In which the pond has to revert to Mein Gott, before serving a gritty renewables-denying oyster and a Dame ... Groaning as usual ...

 

Tuesdays at the lizard Oz long ago turned into a struggle for the pond. 

Dame Groan routinely makes desiccated coconut seem ripe, lush and fully liquid, and the rest of the reptiles don't help ...

There's very little to get the pond excited in that lot, and over on the extreme far right of the hive mind it wasn't much better ...

That's why the pond headed back to yesterday arvo to retrieve the latest Mein Gott from the digital dustbin. 

Never mind the WSJ and its assault on King Donald's tariff wars, it's always fascinating to watch the thought processes of a quisling, falling into line with an elaborate flourish of the doffing cape ...

Australia’s bad behaviour threatens ANZUS, By not recognising the will of the US population and our ANZUS obligations, it is Australia that has become the recalcitrant country that is endangering the alliance. Here’s why we really need the ANZUS treaty.

That headline just about gets it right, a classic case of victim blaming and shaming: Australia’s bad behaviour ...

Dear sweet long absent lord, while a mad authoritarian sociopath runs amok in the USA?

As usual The Bulwark mob had more than a few furious words to say about that and the current state of play in We’re Well Past Alarm Bells, The Trump administration is mocking court orders, laying the groundwork for political retribution, and declaring open war on the rule of law, but the reptiles opened sedately with a snap, North Star BlueScope Steel is a steelmaking mini-mill located in Delta, Ohio.

Then it was on with Mein Gott's victim shaming ...

By not recognising the will of the US population and our ANZUS obligations, it is Australia that has become the recalcitrant country that is endangering the alliance and not the US.
We may not like US President Donald Trump and oppose tariffs, but the imposition of tariffs was approved by US voters and our defence in a hostile world is weak. We need the 1951 ANZUS treaty.
The failure of both Anthony Albanese and Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton to grasp the issues has now allowed the left of the ALP to attempt to drive a wedge into the US defence alliance at a crucial time.
To be viewed as the next Prime Minister, Dutton should be explaining to Australians what is happening in the US and how Australia must adapt.
At the moment, neither Albanese nor Dutton are listening to the tariff and defence messages from the US to Australia. Yet in the context of its situation, the US has not treated Australia badly. Indeed, it has actually set a framework for a much closer alliance.

Strange that Mein Gott keeps rabbiting about ANZUS yet never seems to mention AUKUS ...

The reptiles counterpunched with Anthony Albanese during Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire

Mein Gott kept lathering himself up into a frothing foam of sheep-like conformity, baaing out his quisling wisdom ...

The first Australian major party leader, (whether it be Dutton or Albanese) to wake up and respond to what is actually happening – instead by being sidetracked by sections of the media — and set appropriate policies should be Prime Minister after the next election.
In the 2024 Presidential election, the American population voted in favour of the clearly enunciated Trump plan to impose tariffs on a wide range of goods to enable the US to restore its badly run down industrial base. Other parts of the industrial base restoration would involve lower energy costs and tax incentives to invest.
We have been sidetracked by the US-China-Canada-Europe trade tangle, plus the slowdown in the US economy created by the great uncertainty among the government employees and illegal migrants likely to be deported. The slowdown is impacting Wall Street. The markets also recognise that Trump has too many balls in the air, including an inability to fight in the Middle East and Ukraine. Australia must look past these distractions to the longer term.
In this context, on Tuesday, I will take readers through the surprising detail in the new US approach to lower energy costs and reduce emissions – an integral part of the Trump pact with his voters.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio set out, in the clearest possible terms, that the restoration of the industrial base tariff strategies are completely separate from defence arrangements.
And so, when it came to aluminium, of course there would be a tariff. But then the Americans started looking more closely at Australia’s four aluminium smelters, which generate almost all their revenue from exports. Power is their biggest cost, and theoretically all should have been closed down because power costs in Australia have risen at a much higher rate than the CPI as a result of high-cost renewables.
But cleverly concealed but necessary power subsidies insulated our aluminium producers. The Americans now understand this, so Australia had no hope of avoiding the tariffs.
Meanwhile, Australia’s GDP is declining under the burden of higher power prices and if the iron ore/ gas markets become weak these subsidies may be unaffordable, particularly given the required big rises in defence expenditure.
Steel was more complex because the Australian company BlueScope has massive steel production capacity in the US and those exports integrated into the US business.
But making a fuss about it at this time was strategically stupid. Later it may be possible to do a deal given our unique situation with steel exports.

