In which the pond needs help identifying complacent centrists, because they sure ain't in a serve of Dame Slap's bigotry and bile ...

 

Sad, really, that news of a ceasefire and arguing over the credit should push way down the page a classic reptile story about bosses baulking at Dutton's January 26 election vow. 

According to the reptiles, some large businesses will allow staff to work the national day, and take another day off, as flexibility around public holidays takes hold... which verges on treason.

No doubt those treasonous bosses will surface again as we march towards the war on Oz day.

Regarding credit for the Gaza truce, the pond doesn't mind who wants the photo op ...

As for the extreme far right of the rag, Dame Slap strutted forth, back as bold as brass, top of the reptile world, ma ...

What tiresome contributions to the recitations of the reptile follies.

Being extremely perverse, in the pond way, the pond wanted to wind back time to yesterday, when Daniel Finkelstein flew in from The Times to explain Uncle Leon, in Complacent centrists are to blame for Musk, Tech billionaire’s bromance with Trump is a response to the inability of established parties to reform failing institutions.

Foolish pond, it had always thought of Uncle Leon as being welcomed into King Donald I's court to fund his campaign, but apparently complacent centrists conspired to produce that result ...

Still, the pond had complained of the reptiles failing to pay attention to the circus, that epic carnival of clowns, and however feeble, this was a start, especially as it was blessed with a splendid opening collage, Musk's political observations seem sometimes to come from another planet and it is probably not a coincidence that one of the things that drives him is the prospect of living on Mars.

Now to go on the hunt for those complacent centrists ...

“Musk went through periods when he oscillated between depression, stupor, giddiness and manic energy. He would fall into foul moods that led to almost catatonic trances and depressive paralysis. Then, as if a switch flipped, he would become giddy and replay old Monty Python skits of silly walks and wacky debates, breaking into his stuttering laugh.”
Walter Isaacson’s portrait of Elon Musk in last year’s biography is of a man living on the edge of (and sometimes over the edge of) insanity. A troubled man driven to extremes, who never takes a holiday, couch surfing or sleeping under his desk. And expecting others to do the same.

Handily the reptiles gave a plug for the book, Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson.

Still no sign of complacent centrists, but the pond hung in ...

He is someone quick to deploy to his employees the insults his father once hurled at him, calling them idiots and berating them before firing them. Someone it is almost impossible to say no to, even when what he is asking for is impossible. So people stop telling him things that he needs to hear. This doesn’t sound like the perfect collaborator for a president who employs the slogan “Trump was right about everything”, sometimes in capital letters, echoing the posters in fascist Italy that insisted “Mussolini is always right”.
Donald Trump, too, is given to abruptly terminating professional relationships and then abusing those who once worked for him. Like Musk, he falls in love but his most enduring love affair is with himself. Musk, by contrast, seems like someone who would quite like to split up even with himself if that were physically possible.
So the prospects for a lasting Musk-Trump political partnership do not seem great, even if one assesses it only by observing their personalities and working styles. But I think the prospects are grimmer than that, for reasons that are politically interesting.
As well as being manic and difficult and offensive and spectacularly ignorant about British politics, Musk is something else: brilliant. Visionary, in fact. His professional achievements have been truly impressive and real advances for humanity - commercial reusable rockets, financially viable electric car production, a revolution in satellite provision - have come from him sleeping under his desk.

Ah, it's actually about the Poms, as if they mattered ... and then came a snap, Elon Musk speaks with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump at a viewing of the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket on November 19, 2024. Picture: Brandon Bell/Getty Images/AFP

But what of the complacent centrists? They seem to be missing so far. Could these be they?

Just asking for a Finkelstein.

Silly pond, of course not ... let the hunt for the complacent centrists continue ...

