Discombobulated by daylight saving time, the pond takes it easy with the Katerist and the Killer ...

 

Drought in the Amazon, another record flooding in New York, must be the o'clock for a Caterist attack on renewables ...

But first what else ails the other reptiles this day?

Sorry the pond had to red card the Major, but it was wondrous to see this alleged hard-nosed old style newspaperman offer some good old pie in the sky towards the end of his piece...

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has promised a referendum on recognition and a legislated voice. The gap between his position now and Albanese’s is much slimmer than shrill media opponents of the voice suggest.

The chance that the mutton Dutton - should he ever get hold of the levers of government - will offer another referendum must surely be somewhere between nil and zero ...

As for Sam, Samantha McCulloch is chief executive of Australian Energy Producers, the reptiles might feel the need to run with industry lobby groups, but the pond doesn't share the need or the inclination.

Meanwhile, the pond is going to dob in that Seth """ Cropsey to the bromancer. 

He's an import from the WSJ, and styles himself this way ...

Mr. Cropsey is the president of the Yorktown Institute. He served as a naval officer and as deputy undersecretary of the Navy and is author of “Mayday” and “Seablindness.”

Uh huh, but what he's proposing would send the bro into a frenzy ...

...Conventionally powered boats—of smaller size, inferior range and lesser payloads—are easier to build than their nuclear cousins. If made properly, they also are quieter than nuclear boats. Modern battery-powered and diesel-electric subs can be almost silent.
A small non-nuclear fleet of between 12 and 24 boats wouldn’t provide the same combat capacity as even 10 Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarines, since these boats play a different role. But they are far cheaper, running between $500 million and $1 billion apiece, compared with $4 billion plus for a Virginia. Non-nuclear subs can be used directly in the region as surface and transport ship hunters. Deployed from the Philippines, Japan and South Korea, and potentially sustained from Guam with a larger submarine tender fleet, conventionally powered submarines would lighten the burden of the strained nuclear fleet. By the 2040s, production expansions will have allowed the US to phase out these boats and replace them with nuclear-powered ones.
The US lacks the domestic infrastructure to build conventionally powered boats. But its allies are world leaders in the technology. Japan’s Soryu-class submarine, a Mitsubishi-Kawasaki co-project, has a range of more than 6,000 miles. Japanese yards take about two years to build one of these boats and can start a new one every year. Korea’s KSS-III, a Hanwha-Hyundai product, slightly larger than the Japanese Soryu, can even launch ballistic missiles, broadening its mission profile. Korean yards can produce one ship in three years and typically start a hull every year. Both ships are on the export market.
To improve South Korean-Japanese relations, the US recently conducted a summit that has opened the possibility of trilateral military co-operation. The summit was the fruit of months of diplomacy, primarily by Mr. Emanuel. The Biden administration should explore either a co-production arrangement or outright purchase of batches from each power with the goal of fielding a dozen such attack submarines by 2030.

Say what? We could have bought a flock of conventional subs from South Korea - probably sounding as cheerful as the pond's washing machine when it finishes a load - and had them before Xmas? Such deviant thinking, such heresy, might well provoke a bro firing squad ...

But back to the Caterist, and never mind the usual guff about suffering koalas, the pond's complaints against the wretched remnants of the lizard Oz graphics department are mounting, and the eyes are suffering ...

Realising that reading the Caterist is unendurable, the reptiles flung in all sorts of visual distractions ...

None of them mean anything, with that snap of satantic windmills in the baleful sun particularly irritating ... and a koala snap to show that the Caterist is rabbiting on yet again about koalas in a caring way is just as useless ...

And that leaves the pond with lots of short gobbets of Caterist guff and a snap of Tanya for starters...

The pond decided to lump the Caterist lumps together ... no need for a comment in between, just get the job done ...

What a relief to get them all out of the way without distracting snaps. 

The notion that the Katerist has turned koala karer and environmentalist and nature lover while lurking in his 'leet inner city abode is about as absurd as the mutton Dutton bunging on another referendum or that the bro will turn to South Korea for his washing machine and big TV and conventional sub ... the whole point of the game is to find another way to diss renewables, and almost any way and any performative posturing will do ...

Luckily there was then just one gobbet of Caterist theatrical art to go ...

Go coal, go drought in the Amazon, go record flash flooding in New York, go summer down under ... go Caterist to collect another lump sum cash in paw from the federal government, and no need to pass go ...

And so as a bonus to Killer's letter from America ...

The pond doesn't know why Killer's so agitated. It's only until November and then the entire fuss and performance art will hit Broadway again, and he can scribble another letter about it, and it'll fit right in with the spirit of the season...

Killer of course is worried about the debt ...

But isn't bankruptcy a way of life for the mango Mussolini? Hasn't he shown that multiple bankruptcies are the best way to the top in the GOP?

At that point the reptiles interrupted with a snap of a smirking Kev ...

Knowing that keeping the federal government open for a few weeks was a paltry thing only seemed to agitate Killer ....

Indeed, indeed, the pond does always enjoy being reminded of the hypocrisy of the GOP when it comes to US debt, but their willingness to focus on a war with China while ignoring the Russian bear actually in the room is always a marvel ...

The pond grew up in the day when, if a geopolitical villain was needed to flesh out a Hollywood drama, it had to be a Ruski (with due acknowledgement to the important role of SPECTRE).

Now there's an actual sociopathic Russian villain in the room, a fringe of the GOP seems determined to ignore a knockdown bargain basement price ...

The pond has no idea of whether the talk of US defence spending is in the ballpark of US$1.2 trillion to be found here, but even at half that figure, a spend of a hundred billion or so every so often to help Ukraine do all the fighting with nary an American at risk, seems like a bargain basement price ...

Not to worry, the sight of Sam Neill bunging on a Russian accent in a nuclear submarine drama probably didn't make it on to the bromancer viewing list, and on with the bizarre spectacle of Killer actually approvingly quoting John Maynard Keynes ... what next, idle talk about the multiplier effect?

Next year?

Come on Killer, the comedy and the cartoons are already here ... and wasn't it Keynes who famously said Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist or lizard Oz journalist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler or Killer of a few years back ...

Not to worry, an immortal Rowe on the state of the Nile to wrap things up ...