In which there's Carl Barks, The Hate Monger, aka the Permatanned Pillock, a dinkum Groaning, and several cartoons...plus bonus climate science denialism dressed as energy waffle ...

The pond is more of a Carl Barks comics person than a Marvel one - from square eggs found in the Andes to mad scientists and being turned back to sand in ancient Persia, Barks held the pond in thrall. 

Thanks to the full to overflowing intertubes, the pond has cbrs of most of the the golden years (click to enlarge):

Superhero twaddle not so much. In fact, that youthful attitude lives on and the pond hates most Marvel movies, and it's pleasing to note that the Marvel and the DC franchises are on a downward spiral (but the pond will confess to a sneaking regard for Colin Farrell as the Penguin).

As a result of this cultivated ignorance, the pond wasn't sure if Stewart Lee was pulling the pond's leg in his column for The Observer, If I were Captain America, I’d quit:

...Since the second world war, America’s most powerful tool has been the soft global diplomacy of its irresistible, and broadly liberal, popular culture – rock’n’ roll, cinema, and latterly the comic-book characters that are now the tentpoles of the international entertainment industry. But how do those American icons make sense in a Trumpian world, where the star-spangled iconography that informs their costumes is now redolent of fascism and climate denialism rather than freedom and the future? Nobody would want their child to be saved from a burning building by Swastika-Chest Man and his kid sidekick Drill Baby.
Because working-class Jewish autodidact visionaries, producing the pop art primers of tomorrow on a pittance, drew Captain America punching out Hitler in the early 40s, and because formerly one-dimensional superheroes were made thrillingly two-dimensional by acid-fried college dropout creatives in the 60s and 70s, Marvel Comics, though their roots are obscured, remain broadly liberal, even almost countercultural. That’s how I reverse-engineer my infantilised pseudo-intellectual desire to keep reading them at the age of 56, anyway.
Indeed, in September 1963, Jack Kirby, the 12-cent William Blake of the Lower East Side, drew the Fantastic Four fighting the Hate-Monger, a villain whose superpowers were not the ability to control soil or infuriate moles, but the ability to whip up hate. “We must drive all the foreigners back where they came from. We must show no mercy to those we hate,” he cries, in his purple hood, as his followers agree – “Long live the Hate-Monger. He’ll clean up this country for us!” – and the Invisible Girl observes, helpfully: “He seems to have the crowd in a trance. They … they’re agreeing with his un-American sentiments.” Hang on! Was that Fantastic Four Issue 21, 61 years ago, or Sky News last week?

Surely it was a leg pull and yet a little hasty research pulled up these panels doing the meme rounds in nerd circles:

Maybe not too smart to break American laws, maybe just lucky to have Merrick Garland dilly dallying and twiddling his thumbs, and hopeless judges running blocks (yes, the pond has heard of blocking and knows how to crack a Jets joke).

The issue and the character have a wiki listing, featuring the cover, though The Hate Monger was soon given the axe - some villains do better in the real world. 

Spoiler alert - at the climax, the comic book's uncanny prophetic powers and ability to come to a JD Vance conclusion are in full bloom ("I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn't be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he's America's Hitler"):

Okay, that was a lengthy detour, but there is a reason, apart from the pond's renewed desire to avoid the reptiles. 

Tuesday is Dame Groan day at the lizard Oz, and devoted followers of the Dame know she has routinely hated on pesky, difficult furriners. So the pond was pleased to link the Dame to The Hate Monger, because she does a good line in hate and fear mongering herself.

Besides, a dinkum, long, fully hard Groaning must take precedence over the rest of the reptile rabble, out in force this day ... and the reptiles assured the pond it would only be a five minute read. What's not to like about five minutes bashing difficult, uppity furriners as a way to start the day? Look at the alternatives:

It's understandable that Kylie Moore-Gilbert should have a bee in her bonnet about Iran, but Iran isn't really where it's happening at the moment. The permatanned pillock (credit to Matt Johnson) has it all under control (WaPo paywall):

The wider picture at the lizard Oz wasn't any more enticing ...

So Dame Groan's groaning it is, with the header giving the first clue ... Migrant boom will end in bust for Labor come the election, The lessons of the US, Britain and several European countries is that uncontrolled migrant intakes become politically toxic over time. It’s not clear that the Albanese government will wake up in time to change tack before the next election.

