Some reptiles say that some are saying ...

 

Of all the laziest forms of journalism, it's the "some are saying" routine that gets the pond the most.

Who are these "some"? How many of them are there? Where to they come from? Where do they go to, these lovelies? 

Some are saying those questions are often hard to answer.

The pond was triggered recently by this splash, Terrorist attacks and job cuts have left Germans feeling bitter, and Alice Weidel is set to benefit in an election some say could seal the fate of Europe.

Some say, some are happy to bray ...

Some people say that elections have consequences, per Politico, Germany’s Merz vows ‘independence’ from Trump’s America, warning NATO may soon be dead, Election winner likens the Trump administration to Putin’s Russia as he bids to take Europe in a new direction.

...Merz even went as far as to liken the Trump administration's recent tactics to those of Russia. He was especially critical of tech billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk for endorsing the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in the German election.
"I have absolutely no illusions about what is happening from America," Merz said during a televised debate on Sunday night. "Just look at the recent interventions in the German election campaign by Mr. Elon Musk — that is a unique event. The interventions from Washington were no less dramatic and drastic and ultimately outrageous than the interventions we have seen from Moscow. We are under such massive pressure from two sides that my absolute priority now really is to create unity in Europe."
Merz said he had some "residual" hope that the U.S. Congress and the White House would not completely cut Ukraine out of any peace negotiations, though he did not sound optimistic. "I am not sure what the American government's position on this war will be in the coming weeks and months. My impression over the last few days is that Russia and America are coming together here, over the heads of Ukraine and therefore also over the heads of Europe," he said.

To be fair to the reptiles of the lizard Oz, that  "some say" was in a Nine rag, but there's a lot of 'some saying' that goes down in the lizard Oz, some say with only a remote connection to the real world outside the hive mind.

Some say that this day's offerings are a good example ...

Peace by lunchtime? The pond wonders why it got out of bed ...

Some say that the pond regrets missing the Caterist yesterday ...

Burke’s citizenship blitz betrays a government in election panic, If Tony Burke has a late-onset passion for clearing backlogs, he and Mark Dreyfus might turn their minds to the 35,000 people appealing visa refusals at the Administrative Review Tribunal.

Some say wrong. 

Some say that the pond is full of sadness at missing the Major ...

Bad influences skew coverage of anti-Semitism, Journalists in Australia have been slow to cover the story of the rise of domestic anti-Semitism.

Some need to get a grip, with the Major ending with a big billy goat butt ...

...None of this means supporting Palestinian statehood or wanting an end to the deaths in Gaza are extreme positions. But local Muslims need to be aware of the ideological positions of some who claim to speak for them.
They might also reflect on why Jewish Australians have been successful migrants. They have made a life here that positively contributes to the country rather than playing out ancient animosities from other parts of the world.

The Major managed to miss in the entirety of his piece a most singular matter ...the rise of neo-Nazis ...

Some say .... keep the blinkers on Major .,,

The pond also didn't mind missing the bromancer handing out one of the most epic backhands in an alleged eulogy ... astonishing even for a fundamentalist far right Catholic ...

It came courtesy that Fisher of fools, as he dished out on the dying ...

...Fisher is not making criticisms of Francis, but he explains some of the different reactions to synodality, its strengths and weaknesses: “Some would say that that methodology brings greater unity, but not necessarily theological precision. It’s hard to get clarity if there’s no real debate. Some of his critics would say that both in synodality, and in his own teachings, there was ambiguity. You could sense where Francis wanted to lean, but he wasn’t always willing to say it.”

It was both the good fortune, and yet a particular burden, for Francis to assume the papacy in the wake of two authentic giants of Catholic history.

Fisher expands on this thought: “In some ways he suffered forever in the shadow of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. In a thousand years time people will look back and say that John Paul II was the greatest pope in a millennium, and Benedict will be recognised as a Father of the Church, one of the greatest teachers the Church has known.”

Say what? Fundamentalists rulez?

Every day the pond thanks the long absent lord it gave up Catholicism ...

