In which the Ughmann and the dog botherer offer rinse and repeat, but the pond can't find any suds ... just the usual suss ...

 

The reptiles never seem to get tired of renewables bashing, approaching it with the zeal of snake-bashing day in Springfield, but it gets awfully tedious recycling the garbage.

To quote a great sage and nimble mind, "This is a virtue-signalling feedback loop", though a fair amount of projection should also be thrown into the mix.

Instead of the great yawn, the reptiles these days induce a great ennui:

Over on the extreme far right in the comments section, there are alternatives, but the pond must save something for the dire introspection of a meditative Sunday - the prospect of prattling Polonius going rogue with Rogan, full UFC as it were, leaving the Sydney Institute for a rear naked choke hold and a tap out is sure to beguile Sunday punters ...

The pond might also forsake Dame Slap for news of the Angry Anglicans in full outcry, but as they say in the movies, tamarrah is another day, and meanwhile that just leaves the Ughmann and the dog botherer standing for the reptile Saturday brunch.

At the get go, the pond should note that there are alternatives, though sadly Graham Readfearn seems to have gone MIA this week, and in any case he's usually a delayed treat. You have to pay attention to the reptiles then catch up on his take, like this one a week or so ago ...

Readfearn always shows his workings, which is how this lizard Oz front page followed, with links and annotations:

Readfearn also dealt with the Ughmann, in Sky News Australia documentary The Real Cost of Net Zero fails to live up to its hubris, with viewers paying the price.

The pond only mentions this, and indulges in this preamble, because it long ago gave up any desire to argue with the reptiles, especially when the Ughmann turns up with what the reptiles propose is a five minute read, Bowen plan threatens to leave us in the dark, Australians were given a glimpse of the future this week when the call went out for NSW consumers to cut their electricity use to stop the grid from collapsing.

Five minutes!

It's simply too much for a possum to bear, too much time wasted, especially when the usual suspect sets the Ughmann off on his patented rant, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen during Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra on Thursday. Picture: NewsWire/Martin Ollman

Those who have attended the pond in the last week will feel a sense of déjà vu creeping over them, a potent cocktail when mixed with ennui. ...

Australians were given a glimpse of the future this week when the call went out for NSW consumers to cut their electricity use to stop the grid from collapsing.
The old electricity system was built on the firm foundation of on-demand, fuel-burning generators that were made to serve us. Now we are slaves to the whims of the wind and the rotation of the Earth, as society’s life support system is rebuilt on the quicksand of occasionally available energy harvesters.
The evidence was explicit in words of NSW Premier Chris Minns – who has a disarming habit of appearing competent and honest – when advising his people of the need for energy rationing.
“Solar production in the energy markets starts to come off at 3pm, at exactly the same time as people return home from work,” Minns said. “If you can not run your pool filter, not run your dishwasher, not run your washing machine, this afternoon between 3pm and 8pm, you’ll help the grid.”
In the words of Michael Caravaggio, a director of research and development at the world-leading Electric Power Research Institute: “The fact that the sun sets every night isn’t a problem if I have 5 per cent of my energy from solar. It’s a significant issue if I want to get 100 per cent of my energy from solar.”

The pond did mention a feedback loop at the get go, and this is a classic loop, with Aidan already having featured in the pond and now regurgitated again, in company with a cross promotion for petulant Peta:

Centre for Independent Studies’ Aidan Morrison expresses concern about the government’s lack of transparency with regard to costs and reliability implications of the planned transition to renewable energy. Mr Morrison suggested that the current plans from the Labor government may lead to a more expensive and less reliable energy system. “Unfortunately, it’s just time for us to start to have a bit of a reality check and to see whether we have a clear picture of the costs and the reliability implications of what is actually planned. And that’s what I’m not seeing from Chris Bowen is a clear reckoning and honesty with Australians,” he told Sky News host Peta Credlin. “We’ve actually got a more expensive and less reliable system in the plans in front of us, and a lot of efforts been gone to make sure that is not clearly articulated in the planning documents and processes such as the integrated system plan. “So very disappointing to see that the costs are not being articulated clearly upfront of the transition that’s being embarked.”

The Ughmann himself is on endless loop ...

His point is self-evident: the more heavily any system relies on weather-dependent generation, the more its significant technical limitations are magnified.
So with some dispatchable generators offline for scheduled pre-summer maintenance and breakdowns in some ageing kit, the crunch came in NSW with the setting of the sun as solar harvesters clocked off.
Recall here that the central design feature of the future electricity system is that the fuel for 82 per cent of power generation will be sunshine, wind and hydro power. Right now its share is about 38 per cent. Today the profound limitations of weather-dependent generation are disguised by coal.
As coal exits, the growing burden of turning wind and solar into a reliable electricity system will fall on a complex mix of batteries, hydro power and gas.
That’s a pretty shaky mix. Batteries and hydro are not energy sources, they are energy storers. If wind and solar don’t generate excess power, there will be no battery storage to call on. And grid-scale batteries are very expensive and their capacity is not deep enough to run cities for long.
Hydro power also depends on the weather. In a water-poor country such as Australia, relying on hydro storage is rolling the dice. If, surprise, the east coast suffers a drought there won’t be enough water storage to cover the routine supply gaps left by wind and solar.
That happened, this year, in water-rich New Zealand. RNZ reported in August that the nation had hit an energy crisis after “months of dry weather have led to low hydro storage, and that along with falling gas reserves are being blamed for soaring wholesale electricity prices”.
As weather-dependent generation rises to become a dominant form of power production, the only source of reliable, dispatchable power will be gas. If we have gas.
This is the actual plan.
The man behind the plan is Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen.
Typically, his diagnosis of the low reserve event in NSW was a piece of performance art.
In an interview with Sky News’ tenacious Laura Jayes he delivered this observation: “The least reliable part of our energy grid at the moment is coal-fired power. That’s just a statement of fact. There hasn’t been a day in the last 18 months when we haven’t had a breakdown in a coal-fired power station.”

Tenacious? 

It's the new reptile substitute word for endlessly cross promotional tedious: On Wednesday evening at 7pm in NSW 60 per cent of generation was coming from coal. Solar was contributing zero power and wind 9 per cent. While Bowen was on air with Jayes, black coal was supplying 60 per cent of the electricity in NSW and wind just 1 per cent.

That was the Ughmann imitating the ancient mariner or some other ancient seer, glowering at the detestable renewables lurking behind him and portending disaster, as the Oracle issues an oracular denunciation ...

It's going to be a long hot summer, and not just because of climate change, but because the blowhard reptiles are still on a coal jag, and that produces an endless supply of hot air ...

In fact, across the past year, the Australian Energy Market Operator’s data dashboard records that brown and black coal supplied 64 per cent of the eastern grid’s electricity and gas 6 per cent. So 70 per cent fossil fuel then. Wind delivered 15 per cent of generation across the same time and grid-scale solar 8 per cent.
So coal is far and away the most reliable generator on the eastern national electricity market.
Search the arid desert of Bowen’s words and there are usually some grains of truth. It is true that, like Animal Farm’s loyal carthorse, Boxer, the dependable generators on the grid are being flogged to death to make up for the routine failure of wind and solar to show up for work.
But searching Bowen’s words for the truth is a Sisyphean task. Let’s return to the Sky News interview with Jayes, where she seemed somewhat unconvinced by the minister’s answers.
“Essentially we’re being gaslit to think that our energy system is reliable and cheaper,” Jayes said. “I can’t see any evidence of that.”
Bowen pounced: “Well, yesterday you saw the biggest reduction in energy prices in Australian history in the ABS statistics.”

The reptiles pounced and produced a cross-promotional video, Deputy Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has slammed the Albanese government for having “mismanaged the economy”. “This government has been there for 900 days, and right now … they’re introducing legislation about supermarkets,” Ms Ley told Sky News Australia. “Of course, we believe we need to be tough on supermarkets where they do the wrong thing. “Everything that you buy in the supermarket is costing more to make or produce … the reckless renewables policy is pushing up the cost of energy … all of this is part of the really big problem.”

The pond has always found Sussan suss, there's something about the use of the double "s" to make the Sussan suspect and the pond suspicious ...

The good news is that summoning the suss woman was a sign that the Ughmann was winding down ...