In the usual cheap lizard Oz graphics department way, the bigotry kicked off with a wretched basic collage of two heads:

Tiresome, but perhaps not as tiresome as the Dame's groaning, which naturally included cross promotion for Sky (Au), which needs all the help it can get.

What was the role of illegal immigration in Donald Trump’s decisive victory in the US election? While this is clearly an interesting question, some may argue it has little relevance to Australia as most of our immigration is perfectly legal.
My response is that voters respond to migrant numbers and the rate of change, not just their legal status. To be sure, there is heightened concern when migrants arrive without visas – often with the assistance of shady people smugglers. But any uncontrolled surge in net migration will likely lead to a loss of support for an incumbent government.
In Britain, for instance, the ongoing small boat arrivals of migrants across the Channel damaged the Conservative government. But its seeming inability to control the number of legal migrants was almost as politically harmful, with the stated numerical targets continuously missed by large margins.
The impact on the availability and affordability of housing, pressures on government services, more congestion and the potential loss of social amenity and cohesion are some of the commonly perceived consequences of high migrant intakes.
The fact living standards here, as measured by per capita GDP growth, have been going backwards in the context of surging migrant numbers is another consideration. We know from repeated surveys in Australia that a clear majority of the population wants the migrant intake to be significantly lower. This has been the case for some time, including before the pandemic.

What with the revitalised power of white nationalists of the Stephen Miller kind, it's interesting that Dame Groan should so clearly put herself in the nativist camp.

Will Saletan in The Bulwark asked Just How Authoritarian Are Americans?, Surveys show that Trump’s supporters don’t just tolerate his autocratic tendencies. They positively like them. (Not that The Bulwark's writers should be complaining, they have a business model for the next four years or more).

Amongst many far right issues - the GOP just loves itself some authoritarianism these days - immigration was featured:

Among the major items on Trump’s agenda, the one that’s most familiar in authoritarian history is mass deportation. Here, the polls are ominous. Trump’s voters believe that immigration makes America worse. And for most of them, the anxiety isn’t just about crossing the border illegally. It’s about culture and race.
The August PRRI survey asked Americans to respond to two statements about immigration as an ethnic threat. One statement said, “Immigrants are invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background.” The other said, “The immigrants entering the country illegally today are poisoning the blood of our country.” More than a third of respondents, including more than 60 percent of Republicans, agreed with each statement.
In September, an NPR/PBS/Marist poll asked voters to choose between two statements. One said, “America’s openness to people from all over the world is essential to who we are as a nation.” The other said, “If America is too open to people from all over the world, we risk losing our identity as a nation.” Most voters chose the first statement, 57 to 41 percent. But Trump supporters slanted hard in the other direction, preferring the second statement by 71 to 28 percent.

Well yes, count Dame Groan in, but at this point the reptiles paused for a lengthy plug of Sky News (Au) content, with the caption: Sky News business report Ed Boyd says Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will be "pushing" President-elect Donald Trump for exemptions on steel and aluminium tariffs like the last time Mr Trump was president. "Republican candidate Donald Trump won the US Presidential election this week, gaining ground across most American states, including the blue ones," Mr Boyd said. "American voters saw Trump as a candidate for change, who's pledged to make big changes to immigration, global trade, and taxes. "Prime Minister Anthony Albanese spoke to Trump on Thursday morning, congratulating him on the victory and talking up the importance of the Australia-US relationship in security, trade and investment. "Last time Trump was in office, Australia was given an exemption on steel and aluminium tariffs.

What a sweet irony it would be if the permatanned pillock was pointing at Australia, but on with the groaning, essence of nativism (though the mango Mussolini, child of migration, managed to marry two migrants) ...

After the Covid-induced hiatus in migrant arrivals, however, the net overseas migration numbers have vastly surpassed those that were experienced in the first part of this century.
Net overseas migration, the difference between long-term arrivals and long-term departures, has been running at more than 500,000 on an annual basis. This compares with the natural increase in the population of about 100,000 a year.
While the Albanese government committed to reducing the NOM to 395,000 last financial year, it has now been conceded that the actual figure will overshoot this target by a large margin.
The failure of temporary migrants to leave as result of visa hopping as well as an increase in the number of migrants from New Zealand are put down as key explanators. The NOM target for this financial year is 260,000, but Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy has said this figure also will not be met. The point is sometimes made that Australia is a nation of immigrants and we should therefore simply celebrate their contribution.
Until the mid-1990s, the only migrants who were permitted to come, apart from visitors, were overwhelmingly permanent ones.
Their total numbers were restricted each year according to a specified program that included numbers for skill and family migrants. This all changed when temporary migrants were permitted to enter and to stay for the duration of their visas.
Several visa categories were established that included skilled temporary workers and international students. These have been adjusted and expanded across time. These visa categories are uncapped.