His political observations seem sometimes to come from another planet and it is probably not a coincidence that one of the things that drives him is the prospect of living on Mars. But he doesn’t merely dream about this, he is working on it and making progress. When he fires people it is not, as it almost always is with Trump, merely about his ego. He does it because he refuses to let his projects fail, since he (with reason) regards them as essential for the survival of human consciousness.
As Isaacson reports: “[Musk had] a life vision that he would repeat like a mantra. ‘I thought about the things that will truly affect humanity,’ he says. ‘I came up with three: the internet, sustainable energy and space travel.’” In pursuit of this vision he relentlessly battles obstacles. He spends hour after hour, day upon day, on the assembly line of his projects, working to speed up processes, getting across the detail, quizzing the people directly responsible. His approach to any step in production that isn’t strictly necessary is always “delete, delete, delete”. Rules are always to be questioned, with the only limits to questioning being the laws of physics.
All three parts of the Musk method are distant from that of Trump. First, Musk’s obsessions are not Trump’s. The Tesla founder wants to save this planet and establish a base on another planet as back-up. Meanwhile, Trump was pulling out of the Paris accord on climate change, a move that prompted Musk to resign from the presidential councils during the last Republican administration.
Second, Musk’s obsession with detail and process is, to say the least, not shared by a president-elect with little interest in detail of any kind. Musk’s sale of all his properties so he could live a simple life in a small house near his production facility could not be more alien to Trump’s style and preoccupations. Musk wants brilliant people - even if they are immigrants, as he is himself. Immigration, like climate change, divides him from the Trump base.
Thirdly, Musk’s impatience with all limitations except those imposed by the laws of physics is not shared by Trump. Because Trump doesn’t make an exception for the laws of physics. He prefers his own reality.
So yes, there are things both men can do for each other, that is for sure. And they are both transactional. But I nonetheless believe their relationship to be doomed. In rather the same way, and for similar reasons, that the relationship between Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson was doomed.

Talk about taking a winding road down an eye test to complete irrelevance, Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings in 2016. Picture: Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP

We started off looking for complacent centrists, and somehow we ended up with Bojo the clown and onetime sidekick Dominic? Ah, that allows Finkelstein to strut in to the Finkelstein tale:

I remember meeting Cummings while he was still in No 10 and he explained, compellingly, what he thought was wrong with the way Britain was governed: our inefficient processes, our hopeless procurement, our poor hiring and management of public servants and the layers of rules and bureaucracy that prevented effective provision of services. I told him I found this all pretty persuasive and a project for government - but why did he think the charismatic, creative but cheerfully chaotic Johnson was the right leader of it? Cummings smiled ruefully. He was out within months.
The projects of the right-wing populists like Nigel Farage and Trump and the techno geeks like Musk and Cummings are not the same. They will not produce durable alliances. This is not only because they have a tendency to think others are fools, although that doesn’t help.

Um, surely there's a slight difference between Uncle Leon and Dominic, if only in terms of billions? 

Never mind, it's all our fault, nothing to do with the assorted billionaires and fellow travelling flakes who have flocked to sundry altars to worship, protect their billions, and make more billions, People like Farage and Trump are the beneficiaries of our failure. Picture: Carl Court/Getty Images

Would it be fair to suggest that people like Farage and Trump are the beneficiaries of the largesse of the Emeritus Chairman and his favoured spawn?

Sorry, they're the beneficiaries of our failures.

Or perhaps it's just that the Murdochians are yesterday's lickspittle fellow travellers, and are feeling at a loss at being out of the limelight.

Perhaps that's why it turns out that it's all Daniel's fault ...

Cummings posits a start-up party to be run by the brightest people who operate at technologies’ cutting edge. Yet his political appeal has always been to people who left full-time education when they finished school. Those who ran this start-up party would have entirely different sensibilities and attitudes to those who voted for it. I don’t see how this can possibly work.
At least part of this is my fault. Or people like me. The reason why people like Musk pair with Trump and people like Cummings pair with Johnson is because Trump and Johnson are disrupters. Their alliance with these unsuitable partners is a cry for help. It is a protest against a centre that has been too complacent and institutions that are falling short. People like Farage and Trump are the beneficiaries of our failure.
A really brave approach to government and public service provision is required, an ambitious determination to stay up at night, going machine by machine down the government assembly line, saying “delete, delete, delete” to every rule that isn’t necessary and to every obstacle to getting the job done.
We need to sleep under our desks until we get it right.
The Times

Sleep under the desk? Get Faux Noise and the Oz and UK and US tabloid trash right?

Nah, the pond will stay sleeping in bed, knowing that Daniel and his ilk are completely clueless, useful idiots working for the man ... 

King Donald I didn't manage those skating skills without a lot of help from his Faux Noise chums ...

And so to the usual serve of bigotry and bile from Dame Slap, with the reptiles promising it will take some five dreary minutes to plough through Blowback on DEI as the world finds its voice, Like a rock band that’s gone off the rails, the entire DEI team is being disbanded. Those who value fairness will be celebrating.

The piece opened with a prime example of just how wretched the lizard Oz graphics department has become ... It shouldn’t take a High Court ruling or a Trump-like figure in Australia for companies in our own country to choose fairness over a misguided policy that is anything but fair, writes Janet Albrechtsen.

