In which the pond seeks refuge with the Bjorn-again one and gives thanks to Jennings ...

 

The pond admits to a dearth of old school reptiles in the summer silly season, but even so the pond simply can't go there ...

There she is, in her usual extreme far right perch in the lizard Oz digital edition ...

And there she goes off, with Dame Slap simultaneously rabbiting on about the Lehrmann matter - a bizarre, continuing, never-ending obsession, often in company with some other limited news hack - and bizarrely, whimsically, at the same time, talking of bringing fun back via hole-in-the-wall restaurants.

It's simply too weird, way too far down the Dame Slap rabbit hole, and if you fall far enough, you might well end up at planet Janet above the faraway tree.

The pond would rather pack up shop than go there, slink off into the night until the old troopers, the "Neds" and bromancers of the world, return to their duties.

Down below there was every indication of a quiet weekend ...

Good old Bjorn, at least there was one old faithful geyser gushing the usual into the void ...

A new year, and a new strategy to improve the world

There's always something deeply narcissist about the Bjorn-again one, or at least there was in this lizard Oz presentation ...

There was this text ...

We need to insist that our politicians get real in 2024 and focus first on the most efficient policies, writes Bjorn Lomborg.

... which was accompanied by this smirking back packerish snap...

It didn't have to be this way ... the Globe and Mail didn't bother with any picture ...

The NY Post seized the chance to run a set of lurid videos ...

Only the Business Times offered a vaguely related photo ...

And that trio are about as many of them as the pond could find ... the ones who still pay attention to the Bjorn-again one, and give him a little space to vent.

Notably, most of them were a week ago ... and yet here we are in the lizard Oz today ...

By bjorn lomborg
12:00AM January 6, 2024

What the pond likes about this newish iteration of the Bjorn-again one is the way that he never mentions the climate or the weather or any of that nonsense.

Such talk has simply been disappeared, off to the cornfields, and a visionary has arrived in its place, deeply committed to envisioning positive changes that have absolutely nothing to do with the climate, the weather, or such like distractions...

The start of a new year is a time to envision the positive changes we can bring to the world in the upcoming 12 months. Shining a light on the power of doing good, it is a time to consider how we can extend our impact to do the most that we possibly can.
Globally, all countries have promised to fix all the world’s big issues by 2030, through the so-called Sustainable Development Goals. The world’s governments came together in 2015 to promise to end hunger, poverty and disease, to fix corruption, climate change, and war, and to ensure jobs, growth, and education – along with a bewildering array of major and minor promises such as developing more urban gardens.
Unfortunately, in 2023 even the UN admitted that we are failing badly. Promising everything means nothing is a priority.
We need to insist that our politicians get real in 2024 and focus first on the most efficient policies. And in our own charitable donations we should similarly look to achieve the most good we can for every dollar spent.
Together with my think-tank, the Copenhagen Consensus, in ­recent years I have worked with more than a hundred of the world’s top economists and several Nobel Laureates to discover where each of us can help the most first.
Our free, peer-reviewed findings, which can also be read in the book Best Things First, offer a road map for the 12 smartest initiatives for politicians around the world. They highlight proven solutions to persistent problems that deliver immense benefits at low cost.
These are policies like delivering more mosquito nets to tackle malaria, nutritional supplements for pregnant women to boost the baby’s opportunities even before it is born, or better legal protection to ensure poor farmers’ rights over their land, increasing productivity.
In total, politicians could set aside just $US35bn a year – a rounding error in most global negotiations – to deliver immense benefits: implementing these 12 policies would save 4.2 million lives annually and make the poorer half of the world more than $US1 trillion better off every year. On average, every $US1 invested would deliver an astounding $US52 of social benefits.
But just as these overarching goals should inspire and guide politicians, they can also guide us as we make our own new year donations to help make a better 2024.
We need to focus more on the tuberculosis epidemic. TB has been treatable for more than 50 years, yet still kills more than 1.4 million people annually. The solution is quite straight-forward: Make sure more people get diagnosed and make it easier for patients to stay on their medication, which is needed for a gruelling six months. Many organisations push for these simple solutions, and you can help them. We find that governments should similarly increase their funding. Just $US6.2bn annually can save a million lives a year over the coming decades. Each $US1 delivers an amazing $US46 of social benefits. We also need to pay attention to cheap and efficient ways to increase learning for kids in schools. Tablets with educational software used just one hour a day over a year cost just $US21 per student and result in learning that normally would take three years. Semi-structured teaching plans can make teachers teach more ­efficiently, doubling learning outcomes each year for just $US9 per student. As individuals, we can donate to organisations doing amazing work in these areas, across Africa and beyond. And governments could collectively dramatically improve education for almost half a billion primary school students in the world’s poorer half for less than $US10bn annually – to generate long-term productivity increases worth $US65 for each $US1 spent.
And we can help much more with maternal and child health. The research shows a simple package of policies that improve basic care and family planning access are incredibly powerful – and many organisations are working hard in these areas today. If we could convince politicians to commit less than $US5bn annually, we could actually save the lives of 166,000 mothers and 1.2 million newborns annually.
Across all the 12 policies we identified, there are inspiring organisations doing incredible work. These are the areas where our donations – and any additional government spending – can have the biggest impact.
As the new year kicks off, we are presented with an occasion to break free from the never-ending cycle of negativity. The holiday season, with its moments of reflection and celebration, encourages us to pause and take stock of the positive aspects of our lives and the world at large.
For 2024, let us resolve not only to help more, but to help better. In the 12 months ahead, let’s focus on making the most effective and impactful contributions to create a brighter world.
Bjorn Lomborg is the author of Best Things First, which was named one of the best books of 2023 by The Economist.

