In which (eventually) Little to be Proud Of and Punxsutawney Pete proudly show how to do a Gordon in the new climate wars ...

 

As a dedicated connoisseur of olden days and golden ways, the pond always enjoyed the Victorian element in Victoria, though sadly Melbourne has of late been much diminished by the RMIT hordes. 

Still, the occasional glory of the empire can be seen in a tramp around the town...

The pond mainly knows that Gordon of Khartoum had a most valiant enemy in the form of a black face Larry Olivier, playing the aptly named Muhamwithtriplebaconmad Ahmed, aka the Mahdi ...

There he stands at the top of the hill, dominating the park, proud testament to his colonial triumphs ...

What a valiant warrior, from all angles ...

... though strangely few do the reverse angle ...

And that's a pity, because the text on the back is as inspirational as the rest...

There's much to know about Gordon, starting with his wiki here, but the pond likes these interpretations the best:

...The American historian Byron Farwell strongly implied in his 1985 book Eminent Victorian Soldiers that Gordon was a homosexual, for instance writing of Gordon's "unwholesome" interest in the boys he took in to live with him at the Fort House, and his fondness for the company of "handsome" young men.

Gordon, at the age of 14, said that he wished he had been born a eunuch, which has been taken to suggest that he wanted to annihilate all of his sexual desires and, indeed, his sexuality altogether. Together with his sister Augusta, Gordon often prayed to be released from their "vile bodies" in which their spirits were "imprisoned" so that their souls might be joined with God....

…In the 20th century, many British military leaders came to have a critical view of Gordon, with Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery writing that Gordon was "unfit for independent command, mentally unbalanced, a fanatic, self-imposed martyr", adding that he should never have been sent to the Sudan and the Gladstone–Gordon relationship was a case study in dysfunctional civil–military relations.In 1953, the British novelist Charles Beatty published a Gordon biography, His Country was the World: A Study of Gordon of Khartoum, which focused on Gordon's religious faith, but for the first time noted what a tormented figure Gordon was: a man of deeply felt Christian convictions, full of guilt and self-loathing over his own sinfulness and inability to live up to his own impossibly high standards over what a Christian should be and desperately longing to do something to expiate his sinfulness. Like Strachey, Beatty found Gordon a ridiculous figure, but unlike Strachey, who had nothing but contempt for Gordon, Beatty's approach was a compassionate one, arguing that Gordon's many acts of charity and self-sacrifice were attempts to love others since he was unable to love himself.

Another attempt to debunk Gordon was Anthony Nutting's Gordon, Martyr & Misfit (1966). Nutting's book was noteworthy as the first book to argue that Gordon had a death wish.Nutting noted that Gordon had often recklessly exposed himself to Russian fire while fighting in the Crimea and stated he hoped to die in battle against the Russians before leaving for the Crimea On the basis of such statements and actions, Nutting argued that Gordon's suicidal courage of going into battle armed only with his rattan cane, which so impressed the Victorian public, reflected darker desires. Nutting made the controversial claim that the basis of Gordon's death wish was that he was gay, noting that Gordon never married, is not known to have had a relationship with any women, and often wished that he had been born a eunuch, which strongly suggested that Gordon wished to have no sexual desires at all.

Nutting contended that the conflict between Gordon's devoutly-held Christian ideals and his sexuality made Gordon deeply ashamed of himself and he attempted to expiate his wretched, sinful nature by seeking a glorious death in battle. Behrman wrote that the first part of Nutting's thesis, that Gordon had a death wish, is generally accepted by historians, but the second part, that Gordon was homosexual, is still the subject of much debate. In his Mission to Khartum – The Apotheosis of General Gordon (1969), John Marlowe portrays Gordon as "a colourful eccentric—a soldier of fortune, a skilled guerrilla leader, a religious crank, a minor philanthropist, a gadfly buzzing about on the outskirts of public life", who would have been no more than a footnote in today's history books, had it not been for "his mission to Khartoum and the manner of his death", which were elevated by the media "into a kind of contemporary Passion Play". (See the wiki for more and the footnotes).