Alas, Jayes did not have the bureau’s figures to hand but, moments later, Bowen let a small point slip. “That’s the impact of government policies, rebates, state and federal,” he said.
Jayes smelled a rat in the word garbage. “But hang on,” she said. “We’ve got to remove rebates from that because that’s not what you promised when you were promising the $275. Taxpayers are still paying for that.”
The promise Jayes was referring to is Labor’s December 2021 pledge that more wind and solar generation would add up to a $275 reduction in power prices by 2025.
With the benefit of time this column went to the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ latest consumer price index figures. It does record “electricity prices fell 17.3 per cent in the September quarter and 15.8 per cent in the past 12 months”.
It then notes this was entirely due to massive federal and state government rebates doled out to protect consumers from the huge electricity price increases they can see written in their bills.
The ABS also notes: “Excluding the rebates, electricity prices would have risen by 0.7 per cent in the September 2024 quarter.”
To use an old saying, there are lies, damn lies and statistics. And then there is Chris Bowen.
In Bowen world, pouring taxpayers’ money into electricity consumers’ pockets to shield them from enormous price hikes is proof that his plan to build a wind and solar-dependent grid is cutting the price of power.
Hard to argue with that. Mostly because it is nonsensical.
There is one thing the minister said that did make sense: “Australians will judge us on what we have done.” It’s up there with: “If you don’t like our policies, don’t vote for us.”

Meanwhile, First Dog was proposing an alternative solution ...

Sorry for the mangling, but the pond urgently needed its own visual break before moving on to the dog botherer, wasting an exorbitant seven minutes of the pond's life.

Seven minutes?!

How could the dog botherer manage seven minutes rinsing and repeating what he's scribbled countless times over endless decades? Renewable energy superpower? The grid can’t handle a few warm days, On hot days a decade ago we would crank up our airconditioners, and now we are told to turn them down or face blackouts. Wouldn’t you love to see Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen’s thermostat?

Once again the Satanist in chief was the featured first snap: Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen is telling us not to use airconditioners on hot days. Collage: Emilia Tortorella

Oh Emilia, Emilia, the reptiles are calling that a collage, but the pond must call it pitiful, a tragic reminder of the ancient days when the reptiles had an actual graphics department.

Never mind, it was time to crank up the dog botherer's feedback loop:

The pandemic we will never defeat is the virus of government overreach and stupidity. The clowns got away with telling us to confine ourselves to our homes, not to walk in the park or visit dying relatives, and now they tell us not to use airconditioners on hot days.
They tried to appear flippant, to give the impression this power rationing on a warm day was acceptable and all part of the plan. NSW Premier Chris Minns, his Energy Minister Penny Sharpe and federal Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen asked us to refrain from washing clothes or dishes for a few hours and to dial up the thermostat on the aircon – according to them, we do not need to be as cool as we would like to be.
Wouldn’t you love to see their thermostats? They mentioned the pool filter, too; it should be flicked to off – perhaps splashing in the pool and cranking up the aircon can be saved until winter.

Clever dog botherer, instead of "Orwellian", he deployed "pandemic"and "virus", and then came New South Wales Premier Chris Minns has urged his state’s residents to conserve power and “help the grid”. “Solar production in the energy markets starts to come off at 3pm, at exactly the same time as people return home from work,” Mr Minns said at a media conference on Wednesday.

There's a lot of Sky News (Au) promotional videos in this dog bother outing, which is understandable, given that the dog botherer has scribbled this stuff for decades ...

A First World country. An energy-rich country, nearly a quarter of the way into the 21st century.
The ever-so-smug Bowen tells us we are on track to be a “renewable energy superpower”, which sounds about as plausible as a midget Goliath or a feeble strongman. Bowen is like a man who has spent all his money on a parasol, convinced it is an umbrella, and it works just fine until he needs it.
Labor and the Greens (and, let us be frank, too many Liberals over the years) have given us an energy grid that works well enough as long as there is not strong demand for electricity. It is like a bucket with holes halfway up the side, or a fence with a gap – next I suppose they will design a tunnel that is too narrow for the trains or a ferry that can’t squeeze under the bridge. (I know, I know, governments have already given us these innovations.)
Our energy-rich nation now nobbles itself by artificially creating an energy crisis and Bowen giggles like a schoolboy on Sky News this week trying to pretend that Labor is meeting its promise to reduce annual electricity bills by $275 because its electricity rebates are cutting costs by $75 a quarter. Labor promised its renewables push – “the cheapest form of electricity”– would deliver lower prices but instead it is spending $3.5bn of taxpayer money to fiddle them a little lower for a year before they jump again when the rebates end, after the election of course.

The cross promotional videos began to hit an overload of narcissist peak energy with the next interruption, Sky News host Chris Kenny says Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen thinks Australians’ rising energy bills are “so funny”.

Was it modesty that kept the dog botherer's noggin out of sight, or because the reptiles have an endless desire to feast on images of Satan? 

How weird is it to go third person in the tag? You know, Sky News host, the dog bothering dog botherer says, while at the very same time the dog botherer is busy 'saying' in his column ...

Whatever, it's way past time for "zealots" to be given a dog botherer outing, because he pays double overtime - better than Humpty Dumpty for words seeking a well-paying job - and he's extremely zealous in his pursuit of zealots and zealotry, as you might expect of a zealous zealot ...

Truth and reality have long ceased being relevant to the renewables zealots. Bowen blamed this week’s electricity shortage on a “massive heatwave” when the temperature across most of Sydney was in the mid-30s for two days. No matter how much burnt orange and deep purple the weather bureau lathers on to its heatwave maps it can’t shift the mercury higher (even after it “homogenised” earlier temperature records downwards).
Most media chimed in, predicting turmoil and providing ingenious tips about drinking water and seeking shade. It makes you wonder how the early settlers survived without social media survival tips.
The willingness of Labor, Greens, teals and other true believers to twist reality to suit their ideological fervour is a marvel to watch. They deliberately dismantle our secure energy grid in a delusional attempt to improve the global climate, then blame their energy supply crisis on the same global warming they claim to be tackling.

Then came another bout of narcissistic cross-promotion, which featured one of those exceptionally tedious collages as a substitute for looking at the Kenny noggin, Sky News host Chris Kenny has discussed the “alarming” statistics of businesses shutting down in Australia amid the ongoing energy “shambles” the country faces.

Yes, this time the dog botherer has discussed, even as we discuss his current discussing ...

Oh dear hideous collage, please allow the pond to sample a little more First Dog...

Why that's fully in the spirit of the dog botherer. What reptile wouldn't knock over a heritage fire hydrant in pursuit of a KFC meal?

And now are you tired of all that zealous talk of zealots and zealotry? 

Then you must be ready for that line about the virtue-signalling feedback loop ...

This is a virtue-signalling feedback loop. The justification for every action is climate change, and climate change gets the blame for every misstep.
So far the only measurable change in Australia’s climate has come about through our home climate controls. On hot days a decade ago we would crank up our airconditioners, and now we are told to turn them down or face blackouts.

Bowen turns up in parliament and on television with all the faux confidence of a used parasol salesman in a downpour. Summer is only just beginning and after a couple of mild summers perhaps we will get a normal one – you know, with the odd heatwave – and Anthony Albanese, Bowen and Labor face an election soon afterwards.

The important thing about virtue-signalling feedback loops is that you must never get tired of quoting yourself:

I tried to warn them in these pages back in March: “One of the key considerations on election timing will be energy – can Labor risk an election early next year if there is a threat of blackouts from December through to March?” Come February, I think Labor supporters may need to switch off all their appliances and sweat it out for the team; you know, solidarity and all that.

You must also have an infinite capacity for quoting falsehoods in a perennial search for untruths:

Not content with telling voters that renewables are the cheapest form of energy as they force prices up, and that they are reliable as we are warned of blackouts and spruiking a couple of warm days as a heatwave, Bowen also has inverted reality on coal. “The least reliable part of our energy grid at the moment is coal-fired power, that’s just a statement of fact,” he said, emphasising a falsehood with an untruth.

At this point the reptiles interrupted with another cross-promotional piece, featuring the Great Satan, Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen has been grilled on Australia’s energy cost and reliability.

What is surprising is how both Ughmann and the dog botherer haven't gone on endlessly about the benefits of nuking the country to save the planet.

Instead it seems we've gone back to the days of sweet, dinkum, virginal Oz coal as our salvation:

On the day he uttered those words coal provided about 60 per cent of the national electricity market’s power, with gas taking the fossil fuel share to more than 70 per cent. Without coal we would have been cooked – wind generation at times provided about 10 per cent of its maximum output and a similar share of total supply.
Bowen seems to hate facts as much as he loathes coal, so let me share some clear realities that underscore the mismanagement at play. For decades now, taxpayers have forked out tens of billions of dollars in renewables subsidies designed to drive coal-fired power out of the market, but now so much coal generation has been closed that we do not have enough reliable energy, so taxpayers also are subsidising coal-fired generation in Victoria and NSW to keep it online.
Yes, our taxes are paying subsidies to kill coal. And we are paying separate subsidies to keep it.

Indeed, indeed, dear sweet coal, and as for the planet? There are solutions ...

Someone invented climate change? 

Sssh, don't tell the dog botherer, who at this point embarked on one of his general list of grievances, like the Murdochian entitled snowflake he is ...