For some reason - perhaps the mindless hysteria in the text - the reptiles decided to repeat themselves visually with North Star BlueScope Steel is a steelmaking mini-mill located in Delta, Ohio.

Couldn't they have done something more interesting? Might not they have asked whether Mein Gott is in the grip of some kind of anti-DTS syndrome.

It is, of course, a scientific concept ...

Okay, okay, the pond only went Mein Gott for the chance to slip in a little comedy and how rich it was ... 

A bill for an act relating to mental health; modifying the definition of mental illness; adding a definition for Trump Derangement Syndrome; amending Minnesota Statutes 2024, sections 245.462, subdivision 20, by adding a subdivision; 245I.02, subdivision29, by adding a subdivision.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA:
Section 1.
Minnesota Statutes 2024, section 245.462, subdivision 20, is amended to read: Subd. 20. Mental illness.
(a) "Mental illness" means Trump Derangement Syndrome or an organic disorder of the brain or a clinically significant disorder of thought, mood, perception, orientation, memory, or behavior that is detailed in a diagnostic codes list published by the commissioner, and that seriously limits a person's capacity to function in
primary aspects of daily living such as personal relations, living arrangements, work, and recreation.
Sec. 2.
Minnesota Statutes 2024, section 245.462, is amended by adding a subdivision to read:
Subd. 28. Trump Derangement Syndrome.
"Trump Derangement Syndrome" means the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal persons that is in reaction to the policies and presidencies of President Donald J. Trump. Symptoms may include Trump-induced general hysteria, which produces an inability to distinguish between legitimate policy differences and signs of psychic pathology in President Donald J. Trump's behavior. This may be expressed by:
(1) verbal expressions of intense hostility toward President Donald J. Trump; and
(2) overt acts of aggression and violence against anyone supporting President Donald J. Trump or anything that symbolizes President Donald J. Trump.

Realising it was clinically insane, the pond relaxed and went with the Mein Gott flow:

Rather than worry about US tariffs we need to worry about our energy policies and how they make Australia uncompetitive.
And the imposition of tariffs on China and other countries means that there will be a surplus of steel and other products in the world.
We will need to make a decision whether we want a steel industry, and that of course will be linked to our energy policies.
When it comes to defence the US in some ways has enhanced the relationship because they have set out clear Australian obligations to defend ourselves under ANZUS.
We will be required to spend three per cent of our GDP in defence. Dangerously, our Prime Minister said Australia would determine its defence expenditure, and it wasn’t a matter for the US to decide. Accordingly, we plan to increase our expenditure from two to just 2.3 per cent over ten years. Given the clear clauses in the ANZUS treaty, it was perfectly reasonable for the US to put on the table what they believed Australia needed to spend to defend itself. The US recognises that we have set up our defence forward estimates in a way that the AUKUS submarine deal is sucking defence money from other areas, making us very vulnerable. So not only is the US entitled to put a three per cent figure on the table, but they were actually acting in our own interests.
Meanwhile, if we are going to maintain our standard of living, we are going to need to sell ourselves to America and the world as a reliable source of minerals.
In the case of the US, we are in a position to provide them terbium and other heavy rare earths, and potentially we will be much more reliable than Ukraine can be. In our gas and iron ore and coal exports Australia has established itself as a reliable source but as a result of the government’s industrial relations legislation environmental games we are putting that in jeopardy.
To be PM, Dutton has to explain all the above to the Australian people. He is lucky that the Brisbane cyclone delayed the election because there is a lot of work to be done. And for Dutton, the danger is that the PM will use the delay to eat Dutton’s lunch.

For some reason the reptiles decided to cap Mein Gott's work with an image, With the federal election nearing, Peter Dutton has a big job ahead of him to build support around the country. Picture: Annette Dew

Is that the best they could find? Or is it simply impossible to photograph the mutton Dutton without making him look deeply sinister? Or strangely weird? An alien from another planet, or a plod from toad country ...

As an aside, the pond never thought it would end up quoting Anne Applebaum, let alone so often, yet there she was again with 'First, they came for Columbia', The To-Read list, university edition.