As for the planet?

And so to the bonus, and what to do for filler, with both "Ned" and the bromancer apparently MIA this weekend ...

There was nothing for it but a serve of...

Or if you will ...

What’s next in Middle East? Consider these six factors

Naturally there was an accompanying warrior photo to kick things off ...

Israeli soldiers in Gaza amid continuing battles with Hamas. Picture: AFP

And there was a byline ...

By peter jennings
12:00AM January 6, 2024

And then it was on with according to Jennings ...

Sunday, January 7, is three months since Hamas’s terrorist attack in southern Israel, where more than 1500 jihadists crossed over from Gaza on the morning of a Jewish religious holiday, killed 1200 people, raping and torturing many, and taking several hundred hostages.
The attack aimed to traumatise Israel’s population and it worked. Fearful of similar attacks, a quarter of a million Israelis fled their homes in the south of the country and near the northern border with Lebanon.
Saleh al-Arouri, deputy chairman of Hamas’s political bureau, who was assassinated by a drone strike in Beirut on Tuesday, said shortly before October 7: “A total war has become inevitable. We all consider it necessary. We want it.
“The war will not be like the one in 1967, when the Israeli air force destroyed the Arab air forces, and then was free to hunt down the Arab armies. This will not happen again. Now there are precision weapons, smart weapons, cyber warfare … Since its foundation, Israel has relied on its superiority in classic warfare. They themselves are surprised by the new achievements of weapons, which can be obtained by non-state entities.”

At this point the reptiles interrupted with a still ...

Hassan Nasrallah during a meeting with the deputy chief of the Palestinian Hamas movement, Saleh al-Aruri, at an undisclosed location in Lebanon. Picture: AFP

Inspired, the pond suddenly remembered that there were birthday celebrations going on in the States ... and it would be incredibly rude not to join in and sing along, especially as the faux copyright for the song was removed some time ago ...

Meanwhile, Jennings was building up a head of steam ...

