What the United States needs right now is a drover's dog, but they don't seem to have a drover, let alone her dog.
What they do have is a king blessed with divine rights and complete immunity - subject to legalistic quibbles - or perhaps more to the point, an emperor with Napoleonic capacity.
American democracy - always a stretched and sketchy concept - is now officially dead, thanks to a deeply corrupt, authoritarian-loving court.
What the Labor party needs is a little empathy, long lost in a rats in the ranks mentality. Diversity? That's just a word on a cereal box, stop the pond before things get too deep.
What the lizard Oz needs is a change in its commentariat team, but again, no joy for the pond. What a dismal line up this day ...
The reptiles did at least do a profile of their loyal readership ...
... but the pond had to move along, because Tuesday is always the day for a dinkum groaning, and it usually comes down to either furriners ruining things or renewables ruining things, though on days when it's an epic groan, somehow those two things can come together in an epic conflation and confusion.
And so it came to be, with those dastardly, fiendish whale-killing devices yet again featured as the visual props ...
That line about doing nothing because it will have nil impact has long been a reptile favourite, but wait for it, because at the end of the next gobbet, that magic pairing, wicked furriners and wicked renewables, will magically come together to produce 'roon' ... oh, we'll all be rooned ere sundown ...
Think here bee in bonnet of endlessly repetitive old biddie, but she is remarkably consistent in what the reptiles assured the pond was just a five minute read, but which seemed to go on and on ...
Then with a final gobbet of groaning, the Dame sputtered to a predictable end ...
The pond begins to understand why esteemed correspondents have taken to reading the Speccie mob or the Quad rant mob, producing tales from the wild-eyed fringes down there with reports of dragons at the end of the world ... they're vastly more amusing than these Tuesday groans ...
To be fair to the reptiles, they did reassure the pond by bringing in some outside help and a note from the lizard Oz editorialist under the header G-G hits good note on first day, but the infallible Pope said all that needed to be said on that matter...
As for the outsider, the pond confesses that it hadn't heard of Matthew Syed, apparently a former table tennis player and regular star in Private Eye's "Pseuds' Corner", but appreciated the chance for a bit of diversity ...
As for that link, relax, for some reason the reptiles links never seem to work, with that link talking of the travesty of an election in the Uk leading to the French foreign minister saying in 2022 that Morrisons defeat suited him very well ... hardly news, because it suited a lot of people very well ...
Meanwhile, there were the usual video distractions and a plethora of snaps ...
That last snap at least provided an excuse to feature the immortal Rowe ...
Then it was on with the Ginsbergian howl of despair ...
...Peasant: I told you! We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune! We're taking turns to act as a sort of executive-officer-for-the-week--
Arthur: (uninterested) Yes...
Peasant: But all the decisions of that officer 'ave to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting--
Arthur: (perturbed) Yes I see!
Peasant: By a simple majority, in the case of purely internal affairs--
Arthur: (mad) Be quiet!
Peasant:But by a two-thirds majority, in the case of more major--
Arthur: (very angry) BE QUIET! I order you to be quiet!
Peasant cross dresser: "Order", eh, 'oo does 'e think 'e is?
Arthur: I am your king!
Peasant alleged woman: Well I didn't vote for you!
Arthur: You don't vote for kings!
Peasant woman: Well 'ow'd you become king then?
(holy music up)
Arthur: The Lady of the Lake-- her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. THAT is why I am your king!
Peasant: (laughingly) Listen: Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some... farcical aquatic ceremony!
Arthur: (yelling) BE QUIET!
Peasant: You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!!
Arthur: (coming forward and grabbing the man) Shut UP!
Peasant: I mean, if I went 'round, saying I was an emperor, just because some moistened bink had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!
Arthur: (throwing the peasant around) Shut up, will you, SHUT UP!
Peasant: Aha! Now we see the violence inherent in the system!
Arthur: SHUT UP!
Peasant: (yelling to all the other workers) Come and see the violence inherent in the system! HELP, HELP, I'M BEING REPRESSED!
Arthur: (letting go and walking away) Bloody PEASANT!
Peasant: Oh, what a giveaway! Did'j'hear that, did'j'hear that, eh? That's what I'm all about! Did you see 'im repressing me? You saw it, didn't you?!