Deeply weird, deeply Victorian, perhaps even in the Melbourne sense of the word ...

Nearby there's another Gordon ...

But the pond has had enough of statues today, and you can stuff your bush ballads and sick stockriders in your tucker bag, because the colonial enterprise proceeds apace, with the pond spotting this in Haaretz's daily updates ...

This also caught the eye ...

Splendid stuff, what an advanced colonial democracy, and anyone wanting to read an Haaretz writer outside the paywall can tune into Alon Pink's Netanyahu's 'war cabinet' had little power - but its demise does him real damage, thanks to the Graudian.

For some reason, all these military matters reminded the pond of some airhead, some idiot Faux Noise klutz, some bumble brain, who apparently thought that the 21 gun salute came from adding up the numbers in 1776, or so the pond was told, by diminishing its IQ by watching YouTube. 

Luckily there are correctives to hand, as per this at Arlington National Cemetery:

Salute by cannon or artillery is a military tradition that originated in the 14th century. The 21-gun salute, commonly recognized by many nations, is the highest honor rendered. The custom stems from naval tradition, when a warship would signify its lack of hostile intent by firing its cannons out to sea until all ammunition was spent. The British navy developed the custom of a seven-gun salute because naval vessels typically had seven guns (and possibly also due to the number seven's Biblical and mystical significance). Because greater quantities of gunpowder could be stored on dry land, forts could fire three rounds for every one fired at sea — hence the number 21. With the improvement of naval gunpowder, honors rendered at sea increased to 21, as well. The 21-gun salute eventually became the international standard. 
In the United States, the custom has changed over time. In 1810, the War Department defined the "national salute" as equal to the number of states in the Union (at the time, 17). This salute was fired by all U.S. military installations on Independence Day and whenever the president visited a military installation. In 1842, the 21-gun salute was designated as the "presidential salute," and in 1875 the United States followed Britain in adopting the 21-gun salute as its international salute. 

What’s the point of having a decent colonial past if you don’t have the first clue about it? 

It’s a bit like that bizarre attempt to drawn a line between the American republic and a democracy, mainly on the basis that the mango Mussolini is a wannabe authoritarian dictator … and so democracy is inherently bad. No need to take a vote on that.

Speaking of oddities, the pond was also forwarded a link to  Reuter's story ...Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic.

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. military launched a secret campaign to counter what it perceived as China’s growing influence in the Philippines, a nation hit especially hard by the deadly virus.
The clandestine operation has not been previously reported. It aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China, a Reuters investigation found. Through phony internet accounts meant to impersonate Filipinos, the military’s propaganda efforts morphed into an anti-vax campaign. Social media posts decried the quality of face masks, test kits and the first vaccine that would become available in the Philippines – China’s Sinovac inoculation.
Reuters identified at least 300 accounts on X, formerly Twitter, that matched descriptions shared by former U.S. military officials familiar with the Philippines operation. Almost all were created in the summer of 2020 and centered on the slogan #Chinaangvirus – Tagalog for China is the virus.

There was a sample graphic ...

Dear sweet long absent lord, the Philippines no doubt has many good reasons for having a beef with China (think South China Sea), and no doubt the vaccine was a poor person's substitute, but how was this helping?

It seems this sort of trolling is everywhere, with the far right and Vlad the sociopath and even the Swedes at it:

Employees at Sweden’s national news channel, TV4, were last month told to avoid wearing clothing or badges that might identify their employer’s logo in public. The security risk was deemed too big. The advice was made in response to increased threats against the station and its reporters after its investigative programme, Kalla Fakta (Cold Facts), alleged that the far-right Sweden Democrats – the second biggest party in Sweden – operated a vast network of anonymous social media accounts, coordinating attacks on political opponents and the media.
Sweden is one of the world’s strongest democracies, with very high levels of trust in its media and political institutions. But journalists covering domestic politics now have to fear for their safety.
Swedish media outlets have reported on nationalist “troll farms” in the past, but a TV4 journalist spent a year working undercover at the communications department of the Sweden Democrats. The channel said it was able to confirm at least 23 social media accounts run anonymously from the department. In just three months, posts from these accounts got 27m views across social media platforms.
 The reporting suggests that this is the tip of an iceberg of misinformation and ultra-nationalist hate speech coming straight out of the publicly funded offices of a party on which the governing coalition relies for support. In hidden camera shots, party strategists were also seen coordinating secret attacks on political opponents, including conservatives who were deemed insufficiently loyal to the Sweden Democrats’ cause.
What was truly remarkable wasn’t the revelations of anonymous accounts, but the response from the Sweden Democrats leader, Jimmie Åkesson, in a so-called “speech to the nation”. Åkesson not only refused to apologise, but also launched a fierce attack on the news media. The entire programme, he claimed, was disinformation; part of a “gigantic, domestic influence operation by the left-liberal establishment” with a secret plan to “demoralise” far-right voters ahead of the EU elections. In follow-up interviews, Åkesson stayed on the attack, often using bullying, condescending language to make fun of reporters for asking about the scandal.

Never mind, the real triumph, as correspondents have noted, has been the work of the man who has Little to be Proud Of ... a dinkum down under troll of the first water, with this story a beauty ...

The climate wars are back in full force and Little to be Proud Of is a master of Punxsutawney Pete speak:

The Coalition is yet to detail its full energy plan, which will include a mix of nuclear, coal, gas and renewables. Littleproud said a Coalition government would result in “no windfarm” for the Illawarra.
“We want to send the investment signals that there is a cap on where [the Coalition] will go with renewables and where we will put them,” he said.
“The Coalition isn’t against renewables, but renewables should be in an environment they can’t destroy. Why don’t we give priority to where they can make a difference and give energy independence to businesses and households, which is on rooftops where the concentration of power and population is?”
Asked why the Nationals supported an offshore windfarm in Victoria’s Gippsland, but not in the Illawarra, Littleproud said: “They are fixed in Gippsland, this is floating.”...

WTF? The pond has seen some specious, meaningless distinctions in its time doing its herpetology studies, but that’s beyond the valley of the meretricious. The windmills are going to float everywhere, taking out boats and whales and then drifting up the mighty Yarra?

Meanwhile, on another planet … more records promised ...

More records ... more opportunities for 'toons ...

Back to Little to be Proud Of …

...He said, unlike the Illawarra zone, few people lived near the Gippsland site, “and the transmission lines that are required aren’t as necessary”.
Earlier on Monday , Littleproud told ABC radio the Coalition’s energy policy will show investors Australia doesn’t need “large-scale industrial windfarms, whether they be offshore or onshore”.
“From what you’ll see in our energy mix, we won’t need large-scale industrial renewable projects. So that’s in essence where we’ll get to and be very clear and upfront and we are committed to that pathway. But it won’t be a linear pathway that you’re experiencing at the moment,” he said.
“It’d be one that’ll invest in the technology that’s zero emissions and it will take a little longer to get there.”
Guardian Australia has contacted the shadow energy minister, Ted O’Brien, and the member for Gippsland, Darren Chester, for comment.
The federal energy minister, Chris Bowen, defended the Illawarra’s windfarm announcement on Monday, saying three other areas around the country had also been marked as wind energy hubs.
“It’s very energy-rich, it’s very windy off our coast, and it’s windy constantly,” he said.
“Unlike onshore wind, which is windy some of the time and not some of the time, offshore wind is pretty much always windy. During the night, during the day, all the time.”
The Clean Energy Council’s chief executive, Kane Thornton, said his group were certain Illawarra residents would prefer “wind turbines that are 20 kilometres offshore, as opposed to a nuclear reactor on their doorstep”.
“It is disappointing that the Coalition has chosen to oppose sensible policy developments such as offshore wind and instead focus on stoking division in regional communities,” he said.