Since then, a massive Israel Defence Forces air and land offensive into Gaza has sought to destroy the political leadership and military capability of Hamas. This operation has not been surgical – military conflict seldom is. Just before Christmas the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry claimed 20,400 Gazans had been killed and 54,000 wounded.
The numbers must be taken with caution but they are not groundless and regularly are quoted in the Israeli media. A December 9 review of this data from Israeli newspaper Haaretz concluded that perhaps 60 per cent of those killed were civilians, including several thousand people killed by misfired Hamas rockets.
Another Israeli assessment is that 8000 Hamas fighters have been killed. A significant number of these are males under 18, called children by the Gaza health ministry, but many are combatants nonetheless.
Sixty per cent of buildings in Gaza are said to have been damaged in hard street-to-street fighting. Dozens of Hamas rockets are still fired daily into Israel, with an estimated 10,600 rockets fired since October 7.
At the end of 2023 the respected Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies (known as BESA), an independent think tank near Tel Aviv, reported that 486 IDF personnel had been killed and 1700 wounded on all fronts.
It seems the war in northern Gaza is lessening in intensity with the core of Hamas resistance destroyed. The IDF is withdrawing some combat brigades and switching focus to areas south of Gaza city. Israel’s leaders warn that fighting will continue for months.
What we are seeing in Gaza is a scaling back of large-scale conventional ground forces, possibly over time to be replaced with special forces-type raids against identified Hamas leadership and military concentrations, backed up with human and technical intelligence capabilities and air power.
Hezbollah’s strategic position in Lebanon remains the bigger threat for Israel because of its vast missile arsenal and larger number of fighters.
By the end of last month there had been an estimated 130 Hezbollah casualties, including nine in Syria.
Arouri’s assassination eliminates a key figure in the planning nexus of the terror groups surrounding Israel, all funded, equipped and supplied by Iran. His death also presents a potential trigger for widening the war depending on Tehran’s calculation of the costs and benefits of sustaining a “total war” against Israel.

Making strategic sense of these developments is difficult given the pace and complexity of events. Here I suggest six factors that may play out for Israel, Gaza and the Middle East in coming months.

Oh dear, it's a bloody listicle, which means it's an incredibly serious and extremely lengthy ...

Two shillings and sixpence? Cheap at half the price. On with the gloves, and punch away ...

1 Israel was surprised by October 7 but now understands that it faces a much more difficult strategic problem than can be handled by “mowing the grass” – that is, limited military and intelligence operations to keep the lid on terrorist ideation in Gaza and Lebanon. There is no going back to a tenuous peace with Gaza where thousands of people come into Israel for work under a relaxed secur­ity overwatch. Arouri’s assessment of the changing strategic balance was partly right. Technology and numbers of willing jihadi fighters create a direct existential threat to the Israeli state.
2 Putting the US to one side, the world is not interested in helping Israel. Note the absence of any serious Western democratic effort to try to find a new basis for peace. This has been replaced with vacuous calls for “moderation” with an eye to Muslim diaspora communities but no intent to do anything of substance. The drop-off in Western democratic support for Israel is driven by the rise of an anti-Jewish ideology on the progressive left of global politics, now deeply embedded in universities, areas of the media and the grassroots membership of left and green political parties.
3 Note that Middle Eastern governments have no interest in helping the Palestinians. There has not been a single initiative in the past three months where these states do anything more than posture in international forums about Palestine’s plight or give tokenistic aid. Hezbollah, Hamas and other jihadi groups increasingly threaten Middle Eastern states. They harness a theological and ideological proposition attractive to many in the Arab street. This weakens ruling parties.

The reptiles interrupted with another snap ...

An Iranian woman holds a portrait of slain top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani. Picture: AFP

But what of the suffering of others, persecuted martyrs?

Not to worry, back to the listicle ...

4 Jihadi ideology is strengthening, enabled by Iran through the work of Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, killed in an American missile strike on January 3, 2020.
Soleimani was the architect of strengthening jihadist proxy groups around Israel – “tightening the noose”, as it was described.
This was aided by linking religious, political, civic and military ideology.
Writing for BESA, Israeli Major-General Gershon Hacohen says: “Hamas’s leadership has taught us that its conduct is guided not by the Palestinians’ economic situation but by a deep religious rationale.”
In 2021 a conference called The End of Days was held in Gaza to shape an approach to “the end of occupation” whereby the Jews would be eliminated from Palestinian lands. Hacohen’s assessment is that: “Religious dreams and prophecies among Muslims led to a belief that the time had come for the revelation, and that what was required of them was military action.”
Central to this ideology is the idea of resistance, that constant momentum is needed towards delivering ultimate victory against the Jews, and a “global Islamic religious conquest”. Victory may not be swift or guaranteed but it is the role of the believer to accept that great losses are justified in pursuing this objective. The October 7 attack was shaped by the idea that this was the moment to start the definitive struggle against Israel. Shortly before his death Arouri told an Al Jazeera interview that “the possibility of a ground invasion into Gaza by the enemy (that is, Israel) is the best scenario to end this conflict and defeat the enemy”.