And so to what's on the extreme far right this day ...

Say what? Some are saying Lord Downer has gone even more full MAGA?

The pond always had a deep-seated, abiding contempt for Lord Downer, but he seems determined to make it worse ...

Trump is right to call out Europe, and pivot to the Indo-Pacific, Just because Donald Trump’s language drives the European status quo mad doesn’t mean the end of the Western alliance. It’s about reassessing priorities and reallocating burden-sharing.

Inevitably the reptiles started with a snap of His Lordship's hero ... US President Donald Trump will be good for our security in the Indo-Pacific region, writes Alexander Downer. Picture: AFP

Then His Lordship could begin his simpering and fawning ...

The arrogant Chinese live-firing naval exercises in our immediate neighbourhood should remind us how critically important a strong, purposeful and energetic United States is to our own security.

Yet over the past decade or so, America and its allies have been perceived as weak. As a result, China, Russia and Iran have shown no fear of the West, exploited its hesitancy and its weakness, and created havoc in Ukraine, the Middle East and the South China Sea. Turning around that failure of Western policy is going to be a huge challenge.

So let’s take Ukraine. We need to admit it: the West ceded Crimea to Russia in 2014. By February 2022, Russia had seized about 10 per cent of Ukraine.

Some sanctions were imposed on Russia but Germany continued to import vast quantities of gas via Nord Stream 1 and continued building Nord Stream 2. In February of that year, Russia launched its all-out invasion of Ukraine. Three years later Russia controls about 17-18 per cent of Ukraine. Perhaps half a million people have been killed in that time.

For some reason, the reptiles decided to drag the dog botherer into His Lordship's defeatist muck ...

Sky News host Chris Kenny says the fight shown against Russia from the Ukrainian people and their leader Volodymyr Zelensky has been “extraordinary”. It is now three years to the day since Russia invaded Ukraine. “They have over time been heavily supported by European nations, the US importantly and Australia, but never boots on the ground for fear of expanding the war, and never enough to deliver victory,” Mr Kenny said. “US President Donald Trump's recent provocations, including criticism of Zelensky as a dictator, and praise for Russian leader Vladimir Putin has been deeply worrying.”

His Lordship would have none of it ...his way lay with the Cantaloupe Caligula ...

It’s laudable that the West – especially America – supplied arms to Ukraine but less laudable is the insufficient supply of weaponry to stop the invasion: the West feared that if it gave Ukraine what it needed to win back the Donbas and Crimea it would “escalate” the conflict.

That’s where we were when President Donald Trump arrived. He wanted to end the slaughter. He had two choices. Either launch a huge attack on Russian troops in Ukraine, driving them out of the country altogether, or negotiate a ceasefire with the Russians and leave the Ukrainians and the Europeans to negotiate a peace treaty.

America also has to deal with Iran and China. In the ceasefire talks in Saudi Arabia, I’ve heard but cannot verify, the Americans have linked the ceasefire to Russian agreement not to supply Iran with S400 anti-aircraft missile systems.

What about the Europeans? Well, Trump was apparently shown a map of Europe recently that identified which countries made the most energetic contribution to the defence of the continent.

Poland and the Baltic republics were identified, and no one else. Trump then asked how big was the GDP of Germany, Britain and France. When told these countries were, in order, the fourth-, fifth- and sixth-biggest economies in the world, Trump understandably wondered why the Europeans were so incapable of defending their own continent and why they were so dependent on America. After all, Germany’s GDP alone is more than double Russia’s.

His perspective is that America is in an existential tussle with China, that Russia is a relatively small threat by comparison, and rich Europe should easily be able to take the lead in handling Russia – with back-up from America.

The reptiles reminded the hive mind who His Lordship was helping out ...Russian President Vladimir Putin. Picture: AFP

His Lordship remained keen on converting the middle east to the Riviera, and cranking up the war with China ...

America should be fixing the Middle East and deterring Chinese aggression. Trump is right. In the 1950s and ’60s, when Europe was just recovering from the devastation of World War II and Germany was divided, America had to provide for Western Europe’s security.