What a relief it is not to have to feature the desperate plugging of Sky News (Au), with Sharri (full disrespect) featured in the next audio video supplement, with the caption Sky News host Sharri Markson has hailed Donald Trump’s 2024 election victory as a “political comeback for the ages”. Donald Trump is set to become the 47th President of the United States. The former president is projected to secure well over 270 electoral votes as well as the popular vote. “The Democrats tried to make this election about identity and personality, but this result tonight is all about policy,” Ms Markson said. “It's about the economy, the cost of living crisis, the border and immigration crisis, crime, foreign policy, national security and leadership of the free world. “These are the issues that Trump fought his campaign on.”

Shouldn't that be Sky News host seig heiled the Donald and the arrival of the dragon?

The pond doesn't expect an answer, it was just a feeble way to segue to the immortal Rowe, and now back to Dame Groan, still bashing away ...

The explosion in the NOM is essentially a story of surging temporary migration with many of the arrivals seeking permanent residence in due course. And the largest category within the temporary migrants is international students. More than half of the NOM is due to international students. This is why the cabinet had no choice but to decide to restrict new international student numbers, notwithstanding the reluctance of several ministers.
It is not just international students themselves who have been contributing to the high NOM. Accompanying family members and partners of these students also have been adding to the number. It is estimated that there are 120,00 secondary student visa holders living in Australia. (Note that Britain has recently imposed a ban on accompanying family members of international students save for those undertaking doctorates and equivalent qualifications.)
Mind you, the government is dragging its feet on achieving anything in this space, with the required legislation giving effect to the new student caps still not passed. In the meantime, some education institutions have been actively ramping up their student intakes to avoid the downside of lower student numbers next year.
Ministerial Direction 107 is still in place, which restricts the granting of student visas from countries deemed to have high immigration risk, but this is having little impact on the Group of Eight universities, which mainly enrol students from China.
The University of Sydney and University of NSW have significantly increased enrolments this year, for instance. Nearly 50 per cent of all student enrolments at Sydney are international students – a percentage that is likely to alarm many ordinary voters.
The dominance of temporary migrants, as well as the ability of temporary migrants to extend their stay by switching visas, has had the effect of significantly swelling the total number of temporary migrants in the population. Close to two million temporary visa holders now reside in Australia. The number on temporary graduate visas has nearly doubled since 2022. There also has been a significant uptick in the number of student visa holders applying for humanitarian visas.
There is always the possibility that the ongoing presence of tempor­ary migrants plays an import­ant role in meeting skill shortages, with visa hopping a means of achieving good economic outcomes for migrants and the country.

The pond has noted before the enormous size of reptile pictorial interruptions, and this one, featuring Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer was startling:

Luckily that was the last of the snaps, and Dame Groan could have a clear run to the finish line, which naturally involved her sniffing toxic fumes (they say furriners smell a bit like chlorine if you've got the nose for it):

The e61 Institute has analysed visa hopping and its impact on the skilled immigration landscape. It has noted that the share of visa hoppers has increased very sharply – from about 2.5 per cent receiving a graduate visa in 2009 to 25 per cent in 2018.
Visa hoppers are typically low-skilled migrants. They earn less than local graduates and work in relatively low-skilled occupations. Visa hoppers generally come from low-income countries such as Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The conclusion is that any ban on visa hopping would not result in a loss of high-skilled workers.
The bottom line is that the Albanese government has shown little determination to control the flow of migrants coming to the country notwithstanding the obvious political risks of failing to do so. To be sure, it was always expected that migrant numbers would surge after the Covid border restrictions were lifted. But the government has been far too slow to implement sensible measures to restrict the flow of arrivals as well as hasten the departure of temporary migrants.
It is impossible to escape the conclusion that most senior members of the government are simply not committed to cutting the migrant intake. Indeed, some on the left are essentially in favour of open borders.
Be it the pressures from the self-interested educational institutions, from the business community or from ethnic groups, there is no determination on the part of the government even to reach its self-imposed targets. The Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, is also reluctant to oversee any reduction in GDP growth arising from population growth even though per capita GDP growth has been going backwards.
But the lessons of the US, Britain and several European countries is that uncontrolled migrant intakes become politically toxic over time, including with established migrants themselves.
It’s not clear that the Albanese government will wake up in time to change tack before the next election.