5 This leads to a fifth judgment: the so-called two-state solution will remain a remote prospect after the war in Gaza.
There is no centre of power in Palestinian politics that will tolerate the existence of the state of Israel and no trust on the part of most Israelis that two states would produce peace. The statement “From the river to the sea” is not just a slogan; it is the only acceptable religious and strategic end-state for Hamas, Hezbollah and other jihadi groups.
It is striking how quickly Western analysts may have forgotten the religious underpinnings to Islamist extremist ideology but important to remember that the ideology has global reach, including into Australia, where it resonates with firebrand Islamist preachers and some in the crowds attending regular Palestinian protests in our capital cities.
6 Iran is working to dominate Middle East security. Last October it was often suggested that Iran sponsored the Hamas attack, thinking that an Israeli response would derail plans to normalise relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
The Abraham Accords – agreements normalising relations between Israel and several Arab states – have not collapsed. This reflects a reality that many Arab states see Iran as a more immediate threat than Israel, but the Gaza war puts on hold prospects for expanding the accords.
Tehran’s strategic objectives are broader than disrupting the accords. Last month Iran tripled its monthly production of enriched uranium, putting it in a sprint to achieve nuclear weapons capability that will take weeks rather than months.
Iran also has brought itself more directly into the spotlight by using a drone to attack the chemical tanker Chem Pluto, 200 nautical miles off India’s northwest coast, on December 23.
According to the BBC, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have warned they could force the closure of waterways other than the Red Sea if “America and its allies continue committing crimes” in Gaza. The most likely strategic outcome is that Iran will use Hezbollah, Hamas and other proxy forces to string out military action against Israel that remains short of a regional conventional war.

This sustains the jihadist idea of struggle against Israel, and distracts the US from putting strategic priority on supporting Ukraine and resisting Chinese assertion in the Asia-Pacific. Iran is watching reactions in the democracies very closely and judges that Western disarray over supporting Israel can only benefit Tehran’s objective to be the dominant strategic player in the Middle East.

At this point the reptiles offered up a media link ...

Media-link
Hezbollah chief to continue to drag Israel into war: Sarit Zehavi

Oh indeed, indeed, that move by Hezbollah to send a missile right into the heart of an Israeli town to take out a leading figure was a bold move...

What's that, the pond got that completely wrong?

Relax, The Times of Israel also got it wrong.

That wasn't an Israeli strike. The the Israeli government wasn't in any way responsible, and besides, it was a surgically precise strike by unknown actors ...

Back to the listicle ...

There is a risk that conflict might escalate. It is fundamentally in American, Western, Israeli and the Sunni Arab world’s interest not to let Tehran dominate the Middle East. No country, including Iran, benefits from escalation to all-out war, but just because it’s a bad strategic outcome doesn’t mean it can’t happen.
The Islamic State terror group claimed responsibility for a bomb attack in Iran that killed more than 80 people on Wednesday during a gathering in the city of Kerman to mark the 2020 assassination of Soleimani. Even extremists face threats from other extremists – a reminder that Islamist ideology remains a regional and global threat.
A US airstrike in Baghdad on Thursday killed Moshtaq Talib al-Saadi, a leader of an Iranian-backed Shia militia group that, the US Defence Department claimed, had been attacking American forces. This is a step-up in the willingness of the Biden administration to use force in the Middle East and a message to Tehran that the US will defend its interests.
Both developments point to the highly tense state of the region in which escalation to wider military conflict is both possible and hard to control. On Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken began his fourth visit to the Middle East since October 7, visiting nine capitals and the West Bank in an effort to focus attention on post-conflict reconstruction of Gaza. An underlying objective must be to stop the conflict from widening.
China and Russia are the key beneficiaries from a beleaguered Israel and a fractured Western approach to Middle East security. A former chairman of the Hamas politburo, Khaled Mashal, told Turkish television on October 26: “This is an opportunity. Moscow and Beijing are striving for an international balance of power that will abolish (American) unipolarity. Well, this is your opportunity.” According to translations provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute in Washington DC, a Hamas official, Ali Baraka, said in a November 2 interview with a Lebanese YouTube channel: “Today, all of America’s enemies – or all those shown enmity by the US – are growing closer. Today, Russia contacts us on a daily basis. The Chinese sent envoys to Doha, and China and Russia met with the leaders of Hamas. A Hamas delegation travelled to Moscow, and soon a delegation will travel to Beijing.”