But since the end of the Cold War and the creation of a more united Europe, Europe could have made a much bigger contribution to regional defence, not just depended on America.

Instead, European nations have been spending their wealth on an ever-growing welfare system and, more recently, on eye-wateringly expensive climate change policies.

Sorry, the pond should have also noted His Lordship's sublime dedication to maintaining the eye-wateringly expensive impact of climate change...

On with sane-washing the Cantaloupe Clown and pretending he's playing 4D chess ...

Trump is brutally telling the Europeans to lift their game and make a bigger contribution to their own security rather than being so dependent on American taxpayers’ goodwill. His language may be a little harsh but the messages make sense.

There’s another European issue that clearly annoys the Americans. That is the future of the huge British-owned but American-run base in the middle of the Indian Ocean called Diego Garcia. This is located on a chain of islands called the Chagos Islands. It is strategically critical as part of the American-led Western efforts to balance growing Chinese power and deter Chinese adventurism.

That is particularly important in the Indian Ocean. Diego Garcia gives the Americans massively enhanced capacity to project power into our Indo-Pacific region.

The Chagos Islands are part of the British Indian Ocean Territories. Their British sovereignty makes the base secure for the Americans. However, China-loving Mauritius – which is 2400km from the Chagos – has been running a long campaign to try to claim sovereignty over the islands for itself.

The reptiles inserted a snap, Keir Starmer. Picture: Getty Images

It didn't make His Lordship miss a beat in his devotion to the mango Mussolini ... and his desire to toss Ukraine under the bus so that we might heat up a war in which we could take part ...

It persuaded the United Nations General Assembly to refer the dispute to the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion. No surprises there. The court ruled in favour of Mauritius. After all, one of the judges in the case was a former director-general in the Chinese Foreign Ministry and another a former director-general in the Russian Foreign Ministry!

Still, this was just an advisory opinion and the British government has understandably decided not to take this advice. Security issues were at stake and they were far more important than just trying to placate the internal politics of Mauritius.

Then along comes the new Labour government in Britain and it has decided it wants to surrender sovereignty over the islands to Mauritius and lease back Diego Garcia.

The new British government is giving priority to appeasing Mauritius over the critically important geostrategic priority of balancing and deterring Chinese power.

The British claim that under the terms of the lease back from Mauritius they will be able to keep the base for 99 years. But Mauritius has a special relationship with China. Imagine if a war broke out between the US and China over, say, Taiwan. Under intense pressure from China, Mauritius would try to stop the Americans using Diego Garcia in a conflict of that kind.

The reptiles really did drag out the worst of the worst to accompany His Lordship, JD Vance. Picture: AFP

Featuring the couch-fucker signalled that even a kow-towing fawner and servile lickspittle must eventually bring proceedings to an end ...

So it’s little wonder Trump has started lashing out against the Europeans. They’re happy for American taxpayers and servicemen and women to underwrite European security but for all their wealth they are quick to condemn the Americans for Trump’s rather outlandish language, but their contribution to security is minimal.

Trump is giving priority to deterring China and will want to strengthen America’s alliances with Japan, South Korea and The Philippines. He will also want to make sure ANZUS is in good shape.

So just because Trump’s language drives the European status quo mad doesn’t mean the end of the Western alliance. It’s about reassessing priorities and reallocating burden-sharing. 

Oh yes, it's all good ...

His Lordship was incredibly optimistic ...

Trump will be good for our security in the Indo-Pacific region. And he might get the rich Europeans to think more about contributing to the defence of Europe rather than just depending on America.

Oh they're thinking all right, Your Lordship, and maybe you should start thinking about how fucked we might be down under if you want to keep on depending on the Cantaloupe Caligula ...

Astonishing to remember really ...

Alexander Downer was foreign minister from 1996 to 2007 and high commissioner to the UK from 2014 to 2018. He is chairman of British think tank Policy Exchange.

As for the Cantloupe Caligula being good for our security, put it another way ...

Meanwhile, Dame Groan was on hand to offer up her standard, one size fits all dose of renewables bashing ...