It turns out that the pond could have run the "what have the Romans done for us this week" routine, because yet again we get a reminder that the point of life is to build an empire at the point of a sword ...
Unfortunately all weird things must end, but credit to The Times for this one ...
The main message the pond takes from the piece and the routinely errant links that lead only to other places in the hive mind? It seems that Western Civilisation might mean finding some way out of the reptile hive mind ...
Usually the pond would end it there - two reptiles on any day is enough for even the most devout herpetology student - but the pond couldn't resist the bromancer, especially as the pond has been ignoring some of the regulars of late.
Sadly the bromancer's piece seems to have been written before the deeply corrupt SCOTUS mob provided an immunity clause ... so the bro's central thesis was profoundly silly ...
That left the bromancer still bleating on about a deeply corrupt con artist and snake oil salesman getting collared for a crime ...
The pond can still remember those ancient days of conservatives shouting that if you did the crime, you had to do the time, and if 12 jurors said you did the crime ...
That's what undermines American courts, and incidentally what was once a democracy?
How about this? (paywall)
Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a withering dissent to the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling on Monday, writing that U.S. presidents will now be able to assassinate political rivals and accept bribes with impunity while they’re in office.
That’s a dangerous precedent to set, Sotomayor wrote, especially as the increasingly unpredictable Donald Trump seeks a return to the White House.
“The president of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world,” Sotomayor wrote. “When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution.”
That is exactly as terrifying as it sounds, Sotomayor wrote. She laid out a chilling list of hypotheticals that a president could carry out without legal consequence: “Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.”
In her own dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed that Monday’s ruling was a dangerous one. She wrote that “the seeds of absolute power for Presidents have been planted” and “absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
The conservative majority Supreme Court has lobbed assist after assist to Trump this year. By accepting his immunity case, it effectively bumped his pair of federal criminal trials off the 2024 calendar.
Now, with a possible election win in November, Trump would be equipped with an unprecedented amount of power in what was already the world’s most powerful political position.
Trump celebrated the court’s decision on Monday, posting in all-caps to Truth Social, “Big win for our constitution and democracy. Proud to be an American!”
Oh yes, and proud to be a brilliant snake oil salesman too.
Never mind, just a couple of whiny bro gobbets to go ...
Talk to the hand, or perhaps the graph ...
And so the final full MAGA gobbet, of the sort you might expect from a barking mad fundamentalist tyke, purporting a feigned reluctance, as if he wasn't all in ...
Oh yes, there's many more pleasures ahead ...
Dot says "What they do have is a king blessed with divine rights and complete immunity - subject to legalistic quibbles..." ** (which btw was never necessary in the last 250 years until we had a criminal president)," ... "Man: (laughingly) Listen: Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some... farcical aquatic ceremony!" (Monty Python Holy Grail)
ReplyDeleteSeems like it Dot. Dead. The democratic life support machine - lower courts, reps and senate, and populace - haven't been turned off - YET.
Lower courts may balk (3. To make an incomplete or misleading motion- ala Mango Mousellini... and Robert Bork?!) ... and send back to scotus for clarification. Hmmm... oborus like.
Here is a 1,200+ comment thread at Hacker News - bleeding edge ai comp sci coders entreprenuers etc - which to me details most of the quirks, edge cases and potentials of US Presidential immunity. The msn articles aren't so broad imo. ymmv.
One commenter said... and I liked ** "(... never necessary in the last 250 years until we had a criminal president)"
"Which is the point imo. For 250 years we've relied on "Not only that, but this same court removed the constitutional right to an abortion because it wasn't enumerated in the Constitution. Now, they completely invent criminal immunity out of thin air ** (which btw was never necessary in the last 250 years until we had a criminal president), when the intent of the drafters to never elevate any person above the law was crystal clear.
"The Roberts court is just arbitrarily choosing whatever justification they happen to like for any given case to push an extremist agenda.""
Upthread the 250 years was invoked contrasting a duel ! - Biden offering a round of golf if Trump carries his own bag - but now US has amendements, laws and "courts packed by unqualified partisan hacks"... negate necessity of duels.
"A combination of meaningful threat to life, assets, family or freedom is what the duel accomplished. With the courts packed by unqualified partisan hacks it seems we’re facing an unprecedented danger to democracy and the American experiment."
So it seems for 250yrs the we, and US has relied on unwritten undefined social norms.