Such madness is par for the course in this field. Bowen was fresh back from the UN COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, where the host president created a scandal by referring to fossil fuel resources as a “gift from God” and where the first seminar at the Australian stand began with a non-Indigenous woman providing an Indigenous acknowledgment of country – yes, an Australian Indigenous acknowledgement of country in Azerbaijan.
The climate conference, of course, could not limit itself to climate, it touched all the woke causes. Indigenous issues were brought in with mention of a “holistic approach to climate solutions” and talk of “their rich, distinct values, world views and knowledge systems cultivated through generations of close relationship with Mother Nature”. You cannot help but think science might be more appropriate than “Mother Nature” emotionalism.
Gender got a run, too – but of course. A paper focused on the “disproportionate impact of climate change on the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls” – I kid you not.
In Baku they also advocated for taxes on meat and dairy produce to turn us all vegan. But footage showed the delegates queuing up for meat dishes while the vegan stalls were avoided – climate conferences demonstrate an ethos of “do as I say, not as I do”.
Bowen helped to lead the main agenda – that is, tripling the amount of money developed countries such as ours should pay to developing nations such as China – from $US100bn annually to $US300bn ($461.6bn). The UN calls this an “insurance policy for humanity” but it looks more like wealth redistribution – the best thing we could do for developing nations would be to help them generate the same affordable and reliable energy that created our prosperity.
Also in Baku was South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas, spruiking Adelaide to host COP31 in 2026. His promotional video mentions that his state is leading in solar, leading in wind, leading in batteries and leading in hydrogen, but it forgets to mention that it also leads on pricing, with the highest electricity costs, and it is the only state to have had a statewide blackout because its interconnector tripped, starving the state of interstate coal-fired power. South Australia is now establishing a scheme for taxpayers to subsidise gas generation, so it might have electricity when the wind is not blowing.
If Adelaide does host COP31 they should schedule it for February. If it coincides with an old-fashioned heatwave we might get to see the delegates cope with a 42C day without airconditioning. It will teach them about the value of energy reliability and affordability.
Australian consumers might get a similar wake-up call this summer. For many of them it will be a shock because the energy denialism we hear from Bowen is echoed daily in much of the media.

At this point the pond should put in a pre-emptive link to Media Watch ... featuring Macca and Dick.

That segment gave Dick a right royal going over ...because he effortlessly managed to sound like a dick ...

..Dick Smith invited himself into the studio to be Macca’s star guest and was on the air for two hours of the four-and-a-half-hour show.

Spreading the message that global warming is real but wind and solar won’t solve the problem.  

Because there’s no way to store power cheaply when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine: 

DICK SMITH: The cost of batteries is so staggering it means that renewables and storage is completely unaffordable. - Australia All Over, ABC Radio, 3 November, 2024 

And, said Smith, when the experts at CSIRO tell us that renewables are the cheapest form of power they are lying to us, or have got their sums hopelessly wrong: 

DICK SMITH: … look, we’re not being told the truth, and I can’t work this out, because they are scientists and engineers at the CSIRO, they did this report called the GenCost report, but what’s missing is … the cost of the storage …  - Australia All Over, ABC Radio, 3 November, 2024

That claim from Smith is flat out wrong.

Because CSIRO has made it quite clear several times that it did include storage costs in its GenCost report. 

And many other energy experts, including investment bankers Lazard, agree that renewables are the cheapest option.

But that did not deter Smith from dismissing their conclusions and claiming:

DICK SMITH: We have five million people who live pay packet to pay packet. They can’t pay three times what they’re paying now for electricity, and if we go to 90 per cent renewables, which is the plan of the present government, it’ll be three times the price, minimum, probably more than that.- Australia All Over, ABC Radio, 3 November, 2024

That is just moonshine, as you might gather from this International Energy Agency report.

But Smith was just getting started.

He also treated Macca’s listeners to a rant about ugly wind farms: 

DICK SMITH: … which when the wind’s not blowing generate no power at all.- Australia All Over, ABC Radio, 3 November, 2024

And batteries:

DICK SMITH: … they put in this battery, $40 million, will run for one hour. - Australia All Over, ABC Radio, 3 November, 2024

And Macca was in agreement — wondering if this global warming caper might just be ‘not right’ and telling his guest:

IAN MCNAMARA: It seems that we’ve been sold a pup and we’re not getting the full truth … the catch cry is ‘save the planet’, but while you’re saving the planet, you’re, in some people’s eyes, and certainly mine and probably yours, you’re ruining the environment. - Australia All Over, ABC Radio, 3 November, 2024

So what is Smith’s truth? That Australia must have nuclear power. 

All of which had 186 of Macca’s listeners so unhappy they complained to the ABC, with one objecting to: 

… climate change denial - spreading dangerous harmful lies … - Complaint to the ABC, 3 November, 2024

And another protesting that it was: 

… clear misinformation, outrageous and dangerous. And refuted by the vast majority of renowned climate scientists. - Complaint to the ABC, 3 November, 2024

And so on and so forth, and yet the reptiles were strangely muted this weekend about the need to nuke the country to save the planet.

Naturally the two dicks were as one, but even given the chance to nuke the country, the dog botherer was distracted, preferring to be again zealously outraged by the zealots ...

The ABC’s Media Watch program this week ran a propaganda piece dissing the apolitical and technologically agnostic assessments of entrepreneur and environmentalist Dick Smith. The ABC preferred the renewables zealotry and anti-nuclear advocacy of renewables investor and teals political sponsor Simon Holmes a Court. Only two things will cut through to people inclined to believe this spin – power bills and blackouts.
Power bills are already a serious problem, although perhaps not so much for the wealthier people in the teal seats. But we are being warned about blackouts, and they will hurt everyone.
Yet when Bowen delivered his annual climate statement this week he claimed we were “on track” with the renewables rollout, prices and emissions reductions. In a social media video, he told Labor colleague Ged Kearney we need to keep “our foot on the accelerator” for renewables – which, if I remember it correctly, is pretty much what Thelma said to Louise.

An ancient movie reference? No final plea for Thelma and Louise to give up the convertible and take a ride in an SMR?

A strange ending for zealots in pursuit of zealots.

The pond would prefer to end with a Rowson. At first glance his target is the endless stupidity of the killing fields, and sundry genocides, but that orange glow on the horizon portends the future desired, and schemed for, by reptiles of the Ughmann and dog bothering kind ...

How to discuss a war criminal without mentioning war crimes and how to discuss climate change by only talking about the weather ... please allow our Henry and Aidan Morrison to show you how ...

 

This day the reptiles are sullen and surprisingly subdued...

Even the gathering of the leet commentariat on the far right of the digital edition succumbed to dullard predictability.

Simplistic wet Simon has passed, and the pond has the pleasure of passing on garrulous Gemma.

Most predictable of all was our Henry, diligently doing his best to ensure that collective punishment, mass starvation, and mass displacement might continue apace, without let or hindrance. 

Our Henry would much prefer a lawless world, and so he offered up Flawed ICC now master of vigilante justice, The ICC is not as powerful as it would like to be, but the sad reality is that many Western governments, including Australia’s, take it seriously.

Agonisingly, it's a five minute read, or so the reptiles say, full of the usual portentous, pretentious and arcane references, all designed to dress up a simple desire - let Benji commit genocide in the way he likes, and don't go bothering him ...

First up came a snap of the real villain of the piece, International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan speaks during a press conference at the San Carlos Palace in Bogota.

Then it was time for our Henry to rant in his inimitable way:

To seasoned observers of the International Criminal Court, the arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant are deja vu all over again.
That is not to suggest the ICC’s decision is trivial. But it is just another misjudgment by an institution as ill-managed in practice as it was ill-conceived in theory.
The court was, for sure, an experiment. In the past, war crimes trials, such as those as Nuremberg, were held once the conflict was over. In contrast, the ICC’s mandate allows it to intervene in the heat of the battle. That was always freighted with hopes and fraught with risks. None of the hopes eventuated; all of the risks did, and with a vengeance.
Unfortunately, the endless sequence of errors passed virtually unnoticed. For most of its history, the ICC focused on Africa, dealing with parts of the world far from the Western media’s eyes and even further from its understanding. Wracked by sand-laden winds or drenched in torrid heat, populated by warlords with a well-deserved reputation for savagery, these places were hardly tourist destinations.
It was there, however, that the ICC forged its standard operating procedure. Academics don’t agree on much, with Africanists being no exception. But on this there is little disagreement: the ICC’s interventions were almost always disastrous.

Ah the colonial legacy, so proudly celebrated by our Henry, just as a snap of his current hero, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a news conference in Jerusalem, magically appears.