PM’s ‘green dream’ future is vanishing into thin air, If green energy is akin to a dead parrot, then Future Made in Australia is like Scott’s expedition to the South Pole. Badly planned, badly executed, a complete disaster.

Dame Groan seemed to be running out of steam by recycling her dead parrot routine ... and the snaps were equally dull ... Anthony Albanese at a press conference with Health Minister Mark Buttler on Monday. Picture: David Geraghty

Showing astonishing ingenuity, Dame Groan stepped outside the tent in search of a new metaphor ...

If green energy is akin to a dead parrot, then Future Made in Australia is like Scott’s expedition to the South Pole. Badly planned, badly executed, a complete disaster.

To be frank, it’s astonishing that the Albanese government thinks FMIA is a vote winner. The ads are being rolled out at a pace but, ironically, most of what is depicted is not actually made in Australia. Someone might want to tell the ad agency.

Once you get past the clear Trumpian tone about making things in Australia, are voters really keen to see a billion dollars of their money heading to Silicon Valley to support a highly speculative quantum computing project?

Ah the mango Mussolini ...

Put Dame Groan down as a yes ...

Do voters think it makes sense to direct hundreds of millions of dollars attempting to compete with Chinese manufacturers of solar panels? The details clearly matter.

But the real irony is this: At the same time as the government is promoting its FMIA agenda, several large manufacturing outfits are heading out the door or have flagged their intention to do so. Think here most of the oil refineries, the last substantial petrochemical plants producing polymers, a large glass manufacturer and others.

The reptiles flung in an AV distraction ...

Anthony Albanese has announced that Labor will commit $500 million dollars from the 'Future Made in Australia Innovation Fund' to domestic clean energy manufacturing. The Prime Minister made the announcement during a speech at the 2025 Whitlam Dinner in Wollongong. It's after Labor's proposed $2.4 billion dollar bailout of South Australia's Whyalla Steelworks.

The pond stifled a yawn as Dame Groan ploughed on, and never mind the already discernible and terrible impacts of climate change ... or the impacts yet to be felt, yet clearly to come ...

According to the government’s blurb, FMIA “is a plan by the Australian government to create new jobs and opportunities by maximising the economic and industrial benefits of moving towards net zero emissions. It aims to secure Australia’s place in a changing global economic and strategic landscape”.

In fact, FMIA is really a repackaging of several off-budget schemes that had been around for a while but were gaining no political traction. There is the National Reconstruction Fund ($15bn); Rewiring the Nation ($20bn); the Clean Energy Finance Corporation; the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility; and other pots of money floating about.

In other words, FMIA is effectively a reboot of several programs grouped together around a questionable theme. Let’s be clear here: it’s about government picking winners according to the government’s interpretation of the changing investment environment and the presumed unstoppable decarbonisation transition.

Bear in mind that countries responsible for over half of global greenhouse emissions have not committed to net zero 2050. The US has pulled out of the Paris climate agreement and the newly appointed Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, has declared “net zero 2050 is a sinister goal. It’s a terrible goal. It’s unachievable by any practical means. The aggressive pursuit of it has not delivered any benefits but it’s delivered tremendous costs”.

The Albanese government may wish to argue that what is happening in the US won’t alter Australia’s commitment to reducing emissions according to its 2030 targets or to net zero 2050. But what other advanced economies are sticking to their pre-announced climate targets and flourishing as well?

The German economy is now into its second year of recession and the output of its most energy-intensive factories fell by nearly 25 per cent last year. The country is rapidly deindustrialising, with some large operations relocating to other countries, including China.

It is worth noting here that German electrolyser manufacturer Thyssenkrupp Nucera reported a 95 per cent drop in new orders for its green hydrogen business year on year in the last quarter of 2024. So much for the bright future for green hydrogen that our Climate Change and Energy Minister, Chris Bowen, keeps talking about.

The UK economy is also floundering as its equally committed Energy Secretary, Ed Miliband, continues to try to place round pegs in square holes. The country came very close to running out of electricity recently but was saved by its interconnectors with Europe. At least the Labour government is giving the green light to investment in nuclear, both large- and small-scale.