MAGA Trump has just ignored histroy, tradition and decency which normal humans took for granted.
Silly US. Now EVERYTHING has to be dedined and encoded. If the mango Mussolini gets in, he will be the one doing the defining! Time for a duel.
This day, our Dame Groan almost qualifies for an award for bravery. She continues with the demon of ‘externality’ to try to present we rural Australians as hapless victims of - one system for delivering electricity. Trial run in ‘Speccie’ - now for the equivalent of Broadway.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea why she warped off to immigration as part of the same column - given that she has just a couple of themes, surely that one was better left to next week. If it was to demonstrate that ‘externalities’ are everywhere - she has ventured into an area where any kind of discussion becomes difficult in a democracy. Everything a 21st century elected government does generates externalities, and the mass media still makes a living of sorts by pointing up the negatives from government actions of which it does not approve, while, on the facing page, ‘calling on’ the government to promote other public works that some group of subscribers would like to have.
You can compile almost endless lists of externalities in those circumstances, remembering that there usually are as many positives to some of the population as there are negatives to others.
John Quiggin regularly reminds us that the more useful way to look at these issues is to look at their opportunity costs.
I cannot figure if our Dame has instinctively meandered (yet again) into disparaging recent AEMO documentation as a way to forestall examination of opportunity costs - or if it is just part of the Reptile meme of ‘anything written by a quasi-gummint agency has to be wrong - and we don’t need to bore you with explanation.’
From the perspective of opportunity costs - what the Dame is Groaning about can be considered in terms of - do you (rural Aussies) want electricity connected to your homes and businesses? If so - here - GenCost, AEMO et al are the practical ways to give you that, with estimate of their opportunity costs. GenCost even considers the classic way to minimise externalities - you, as individuals, installing sufficient solar panels, storage and, yes - small diesel generator, depending on your local weather patterns - to not need to be part of that grid, if you so choose. Which is exactly what many people along the road from our place to town are doing, currently, albeit with the added benefit of selling energy onto that uniquely ugly grid.
Oh, and, M’am Groan - if you really want to wring columns out of negative externalities in energy - let’s start with the removal of property rights from landholders, that was deemed necessary to promote all kinds of mining in this land. Add the huge implicit subsidy of the government not representing its voters, and taking risibly tiny amounts of royalty from that mining.
Recent arrangements for extracting gas across productive rural land will become standard examples in future textbooks on economics.
And of course pandering to 'the preferences of the locals' is just another way of dividing the community, prolonging the use of fossile fuels and delaying action on climate.
DeleteAs the resident Dame Groan specialist, Chadders, it's good to see you can still summon the energy to deal her meandering repetitions. The day that she celebrates the benefits of fracking for rural communities might give you a chance to tackle something other than furriners and renewables. Oh wait ...
DeleteGreenies oppose fracking for all the wrong reasons
FARMERS are the unfortunate victims of the misinformation about unconventional gas. JUDITH SLOAN 4 min read March 22, 2014 - 12:00AM
Inter alia:
DO you remember when Cyclone Yasi destroyed vast tracts of banana plantations in northern Queensland, producing a shortage of bananas, and their price shot up? That’s how the market works.
It is no different with the market for gas. Restricting the supply of new sources of gas will drive up the price of gas and lead to potential shortages. In turn, higher gas prices will adversely affect many parts of local manufacturing, as well as impose a cost-of-living burden on households.
This said, there is a strong case to ensure that exploration for, and production of, unconventional gas (mainly coal-seam gas in Australia) meets appropriate standards of environmental management. The community at large and the landholders should have confidence that all the steps of best practice regulation are observed.
But let’s be frank: there is nothing that governments, bureaucrats or companies can do to convince members of the green movement to support unconventional gas.
Their opposition is not to fracking, however well-regulated, but to fossil fuels. Unconventional gas is a fossil fuel, albeit one with lower carbon dioxide content than coal and, in some cases, conventional gas.
So in considering the debate about fracking and unconventional gas, we can ignore the greenies. Their attempt to align the farming community to their cause is nothing more than a cynical political ploy. By making unsubstantiated and outlandish claims about the dangers of fracking, they have effectively taken advantage of hardworking and hard-pressed farmers.
Again, let’s be frank — greenies are only too keen to criticise farmers when it suits them.
