In which it's a full to overflowing day with Killer, the grave Sexton, and the Bro, but first an apology ...

 

Quick rewind.

Yesterday the pond ducked, weaved, dodged and refused to go there with Dame Slap. 

At the time the pond felt a little guilty. Somebody's got to get down into the reptile cesspit and muck out. The pond was then mortified to discover that Charlie Lewis had done just that in Crikey, with Chewing on John Howard’s preferred cultural diet, (paywall) and the lede saying it all: "The Australian continues its grand tradition of portraying John Howard as the human expression of mainstream Australia's pre-political soul."

Gaily bedight, this gallant knight, in sunshine and in shadow, journeyed long to seek out the Dame Slap song ...

Opinion columnist Janet Albrechtsen marked John Howard’s 84th birthday today by talking of Australia’s cultural diet — appropriately via the following word salad, which runs for 75 exhausting words without a break.
Even now, nearly 16 years after he lost office, Howard’s ability to take the ­national temperature may have something to do with an enduring divide in this country between a small but loud group of cultural ­dieticians on the one hand, and a much larger group of Australians who don’t want to be lectured to by a group of elites who have fashioned themselves as moral guardians force-feeding ordinary folk their preferred cultural diet.
This continues The Australian‘s grand tradition of portraying the former prime minister as the human expression of mainstream Australia’s pre-political soul. In so doing, the paper offers Howard, and Howard offers the paper, another chance to slam the Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

“Shouldn’t we just be sitting down talking to each other? Not about the Voice, not about reparations, not about treaties, but just talking about how to lift up Aboriginal people, and put them in the mainstream of the community, finding out ways of doing it,” he says, having arguably just listed three possible ways of “lifting up Aboriginal people”.

What really stood out to us in the Crikey bunker was the characterisation of Howard in opposition to those who have “fashioned themselves as moral guardians force-feeding ordinary folk their preferred cultural diet”. You’d never see Howard doing that. Except, of course…

Charlie proceeded to offer some examples, a modest selection from a vast range provided by this ancient relic, now full blown irrelevant detritus, kicked out of his seat as well as being kicked out of government because everybody was well past being over him. The pond won't quote them all - those who can bypass the paywall can read the full piece, but at least a taster ...

...In 2004, Howard decided that his preferred cultural diet excluded same-sex couples committing their lives to one another, and amended the Marriage Act to define marriage as “the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life”. The act had previously seen no need to offer a definition...

...At the 50th anniversary bash for influential conservative journal Quadrant, Howard singled it out for praise on one particular topic: “Of the causes that Quadrant has taken up that are close to my heart, none is more important to me than the role it has played as counterforce to the black-armband view of Australian history. Until recent times, it had become almost de rigueur in intellectual circles to regard Australian history as little more than a litany of sexism, racism and class warfare.”...

...You want to talk about “moral guardians force-feeding ordinary folk their preferred cultural diet”? The Northern Territory intervention, undertaken in Howard’s last year as PM (supported and continued by the Labor Party) was undertaken in great haste and without consultation or engagement with local people and saw the army sent into Indigenous communities...

Well yes, and the pond wishes that Crikey would do more by way of herpetological studies. There's more to life than giving Lachie a hard time ...

Meanwhile, being a cowardly custard, and as craven as any passing Craven, the pond will again fudge it. 

Speaking of characters the reptiles can't let go of, yesterday the pond passed up the chance to frolic with the Pellists, and today the pond is going to avoid petulant Peta ...

 

The pond at one time thought the reptiles might give up their Pellist hagiography, but they find many excuses to run huge snaps of the now long gone frock lover. As for petulant Peta, her piece contained these three snaps, which, in the way of pictures, says more than a thousand words ...

The challenge for any herpetology student is to construct a petulant Peta piece involving these three warriors that won't sound like a One Nation stop the boats British empire loving white nationalist bigoted black armband caricature that must end this way ...

Is this going to change? As historian Geoffrey Blainey found when his 1984 comments about Australia becoming a “nation of tribes” created a firestorm and cost him his academic position at the time; and as John Howard found in 1988 when his comments about lowering the rate of Asian immigration helped to lose him the Liberal Party leadership, at least for a time, this is a debate that can easily go off the rails.