Then on with the diatribe:

First and fatally, the ICC allowed itself to be manipulated into picking sides in messy and protracted conflicts that hardly lent themselves to simplistic moralising.
Seeing why that happened is not difficult. Eager to initiate prosecutions but lacking any presence on the ground, the ICC depended on national governments and often deeply partisan NGOs for referrals, as well as on national security agencies for information and enforcement.
Heightening that dependence was its reluctance to properly visit, much less scrupulously investigate, the alleged crime scenes before rushing to judgment – a reluctance Antonio Cassese, the distinguished first president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, excoriated, like a teacher dressing down particularly inept students, when the court asked him to review its ­operations.
Predictably, Cassese’s report was ignored. As a result, in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Mali, Libya and Cote d’Ivoire, the ICC did exactly what its associates demanded: it seriously pursued only their opponents, despite the grievous culpability of the favoured side.
The effect was to strengthen the brutal, appallingly corrupt regimes on which the ICC relied, such as that of Joseph Kabila in the DRC, while stoking the regional, religious and ethnic resentments that had fuelled the conflicts in the first place.
To make things worse, the ICC repeatedly stymied peace processes, including by hindering the opponents’ participation in international negotiations. Compounding the difficulties, its refusal to endorse amnesties drastically reduced the incentive to reach agreement, contributing, for example, to the failure of the Ugandan negotiations in Juba and of peace initiatives in the DRC.
Claiming that conflicts could only be resolved by bringing alleged criminals to trial – “arrest the sought criminals today”, said its first Prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, “and you will have peace and justice tomorrow” – it even tried to derail successful amnesty programs, such as the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration scheme in Uganda.
And when a Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established in the DRC, the ICC sapped its effectiveness by refusing to rule out prosecuting fighters who confessed. 

At this point the reptiles decided our Henry would be best served by a cross over video promotion featuring another rat in the ranks:

Former Labor MP Michael Danby says American and Israeli legislators should pay “no attention” to the ICC. The French government has cast doubt on whether it would arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu under warrants issued by the International Criminal Court last week, suggesting the Israeli leader might have immunity, raising questions about the court’s jurisdiction worldwide. “Amal Clooney and all of the advisors of the International Criminal Court are severely biased against Israel as their pre-existing statement showed,” Mr Danby said.

Is it time for a reference to ancient Rome and Greece? Sorry, but hopefully Kant and the Napoleonic wars will do:

Faced with the horrific consequences of having prolonged conflicts which in the DRC alone had cost over six million lives, the ICC proved unrepentant. Instead, its policy remained that Ocampo set out in 2007, when he said that “at the court, we can’t take our impact into account”. To Ocampo’s fatuous ­assertion his successor, Fatou Bensouda, added the absurdity that “taking into account peace initiatives” would compromise the ICC’s “impartiality”.
Those failings, as well as myriad others, may seem startling. But they would not have surprised Immanuel Kant. In 1784, he had echoed the proposal, advanced in 1713 by the abbe de Saint-Pierre, for a world court armed with coercive powers to secure “perpetual peace”.
By 1795, the start of what would become the Napoleonic Wars had induced a complete reconsideration.
In an analysis brilliantly extended by Harvard’s Judith Shklar (whose Legalism (1964) is a masterpiece of international jurisprudence), Kant drew two, strikingly relevant, conclusions.
The first is that “the possibility of formal justice cannot prevail under all political circumstances”. It is not the rule of law that makes a free society possible; it is the institutions of a free or “republican” society that enable the rule of law.
Those institutions, which give the legal system its legitimacy, include a parliament that monitors the workings of the laws and adapts them when they threaten freedom, an executive committed to the laws’ equal application, and most of all, a degree of public “unanimity on republican principles” that acts as a constant check on the abuse of judicial power.
The ICC’s claim that it “creates global governance without a global government”, as if the legal system could be isolated from its broader context, is consequently nonsense. As for pretending to build the rule of law without the scaffolding of liberal institutions – and the discipline and accountability they bring – it is nonsense upon stilts.
Second and even more important, an international court that could be swayed or dominated by illiberal polities was, Kant argued, not a recipe for a peace conducive to human flourishing: it was a recipe for the “peace of a graveyard”, in which freedom’s enemies would exploit the court to bury freedom’s friends.
The workings of such a court might look like justice and, in Shklar’s words, be considered “respectable by liberals anxious to avoid conflict”. But in “a world without a common interest in peace” and swarming with autocrats, they were a dangerous sham, fostering “the illusion that justice would be done”. 

Time for another villain to make an appearance,  UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres speaks to the media at the COP29 conference.

A little more Kant and our Henry will splutter to a close, perhaps wiping the righteous froth of Kantian indignation from his moosh:

Indeed, Kant went so far as to say that the “state of war is better, in the light of reason, than the ­fusion of states under a power”, i.e. the proposed court, that could facilitate the triumph of a “soulless despotism”. The wars might allow freedom to prevail and, however haltingly, spread; the “peace of a graveyard” never would.
Thankfully, the ICC is not as powerful as it would like to be. Those who have been among its most aggressive manipulators in the fight against Israel, such as South Africa, treat it with lordly disdain, flaunting their refusal to enforce its arrest warrant against Sudanese strongman Omar al-Bashir. Even the UN’s gormless Secretary-General, Antonio ­Guterres, did not hesitate to share a platform with Vladimir Putin, despite the ICC warrant for his arrest.
The sad reality, however, is that many Western governments, including Australia’s, take it seriously. Impervious to the ICC’s failure, chillingly ignorant of the West’s intellectual heritage, they display what Shklar mocked as a combination of “Pollyannish optimism and blindness to history”. Theirs, one can only conclude, truly is “the legalism of fools”.

The pond has been incredibly tolerant, patient, restrained and forbearing, and has allowed our Henry to burble away in his garden of bile and bitterness. (Is there an Oscar Wilde in the house to help him out of his garden?)

Now, if the pond might indulge, it would like to take up Yossi Verter in the persecuted and put upon Haaretz a week ago, Netanyahu Brought the ICC Ruling on Himself and Now He's Whining About Antisemitism.

How symbolic it is that the International Criminal Court decision's to issue an arrest warrant against Benjamin Netanyahu (and Yoav Gallant) came the day after the latest installment in the series "This Is How We'll Bury the State Inquiry Commission" – a plan by the prime minister to form a political investigative committee.
There's not much to say about it, except that the proposal, as usual, is based on Netanyahu's assumption that we are all stupid. He wants to form a committee whose members will fight with each other morning, noon and night, and become deadlocked till the end of days. In the meantime, no "other commission" may be formed, in the words of this scandalous legislation.
But let's go back to the business at hand: Last June, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara sent a letter urging Netanyahu to stop delaying and establish a state inquiry commission. Apart from all the self-evident reasons to do so, it might have enabled Israel to better deal with The Hague's threat, perhaps even remove it, certainly if the commission's mandate were expanded beyond the events of October 7 and the background to them.
Netanyahu, of course, refused. He won't establish a state inquiry commission, period. He is a man of principles.
The other developments taking place in his coalition, from the expanding movement to resettle Gaza (which Netanyahu has not denounced, only dismissing it once, early on, as "unrealistic") to the renewal of the judicial coup, all are closely connected to the weakness of the prime minister versus international institutions.

Well yes, all that and more, and if you follow the link above, you can read related stories:

• Starvation, murder, persecution: ICC warrants are an unprecedented moral nadir for Israel
• Defense officials concerned over ICC warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant setting precedent
• Is Netanyahu now a fugitive? ICC arrest warrants over Gaza are turning point for Israel

You might conclude that our Henry's piece represents an unprecedented moral nadir, but alas that means you haven't indulged in our Henry in the past. On with Verter:

If you campaign for years to weaken the legal system, don't be surprised that at the moment of truth, your own legal immunity is compromised. The conduct in the international arena was amateurish and shocking – there are hundreds of examples of this. For example, when the national security minister encourages militias to set fire to trucks carrying humanitarian aid, the responsibility falls on the prime minister. As the saying goes, he is the head, he is to blame.
Netanyahu brought the arrest warrant on himself through his stubbornness and arrogance. Now he is whining about antisemitism and Dreyfus. When it first became known that the ICC's chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, was leading the investigation, Netanyahu went into hysterics. He subsequently calmed down and, as usual, began to downplay the affair. As the process dragged on, and at the same time various accusations began to surface against Khan, the old Netanyahu returned, the one whose hubris gives rise to layers of stupidity and blindness. He moved from legal deliberations to propaganda. The official line is that the court is antisemitic, and the prosecutor better not dare touch us.
It would be fine if this only involved Netanyahu and Gallant. But this warrant could bring a wave of secret warrants against scores of officers and soldiers for their part in the never-ending war in Gaza.
The entire ICC business was handled clumsily from the start. Accusations of antisemitism, crimes against humanity, explicit threats against the prosecutor. The result: The prime minister of Israel finds himself on a very short list of serving world leaders with arrest warrants dangling over their heads. Another is Vladimir Putin, the one whose affinity put Netanyahu in "another league."
The Pavlovian reaction in Israel was shock and defiance. Opposition leader Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid were quick (even before many coalition members) to condemn the court's decision. True, the arrest warrants border on scandal, but they didn't occur in a vacuum. The same goes for the vast majority of the Israeli public, which – encouraged by the Netanyahu coalition and most of the media about what has really happened in Gaza in the past year, and what has happened to Israel in the international arena – was blind-sided.
Now Netanyahu and his cohorts will put their trust in the Trump administration. But the world is not just America. A pity. Ask Miri Regev's travel agent.