She opened this way (and at the end provides a set of links):

Consider this post to be a placeholder, a warning in advance: universities in America are about to be put under pressure of a kind that no one who studies or teaches in America has ever experienced before. As the Harvard Crimson has just written (and I have borrowed their headline, for which they deserve full credit) this is not an accident.
Autocrats — both left-wing and right-wing — always attack universities. The public rationale varies. Some, like Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, reportedly accuse universities or students of supporting terrorism; others, like pro-government outlets in Viktor Orban’s Hungary, accuse them of working for foreign interests; still others, like Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico, accused universities of supporting “neoliberalism” and corruption.

Well yes, but relax Anne, join Mein Gott in kissing the ring and all will be well.

Second thoughts, maybe you're right Anne: if the will of the American people, with whom Mein Gott urges us to join in kissing the ring and bending the knee, is all that and more, count the pond out ...

After all that, the pond went looking for a little ballast, and a standard assault on renewables seemed par for the reptile course, not quite a pearl of wisdom, more gritty oyster ... Net-zero black hole looms as self-inflicted tariff against the nation, Our ever-rising electricity prices are a direct and entirely foreseeable result of the two major parties’ commitment to achieve net-zero emissions.

Again King Donald was the excuse needed for the reptiles to abandon any awareness of climate science.

Pond correspondents might provide links to the recent extreme costs of natural disasters - such as the estimated $1.2 billion cost of Alfred - but think of the golden opportunity to fuck the planet, The proposed tariffs of US President Donald Trump gives our leaders a chance to get serious on energy. Picture: AFP

Veteran pond correspondents will have heard all this renewables fear and loathing a zillion times ... 

It's a bit like the old "pieces" joke which is currently being enacted by two autocrats, and which has become a staple for cartoonists ...

Sorry, the pond wanted to head into this gritty oyster in a state of despair ...

When news broke last week that Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs on Australian steel and aluminium would come into effect, our political leaders greeted it with a mix of outrage, shock and disappointment.
Anthony Albanese called it an unjustified act, while Opposition Leader Peter Dutton claimed it was proof of the government’s lack of influence over the US government.
Yet only a few days later, when our energy regulator confirmed that in the coming year, the benchmark east coast electricity price would rise by up to 9 per cent – bringing to $1300 the increase in the average energy bill since 2022 – our leaders’ response was starkly different. Energy Minister Chris Bowen, channelling his inner Marie (“let them eat cake”) Antoinette, blithely told consumers to “shop around” for the best price, while not saying a word about his contribution to higher costs.
Dutton’s response was little better, claiming his seven future nuclear reactors would bring relief, even though he supports a continued wind and solar rollout.
In truth, there was nothing the Albanese government could do – or indeed a Coalition one, were it in power – to persuade Trump not to hit us with tariffs.

In truth, there's nothing we can do to stop the Cantaloupe Caligula from doing his best to fuck the planet ... but should we join him in his blather about windmills and birds and cancer and the killing of Tamworth's precious pod of whales? How about a stupefyingly stupid snap for an answer? Power lines set up by wind farms near Noorat in Victoria. Picture: Dannika Bonser

A mindlessly moronic illustration. Couldn't the reptiles at least have run their standard snap of terrifying windmills assaulting the bush, though no doubt the sight of those poles terrified beefy boofhead Angus as he morosely wandered about his office in Goulburn, not far from the windmills that litter the Hume, providing power shamefully not derived from dinkum clean virginal Oz coal ...

Yet our ever-rising electricity prices are a direct and entirely foreseeable result of the two major parties’ commitment to achieve net-zero carbon dioxide emissions.
This policy is a self-imposed monster tariff on our entire $2.7 trillion economy, dwarfing Trump’s hit on our steel and aluminium sales to the US, which account for less than 0.2 per cent of our exports overall.
And it is not a one-off shock, but a ratcheting up of energy costs that started more than a decade ago and must – if the share of wind and solar in our grid is to grow, as both major parties want – continue for the next quarter century.
Bear in mind that our electricity grid is still largely a fossil fuel-based one, with coal accounting for 60 per cent of output.
That more wind and solar energy will result in higher power prices is not an idle theoretical prediction, but what we have seen in every jurisdiction – including Germany and California – that is further down this path than we are.

It's just the old renewables beat, with an odd detour into brew, Donald Trump's expanding range of tariffs have triggered an unexpected impact for Port City Brewing Company in Alexandria, Virginia – a shortage of bottles to package beer. Picture: AFP

'Won't someone think of the windmills' replaced by 'won't someone think of the piss'?