“This will undermine investor confidence in infrastructure projects right across Australia.”
In a statement to Guardian Australia, Littleproud clarified the Nationals are not against renewables but preferred “common sense and sensible options”, such as solar on rooftops.
“While the Gippsland project is smaller in size, the offshore wind farm in the Illawarra will still be 1,022 square kilometres and just 20 kilometres from the coast.”
Peter Dutton, the opposition leader, has said the Coalition is looking at six or seven nuclear power sites around the country but their locations will only be revealed “at a time of our choosing”.
Dutton has also backed away from Labor’s legislated 43% emissions reduction target by 2030 as part of Australia’s commitments to the 2050 net zero agreement, warning it would “harm Australian families and businesses in the interim”.

Meanwhile, Coalition’s climate and energy policy in disarray as opposition splits over nuclear and renewables, Simon Birmingham contradicts Nationals’ leader, saying renewables are ‘an important part of the mix’ while Queensland LNP leader rules out nuclear.

Huzzah, the wets are on the march:

The federal Coalition’s climate and energy policy is in disarray, with a senior Liberal contradicting the Nationals’ anti-renewables push and the Queensland LNP leader ruling out allowing nuclear energy in that state.
After the Nationals further undermined the push for net zero by 2050 by claiming the Coalition would “cap” investment in large-scale renewable energy, the Liberal leader in the Senate, Simon Birmingham, declared on Tuesday it is an “important part of the mix”.
On Monday the Nationals leader, David Littleproud, said Australia did not need “large-scale industrial windfarms” such as those proposed for an offshore zone south of Sydney. That position was backed by Nationals senator, Matt Canavan, a longstanding opponent of net zero who nevertheless revealed the position had not been to their party room.
On Tuesday Birmingham contradicted the junior Coalition partner’s stance. The leading member of the Liberals’ moderate faction told Sky News that there is “absolutely a place for large-scale renewables, as part of a technology-neutral approach” and they are an “important part of the mix”.
Birmingham said that renewables and other sources of power should be judged on reliability – “which is why nuclear is important” – price, including the cost of transmission, and the “social licence” aspects about whether local communities support them.
“There will be difficult discussions on that journey [to net zero by 2050]. We’ve been having them in relation to nuclear energy. The Albanese government has stuck its head in the sand.”
The Coalition is expected to announce its long-awaited nuclear policy as early as Wednesday, after it called a snap joint party room meeting for that morning.
As the federal Coalition attempts to ramp up pressure on Labor for refusing to lift the ban on nuclear energy, it also faces opposition at the state level from its own side of politics, as Guardian Australia revealed in March.
In Queensland the Nuclear Facilities Prohibition Act 2007 bans “the construction and operation of particular nuclear reactors and other facilities in the nuclear fuel cycle”.
On Tuesday, the Queensland Liberal National party leader, David Crisafulli, was asked whether he would consider repealing the legislation if his federal colleagues proposed a nuclear plan that stacked up.
“The answer is no, and I’ve made my view very clear on that … contrary to some of the most childish memes that I’ve seen getting around social media from the Labor party,” he said.
Crisafulli said nuclear is a “matter for Canberra” and it is “not on our plan, not on our agenda”. “The things that we are offering are real and they are tangible, I understand there is that debate in Canberra, fair enough, but I can’t be distracted by it.” ...

And so on and so forth, but is there an upside, there must be an upside? Why certainly, it's great times and business for cartoonists ...

And so to the keen Keane, getting excited in Crikey in On climate, Dutton is officially worse than Abbott. Why doesn’t the press gallery care? (paywall). Peter Dutton having a worse climate policy than Tony Abbott, or proposing one of Australia's biggest infrastructure projects, should be receiving far more attention than it's getting.