The thing notably missing from our Henry's piece was the out that the court offered Benji, avoided for obvious reasons, but noted in Haaretz here:

...The GOP is already threatening a barrage of sanctions on the institution, and Israel will surely lobby Trump to pressure the 124 countries that respect the court's jurisdiction to ignore the arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant.

The worst-case scenario for the court – and, many would argue, for the entire concept of international law and accountability – is that massive U.S. pressure on allies who help fund the ICC and uphold its legitimacy will lead to the court's collapse. This would require the United States to not only sanction the institution and its staff, but also foreign governments that cooperate with it.

It is perhaps the fear of this scenario that has led the ICC to suggest that if Israel provided proof that it was conducting its own reliable and independent investigation into alleged war crimes and violations of international law committed by soldiers in Gaza, then the arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant could be shelved for now.

This presents a second scenario – one that would be good for Israel and could perhaps also save the court itself: An internal Israeli investigation might convince the court to freeze the warrants, at least temporarily. Israel's own attorney general, it should be noted, has been telling the government for months that the best way to combat the warrants and other threats in the international legal arena is to announce the formation of a national commission of inquiry into October 7 and the Gaza war.

There were many good reasons to do so even without taking international courts into consideration – but making it harder for the ICC's chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, to get approval for arrest warrants against Israeli officials was surely a strong argument. Unfortunately, the Netanyahu government refused to do this: Because it is so fearful of what such a commission will eventually find, it prefers to do nothing rather than take any preventive action.

Indeed, indeed, Benji likely knows in his heart that he's a war criminal and has committed war crimes, and he was also derelict and negligent in the brutal attack that led to the hostage taking, and just as he's studiously ignored doing anything about the hostages while pursuing his war crimes, so he's studiously ignored any review of his government's actions.

Finally here's another matter worth noting which the pond came across while browsing Haaretz, an editorial, Israel Trying to Disappear Arab Citizens From the Democratic Process: 

The bill sponsored by Knesset member Hanoch Milwidsky (Likud), which limits the right of Israel's Arab citizens to vote and be elected in municipal elections, passed its preliminary vote in the Knesset on Wednesday. This legislation joins its ugly twin, which is also advancing, concerning the expansion of the justifications for disqualifying Arab parties and candidates in the Knesset elections as part of an amendment to the Basic Law on the Knesset.
MK Milwidsky's proposed law expands the possibility of disqualifying parties or individuals from participating in local elections. Until now, such limitations were imposed because of three reasons: if among the party's goals and actions, explicitly or implicitly, are the negation of the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people; denying the democratic character of the country; or incitement to racism. Now the possibility for disqualification would also apply to an individual candidate, not just the party.

It's probably past time to give the notion of democracy in Israel a rest, compounded by Benji's desire to match Putin and Erodgan in his persecution of Haaretz.

As for those hoping that internal legal processes might prevail, see Uzi Baram in Haaretz, Netanyahu's Lackeys Have a Three-stage Plan to Destroy Israel's Liberal Democracy

Ordinarily I prefer to avoid definitive rulings and categorical pronouncements. But at this time, there is no alternative but to declare unequivocally: Benjamin Netanyahu is incapacitated from serving as the prime minister of Israel. No decent person can be convinced that ulterior motives lie behind this pronouncement.
Vilification, lies and threats will not help change this conclusion – nor will the hysterical screams of Tally Gotliv or the slander of ministers Yariv Levin and Shlomo Karhi which reeks to high heaven. The need to declare Netanyahu incapacitated from serving as prime minister is crystal clear and must be voiced publicly.
No body is as vilified by the Bibi-ists as the High Court of Justice. There is no fault they haven't found with the court, no effort they have spared to undermine its moral authority.
The High Court brought this campaign of scorn upon itself. The High Court – and no other – is guilty of the danger of the lie called Netanyahu. In May 2020, when 11 justices ruled that Netanyahu was fit to form a new government in spite of the indictments filed against him, both leftists and rightists applauded the decision. The presumption of innocence characterizes moderate and dispassionate liberal thinking.
Today, this ruling looks idiotic. Netanyahu, the man, has the right to be presumed innocent, just like every other citizen does. But a prime minister drowning in a sea of criminal cases, for whom every decision seems to be personal and not impartial, does not and could not enjoy the presumption of innocence.
The High Court ruling was a nod to the importance of reasonable doubt while at the same time an instance of neglecting the obvious. In the current highly charged atmosphere, the attorney general will not dare to declare him incapacitated. We must not ask this of her, when the campaign to fire her has become a public – and not just legal – battle.
Obviously, the prime minister must not be declared incapacitated – except according to the law and legal procedure. But the public and its representatives retain the right to regard Netanyahu as an incapacitated prime minister. A huge portion of the public would support this view, if it were presented emphatically by the opposition parties.
We must not accept the fact that Netanyahu is intentionally preventing a deal to bring home the hostages, allegedly through the use of lies and deliberate leaks. No empty declaration by a failed leader rolling his eyes and promising "to bring back our hostages" will convince anyone who understands that he has adopted the stance of Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir.
We have seen how he moved from totally distancing himself from his jailed spokesman Eli Feldstein to enthusiastically supporting him, just because the fire Feldstein set off could very well spread in the direction of Netanyahu's own office.
The fact that Netanyahu is preoccupied solely with his own survival has led his cabinet ministers to present the type of positions which have in recent years brought about the collapse of vibrant democracies in a process that involves three stages.
The first stage is neutering the power of the independent media and glorifying the media that sucks up to power. Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, who is trying to impose a religious regime on Israel, is leading the way to the elimination of public broadcasting and harming the newspaper that represents the alternative.
The second stage is the uncompromising war against the legal system, including the legal advisers of government ministries who are not lackeys of the incapacitated ruler.
The third stage is the increased control over the election results by requiring political parties to demonstrate "patriotism" and "nationalism," which will make the Arab parties illegitimate.
There is no place for desperation or for losing the fighting spirit. We are fighting for the liberal and democratic home the incapacitated government wants to set ablaze.

And so on, but the pond must move on to contemplate the latest effort by the reptiles in relation to climate science denialism, while mounting a bog standard routine assault on renewables.

This one came from a certain Aidan Morrison, and alleged Blackout fears prove our living standards are slipping, Our demand for energy doesn’t follow the sun. Now we’re being asked to make it so. There couldn’t be a clearer admission that our living standards are being degraded: we’re being asked to use less of something at the times when we need it most.

It's astonishing that "fears"could be taken as proof of something, but Morrison forced the pond to wander back down memory lane, back to its time in Tamworth when the town was served by its own coal-fired power station.

Long gone of course, and the pond still smarts at the punishment for playing in the slag heaps.

As for slipping living standards, the pond recalls that blackouts were a frequent occurrence, and something of a town joke. So suggesting to the pond that it's living standards are slipping from those halcyon days produced a gust, neigh a gale of laughter ... as the pond mentally returned to scrubbing the coal-gas grease from the kitchen walls ...

Never mind, a piece needs its villains, and so the reptiles opened with Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen during Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

That's the very last time you'll hear about "climate change".

From now on we must talk about the weather, in a tone ranging from hysterical to demented:

One good reason to have a controllable supply of electricity at our disposal is to help us cope with the things that we can’t control – like hot weather.
When NSW Premier Chris Minns asked Sydney residents to switch off appliances on Wednesday, he confirmed that the electricity system we’re building won’t do that.
Immediately after calling for businesses and households to avoid using energy intensive appliances from 3pm to 8pm, he gave a simple explanation: “The reason for that is that solar production in the energy market starts to come off from 3pm, at exactly the same time as people return from work.”
It’s staggeringly simple. Our demand for energy doesn’t follow the sun. And now we’re being asked to make it so. There couldn’t be a clearer admission that our living standards are being degraded: we’re being asked to use less of something at the times when we need it most.
The efforts to shield the current government’s narrative from such uncomfortable realities has revealed a number of awkward contortions of fact and logic.