Yet it’s a debate that should be conducted carefully, rather than avoided, if a key element of public policy is to retain the electorate’s trust. Maybe if the voice referendum is defeated, despite the moral intimidation that voting No is at least implicitly racist, we might be able to have a more honest discussion about other things, too, including the rapid rise in our migration intake.

Good luck with the assignment. Remember, anything said and done, in a vile, bigoted way, to stay in power, is allowable in your petulant Peta piece ...

Meanwhile, there were other options below the fold ...

Naturally the pond went with Killer's Komments on Klimate. Not only is Killer a Kovid Kareer expert who can expound endlessly on masks, he knows all about climate science, and is here to satisfy the pond's concern for the planet ...

The reptiles are doing their best to make sure, in a Killer Krusade, that there's no news from abroad on the actual impact of climate change, whether it be fire, floods or famine ...

Now is not the time to be informed about any of that ...

Say what? U.S., European heat waves 'virtually impossible' without climate change, study finds.

Fear not, Killer is here to pour cold water on it all ...

The reptiles just had to begin with a snap of satanic windmills. It's in their nature. As for Mark Mills, the pond has been down this road before. 

Ars Technica had an interesting piece back in 2021about a Mills fronted video, and how it was full of wind rather than facts...

...it turns out that Prager U is not a university—it's run by a talk radio host. Its videos frequently contain misinformation, especially when the subject is climate change. The content is so bad that Google, which is often slow to react to misinformation on its platforms, has slapped fact checks on a number of Prager U videos.

Even without the Prager U branding, the host of this video would cause some concern. Mark Mills is associated with the Manhattan Institute, a free-market think tank with a long history of rejecting any government involvement in markets. This has left the group with a reflexive loathing of any attempts to address global warming.

Mills himself is not necessarily a reliable source on renewable power, as he's been heavily involved in companies focused on nuclear power and fossil fuel extraction. Mills has also spoken at the climate meeting hosted by the notorious trolls at the Heartland Institute.

Mills is also noted here, with the Manhattan Institute here ...

Meanwhile, the pond decided to downsize a couple of the huge snaps that the reptiles slipped into the piece for no particular reason, except that's what the ghost of the lizard Oz graphics department does when triggered ...

And with that it was on to the next Killer gobbet ...

What to stick between the Killer gobbets instead of those snaps? That was easy enough ...

Winners. On with the next Killer gobbet, because the pond is never tired of the winning ...

Robert Bryce? Try DeSmog ... Killer sure knows his denialist Komrades ...

Want another illustration, one more relevant than Eisenhower? Sure thing ...

And so to a final short Killer gobbet, with the lad seemingly running out of steam ...

And there's the Killer's killer solution. Do nothing, and all will be well ...

Then it was time to check in with the grave Sexton, delivering the first note on the turmoil and upheaval in Israel as a result of a determined shift to the authoritarian far right, keen to get a fully fledged theocracy up and running ...

Trust the venerable Sexton, but as a matter of balance, the pond should check in to see what's happening on the ground, courtesy of Haaretz ... (paywall)

The pond just has to explain that reference to Moody's Shmoodys ...

Benjamin Netanyahu has never been afraid to publicly oppose the leaders of Israel’s most important ally. As prime minister, he has openly defied Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and now Joe Biden. But he has always been very respectful of the leaders of the global financial institutions.

Earlier this year, he made repeated phone calls to the heads of investment banks and credit ratings agencies, promising them that his government’s “legal reform” plans would not make Israel any less attractive for business and that he would ensure a broad consensus over any legislation.

They don’t believe him anymore. On Tuesday, some 24 hours after the ruling coalition passed a law eliminating the Supreme Court’s power to use the reasonableness standard when holding the government to account, investment bank Morgan Stanley downgraded Israel’s sovereign credit to a “dislike stance.” This was due to “increased uncertainty about the economic outlook in the coming months and risks becoming skewed to our adverse scenario.”

Credit ratings agency Moody’s – whose boss, according to a report in the business daily Calcalist, is “fuming” at Netanyahu for having lied to him – warned of “a significant risk that political and social tensions over the issue will continue, with negative consequences for Israel’s economy and security situation.”

