended effect at least — between Hosni Mubarak getting 88.6 percent of the vote in 2005 and Bashar al-Assad getting 97.62 percent in a “presidential referendum,” with no opposition candidates, as he did in 2007. Then there’s the 99 percent club, which includes the Castro brothers, and Kim Jong Il. Saddam Hussein went for the full 100 percent in 2002, but then again, he was overthrown a year later. (Why a dictator decides between winning by 97 percent or 99 percent isn’t quite clear.)

In general, when a former 90-percenter start slipping below that mark – as Mubarak did in 2005 — it’s not a good sign for the future of the regime. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union won 100 percent in every legislative election until 1984, when the party, led by General Secretary Konstantin Chernenko, won 71.5 percent, with the rest going to handpicked “independents.” Seven years later the Communists were done.

Today’s Russia is something of a hybrid. In the last legislative elections, the ruling United Russia party took 64.3 percent of the vote nationwide, the kind of number you see in an authoritarian country that feels the need to demonstrate that it has at least a token opposition. (Iran, for instance.) But in Chechnya, United Russia took a Turkmenistan-like 99.48 percent of the vote with 99.5 percent turnout — quite a show of support in a republic that recently saw a bloody nationalist uprising against Moscow. 

Cue Vlad the impaler ...

Okay, okay, the pond will 'fess up. It's bored beyond belief by the reptile offerings this day in the comments section of the lizard Oz ...

What is it with that rat from the ranks who hails from the deep north? He's becoming ubiquitous, more cockroach than cane toad ...

So the pond went looking elsewhere and found the predictable in search of the obvious ...

Spend time with the meretricious Merritt doing the reptile obvious? But Wilcox had already taken care of that conversation ...

So the pond went looking elsewhere and stumbled across more of the reptile usual, though with an odd juxtaposition ...

Of late the pond has found visits to planet Janet above the faraway tree increasingly wearisome and tiresome, but this was such an odd juxtaposition that the pond decided to give it a go, and never no mind that the pond has absolutely no interest in Victorian football, or the weird obsessions it provokes ...

Well it's classic planet Janet, everything's always threatening her and the reptiles core beliefs of justice, except perhaps "Lord" Monckton, or donning a MAGA cap, or going all in with fascism ...

But speaking of trial by media and vigilante journalism and open slather, the pond innocently clicked on that other link and magically found itself transported to the HUN, home of Rita "meter maid" Panahi and the Bolter, and so a place the pond never visits ...

The pond quite liked the idea of attaching the HUN to the top of the gobbet to ensure authenticity, because the pond always likes to know who's doing the trial by media ...

Meanwhile, there was Dame Slap, still railing away in her usual way, apparently unaware the calls and the reporting were coming from inside the reptile house ...

There was another click bait video the pond cut out, "Hawthorn racism allegations 'could well end up in the actual courts'", but it was only amusing because like the neutered one above, it showed that while Dame Slap was railing, the reptiles were joining in the inevitable media trial ...

Speaking of which, the pond really should stay true to that HUN yarn ... and yes, they're genuine, certified HUN gobbets ...

It goes without saying that Dame Slap wouldn't have any of that, and so to her final gobbet ...

Media vigilantes? Oh reptiles, if only there were a looking glass handy ...

As for the rest, if the pond might be so bold, please refer all comments to the HUN ...

And now the pond confesses to not having a bonus, so decided to press into service a bit of a Crikey piece, (paywall), though only because it features Killer ...

For years the pond was leery of using the "F" word, thinking it unfair, but fuck it, isn't Killer the perfect all round smug Fascist? 

The pond did rather a hard cut, just so it could start with the smugness ...

Ah panhandler Panahi with another honourable mention ...but then the reptiles have always had a thing about the Rothschilds and George Soros and the international banking system (though you have to understand what that code really means) ...

It's funny how things keep popping out from the mouths of babes saying what they really think ...

The far-right Brothers of Italy party has suspended an election candidate after it was discovered he had praised Adolf Hitler and described the group’s leader, Giorgia Meloni, as a “modern fascist”.

Calogero Pisano, a coordinator for Brothers of Italy in the Sicilian province of Agrigento, wrote on Facebook in 2014 that the Nazi leader was “a great statesman”.

The post, which sparked condemnation from Italy’s Jewish community, emerged in a story by La Repubblica newspaper days before Italians go to the polls in general elections.

The newspaper found another post by Pisano, written in the same year, saying he supports the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, while the words referring to his party’s leader were written in 2016. (Graudian).

Well yes, but how silly to say what you actually think ...

And so to end with an infallible Pope, which reminded the pond that when it listened to Morning Joe rabbiting on about what a great movie Armageddon was, it decided there was absolutely no point to aesthetics or art or American TV chat shows ...

And if that seems a bit bleak and existential and random, just remember the odds would suit a dictator if expressed in percentage terms ...

Oh heck, instead of contemplating the dismal fate of the dinosaurs and humanity, perhaps the pond should end on a lighter note  ...

And as Killer's been mentioned this day, here's one for Killer ...

In which the pond bunga bungas with the bromancer and the lizard Oz editorialist, then rounds it out with a standard groaning ...

 

Is this the silliest 'wondering why' of the year?

...we asked Graham Lloyd and his editor Chris Dore why they did not highlight any of those studies or conclusions, or mention them in the article. And why they failed to tell readers of some of the authors’ history of climate scepticism. 

They did not respond. 