At this point, the reptiles introduced that villain, NSW Premier Chris Minns with Minister for Energy Penny Sharpe during a press conference on Wednesday to discuss steps being taken to manage the energy system. Picture: NewsWire / Nikki Short

When doing this sort of denialism, it's bog standard reptile form to downplay the recent heatwave. The pond has already celebrated Sydney airport's world record:

Sadly Morrison isn't interested in celebrating this seasonal triumph:

The first is about the extremity of the weather. In parliament on Wednesday, Energy Minister Chris Bowen provided an update saying NSW is undergoing a “lengthy and severe heatwave”.
On Wednesday, the highest temperature in Sydney was 38C in Penrith. That’s a hot day, but not extreme. On January 4, 2020, Penrith reached over 48C.
Others areas in Sydney mightn’t have noticed that it was a “heatwave” if the media wasn’t harping on the term with the blackout warnings. The CBD only briefly exceeded 30C, reaching 32C at 11am. Tuesday and Thursday in central Sydney were mild days, in the mid-20s.
The need to overplay how extraordinary the weather was is betrayed by comments made by the Australian Energy Market Operator chief executive Daniel Westerman on Tuesday: “Effectively that is a summer heatwave while we are still here in spring”. That’s true technically, but summer starts next week. A hot day in late November is hardly unseasonal.
Westerman continues with a clue about what really happened: “It’s pretty normal that both ­generation and transmission use periods in autumn and spring to undertake maintenance activities.”
A spreadsheet of generator availabilities published by WattClarity sets the scene and throws some light on AEMO’s comments. Three of the state’s 12 coal units were unavailable due to planned maintenance, not unforeseen failures. Two of these are meant to be back online before December 1, with the final one ready on December 3. For the rest of December all generators are expected to be available.

Speaking of Tamworth, how pleasing to see that Barners is back and has been dragooned in as an interruption:

Former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce says the blackout warnings across New South Wales and in Sydney show the Albanese government have made an “absolute debacle” out of the power grid. “It is just a ruse to cover up the fact you have made an absolute debacle out of your power grid,” Mr Joyce said. “That was a sunny day at the beach.”

What a travesty, why didn't Barners himself feature? Why was cliff-top Albo the featured figure? Why was Barners unwilling to celebrate the Sydney airport and spring records so proudly set?

How can we set even higher records? Why, dinkum clean virginal Oz coal is the answer:

The truth is we were caught short of energy because the weather didn’t quite obey the calendar demarcation between spring and summer. Someone in charge of planning misjudged the appropriate maintenance window by one week.
No wonder we’re being asked to believe that a hot day in late spring is extremely unseasonal. The portrayal of the coal fleet as being some wobbly clutch of clunkers that are teetering on the edge of collapse is a severe misrepresentation of the truth.
One unit was unavailable due to forced outage. But three were getting the maintenance they need to ensure reliable power in the summer. Without them, as we’ve seen from this week, our energy system is made precarious and vulnerable. No energy system is available 100 per cent of the time. Maintenance is needed routinely, and breakdowns occasionally happen.
But the difference between a thermal generator and wind or solar is that the majority of the outages – for maintenance – can be scheduled so it doesn’t happen all at once. Unforeseen accidents are rare and a modest degree of redundancy can ensure reliability of such a system.
This week was a perfect illustration. We had one unit break down, but the real failure was assuming that the weather would be more predictable than it was, and mis-planning maintenance.
With wind and solar, none of the output can be known more than a couple of days in advance. And instead of being able to build in redundancy, and turn one generator on when another turns off, the inherently correlated nature of weather events means that all generators experience the worst shortfalls (and surpluses) at the same time.

At this point the reptiles introduced Daniel Westerman:

And so to the close, with Morrison celebrating the singular feat of avoiding climate science and any mention of climate in his talk of the weather. 

Oh there was yadda yadda about real world circumstances and terrifying talk of a sign of things to come, which might have impressed the pond if it hadn't lived through the days of the Tamworth power station:

Many of the proposed solutions to this underlying reality don’t pass their first brush with real world circumstances.
Batteries provided 0.2 per cent of our energy in the 48hrs to 5pm on Thursday. Heatwaves don’t produce consistent solar at the times when it’s needed.
On Wednesday at 5.30pm, rooftop solar met just 5 per cent of NSW demand. At noon, it was 31.5 per cent. Demand peaks when we change spaces, such as arriving home to a hot house after school or work, and getting the airconditioner to cool the living room. That’s when solar fades.
The solution we depended on to combat this crisis was to ask industry to power down. As confirmed by Bowen, the Reliability and Emergency Reserve Trader – or “RERT” – scheme succeeded in finding an industrial load that would stop work for a fee to avoid the risk of blackouts.
This is a sign of things to come. We can control our lifestyle and our industrial loads in response to the weather. But this is not a desirable approach or outcome. If we don’t want the weather to increasingly impact what we do and when in our homes and factories, we should aim to build an energy system that isn’t completely dependent on it.
Aidan Morrison is energy program director at the Centre for Independent Studies.

Read that very last line again, and marvel at the way that the reptiles manage to avoid mentioning climate science, climate change and the way that the planet is currently heading to hell in an over-warmed basket ...

You know, if we don't want climate change to increasingly impact on what we do and when in our homes and factories and lives, maybe we shouldn't indulge so much in CIS bullshit.

Sadly all this meant that the pond was unable to convey seasonal greetings to its (likely few) American readers:

And the pond must ignore some delicious scribbling, as offered by Charles P. Pierce in Esquire, Trump's Nominee to Lead Anti-Terrorism Is Chief Whackadoo 'Doctor' Sebastian Gorka, As a government official, he's a pretty good radio host:

Back where I come from, we have men who are called heroes. Once a year, they take their fortitude out of mothballs and parade it down the main street of the city. —The Wizard of Oz

Out of what seems to be the endless parade of whackadoos, smackbrains, rockheads, fanatics, lunatics, and general shit-for-brains that has been following El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago ever since he rode down the escalator and sent the American idea of self-government on an express escalator to hell, none have been more ridiculous than “Doctor” Sebastian Gorka. Remember when Newt Gingrich got caught doodling notes of himself as “leader (perhaps) of the civilizing forces”? Well, ol’ Seb believes he already has the gig.
Gorka is one of those people who found in the 9/11 attacks the golden ticket to media fame. A Hungarian security specialist, he wandered around the shadowland of intelligence work and right-wing media until he filtered into this country’s intelligence intelligentia. He copped a White House job in the first Trump administration thanks to the intervention of convicted felon Steve Bannon. His tenure on the Strategic Initiatives Group, a make-work operation for Jared Kushner, lasted four months. He also could be counted on to liven up media events. After leaving the White House, he did what any wing-nut international man of mystery would do. He took a job with Fox News and started his own radio talk show. He spread so much misinformation on YouTube that they banned him from the platform. He thereupon slid down the wing-nut food chain until he had his own show on NewsMax.
Okay, so far that doesn’t distinguish him from a host of other folks in the terminal phase of the prion disease. But let us move on now to the Order of Vitez, a hereditary Hungarian honor granted to Gorka’s father for having resisted the Soviet occupation of that country. When Paul Gorka died, the honor passed to his son, who has glommed onto it for all it was worth.
There is considerable evidence that the Order of Vitez wasn’t exactly neutral during World War II. The State Department was so convinced of its connections to the Nazi occupation and enabling the Holocaust that it put the Order on a list of Nazi-affiliated organizations throughout Europe. Gorka appears to have clung to the Order primarily to play dress-up on Fox News. I mean, honest to God, look at this guy. This is what I imagine Franz Ferdinand would have looked like had Gavrilo Princip been a lousy shot.
While Gorka’s connection to anti-Semitism may be largely restricted to his choice in formal accessorizing, he has left no doubt of his feelings toward Islam, which can be found somewhere to right of those of Pope Urban I. And his public remarks have always leaned into rhetoric not that far removed from the Crusades, which, as we have learned from defense nominee Pete Hegseth, have a certain vogue among religious (white) nationalists. Not surprisingly, this has led Gorka to the worst elements of Christian history. Historian Rick Perlstein points us to a quote from Gorka during one of his chats with Steve Bannon.

"Yes, we’re Christians. Yes, we believe that all men are made in the image of our creator. But at the same time we understand that evil is real, that evil lurks in the hearts of man. We are not the lambs of the Bible; that is Jesus, our savior. We are to turn over the tables of the money lenders. We are there when he calls, “Sell everything you own and buy a sword.” That is the Christianity we believe in. Turn the other face is not the message that we believe in. The message of Christ is truth in God. And as a result, I have to say this unequivocally to everyone listening, and it may be tough for some people who think that the church is some Sunday social club, but this administration is evil. And I mean it. In terms of the heart of darkness, black hearts of evil. Because they know what they’re doing … putting in place a legal system that allows anyone—it could be terrorists, it could be the cartels—to pre-screen and clear themselves as quote-unquote “asylum seekers” … when they get on a plane with my wife, with your daughter."

As a theologian, Sebastian Gorka makes a good radio host. And he has been nominated to be ... wait for it ... your new chief of anti-terrorism...

There's more via the link, including a link to Gorka's favourite form of drag, and yet again the pond was left to wonder how, thanks to its herpetology studies, it was left reading dullards of the our Henry and Morrsion kind when there are great celebrations of whackadoodlery to hand ...