The joint response from Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was surprisingly dismissive. “This is a momentary reaction. When the dust settles, it will be clear that the Israeli economy is very strong.” Then came a list of various positive economic developments over the last few months and the conclusion that “Israel’s economy is based on stable foundations and will continue growing under experienced leadership that is leading responsible economic policies.”

Not a word about the fears for Israel’s democracy that have been the reason for these warnings. Basically, this was a response for local Israeli consumption, not a serious answer to the international analysts. It was almost as if they were paraphrasing David Ben-Gurion’s famous put-down of the United Nations: Moody’s Shmoodys.

It’s not as if the credit agencies and investment banks are that bothered about the level of democracy around the world. One-party countries like Singapore and a few energy-rich kingdoms in the Gulf regularly get high ratings and glowing investment recommendations. But their economies have other things going for them. Israel’s knowledge-based economy is based on the innovators and developers who will have little incentive to remain and work in a country that is rapidly becoming more autocratic and theocratic. Beyond anything else, the financial institutions value stability...

Well yes, the United States shift towards the Taliban down south hasn't done much for the country, business or politics ...

So how's it looking in Israel?

...Netanyahu not only defied all precedent and norms by staying in office despite the indictments. He is now gambling with Israel’s economic future by assuming that he can eviscerate the judiciary and that it will have no effect on the economy. Once a savvy and careful steward of Israel’s finances, he has thrown caution to the wind, sacrificing Israel’s hard-won prosperity for his narrow political interests.

Some of his media proxies and political mouthpieces have blamed the protesters for creating the chaos that is scaring off the investors. Does Netanyahu, once the champion of private enterprise and endeavor, actually believe the spin? He seems to expect that Israeli entrepreneurs will want to continue working in a country where they see their democratic rights rapidly eroding and are expected to continue both paying the highest taxes and carrying out reserve duty – and not protest.

The investment bankers and analysts perhaps don’t know Israel as well as he does, but they know what motivates people around the world to create value. They are not seeing much motivation in Netanyahu’s Israel.

But it goes without saying that a far right authoritarian theocracy is just the sort of cup of tea the grave Sexton loves ...

Um, perhaps not the best time to mention the deeply corrupt SCOTUS keen to snatch away rights while deep in billionaire pockets ... and in bid to distract, the reptiles slipped in a snap of a deeply corrupt politician ...

Couldn't they have run with a cartoon relevant to the moment?

Sorry, the pond is feeling a surge of contempt for the grave Sexton and wanted to lighten the mood before moving on to the final gobbet ...

What a fatuous fop. It's all the fault of Al Jazeera? Presumably the network persuaded all those Israelis to get out on the street and stage a protest or three just so they'd have some footage for their cameras ...

And it's beyond time for the grave Sexton to scribble a new book. Connor Court is always eager for another load of gibberish ...

And so to a bonus to the bonus. The pond realises it's carried on way too long, in the usual way, but it must always find a spot for the bromancer ...

The pond can remember a time, long ago, when the land of fush and chups was considered kuth and kun. There was even talk of a union, and New Zealand's contributions were celebrated.

Each time the pond passes over the Anzac Bridge, the pond is reminded of this ...

These days the lizard Oz is full of fear and loathing, and visceral contempt for all things Kiwi ...

It was going on long before that dreadful woman came power, but she probably intensified the anxiety ...

Now the fear seems deeply rooted and incurable ...

Yep, it's all to do with the bromancer's barely sublimated fears about his masculinity and his ability to play with his subs in his bathtub before 2050. Will the candle powered boats run long enough for the lad to have his fun?

Sorry Kiwis, it's a reptile thing, they're always anxiously examining their genitals, and worrying if they're manly enough and will be ready for the bromancer's war with China by Xmas ...

Huzzah, there we go, the pond knew that dreadful woman's name would pop up. How the reptiles fear emasculation, as if someone might take out the old shears and give them a snip in the wrong place ...

Dammit, that leaves the pond with the immortal Rowe and the infallible Pope of the day without any natural segue or relevance.

Here have a snippet of the lizard Oz editorial, doing the ancient reptile ABC rag, a style of dance as familiar as the waltz or the foxtrot ...

And now here's your Pope and your Rowe, and to heck with segues, the pond just needs some relief...