Really? That's the best the reptiles can do these days? Cheap arsed graphics that litter the interube

The pond is beyond tired at grizzling at the graphics department, and as for Dame Slap, such is the ennui, there's no grizzle left, but plenty of indigestible gristle ...

If 2025 is not the year when Australian companies come to their senses, put that down to a new class of rent-seekers on company boards and in management.
When it comes to deceptively named diversity, equity and inclusion policies, the people responsible for running our big companies have put their heads in the sand. If they read the tea leaves – or even consulted a safe space for progressives such as The Guardian – they’d realise that it’s high time they chose common sense and fairness over fads and ­ideology.
Earlier this month, Facebook’s parent company announced that it is rolling back its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. AXIOS broke the news of an internal Meta memo that announced to staff the termination of DEI programs in the company’s hiring, ­develop­ment and procurement practices.
“The legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing,” wrote Janelle Gale, vice-president of human ­resources.
“The Supreme Court of the United States has recently made decisions signalling a shift in how courts will approach DEI. It reaffirms longstanding principles that discrimination should not be tolerated on the basis of inherent characteristics. The term ‘DEI’ has also become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others,” Gale wrote.

Great, the reptiles can return to bashing difficult, tricky, uppity blacks and other minorities. And don't get Dame Slap or the rest of the howling mob started on trans folk...

Oh wait, they never really stopped ...and now it's time for an AV distraction and a little cross promotion.

Sky News host Liz Storer slams Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg after he appeared on the Joe Rogan podcast and praised masculinity while shutting down global DEI operations. “Who is falling for this? We all know it’s the Trump effect,” Ms Storer said. “The winds are changing, and now he wants to be in the cool club.”

The cool club? King Donald I and a UFC boofhead are the cool club? Surely Zuck the incredible cuck suck just wants to protect his billions, make more, and stay out of clink, where King Donald once threatened to send him ...

And if Liz Storer is aspiring to be a member of the cool club, count the pond out.

Better to bung on a ball for the monarch, like a fawning cuck of the Zuck kind would do for an epic suck ...

Back to the bashing of minorities ...

Announcing the end to DEI, Gale said that “having goals [for race or gender] can create the impression that decisions are being made based on race or gender”.
You don’t say. Gale told employees that diversity stipulations for suppliers have ended too, along with equity and inclusion training programs. Indeed, like a rock band that’s gone off the rails, the entire DEI team is being disbanded.
Those who value fairness will be celebrating. Meta’s decision to mothball DEI signals a strong trend towards sanity among other big American companies; McDonald’s and Walmart are also rolling back diversity initiatives. Indeed, every week in America another company or university is ditching the DEI fad that has served only to undermine sound and fair employment and education practices.
To be sure, the US Supreme Court decision last year in Students for Fair Admission v Harvard helped American companies see the light, ending employment policies that preferred gender, skin colour and other traits over merit. Donald Trump’s election in November punched a few more nails into the coffin of this misguided progressive shibboleth.
It shouldn’t take a High Court ruling or a Trump-like figure in Australia for companies in our own country to choose fairness over a misguided policy that is anything but fair.
Alas, the single biggest impediment to sanity and fairness in Australian corporate life is a new class of rent-seekers. Those companies with the most iniquitous DEI policies – whether formal or informal – have boards full of DEI beneficiaries whose main recommendation is possession of one or more DEI characteristics.
Just as turkeys never vote for an early Christmas, let alone one at all, a woman who owes her elevation to a quota in favour of XX chromosomes will not be likely to support an end to quotas and other DEI paraphernalia. It might put their own position, and future ones, at risk if the whole DEI shebang is unravelled.
Fuelled by a mushy-minded ­affection for identity politics, Australian corporates have mandated a class of professional directors, frequently with mediocre to non-existent business careers, who filled, and then reinforced, DEI categories. The old-style ex-CEO types who used to populate company boards were derided as male, pale and stale relics of a past age. Competence, experience and strategic knowledge became ever so passé. Proxy advisers, union-dominated industry super fund investors and professional service firms who grow rich on ever increasing regulatory burdens all conspired to force the new DEI religion on Australian corporates.

Classic Dame Slap ... those who value fairness, fuelled by a mushy-minded affection for identity politics ...

And so on, and in Dame Slap's world, gays would still be in their closets, and uppity blacks would be back in the missions, and it's time for another AV distraction ...