Never mind, we all must suffer, and in the end turn to the infallible Pope for consolation, redemption being a step too far:

What a tragic, terrible accident, but no doubt the reptiles are jumping for joy:

In which the pond largely ignores the reptiles to enjoy some FAFA tariff moments ...

 

Beyond the valley of the completely predictable this day in the lizard Oz, as the reptiles seized on the recent heatwave to mount an attack on renewables and such like ...

"Mildly hot day"? 

What happened to reptile pride in Australia's ability to break records? 

Elsewhere media outfits celebrated the way we were top of the world ma, albeit briefly ...

Yeah, Sydney airport top of the world ma, and spring records broken, but as usual, the reptiles took the completely wrong lesson from recent events ...

See Donna Lu in The Graudian on Tuesday for matters reptiles never ever contemplate, Why is western Sydney so much hotter than the eastern suburbs and what can be done to make summer more bearable?

Inter alia:

Will the extreme heat get worse?
The frequency and severity of extreme heatwaves are predicted to worsen due to the climate crisis. 2021 modelling projected that western Sydney and the Hawkesbury would experience an additional 10 to 20 days hotter than 35C annually by 2070.
In a study submitted for publication to the peer-reviewed journal Weather and Climate Extremes, Pfautsch’s analysis of western Sydney climate records between 2000 and 2020 suggests that in a worst-case scenario, western Sydney could have 160 days of temperatures exceeding 35C. “By 2060, you could have four months of consecutive day after day at or above 35C,” he says. “It’s just really scary. That’s only 35 years away.”
The analysis also showed that the likelihood of 40C days increased exponentially as the number of 35C days rose. “That’s why it’s so important we try everything in our arsenal to build cooler cities,” he says.
Is anything being done to adapt to the extreme heat?
The window of opportunity to take action to prevent extreme heat events has long passed, Pfautsch says. “It should have happened 20 years ago. Now all we can do to really keep people safe – because they die from heat – is to adapt.”
Increasing canopy cover from trees and good irrigation plays a role, Pignatta says, as does improving energy efficiency in buildings.
“More greening is not a ‘nice to have’ any more, it’s a must have,” Pfautsch says. “You can’t survive without it.”
Increasingly, councils and developers are also turning to climate-responsive urban design. Actions include intentionally creating shade using buildings, changing surfaces to lighter colours and more reflective materials, putting green roofs on high rise apartments, and orienting buildings and streets so they can be passively ventilated by wind.
“We see developers starting to take up the construction of [new suburbs] … where wind direction is taken into account to help blow the hot air out of these settlements as quickly as possible,” Pfautsch says.
In 2022, the Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils launched Cool Suburbs, an evidence-backed tool for design that takes heat resilience into account. It has already been used to assess planning projects in the City of Sydney and City of Blacktown, Pfautsch says.

As for the rest of the reptile rabble this day, the pond is inclined to pass ...

Petulant Peta had made her appearance by mingling in what's allegedly the news side of the page,  rabbiting on about China - an automatic pass - while the lizard Oz editorialist carried on about renewables and such like in the far right commentary section.

As for the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the pond would rather be reading The Conversation, Ceasefires are not a panacea. Here are 4 reasons to be concerned about the Israel-Hezbollah deal

Inter alia, Marika Sosnowski asked in her fourth reason:

4. What about Gaza?

Netanyahu has said the ceasefire will enable Israel to focus its efforts on Hamas fighters in Gaza and his top security concern, Iran.

Other officials have called the ceasefire “a game-changer” that would show Hamas that the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon were de–linked.

Hezbollah had previously insisted it would not agree to a ceasefire until the war in Gaza ended. This new deal presumes this condition has been dropped.

Some have suggested a ceasefire with Hezbollah may put additional pressure on Hamas to agree to a deal with Israel regarding the release of the remaining Israeli hostages it holds.

However, this overlooks the fact Hamas has been willing to make a ceasefire deal in the past, while the Israeli government has stymied negotiations by adding new terms at the last minute.

Further, Qatar was frustrated to such a degree by an “unwillingness to engage” and “lack of good faith” from both sides, it recently withdrew as a mediator between the parties.

The ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah should not take attention away from the fighting in Gaza, nor the horrific and dire humanitarian situation there.

It remains to be seen how the war in Gaza will play out. Will Israel move forward with a more formal occupation of parts of the enclave, as some have suggested? Or will the ceasefire with Hezbollah serve to isolate Hamas to the extent it feels it has even less to lose than it – and the Palestinians – already have?

Who knows? All the pond knows is that you won't find an answer in the lizard Oz. 

What you will find is a yearning and a hoping that Benji will escape his day in court ...

As for recent legislation, it's remarkable how limited the reptiles' attention span has become. How easily matters slip off the reptile radar, meaning the pond had to turn to the infallible Pope for a comment:

That lady justice statue thingie sure has a lot of work to do ...

Meanwhile, the pond was still wanting to live out its FAFO moments, and luckily the other day the corporeal Glenda Korporaal broke from the reptile ranks to offer Trump’s tariffs time bomb a destructive economic weapon, While there have been many attempts to calculate what tariffs on China would do to Australia, his announcement to also hit friendly nations Canada and Mexico is a sign of what is to come.

That's more like it, and the reptiles began with a FAFO image, New York Stock Exchange traders on Tuesday as news came through Donald Trump intends to put tariffs on Mexican and Canadian imports. Picture: Getty Images

Dear sweet long absent lord, the AI at work in what was once a proud graphics department is truly a gift from Santa ...

If only the reptiles had an immortal Rowe to hand ...

And so to Glenda's FAFO commentary, dedicated to the new tariff in town ...

Donald Trump’s latest threats posted on his social media network, Truth Social, to impose tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada are a stark reminder of the uncertainty ahead for the global economy as he retakes the White House next year.

While there have been many attempts to calculate what his threatened tariffs on China will mean for Australia, this week’s announcement about his plans to start his presidency hitting China with 10 per cent tariffs and friendly nations – Canada and Mexico – with 25 per cent tariffs on all imports is a sign that uncertainty will be the norm over the next four years.

The net effect – at least for the foreseeable future – will be lower growth as companies around the world defer big investment calls until they get more certainty.

While there are differing views about what Trump is threatening and what he will actually do, Goldman Sachs’ chief Australian economist Andrew Boak is warning that the impact of Trump’s threats and unpredictable behaviour will be negative for economic growth in Australia.

Oh dear, alarums and warnings and a thoroughly dated snap, Donald Trump with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the White House in 2017. Picture: AFP

There was simply no consoling Glenda or her advisors. Faux Noise and News Corp had had their FA moment, and now she was having her FO moment:

“There is a lot of uncertainty about Trump’s trade policy, let alone its actual impact,” he says.

He argues that the negative fallout for Australia will come less from any direct impact of the Trump tariffs – whatever they end up being – on trade and more from impact of global uncertainty.

Either way, the uncertainty of a Trump presidency, he argues, will provide a brake on Australia’s economic growth at a time when it is already weak.

Goldman Sachs is estimating that an average 20 per cent rise in US tariffs on imports from China, as well as tariffs on car imports from Mexico and Europe, would slice some 40 basis points off global economic growth.

When it comes to Australia, it halves the negative expectation, to some 20 basis points, on the belief that Chinese policy makers will seek to offset the impact of the tariffs on their local economy with stimulatory policies. But the impact will still be a headwind for the Australian economy.

“You are going to see businesses pull back on investment and employment against the backdrop of US and global trade policy,” Boak told The Australian.

The headwind to growth, he points out, comes at a time when the Australian economy is already very weak, expected to grow at only 1.8 per cent in 2025.

Australia has very little direct exposure to the Canadian and Mexican economies which means whatever tariffs Trump imposes on these countries will have limited direct impact here.

“But even if the tariffs (on Mexico and Canada) are not implemented, the uncertainty from these kinds of announcements is damaging to confidence and to growth and investment decisions,” Boak says.

The China that consternated petulant Peta this day scored a snap, or at least a mention, Beijing has responded to Donald Trump’s tariff pledge saying that “no one will win a trade war”. Picture: AFP

A container ship? That's the best the reptiles could offer to console the inconsolable Glenda, deep into FAFO?

“Overall, this reinforces our broader view that uncertainty around trade policy will mean a weaker global backdrop compounding the risks of already very weak domestic economic momentum,” he said.

It comes at a time when Australian GDP growth is already at a 32-year low excluding the impact of Covid lockdowns.

Boak says Goldman Sachs’ base case scenario of how the local economy will be affected by Trump’s tariffs has not been changed by recent announcements.

This is partly due to expectations that Trump’s threatened tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico are unlikely to be implemented in the form announced.

On the other side, expectations are now being baked into forecasts that actual tariffs imposed on goods from China will be higher than the 10 per cent announced this week – potentially up to 20 per cent – but unlikely to reach the threatened 60 per cent.