With nuking the country to save the planet a bit of a dud, Dame Groan has set out the Pauline Hanson way to the next election...

So to the infallible Pope of the day ...

The pond did wonder what that head shot of the permatanned pillock meant ...

So to a little light-headedness, just for relief and a happy ending ... with Zoe Williams in The Graudian proposing Billionaires like Elon Musk don’t just think they’re better than the rest of us – they hate us.

This is the bit that caught the pond's eye ...

...It turned out a lot of billionaires had a plan for that event where 50-99.99% of us all died. An awesome number of them had a private island, or were looking for one. The OpenAI chief Sam Altman and the PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel were gonna split to New Zealand and go halvsies on a bunker. The Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa was by no means the only “high net worth individual” trying to shoot himself into space, though he was the only one who went on YouTube to describe his exploratory trip, rumoured to have cost $80m (£62m), to the International Space Station.
“I did not get aroused whatsoever,” he said. “When you wake up in the morning, it’s quite normal for us men to have a happy manhood.” But in two weeks on the ISS, “not even once did my manhood greet me with energy”.
What they’re trying to escape is civilisation, the rule of law, other people. They’re trying to escape us
More predictably, and to make matters worse, the lack of gravity made his penis float upwards, causing a perspective disturbance that “made it look like a child’s … I didn’t feel confident about my manhood in space,” he concluded.
What’s it to you, whether or not a billionaire can get an erection in space? Childlike lack of self-reflection, again. Between that and the coming apocalypse, the bunkers, the private islands, the space exploration, the dreams of colonising the sea and living on it, and the land wars, I couldn’t help but notice that what they’re trying to escape is civilisation, the rule of law, other people – bluntly, us. They’re trying to escape us.

Shades of Dr. Strangelove and General 'Buck' Turgidson slapping his stomach... 

Finally, to end on a light hearted note, he pond's logarithms recently popped out  a George Carlin clip from his 1996 Back in Town show. In it Carlin asks for a little consistency on the matter of abortion. Not safe for Catholics, Christians or pro-lifers, but suitable for anyone who's reached the age of reason.

Sheesh, did anyone really think the pond would end the meeting without referencing climate science denialist Jennie George? There should be two reptiles, the number should be two, but the pond wanted to get in Carlin before George did her bog standard routine.

Only for hard core reptile devotees perhaps, but still ... it's only a three minute read, and you know the moment someone mentions "honesty" in the header, it's going to be a pack of lies, and so it came to pass:

Energy honesty is Labor’s only option as election looms, The government needs to be unequivocal about the 2035 targets, provide whole-of-system costings and make public the draft 2025-26 power price increases before the election, not after.

The reptiles started off with a snap of a devious miscreant, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen during Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra:

That got George's hectoring lecture off to a fine start:

Donald Trump’s election win will lead to speculation about our election timing, increasing the likelihood that ours will be held before Easter.
If so, we’ll need to be alert to the possibility of missing crucial information about the energy transition during the caretaker period. This includes decisions about the 2035 targets, the draft power price determination for 2025-26 due early March, and the budget on March 25.
Energy policy will again be a key issue, just as it was in the last election. Labor’s plan was to reduce emissions by boosting renewable energy, creating jobs and cutting power bills. The specific pledge to cut $275 from household power bills by 2025 was centre stage, repeated on 97 occasions, only to be the first of Labor’s broken promises. The effect has been pervasive, as continued price hikes have been in direct conflict with Labor’s promise.
Where once the nation had a comparative advantage with low energy costs, our power prices are now among the highest in the world. At a Senate hearing, the market operator, AEMO, made a startling concession that there’s no guarantee Labor’s transition will deliver cheaper power bills. Soon after, we learnt that an official report had airbrushed a warning about escalating power bill debts.