The pond supposes the old biddy is right in a way. She's on the downward slope to a full write-off. It's vulgar youff that will have to suffer the consequences.

Oh there was another snap, Treasurer Jim Chalmers, Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Murray Watt and Aged Care and Sport Minister Anika Wells. Picture: John Gass

The pond was half-expecting a burst of nuking the country to save the planet, but it never came.

Instead it was just a routine "death to net zero" routine ...

It’s hard to provide a comprehensive assessment of FMIA at this stage, although it hasn’t started well. The massive grant given to a US-based quantum computing company was not subject to any competitive process and apart from a small number of jobs that could be created in Brisbane, it’s not clear what the net benefits will be. Certainly, there is the possibility that advances in quantum computing will generate significant economic gains down the track. But the preferred approach would have been to give smaller grants – say, $250m apiece – to different groups. In this way, the Australian taxpayer wouldn’t be putting all the money on a single number on the roulette wheel.

As for the solar manufacturing plant in the Hunter Valley, the less said the better. With the backing of two extremely wealthy individuals, it’s not clear why taxpayers were being asked to chip in. It’s highly unlikely that this project will succeed commercially, even if it succeeds technically.

In theory, projects under the FMIA agenda must meet the National Interest Framework as assessed by Treasury. (You would expect that Treasury would vehemently oppose a pick-the-winner scheme such as this, but times have evidently changed.) There are two streams: Net Zero Transformation and Economic Resilience and Security.

We are also being told “the government will apply Community Benefit Principles in relation to investments in priority industries. These principles will have a focus on investment in local communities, supply chains and skills, and the promotion of diverse workforces and secure jobs”.

A snap of a fiendish Satanist,  Chris Bowen. Picture: Jeremy Piper

.

.. and Dame Groan could complete her mission, a kind of Catch-22 pilot hoping to complete a tour of duty ...

If that sounds like a dog’s breakfast to you, you aren’t wrong. Too many objectives, too few instruments. But when any politically attractive project pops up, it will be relatively easy to comply with these loose criteria, which is no doubt the point. Recall here that this type of scheme has been criticised by the chair of the Productivity Commission, Danielle Wood, as potentially “creating a host of inefficient and uncompetitive firms forever reliant on subsidies”.
But the real tragedy lies in the rapid exodus of some of our largest manufacturing operations at the same time as the Albanese government is bragging about its new program. Rio Tinto, the largest shareholder of the large Tomago aluminium smelter in the Hunter Valley, is now foreshadowing its likely closure because renewable energy is not capable of providing cheap and reliable electricity on which the plant depends. The fate of the smelter in Gladstone, as well as of the alumina refinery, hangs in the balance, again dependent on securing cheap and reliable electricity.
The decision to hand over $2.4bn to secure the future of the Whyalla steelworks is also illustrative of the potential problems of signing blank cheques on behalf of taxpayers. The talk about installing an electric arc furnace may turn out to be idle – EAFs work well for recycling steel, less so for iron ore. A lot of money may be lost in the quest. In any event, without cheap and reliable energy – there’s that factor again – there won’t be any long-term future for the plant.
The issue now is whether FMIA will really be a vote winner. In contrast with Make America Great Again and its range of highly complementary measures – think cheap and reliable energy, low rates of company taxes, immediate expensing of the cost of investments, a thick capital market, tolerance of risk and failure – FMIA looks like a very pale imitation indeed. With many countries now de-emphasising net zero, the scheme is also looking out of date. It could easily end like Captain Scott’s quest to reach the South Pole – not well.

Could the pond politely re-phrase that closing line?

With Dame Groan de-emphasising net zero and indulging in relentless climate science denialism, the planet isn't looking happy. It could easily end like Captain Scott’s quest to reach the South Pole – not well. Fucked like a dead parrot unable to muster the strength to step outside the tent ...

And so to a celebration, Major Mitchell style, with the immortal Rowe ...