The other impact of the proposed tariffs being assessed is what it means for inflation.

Boak argues that while the tariffs could be inflationary, inflation is easing back with the real concern for Australia from Trump’s trade policies being the negative impact on economic growth, rather than inflation.

Other commentators have pointed out that while the Australian economy will be harmed by whatever tariffs the US puts on goods from China, the impact will be far less than it might have been a few years ago when China was far more exposed to US market for its exports.

Since the last Trump presidency, China has since diversified its trade away from the US towards other markets including the Southeast Asian region.

Boak argues that the weaker growth impact for Australia as a result of Trump’s actions will allow the Reserve Bank to cut interest rates faster than otherwise- possibly as early as next February.

That could be an unexpected bonus for Australia – but only because our economy will be weakened.

The director of the Australia China Relations Institute at Sydney’s UTS, James Laurenceson, takes a similar view on the uncertainty about what Trump will actually do.

“It’s not clear whether Trump is proposing that on day one, (whether) US tariffs on China will go from their current average level of 20 per cent to 30 per cent, or to 70 per cent from the 60 per cent that he’s previously mooted,” he told the Australian.

He argues that the threat of another “additional” 10 per cent tariff on US imports from China, of itself, won’t have much direct impact on the Australian economy.

But he argues that it will put pressure on Australia’s political relationship with the US.

He argues that it is in Australia’s national interests for Canberra to come out in opposition to Trump’s proposals, particularly when Trump’s threat to put 25 per cent tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico comes in retaliation for issues unrelated to trade, such as illegal migration and drug trafficking.

“How Trump will react to that is anyone’s guess,” he argues. “But what will be inevitable is that the gap between Canberra and Washington on economic, foreign, and strategic policy, which Foreign Minister Wong and Treasurer Chalmers tell us are increasingly inseparable, will grow.”

Offsetting those concerns is the fact that US sharemarkets have taken off on the news of the Trump election given his deregulatory approach and his “drill, baby drill”, “let her rip” approach to energy and the broader economy.

While that has been good for investors in the short term, the concern is that the implications of Trump’s aggressive and unpredictable behaviour could start to take the shine off the rally as his actions affect business decisions which flow onto Australia as a trade exposed country.

For Australia, which is largely a price taker in the global trade and business world, it will mean continued uncertainty, watching for the fallout from Trump’s policies on our economy with political and business leaders having to navigate their way through a difficult and less unpredictable world.

The pond had only one minor, petulant quibble. 

Navigate their way through a less unpredictable world?

Surely the FAFO suffering Glenda meant to scribble 'navigate their way through a horrendous, much more unpredictable world' ... or perhaps she was confused in her yearning to be able to navigate her way through a predictable world ...

Whatever, it's enough to celebrate the word of the year ...

Take a bow Cory ... though please remember to thank Faux Noise and News Corp for helping making it so ...

Apropos of all that, Glenn Dyer and Bernard Keane in Crikey offered Trump’s tariffs promise chaos — and Australia’s investments are in the firing line, Australia's Future Fund has more than 40% of its assets invested in the US economy, which means the damage Trump inflicts hurts us too. (paywall)

Too bad if you’re a US company, like an automobile manufacturer, reliant on imports from Mexico. Donald Trump just promised to impose a 25% tax on your supply chain, along with everything else imported from Mexico. And Canada. The fact Trump himself negotiated and signed a free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement in 2020, is apparently irrelevant. And he’s announced a 10% “just for starters” tariff on Chinese imports.

In response — even though Trump won’t be inaugurated for another two months — sharemarkets fell, but the US dollar rose (sending the Australian dollar falling further). The greenback had already risen against major currencies after Trump’s victory on November 5, and will likely appreciate every time the president-elect announces new tariffs — until markets price in the full effect of the tariff wall Trump has promised to erect around America.

Each appreciation of the dollar will further erode the competitiveness of US exports and improve the competitiveness of imports against American products — undermining the very point of Trump’s taxes. Given how little grasp he appears to have about who bears the costs of tariffs, Trump will possibly react by simply increasing tariffs further.

Along with his promise to deport every undocumented worker in the country, inflicting serious labour shortages on industries like construction and agriculture that depend on illegal immigrants for much of their workforce, and his threats to curtail the independence of the Federal Reserve, the tariffs will make for extremely uncertain times for US business — and investors in the US.

Prominent among such investors is Australia’s Future Fund. Page 61 of the Fund’s 2023-24 annual report reveals that 43% of its $229.7 billion in assets are located in America via a heavy US weighting of listed and private equity, property, infrastructure and credit. That compares to just 27% of its assets invested in Australia, and is up from 39% in 2022-23.

And so on and so FAFO forth ...

Meanwhile, for anyone still on what's left of Twitter, there was a fine WaPo story, ‘Soros of the right’ Elon Musk eyes progressive prosecutors as next target, The billionaire told advisors ahead of the election that his pro-Trump super PAC should aim at “Soros DAs” across the country. (Paywall)

Donald Trump adviser Brooke Rollins had a question for the crowd celebrating his election at his Mar-a-Lago estate earlier this month. “Where is the George Soros of the right?” she called from the stage, referring to the billionaire investor and prolific liberal donor.

To loud cheers, a younger billionaire in the audience threw his right hand into the air: Elon Musk.

Musk is being likened to Soros in Republican circles — and embracing the comparison — after he plowed more than $118 million into his pro-Trump super PAC to support the former president’s campaign. He is also planning to use Soros’s past donations as a road map to guide his own political targets.

The tech mogul told advisers shortly before the election that America PAC should challenge “Soros DAs,” referring to a cohort of progressive district attorneys across the country who received support from Soros and affiliated organizations, according to two people familiar with Musk’s plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

Musk believes that prosecutors linked to Soros are too lenient on crime and directly responsible for theft and other quality-of-life issues in cities across the country, the people said. Many DAs linked to the liberal donor campaigned on platforms of criminal justice reform and were elected in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.

The pond can remember when the merest mention of Soros would send the GOP into abject hysteria, but now? 

Musk is being likened to Soros in Republican circles — and embracing the comparison.

Meanwhile, over at the NY Times, China Has a New Playbook to Counter Trump: ‘Supply Chain Warfare’ A series of swipes at American companies show how China could take the initiative in a new trade war, using its economic dominance to exact pain. (Paywall)

In the world of cheap drones, Skydio was the great American hope. Its autonomous flying machines gave the U.S. defense and police agencies an alternative to Chinese manufacturers, free from the security concerns tied to dependence on Chinese supply chains.

But Skydio’s vulnerabilities came into sharp focus days before the U.S. presidential election, when the Chinese authorities imposed sanctions and severed the company’s access to essential battery supplies.

Overnight, the San Mateo, Calif.-based Skydio, the largest American maker of drones, scrambled to find new suppliers. The move slowed Skydio’s deliveries to its customers, which include the U.S. military.

“This is an attack on Skydio, but it’s also an attack on you,” Adam Bry, the chief executive, told customers.

Behind the move was a message from China’s leaders to Donald J. Trump, who would go on to win the election with a promise of new China sanctions and tariffs: Hit us and we’ll strike back harder.

From the campaign trail to his cabinet appointments, Mr. Trump has made it clear that he believes a confrontation with China over trade and technology is inevitable. In the first Trump administration, the Chinese government took mostly symbolic and equivalent measures after U.S. tariffs and trade restrictions. This time, China is poised to escalate its responses, experts say, and could aim aggressive and targeted countermeasures at American companies.

“During Trade War 1.0, Beijing was fairly careful to meet the tariffs that the U.S. put in place,” said Jude Blanchette, a China scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Now they are signaling their tolerance for accepting and dishing out pain,” he said. “It’s clear for political reasons that Beijing is not willing to stand by and watch as significant new waves of tariffs come in.”

China has had time to prepare. During Mr. Trump’s first term, officials in Beijing began drafting laws that mirror U.S. tactics, allowing them to create blacklists and impose sanctions on American companies, cutting them off from critical resources. The goal has been to use China’s status as the world’s factory floor to exact punishment.

Since 2019, China has created an “unreliable entity list” to penalize companies that undermine national interests, introduced rules to punish firms that comply with U.S. restrictions on Chinese entities and expanded its export-control laws. The broader reach of these laws enables Beijing to potentially choke global access to critical materials like rare earths and lithium — essential components in everything from smartphones to electric vehicles.

The new tools are part of what one Communist Party publication described as an effort to “provide legal support for countering hegemonism and power politics and safeguarding the interests of the country and the people.”

And so on ... but luckily mugs have been made available for mugs in search of consolation ...

Please accept the pond's concepts of condolences in these troubled times ... 

And tomorrow the pond will do better in its herpetology studies, with the hole in the bucket man certain to entertain. All can gather at his table for some amiable dining ...