Take, for example, their reaction to the Murray-Darling Basin plan, their call for additional environmental water flows and their shameless denigration of irrigators. Ditto their attitudes to live animal exports and genetically modified crops.
So what is the way forward, given the completely gutless stances of both the NSW and Victorian governments in relation to permitting fracking and facilitating the production of unconventional gas?
The report of the (Victorian) Gas Market Taskforce, chaired by Peter Reith, released late last year contains a number of very useful recommendations. These recommendations balance the need to facilitate the development of onshore unconventional gas in the state while meeting appropriate standards of environmental management and rewarding landholders and regional communities.
The taskforce proposed that the Victorian government remove the holds on the issuing of new exploration licences for CSG and fracking. This recommendation was made in the context of a package of measures designed to strengthen the regulation of unconventional gas exploration and production. The appointment of a gas commissioner was also proposed.
One of the key issues for farmers is the perceived risk that fracking could lead to contamination of aquifers that are accessed for agricultural purposes.
Part le deux:
DeleteWhile drilling for unconventional gas occurs at much greater depths than these aquifers, the Reith taskforce made several important related recommendations, including the development of a comprehensive water science and licensing program.
In particular, the taskforce suggested a permanent ban on certain chemicals being used in fracking operations.
High water use is also an issue raised by farmers, although this has to be seen in the context of some farmers using much higher volumes of water than those required for fracking.
For instance, it is estimated that the production of unconventional gas in NSW will account for only 5 per cent of the water used by the farming community. In Queensland, water recovery by some gas companies has led to greater availability of potable water for farmers to use.
Aside from the worry of environmental harm and the issue of water use, a more potent issue for some farmers is that they will be less than fully compensated by mining companies for access to their properties.
More generally, an issue that resonates in some regional areas is that the royalties generated from the production of unconventional gas will be snaffled by state governments and that regions will not benefit in any direct way — at least in a budgetary sense.
To deal with these concerns, the Reith taskforce recommended that the legislated upper limit for compensation for loss of amenity for landholders be increased from $10,000 to $20,000, which should then be indexed according to the consumer price index. In addition, a royalties for regions program was suggested “to share the benefits of natural gas production in Victoria with local communities”.
The point is sometimes made that it is a pity that Australia does not have the same land and minerals property rights that apply in the US. In that country, the landholder has the right not only to the land but also the minerals contained under the surface. The argument is made that this co-ownership creates strong incentives for landholders to encourage minerals development on their properties to extract proportionate financial gains from the mining companies seeking access.
Certainly, in the US, the development of unconventional gas has been massive and rapid. And one of the consequences has been a 66 per cent fall in the domestic price of gas, which in turn has led to a resurgence of energy-intensive manufacturing in that country as well as a substantial decline in greenhouse gas emissions.
La troisième partie:
DeleteIn the sparsely populated northern state of North Dakota, fracking has caused a complete transformation of the local economy. Overall unemployment is now 3 per cent — and about 1 per cent in the area in which fracking takes place — and the state is running a billion-dollar surplus.
The number of taxpayers reporting earnings above $1 million has tripled and some farmers are being paid up to $80,000 a month by the mining companies. During the next 20 years, the population of North Dakota is expected to double.
There is, of course, no prospect of the basis of our property rights being overturned. In any case, there are examples of other countries with our legal arrangement in which extensive fracking is already taking place.
Canada is a case in point: fracking is expanding in most of the provinces, particularly in western Canada.
The bottom line is this: the green movement’s opposition to fracking and unconventional gas is just a subset of its opposition to fossil fuels. But when it comes to constraining the growth of carbon dioxide emissions, thwarting the development of unconventional gas is in fact completely counterproductive.
The parties that really count are the farmers, the regions, the mining companies and governments. What needs to be achieved is some sort of settlement that allows all the necessary environmental safeguards to be in place, while ensuring that farmers and the regions stand to benefit as the unconventional gas industry develops.
Victoria and NSW may never become like North Dakota, but the moratoriums and geographic restrictions that apply in these two states should be lifted as soon as possible.
Judith Sloan was a director of Santos from 1994 to 2009.
Ah, the good old days, when conflicts of interest were a thing at the lizard Oz.
"FARMERS are the unfortunate victims"...
DeleteTiwi farmers, out of sight and out of mind and certainly not Dame Groan's tribe, are the unfortunate victims, as is the environment and the farm below the sea.