But you have to wonder why The Australian lets its Environment Editor cherry-pick claims from climate sceptics and deniers and publish them without challenge from the vast majority of climate scientists who say they are wrong.

You have to wonder why? 

Why? What's with the wondering? After all these years, isn't it apparent? As the scorpion said to the frog, it's in my nature. 

The pond would be startled, shocked, if they changed their nature. It's a tricky, hard thing to do at the best of times and the lizard Oz's entire business model has depended on climate science denialism for decades.

There was at least one startling insight ... the pond still had the image of Lloydie as a bright young thing, still wet behind the ears and off to save the Amazon. 

Suddenly Media Watch gave the pond a peek at the saturnine figure in that portrait of Dorian Gray usually hidden beneath the drapes, smirking and nodding along with the braying dog botherer ...

So there is a price to pay for years of trolling, and fellow travelling in a deeply cynical way, with the climate science deniers ...

Remember how he looked in his jungle salad days?

Meanwhile, the pond isn't shocked or startled to see the bromancer wildly excited about the arrival of a new far right bunch of ratbags. It's in his nature, and changing your nature is terribly hard ...

Mind you, it only took the pond a few minutes of googling to land on Newsweek, of all places ...

...Tafuro said that what makes Meloni so compelling to Putin is that she has presented herself as a defender of "Italian interests," which have recently suffered thanks to "war fatigue" and the skyrocketing energy prices that have stemmed from Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"Putin sees this and considers Meloni the best option in the framework of a bad political relationship with Italy," she said.

Even as Meloni has taken a more centrist position in condemning the invasion of Ukraine as an effort to appeal to voters, Meloni's political partners—Silvio Berlusconi and Matteo Salvini—are among those who have been even less aggressive in their criticisms. If the Brothers of Italy party wins a majority in both houses of Parliament with Meloni in charge, it is likely that she will seek an adjustment of the European Union recovery fund program—and use her public support for Ukraine to do so.

Lawrence C. Reardon, a political science professor at the University of New Hampshire, said if Meloni fails to persuade Brussels into reducing Italian economic targets for the year's end, "Putin and his internet trolls no doubt will attempt to exacerbate the situation in order to divide the EU and its economic sanctions against Russia," adding that the Kremlin may even consider offering Meloni cheaper barrels of Russian oil this winter.

At the same time, Meloni's biggest opponent—Italy's Democratic Party—has been far more outspoken in its anti-Moscow stance.

"A Meloni win would not be a revolution, but obviously Putin would welcome it," Michael Kimmage, a former member of the U.S. secretary of state's policy planning staff, told Newsweek.

So, even though the Kremlin won't be seeking an ally in Meloni, the power play between the greater Brothers of Italy party and the Democratic Party will hand Putin a "right-wing coalition [that] at least offers small racks that the Kremlin could try to exploit," Tafuro said.

Put it another way ...

Now back to the bromancer, defending, in his inimitable way, the deeply problematic ... and of course any chance of sanity throws itself out the window the minute that "woke" comes crashing through the glass ... but then, it's in his nature, so there should be no surprise ...

"I don't like identity politics"?

Oh puh-lease, at least be honest. You love it, just have the courage to say it. There's nothing wrong with declaring proudly that you're a white man, a father, a fervent Catholic god botherer of a fundamentalist kind, and a long serving member of the reptile pack, an Australian happily employed in the service of an American owner of an American company that has done much to keep the orange Jesus at the centre of attention ... and a GOP down there with the best of them ...

And so to a last gobbet ... and a billy goat butt about migrants and a celebration of little Johnny and Brexit ...

And there you have it, the usual blather about surrendering to the woke, and a counter-reformation against the zeitgeist, suggesting that the bromancer's heart is still somewhere back in the middle ages, or at least with the Inquisition ...

Meanwhile, the pond was still stuck back on the bromancer's celebration of the trussing of Little England. With the immortal Rowe on a break, these days the pond must turn to Rowson for its neo-gothic cartooning ...

By golly, speaking of Dorian Gray, that really is a picture worth framing, now it's out and about and running wild and free ...

And for those wondering, the lizard Oz editorialist was also on board with the bromancer ...

Hmm, that shirt is a tad unfortunate, but at least it's fully woke and taps into the zeitgeist of fascist lovers of Putin, a trend from way back when, noted in the Financial Times ... (paywall?)

But everything's for the best, the pond expects, having been told so by the chairman's minions. 

There's no climate emergency, and it's back to having bunga bunga parties with Silvio and what could possibly go wrong ...

And so to the day's groaning, though really we had all this from our Gracie on the weekend. Still, Dame Groan's love of landlords is to be expected, it's in her nature, and her imprimatur is the sort of official licence that all readers of the reptiles seek ...

The pond never presents a good groaning for an argument or disputation. The pond is always pleased to see an expert do a painting of overalls, or at least the overall picture, knowing it can throw in a cartoon by the likes of Shakspere ...

Now on with the overall picture, and please, let's have no talk of public housing ...

Avaricious owners switching from long-term rental arrangements to Airbnb? But didn't the Groaner say that portraits of avaricious owners are highly misleading?

Oh it's all too hard for the pond, and what a relief that there's just one gobbet of this week's groan to go ... and of course it's all about the suffering of landlords and landladies and please, some more gruel, a lot more gruel ...

Perhaps renters could be offered the sort of referendum that Wilcox celebrated recently. Would you like Dame Groan as your landlord? Yes. Of course ...

And is it wrong of the pond to find room for an infallible Pope celebrating an entirely different triumph?