Speaking of piss, this gritty oyster pissed on ...

This reality is denied by Bowen and the bureaucrats that advise him, who maintain the fiction that wind and solar are the cheapest form of power.
Make no mistake, this is economic illiteracy on steroids. Yes, the marginal cost of renewable energy is zero, but only for the 30-40 per cent of the time when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining.
When the weather does not bless us in this way, the cost of renewable energy is infinitely high – regardless of what price you offer, it simply cannot be supplied.
It explains why, once these subsidies are in place, all forms of competing dispatchable power (including coal- and gas-fired generation, and one day nuclear) become unviable, because they cannot compete with renewables at the times when they are available. This is why we see persistent coal power station outages, as Bowen must surely know.

This unpredictable intermittency of renewable energy – which renders it worthless from the point of view of consumers, who value dispatchability of power above all else – is its fatal flaw. It explains why wind and solar factories need massive subsidies to be viable (since they do not provide reliable cash flows for their operators). The CSIRO’s deeply flawed costing methodology pays no attention to this.

Yep, it was time to nuke the country to save the planet. Please waiter, a snap of a splendid place to put the nukes, An aerial view of the site of a proposed nuclear power plant in Port Augusta, South Australia. Picture: Getty Images

Back to the gritty oyster ...

And I haven’t even mentioned the entirely new transmission network wind and solar energy requires. Our self-imposed energy tariff is a constantly growing negative supply shock to the economy, raising prices, reducing output, undermining productivity and squeezing living standards.
Not for one or two years, but for decades to come. It is deeply regressive, hurting low-income Australians more than those on higher incomes in exactly the same way an increase in the rate of the GST would. But unlike the GST, it delivers not a cent of revenue to government for hospitals and schools, but instead requires billions to be spent on subsidies each year for everyone harmed by it.
So as the economy progressively weakens, the net-zero fiscal sinkhole must grow each year: a recipe for future financial collapse.
What possible environmental benefit will we get for this mounting economic, fiscal and social trauma? The answer is none. With China, India, Russia and now the US not committed to cutting emissions, our paltry efforts are being swamped by the rest of the world.
In the annals of Australian public policy disasters, our climate folly has to take the cake. Yet our political leaders and public service oligarchs tell us that net zero – far from being a multi-trillion-dollar economic deadweight and threat to our standard of living – is the key to our future prosperity. This is doublespeak that would make Orwell’s Big Brother blush.

Is it now a requirement that reptile columnists somehow drag in a reference to Orwell? 

Never mind, they followed up with another snap of the mutton Dutton ... Opposition Leader Peter Dutton must rise to the occasion if he wants to look like the alternative prime minister. Picture: David Geraghty

That's unfortunate. The pond realises that politicians must do this sort of thing, but does the mutton Dutton realise that donning the kippah is a denial of Christ, and therefore another step towards the destruction of white nationalist Xian civilisation? 

How would it look if a died in the wool atheist like the pond donned full veil, coif and bandeau to show a sign of respect for a non-existent being?

Back to the renewables bashing for a final gobbet...

With Donald Trump rewriting the global rule book, now is the time for our political leaders to abandon their green-tinged dystopia. Of course, the Labor government will not be for turning.
Chris Bowen, the Chemical Ali of Australian politics, won’t come to his senses. Jim Chalmers, who lacks the courage and smarts of his hero, Paul Keating, is either too weak or to too clueless to call an end to this madness.
In fact, he has been in Bowen’s and Tony Burke’s policy slipstream since day one of the government. Then there is Anthony Albanese. Let’s just say leadership is not his strong suit.
So that leaves Peter Dutton. I think he knows net zero should be dropped. But he is afraid of upsetting the denizens of Warringah and Kooyong, who seem to derive their sense of moral superiority from the pain suffered by the battlers.
But his hand might be forced by the government in next week’s budget.
With no economic agenda or vision to offer voters, Chalmers will likely announce a further round of energy bribes – taxpayer-funded relief for harm the government has itself inflicted. This will be Dutton’s chance. If he opposes these Band-Aids and pledges to abandon the net-zero policy that made them necessary, he may start to look like the alternative prime minister he wants to be.
David Pearl is a former Treasury assistant secretary.

Well that's a relief. Not just to have finished it, but that bit "former" in the tail credit. 

One less cardigan wearer not around to help fuck the planet, except by way of a bout of verbal diarrhoea in the lizard Oz...