Sky News host Liz Storer discusses McDonald’s Australia retaining it’s DEI pledges, despite the US headquarters announcing it will roll back diversity initiatives. “We’re usually behind them in these moves,” Ms Storer said. “Australia is just going to take a few years to catch up. “Also, we’re just lacking the strong leadership here.”

By golly, Liz Storer must be some sort of rising star of bigotry and bile in the Murdochian stable ...

And poor old Daniel Finkelstein wondered who emboldened the likes of Uncle Leon and King Donald I ...

Dame Slap just loves the hate, the bigotry, the fear and loathing, the chance to insult anyone and everyone, should they somehow offend ...

So it was on with the insults in a last, interminable gobbet ...

The ASX Corporate Governance Council, stuffed to the rafters with these DEI zealots, have ensured that the ASX’s Corporate Governance Guidelines are only a tad shorter than the Tax Act, and far less sensible. OK, I exaggerate the length and complexity of the ASX guidelines, but it’s clear these new “guidelines” where companies risk being shamed for not complying has enriched this new class of DEI devotees.
And with what results? Corporate Australia is regarded as a rather feeble joke by voters, and by both sides of politics. For example, voters were assisted mightily to understand that the voice was a terrible idea when corporate Australia outed itself as a vociferous, and bullying, supporter of the proposal to insert a permanent race-based body into our Constitution. Another example: the ALP pulled the ultimate swiftie on the gullible dopes running big Australian companies when it promised industrial relations moderation and instead delivered a trade union nirvana. Meanwhile, big business abandoned any financial or other support for the Coalition and treated its supporters as unenlightened troglodytes.
Is it any wonder corporate Australia is completely and utterly friendless. Apart, of course, from their fairweather friends in the big four accounting firms, the ASX Corporate Governance Council and the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
The return-to-sanity revolution happening in the US right now can’t get to Australia soon enough. 

Oh yes, it's an epic return to sanity ...

Do finish off, please finish off quickly ... there are so many people waiting to be insulted, derided, downgraded and tossed on the scrap heap, so that the rich, the strong, the privileged and their fellow travellers can prevail ...

The ASX Corporate Governance Council has ensured that no entrepreneur in his or her right mind, or with any alternative, would list on the Australian stock exchange. If you can raise money from private capital, why submit yourself to the accumulated regulatory excesses of the ASX? That’s why private markets are rapidly supplanting the public markets. Entrepreneurs are voting with their feet.
Another culprit in the process of entrenching DEI is the AICD. This body needs a complete overhaul. Rejigging its leadership team isn’t enough. Enlightened directors who choose fairness over fads will need a new body to help reinstate these values inside companies.
While an overhaul is enough at the AICD and the ASX Corporate Governance Council, dismantling DEI’s reign of terror will require the complete abolition of its key instrumentalities of division. For example, two entities that simply need to be permanently consigned to history are the Orwellian Workplace Gender Equality Agency and the separatist Reconciliation Australia.
The WGEA is an ambitious ­bureaucracy dedicated to a proposition that neither it nor anyone else has ever proved: that the fact men in aggregate are paid more than women in aggregate stems from inequality rather than deliberate choices. Its claim there is a gender pay gap ignores the fact that it is and has been illegal for nearly 50 years to pay a woman less than a man for the same job because she is a woman. It invents a bogus pay gap by using aggregate figures applicable in a workplace and ignoring pay comparisons on a like-for-like basis. It deliberately offers no clear definition of “gender equality” because that subterfuge enables it to continue to claim women need a leg-up permanently. It wants “gender equity” to remain an ever-receding mirage to entrench its existence and its ability to demand ever larger concessions for its constituents.
Reconciliation Australia is another example of good intentions paving the road to DEI hell. It pursues an agenda of separatism and Indigenous sovereignty under the guise of reconciliation. It wants two Australias, not a single reconciled Australia. Reconciliation action plans foisted on corporate Australia are Trojan horses for division and race-based preferences. Australians have shown that while they

Division? The entire reptile model is based on division, hate, bigotry and bile, and Dame Slap is an expert practitioner of the art of the hurled insult... as you'd expect of a privileged blonde, unassailable in her Murdochian ivory tower, living above the magic faraway tree on planet Janet ...

There's really not that much distance between her intolerance and the intolerance of the Taliban or the intolerance of the foaming, frothing fundamentalist Xians that litter the US and the GOP, or the intolerance of the sociopathic Vlad the Impaler, who provides an end note thanks to the immortal Rowe ...