By golly, this is turning into an epic worthy of the bromancer, and the reptiles were becoming desperate for visual distractions...

Over time Israel will recalibrate who its genuine long-term friends are. Picture: Getty Images

Heck, if we're going to run irrelevant images, the pond may as well indulge in another cartoon ... an evocative vision of the future ...

Then it was back to more according to Jennings ...

Over time Israel will recalibrate who its genuine long-term friends are. China and Russia don’t fall into that category, for all of the failings of traditional Western friends to support Jerusalem.
The war in Gaza points to an increasingly polarised world, split between the democracies and a group of resurgent authoritarian powers. Some key lessons emerge from Australia, most importantly that Middle East security affects our strategic interests even though the Albanese government has little appetite to be involved.
Australia’s global trading interests demand that we should actively support international efforts to keep the Red Sea open to shipping. If the Houthis and Iran succeed in closing that waterway, fuel prices will rise in Australia, as will the cost of trade with Europe.
Australia signed a January 3 joint statement released by the Biden White House calling for Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea to stop and threatening unspecified consequences. Australia’s endorsement of the statement is useful, but words are cheap.
More important is the principle that Australia should stand up for a beleaguered democracy such as Israel, if only in the hope that others will support us when the Indo-Pacific security outlook is worsening.

The pond has been incredibly tolerant thus far, but that talk of "a beleaguered democracy" was a word salad too far. 

You don't get to indulge in collective punishment, ethnic cleansing, the operation of gulags and a system of apartheid and call yourself "a beleaguered democracy." You earn the right to be called a failed, failing theocratic state being run by a bunch of fundamentalists, extremists, far right and barking mad loons and zealots, with the current kingpin willing to do anything to stay out of jail ...

Not that other countries are much of an inspiration at the moment ...

Never mind, the pond has filibustered its way to the bitter end ...

Australia has always sought to behave in international affairs as a serious country, with global interests, that our actions have substance and that we expect to be treated as a significant power. The Albanese government’s failure to be a practically and actively engaged supporter of Israel and a promoter of the international rule of law is a post-war nadir in Australian foreign policy. Our superficial posturing on what is an immensely complicated set of strategic problems is deeply disappointing.
Australia’s approach should not be uncritical. A Gareth Evans, Alexander Downer or Julie Bishop would have flung themselves into international efforts to construct a pathway to peace and to give Israel a sense that we have their back even as we remain concerned for innocents in Gaza.
Finally, we should remind ourselves that Australia is not immune from the contagion of Islamist extremism.
The weekly protests and sermons from jihadi preachers are not harmless exercises in letting off steam. They promote a radicalising ideology that we cannot tolerate.
This gives rise to the risk of terrorism returning to Australia and throughout our region. Hezbollah claims one Australian has travelled to Lebanon to undertake jihad. Will more be allowed to follow?
Conflict in the Middle East will continue and may get worse. The Albanese government must ensure the right policies are in place to prevent, divert and suppress any impulses on the part of some Australians to join this ideological struggle.
Peter Jennings is director of Strategic Analysis Australia and was executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute from 2012 to 2022. He is a former deputy secretary for strategy in the Defence Department (2009-12).

Say what?

The Albanese government must ensure the right policies are in place to prevent, divert and suppress any impulses on the part of some Australians to join this ideological struggle.

Didn't this Jennings just join the propaganda arm of the current government of Israel?

Must Albo's mob suppress his joining in this ideological struggle?

Must Albo's mob suppress the lizard Oz itself, currently deeply involved in this ideological struggle on the side of a bunch of theocrats and fundamentalists, led by Benji?

Not to worry, the pond has filled in its vacant space, and so, please give ...

... and allow the pond the chance to indulge in a final cartoon ...