Speaking of verbal diarrhoea, the pond has done its level best to avoid Clive, despite being assaulted by him on every platform and even in the 'toons...

As usual, all kinds of reptiles and their owners have disgraced themselves, as recorded in Media Watch's Clive Palmer tries to provoke outrage and succeeds at The Age ...

And so finally to that serve of desiccated coconut ... Gender pay fight skirts the matter of preference, While imposing disproportionate compliance costs on companies, it’s unclear what the Workplace Gender Equality Agency has ever achieved apart from pushing unproven propositions about the importance of narrowing the gender pay gap.

There's nothing remarkable to see here, except to remark on the way that reptiles of the female kind routinely scribble columns of the "I'm alright Jill, so fuck you" kind... There is very little information in national gender pay gap statistics.

Really reptiles? Incredibly anodyne images of astonishing banality as your opening visual? Is that a covert signal as to what's to come?

Yep, "Orwellian" is to come ...

I’ve have long argued for the abolition of the Orwellian-sounding Workplace Gender Equality Agency. While imposing disproportionate compliance costs on companies, it’s extremely unclear what it has ever achieved apart from pushing unproven propositions about the importance of narrowing the gender pay gap and achieving greater gender equality in workplaces.
Take these assertions from the CEO of the WGEO, Mary Wooldridge: “Evidence shows that improved gender equality leads to improved productivity and profitability and the ability to access broader pools of talent. With so much to gain, employers should consider the risk of inaction carefully. Because it is more than reputation that is at stake.”
Let’s be clear here, the quality evidence shows no such thing. To be sure, international consulting firm McKinsey & Company used to put out an annual review in which the claim was made that more workplace diversity was associated with better company outcomes, in terms of both productivity and profitability. Note that McKinsey was always conflicted because it makes money by advising firms about achieving greater workplace diversity.
Several highly reputable academics attempted to replicate the McKinsey findings and were unable to do so. In turn, McKinsey had to walk back its findings, claiming that correlation of course does not imply causation. It was a pivotal moment.

Of course, the good folk down at the WGEA, overwhelmingly women – where’s the gender equality there, I ask? – know this. But it hasn’t put them off greatly enlarging their mission by asking more and more of companies and making unconvincing attempts to skew the presentation of the data to show that women continue to be hard done by in workplaces.

Dame Slap, Dame Groan, it's all a blur in the end, and the reptiles decided that this was the point to fling in a serve of simplistic Sharri ( she of the SS to disrespecting chums)... Future Women’s head of research Ruby Leahy-Gatfield says people criticising the gender pay gap report for not including comparisons between men and women in the same role are “missing the point entirely.” The report published Tuesday found the median gender pay gap to be at 19 per cent, meaning the median female worker earns $18,461 less over the course of a year compared to the median male worker. “They’re actually missing the point entirely with that distinction,” Ms Leahy-Gatfield told Sky News Australia host Sharri Markson. “That distinction is actually very intentional. “When we think about comparing the pay of women and men in the same roles, of course that’s really important. “But what we are actually seeing is that while it is still too pervasive and happening too often, it’s actually a pretty small piece of the puzzle.”

Let's be clear on one point, Dame Groan is very clear, and she is adept at being clear ...

Let’s be clear what the settled findings are on the reasons for the gender pay gap, established by Professor Claudia Goldin of Harvard University and Nobel prize winner in Economic Sciences and others. Women with the same qualifications and experience earn less than men because they prefer to take jobs with predictable hours of work and little travel. Jobs with long and unpredictable hours and lots of travel attract significant pay premiums, and women show little preparedness to take them.
Even in Scandinavian countries, where the laws are highly supportive of gender equality and the state provides lengthy earnings-related paid parental leave, women earn less than men. It seems the preferences of women to be at home for reasonable periods with their families make a real difference.
Let’s also be very clear on another point: there is very little information in national gender pay gap statistics, notwithstanding the penchant of the Prime Minister and other ministers to brag about any slight changes. Let’s also not forget here that the existence of many low-paid male workers contributes to the national gender pay gap.
We also hear very little of the fact that women shy away from certain occupations – garbage collection and sewerage work both spring to mind – and that more than 90 per cent of workplace fatalities are male workers. These instances of gender inequality are never highlighted by the WGEA.
Happily, International Women’s Day came and went this year without as much fanfare as normal. The fact that it occurred on a Saturday may be part of the explanation. Women were less enthusiastic about the breakfasts replete with cupcakes and sparkling wine on a non-working day.
There were still the usual calls to arms about getting more women on to boards and into senior positions. Again, the serious academic research is not very supportive of these entreaties.