Never mind the planet, or stories such as Extreme weather cost $2tn globally over past decade, report finds. Instead pay attention to the Sky News (Au) cross promotion, tagged Former NSW Labor treasurer Michael Costa has described the Albanese government’s pledge for a $275 reduction in energy prices as a “complete con job”. AEMO Director Daniel Westerman has told a Senate Estimates hearing earlier today that there was no guarantee the government's renewable energy plans would lead to lower prices. “From the prime minister’s point of view, I don’t think he understands the industry anyhow and he was just repeating a slogan somebody gave him,” Mr Costa said. “But certainly, the energy minister ought to know better or else he is a complete ignoramus.”:

Two rats in the ranks, as the George raved on, taking a leaf out of the Caterist Broken Hill playbook:

Who could have imagined growing queues of people in energy poverty in a country blessed with resources that are the envy of the world? It’s often overseas entities who are the beneficiaries of the billions we’re spending to build and subsidise renewable projects and a new transmission and storage system.
The only relief from escalating energy bills has been in taxpayer-funded assistance.
With each broken promise trust diminishes. Social licence has fallen away in regional areas carrying the burden of the transition. A transformation of this magnitude inevitably throws up unexpected problems and challenges. But in the rush to meet the 2030 targets and secure renewable projects, planning for an orderly transition was the casualty.
The priority should have been replacing lost capacity with reliable and affordable baseload power, ensuring the lights stayed on and the grid was secure. This hasn’t happened, as witnessed recently with the calamity at Broken Hill.
The town was assured that in the event of an emergency it could run on renewables, supported by a grid-scale battery. However, when seven towers collapsed on the high-voltage transmission line, the backup system failed.
Two weeks of rolling blackouts followed. The Mayor summed it up: “The reality is it’s not consistent power. You don’t have that baseload power, so for Broken Hill it’s almost useless.”
It’s taken a group of retired engineers to draw public attention to the exorbitant costs and engineering constraints of floating offshore wind projects in the Hunter and Illawarra. One proposal for the Illawarra was based on 105 floating turbines, the size of the Centrepoint Tower, in ocean depths of 130-800 metres.
Huge public subsidies would be needed for these projects to be operational. Commercial realities probably explain why Equinor and Oceanex pulled out of the Illawarra, with no confirmation that BlueFloat Energy intends pursuing its earlier plans. There’s no independent advice that suggests Labor will meet its 2030 targets – the 43 per cent reduction in emissions, underpinned by 82 per cent renewables. From Senate estimates we know emissions actually increased by 0.4 per cent on Labor’s watch in the two years to June. Emissions are now 28 per cent below 2005 levels and renewables about 50 per cent short of target.

At this point came a snap of Chair of the Climate Change Authority Matt Kean.

All that did was remind George of the unfairness of life, what with her forced to scribble denialist muck for the lizard Oz, while a bloody Liberal strutted around, waving his hands about.

What would be the purpose of setting new targets for 2035? The government’s present intention is unclear, although the minister had promised the target would be “very clear to the Australian people well before the election”. He has sought formal advice about the target from the Climate Change Authority, whose newly appointed chair, Matt Kean, is a former NSW Liberal minister for energy.
The Authority previously suggested a 2035 target in the 65-75 per cent range.
This has been followed up by the chair telling an investors meeting the task of reducing emissions was “more urgent” after Trump’s win. Under the Paris Agreement, Australia is required to submit its updated Nationally Determined Contribution, including its 2035 emissions target, by the end of February.
This week Energy Minister Chris Bowen and Kean will attend the UN COP 29 gathering in Azerbaijan. The minister’s long-held wish might be realised if his lobbying secures support for Australia hosting the 2026 UN Climate Conference. The Albanese government will have failed to read the room in pursuing a “vanity project”, in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis.
Time’s up for the opposition to provide details about its energy policies and the costs of its proposals. For its part, the government needs to be unequivocal about the 2035 targets, provide whole-of-system costings and make public the draft 2025-26 power price increases before the election, not after. If not, Labor will be seen as paying lip service to the public’s right to know, and failing in its commitment to transparency and accountability.

There was a tag at the end, slightly amended by the pond: Jennie George is a stout-hearted energy expert, and a world famous climate scientist, and incidentally former ACTU president and Labor MP for Throsby.

And that really is the end, with a couple of Sheneman's to finish ...