If Peter Dutton’s nuclear energy policy has received a degree of scrutiny from political journalists, more recent developments on the Coalition’s climate policy seem to have gone through to the keeper as far as the press gallery is concerned.
The Coalition’s formal position now is to go to the next election with a worse climate policy than Tony Abbott. Peter Dutton — apparently unilaterally, and certainly without the agreement of the joint partyroom — has not merely walked away from Labor’s 43% emissions reduction target for 2030, but will have no target of any kind for 2030.
At the next election, 2030 will be just five years away, just beyond the forward estimates. Failing to offer a target for 2030 to voters at the 2025 election is an act of electoral mendacity. It also means withdrawing Australia from the Paris Agreement, regardless of what Dutton or his media unit at The Australian insists.
But more to the point — a point widely missed — in doing so, Dutton has also dumped the 2030 target that was in place under three Liberal Prime Ministers: the 26-28% target agreed upon by Tony Abbott for Australia to take to the Paris climate talks in 2015.
Abbott, out of power, later reversed himself completely and claimed he’d been lied to by bureaucrats over the target. But that target, hopelessly inadequate as it was, held under both Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison.

Dutton is copying Abbott in having a fake climate policy: Abbott had the risible “direct action”, which relied on carbon sequestration to pretend farmers were storing carbon in vegetation (Labor persists with programs based on discredited human-induced regeneration because big polluters need the resulting carbon credits)...

Sadly the keen Keane missed out on a key point. It was an era that was great for cartoonists ...

How great is it to have Little to be Proud Of and Punxsutawney Pete back, and the climate wars brought back to life?

To be honest the pond tried to include L'Age in the discussion, but it's impossible to tell it apart from the SMH, except for the football, and so the keen Keane was left to finish his rant on his own ...

...Dutton has nuclear power. Both are intended to maintain business-as-usual for fossil fuel companies. But Dutton won’t have even Abbott’s weak emissions reduction target.
That Dutton has an even worse climate policy than Abbott — the benchmark of Australian climate denialist politicians — should be attracting extensive scrutiny from the press gallery, and at least as much as his nuclear energy policy. That lack of scrutiny is at least bipartisan — Labor’s commitment to the fiction of carbon capture and storage, in order to accommodate the “gas-fired recovery”, has similarly been ignored by the corporate media’s representatives in Canberra.
There’s also been little effort to interrogate the costs of Dutton’s nuclear policy — journalists appear content to wait for the Coalition to produce its own costings for building an array of nuclear power stations and propping up unviable coal-fired power stations in the interim (especially as the Coalition has now confirmed it intends to “cap” funding of renewables).
As Crikey showed yesterday, it’s quite possible to undertake such an exercise based on available financials. Given the now-long history of major infrastructure projects in Australia blowing out both in timelines and costs, the Coalition’s commitment to six major energy infrastructure projects in an area with no expertise or industry knowledge, with a price tag in the tens of billions, should be a subject of concern, namely that the Commonwealth will repeat Victorian Labor’s disastrous Suburban Rail Loop project or the massively over-budget Sydney metro.
What’s also missing is any questioning of the fact that even under the most optimistic investment scenarios, the construction of a fleet of new nuclear power stations — backed by new coal or gas-fired power stations — will require a massive financial commitment by the Commonwealth, either by direct subsidies or through guarantees for the tens of billions required. The states are unlikely to take on the task of building nuclear power stations — NSW, South Australia, Western Australia and Victoria are all Labor for the foreseeable future, and Queensland’s LNP, which will be in power from October, isn’t interested in nuclear power.
As a result, the Commonwealth will, for the first time — if it can overcome state government hostility — be entering the power generation industry, and on a colossal scale. Dutton is proposing a radical enlargement of the role of the federal government in an industry in which it has zero expertise, corporate knowledge or history. You’d think that would be worth covering. Editors and journalists seem to disagree.

No doubt the reptiles of the lizard Oz have got it all covered, or buried, buried as deep as a shallow grave can get, but the pond remains in holiday mode, an intrepid traveller, and let's face it, while the pond hates to mention it, even on a day when the sun comes out, Melbourne is bloody freezing, so where's all the climate change? 

The greatest mind of the last two centuries has routinely made this point, with the same monotonous dedication to repetition as any third grader...

In fact he's been making it for more years than the pond can remember ...

Oh there are going to be some beautiful deals and a beautiful planet ...(paywall) with Little to be Proud Of and Punxsutawney Pete channelling their orange Jesus ...

The pond has no idea why the keen Keane is so grumpy. 

Faux Noise is playing close attention ... just as they pay close attention to everything ...