Reading this sort of stuff, the pond always wonders, did Dame Groan saunter into board rooms and mingle with profs and tell them how pleased she was to be paid less for doing the same work?

Did she enthusiastically campaign for her own subservience? Was she a genuine member of the Stepford wives club? Did she fully embrace The Handmaid's Tale and know her place? And if she did, why isn't she at home tending her knitting instead of scribbling for the lizard Oz?

Never mind, at this time the reptiles slipped in what someone thought was a nifty set of interactives, but which managed to bore the pond silly ...

All good ... all very Dame Groan ...

Professor Marianne Bertrand and her (female) colleagues examined the Norwegian case where the law requires a quota of at least 40 per cent women on the boards of listed companies. They found that “seven years after the board quota policy fully came into effect, we conclude that it had very little discernible impact on women in business beyond its direct effect on the women who made it into boardrooms”.
In other words, it was great for the women – sometime referred to as “golden skirts” – who are appointed to the boards but that is where the impact stops. The same phenomenon can be seen here where a relatively small cabal of educated women with very similar social backgrounds sit on the boards of large companies. It’s a very remunerative and prestigious outcome for these women, who tend to shuffle the board positions over time, but it’s not clear whether there is really a wider beneficial impact for female workers.
Just consider the notion that the WGEA should be in the game of naming and shaming companies according to the composition of their workforces or the size of their gender pay gaps. What will be achieved?
There may be very sound commercial reasons why some companies have large gender pay gaps. What may be true on average – and bear in mind this is not proven – will not apply in every individual case. It’s bizarre to think that busybody bureaucrats with no commercial expertise can offer any sensible advice on these matters.
There is also a very unconvincing view that improving gender equality can be a win-win solution. The reality is that favouritism given to female workers is at the expense of male workers. While it’s often appropriate to offer flexible working arrangements to female workers, there are clear instances of other workers – men and young ones – staying back to ensure the work is done in a timely fashion, particularly when clients are involved.
In addition, some companies that have pushed hard to promote women – and have even given financial incentives to managers to do so – have found that very able, enthusiastic and ambitious male workers simply leave. It is also not uncommon to see some women “overpromoted” into jobs with insufficient experience and technical expertise.

At this point the reptiles slipped in another AV distraction... Equal Workplaces Co-Founder Dr Rachel Howard says men often occupy “higher salary roles” on average than women. Ms Howard told Sky News Australia that this is common even in “female-dominated workforces”. “And that’s how you end up with the gender pay gap,” she said.

The pond recalls that when it went on this very same jag with Dame Slap, it slipped in its own AV distraction, and perhaps someone missed it ...

 

And so to end with yet another celebration of the deeds of King Donald ...

The high water mark on these matters, it would seem, has now been reached and not just because of President Donald Trump’s resolute rejection of diversity, equity and inclusion. Let’s be clear, there are many people working in companies with DEI-type briefs and they will resist relinquishing their roles, even if it involves using other names.
But the Corporate Governance Council of the Australian Securities Exchange has now dropped its latest amendments to its “if not, why not” guidelines, which would have extended its coverage to include the ethnic background and sexuality of directors and officers. This follows many years of mission creep as the guidelines became more prescriptive and focused on diversity.
The Bank of England has also recently scrapped its proposal to force more than 40,000 financial services businesses to report diversity and inclusion data on its employees.
In response to the urging of the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, to reduce red tape to promote economic growth, the bank has taken the view that companies will now not be required to provide this information. This could provide a useful hint to our own WGEA.
The hope is that common sense will finally prevail, and that male and female workers can be treated fairly while considering their qualifications, experience and expertise as well as their preferences. And perhaps we can get a few more female garbos while we’re at it.

Yes, the hope is that common sense will prevail and women can go on being screwed, not just by men, but by their own kind, at least the kind that scribble for the lizard Oz and have fantasies about being garbos, perhaps because they're written trash for so long and finally realised it should be taken out to the dump...

And so to wrap up with the immortal Rowe on a topic not covered by this day's reptile mix...

It's all in the detail, including the splendid name for the scooter. Go Mods ... what a Gina gang of hogs...

The pond did however worry about the headgear ...