And the truly awful revenge chilling legal action by Santos will render National party farmers in future as helpless as Tiwi Islanders. The National party will preside over "Santos will also pursue costs for the lawsuit carried out by the" farmers. Unfortunate victims.
"The Barossa Gas Project is an offshore gas and condensate oil field under construction by Santos Limited in Australian waters in the Timor Sea around 300 km (190 mi) north of Darwin in the Northern Territory.[1]Upon completion in late 2025, it is estimated to be the most carbon-intensivegas development in Australia.[2]
...
"In April 2024, despite no direct involvement in any of the legal cases, Sunrise, Jubilee Australia and the NT Environment Centre were ordered to hand over documents to determine whether Santos will also pursue costs for the lawsuit carried out by the EDO on behalf of Tiwi Island Traditional Owners.
...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barossa_Gas_Project
I think we can make a case that Peter Reith gained an intuitive understanding of opportunity costs from the 1998 waterfront dispute, and its eventual outcome.
DeleteI have mentioned here before that, at that time, I was involved with an Indo-Pacific conference on shipping, in Townsville. As the attack-dog images dominated TV screens in the evenings, I called a couple of Australian shipping and harbour representatives to get their angle on its possible impacts on our conference. They were quite unworried - to them it was Reith seizing the chance to re-fight a barney that his dad had lost the then Waterside Workers Federation, a generation earlier. They saw it as of little consequence to the rest of the country, although marvelling at the tactics Reith and Corrigan had chosen.
One can only marvel uncomprehendingly at the tricks the wingnuts and reptiles are successful with. I still cannot really comprehend how Trump has got to where he is given the way he is, and always has been. He makes 'Tricky Dick' seem like an honest and honourable man.
Delete"And so it came to be, with those dastardly, fiendish whale-killing devices yet again featured as the visual props ..."
ReplyDeleteNot only that, but an extreme near miss in that header shot, as an ocean-going vessel is almost sliced in two by a fiendish wind turbine!
Naah, that's just a whale in disguise, Merc.
DeleteStrewth but M l Pen looks a air bit more aged and worn than she did the last time she came anywhere near winning anything.
ReplyDeleteErr "a fair bit"...
DeleteOh spare us: "We have become a civilisation that's all about 'Now, now, now' and 'me, me, me' - the antithesis of what the West once represented." One sincerely wonders just what "West" and what time he's rambling about. Like maybe the European invasion and enslavement of Africa ?
ReplyDeleteOr perhaps the Spanish-Portugese conquest and enslavement of southern America + Mexico ? Or maybe the European (largely British) imposition of drug addiction on China ?
Or maybe two "World" Wars ? Lots and lots of self-sacrifice (mainly as cannon fodder) there.
So: "Do we max out the Amex, enjoy extra consumption and borrow again next year, saddling future generations with crippling interest payments ...". Yeah, right, just like WWII when we maxed out the (proto)Amex and saddled our future generations - which of course is us now - with crippling debt that we're still being crippled trying to pay off. Hasn't anybody noticed that ?
As usual, way less than zero comprehension of the society and world that they live in.
But talking about the fall of Rome, then has our dear little apprentice reptile ever considered this:
"At some time or another, every historian of Rome has been asked to say where we are, today, on Rome’s cycle of decline. Historians might squirm at such attempts to use the past but, even if history does not repeat itself, nor come packaged into moral lessons, it can deepen our sense of what it means to be human and how fragile our societies are."
How Climate Change and Plague Helped Bring Down the Roman Empire
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-climate-change-and-disease-helped-fall-rome-180967591/
We didn't have vaccines back then, so nobody could play the role of rabid anti-vaxxer. So of course Rome fell.
Try looking up the Plague of Justinian while you're at it because our precious reptiles never have:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_of_Justinian
Hmmm: "First, it's true that this is the first time a president has been granted immunity from criminal prosecution. But that's only because it's never come up before. Most presidents except Richard Nixon haven't engaged in criminal behavior, and Nixon was pardoned before it became a live issue."
ReplyDeletehttps://jabberwocking.com/donald-trump-still-cant-shoot-someone-on-fifth-avenue/
I wonder if pardoning obviously criminal behaviour (by presidents or others) could itself be made a chargeable criminal offence ?
Delete